“You’re quite cautious, aren’t you? You know to hide a weapon on your person. You just don’t hide it very well. Your walking posture isn’t natural. Is the sheath poking your thigh and making it hurt?”
Hearing this, Aurelia stopped walking, an awkward expression appearing on her face.
She forced a bitter smile at Ragnar.
“Yes… yes, sir. You have sharp eyes.”
Rather than clumsily denying it, it was better to go along with the opening he provided.
After all, for a girl living alone, hiding an ordinary knife for self-defense, while requiring caution, wasn’t completely incomprehensible.
It could even be seen as a sign of having some brains.
Then, she moved to a blind spot, lifted a corner of her skirt, and removed the old leg holster and ordinary dagger she bought from the general store, placing them on the table.
During this process, she indeed saw two clear red marks rubbed onto the pale skin of her outer thigh by the rough leather edge and crude sheath.
Wearing such a low-quality leg holster for a long time, combined with the afternoon’s intense running and training, this outcome was perfectly normal.
“I knew it.” He pursed his lips, picked up the leg holster, and examined it for a few moments.
“A cheap buy from the general store, right? This kind of shoddy workmanship can only fool amateurs like you.”
He paused, took another drag of his cigarette, and his gaze returned to Aurelia’s face.
“It’s good for a young girl to have some wits about her, but with this piece of junk, if something really happens, whether you can even draw it is questionable.”
Then, he casually tossed the leg holster and dagger into the trash bin.
Before Aurelia could react, he spoke again, “Don’t use this junk. Wait for me to take a stroll to the Central District tomorrow. I’ll get you a proper one!”
Ragnar’s sudden action and words left Aurelia completely stunned.
“W-wait! Sir!”
She exclaimed instinctively, the awkward smile on her face freezing.
It was replaced by astonishment and a poorly concealed urgency.
She knew the dagger and holster were junk, but she had bought them with the little money she had left!
“What? Can’t bear to part with that junk?”
He exhaled a puff of smoke, his eyes sweeping over her face.
“Don’t worry. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the Central District. It’ll definitely be a hundred times better than your street stall trash. At least it won’t rub red marks, or even break the skin, on your delicate thigh.”
As he spoke, he gestured with his chin toward her leg.
Though he hadn’t seen it, he could guess what the leg under that long skirt probably looked like.
Aurelia opened her mouth, momentarily at a loss for how to respond.
It seemed that ever since she crossed over to this world, apart from the Bastard Redhead who labeled her as an incurable Disaster Source… everyone else seemed… kind?
Well… also excluding those sailors who wanted to pin her down and force some physiological act.
“Sir, how can that be? I… I can’t accept your things! That’s not proper!”
“Hey!”
Ragnar suddenly raised his hand, cutting Aurelia off.
“Do I need a reason to want to give someone a gift? I just have too much money burning a hole in my pocket. What? You have a problem with that?”
‘This man… is so strange. Are all Gold Rank and above people like him?’
“…It really won’t do, sir, I…”
“Alright, enough nonsense. Hurry up and do your work. Aren’t you afraid Andre will dock your pay?”
Hearing this, Aurelia could only lower her head, thank Ragnar several times in succession, and begin the final preparations before the tavern opened.
The second day of tavern work passed uneventfully.
After receiving her wages from Shopkeeper Andre, Aurelia quickly left and began rummaging through the piled-up junk in the back alley.
Relying on memory and judgment, she selected some old wooden planks that looked relatively sturdy and flat, mostly discarded crates or furniture remnants from the tavern.
The edges of the planks had some splinters, and the surfaces were rough, but their size and thickness were barely sufficient.
Then, dragging the planks and carrying the tools and a box of nails borrowed from Shopkeeper Andre, she returned to the garret.
The planks she had chosen varied in length, thickness, and were rough-edged, bearing splinters and signs of use.
Dragging them up to the garret had been difficult enough.
Now, turning them into two beds she could sleep on was a test of patience and strength.
Thud, thud, thud… The sound of the hammer striking the iron nails was particularly clear in the quiet night.
The nails often went in crooked, and the wood sometimes split.
She would then use smaller wood chips as shims or find a new spot to hammer.
The tools were awkward, and her wrist was injured, making this simple carpentry work exceptionally arduous.
After several hours, Aurelia looked at the abstract art pieces she had created and couldn’t help but twitch the corner of her mouth.
They had no aesthetic appeal and could hardly be called qualified furniture.
But in this humble room, they seemed fitting enough.
After resting for a moment, letting her breathing settle, she went downstairs again, returning to the tavern that had just closed.
Shopkeeper Andre was behind the counter tallying the day’s income.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up, raising an eyebrow when he saw it was her.
“Something wrong?”
Andre’s tone was still flat, devoid of emotion.
Aurelia walked up, carefully counting out a few copper coins still warm from her body heat from her inner pocket—her wages from today.
“Mister Andre, I’d like to buy two old mattresses from you, and… two clean-ish old blankets. The garret is just too cold.”
She deliberately emphasized the word “buy,” her gaze lowered, her posture humble.
Andre glanced at the few copper coins, then looked up at Aurelia’s damp temples and skirt hem stained with wood chips and dust.
He was silent for a few seconds.
After a while, he went into the storage room and came out carrying two rolls of old mattresses that looked reasonably thick and clean, along with two thin blankets.
“There are no extra mattresses. You’ll have to make do with these two old mattresses. The blankets are old too. But I’ve washed them all. Use them with peace of mind.”
He placed the items on the counter, then reached out and picked up two coins from the pile Aurelia had set down, pushing the rest back.
“This is enough.”
“…Thank you!”
Aurelia hugged one set and ran back, then returned to the tavern to carry the other set back as well.
After all, her arms could only stretch so wide, and her right wrist still hurt.
She could only manage it in two trips.
Next, she looked at the remaining few shorter, smaller planks, then at the two beds placed side by side.
Rena was a girl.
Helen, though young, was still a boy… They needed to be separated.
She placed one bed against the wall, then picked up the remaining planks to gauge their height.
Using the leftover nails and hammer, she vertically nailed a few planks in the middle of the bed, creating a slanted partition wall.
“Whew, done!”
Looking at the result before her that could barely be called beds and a partition, Aurelia supported her aching back and let out a long sigh of relief.
Under the glow of the old magic lamp, two plank beds stood side by side against the wall.
The partition wall in the middle, nailed together from a few planks, was laughably crude, but it at least provided a basic division.
“I’ll find an old cloth or something to hang over it tomorrow. That should block the view,” she murmured to herself, wiping the sweat from her temple with her sleeve.
The garret was filled with the smell of wood chips and dust, mixed with the faint fragrance emanating from her own body.
Compared to the previous emptiness and chill, there was now a touch of warm, lived-in atmosphere.
“Time to make do with another cold water bath…”
It was already early summer, the temperature neither too high nor too low.
After the cold bath, the evening breeze blowing through the window onto Aurelia’s completely naked body wasn’t as cold as she had imagined.
She stood by the window, carefully drying herself with the faint city light from outside and the dim, yellowish glow of the old magic lamp inside the garret.
As she dried her arms and waist, her movements slowed.
By the weak light, Aurelia couldn’t help but look down at her own body.
Long-term malnutrition had left her skin a bloodless, cold white, shimmering with an extremely faint glow in the dim light.
However, even so, her figure and curves were still excellent.
Among her peers, she was above average in size, and the shape was also…
Ahem…
Aurelia cleared her throat softly.
The hand holding the towel unconsciously sped up its movements as she shifted her gaze to the night scene outside the window.
Seizing this momentum, she washed both sets of clothes and hung them by the window to dry.
Then, completely naked, she turned off the light and slipped between the two sets of bedding that weren’t yet laid out.
In the darkness, her cheeks still felt somewhat warm, and the sensations of her body were incredibly clear.
The roughness of the mattress, the weight of the blanket, the slight chill on her skin from the cold water, and the lingering faint scent of her own body.
And the undeniable, full softness of a young woman’s body in certain areas, along with the faint, lingering ache from the chafed spots on her outer thighs.
“…What would it mean if I got a reaction to my own body?”
Aurelia whispered softly.
Her arm accidentally brushed against her own chest, sinking in a little.
“No, no, no, what am I thinking?!”
She quickly moved her hand away, adjusting her position from lying on her side to lying on her back.
Yet, she still felt the weight on her chest was particularly uncomfortable.
Subsequently, she had to change positions again, choosing to fold the thin blanket underneath her and sleep on her stomach.
Even with a layer of thin blanket, the roughness of the mattress and the unevenness of the joined planks beneath were still palpable.
But compared to lying directly on her back, this position did somewhat alleviate the burden on her chest.
She adjusted her breathing, letting herself slowly calm down.
Outside the garret, the sounds of the summer night seemed to grow more distant and blurred.
The evening breeze still blew in through the window, carrying the occasional soft sound of water droplets from the wet clothes dripping onto the windowsill.
Gradually, that overly acute awareness became less intrusive, fading into a vague presence in the background.
The softness unique to a woman’s body, which she had never paid attention to before, no longer occupied her thoughts constantly.
Exhaustion finally took full hold. Her thoughts grew sluggish, the edges of her consciousness began to blur.
‘For my future, I must keep trying tomorrow too…’
This was Aurelia’s final thought before falling asleep.