Chapter : 09
What Eleanor Raef Said: Evan Raef, For Everyone, Yet Belonging to No One
Eleanor Raef, who had just turned forty this year, was deeply troubled.
The young lady she had raised while changing her dirty diapers had been acting strange lately.
Of course, the young lady being strange was nothing new. On the day she took her first steps, she shoved an oil barrel into the fireplace, causing an explosion that burned an entire room to the ground. Eleanor could never forget the sight of the young lady laughing merrily as she danced around in the aftermath of that spectacular little fire.
What on earth is she going to become when she grows up?
When she was five, the young lady beat the stuffing out of seven trainee knights who were training in the practice yard. At seven, she acquired the Freezing skill and froze to death a five-hundred-year-old pine tree that had been known as the guardian tree of the ducal estate.
Duke Nephtis had spent years traveling all over the empire searching for a mage who would marry into his family. In the end, a child with a valuable skill had been born as his eldest daughter.
The duke had wept with joy, proclaiming that a mage had finally been born into their family.
The following year, the young lady neglected to properly care for her pet drake and ended up killing twenty innocent residents of the territory.
What on earth is she going to become when she grows up?
The duke spoiled his daughter rotten, while the duchess was indifferent toward her children. So Eleanor decided that at least she would keep her head on straight. She raised the young lady by giving her plenty of discipline.
And this was the result.
āMom! Today, Iām definitely going to catch a tuna!ā
āWhat do you mean, tuna?!ā
Despite the ordeal she had gone through the other day, Evan cheerfully grabbed her harpoon and set off aboard Thomasās boat.
The young lady was strange.
She had grown up in such luxury that she apparently thought she needed to earn her own living, which was why she had come back to her hometown, Ilram.
Yet at present, the person actually supporting the household was Miss Evan Raef.
The money Evan earned was already incomparably greater than what Eleanor made operating her sewing machine.
Eleanor had no idea where Evan went or what she did all day, but she brought home increasingly larger sums of money as the days passed.
When she had once gone out carrying a pickaxe, happily digging for magic stones, Eleanor had been touched, thinking that perhaps the young lady had decided to earn her own spending money.
But these days, she would come home carrying a whole load of fairly high-quality magic stones, then go to the Adventurer’s Guild and casually exchange them for one million or two million crowns.
The blue marlin she had caught the other day had been skillfully cut up and sold piece by piece by Thomas, earning them three million crowns.
Even when Evan was at home, she never seemed to spend her time idly.
One day, a man who introduced himself as the branch manager of the Adventurer’s Guild in Ilram came to visit. He asked her to take on some work and then practically cried and begged her to register as an adventurer.
And that wasn’t all.
People looking for Evan came regardless of their age or gender.
The neighborhood women’s association, the young men’s association, and even the senior citizens’ association all came looking for Evan.
It was a network of connections that was difficult to believe she had built after living in Ilram for barely a month.
Then, one day, a whole group of little children showed up and offered one hundred thousand crowns, asking if āBig Sister Evanā was there.
Worried that perhaps the young lady had even started extorting children, Eleanor asked them about it.
The children shook their heads.
Their parents had given them the money and told them to go to Big Sister Evan and play.
Apparently, the young lady was also being used as a childcare facility in Ilram.
Eleanor had no idea how exactly she played with them, but even though she put the children to work mining magic stones, smiles never left their faces.
They came home with their clothes completely filthy, but since the children exhausted all their energy and slept like the dead at night, the women’s association showered Evan with praise.
Eleanor didn’t know what to make of it.
Still, it seemed the young lady had, more or less, grown up into a good person.
But Eleanor simply couldn’t understand what was going on inside her head.
āWhewā¦ā
āChirp? Chirp-chirp.ā
Eleanor sighed as she shared some leftover bread with the enormous sparrow Evan had brought home.
When the young lady had suffered such a devastating heartbreak over His Imperial Highness, then declared that she wanted to call Eleanor āMom,ā Eleanor had thought, Well, maybe raising her wasn’t a complete waste after all.
But she had never imagined that being rejected by a man would completely change a person.
Being nasty, strange, and violent had been normal for her from the beginning.
But now, somehow, the young lady had becomeā¦ respectable?
Or perhaps Eleanor should simply be grateful that she no longer committed crimes.
āThe young lady has becomeā¦ā
āChirp?ā
āTooā¦ nice.ā
āCHIRP?!ā
Just imagine how things would have gone in the past.
The moment Thomas had spoken roughly to her, he would have been a dead man.
She would have used that Freezing skill she was so proud of.
The young lady had seemingly never heard a harsh word from anyone in her entire life, so Eleanor had worried about how she would react.
Fortunately, Evan had held herself back and even become friends with Thomas.
Eleanor could only think that the heavens had intervened.
Who could have imagined that after being rejected by a man and kicked out of the ducal family, the young lady would one day finally become a proper human being?
What kind of person had the young lady been before?
Hadn’t she been known as the Mad Dog of Nephtis?
Eleanor had actually found the nickname rather cute.
Because the young lady wasn’t merely mad like an ordinary mad dog.
She was a genuinely, completely fucking insane mad dog.
For starters, she didn’t regard people as people.
She simply regarded them as numbers.
The only humans she considered her equals were the duke and duchess.
And, as a special exception, she had included the nanny who had raised her all her life.
She gave the Crowell Imperial Family a vague measure of respect, too.
As for everyone else, she didn’t even bother remembering their names.
Didn’t the young lady even fail to know how many younger siblings she had?
When Evan remembered Thomas’s name and called him āUncle Thomas,ā Eleanor had nearly burst into tears.
āThe young lady remembered the name of a lowly commoner like Thomasā¦ā
āCHIRRRRRP?!ā
Just like the animal the young lady had picked up, this one was quite peculiar too.
Its reactions were always so expressive.
Eleanor giggled as she stroked the sparrow, then picked up and ate some dried persimmons from a gift set the women’s association had given her.
Come to think of it, that had also been a present they had sent to Evan, asking her to continue taking good care of the neighborhood.
What exactly have I raised?
Perhaps she had raised a monster that should never have been unleashed upon the world.
āWell, as long as she doesn’t kill anyone.ā
āChirp! Chirp-chirp!ā
After all, what kind of major trouble could a young lady who was now nothing more than an ordinary commoner possibly cause?
Thinking optimistically, Eleanor shared the dried persimmons with the sparrow.
To put it rather coldly, however, Eleanor was severely underestimating Evan Raef.
