CHAPTER 3

Seeming to have remembered what was going on, she leaped to her feet and raced toward me.

“Wh-what do you mean?! How did I lose?! What did you do?!”

“Uh, well…”

I answered her rapid-fire questions by carefully explaining Hazy Moon.

“It’s not fair! That has to be cheating!” she complained, displeased with my explanation.

“Well, that’s what I did…”

While it was certainly out of the ordinary, it was a legitimate move. First off, the slash attack I’d prepared in the space that I’d predicted she would pass through wasn’t completely invisible. If you really focused, you could see a slight shift in the air. Lia surely would have noticed it if she hadn’t already been certain of her victory.

To be frank, I’d say this was more her loss than my win.

I didn’t think telling Lia that directly would be a good idea, though.

For some reason, Chairwoman Reia smirked.

“Ah-heh—anyway, this duel ended in Allen’s victory. What are you going to do, Lia?” she asked with a wicked smirk.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Lia responded.

She tilted her head in confusion, as if she’d genuinely forgotten.

“You know… The special agreement you made before the duel.”

“Agreement…?!”

Her face suddenly stiffened.

She’d actually forgotten…

It seemed she could be a bit of an airhead.

“That reaction tells me you remembered. ‘The loser becomes the winner’s slave’… That was the agreement you made before the duel!”

The chairwoman looked like she was having the time of her life as she backed Lia into a corner.

“U-um, well, ‘slave’ was more a figure of speech…,” Lia muttered, waving her arms hastily. Her eyes were darting back and forth in a clear panic. Considering she was on the brink of becoming a slave, her reaction was understandable.

“I see… Well, this duel didn’t go through registration, and we didn’t carry out formal procedures. I wouldn’t feel good about it, but if you insist, Lia, I’m willing to turn a blind eye to this…”

Surprisingly, she was giving Lia a way out.

“R-Reia…!”

She was gaping at Chairwoman Reia as if she were a god.

…This would actually save me a lot of trouble.

Honestly, the idea of Lia becoming my slave troubled me. She was a princess of the Vesteria Kingdom. If this arrangement came to light, it would cause an international scandal.

That’s a wrap on this situation.

A wave of relief washed over me. But it was short-lived.

“However…could you really live with that?” Reia asked Lia gravely.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I was just thinking… What would it look like if a princess of the proud Vesteria Kingdom lost a fight that she picked herself, then wriggled out of the terms she set? It’s fine if you don’t have a problem with that. I just found it curious. But you can forget about it,” Reia said in an affected manner. She was clearly provoking Lia intentionally.

What is wrong with her…? We were almost free of this…

I glared daggers at the chairwoman.

This settles it. She has a malicious personality.

It was clear in the entrance ceremony and here as well. She was totally toying with Lia.

The greater the distance I keep from her, the better.

While I was lost in thought, Lia began to growl in frustration.

“Gurrrrrrrrgh! Dammit! Fine! I’ll stick to the agreement! That’s what you want, right?!” she screamed, sounding half out of her mind.

Chairwoman Reia gave an exaggerated shrug.

“Hey, don’t act like I forced you into this… This is your problem. Hold the agreement and become his slave or trample it underfoot and run. Only you can make this decision.”

“Grrrrrrr…”

Lia grumbled wordlessly, then turned to glare at me.

“I—I am unworthy, but I pledge myself to your service… Master…”

She bowed to me. Her face was beet red, she was biting her lip, and she was shaking from humiliation.

“Uh, um…thanks…”

Feeling beyond exhausted, I elected to go along with it just to bring an end to this.

I was alone with Lia in her apartment.

“…”

“…”

We were sitting on a wine-red carpet in total silence. Feeling incredibly uncomfortable, I watched the seconds tick by on my watch.

…Why did this have to happen?

We’d both put our freedom on the line in a duel that had resulted in her becoming my slave. But I wanted no part of it.

The princess of a nation left to study abroad and ended up becoming a slave to some nobody. If people in her home country of Vesteria were to find out about this, it would create an international incident.

I wanted to be free of this already. Why did I have to get wrapped up in this nonsense?

Haaah…

I’d lost track of how many times I’d sighed internally.

After the duel, Chairwoman Reia told me that “a slave needs to devote everything to their master!” before running off somewhere. She was like a hurricane in human form.

But considering the rules of the academy and societal standards, the chairwoman didn’t do anything wrong…

At first, I thought she was just messing with us for her own pleasure, but in reality, she was simply upholding her duties as the observer.

Duels were serious sword fights where each participant put their pride on the line. Neither side could back down on the agreement set before a match. Anyone cowardly enough to withdraw would be branded a failure of a swordfighter.

That sentiment was the first thing kids learned in elementary swordcraft academies, and it was engraved in the hearts of all the swordsmen in this country. Scratch that, in the entire world.

Even Dodriel had held to our agreement. He’d swallowed his great pride to bow to me, had taken back his insult against me and Mom, and had apologized. That was how important it was to stick to your word after a duel.

That’s what makes this such a tricky situation…

Given Lia’s personality, she wouldn’t simply withdraw from her pledge of becoming my slave even if I told her to. If she was the type of person willing to go back on her word, she would have allowed the chairwoman to cover up her defeat.

That meant she could only free herself from servitude through defeating me in another match.

That’s pretty unlikely now, though.

Lia had exposed to me her attack patterns, her defensive and evasive habits, her way of thinking in battle, and other important components of her fighting style during our last duel. If she had an ace up her sleeve, she could give me a run for my money but still wouldn’t trounce me. I had one or two tricks she hadn’t seen yet, too.

Should I just lose on purpose?

That thought flashed across my mind, but I quickly dismissed it. That wouldn’t work. I was an honest duelist—I could never allow myself to do something so foolish.

Argh…what should I do…?

All this ruminating wasn’t going to accomplish anything. There was nothing I could do right now, so getting worked up was just a waste of time. After accepting that, I started to look around Lia’s dorm surreptitiously.

Her room is cute.

It was girly and nicely decorated, with white as the dominant color plus pink accents. Considering her royal status, I expected to see luxurious furnishings like a chandelier or something, but there was nothing of the sort. It was just a typical room for a girl her age.

It smells kinda nice, too.

It didn’t smell like perfume or detergent. Rather, it was a vaguely sweet and natural—now that I thought about it, that was a girl’s smell.

Next, I spotted something in the room that caught my interest.

Huh…so she likes dolls.

She had placed two cute dolls, a bear and a fox, by the pillow on her bed.

Ha-ha, she has a sweet side.

I continued to observe Lia’s room.

“Can you stop looking around my room…please? It’s embarrassing,” she muttered, blushing a little.

“S-sorry…,” I apologized. It was wrong to scrutinize another person’s room, especially when it belonged to a girl who was the same age as you.

That was big progress, though!

That was the first honest interaction we’d had since we’d entered her apartment. Not wanting to let this opportunity go to waste now that the tension between us had lessened a little, I mustered my courage and tried to speak to her.

“Um…”

“Wh-what is it, Master?”

“Can you, uh…please stop talking to me like that?”

That stilted way of speaking didn’t fit her at all. I probably felt that way because I’d seen her true nature earlier.

“As your slave, it would be unseemly for me to speak to you otherwise. And I…also have my pride as a swordswoman. I must hold to the agreement,” Lia murmured, turning from me. She was even more stubborn than I thought.

We’re going to be living together from now on, though… Having her speak to me like a slave the entire time is going to feel awkward…

I didn’t dislike her. In fact, I wanted to grow closer to her. She could definitely be rude, and she put on an act to get other people to like her… However, she’d also kept her word from before the duel and had a swordswoman’s dignity. Our relationship was a little too complicated to call good right now, but I wanted us to become friends.

She can also produce Soul Attire.

If possible, I also wanted her to give me some tips on creating it.

If we’re going to become good friends, I need to get her to speak to me like one first…

Words had a major influence on conduct and relationships. If she continued to address me as her master, she would always keep me at arm’s length, and our friendship would never bloom.

If I could get her to quit speaking to me so stiffly, I was sure the distance between us would shrink surprisingly quickly.

Given how stubborn and headstrong she is…I guess I have only one option.

Though it was forceful, I felt like I had no choice this time.

Staring her directly in the eyes, I adopted a slightly strict tone.

“Fine…this is an order, then. You are forbidden from speaking to me like you’re a slave.”

“Th-that’s not fair!”

I expected her to react that way.

“Isn’t it within a master’s rights to force a slave to do things they don’t want to do?” I asked.

It was a far-fetched argument, but it would do for now.

“…Understood, Mas— Ahem. Got it. But are you sure about this? You can’t take back an order.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

That kind of formality didn’t suit her. Talking casually was much more natural.

“Then you should stop speaking politely to me, too… It’s creepy,” she added, blushing a little.

“Really? I’ll make sure to cut it out, then.”

I wasn’t good at fancy speech, either, so I was willing to take her up on that.

Now that we had reached an agreement, I changed the subject.

“What a thing to get ourselves into on our first day at the academy…”

“Hmph, I wonder whose fault that is?”

“…Isn’t that a little unfair? Don’t get me wrong; I definitely deserve blame for what I saw, but isn’t this partially on you for changing in the men’s locker room?”

“Huh? What are you saying? I was in the women’s locker room.”

“…Huh? No, there’s no way! That was definitely the men’s locker room!”

“R-really?! I know I checked before I went in, though!”

No, I was positive the sign had said that it was the men’s locker room when I’d gone in. After I’d witnessed…what I never should have seen, I’d gone back to confirm it had been the men’s locker room. That was distinct in my memory.

As if realizing something, Lia’s mouth fell to the floor.

“Could this have been Reia’s doing?” she asked.

“…I could see that,” I responded.

The more I thought about it, the more the chairwoman’s timing seemed off. It was if she’d known what was going to happen.

I didn’t know what her goal was…but this had her fingerprints all over it.

“She set us up! But why? What purpose did she have?!” Lia asked.

“Beats me…but I do know she’s a messed-up human being,” I responded.

“…Ugh.”

We both sighed at the same time.

“…Hey, don’t imitate me,” Lia snapped.

“No, I sighed a split second earlier than you,” I argued.

“No way, I—”

We then enjoyed chatting about nothing in particular. Just as I’d expected, speaking as friends quickly closed the distance between us.

Dong, dong, dong, rang the wall clock in the apartment. I looked at my watch and saw that it was nearly eleven at night. I needed to prepare for the next day and get to bed.

“Ah, I didn’t realize it was this late,” I said.

“We need to start getting ready for bed now if we want to have a good first day of class,” Lia added.

“Yeah. You get in the shower first. I’ll wait for you.”

“…Could you say that in a less suggestive way?”

I thought I was just being courteous, but for some reason, she glared at me.

“Uh… How was that suggestive?”

I didn’t think I’d said anything that could be taken that way…

“Um, never mind, it’s nothing!”

Lia’s face flushed deep red, then she headed for the dressing room.

“If you peep this time, I will kill you!” she spat, slamming the curtains closed.

Lia broke off her conversation with Allen and closed the dressing-room curtain.

“You get in the shower first. I’ll wait for you”… Surely, he said that intentionally!

Her face still deep red, she shook her head.

Yeah, that was a trap… There’s no way only my mind would go there! He’s a dirty schemer!

While rationalizing her reaction to his words, she removed her top, then her skirt. Just as she was about to undo her bra, her hands froze.

“This curtain isn’t see-through, is it…?”

Still in her underwear, she strained her eyes at the curtain. The recent incident had raised her level of vigilance.

“…No, it seems fine.”

Now content that there was nothing to worry about, she took off her underwear and entered the bathroom.

Lia washed her long hair thoroughly with shampoo and conditioner as the bathtub filled with hot water. Next, she cleansed her body and massaged her muscles. She then gathered her hair into a towel and submerged herself in the bathtub up to her shoulders.

“Ah, this feels good…”

She stretched her whole body, extending her legs completely and spreading out her toes.

“…What a weird guy.”

As she washed away her exhaustion from the day, she voiced her candid thoughts about Allen.

“I’m his slave now, but he hasn’t even tried to touch me…,” she murmured, lightly splashing the water. “I know I’m good-looking, though.”

Lifting her right hand out of the water, she inspected her slightly flushed arm.

Strict daily training had left Lia’s arms and legs toned. Her chest was well-developed for a fifteen-year-old, and her torso was healthily curvy. She had an undeniably attractive body.

“It’s not like I want him to touch me or anything… It’s just…”

Any sexual advances would have distressed her, but the fact that Allen had demonstrated no interest whatsoever hurt her feelings a little. She continued to speak to herself as she sorted through these mixed feelings.

“A-anyway, I can’t let my guard down! ‘All men are wolves’—that’s what Father always said!”

Lia’s father—Gris Vesteria, the king of Vesteria—loved her dearly. His infatuation with her was well-known throughout the kingdom, and he’d been keeping men from her almost since the moment she was born. Lia’s father was so thorough that not only were all her servants female, but so were all the guards assigned to her.

Only the intervention of Reia, an old friend of Lia’s, and the recommendation of a loyal retainer had convinced her parents to allow her to attend Thousand Blade Academy.

All this is to say that Lia wasn’t used to being around the opposite sex.

“All men are wolves. I can’t let myself forget that… Letting my guard down for even a moment could be fatal!”

Having renewed her slackened vigilance, she got out of the bathtub and walked to the dressing room. She wiped her wet body off with a towel, but as she was drying her hair, her face went pale.

Sh-shoot… Did I forget to grab a change of clothes…?!

The shock took the words from Lia’s mouth; she tended to be a little ditzy.

Asking Allen to bring her a change of clothes was out of the question. She was fine with him seeing her pajamas, but there was no way she could let him see her underwear.

Ugh, there’s no other way… I have to go out as is…

She wrapped herself in a bath towel to hide her nakedness, then steeled herself and pulled open the curtain.

“I-I’m out of the bath…”

“Okay, I’ll get in— Huh?! L-Lia?!”

Allen’s female classmate was standing in front of him wearing only a bath towel. Her fresh and youthful skin was moist, and her cheeks were slightly flushed from embarrassment. The sight of her attractive, half-naked figure sent the young man into a wordless tizzy.

“I—I forgot to bring a change of clothes… D-don’t stare…”

“Ah, sorry!”

Just like Lia, Allen was not at all accustomed to the opposite sex. He grew up in Goza Village, which had an elderly and declining population, and his hard student life at Grand Swordcraft Academy had given him no chances to interact with girls.

Hmm… His face went really red. He’s more innocent than I thought…

Seeing Allen’s flustered state calmed Lia down a little bit. She appeared to have forgotten that her own face was flushed from embarrassment as well.

She walked past Allen and stepped into a different room.

“This is my room, so you’d better not enter without permission, okay?”

Lia had received a larger apartment than regular students because of her royal status. It consisted of her room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a spare room.

“S-sure, no problem… I’m gonna get in the bath now, all right?”

“Go ahead.”

After that short exchange, Lia closed the door to her room, and Allen entered the dressing room.

“Sheesh, that reaction… Hee-hee, that was kinda cute,” she whispered to herself as she put one leg through a pair of panties. Donning cute, white pajamas with pink polka dots, she began to dry her hair with a blow-dryer.

“Is he what you call a ‘beta male’…?”

She wasn’t quite certain what that term meant.

“…Wait, I’m getting careless!”

She realized that she had been opening her heart a little to Allen.

“H-he’s a natural-born schemer… He pretended to have an innocent reaction to get me to relax. It’s scary how good at this he is…”

Once again reaching the wrong conclusion, Lia’s face went pale. She renewed her guard.

“I’m sure his wicked heart will be exposed when it’s time for bed.”

After finishing with her hair, she headed for the kitchen to drink some cold water from the refrigerator. While she was on the way, Allen opened the dressing-room curtain and emerged, wearing his pajamas.

“Ah.”

“Ah.”

The unexpected encounter birthed an awkward silence between them.

“That was really fast. Are you a quick-bath kind of guy?” Lia asked.

“Ah-ha-ha, I guess so,” answered Allen.

They made small talk, losing track of the time. Before they knew it, the clock hit eleven, which meant it was about time to go to bed.

“Hey, Lia. I think I’m gonna hit the hay…,” Allen began while looking at his watch.

“Okay…”

Here it comes…

Lia’s heart was bursting out of her chest. She gulped in anticipation of what she was sure was coming next.

She had become his slave. She would have to comply with whatever he asked.

Urgh… I don’t want my first time to be forced…

Trembling, she quietly waited for Allen’s order.

“You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

He laid down right there on the ground.

“…Huh?”

Her mouth fell open in surprise.

“A-Allen? Are you really not going to do anything?”

“Uh, do what?”

Allen looked genuinely confused. He’d already taken a bath, brushed his teeth, and changed into his pajamas, so he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“Oh, forget it,” Lia muttered.

She sighed at his overly automatic and uninterested behavior, then sat down on the bed, which was large enough for two, and patted the spot to the right of her.

“Come on, we can both sleep here.”

“Huh? But…wouldn’t it be uncomfortable to sleep with a boy?”

“But it wouldn’t make sense for a slave to sleep in a bed while her master sleeps on the hard floor, right?”

“I guess you have a point…”

“Then stop finding excuses and get in bed.”

“G-got it.”

Allen laid down to the right of Lia, and they both pulled the large comforter over themselves.

“Can I turn off the lights…?” she asked.

“Y-yeah,” he answered.

Lia used a remote to bring the room’s illumination down to a faint orange glow. It was just bright enough for them to see each other’s faces if they strained their eyes. They were close enough to hear each other’s breathing if they listened carefully. An uncomfortable tension filled the bedroom.

“G-good night, Lia.”

“Good night…Allen.”

Brief words exchanged, they quietly closed their eyes in spite of their throbbing hearts.

I can’t believe he’s actually not going to do anything.

…It occurred to Lia that he was probably going to mess with her after she fell asleep.

With that possibility in mind, she pretended to fall asleep… But Allen did nothing, of course, so it was all a waste of time.

Lia slowly sat up and stared at the boy lying to the right of her. He was breathing peacefully in his sleep.

“How is he resting so comfortably…? I guess I was the only one thinking about this.”

She felt a little defeated. Ever the sore loser, she pinched Allen’s cheek gently, almost as if it was out of revenge.

“…His cheeks are surprisingly soft for a boy.”

They were as smooth as a baby’s bottom, which awoke a great curiosity in Lia.

“He won’t wake up if I pull on them a little more, right?”

She scooted herself closer and tugged on his cheeks some more.

“Ah-ha, this is kinda fun…”

In the midst of pulling his cheeks, she realized that he was a surprisingly deep sleeper and saw an opportunity.

“What the hell is Second Style—Hazy Moon?! That was a cowardly move… How do you like this…?!”

She pulled and prodded his cheeks with both hands, lifting her spirits by venting her anger.

“Phew… Well, what’s done is done. I’ll let you off the hook for now.”

A strong wave of drowsiness hit her, and she laid back down on the bed.

She ended up facing Allen. He was sleeping fitfully.

…He doesn’t seem like a bad guy.

That was the conclusion she reached.

He has no ulterior motives, he’s a very strong swordsman, and he’s kinda handsome, too… Wait, what the hell am I thinking?!

She shook her head, realizing she had been beginning to fall for Allen.

“I should just go to sleep. I’m really tired.”