Chapter 42

I ate my brother’s portion of Yokan and finished the meal with a cup of tea to cleanse my palate.

“Thanks for the food.”

Phew, it was delicious.

Now, what is Yuya doing?

I turned around and there he was, my little brother was playing with a girl.

“What do you want to be in the future, Yuya-kun?, I want to be a flower shop owner.”

“I am a plane!”

There is a remarkable difference in their mental maturity.

Oh well, maybe the girls already have dreams for the future.

“Yuya is making friends on his own, and I’m going to do my own socializing …… but first I will do some research.”

I have tried secretly waving my tentacles at an Abe family get-together and no one noticed.

A little tentacle crawling should be no problem.

I let the tentacles grab one of my strands of hair and stretch it far away.

When I have extended it to the maximum, I set a trap and leave it for a while—.

“Wow, there’s a lot of them.”

Less than a minute after setting the trap, the mysterious creatures latched onto, two of them at once.

They were as unguarded as unscratched fish.

As I suspected, Onmyoji’s house must have a lot of mysterious creatures. Perhaps powerful Onmyoji occupy this kind of land or houses. As a result, there is a difference in spiritual power from the time they are babies, and the difference in their spiritual power leads to a difference in performance, which in turn leads to more authority. ……

Is it no different from the harsh reality of any other society?

So, I wonder if there are more of them in the Abe family.

I was indeed hesitant to set a trap because there were too many active Onmyoji at that time, but I should have tried.

“Something on your mind?”

The voice of a young girl asking me this question reaches my right ear.

I knew the girl was approaching me from the feel of her stepping on my tentacles.

“No, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to play with.”

I faced the owner of the voice with a deceptive smile on my face.

In front of me stood a young girl in a kimono, a little taller than me.

The kimono was of the same design as the one I had seen just a few moments before, and her face was also very similar to the one I had seen just a few moments before.

However, since her facial muscles were not working properly, the impression I got was very different.

“I haven’t seen you since the get-together. How are you doing, Minamoto-san?”

She is the eldest daughter of the Minamoto family, Minamoto …… Minamoto …… Oh, it’s not Shizuka, it’s a name close to that ……. I can’t get Shizuka out of my head.

Let’s see, what was her name again? I think it was a cool-looking name that matched her appearance.

“Hi, Kyobe-san, I’m glad to hear you are doing well.”

A textbook exchange.

However, I felt something strange.

Yes, the fact that two children are having such a conversation is strange to begin with.

I lived until I became an old man in a previous life, but this girl is the same age as me in this life, I believe.

She speaks in a very sophisticated manner for a 4-year-old.

My kindergarten classmates speak in a flutterier manner.

“Thank you for inviting me here today.”

“No, I didn’t do anything. Everything was prepared by my parents.”

See, I knew it. This girl is much smarter compared to the other kids.

I feel like it’s been a while since I had a proper conversation with someone of the same height.

Her matter-of-fact way of speaking makes me feel nostalgic, in a way it is similar to a female colleague making a work-related administrative call.

By the way, that particular lady raises her voice by one tone only for good-looking men.

“This is sudden, but I have one question for Kyobe-san.”

In other words, I naturally responded to her as an adult because of the way she talked to me.

Normally, I would act like a four-year-old but changing to child mode now would make me feel uncomfortable. I guess I’ll just have to stick with it for now.

“Ask me anything, I’m at your disposal.”

What was her intention in suddenly talking to me in this position between the table and the toy box, out of the way of other children?

It’s not a child’s job to entertain invited guests. …… or maybe she saw my tentacles using Onmyojutsu ……?

“What do you think of all the children that are here?”

“………”

I can’t decipher the purpose of this question.

I mean, it’s not a question a 4-year-old would ask.

Don’t tell me this girl is a reincarnated person like me?

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t the children here, or rather children of our age, seem to be too childish?”

Both you and I are childish enough in appearance.

How can you expect me to answer that?

Childish huh? …… That’s accurate because they are children old enough to go to kindergarten, but to her it probably looks different.

She may be growing up mentally much faster than the little girl who wants to be a florist.

Looking into her intense eyes, that prediction is the most plausible.

She is not a cheat like me who got reincarnated, she is a natural born genius.

“Yes, they may be childish compared to us. But isn’t that fine?”

“……… you don’t think it’s weird?”

“It’s more like we’re the ones who are acting weird. So, I don’t think you need to worry about it.”

I wondered if this was the right answer. An ordinary person cannot understand what a genius is looking for.

After hearing my answer, she stared at me with a blank expression on her face.

Her eyes, which are hung like her mother’s, give her a stern impression, but I think she will become a beauty when she grows up and her face matures.

Right now, her eyes doesn’t suit her because she has plump face that’s typical of children, but her face will become slender once she grows up.

While Akari has a cute tanuki face, this girl has the potential to grow up to be a cool fox-looking beauty.

Her mother is also beautiful, no doubt about it. If she were an actress, she would look perfect as a wife of a mobster.

Like her mother, she wears her black hair in a bun at the back of her head, so I don’t know how long it is, but I’m sure she has grown it out like I have. After all hair is a trump card when it comes to Onmyojutsu.

While I was observing her, she seemed to have reached some kind of conclusion, nodded her head once and began to speak.

“I see, it certainly doesn’t sound like I need to worry about it.”

“I hope my opinion was helpful to you, Minamoto-san.”

I wonder what the hell is going on in her head.

What kind of mind does she have to have to worry about the differences between herself and others at the age of four?

Those questions should have come to her in the eighth grade or high school.

“By the way, ……”

She said to me, who was surprised at the chance encounter with a genius whom I had never met even in my previous life.

“My name is Shizuku. Since you don’t seem to remember my name, I would like to introduce myself once again.”

“Oh, I’m …… Kyobe Hijiri. Thank you for your consideration.”

My voice unintentionally lowers in embarrassment.

Wait, how did she know?

Is she reading my mind?

I mean, if you’re a genius, is mind-reading a standard feature?

There are those above me.

I never thought I would meet a genius in a place like this, someone I could not beat even in my second life cycle.

And the other party is born into money and power.

Just a few minutes ago, I said something like, “Don’t worry about your peers,” but yet now I was feeling the disparity.

“Kyobe-san, if you’re not in the mood for anything else, why don’t you come over there and play cards with me?”

“With pleasure. I’d like to ……, but …… you don’t have to worry about …… me. I I’m sure you’re quite busy, Minamoto-san.”

I don’t think of this little girl as a little girl anymore.

I will treat her as an adult. If she is like an adult, she probably has to entertain the invited guests.

The children here are from much richer and more powerful families than the Kyobe family.

They must have higher priority.

“It is not a problem. Now please come this way.”

She brushed off my comment and sat down close to the room where the adults were.

The servants have prepared cushions for us to sit on before long, while I take a seat in front of her.

It looks like I’ll have to wait until later to interact with the promising-looking kids who came to the tea party.

“So, what shall we do; there’s not much we can do with just the two of us. Let’s invite the other children to join us.”

“No, let’s play with just the two of us. How about Speed*?”

Minamoto-san was strong.

Her brain specs were off the charts, and her decision-making speed was clearly faster than mine.

When I was about to take out a card, Minamoto-san’s has already tossed that card.

In the end, I had to resort to using Body Strengthening to win.

I did something that was completely immature.

Who said that winning or losing doesn’t matter when playing?

“It was the first time I played cards with kids my age and found it fun. Thank you very much for your time.”

“No, I was the one who had a good time.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve given my all for a game like this. It wasn’t bad.

She said, “Excuse me,” and then spoke to a girl nearby.

Probably, she was going to go around greeting others.

With the name of Minamoto Shizuku etched in my memory, I too approached a promising young fellow I had met at a social gathering.

—

*Speed