Chapter 6: Orc Barbecue

Author: Kurohitsuji
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2086fk/7/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

When I get back to the coach, everyone is worried sick.
They fuss over whether I’m hurt; the old woman scolds me for being reckless.
The girl comes clinging, crying.

…I’m really sorry.
I’ll make food again today by way of apology.

“I was surprised, though. Miss, were you an adventurer?”
“No, I’m not. Just a town girl.”
“…Well, there are things one doesn’t want to talk about. I won’t pry.”

The father looks at me with very kind eyes.
That’s not it. It isn’t that I don’t want to talk. I can’t talk, because I don’t understand it myself.

“…Ah, right. Could we stop by the river? I want to butcher the orcs, so if someone could help, please.”

As for how to butcher, I had the butcher show me once.
I remember the steps, and I brought a knife, so that should do.
It’s good meat. If we don’t bleed it properly and break it down, it’ll go bad.

“Ah, then shall I produce water with magic?”
“Wow, that would help a lot. By the way, is there anyone else who can butcher?”
“Ou. I’m an adventurer, more or less. I’ve broken down orcs before.”

The adventurer raises his hand.
Oh, as expected of a veteran.

“Then let’s knock it out. Seven of them will take a fair bit of time, though.”
“We’ve secured food for the road. That’s nothing.
Oi, you lot, help carry as thanks. You didn’t have to dump your goods. That’s a light price, isn’t it?”

He tosses it to the merchants with a bright smile.
Both of them are looking this way with faces full of relief.

“Ah, if that’s all, I’ll help. Miss, thank you, truly.”
“Without this it would have been bad. Let me thank you as well.”
“Uh… you’re welcome.
Ah, driver, please wait a bit before we leave.”
“I heard. It helps us too; I’ll lend a hand.”
“Then shall we all go. I don’t like leaving the coach, either.
Is that all right with you, ma’am?”
“Of course I don’t mind. Thank you for thinking of us.”
“Nnh. Then let’s go.”

The driver leads the horses, and we all walk to where the orc pack was.
Looking again, it’s quite a scene.

“Ah… ma’am, could you wait in the coach with her?”
“Let’s do that. Come, this way.”
“Okay.”

It isn’t a sight I want a small child to see, so I have the two of them wait inside.

Now then. Let’s work.

Continue reading →

Chapter 5: A Pack of Monsters

Author: Kurohitsuji
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2086fk/6/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Morning. I wake at dawn, same as always.
At this hour, it seems no one else is up yet.
Well, of course.
Careful not to wake the girl sleeping beside me, I slip off toward the kitchen.

I check the coach’s stores: still plenty of potatoes and beans.
Hmm. I’ll make morning and midday while I’m at it.
I crush the dried beans, mix them with mashed boiled potato, knead with water, and bake, and it stands in for bread.

The dried sweet potato is… yeah. I’ll chop it fine and mix it into the bean bread.
Better if it has some chew.

The rest of the beans I’ll stew with potato.
Ah, there’s dried meat left. In it goes.
Heh heh. That should give us a nice savor and salt.

Now then. No laundry to do. What now.
Nothing to do. Well, I’ll skim the scum while it stews.

Still, I left on a journey and I’m doing pretty much the same things I do at the church.
Well, I do feel like I’ve been swept along.
When there are hungry people, I can’t help thinking of soup kitchens.

When you have something to spare, be as kind to people as you can.
That’s what Sister Naria taught me.
Once you can take care of yourself, you help the people around you next.
The world turns by repeating that, she said.

It probably isn’t all that pretty in practice, but those words have stayed in the deepest part of me.
Pretty words are fine. If you live them, they become true.
That’s a secondhand line too, though.

Anyway, it should be about done; I should wake everyone… ah, they got up, drawn by the smell.

“Big Sis, good morning.”
“Morning. Food’s ready, so go wash your face. There’s a well over there.”
“Okaaay!”

Mm-hm. Energetic is best.

“Morning, miss. Ooh, looks good today too. Thanks.”

As the girl runs off, I see the adventurer casually pinch up a piece of bread, and I stop his hand.

“Hold on. We eat once everyone’s here. While you wait, would you get ready to leave, please.”
“That so. I’ll go pack the bags, then.”
“Please. Ah, you merchants too! Come over here when you’re done getting ready!”
“Ah, got it. We’ll be right there, wait for us.”
“Thanks!”

Once everyone is gathered, I put my hands together as usual, and they look puzzled.
I tell them about the church custom, and they say that’s nice and put their hands together with me.

All right. Itadakimasu. Continue reading →

Chapter 4: Birthday and Departure

Author: Kurohitsuji
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2086fk/5/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

—Specified date has been exceeded.
—Playing message.

—Happy Birthday, Dear Ouka.
—Blessing To Your Life.

—Sakura-Drive. Download.
—Ready: OK?

“…So loud… Do what you want… mngh.”

—Verified.
—Sakura-Drive. Downloading_Now…

—Installation Is Complete.

∞∞∞∞

I feel like I had a weird dream. I can’t remember it, though.
Something like a bard’s hero tale. A grand adventure.
…No idea. Anyway, get dressed.

A little earlier than usual.
The sun isn’t up yet. Even the chickens are still asleep, and here I am swinging a pot.
Heave, heave.

If you dry-roast grains like wheat and drive the moisture out, they keep.
But they’re heavy. Relentlessly heavy. I rest between swings.
Trying to do it all at once was a mistake.
Heave, heave.

At the same time I smoke dried sweet potato in my homemade smoker.
This is a lot too. Smoking dried sweet potato makes it keep even longer, and it tastes better.
It’s just incredibly billowy. Smoky, but kind of fun.

I’ve also made pickled vegetables, salt-cured fish, all sorts of things.
With this much, we should be fine for a while. I want to think so.

Morning prep will be hard until they get used to it, whatever else you say, and having things they can eat right away should make it easier on everyone.
I made my own travel share at the same time, so it came out to quite a volume, but…
Well, fine. It’s a pretty spectacular sight. I’m satisfied.

…Ah. I haven’t made this morning’s. Need to add soup. Continue reading →

Chapter 3: The Red-and-White Handguns

Author: Kurohitsuji
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2086fk/4/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

What I’ve figured out so far: apparently no one but me can hear Ring’s voice.
I tried hanging it from a chain around my neck, and at breakfast and during laundry, nobody reacted to it at all.

Is this thing really not a ghost. It’s pretty suspicious.
Well, for now, I should probably leave that part out when I explain to Sister Naria.

“So anyway, there was a ring and two handguns in it.”
“…I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, I don’t either.
And apparently there’s someone at the Adventurer’s Guild in the capital who might know what’s going on.”

According to Ring, the sender, Glad, is there.
I’d like to ask for the details, but it isn’t a distance you just pop over.

“Ah, the sender.”
“I’d like to hear the story from that person, but it’s the capital. So I’m stuck on what to do.”
“…Hmm. What did the letter say?”
“‘I hereby return your fate to you,’ I think.”
“…Fate, is it.”

She looks like she has no idea.
Well, of course. I don’t either.

“Hmm. All right—why not go?”
“Eh. To the capital?”
“Yes. You might learn something about your parents.”
“Hmm. I don’t really care about that, though.”

Frankly, I have no interest in the people who abandoned me.
Besides, my mother is Sister Naria.
The person who raised a heretic with black hair and black eyes this far. My benefactor.
I’ll never say that out loud. Too embarrassing.

“I mean, the capital’s like a week round trip? You’ll be in trouble if I’m not here, right?”
“We’ll manage among ourselves for a while. And it’s a chance for the other children to learn to do more.”
“Unnyu. I see…”

I’m glad she’s saying that. But. Hmm.
Those who-knows-what ring and handguns are my fate, huh.
Sounds like nonsense to me.

“And, Ouka. You said ‘handguns’ just now, didn’t you?”
“Eh, yeah. I did.”

“Ouka. What is a handgun?”

Eh, what is… wait?

What is a handgun?
I don’t know any such thing.

“Eh, wait? Why…”

Why do I know the name of something I’ve never seen? Continue reading →

Chapter 2: The Mysterious Ring and Breakfast

Author: Kurohitsuji
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2086fk/3/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

What was that.
The ring glowed, and then it talked.

“Eh, what, a ghost?”

I would really rather not have ghosts in the church.
Ugh, my heart is hammering.

“…What even was that, seriously.”
“—Confirm. By ‘what,’ do you mean me?”
“It talked agaaaaain!?”

I scramble back.
Window behind me. Worst case, I go out that way.
Then around to the front and get the little ones out. Yeah. That’s the plan.

Ah, have Sister Naria exorcise it, or…
No, ghosts are probably too much even for her?

“—I am not a ghost: I am an interface for interpersonal communication.”
“…Ha? What?”
“—I am an interface for interpersonal communication.”
“Interpersonal commu… uh, so you’re not a ghost?”
“—Negative: I am an interface for interpersonal communication.”
“You’re not a ghost, then?”
“—Affirmative: I am an interperson—”
“No, that’s enough of that.”

An interface for interpersonal communication, huh.
You’ve said it enough times. I remember.

Anyway, I don’t really get what it’s saying, but… we can talk, apparently.
Also, apparently not a ghost.

“…Uh. Do you do bad things?”
“—Negative.”
“Are you on my side?”
“—Affirmative.”
“…Got it. Then I’ll hear the rest later. Can you wait?”
“—Affirmative.”
“All right… hup!”

I pick the ring up, gingerly. No problem.
It isn’t glowing anymore. Just an ordinary ring.
…Looking closer, what’s this even made of?
If it’s silver, maybe it would sell for a lot.

I set it on the parcel for now. No change. Hmm.
Well, for the moment it doesn’t seem to be a bad one.
I can’t imagine a ring could do much mischief anyway. First things first: do what I have to do. Continue reading →

Chapter 1: The Usual Morning

Author: Kurohitsuji
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2086fk/2/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

My day starts before dawn.

I get out of bed, change into my usual plain white blouse and faded brown shorts, and head for the washbasin.
I wash my face, brush my teeth, and check that there’s no bed-head in the bangs trimmed above my black eyes, or in the long black hair I wear down my back.

That’s me, ready.

Same as always, I head for the kitchen and make breakfast for twenty.
Today it’s red-bean soup and black bread.
Plain, but the soup shouldn’t taste bad.
I simmered in the vegetable scraps I was given yesterday, so even with not much in it, you get a lot of flavors.
I taste it just in case. Yep. Pretty good today too.

∞∞∞∞

On the way to the dining hall with the pot, the little ones start getting up.

“Morning. Go wash your faces, hurry up.”
“Okaaay!”

They answer in chorus and clatter off.
Energetic first thing in the morning—can’t ask for more.
All right. I brace myself and totter along with the heavy pot.

I’m setting the soup pot on the hall table and laying out dishes when Sister Naria comes out of the chapel.
I pause and greet her with a smile.

“Good morning, Ouka.”
“Morning, Sister Naria.”

Against the pitch-black habit, the silver hair spilling from her hood catches the sun and sparkles.
She’s beautiful today too. I don’t know why, but it makes me a little happy.

“It smells good again. You’re a lifesaver, every day.”
“You say that every day.”
“Hee hee. I suppose I do. You, on the other hand, still won’t call me Mother.”
“Guh… Ah, look, breakfast’s ready.”
“Ufufu. Yes, yes.”

Once everyone is there, we put our hands together and say “Itadakimasu” in unison.
Apparently they don’t do this elsewhere, but this church has always done it before meals.
It means we receive life, I’m told.
I don’t know who started it, but it feels kind of nice, and it looks well-mannered, so everyone copies it.

Today, too: Itadakimasu. Continue reading →

Chapter 0: Preview Extra

Author: Kurohitsuji
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2086fk/1/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

A pack of monsters in front of me.
Five combat magitech dolls. Even veteran adventurers are said to have a hard time handling that many without a party.

Facing something like that, my body shakes.
I’m scared. I want to run right now. Tears are about to come.
This is not an enemy a mere town girl should be taking on just because she was handed a weapon.
The sheer unreality of it chills me through to the pit of my stomach.
Ahh, I never should have taken that weird request at the Adventurer’s Guild.

Even so.
Behind me, there are still little children.
Kids huddled together, fighting not to cry.
To them, these expressionless monsters lurking in the mansion they snuck into on a test of courage must be a nightmare itself.

I have something I want to protect. People I want to save.
And if this hand holds the power to fight—borrowed or not.

There is no world in which I back down.

Fragments of mirror scattered everywhere catch my reflection.
Long black hair, black eyes. Slight, and short. Even I can see I look unreliable.
That is exactly why I put up a front and smile.

I draw the red-and-white handguns from the holsters at my hips and grip them.
I speak a single word to the ring hanging from a chain at my chest.

“Ring!”
“—Sakura-Drive Ready.”

A familiar, androgynous voice. I answer my reliable partner.

“Ignition!”

Continue reading →

Sakura Bullet

~In a Sword-and-Magic Fantasy World, a Town Girl Who Can Use Neither Meets a Pair of Handguns. She Just Wants to Know Where She Came From—Don’t You Dare Call Her a Hero~

 

Author: Kurohitsuji
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2086fk/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“I hereby return your fate to you.”

With that single line, one girl’s story begins to move.

◆ Informal synopsis ◆
A lively long-haired black-haired girl adventuring in another world.
Plenty of fights and food-teasing.
If that sounds like your thing, please read Chapter 0.

◆ Proper synopsis ◆
A world after the Demon King has fallen.
A certain small town. A girl named Ouka, raised in a church where orphans live.

The heroes of salvation, summoned from another world.
Ouka has the same black hair and black eyes as they do—a heretical look, rare in this world—and yet she has always been a bright, forward-looking girl.

Her days are ordinary and unchanging, but she finds happiness in that ordinary life.
The church children she loves, the townspeople who are kind to her.
And above all, the days she spends with Sister Naria, who has been a parent to her, are irreplaceable.

Then, on her fifteenth birthday, a parcel and a letter arrive.

In the parcel: a pair of red-and-white handguns that should not exist in this world, and a small ring engraved with a mysterious language.

And in the letter, a strange line.

“I hereby return your fate to you.”

To get to the bottom of her own birth, and of the meaning of that strange message, she sets out by coach for the royal capital.

This is the story of one ordinary town girl.
Of daily life, of fighting, of cooking, of adventuring, of being given sweets by the people around her.

And, before long, of fairy-tale heroes and an entire country getting pulled in.

A story of days that will not sit still.