Chapter 20: Dinner Party
“Rachel-sama, I’m sorry for making you act like a maid.”
“No, no, don’t worry about it, I’ve got my share too, and more importantly, we’re both students, so you can call me by my first name.”
Right now, I’m walking down the hallway with Neese after receiving a tray of dinner from the dining hall.
After the incident in the greenhouse, we rescued a girl in work clothes and returned to the dormitory, where she drank that tea in Jun’s room to calm down, and now that we’re free, Neese and I went to the dining hall to get dinner.
“Ehh… I guess I shouldn’t call you by your first name…”
“How about calling you by your first name then? Neese-san.”
I call out to Neese with a smile.
“Then… Rachel…san.”
Neese answers hesitantly.
As I watch her, I can’t help but smile, as if I’ve made my first friend of my age in this world. Then, Neese smiled back at me. I felt relieved from her smile that it wasn’t just a one-sided friendship that I had on her, and that Neese also thought of me as a friend.
“We’re back~”
When we arrived in front of Neese’s room, Neese called out and went inside. I followed her inside and found the work clothes girl, who had calmed down a bit, sipping the calming tea Jun had made for her.
“Rachel-sama, Neese, I’m sorry I made you order our dinner.”
Jun, who had been looking after the work clothes girl, came to take my tray.
“It’s fine, everyone is hungry, I’ve got my share, and Jun was looking after the girl. Also, you don’t need to call me ‘sama’, because ‘Neese-san’ and I now call each other ‘san’.”
“Really? Well then…Rachel-san, thanks.”
Jun smiled back. I feel like I’ve become friends with Jun. In reality, I could have just called her by her first name, but after thinking about it, I had to consider other nobles, so we decided to call each other by their first names to avoid accidentally calling other nobles by their first names.
“So, is she okay?”
I look at the work clothes girl sipping tea from Jun’s cat mug.
“You’re the one who saved me! Thank you so much!! I’m Sanner Cisla. You saved my life!! Rachel-sama!”
Saying this, the work clothes girl hugged me.
“I-I’m glad you’re safe and more importantly, can you explain what happened?”
I ask while trying to soothe Sanner, the work clothes girl who clings to me.
“Well, I was planting medicinal herbs, which is the subject of my research, and I was so engrossed in my work that the sun went down. Before I knew it, there were more and more figures, so I went to say hello, but everyone was semi-transparent and see-through, and when I called out to them they ignored me and just laughed “kekeke”, and when I tried to run away the door wouldn’t open… I was scared, and then you all appeared…”
Come to think of it, I once heard a similar ghost story in my previous life.
I think it was about a bus or train accident in which all the passengers died, and since then, the ghost appears in the last or out-of-service train…Someone took a photo and, just as rumored, a lone figure shouting outside was captured on the packed train, so they said it was a ghost, and when they showed it to a psychic, they found out that only the shouting figure was human, and all the other figures were ghosts…I wonder if a lot of people died in this greenhouse in the past?
“What are we going to do now? They might come out again?”
Jun calls out to the work-clothed girl, Sanner.
“That’s right! Physical attacks don’t work on them!”
Neese called out in fear.
“You’re right… They might come out again… But, I need to tend to the herbs too… I’ll do as much work as I can while it’s still daylight, and then I’ll contact the school. We have a teacher who can use holy magic, so I think they’ll be able to do something about it.”
For the sake of her studies, Sanner had no choice but to go to the greenhouse.
“By the way, Rachel-san… that…”
Jun turns to me, unsure of what to say.
“Yes, what is it?”
“What is this girl? She looks like a fairy…”
Jun points to Leaf, who is drinking tea from a small milk pitcher.
“What? Me? My name is Leaf.”
She must have recovered, she answers with a smile.
“Um, so Leaf-chan is a fairy?”
Sanner asks, staring intently at Leaf.
“I’m not a fairy, I’m actually a spirit that resides in a tree.”
“Wow! Leaf-chan is a spirit that resides in tree! So, to me, who is studying agriculture, she is like a god! Thank you, thank you.”
Sanner begins to pray after hearing that Leaf is a tree spirit.
I think that the way she prays is a little excessive, but thinking about it, if Leaf can understand the condition of plants, it’s sure to make cultivation and harvesting more efficient. It makes sense that Sanner would pray.
“So, what tree does Leaf-chan reside in?”
Neese, relieved by Leaf’s cheerful personality, asks.
“You see, I was originally a tree growing in the garden of Rachel’s mansion, but now the sapling in Rachel’s room is the original.”
Leaf is an honest girl so she spills her secrets one after another. Now that she’s shown herself to everyone, I can’t stop her from speaking in front of everyone.
Or rather, Leaf has always been a talkative girl, so perhaps she’s been holding back until now, but she seems to be enjoying talking with everyone.
“So, Leaf-chan, why did you jump out that time?”
She has been talking freely but Jun asks Leaf a troublesome question.
“Tha, that’s because you sensed some unknown presence and came running out, right Leaf?”
I keep a poker face and appeal to Leaf with my eyes.
I know why Leaf came running out. It’s because of the chill I felt that time, that shiver down my spine. If it’s the same as Reiko in my past life, that feeling is when “it” was trying to get out of me.
Leaf must have sensed ‘it’ crawling out of me, and so she jumped out of my hair and ran away from me.
Besides, the fact that ‘it’ was about to come out of me must have been a reaction to the figures in the greenhouse…
That means… Did those human figures have ill intent towards humans…
“Because you’re a spirit, Leaf-chan is sensitive to beings without bodies.”
“Maybe those figures ran away because of Leaf-chan’s scream?”
“As expected of a tree spirit, Leaf-chan! Thank you, thank you.”
Jun, Neese, and Sanner each praised Leaf, but Leaf was at a loss for words.
“For now, let’s just ask the school teacher to do a proper exorcism as a temporary measure. Anyway, the dinner will get cold, why don’t we eat?”
I avoided the topic by offering everyone dinner. That’s because Leaf, who should know the truth, is honest and can’t lie.
The real reason those figures in the greenhouse disappeared… was because ‘that thing’ hiding inside me tried to go outside, and they ran away in fear… They were definitely not surprised by Leaf’s scream.
“Yeah, I’m starving.”
Neese rubs her stomach.
“I can’t waste food.”
Sanner says like a farmer.
“If you want more tea, just let me know.”
Jun smiles brightly.
“Thanks to Jun’s tea, the pain in my solar plexus has gone away and I feel like I can eat a lot.”
Before I knew it, the pain in my solar plexus had completely disappeared.
“Well then, let’s eat!”
Everyone says in unison before eating.
And so, I managed to avoid eating alone for the first time.
