"Hmm, perhaps an exotic fruit with a sweet and slightly tangy taste would make an intriguing addition to this bread," Elara mumbled.
At first, she wanted to try making bread using ingredients from the rare white cherries. But after remembering that the fruit had no taste whatsoever, Elara had to cancel her plan.
'Upon second thought, red cherries also don't have a unique enough taste to be the main ingredient for my bread this time....' Elara thought, furrowing her brow.
Moreover, she had already created numerous bread recipes using red cherries, such as pies and tarts, which had been highly popular in sales over the past few years. However, despite that, Elara couldn't help but feel unsatisfied with just red cherries.
'I need to find another unique fruit, something easy to obtain and affordable, yet people have no idea of its value!' she thought determinedly.
What could it be? Elara continued to wrack her brains, looking left and right, hoping to find an exotic fruit with a striking flavor that would complement her new bread perfectly.
Thud.
Elara came to a sudden halt as she noticed a small rock rolling towards her.
"Look who it is?"
"Who else? She's the strange child who always acts like a young lady from a noble family!"
There was the unmistakable shrill voice of a girl mocking something, accompanied by several footsteps that sounded closer to where Elara was standing.
"I thought she got tired of acting like that and chose to hide for 4 years out of fear! Huh... Could it be part of her act too?!!"
"No, no, she was scared! Do you all forget how she looked back then?!"
"Hahahaha...!"
Elara stared at the three girls her age who were chatting not far from where she stood. The three of them were intentionally belittling Elara right in front of her.
"..."
For the past 4 years, aside from not approaching the forest, Elara had not gone down the hill at all. She only descended if her mother accompanied her to the village. The rest of the time, she secluded herself in her wooden house.
'If I think about it again, I seem to be stubbornly denying the fact that I am indeed shaken by something I am not aware of.' Elara reluctantly admitted that as time passed, her behavior was becoming more and more like that of a 9-year-old child.
"So... Her mother caused a panic among the people because her daughter suddenly disappeared and, oh, it turns out, that she was just sleeping in the tree behind her house!"
"If I were her mother, I would undoubtedly be extremely embarrassed to have a child like her!"
"Just look at her presence now, it's already starting to pollute the fresh air in this forest."
As they said, at that time, her mother panicked because Elara didn't return even though the sun was about to set.
Moreover, at that time, there was news circulating that a noble's child had also gone missing while returning from the Galatea territory. Consequently, Elara's mother and the villagers of Flora and Fauna became increasingly anxious about the possibility of an undesirable event occurring in the previously peaceful and secure area. Eventually, they decided to search around the small forests together before nightfall.
But strangely enough, shortly after her mother announced her daughter's disappearance, her mother returned and told the villagers that her daughter had been found and had been sleeping in the tree behind their house all this time.
Although the villagers were relieved to hear the news, they still couldn't disperse because another child was still missing.
'And that child still hasn't been found to this day....' Elara closed her eyes. Imagining herself in the same position as the child who had been missing all this time sent shivers down Elara's spine unintentionally.
"Hahaha!"
Elara opened her eyes when she heard the two of them talking, or rather, only two of them were talking, while one was just standing there listening with a haughty expression.
It was clear that she was their leader because her dress, which adorned her body, looked expensive, while the two who kept chattering were her lackeys, with ordinary dresses.
Elara sighed lightly as she watched them and continued to walk to her destination without paying them any attention.
For someone with the mentality of an adult, she couldn't be provoked by the childish jokes of children like them. She thought they both sounded very funny.
'Yes, they're so funny that I want to pinch their cheeks until they stretch.'
But Elara abandoned that idea because she didn't want her mother to think she was getting involved in fights with kids like this.
"Hey."
It was the girl who had been silent as if she wanted to give the impression directly that she didn't need to sully her mouth by talking about Elara.
"...?"
Upon hearing a different voice from the previous two, Elara immediately stopped. Not only that, Elara also stared at the girl who called her with a puzzled look without saying a word.
"...tsk!" Seeing Elara's impassive reaction, the girl dressed in a luxurious dress gritted her teeth loudly.
She shouted with her usual arrogance when demeaning other children.
"How dare you not respond to my voice when I was calling you? Don't you know who I am? I am the only daughter of the village chief in the two villages on the outskirts of the Galatea territory!"
"?" Elara looked at her with a still puzzled expression.
And what if she's the village chief's daughter? Elara didn't understand the point.
"Exactly! No matter how imaginative you are, who keeps pretending to be a young lady or whatever, you can't just ignore the child of the village chief!"
"That's right! You're just a bread seller's child!"
Elara stared at the three girls who kept yelling, as if three lost ducklings without their mother, with a tired look in her eyes.
'Mom, do you want me to play with noisy and troublesome kids like these...?'
During this time, her mother always told her to play with the kids in the village.
But without hesitation, Elara immediately ignored her mother's words because her mental age was already too old to play house, so she never talked or played with kids her age in this village.
At most, when they met, they just looked at each other without saying hello. The best interaction Elara had ever had was smiling broadly while politely declining when the kids tried to get her to play.
"..." Elara stared straight at the three girls her age.
In the middle, a bright light brown-haired girl with a luxurious pink dress and freckles covering both cheeks, who had been constantly claiming herself to be the village chief's child, stared at Elara with a proud face.
The two girls standing to her left and right looked ordinary, with short, dull light brown hair and below-average faces.
If this were a novel, the clear description would be that the village chief's daughter was the villainous character of town A, while the two next to her were her lackeys, A and B.
'So sad....' Elara silently felt sympathy for the three of them, whose names she didn't know at all.
Especially for the bright light brown-haired girl whose hair color reminded her of an orange tree. If she wasn't mistaken, her name was Deka, the village chief's daughter, right?
Indeed, Elara had heard of the village chief's daughter who was her age, but she had never seen or interacted with her. Elara kept to herself at home, focusing on creating new flavors of bread.
On this bright day, Elara hoped to find something in this forest, but her encounter with the three noisy children had disrupted her plans.
'Forget it, let's just focus on my affairs,'
Elara's plan is currently searching for a fruit that has a taste similar to pineapples to perfect the bread recipe she's experimenting with. Unfortunately, so far, she has not found a fruit that meets her expectations.
However, the noisy duckling-like children were not letting her go at all.
"Hey!"
Upon hearing the arrogant voice again, Elara immediately withdrew her sympathy.
"Haa... What?" Elara replied in a heavy tone.
Honestly, she couldn't stand the loud, shrill, duck-like voices of these three girls. Her eardrums felt like they were about to explode if she had to listen to them any longer.
"Why are you becoming increasingly shameless? You're not of noble birth; you're just the child of a small bakery! You don't even have a father! How can you behave like this in my presence, someone from a prominent family like my father, who is the village chief?!!!!!" Deka shrieked, growing hysterical.
"..."
Elara looked at the girl who was said to be the village chief's daughter with a gradually irritated expression.
<"You don't even have a father!">
'You're mistaken. I do have a father. Even though I don't know his identity, I can sense it from my mother's behavior, always trying to conceal information about him,' Elara thought calmly, her serene expression causing her previous annoyance to vanish as if it had never appeared on her innocent face.
'But...'
Even though they were mere children, their words were deeply painful for a girl who had been fatherless since birth, just like her. If it weren't for her mature mindset, tears might have welled up. These children had undeniably overstepped a boundary.
'However, because of their tender age, they can still be guided towards what's right. Regardless of whether they were raised in privilege or not, there's potential for them to evolve into better individuals in the future,' Elara thought, her smile carrying a gentle warmth.
Her innate sense of maturity took over as she observed the mischievous antics of the youngsters before her.
"Listen to me, especially you, Deka," Elara said as she approached the girl named Deka and patted her on the shoulder, who happened to be taller than her.
"Regardless of your status, whether you are the village chief's daughter from this small village or from any background, above that, there are still daughters from small regions around the big capital. Furthermore, above them are the daughters of noble families with significant influence in the wide capital region. Then, above all these noble daughters, there are the Princesses and Queens of the Three Kingdoms on this continent. And at the very top of the hierarchy, there is Queen Titaia, whose unquestionably high position in this world cannot be doubted." she said at length, leaving the three children in front of her utterly speechless with surprise.
"...!"
Suddenly, Deka's face turned as red as a rotten tomato. It wasn't because she felt embarrassed to be lectured by a girl her age, who was both beautiful and intelligent despite being shorter than her. Instead, it was because the girl had pronounced her name incorrectly.
"My name is Becca, not Deka!!!!!!"