I Reincarnated as a Noble Girl Villainess But Why Did It Turn Out This Way?

Chapter 17 - Elise Cherstoka

Chapter 17 – Elise Cherstoka

Because an orphan from Shiriru village in the Kaldia domain had thrown a rock at Viscountess Kaldia, and caused her to fall off her horse, several villagers were punished and had to take responsibility.

The child that was the actual culprit in question was tied up in a jute sack and thrown into a river, while those that hired the child to do it, the people that the child was living with, and various other villagers associated were flogged in front of the other villagers. That was the rumor that reached the capital soon after my birthday celebration ended.

The Kaldia domain has no particularly noticeable features about it. However, the scandal about the previous lord Orville Kaldia's atrocities, and the family's deaths by poisoning in which only the youngest daughter survived, causing Marquis Rittergau's younger brother to have to become her guardian, were some of the biggest events to be gossiped about by the nobles in the past thirty years, the gossipy nobles in the royal capital with too much leisure time all had their attention on the Kaldia domain.

"- and that seems to be the current overview of the Kaldia domain in the royal capital."

"Thanks for your hard work, Kamil. Although it's within expectations, that they even know about the orphan incident means that the House of Lords really has nothing better to do than pay attention to what's going on here. It's depressing to think about that."

The other day, when the earl attended a meeting at the House of Lords, as part of the earl's retinue, Kamil had went along with him to the royal capital for the first time. Even though I'm a noble, I still can't go to the House of Lords as I'm only six. But this means that the earl finally intends to take me to the royal capital soon.

The House of Lords, is like a government agency, which all Arxian nobility with peerage belong to. It's the highest level government body below the king, and it can do various legislative and administrative tasks apart from judicial ones which are left to the church.

As an aside, thanks to the existence of the House of Lords, there were very few other places for Arxian nobles to socialize. Very little diplomacy or politics was actually conducted there, it's simply become a place for nobles to have fun and show off their power, far from the church's values of being contented with honest poverty.

"So that means Charlie's surprisingly delicate?"

"What's this about surprisingly, how rude."

Kamil was just as imprudent as usual, and I began to massage the wrinkle between my eyebrows reflexively. I had said before that I would forgive his irreverence, and since I had memories of a previous life, I figured it would probably be easier to put up with Kamil's informal attitude rather than the alternative, I was finally able to organize my feelings recently.

I briefly summarized what I had heard from Kamil and jotted it down on a piece of parchment, sorted it away simply on my writing desk, and got up from my chair. The sunlight shining through the thick window panes felt so warm, it was making me drowsy. Recently the chill of spring had been fading, the long hours of sunshine in the summer were arriving.

I laid my head on Rashiok's belly while he was sleeping on the windowsill, feeling his smooth scales against my cheek as he breathed. Rashiok woke up with a snort of annoyance as his nap had been disturbed, but even so he stretched out a wing and covered my body. Before I'd realized it, his wings had become wide enough to comfortably cover my small body. Even though his wings had only been the length of Kamil's arm when he came to this mansion, his growth rate is really quite something.

"Charlie, are you sleepy?"

"No, I'm just lying down for a bit. Let's go see how Elise is doing before noon."