Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! Volume 5 Read online

  Previously

  When Adele von Ascham, the eldest daughter of Viscount Ascham, was ten years old, she was struck with a terrible headache and just like that, remembered everything.

  She remembered how, in her previous life, she was an eighteen-year-old Japanese girl named Kurihara Misato who died while trying to save a young girl, and that she met God…

  Misato had exceptional abilities, and the expectations of the people around her were high. As a result, she could never live her life the way she wanted. So when she met God, she made an impassioned plea:

  “In my next life, please make my abilities average!”

  Yet somehow, it all went awry.

  In her new life, she can talk to nanomachines and, although her magical powers are technically average, it is the average between a human’s and an elder dragon’s…6,800 times that of a sorcerer!

  At the first academy she attended, she made friends and rescued a little boy as well as a princess. She registered at the Hunters’ Prep School under the name of Mile, and at the graduation exam went head-to-head with an A-rank hunter.

  A lot has happened, but now Mile is going to live a normal life as a rookie hunter with her allies by her side.

  Because she is a perfectly normal, average girl!

  Side Story:

  “A Fearsome Fight!” Doll Wrestling

  This is a story of one particular day, back while the Crimson Vow were still enjoying a carefree life as hunters in the capital of the Kingdom of Tils.

  The four were walking the back streets of the capital together, as they always did, when they suddenly came upon a commotion. When they looked closer, they saw that it was a group of several children having a quarrel in the middle of the road.

  “I’m tellin’ you, we’re the ones who always do that job! For you to just swoop in and… Anyway, that’s our job!”

  “And who decided that, huh? I’m pretty sure you guys are the only ones makin’ that claim. Jobs go to whoever can finish ’em the cheapest and the best. It’s the client who decides who’s takin’ on the job, not the ones taking it!”

  “Well yeah, but we’re the ones who always…”

  Apparently, they were having a scuffle over a job. It was at least admirable that the disagreement was over a legitimate job and not pickpocketing or other thievery. Furthermore, the argument that the one side was making was a relatively sound one. That said, the Crimson Vow could also understand the feelings of the other side, who seemed to have been thrown into crisis mode by the first group intruding on a job in which they had a vested interest.

  With this in mind, Mile moved to interject, but Reina was quicker.

  “What are you all doing?! If you keep blocking up the road like that you’re gonna cause a traffic jam! Step aside already!”

  Hearing this, the children looked Reina’s way and immediately replied as one: “Who d’you think you are, flat-chest?!”

  “Burn, O flames of hell! Singe my enemies—”

  “Gaaaaaaah! St-stoooooop!!”

  The street had very nearly become the site of a massacre.

  Seeing how not only Mile, but also Mavis and Pauline, who were clearly adults, moved desperately to interrupt Reina, the children finally comprehended the situation. The four were a hunting party, and Reina was wearing a mage’s garb; the spell that she had been incanting was an incredibly dangerous one; and the children themselves had been only a hair’s breadth from looking death straight in the face.

  They all dropped to their knees, bowing their heads to the ground with a desperate apology:

  “Please forgive uuuuuuuuuuuuuuusss!!!”

  Meanwhile, as per usual, a completely frivolous thought flitted through Mile’s mind: I’ve been seeing a lot of dogeza-style apologies lately… I wonder if it’s becoming a trend…?

  “W-well,” said Reina, “Since you’ve shown some respect, I’ll overlook this just this once… But let me make one thing clear: There will not be a next time. There. Will. Not.”

  “Y-y-y-y-y-yes, ma’am!” the children answered in chorus.

  By the looks of it, Reina had deemed that venting her anger further would be immature of her and had decided to spare the children. The matter was considered settled.

  In reality, if Mavis and the others had not stepped in when they did, they would very likely have borne witness to a tragedy, so there probably was no such thing as “venting her anger further” here.

  “What’s with that look?!” Reina shouted, flustered, when she noticed the others eyeing her. “I wasn’t really going to fire it!”

  Liar! they all thought, totally unconvinced.

  Well, thankfully, Mile already had a lattice-power barrier ready and waiting, so at least if the others had not stopped Reina in time, it would’ve been all right… Plus, even if she had fired the spell, she likely would have greatly limited the strength of it so that the children just felt a bit of heat. When it came down to it, Reina was not the sort of person who would murder children over a slight. Such a thing would see her executed, or sentenced to slavery at best.

  However, for the children, who were aware of none of this, this seemed to be a grave exchange, and they began to tremble.

  “Ah, they’ve wet themselves…”

  Indeed, just as Mile had noted, several of the children appeared to have wet themselves out of fear.

  “Guess that’s to be expected…” Mile muttered, casting her cleaning magic over the children. The marks and smell vanished, and they were instantly dry, good as new—perhaps even cleaner than they had been before wetting themselves.

  Now that they had involved themselves this far, the Crimson Vow couldn’t just leave the situation unresolved.

  Or rather, it was not that they couldn’t…it might have been because they really wanted to help the children or merely because they thought the situation interesting and were sticking their noses in.

  Either way, the children soon found themselves driven along to a nearby open area by an unforgiving Reina, unable to ignore her commands.

  ***

  “Hm hm, I see, so that’s when the conflict over the clients started…”

  Reina, unfortunately, was a less-than-suitable candidate for extracting information about the situation from the children. It was not that she didn’t know any tricks to make them talk, but rather, that the children were still utterly petrified of her. In order to get the full story out of them, Mile, who was closer to them in age and had an appearance that tended to put others at ease, was chosen as the interrogator.

  These were Mile’s findings:

  One of the two groups of children, it would seem, hailed from an orphanage, and the other group lived on the streets.

  The children from the orphanage wore clothing that was crude but free of stains and properly cleaned, and they were clearly a group. On the contrary, the children from the streets were generally unkempt, wearing filthy garb, riddled with lice, and lacking the mark of any guardian.

  It was because of this that, when it came to odd jobs that were unworthy of the Guild’s time, the children from the orphanage were the preferred hires for tasks that involved direct contact with other people or matters involving food or money rather than the scruffy street urchins. On the other hand, those urchins—who no one would care about should anything happen to them—were perfect for jobs that did not involve other people: dangerous jobs, unsanitary jobs, or even jobs that were borderline criminal.

  Indeed, there was a clear caste system when it came to the world of temporary hires.

  Lately, however, that dichotomy had app
arently shifted.

  There had been a transformation in the street urchins (who, in truth, lived in abandoned buildings or underneath bridges so were not so much “street” urchins as merely homeless children). Though their clothes were still ragged, the garments they wore were no longer dirty, and they were cleaning themselves up with water or dust baths. Thanks to a boost in confidence from registering and seeking promotions within the Guild, they were now refusing to take on jobs with criminal elements or otherwise unfavorable conditions, and one after another, they had begun to encroach on jobs that were usually taken by the children of the orphanage.

  They were clean, demanded lower rates than the children from the orphanage, and worked earnestly and diligently. Since they seemed to be concerned about winning brownie points with the Guild, they could be expected not to try anything funny while on a job. Because they knew it would cause trouble for all of their peers if they were to slip up, and because they knew that mistakes would result in penalties from the guild, these children could generally be relied on.

  And then there were the children who were not yet ten years old themselves, whose eyes sparkled with the light of the futures they hoped to someday grasp and who were eternally grateful to be able to take on legitimate jobs without any underlying shadiness. Anyone who had hired them once would come to hire them every time they had an odd job needing doing thereafter; there were even times when people would invent odd jobs just to give them work.

  Plus, the hunters who had grown up on the streets themselves, and those who were lifelong citizens from the capital, were strong backers of this movement.

  The urchins were on the road to being promoted from “creatures no one would mistake for humans” to legitimate individuals, all thanks to one particular “idiot” somewhere out there…

  Of course, there were some who were bearing the burden of this change. Specifically, the children of the orphanage.

  Most children at the orphanage considered themselves unfortunate. They had no parents, they wore shabby clothes, and their rations could not be called anywhere near sufficient.

  Besides helping in the fields that the orphanage tended, they often sought out odd jobs around the city and offered up a part of their pay to help supplement the institute’s thoroughly insufficient operational budget. This way, they could have just a little bit more to eat.

  Lately, however, the number of jobs available around town had dropped drastically. This was because of the street urchins—the street urchins who scrabbled around in such squalor that it made the children of the orphanage look like nobles and kings.

  The orphans’ livelihood was being stolen by those scoundrels.

  The moment they became aware of this, the orphans panicked, plunging headlong into crisis mode.

  The orphans, you see, could not register with the Hunters’ Guild. Were they to do so, word would get around that the orphanage was letting orphans do dangerous work as hunters. Plus, if they were making money as hunters, then there was no reason for them to remain at the orphanage—or at least, no need for the Crown to continue providing them with funding.

  Therefore, anyone who became a hunter had to leave the orphanage. In other words, none of the children who lived at the orphanage were hunters.

  As for the urchins, those who were below the age of ten could register with the guild as G-rank errand boys, while those older than ten could join the guild properly at F-rank. Thus, the urchins, who could either work as hunters or take on odd jobs that did not make it to the guild, held the clear advantage.

  All of which led to the present quarrel.

  “Ah…” the Crimson Vow sighed.

  The four came simultaneously to the same conclusion: there was nothing to be done for any of it.

  “Well! We better be going!” they said, moving to make a hasty exit.

  Suddenly, something seized on to Pauline’s leg.

  “Eeek!” she shrieked, looking down to see eyes swimming with tears.

  “Don’t leave us!”

  Apparently, they were not getting away so easily.

  ***

  A short distance away from the children, the four girls held a hushed discussion.

  “So, what do we do?” asked Reina.

  “What do we do?”

  Even Mile was fresh out of ideas.

  There was a shortage of jobs and an excess of workers, and they couldn’t simply demand that the urchins only do the lesser jobs that they were originally allotted.

  “Even if the orphans don’t work outside of the orphanage, there’s no risk of them dying of hunger. They receive subsidies and donations, and they have their fields to work… The urchins, on the other hand, will starve to death in just a few days if they don’t earn money themselves,” Mavis mused.

  “So, do we just tell the orphans to give it up?” asked Pauline.

  “Hmmmmmm…”

  The four of them pondered.

  After hemming and hawing over the matter for some time, Mile suddenly shouted, “I’ve got it: a conference!”

  “A conference?” the other three repeated.

  “Yes. See, the root of the problem isn’t something that we’ll be able to do anything about in the short term. So instead, we just have to get the orphans and the urchins to get along. If a sense of solidarity forms between them, as fellow warriors fighting to secure a promising future without anyone to care for them, then they’ll come to see one another as close friends, and they won’t fight…

  “Anyway, they need to empathize—or at least cultivate some sympathy for one another. From there, they can make appeals to their shared interests to form a bridge between them, which they can cross together to seek the path toward a wonderful future for them all.”

  As Mile wrapped up her explanation, the others looked stunned.

  “M-Mile, did… did you eat something strange?”

  “Do you have a fever? Pauline, whip up some water…”

  “O-of course! Right away!”

  “Graaaaaaaah!! I keep telling you all, I’m not stupid! It’s not like this was some unexpected stroke of genius!”

  And so, the First Annual Orphan-Urchin Solidarity Conference was established.

  ***

  “Thank you and a warm welcome to all who have gathered here today! This marks the start of the First Annual Orphan-Urchin Solidarity Conference, here in the royal capital of the Kingdom of Tils!”

  Hearing the grandiose title that Mile had given the event, the local hunters, who had heard the buzz and come in their free time to see what the whole thing was about, along with the other observers who had snuck into the crowd in disguise, pulled strange faces.

  “There is plenty of food to go around so please eat your fill. Once your bellies are happy and full, please take a few moments to chat with your peers and see if you can’t exchange information and forge new connections. Such bonds are sure to be of use to you all in the future!”

  How exactly were the orphans and the urchins supposed to forge bonds with one another? And just what information did she expect them to exchange? Which restaurants had the most leftover food at the end of the day? What time they put out their trash?

  The spectators suddenly felt as though they had headaches coming on and began kneading their temples.

  The place they all currently occupied was a church within the capital. The orphanage, which was situated adjacent to the church, was under the church’s administration as well.

  Following the incident in the street, the Crimson Vow had accompanied the orphans back to the orphanage and explained their plans for a get-together to the administrators. Given the reason for the assembly, and in light of the fact that not only would the orphanage not have to pay a cent but that food would be provided for the children to eat all they wanted, the administrators gratefully accepted the girls’ plan. They happily agreed to speak with the church regarding the use of the space, too.

  The church, meanwhile, was not about to pass up a chance to have the orpha
ns—who normally would not be expected to enter the church at all—visit the building of their free will, and readily assented.

  Having secured a space that was even more spacious and stately than she had envisioned, Mile expanded the scope of her plans accordingly, calling on the orphans from the incident on the street to invite others with whom they might be acquainted with as well.

  The other orphans needed little convincing. They needed neither to be told the aim of the gathering nor to be cajoled in the same way as the other children. All these orphans—who did not know what it was like to have plenty—needed to hear was that they would be able to eat their fill, and they were on board.

  Anticipating the results of this invitation, the leaders of the orphanage and affiliates of the church began to spread word of the event around, hoping for donations or other contributions. This was not due to miserly tendencies on their part; they merely wished to rally the rest of the community for the sake of the orphans.

  And finally, the day arrived, the venue so packed with children and spectators that it would have been little surprise to learn every orphan and urchin in the city was in attendance…

  They ate.

  All of the children ate and ate until they were close to bursting.

  Somehow, no matter how much they ate, the food never seemed to run out. As soon as it seemed that the platters were beginning to go empty, a snap of the fingers brought out new plates, overflowing with fresh morsels seemingly out of nowhere.

  There were some who might claim that the plates had “appeared out of thin air,” but no one would believe that. Even with a reasonable amount of storage magic, producing plates overflowing with food without spilling anything—and moreover, without them going cold—would be patently impossible.

  It was not only the quantity of the food that was astounding but the taste as well, with flavors that far surpassed even that which they had eaten on any festival day in their lives. Although they had been told to socialize in addition to eating, there was no stopping any of the children until they were stuffed to the brim.