LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 64
Iarin, who had been racing on the snow, arrived at a house not far from the hotel.
Since it was built on the outskirts, it exuded a serene atmosphere unlike the bustling city center, and all the walls of the mansion were made of dark-hued wood. With the sharply pointed roof, it resembled a witch’s house straight out of a fairy tale.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Ding dong! Ding dong!
Arriving at the front of the house, Iarin excitedly rang the doorbell while knocking on the door with the other hand.
“Rabbit! Rabbit!”
If this had been in the city, the noise would have likely led to a noise complaint.
Clank!
“I told you not to call me Rabbit! Puma Korean!”
The owner of the house couldn’t endure the noise that echoed throughout the entire place and rushed in with a thud, flinging the door open wide. Upon seeing Iarin, she let out a scream. However, Iarin, undeterred by her scary appearance, grinned and clung to her, heading inside as if it were completely normal, even as the owner crossed her arms and objected.
She then naturally made her way to the couch, sat the owner down forcefully, and sat beside her.
“Rabbit~ Can I ask you for a favor~?”
“I said not to call me Rabbit!”
“Alright. Ella.”
“Don’t act all friendly just by calling my name!”
“Got it~ Ella B Winter!”
Ella glared at Iarin, who was smiling as if her head was pounding.
With a deep sigh, she swept back her untidy long white hair and asked, “So… Frau Li, what is it?”
Ella looked at Iarin with her beautiful, bright red eyes, reminiscent of striking jewels. Her expressionless face seemed to reveal her inner thought: ‘Just say what you have to say and leave me alone.’
But Iarin just kept smiling brightly.
“With that intense glare, you really look like a rabbit.”
“Don’t call me Rabbit! Seriously!”
“Why~ Others call you that without a problem~”
“That’s because you’re the one making it an issue!”
Rabbit.
With white hair, red eyes, and pale white skin, Ella had heard the word since childhood, and after coming to study abroad in Russia, it had become her nickname instead of her actual name.
Because of that, she didn’t particularly dislike the word “rabbit.”
However, the same sentence can mean something entirely different depending on who uses it.
“Anyway, move away! There’s plenty of space, so why do you insist on sitting next to me?! I don’t want to be called Rabbit by you!”
“Ah~ Why~ It’s nice to get close, don’t you think?”
“Seriously! Are you a lesbian?!”
The word “rabbit” doesn’t just refer to the animal; it can also be used to describe cute and pretty girls.
But it also had another usage.
That was as a term of endearment.
In Germany, it was also a nickname used to address a girlfriend.
“Just move away! Go! Sit on the floor!”
Ella shoved Iarin to the ground as she persistently tried to lock arms with her. Iarin landed on the floor, crossing her legs naturally and looking up at her, while Ella, catching her breath, spoke.
“I don’t know how it is in your country, but in ours, crossing arms is something you do with your partner. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“But we’re in a different country~ I don’t think it’s bad to accept their culture when we’re abroad, right?”
“This isn’t your country or mine! No, even in Russia, girls don’t lock arms!”
“But they do here~”
“…Okay, that’s true…”
Ella thought of the times she had seen Iarin at school.
Sleeping on the roof.
Drinking beer with a bear.
Building igloos and grilling meat inside.
At lunchtime, she would lock arms with other girls and eat together at the restaurant…
Yeah.
She wasn’t wrong.
With her pretty looks and affable personality, Iarin had blended right into the school. Moreover, it seemed like she was the human capybara, getting along with countless groups of girls and gaining affection from the teachers. Her affinity was so overwhelming that even the excessive physical contact was accepted without complaint.
According to Iarin and Iserin, it was just a typical expression of affection among Korean high school girls, but Ella found it utterly impossible to accept.
“Anyway, please don’t do that to me… No, forget it. So what’s the issue?”
As Ella was about to reiterate why such actions were unacceptable and firmly try to restrain Iarin, she gave up upon seeing Iarin’s innocent, sweetly naive expression.
She realized it would be futile to argue.
Seeing Ella’s resigned expression, Iarin nonchalantly hopped up onto the couch.
Before Ella could even say anything, Iarin pulled out her smartphone and showed it to her, saying, “I wanted to retrieve these things, and I thought we could get them from our Rabbit~”
“Our Rabbit…”
The title had been upgraded.
Not just Rabbit, but our Rabbit.
But now, even bothering to correct her felt like too much, so Ella simply sighed deeply again.
Ella looked at the message she had been handed and could only sigh once more.
“This is in Korean, right?”
“Yep!”
“…I can’t speak Korean, you know?”
“Huh? You can’t? Oh, it’s already that time…”
“Do you think I can just pick up a language instantly like you guys?”
Ella shot a glare at the person who boasted of their language acquisition capabilities without a clue.
“Language takes a long time to learn! People like you warriors are fast because you have an advanced Language Acquisition Device!”
“But Iserin learned it super quickly too!”
“Your younger sister is a contractor! Contractors have their transcendent beings as a priori knowledge!”
“But my older sister learned it quickly too!”
“O-rae-bi? What’s that again?”
Ella tilted her head at the unfamiliar term she had just heard.
“O-rae-bi? Contextually, it sounds like a person’s name… Was there a person by that name at school?”
“It’s just another way of saying older brother.”
“Huh? Do you have an older brother? Is he also a warrior?”
“Um… No, he’s a shaman.”
A shaman?
You have an older brother who’s a shaman?
Ella looked at Iarin with curiosity.
“You have a shaman older brother? That’s impressive. For the first time, I’m interested in your family.”
“Family? Why?”
Ella looked at her as if to say, “Are you really that clueless?”
Rich family.
The older sister is a strong warrior.
The younger sister is a contractor.
With just these three facts, it appeared to be a prestigious family. On top of that, her older brother was a brilliant shaman.
Naturally, questions would arise, such as “What kind of noble family produces children who are all ability users?” and “You must have some good parenting tips, right?”
“Anyway, my older brother learned languages quickly too!”
“Your older brother is a shaman… So…”
Ella’s voice grew soft.
While she wanted to say that maybe he used some special method, she didn’t have anything specific to say if asked what that special method was.
It was difficult to pin down what magic really entailed.
Moreover, even though people who predominantly used magic were called “shamans,” what techniques they employed varied greatly, and the manifestation forms varied from person to person, leading them to express their individuality through titles.
There were corpse sorcerers who used corpses via special treatment, necromancers who summoned evil spirits and ghosts, possession sorcerers who harnessed souls into their bodies, astrologers with the ability to foresee, mechanists who used machines as mediums for spells, and puppeteers controlling dolls, and so on…
It was almost a joke to say, “The number of types of shamans equals the number of shamans.”
So, while there must be an ability or magic that allows easy language acquisition or enhances intelligence, asking about that magic would only yield answers that amounted to “It seems like it exists.”
And what does this imply when one throws out groundless statements?
It means they’ve lost an argument.
“Did I just lose an argument? To this beastly-looking person of all people?!”
Not to mention Iarin; she never wanted to lose a verbal spar to anyone.
Thus, Ella played her cheat card.
“Anyway, language is hard to learn! Remember that!”
Instead of continuing the verbal tussle, Ella chose to stubbornly end it.
Then she slyly changed the subject.
“So, what’s this item you need to retrieve?”
“Oh right, I was talking about that! Let me read it? 30 kg of birch firewood, one goat that’s over 10 months old…”
Iarin began reading the text in German, and Ella could only stick out her tongue at the list of “not particularly rare, but annoyingly difficult to get” items coming out of her mouth.
“…One rodent born first! Done!”
“Seriously… They might not be expensive, but they’re filled with things that are annoyingly rare and can be found if you really try. So, you came to ask me to help you find these things?”
“Yep!”
“Even though I’m a witch, I don’t have those kinds of items. I think you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“N-no, you do have them. You said a while ago that you had a newborn, so you could sell it for pocket money~”
“What?”
Ella blinked in surprise at Iarin’s statement.
“You haven’t sold it yet? The goat.”
“It’s not a goat! It’s a mountain goat! The symbolism is totally different! Mountain goat!”