Reincarnated Young Lady Aims to Be an Adventurer - Volume 9 Chapter 165

Translator: Jasper Kadowaki | Editor: NovelMultiverse

Some time had passed since the graduation ceremony at the School of Knighthood. Sera’s wounds had healed a bit, and she was causing a ruckus and running around, outside of the country. This is the story of what Alma was up to during that time. 

Bam! A loud sound rang out as my sword was slapped away, and I was thrown up into the air, toward the blue skies above. I looked up at it, in a daze, yet again. 

“I surrender,” I said. 

“Alma. You’ve still got a lot to learn. You’ve inherited a lot of great skills from your father, but unfortunately, you’re just too light. Increase another hour of strength training to your daily schedule.”

“…Yes, sir,” I said. 

“All right. Now, I’m going to return to the administrative office.”

His Majesty… King Gilbert hummed a tune while he twirled his sword around and left to return to his office.

In order to prevent His Majesty from losing the muscle memory that he needs for actual battle, I had been ordered to face off against him in what he called recreation. To me, it was hard labor, and I always dragged my feet to the job. 

“Why would anyone think that a recruit like me could put up any sort of a fight against an S-rank adventurer from Trundle Guild?” I muttered. 

“Alma! Did you say something?” 

“I-I didn’t say anything!” I answered. 

The army that I had been recruited to following the graduation ceremony at the School of Knighthood was in tatters due to the revolt that Lord Schneider had started. Its members, its equipment, and even its reputation had been nearly destroyed. 

There were attempts being made to build it back up, but even its leader, General Avenger, was currently in prison. No other replacement had arrived, as of yet. 

Therefore, the only person that outranked the honorable position of General, the King himself, had to give direct orders and pour his best efforts into building the army back up. 

In the process of this rebuilding, the Imperial Guard had been disbanded. For generations, McGregors had held positions in the Imperial Guard. The Imperial Guard was formed to protect those in the royal family, and at the moment, the only members of the royal family that remained were the king and Lord Gardner. Lord Gardner had, along with Cecil, went to Galle to study abroad. Not only that, the king himself was an S-rank adventurer from Trundle Guild. Apparently, it was bothersome to have guardsmen around him who were vastly inferior when it came to fighting ability. 

With that said, it would look bad for His Majesty if he didn’t have a single military officer by his side. However, it was hard to find someone willing to loyally serve an unheard-of king who had appeared on the scene so suddenly. That was how this responsibility was passed to me. I could at least say that I was at the top of my class at the School of Knighthood, my old friend was in the same Trundle Guild as the king, and I was a McGregor. 

Well, I knew what I was getting into when I joined the military. I would obey any command given to me. Not to mention the fact that Gil-san was fair towards all adventurers in the Trundle Guild. He was harsh at times and gentle at other times, but he was fair… He felt like an uncle to me. 

I never felt any love growing up in the McGregor household, and at this point, Trundle was my real family. The Guild Leader was my grandfather, Elza-sama was my grandmother, and Lala-san and Matt-san were my older sister and older brother. That’s how I saw it. 

Kodak-sensei was… My teacher, I guess. Serafi was Serafi. Nick was Nick. 

“Alma, what’s on the schedule for this afternoon?” 

“You have a cabinet meeting at two. After lunch, there are some documents I would like to have you look over in preparation for that…”

“If Clark hasn’t sent any sort of notice before the meeting, I think we should be okay, but… Bring it here, right away.”

“Yes, sir!”

This seemed more like work for a secretary…

Since I was assigned to work alongside the king, all of my days off, of course, coincided with the king’s days off. Therefore, I had weekends to myself. I received permission to travel from the military, borrowed a horse, and set off to visit Trundle. 

“Alma! Welcome back! Huh? You’ve got bags under your eyes. Are you okay?” asked Lala, worriedly putting a hand to my cheek. It tickled… and warmed my heart. 

“Almaaa!”

“Alllma!”

From behind the counter bear cubs… Or at least two spirits that looked like bear cubs came rushing out towards me and jumped up at me! I grabbed them both in a big hug. They were spirits, though, so they were delightfully light. I would never get used to that. 

“Maru! Shu! I’m sorry I haven’t been able to visit, recently!”

“Alma! …Alma…?”

“Alu? …Alu…!”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough magic skill to understand them, yet. All I could make out was my name. I could understand, though, that they missed me with all their hearts, and they were lobbing complaints at me about how sad they were. The two of them started playfully gnawing on the back of my neck. According to Serafi, Maru and Shu ate magical power for most of their sustenance. I felt a little bad that I couldn’t offer them much magical power for food. 

“Well, well. Maru and Shu, you’re getting spoiled!” said Lala. 

“Um, is Nick not back, yet?” I asked. 

“Nope. It seems like his job escorting the caravan is taking longer than expected. Hmm, let’s see… Oh, it’s already four days past his scheduled return date. Well, he’s with Matt, so there’s no need to worry.”[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]

“I see…”

I was expecting to see him today. Had it already been a month since he had gone off? There had been times before when I couldn’t see him for a while, but when I thought about how he was out of the country… I felt far away from him. I shook my head to try to get myself out of the funk. 

“Lala-san – I’ll go gather some Popolon Grass with Maru and Shu for this C-level mission,” I said. 

“All righty. Be careful,” she said. 

I opened the map that Serafi showed me, and making sure that there were no dangerous spots, I got on the horse and galloped away. Maru and Shu ran along either side, having no problem with keeping up. 

Along the way, we happened to pass through a marsh, and so we stopped for a moment. I clasped my hands together and prayed to the Protector God of Trundle Guild – the honorable little dragon.

The surface of the water parted, and thought it was unusual, the silver God appeared. 

Perhaps it was a special ability of theirs, but for some reason, Maru and Shu shot streams of water up as a reception for the God. Then, the little dragon stretched her long body out, gave kisses to Maru and Shu on their foreheads, and then dipped back into the swamp. 

“Whoa! You two got blessings? Today’s you’re lucky day, isn’t it?” I asked. 

“Mmmhmm.”

“…co..ol.”

Hm? It seemed I could pick up on some of Maru and Shu’s words. It could be that the honorable little dragon gave us a helping hand. 

As we got to our destination, I crouched down and started looking for Popolon grass, and throwing what I found into the magic room (another thing Serafi showed me how to use). Freshness was everything with Popolon Grass. Since it was so hard to bring back home in its fresh state, harvesting it and bringing it back was a C-level mission.

The magic room was really convenient. It made it so that I could effortlessly keep the grass in fresh condition as I brought it back. It could holy heavy items, and unwieldy items, and precious items. 

The military barracks where I lived was old, and it didn’t even have a lock on it. Unfortunately, theft was rampant. There was a conventional way of thinking that had taken root that said that if someone left something important where it could be stolen, it was their fault when it inevitably got taken. That was why I kept all of my important belongings in the magic room. 

It was forbidden to pick too much Popolon grass. When I had finished gathering the twenty bundles that the mission called for, I took a break for a moment. I sat with a large tree at my back, and I reached into the “precious items” section of the sorted magic room… and pulled out a letter from Nick. 

In this letter that had arrived a little while ago, Nick had written about the excitement he felt when traveling outside the country for the first time, and a story about how while he was escorting the convoy, a gang of bandits ambushed them, and for the first time, he fought fearfully with his life on the line. He said it was very scary. 

“Ah,” I sighed. 

Nick was a B-rank. I wondered if there would come a day when I, a C-rank, would face a frightening mission as a B-rank. I was also in awe of Nick being able to admit that he was scared. Nick was out there, growing stronger through real battle.

Then there was Serafi, who despite her grievous wounds not yet fully healing, was running around the world as Trundle’s queen. 

I was the only one who was still in the same place, at a complete standstill. 

“Alu? Nikku?” asked Shu, coming over to Nick’s letter and sniffing at it. Perhaps Nick’s magical energy was still on it. I handed it over to Shu. If she wanted it, I had to give it to her. She nuzzled up against it with her cheek. She loved Nick, dearly. 

“I hope we can all go on an adventure with Nick, soon,” I said. 

I put my hand in my pocket and squeezed the glass orb Nick had given me.

“Alma!” Maru said, hopping around lightly. The tree above him had vines growing on them. They were purplish-red and had fruits the size of fists growing from them. 

“You want those? Can you eat them? Are you sure it’s okay?” I asked. 

Maru kept hopping about, while he nodded. Maru knew more than I did about the blessings of this forest. 

I jumped up, too, and grabbed two fruits from a vine, and handed them to Maru. 

“Thank you!” he said. 

Maru started gnawing on them, looking delighted. Ah, I think I remember Serafi saying that the staple food of spirits is magical energy, but they also eat fruits and other snacks as luxury items for the taste.

I mopped up the drops of fruit juice that were left around Maru’s mouth. 

Then, Maru put offered up one of the fruits to me, near my mouth. 

“Alma’s,” he said. 

Judging by the color of the fruit, I prepared myself for a bitter taste as I bit into it slowly, but it turned out to be mostly water, and mildly sweet. 

“…It’s just like juice,” I said. 

“Yummy?” asked Maru. 

“Yes, it’s delicious. It’s quite a pleasant taste, isn’t it? Thank you, Maru,” I said. 

Maru’s little tail happily wagged this way and that.

“Alu! Me too!” said Shu, grabbing the half-eaten fruit from my hand and gobbling it up in one bite. 

“Shu! That’s Alma’s!” said Maru, baring his fangs and snarling as an intimidation! Shu fled in a panic!

As the two spirits ran circles around me in a tussle, I jumped up and got some more fruit for them, and then the three of us sat down to eat as good friends. 

They must have become quite relaxed, as the two of them lay their cheeks on my knees, lifted their bottoms up high in the air, and fell asleep. 

I laughed softly and said, “How adorable.”

I pet their fluffy heads with both hands. The loneliness seemed to melt away. 

I picked them up and held them in my arms gently as I returned to my horse, and slowly returned to the guild, being careful not to drop them. [Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]