Chapter 246: Sounds more like a thief to me

“Hmm, like I thought, I haven’t grown much…”

I said so with a sigh while looking at the lines of the height measuring device. The device I was using was made in the village’s workshop and was currently installed in my home.

I have been measuring my height for about a year now, but I have apparently grown by only a centimeter. And lately, it felt like I have stopped growing entirely, not even by a tiny, tiny bit.

“Nah, must be just my imagination…yup, I’m sure I’ll grow a lot one of these days.”

“Fufufu, there’s no need to stress about it, Luke-sama.”

“Millia?”

“After all, you look perfect just the way you are. (*Looks like her magic’s working, doesn’t it? Like this, Luke-sama should be able to keep his young appearance…gufufufufu…*)”

Millia said so, but I for one wanted to grow bigger.

I haven’t picked up a skill that allows me to change my appearance, have I?

At any rate, winter was fast approaching our village.

But since we had railway systems that ran underground—as opposed to last year where we only had roads aboveground—there likely won’t be a decrease in the number of people travelling to our village even in the winter.

When spring arrives after the wasteland’s long winter, I would be turning 14.

It would also mark the second year of the village.

So many things have happened within those 2 years. This year was especially hectic though.

Around late spring, Raul led an army of 5,000 soldiers against us. And come autumn, we found ourselves clashing against father. Thankfully, we managed to overcome both of them.

The dissolution of the Albert territory has served as a major impetus for the skirmishes throughout the kingdom to die down.

And then, when the kingdom’s army—which was being strengthened more and more each day thanks in part to Raul’s efforts—announced that it would be intervening in any ongoing wars within the kingdom, even the most hot-blooded of lords seemed to have quieted down.

“It looks like the kingdom’s going to be peaceful at last, doesn’t it?”

◇　◇　◇

And so, we have completely transitioned into winter.

The first winter we had here was rather rough, but we seemed to be having it easy this year. As such, I had decided to hold a few small-scale events.

First in the list was to hold christmas.

“Christmas?”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

This world didn’t have that kind of culture, after all.

“It’s an event where an old man with a white beard rides a sleigh pulled by reindeers and goes house to house during the night to deliver presents to children.”

Christmas was originally a more solemn thing though…

“Eh? He breaks inside homes through the chimney?”

“Sounds more like a thief to me.”

“…uhh, well, don’t worry about that part, ok?”

And when it comes to christmas, of course there had to be christmas trees.

We had planted a large tree in the village’s plaza and decorated it.

And then, it was already Christmas eve.

…by the way, the date I set for when we would celebrate Christmas was chosen at random.

“Everyone, are you ready?”

“““YES!!”””

The ones who answered were my body doubles who, at the moment, wore red clothing as well as fake beards.

Each of them was to stealthily enter the villagers’ homes using teleportation and place a present by the bed of the children.

As for what the presents held within, they were things that a child typically liked, such as sweets and toys.

That said, since we distributed the presents randomly, there unfortunately was the chance that they may get something that they didn’t exactly wish for.

The following morning, the village was full of smiling children.

And it wasn’t just the children.

“There was a present in my home too!”

“Mine too!”

Since the adults thought we were only giving presents to the children, they were greatly pleased when they discovered that we left a little something for them too.

Another way our Christmas was different from a traditional one was the snowball fighting competition we did.

The villagers were divided into two teams, the east and the west.

Each team was to throw snowballs at the other. If one gets hit anywhere in the body by an enemy’s snowball, they were eliminated. The match would end when either team has all their members eliminated.

The field of play was the entire village except for the inside of buildings.

It was a lot of fun, but it sure took an awful lot of time.

Especially so towards the end when it was only Selius-kun of the east team and Dill-san of the west team that remained. The competition was now only between the two of them, so one would think it would end soon. However, it was anything but that.

Selius-kun could expertly avoid the incoming snowballs, while Dill-san excelled at stealth and enemy detection. The both of them carried their respective team’s hope for victory, so they did the best they could to win.

However, after about a week, the contest still hasn’t concluded.

The other villagers had already returned to their everyday life a long time ago, yet the two still continued on.

It ended when Selius-kun dozed off from exhaustion and Dill-san threw a snowball at him.

Like that, Dill-san managed to secure the win.

“I-I’ll have my revenge next year…!”

“You wanna go again, huh, Selius-kun…”