Mystery: Lucky One

"It's almost time," Edwina quickly put away her regretful look, "Although you probably don't need to eat, but... do you want to try the dinner on the ship?"

"No, I need to," Alice said seriously, "Children need to eat and sleep on time, otherwise they won't grow tall."

"...Okay." Edwina's expression gradually lost its initial calmness and became more and more complicated.

She led Alice out of the collection room and headed for the restaurant. Halfway through, she seemed to remember something and asked, "Why don't you doubt that Groselle's Travels was written by Roselle?"

"Ah?" Alice looked confused.

"Hermann asked that," Edwina explained.

Alice looked up at the cosplay ceiling on top of the cabin, and then explained:

“There are two main reasons.

“First, if Russell wrote this, he would definitely shout about it everywhere, wishing that the whole world would know that he wrote it.

"Secondly... this book, uh, this book is so badly written."

This is obviously not a famous work, and it is too bad to be used as an online novel. It can’t be written by the emperor in his previous life...

Could it be that he couldn't afford to eat while writing novels and then starved to death? !
Alice lowered her head and began to think. Edwina glanced at her and asked curiously:
"Why do you sound like you know Emperor Roselle very well? Um, you admire him very much?"

"…Why do you think so?" Alice raised her head in confusion.

"You said this book was so poorly written that it didn't seem like he wrote it..." Edwina said, looking at her.

Alice opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say something, but she swallowed her words in the end, nodded, and said seriously:
“Yes, I admire Emperor Roselle very much. He has done many things that I cannot even imagine.

“He really shocked me!”

After all, a normal person can’t write a series of diaries about “The taste of being a witch is really good”…

Alice suppressed the tendency to curl up the corners of her mouth, trying not to let her true thoughts show through her smile.

She has completely overlooked the fact that, except for the first work in the so-called series of diaries, the rest are actually her sequels.

Edwina looked at Alice's serious expression and realized that she was lying.

No, it can't be considered a lie, or rather, she didn't think she was lying, otherwise she would have started looking around guiltily... With such a righteous attitude, she should at least acknowledge that she was telling the truth.

She...didn't tell the whole truth?
In other words, she should really "admire" Roselle because Roselle has done things that ordinary people would not do or could not do...

Are they those inventions and creations...? No, that's not right, if that were the case her attitude wouldn't be so strange...

Come to think of it, she said she came from before the First Age. Was there civilization at that time? Didn't there even be humans at that time...

Edwina frowned.

Although she still couldn't figure it out, Edwina didn't forget the business. She took Alice to the restaurant and came to the room that belonged to the captain.

"The more special food here is yogurt, which can be added with strawberry jam or honey," Edwina said, pointing to the food outside the door. "There are also several kinds of dried fish that are good. They are from the deep sea and have not yet been named."

As she spoke, she walked out the door and demonstrated to Alice with her actions. Alice then followed Edwina, taking whatever Edwina took and taking as much as Edwina took.

After repeating this several times, Edwina finally couldn't stand it anymore and turned around and suggested: "You can cook according to your own taste."

Alice nodded in sudden realization, so Edwina turned back to get food with peace of mind, and then she found that Alice's actions had not changed at all.

She turned her head with a complicated expression and met Alice's innocent big eyes.

She didn't say anything, so Alice didn't say anything either. She just looked at her quietly, blinking from time to time. The other pirates also tacitly avoided the two of them, leaving them staring at each other.

Two minutes later, Edwina couldn't stand it anymore and asked, "...What are you doing?"

Her voice revealed a sense of exhaustion from the bottom of her heart, but Alice's next words obviously made her speechless:

"We are all wooden people. We can't talk, laugh, move or jump. Let's see who can do the best!"

This was obviously a children's song. Even though she had never played a similar game, Edwina understood the rules of the game. She opened her mouth, but finally gave up trying to reason with Alice and asked:
"Then why are you copying my moves?"

Alice tilted her head and explained:

"At first, I followed you because you were demonstrating, but later on...

"You seemed to mind me copying your moves, so I just kept following you..."

"...Normally, if you find out that I mind, you shouldn't stop doing it, right?" Edwina tried to reason with Alice.

"But it's more fun to keep doing this," Alice said seriously.

"..." Edwina was speechless. She turned her head and continued to get food.

——It’s pointless to debate whether or not a child who only wants to have fun should or should not do something. You just need to tell her whether or not she can do it.

But even after understanding this, Edwina realized that there was no way she could take the next step - to make Alice agree from the bottom of her heart that this could not be done.

After all, she couldn't beat Alice and couldn't make her afraid, and she couldn't threaten her with something that Alice cared about...

Edwina, who previously taught more adult students, realized for the first time how difficult it was to raise a child - especially when that child was an angel.

She felt that she would never forget German Sparrow in her life.

Edwina's not-so-intense feedback made Alice lose interest in continuing to imitate. She silently took a few steps back to her starting position and added some more food.

Can I take them all and taste them all... No, forget it, that's not good. I can stay here for a while longer so I can eat more...

Without Edwina's knowledge, she successfully achieved her goal - to keep Alice on the ship a little longer so that she could get some knowledge for free... no, she was trying to get information.

After all, it was already a fact that the secret organization behind Gehrman Sparrow had, uh, a Level 0 Sealed Artifact that could run, jump, eat, drink, and talk...

After a while, Alice got the food. Edwina had come back before her and sat at the table to eat.

Alice thought for a moment, then took the plate and sat opposite Edwina, and began to eat dried fish with yogurt and jam. (End of this chapter)