Chapter Four: Thy Name Is Invader

I was on a hill not far from the mansion, basking in the warmth of the setting sun. Across from the hill was pasture land, and sheep that looked like big balls of wool were munching contentedly on the grass. I could just look out and enjoy the sight. It was completely idyllic. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear someone yodeling in the background.

All I had to do was look up a little, though, and all that changed. Why? Because a school of fish was flying overhead.

“What’s the deal with that?”

Fish! I mean... I think. They definitely didn’t look like any birds I knew, at least. These creatures looked more or less like cutlassfish. They were covered in silver scales that glinted in the sunlight, their bodies roughly the shape of swords. Slithering among the clouds, it was impossible to take them for any kind of earthly avian. They did have a gossamer membrane that hung elegantly down from their backs and tails; it was the one thing that looked remotely like something you might find on a normal flying animal.

“Those are called heshifu ikusu, or skyfish,” Myusel said from beside me. “They’re a kind of wind sprite. They always travel exactly the same path. The wind always blows wherever they pass, so we plant windeater grass along their routes. That’s why we’re able to use this area to raise sheep.”

“Hmm...”

Wind sprites and windeater grass, huh? That’s a fantasy world for you, I guess. The things Myusel was telling me were probably blindingly obvious to people from this world, but to me it all sounded as believable as an ancient legend.

“Where I come from, grass takes sunlight and water to grow, and nutrients from the soil.”

“Do you not have windeater grass in your home country, Master?”

“I sure don’t think so...”

“Windeater grass feeds on the sprite power released by the wind sprites. If you go to the desert, you can even see it floating on the wind.”

“............Desert.”

Did that mean the desert had turned green? But these weren’t dandelion puffs we were talking about. Grass floating on the wind...? I couldn’t imagine it from anything in my experience. I guessed that made sense. I mean, we didn’t have “sprite power” or whatever on earth. Another way of looking at it would be to say that the presence of sprite power was precisely what led organisms in this world to evolve this way.

Come to think of it... I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that if the color of the sun were slightly different, plants wouldn’t be green, but more like red. Something to do with the color of the chloroplasts. Maybe this was similar.

“I mean... Almost.” I smiled a little sadly and began to walk.

Yes: this was another world. When the wind caught the hair of the maid beside me, it briefly revealed those pointy ears, a reminder that she had elf blood running in her veins.

“It means I’m not quite sure if things will go the way I expect them to...”

We were heading for a building just nearby. In a word, it was a massive windmill. The building was about five stories high. It was basically a cylinder with a cone on top, like a huge red pencil, and there was a gigantic green windmill attached. The walls were made of brick, and a number of black marks the shape of stretched-out raindrops made it clear the place was pretty old.

Still, there were a lot of people hard at work all around the structure. Many of them had spades in their hands, filling cracks in the walls with mortar or concrete or something. With larger cracks, they would first fill it with a big stone or reinforce it with wood before plastering it over.

In other words, this thing was under repair.

This windmill had never been used much, so the Eldant Empire had given it to me—or rather, to Alternate World General Entertainment Provider Amutech. Currently it was being renovated by laborers from the same Empire—humans of course, but also elves and lizardmen and red-faced, stout people who seemed to be this world’s equivalent of dwarves.

This group was actually the Eldant Empire’s Army Corps of Engineers. They might or might not have been suited to doing the interior design on some noble’s mansion or something, but they were used to working on the battlefield—rush jobs were their bread and butter. They could toss up a fortress or two in a few days. Seriously reliable help. I basically told them, “The details don’t matter, just make this building usable”—and that was all they needed to hear.

I peeked inside and found work proceeding apace. The workers in here, however, were not with the Eldant army, but the JSDF.

The former insides of the windmill—where wind power had driven gears that worked a machine to crush grain—had been largely removed, replaced with electrical wires and a small converter stuck to the wall, among other things. We were going to turn this unused windmill into a wind-powered electric generator.

One major issue with a wind generator is that, because (as you might imagine) it relies on the wind, its output is inherently unstable. Or anyway, so I assumed. In a world where there were wind sprites in the air all the time, who knew?

In addition to this wind-powered generator, the JSDF had also brought in solar battery panels. The point, of course, was for Amutech to have some electricity to work with.

“Myusel, c’mere.” I went partway up a spiral staircase that followed the wall and looked out a window. From the windmill’s spot on top of the hill, you could see our mansion clearly. Just a little ways away from it stood a former grain storehouse, which the Eldant army and the JSDF were also busily renovating.

“That’s where you’re going to open your school, isn’t it?” Myusel said with admiration.

It sure was. The storehouse would soon be reborn as an educational institution that would lay the groundwork for the arrival of otaku culture. This generator and the solar batteries would both help power the school—an “otaku training center,” if you will.

It had been a month since I’d come to the Eldant Empire. After I had reached the conclusion that basic education would be indispensable to spreading otaku culture, I had leaned on Matoba-san and Petralka to help me obtain these facilities. I figured there would be some resistance, so I was surprised how readily both of them acquiesced, and my “otaku training center” idea got rolling smoothly.

So smoothly it was a little scary, in fact.

I know I joked about this being “SimAkiba,” but let’s remember, I was a home security guard until not that long ago. For something I had dreamed up to have this many people working on it was kind of intimidating.

“Shinichi!”

As I stood lost in thought, someone called my name. It was a sweet voice that I already knew very well...

“Oh, Petralka.”

I suddenly realized that an elegant bird-drawn carriage had stopped beside the windmill—it was mainly white, even the bird that was pulling it. Her Diminutive Majesty was standing beside the carriage, waving at me. The gesture, combined with her silver hair fluttering in the wind, looked awfully adorable. Although if I mentioned it, she would probably just get upset and say I was treating her like a child again.

Myusel and I hurried back down the stairs.

“So this is where you’ve been,” Petralka said as we approached. “We’ve been looking for you. You weren’t at the mansion.”

“Huh? I thought we were taking a break from our study sessions today.”

“Should the Royal Person refrain from visiting simply because there is no study session?” she said with puppy-dog eyes and just a hint of resentment.

Huh?! Puppy-dog eyes?! That’s not fair, Your Majesty! ...was, of course, not something I could say, so I just smiled and tried to suppress the moe-ness that welled up within me.

“Well, of course not—”

“Then all is well.” She nodded. Oddly, she seemed almost relieved.

Gah! This empress is so dang cute! She’s like a little kid who tries to make every gesture look as adult as possible.

“There is something we wish to show you today.” Petralka held a hand out at her side, and the knight who appeared to be attending her produced a notebook and handed it to her.

Kanji Study Book was printed across the front of the notebook.

She held it out to me. I took it and opened it. The pages were crammed with characters that looked like worms crawling across the blank space. They were all simple kanji, the sort of thing a Japanese kid would learn early in elementary school. The handwriting wasn’t exactly exemplary, either, but there sure were a lot of characters there.

“This is... really impressive,” I said earnestly. That got a smile from Petralka, who puffed out her (very small) chest proudly.

“You may stand in awe of our intellect.”

“I’m serious. Color me surprised.” I wasn’t trying to flatter her or anything; I really meant it.

This kanji study book was among the things I had asked Matoba-san to bring for me. One of the learning aids for my otaku training center, of course. And I had one for both Petralka and Myusel...

“We had our heraldic scholars analyze the form of your ‘Japanese,’ and we reviewed their report ourself.”

That’s an empress for you, I guess. A whole lot of fuss just to learn a little Japanese. Wait... Wasn’t that kind of unfair?

In any event, Petralka turned to Myusel, standing beside me, and said challengingly, “You see, we could not be bested by a maid.”

“Wha? Er, no, I—”

This left Myusel flustered, of course. Well, I guess anyone would be a bit thrown off if the absolute ruler of their nation suddenly saw them as a personal rival in learning Japanese.

“This is a fine opportunity,” Petralka said. “How interesting it would be to see which of us has done better at learning Japanese.”

“I— I couldn’t—”

“We begin now!”

Petralka assumed a stance as if she were getting ready for a fistfight. I guess empresses don’t take no for an answer. Myusel was at a complete loss to be challenged so suddenly—but of course, Petralka wasn’t going to wait for her. She launched right in:

“Nama-mugi nama-gome nama-tamago!” It meant “raw barley, uncooked rice, raw egg,” but that wasn’t the point. It was a tongue-twister.

I cocked my head. I mean, it was impressive that she’d picked that up on her own, but why here? Why now?

In a tizzy, Myusel tried to recite:

“Oh... um... Oh! Na... Nama... Namamoge, tamagomoge...?”

She could hardly get her tongue around the words.

Yes! Good! Very good! Myusel was a maid, and a half-elf, and clumsy to boot, and her performance here was completely innocent. I couldn’t help a shiver. Behold, the great and terrible Myusel...!

“What’s wrong?” Petralka gloated. “Can’t you even manage a few simple words? I guess we know what a servant girl’s studying is worth.”

Given that she had specifically forbade Myusel from outdoing her and even had help from scholars whom she had set to studying Japanese—well, all things being equal, it wasn’t surprising that Petralka had emerged triumphant.

Suddenly, a new voice joined the conversation.

“Shinichi-kun? And Your Majesty, too? What are you doing here? Sightseeing?”

It was Minori-san. She must have been assigned to the JSDF unit working on the windmill. I’d wondered why I hadn’t seen her all day, even though she was supposed to be my bodyguard...

“I could ask you the same question, Minori-san. What’s with that outfit?”

“What’s with what outfit? These are my normal work clothes,” she said. But she wasn’t wearing her usual tight uniform. She was in dark-colored pants that used plenty of cloth and sturdy-looking, high-laced black boots. But her top half was covered only by a tank top that left her shoulders and more than a little of her cleavage visible. On her head she wore a helmet printed with the letters JSDF.

Minori-san always seemed pretty easy-going, but this get-up made her look very much the part of the “construction lady,” and made it obvious just how well-endowed she really was. It made me realize what an effect clothing could have on the impression you made on other people.

Still, there were some things that didn’t change no matter what you were wearing. The less Minori-san had covering her, the more clearly her figure stood out. The cloth mountains ensconcing her generous chest were especially noticeable. I could just catch a glimpse of the blessed valley at her neckline. I struggled to keep my eyes where they belonged.

“Careful where you’re looking,” Minori-san said, slouching somewhat to keep her chest out of my line of sight.

“Shinichi,” Petralka said. “So you prefer women with large breasts?”

“Eh, I mean, one of the appealing things about Minori-san as a character is that no one’s got bigger boobs.”

“Don’t call me a character,” she said, shooting me a dirty glance.

“Hmph. Everyone and their brother is just after all the flesh they can find.”

At first, I wasn’t sure who had made the annoyed remark. I was too distracted by Minori-san’s figure. But finally, it sunk in.

It was Petralka.

“Huh?” I backpedaled strenuously. “Oh, uh, but it’s not like I’m saying that all you need is a big rack. Small chests definitely have their own charm.” Nothing good would come of upsetting Her Imperial Majesty. I clenched my fist to emphasize how persuasive I was being. “Think about the really young ones! Small chests, budding breasts, flat as a dinner plate—they all focus on the purity of a restrained womanhood, you know? ‘The hidden flower is the most beautiful’? The proverbial purity of a bud before it blooms? The perverse erotic appeal exuded by a girl who still trembles at being exposed?! And above all, the really young ones are the very embodiment of nervousness because they haven’t yet been touched—their chests have a quality of new-fallen snow that you just can’t get anywhere else...”

That was as far as I got before I realized the three women around me were giving me very strange looks. In fact, they seemed to have taken a couple steps back. Even Myusel. Et tu, Myusel?!

“No! You’ve got it all wrong! I was just trying to explain—”

“Erotic appeal? Perverse?” Minori-san said. “If we weren’t in Eldant, Shinichi-kun, you would definitely be brought up on charges of sexual harassment.”

“No! I’m not trying to—”

“You are indeed a lech, aren’t you, Shinichi?” Petralka said, arms crossed. “And I see you’re willing to accept a great many things. From large breasts to small ones.”

“I’m telling you, I was just answering the question I was asked!”

“We must keep an eye on you, or there’s no telling when you may pounce upon your servant and make her the vessel for your seed.”

“M-Make me—?” Myusel gasped, her face turning red.

“I’m not gonna pounce on anybody! And how can you use language like that about a sweet young girl anyway?!”

“All right, that’s enough out of you.” Minori-san wrapped her arm around my neck and dragged me away from Petralka and Myusel.

When we were at a safe distance, she said in a different tone, “Listen, Shinichi-kun. Do you understand what you’re doing?”

“I swear, sexual harassment was the last thing I—”

“Not that.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Minori-san slip off her ring. “This is a busy construction site, get it? Not a place for people who are going to buy into freedom and equality or whatever.”

She stole a glance at Myusel and Petralka. Petralka appeared to be saying something to the maid, but Myusel didn’t look terrified, so it was probably something less nasty than before.

Minori-san went on. “There are a lot of things here that are very different from our world. The Eldant Empire finds us novel, and they don’t necessarily understand everything about us yet, so they’re letting us do what we want. But do you realize that you’re trying to establish an educational facility that could undermine the whole imperial system?”

“...Let me guess. Matoba-san’s been complaining to you?”

I hadn’t seen much of Matoba-san the past couple of weeks. Once plans to build the school had been settled, he had been going to and fro taking care of finances, red tape, and other details, just like he’d said he would. He’d even been back and forth to Japan several times—he was keeping very busy.

“Not specifically. But...” Minori-san’s expression darkened. She gave a humorless, resigned laugh.

“Shinichi!” I turned when Petralka called my name. She was pointing at Myusel and shouting, “What in the world are you feeding this girl?!”

“Huh? Feeding her? Pretty much the same things I eat,” I answered.

Incidentally, Myusel, Minori-san, and Brooke all ate together. That was obviously the easiest on Myusel, and I figured that since they were all living in the same house together anyway, it might be nice if they could share their meals. Myusel and Brooke were hesitant at first, but they seemed to have taken my “order” to heart, and now everyone generally ate the same thing in the same place.

“The same things?” Petralka asked.

“Uh-huh. The very same,” I said.

“Not some kind of staff meal?”

“Why have her make something separate for herself when she’s already made something for us? It would just be a lot of trouble.”

“That’s not the point. Hrm... Well, that explains it, anyway.”

“Explains what?”

“This servant has a bigger chest than I realized. Although the ribbon at her collar usually hides it.”

“Y-Your Majesty?!” Myusel exclaimed.

“Huh,” I said. “So you think so too, huh?”

“Master?!” Myusel yelped.

Oh, crap! I didn’t give my brain time to catch up with my mouth...

“We see your plan, Shinichi. You’re feeding her nutritious food to enhance her bust size!”

Wait a second. This isn’t like growing vegetables or fattening a pig or something.

Hold on... Wasn’t it?

I gathered that until I had told her to start eating what I was eating, Myusel was subsisting on pretty poor fare. Brooke, too. Their color had visibly improved with the changes in their diets—well, Brooke just seemed to have shed his skin. But he said it was a little earlier than he usually shed, so it probably meant his metabolism had improved. I guess it wouldn’t be that surprising, then, if Myusel, who was young enough that she could still be growing, should find her chest expanding.

Then again, Petralka had probably been better nourished at the same age, but she hadn’t grown up very much. Maybe it was just a difference of dormant potential.

“Curse you, Shinichi... To think you were so obsessed with breasts! You, half-elf! Keep a record of everything you eat! We shall investigate what sort of diet leads to a larger chest and—”

“I’m not obsessed, I swear I’m not!” I protested. “Well, maybe a little obsessed, but not that much!”

I didn’t have the patience for some kind of Tale of Genji-style womanizing.

But then...

“U-Um, Master,” Myusel said. “If... If you prefer them to be larger, I’ll certainly try my best to—”

“Why must you all take everything in the most perverse possible way?!” I cried. They thought I was some pervert who was raising Myusel like an animal to have big breasts!

..................I also decided that starting today, maybe I would request stuff made with a lot of milk and cream. But that’s a secret.

And so but anyway.

My work as Amutech’s general manager proceeded bit by bit. But maybe I should have thought a little harder about exactly what that work was.

The entertainment business is essentially a form of gambling. There’s no direct correspondence, like, “If we do this, we’ll make this much profit.” You can take the staff of some hit show, have them make another series using the same methodology, and it can be a huge flop. It isn’t uncommon. I had seen all kinds of examples of it myself.

Obviously, the opposite is also true. The staff or the execs think, People aren’t going to like this, or Let’s just play it by ear, but then the thing takes off and becomes so big they hardly know what to do.

If you must know, my foray into the entertainment business was not going so well. Why, exactly?

“Come now, Shinichi, be quick about it!” Petralka urged me.

Today was another day of “classes” at the mansion. Just like every day for the last two months. The only thing that had changed was who was participating. The number of my students had increased dramatically.

Lined up in the living room as usual, almost twenty young—mostly teenaged—nobles sat watching me from closely packed desks.

All of a sudden the room felt awfully small. And this was after I had made them go through an admissions process to narrow down the number of students! If I had accepted everyone who wanted in, I would probably have more than a hundred people in here. Include all their attendants, bodyguards, and entourages, and it would probably have been three times that many.

Apparently the “private academy in foreign culture where the empress herself goes”—in other words, my mansion—had become the talk of the nobility. Although she had originally come to see me in secret, Petralka started coming here publicly, and that meant all the empire’s other nobles now knew about me. They decided that it would be to the nation’s (and their) advantage to proactively learn about this advanced foreign culture that would soon be finding its way into the empire, and they lost no time sending their children to this “academy.”

What was more, the national apparatus of this Holy Eldant Empire was broken into “haves” and “have-nots” based largely on how close you were to Her Majesty the Empress. Hence plenty of people wanted their kids in this “foreign-culture academy” just so they could get close to Petralka.

All this explained why I was in such a hurry to build the school. Obviously, I had no desire to make otaku culture something for the nobility alone. I wanted it to be popular with everyone in the Holy Eldant Empire and, if possible, maybe even some of the neighboring states.

But the reality was, commoners had no way into my “academy.” The difference in education between the children of the nobility and of the lower classes was just too great. Commoners generally couldn’t read and write—as in, they didn’t even necessarily know how to use paper and writing utensils. In contrast, the nobility and those around them were privy to high culture and advanced magical skills; they had a very different way of thinking from the commoners.

There wouldn’t be much I could do about that so long as the “academy” was run solely by the team of me, myself, and I. It was one thing to build a school building, but it was just a vessel; I would still have to create the school as an institution.

And so there we were.

“Right, right. Ahem. For today—” Urged on by Petralka, I opened a new book.

The number of manga Matoba-san had brought me was now close to a thousand. I could read a series every single day and still not run out for a while. So far I had been sticking to fantasy stories that I thought Petralka could easily sympathize with, but later, as she got more and more familiar with Japanese culture, I figured I could introduce school dramas and maybe some horror stuff.

Even as these thoughts ran through my mind, I couldn’t suppress a yawn. I had been awfully busy recently, seeking opinions on the building of my school (both physical and organizational), trying to get approval for all sorts of things, and on and on. The fatigue was building up, and I wasn’t getting quite as much sleep as I was used to, either.

“Shinichi.” Petralka was looking straight up at me.

Incidentally, ever since that first time I had read manga to her, Petralka had decided that my lap was her spot. This was more than embarrassing in front of the other students; I had begged her to find another place, but she stubbornly refused to bend. Instead she continued to perch on my knees, as if showing off in front of the other students and Myusel.

Thus, she was currently pressing her head against my shoulder as she looked up at me. It was an awfully cute and—although she would hate to hear it—childlike gesture.

“Do you find us so boring?” She was almost whispering. Most likely, the students against the wall couldn’t hear her.

“No, not—not at all, uh-uh.” I shook my head. “But Your Highness—erm, Petralka—it’s just... The tiredness...”

“Hrm?”

“Hey, if you just want someone to read to you, Minori-san or Matoba-san could—”

“Certainly not,” Petralka said. “We prefer your tutelage, Shinichi. We prefer to listen to you read as we are doing now.” She wiggled her butt against my knees, adjusting her position.

Erm, excuse me, Your Highness, but maybe you could not... do that? There’s a part of me that might stand up even with both of us sitting down, and I’d really rather it not...

“Do you truly enjoy this manga?” Petralka asked.

“Huh? Well, sure I do.”

That’s why I was doing this work. Obviously.

“We have met those who called themselves evangelists or missionaries several times before,” Petralka said earnestly. “The ulterior motives of most of them were perfectly transparent to us. They sought entry to our country because they thought they could gain fame or fortune here. How very few have come simply to bring us amusement...”

I was lost for words. Yes, it was true I was trying to bring otaku culture to the Eldant Empire in order to entertain them. But as for the Japanese government, which had sent me, I suspected they were after something more. No doubt they thought there was some profit to be had. Even I wasn’t stupid enough to believe the government would do anything out of sheer altruism.

“And you read with true joy,” Petralka went on, a small smile on her face.

“Huh? I mean... I do?”

“Mm. From where we sit, we can feel your breathing and your heartbeat. We can tell that you are truly absorbed in this manga. When the protagonist is in danger, your breath becomes ragged. When he is in love, your heart pounds. Sitting here, all this is evident to us. And, may we say, quite entertaining.” She said all this under her voice. “Possibly,” she added, “even more than the manga itself.”

Her words pierced my heart. This girl was an imperial majesty. I didn’t know the specifics, but for her to be ruler at such a young age must have meant her parents were already dead, or at least in some state that rendered them unfit for the throne. Whatever the case, they weren’t there for her. There would be almost no one who was willing to ignore her identity as “Her Imperial Majesty” and engage her as the girl Petralka. Maybe no one at all.

That meant there was no one who knew her heart of hearts. Even her “classmates” lined up along the wall were trying to get close to her because she was the empress. Chances were, they didn’t much care about her as a person.

Petralka would have to keep in mind the distinction between an empress and her servants at all times, meaning the distinction between how she really felt and how she had to act. She could never tell anyone what she was really thinking and feeling; she had to treat everyone around her like administrators.

Maybe she felt like there was a layer of glass between her and everyone around her. And if she hadn’t been quite so smart, maybe that wouldn’t have bothered her, but for better or for worse, she was obviously intelligent. All the more reason—

“Shinichi?” Petralka had raised her voice in annoyance.

Aw, crap! I just wanna give her hug and make her feel better, and I’m sure that’s making my heart race, but I guess I can’t do that...

Just as my worries were reaching a fever pitch, Myusel came in, not with a knock but with a quiet announcement of “I’ve brought tea.”

The reason she didn’t knock was so as not to interrupt my reading aloud. Because she had tea not just for me and Petralka but for twenty other students as well, she was pushing an awfully large cart.

“Pardon me,” she whispered, executing a single small bow as she began to get everything ready.

“Thanks,” I said, nodding at her. When she had set out the teacups and filled them, she bowed again and left.

I looked silently after her.

“Hmph.”

From the direction of my knees came a sound of royal discontent.

Myusel, of course, wasn’t participating in my little “academy.” This study group was full of the children of noble families; it was all too obvious that having her there would throw everyone into a tizzy. Plus, she and Brooke had to take care of things around the house—she had a mountain of chores from cleaning to washing to making meals—so she didn’t have time to study during the day.

And so...

“Okay, shall we begin?”

I was sitting on the sofa in my office.

“Yes, please,” Myusel said, smiling and opening her notebook.

...I was giving Myusel personal lessons before we went to sleep at night.

She was really the first person I had met when I got to Eldant, and in a way my first student, too, so I could hardly leave her high and dry just because things had gotten a little busy for me. Yes, I was tired from the day’s study session, but it was just so cute to see Myusel eagerly absorb Japanese from me. It really made me want to do my best for her.

Petralka had ordered Myusel not to “outdo” her, but really, Petralka was just learning during the day and Myusel at night, so there was no danger of the maid outstripping the empress—I figured.

But Myusel sprang something unexpected on me that day.

“Um, Master... Could you... take off your magic ring for just a moment?”

This request kind of came out of the blue.

“Why?”

“Please do it. Just for a few minutes...”

She really seemed to want this, so I wasn’t going to turn her down. I mean, I was forever taking that ring on and off anyway—sometimes there were secrets to talk about—so it wasn’t like I had any particular objection to it. I pulled the metal band off my finger and set it on the table.

“Okay, it’s off. What now?”

It was only after I had spoken that it occurred to me: without the ring, Myusel wouldn’t be able to understand what I was saying. The rings would only work their translation—or should I say, interpretation—magic when we were both wearing them.

Myusel said something in her lilting tones. After three months here, I could at least recognize that she was speaking of Eldant language. I wasn’t strong on specifics, but I had learned a handful of simple words, like retosamu (master) and sei (yes).

She said something else, at the end of which I detected the sound “shi.”

Myusel’s mouth was popping open and shut like a goldfish, her voice sounding strained.

“Shinishi... Shin...ichi-sama. Is... this... good? This... ees... right?”

“Huh?!”

I could hardly believe my own ears. Myusel’s speech was slow and stumbling, but it was unmistakably Japanese. Her pronunciation wasn’t quite spot-on, but I could tell she was saying my name. I mean, heck, she had heard Minori-san and Matoba-san and even Petralka say it over and over, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that she could say it, too, but then she went on to practically start a conversation. I sure hadn’t taught her that.

Had she been studying on her own in order to surprise me? Where would she have found the time?

“Whoa...” I felt my heart growing warm with admiration.

“Shinishi...sama?”

Myusel didn’t seem quite confident of herself; she was looking up at me doubtfully.

I gave an exaggerated nod and said, “Yes. That’s right.”

“It were... good?” She looked very relieved.

Myusel always seemed just a little bit anxious, but now there was a hint of pride. She was probably happy to see her effort rewarded. She looked so adorable, I suddenly found myself wanting to give her a hug.

No...! Be still, O my arms!

As I fought down my worst impulses, I put the magic ring back on my finger.

“That’s amazing,” I said. “I can’t believe you learned to talk like that in such a short time.”

“Did I really... not sound too strange?” she asked.

“Well... A few things were a little bit off. But you were holding an actual conversation. I understood what you were trying to say, even without the ring.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said, putting her hands to her chest.

I suspected she would be able to write and read hiragana and katakana without trouble soon. It would probably take at least six months for her to get more familiar with the niceties of grammar—verb conjugations and such. But I was confident she would be able to at least communicate what she was thinking.

“You really worked hard.”

“I had you to teach me, Master. And...” She looked down a little. “I wanted to be able to speak the language of your country.”

“Yeah. This means you’ll be able to enjoy anime and stuff without needing anyone to explain it to you.”

On that note, I had been periodically showing Myusel and Petralka anime DVDs of late, but I had to essentially act as a simultaneous interpreter. You can’t put a magic ring on a DVD player.

“No. I—” She was practically whispering now. She looked even more intently at the floor, shrinking into herself as if embarrassed. “One day you’ll return to your country, Master. And I... I hoped I could go with you.” Now her face was completely red.

And me? I was sitting there in stunned silence.

No! Don’t let her trick you, Kanou Shinichi! This is one giant trap. She just... She just wants to go to Japan because the standard of living is so high there. It’s not because she wants to be with you. Don’t get any weird ideas. Get your hopes up and they’ll only come crashing down. Just like with your old friend.

My heart was going a million miles a minute, and I sat there trying to talk myself down.

It had been about twenty days since my last inspection, and my “otaku training center”—that is, my school—was ready. I really got a sense of accomplishment when I looked at it, even though admittedly I hadn’t exactly done anything when it came to building it.

“Ooh!”

“This is going to be where we’ll meet starting tomorrow?”

Behind me, the students were looking up at the building and sounding very impressed. There wasn’t actually a study group meeting today. They had just decided to come out here.

All to see their brand-new place of learning.

As far as I could tell, the people of the Eldant Empire knew what a private academy was, but not a public school. So study groups usually met in some borrowed room somewhere—a building dedicated specifically to study had never been built. The school struck them as exceedingly novel.

“Those are all nobles...”

“I wonder if it’s okay for us to be here...”

Some distance away from us, a group of boys and girls had gathered to stare at the new structure—and at me and the noble students. A certain percentage of them were demi-humans. The elf children I had met on the training grounds were there, too.

Good. I’m glad word got out to the commoners like I wanted.

That’s right: this, more than anything else, was the reason I had built this school. If we wanted to spread otaku culture on the scale of a social phenomenon, we couldn’t limit ourselves to the nobility. If we didn’t get at the most numerous part of the population—the commoners—then this would all be for nothing.

So I hadn’t held entrance exams for my new school. Plus, tuition would in principle be handled by the Eldant Empire and the Japanese government. In other words, anyone, noble or commoner, could enroll and study here.

With the school in place, more people would be able to get the basic education necessary to spread otaku culture. In a word, this was an investment in the future.

“It’s real. It’s really real. I just can’t help feeling a bit inspired,” I said as I stepped into the finished school for the first time.

“I guess,” Minori-san said with an amused smile. She had been working here with her fellow JSDF members all throughout the construction.

The other students followed after us. And then, some time later and at a significant distance, came the hesitant commoner and demi-human children.

I had modeled the school more or less on a Japanese one. The exterior looked like any other Eldantic building, but inside it was basically Japanese, although there were some Eldantic touches as well. I had included all the things I was used to seeing in a school: blackboards, clocks, desks and chairs, fire extinguishers in the hallways, and so on.

That might have been part of why the students were looking around in such amazement.

And...

“Master.”

I turned at the voice to find Myusel, dressed for an excursion, carrying something into the building.

“Myusel? What’s going on?”

“You forgot your lunch,” she said with a smile.

“Huh? Oh, uh—”

I had forgotten it. When I told Myusel that I was going to go see the new school building this afternoon, she’d said she would pack me a lunch. She always did the cooking at home, but maybe a packed lunch was different somehow, because she had really seemed excited.

“And you brought it to me? All the way out here?!”

“Yes, sir. Um... I haven’t caused you any trouble, have I?” An anxious expression immediately came over her face.

“No!” I exclaimed. “None at all! I’m very happy!”

What I really meant was: to think the day would come when I would reach that gold standard where the girl I’m living with brings me the lunch I forgot!!

I was losing myself in these waves of happiness when, suddenly, the air in the room changed. The students and all the onlookers went completely silent. Wondering what it could be, I turned around and...

“Oh, Petralka—I mean, Your Majesty.”

“Mm!”

Petralka was standing proudly smack in the center of the hallway. Two royal guards armed with swords stood behind her.

After an instant of silence, a murmur spread among the gathered people.

“It’s the empress! Her Majesty is here!”

The kids who attended our study sessions were less startled, but for the commoners and demi-humans, Petralka might as well have lived in the sky. Her sudden appearance understandably startled them.

People scrambled aside to make way for Petralka. They pressed themselves against the walls and knelt or bowed their heads; elves and dwarves fell to both knees to show respect. All of a sudden, the hallway of my school was a very, very somber place.

It’s rude of me to say, but I had almost forgotten that she was the ruler of this country. Petralka, however, looked completely at ease walking among the bowing people. She stopped in front of Myusel and me and nodded with her usual hint of superiority.

“It appears everything is going smoothly.”

“Yeah, thankfully,” I said with a half-smile.

Petralka’s eyes flicked toward my maid.

“Myusel.”

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty!”

“How much have you managed to learn?”

“Wha? Um— I—”

“We are already on ‘Kanji Drill 2’! You will never catch up to us now! You may serve at Shinichi’s side and even receive personal instruction from him, but you will find it avails you nothing!”

“Um, y-yes, of course...!” Myusel nodded emphatically.

Petralka seemed kind of obsessed with Myusel’s progress in learning Japanese. She didn’t abuse the maid like she used to—I mean, she was even calling her by name now—but I could definitely pick up on a subtle hostility. I had to admit, it made me a little anxious. Hence, I inserted myself between the two of them and attempted to forestall the empress’s temper.

“Okay, take it easy. Myusel has to look after me and do all kinds of chores. She doesn’t exactly have a lot of time to study. Take today. Last night she had to get everything ready, make me a lunch and all—” I found myself smiling as I indicated the packed lunch Myusel had made me. “The point is, she’s working very hard, so I—”

I was going to say that I didn’t see it as favoritism that I was personally instructing her in Japanese. But Petralka was watching me silently, her lips pursed. Her arms, hanging at her sides, were balled into fists and, for no reason I could figure, shaking visibly. It was like some gauge had finally filled up. I had charged up something very dangerous. But Petralka really startled me:

“It’s always Myusel, Myusel, Myusel with you!” she shouted. It was like she had finally reached her limit, like a bomb had gone off.

Whaaaat?! Who, me?!

When it came to a contest between Petralka and Myusel, I was the only one who was willing to cover for the maid. The empress had everyone in the world to watch out for her, but Myusel—

Oops.

That was when I realized. I was wrong to think everyone adored and coddled the empress. I thought of how happy she was to sit on my knees and speak with someone from the heart.

“We even built you your ‘school’! We gave you our army to help! And yet you treat us as chaff, paying mind only to this maid!”

“That’s not true! I don’t—”

“Silence! Has she seduced you?!”

“Has she what?!”

“You, Myusel! I order you out of Shinichi’s house!” Petralka exclaimed.

Myusel’s face was pale; she was trembling.

“Oh, no...!” I said.

This really came on much too suddenly—I mean, wasn’t it pretty unfair?

But... wait just a second. Were these two girls fighting over me?!

Oh! I had never dreamed that this day might—

“This is bad.” Minori-san’s whisper brought me back down to earth (or, Eldant). “Shinichi-kun. You have to stop her, quickly.”

“Huh? But this isn’t—”

—such a big deal, is it? is what I had been about to say. I mean, she had only been ordered out of my house, and—wait. Out of my house?!

“You idiot,” Minori-san said. “We’re just renting that house from the Eldant Empire, remember? Myusel calls you ‘Master’ out of convenience, but it was the Empire that hired her. The empress is her employer!”

“Yeah, but I mean, she’s just being let go from her maid work, right?” I didn’t see the problem. Heck, maybe we could bring her on at the school, then. She could speak a few words of Japanese. Maybe we could have her be a teacher, or—

“She’s not just being fired. She’s being fired by the empress herself because they don’t get along. How do you think other people are going to react?”

“......Oh.” I went pale as the implications finally started to sink in. Minori-san was right: this wasn’t a country of laws, like Japan. There was one absolute ruler, and at least for her subjects, her word might as well have been God’s. In an extreme case, if she’d wanted to, Petralka could have killed someone here and now, and nobody would have batted an eyelash. If word got out that Myusel had been fired—in public, no less—because the empress disliked her, no noble family or merchant shop would want anything to do with her. Neither, most likely, would anyone that was currently trying to cozy up to the Eldant Empire. Like Japan. Like Matoba-san.

“Your Majesty—Your Majesty, please, have mercy!” Myusel looked like she’d been given the death penalty.

But this only seemed to annoy Petralka more. She stamped her foot and shouted, “You’ve defiled yourself with Shinichi anyway—maybe you can go work in a brothel!”

“H-Hold on, Petralka—I mean, Your Majesty!” That was really going a little too far.

“You stay out of this!” Petralka glared at me, her face bright red.

It looked like I had only managed to turn her anger on me. I found myself settling back as if I were getting into a fighting stance. But if this could soothe the royal rage even a little, maybe save Myusel’s job, it would be worth it...

“Hrrgh?!”

Suddenly, totally out of the blue, a voice interrupted us. It sounded like some kind of shout—and it came from behind Petralka. We all looked to see what was happening, only to find one of Her Majesty’s bodyguards slumped to his knees. Even as we watched, he pitched forward and fell to the ground. What appeared to be a knife was buried in the chinks of the light armor on his back...

I was so stunned I couldn’t even call out. A small pool of dark-red liquid began to leak from under the guard.

“Blood...?” I whispered dumbly, hardly able to process it. I looked in the direction of the other guard, the one still on his feet, and saw a flat, silver thing sprouting from his chest. The blade was badly bent, but it was a sword.

I felt as if time itself had stopped; thick blood ran down the blade and dribbled onto the floor. The royal guard was looking at the sword in his chest as if he didn’t understand what had happened. He must have been distracted by the raging Petralka. He finally seemed to grasp what was going on, because he drew his own blade—and then ran out of strength, collapsing to the ground.

“Wha— Wha—”

Three men were standing behind the knights. I had no idea when they had arrived. They were wrapped in robes so thick that I couldn’t tell what they actually looked like. It looked like the traditional outfit of merchants from the west. It wasn’t especially unusual to see people dressed like that; they were all over the Eldant Empire.

But these men were carrying arched blades, kind of croissant-shaped and about fifty centimeters long. That wasn’t very long as swords go, but it would be the perfect size to hide under all that cloth.

Someone gave a choked cry. “Y-Yaaaaah!”

Immediately, screams burst out all over. The students and kids who had been in the hallway started running for their lives, seized by terror. But the unexpected visitors moved to stop them, drawing their weapons.

“Don’t move. We’ll kill anyone who disobeys.” The awful order only led to more screaming.

What is this? What in the world is happening?!

I couldn’t scream. I could only stare vacantly. But beside me, Minori-san was showing off what she’d learned in the JSDF. Her reactions were lightning-fast. She drew the 9mm pistol she always carried at her hip, holding it with both hands as she aimed it at the nearest invader.

“I told you not to move!” At the same moment Minori-san was drawing her gun, the robed man reached for Petralka, wrapping an arm around her and dragging her close to him. I wasn’t sure he knew what a gun was, but Minori-san’s actions and expression probably made it obvious that whatever she was holding was a weapon.

“Crap,” Minori-san muttered, and lowered her gun. Petralka was partially obscuring the man in her sights. If she fired now, she could easily hit the empress.

“U—Unhand me, vile fiend!” Petralka shouted, finally seeming to realize that something was happening.

“If you resist, we’ll kill the empress!” The man held his blade to the young ruler’s white neck. Petralka, obviously grasping the gravity of the situation, shut her mouth and kept quiet.

Before we knew it, the attackers had us surrounded. There was no way out. Everyone stood there stupidly. The man who had taken Petralka hostage proclaimed, “We are the assembly of patriots, Bedouna!”

Everyone there swallowed heavily. Everyone, that was, except me. Unable to quite keep up with what was happening, I instead made a single sound:

“...Huh?”

That name pretty much screamed We’re terrorists! but none of this felt real to me, like I was watching a bad movie. It was all happening right in front of my eyes, but it was so incredible that I just wasn’t quite taking it in.

But the royal guards lying dead on the floor were real, there was no doubt about it.

I honestly don’t remember the next half hour or so very clearly. I think the completely incredible events going on around me brought on a bit of amnesia. I hadn’t been this overwhelmed even to discover I’d been dragged off to another world—I guess it just goes to show what a shock it is to witness someone dying up close.

Or, maybe that’s not exactly right. I had seen death before. When my grandparents passed away, I had gone to their funerals. But this—this was different. This was somebody killing someone else for their own benefit. In other words, it was the fear of being faced with someone who had decided they didn’t mind committing murder in order to get what they wanted. We’re always taught “life is precious” and stuff, but here was someone with exactly the opposite opinion, someone whose actions defied everything I believed and who could put an end to all my philosophizing with the thrust of a knife.

“Shinichi-kun... Shinichi-kun?” Minori-san’s voice brought me back to myself.

“Oh. Uh...”

“Are you all right? You looked pretty out of it for a while there.”

“Oh... Yeah. Yeah, I’m all right.” I nodded. It was all I could do. “Where are we...?”

I took a slow look around, and realized we were in the school’s self-study-room-cum-library. Or anyway, it was the room I had been intending to use that way. It was already full of bookshelves, but they were only about half full. I planned to bring more books from my mansion or from Japan. The gaps in the books that lined the shelves gave the place an eerie sense of emptiness.

Out the window, I could see the sky dyed orange: it was twilight, and the day would soon be over. Standing just beside the window was one of the robed men. One of the “patriots” themselves.

Minori-san informed me that the Bedouna patriots were using the school as a base. But it wasn’t as if they had the entire place under observation. There were actually only nine guys in their “assembly of patriots,” all of them apparently human. It was physically impossible for such a small number of people to patrol this entire building, so they had put their hostages in this library, tying our hands behind us with rope.

Along with me and Minori-san were about five students and kids who hadn’t managed to run away. Whether that’s a lot of hostages or not is something of a matter of opinion, but it was probably more than enough for Bedouna. After all, my students were all children of the aristocracy, and one of them was the most important person in the entire country—the empress herself.

Incidentally, Myusel and Petralka, Minori-san, and myself were against the wall opposite our hostage takers. Apparently, they figured that if they just left us all together, there was no telling what we might get up to, so they had lined us up against the wall so they could keep an eye on us.

“Ie, Aresshio,” one of the patriots was saying in what appeared to be distress. “Odo eu tsuppu rereppume tiu reeto seno? Shi shisu reteppu oto tsuppu ni reeto ekarupu tiu eeto reechau?”

In point of fact, both Minori-san and I had been relieved of our rings, so we were ignorant of what they were saying. I did recognize a handful of words—for example, I knew that rereppume meant “empress,” i.e. Petralka.

“To leave empress with... the others, it’s... okay?” Myusel murmured from beside me. She was interpreting into Japanese for us! “Should she be... same place as... watching people?”

This was starting to make sense. In other words, he was asking if it was safe to keep the empress with the other hostages. She was vastly more important than the rest of us, and the man was asking his co-conspirator if she shouldn’t be given special treatment.

“Eu era ooto etaru oto kuniito guniitirebe on, eu evaa on ratoguse rekurou rofu uin narupu! Ti shi reteppu oto eetagu ruh-a egatosoo ni eno ekarupu rofu giniikau.”

The man replying with an irritable expression was the one who had first taken Petralka hostage, a huge guy with golden hair and blue eyes. His name seemed to be Alessio, and the others appeared to regard him as their leader.

According to Myusel’s slow but steady translation, these men had not been expecting Petralka to be here, and they weren’t sure what to do with her. Ultimately, however, they had decided to keep her with the other hostages. Managing to take the empress hostage was a huge coup for them, but it also meant that the empire could be expected to deal with them very differently than it might have otherwise. In a worst-case scenario, the imperial forces might just slaughter everyone to ensure the empress’s safety. In that case, keeping her somewhere separate would be even more dangerous.

Alessio was evidently saying something to the effect of, “It’s too late to be worrying about that. We don’t have the manpower to keep one of the hostages separate.”

As far as I could tell, the nine people who had attacked my school represented the entire constituency of the “assembly of patriots.”

Alessio was pointing into the self-study room and saying, “Ta ina eu evaa taato!”

At that moment there was a thump, and a weird lump of metal was set down. It was a silver sphere almost the size of a cannonball, the bottom fixed so it wouldn’t roll. It also boasted several interlocking rings. To me, it just looked like an old globe—but judging by the way they handled it, it was something much more important than that.

“Shinichi...sama...”

“Regoobu...” a voice moaned from beside me. It was Petralka.

Myusel began to interpret for the empress. She went on, “I can’t believe they brought that here...”

“You know what that is, Petralka?” I said, Myusel translating my words back into Eldant.

Petralka nodded, a grim look on her face. “Imarufe bisurupeguze.”

Apparently, it was some sort of fire-based magical weapon; the name meant “Consuming Flame.” Describing the specifics involved a lot of technical jargon that Myusel couldn’t really interpret, but broadly speaking, it was full of very aggressive fire sprites who, when unleashed, could easily destroy my school.

“Can’t we fight it with magic or something?” I whispered, clinging to this small hope.

But Petralka immediately shook her head. “Kuuru taato.”

She nodded in Alessio’s direction. There was an amulet with a lapis lazuli crystal at his belt, and according to Petralka it would react to any magical power in the immediate vicinity by rearranging its speckled pattern. In other words, no matter how quiet we tried to be, he would know the moment someone started a magical incantation. So even if someone tried to use magic, he could stop them—or worse, kill them—before they could get the spell out.

No matter how great a magic user someone was, it was meaningless if they didn’t have time to recite their chant. It’s like how a gun is just a lump of metal if you can’t fire the bullets. Speaking of which, Minori-san’s 9mm had already been confiscated. Her actions had made it more than clear enough that it was a weapon and not something she could be left with.

I sighed. Just half a day earlier, everything had been going so nicely. How did things turn out this way?

“Doh shi taato...”

Petralka was saying, “But it’s strange...”

Bedouna, this “assembly of patriots,” lacked resources and organization even by the standards of anti-government rebels, yet they had one of these imarufe bisurupeguze, these “Consuming Flames.” Even the Imperial Army couldn’t come up with one of those too readily. It didn’t make sense.

“What you’re saying is, there’s someone out there who gave them the money, or the knowledge, or the weapon itself—or all three. Right?” Minori-san asked.

Myusel translated, and Petralka responded with a nod, “Supaareppu...”

Even I knew this word. It meant “probably.”

Petralka was looking extremely grim. This, I presumed, was how she looked when the duties of being an empress truly called. Suddenly, the Petralka I had known to sit happily on my knees or pout angrily seemed a million miles away. Yes, I had known she was the empress, but I had never seen with my own eyes what that really meant.

In stark contrast to my reaction, Petralka talked about the terrorists as if this were a daily affair. Maybe manga, or otaku culture, or her chats with me were a way of forgetting this bleak and deadly world, just for a moment.

“...Ie.”

Suddenly, Alessio was looking at us. His hostile glare set my skin prickling. My face stiffened in fear.

“Ee shi donimu retosamu. Gunirubu mii donuora emu.”

He was pointing straight at me.

“What? Say what?!”

“Shinichi... sama...” Myusel was giving me a despairing look. “He said... ‘That one bears all the blame. Bring him.’”

“Whaaaaaat?!”

What? Huh? Me? Blame?!

I mean, yes, I am the president of Amutech, but—!

Before I understood what was happening, two men had grabbed me by the collar and forced me to my feet.

“Shinichi-sama!” Myusel cried out, worried for me. But of course, the men paid her no mind. They dragged me like a piece of luggage over to where Alessio was standing with his back to the magical weapon.

“Hey...”

When I looked up, I was surrounded by terrorists.

It was only then that a sense of how much danger I was in sent a shudder down my spine. They looked ready to chop me up at any moment. Unlike Minori-san’s gun, the swords they held at the ready made perfect sense to all involved. Fear ran through me unchecked.

Alessio’s subordinate slid something onto my finger. Wait—I knew what that was.

“So you are the mastermind here.”

It was a magic ring. I could understand what Alessio was saying. But actually, I might’ve been happier not knowing.

“Mastermind?!”

That sounded even worse than “all the blame”! It was like I was behind some really evil plan...

“Mastermind? Me? What have I—”

“It’s a little late to be playing the fool.” Alessio raised an eyebrow in annoyance. “We have eyes to see. This detestable building is itself testament to your crimes!”

“Huh...?” I frowned. He wasn’t making sense.

For some reason, Alessio smiled. “You teach the written word with no regard to race or species. As if that weren’t enough for you, you brainwash our impressionable young children to worship the culture of a foreign country! And above all, you make bold to encourage demi-humans to study alongside human nobles in the very same room! This we cannot forgive—this is a trespass upon the soul of our nation!”

“...Huh?” It took a second for his meaning to register with me.

“Consider: Why do races and tribes exist? Each race has its own assigned duty, which the gods have ordained. The elves possess strong magic; thus they were made less fertile, that they might not proliferate and overrun the land. The dwarves have immense physical strength, able to heft their mighty battle axes despite being no larger than children. The gods gave them this small stature so that they would be at a disadvantage in battle and not be able to commit undue violence. To humans, lacking in both magic and strength, was given the right to rule. Ours is headship over the demi-human races!” Alessio clenched his fist.

Yikes...

I wasn’t even scared so much as I was frustrated. I never thought I would hear someone preaching such an obvious, stereotypical system of discrimination between races with my own ears. Actually... Wait. I guess you hear that sort of thing all the time on the internet. But that’s just what people say in an anonymous space where they don’t have to take responsibility for their words. It might as well be graffiti in a bathroom stall. The net kept you hidden; that’s why they could say stuff like that. Most people wouldn’t dare to go out and proclaim it in public.

It looked like he had given my ring back because he wanted to accuse me to my face of being the destroyer of correct culture. I should have known it wasn’t because he wanted to have a discussion. Having someone stare at you dumbly while you deliver your victory speech probably takes all the fun out of it.

Maybe Alessio could tell what I was thinking, because he narrowed his eyes and demanded, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Huh? Uh, no reason. No reason at all.

That’s probably what I should have said for my own safety. Instead, my memories of being tormented as an otaku decided to rear their ugly head, and I started to run my mouth.

“That is one classic chosen-people complex you’ve got there,” I said.

Wait, what am I saying?!

“What?!”

“Even a kid knows how to rationalize. All you’re really saying is, ‘I’m me, therefore I’m terrific.’ Right? You couldn’t become an elf or a dwarf even if you wanted to, so instead you make fun of them. You’ve never even thought about how much you owe to those people, have you?”

I’m a man, so... I’m a woman, so... I’m Japanese, so... I’m foreign, so... I’m from wherever, so... I went to such-and-such university, so...

They were everywhere—people who wanted to make themselves look better by looking down on those who were different from them. And otaku were an especially ripe target. That was one big reason why I hated people like that.

“Simple enough for an outlander to say,” Alessio growled. “I don’t know where you come from, but... I grant our current prosperity is due in part to the other races. But humans have spent endless years building up the institutions of the state. No other race has achieved this. Grateful to them we may be, but it is only natural that they should revere us.”

I thought of something Myusel had said a long time ago. The demi-humans didn’t reproduce as quickly as humans, so they lacked the ability to oversee or maintain large groups and were vulnerable to sudden famines or natural disasters. In contrast, humans were numerous, making them able to store up supplies via agriculture and form groups to protect them from external enemies. It gave them a lot of resilience in the face of potential extinction.

For that reason, demi-humans could live easier lives by allying themselves with human states. That was why they obeyed and served humans—in other words, exactly the Eldant Empire as I found it.

“The history our forebears have left to us has led naturally to our present prosperity,” Alessio said. “And the culture you and yours are bringing in will undermine it! You outlanders seek to destroy our traditional values! You damnable invaders!”

For an instant, even I didn’t have a comeback. Minori-san had warned me about this. We were in a feudalistic society; what had I thought would happen when I suddenly tried to introduce them to “freedom” and “equality”?

No question, those were the values that lay at the root of the otaku culture I was trying to introduce. Another way of looking at it was that discrimination and class systems were almost always viewed negatively in the entertainment I was bringing in. Can you imagine a main character saying, “So long as the foolish masses obey us of the ruling class and work as we demand, all is well”? Maybe as a gag, but never seriously.

What this all meant was that drumming up interest in otaku culture was practically the same as opposing—indeed, rebelling against—the basic structure of society here. If there was an outbreak of otaku-ism—if it became really popular—people would naturally start to absorb ideas like freedom and equality.

And some people would see that as an assault on particular values. A moral hazard. In fact, if it were being done deliberately, it could even be considered a disaster.

“We shall protect our nation, and the culture of our fathers, from the malign influence of invaders!” Alessio drew the sword at his hip. I froze at the chill steel at my neck. “Before it is too late, we, the assembly of patriots, shall warn the Eldant Empire of its foolishness!”

I couldn’t say anything.

“To begin with, we will make you an example and kill you!”

“Master—! Shinichi-sama!” Myusel cried from over by the wall.

Just when I thought my throat was about to be split...

“Will you not cease?” The voice that saved my life, sounding both exasperated and sad, was that of Petralka. “This is ridiculous. Have you done all this merely to kill Shinichi? If so, you’ve wasted your effort. He is a mere figurehead.”

This seemed to shake the men far more than any begging or shouting would have done.

“What do you mean?” Alessio said, turning to Petralka.

She smiled sadly and said, “He is but a messenger, retained by the country of Japan. As is this woman.” She indicated Minori-san. “They are neither aristocrats nor nobles in their country. To kill them would do Japan no harm. It would hardly be noticed. They would simply send someone else. Indeed, if such a thing happened in my country, I would raise up the murdered ones as tragic heroes and use them to stir up my servants. ‘These inhuman monsters have killed those who sought only to bring us peace and pleasant diversion,’ I would say. ‘Murdered them! This unscrupulous band of self-proclaimed patriots must not be allowed to exist!’”

The men looked at each other, startled. Then, with a disgusted noise, Alessio took his blade away from my neck. They let me go with violent force; I tumbled to the ground and crawled back to Myusel and the others.

“You are all right, Master? Are you hurt?!” Myusel looked like she might burst into tears. I felt the strength drain out of me, just thankful to have escaped with my life. I stole a glance at the terrorists and found them huddled up, whispering about something. Presumably they were talking about what to do next.

I was safe, for the moment. That thought was foremost in my mind, but...

“Are you okay, Shinichi-kun?” Minori-san asked.

I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eye. What Alessio and Petralka had said had caused me to realize something.

Was it possible we were—

“Shinichi-kun? Are you okay?”

“...I’m okay.”

This wasn’t the time for that question. I set aside my doubts for the moment and said, “Um... Any chance you can call in the special forces or something?”

I wasn’t sure about Eldant, but in Japan we had pros to deal with situations like this. Minori-san shook her head in frustration and said, “There are problems of jurisdiction.”

According to what she said next, the JSDF was well-equipped and well-trained, but because of the laws or something their hands were basically tied; there were restrictions that kept them from being able to respond to our situation. It didn’t help that all this stuff involving another world was not public. Anyway, even if they’d sent in the special forces, they wouldn’t have made it in time.

“We’ll have to do something on our own,” Minori-san said. “Shinichi-kun. Could you shove your face into my chest?”

“Huh?!”

I found myself doubting her sanity. Did she realize the position we were in? Not that I wasn’t extremely happy about her request.

“Y-You mean like this?!”

“Yes, right! H-Hey... You could afford to protest a little, you know!”

“Sorry,” I said. At the same moment, I realized I could feel something hard against my cheek. It was...

“Hrn...”

“Donf sob so buried (Don’t sound so worried),” I said. I had found what we were looking for.

“Shinichi?!” Petralka said. “What do you think you’re doing? At a time like this?!”

“Master?!

She and Myusel both seem to have the wrong idea—but now was hardly the time to explain. With the thing I had found still in my mouth, I lowered my head—crap, now it was going to look like I was trying to go for her butt as well as her boobs!—and when I felt her fingers brush my cheek, I opened my mouth.

“Thanks,” she smiled.

What had we transferred from my mouth to her hand? A fountain pen.

But I was sure she wouldn’t hide just any old fountain pen in the cleft of her breasts. The positioning of my body kept Alessio and his men from seeing what was going on as Minori-san worked the pen with her fingers, pulling off the barrel, where you would normally find the ink reservoir, to reveal a small knife, not quite ten centimeters long. A real pen knife!

I didn’t suppose that was standard-issue gear in the JSDF. It must have been a bit of private property.

“Where on earth did you...?”

“Heh. I thought something like this could happen, so I asked myself, ‘What would Fujiko do?’”

“What a question...”

I wouldn’t really expect younger otaku to get that one.

Here she was, carrying a knife designed not to look like a knife—someone had some strange hobbies.

“You’re so dense,” she said, working the knife in between the loops of rope around my hands. She wasn’t trying to cut them, just get the knife in there—so Alessio hadn’t noticed us yet.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Petralka and Myusel were watching wide-eyed, but of course they knew better than to say anything that might attract Alessio’s attention.

“What are you planning?” Petralka whispered. “Cutting the rope will achieve nothing.”

“Yeah, fair enough.”

We were unarmed. They had swords, not to mention a bomb.

And me? I was a middle-class kid, and a shut-in to boot. Not to brag, but I totally lacked anything resembling fighting skills, and I didn’t have any convenient special powers I could activate during a situation like this. Sure, Minori-san was JSDF, but I figured even she couldn’t take on nine guys by herself. If only we had something, anything, that could serve as a weapon.

“Wait, I’ve got it,” I said. “There is a way we can fight.”

Petralka looked at me, puzzled. “What’s that?”

I looked out the window. In the distance, the dark of the night was broken up by lights—signal fires. The fires, built at set intervals, reflected off soldiers clad in body armor. I didn’t even have to look at the emblem on the flags they held—I knew it was the Eldant army.

They already had the school building surrounded. But they were keeping their distance, observing the situation, with no sign of doing more. I couldn’t really blame them—with the empress here, they couldn’t afford to do anything too forceful.

As for our situation, things were a little calmer for the time being. The terrorists had jumped at every little sound at first, but the more time passed and the more things settled down, the more they seemed to relax. They spent less time staring at us now, and some had even sheathed their swords. I had read someplace that humans can’t remain in a state of high alertness for very long. Our bodies are just built that way—even neurochemically.

“I wonder how long they plan to keep this up.”

It was a simple remark, and I hadn’t really been looking for an answer, but Petralka whispered back to me. “Traditionally, the hostage-takers send out a messenger at dawn,” she said. “But they also frequently kill one of the hostages to show how serious they are.”

“Y-Yikes...”

In other words, we had to do something before the sun came up. It probably wasn’t quite midnight yet, so we had some time, but we couldn’t afford to dawdle.

“U-Um...!” Myusel spoke up reluctantly.

“What is it?” the guard growled.

The maid was bright red and looking at the ground. “P-Please... let me go use the... the facilities...”

As a matter of fact, none of us had used the toilet since this whole ordeal began. It was understandable that some people might be reaching their limit. Several of the other students also looked hopefully at our captors.

“No,” the man said. “You can just go right here. It’s as much as a vile half-elf deserves.”

“Please...” she said. “For pity’s sake!”

“Shut your mouth!” the man shot back. “It’s no concern of mine.” Then he turned his back on Myusel, pointedly ignoring her.

“Well... What about me?”

All eyes in the room turned to me. The man turned around again and spat out, “Weren’t you listening? Do it right here!”

“Right, you said, ‘It’s as much as a vile half-elf deserves,’” I reminded him. “But I’m human.”

“Screw you. I don’t care if you’re—”

“Disgusting half-breeds aside,” Petralka put in, “are you really going to treat even Shinichi, a human, like that? It sounds like this vaunted ‘traditional class society’ of yours is an awfully selective place.”

The man turned red but couldn’t offer a comeback.

“Regardless of station,” Petralka went on, “by your own logic, any human is more to be respected than any elf, isn’t that right? If you claim he should simply sit here and wet himself like livestock in a field, right in front of all these people—well, it can only suggest that you men aren’t afraid to bend your own self-proclaimed rules.”

There was no one who could best the loli empress when it came to giving people a sarcastic dressing-down. Her childish looks no doubt made her words sting all the more. I guess there are some “M” types in the world who enjoy that sort of thing, but these terrorists weren’t among them. Probably.

“Hrgh...” The man’s face twisted in frustration.

“Just take him.” A voice came from the entryway. It was Alessio. He was glaring at me and my friends. “It’s obvious they won’t shut up otherwise, and it’s depressing to have someone wet themselves in one’s presence, anyway.” He gestured with his chin, and the guard got up dejectedly. He came over to me and took me roughly by the arm.

“Come on. If you try anything funny, I’ll kill you.”

I was dizzy; he handled me about as gently as a suitcase.

He dragged me away from the wall. Right when we reached the door to the classroom, I stopped dead.

“What are you doing?!” the man demanded. “Hurry up and—”

This was my moment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!

The quiet in the room was shattered by the music and singing that suddenly boomed from my pocket. My smart phone, which I had turned up to maximum volume, was playing its ringtone: the theme song from Rental☆Madoka.

Alessio looked as dumbfounded as the rest of his crew.

While Myusel had been distracting the guard, I had set the timer on my phone. Even people from my world, used to modern technology, would be surprised by a cell phone suddenly going off in a quiet library. So you can guess how much it startled these patriots, who knew nothing about such things.

“What the hell is that?!”

“This guy’s body is making some kind of weird music!”

The guard let go of me as fast as if he had realized he was holding onto a poisonous snake. Totally freaked out. Perfect.

“Don’t move,” I said, putting on my most menacing expression. This was it. I wasn’t much of an actor, but it was now or never. “I’ve already finished chanting my spell,” I said. “I can tear you guys apart anytime I feel like it.”

Think about the lyrics in that theme song: these people had never heard of rock or pop and couldn’t tell Japanese from English; if I said this was the incantation for a spell, who were they to deny it? And I was an outlander—they knew I had some special items not to be found in this world.

“No! He’s bluffing!” Alessio was looking at the crystal on his belt. “There’s no magic power here!”

“Don’t forget, I’m not from this world,” I said, trying to sound as mocking as possible. “Do you really think my magic can be detected by your little toys? Did you ever detect magic when I used any of the things I brought here?”

The terrorists were clearly shaken. So far, everything was going according to plan.

Until Alessio shouted, “K-Kill him! We have the empress here! He can’t possibly be using an area-of-effect attack!”

Well, shoot. He was sharper than I thought.

Seeing the men draw their swords, I felt a chill run through my body.

Yikes! Crap, crap, crap! Don’t look this way!

At that exact instant, there was a soft exhalation of breath, and Minori-san was moving. She had already loosened her bonds—or rather, had cut the rope enough so she could easily break them at any time. She stood up and reached out to grab the nearest guard by the arm. He was astonished. And a second later, he had been smacked in the face hard enough to lay him out.

The fighting arts the JSDF used were fundamentally different from traditional Japanese martial arts—or so I had read somewhere. It wasn’t about spiritual discipline, only about what would actually work in a fight. There were no discrete phases—take a stance, move in, strike. It was just one motion, and then it was all over.

At the same time as she was dragging the guard toward her, Minori-san had buried her elbow in his face. He was already off-balance, and she hit hard. The move took no time at all, defense was almost impossible, and it was vastly more powerful than a simple elbow strike—and I recalled hearing that the spot right under the nose is a vital pressure point.

Whatever. The guard was instantly rendered unconscious. The patriots, not quite able to comprehend what had happened, stood staring stupidly. Minori-san took advantage of the opportunity to grab the fallen guard’s sword; at the same time, she spun the man’s body around with her left arm, using him as a shield.

“Grr—kill that woman!” Alessio got his wits back about him first and set his men on us. But they still hesitated. Yes: it was because I was there. They thought if they turned their backs to me, I might hit them with magic.

What a ridiculous misunderstanding on their part. Of course I couldn’t use magic.

There was someone else in this room they should have been much more worried about.

“Alessio!” one of the men shouted, pointing at the leader’s hip. They had finally noticed that the magic-detection crystal was glowing. “S-Someone’s using magic!”

They didn’t know when I might drop a spell on them, and Minori-san was standing there with a sword in her hand, clearly ready to use it. That was why it had taken them so long to notice what the crystal was doing.

“It’s that woman!” One of them pointed at Myusel.

Bingo. She had been looking at the ground, as if she might faint, but in reality she had been chanting a spell. We’d actually had a two-step plan in place: I would distract the guards with my phone trick, which Minori-san would use as a springboard for her attack. But even she was just distracting them from what Myusel was up to.

The men turned toward the maid—but it was too late.

“Tifu Murottsu!” she exclaimed. “Storm Fist!”

No sooner had she completed her incantation than an intense power struck the men. Some ball of invisible force slammed into the terrorists. I didn’t know exactly what spell Myusel had used, but it was obviously something that hit your opponents with a shockwave. Two of the men simply flew backward, striking the wall. For an instant they hung there, like wall scrolls, before sliding down onto the floor. The whites of their eyes were showing, but they were twitching, suggesting that they weren’t dead.

“Dammit!” one of the terrorists exclaimed.

“Don’t move,” another of the startled men growled, grabbing for the nearest noble kid. “Or I’ll—”

But his hand never reached the child—because Minori-san cut it clean off.

“Hrrgh?!”

A huge amount of blood began to spray from the stump. The man stumbled backward, and Minori-san took advantage to land another elbow—another enemy down. This meant four of the men, in other words a third of the terrorists’ strength, had been incapacitated. But then—

“It burns, it chars, through heat it destroys...!”

One of the guys standing over by the wall had placed his hands near his stomach as though he were holding a ball, and he was chanting something. A sphere began to float up out of his hands, totally ignoring the laws of physics—it was a globe of red light. I might not have known jack about magic, but even I could tell a fireball when I saw one.

This was bad. It sounded like his incantation was finished. But just as I was starting to really worry—

“Most foolish of you.”

The words came from Petralka. Amazingly, she stood calmly and faced the guy who looked like he was about to launch a magical attack at any minute. The man was obviously surprised, but he could hardly interrupt his spell now, and with the wall behind him he couldn’t back up any farther.

“Imalfu Muurubu! Bloom of Flame!” he shouted. It flew straight at Petralka, and yet—

“Haagh!”

An instant later, it was shooting back toward him, like someone had caught a hand grenade and tossed it back. I must have been right about the fireball thing, because both the spellcaster and the terrorist next to him burst into flames. Screaming, they rolled on the floor, desperately trying to put out the fire. A few seconds later, it disappeared, but they were already out of the fight.

“So she’s got magical protection—an amulet!” Alessio growled.

“An empress has many enemies,” Petralka said, almost in a whisper. “Threats domestic and external. Assassination is nearly an occupational hazard. It only makes sense that we should take measures to protect ourself.”

“But I was sure you had no magical items...”

“Obviously, if we carried our magical equipment openly, it would be confiscated. So we always keep our protection close to our body—indeed, our very body is itself a magical item.”

Alessio was shocked. But then again, so was I. Petralka doing what she’d just done was not something we had discussed as part of our plan. And what was this about her body being a magical item?

“Magical detection devices only pick up functional magical objects separate from human bodies, is that not true?” Petralka said. “Otherwise, they would react to people’s inherent mana, and be useless as detectors.”

Most likely, there was some kind of spell or incantation engraved on Petralka’s body, such as in the form of a tattoo. Her knights might be able to defend her against someone who rushed at her with a sword or something, but if the attack was magical—especially if it was an ambush from mid- or long range—they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. So the empress made sure she had counter-magic that would allow her to deflect such attacks.

“Now, then.” Petralka first glanced at Minori-san, who had taken out two more terrorists in the meantime. Then she stared right at Alessio. “It looks like you’re the last.”

“Stop right there!” For some reason, Alessio looked triumphant.

Even as he spoke, we could hear a dull sound as of metal objects scraping together.

“The Consuming Flame...!”

Alessio was standing next to the magical fire weapon. He was holding something that looked like a metal card, which he inserted into a small slot. Evidently it was some kind of key to arm the bomb.

“Now I need only a simple incantation to cause my little friend here to explode. Believe me, you won’t have time for any spells. Take one step closer to me and I’ll set it off. If you don’t want to be annihilated, then do as I say.”

I’d noticed Alessio wasn’t attacking like his lackeys. It must have been so he could pull this ploy. And it was working for him; none of us were moving. I suspected even Petralka’s defensive magic wouldn’t be able to withstand an attack of that magnitude.

“Ha!... Haha!” Looking around the room, Alessio began to laugh in that crazy way only cornered people can. An instant later, though, his expression hardened. “Hey, where’d that outlander whelp go?”

I guess he’d finally noticed. Specifically, noticed that I wasn’t there.

Well, I wasn’t far away. Only one wall separated his room from where I was in the hallway.

“Ahh, who cares? As long as I have the empress, I can force them to negotiate.”

“No, I really don’t think so,” I said as I walked back into the room, having found what I was looking for.

“You?!” Alessio stared at me wide-eyed. It’s only natural that you might doubt the sanity of a former hostage walking right back up to his captor. Obviously, I was no young brave, no manga-style hero. I didn’t have any earthshaking powers. Heck, I could hardly pass gym class. But I did have...

“Hey, what’s—?” Alessio was staring fixedly at me.

“Oh, this?” I held the item in my hand up to about waist level.

It was a red metal cylinder topped with a black plastic lever. A tube snaked away from the top, ending in a nozzle that looked kind of like a trumpet.

“We call it a fire extinguisher,” I said.

I mentioned that I had the JSDF put fire extinguishers here and there around school, right? But this one was missing something—namely, the safety pin.

“Huh...?” Alessio said dumbly. I pointed the nozzle at his face and pulled the lever as hard as I could. The next instant, a pressurized cylinder boasting a top range of seven meters expelled reddish-white smoke directly at him.

As anyone who’s ever used one will know, these handheld fire extinguishers are so powerful it’s like they’re trying to blow out each individual flame, rather than just stop the fire with their chemicals. It would be bad enough being anywhere in the spray—I have to imagine that standing directly in front of the blast hurts.

Alessio gave a little shout, as if afraid, and threw both his hands across his face like he was being doused with poison. He jumped back, away from the magical fire weapon.

“Expl—hrgghff!”

Naturally, he was in no state to chant a magical spell. The contents of the fire extinguisher had gotten everywhere, the fine white mist making it look like someone had spilled milk all over the room. You couldn’t breathe without getting a lungful of extinguisher chemicals; everyone in the room, including Alessio, began to cough.

Fire extinguishers can actually be pretty dangerous: if you use them in an enclosed space where the chemicals have nowhere to go, it’s possible to suffocate. But, well, this was an emergency.

Alessio, who had taken the spray full in the face, looked awful; he was clawing at his throat and gasping for breath. At least that might keep him from intoning any spells for a minute.

I tossed aside the empty fire extinguisher and dashed for the magical weapon. I groped at the surface of the weapon until I found the key and pulled it out as quickly as I could, then I heaved a sigh of relief—or tried to, but instead I ended up coughing violently.

Ugh! Totally not cool!

For the record, the reason I used a fire extinguisher was because we were dealing with Imarufe Bisurupeguze, the Consuming Flame. I had no idea if an extinguisher would work against fire sprites, but if the idea was that they ignited in order to release their ultimate power—well, then, I thought there was a good chance that flame retardant might blunt the effect. Luckily, in the end the bomb didn’t go off anyway.

“Over here, everyone!” Minori-san ran over to the window and opened it. The room we were in was on the first floor, so we could easily escape through the window. Minori-san hadn’t gotten her magic ring back yet, so in theory, her words should have been incomprehensible to the Eldant people in the room—but under the circumstances, no one had to understand her language to know what she was saying. One by one, the hostages got outside.

One might argue that since we had taken out all the terrorists, we were safe... But then again, we hadn’t killed them, so they could come to at any time. It was in the interest of safety to get the hostages out of there as quickly as possible.

As the open window let fresh air into the room, it gradually became easier to see. And what we saw was Alessio standing not far away from us. He was just staring into space.

I could see where. He and his compatriots had gotten all their equipment ready, and prepared themselves mentally—I’m sure they never expected to have it all blow up in their faces (figuratively speaking). And it wasn’t the imperial army but a hostage who had done it.

Alessio wiped the extinguisher chemicals off his face with his sleeve. His expression was one of pure despair. Most of his hostages were gone, just a few of us left in the room with him. His most important catch, Petralka, was just that moment climbing out the window, helped by Minori-san, who had climbed out ahead of her. It looked like everything was finally all right. I let out a relieved breath.

But reality isn’t like anime or manga. It turns out actual terrorists are way worse than fictional ones.

“Hrgh!” Alessio grabbed his sword off the floor and shouted hoarsely, “Did you think—Did you think I would let it end like this?!”

He flung the sword as hard as he could. Despair and madness must have given him superhuman strength, because the fifty-centimeter blade flew straight as an arrow. Straight at Petralka’s back.

The spell that protected her body was only a countermeasure against magic. An edged weapon could hurt her just like anyone else. It was supposed to be her royal guard that protected her from physical threats.

The soft, almost wet sound of the sword digging into flesh seemed impossibly loud. I froze with my hand outstretched. I was neither close enough nor quick enough to do anything about the attack. The sword cut through cloth easily, burying itself deep in its victim’s body.

That is to say—in Myusel’s body.

Petralka had turned around in astonishment. She may not have seen the moment of impact, but when she saw Myusel standing behind her with her arms held wide, a sword lodged in her body, she surely understood what had happened.

“Urgh...”

Myusel’s beautiful features contorted with pain, and she collapsed to her knees.

“Myusel!”

Who had called out? Was it me, or Petralka?

At almost the same instant, there was a roar, and then Alessio slumped forward. I didn’t know when Minori-san had gotten her 9mm back, but she had just fired it from her spot on the other side of the window.

“Myusel!” I rushed to her side. She was lying on the floor, her breathing strained. Beside her, Petralka was looking down blankly at the groaning half-elf.

I knelt down next to Myusel. The weapon had pierced her abdomen, and her white maid’s apron had turned red with blood. The sword wasn’t quite right in the middle of her stomach, but it was still possible that it had damaged some internal organs. I tried desperately to draw on the modicum of knowledge I had gained from reading manga and novels. Internal wounds were very bad news. They weren’t like superficial injuries, where things were likely to be okay if you could stop the bleeding. They might require surgery.

I wanted to pull the blade out immediately, but I thought I remembered hearing that if you didn’t do it carefully, it could make the bleeding worse—that it was better to leave the sword where it was. Arrrrgh! Dammit! I’m so panicked, I can’t think straight!

“Why...? Why did you...” Petralka was murmuring uncomprehendingly. “After we...”

Her voice was cracking, and so quiet I could barely hear her. But I suspected I knew what she was saying. Just before our ordeal, Petralka had very suddenly and rather unfairly fired Myusel from her job. For that matter, she had suggested the half-elf find work in a brothel instead. After all that, what reason did Myusel have to protect the empress?

“Didn’t... Didn’t I...” Myusel was trying to speak with her trembling, bloodless lips. “Didn’t I look... cool...?”

“Huh?”

“Just like in... one of Master’s manga... I wanted to be... like them...”

It dawned on me: there had been a scene much like this one in the very first manga I had ever read to the two of them. Myusel still remembered it—as, I suspected, did Petralka.

“Are you—Are you some kind of idiot?!” Petralka shouted. “What do you mean, like them?! Cool? What are you talking about?!”

Petralka reached out and grabbed Myusel with both hands, heedless of the fact that she would get covered in blood. She shook the maid repeatedly, like a bratty kid trying to wake up her oversleeping older sister.

“Is that why you did something so—oh! Oh, no!” She stopped shaking Myusel and started shouting. “The blood—the blood! Someone! Someone, quickly!”

At that moment, almost as though they had been waiting for her summons (although I’m sure they hadn’t been), we heard the clanking of several sets of armored footsteps. A group of knights and soldiers burst into the room, all exclaiming, “Your Majesty!”

“Your Majesty, are you all—”

Petralka interrupted. “Get this woman to a doctor, quickly! No, wait—bring a doctor here, as fast as you can!”

“Your Majesty? That girl is just a—”

“Do as we say! This is a command from your empress!”

The edge of anger in her voice caused several knights to jump in surprise and then run out of the room. Petralka turned back to Myusel and whispered, “Don’t you die...”

But there was no answer from the maid.

“Do not die, we forbid it. Do you hear us, Myusel?! This is an imperial command!”

The empress began to cry like a child. The remaining knights and soldiers stood around, obviously uncomfortable and completely befuddled about what to do. Petralka stayed with the motionless Myusel, whispering the same words over and over, both an order and a plea: “Don’t die. Don’t die.”

Our footsteps echoed noisily in the stone hallway. Somewhere in the distance, a bird was chirping. It was a beautiful, clear morning, or at least it looked like one.

I walked wordlessly through Eldant Castle. Minori-san was a few steps away. Given what had just happened, she was carrying not only her usual 9mm handgun, but a duralumin suitcase. It looked like a normal piece of luggage, but inside was a 9mm machine gun—small-bore, in other words. The suitcase could also double as a shield. It was a bit of special equipment for protecting VIPs. Apparently she had requisitioned it in an almighty hurry.

Several days had passed since the incident with the “assembly of patriots.” All the perpetrators had been taken into custody, but that hardly meant the problem had gone away. The impact of their actions could still be felt. Just to give a personal example, without Myusel, the housework was on the verge of overwhelming us. Minori-san was doing her best to keep up with at least the cooking and laundry (she said the JSDF were excellent at making plenty of food in a short time, which they had to do during disaster relief efforts and the like), but without Myusel, it was like most of the light in our house had gone out.

Still silent, we arrived at our destination. It was a big, heavy-looking door. On either side of it stood a knight whose armor bore the crest of the royal guard. They looked very intimidating. This was another effect of recent events. Before this, the guard had prized formality and ceremony, but now they were in full armor as if ready to go out on the battlefield. I assumed there was a wizard somewhere nearby as well. I heard that the empress’s captivity, however brief, had caused heads to roll among the guards’ higher-ups...

I pushed aside my hesitation and knocked on the door.

“Petralka? Erm, I mean, Your Majesty? It’s me. Can I... Can I come in?”

There was a beat before a voice on the other side of the door said, “Enter.”

With the permission of the empress herself, I slowly pushed the door open.

The room on the other side was the picture of opulence. The ceiling formed an elegant arch; you could see smooth wood here and there. A huge window let the sunlight in—or you could go out on the attached patio to enjoy the day. A fluffy carpet covered the extensive floor space.

In the middle of the room sat a huge bed—canopied, of course. It was draped in red sheets of the highest quality.

“You’re late, Shinichi.”

Petralka sat on a chair in front of the fireplace. Her silver hair reflected the sunlight, as if it were itself a luxurious ornament. She was as adorable as ever, but—it was hard to put my finger on it, but since the attack, I thought her expression looked a little more grown-up. It wasn’t that she was less expressive; if anything, it was the opposite. I thought she expressed more things more naturally. Maybe she had been holding back before.

“When we call, you should come with more urgency. Your tea’s getting cold.”

“Sorry,” I said with a bit of a smile. I sat down in the seat next to her.

“But Your Majesty... Shinichi-sama’s house is a bit of a distance...” The girl who so kindly spoke up on my behalf was wearing white bedclothes and sitting up in the bed nearby.

“Are you okay to sit up already?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” Myusel responded with a smile. “And it’s all thanks to Her Majesty.” Her smile widened; it was so beautiful that it would have put any flower to shame.

So, as you may have guessed, Myusel did not die. On Petralka’s orders, she was brought to the imperial hospital inside the castle, where magic (of course) as well as every available medicine was put to good effect. No expense was spared, and the most famous doctors in the land operated on her. Normally, the imperial hospital was only used when members of the imperial family were gravely wounded; a commoner like Myusel would normally never even have set foot inside. But again, Petralka was the empress, and this was what she wanted.

Petralka’s intervention saved Myusel’s life. Until she was fully recovered, however, Myusel would have to stay here in the hospital. Even the gorgeous room we were in was actually a hospital room. I was sure it looked as nice as it did because it was really supposed to be for noble use. The elegance probably didn’t make the place any more sanitary, but people want what they want.

“You were pretty darn impressive, Your Majesty,” I said. “‘If anyone lets this girl die, I’ll treat them as rebels against the state—and have them executed!’ Hah! Those doctors went white as sheets!”

“We— We were just—” Petralka turned bright red, flustered. So cute. “Y-You know those doctors. They only ever work on nobles, and all old people at that. We were afraid they might be... unaccustomed to working on a young woman. We simply reminded them to do their duty!”

“Right. Of course,” I said with a smile and a nod.

Petralka only turned redder. “A-Anyway, we couldn’t have it getting out that Empress Eldant was saved by the death of some maid! Our ministers would never listen to us again!”

“Right. Of course.”

Petralka was practically cringing with embarrassment at this point. If we had been standing up, I was sure she would have given the ground a good stomp. Talk about your stereotypical tsundere.

“But listen, Petralka, I want Myusel back in my mansion as soon as possible...” Truth be told, what I really wanted, of course, was for her to take her time and rest up. But I had a reason for saying what I did. It was a strategy. “Without her around, the laundry is piling up!”

“I’m very sorry, Master. I’ll try to get better as quickly as I can,” Myusel said. But then she exclaimed, “Oh...!” and stopped with an uncertain look on her face.

Ahh. So they hadn’t talked about that yet—it had probably only just occurred to Myusel as she was speaking. Knowing Petralka, it would probably be awfully hard for her to take back something she had said—at least if someone didn’t give her a little push.

“We said we would see to it that you were sent another helper,” Petralka said, frowning. “It was you who refused. Myusel was stabbed through the stomach. That is not a wound one recovers from in a few days. We are surprised by your ignorance of the world, Shinichi!”

“No, I know that. I was just afraid that if someone else gets settled in the house, maybe Myusel would find it hard to come back.”

“You need not be concerned. Myusel will be returned to you when she is fully healed.”

“You have my gratitude for your generous consideration, Your Majesty.”

“Hrmph. Interesting how you’re only deferential when you’re in a good mood.” Personally, I wondered whether an empress should be snorting like that, but I kept my mouth shut.

Myusel seemed to grasp what was going on. “Um... Does this mean...” Petralka and I had held our entire conversation on the presumption that Myusel would return to be my maid. In other words, that her firing would be null and void.

I knew Petralka—as both an empress and a person. I didn’t expect her to ever say, “I’m sorry, forget I ever said that.” But I did manage to help her admit, indirectly, that we could ignore the whole incident. I was sure that would put Myusel’s mind at ease, too.

“Your Majesty...”

Petralka didn’t answer, but when Myusel looked at her, she turned her head away as if pretending to pout.

You’re not as hard to read as you think you are, kid!

“Th... Thank you...” Myusel said with tears in her eyes.

Granted, it was Petralka’s impulsive decision that we were undoing in the first place. But even so, for the empress to budge, even implicitly, for a commoner was something very special. Myusel was obviously moved, and Petralka—well, she wasn’t exactly open about her feelings, but she seemed to be going in the right direction.

It looked like this particular problem had been solved. The two of them talked affably after that. In fact, they were kind of ignoring me; I started to get a bit of a confusing yuri vibe from them. But we had averted one potential conflict, and I was glad for that.

“We’ll visit you again,” I promised, and then Minori-san and I quietly left the room.

I saw a face I recognized at the far end of the long hallway: Matoba Jinzaburou, chief of the Far East Culture Exchange Promotion Bureau.

When he saw me, he said, “It seems Her Majesty is in a fine mood.”

His neatly parted hair, starting to show signs of white, was the same as ever, as was his dead-leaf-colored suit. He looked as average as it was possible to look; he practically screamed, I’m totally harmless!

“Yeah, I guess,” I muttered. Matoba-san looked at me questioningly for a moment, but he quickly returned to his vague bureaucrat’s smile.

“Ahem. On the subject of the terrorists. It appears an anti-Imperial faction within the Empire was behind them. I believe it was they who arranged for the magical weapon you encountered.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Not surprised?” He looked at me curiously.

“Matoba-san,” I said. There was something that had been bothering me ever since that day. “Am I... an invader?”

He went quiet. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Minori-san’s face stiffen.

Matoba-san smiled ambiguously, still not saying anything. He wasn’t going to confirm it, but he wasn’t going to deny it. He didn’t look surprised that I had asked, either. It seemed like this was very much something he’d expected.

And now that I thought about it, why not? The whole “cultural exchange” thing was just a façade. There were all kinds of reasons the Japanese government couldn’t move against Eldant militarily, so instead they decided to change how people thought.

A cultural invasion was the ultimate takeover tactic. Military encroachment takes huge amounts of money, not to mention the risk to people and equipment. If your only goal is to destroy the other country, you can rely on carpet-bombing or even nuclear weapons, but then you have to deal with world opinion—not to mention you wind up with a wasteland of a conquered nation. Not worth much.

Compared to that, cultural invasion has a lot of perks. You can affect the whole population, not just the people running the place. If things go well, you could even end up taking over. I’ve heard this was one of the reasons Christianity spread so widely in the Middle Ages. Setting aside the question of whether the Christians did it intentionally or not...

For better or for worse, modern-day Japan didn’t have a religion that so many people got so invested in. Even the stuff we did have was of the “new religion” variety, and they looked too cultish for most people to be interested.

Otaku stuff, then. The people in the Japanese government looked around and saw how young people would happily dump ten or twenty thousand yen in one day on doujinshi, how people trampled each other to buy the hottest video games, and they realized that otaku-ism has a religious aspect. So why not get the people of this new world to enjoy anime and manga and stuff—and then make sure they depended on Japan to provide it?

I had been right about Minori-san—she was a fujoshi, even though she sometimes tried to pretend otherwise. She was actually an otaku herself. I was sure she wasn’t happy to see her beloved media being cynically used to make inroads into another country, but she was also a member of the JSDF, and she couldn’t defy the government.

“Kanou Shinichi-kun,” Matoba-san said, smiling. “Our job is to look after Japan’s national interests.”

That was an awfully nice way of putting it. But then he went on: “The definition of things can change depending on how you look at them. If you believe you’re an invader, then you are, and if you don’t, then you’re not. It’s best not to think too hard about it. All you need to do is figure out how to make otaku culture popular in this nation. It should be a pleasant job for you.”

He spoke so quietly, but to me, it sounded like a threat.

つづく

(To be continued...)