Chapter One: Give a Shout when You Shoot
Chapter One: Give a Shout when You Shoot
“Shinichi-sensei!”
When the voice called out to me, I reflexively turned.
The classroom looked like it always did. There was the lectern. The blackboard. The lockers. The cleaning implements. And there were the desks and chairs, about forty of them.
Each of them was filled with a student. Humans like me made up about half the number, but there were also pointy-eared pupils: elves and dwarves. There used to be a lot of fighting between students of different races, but recently such discriminatory disputes had dropped off. Then again, they had been replaced by arguments about which were the proper ships and what one should get moe over.
You may have gathered by now: this was another world. There were elves, dwarves, and even beast people here, not to mention dragons, which were as common as daisies. You could even use magic—it was a fantasy world straight out of To*kien.
One day, completely out of the blue, Japan stumbled on a “hole”—really a hyperspace wormhole—connecting the country to this other world, the Holy Eldant Empire. It was a completely different place from Earth: different resources, different culture, different people. Convinced that there was serious profit to be had from commerce with this new world, the Japanese government proceeded to open diplomatic relations with Eldant in utmost secrecy, trying everything they could to bring the two countries closer.
In the end, to everyone’s surprise, the thing that got the best reaction from the residents of this other world was Japan’s prized otaku culture—manga, anime, games, and so on. In a world roughly on the cultural level of Middle Ages Europe, the development of entertainment had lagged behind, and Japan’s extensive assortment of otaku cultural goods was immensely exciting to the people here.
And so, Japan established the general entertainment company Amutech, an interdimensional first. And I, Kanou Shinichi, was appointed its general manager. (It’s a long story.)
My mission, as you might have guessed, was to help spread and popularize otaku culture here in this new world. This school was built as part of that mission. The students were kids eager to learn about this cutting-edge new culture. Of course, as a minor myself, even though many of them were younger than me, maybe it was a little strange for me to be calling them “kids.” But anyway.
When I heard my name, I stopped writing on the blackboard and turned around...
...and found that the bland, familiar scene of the classroom had suddenly morphed into something I didn’t recognize.
Everyone was sitting at their desks, as usual. But I couldn’t see their faces.
No, that’s not quite right. My view of their faces was blocked by something they were all holding up. Not their entire faces, just the upper half, especially their eyes.
So what was this thing that each of them was holding?
“Whoa, wait, hold on a second—”
But there was no time to stop them.
Ka-click! It was a distinctly mechanical sound. No sooner had the first click finished than dozens more followed it from every direction. It was like a spreading wave, a light but sharp noise. It went on until it filled the classroom.
Ka-click. Ka-click. Ka-clickka-clickka-click.
“Ahh...” I smiled weakly and sighed.
The source of the sounds was the objects in the students’ hands—the portable game machines they were holding up.
3TSes. We had initially brought them to the Holy Eldant Empire as prizes in a soccer tournament we held. They had actually gone to the lizardmen, who had taken second, but they didn’t really “get” portable video games. Instead, they were able to sell the systems to the nobility at a pretty hefty sum, and so the systems came to be in the hands of my students.
Plenty of the kids had been carrying them around ever since, but just recently, the most popular thing about them hadn’t been the games.
It was the photos.
The 3TS includes a camera function. Some games use it as a part of gameplay, but you could also just use it like a regular camera. And when the students discovered that, they immediately became fascinated by taking pictures.
“Hee hee!” A dwarf girl sitting in the front row of seats laughed, satisfied.
This was Romilda Guld. She was the daughter of the boss of Guld Workshop, a dwarven foundry that served the Imperial will in Eldant. She was in her late teens—a lot like me—but her characteristically small body and that giant smile (which looked good on her) conspired to make her as adorable as an elementary-schooler. To be fair, the somewhat loli look wasn’t unique to her; it was something she shared with all dwarves.
“Score one surprised Shinichi-sensei!” Romilda announced. The other students also lowered their 3TSes, looking at the screens. Each one probably showed my dumb look of surprise. Personally, I didn’t think that was a very interesting thing to take a picture of.
“Gosh, you guys are really into this...”
“Uh-huh!” Romilda nodded happily, her short, red twintails bobbing. Then she turned the 3TS on me again and pressed the button. “You just press a button and the screen records everything around you immediately—it’s amazing!” She smiled again as if she were proud of the fact.
Seeing her like that, I remembered my little sister Shizuki back when she had gotten her first cell phone, taking pictures of everyone and everything in sight. She seemed to enjoy the simple fact that she could take the photos, no matter what was in them. I understood how she and Romilda felt. I had gone through that phase myself.
Of course, I had quickly tired of taking quite so many pictures, but even then, when I saw something new or interesting, I would snap a photo just to help me remember. I still did. And if someone as accustomed to taking pictures as I was still went out of my way to do it, how much more the students in this world where the concept of photographs hadn’t even existed before? Where you normally needed magic to record images of scenery or people? Of course they were nuts for it. The camera was like magic, but you didn’t have to chant any spells or prepare yourself spiritually. You didn’t even have to practice. When it came to sheer convenience, magic had nothing on this.
The upshot was that the minute we were on break, the students would pull out their game systems and start photographing everything they could get their hands on.
In any event, the actual popularity of photographs was fine. The problem was that right now, I was trying to have class. I was just gathering myself to give the students a talking-to when Romilda exclaimed, “Look at this, Sensei!” and started showing me all the pictures she’d taken on her 3TS.
She just looked so happy, and so cute, and she was just so completely innocent, that I found it extremely hard to scold her. It was like a cat proudly showing you a rat it had caught.
Still, I knew I had to say something. “Uhhh... Listen, Romilda.”
“Ha ha ha ha!” An even prouder voice came our way—one with an unmistakable element of scorn. Romilda frowned and closed her 3TS before turning toward the back of the classroom. “Are you still taking pictures with that thing?” the new voice said. “Get with the times!”
Excuse me, but just how far behind “the times” are you? The snarky quip almost made it to my mouth, but I just managed to swallow it. The speaker wasn’t teasing me, but Romilda. I didn’t have anything to gain by getting involved.
“Oh, what, Loek?” Romilda pouted.
The speaker was a slim, tall elf: Loek Slayson.
Like Romilda, he was a student here. His dad was part of the Eldant administration, unusual for an elf. Loek himself was, if I may say so, sort of the spoiled-young-lordling type. With his long hair and fine features, he was actually pretty good-looking, but the barbs he aimed at Romilda could be surprisingly childish.
Like now, for instance.
He had his left hand on his hip, and his right hand behind his back, as if he was hiding something.
Well, not as if. He obviously was hiding something.
With a self-satisfied smile, he exclaimed, “Behold!” Then he pulled his hand from behind his back.
An excited murmur spread through the classroom.
The item he had produced was neither especially surprising nor especially unusual—to me. But it was a veritable anachronism in the Holy Eldant Empire.
A digital camera. Specifically, a digital single-lens reflex camera, or DSLR. Unlike a 3TS, this thing really said machine! Even students who didn’t know much about it could tell that it was professional equipment.
“Is that... Wait... Loek, where did you get that?” Romilda asked, giving voice to the question of the entire student body.
“Satou-san sold it to me!” he said triumphantly.
“Satou-san?” I asked. “You mean, like, the JSDF Satou-san?”
“Uh-huh!”
Ahh. So that was it. I had to admit, even I was a little taken aback to see Loek with a DSLR. I hadn’t brought anything like that to this school—or even to this world. Most of the digital devices that existed in the Eldant Empire were here because I had judged them necessary for our otaku-culture work, and asked the Japanese government to import them. I wasn’t thrilled to see the students with digital equipment that hadn’t come through me.
“So that was his camera,” I mused.
Besides Amutech, there was one other way for things from Japan to get into this world—via the Japan Self-Defense Force. There was a garrison unit here in Eldant to protect Amutech by the orders of the Japanese government. They received regular shipments of personal supplies, separate from the things I used for business. The soldiers would often get Japanese food or magazines, or other things to fuel their hobbies.
Satou-san’s hobby was photography; I knew he had had at least one digital camera brought in for his personal use. I knew he also took photos of the JSDF’s activities in Eldant in an official capacity, for their records. That must have been what tipped Loek off that a DSLR was also a kind of camera.
Come to think of it, I wondered how the JSDF unit stationed here supported themselves from day-to-day. Even with the Japanese and Eldant government providing most of their basic needs, keep a garrison long enough and people will eventually want to go shopping. I assumed that would mean they needed some local currency.
Given that this other world was a matter of utmost secrecy, soldiers stationed at the Eldant garrison couldn’t readily go back to Japan. They even took their paid time off here. That meant they had to have Eldant money, right? Maybe they were getting some support from the government here, but when that wasn’t enough, they would have to scare up extra cash on their own.
By selling some of their stuff to the locals, for example.
“Behold!” Loek exclaimed again, fiddling with the digital camera. He flipped it around and showed us—mostly meaning Romilda—the small LCD screen on the back. Naturally, it displayed a photo the camera had taken. It showed the same thing as Romilda’s shots, which was to say, nothing very interesting. But the more expensive equipment did give the photo a bit of extra color and verve, making it a cut above the one taken by the 3TS.
I guess that’s what more megapixels gets you...
“This thing...” Romilda had walked over to Loek and was looking at the screen, as was pretty much the entire class; everyone was wearing expressions of shock.
“Taking photos with a 3TS is old news,” Loek proclaimed. “The future belongs to digital cameras!” He laughed proudly. Romilda, for her part, looked sullen.
Sigh... Here we go again, I thought dejectedly.
Elves and dwarves were traditionally not very friendly with each other. To the elves, dwarves were “shortstacks” and “soil-sniffers,” while the dwarves thought the elves were “wispy softies” and “airheads.”
And Loek and Romilda? They fought even more than most elves and dwarves. They were basically the leaders of the elven and dwarven contingents in the classroom, respectively, and as the spokespeople for the other students they often clashed. It didn’t usually escalate to physical violence, and I didn’t think the antagonism between them really ran that deep, but they could always be counted on to find a flashpoint.
Still, for as often as they argued, they worked together just as frequently. So I was convinced it wasn’t actually a bad relationship—it might even have been one of those “the more you fight, the closer you are” things. After all, no one would go out of their way to talk so much to someone they really hated, right?
“Grrr...” Romilda reached out and pressed the switch on the digital camera. Dedicated cameras have a lot in common with the 3TS these days in terms of button placement and functions, so she probably just did it intuitively.
I was just looking at them with a wry smile when—
“Hrm?” Romilda suddenly stopped grumbling.
“What’s up?” I tried to squeeze close enough to get a peek at the camera myself. Then my voice escaped me of its own accord: “Ohhh! That’s...!”
The LCD screen displayed a woman’s chest—a close-up, at that. Two generous lumps only barely hidden beneath a tank top. They looked soft enough to make you want to bury your face in that sweet valley, all of it reflected in glorious high definition...!
Incredible. Truly a photographic masterpiece.
Without meaning to, I found myself staring fixedly at the screen.
“Listen, you...” Romilda didn’t seem very impressed by the picture. She pointed an accusing finger at the screen.
“Huh? Oh, uh—” It was only just dawning on Loek what the camera must be showing. He scrambled to turn the device back around and hid the screen with his hand. “It’s not— This is— Uh...!”
“You pervert! That’s Minori-sensei, and I know it!”
“W-Well, uh...” Loek was still struggling for words.
It didn’t really matter. This was pretty clearly Minori-san, our resident WAC and my bodyguard, and the possessor of boobs so stunning they couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else’s, even in a close-up like this.
The real problem was that this picture was obviously a sneak shot. I didn’t know how he managed it with a bulky, conspicuous DSLR—maybe they used a long-range lens or something. Whatever the case, it was obvious this wasn’t just some “Oops, I was playing with my camera and the shutter went off” picture.
“You perverted elf!”
“St-Stoppit, don’t get violent—!” Romilda had her dukes up; Loek shook his head and held up his palms. “You should be ashamed of yourself! Taking a picture like this without permission!”
Uh, Romilda... You and the whole class just snapped a picture of me without asking.
Once again I suppressed the comeback. I got that taking pictures of men and of women were different problems. I promise I did.
“You sit down,” Romilda said. “I’m going to erase that picture.”
“Yipes!”
Recognizing that they were past the point where discussion would do any good, Loek yelped and ran away. Romilda chased him out of the classroom with a cry of “Hold it right there!”
Ahem. Uh, kids? We’re still in the middle of class...
Just as I was having that thought, though, the bell rang.
Oh, for...
“I’ll bet Minori-san would be awful peeved if she saw that...”
Not that I didn’t understand the impulse to take that photo, but sneaking pictures of people was just not cool. I would have to make sure all the students, Loek included, understood that. Since the idea of photographs hadn’t existed in Eldant until just the other day, there weren’t any laws against secretly photographing anyone, or even necessarily a sense that it was a bad thing to do. I guess it would take someone from Japan to set them straight.
“Shinichi-san,” someone said from the door of the classroom.
I looked over and saw a precious young girl dressed in a Gothic-loli outfit.
Well, let me be more precise. I saw someone who looked like a precious young girl. But I knew “she” was no lady. As convincing as she looked, that was actually a man. Specifically, it was Ayasaki Hikaru-san, my assistant at Amutech and a teacher at the school just like me.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I wanted to ask you something about teaching.” He came over to me, his long, black hair flowing and his steps as graceful as a movie star’s. Man, he was drop-dead gorgeous. His appearance was so meticulous that he didn’t have to strike a pose or anything—he looked like he had come straight out of a painting whether he was sitting down or standing around. The hem of his skirt bobbed each time he moved, revealing glimpses of white leg that were downright scandalous. It almost seemed outrageous to think that he had the same thing between his legs that I did.
I wondered what he wanted...
“I was thinking maybe we could use this for our next in-class material,” Hikaru-san said, and passed me some papers he was holding.
At that instant, I heard the classroom fill with the sound of shutters again. Everyone was taking pictures of Hikaru-san. They were so into taking photos that they were even happy to take pictures of me, a person with no distinguishing beauty or exotic costumes. Once someone as glamorous as Hikaru-san turned up, of course they would want to take his picture.
I glanced at the papers and nodded. “Yeah, I think that should be fine.”
Hikaru-san, though, frowned, not saying anything. The camera clicks filled the silence. The students’ gazes, like the camera lenses, remained steadfastly on Hikaru-san.
“Would you quit it already?!”
Bam! The lectern shook—because Hikaru-san had suddenly smacked it with an open palm.
I found myself shivering to hear him raise his voice. The students looked just as startled, all of them frozen, still holding up their 3TSes. Boy, he must have really shocked them. Hikaru-san was typically a pretty calm talker; he very rarely shouted. But now...
“It’s every day with you people! Give it a rest!” He wheeled on the students, then took a deep breath. “You shouldn’t take a ’layer’s picture without their permission!” He spoke so forcefully that if this had been a manga, there would have been a big ba-duuum sound effect above him.
“Are you really cosplaying, or just... in girl clothes?”
I hadn’t meant to contradict him. Luckily for Hikaru-san, he wasn’t intimidated; he fixed his glare on me instead and said, “Shinichi-san, I really don’t think that’s relevant right now.”
“Er, you’re right, sorry.”
Yikes. He was seriously mad.
Maybe the sight of me falling silent cooled him off a little, because Hikaru-san cleared his throat gently and turned back to the students. With his hands on his hips, he said, “I haven’t said anything before, because I figured you weren’t hurting anyone. But the picture-taking just gets worse and worse every day! I can’t take it anymore! I understand how much fun new toys can be, but have a little respect!”
Oof. Talk about laying down the law.
Realizing that his anger wasn’t directed at me, I was able to take a step back and look at the situation objectively. Hikaru-san’s good looks were imposing enough—having him shout at you would make anyone freeze.
“There’s an etiquette to taking photographs!” Hikaru-san snatched a piece of chalk and started writing on the blackboard: Image-use Rights.
...Er, ahem, Hikaru-san. I really don’t think they’ll be able to just jump right into the deep end like that.
Not only was the Holy Eldant Empire not a constitutional government, it was proudly a dictatorship; I didn’t think talk of individual rights was going to get very far. Heck, when I had arrived, they didn’t even seem to have had a concept of equality.
In spite of all of these considerations, I was far too chicken to bring those points up with Hikaru-san when he was this angry.
“Talk to a ’layer before you shoot! Above all, respect image-use rights and don’t take photos without—”
“Imm-age use rights?”
“What are those?”
“It means that pictures of a photographic subject who hasn’t given their consent are unauthorized, and—”
“Un-author-izzed?”
“Photo-grafic subject?”
Ahhh... Just as I had suspected.
All the students looked at Hikaru-san blankly. I could hear the anger draining from his voice as he saw how they were reacting. It was easy to stay angry if the other person talked back or ignored you, but when they didn’t even understand what you were angry about... well, it was like throwing a ball to someone who wasn’t ready to catch it. Even Hikaru-san could see how much work this was going to be.
“What I’m saying is...!”
He persisted in his attempt to explain photography etiquette. But by the time the bell rang for the start of class, the students didn’t seem to understand any better than before, not even when Romilda came in dragging Loek by the collar.
After class, I jumped in a bird-drawn carriage and headed for the beating heart of this country—Eldant Castle. I had received an urgent summons from the empress. She had sent knights directly to the school; they asked for me by name and said, “Her Majesty is calling for you.”
This was pretty unusual. I was in the habit of appearing at the castle before going to school in order to update the empress on the state of Amutech’s affairs and educational initiatives, but it had been a while since I had gone to the castle after class. And she had sent knights personally to get me. Anything that wasn’t pressing could have waited until the next morning. So what had happened? I rode along, feeling anxious...
Hikaru-san, sitting across from me, sighed. He was leaning his elbow against the window of the passenger compartment, watching the scenery go by with a long face. It actually looked perfect considering his Gothic loli outfit, but never mind that.
“Is, er, something wrong?”
I wasn’t the one who asked the question. Instead, it came from the maid sitting beside me.
Well, to be fair, she wasn’t in her maid uniform right now, but in traveling clothes.
Myusel Fourant: flaxen-haired, violet-eyed, the very picture of innocence and sweetness. She worked as a maid at our mansion, and was the first “other-worlder” I’d met when I got here. Because she spent so much time with us, she had picked up Japanese pretty quickly, and even helped teach at the school sometimes.
“Are you feeling poorly?” Myusel asked, leaning toward Hikaru-san. The movement made her twintails bob.
“No, not at all,” Hikaru-san said, shaking his head. Then he went back to gazing mournfully out the window. When he realized Myusel and I were still looking at him, he straightened up and shifted in his seat. “I was just thinking about the students and their photographs.”
“Oh, that.”
The comment, delivered with a sort of wry smile... once again didn’t come from me. It was Koganuma Minori-san, sitting next to Hikaru-san. Yes—the WAC with the great rack that you’ve already heard about in connection with Loek’s photograph.
She wore glasses and had her black hair tied up in a bun behind her head. She looked like she wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone send you flying. But in reality, she was one onee-san who could be really scary if you ticked her off... Er, I mean, who was very good to have on your side.
How nervy was she? Let me put it this way: she once round-house-kicked an actual dragon.
Incidentally, ever since she rescued him by doing that, Loek had thought she was the bee’s knees. (Note: dead slang.)
“They got a few shots of you, huh, Hikaru-kun?”
“Yeah...”
“I get that they enjoy it, but they’ve sort of been overdoing it juuust a little lately.” Minori-san shrugged.
Hikaru-san isn’t the only one they got a photo of, I thought, before forcing the words back down. Minori-san probably wouldn’t get upset to know Loek had taken a picture of her—but a close-up of her boobs? That would be a different story. Despite being the owner of an absolutely wicked pair of Mount Fujis, Minori-san herself wasn’t always happy about the body she had.
Er, anyway...
“You can’t just take pictures without permission,” Hikaru-san was saying. “A ’layer definitely has to give their okay. Even with non-’layers, it’s only polite to ask.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh.” Minori-san nodded in agreement. She had some cosplaying experience herself, so they were probably on the same page.
As for me, as much as I considered myself a well-rounded otaku, I had zero experience doing cosplay, and had never been to a photo session or anything. Of course I had seen lots of cosplayers at Comiket and wherever else, and I had put on a costume when we were doing the movie here in Eldant, but that was about it. So I didn’t know much about etiquette and customs when it came to the cosplay industry (if that was what you could call it).
Naturally, neither did Myusel...
“Is that so?” she asked, tilting her head inquisitively, just like a little bird might do. It was such a cute, innocent gesture that I immediately felt the moe-ness flaring within me... but, uh, never mind.
“There’s nothing wrong with taking a picture,” Hikaru-san said, sighing again. “I just... wish they’d ask, you know?”
“I would be very pleased to have Master take my picture,” Myusel offered.
“Shinichi-san,” Hikaru-san said, fixing me with a stare. “You haven’t been taking photos of Myusel just because you know she won’t say anything, have you?”
“N—No! No, I haven’t!”
Okay, so I had some pictures of her that I took back before she really knew what a photograph was. But I had never sneaked any pictures of her... I thought.
“Hmm...” As I felt myself threatening to hyperventilate, Hikaru-san only narrowed his eyes further.
Aargh! He doesn’t believe me?!
“Well, whatever. The point is, the kids have been going overboard lately.” Hikaru-san shrugged. “I don’t mind if they take my picture. But they have to learn to be polite about it.”
“I guess we should have taught them a little more about how photographs work before things got to this point,” Minori-san said, crossing her arms.
As I mentioned, cameras and photography were completely new here in Eldant. The main way to preserve an image of something around here was to paint a picture of it. There was also magic that would allow you to freeze a scene or picture of someone in a crystal ball, but crystal balls were expensive, and using magic meant taking the time and concentration to chant the incantation. It wasn’t very precise.
There was nothing quite like photography, where you just took out the camera and produced a picture. Much like in modern-day Japan, things had to be accessible if they were going to become a fad. And if a camera had one advantage over painting and magic, it was ease of use.
But that same accessibility meant it could spread widely—and I hadn’t understood the trouble this could cause. The rules people voluntarily submitted to in order to prevent arguments—in other words, manners—didn’t spread nearly as fast as the cameras.
“I guess you have to really think before you bring something like this in,” I said. I was partly talking to myself, but in the corner of my eye I could see Hikaru-san look away uncomfortably.
I was sure he still remembered. He couldn’t have forgotten the problems that had followed when he had tried to introduce card games and ero games here.
When you introduce a stimulus to people who aren’t used to it, such as a new form of entertainment, it’s all too easy for them to lose their self-control and become addicted. Some students had gone nuts on the card games, spending copious amounts of money in pursuit of strong cards. As for the ero game, we ended up with one guy who locked himself in the bathroom all day to play it.
So entertainment had the potential to be really dangerous. The people here didn’t have much knowledge or experience yet when it came to these things, so it was important for us, the suppliers, to be careful. We couldn’t predict everything that might happen, but we had to keep our eyes out for any potential problems and nip them in the bud, lest we wind up with another catastrophe on our hands.
“We can’t just try to pound etiquette into their heads, though,” Minori-san said. “It would never stick.”
I agreed. “What if we... hmm. Maybe we could do a photography class or something. And we could teach them about etiquette at the same time.”
“Just as a little aside, huh?” Hikaru-san smiled without much conviction. “You’re right, though, that might be the most practical thing.”
“Okay, Shinichi-kun, we’ll leave it to you to come up with the details.” Minori-san bowed to me with a hint of exaggerated politeness.
“Huh? You want me to do it?”
“Well, it was your idea.”
“Er... Well, yeah, but...”
“Ahem... Shinichi-sama, if there’s anything I can do to help, I’ll be happy to do it,” Myusel said. She was so thoughtful.
Okay, well, I could probably pull this off somehow. I could get Satou-san to teach me the basics of photography. And I could quiz Minori-san and Hikaru-san on exactly what etiquette I should teach. All I would have to do would be to come up with the overall outline of the course.
“We’ve arrived,” the coachman said, interrupting my thoughts. The carriage pulled up in front of Eldant Castle.
Meeting Her Majesty the Empress in Eldant Castle meant going to the audience chamber. That only made sense, both from the perspective of Her Majesty’s safety and this country’s social-class system, but interestingly, there were several different audience chambers in the castle, and which one was used depended on who was visiting and what the situation was.
There was a massive audience chamber for when there was a host of advisors in attendance, and a relatively smaller one for quieter conversations. Our morning meetings about Amutech usually took place in the latter.
This afternoon, we found ourselves once again ushered into the small audience chamber. Believe it or not, I was used to this by now: I bowed to the knights standing guard outside, then walked into the room without so much as a knot in my stomach.
At which point—
“Hrk?!”
—my eyes were suddenly assaulted by a powerful light. For a second, I was blinded.
“Wh-What...?” I groaned, squinting.
The overexposed world slowly went back to normal. I blinked several times and cast a look around the audience chamber. My eyes settled on an elegant throne set several steps above the ground, on which sat a beautiful young girl. The most striking things about her were her long, flawless silver hair and wide emerald eyes. She was very cute. She was holding some kind of black lump in both hands and grinning at me.
This was Petralka an Eldant III. Aka Her Majesty the Empress. Amazingly adorable and chibi size to boot. If you didn’t know any better, you’d just want to give her a big hug. Of course, if you did that, heads would roll... literally.
I was told she was seventeen years old, but she could pass for four or five years younger than that, and she was pretty sensitive about it. If, on seeing her for the first time, someone were to exclaim “IS THAT REALLY AN ARCHETYPAL LITTLE GIRL?!” she would get very angry. To be fair, I guess any empress would be angry about a person shouting something like that, even if they didn’t have some insecurities about their looks.
Geez, it’s... it’s a little late to be saying this, but I’m really lucky to have escaped with my life.
Anyway...
“Petralka...” It didn’t take me long to figure out what that black lump was that she was holding. A camera. Another expensive-looking DSLR, at that.
She had it clasped to her chest with a look of real joy, like a child with a new toy. The bright light that had surprised me so much must have been the flash from this camera.
“Wh-What’s going on? Where’d you get that?”
“We have heard of their popularity at school. We wished to try one for ourselves.” She added a proud little chuckle. Then she held up the camera again and pressed the shutter.
“Yipes—!” I shielded my eyes with my hand as the flash went off again. The school was bad enough—but I had never expected to get my picture taken in the royal audience chamber!
I glanced back at the others. Myusel was stiff, petrified at the thought of having her photo taken by the Empress herself. Minori-san wore a sort of helpless smile, probably thinking the same thing I was; but Hikaru-san, still bothered about manners, was in a huff.
Hmm. Maybe this wasn’t a great situation. Hikaru-san looked pretty darn mad—he wasn’t usually the type to show such open emotion in front of Her Majesty. For better or for worse, he had a sharp sense of what would be helpful and what wouldn’t, and he was usually very good at controlling himself.
In any event, I took it upon myself to stop Petralka’s relentless barrage of photographs.
“B-But Petralka, how did you get that camera?”
“Hrm?”
“I mean, I didn’t think you had anything like that.”
I knew she owned a 3TS, but I’d had no idea she’d gotten her hands on specialty equipment like a DSLR.
“Ah,” she said indifferently. “Zahar requested this from your Jay-Ess-Dee-Eff.”
“Huh? Zahar-san did?” I blinked my eyes at the unexpected camera owner.
Petralka glanced at the two people standing beside and slightly behind the throne, as if seeking confirmation. One of these people was a handsome knight with long, silver hair: the noble, Garius en Cordobal. The other was an elderly man with white hair and a white beard—Petralka’s tutor and regent, Prime Minister Zahar. Apparently, it was his camera she was using...
“Zahar-san, is that your camera?” I asked.
“Oh, goodness, well,” he said, nodding and smiling with evident embarrassment.
Prime ministers in fantasy stories are usually trying to control the throne from the shadows, or turn out to be the ultimate villains, but there was no trace of any of that sort of nastiness from Zahar-san. In fact, he indulged Petralka’s demands almost like a doting grandfather.
“I thought it might be useful for documenting Her Majesty’s growth,” he said. “I had to pull some strings, but I got one.”
“Huh...”
So Zahar-san had leaned on Satou-san, too.
It sounded to me, though, like this was back before photography became such a big deal at school, and Zahar-san had only taken pictures of Petralka and her immediate surroundings; the camera had never gone outside the castle.
He really was like a surrogate parent to her. He probably adored her. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he started cornering friends and family with a handmade Petralka photo album.
When it came to most of the things we brought over from Japan, though, Zahar-san—maybe because he was considerably older than our target audience—never went crazy for our imports. He kept a certain distance, observing with calm detachment. But I guess he wasn’t completely immune to their influence.
Well, anyway. When Petralka heard about the photography craze at school, she had demanded to use Zahar-san’s camera, grabbing it for herself and taking pictures of everything she could point it at.
Ahhh... crud. This is no good.
She was just like the students at school. Slightly frantic, I said, “Uh... Uh, Petralka? It’s not nice to ambush someone when you take their picture.”
“It isn’t?” She put the camera on her knees, thunderstruck. Yes, this adorable empress was an absolute ruler who could and sometimes did make people bend to her every whim. Yet somehow, the power hadn’t really gone to her head; she had a remarkably sincere side as well. At least, she was willing to listen when you spelled out a situation for her.
“We have this thing called image-use rights.”
“Ee-mage use rites? Hrm. Is it some kind of finishing move?”
“No, that’s dark rites.” I said pointedly.
“So what happened in Akiba was also wrong?”
“Akiba?”
“You know. When we were in Akiba recently. Did all the Ja-panese not take our photo-graph? Was that not bad as well?”
“Well, uh...”
I didn’t know quite what to say. Petralka was talking about a brief trip back to Japan that we’d taken recently. She hadn’t been invited, but she’d stowed away in our luggage—and I figured that since she was there anyway, we might as well check out Akihabara together. Petralka, Myusel, and Elvia, though, ended up being treated as mysterious foreign actresses (it’s a long story), and in Japan there’s a widespread feeling that famous people are fair game for photographs. Call it the price of fame. Some actors and pro sports players even think of these pictures as free PR, so they don’t go around quibbling about image use.
The result was, we ended up being the subject of a lot of pictures taken by passersby as we walked around Akiba. And yes, you could question the legality of what they were doing.
“Hmmm...”
I struggled with how to explain this to Petralka. I wasn’t sure she would understand if I babbled about “the price of fame.” I mean, the whole concept of image-use rights itself was somewhat strange to her and the others here. The whole reason it was even an issue in Japan was because of how easily and how readily people could take photos. Why should they worry about it at all in Eldant, where cameras hadn’t even been a thing until just recently?
So I tried a different tack.
“L-Listen,” I said, almost groaning out the words, “the truth is... if someone takes a careless photograph of you, it can steal your soul.”
“What?!” Petralka’s eyes were the size of dinner plates.
“So when you want to take someone’s picture, you should be sure to ask for—”
“Ye gods! Has our soul been stolen?! And have we stolen your soul, Shinichi? Or is it about to be stolen?” Petralka was clearly shaken. And as adorable as it was to see her so frantic, this was no time to be savoring her innocence and naïveté. Prime Minister Zahar looked just as shocked as the empress. I’m sure he didn’t expect this turn of the conversation any more than she did.
And then there was...
“Is that really true?” The anxious question came from Myusel, beside me. She was clearly terrified. Her picture had been taken dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times—just by me. That would be scary. “Am I going to lose my soul?”
“No, look—no, no. That was just a metaphor...”
“What...?” Myusel blinked at me. She looked thoughtful for a moment. Maybe she wasn’t sure what a metaphor was. “Does this mean you have my soul now, Master...?”
“No, I’m telling you, it was a figurative expression.”
“Well... That’s very comforting.” She smiled and glanced at the ground.
So... what? She didn’t mind losing her soul if she had given it to me? Did she think it had turned into a hard, little chip somewhere that she could get back by defeating the enemy Sta*d user? ...Come to think of it, how did they conceptualize the soul around here?
“Umm...”
What to do, what to do? This had all started with a misunderstanding, and it was only getting worse.
“Your Majesty.” I was saved by the intervention of someone who had been watching the conversation develop silently until that moment: Minori-san. “Shinichi-kun is only joking.”
“Hrm? Is he indeed?”
“Yes. On that note, Your Majesty, do you remember the magical-girl movie?”
“Er—?” Petralka was caught off guard by the sudden change of topic.
“The Holy Eldant Empire’s very first movie, in which Your Majesty was—”
“Gnnrrrr! Silence! Do not speak of it!” Petralka nearly convulsed on her throne.
The movie Minori-san was talking about was one we had produced to help cover up a leak by the JSDF, the first such film ever produced in Eldant. We had also deliberately released a making-of documentary on the net, which is what had led to Petralka and the others being treated like movie stars.
“That thing does not exist!” Petralka went on. “It is null! Void! Strike it from the history books!”
Er, Petralka. If you have to strike something out of history... that means it was part of history.
But I knew better than to offer a quip in the face of her consternation.
“It’s possible that a photograph will end up the same way,” Minori-san said calmly.
“Hrm...?”
“There will be an image of you that you may not approve of. Maybe even one you find deeply embarrassing. And because a photograph captures an instant in time, unlike a movie where there’s motion, you might even be making a strange face, say.”
“Hmm...”
“For example, Your Majesty, you blink sometimes, don’t you?”
“Well... yes, of course we do. But we fail to see the relevance—”
“It only lasts a fraction of a second, so we don’t think much about it, but a photograph can capture a fraction of a second.” Minori-san half-closed her eyes in demonstration. “And if you happen to be doing this when the picture is taken, then that’s what will be left to posterity. Even if you, the subject, didn’t mean for it to happen.”
Petralka and Zahar-san both looked at Minori-san with her exaggeratedly sleepy face, then looked at each other.
“Ahem... Your Majesty, if I may,” Zahar-san, said, reaching out for the camera and pressing some buttons. “I think your recent photo-graphs...”
“Hrrm...”
The two of them looked at each other and then at the camera’s LCD screen. I didn’t know what exactly it showed, but I could guess that Petralka had taken some of those “unauthorized photographs” Minori-san had warned her about.
“You see what I’m saying, Your Majesty?” Minori-san asked, smiling softly. “A person can be pretty embarrassed by an unexpected photograph.”
“Yes... Yes, we understand,” Petralka said meekly.
“Phew. Thanks, Minori-san,” I said with a sigh of relief.
It looked like I had better get that photography class, etiquette and all, up and running fast. Right now the photography craze was confined to the school, but when people found out that the empress herself was into the trend, nobles and merchants would trip over themselves to get cameras, if for no reason other than to get closer to Her Majesty.
Cameras, though, weren’t easy to come by here in the Holy Eldant Empire. That meant supply and demand would go out of whack, and like with the card game, they would be sold at outrageous prices, or stolen. We would have to secure a reasonably steady supply to help prevent that. But once we started supplying cameras, the skyrocketing population of photographers could easily make etiquette-related problems an epidemic. We would have to get out ahead of this.
“By the way, why did you call me here?” I suddenly remembered I was in that audience chamber by special summons. Had she requested my presence just to show off her new camera? It was one thing for a few of us to be oohing and ahhing over it in this little room. But if she brought out the camera and the photographs in front of her advisors and whoever else—well, that “outbreak” of demand for the devices could become reality in a hurry. “Did you just want to show us your camera?”
“No, even we are above that,” Petralka said, shaking her head.
As she spoke, Garius, who had been silent until that moment, took a step forward. “Let me answer that question.”
Whoa. Were things about to get serious in here?
Along with Prime Minister Zahar, Petralka’s cousin Garius helped her run the country. In particular, Garius tended to deal with military and security matters, so anything he wanted to talk about naturally tended to involve danger.
“It so happens that over the last several days, our skirmishes with Bahairam have become somewhat more intense.”
The Kingdom of Bahairam was a neighboring nation of the Eldant Empire. The two countries weren’t at war, exactly, but they weren’t on great terms, either. Border skirmishes and espionage were an almost daily occurrence, two hostile nations vying to keep each other in check.
“According to reports, most of the fights have been started by the Bahairam side... But they don’t seem quite serious.”
“What do you mean?”
“The fighting forces have been small-scale,” Garius said. “Far too few troops for an invasion. But I can’t help thinking the engagements seem more frequent than usual.”
So we had a small number of troops getting into battles more often than normal. Hmm. Strange stuff for sure. I was no tactician, though, and I couldn’t begin to guess what Bahairam might be thinking based on that information alone.
“In any event,” Garius said, “Shinichi, be careful.”
“Huh? Me?”
“You were kidnapped once. Have you forgotten?”
“Oh, uh... no.”
“The engagements may be small-scale, but if they happen to find a place where our defenses are weak, a group of Bahairam’s soldiers could punch straight into our territory.”
“I’ll watch out,” I said.
Garius was right: Bahairam had abducted me once in the past. On that occasion, Myusel, Minori-san, and a crew of others had come to rescue me. It had ultimately ended well, and we had even established friendly—which was to say cooperative—relations with some people on the Bahairam side, so I didn’t actually consider it such a bad memory.
But then...
“Furthermore, as regards your werewolf...”
“Huh?! Elvia has nothing to do with it!” I exclaimed.
By “Elvia,” I meant Elvia Harneiman, the artist-cum-wolf-girl who lived at our mansion. Bahairam had sent her to Eldant as a disposable spy. Actually, as far as Bahairam knew, she was still undercover here. If things with Bahairam were getting more precarious, it was no surprise that Eldant’s leaders might look askance at Elvia.
But she was one of the ones who had come to rescue me when I had been kidnapped. For better or for worse, she was as open a person as you could hope to meet; I just couldn’t picture her secretly planning our downfall or something.
“Don’t panic, Shinichi,” Petralka interjected. “Even we do not question that girl anymore.” Petralka had come to visit us at the mansion more than once, giving her plenty of opportunity to interact with Elvia. She was well aware of Elvia’s personality and current situation. “However, it is possible to conceive of a situation in which she would be forced to betray our country—for example, if her family back in Bahairam were to be taken hostage.”
“We understand you may not like it, but keep one eye on her for the time being.”
“Er......... Right.”
One look at Petralka’s face told me everything: she didn’t want to doubt Elvia any more than I did. But objectively, Garius and Petralka’s words held water. And they were bringing up the possibility mainly out of concern for my safety. I couldn’t be angry at them for that.
“...I understand. I appreciate the warning.”
The words came not from me—but from Minori-san, my bodyguard.
After our audience at the castle, we went straight back to the mansion. I thanked the driver and hopped out of the carriage. As soon we got in the house, Myusel started pulling off her going-out overclothes. Apparently she just didn’t feel right if she was at the mansion but not in her maid uniform. She was always so diligent.
“I’ll start preparing dinner, then,” she said, pulling on her frilly headpiece.
“Thanks, Myusel,” I said.
“Not at all, it’s my j— Oh.”
She had turned toward the kitchen, but saw something that stopped her in her tracks. Wondering what it could be, I joined her.
“Oh. Elvia.”
The wolf girl was running toward us down the hallway. “Welcome hooome!” She ground to a halt in front of us, grinning. The fluffy ears that hung from her head flopped, and the fuzzy tail that grew from her behind wagged like a happy puppy. This was the girl we had been talking about at the castle: the former Bahairamanian spy, now our resident artist, Elvia Harneiman.
“That should be our line,” I objected.
“When did you get back from Bahairam?” Myusel asked.
In addition to being Amutech’s live-in artist, she was also our smuggler—specifically, quietly helping to get otaku goods into Bahairam. I know that all sounds very cloak-and-dagger, but all I really wanted was for Elvia to help Bahairam realize the neat stuff that was available, and maybe to start thinking that it could be worth their while to be friends with Eldant. Call it an information campaign. Granted, when I suggested the idea to the Eldant leadership, I did deliberately use the phrase “cultural invasion.”
“Just got back this morning!” Elvia said brightly.
All her movements tended to be exaggerated. Like, if she nodded, her whole body would shake as she flung her head up and down. It inevitably made her bulging chest, straining at her tube top, inescapably apparent.
And not only was her shirt basically an undergarment, her pants were low-rise shorts, so her midriff was completely out there. Maybe she did it for ease of movement, but this amount of skin, this amount of exposure—let’s just say it really caught the eye. The only saving grace was that the way she acted was so innocent, it didn’t really come across as sexy.
“And so, uh, Shinichi-sama...”
“Everything went okay, right?”
“Huh...?” Elvia looked at me in surprise.
“Oh, uh...” I tried to put my response in the least unsettling possible way. “Actually, we were just at Eldant Castle by special summons. They said there seems to be more fighting on the border with Bahairam, and to be careful.”
“O—Oh...”
Was it just my imagination, or did a cloud pass over Elvia’s face?
“You just look like nothing bad happened, and I was glad to see it.”
“I definitely get why Garius seemed so uptight, with stuff like that happening,” Hikaru-san said from behind me.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Minori-san said. “And you can’t exactly go building a Great Wall just to try to keep the country safe.”
“The people who kidnapped Shinichi-san made it all the way to this mansion, right?”
“They sure did. I know we’re on the outskirts of the capital here, but that still puts us fairly close to the border. There is a mountain range that would make it hard to bring a big army across, but still...”
“U-Um...” Elvia said, looking anxious. “I-If it turns out, uh, that the Bahairamanian army invades, er... What happens to me?”
“Oh, you’re okay, Elvia, you’re fine,” I said, forcing myself to smile reassuringly.
Minori-san, though, shrugged a little. “They’ve made an exception for you, Elvia, but if someone from Bahairam were to enter Eldant unofficially, illegally... well, they’d probably be arrested and executed.”
“E-E-Executed?!” She stiffened.
Minori-san didn’t hold back. “That’s what would have happened to you if Shinichi-kun hadn’t intervened. He pushed to keep you on as our artist because of your drawing skills, but if you hadn’t been an artist, there would have been nowhere to hide.”
“Is—Izzat right? I mean... Sure it is...” She was nodding again. She suddenly looked especially pale—I wondered what was wrong. Was she still feeling guilty about having been a spy for Bahairam...?
“I told you, Elvia, they aren’t going to do anything to you,” I hastened to remind her, but she didn’t relax. What was going on? Was there something else she was worried about? “What’s the matter?” I asked.
“...I-It’s nothing.”
“Come to think of it, Elvia-san, didn’t you say there was something you wanted to talk to Shinichi-sama about?” Myusel asked.
“Huh...?!” Elvia sounded desperate.
“Is there? What is it?” I asked. Now that I thought about it, it had sounded like Elvia had had more to say.
“Oh, n-no, really, it’s nothing!”
“Yeah? But—”
“N-Nothing at all! I swear!” Elvia was practically shouting now. Then she spun on her heel and dashed back down the hall. Almost like she was running away...
“The heck?” I said, scratching my head. It sure didn’t look like nothing.
“I don’t know...” Myusel said, equally befuddled. I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought Elvia was acting strange.
Minori-san, meanwhile, was looking down the hall after Elvia. I was disturbed to see that her usual easygoing look had been replaced by the stern demeanor of a JSDF soldier.
We all ate dinner together. That was sort of a custom at Amutech—or at least at our mansion.
Minori-san, Elvia, Hikaru-san, and I were there, of course—but so were our servants, who never normally ate with their masters in Eldant society. They included Myusel, as well as our gardener Brooke and his wife Cerise, another maid.
Brooke and Cerise, by the way, belonged to a race called the lizardmen. They literally looked like walking lizards. Everything about them was lizardlike, including the fact that they were cold-blooded and laid eggs. That meant they needed a slightly different menu than the rest of us. Lots of raw stuff, primarily.
Having to prepare separate meals for different species meant Myusel, who cooked for us, had extra work to do, but Cerise had been able to help since she got here. Myusel told me meals were much easier for her now.
Anyway...
“So the upshot is, we need to have a special class where we teach the kids about how to be polite when they’re doing photography,” I said, summing up our day.
“I hope we can do it sooner rather than later,” Hikaru-san said, sighing. “I can’t stand getting my picture taken too much more.” As a cosplayer, Hikaru-san was more than used to posing for photos, but there was a limit to his patience when it came to people taking pictures without asking.
“So far there’s been no harm done, but we can’t wait until after somebody secretly snaps a photo of somebody else,” Minori-san said.
“Er... It might already be too late for that...”
“Huh...?”
“Huh? I mean, uh, nothing!” I said, shaking my head.
If Loek wanted to delete that photo before it became a problem, this was the time... though since Romilda and everyone had already seen it, it was already too late. Sooner or later, Minori-san would find out about that picture, and I imagined it would lead to a scolding Loek wouldn’t recover from for a while.
“Myusel, doesn’t it bother you when they snap a picture like that?” I asked, hoping to deflect the conversation in another direction.
Myusel had been listening to us without saying anything, and seemed a little surprised when the conversation suddenly turned to her. She blinked for a moment before collecting her thoughts. “Me? I just think... it’s so incredible to be able to capture a scene in an instant like that.”
Ahh, what a sweet, naïve perspective. Sometimes, hearing Myusel talk made me feel like a deeply polluted creature. I mean, obviously I’m not going to claim I’m always totally innocent.
“And it comes from the desire to keep photo-graphs of the people and places you care about nearby.”
“That’s true enough.” (Uh... if we’re dividing motivations into affection and malice, I guess carnal desire falls under affection.)
“If I had a chance, I’d like to—” Myusel glanced shyly at me, then quickly looked away. I saw her cheeks flush just the tiniest bit. Wait...
“Myusel, do you want a camera, too?”
“What? Oh, no, I could never...” She looked down and seemed to shrink into herself. She looked so modest, so restrained—it was unbelievably moe.
“It would be hard not to want one when you see everyone around you using them, huh?”
“Er... Ahem, well, that may be partly true...”
I knew Myusel, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to just come out and say that she wanted a camera—so I would have to say it for her. She probably didn’t need a complicated DSLR or anything; a nice, small fire-and-forget daily model would be fine. If I asked, I could probably get one sent over with the next regular shipment.
“I don’t think a camera is exactly what Myusel’s aiming for,” Minori-san interjected with a sly grin.
“Wha...?”
It wasn’t?
“M-Minori-sama!” Myusel sounded uncharacteristically frantic. Minori-san seemed to be enjoying this.
Wait. What’s going on here?
Was this what they called “girl talk”? (Note: probably not.)
“Anyway, I’ll ask them to send over a camera for you, Myusel,” Minori-san said. Then she glanced around the table. “By the way, speaking of cameras, I was thinking of having them print out some of the pictures we took in Japan. Myusel, Elvia, you want any?”
“May I?” Myusel asked.
“Sure. We’ll bring some by for Her Majesty, too.”
“That reminds me, I never showed Brooke and Cerise any of our Akiba pictures.”
I had brought them some dried fruits and some Haku*** Kairo hand warmers as souvenirs from Japan, and I had already given them those—but I had never shown them the photos.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened my pictures from Japan. I held the phone out across the table so Brooke and Cerise could see.
“What is this towering fortress...?!”
Confronted with a photo I’d taken of Myusel in Akiba, Brooke didn’t remark on our maid’s wardrobe, but rather on the background. Considering Brooke was a former military man, I guess it made sense that he would notice the terrain right away.
“Petralka said the same thing. But it’s not a fortress, those are buildings. We call them skyscrapers.”
“And what unusual outfits,” Cerise offered. (I guess it took a woman.) “But they look very good on all of you.”
Brooke and Cerise were both covered in scales, so they sometimes didn’t seem very expressive. It could be almost impossible to tell what they were thinking just from their faces, but by paying attention to their conversation and the general vibe they gave off, it was possible for me to tell that they were intrigued by the photographs.
“Seeing as Myusel and Petralka survived having their pictures taken by everyone in that huge crowd in Akiba, I guess they’re pretty used to being in photographs by now,” I said.
“True,” Minori-san replied. “Considering how they started... That would impair anyone’s judgment.”
Strictly speaking, they had been in front of the camera before, back when we made our movie, and in Akiba a camera punk (but note: he was around thirty years old) snapped our pictures. But having a sea of cell phones and digital cameras aimed at you probably overwhelmed those other memories.
“Okay, we’ll print pictures for Myusel and Her Majesty... What about you, Elvia?”
No answer.
“Elvia...?”
“Buh?!”
She seemed to hear us for the first time, looking up suddenly with a shiver.
“You seem kind of out of it,” Minori-san said. “Everything all right? You haven’t eaten much, either...”
She was right: almost all the food was still on Elvia’s plate.
That was unusual. Elvia seemed to have what you might call poor mileage—the rest of us often watched stupefied as she shoveled food into her mouth. Myusel always made sure to give her extra-large helpings at meals, and she was still usually the first one done. Yet tonight, she had hardly eaten anything.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t been part of our conversation at all, either. She just seemed really down somehow...
“Doesn’t it taste good?” Myusel asked, concerned.
“N-No, that’s not it at all!” Elvia said, and hurriedly began eating. “It’s great, just like always!”
A moment later, though, her hands stopped again. She was definitely worried about something.
She’d seemed strange ever since she got back from Bahairam—or more precisely, ever since we had talked about what happened there.
“Hey,” I said gently. “Are you worried about Amatena and Clara?”
Amatena. Clara. Both from Bahairam, and both people who had been involved with my kidnapping. And Amatena, as it happened, was Elvia’s older sister. The two of them were serving with the Bahairamanian military in a little town near the border. Which meant, to our chagrin, that they would be on the front lines if war ever broke out.
At my question, Elvia stiffened. All the hair on her bushy tail, which had been hidden behind her chair, stood straight up as if she had gotten a big static shock.
“Sh-Shinichi-sama, why would you think...?” The strain on her face was unmistakable.
“Why? I mean...”
I thought it was perfectly natural to worry about your family back home.
“Incidentally, Elvia.” This time Brooke spoke up, nonchalantly, almost as if he’d just thought of something.
“Y-Yes?! What is it?” Elvia’s voice hit a new octave.
“That little shed I wasn’t using—I cleaned it up and cleared it out. It’s available whenever you might need it.”
“Th-Thanks.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
This was the first I’d heard of it. Sure, the grounds of our mansion had several small sheds scattered around. One of them had been remodeled into a place for Brooke and Cerise to stay, but the others we just left, using them to store our junk.
“She asked if she might use it,” Cerise said.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Well, uh, er...” Elvia’s hands were noticeably sweaty. “O-Oh yeah! M-My paints and stuff! I’ve got all my supplies and half-finished pictures and everything, and I needed a place to put them!”
“Couldn’t you use your own room?” We had given Elvia one of the mansion’s more spacious bedchambers. Had she really accumulated so much that she still needed more space? But when had she gotten all those supplies?
“O-Oh, you know... I just wanted to keep my work outside of the room... Oh, humidity! The humidity is bad for them! So...” Elvia cut herself off and jumped to her feet. “I j-just remembered something I have to do! I’ll have dinner in my room!”
“Hey—”
Before we could stop her, she swept up her plate and rushed off.
“I wonder if something’s the matter with Elvia-san...?” Myusel said.
“She’s been acting weird ever since she got home,” I agreed.
Was she so worried about Amatena and Clara that she couldn’t even eat? But then why would she go out of her way to take dinner to her room? Was she planning to have it for a midnight snack?
Hmmm. Nothing quite made sense.
“Then again,” I said, “Elvia’s always acted a little bit weird.”
“True that,” Minori-san said. “Like the time she shoved you to the ground and jumped on top of you...”
“What?! Did that really happen?!” Hikaru-san exclaimed, shocked.
...Oh yeah. Hikaru-san hadn’t been here for that. He didn’t know exactly how Elvia got during her “phase of the moon.” I gathered Elvia had been doing laps around the mansion and other things to try to make her phase less overwhelming.
“Elvia comes into heat during her phase of the moon,” Minori-san said matter-of-factly. “And Shinichi-kun—well...”
“Oh my God,” Hikaru-san said, putting his hand to his mouth as if he had heard something vile. “Did you take advantage of her?”
“What? No! No, I didn’t!”
“That’s just what a man would say. Disgusting.”
“Hikaru-san, you’re a man!”
How could he act so detached?! If they had sent him instead of me to be Amutech’s general manager, he would have been the one who ended up on the floor, right? But then again, maybe he would never have tried to save Elvia in the first place? Hmm, but wait...
“It didn’t happen! Nothing happened! And I was the one who got jumped!”
“Ooh, a slutty bottom?”
“I! Am! Not!”
You (completely, totally rotten) WAC! Don’t go saying every confusing, misleading thing that comes into your brain!
“I didn’t do anything! Hey, stop, don’t look at me with that drawn, searching face! I’m innocent, I swear! I want my lawyerrrrr!”
I felt like I had been framed—but nothing could get Hikaru-san’s icy glare off me.
And so with this and that, evening came on.
I was in my office, trying to map out the curriculum for the photography course, when I heard a knock on the door and looked up.
“Shinichi-sama, it’s Myusel.”
“Come on in.”
I quit typing on my keyboard; the door opened, and in came Myusel with a cart. “I brought an evening snack for you.”
“Thanks.”
The cart had sandwiches, a tea set, and a single cup.
Hm? Why was there a cup along with the tea set?
“I see you’re working late,” Myusel said with a smile, wheeling the cart over to my desk. She put the sandwiches next to my computer. “May I ask what you’re working on...?”
Most of the time, Myusel just quietly left again after she had brought my snack, but recently, at my request, she had started staying to talk a little. Working alone at night, I sometimes found my thoughts going in weird directions, and chatting with her helped me take a step back and get some perspective on what I was doing.
“We need to sit the students down and teach them about photography. I was just outlining a possible course.”
“Ah... You’re thinking of this morning.”
“Yeah. If we explain it to them sort of the way Minori-san explained it to Petralka, they’ll probably get it... I hope. There are so many things that are common sense to me, that I have to remember need to be explained to people here.”
“I see.” Myusel nodded and passed me the cup. “Here you go.”
I took it and looked inside to find a dark, translucent liquid. It bubbled a little—if I had to compare it to something, I would say it looked like cola. I had never seen it before; I wondered what it could be.
“What’s this?”
“It’s something I thought I would try making for my hard-working Shinichi-sama.” She smiled gently.
Ahh! What a thoughtful, attentive girl!
“Thanks, Myusel. I mean... for everything.”
“Oh, not at all...” Myusel’s bashful reaction was itself innocent and adorable. I suppressed the overwhelming flutter of moe-ness in my heart by putting the cup to my lips and taking a sip...
“Brooke-san’s tail is one of the ingredients.”
I spat out the stuff in my mouth.
“Sh-Shinichi-sama?!”
“S-Sorry,” I coughed, waving a hand at Myusel to indicate I was okay.
Ahh... The flavor that spread on my tongue, despite my aborted sip, somehow melded sweetness and bitterness—there was a hint of something smoky, too, a really sophisticated... sophisticated....................................... sophisticated what? Was that Brooke’s tail?! Why would something like that be in there?! Was this traditional charred-meat medicine?! I knew I had heard that cooked lizard tails were used in traditional Chinese medicine to promote virility or something!
No, wait, there were more important things—
“M-My computer...!” Through my coughing fit, I looked at my laptop. The stuff I’d spit out—the carbonated juice featuring Brooke’s tail, if what Myusel said was right—was all over the screen, and dribbling down onto the keyboard.
Crud! This computer wasn’t waterproof; if it got liquid inside it, it would break. Even if it didn’t come to that, getting juice all over the keyboard would probably stop a few keys from working.
“I—I need something to wipe this up with...!” I looked around for a rag or a cloth or something. “Hrgh—!”
Maybe I looked a little too enthusiastically, because when I twisted around, I lost my balance and fell out of my chair. And I was still holding the almost half-full cup.
Meaning...
“Yikes!”
“Shinichi-sama!”
The cup went flying. I tumbled onto the floor directly underneath it. And so I ended up covered pretty much from head to toe in Myusel’s mystery liquid.
“Ahh! My eyes! Ow, ow...!”
The juice must have gotten in my eyes, because I pressed my hands to them and screamed like a certain Colonel. But then I could feel Myusel crouching beside me.
“Are—Are you okay?”
“Er... Y-Yeah, I think so.” I blinked a few times; the pain went away quickly as my tears naturally carried the juice away.
Myusel looked sadly at the ground. “I’m so sorry, I never imagined—”
“Aw, it’s not your fault, Myusel, don’t worry about it. You made it for me, didn’t you?”
When you got a homemade nutrient drink, you were almost guaranteed a questionable product full of who knew what. The food and the tea Myusel made us were always so good that I had let my guard down.
Then again, considering how Myusel talked about it, it seemed like maybe including lizardman tail wasn’t so strange to the people here. When I collected myself and asked her about it, it turned out that indeed, charred, grated lizardman tail had been an ingredient in that drink. Obviously you didn’t just plunk the tail right in there; you just used a little from the very end. After a few days, Brooke would grow it back. The carbonation, meanwhile, helped mask the smell, while she had achieved the sweetness with a big dollop of honey to counter the bitter flavor. If it weren’t for my own preconceptions, there really wouldn’t have been anything to object to about it.
“Man, though, is this stuff sticky,” I said. The juice had soaked my hair, and I had to be careful even opening my eyes. I wanted to wipe my face, but it was all over my shirt, too, so there was nothing to wipe with.
“Shinichi-sama, how about you take a bath?” Myusel said, using her apron to dab around my eyes.
“Good idea... That would probably be quickest.”
“Give me your hand... I’ll guide you there,” she said, and took my hand.
Ahh! I’m holding hands with an adorable maid-san! ...is what I would normally be thinking, and thanking God that I was born, but at the moment I couldn’t even manage that. The juice was dripping from my hair into my eyes again.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I can get there myself, so maybe you could take care of cleaning my room—especially the computer.”
“Oh, right away!”
“S-Sorry about this, Myusel... I know you made that special for me.”
“No, I’m the one who should apologize.” I could tell from her voice how heartbroken she was.
“I really appreciate the thought behind it, Myusel. People from my country just don’t have a tradition of eating—or, uh, drinking?—stuff like that, so I was a little surprised... see?” I put a hand on the wall to steady myself.
All this fuss about lizardman tail (which, to be fair, was also part of the body of a friend of mine) mostly came down to a difference in perspective. I mean, there were tribes on Earth with traditions of cannibalism.
“So don’t worry about it.”
“Uh, umm... Th-Thank you very much, Shinichi-sama.” Myusel sounded just a little bit cheered up. I used the wall to guide me out of the room and toward the bath.
Thus I found myself taking my second bath of the day.
I was always given the privilege of being the first person in the bath. That was because of my status as the master of the house; that is, Amutech’s general manager. That logic made Hikaru-san second, Minori-san third, and after that Myusel and the others. Honestly, the order didn’t matter that much to me, but as Myusel, among others, flatly refused to bathe before I did, I ended up taking an early bath every night. Everyone was willing to eat together because we were simply all in the same place—everyone raised to equal social status, as it were—but when it came to bathing order, it seemed the master was going to be first and that was that.
Well, anyway.
“Ergh...” I stood next to the door in the changing area, pulled off my shirt, and wiped my face and hair with the still-clean back. “Ahh... That’s the stuff.”
My face and body were gooey, and my hair seemed to go stiff when I rubbed it with my shirt, leaving it in a ’do that sort of made me want to shout, “Awaken! Super Nihonjin Level 3!” But still. It was refreshing.
“All right, let’s get in that bath.”
I didn’t want to leave poor Myusel to do the cleaning all by herself, so I would just rinse off and then go help. I sloughed off my pants and underwear, tossing them into the basket in the changing room.
“Oh... Oops.”
I realized I had forgotten a change of clothes. Oh well, my pants were still wearable. I could pull them back on after my bath and go get something to change into.
With that thought in my head, I glanced into the basket...
“Huh?”
Someone else’s clothes were in there, too. Short pants and a tube top. Were these... Elvia’s?
“No way...” I said. Was this—you know? The infamous trope?! The one where she bumps into an old flame on the street corner and—I mean, the basic “Lucky Pervert” routine? Me, my beautiful female roommate, and a chance meeting in the bath? O God! Megathanks!
No! No! This was no time to stand around feeling ecstatic. Why, just earlier at dinner, Hikaru-san had been giving me the evil eye...
That was when the door to the bath opened from the other side. And who should appear, obscured by the steam, but a completely naked Elvia!
“Eeeeeeeeeek!!”
There was a scream and a desperate attempt to cover a fully exposed front—by me.
Both of us bumping into each other, naked in the bath! What a cliché! Elvia had her towel around her head, and her bouncing, springy, sproingy breasts were right there in front of my eyes! My very eyes! Elvia, aren’t you going to do something about that?! Are you going to let them just hang out there, staring at meeeeeee?! No, wait—or are you looking—looking at me—looking at my zxkgh (technical difficulties—please stand by)?!
...And so on and so forth. Unable to resist the nature of a man, I stood there stiff as a board but couldn’t tear my eyes away from the equally immobilized Elvia. And that’s when I noticed...
“Huh?”
I couldn’t see so well for the steam, but I could just make out her tail peeking out from behind her, and it looked kind of... white...?
“Elvia...?” I asked.
Or... not Elvia?
I forgot all about hiding my shame as I looked even harder, trying to figure out what felt off. Just then, the girl standing before me seemed to register what was in front of her. Huh? Hey, hold on. On closer inspection—
“Shinichi-kun?!”
Bam! The door slammed into my back.
More precisely, it was kicked into my back with the force of an explosion.
“Yow!”
And that sent me tumbling into Elvia.
And then...
“Shinichi-sama!”
“What’s going on?!”
I heard a crowd of footsteps muscling into the changing area, and Myusel and Minori-san’s voices. They must have come running when I screamed. The one who knocked opened the door like a SWAT team member assaulting a barricaded suspect was, needless to say, Minori-san.
“Urgh...” I shook my head, aware of a stinging pain in my back. My head was resting against something soft; that had helped me avoid a concussion when I fell..................... Wait.
Don’t tell me...
With a great deal of fear and trembling, I lifted my head to confirm the identity of the mysterious, pillowy thing I’d landed on.
Two magnificent hillocks spread before my eyes. Soft, pale skin rose and descended into gentle curves, as if calling out for me to touch them again, and indeed—
No, wait.
O God, my God, what is it you want of me?
Behold: Minori-san kicked open the door, which knocked me over, which knocked Elvia over, and, believe it or not, landed my face directly in the bountiful valley of her chest.
No, wait again.
What did that mean? It meant that the little bud, rising up from her breast to brush my cheek, was— must have been— Hrrrghzkd?!
“Sh-Shinichi-kun......!”
Minori-san’s voice cut through my technical difficulties and brought me back to reality.
But I quickly realized that staying insane might have been the better option!
“Have you finally—have you finally...?!”
“N-No! No, I haven’t, Minori-san!”
What do you have against me, God?!
To put me in this situation... at this exact moment!
I scrambled to my feet, trying to make some excuse, trying to argue for my innocence.
I found myself confronted with a very startled Minori-san and Myusel. Minori-san had retained a modicum of composure, but Myusel was standing there shaking, her eyes the size of saucers and her hands over her mouth. She looked as if she had seen something unspeakable—as if she might faint clean away at any moment.
“You’re the reason I’m in this situation, Minori-san!”
This was nothing more than a Lucky Pervert thing! There was no malice aforethought! This was just the sort of trope any shonen manga would deploy against its protagonist! Please believe me!
I looked pleadingly at Myusel. Minori-san’s contempt I could endure, but if she, the oasis of my heart, were to regard me with a cold, scornful gaze, what a reward—er, I mean, I probably couldn’t survive it.
Our eyes met.
And the next second, Myusel gave a voiceless shout, covering her face with her hands. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, turned her back on me.
Was... Was it that bad?!
I stood dizzy with the shock for a second before I realized. Before I remembered what I was wearing—or in this case, not wearing.
“Eeeeeeek!” I sort of curled up and used my hands to cover what was between my legs.
“Maybe you could try for a more manly scream next time?” Minori-san asked with a touch of exasperation.
“P-Please don’t be so calm! You could l-look away, at least!”
“Relax. I’m not looking.”
Nonetheless, she politely turned around, putting a hand on Myusel’s shoulder. I quickly collected my underwear and pants and pulled them on.
“We still waiting on you, Shinichi-kun?” Minori-san asked.
“Y-You’re good. I’m decent now.”
First Minori-san, and then, hesitantly, Myusel turned back around. It didn’t bother me so much with Minori-san, but looking at Myusel made me feel distinctly embarrassed.
“Aargh... Shinichi can’t be a bride anymore...” I groaned.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure Garius will still take you.”
“Stop that.” This wasn’t funny to me. “Anyway, this is your fault for kicking that door open, Minori-san... Oh, by the way, sorry, Elvia.” I had been so caught up in my own humiliation that I had completely forgotten about Elvia, whom I had knocked over, even if it was an accident. Even if she didn’t accuse me of sexual harassment or whatever, it must have been a pretty painful fall.
With that in mind, I turned back to the bath, but—
“Huh?” I didn’t see Elvia anywhere. “Where’d she go...?”
“She showed herself out a few minutes ago,” Minori-san said. Apparently, while I had been busy fretting about Myusel, Elvia had quietly left. I could see the basket no longer had her clothes in it. She had been shockingly quick and quiet.
But still... I stood in thought for a moment.
“What’s up, Shinichi-kun?”
“Hmm... Nothing...”
I had been tangled up with Elvia once before (involuntarily, you understand), and not only hadn’t it seemed to bother her, I even recall her saying something like that she wouldn’t mind being jumped if it was by me. Even if she had been kidding, if she could make a joke like that to someone who had just fallen on top of her, I had trouble believing she would just run away in embarrassment now.
“.........Naw.”
I thought about how Elvia had been acting strange all day.
About the white tail I thought I had glimpsed a few minutes ago.
And about how “Elvia” had slipped away just now without a word.
What in the world was going on?
There was no school the next day. I still got up at the same time, but it was nice not to immediately have to do anything. I could just do what I felt like, when I felt like it.
At the same time, though, since I had insisted that everyone eat breakfast together, I couldn’t go arbitrarily changing mealtimes.
“G’morning...” I said, stifling a yawn.
“Good morning, Master.”
“Morning.”
“Good morning.”
There were three people in the dining area. The first greeting came from Myusel, who was setting the table. Then Minori-san, then Hikaru-san. All of them must have been up way earlier than I was, but none of them looked remotely sleepy.
“I’ll have breakfast ready in a minute.”
“Sure, thanks.” I smiled and went to pull out a chair. Glancing absently around the breakfast nook, I saw Cerise coming out of the kitchen, the food (made by Myusel, most likely) on the table. And then...
“Mornin’. I’m starvin’!”
In walked Elvia.
As usual, she was all smiles despite the early hour. I guess the events of the night before hadn’t got her down at all. Me, I was still embarrassed and apologetic; I could feel the heat in my cheeks just thinking about it.
“Say, uh, Elvia...”
“Yeah? What’s up?” She wandered over to me.
“I’m, uh... sorry about last night.”
“Huh?” she blinked. “What about last night?”
It was like she didn’t remember anything had even happened. Or maybe she was so embarrassed, she was just deflecting? But...
“Oh, uh, I mean when I...”
It wasn’t like this was a secret or anything, but it still didn’t feel like something I wanted to share at the top of my lungs. I leaned in and whispered, “When I fell on top of you...”
“Whaaa?!” Elvia exclaimed.
My care and delicacy were all for naught. Minori-san and Hikaru-san, and even Myusel and Cerise making the food, looked over to see what was going on. And then...
“A-Aaammaaaaa!!” Elvia howled, balling her hands into fists.
She was obviously extremely angry—but a second later she realized what she was doing, and threw her hands over her mouth. Unfortunately, of course, it was too late to take the word back.
“Ama?” I said. “You mean, like... Amatena?”
“Oh! No, uh-uh, no, you can just, uh, ignore me!” Elvia pointedly refused to meet my gaze. But no matter where she looked, she found someone looking back at her. She started shifting uncomfortably—then grabbed her freshly-prepared breakfast in both hands. “I—uh, I’m going to eat in my room today!” she said, then sped out of the dining area.
The rest of us watched her go.
“Something weird is going on,” I said, and everybody nodded. Something was wrong with Elvia, and everyone could see it. “She suddenly wants to eat in her room, use one of our isolated sheds, and sneak into the bath at night...” I crossed my arms. “If this were your standard anime, she would be secretly keeping a pet or something. You know, like a stray dog.”
“You think a werewolf would adopt a dog?” Minori-san said drily.
“Humans keep monkeys, don’t they?”
“That’s not the point,” Hikaru-san said in annoyance.
“What, you think maybe it’s a cat? A bird? Maybe there’s a whole litter in there?”
“Still not what I’m talking about. Listen, if nothing else, it’s obvious that she’s hiding something.” Hikaru-san shifted his shoulders. “And she’s a terrible liar.”
“You’ve got that right.”
Back when we first apprehended Elvia, it had been immediately apparent that she was much too honest to make a decent spy—her cover had more holes than a ratty dishrag. Her best play would have been to just keep her mouth shut, but instead she got nervous when we started to suspect her, and that made her start spouting random excuses. And that didn’t do her story any favors.
Just then...
“Sorry t’ be late,” Brooke said, ambling into the dining area.
With the exception of Elvia, then, we were all there.
“Looks like breakfast is ready,” I said. “Might as well eat.”
Once breakfast was over, I had nothing but time. We all split up to enjoy our day off however we liked.
Of course, there was no such thing as a complete day off for Myusel, Brooke, and Cerise; and Minori-san was technically on duty twenty-four seven as Hikaru-san’s and my bodyguard. But the point is, we got to just lounge around the house in a way we usually didn’t.
I decided to go to my room and get through some of the anime that had been piling up. The stuff that was airing in Japan was being recorded onto a hard drive and then brought over for me to evaluate. Obviously, I didn’t have time to watch every minute of every show, so I would watch a couple or three episodes, and if it didn’t look like something I was going to like, I would just take a quick peek at fast-forward or 3x speeds.
Even with that system, the data on my hard drives was starting to outpace me. I was hoping to really tear through some of it today.
With that in mind, I took a brimming teapot and some of the sweets Myusel had cooked up and settled in for a day of anime.
“Come to think of it, Dad’s light novel got turned into an anime just recently...”
I grabbed the remote. And just then...
“Shinichi-sama?”
There was a knock on the door, and I heard Myusel call my name. I paused my show and went over. “Myusel? What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you while you’re busy with your anime, but, umm...” She hovered uneasily in the doorway. “Loek-san and Romilda-san are here...”
“Say what?” Those were names I hadn’t expected. School, as I mentioned, wasn’t in session today. I hadn’t thought I would be seeing Loek, or Romilda, or any of the students. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go see what they want.”
I turned off my electronics, and Myusel and I headed for the front door. Sure enough, there were Loek and Romilda.
“Sensei!” They rushed over, smiling, when they saw the two of us. They were both clutching digital cameras—wait, Romilda, too?
“Romilda, where’d you get that?”
It wasn’t a DSLR like Loek had, but it was still a pretty serious piece of equipment.
“I borrowed it from a Jay-Ess-Dee-Eff person!”
“Uh-huh...”
Several of the soldiers besides Satou-san had digital cameras for personal use. The military also had a few that were for official record-keeping of their activities. I assumed one of those cameras was now in Romilda’s hands. I guess Loek’s boasting about his camera had really gotten to her.
“Okay, that’s fine, but what are you two doing here? You need something all the way out here at the mansion?”
“Yes, Sensei. We’d like to charge our cameras...” Loek held up his device.
“Come again?”
The way they explained it, the two of them had been having a long-running contest to see who could shoot the most beautiful photograph. Neither of them, however, had a personal computer, so if they wanted to look at their photos, they had to do it on the cameras’ LCD displays. Looking at the screen outside, though, demanded turning up the brightness to make it visible, and those screens are surprisingly battery hungry.
These kids didn’t know anything about power-saving modes or how to turn off the LCD screen to conserve battery, so as they went around constantly shooting and checking their shots, they ran out of juice.
But having done that, they came up against the fact that there was no power grid here in the Holy Eldant Empire. There were just a few sources of electricity around: the solar generator by the school, a wind power station, and an emergency diesel generator the JSDF kept around. And Loek and Romilda couldn’t ask to use the JSDF one.
That left the school and my house, but school was out today, the building locked up tight, so Loek and Romilda decided my mansion was their best bet. And that brought them to me, cameras in hand, begging for power.
“Please let us charge our cameras!” they chorused, dipping their heads. I smiled a little—for all their fighting, the two of them seemed to be of one mind right now. Almost as in tune as the time they had piloted the Faldra to rescue me in Bahairam.
“I understand. Okay, come on in.”
“Yahoo!” they exclaimed.
I couldn’t quite explain how the sight made me feel. Myusel was adorable in a way that made me totally moe, but watching these two was something else—sort of the warm fuzzies you get seeing a puppy and a kitten playing together.
But anyway...
“Let’s see, where’s the best outlet for you to use...”
“How about the living room?” Myusel suggested.
“Okay, let’s go there,” I said, nodding and walking off.
“Oh, Shinichi-sensei,” Loek said as if he had just thought of something. “Is Minori-sensei around today?”
“She’s in her room, I think.”
“Oh...”
He was visibly disappointed. I guess he had been hoping to bump into Minori-san while his camera was charging. Romilda glared at him.
Hmmm.
“Well, it’s not like she’ll stay in there forever, I guess,” I said.
“S-Sure! Of course not!”
I just wanted to make Loek feel a little better, but his face lit up so much it was almost comical.
Romilda, though, frowned openly. “You aren’t planning to take more pervy photographs of Minori-sensei, are you?”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about! My f-feelings are completely pure...!”
“Oh really?” Romilda said, eyeing him. Loek was starting to sweat. They just seemed to be settling in for a good staring contest when Romilda sniffed and said, “Don’t forget our promise: if I win, you have to give me your cards.”
Privately I thought, Don’t say that, Romilda! That’s just begging to lose! But...
“You just better hope you aren’t the one who ends up crying over your lost cards.”
Loek eagerly tripped the exact same flag.
Geez, you two are made for each other. I hope you stick together...
The point seemed to be that whoever won their photography competition had to give the other person some trading cards. These kids could sure be harsh in the weirdest ways. I think the classic bet would be “the loser has to do any one thing the winner says.” That gives you a little more room to, you know, use your imagination and have some fun. Oh well.
I didn’t figure the participants in this contest would be very good at objectively judging the merits of their photos. I had to wonder if they had some kind of standard.
All this was running through my mind as Myusel and I showed Loek and Romilda through the house.
Since they had come all the way here, I suggested Loek and Romilda have their photo contest at the mansion. That way they could just recharge their batteries again if they ran down, and more importantly, observing the two of them up close might help me understand how best to teach them photographic manners. I would be running that photography seminar, but I didn’t really have any idea what the Eldant people might do when they got their hands on cameras for the very first time. Watching Loek and Romilda might give me some insight that would prove useful.
The two of them were thrilled, of course. When I thought about it, I realized that they were the first of our students to be allowed to wander freely around the mansion. The mansion that was Amutech’s headquarters. To them, this house represented ground zero for otaku culture, like an anime lover from the sticks who suddenly finds themselves in Akihabara.
And that led to...
“This! And this!”
“Ooh, look at this!”
“Loek, you’re in the way, move it!”
“Well, stop running in front of me when I’m trying to take a picture, then!”
And so it went, as they raced around the house taking pictures of my bookshelves, my figures, even the kitchen and the dining area—everything they could find. They couldn’t wait for the batteries to charge completely; they would let them fill up a little, then grab the cameras off the chargers, go running off, and come back again when the batteries were dead. Over and over.
They spent a little more than three hours taking pictures like this. When they had both just about filled up their cameras’ memory cards, they came back to the living room and requested that I be the judge in their photography contest. Apparently I was supposed to decide which of them had taken the most good pictures.
“Boy, you guys really went nuts.”
I was reviewing Romilda’s photos from her digital camera and smiling absently. Myusel was there too, as were Minori-san and Hikaru-san, who had come out of their rooms to join us when they heard that Loek and Romilda were here.
Myusel sat beside me on the sofa, Minori-san and Hikaru-san on the far side of the table. Loek and Romilda were lined up alongside us. I had my laptop open on the table where everyone could see it, running through the photographs.
“Is this... Hikaru-san’s room?”
The picture showed a closet full of Gothic-loli outfits. There was also a desk with a personal computer as well as a ring, some earrings, and other little accessories. Who else’s room could it be?
“Yes, that’s mine,” Hikaru-san said, nodding at the photograph. There were several more pictures after that—more clothes, materials for making clothes, even a sewing machine.
“Your room was a blast, Hikaru-sensei!” Romilda said.
“Hoo hoo, thank you very much,” Hikaru-san replied. He hadn’t been very happy about the students taking his picture, but obviously it really had been just because they hadn’t asked. If anything, he seemed to like the photographs. I guess a cosplayer would have to.
“And here’s a hallway... And this...” Flipping through the photos, I came across a picture of a bookshelf. “...This must belong to Minori-san.”
“Huh? How can you tell?”
“Well, these titles...”
I zoomed in on the books so the spines were clearly visible. There was Super-M Spectacles, followed by a slew of books with portentous names like He’s a Demonic Master and Teacher and I Have a Secret.
“Oh, no, that’s my ‘flesh-tone’ shelf. Beginners should start with something softer and sweeter.”
“I really don’t want to start it at all,” I said, shaking my head at Minori-san, who was reaching over to do something to my computer.
Wait, so there were books for “BL beginners” and “advanced BL-ers”?! Whatever; I didn’t want anything to do with any of those. What was Romilda taking pictures of, anyway?
I may have been a little annoyed, but someone else in the room seemed downright shocked. “R-Romilda! Did you go into Minori-sensei’s room?!” It was Loek. “H-How did I miss that...?”
“Minori-sensei told me I could.”
“Hrgh!” Loek responded, grinding his teeth. I guess he had been showing restraint, sort of, by not going into Minori-san’s room. Maybe that had something to do with my stern talk about “manners” and “knowing what people are okay with”—but when he saw Romilda had gotten those photographs, he couldn’t help wishing he’d done things differently.
“Oh, look, here’s one of Myusel.”
“G-Gosh, I’m a little embarrassed...”
This picture showed Myusel doing the laundry. When I zoomed in, she blushed and looked at the ground.
There were shots of Brooke and Cerise, too, apparently crossing paths with the kids in the hallway. Going through all the pictures at once like this gives you a pretty good idea of the photographer’s interests, their personality.
“You seem to like taking pictures of people, Romilda,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, let’s see Loek’s next.”
I opened the folder of photos I’d copied from his camera. His pictures seemed to focus more on scenery. The garden as seen from the mansion’s windows, for example, or the house as taken from outside. Huh. His sense for this stuff was surprisingly sharp. There were several shots with a striking feeling for composition you wouldn’t have expected from someone who’d only had a camera for a few days. I guess it’s always possible they were just lucky pictures, helped by the camera’s functionality, but...
“Oh, you can see Myusel in this window. Looks like she’s carrying the laundry.”
A window of the mansion, shot from the garden, reflected Myusel walking along. And in the next picture...
“Is that... Elvia?”
You could see a beast girl just past the window glass. She was facing outside and stretching.
“Elvia-san said she would be in her room drawing all day today,” Myusel said, leaning in to get a good look at the computer screen. That is to say, leaning over close to me.
Oohh... That s-s-skin, so s-s-soft on my a-a-a-arrrrrmmm...
Myusel probably wasn’t even thinking about it, but her exposed shoulder pressed right against my exposed arm, and the softness, the gentle smoothness, the heat of her body—how hard did she want my heart to pound?
“Er—oh, this is that shed Brooke was talking about,” I said. I pressed a button on the computer, focusing very hard so as to keep Myusel from noticing my excitement and getting embarrassed. The picture that came up was of an isolated shed. I assumed it was the one Brooke said he had emptied out for Elvia’s use.
It wasn’t very big. Although it had been doubling as a storage space, it seemed to have been built to accommodate a servant, should one need to live there—there were even windows.
And that was when I noticed: there was a figure floating dimly in one of those windows.
“Is that a gh-gh-gh-ghost?!”
“Huh...? Minori-san said, sounding skeptical.
“H-Here, look!” I said, hovering the cursor over the window of the shed. I selected that part of the photo and zoomed it in.
Then I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, it’s just Elvia.”
She had said she wanted to use the shed for her pictures and paints and stuff, so of course she might show up in any given photo of the building. The camera had chosen to focus on the window pane, so Elvia herself was fuzzy and indistinct, which had made her look like a ghost to me.
But then...
“Isn’t that a little strange?” Hikaru-san murmured. “There was a picture of Elvia-san just a few shots ago, right?”
“Oh... yeah.”
“And digital cameras play back shots in the order they were taken, so how did Elvia-san get from her room to this shed?”
“Maybe she just, you know, moved around,” I said, going back to the folder of pictures.
There was the photo of Elvia stretched out in her room we’d seen earlier.
And here was the one of her standing in the shed.
No problem, right? But Hikaru-san pointed to the timestamp on the files. “Look. These two photos were taken at almost the exact same time.”
He was right: there was hardly a minute’s difference between them.
Could Elvia, considering her speed, have run from her room to the shed in less than a minute? If she ran as fast as she could, then maybe—and if she jumped through the window of her room, she could get there even quicker. But would she do that?
“And didn’t Elvia say she was going to be in her room all day?” Minori-san asked.
“Y-Yes, she did...” Myusel said hesitantly, nodding.
“But then...”
Just to be sure, I took another look at the pictures. The Elvia in her room and the Elvia in the shed both looked more or less like her. Shed Elvia was kind of fuzzy, but I zoomed in, and it sure looked like her to me.
“Wh-What’s going on...?” I felt Myusel grab my sleeve. Maybe she was a little frightened.
Loek and Romilda finally processed what Hikaru-san was talking about; they both paled. I didn’t know exactly if this world had any concept of ghosts or doppelgängers, but they certainly seemed to share our discomfort at the weird and seemingly unnatural.
“A-An exorcism!” I exclaimed. “We have to do an exorcism! But do we exorcise Elvia?! Or Loek, who took the picture?!”
“Me?!” Loek said, frozen with his eyes wide open.
I guess they knew something about exorcisms here.
“Calm down, Shinichi-kun,” Minori-san broke in, smiling wryly. “Anyway, if that’s really Elvia, then it would be a living ghost.”
“Huh, that’s true...”
“The real question is, why would Elvia be there, right?” Minori-san said, sounding like she’d had an idea.
I enlarged the photo of the shed again, squinting at the figure of Elvia in the window. It was kind of hazy, sure, but Loek’s digital camera was high-quality enough that a little bit of fiddling with the uncompressed file in a photo retouch program could gain us some extra clarity.
The Elvia we saw was expressionless. It was like she had killed all her emotions—almost unimaginable compared to the bright, cheerful girl we knew. If there was any question which one was the ghost, I thought we had our answer.
There was just one thing.
“Minori-san, does that look like—”
“Yeah. I think so.”
She seemed to have noticed it, too.
We nodded to each other, but Myusel and the others looked just as anxious as ever.