1 - Beginning of the Final Battle
1 - Beginning of the Final Battle
Of course, there was no way that Keena was going to settle down and take her job as empress seriously. Sometimes, no, all the time, she would run away and make life miserable for her servants.
“All the Empress ever gets to do is pray and sign things. It’s really boring, you know!” Keena said, sitting on the bed where Akuto had been sleeping. She was talking. He wasn’t. She’d wrapped his blankets around her body and put her beloved rice cooker in front of her, and was carrying large spoonfuls of rice up to her mouth.
Akuto sat up in bed, and after listening to Keena for a while, checked his watch. It was 5:30 AM. There were 30 minutes left until it was time to wake up. In other words, this young Empress with a round face and bustles of red hair, and a stomach that you could call a white rice black hole, had snuck into his room before dawn and was eating said rice.
“Don’t you ever get heartburn?” Akuto pointed to the rice cooker.
“Did you know that at the palace, you can only get two second servings?” Keena’s response may have felt like an answer. Or maybe it hadn’t.
“Still, there aren’t any other rooms in the boys dorm where you get woken up at 5 in the morning by the sound of a rice cooker chime,” Akuto sighed.
“The Royal Guard’s gotten used to my tricks lately. They stop me when I try to take off my clothes. If I don’t leave first thing in the morning, I can’t get out.” Keena had the special ability to turn invisible, and she used it to help her escape.
“I’m glad the guards are normal, at least,” Akuto said as he yawned and got out of bed. Keena frowned. “You’re one to talk, aren’t you?”
She had a point. Akuto Sai had been prophesied to become the demon king, and it had already happened. He wasn’t normal, by any means. But he was a very serious and hard-working boy, and even as Keena sat on his bed eating rice, he began cleaning up his room in his PJs.
“I’m sick of getting caught up in your messes. I know I can’t live a normal life, so I want to just retire and live in peace. My dream of becoming a priest is a lot harder now. No, it’s not just harder. It’s impossible. But I still want to live a normal life, you know? So I need you to be a normal empress. If you do, you might be able to cause a revolution from inside the political system,” Akuto said as he put the clothes scattered on the floor into the dresser.
The Demon King was a living war machine. The only reason he’d been able to go back to having a normal life was that they’d learned the Empress could control his power. As a result, his life was now under Keena’s control. Akuto’s life now depended on her. Of course he’d want to give her a lecture.
His message seemed to reach Keena, on some level. “You’re right. I need to be a great Empress!” she said firmly. Then she licked off the last grain of rice from the paddle and put it back in the rice cooker, and stood up straight.
“First, I need to start by causing a revolution at the school! Yes, I need to make everyone understand how wonderful rice is!” Her expression was full of resolve. Her fists were gripped tightly like a goddess who’d risen to start a revolution. However, she was completely naked. The blanket she was wearing fell off, revealing a stomach that was pudgier than it should be.
“Keena!” Akuto yelled and looked away.
“Huh? What...? Wait, aah!” She looked down at herself, finally realized what had happened, and quickly grabbed the blanket.
“Aww, Ackie, you pervert. I hadn’t put on any clothes yet.”
“...That’s your fault, not mine. I’ll go get you some.” He went to leave the room, but a voice stopped him.
“There’s no need for that.”
The door to the shelf near the ceiling opened, and a beautiful doll-like girl came out. She squirmed out from the tiny door, and fell more than the height of an adult human, head-first, only to spin around like a cat and land gracefully in the center of the room.
No human could do something like that, and of course, She wasn’t human. She was Akuto and Keena’s observer: Korone the Liradan.
“I’m one of the Empress’s servants now. Here, have some clothes.” She opened the bag on her shoulder and pulled out a complete school uniform. The tiny bag was connected to a virtual phase space that allowed it to hold objects of most any size.
“Wow, thank you!” Keena said, happily taking the clothes.
Then, Korone got around behind Akuto’s back and put her hands over his eyes.
“...I’m not planning on watching her change.”
“But the desire a teenage boy has for a naked girl is a strong one. Enough to make him pedal a bike to the vending machine in the next town.”
“No, I don’t have the energy to do something like that.” Akuto replied, but Korone continued to silently hold her hands over his eyes.
Once she’d put her clothes on, Keena made a declaration. “As Empress, I will begin my revolution here at this school. A revolution in the name of rice! I will start a movement to bring back the lost joys of rice among the students. A rice renaissance! I will bring back the spirits of the ancient, rice-loving empire, and use it to raise healthy young adults! And eventually, I’ll turn the whole Empire into a rice field!”
“That’s crazy...” Akuto said, but Korone began to applaud loudly enough to cut him off.
“A wonderful idea! All hail the empress! All hail the empress!”
“Listen...” Akuto looked at Korone, but her lack of expression made it impossible to tell what she was thinking.
“I shall do everything I can to aid you, Empress,” Korone said, spurring her on. “Glory to the Empress!”
“No, that’s not right. Glory to rice!” Keena said, like she was some kind of saint.
“Come on now...” All Akuto could do was sigh. It was a stupid idea, he thought, but there was no way she’d ever actually go through with it. But the next day, the rice renaissance was put into effect.
○
The cafeteria was crowded, like it always was at lunchtime. But today, it was far more crowded than usual. The line of students stretched out of the cafeteria, and showed no signs of moving. There was a problem at the front of it.
“Spaghetti with meat sauce,” Fujiko Eto, the girl at the front, said, elegantly placing her ticket down on the counter. She was a beautiful girl with long, flowing black hair. The other girls all loved her, and looked up to her as a big sister.
Of course, that was only her public side. In private she was an evil woman. She was obsessed with Akuto, the one part of her private side she didn’t try to hide, and the girls all thought that the Demon King had brainwashed her.
“We have no spaghetti,” she was told. She looked up in surprise. She recognized the voice. The woman behind the counter was Korone.
“Korone, what are you doing here? And what do you mean, there’s no spaghetti?”
“Just for today, I am in charge of the cafeteria by the Empress’s orders. As for the spaghetti, I’m sorry, but we don’t have any. We’ll still accept your ticket, so please change your order,” Korone said flatly.
“I see. Fine. I’ll take some udon then. Kitsune udon.” Fujiko smiled gently.
“We don’t have any,” Korone said.
“What? You don’t have any of that either?” Fujiko said, surprised.
“Correct. Now, what will you have?”
Now she knew why the line was so long, but she still had a lot of questions. Frowning, Fujiko changed her order. “Alright, soba with tempura.”
“We don’t have any.” Another almost instant answer.
“Ramen.”
“Nope.”
“Yakisoba?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Kishimen?”
“Obviously no.”
“Fine! Chilled chinese noodles!”
“Of course we don’t have any.”
“I feel like noodles today! Gaah! Don’t tell me you don’t have any!” Fujiko began to raise her voice.
But Korone’s reaction was calm. “Noodles? We have vermicelli.”
“Huh? Vermicelli?”
“Correct. I had to ask to get it, too. It was allowed, because it’s made from rice.”
When Korone said this, Fujiko finally knew what was going on. “...I see. That’s right. Keena Soga is empress now, isn’t she?”
“Correct. She told me to spread the wonders of rice, so I decided to make an all-rice menu. I recommend the K Combo.”
“The K Combo...” Fujiko whispered, a little scared.
The K Combo. It was a terrifying combo, made especially for Keena. Even the soup and the main course were made from rice. It was something no normal person could eat. The side dish was a rice croquette.
“And that’s where this mess came from...” Fujiko looked around her. The line was long because all the other students had argued with Korone like she was doing. Some of the students had taken their meals and sat down, but all of them were sitting there with chopsticks unmoving, and faces frozen in despair. When she looked closer, she saw that all of them were sitting in front of half-eaten K Combos.
“Why are you doing this?” Fujiko asked in a low voice. It was the scariest expression she could muster in front of the other students. But Korone’s expression was unchanged.
“My order was to spread rice.”
“Gaah! I don’t know what’s going on, but I demand you return the school menu to what it was before!” Fujiko said loudly, motioning for the students behind her to say something too. Even the ones who’d been suffering in silence were driven by her voice to rise up.
“That’s right! That’s right!”
“The Empress is a tyrant!”
“Give us bread! Give us noodles!” The students began to break out of the line and storm the counter.
“If you have no noodles, then you may eat rice,” Korone said, crossing her arms and standing tall in front of the mob. The students began to get more and more out of hand.
“What?!”
“Just because you’re cute, don’t think you can act like an Empress!”
“No, it’s Korone speaking, but there’s a real empress backing her.”
“I don’t care! I just want our menu back!”
The cafeteria wasn’t tiny, but it was small enough that after you were done eating, you were expected to immediately vacate your seat. The area around the counter began to get more and more packed. Korone, however, remained calm, or at least expressionless.
“Very well. Let’s negotiate. I’ll allow you to have curry rice.” With these words, the students exploded.
“Wait, we weren’t even allowed to have curry?”
“Does that mean our only options were white rice and the K Combo?”
“No negotiations! Either we get our menu back, or it’s war!”
“That’s right! We demand real food!”
“This is our rice rebellion!”
The students expressions were turning violent. They were a rowdy group to begin with, but not the sort of people who would lose control easily. But now they were on the verge of a riot. It was a sign of how emotional people can get over food.
“‘Rice rebellion’ seems incorrect, somehow. But from your words I’m going to interpret an intent to attack me,” Korone said. The students’ faces turned tense as they started to murmur among themselves.
Kill or be killed. Things in the cafeteria were turning violent fast. Everyone there knew exactly how deadly Korone was. But the crowd was starving and angry, and wasn’t going to back down.
“We demand food! Bring back our menu!”
“We’re willing to fight if we have to!”
“That’s right, isn’t it, Fujiko?” The students all looked to Fujiko, the girl who’d started it, for agreement. But Fujiko was already gone.
“Huh?”
The students were curious as to where she might’ve gone, but there was no time to really think about it. In the next moment, a dangerous-sounding voice came from behind Korone. “What’s all this fuss about?”
The voice was nonchalant. In other words, it wasn’t the words or the voice that was dangerous. It was Akuto Sai. A very dangerous man. The students began to back away from the counter.
“T-That’s not fair! You can’t use someone that dangerous in a negotiation!”
“You’re trying to threaten us!”
“Let’s resolve this peacefully! Have a nice cup of tea!” The students began to say, their voices full of fear.
Akuto had brought a huge war and terrible disaster to the capital. He was working for the Empress now, but he was still, in every way, the Demon King.
“K-Korone... Why is the Demon King here?” One of the students at the front said in a shaking voice.
“He’s helping me,” Korone responded. She wasn’t lying. Akuto was standing in front of a big pot, making rice and ladling it into bowls. But the students didn’t understand that it was all he was doing.
“H-Helping...?”
“The Demon King wouldn’t just help cook... He has to be there as a hired guard!” Akuto frowned when he heard this.
—No, I’m actually really good at cooking...
He thought this to himself, but he didn’t say it. His silence and his frown only made the students more scared.
“H-He’s angry!”
“He wants to fight!”
“Aaah! I’m scared!”
There was a crashing sound in the middle of the crowd. One of the students had seemingly passed out.
—Is it just me, or is it getting worse than before?” Akuto grumbled to himself unhappily, and with a bit of confusion. But he was able to figure out what was going on. He frowned even more.
“Korone. Explain what’s going on here?”
“I tried to make them eat rice, and a riot broke out,” she explained simply, without moving a cheek. Akuto put a hand on his forehead and sighed.
“Listen... Did you do what I told you to? There are better ways to make people eat rice, you know. What are you going to do about this? It’s clearly your fault,” he scolded Korone.
Korone’s expression remained unchanged, but now the students were even more scared. This is how they interpreted it:
“Did you do what I told you to? So this is the Demon King’s idea!”
“He’s trying to make us eat only rice so we get a vitamin deficiency!”
“What a terrifying plot!”
“And he’s using the Empress’s love of rice to do it! He’s trying to blame it on the Empress!”
“That’s right! Keena, and Korone, who are very cute, would never do this on their own!”
“And now that the plan’s failed, he’s scolding Korone!”
—I don’t really know what’s going on, but I think it’s happening again... Akuto sobbed to himself. But then he looked up at the students, trying his best to stay strong.
“Well, it seems like there’s been a lot of misunderstandings here. Let’s all calm down and talk about this. Okay?” Akuto said, smiling.
His smile wasn’t perfect, but his handsome face looked naturally evil enough that when he said “Let’s talk,” it was nothing but a source of fear. The cafeteria filled with screams as the students rushed for the exits.
—Oh...
By the time he realized his mistake, there was nobody left in the room. Dropped meal tickets blew like tumbleweeds through the empty space.
“Well, at least that solved the problem,” Korone said flatly.
“...Listen, this happened because you replaced the whole menu with rice, didn’t it?” Akuto said, looking at the menu and finally understanding what had happened.
“It was the Empress’s orders.”
“...She just said to encourage more people to eat rice.”
“And I strongly encouraged it.”
“Strongly?” Akuto asked. Korone nodded.
“Extremely strongly.”
“...So this really is your fault, isn’t it?”
“That’s one way to view it.”
“You caused this whole mess, didn’t you?”
“That’s correct, from a certain point of view.”
“And wait, do you enjoy causing messes?”
“A little.”
“...Huh?”
“A little,” Korone said again.
Akuto coughed slightly. “Ahmm... I... I see.”
“Don’t worry. I said ‘a little’ because I don’t enjoy it entirely. You may interpret this as me not meaning any harm, but enjoying the results after the fact,” Korone said with a serious look on her face.
“No, you don’t need to explain it...”
“I don’t? Then I will get to work cleaning up after this mess. I will call the Empress and have her announce that she’ll be allowing meals other than rice. Fortunately, the students all think that it was your doing,” Korone said, nodding.
“Did you plan for it to turn out this way from the start?”
“Something like that,” Korone said as she walked away.
—Well, of course she did. It’s a good idea to use me to make the Empress look better.
Akuto did his best to convince himself, but his idea of retiring to read books all day was starting to seem better and better.
○
Meanwhile, newly-hired janitor Nozomi Sasahara was walking through the courtyard of Constant Magical Academy. A janitor was free to wear whatever clothes they wanted, but she’d been advised to bring something that she was willing to get dirty, so she brought her maid outfit from home. Her family was poor, and it was all she had. Her first job was to check up on all the sensors in each of the school’s buildings. If one was damaged, contractors would be called in to repair it, but checking them daily was the janitor’s job.
Nozomi was a fast worker.
Whether it was all her time spent in her run-down ramshackle house growing up, or her skills as a natural born janitor, she was several times as good as your average custodian. Today, she was just on her way to check the last sensor.
Suddenly she heard loud shouting.
“Glory to the Empress! Glory to the Empress!”
Her ears perked up, and her exposed forehead shone in the light.
“The Empress...?”
She ran in the direction of the voices. Keena was there, surrounded by students, the subject of ferocious applause. Nozomi didn’t know it, but the students were cheering her for restoring the proper menu to the school cafeteria.
—So that’s her? Nozomi’s eyes locked on Keena.
She hadn’t been able to tell when she’d seen her on TV, but not only did Keena look like a commoner, she looked like an idiot.
—Is that really her? She looks so... dumb...
Nozomi’s head began to spin. She was having trouble thinking.
—Is an idiot like that really allowed to be Empress?
—Is your bloodline all that matters, then?
—Then that means that I can be empress, too!
—But there’s already an Empress, isn’t there...
Nozomi’s mind came to the wrong conclusion.
“I know! I’ll talk to her directly and have her let me be Empress instead!”
Since she’d come here without a plan, it was only natural that she’d come to a rash conclusion, but Nozomi was very proud of her wonderful idea. She looked at Keena once again.
—Now, how do I get to her...?
Keena was surrounded by students and impossible to approach.
—I’ll just have to wait for my chance.
She hid herself on the other side of the storage shed. Eventually, the students started to go back into the school cafeteria. Only Keena and Korone were left, and the two of them started to walk away, talking about something she couldn’t make out.
—T-They’re coming this way!
As Keena got closer, Nozomi could feel her heart beating faster.
—I-I’m not nervous. Nope. I-I’m not...
She said that to herself, but she was actually very nervous. And she wasn’t a strong girl to begin with.
—Aah! Here she is! Keena was right on top of her.
“I decided to add a rice field to the garden in the new palace.”
“I assumed that you would.”
“Huh? How did you know?”
She could hear them now.
—Alright, let’s do this.
—No, I’ll wait for them to get a little closer.
—Okay, let’s do this.
—No, maybe I’ll let them get by me and then approach from behind...
Nozomi hesitated. And of course, while she was hesitating, the two of them passed her by. By the time she’d worked up the courage to poke her head out, they were already gone.
—W-What? How?
She began to think with her muddled head once more. There’s no reason to tell you all the mistaken ideas that she came up with, but in the end, she came to a completely absurd conclusion.
—I’ll have to set a trap so I can delay her, and then I’ll talk to her!
Nozomi decided that she’d leverage her position as a janitor to find Keena’s daily schedule. She quickly finished her work for the day, and then called up the class schedule on the terminal in the janitor’s room.
“Empress’s class schedule... here we go. She changes classes... right here!”
She knew where she’d set her trap now. She’d set it on the path Keena traveled in between classes.
—What kind of trap should I set? Maybe lay down sticky glue or something? No, but sticky glue’s tough to work with, and it could get somebody else stuck, too. But it would be great if I could use it... Maybe I can stick it up someplace nobody else would go? Like on the walls. Someplace high up. Someplace you wouldn’t normally fly even if you could use flight magic. And then maybe find some way to get her up there...
At this point, it would be a complete waste of energy to point out how many flaws there were in what Nozomi was thinking.
In the end, this was the idea Nozomi came up with:
She would put a banana on the path where Keena was going to walk.
Keena would slip and fall backwards, and when she did, she’d look up.
Up above her would be a flyer saying “Big sale on rice!”
It would lead her to a place where nobody else was around.
When she picked it up, a metal wash basin would fall from above.
It would hit her head, and she would stagger until she fell on the trampoline next to her.
The trampoline would send her skyward, until she got caught in the sticky glue that was high up on the wall.
—And then I’ll be waiting at the window next to her to talk to her! It’s perfect! Just perfect! I can’t believe how smart I am!
It did, indeed, take a certain type of mind to come up with a plan like that. Regardless, Nozomi decided it was best to act quickly. She set up her trap just like she’d planned, and waited for Keena to come.
According to the schedule, Keena would always wait for the other classmates to go first, and then follow them by herself. Nozomi watched as Keena’s classmates walked past her, laughing and talking among themselves, and then put a banana peel in the middle of the floor, then quickly hid behind a nearby pillar.
“Heheh... Now she’ll trip!” she grinned to herself.
But the next person she saw wasn’t Keena. It was Keena’s servant, the beautiful Liradan.
—Does her servant go ahead of her, maybe...?
Nozomi gasped, but what shocked her more was when Korone reached down, picked up the banana peel, and tossed it in the garbage.
“My perfect plan...” Nozomi said, turning dead pale.
Just before she was about to collapse, though, a voice called out to her.
“Excuse me.”
“.............Huh?”
Nozomi snapped back to her senses and turned towards the voice. Shockingly, it was Korone.
“Uhyaah!” she screamed and tried to run away, but Korone calmly grabbed her by the arm.
“Wait.”
“Aaah! Forgive me! Don’t hurt me! I didn’t mean anything by it!”
“What are you talking about? I just said something to you because you were standing there like you were lost.”
“Huh? Then you didn’t realize I set a trap?”
“A trap? You set a trap?”
“Oh no! I”ve been found out!” Nozomi screamed.
She tried to run, forgetting that Korone was holding her by the arm, but of course, she failed. Korone pulled hard, and she staggered forward.
“Are you an idiot?” Korone said expressionlessly.
“Waah... I don’t want to be called an idiot. But right now... I’m a big idiot.”
Nozomi immediately gave up, fell to her knees, and started to cry.
“Crying will get you nowhere. Confess your crime. What do you mean, you set a trap? Why?” Korone asked, looking down at her.
Nozomi confessed to everything she’d done, wiping away tears as she spoke. She told her that she’d tried to capture the Empress with sticky glue. That she wanted to talk to the Empress. And that she had imperial blood herself.
“I see. And that’s why you set this terrible trap?”
“That’s right. But I didn’t mean to hurt her...”
“I can’t believe you thought you could capture the Empress like this.”
“I said I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!”
“That’s right. I can’t believe you though you could capture her with a trap like this.”
“Huh?” Nozomi looked upwards.
Korone nodded expressionlessly.
“You’ll never be able to become the new empress with a trap like this. You need to be more realistic.”
“Huh? Huh? What?”
“But think about it,” Korone explained to her, “Even if you capture her, you won’t be able to become Empress.”
“Y-You’re right. I was just going to talk with her...”
“There’s no way that you can get what you want through peaceful conversation.”
“Huh?”
“Negotiations mean doing what it takes to get your opponent to agree to your conditions. In other words, if you negotiate when your opponent is in dire peril, you’re more likely to get what you want,” Korone said calmly.
“W-Wait, you can’t mean...” Nozomi was scared, now that she realized something was wrong here. But Korone was serious. In fact, her expression hadn’t changed at all. But Nozomi could tell what it was she was trying to say.
“...Isn’t that what they call a threat?”
Korone shook her head, though.
“Of course not. Negotiations aren’t threats. Whether someone thinks it’s a threat is up to them.”
“You can’t do that! It’s wrong! I mean, it’s really wrong! But just... out of curiosity... could you tell me how I could threat- I mean, negotiate with her?” Nozomi squeezed her eyes shut, but she was holding Korone’s hand tight as she spoke.
“First, you need to make the trap something that causes no actual harm. But the negotiations have to succeed for you to get what you want, which means you should do something that puts your target at risk of psychological harm,” Korone said.
Nozomi appeared to think for a moment, before she suddenly clapped her hands together. “You mean, for example, a trap that stripped its target completely naked in front of other people?”
“That’s one way, of course,” Korone nodded.
“Oh! Thank you, kind person!” Nozomi said with tears in her eyes.
But when she let go of Korone’s hand and went to get started working on her trap, she realized she had no idea what to actually do.
“...Um? How do I set a trap like that, exactly?”
“I see. You’ll need advice, which I’ll be happy to provide. Complicated traps like yours aren’t what you want. The more simple a trap is, the more effective. There are two basic rules you need to follow. First, don’t use mana. Second, achieve your goal with one single process,” Korone explained calmly.
“The reason you don’t use mana is to make it more difficult for magically-adept students to discover your trap. And the reason for the second rule is that by quickly humiliating your target, you can harm the powers of concentration required to use magic, increasing the amount of time for which they’re humiliated.”
“I see. Good to know.” Nozomi began to take notes.
“This limits the amount of effective types of traps. I’ll show you a diagram,” Korone said as she opened a mana screen that showed the details of a number of traps.”
“Why did you have something like this saved...?”
Korone ignored her and pointed to the screen.
“The key here is this rope. You want something that activates when the rope is pulled.”
“Hmm...” Nozomi nodded, deep in thought.
“Catching both legs with a rope and dangling the target in the air is effective, but it’s dangerous and should be avoided. I suggest something that douses the target from above with a special chemical.”
“A chemical?”
“Yes. This.” Korone took out a small vial from the bag she always carried and held it above her head.
“ClothesMeltrin!”
“C-Clothesmel...what?”
“ClothesMeltrin. A terrifying chemical that only melts clothes.”
“They didn’t put a lot of thought into that name, did they?”
“Take it up with the person who named it. It uses bacteria to dissolve chemical fibers.”
“Which means you can quickly strip someone to their underwear... No, if their underwear’s made of chemical fibers they’ll lose it too...!”
“Correct.” Korone nodded.
Then she offered the vial to Nozomi. “It needs to be watered down 30 times before you use it. This one vial will give you enough to fill three buckets.”
“N-No, but...” Nozomi hesitated. “This is kind of scary, isn’t it?”
“Do you think so? All you’re doing is negotiating with someone when they’re naked. Is there a problem with that?” Korone tried to force the vial into Nozomi’s hands.
“There isn’t, but... A-Aaah....”
Nozomi started to quietly scream. She was never a strong girl, and the plan was scaring her. In Nozomi’s eyes, Korone seemed to have transformed into Mephistopheles. Though a demon with a much more limited range of facial expressions. Her shaking hands stretched out towards the vial. And then...
“Korone, who’s this?”
Suddenly she heard a man’s voice from nearby.
“HYAAAAH!” Nozomi screamed loudly and started to run.
“Wai-”
The man — Akuto — shouted after her, but she didn’t hear him.
She ran without thinking for a while, before finally stopping to rest behind some bushes. Only after she caught her breath did she realize that the vial was tightly held in her hands.
“T-This is...”
Nozomi gulped. And what was more...
“For some reason, there’s a copy of that trap schematic on my terminal!”
○
“Korone, who was that?” Akuto asked as he watched Nozomi run off into the distance.
“The janitor,” Korone said flatly.
“Why was the janitor wearing a maid outfit...? No, that’s not what’s important here. What was that about?”
“She was a poor, delusional girl, and so I decided to talk to her a little.”
“Huh?” Akuto said, confused.
“She was trying to use some kind of strange trap to capture the Empress. She put a banana peel here...” Korone returned the banana peel from the garbage can to its original position.
“I’m not following.”
“I see. I suppose that’s just a sign of how strange the situation was. Since the Empress cut class, we had nothing to fear, but I was in the process of learning more about her, and possibly arresting her, when you interrupted.” Korone said.
Akuto didn’t know what to say to that.
“...Does that mean I’m at fault here?”
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“But you said you were trying to arrest her...”
“No, she didn’t do anything that violated the law. I was trying to see if I could get her to do it.”
“...I really don’t follow. You’re not just trying to make things as complicated as possible so you can enjoy it, are you?”
“A little.”
“Come on, you can’t do that...”
“Don’t worry. I’m only 80% serious.”
“Listen...” Akuto put an end to the strange conversation and decided to follow after the maid-slash-janitor.
He left Korone behind as he jogged off in the direction she’d gone.
—Um, I think it was this way...
Akuto headed off to the side of the school building. He found Nozomi on a narrow route between two of the classrooms. She was a tiny girl in a maid uniform, setting up a primitive trap. She crouched in the nearby bushes, fiddling with a rope.
“Um...”
Akuto approached. He was met with a scream in response.
“Hyaaah!”
Before he knew it she was already running.
“Wait...”
He tried to stop her, but in an instant she’d disappeared beyond the corner of the school building. He went to follow her, but stopped himself just before he fell into the trap she’d set.
—That was close. So this is the trap Korone was talking about...
He’d only seen it because he’d watched her set it, but it was a thin string of fishing wire that would be almost impossible to see if you weren’t watching. And if you tripped the wire, it was set to drop a bucket of liquid down on your head from above. The bucket was well-hidden too, something you’d never find if someone didn’t tell you it was there.
“I need to get rid of this first.”
Akuto followed the fishing wire to the base of a tree, where he found a device hidden on the other side of a trunk. He started to think about how he could get the device undone without dropping the bucket.
—If I untie the rope, the bucket will fall... Maybe I should just drop the bucket when nobody’s around? he said, and began to fiddle with the device, which consisted of branches and stone weights.
“What are you doing back there? It seems like you’re hiding something.”
He heard a voice.
“Uwah! Don’t move from that spot!” Akuto cried.
It was Junko Hattori. She was the class rep, and she had a long history with Akuto. Junko was a girl with a gallant flair, looked up to by her classmates, upstanding and always telling the truth. But Akuto knew that she was actually pretty clumsy sometimes. And if she was standing in that spot, then...
“What do you mean ‘don’t move’? What are you doing there?”
Junko began to walk towards him in broad strides.
“I said don’t move!” he yelled again, but her strides only grew longer.
“You’re acting suspicious! What are you hid...!” She tripped on the fishing line.
“Aah...!”
Akuto tried his hardest to hang on to the rope supporting the bucket. But when Junko tripped the wire, it made the weights descend with more force than he’d expected. The rope slipped out of his hands.
“Uwah!” Junko almost tripped, but managed to keep her balance and stay where she was. Unfortunately, that was the wrong move. The contents of the bucket were splattered all over her.
“Bwah... What did you just dump on me?!”
She looked up, shaking her head and sending water droplets scattering from her wet hair as she stormed over to him.
“Listen, it’s not...” Akuto started to flail his hands.
Junko didn’t understand what he meant, and kept walking forward, her eyes locked straight onto his.
“Don’t try and talk your way out of this! You’re not a little child anymore, so don’t...”
She raised a hand to point at Akuto. When she did, the sleeve of her uniform began to turn to dust and fall to the ground.
“What’s... going on...? H-Huh...? AAAH!” Junko’s eyes went wide as she realized all her clothes were starting to crumble from her body.
“Aaah!” She covered her body with her arms and dropped.
Fortunately, the cloth she’d wrapped around her breasts and crotch to serve as underwear hadn’t melted.
“A-Are you okay?” Akuto ran over to her, took off his jacket, and placed it on top of her. She gripped it tightly to her body, tears in her eyes, and looked up at him angrily.
“I-I thought this was just a childish trick, but it’s far worse. Don’t tell me you went through all this just to get my clothes off...”
“No, this wasn’t an attempt to get your clothes off...”
“Oh... So you weren’t setting the trap for me, you were setting it for someone else who came along this path... I-If you did this because you wanted to see me naked, I could’ve forgiven you, but...” Junko bit her lip and stood up.
She ran her arms through the sleeves of Akuto’s jacket, and then summoned mana light into her hands.
“Wait, you’ve got it all wrong...”
“I understand everything. Now that your power has been sealed, you’ve been reduced to playing pranks like an ordinary student!”
“No... that’s really not it.”
“Fortunately, I’m now capable of punishing you. And I know that most of what I can do won’t kill you, too...” She approached him with a violent look on her face.
The rest of the student body didn’t know this, but Akuto no longer had the incredible power he’d had after he awakened. He retained his toughness, it seemed, but his mana control was incomplete. In other words, if he was hit, it would hurt.
“You need to listen to me...” Akuto started to back off.
“If you’re running, it’s proof that you don’t feel like you need to atone! Prepare yourself!”
She threw a mana ball at him. Akuto dodged it and ran.
“Uwaah!”
“Stop right there”!
“If I stop, you’re going to hit me!”
“Of course I am!” Junko screamed as she ran after him.
The first person to hear them was Fujiko, the girl who’d caused the fuss at the cafeteria and then fled the minute things got complicated. She was sitting in the quiet area behind the school building, eating a pasta lunch she’d bought at a restaurant outside the school.
“Oh? What’s all this fuss?” She looked up from the bench and saw Junko chasing after Akuto. Then she quickly stood up.
“Hey, what are you doing?” she yelled, and started to run after Junko.
“I won’t let anybody stop me from punishing him, even you!” Junko turned back a moment to yell at her.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but absolute subservience to Akuto is our job!” Fujiko yelled back.
“Who’s this ‘we’? Since when were you and I in the same group?”
“No! I mean obeying Akuto is all of humanity’s job!”
“That’s crazy!”
Junko and Fujiko kept yelling as they ran.
“I don’t care! Just leave me alone!” Akuto looked back for a moment to scream.
But then he turned to look ahead again, and stopped in surprise at what he saw.
“Uwah! Wait! Watch out!” He’d seen Nozomi running from behind a nearby building. That meant that there was another trap nearby.
“‘Watch out’? Couldn’t you think of something more clever?” Junko jumped up, ready to attack Akuto.
“Hold it!” Fujiko leapt in front of her to stop her.
And then...
Fujiko tripped on something and fell.
“Ah..!”
“Huh...?”
Akuto and Junko froze as they saw Fujiko trip. Something splashed on her from above.
“Hey, what is this?!” She stood up. Her clothes were melting on her body.
Fujiko didn’t realize this, though. She stood up tall and straight, exposing her underwear-clad body to the world.
“Oh no...” Akuto covered his face with one hand.
“Fujiko!” Junko quickly waved her hands at her.
“What... just... happened...? Huh? Hyaaah!” Fujiko wrapped her arms around her body, blushed, and looked at Akuto.
“If you wanted to see me naked, you could’ve just said so... Wait, now’s not the right mood for that sort of thing!” She seemed to change her mind halfway through her sentence, because she suddenly yanked Akuto’s jacket off of Junko.
“Uwah! Aah! W-What are you doing...?” Junko dropped to her knees and covered herself.
“Hahahaha! So that’s why you’re wearing Akuto’s jacket, huh? But his jacket is too good for you!” She put the jacket on and began to rub her cheek lovingly against the collar.
“E-Even if you’re an upperclassman, you can’t do this to me...” Junko grit her teeth and glared at Fujiko, but she couldn’t do anything while crouching on the ground.
“I’m not sure what I should say here, but...” Akuto took off his shirt and laid it on Junko.
“Oh! I think she got a better deal that I did...” Fujiko whispered as she watched Junko put on and button the shirt.
Junko blushed.
“D-Don’t be stupid... This shirt’s all sweaty...”
“That just makes it better!” Fujiko said with shining eyes.
“No... Well, never mind that. This should be enough to get you to understand that I wasn’t the one who did this..” Akuto interrupted.
“I did see someone strange-looking running away...” Junko said, averting her eyes from him.
“In other words, someone else came up with this ridiculous idea.” Fujiko said. She looked around, and then raised an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
“What is it?” Akuto said, but there was no need to wait for a response. He realized that a good number of students were watching them from a distance.
“What is that? Exhibitionism play?”
“The Demon King is toying with Fujiko again...”
“No, Fujiko is one thing, but he’s got the class rep naked except for her underwear and a t-shirt...”
“I can’t believe they’re doing that on school grounds...”
He could hear the students talking.
“People are starting to notice. Not that I mind being watched.” Fujiko said casually, but Junko went pale.
“Y-You’re crazy! You can’t just humiliate me like this...”
“I told you, it wasn’t me.” Akuto said, but Junko was so embarrassed that she couldn’t even think straight.
“Shut up! It has to be your fault somehow! Gaaah! Forget it! I’ll just punish you first and think later!” She took out a sword from somewhere, drew it, and began to charge at Akuto.
“Come on, think about this!” Akuto started to run as she chased after him.
“Stop attacking Akuto!” Fujiko started to run, too.
“Man, I really need to find that girl now...”
Akuto sighed. As he ran, he looked around to try and find Nozomi. What he saw terrified him.
“How dare he humiliate girls like that?”
“But what if the Demon King gets mad?”
“He can’t use his powers in this situation. Let’s surround him and say so many mean things he never recovers!”
“Oh, this is getting fun.”
“We might be able to see some tits!”
“I want to see more of the class rep wearing just a shirt.”
“Knock it off, boys!”
The students were on the move, chatting and arguing among themselves. And of course, they were all following after Akuto. By now, most of the crowd didn’t even know what was going on, and was simply following the group.
“Uwah! What’s going on here?”
Akuto searched even more frantically for Nozomi.
○
—Aah! I did it again! Nozomi screamed to herself.
She’d been running from Akuto, Junko, and Fujiko, when she’d unconsciously set a second trap, the one that had gotten Fujiko.
“Why am I doing something so scary...?” she said to herself regretfully as she ran.
After a moment of running, though, she noticed something was wrong. She began to hear a sound like the rumbling of the Earth.
“W-What’s going on?” She looked around. She could see a cloud of dust in the distance.
—W-What’s that? She didn’t say anything about all this stuff happening!
The cloud of dust was getting closer and closer. When she saw that the dust was being thrown up by a rioting crowd of over 100 students, she was so scared that she completely went nuts.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Her head spinning, she came to an (of course) incorrect, and also absurd, conclusion.
—I’m gonna have to do that other thing! Nobody can stop me now!
○
“Why do I have to be humiliated like this?”
“A true lady turns that humiliation into pleasure!”
Junko and Fujiko were both screaming.
“I don’t care, but I’d appreciate it if you could stop chasing me... You can’t, can you?” Akuto sighed.
The students were swarming after him. If they stopped they’d be swallowed up.
—I just need to find that little maid... Oh!
He saw Nozomi out of the corner of his eye, and turned towards her. She seemed to be running towards the gym.
—I need to catch her and make her tell me what’s going on...
Nozomi seemed to have gone into the gym. The gym had a lot of exits, but they were in places that weren’t easy to spot. If he was lucky he might be able to catch her.
“I might be able to do this...”
Akuto jumped into the gym. Just as he did, he saw Nozomi climbing onto the stage in the back.
“Wait...!” he called out to her, but she ran off towards the backstage area.
“Oh, jeez...!”
He followed after her, but of course, Junko and Fujiko were right on his tail. And the rioting students were behind them.
“Uwah.... I’m gonna get them all trapped in here... She’s running towards a spot without any exits, so I guess I’ll be okay...” Akuto whispered.
He jumped up onto the stage to follow Nozomi. When he did, he looked up to see her on the second floor of the backstage area, next to the control panels that controlled the lights and curtain.
“Hey! Don’t be scared! I’m not going to hurt you!” he yelled, but when he looked into her eyes he saw no trace of sanity at all.
“You’re lying! You’re going to catch me and do all kinds of horrible, naughty things to me, aren’t you? Yeah! I know what’s going on here! That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?”
“I am not!”
“Then why are there so many people with you?” Nozomi pointed behind him.
Akuto looked to see that the gym was completely packed with people.
“Uwah... Well, this isn’t my fault...” Akuto said, but Nozomi shook her head.
“Even if it’s not your fault, there’s no way for me to escape now! So you know, there’s only one thing left for me to do!”
She put her hand on the control panel.
“Do? What are you going to do?” Akuto asked, a little afraid, but Nozomi simply said “Hmph!” and slammed her fist on the control panel.
“This!”
Rain started fall down behind Akuto, covering the whole gym. Cold water began to fall on the students.
“That’s not rain... The sprinkler?”
Akuto was right. The sprinkler system had activated. The whole gym was covered in water.
“It’s cold!”
“What is this?”
“Does he really think this will help him get away...?” the students began to yell. The whole gym was filled with students now, they had to yell just to be heard.
“...Water? No way!” Akuto gasped and looked up at Nozomi.
Nozomi began to scream. By now she’d totally lost it. “I told you, this is the only thing left for me to do!”
The students’ yells began to turn to shrieks.
“Hyaaaah!”
“Kyaaaah!”
“Uwaaah!”
“Iyaaaah!”
The whole gym began to shake with the cries of boys and girls. The scene was beginning to turn the color of exposed skin. Everybody was either naked, or in their underwear. In other words, everyone had lost their uniform.
The girls began to use magic to blast the nearby boys away,
“This is... awful.” Akuto said, looking down on the crowd below him from the stage.
“I think a painter once drew a picture of hell that looked like this,” Fujiko said casually. Of course, she was on the stage and had avoided the carnage.
“I finally understand what’s going on, but... Now what?” Junko said as she glanced from Akuto to Nozomi.
Akuto looked up at Nozomi and sighed. “If we can just explain...”
Nozomi was shaking, now that she’d lost her only path to escape.
It wasn’t clear whether sanity had returned to her, but now she looked like a poor, frightened girl. It was a sad sight to behold.
“...No, I don’t know if we can have her explain anything.” Akuto whispered quietly.
Reluctantly, he looked down. The students had seemed to realize that if everybody else was naked, it wasn’t embarrassing. They’d stopped fighting and were all glaring up at Akuto. He could see several red, bestial eyes shining against a backdrop of dark skin.
“So how do we calm them down, then?” Junko said to Akuto in a way that made it clear she had no idea what to do.
“Well...” Akuto began. There was a darkness in his eyes that made it clear that he was reluctant to do what he was about to do.
“...I’ll do something bad.” He whispered, and walked forward.
“Wait,” Junko said, trying to stop him, but it was too late. Fujiko leapt in front of him.
“If you and I make love here, nobody will be able to stop us...”
“I’d really rather not,” Akuto said immediately. But he didn’t have any ideas except letting himself get beat up. He no longer had the strength to fight the whole school without hurting anyone.
“Well, if that’s how it has to be, then fine. I can take the hits, at least.” He said casually, and then stepped in front of the assembled students.
The students began to swarm the stage. Akuto simply closed his eyes so as not to scare them. But then a voice echoed throughout the gym.
“Stop this at once!” It was a voice clear and loud enough to drown out the yelling students.
Everyone froze and looked towards the voice. It was coming from above. Keena was slowly descending from the window. She had a speaker in her hand, and Korone was riding on her back. The sunlight shining in from the window behind her gave her an almost divine aura.
“Keena...” Akuto whispered as his eyes opened wide. The students all froze and began to murmur among themselves.
“I apologize for this incident. It was my failure to keep control of him that led to this. I apologize here and now for the trouble I caused you. I will officially have new uniforms prepared for you,” she continued in a clear, unhesitating voice.
The students were listening quietly. But Akuto could see that she was occasionally looking down at Korone’s hand. She was reading off of cards.
“But that’s not enough for an apology. I’m going to punish the Demon King here and now!” Keena declared. The students murmured among themselves.
“What? Punish me?” Akuto said in surprise. He knew Keena could supposedly control his power, but this was the first he’d heard about any kind of power like that. Keena landed in front of him. And she looked up at him with a rare look of anger.
“Ackie”!
“Y-Yes...?” Akuto mumbled.
“Ackie! The rice got hard because of you!” She pointed a finger at him as she scolded him.
“Huh? Rice...? Hard...?” As Akuto stood there confused, Keena called Korone over.
Korone walked over and took out a large plastic bin from her bag. It was what the school used for trash bins.
“We ended up with extra rice in the cafeteria. It will have to be thrown out at this rate,” Korone said expressionlessly.
“You made more than you were supposed to! It’s all dry and hard now, but your punishment is that you have to eat it!” She opened the trash bin, which was filled to the brim with dry, hard rice.
“W-Wait...” This was enough to cause even Akuto to take a step back. Korone thrust a ladle into the rice. There was a cracking sound.
“It’s totally dry!” Akuto screamed.
“That’s right! It’s dry! Now, eat it all up and don’t waste a single grain!” Keena grabbed the ladle with one hand and Akuto with the other, and began to force the rice down his mouth.
“S-Stop it! It’s so hard! My teeth...!”
“Don’t worry! You can still eat it if you just ignore the pain! I know I could eat this much rice if I really tried, so as long as you ignore how hard it is, it’ll be fine!” Keena said, forcefully. By now Akuto had fallen to the ground, and she was on top of him and jamming rice down his throat.
“She’s forcing him to eat hard rice...”
“Without even steaming it again?”
“There’s so much of it...”
“This whole thing is starting to feel stupid...”
“Yeah... let’s just go home...”
The anger had completely drained from the students. They were watching in shocked silence as Akuto was forced to eat dry rice. Korone walked in front of the students and opened her bag.
“Now line up. Just tell me the size and type and I’ll give you a new uniform...” The students began to peacefully form a line.
Thus, the whole mess came to an end with one great sacrifice made by a single man.
○
And now, Akuto was lying alone on his bed. He had no idea how he’d managed to digest it all, but a full trash bin of rice had disappeared into his stomach. The price he’d paid was a stomachache worse than being punched.
“Oh... my peaceful life seems so far away...” He sobbed as he looked up at the ceiling.
Suddenly Korone appeared in his field of vision. She was looking down on him from above the bed.
“What is it?” Akuto asked. Her answer was immediate, but also awkward.
“I was curious if you were mad.”
“Mad?” Akuto said, and for once she took a moment to answer.
“...You must be aware who was responsible for all of this. Even if it was in large part a series of coincidences.”
“Yeah...” Akuto sighed a little and shook his head.
“...If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s that girl’s. And whether I’m mad or not is a separate issue. I am pretty sad, though.”
“I want to make it up to you, then.”
“Make it up to me?”
“Yes. I was thinking I might be able to make you feel better.”
“...You’re not teasing me again, are you?”
“You don’t trust me?” Korone said expressionlessly. But her voice sounded very sad.
“N-No, I do...” Akuto stammered.
“Good,” she said, and gently smiled at him. If he remembered right, this was the second time he’d seen her smile. Then she lifted a leg up and over his body, and crouched over him.
“Hey... If you’re not teasing me, then please don’t try and do anything dirty,” Akuto said, stammering.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to give you what you want. I just want to make you feel better. Fortunately, I was given an exterior which humans do not find displeasing, so I will sleep next to you and sing you love songs.” She slid into his bed and wrapped his arms around her.
“...Hey.”
“Is it not okay?” she said, looking up at him. Her eyes were shining like precious jewels, and he couldn’t help but put a hand around her shoulder.
“Um, it’s... okay, but...”
“Did an erection occur?”
“Huh?”
“No, I mean, did you get erect?”
Akuto stared at her. She was looking at him expressionlessly.
“...You tricked me again, didn’t you?” Akuto said, and the corners of her mouth curled up into a grin.
“I’ll tell the rest of the girls that this is how you trick a man. Now, let’s check on that erection...”
“Let’s not!” Akuto slapped away her hand and yelled.
Korone lay on her side in the bed, and this time answered with her usual tone.
“Then, will you not get mad if I tease you again?” Akuto stared at her, and when he was pretty sure that this time it wasn’t an act, he sighed.
“If it’s something that doesn’t cause any real harm, and if it helps Keena. But don’t go too far, okay?”
“As you wish.” Korone nodded.
“Okay...” Akuto said, and closed his eyes.
“Um...”
“Hmm?” He opened them again upon hearing Korone speak.
“You’re not kicking me out of bed, then, are you?” she said mischievously.
“My stomach hurts, so I was trying to go to sleep!”
“I’ll also record the fact that men make excuses like that. Now, if the Empress were to see us like this, you might be forced to eat rock-hard rice again. I’ll be returning to my shelf.” she said as she stood up from the bed.
“Sure. You know, I never saw Keena after that...”
“She went to take that trash bin back to the cafeteria... I wonder what happened to her?”
○
“Waaaaaah! It’s so sticky I can’t get it off! Help me, Ackie! Korone!” Keena screamed. She’d gotten stuck on the glue on the wall of the school building’s second floor.
“I tripped on a banana peel, and then I saw a flyer talking about a sale on rice, and then I went to grab a bag of rice when a metal wash basin fell down and hit me on the head, and then I staggered onto a trampoline that knocked me into the air and I got stuck on the wall!” she sobbed. But Nozomi, the girl who’d set the trap, was now curled up in her futon in the janitor’s room, shivering and shaking.
“Scary! This school is scary!”
In the end, it was an hour before anybody found Keena.