Typer’s room: Hello guys. Sorry for the delay, but here is the chapter!
A mix of laziness and distractions made me delay posting this. Won’t try to hide it, as that is what it was. Still, in this chapter we see a brother(sister?)hood doomed to failure, the defense of a lucky bastard and a slightly surprising realization.
As I said before, this is VASTLY a work in progress, and wasn’t made to be posted initially, so there might be some inconsistencies. If so, please do tell me, as I want to make it an enjoyable read ^^
May your reading be enjoyable.
----
“T-Thanks for the save… Cute plebeian...” Tian told me with a surprised voice. “H-How did you… Know he was there?”
“The range of my sense is just a bit beyond the door.” I told her with a wry smile. “If I had sensed him earlier, I would have told Miss Ping too.” As I said that, I turned to take a look at the scene.
Ping had already put on a towel around herself, much to my mental safety, and now was pummeling the unconscious master Roshi with a washing bucket. Smiling a bit awkwardly and deciding that it was safe already, I finally let go of lady Tian’s hand and made my way to the dressing room.
In there was the aide clothing I had used yesterday. I quickly put it on before anything else happened and then tucked my collar out. Tian arrived soon after and looked at me surprised for a moment, then she went to her own clothes and took them.
She stared at the clothes in her hands for a few seconds before turning to me with a confused look in her face.
“Cute plebeian… What do I do now?”
Huh?
I looked back at her for some time while she genuinely looked confused at me. It took me some self control to not start giggling while watching as she tried to unfold the clothes without much success.
After some time I quickly took the clothes from her hand and unfolded it before opening it up and signaling for her to come closer. She nodded and quickly approached me while letting me dress her up with her fancy-looking robe.
All the time she looked embarrassed for some reason.
“Even though you are younger than me, you already know how to dress yourself.” She said sullenly, none of her usual haughty tone present. However, her reason made me giggle slightly as I helped her up.
“Well, you know a lot more about politics than I do, so I guess we are even.” I told while smiling at her. This seemed to cheer her up a bit because she started going ‘Ho Ho Ho’ again.
“Yes, yes. I should leave complicated things like dressing to the plebeians so that I can keep them safe with my politics!” She said back to herself. “After all...”
“It’s your duty as a noble.” I said to her, and she nodded happily while laughing loudly.
I smiled happily after seeing her getting back to her usual self and quickly took a nearby towel and comb so that I could start working on her hair. This was a skill that was mercilessly drilled into me by mother’s friend while I was growing, as she kept saying: A woman’s hair is her life!
But since Tian’s hair was short, it took me only a couple of minutes to finish, different from mine that would take at least a few minutes just to dry off. Sighing loudly I sat down on a nearby bench and started to dry off my hair, because if I didn’t, chances are that I would end up getting a cold.
Seeing this, Tian who seemed at loss on what to do while waiting sat down besides me and started talking.
“I don’t think i’ve ever seen a necklace like that, where did you get it, Cute plebeian?” Tian asked me with curious eyes. To tell the truth, I did notice that she had been eyeing it from time to time during the bath.
“Mother gave me briefly before disappearing.” I told her while finally feeling that my hair was dry enough.
“I see...” She told me with slightly curious eyes. “Is that why you didn’t take it off even during the bath?” I nodded at her question, and she looked satisfied for a moment. I actually started to feel strange when I didn’t have the collar on me, so I always kept it on me. Even during the bath. After some time in silence, Tian smiled a bit mischievously and turned to me. “I couldn’t help but notice something during the bath, Cute plebeian.”
“Huh?” I asked slightly intrigued by her words as I turned to her.
“I noticed that from time to time you would stare at Ping’s...” She said with a mischievous smile which made my face go to a brand new shade of red.
“That’s… Just your imagination.” I said while looking away and throwing my hair over my shoulder as if to comb it, but more so that I could hide my face from her.
“Don’t think that these eyes of mine, meant to observe the plebeians I should protect, didn’t notice it.” Tian said with a smirk. I turned my head away even more, but was forced to look back when she held my hands and stood in front of me with shining eyes. “You also hate them, don’t you?”
…
What?
“Those huge package… Why is it that she have them so big? There’s no need for them to be big! They get heavy, become a bother and makes the column hurt, right?” She asked me with shining eyes.
“Huh… Yes?” I said a bit at loss, but my words seemed to have pleased her, because she soon got me into a tight hug.
“Excellent! I knew you would agree with me!” She said with a cheerful smile. “Then, from today on I mark the birth of the Small-is-better faction!” She took my hand and rose it high.
Feeling a bit confused, it took me almost a minute to understand what she meant. When I did, I felt my face cramping up slightly. Isn’t she a bit too young to worry about that? She didn’t even start to develop her body…
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Well, I never saw her mother, so maybe she never had hope since the beginning?
However, what truly bothered me was something else. Knowing my mother, I don’t think I have much chance of staying in this group for much longer.
Of course, I didn’t tell this to the lady who seemed way too happy to have earned a new ally.
…
After somehow dodging the sensitive matter that she insisted on talking about, she suddenly turned quiet when Ping entered the room while still fuming with anger. With one quick motion she took out the towel and put on her robe.
She took a deep sigh while turning to Tian and said.
“Sorry for the delay Lady Tian. Let me...” She blinked surprised when she saw that Tian was already dressed and had her hair done briefly by me. “Oh… It seems that you already did it.” She said surprised while giving me a glance, I nodded briefly while diverting my gaze back to my hair.
To tell the truth, more than once I thought about simply cutting my hair to decrease all the work I have to put on it every day, but when I voiced it out to father, all the men at the smithy went to their knees begging me to keep it.
“Well, now that the pervert is taken care of, shall we have our lunch?” Ping said with a loud sigh after drying her hair and tying it up.
Tian and I nodded excitedly, as we both felt our stomach crying for food. we quickly left the room and followed a still frowning ping through the mansion, who from time to time would spit out a curse towards the old martial artist.
Feeling pity towards the master, I cleared my throat so that I could get the attention of the head aide, she turned to me with an expression of surprise and I quickly said.
“Neeh, Miss Ping. Isn’t it our fault that we met Master Roshi at the bath?” I asked putting on my best innocent tone. A vein popped up on her forehead almost immediately, but I still kept going. “I mean, we told him we were going to have lunch, but then we went to the bath.”
She blinked surprised for a moment and stopped to think. After some time she finally let out a short sigh and visibly calmed down.
“You are right...” She sighed. “I’ll apologize to him.” She stopped for some time. “Later.”
I nodded satisfied while following the aide once again.
It didn’t take us long to reach the dining table, which was painfully empty. Looking at it in a slightly depressed way, I saw as Tian sat down and almost followed her, but I was stopped by Ping, who tapped my shoulder slightly.
I looked at her confused for a moment but soon understood what was happening, so I followed her as she took me into the kitchen where some other aides were cooking the food. Ping quickly called a few of the aides who had finished their job and made them take the dishes that were already done to the table.
I quickly took one of the smaller dishes and copied them trying to keep the same pace and posture as the other aides. Which posed to be surprisingly difficult, because not only they kept their posture perfectly straight, they also kept a surprisingly fast pace of walk which I found difficult to keep up while keeping my posture like theirs.
They also managed to reach the table without the food as much as moving around the plate.
I never thought I would say it about aides, but they truly are in a whole different level. Sighing loudly to myself, I couldn’t help but think that I would need to train a lot more than what I had initially thought.
Following them we quickly reached the table, where I met master Bo who had already sat down on the table and talked about something with Tian.
Following the aides around, I saw as they quickly put down the food on the table before walking away. I would have done the same, but I had a problem that I wouldn’t be able to surpass no matter how much training I did right now.
I passed the plate to Ping who was tall enough to reach the table then walked away to get more plates, a pout forming on my lips as I walked away.
With my second trip done and my self esteem as a possible rising aide completely crushed, I looked towards Ping wanting to know what to do next.
Much to my surprise, she smiled to me and motioned to the table as she and all the other aides quickly took a seat.
I looked at them surprised, because from what I know, aides aren’t supposed to sit down to eat together with the owners of the mansion. As I thought that, Ping motioned for me to sit next to Lady Tian as she explained.
“You see, Master Bo thinks that it’s a bit too much to put down a dining area for the aides and the masters separately, so whenever there isn’t any kind of guest, we usually sit down together. This way we save both time and space.”
I nodded a bit stunned, but this did make sense somehow. Since there was no need to keep appearances within the household itself, I guess it does makes some sense to have everyone sitting together like this.
I think… I mean, I have no idea how high society actually works.
Well, let’s not think too deeply about it. I have literally a truckload of delicious looking food in front of me asking to be eaten, and I have only so much self restraint when it comes to this.
So, the moment I took the chopsticks to start eating.
“Now, let’s begin your lesson on table manners.” Ping said cheerfully, making me look at her in shock.
And this day I discovered that the path to being an aide is probably much more complex than the path of being a martial artist. Besides, I ate almost nothing due to the time it took.