“Zeke!”
I heard a voice.
A voice I’ve been hearing every day.
“How long are you going to sleep! Get up!”
I woke up.
And when I look away from the mirror, my white-haired mother was standing there, glaring at me with a hand on her hip.
“Don’t let your lunch go to waste, hurry up and get eating.”
“… Ah.”
Having obeyed mother’s words, I left my room without even changing my clothes.
“And don’t just clean your room whenever you feel up to it!”
“O~kay.”
While giving the appropriate replies to all of mother’s sermons, I walked across the hallway and down the staircase.
“Good morning.”
“… Morning.”
In the dining room was my red-haired mother.
And when she noticed my appearance, I felt her glare come at me.
“Hurry up and eat!”
“… Yeah.”
From above my seat at the table, there was a basket with a cloth draped over it.
Of course, it had cooled down long ago.
While being glared down by Red Mama, I ate.
I don’t particularly dislike meals that have cooled, but her glare made it a bit hard to eat.
“So, what are you planning on doing today?”
“Why don’t you go look for a job!”
“Red Mama, though you keep telling me to, I am quite proud of where I’m at right now.”
But having said that, I saw that my red-haired mother’s mood turned sour in the blink of an eye.
When I was young, if any of us did something wrong, she would immediately catch us and blister our bums until they turned bright red.
Though having grown up, such methods have abated, but even until now, the fact that she could still do so remains as one of our weak points.
“What have you got to be proud about?”
“I can’t see the first thing you would be proud of about that.”
“……”
My red-haired mother does not have the tongue for sweet-talking.
However, if we were to include fencing in that, even if you looked around the world, the number of people that she couldn’t defeat would be quite few.
This is why her nickname was [Mad Dog].
But she doesn’t hit family.
Thus, her mouth took the shape of the character へ, and she just continued to silently glare at me.
“……”
For me to escape from her gaze, I hurriedly finished eating breakfast.
It’s not my intention to agitate mother.
“Thanks for the delicious meal.”
“Since you seem to be free, why don’t you at least deliver a bentou to Roxy. She forgot to take it with her again.”
Saying this to me, at the corner of the table, a square shaped lunch box was placed there.
“Blue Mama, to still be forgetting to take the bentou…”
“Sure. I’ll take care of it.”
When I finished washing the dishes after eating, with the bentou in hand, I exited the dining room as if I was trying to flee.”
“Ah, Zeke… That bentou, are you going to deliver it? Thank you.”
As I reached the exit of the dining room, my white-haired mother had just come in.
“If you are going to go out, aren’t you going to at least change your clothes?”
“Don’t forget to brush your teeth too…”
“I get it, I get it!!”
Just to escape from the nagging of my white-haired mother, I returned to my own room.
“Ugh!”
All while taking no notice of the exasperated sigh of my mother behind me.
My name is Zeke.
But everybody calls me Zeke.
I am the second son of the Greyrat family who resides in the Magic City Sharia of the Ranoa Kingdom. I am the fourth eldest of six brothers and sisters.
I have two elder sisters, one elder brother, and two younger sisters.
I am currently unemployed.
So, after graduating from school, I chose to idle instead of working.
However, with how things are now, I’m neither dissatisfied nor in any hurry to change anything.
Rather, I am particularly proud of being unemployed.
Everyone else is bound by their obligations.
For the sake of acquiring these things, they will bend over backward, laugh when they don’t want to, ignore corruption, and even abandon the weak.
However, for the jobless, there is no need to deal with any of those things.
When to bend over backward, laughing when you want to laugh, passing judgment on the wicked, and helping the weak.
Being jobless is a noble existence.
And because of that, I will never get a job.
Adventurers, artisans, and merchants are the ones that never change.
Though I can’t say that it’s bad to live a life bound by obligations, it also can’t be said to be noble, either.
After I decided to shoulder the task of being unemployed, I never once asked for any kind of compensation.
Even though I haven’t asked for any compensation, I have also not refused anything requested of me.
I help people out for free.
That is why I advocate that being Jobless is a noble thing.
“Ah, Zeke. Thank you very much. I was about to spend my lunchtime here without anything to eat.”
“You’re welcome.”
From the time I left the house, about an hour has passed.
For me who isn’t currently working, it’s an easy task to go to that place.
“As a reward, should I give you some pocket money?”
“Is that so…”
Like that, I do not accept any rewards.
There is nothing cheaper than free.
“But, won’t you need some money so you can go job hunting?”
“Ah, hey, Zeke…”
Under a cover of deceptive laughter, I escaped from that place.
My blue-haired mother probably had something extra she wanted to say, but in the end, I only said “Thanks” and bid her farewell.
I think you may have noticed by now, but I do have three mothers.
Father was very affluent, and because he was not a follower of the Milis faith, he took three wives.
Likewise, we children also treated each of them equally as if they were all our mothers.
When I try and explain this to any acquaintances who are of the Milis faith, they can’t seem to fathom a relationship to a mother who isn’t connected by blood, but for me, it’s an ordinary thing.
All of us children were looked after by mothers who didn’t show favoritism.
Though the individual words are different, the meaning is the same.
No matter how much I try and explain how noble it is to be jobless, they show no signs of understanding it.
Well, as expected, I realize that I can’t make them understand me.
If it wasn’t for the affluence of my house, I would have long ago been thrown out.
I know.
Though I am told to go find some work, I am grateful to my mothers for not throwing me out of the house.
However, when it came to the matter of father, I avoided him.
I wonder what my father might say if he saw my present situation…
From the time I was a child I have had deep respect for my father, and it was so tremendous that it’s hard to bear.
Because it’s like that, I wait until it’s daytime and then take a stroll out of the house.
So as long as I don’t go to where my father will be, then it is likely that I will probably not encounter him.
Even if he were to suddenly return home, there is probably still no chance he would show his face here at the Magic Academy.
I would be scolded by the mothers, and I don’t want to be subjected to more pain.
Therefore, I am hanging around a part of the Magic Academy.
Visiting a certain room in the research building.
“Lala-nee, are you here?”
I opened the door while giving it a cursory knock, and inside the room, many things were packed away.
What was written on the papers were primarily Magical Formations.
I enter into the room, careful not to step on any of the papers.
Close to 3 meters in size, it was a big dog.
Lala Greyrat.
She was a regular human being until she became an adult. Then, when she finished the adulthood ceremony of the beast tribe and came back home, she had become majorly hairy.
“Wan!”
“…”
Ah, that was a lie.
According to my older sister who he is always with, he is there to protect her.
Incidentally, may I say, he was the first victim of the wild and whimsical older sister.
“Is Lala-nee back there?”
Leo nodded his head, so accompanying him, I go look into the adjacent room.
It is a girl with blue hair who looks to be about 14 years old.
Incidentally, she is single.
“gogah~… gugah~…”
She is currently sporting an unladylike figure while just wearing one shirt and a pair of panties, and although she was scratching around a sweaty area, she remained fast asleep.
Her sex appeal is nonexistent.
Naturally, they’d be single?
After I quietly closed the door to the bedroom, I returned to the laboratory.
Like those for private use by royals, it was a soft and fluffy chair and clearly a special order product.
I look at one of the pieces of paper scattered about that has come into my hand.
I wonder if it is perhaps magic from the summoning system for use with a magic square formation.
After my older sister graduated from Asura Royal Academy, she became a researcher at Ranoa Magic Academy.
As for her research subjects, they are summoning magic and divination magic.
With summoning magic, whether from far away or another world, Magic Beasts can be summoned. It’s magic used to create quasi-living entities.
Though I don’t specifically know the underlying aspects of the research behind those fields of study…
At any rate, my older sister spends almost every day sleeping away.
And that is not noble.
Of my theory on Noble Unemployment, she is one of the few people who understand.
“But y’know, even though I have free time, I still do plenty of research…”
Since the last time I came here, the number of papers increased.
Though she sleeps in the daytime, perhaps the only time she is active is at night?
“Woof.”
While I look at the paper, Leo approached and placed his head on my knee.
Somehow, father, for all of our sakes, summoned this guardian beast to protect us.
For some reason or another, my sister is somehow special to Leo.
“……”
When I gently pat Leo’s head, in return, he only licked my hand.
But it’s not like we were ever disliked by him.
Perhaps for him, he too was concerned about me being unemployed.
“Are you also worried about me?”
“Not really.”
Out of nowhere, I suddenly heard a voice.
When I looked up, I noticed that my older sister had come out of the bedroom.
As always, she is in just a shirt and panties and in a completely unladylike state.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to enter the room of a young maiden without permission?”
“Then it’s fine… Leo.”
When sister called for Leo, he left from my lap and headed over towards her and curled up.
He had become like a sofa.
“For what reason did you come?”
“I see, then it’s fine to take it easy.”
Following her advice, I sank my body into a chair.
Because the chair is of such quality, I might just fall asleep in it.
“Zeke. ‘That’, are you still doing it?”
“Cheddarman.”
“Um- …yeah.”
That’s my older sister though. Even if I was hiding someone, she would immediately discover them.
Discovering things is her strong point.
“For how long are you planning on continuing?”
“Hmm…”
Even if I was keeping something secret, it’s not like my sister would tell anyone in particular about it.
So because of that, I find it comforting to be able to spend time with her.
“…”
When I think about how silent my older sister is, she began to casually roll a nearby crystal ball that she had picked up with her hand.
Father never said anything about it. Though he had bought it for her as a gift, it had to be a specially ordered product, and likely it was quite expensive.
I feel a little shiver knowing that items like this have just been strewn about in some corner of the room.
She sits there cross-legged holding the crystal ball.
But when magical power is poured into that crystal ball, I can see it is operating something within.
However, I have no clue what I am looking at.
“Zeke.”
“Papa is returning home today.”
“Eh? Wasn’t he supposed to be on a business trip for another 3 days…?”
Divination magic is divination.
Formerly, at least every big country always had at least one person on hand who could use divination magic, but nowadays that practice has completely died out.
Because, excluding the more charismatic divination magicians, even the most practiced users can’t see anything but the trivial parts of the future.
Long story short, most of the divination magicians who send in questionable magic power into a crystal ball use suggestive expressions and insinuations to make others believe that those events are actually probable. They are a real shady bunch.
In the past, a magician of each country often times affected their country’s future path with their divinations. Since a while back though, the number of those who practiced it have decreased, and these days, the number of people learning how to do it are practically nonexistent.
While it can be learned at the Magic Academy, until my older sister enrolled in a divination magic class at the Magic Academy, I hear that for a long time the number of students who enrolled in it was zero.
To be honest, I think it’s quite shady as well.
But, as it is with my sister’s whimsical nature, she chose it as a major course of study.
While there might be a purpose behind it, because it was something my whimsical sister did, there probably is no actual meaning behind it.
“I just saw white mama cheerfully picking out a pair of white panties. So probably, papa will come home. Perhaps his work ended early.”
It’s not that my sister isn’t a charismatic divination magician, but by just using that expensive magical tool, it seems there’s never a time she can’t see something there.
In that case, the things the practitioner saw, combined with other information, allows them to derive the correct interpretation of what was inferred.
Of course my sister is dead on with this skill.
I think it’s fine that she has no pride.
What? Even under pain of death, I won’t ever call her an ordinary divination magician.
And should you be divining for other magicians, “Deep in the mountain range is a lone giant.
Though it seems there is a reason for expressing things that way… if they were instead like my sister who doesn’t need to put on airs to appear to be effective, then wouldn’t there be no need to label it as something shady?
“Then, I just won’t go home today.”
“Mm… well…”
“Always like that. Zeke, you are such an idiot~”
This is my older sister’s favorite phrase.
In the old days, I often wondered if they held any meaning in them, though she says it to pretty much anyone, so it might just be a bad habit after all.
“It’s good to be an idiot.”
“I see.”
My older sister casually tosses the expensive crystal ball which lands somewhere with a thump, buries herself into Leo, and yawns.
Behaving like usual despite even having company around.
I didn’t mind that my sister went back to sleep and decided to pass the time leisurely until the early afternoon.
Early Afternoon.
I still had a bit of time before a certain store I was waiting for would be open.
So in the meantime, I took a look at things around the city.
Quite by accident, I discovered a carriage at a standstill before me.
The owner of the carriage and an attendant were gathering all the scattered packages strewn about the ground while appearing distraught.
I didn’t plan to go over there and impose on them to help repair what broke off the axle, but I wasn’t going to just leave either when I considered the likelihood of the goods being stolen, so I also asked if they needed a hand with repairs.
Though it seems like they really are in trouble.
“Shall I lend a hand?”
“Then, shall we fix that axle?”
I lift the carriage up and fix the back up at the proper working height.
Slipping in under it, I hardened the axle by using some soil magic.
“It’s nothing more than first aid, but it should hold fine for about an hour.”
“As expected from ya…”
The merchant was watching with admiration as I went about repairing the axle.
Why at the Royal Academy? You must consider that when it comes to knights and nobles, traveling in carriages is a commonplace thing.
Though, a noble would never repair a carriage by themselves.
Afterwards, I casually lowered the carriage down, reloaded the packages, and helped the merchant up onto the coachman’s seat.
“Yeah, you really saved me there. Please let me pay you something. Though I don’t have too much coin on hand…”
“Is that how it is? …You are indeed a child of the Greyrat family. And a truly splendid person too.”
From those words, giving me an immense feeling of satisfaction, I left that place.
“Yo~ Zeke-kun, good job today!”
“Oh, Ossan*, thanks!”
Suddenly, from the fruit shop’s boss, he threw a red fruit he was holding over to me.
I took the fruit, brought it to my mouth, and bit right into it.
It had a bittersweet and refreshing taste which spread in my mouth.
“Should we be troubled, we’ll be counting on you.”
“Ha ha ha.”
This fruit is not considered compensation.
Besides, if the fruit shop’s boss is troubled, I would help him regardless of being given this fruit, and at that time, I wouldn’t ask for a reward then either.
In other words, this fruit is a freebie.
“Ou~, Zeke-kun! Because of your help the other day, I managed to get some good quality meat in stock, so thanks a lot!”
“Yo, Zeke-kun. Thanks for your help recently! Thanks to you, a healthy child was born!”
“Zeke! We’re about to play hide-and-seek after this, do you wanna come too!?”
“I have to quit for now. I have to get home before it gets dark!”
When I walk through town, various people call out to me.
To everyone, I am just a good samaritan.
I kill some time while wandering around while thinking on things, and while I do, the sun sets. It seems that I have come to the place that was my destination all along.
-The Drunken Goblin-.
There isn’t particularly good liquor, and the cooking here is only so-so.
Preferring the dark and quiet atmosphere, there are only people possessing scars from head to toe.
Entering the bar, I immediately found a face I recognized right away.
I took a seat in front of him.
“Yo, George, how’s business?”
“Zeke… today is looking good. A lot of money came in!”
As he works in the market as a day-laborer, he earns his cash on a daily basis.
If I were to judge him as a villain, then as for all those brats who live downtown, I would have no choice but to annihilate them all.
Business is always good for him; he always earns plenty of money everyday, is always in a good mood, and always happily gulps down his beer.
Maybe he’s the type who’s not attached to money?
“George, have you heard any interesting rumors?”
“Yeah, in the usual sense.”
George is a contact man.
So, here at times, I can learn a stock of other information.
“Let’s see… it might be a little bit dangerous.”
“Recently, there appears to be some strange medicine circulating in this area.”
“When inhaled, it makes people feel as if they were floating up to heaven.”
It’s drugs.
Father pays meticulous attention to make sure that this is not distributed here in the city.
“Where?”
“As for where the pushers are, I don’t have a clue. But recently, the head clerk of the Reiji store, or so I have heard, night after night goes to visit a certain warehouse with no sign of other people. Incidentally, I’ve also heard that he’s become awfully influential these days as well.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s guilty.
However, the chance that Reiji Shop’s head clerk is related to this matter is probably high.
“And the location of this warehouse?”
“I don’t know precisely where it is. However, there are only so many warehouses that Reiji Shop owns. So if we were to talk of a warehouse that was devoid of people…”
From George, I managed to elicit the expected location of the warehouse.
And I hit upon a warehouse that, even at midday, has few signs of life around.
It’s not even an exaggeration to say it’s unmanned even at night.
“Thanks, yo.”
“About?”
“Ah, I do.”
George is a generous guy after all, so he’s not going to take money from me.
And I tell him what I can.
It’s not compensation.
Even if I don’t have any new information for him, George will still tell me what I need, and I am also like that.
In other words, this is just small talk.
“I’ve heard a story that she never comes out of her laboratory, is she doing something dangerous in there?”
“Divination Magic? Is that something like fortune-telling?”
“Ah~”
George does not desire money from me.
But in all likelihood, there isn’t a way.
It’s not my fault if he went barking up the wrong tree.
The time is now midnight.
The time when people fall asleep.
The end of the day.
But my time is not yet over.