Memoirs of the Returnee

Orphanage (2)

In the principal’s office of the only Orphanage in Arman, [Arbil].

“As you may know, the Endex drama team has sponsored this place.”

At Elise’s words, Dent nodded his head.

“Yes. On behalf of the Orphanage, thank you. It will be a great help.”

“So… I guess I’ve become a bit interested in this place?”

“Hmm. That’s also something to be thankful for.”

“Also, two birds with one stone.”

Elise lifted her teacup. The color of the black tea was very deep.

“I have a few questions about Shion Ascal.”

“About Shion, you say.”

Dent’s expression hardened slightly.

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you both alumni? You might know more about him than we do.”

“That’s true.”

Elise calmly sipped her tea.

She was slightly surprised. The taste was too good.

The tea from a cold region has a strangely deep flavor.

“Although we are alumni…”

She stopped in the middle of her sentence.

Dent had a slightly strange expression.

It wasn’t that he was doubting her, but his lips were twitching as if he was holding back a laugh.

“…Do you have an interest in Shion?”

At that moment, Elise almost blurted out something in her mouth. She almost dropped the teacup in her hand.

She barely held it back.

“Interest… I do have.”

It wasn’t a lie.

It’s not a good interest, but a bad one.

“Oh~ The younger generation is indeed… straightforward. Ahem.”

Dent stifled a cough with an excited face, and the teachers behind the counseling room door vibrated like a loud noise.

Elise glanced at the place and smirked.

“…The soundproofing seems to be not very good?”

“Oh. That’s right. Hey! What are you guys doing there! Get out!”

Whoosh-

The teachers retreated. Dent looked back at Elise.

“Ahem. Well, that Shion was indeed a bit flashy and handsome. He was the only one among my students who entered Endex. And also….”

Dent seemed to be ready to go on with his nonsense.

“Shion Ascal. He had leukemia, didn’t he? Malignant leukemia.”

Elise went straight to the point.

A wrinkle formed between Dent’s brows. He asked in a much more serious voice.

“Why do you ask about that?”

“Because I was in that hospital too.”

“…In the hospital?”

Dent, who had been pondering alone, clapped as if he had realized something.

“Ah~ right. That place was Petra University Hospital, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Hmm~ Then by any chance, was the friend Shion mentioned back then you, Elise?”

Friend.

The fingers holding the handle of the teacup tightened. The surface of the black tea slightly rippled. She almost spilled it but managed to keep her composure.

“A friend… Did Shion say that?”

“Yes. He did say ‘a somewhat strange friend’. But anyway, he was happy to have made a friend.”

A somewhat strange friend.

Elise, who took a sip of the black tea, smiled faintly.

“The tea is really good.”

“Ah, thank you.”

“Then, have you ever seen that friend in person? I’m curious if it was me or another child.”

At times like this, acting experience is really helpful. Not only managing facial expressions, but also the ability to lie naturally, all are part of acting.

“Hmm… You’re quite proactive. But I’ve never seen the face. Was it a ward where visitors couldn’t go? Anyway, he said something like that. I don’t remember well.”

Elise’s poker face almost cracked.

There is only one ward in Petra University Hospital where visitors can’t go.

The psychiatric ward.

The place where Yael had been admitted instead of prison.

“…Then. Just one more thing.”

Elise spoke with a smile on her lips.

“Why did Shion end up in the Orphanage?”

Then Dent waved his hand. He was firm this time.

“I can’t tell you that. You already knew about the leukemia, and having a friend is a good thing, but we can’t tell you about Shion’s wounds.”

“…”

Elise shrugged her shoulders.

“Fair enough.”

How Shion Ascal’s father and mother died. After all, if she decided to investigate that, she could find out. It’s hard to trace the entire process of a human life, but the beginning and end are surprisingly easy to find.

“…Thank you. Thanks to you, my interest has grown.”

“Oh, ho ho ho- Well, ah, what, Shion. Is he that good? Oh~ I’m so jealous. The attention of the most promising…”

Dent scratched his head with a flustered face, but the problem was not Shion in the first place.

It was ‘Yael’.

[You’re really my friend.]

Yael’s words might not be a lie.

Shion Ascal might really be friends with Yael.

What a terrible thing this is.

“Then.”

Elise looked at her wristwatch.

“It’s time for me to go. Ah, don’t follow me. I want to look around alone.”

Dent, who had awkwardly stood up, sat back down.

“Yes. There’s not much to see… but please take a look.”

“Yes.”

She left the principal’s office with her attendant. The teachers in the corridors here and there hid like mice.

“…Sigh.”

She sighed and went out to the playground. There were a few benches in the place where there was only sand, not grass.

She sat on one of them. Her buttocks were cold.

Children were slightly visible between the windows of the building on the opposite side.

Children.

At the sight of those children, Elise shook her head.

Because she dislikes children.

Quite a lot.

To the extent that she has to exclude them from her life.

But when people say they dislike children, they all frown?

You can dislike pigs, but if you dislike children, are you a psychopath or a sociopath…

“…Hey.”

Suddenly, a cute voice with a low grumble called her.

“Huh?”

Elise turned to look.

There was nothing.

“Not there. Here.”

“…What. Where?”

“Berry is down here.”

A voice rising from a bit below.

Behind the bench, two small children were glaring at her.

Ziiing? Lasers were shooting out of their eyes.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Berry. This is Bell.”

Introducing themselves, they walked forward confidently, hands on their hips and bowing slightly.

Their manners were impeccable.

“…Yeah. Okay.”

“By any chance.”

The child named Berry boldly climbed onto the bench first. The attendant looked at her, but she signaled with her eyes to leave her be.

“Do you know Shion?”

Berry asked about Shion. Elise almost chuckled.

Everyone here is somehow related to Shion Ascal.

I should apologize for suspecting money laundering.

“…I do know him.”

Elise looked at Berry’s chest. There was a smartphone hanging like a necklace. Feeling her gaze, Berry tightly gripped the smartphone.

“Shion gave this to Berry.”

“Is that so?”

It was an older model compared to her latest smartphone.

“Isn’t it too outdated?”

“What did you say?”

“Never mind.”

Perhaps, she was the abnormal one for changing her phone once a year.

Berry asked again.

“How is Shion doing?”

Again with Shion.

These two kids seem to be interested in ‘only’ Shion.

I’m a six-star prospect, mind you.

“He’s doing well.”

Elise simply replied.

“As expected~”

“Woah~”

The two kids’ eyes sparkled loudly.

“What happens if he does well?”

These kids are curious about everything.

“If he does well until the end, he’ll go to university.”

“Woah… university…”

“University…”

Berry and Bell opened their mouths in awe. Then they waved their hands and spoke.

“Berry, Berry’s dream is to be a knight. I want to go to university like Shion.”

“I see.”

Elise rummaged through her coat pocket expressionlessly. Fortunately, there was a snack. Three foreign chocolates.

“Here, share this.”

Eat and leave quickly.

“Wow.”

“Woah!”

Berry and Bell accepted it with sparkling eyes. Bell immediately tore open the packaging, and Berry tucked it into her bosom and asked.

“What’s your name, sister?”

“Elise. Elise Petra”

“Do you play mogem too, Elise?”

“…Mogem?”

“Mobile game.”

“Ah.”

Elise put her hand on her forehead. She couldn’t understand the abbreviation. Has she gotten this old already…?

“Come play with us next time you visit… Ah! We have to go now. There’s Tiger Teacher!”

Berry pointed somewhere. A teacher who looked like a dormitory supervisor was looking this way.

“Yeah. Go on.”

“Yes, before that!”

Berry held out her smartphone as she got off the bench.

“Number exchange! Wanna do it?”

“……”

Elise hesitated for a moment, but soon nodded.

It would be easier to just give a wrong number than to refuse in person.

“Sure.”

“Tell me!”

Elise recited her number to Berry. Berry, with her small hands fumbling, pressed the screen and showed [Save completed].

“Great! Then we’ll go! Bye-bye!”

“Bye-bye!”

“Go on. Hurry.”

Berry and Bell left. Watching the back of their heads, which were large for their bodies, running away, Elise murmured quietly.

“It’s a proper orphanage. I feel foolish for suspecting.”

She had a vague distrust and skepticism about donations.

Because she had seen too many cases of the wealthy setting up altars or pretending to donate to launder money.

“I’ll also sponsor here like Shion Ascal. But, a sustainable sponsorship.”

But it seemed okay if it was a place like this.

“Mr. Luren. Do you know what those trees growing in the back mountain of the orphanage are?”

Elise asked the attendant Luren. He shook his head.

“I don’t know with my limited knowledge.”

“It’s ‘Lehalsi’. I saw it in Nature magazine about three months ago. If processed properly, it can be as efficient as a mana stone when heating.”

She subscribes to many magazines, including medical, magic, and science.

It’s a habit that has continued since she was very young, so there’s probably no high school student who knows the cutting edge as quickly as she does.

“I’ll sponsor a workshop that can process that Lehalsi. And……”

Elise, who paused for a moment, thought of Berry and Bell. A smile unconsciously lingered on her lips.

Again, she doesn’t like kids.

“Library.”

Because she likes them too much.

“Let’s do a library.”

Because she keeps smiling when she looks at them.

Because she wants to keep looking at them.

Because sometimes they make her forget the things she has to do, her ambitions, and aspirations.

“Kids can’t be without books.”

If she gives up the luxury items coming out this summer and fall season, she will have enough funds.

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