LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 169
“Hey!!! That girl is so pitiful!!!”
After reading <The Little Match Girl>, Aida clung to Rupert, sobbing, and bit his neck.
However, this time, Rupert felt real urgency at Aida’s tantrum, which he used to laugh off.
“This isn’t just a little fuss anymore?!”
It was on a whole different level from when she had pouted after reading <The Little Mermaid> and lightly tapped his back with her tiny hand.
Thinking that if this continued, he might die long before being honored as a Duke, he urgently had to comfort Aida.
“Aida, don’t cry.”
“Why?”
“Santa doesn’t give gifts to crying children.”
“Santa?”
Rupert slightly modified the story of Christmas and Santa from Earth, explaining it to Aida in a way that suited another world.
“A grandpa who rides a sleigh pulled by a red-nosed reindeer and gives out presents.”
“Wow!!!”
“But he only gives gifts to good children for the entire year.”
“Aida is good!”
“Yeah, Aida is a good girl, so you shouldn’t bite or hit me! And you mustn’t cry, right?”
“Okay!”
Thanks to Santa, Rupert felt revived.
Of course, he thought about dressing up Marquis Bradley as Santa to give presents to Aida later, but if he viewed it as an event for his cute little sister, it actually seemed like a good thing.
However, he didn’t know that after hearing Rupert’s story, Aida had fallen deep into thought.
“Rach, what if my subordinates, who are all crybabies, don’t get gifts?”
“Woof!”
Aida believed that since she was good and wasn’t crying anymore, Santa certainly would give her gifts.
But she was troubled thinking about the children in her neighborhood who looked up to her as their leader and the parentless kids staying at the church.
Those kids were timid and weak compared to Aida, and she remembered how they always came crying after being bullied by the kids from neighboring villages.
The thought that the Santa Rupert mentioned might not give gifts to neighborhood kids left Aida feeling gloomy.
So she made up her mind to become Santa herself for the kids who wouldn’t receive gifts.
“What would you like?”
“Captain! I want the Thousand Puzzle Necklace from King of Cards!”
“I was envious of the protagonists’ swords from Van Helsing…”
Immediately after, Aida rode Rach down to the village, visiting each child one by one to find out what gifts they wanted and later went to find Kroon in the workshop.
“Huh? You want me to make this?”
“Yup!”
The note Aida handed over listed the names of the village kids along with their desired gifts.
“Most of them are toys.”
Kroon thought that these could easily be made from leftover materials or scrap stored in the workshop.
“Alright, I got it. If it’s a request from our young lady, I should do it for free.”
“Not for free! Aida will buy them with her own money.”
“What? Isn’t it Rupert’s money anyway…”
“No! Aida will gift them with her own earned money.”
Then Aida showed Kroon a drawing she had made with her clumsy skills.
“Is this a sleigh?”
Kroon, noticing the distinct squiggly lines of a child’s drawing, wondered how Aida, who had never seen a sleigh used in the North, knew about it, but what caught his attention more was the weird animal pulling the sleigh.
Other parts were barely recognizable, but the prominent red dot on the nose stood out.
“Make this too!”
“You’re just like your brother.”
Kroon thought that Aida’s request for items was remarkably similar to how Rupert would act if he dropped something off.
Having made sleighs a few times before, Kroon assured her it wouldn’t be difficult to make one, and Aida bounced around the workshop joyfully.
Then, upon Aida’s insistence to pay, Kroon casually asked for just 5 silver.
He figured that amount could easily be covered by her allowance given by the Marquis whenever she went to the village.
However, contrary to Kroon’s expectations, Aida hurriedly set off to collect that money.
“Buy me matches!”
“Aida, are you short on your allowance? Why suddenly matches…”
“No! It’s a secret.”
After buying a bunch of matches at the village general store, Aida followed everyone she encountered in the mansion’s staff and workshop employees, insisting they buy matches from her.
Though Aida loved trailing after characters from fairy tales, she normally would have given out matches for free instead of selling them.
Even when Rupert suspiciously asked Aida why she was selling them so expensively, she simply shut her mouth and replied it was a secret.
Others just thought it was adorable to see a tiny girl running around selling matches, so they bought them thinking they were simply giving her their allowances, and Aida quickly made way more than the initial 5 silver she aimed for.
“Woof!”
With a red trinket adorning her nose like the reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh, Aida was imagining herself riding a sleigh around town, distributing gifts to the children.
***
“Hey Kroon, have you taught the golem how to learn?”
“Learn? I only know how to make them. I don’t even know how to do that.”
Jenia, who was busy assisting with research and lectures at the academy during the weekdays, had been squeezing in time on weekends to work on the new golem.
Since Kroon had already built the structure, all that remained was for her to apply her magical knowledge to finish it.
However, upon checking the state of the new golem, Jenia wore a serious expression.
“It shouldn’t be able to learn on its own…”
The remaining task for the nearly completed golem was learning.
Starting with understanding human speech, it had to be trained to assist Rupert in his work.
But,
“Please give me a name.”
The new golem, which hadn’t learned anything yet, naturally spoke to Jenia.
Trying to understand what was going on, Jenia turned off the new golem to investigate.
“There’s clearly nothing wrong with my design or Kroon’s creation…”
Re-checking confirmed there was nothing amiss; everything had been built exactly as intended.
“Do other people besides Kroon come here?”
“That can’t be! While I’m gone, I lock the door tightly with a dwarven lock so that no one can come in.”
Amidst Kroon’s adamant denial, Jenia recalled him boasting about the lock he used to bolt the workshop door.
It was clearly a complex structure that would make it nearly impossible to enter without damaging it.
‘What on earth is going on…’
Oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, Kroon thought it was a good thing if the learning process was happening on its own.
But Jenia had to consider the possibility of her new golem deviating from control.
She had several safety measures prepared, but if unforeseen variables like this arose, they might be useless.
“For now, we need to observe it a bit longer.”
“Understood. I’ll make sure no one can come in.”
Having confirmed the state of the new golem, Jenia was about to leave Kroon’s workshop to return to the academy.
But a frantic voice called out to her.
“Jenia!!!”
“Rupert?”
“Is this a good time? I have something urgent to discuss…”
The voice calling her as she tried to leave the mansion was none other than Rupert.
Since the production of the new golem was a secret even from Rupert, Jenia had been trying to leave quietly, but seeing that he looked very anxious, she had no choice but to respond.
“What’s going on?”
“Is there magic that makes it snow?”
“Huh?”
Desperately, Rupert was asking her to make it snow.
***
“Why is our Santa Aida sprawled on the floor?”
Having returned home after briefly meeting with Esteban at the Yuren Merchant Association, Rupert noticed that Aida, who would normally dash over to him at the sound of his footsteps, was nowhere to be found.
When he found her in the room, Aida was wearing the Santa costume made for her by the workshop’s staff but was lying on the floor instead of on her bed.
“Aida… you’re not Santa.”
Seeing Aida’s downcast voice, Rupert wondered what had happened.
It was the first time Rupert was taken aback to see Aida, usually overflowing with energy, so downcast.
“What happened? Tell me, Aida.”
When Rupert helped Aida up and asked, she answered, choking back sobs.
“Brother… they said the sleigh can’t run!”
“Sleigh?”
Rupert couldn’t quite grasp what she meant, but as Aida kept mumbling about sleighs, he hurriedly went to find Kroon.
“Kroon, what happened to Aida?”
“Well, that’s…”
As soon as he heard Aida mention the word ‘sleigh’, Rupert suspected it must have something to do with Kroon, and indeed Kroon explained what had happened.
“I made the sleigh because she asked for it! But sleighs are for snowy regions in the North! Here in the South, since it doesn’t snow, I just told her it can’t run…”
“Ugh… is this my fault?”
Realizing Aida’s gloom, Rupert finally understood why she was upset.
Just like the Santa story he told her, Aida wanted to run with the sleigh, and upon hearing that it couldn’t because it wasn’t snowing, she was disappointed.
‘If only it were about money, I could manage something…’
Making it snow in Somerset Territory, which is relatively warm even in the winter, was beyond even Rupert’s capabilities.
As he pondered whether there was some way to do it while strolling through the mansion’s garden, he spotted Jenia making her way out.
“Uh, Jenia?”