INTERLUDE TWO

In London’s Lambeth district was something like a girls’ dormitory for Necessarius, the Church of Necessary Evils.

From the outside, it wasn’t too different from the oft-seen stone-built apartments facing the roads. Unlike wooden structures, this one, made of stone, was hard to tell the age of at a glance; if someone told a person it had a centuries-long history, they probably couldn’t imagine it from the exterior. It was just that well-kept and responsibly used.

It hadn’t been turned into a fortress like Lambeth Palace, residence of the archbishop. Instead, it had been prepared as a building they could easily replace with a spare in case it was destroyed, though nobody could remember it ever being demolished before. It was not unlikely for enemy sorcerers’ societies who discovered what the building really was to attempt mounting attacks on it…but any and all dangerous elements targeting the place had been sent to their graves before they could carry out their plans. The dorm was something that secretly displayed the military accomplishments of Necessarius. In other words, it was obvious bait.

Moving on.

It was early afternoon in Japan, but in London, night had fallen a while ago.

The districts away from the main streets, even in the capital city of England, were once again veiled in the cradle of darkness, but there was a light on in one window, as if to symbolize someone having a late night.

It was the dressing room.

The space was quite large, given that it was adjacent to an expansive bathing area. In the corner sat a giant, empty cardboard box big enough to fit a school desk into. Product manuals and warranties were lined up on the floor.

As for what “product” the manuals were for—they were for washing machines.

And they had the words Made in Academy City printed on them.

Present were various electronic devices, very ill-matched with the ages-old dormitory.

“The archbishop…Why would she send us something so complex and troublesome?”

Hooking up the grounded wire with an agitated face was Kaori Kanzaki.

Her black hair was so long that even in a ponytail it reached down to her waist. Normally, she preferred an active outfit, like a short-sleeved T-shirt tied at the waist to bare her belly button or jeans with one leg cut off all the way up to the thigh. Right now, though, she wore a plain yukata. Her ridiculously long katana, however, was propped against a wall close at hand.

Until now, she’d been using a washing machine that rocked so hard when it turned on she always expected smoke to start coming out, but it had finally broken down earlier. Despite the archbishop’s behavior, she seemed the type to listen to her subordinates’ requests.

The new washing machine had arrived that evening. It was cutting-edge, fully automatic with an onboard AI, but neither Kanzaki nor any of the others ever handled machines much, so for them, it was almost an encounter with a mysterious supercivilization. She’d been tilting her head in confusion at the thing, scanning over the instruction manual again and again, and before she’d realized, it was quite late.

Incidentally, the reason she was so absorbed in her work was because they’d gotten a cardboard box Tsuchimikado sent from Japan that afternoon. After discovering a maid uniform plus a little extra (a fallen-angel costume set including a halo and wings), she would have done nearly anything to forget about it.

“Archbishop Laura said, ‘With this edge-cutting doohickey drum, detestable cleaning work is as nothing at all!’ but…”

Saying that with a smile was Orsola Aquinas. A sister who had been part of the Roman Orthodox Church until a few days ago, the woman was covered from hair to toenails in a black nun’s habit. Her proportions were similar to Kanzaki’s, but in contrast to the tight, lean impression Kanzaki gave off, Orsola seemed to have more of an emphasis on serenity.

Other former Roman Orthodox followers were present as well—the small and sassy Agnes Sanctis, the punctilious Lucia, and Angeline, who was weak against sweet foods and getting up in the morning.

They seemed to avoid simply converting to English Puritanism and had been throwing around the idea of making their own splinter of the Roman Orthodox Church since there were two hundred fifty of them anyway. If someone like Lidvia Lorenzetti, locked up in the Tower of London, were to hear that, bad things would follow. Given Laura Stuart’s relatively laid-back approach to things, though, she seemed willing to accept them as a small religious order in their own right under her jurisdiction, like she had with the Amakusa Church.

Other than those five, Sherry Cromwell was also in the dressing room, a dyed-in-the-wool English Puritan. With damaged blond hair and light-brown skin, she was fond of regularly wearing gothic lolita fashion, but at the moment she wore a thin negligee. She had put on another set of pajamas over that, though, so while her curves could be seen, the details were rather unfairly hidden from view. It was on the same level as steam covering up all the sensitive bits at the bath.

Sherry, also a supervisor at the Royal Academy of the Arts, ignored their exchange, using an engraving knife to whittle down a small piece of marble and carving the contours of a chess piece out of it. The fine dust was assembling near her shoulder and forming a ball. Apparently, she was using her golem, Ellis, to do so.

With her eyes still down on her in-progress chess piece, she said, “Can’t you just do your laundry in a river or something?”

“I would only need a washboard, but doing it in a river would cause environmental problems,” replied Kanzaki, who had finished hooking up the grounding wires as she pushed the washing machine against the wall, the large device rattling as it went.

The scene didn’t affect Sherry, who used Ellis for these things, and Kanzaki was incredibly strong, one of only twenty saints in the entire world. The others, though, winced a little.

“This thing…It was quite a pain to set up the earthquake-proof reinforcements and the anti–lightning strike equipment, but it seems just turning this one on shouldn’t be an issue.”

Blip. Kanzaki pressed a large button, but waiting for her were lines of countless numbers and symbols displayed on a small waterproof LCD screen.

She stared at it impassively for a moment. “…Can we not do this the honest way and wash things by hand?”

“N-no, no! Keep trying, just a little bit more!!”

Arguing in a half-crying state was Angeline, who was especially incompetent even among the rest of the group.

“Just a little more! A…a fully automatic washing machine is at our fingertips! My arms are going to fall off just from the temporary measure of carrying all our clothes to a washing machine in another building before this arrived!! I…I wouldn’t even be able to wash them by hand now if I tried!!”

Judging by that arrangement and by the appearance of Angeline’s small hands, she looked like she’d keel over the moment clothes-washing duty came back around to her.

Orsola looked down at the instruction manual. “Oh, Miss Kanzaki. From what I can see in the manual, you just press the button labeled Wash, and the machine will do everything else for you.”

“?”

“If you put the detergent in this small box right here, the machine will analyze its composition, then automatically adjust the amount of water and detergent based on the weight of the clothing inside. It would seem it does everything, from pouring the water in, rinsing, draining, spinning, and drying.”

“What an annoying contraption. We already measure the detergent, so it could have been even easier to operate.”

But you just have to press one button, thought Agnes, Lucia, and Angeline at about the same time. Unfortunately, they were the newcomers here at the moment, so they stayed silent.

Orsola knocked on the new washing machine affectionately. “If it truly is as convenient as it says, I would very much like to see it in action.”

“…Orsola, it’s already the middle of the night,” said Kanzaki, exasperated. “Should we be using a washing machine at this hour?”

Once again, the sister pointed to the manual. “It says here that it’s designed to be soundproof and that it’s okay to run at night.”

“There’s stuff here about phones and decibels. Do you actually understand this? In any case, today’s laundry is already stored away, isn’t it?”

This dorm was for the female members of Necessarius. Their clothing, even down to its patterns and individual stitches, was all magically enhanced. Their clothing could be considered both weapons and armor for them, and if they just dropped them all in a laundry basket, all the defensive mechanisms could have unintended, violent interactions. There were certain affinities in terms of the spell’s religion or school, too, but it was now a fundamental rule to take that into consideration during washing, too.

Sherry, still whittling away at her chess piece, said in vague annoyance, “The vault is protected by a triple-layered magical lock, isn’t it? It’d take forever to get through ’em all, and it’d be even worse to set it all back up again.”

Kanzaki’s face lit up as though she’d gotten her way. She stood up straight. “See? We don’t have anything to wash, so we can’t use the washing machine. We’re getting up early again tomorrow, so let’s just turn out the lights and get to sleep now.”

“Oh, but we have laundry to be done right here.”

No sooner had Orsola made her declaration than she began to unreservedly strip off the habit she was wearing.

Kanzaki looked at her, aghast. “Y-you don’t need to make more laundry on purpose! Such acts will have a negative influence on the newcomers as well. Agnes, and the rest of you, your faces look like you’re wondering if this is a custom, but it’s not, so please don’t go along with Orsola’s actions!!”

“Now, now. Japan’s yukatas are made to be very easy to take off. The obis are dyed in a very pretty way, too.”

“I’d prefer it if you listened to me and didn’t suddenly grab my belt like that!!”

By the time Kanzaki tried to stop her, the indigo-dyed belt around her waist had already come undone and fallen to the floor. The front of her yukata opened up like all the buttons on a coat popping off.

Orsola’s eyes widened. “Kanzaki, are you the sort who doesn’t wear any underwear?”

“You’re not supposed to with yukatas!!”

She hid her body with both hands imbued with the explosive physical strength of a saint, so even Orsola couldn’t steal the actual yukata away from her.

With nothing more to do, Orsola threw her own habit and that of the other sisters—who were saying things like “Wait, what’re we supposed to wear to bed?” and “Sister Agnes, you will inevitably end up in your underwear as soon as you grow tired anyway”—along with Kanzaki’s yukata obi, into the washing machine. She closed the see-through lid and pressed the big button labeled Wash.

It was silent as promised. As the water poured into the tub inside, the contents began to spin around, without so much as shaking the machine. The tub seemed to be spherical, rather than the oil-drum-shaped sort of yesteryear; it rotated in 360-degree space. Just watching it made the machine seem amazing.