《Only I Am A Reader》Chapter 22 - Arrival of The Event Day! ‘Home Defense’ Plan Starts!
Advertisement
Chapter 22 - Arrival of The Event Day! ‘Home Defense’ Plan Starts!
‘I should get up…’
Lying in his hammock and staring at the gigantic sword on the horizon, Leo started gathering his will to leave the bed…
In reality, Leo had already woken up a few hours earlier than scheduled, almost at sunrise, unable to indulge in sleeping more than necessary. The reason for Leo’s insomnia was very obvious, his mind was simply too active thinking about how today would end.
Although he had completed every last bit of his preparations, almost to perfection, Leo still couldn’t help exchanging thoughts with himself as both excitement and anxiety had engaged in an ‘emotional’ battle of their own.
Having woken up that early, Leo didn’t surrender to his overthinking and instead kept going through the plan he put for himself today, trying to itch what he already memorized even deeper into his head.
Leo wasn’t the type to overdo things, but he couldn’t start his plan too early since he wasn’t the only participant in it. Besides, nothing much changed just because he woke up early. if his mind was too stubborn to accept resting, then he would at least rest his body as much as he could considering how much he had to exert it later.
‘No matter the result…’
The first thing he did after washing his face was head to the big bakery in town. After all, the first segment of his ‘home defense’ plan started with treating the whole Orphanage to another special breakfast.
“Wake up everyone, I have got a surprise for all of you!”
Although slightly earlier than the usual average waking up time of his ‘siblings’, Leo gently shook his siblings one by one to wake them up before throwing the bait.
“Big brother got us meat buns again!”
As usual, Annie was the first to get up as she immediately recognized the familiar smell. Despite the fact that the quality of their food increased thanks to Leo’s ‘donation’, the meat buns that started that trend still had their special place in the hearts of the little kids.
Advertisement
‘If only it wasn’t this expensive…’
Receiving the same reaction for the meat buns, Leo felt slightly helpless. If this was his world, having something like meat buns every day wasn’t that hard, but due to the special setting of this word, even meat buns were treated as a sort of ‘luxury food’. Even his bag of shiny ‘gold swords’ couldn’t allow him to spend this much on food.
Not to mention his ‘siblings’, even Leo had to switch his breakfast into something cheaper, pursuing nutrition rather than taste. Although there were more than a few ways to earn money using his modern knowledge, He didn’t plan to get swept into money-making before he had a solid spot to stand on, that was disregarding the possible butterfly effect that modern knowledge could have.
‘It’s not worth it.’
While changing the plot and the setting could allow him to gain ‘reading points’ taking that last incident as a reference, Leo didn’t find it worth losing his ‘future knowledge’ advantage in exchange for ‘points’ that had an unknown value. No matter how much its worth was, even if they surpassed gold in value, they would be cheaper than sand if he ended up dying due to the aftereffects.
“I know that I have been rarely joining you for breakfast lately, but thanks to that, I have managed to prepare a small surprise for us!”
After the buns had been distributed and everyone settled in and started eating, Leo paused to introduce the start of the plan.
“Anoder surrprise?”
Annie questioned with a full mouth that only made her look cuter. She and the other kids thought that the meat buns were enough as a cause of celebration, they didn’t expect that the surprise Leo mentioned was something else.
“Mhm, most of you don’t know, but I managed to get a good job at one of the smithies in town. The boss there treats me very well, and the pay is also great. In fact, right after God’s help, he is the main reason why we get to eat better as of late!”
Advertisement
Switching into Arthur’s way of speaking, Leo started explaining the situation in order to reach his target.
“Woah!”
“Anyway, as we spend quite a bit of time swamped by work, we make small talk by exchanging our thoughts. Since he knows I’m part of our family, he always keeps asking about my brothers and sisters who are the best in the world. He didn’t stop talking about wanting to meet all of you, so today we are going out on a small field trip!”
Responding to the interest shown by his siblings’ surprised sounds, Leo continued telling the story he cooked up. Only a quarter of it was true, but it was the setting that he and Crane came up with for the sake of his plan.
‘More like an evacuation trip…’
“A field trip?”
This time, it was Ria that spoke out. She had been silent trying to enjoy the joyful mode as much as possible, but she couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows when she heard Leo’s last words.
“Yes, considering today is the smithy’s monthly break. The boss has suggested we do a house visit so he could finally meet my siblings, while they get to see the cool stuff he made. Ah, don’t worry, all of the dangerous stuff is kept away.”
Leo did his best to sound like Arthur disregarding the influence of his main personality, but he still noticed the worry on Ria’s face.
“Are you sure this is a good idea? We don’t want to impose…”
Ria couldn’t help but have countless scenarios play out in her head. Did this ‘Boss’ have bad intentions towards her ‘children’? Was this the reason he was treating Arthur this well?
All the worst possibilities ranging from simple accidents to child trafficking went through her head, but as she saw Arthur staring at her with ‘those’ eyes, all this worry vanished, shifting its direction to something else…
‘Something is wrong…’
“We can go, right?”
As Leo followed up with this question, coupled with the expectant eyes of the children, Ria could only nod in confusion. She could tell that Arthur had another important reason behind this ‘field trip’.
Even as the only ‘adult’ in the Orphanage, Ria often relied on Arthur as she did with his ‘older brother’. Despite being ten years older than him, Arthur was something more mature than her thanks to the influence of his abnormal ‘older brother’. If he needed them to leave the Orphanage today, then something must be happening.
“Alright, let’s get ready, help each other get dressed, we are going on a field trip. No running though.”
“Yay!”
Trying to hide her worry, Ria confirmed her answer as the kids jumped with joy before hurrying to change. Only Leo stood in his place as he smiled and nodded.
‘It worked.’
Leo let out a sigh of relief deep inside. While it wasn’t shown much in the novel due to the little ‘screen time’ the Orphanage got, Arthur was quite a smart kid, the influence of the protagonist who entrusted the job of protecting the place to him wasn’t small, which made him an anchor that even Ria sometimes relied on.
Being Arthur himself, Leo knew that the special ‘leave it to me’ look didn’t always work on Ria. Thankfully, Ria seemed to be even more affected by it than usual, otherwise, the first segment of the plan might have failed considering how suspicious its details were.
‘That’s the best I could do with the time I had…’
Seeing Ria’s expression that seemed like she wanted to talk, Leo pointed to his ‘siblings’ who already changed. It didn’t take much time considering their age.
“Haa. Great, you are all ready. Every three hold each other’s hand, we are having a ‘field trip’.”
‘Success!’
Letting out a sigh, Ria smiled before she announced the start of the ‘evacuation trip’, consequently blowing the horn for the start of Leo’s ‘home defense’ plan!
Advertisement
Travelers [DROPPED]
DROPPED. The story focuses less on dungeon building than on the why of dungeons and how they fit into the universal order. While I am working from a grand plot, the writing is going slice of life style because I need to do that to work out how things progress into that grand plot. The original story seed idea / synopsis is below. The Grand Tapestry protects Rhofhir from Primal Chaos by imposing Order via patterns. However, the patterns grow stiff, stagnant, and so the Tapestry is nearing a time of Unraveling. Evidence of past civilizations wiped out during previous Unravelings foreshadow the apocalyptic catastrophe looming over the world. The mages of the Arcane Asylum reach out across dimensions, searching for some way to prevent, or at least stall, the coming Unraveling. Among the many voices they find is a gifted graduate student researching machine-assisted telepathy -- and his gaming group. Lena never expected that the chance to play DnD with telepathy would result in her becoming an actual Dungeon Master, nor that her friends could become the bosses of her dungeon. This is, in many ways, her dream come true, but there's a catch: What happened to Brad, the creator of that telepathy machine?
8 98Once Upon a Divine Technique Mountain
Once upon a time, there was a mountain.
8 221The Titanic Fanatic
John Doe is a relatively intelligent high school junior. He is in all the super advanced classes, gets straight A's, and to top it off, he is pretty lazy as well. However, he is quite cocky about it and has the physical strength to back it up. Needless to say, he is the target of lots of jealousy in school. No one dares to bully him, because THAT is more or less a metaphorical death wish, but he is the center of lots of gossip and attention. He has a good life. Fortunately for John, his school is the largest in the world and so there were still many students who didn't know about him to annoy him. Unfortunately for John, he attracted the attention of a certain student who seems friendly enough but definitely has ulterior motives. This student will show John something that will change his life forever... **No, this is not a romance(yet at least) and the "certain student" is a guy lol so don't get any ideas** Author's Message: Hey, everyone. I was a big reader on RoyalRoadL for three years now, but I made an account recently because I felt like writing something. This story is based on Greek Mythology but I will make up and change a lot of it however I want(note the "based"). This is my first story and I am very busy(I'm a high school junior like John lol) so I will have lots of writer's block and erratic updates. Content Warning-Keeping those tags just in case as this probably won't be a baby friendly story(jk babies r kewl, just not here)-
8 308The Unexpected House Guest
8 165We Get What We Want (Yandere Proxies x Reader)
They had just got done putting (Y/N)'s ex friend/enemy and her ex boyfriend in their torturing devices."Who are you!? What do you want!?! Let them go!!!!" She yelled as she glared at them, the one with the feminine mask looked at her, coming over. "We are Masky, Hoodie, and Ticci Toby, and We Get What We Want.... And this includes you, my dear (Y/N)." Masky said as he caressed her cheek.
8 167Avni + Niel = Avniel
Peep in to know
8 196