Chapter One: The Calm Before the Storm?

Pursued by his foes, Masato ran. He ran until he came to the end of the earth. Literally: the ground dropped away before his eyes, giving way to a poisonous-looking purple liquid that bubbled gently, preventing him from going any farther.

It took Masato a moment to process that this was the “sea.” Not the one he knew. Each time one of the waves crashed in, a flurry of bubbles would emerge and burst, emitting a noxious cloud. It looked like it would be profoundly dangerous to get in this water unprotected. A panoply of animal skeletons lying where the waves came in spoke to creatures whose muscle and flesh had been dissolved and carried away.

This was it, the poison sea, and Masato had no way to cross it.

“Hrgh...” Pressing a hand to his mouth, Masato turned to the girl beside him. The nameless waif was cocking her head, looking at him questioningly. As if she didn’t understand what had him so concerned, notwithstanding the oncoming enemy. Having been born and raised in this world, perhaps she couldn’t grasp the crushing terror and despair that weighed upon Masato. For her, the sea was not the life-giving mother of all things, but the great, wide waste in which all life found its end. It was only natural they should encounter such differences in understanding, having been born in completely different worlds.

A different world. That, too, weighed on Masato. Everything here was so alien to the place he had been born. He didn’t know what was rational or logical here. Just staying alive seemed to be a struggle. And in this world where he didn’t know his right hand from his left, was he going to go toe to toe with opponents who had been born and raised in this place and knew it intimately? It was the height of foolishness.

But Masato had resolved to protect this nameless young woman. She was the only one he had felt any connection to since the moment the super-dimensional oscillation weapon had gone awry, catapulting him here to this world. She was human. This world was ruled by bizarre, amorphous beings, who kept those who looked like Masato as if they were cattle, forcing them to live in cages, naked, trapped among their own filth, their only destiny to be eaten by the shapeless creatures.

And none of the humans here even questioned this.

For Masato, this world was a place of despair. But the girl who reached out her hand to him... she was his hope, even his salvation. Though she understood nothing, her heart made her capable of sympathizing with others, and in that sense, she was completely human.

“This way!” Masato tugged on the girl’s hand and started running again. He had been heading straight for the sea, but now he turned to follow the coast. The edge of the land was ragged, reflecting the incursions made by the ocean; he could spot several openings that appeared to be limestone caves. He might not be able to cross the poison sea and escape his pursuers, but he started to think he might at least be able to hide from them.

That was when a brutal voice reached Masato’s ears: “There he is!” He looked back and saw several of his pursuers. They looked like squid monsters, walking along on their extended tentacles. And they were coming his way. The one in front had two of its tentacles outstretched. It was making some complicated movement with them, and they were glowing. The light traced strange patterns in the air. Masato understood the creature was fashioning a sigil. Magic. These invertebrate lifeforms could use magic. It was about the most unscientific thing he could imagine—but magical powers were a standard technology throughout this world. In fact, magic was the basis for their entire society, and naturally it had been appropriated to serve as a weapon.

“Crap!” Masato raised the portable railgun he was carrying and fired it at the squid-thing. He’d burned through his actual ammunition ages ago, but he’d been collecting rocks and pebbles as he fled, and they made good enough substitutes. A stone, accelerated to the speed of sound, rocketed toward the leading squid creature with a sonic boom. It hit the thing square on, causing its gooey body to explode.

Which was great, except that...

“Crap!” Masato saw the word EMPTY flashing in red letters on the railgun’s small indicator screen. Besides that word was the number 8.

Railguns could fire anything you could fit into the barrel, but of course, they needed electricity to function—and this world had no charging stations. Once the weapon’s internal battery was depleted, it would go from deadly firearm to harmless toy.

Masato could use it eight more times. After that, he might as well just throw the gun at them.

“This way, hurry!” Masato said, pulling the girl behind him as they ran along the coast. And then, as they rounded a spit of land jutting well out into the sea...

“What...?!” Masato stopped short. He saw something that couldn’t be. “.........Oh my God.........” He sounded stupefied, despite the situation they were in.

The red sky. The poison sea. The invertebrate rulers of this land. Their cities. Their magic. Everything Masato had encountered in this world seemed upside-down to him—and yet there, smack in the middle of it all, for no reason he could discern, stood something he recognized.

“That... It can’t be... But it is...!” Masato exclaimed. He could feel his heart race. Astonishment, and terror, quickened his breath. The nameless girl just looked at him, puzzled. She had no idea what had amazed Masato so much.

“It’s—!”

A miracle, was all he could think. The thing before him was filthy with the passage of years, maybe centuries, but it remained intact. Just the way it had looked when he’d seen it on a school trip as a boy. He seemed to recall the pamphlet saying it was some fifteen meters tall.

“The Vairocana Buddha of Todaiji Temple...”

Popularly known as the Great Buddha of Nara. The massive statue housed in Nara’s Todaiji Temple, the largest wooden building in the world. It sat there, half buried in the sand, as if blissfully oblivious to how out of place it looked.

Could this be some bizarre coincidence? Some construct that just happened to look like the Great Buddha? But the humans on this planet were less than primitive, with nothing like the tools or technology to construct a statue this size. They didn’t practice Buddhism, or, it seemed, any religion at all.

Could the squids have built it, then? But would the invertebrate rulers of this planet deliberately build a gigantic statue of a human, let alone a human who happened to look exactly like the Vairocana Buddha? The chances seemed just about nil. But that had to mean...

“The super-dimensional oscillation weapon...!”

The ultimate weapon of mass destruction, capable of bending time and space. Even the people who created it hadn’t understood what would happen when it was used unchecked.

“I......!”

He had been so sure he’d been transported to some other world. Some other planet, some parallel universe—somewhere not the planet he had grown up on.

If he had come here, though, might that mean he could go back? Might someone who had analyzed the super-dimensional oscillation weapon come to rescue him? Or maybe the fold or whatever it was in space-time would straighten itself out and he would be returned to his own world. He had entertained these fantasies all along; it was the only way he could endure. Masato had survived this long with the sole objective of taking this young woman back to his own planet.

But now... Now he realized he’d had everything wrong the whole time.

“I’m back. I’m home.” Masato fell to his knees on the blackened, burned sand. “All the time, it was...”

Had it been thousands of years? Tens of thousands?

What if he had only jumped through time? What if the world he wanted to go back to was already...

“Aggghh! You maniacs! Damn you all to hell!” Masato cried, while the nameless girl continued to look on in puzzlement. In the distance, the squids—this era’s equivalent of humanity, it seemed—were forming a net around him, but Masato no longer even had the strength to stand.

......

......

“And there you have it,” I said as the end credits rolled, the theme song (“Squid army, squid army, no match for us!”) sounding in the students’ ears. “This is one of the major tropes for endings of sci-fi stuff. Obviously not a happy ending, but it sort of loops you back around. You’re like, ‘I thought this was some alternate world, but it turns out it was the end of the one I know and live in.’ And that’s where the closure comes from in this sort of structure. It’s a very forceful note to end on. You can do variations on the idea, stuff like, ‘The creature I thought was a horrible monster turned out to be human all along.’ That sort of thing.”

I grabbed the disc out of the DVD player, sort of organizing my thoughts out loud as I put it back in its case. “Settings where civilization has been destroyed are very popular. Nau**caa comes right to mind, and from a broader perspective, stuff like Fist ** the North Star or Attack ** Titan. Lap*ta’s another one. Sometimes the twist doesn’t come right at the end, but the world is still one where civilization is in serious decline. Stuff like Trig*n. In fiction, the classic expression of this trope is probably the Foundatio* trilogy...”

All the students in the classroom were looking at me blankly. They were probably a little shocked: this was the first time I’d shown them something with such a resolutely bad ending.

“What did you think? Interesting?” I asked, a little anxiously.

But one of the students exclaimed “Yes!” and nodded emphatically. It was Romilda Guld. The diminutive girl in the front row had sat with her eyes glued to the screen all throughout Tokusatsu Drama: Army of the Squids. I’d thought she might be put off, because the design of the enemy squid-men is kind of grotesque, but it didn’t seem to bother her at all.

“I admit the ending surprised me, though!” I could see her pointy ears, visible amidst her red hair, twitch. Several of the students around her, likewise with pointed ears, nodded in agreement.

Those ears, by the way, weren’t special effects or part of a costume. They were real. These girls were dwarves—just like you’ve heard of in fairy tales. But take a good look around the classroom, and you’d discover dwarves weren’t the only ones there. Another group had pointed ears, too, but they were much taller and a lot paler than the dwarves—they were elves. There were also a few lycanthropes, people with animal ears or tails. Long story short, about half the class was human, but the other half was made up of people who looked almost human, but not quite. You probably know the word for them: demi-humans. It sounds like something out of some fantasy story, but here I was teaching them.

My name is Kanou Shinichi. And I’m the General Manager of the parallel-world-first entertainment company, Amutech.

It turned out that in Japan, in the Sea of Trees at the foot of Mount Fuji, there was a “hyperspace wormhole” that led to an alternate world, and the Japanese government had lost no time establishing relations with the inhabitants of this place. The locals had had the best response to manga, games, and anime: in short, otaku culture. The government quickly called in (or rather, dragged in) someone with the requisite expertise to head up Amutech. That someone was me.

Okay, so what the Japanese government had really had in mind was cultural invasion. When I found out about it, I’d rebelled, and stuff had gotten pretty tense for a while, but these days I really was here as an evangelist of otaku culture, just the way we’d originally said I would be. And I was having a pretty good time.

“Hey, Sensei, you said you can’t use magic in Japan, right?” The question came from one of my elf students, Loek Slayson. Tall and pale, handsome, with golden hair and blue eyes, he was pretty much the stereotypical image of an elf. He was also sort of the leader of the elf contingent in the classroom, and he and Romilda used to get in all sorts of arguments. (Turns out it’s true about elves and dwarves not getting along.) But now, although they still liked to snipe at each other, I often saw them walking together, and at least in my classroom, relations between elves and dwarves had gotten a little more cordial.

“Huh? What’s that got to do with anything?” I asked.

“In the movie, Masato seemed like he was surprised by magic, too.”

“Ah... I see. Yeah. I’m not sure we can’t use it... Maybe it would be more accurate to say there isn’t a lot of magical energy around,” I said, thinking back to the time I’d taken a little trip home to Japan. Around here, magic served as the fundamental technology, but it goes without saying that that isn’t true of modern Japan. Or at least, it isn’t recognized as such by most people. The fundamental energy needed to use magic spells—whether you called them sprites or magical energy or whatever—just didn’t exist in Japan these days.

“You can do it,” I said, “if you bring along a bottle of sprites, or a magic stone or something, and draw on the energy in that. But generally speaking, no, we can’t use magic in my world.”

“But isn’t that true of the movie world, too?” Loek said, looking confused. “Masato couldn’t use magic in his world. And the world of the squid people was supposed to be Masato’s world’s future, right? So how come they could use magic?”

“Good question,” I said, thinking back over the movie. “What the squid people have is called ESP. It only looks like magic. But strictly speaking, the squids have developed technology that allows them to control and channel telekinetic powers. They’ve used science to master it—or anyway, that’s how the story goes. It just looks like magic to Masato.”

“ESP?”

“That and psuedo-science.” I put the DVD back in the package. The back of the box described the movie not as fantasy, but as science fiction. In other words, some of what happened might look like magic, but there was, at least in principle, a logical, scientific explanation for everything. Then again, more and more zombie films were being classified as SF these days, so maybe we had gotten to the point where it was less science fiction and more “slightly flummoxing.”

“It’s Clarke’s third law,” I said, thinking back to some anime I’d seen somewhere. “‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”

“So he can’t tell what is and isn’t magic?”

“Think of it this way—you guys don’t know how this DVD or this television work, right? You probably thought they were magic at first.”

“Oh yeah, we did!” Several students around the room nodded.

To be fair, given the differences in technology and culture, Loek and the others would probably think most things from Japan were magic. TVs and computers obviously, but also automobiles, electrical appliances—the list went on. In a lot of ways, assuming magic was what made things work was the simplest and easiest explanation. When I really thought about it, though, even I couldn’t adequately explain the exact inner workings of a computer, for example. I guess there wasn’t that much difference between mumbling, “Uh, it’s electrons and stuff,” and outright saying, “It’s magic.”

“Hey, but if technology looks like magic to us,” Loek said, “then, Sensei, does the magic in our world sometimes look like extremely advanced scientific technology to you?”

“Oh, uh, well, in this case, ‘magic’ is just shorthand for anything you don’t understand...” Not the specific technology they used here in this world.

Before I could finish explaining, though, something flitted through my mind. A memory of the so-called “forbidden armor.” It evidently came from this world, but no matter how you sliced it, it looked like a powered exoskeleton from some sci-fi story.

Could it be another civilization existed here in the past, one with technology comparable to Earth’s? And that it was later destroyed...?

Magic and science tended to be seen as opposing concepts, but maybe they didn’t have to be. “Magic” was really just what we called any technique or technology that couldn’t be explained by what an onlooker knew about the world. Even alchemy, widely considered to be a kind of magic, was, strictly speaking, a scientific endeavor. Women accused of being witches were often simply folk healers—almost a kind of doctor—and scientists in their own right. There probably wasn’t any magic as such involved.

In short, there was a distinct possibility that what we called magic was just a way of referring to things we hadn’t understood scientifically yet, and that fundamentally there was no real difference between them. It was even possible that the apparent “magic” in this world, like that in the movie, could be explained scientifically. (Even if trading the word “magic” for “ESP” didn’t really explain anything at all.)

But anyway...

A vanished world...

I wondered what sort of place it could have been. I entertained the question idly as I pulled the next DVD out of its case.

I was in a bird-drawn carriage on the way home from school, sitting across from a woman in a military uniform.

“Hey, Minori-san,” I said.

“Yeah? What’s up?” she said, blinking as she turned toward me from the window she’d been looking out of. She was older than me, but still looked babyish somehow, and—maybe because of the glasses and her big, gentle eyes—sort of cute. This was Koganuma Minori-san, a member of the JSDF and my bodyguard (or, more accurately, bodyguard to me and one other person). If anything really bad happened, a squadron from the local JSDF garrison would come running, but I couldn’t have a detachment of armed soldiers around me twenty-four seven. For one thing, that would be suffocating, and for another, it could aggravate or even potentially provoke the local populace. So instead, it was just Minori-san, one young woman whose job was to keep an eye on me.

Maybe you’re thinking one young woman doesn’t seem like a lot of protection, but she was a skilled martial artist and a crack shot, so despite her sweet looks, it was pretty reassuring to have her around.

All that aside...

“You remember the forbidden armor?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Whatever happened to that?”

“What do you mean? They put it somewhere safe in the castle. I’m sure it’s still there.” She sounded a touch exasperated.

“Yeah... I’m sure you’re right.”

I remembered that much. Powered exoskeletons are great and all, but there was a reason they called it the forbidden armor; it wasn’t the best thing to have lying around. So it was in a storeroom somewhere in Holy Eldant Castle, with a sign on it strictly ordering that nobody touch it.

“Why—what about it? Something about the forbidden armor on your mind, Shinichi-kun?”

“On my mind? Not really... I mean, it’s just, those were definitely powered suits, right? Like, classic sci-fi gadgets.”

It’s not like science fiction has a monopoly on powered exoskeletons. Lots of novels and manga and anime and games have exoskeletons that move using magic. And if you supplied it with some form of energy, any suit of armor could become a powered exoskeleton (in the sense that you wore it over yourself). Some of these suits were even home to living creatures that acted as muscles, or they were possessed by ghosts, or whatever else. Think of manga like G**ver, Bura*o, or Apocalypse Z***.

But the forbidden armor had definitely seemed like a product of scientific technology. They shot laser beams, had gas turbines that made a vm-vm-vm sound while they worked, and above all, they just sort of looked like it.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Minori-san said, not sounding totally convinced. Maybe she’d had the same thought. But these things were and belonged in the possession of the Holy Eldant Empire. We already knew how dangerous they could be, too, so begging to have another look at them didn’t seem like the best plan. We did have someone on our side, a man named Matoba-san, to handle political negotiations like that, but come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him around for a while.

“I’ve had this thought,” I said, looking out the window. Green scenery, totally idyllic, rolled by. It looked less like some other world and more just a country backroad. “I wondered if, in this world—if civilization existed here once, fell, and was rebuilt.”

Minori-san crossed her arms, thought about it, and finally sighed. “We can’t rule out the possibility,” she said, but her tone suggested she felt it was neither of our jobs to pursue it, either. It might be an interesting idea, sure, but trying to find out more on our own could cause more problems than it solved, not to mention it didn’t seem likely to be something we could accomplish all alone, anyway. It seemed more likely we would have to wait until trade between Japan and the Eldant Empire, or maybe some other countries here, was really booming, after which archaeologists might show up and start investigating.

“Well, just hypothetically,” I said, thinking back to Tokusatsu Drama: Army of the Squids. The premise of the movie, in a few words, was that the oceans had been so badly polluted that the squid people evolved and came up on land, after which they annihilated human civilization. It was possible some similar episode of destruction had occurred here in this world. My thinking was, the normal passage of time allowed culture to continue. Not to be destroyed, or even reduced to the level of the Middle Ages. There would have to be some unbridgeable gulf, some catastrophe that had prevented the transmission of cultural or scientific knowledge. Otherwise, why would this world be where it was?

Of course, gradual cultural decline, or a “return to nature,” was always a possibility. But in that case, you would think historical records would at least mention a previous, more scientifically advanced society. As far as I knew, though, nothing did.

“Which raises the question, how was this earlier society destroyed?” I said.

“Hmm?” Minori-san said, frowning at the word destroyed. It was an unsettling one, for sure. But she wasn’t a historian or an archaeologist, or even someone from this world. She was just an army officer, and she didn’t have the answer. “A natural disaster, maybe?” she ventured, but she still didn’t look very convinced.

Two men sat facing each other in a room that was dark even though it was high noon. One of them was middle-aged—or perhaps, one might say, in the prime of his life—with his hair parted in the middle. He wore an ash-colored suit, and gave a strong impression of being spent, a lifelong corporate slave with no hope of advancement. If you took that impression at face value, though, it was your own fault. An old proverb holds that “The able hawk hides its claws,” and it’s always the people with the secret plots who look the most harmless and innocent. The better to get others to let their guard down.

“So, what are you telling me?”

Matoba Jinzaburou, that was his name. He was Chief of the Far East Culture Exchange Promotion Bureau, reporting directly to the Cabinet.

At least, that was what it said on his business card. In truth, he was the leader, the real ringleader, of the Japanese government’s plan to invade another world using otaku culture. He was hardly an aficionado of otaku culture himself, so he was rarely the one doing the dirty work of cultural invasion. Rather, he handled political negotiations with the Holy Eldant Empire, the country on the other side of the hyperspace tunnel. He was a sort of interdimensional diplomat.

The cultural invasion plan had been officially dropped after Kanou Shinichi’s “mutiny,” but all Matoba had done was revise his methods. He would use peaceful means to achieve advantageous negotiations with this other world, but discovering and reporting what profit could be pried out of this alternate dimension remained one of his main tasks.

“Truthfully, these materials are difficult for us to accurately evaluate.”

Sitting across from Matoba, leaning back into a sofa, was a man who looked substantially like him. About the same age, similar suit—but this man looked more energetic, like someone who got things done. The very opposite of Matoba. Politicians needed that; they needed to look like movers and shakers. Whatever they might be thinking inside, outwardly they had to appear eager and capable.

The politician pointed a finger, indicating a collection of papers spread out on the table between them. Four reports, each held together with a paperclip. The topmost page of each featured a photograph accompanied by a name:

Myusel Fourant.

Elvia Harneiman.

Brooke Darwin.

Cerise Darwin.

These last two didn’t look human to the politician; the pictures seemed to show large, bipedal lizards. In fact, a close look at the picture of Myusel Fourant revealed pointy ears, and Elvia Harneiman had ears like a dog’s, although they were easy to miss in her mess of dark hair.

None of these people, in the mind of a twenty-first-century Japanese politician, counted as human. They looked vaguely human, but weren’t: they were demi-humans. They practically screamed “alternate world.” All were residents of the Holy Eldant Empire, and the reports before him included blood and cellular analysis, done discreetly by the Japanese government.

“The MEXT faction is making a racket, to say nothing of the university professors.”

“I might have expected as much,” Matoba responded with a sigh.

The results were impossible, they all thought; inconceivable. And it was the same with all four samples. The problem wasn’t just people in the medical or biological sciences, or even chemists and the like; physicists were getting in on the act, too, proposing outlandish hypotheses.

“The older they get, the more stubborn they are,” Matoba said.

“I don’t believe any of the old farts ever really understood the hyperspace tunnel or the whole existence of this other world. They think there’s some other country under the ground.”

The “older” ones, the “old farts,” were the elderly politicians, both current and retired (but still active behind the scenes), along with those who were not politicians but major movers in finance. For better or for worse, these were people who had succeeded in life, and it led them to place great faith in their own assumptions and experience. They didn’t like to acknowledge new things, and their impulse toward surprising or uncomfortable facts was often to wipe them out before they were fully understood.

“When was the sci-fi boom—the 1970s?” the politician mused.

“Yes, I’m sure most of our elderly friends lived right through it. Although I believe it was mostly easily digested space slash-em-ups and UFO pictures. Space-time probably doesn’t mean much to them.”

“Fair enough...”

Then Matoba had a thought: when had Planet ** the Apes first been shown in Japan? Hadn’t that been right around the time of the SF boom? He seemed to remember it being followed by a film called Tokusatsu Drama: Army of the Squids.

“In any event,” said the politician on the sofa, crossing his arms, “we now need to reconsider our engagement with the Eldant Empire—in fact, with that entire world.”

“Let’s eat!” I said, clapping my hands together before the profusion of food in a gesture of thanks. I was grateful to all the ingredients that had given themselves up to make this delicious meal. And I was grateful to the chef who had taken the time and effort to turn those ingredients into everything that sat before us. The gesture used to be purely ritualistic for me, but coming to this new world had given me a lot to think about, including how much I appreciated what I was eating.

“Let’s eat,” everyone else chorused. Every day, morning and evening, the inhabitants of this mansion—which doubled as Amutech’s company dormitory—got together to share a meal. It didn’t matter if you were master or servant, human or demi-human; everyone was welcome at this table.

Naturally, different races meant different preferences—and sometimes entirely different eating habits—so the dishes were tailored specially to each diner. Some were more cooked or more spiced than others, for example. But in any event, it was a nice, normal meal.

Or maybe not quite normal. In fact, for about two weeks now, the number of people at our table had practically doubled.

“Careful, you’ll spill.”

“Eat this one, too.”

These admonitions came from a demi-human couple who looked a lot like walking lizards—the lizardmen, Brooke Darwin and his wife Cerise. They used to sit right next to each other at the table, but these days they were quite a ways apart. And the reason?

“Manma, manma!”

“Nmanma!”

Squealing children, chowing down on fruits and vegetables. The kids looked like tiny lizardmen themselves. They were Brooke and Cerise’s new babies: Man’ya, Sharya, Delark, Freem, and Gabel. If you’re wondering, they were, respectively, a girl, a girl, a boy, a boy, and a boy. Man’ya happened to have been born—or rather, hatched—a little earlier than the others, so she was a bit bigger than the rest, but by and large they just looked like round, chubby versions of their parents. SD Brookes and Cerises, if you will. It was cute.

As for Brooke and Cerise themselves, they’d taken to parenthood like ducks to water, proving that they might not look human, but we definitely had some things in common. It gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Not to mention...

“Shinichi... Mn.” Man’ya, the oldest sister, looked my way and held up a fruit that resembled a strawberry.

“Hm? What is it?”

“Eat.”

“What, for me?”

“...Mn.” She nodded.

“Aw, don’t worry, Man’ya, I’ve got my own food here...” I protested gently.

One thing lizardmen and humans definitely did not share was their preferred flavors. The stuff on their plates was mostly fruits and vegetables, practically untouched from nature, and to be honest I wasn’t thrilled to be offered some of their food. Especially partially eaten. But—

“Mnn!” Man’ya shook the fruit in my direction as if to say, Eat it! I wasn’t always sure what lizardmen were thinking, even small lizardmen, but I guess it was a lot like when a human infant gets frustrated.

“Stop that. The master has his own food to eat,” Cerise admonished, but Man’ya only growled “Gyuu,” clearly unhappy.

“My ’pologies, Master,” Brooke said.

“You don’t have to apologize,” I said. “I’m sort of curious why she seems so intent on giving me her food, though.”

Human children had a tendency to “give” their least favorite foods (think carrots and celery and stuff) to whoever was closest to them. But it didn’t seem like the fruit Man’ya was offering me was especially bitter or anything.

“I wonder if maybe she’s planning to fatten me up or something...”

Or maybe I was just being paranoid. Could you blame me, though? Man’ya had taken me for food the moment she was born and had spent the early days of her life biting me.

“Man’ya is completely taken with you, Master,” Cerise-san said.

“Huh? She is?”

“Very much so. And sharing food is a basic courtship behavior.”

“Er... Oh...”

I guess I had read somewhere that courtship among birds sometimes involved that sort of thing, and reptiles were allegedly closer to birds than they were to mammals. Maybe it made sense, in a sort of twisted way.

“Look who’s Mr. Popular,” said the person sitting across from me. The words carried a note of exasperation. This person wore a Gothic-Loli dress pretty much every day, the very picture of a “cool” girl—except that he was actually a guy. A remarkably pretty one. I wondered sometimes what he did to keep his mustache and stuff under control.

His name was Ayasaki Hikaru. A member of the Amutech staff and otaku evangelist just like me. Okay, so he had originally been intended to succeed (or, really, usurp) me, but long story short, he was my assistant now. When he first got here, we’d had serious differences of opinion about how to introduce otaku culture to this world, but by this point we were mostly on the same page. I thought, anyway.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you got serious?” Hikaru-san said, side-eyeing me. “Settled down with someone nice?”

“Settle down? I’m still a minor!”

I looked to Minori-san for help, but she seemed amused by the whole thing. “Eh, you could always get engaged for a start. Men can marry at eighteen, right?”

Then Hikaru-san shrugged and shook his head. “This is the Eldant Empire. Who cares about Japanese laws? You could get married today if you felt like it. I think.”

“Hey, look, I’m not—Nobody is—”

But I was pretty much lost for words.

“Master.” Now Brooke was in on it. “I know m’ daughter has a great many shortcomings, but I hope I can trust you to take good care of Man’ya!” He sounded dead serious. Honestly, it kind of scared me.

“That’s not what’s happening! You’re getting ahead of yourself!”

I wasn’t about to get engaged to a one-year-old child, and a lizardman at that. What kind of monster did they take me for? Brooke had become a doting daddy the moment Man’ya was born, but it seemed to have done some strange things to him. Sure, Man’ya was adorable, and I knew sometimes people got married who were old enough to be parent and child. But one thing I could be confident of was that I wasn’t romantically or sexually interested in any lizardman, and never would be. We were completely different kinds of creatures. Then again, I’d heard that in America there were people who were way moe for dragons...

“’s right!” said, for some reason, an energetic girl with animal ears and tail—Elvia Harneiman. She was another demi-human—a beast person at that: a werewolf. So at least she was a mammal. Other than the ears and tail, she pretty much looked like me. So she was, uh, “in bounds,” if you will, with her perpetually exposed midriff, and the energetic bouncing of her sweet, soft, large—ahem! Never mind. “Lizardmen’re off-limits!”

“Says the wolf,” Brooke growled.

“Werewolves are on-limits!”

“We’re both demi-humans.”

“But I’m squeezable!” she said, pinching her own cheek.

Brooke continued to glare at her for a moment, but then, with a slow, uncharacteristically snakelike gesture, he turned to look at me. Eep!

“Master...” he said.

“Er, uh, yes?” I said, unconsciously straightening up.

“Master, do you really prefer soft, squishy skin to smooth, cool scales?”

“Well, scales are definitely—no! Why are you even arguing about this, Brooke? I would have thought you’d be thrilled!”

“N-Now that you mention it...!”

“Keep it together, I’m begging you!”

Ever since Man’ya and her siblings had been born, my image of the stern, imperturbable Brooke had been somehow shattered. I guess that’s what becoming a parent does to you. It was great that he had gotten a little warmer, but in full-on crazy-dad mode, he could be kind of frightening.

“He’s right, dear. Man’ya won’t be ready to lay eggs for a while yet,” Cerise said.

Okay, I think she’s missing my point.

“Man’ya, do you like Master?” Cerise cooed, to which Man’ya nodded and replied, “...Mn.”

“What do you like most about him?”

“.........Gi?”

I guess it was a hard question for a little kid, because Man’ya just cocked her head and looked confused. I mean, it was awfully cute, but forget about that.

“Hm...?” I suddenly realized there was someone at the table who hadn’t been saying anything, but had been watching this motherly interaction between Cerise and Man’ya with a quiet smile. “What’s up, Myusel?”

“Yes? Oh, nothing,” she said, slightly flustered. Myusel Fourant: our maid.

As you could tell from her pointy ears, she had elven blood. But her father was a human, so she was actually a half-elf. Her pale skin and delicate figure were the very image of elf-ness, but at the same time, compared to the somber forest spirits we often associate with that word, she felt more human, friendlier. Maybe it was the maid thing. To be fair, I guess the elvish students at school, like Loek and Luna, didn’t come across as aloof, either.

“D-Did you need anything?”

“Aw, no, I was just thinking you seem pretty intent on Cerise and Man’ya.” She looked like she thought it was really... sweet.

“Oh... Oh, that,” Myusel said, blushing. She brought her right hand, closed in a fist, to her mouth, and looked away, just a little. I’d seen her do that so many times, but it never stopped being sweet and adorable. It was like, if you looked in the dictionary under “shy, pretty girl,” you’d find her picture. If moe could kill, Myusel would have been a tactical weapon.

Okay, not the point.

“I was just thinking... so this is how mothers and daughters are with each other...”

“Oh...”

That was when I remembered: Myusel’s mother had left her almost before she could remember. With her being a half-elf, you knew things were complicated with her family, and Myusel had had hardly any contact with her parents. She barely knew what a mother’s love was.

“I—I’m sorry,” I said.

“Wha? Shinichi-sama, why are you apologizing?”

“Er, it just felt right. I should have kept my question to myself.” I bowed my head.

Myusel was sensitive about her background and bloodline. You could almost call it an inferiority complex. She had made a lot of progress with it since I’d first met her, but even now she was quick to use expressions like “someone like me.”

“Shinichi-sama, you mustn’t. Don’t apologize to someone like me...”

There, see?

Raising her hands defensively in front of her, Myusel went on, “I’m telling you, it’s all right. I just sort of remembered Falmelle-san—I mean, my mother...”

“Sure, I get it.”

Falmelle Faugron was Myusel’s mother. She’d actually come to our mansion once before to urge Myusel to come live with her. But Myusel had actually turned her down, and Falmelle-san had gone home alone.

“You wish you could see her again?”

“Yes,” Myusel said, smiling shyly. “She is my mother... We’re joined by blood...”

“That’s only natural,” I said, sort of relieved Myusel felt so free to say that. When Falmelle-san had been here last, things had been a little awkward between her and Myusel. Then again, I guess when you haven’t seen your mother for more than ten years, you’re convinced she’s abandoned you, and then one day she just shows up at your door, it would be hard to just be like, “Oh, hey, mom!”

Ultimately, though, I thought it was that very awkwardness that helped Myusel express her true feelings to Falmelle-san. Maybe she couldn’t just curl up to her mommy like a little kid anymore, but she was able to accept Falmelle-san as her mother. Once in a while now, she thought of her and even wanted to see her.

“Blood counts for a lot,” I agreed, picturing Falmelle-san’s face myself. Elves staying young for as long as they did, she looked almost identical to her daughter. So much so that it made me wonder what happened to Myusel’s father’s genes. If they were to put on identical outfits and cover their faces, only their closest friends would probably be able to guess which of them was which.

“Falmelle-san was a dead ringer for Myusel, wasn’t she?” I said.

“No kidding,” Minori-san said with a wry grin.

“Do they really look that alike?” Hikaru-san asked, and then I remembered that Falmelle-san’s visit had been before he’d come here. I knew I had taken a photograph of Myusel and Falmelle-san together, but come to think of it, I’d never shown it to him.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “In fact, at first, I thought she was Myusel’s older sister, not her mother.”

“True that,” Minori-san agreed.

“Women seem to run in the Faugron family,” Myusel said. “Or anyway, they have a lot of daughters. And it seems the mothers and daughters often resemble each other...”

That would explain how Falmelle-san had been able to recognize her daughter immediately despite not seeing her for more than ten years. The fact that they looked so much like each other proved that they were both Faugrons.

“Eh, there’s actually a theory that mothers and their daughters are directly connected,” Hikaru-san said suddenly. “Maybe the Faugron girls are so connected you can even see it in their appearances.”

“Directly connected how?”

“Ever heard of Mitochondrial Eve?”

“Huh, now that you mention it, that does ring a bell.”

Mitochondria, I recalled, were organelles inside our cells. They were closely connected to biological life, and supposedly they each had their own unique DNA or something. That caused some people to claim they were actually a sort of parasite. That idea had been the premise of more than one SF novel, movie, and game.

“Mitochondrial DNA is passed to the child from the mother, never from the father,” Hikaru-san said. “So by studying it, you can trace the matrilineal line: daughter, mother, grandmother, and so on.”

“Ah, so that’s why they say ‘Eve,’” I said.

Theoretically, tracing mitochondrial DNA this way might even make it possible to find humanity’s first genetic ancestor; in other words, the “mother” of everyone who ever lived. I’d heard that person was believed to have existed somewhere in Africa many, many eons ago.

“I wonder if Myusel and the other people here have mitochondria, too.”

“Who knows? I bet they do, though.”

“Mai-toh... What?” Myusel asked, looking at us blankly, clearly not quite following the conversation. Elvia, Brooke, and Cerise—in other words, the entire Eldant contingent at our table—looked equally puzzled. The interpreter rings we were wearing used magic to perform simultaneous interpreting, which was really convenient—but when there was no word in the listener’s language for a given concept, it simply came across as-is, without any translation at all. I guess the word “mitochondria” sounded about as obvious as “space carrier” or something, so it was no surprise if people here didn’t understand it.

“This is why I think you should just relax and pick someone, Shinichi-san,” Hikaru-san said, as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

“Why does this make you think that?”

“Because you’re such a loser, Shinichi-san.”

“Urgh...”

How could he say that so calmly? I mean, yes, Myusel, Elvia, and even Petralka, the Empress of the Eldant Empire, had said in so many words that they liked me, and I still hadn’t chosen any of them (or rejected all of them), and that was pretty low, I had to admit.

“But...”

My mind tried to picture Myusel’s ancestors stretching back generations. Myusel. Falmelle-san. Her grandmother. Her great-grandmother. And then...

Humanity’s ancestors went back to ancient Africa, but if Myusel had mitochondria, and they were passed down by the mother the way they were with us... where had her ancestors come from? Could we find out how the people of this world had come to be? Even back before the civilization I believed had existed and been destroyed?

“Shinichi-sama? Is something the matter?” Myusel asked, looking worried.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said, waving my hand a bit frantically. “I was just... thinking. About, you know... stuff.”

Someone must have made that forbidden armor. Somewhere, sometime in this alternate world, there had been a scientific civilization. What had it been like? For some reason, I suddenly found I couldn’t shake the question.

We were free to do whatever after dinner. Brooke and the rest of his family went back where they lived, a little home on the mansion’s grounds, so the shouting voices and pounding footsteps of children disappeared, and the mansion was suddenly much quieter. The rest of us did whatever: took baths, finished up work, or indulged our hobbies.

In my case, of course, my work kind of was my hobby, so I was, if you will, doing overtime. Specifically, I was in my room preparing for tomorrow’s lessons, checking over the list of otaku stuff I’d been sent from Japan, and even making sure I had everything ready that we were going to smuggle into Bahairam as part of the “cultural invasion” from the Eldant Empire.

In other words, I had a lot to do. Plus, the students had recently started to “level up” as otaku. They weren’t just enjoying stuff from Japan anymore; several of them had become interested in derivative works and producing original work themselves. It looked like we might actually have a doujinshi club starting up, albeit on a small scale. To be fair, I guess in a world without publishers or copyright or anything else, the line between doujinshi and official publications was pretty hazy, but we wouldn’t sweat the details for now.

I was hard at work when I heard a knock on the door. “Shinichi-sama?” Myusel said. “I’ve brought you an evening snack and some tea.”

“Thanks,” I called back. “Sorry, I can’t get up right now. Could you let yourself in?”

“Certainly. Pardon me.” And in Myusel came, bearing her tea cart. It carried the usual tea set and a simple chazuke, tea poured over rice. Recently, Myusel had begun bringing two snacks even when I didn’t specifically request it—she’d started joining me for my breaks. I had the same bad habit as many otaku: I could get a little too sucked into my work and not know when to stop. So having Myusel come by for a chat and a bite to eat could be really refreshing.

“Oh, hey, is this...?” I said, looking at the chazuke-tart-like dessert. It was topped with fruit, the same kind Man’ya had tried to give me at dinner.

“Oh, yes. Cerise-san said it’s Man’ya-chan’s favorite. It happened to be cheap at the market...” Myusel shrugged slightly. “I guess I bought a bit too much of it. I’m sorry, do you not like it?”

“No, it’s fine. Pretty much everything you make tastes great, Myusel.” Myusel could be a little awkward when it came to the laundry or the cleaning, but as far as cooking went she was something of a genius. I’d never seen her make a serious mistake in the kitchen. And by now she knew what I liked, so I’d hardly had a meal lately that I wouldn’t describe as delicious. “I was just a little surprised at how Man’ya tried to give me one at dinner.”

“She’s cute, isn’t she?” Myusel said, smiling as she set the drink and snack on the low table in front of my desk. When everything was ready, I sat on the sofa next to it, across from Myusel.

“Really... I never knew kids could be so adorable,” Myusel said fondly. “It’s the first time I’ve ever lived with a child so young.”

........................................Well, this was a little unusual. Myusel tended to be shy and reserved, and rarely brought up subjects of conversation herself. As for me, I had a tendency to talk too much, like many otaku if given free rein, so Myusel ended up listening more than speaking.

“So even the people around here think lizardman kids are cute, huh?” I said.

Myusel blinked. “Huh? Yes, but of course. Shinichi-sama, you and yours don’t?”

“No, I think they’re cute.”

Even if I didn’t have any interest in making one of them my bride. Not to belittle Brooke or his family, but I felt Man’ya was cute more in the way a pet cat or dog might be, not in the “She’s cute!” way of interest in the opposite sex.

“Yes, of course. Shinichi-sama, you...” Suddenly Myusel blushed and looked at the ground. “You did say that you ‘feel moe’ for me and Elvia as well, didn’t you?”

“I mean, obviously. But it’s not the same as—wait, huh?” I suddenly felt like maybe we were talking past each other, but it didn’t take me long to figure out why. It was a difference of perception.

Elves like Myusel and werewolves like Elvia felt closer to lizardmen than they did to a human like me, in the sense that all of them had physical features that distinguished them from humans. In fact, when we’d first met, Myusel and Elvia had both wondered if their characteristic physical features didn’t upset or sicken me. In other words, in Myusel’s eyes, I was a human who was very generous toward people who didn’t look like me, and maybe more specifically, I seemed to be someone who could “get moe” over any girl, no matter what her background was. For that reason, maybe Myusel wouldn’t have been surprised to discover I felt romantically inclined toward Man’ya.

“I mean,” she said, “ahem... One day, Man’ya-chan will grow into—”

“Nope! Nu-uh! Not happening. I promise you. Not even a thing.” I shook my head furiously. “Myusel, when you see a little kid, don’t you—oh, you said you hadn’t gotten to spend time with a lot of kids, didn’t you? Well, say you saw a puppy or kitten, some baby animal. Wouldn’t you think it was cute? That’s what I’m feeling here. I mean, not to be impolite to Man’ya, but...”

“Oh, I see. That makes sense,” she said, and nodded. I guess it really hadn’t quite made sense to her—this girl was missing some strange bits of life experience. Then again, it sounded like she’d had a pretty rough time of it before she came here, and I’m sure she’d never been able to have a pet. Maybe she’d never learned to differentiate the finer shades of “cuteness” or “love.”

“The fact that we all have these fond feelings toward kids, even ones from other people groups, it makes me think maybe there’s something instinctive at work. Like, you see something that’s small and vulnerable and you just want to protect it.”

I thought I’d even heard stories of wild animals—I’m pretty sure it was wolves or something—raising human children. So maybe that instinct crossed species lines, too. But then, egg-laying animals tended to lay ’em and leave ’em, so maybe reptiles didn’t feel the same way? And some fish even ate their young when they got stressed out. Maybe it was just mammals, after all. Brooke and Cerise didn’t seem like cold, indifferent caretakers, but maybe that was because they were more than lizards—they were lizardmen, with human-like intelligence.

“‘In-stinc-tive’?”

“Yeah. It means the stuff a living creature is naturally equipped with. Sort of like... The automatic workings of life, maybe.”

Apparently Myusel didn’t have a concept of “instinct,” and I struggled a bit to explain. I doubted the Eldant Empire had very advanced biological or genetic sciences, and even if they did have people researching in the field, a maid like Myusel was unlikely to have encountered the discipline’s specialized vocabulary.

“I just thought, the fact that you find Man’ya cute, Myusel—maybe that’s instinct, too. Especially with you being a girl and all.”

“I have ‘in-stincts’ because I’m a girl?”

“No, guys have them too, but I dunno, maybe they’re stronger in women. You know, the mothering impulse to raise kids.”

“Mothering...” Myusel murmured with a touch of wonderment, blinking. Then her expression suddenly changed to a regretful smile. “I... Now that you mention it, maybe you’re right.”

“Huh? What’s with you?”

“I just never really thought about becoming a mother before...”

“Oh...” I was suddenly tongue-tied. Myusel had spent most of her life thinking her mother had abandoned her, and the ramifications of that feeling weren’t going to disappear just because she’d reconciled with Falmelle-san. Those emotions must have been buried so deeply in her that they almost felt instinctive themselves. Not to mention that if Myusel had kids—no matter who the father was—a human, an elf, or another half-elf—they would be “mixed-bloods.” I had seen some real improvements around me in racial discrimination and prejudice against mixed children, but ultimately these improvements were mostly just that: around me. But discrimination and prejudice in the Eldant Empire as a whole, or even in this entire world, obviously weren’t going away anytime soon. So any child of Myusel’s would face an uphill battle. It would be understandable if Myusel, consciously or not, didn’t want to bring a child into the world who would face the same struggles she had.

“Uh, I—I guess that conversation took a bit of a weird turn,” I said, not exactly apologizing, but sort of trailing off.

“Oh, no. It’s quite all right,” Myusel replied, again with that small smile. “Recently, I’ve... well, it’s crossed my mind.”

“What’s crossed your mind?”

“I’ve wondered... what it might feel like to become a mother.” She sounded so shy. She put her hands on her knees and refused to meet my eyes. Then I actually heard her knees brushing against each other.

Ahhhh... So c-c-c-cuuuuuute! Seriously, this girl is just always—!

She hardly even knew she was doing it; it just came naturally to her. It was downright terrifying how adorable she could be. And considering she had reiterated her feelings for me more than once recently, I couldn’t brush it off with a “Ha ha ha, like and love are different things!” anymore. And if Myusel was thinking about becoming a mother, you had to assume she figured the baby would have a father. And that father might be... Well...

.........

I pictured Myusel holding a little black-haired baby. She turned and smiled at me: “He looks just like you, dear.”

.........

Hnnngghhhhh?!

I was almost overwhelmed by the force of my own fantasy.

No way! Was such a future really possible?! Could a former shut-in and nasty otaku like me actually, like, do that over-18-only stuff with an actual 3D girl? Let alone one as perfect and gorgeous as this?! Would such a future be permitted to the likes of me?!

Wait—was this being a “damn real”? Was this what being one of those felt like?!

I could only flounder, assailed by unfamiliar feelings...

“So, uh, sorry, I know this is kind of crass,” I said, grasping at any possible subject to ward off the sickening silence, “but your kid would be, like, a quarter-elf, right? Is that even a thing?”

Forget the damn-real business. Given that humans and elves were different races, a child between the two of them would be, in the biological sense, a hybrid. These exist in nature, too, and can even be created by artificially cross-breeding different species. One of the most famous examples is probably the Liger, a cross between a lion and a tiger. Incidentally, the term Liger is for when the father is a lion and the mother is a tiger. When it’s the other way around, it’s called a Tigon—apparently. Other famous hybrids include the so-called aigamo (a cross between a mallard and a domestic duck), or the inobuta, a hybrid of a wild boar and the domestic pig. And we can’t forget the mule.

Having said all that, artificially created hybrids often lack the ability to reproduce, so they only exist for a single generation. If anything like that applied to half-elves, then it wouldn’t even be possible for Myusel to become a mother. Plenty of hybrids could reproduce, though, so you couldn’t jump to any conclusions. I wondered what the story was with elves as far as this went.

“Er, yes, sir, although of course you very rarely hear about them, let alone see them...” Myusel said, completely straight-faced. “But I have heard tell of children born to half-elves and either humans or other elves.”

“Huh. Well, that’s, uh, good, I guess,” I said. “That means you really can be a mother, Myusel. Hmm. That’s great. What a relief.”

“.........Oh.” It seemed to register with Myusel why I had asked what I had. She looked at the floor again, the blush going all the way up to the tips of her ears this time.

Ahhh, with a reaction like that, I can’t—even I could hardly—ahhhh!

I didn’t say anything.

She didn’t say anything.

The strange silence filled the space between us. I suddenly thought I saw my proverbial shoulder angel and shoulder devil smirking at each other over my head.

“Now’s your chance! Shove her onto that sofa!” my shoulder devil (who looked like Hikaru-san) said.

“Don’t do that! Illicit sexual relations and premarital sex are for bad boys only!” said my shoulder angel (Minori-san), with her arms crossed. The two of them circled my head like they were on a merry-go-round. “Just FYI,” she added, “getting it on with another guy would be A-OK!”

I was starting to wonder if she was really an angel, or if they were actually both devils... Hang on, aren’t they both supposed to look like me, anyway?!

“Oh—”

“Oh...”

Both of us, each hoping to break the ice again, looked up at the same time—with the result that we were suddenly staring into each other’s eyes, and things only got even more awkward. I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from Myusel’s blushing face. Her own eyes looked a little damp—Huh? Was this, like, you know, in the saying? The one that says a man who doesn’t eat a meal set out before him is no man? Was this one of those things where if I didn’t make a move, I’d actually hurt Myusel really deeply, and suddenly be on a one-way route to the bad ending?! Huh?! Why did I feel like my choices had narrowed down to one?! The save point! Where was the save point?!

Ahhhhhh!!

I had to do something. I had to do something. But what? For an otaku whose number of years without a girlfriend exactly equaled his number of years of being alive, I felt up against the wall, hardly able to even think. My head was spinning: Could it really happen here? Now? And then I thought I saw Hikaru-san’s grinning face. It was all immensely confusing. And finally...

She didn’t say anything.

I didn’t say anything.

We both just sat there on the sofas, intensely, painfully aware of each other.

Her pale skin almost seemed to glow in the low light.

“Shinichi-sama...” Lying on the bed, Myusel said my name, her cheeks flushing faintly. Naked as the day she was born, she wasn’t even wearing her headdress, the very proof of her maid-ness, and we’d removed the ribbon that had held back her bundle of long hair. It was splayed over the bed now, gossamer against the pillows and sheets.

“U—Um, please... don’t look too hard...” She put one hand over her chest and reached the other down between her legs, just managing to hide her modesty. But only just: her arms were shaking. The pink flush of embarrassment gave her entire body a willowy grace, while the way she pushed down on her chest and between her legs only emphasized their softness, made it all the more clear that despite how slim she was, she also had just the right curves. A desire welled up within me to take those curves in my hands, to squeeze them, to savor the feeling of them under my fingers.

“What can I say...?” Even I thought it was a bit twisted, but I had to say what was in my head. “You’re lovely. Absolutely beautiful. Cute.”

“Er... Oh. Th-Thank you... s-sir...” Myusel said, squirming a little as though rubbing her hand between her legs. The show of shyness was delightful in its own way. I lowered myself over her, carefully, slowly, so I wouldn’t put too much weight on her. Before anything else, I wanted to feel her skin against mine. I wanted the distance between us to be as close to nothing as possible.

She was warm. At our stomachs, at our hips, it felt like our bodies were melting into each other. And yet even at that moment, I felt impatient. The impatience wouldn’t go away. And so...

“Myusel...”

“Y-Yes...?”

I brought my face close to hers. She must have understood what I wanted, for after a moment’s look of surprise, she slowly closed her eyes. The delicate, pink lips that had once held themselves carefully aloof now seemed to invite me onward. They opened ever so slightly, searching for me, and I felt my mind spin with excitement. She wasn’t rejecting me. In fact, she wanted me.

You might be surprised to know, but even up to that very moment there had always been a part of me that was afraid Myusel would suddenly say, “You know what, I don’t think so,” or “You’re just not my type.” But it was okay. This was all right. I could become one with her. She wanted it, too. And when I realized that, I felt it grow harder and harder—my pulse, I mean.

“Shinichi-sama...”

“Yes?”

“I—” Myusel almost moaned the word, her breath quickening. “I want your child, Shinichi-sama... Your baby...”

My heart gave another leap. A wide range of possible replies flashed through my mind, from the truly nasty to the romantic comedy-esque. But in the end, none of them seemed appropriate. Instead I answered with a non-answer, words that were overused but straight from my heart. “Myusel, I love you.”

“Yes, sir...” Tiny droplets slipped from the corners of her tight-shut eyes. I was so close to her, they seemed to be just past the tip of my nose. And then I pressed my lips to her trembling mouth...

“................Yep. That’s how it went,” I mumbled, gazing vacantly up at the ceiling. A thin shaft of fresh morning light sneaked in between the curtains, and I could see dust dancing in the air. The gradually rising temperature must have set the air in the room moving. “That’s how the dream went. And now it’s over.”

............

............

........................................................................Ahhhhhhhhh!!

Yes, you heard me. It was a dream, all just in my stupid, stinking unconscious head. Damn, dang, darn, kusoooooo!!

“Urrrgh...”

Needless to say, in short, in other words, the whole scene of me bedding Myusel had been a fantasy in my sleeping brain. It had seemed so real—it was like I could still feel her skin under my hands. But that only made the disappointment when I woke up so much worse... I could practically hear someone crowing, “You thought you got a happy ending? Sucks to be you! It was all just a dream!”

The real Myusel, after our awkward little chat the day before, had insisted that the tea was cold and she would make fresh, then virtually fled the room. And she did bring back fresh, hot tea, but by then it was both of us who had cooled down, and although things still felt a bit weird between us, nothing else happened.

In other words, nothing to see here, folks, move along. I guess my feelings of disappointment over that fact had inspired my dream. It was seriously way more realistic than I’d ever asked for, right down to the warmth and softness of her flesh. It was all a little too stimulating for a virgin like me...

“It’s like, I could press my fingers into her and she was soft, but there was still that resistance...”

“Mn...”

“Yeah, just like that. It was so real...” And then I stopped. “Huh...?”

I was supposed to have woken up from my dream, but that feeling, achingly plausible, was still there under my fingers—in fact, in the entire palm of my hand. But why?!

“Mn......” someone groaned from beside me.

I heard a screeching string orchestra in my head as I turned to look. I could see a pale back. Like whoever it was had just turned over in their sleep.

“Huh...?”

What was with this smooth, soft-looking back?! And another question: what I could see of the back—which was just down to the waist; everything below that was hidden under the sheets—but what I could see looked like—well, it was clearly—this was a girl’s—

“Wh-Wh—Whooooaaaaaaa?!” I exclaimed, somewhere between a scream and a yell. It was a back, a girl’s back, a naked girl’s back! B-A-C-K BACK! I could see the nape of the neck, a few stray hairs lying across the skin, the smooth lines that swept down from the neck, all so deeply, deeply erotic even just lying there. And while I was confronting this naked back, I had also just woken up in the morning, and my lower half was doing what it did every morning—something completely inexcusable!

No! Not the point!

So, uh, um, what I felt a moment ago, was that not the last vestiges of my dream, but—you know, er, could it possibly be—did I have that kind of dream because I could feel that skin while I was sleeping? Wait... was it actually a dream at all?! Could it possibly be that I—did I really—did we really—did Myusel and I—did we?!

Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-What am I gonna do? I mean, no, I don’t exactly regret it, but is this really okay? Is this allowed? A worthless otaku former home security guard like me and a beautiful woman like Myusel...?

“Shinichi-sama...” As I lay there feeling like I was about to burst, there was a voice on the far side of the door. “Good morning, sir.”

“Oh, Myusel,” I said reflexively, “good—”

Huh?

Myusel was on the other side of the door. So... who was in bed next to me?!

Wait—I had another problem.

“I’m coming in, sir.”

I’d answered Myusel instinctively, and she’d taken that as permission to come in. Now she was about to open the door.

“Um... Shinichi-sama,” she said as she entered. She didn’t seem to notice me goggling, just came in with a cart stacked with the usual morning preparations—my clothes for the day, a bowl of water for me to wash my face, and so on. “Er, about yesterday...”

She had her eyes down, so she hadn’t yet noticed I wasn’t the only one in the bed.

“Y-Yeah, yesterday! Yesterday, yeah!” I said, frantically pulling up the sheets in hopes of hiding whoever was next to me. “Uh, gee, that tea yesterday sure was good! M-Maybe you can make it again sometime?”

“What? Oh, yes,” Myusel said, nodding, although she looked taken aback. She probably wanted to talk about that whole discussion over tea last night, but I was eager to get the chat over and her out of there as quickly as possible.

I felt a shifting under the sheets beside me. I forced myself to smile as I reached out to hold back whoever it was. “Uh, you can just leave the stuff there! I’ll be down for breakfast in a second! Okay?”

“Er, of—of course,” Myusel said, a cloud passing over her face. She had probably realized I was deliberately avoiding the subject of that uncomfortable chat the night before. But under the circumstances, letting this go on could be even worse. It might even—

“Ungh...!”

The someone I was pressing against shifted again.

Okay, it’s worse now!

And then...

“Mrf...”

The sheets went shwmpf, and who should appear but—

“Huh?” I said dumbly—or was it Myusel?

Neither of us had expected the person we saw.

Namely...

“Clara?!”

“Good morning...”

Clara, the weretiger soldier from the kingdom of Bahairam, stretched without the slightest hint of embarrassment. The sheets slipped off her, revealing not just her shoulders, but her modest (a polite expression) chest, her toned abs, and even her adorable belly button...! Okay, so everything below her waist was technically still covered, but this was more than enough to say “Don’t worry, I’m not wearing any.”

“Shinichi-sama...!” Myusel’s eyes went wide as she looked from me to Clara and back. And then I saw them start to brim with tears...

“No, wait, you’ve got it all wrong!” I wailed. “This isn’t—I mean, it’s not—we didn’t do anything wrong, okay? Or at least, I think we didn’t! I wasn’t, like, trying to chase you out of my room, although admittedly it’s a fact that I knew this would be trouble if you saw it and ahhhhh!” I was getting so overexcited even I wasn’t sure what I was saying anymore. Finally...

“What’s going on? Did something happen?” In the doorway behind Myusel appeared—

“Amatena?!” She was Clara’s military superior, a palette-swapped version of Elvia—er, I mean, one of Elvia’s older sisters. I hadn’t seen her in a while. “What? Huh? Why?!”

Why were these two here? Yes, they had once hidden out in our mansion when things had gotten too hot in Bahairam, but they were both members of the Bahairamanian military; that is to say, enemy agents from the viewpoint of the hostile Eldant Empire. They couldn’t just waltz in here anytime they liked.

“I have another question: Clara, what are you doing?” Amatena said, giving her subordinate a skeptical look. She’d once given Clara specific orders to worm her way into my affections, so it didn’t seem to faze her to discover Clara naked in my bed.

“Ma’am. I am attempting to secure Shinichi-sama’s cooperation by presenting him with a fait accompli,” she said expressionlessly. “I have observed this tactic in Ja-panese works. I believe the expression is honey trap.”

“I see. Good work.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Hold on a second!” I wailed. They sounded like this was all completely ordinary. “What’s going on here? What is actually going on here?!”

“Shinichi,” Amatena said. “We have a favor to ask of you.” She squeezed past Myusel and into the room, stopping next to my bed. “Or perhaps more accurately, there is something we must ask you to attend to. Urgently, at that.”

“A favor...? Urgently?”

Neither Amatena nor Clara were the most expressive people in the world, but Amatena looked even more grave than usual—maybe even almost cornered. Then she glanced back over her shoulder at Myusel and said, “We’ve come at the urging of Falmelle Faugron.”

Myusel stood frozen with shock. “What...?”