Reincarnated as a... Completely Average Person?

Chapter 82: Meeting villagers

Kotori, who was unable to leave the house spent her days thinking?

Thinking about what you ask?

Thinking how to gain Karma.

Although she knew in the abstract how karma worked she was spending more and more time questioning whether the system had a purpose.

The number she had would often fluctuate based on certain principles. She had noticed the number was slowly going up again.

This was the result of her lowering taxes on the village nearby. Layla was also visiting the village as it's "Noble". The villagers seemed to quite like her and the kids were now calling her "older sister" it seemed the old noble of this land was an old man who had passed away with no family who could inherit the land.

It would naturally go back to the kingdom and they resold the title.

The villagers were scared the new noble would be a bad person, but their fears were assuaged when they saw Layla who seemed to be a haughty but nice girl.

Layla even came home one day after visiting the village with some watermelons. Apparently, they had given it to her for free.

[I'm glad to see that she's at least making friends] Kotori thought

Layla, who had a slightly abrasive personality due to being sheltered by her mother, was slowly warming up to people.

Kotori had begun to transfer some helpful tips to the villagers. Apparently, they couldn't understand why their crops would fail if they kept planting in the same spot year after year. She taught them to alternate their fields by planting clovers in their exhausted fields in a simple form of crop rotation.

She was a biological scientist in her past life after all. Kotori didn't have any of her equipment from the past, so she was planning on progressing the village slowly with technology from her non-magical world.

Apparently, she could also bless the fields with mana, but it wasn't sustainable for her to bless the fields every time. Also, it took extremely fine mana control. If she wanted to bless the entire field she would have to fine-tune her magic in a large net to spread it evenly such a process was extremely mentally exhausting.

By teaching the villager's crop rotation she could keep reaping Karma without having to do any work!

Regardless

[Why are you here!]

While Kotori was lazing in the yard on the rare warm sunny days a couple of boys from the village had found their way to the manor.

Apparently, there were rumors among the children of a "fairy princess" living in the manor with Lady Layla. Of course, this fairy was Kotori and she assumed that the "princess" portion was because of Hikari which wouldn't leave Kotori's head. It was troublesome that Kotori had to wear a large hat the entire time there were in the capital or else the tiara would make her stand out.

They were trying very hard to conceal themselves, but Kotori was still able to sense them with [Gourmet]. In truth [Gourmet] was more like a skill that let Kotori absorb and sense mana than just being a skill that let her control mana.

Every living thing had a mana signature even if they could not use mana themselves. Which was why 0 mana stats were deceptive. It wasn't like a person had no mana in them if they had 0 mana stats it just meant that they couldn't utilize the mana inside them.

The mana stat was more like an assessment of how much mana a person could use at any given moment.

The boys continued to ogle Kotori. She didn't really mind; it wasn't like they were doing anything to her. She considering hiding herself since she was a wanted criminal after all but that would be more suspicious.

She was planning on ignoring them until one of the boys in the group goaded another.

"Hey, touch her!"

Kotori twitched her eyebrow at the words.

[I'm not an art piece!] she thought.

If they really were going to bother her, she was planning on scaring them away.

Umi was currently doing housework so Kotori probably couldn't call her over to shoo away the children.

She watched them out of the corner of her eye while she continued to bask in the sun.

[Ahh this is quite nice...] She thought as the warm rays made her feel sluggish.

Kotori felt herself getting drowsy.

She wasn't afraid of getting bothered by the children while she was sleeping because Hikari would protect her automatically.

[Ahhh I guess I can take nap...]

"AIEE!!" Kotori awoke suddenly to the sound of a scream very close to her.

She was slowly waking up and felt that Hikari had moved off her head and transformed morphed into a long thin bands that were currently wrapping themselves around a boy.

He was quite close to Kotori so she could only assume what had happened.

Apparently, this was the poor sod who had tried to interrupt her sleep by poking her. Well, he was partially successful, unfortunately, Hikari was probably one of the strongest weapons on the continent and his chance of touching Kotori was slightly lower than his chance of ever catching a Quiggle.

The boy struggled against Hikari. His eyes were filled with fear as he saw Kotori walk over to him.

"Please have mercy fairy queen!" He cried

Kotori sighed

She felt a rock thrown at her. Which Hikari split a piece from herself to block.

"Let him go!" The boys were currently trying to distract Kotori and help their friends

[Ah, don't do that, you'll make her mad] Kotori thought before several pieces of metal split from Hikari and bound the boys who had thrown rocks at her.

Realizing their folly the rest of the boys ran away presumable to call their parents.

Kotori stared at the three boys who were now in front of her. All of them were bound. They gave strong looks but she could see they were slightly trembling.

She had no intention of doing anything with them. Until a stray thought entered her mind

[They look kinda tasty... No! bad Kotori!]] she started thinking before her rational mind scolded herself for having such a thought.