Violet Evergarden Volume 1

Volume 1 Chapter 1 (Part 13)

The Auto-Memories Dolls' holiday was ending peacefully.

How to spend the end of summer was mostly commonplace – watching the trees outside by the windowsill during the morning, taking strolls with an umbrella around the neighborhood at noon, reading books under the shade of trees at evening, and preparing for the next journey at night. When no one was looking, she would dismantle and reconstruct guns, as well as throw knives at leaves falling from trees in order not to let her arms become lax. But essentially, she was enveloped in serenity. That was the result of her adoptive mother's influence in treating her like a child.

There were not many who would purposefully attempt to break her silence in the first place. After all, she was someone who instilled the feeling of nervousness in others. She had a reticent and cold beauty. She could cause time and people in her surroundings to naturally stop.

"Violet. You... are coming with me."

She was not someone suitable to invite to play.

The Flying Letters and the Auto-Memories Doll (Part 1)

Located in a narrow street away from the main avenue of Leidenschaftlich's capitol city, Leiden, a lone building protruded, reigning amongst several small shops lined up together. The CH Postal Service was a fairly new company that had just entered the mail industry.

A spire with a light green dome-shaped roof and a weather-bird on top could be considered the mark of said postal company. Surrounding the spire was a dark green roof, and the outer walls were made of red bricks that had been sunburned into a tasteful hue. On the arch-shaped entryway, where the agency's name was printed onto a steel plate in golden letters, there was a bell that produced a merry sound whenever the doors were opened, so as to announce the arrival of customers. Inside the building, a counter could be seen right upon entry, which was specifically the reception desk of delivery items.

There were three floors; the first one was the postal reception, the second was the office and the spire of the third floor was the president's residence. Currently, on the second floor, the employees of the office were challenging themselves while working desperately.

There was a date called the "closing day" in the company. During it, all transactions, reports related to them, invoices, proofs of payment and everything else involving the operation of the company were neatly cleared up for the month. For the clerks, it was a day of painful battling, as the closing work was added to their regular work.

"You said we'd go together, that you'd take me there..."

Amidst the scene of arduous fighting stood a young woman, directing a reproachful and depressed gaze at Hodgins. She tightly held onto the hem of her clothes and bit her lip as if to assert, "I am pissed".

She was a beautiful woman with long dark hair and full of mature appeal. She wore an open bustier, which displayed her rich chest without any reserve whatsoever and was connected to her shoulder-to-elbow charcoal-gray inner garment. She also had on a beads choker, a pendant, bangles, hand chain bracelets and rings made of precious metals. Her leather hot pants were dyed blue and had golden cross-stitches. Her embroidery thread garter belt consisted of geometrical patterns and decorated only the bare skin from the middle of her tights to her knee-high boots. She was a person whose everything, from her outfit to her glossy beauty, was poison to the eyes. However...

"No way, no way! If you're not taking me, I don't want to go."

...her actions were that of a child. She was stomping her feet.

"No, I mean, even if you say that, Cattleya..." Claudia Hodgins, the president of the CH Postal Service, smiled stiffly at that attitude. "Look at this mountain of paperwork. It feels like it's gonna hit me."