Within the white, snowy fields, the sparks generated from the clash of two sharp spears created a resounding noise, drawing the attention of the soldiers and villagers nearby. When they turned, they saw the figure of a strong young man clashing with a small, seemingly weak young girl.
Although the fight seemed predetermined from the start, the people watching didn't think so at all. Because the seemingly weak young girl was the one leading the fight, gradually cornering the young man before her. Until, before long, she swatted his weapon from his hand, causing him to lose his balance and fall from exhaustion.
"Looks like I win again this time, Big Brother Grovasel," Ludy said with a smile, extending a hand to help the young man up.
"Sigh... I don't see you eat much all day, but how do you have so much strength?" Grovasel, defeated by her, could only sigh wearily. He wasn't too upset about it, as he was starting to get used to it. Of course, he was a bit embarrassed the first few times, but after seeing this small girl defeat an entire camp of soldiers in the mine by herself, he began to think that it wasn't him who was weak, but this child who was too strong.
"But your skill with the glaive has improved a lot. Even the old man praised you for having a talent for it," Grovasel quickly changed the subject, brushing the ice flakes off his clothes.
Hearing this, Ludy immediately made a look of exasperation.
"Big Brother Grovasel... have you ever seen the old man not praise me? The only reason I agreed to use this thing is because that old man offered to train me himself. But frankly, what was he thinking, having a cute girl like me use a glaive as big as a door? To be honest, I still prefer a big axe."
'And how is a giant axe suitable for a little girl?' Of course, Grovasel only thought it, not daring to say it out loud. A close friend of his once said, never argue with a woman when she has a weapon in her hand.
"Haha, but I still think you have a talent for this. Who knows, in the future, you might become a more famous warrior than that old man," Grovasel said. He knew that Ludy's talent for combat was no less than his father's, perhaps even comparable or greater. But he said this not because he wanted the girl to join the army, but simply because he wanted her to try opening up to new perspectives, instead of just cooping herself up in her room doing research without trying to make a single friend.
"Hmm... even though fighting is fun, I don't like having to kill anyone. It makes me feel strange, I don't know why," Ludy grumbled. She wasn't afraid of blood, not afraid of pain. Frankly, she had almost no fear regarding killing. Perhaps because she had already experienced death, it made her think that way. But... she just felt that the deeper she delved into such matters, the more she felt unlike herself. It was a feeling she couldn't quite describe.
"I'm sorry for saying something that troubled you," Grovasel, seeing her expression, was startled and quickly apologized, as it seemed what he said had made her overthink something she shouldn't have.
"Hmm? Why do you have to look so guilty? Have you become one of those people who takes everything seriously like that old man? Haha! This is what they call the apple doesn't fall far from the—Oof!" Before she could finish, she was hit by a snowball thrown from behind. When she turned around, she saw a group of children pointing at her, shouting in anger.
"Everyone, Sister Ludy is over there! Get her! Avenge her for daring to steal our candy!!"
"Ooh!!"
Ludy, startled, immediately ran to hide behind a nearby rock, with Grovasel having to run for cover as well, afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.
"What is this all about? What did you do to make those kids so angry?!" Grovasel, who had run to hide, turned to ask Ludy in shock. The girl replied with a dry smile.
"W-well, the candy those kids were eating had no nutritional value for their bodies, and it also gave them cavities. I was doing it to protect them!"
"By stealing candy from kids?!"
After clearing up (running away from) the children, Grovasel and Ludy walked back to their residence. The living conditions in the area had improved greatly now. The development was progressing rapidly thanks to the help of people from the mine who had previously worked in this profession.
Although she had a decent amount of funds now, Ludy didn't want to spend extravagantly. She had to save the rest to pay back that damned prince who had lent her the money. Even though she had received a sum as a reward for helping him deal with the northern nobles, the damages incurred seemed to have reduced the output from here considerably, which that damned prince used as an excuse to cut her reward.
'The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get... If I knew, I should have just sent the matter to another noble to handle.'
As Ludy was grumbling to herself, her eyes happened to notice Grovasel's gaze secretly glancing at a young woman in the village area, who was distributing food to the children.
She was a gentle-looking Elafia (deer) woman, probably around twenty years old. If she remembered correctly, her name was probably Alina. A townswoman from a northern village who had moved to live in her territory with her grandparents because she couldn't stand the oppression from the patrol soldiers who came to extort from them.
When Ludy saw her brother's gaze, she immediately teased him.
"Oh~ Big Brother Grovasel, are you secretly watching Sister Alina?"
Ludy was also quite close to Alina, as she appreciated her kindness towards others, regardless of who they were. This led Ludy to offer her a job as a nanny for the children who had lost their families in the mine incident, along with giving her various educational books from the Gustav manor for her to teach the children, turning her into something of a teacher.
Realizing he had been caught, Grovasel jumped before quickly denying it with a shy demeanor.
"W-watching what?! Who's watching! I wasn't looking at her at all! Just checking to see where those two kids we brought with us are."
"My, my~ You say that, but I saw your eyes never left her. As for Shasha and Ino, the last I saw them was over there," Ludy pointed to the back where the figures of a black-haired and a white-haired boy were happily building a snowman together. When the two saw Ludy looking their way, they started waving at them and ran over.
"Sister Ludy! Big Brother Grovasel! Want to build a snowman with us?" the white-haired boy named Ino grabbed her hand and invited them with a bright smile. Shasha, being the quiet child, said nothing but nodded at them.
"Next time, Ino. This sister has business today. Take this candy as an apology for now," Ludy gently stroked Ino's head and gave a bag of candy to the two of them as an apology.
After seeing that the two of them accepted them with happy faces, she smiled warmly. These two were unfortunate children whose lives were not very glamorous. Ino was neglected by his family. His mother left him when he was little, and later his father became a heavy drinker and started beating him. This made the boy often sneak off to the city, where he met Shasha. As for Shasha, she was an orphan who had lost her parents when she was young and had lived on her own ever since, until she met Ino. This made the two of them become close and like inseparable siblings.
Ludy had found the two of them in the city while she was looking for materials for her research. At first, she only got to know them superficially, until one day she saw an old woman forcing Ino to eat a whole piece of Originium ore. She was so angry at that time that she may have gone a little too far, almost killing that old woman. But she didn't feel guilty about it at all. She even investigated her background and found out that she was connected to the Charlon family. This made her not hesitate to use severe measures to deal with that wicked family in her own way.
Of course, the outcome was very satisfactory to her.
.........…
After returning home, Ludy wasted no time in going to sit by the fireplace to warm up. Next to her, a white-haired Cautus girl was also sitting there.
"Achoo!" Ludy, who was leaning back, suddenly sneezed for no reason, which made Grovasel, who was entering the room with a bowl of his mother's soup, quickly ask with concern.
"What's wrong, Ludy? Did the weather outside make you sick?"
"No, I don't think so. Maybe someone is talking about me," Ludy sniffled softly while replying nonchalantly.
"It might be the prince thinking about you," Grovasel smiled.
"Big Brother Grovasel, can you please not say things that give me goosebumps?"
"Sorry..."
Seeing the girl make a face as if she had just heard a horror story, Grovasel could only shake his head lightly. He thought that the path to getting those two together seemed more difficult than anything, especially with her attitude towards Fyodor being so terrible.
"Big sister... are you a princess?" the white-haired Cautus girl, who looked to be the same age as Ludy, turned to ask her. Perhaps because of Ludy's mature personality, she saw her as an adult.
"Even though everyone calls me that, Yelena, you don't have to call me that. We're sisters, after all," Ludy stroked the girl's head gently, as if she were her real younger sister.
This child's name was Yelena. She was an Infected that old man Buldrokkas'tee's group had found in the mine while they were disguised as bandits to intimidate the officials at that time. But... it seemed that when Buldrokkas'tee found her, he happened to witness this child being tortured by a group of guards. This sent the old Wendigo into a rage, and he slaughtered those guards without leaving any survivors, before rescuing this girl along with the other Infected who were working in the mine.
Although there were some mistakes in the plan at that time due to the old man's excessive actions, she thought it was a good outcome. Because it made the battle between the two families happen much faster than she had thought, when she had expected it would take at least half a year to occur.
And now, her mine workers numbered over two hundred, thanks to Grovasel's advertising, disguised as a diplomat, announcing that she was recruiting miners in various villages. This had caused the territory of the Gustav family, which was originally just a small residential area, to develop into a large village that could now accommodate several thousand people.
In addition, Ludy also thought it would be a good idea to build a village for real, to cut down on the problem of having to buy various necessities from the city frequently, and also to allow the families of the miners to see each other all the time. So she spent a large amount of money on expanding her territory to be much larger, with restaurants, residences, and a greenhouse that could grow fruits and vegetables.
It was all thanks to her teacher, who had lent her both manpower and a large number of tools, allowing her to achieve what she wanted with ease, even without help from any government office. Although there was a small condition, which was that she had to build a research center here at her teacher's request, that was a small matter compared to what the other had helped her with.
As for harvesting the ore in the mine, Ludy didn't work the laborers to death like other places. This was the age of the future. She absolutely could not accept letting ordinary, unprotected people walk into a cave filled with enough dust or Originium ore powder floating in the air to make them sick or infected. For that reason, she had built robots and sets of equipment specifically for mining. With her genius in mechanics, creating mining robots or protective suits was not a difficult task for her at all. Coupled with the help of her teacher's people who provided knowledge in this field, she was so enthusiastic that she had almost created a combat armor suit for fighting. But seeing that it was too powerful and consumed too much energy, she handed it over to her teacher for further research instead, as her interest was not in robots but in developing and improving food.
Speaking of food... it seemed that Yelena, this child, was particularly fond of her candy, especially the candy that warmed the body, which seemed to suit her well, as she had a problem with her body being too cold due to a severe infection that made her blood temperature higher than normal people, turning her body into a walking air conditioner. If anyone touched her, they could get frostbite and turn into a block of ice.
But Ludy was able to help her with that by having her eat candy that warmed her blood, allowing her to return to a normal body temperature. But it seemed this little girl was still not quite satisfied with the taste. She had a similar problem with her tongue as Ludy, that is, her sense of taste was quite strange compared to others. Perhaps because of the infection, it made her sense of taste even worse. But it seemed that eating food with high heat or food that would help raise the body's temperature was what this child enjoyed most.
This gave Ludy an idea. She tried to modify the taste of this candy, making it a special version that only Yelena liked: an extremely fiery hot taste. When Ludy tried it, she didn't feel much other than a pungent sensation at the tip of her tongue. But for Grovasel, her number one test subject, he almost breathed fire after eating it for the first time, which brought much laughter to Yelena and Ludy.
"Alright, kids, it's almost bedtime. If you stay up too late, you might not grow taller."
At that moment, Helen walked in, with Buldrokkas'tee following, holding a small teddy bear.
"Mommy! Can I sleep with Sister Ludy tonight~" Yelena turned to plead with her mother. Her innocent face made Helen unable to help but cover her mouth and laugh softly with affection.
"Oh my, you child... you should ask the person herself about things like this."
"Sister Ludy..." Yelena looked at Ludy with pleading kitten eyes.
"Yes, yes, how could this big sister refuse such an adorable little sister like Yelena," Ludy replied with a smile. But at that moment, her eyes happened to notice the object in Buldrokkas'tee's hand.
"Oh... Yelena, look, Father Buldrokkas'tee brought you a gift."
"Really!" Yelena turned to the man she thought of as her father.
Buldrokkas'tee, being called that, flinched a little as always, but when he saw the girl's excited face, his paternal instincts were awakened, and he handed the white teddy bear in his hand to her without realizing it.
"...An acquaintance gave it to me."
"Thank you, Father!" Yelena happily hugged the doll.
Ever since the young girl was rescued by Buldrokkas'tee, she had always called him father. Of course, many people in the mine knew Yelena, including her parents. But the sad thing was that her parents had died long ago due to the excessively harsh punishment of the guards. Perhaps seeing that Buldrokkas'tee had saved her, it might have made the despairing girl feel that the man before her was like her father.
Of course, when he first brought Yelena to the base and heard her call him "Daddy," it shocked Grovasel and Ludy so much they fell off their chairs. Luckily, Helen seemed to trust her husband very much. After hearing the stories, she gladly adopted Yelena as her daughter, though it took several months for Yelena to start calling Helen "Mommy."
"By the way, Ludy, haven't you forgotten something important?" Grovasel suddenly remembered something.
"What is it?" Ludy turned to ask, curious.
"The matter of you having to apply for school. It's been almost a year now."
After Ludy heard that, she froze for a moment before jumping up abruptly. "Shit! I completely forgot!!"
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