Chapter Four: Love’s Freedom

Chapter Four: Love’s Freedom

The sun was just setting behind Eldant Castle. Minori-san, Hikaru-san, and I arrived back at the mansion via bird-drawn carriage.

“We’re home!” we said.

“Welcome back.” Myusel was waiting for us in the foyer, as she always was. “Master, Hikaru-sama, Minori-sama. You’ve had a long day.”

“We’re doing okay, Myusel. Anything unusual happen while we were away?”

“No, nothing,” she said with the tiniest of smiles. Again, just like always. And yet... “Dinner is ready. You can go straight to the dining area.” She gestured toward the dining room.

“Well, now,” Hikaru-san said. “A little early.”

He was right; we usually ate a little later, after we’d had a chance to go to our rooms and collect ourselves. It wasn’t like there was a schedule for dinner, but Myusel always had it ready at about the same time. Maybe she’d just been running a little early today?

“Okay, sure, sounds good. I’m definitely hungry.”

Maybe she even had a special reason for wanting dinner ready early. Maybe she’d gotten her hands on some interesting new ingredient she was eager to try. There wasn’t really anything equivalent to a refrigerator over here, so anything that would normally need refrigeration, you had to use quick. It was possible to preserve ingredients by freezing them with magic, but apparently that kind of magic was pretty tricky, and Myusel didn’t know how to do it.

“Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Myusel,” I said.

“Not at all.” She nodded and smiled, then turned on her heel. I watched her walk calmly down the hallway. She looked exactly like normal, but... What was it? I had a weird feeling I couldn’t shake. I couldn’t have said why, exactly, but she seemed just a bit off. Something gave me the willies.

“Myusel...?” I had called her name almost before I knew what I was doing.

She stopped and looked at me. “Yes, sir?” She gave a tilt of her head as if to say, What is it? Such a sweet, innocent gesture, like a tiny bird; it sure looked like Myusel. So what in the world was this weird vibe I was getting? Hikaru-san and Minori-san were looking at me quizzically; they didn’t seem to think anything was off about Myusel. I shook my head, starting to think that maybe I was the one who had something wrong with him.

“Er... Never mind. Sorry, forget I said anything.”

“Of course,” Myusel said with a smile, and headed toward the kitchen. I watched her walk away.

Minori-san edged up to me and whispered, “Whatsa matter? Huh, Shinichi-kun?”

“Uh, well...” I had to stretch to find the words. “Something just feels... weird. Myusel... It’s like I don’t even know her.”

“Oh, please,” Hikaru-san said, obviously annoyed. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty.”

“Why would you think I’m feeling guilty?”

“Because a person with a prickly conscience starts to think even the most normal expressions and gestures of the people around them look different somehow.”

“I haven’t done anything to feel—”

But before I could finish my sentence, it struck me. The reason Myusel seemed so strange: she was too normal.

The last few days, Myusel hadn’t quite been herself. I had gotten the distinct impression that she was worried about what was going on between me and Petralka. She had been doing and saying things to communicate that she cared about me, even if the net result was to make her seem a bit anxious and unsettled.

But now, all that was gone. I felt like some kind of rug had been pulled out from under me.

“Uh, never mind, I’m sure you’re right. It’s all in my head,” I said.

“Ahh, ready to admit that your guilt is eating you alive?”

“I’m not admitting anything!” I howled, but Hikaru-san just smirked.

When we got to the kitchen, our noses filled with the delicious aroma of food. The long table was crowded with dishes. They must have been very fresh, because in addition to the enticing smells, several of the plates were still steaming. Whatever else might be going on with her, Myusel obviously hadn’t lost her knack for cooking.

I’d heard that one of the keys to being a good chef was the ability to run your kitchen efficiently. If you just made one thing, then another, the first dish would be cold by the time the last one was ready. You had to know how to apply a limited number of cooking utensils and a finite amount of time to get the best results.

In any case, when Myusel had said dinner was ready, I hadn’t realized she meant all set out and looking gorgeous, too.

“Gosh, she’s really ahead of schedule,” Minori-san whispered to me as we sat down.

“Myusel?” I asked, perplexed. She was standing against the wall of the dining area. “What’s wrong?”

“What...?”

“Everything’s set, right? Go ahead and sit down.”

Maybe she was waiting for the others—for Elvia, Brooke, and Cerise. Maybe. It was certainly true that I didn’t see our voracious beast girl anywhere, and she was usually the first to come running for dinner. But Myusel, besides making us food, kept the whole huge house clean, washed seven people’s worth of clothes, bedsheets, and so on, and handled all the other little things that had to be done in the mansion. She’d never complained to me, but it wasn’t light work. She must have been tired. I was sure no one in this house would be upset if she went ahead and sat down.

Huh? Wait...

There was so much food set out that at first I hadn’t noticed it. But was this just for three people? On closer inspection, I realized only three places had been set with utensils. There was no spot for Elvia, Brooke, or Cerise, let alone Myusel herself. So she wasn’t expecting anyone but me, Minori-san, and Hikaru-san to eat? But it got even stranger.

“Yes, sir...” Reluctantly, Myusel sat in an open chair. But there were no place settings, so she had nothing to do there.

“Myusel, are you... feeling all right?”

“Er? Yes, sir, I’m fine.”

“Yeah? Good...” I said, but the uneasy feeling I had just kept getting worse.

That was when Elvia came bounding into the dining area, exclaiming, “Man, am I hungry! Can I get a little preview bite of—” But she stopped, surprised, when she saw the dining room table. “Already good to go? Wow, you’re killing it tonight!”

Elvia didn’t have what you would call the best fuel efficiency in the house, and she often showed up in the dining room or kitchen, pestering Myusel for a little something to eat before dinner. But her reaction proved that Myusel hadn’t told her dinner was ready. And it would hardly have mattered anyway, because her place wasn’t set with a knife or fork. So... had Myusel not expected Elvia to join us for dinner? Why not?

“Gotta say, I wouldn’t mind having dinner at this time every day,” Elvia said, flopping down into a chair and looking around eagerly, sniffing the aromas of the food. She always liked to start by smelling what she was going to eat; it reminded you that she really was a werewolf, part beast.

At length, though, she looked around in confusion. “Huh?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Well, uh...” Elvia’s gaze went from me to Myusel, then to the wealth of food on the table. “There’s just this... kind of weird smell...”

“Weird smell?”

“Where from?” Hikaru-san asked.

“Ummm...” Elvia slowly pointed at the food on the table.

Hikaru-san, Minori-san, and I looked at each other. We hadn’t smelled anything unusual. We each focused on the odors around us, but there wasn’t anything I would have called “weird.” I guess you had to be a beast person to pick it up. Or maybe she was just imagining things? But...

“Is somethin’ the matter?” As we all sat there sniffing our food, Brooke and Cerise wandered into the dining area.

“Maybe? Elvia says there’s a weird smell...”

“A smell?” Brooke echoed.

“Brooke!” Cerise shouted, suddenly alert. I had never heard her raise her voice before. She had been about to sit down, but had frozen in place, as if she had realized she’d been about to spring a trap. Brooke, too, stopped—and then he abruptly reached out for the food on the table. He didn’t say anything to us; didn’t make any sound at all, in fact. But these obviously weren’t the actions of someone who was just too hungry to restrain himself. For starters, Brooke didn’t even like the same food we did.

“Impossible...” He brought the food to his nose and inhaled deeply. Then his long tongue emerged from his toothy mouth, and he licked it.

“Brooke?”

“Master, I must ask you to get away from the food—away from this table,” he growled.

“What...?”

“Do it, all of you,” Cerise said, her voice hard.

Our resident lizardman couple rarely showed much emotion. Or maybe more accurately, they were just biologically so different from humans that they showed emotion in entirely different ways. So to me, Brooke and Cerise often looked sort of expressionless. But now, their agitation was obvious. It practically radiated off them—they were serious like I had never seen.

“Wh-What’s going on?”

“This food is poisoned,” Brooke said.

That just about blew my mind. “P-Poisoned?!”

Poisoned, like, poisoned? Like, eat it and die? No, wait. There were lots of kinds of poison. Not all of them killed you... at least not right away. But if it had Brooke and Cerise this excited, then it was no small matter.

“Wh-What about you, Brooke?! Are you going to be all right?!”

“It won’t work on me,” he said confidently.

“Because it’s a lizardman concoction,” Cerise added. “An old draught we used to use when we were fighting the humans.”

A lizardman poison? Was that similar to what a venomous snake produced? Or was it, like, a secret recipe for a poison passed down among the lizardmen? Either way, it worked against humans—and was potent enough to have been used in war. The chances that this was the kind of poison that killed you immediately were starting to look pretty good.

“But it works very well on humans, and anyone built like a human—elves and werewolves, say,” Brooke went on. “One lick of that food could be perilous. Don’t touch it.”

“We have to assume the poison is on all the food,” Cerise said.

I nearly choked. I could hardly believe it—didn’t want to believe it—but why would Brooke and Cerise lie about something like this? Poison on all the food, though—you couldn’t taint all the food by sprinkling some poison around when no one was looking. Or even by slipping one bad ingredient into a bunch. Which meant...

“This poison... Myusel...?” The astonished whisper came from Elvia.

All of us looked at Myusel. She had been sitting silently on looking at the food, but as our collective gaze fell on her, she stood up and shook her head emphatically. “N-No! I s-swear it wasn’t me!”

“It... It wasn’t...?” Of course it wasn’t. Myusel would never do something like this. It was unimaginable, impossible. But then... who?

“Master!” As I stood there dithering, Myusel threw herself at me, burying her face in my chest.

“M-Myusel?!”

“Please believe me! I would never...”

“Whoa, hey, I—?!”

Er, uh, Myusel? With you being so... so close to me and all, my galaxy is in danger of this and that and/or/but it’s a veritable ecstasy, right? And I don’t know if this very tense, very difficult time is the right moment for that...

“Master...!” Myusel looked at me beseechingly. Her lavender eyes swam with tears, her pale cheeks were flushed, and she looked truly desperate. I couldn’t deny that there was a certain sexiness to—geez, I really am a lost cause, aren’t I?!

“Please, please believe me, I beg you! I would never try to poison the master I love...!” I could feel her hand creeping around toward my back... My back?

I took Myusel by the shoulders and shoved her away.

“Mas—”

“Who... are you?”

“Wha...?” Myusel’s brimming eyes got even wider. Like she couldn’t believe I was asking that. Couldn’t believe I would ever ask such a thing. Her face was frozen in a mixture of horror and despair, as if she had been betrayed by the one person she thought she could trust.

No. Something was wrong. This wasn’t Myusel. Whoever was talking to me now, it wasn’t the Myusel I knew.

“I—I’m Myusel Fourant...”

“No, you aren’t,” I said.

Myusel had never been so calculating. She wasn’t capable of it. Desperate as she might be to convince me of her innocence, she would never suddenly throw herself on me, wrap her arms around me. And she would absolutely never refer to me as “the master I love.” Not even when she might have gotten away with it, and certainly not here. If she’d been able to say such a thing, then she wouldn’t have had to stand around awkwardly with me the other day. But as it was, hyper-conscious of her birth and her station in life, she couldn’t even bring herself to say that she liked me.

“I knew something was wrong here,” I went on. “The moment we sat down, I wondered why there was only human food on the table.”

“What...?” Myusel—or whoever it was pretending to be Myusel—froze with surprise.

“Werewolves and lizardmen, they don’t like quite the same things as humans. So Myusel always makes something special just for each of them. But today, all the food on the table was for humans to eat. You didn’t even set places for Elvia, Brooke, or Cerise.”

It only made sense. Of course this imposter wouldn’t know that in our household, everyone ate together: masters and servants, regardless of who or what you were. That was why “Myusel” hadn’t sat down with us, but had stayed waiting by the wall. It was what she would do if this household was like every other mansion in Eldant. But it wasn’t.

“Master...” She gazed at me, and she really did look just like Myusel. If she were to stand still, without saying anything, I would never have been able to tell her from the real thing. Or... what if she was the real thing, but under someone else’s control?

“Shinichi-kun!” Suddenly, Minori-san grabbed me from behind by the collar.

“Hrgh?!” I choked a little—as a flash of silver light whipped in front of my eyes.

I almost choked again, this time because I realized the flash was a knife that Myusel had swung at me. I sat where I had fallen on my behind on the floor, numb, hardly able to believe what I was seeing.

“Pfah.” Myusel gave a disappointed cluck as the knife swept through empty air where my neck had been an instant before.

A “disappointed cluck”? Myusel? What? What was going on here? Where had she even been hiding that knife? Okay, forget that. More importantly, most importantly: Myusel was trying to kill me? But this Myusel wasn’t Myusel, so—arrgh, none of this made any sense!

“Get up!” Minori-san tugged again, this time on my arm, dragging me to my feet. She moved in front of me protectively. Hikaru-san stood flanked by Brooke and Cerise, who looked ready to fight. Even Hikaru-san looked a little queasy about this turn of events.

“Myusel!” Something moved on the edge of my vision. It was Elvia. She was flying toward Myusel. “Take this!” Myusel stabbed at Elvia with the knife, but the beast girl ducked low in a dodge, then smacked Myusel’s right hand from below, sending the knife spinning through space until it buried itself in the ceiling. “The hell’s wrong with you?!” Despite her confusion, Elvia grabbed Myusel’s wrists to restrain her.

Myusel, though, ignored her immobilized hands—she brought up her right leg and launched a kick at Elvia. The attack showed an agility—and a ruthlessness—that could never have come from the real Myusel. Her skirt billowed up, blinding Elvia. It allowed the kick to connect with the werewolf’s solar plexus.

“Gah!” With a sharp exhalation, Elvia let go of Myusel’s hands and stumbled backwards. Without missing a beat, Myusel pointed her palms at Elvia and exclaimed, “Tifu murottsu!”

She must have had the spell ready to go from the moment Elvia caught her wrists. A massive gust slammed into Elvia, so fast and so powerful that even her beast person reflexes couldn’t help her. She was slammed against the wall, hard.

“Hrgh...”

“Elvia!” I exclaimed. I was about to rush over to her, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Myusel’s hands again, this time pointed at me.

“Tifu murottsu!”

It might have been low-level magic, but if it was good enough for the military to teach as an attack, then it was nothing to sneeze at. I was already a little off balance, and like Elvia, the blast of wind sent me flying. I (along with a nearby chair) hit the wall, and I collapsed to the ground, the air knocked out of my lungs.

“Ergh... gah...” My back hurt. My chest hurt. It was hard to breathe, and my head was spinning. I tried to run through a checklist of body parts to make sure I still had everything, but I could hardly think clearly enough to do it. I looked at the room through a haze of red. Minori-san had been thrown into a corner. She must have taken the brunt of the magical attack trying to cover me. The caster of Tifu Murottsu has some control over exactly how powerful it is, but Myusel obviously wasn’t holding back. Otherwise it wouldn’t have gotten both of us.

“Myusel!” Brooke cried, still standing guard over Hikaru-san. He made to tackle her like Elvia had done, but stopped when Myusel took a couple of long, quick strides over to me and put a foot on my neck. The message was obvious: Move, and I break his neck.

Myusel’s foot was crushing my throat now. Her eyes as she looked down at me were terrifyingly cold.

Ahh, my Queen, thank you for this reward......... Er, nope! Not the time!

This was bad. This was very, very bad.

“Myusel...” I gasped between labored breaths. “I can... see your panties, y-you know...”

Not the time for that either! What am I even saying?!

And Myusel didn’t even react! They were, like, right out there!

Almost emotionless, Myusel reached towards the table, picking up a knife from a place setting. It was just an eating utensil, nowhere near as sharp as the one that was currently residing in the ceiling of the dining area—but with enough force and in the right place, it would be more than enough to kill a person.

As if to make sure it would work, Myusel first stabbed the knife into some of the nearby food. If that poison could kill you by licking it, it could sure kill you if it got in an open wound. Now I was really frightened. She truly meant to kill me, and she knew what she was doing.

“Myus—”

My maid looked down at me, expressionless, the way you would look at a rock on the side of the road. I could feel tears running from my eyes. I didn’t want to see Myusel this way. The Myusel I knew might quail sometimes, might not have a lot of self-confidence, but she was always dedicated to whatever she was doing, she was always supremely kind, and more than anything else, she had the cutest smile in the world. She didn’t have it in her to stare that empty, cruel stare at anyone.

I didn’t want to die. I really didn’t. But even more than that, I grieved at the thought that the last thing I would see would be Myusel staring at me with those unfeeling eyes.

“Myusel...” I gasped her name, my voice scratching. I thought maybe, just maybe, I saw her shoulder twitch. Or maybe I was imagining it. And then...

Everything was hazy, like I was trapped in a dream. I could see and I could hear, but it was a tremendous effort to try to think or do anything about what I saw or heard.

What was I doing?

Even asking that question took an agonizing amount of time. Everything I saw was fuzzy and out of focus; everything I heard was a meaningless babble of sound, so that I hardly knew what was going on. All I heard was...

“Myusel...”

That one word. Myusel. My name. And calling it was... who?

Ever so slowly, I felt things come into better focus. Gradually, the haze parted, as if I were drifting up from the bottom of a lake.

I blinked.

Shinichi-sama. My honored master. The one... the one I served. The one who was more important to me than anyone else.

But... why? Why was Shinichi-sama fallen at my feet? In fact, it felt like his neck was under my foot. As if I were stepping on him...

For that matter, what was I doing with this... knife? I was holding it in an icepick grip, but why? We did seem to be in the middle of dinner, but this was the wrong way to hold a knife for eating. It was as if I were about to bring it down and stab something... or...

Stab. With a knife.

But what? Who?

Shinichi-sama............?

Kill him, I heard someone say in my mind. Kill him, Myusel Fourant. Kill him now, and he will be yours forever.

Shinichi-sama... would be... mine... for... ever.

Mine. Forever.

That... That sounded very good to me.

Do it! Finish him, quickly!

But, that was a bad thing. Kill Shinichi-sama? That was not good. I couldn’t do it. I absolutely......... absolutely couldn’t.

Kiiiillll hiiiiim.......!

No. I couldn’t.

The hand holding the knife began to tremble, as if revealing the turmoil within me. Kill Shinichi-sama? I could never...

Fine, said the voice in my head. In that case: raise your right hand.

Yes. Yes, of course.

And then bring it down as hard as you can.

Yes, I understood.

I raised the hand with the knife, as I had been instructed. Then I would bring it down. It was simple. I would bring it down on—

On Shinichi-sama. I caught my breath.

“No...!” I used my left hand to grab my right, which felt as if it didn’t belong to me anymore. It was pressing down so hard, though, that I couldn’t restrain it; the knife reached Shinichi-sama... “St-Stop this!”

Bam! A sound like a thunderclap rang in my ears. At the same time, I felt a sharp pain shoot through my hand. I stumbled and collapsed beside Shinichi-sama, and the knife I’d thought I had such a firm grip on went tumbling through the air and landed on the ground.

The pain seemed to drive something out of me; the haze that had been clinging to my brain suddenly dispersed.

I grasped that I had been shot with a gun. More accurately, it wasn’t me, but the knife, that had been shot. I felt a mingled numbness and pain from my hand, but no trickle of blood. Minori-sama, she must have...

I caught my breath: everything suddenly snapped back into focus. The kaleidoscope of meaningless pieces slammed into coherence. I realized what I had been about to—

“Shinichi-sama?!” I turned to Shinichi-sama, who was lying beside me. I moaned when I saw the little scratches on his face, his cheeks. “No—Shinichi-sama?!”

Had I—had my hand, with the poisoned knife...?

“Myusel...?” Shinichi-sama said my name. “You’re... You’re back... Good...”

“Shinichi-samaaaa!”

He was going to die! There had to be something I could do. There had to.

The poison—maybe I could remove the poison.

I leaned against Shinichi-sama and put my lips to the wounds on his cheek. I began to suck out the blood. I could taste the sharp tang of it as it entered my mouth; I spat it out, then took another mouthful and spat that out, too.

“Myus...”

I didn’t answer. When I had been in the military, they had taught me the very basics of how to deal with poison. Whether a poison would be lethal or not was a question of quantity. There was a lethal dose of every poison, a minimum amount that had to be present in order to do its deadly work. Less than that, and not only would it not be effective: properly diluted, some poisons could even have medicinal applications, they had taught me. If I could suck out enough of the poisoned blood, I might be able to bring it down below the lethal threshold. That was all I could hope for now.

And so I...

“Myusel.”

Somebody was calling my name from behind me, taking my shoulders, as I kept sucking at the wound, spitting out the blood, again and again.

“Myusel, you’ve done your part. Move aside, please.” It was Cerise-san, who pulled me away from Shinichi-sama. “This will do more good.” She handed me a bowl. There was a red liquid in it, almost like blood... “It’s my blood. It should help neutralize the poison.”

“The poison doesn’t work on us because our blood naturally neutralizes all poisons. And being that toxin came from the lizardmen to begin with...”

I had no time to listen to Brooke-san’s explanation. I took the bowl from Cerise-san, sipped the blood, and then...

Then I put my lips to Shinichi-sama’s and let it out into his mouth.

Work. Please, work. Shinichi-sama, don’t die. I’m begging you, don’t leave us.

That was the only thought in my mind as I held tight to Shinichi-sama. Perhaps it was the effects of the poison that caused him to begin spasming gently.

When I came to, I found myself on one of the living room sofas. I guess only enough of the poison had gotten into my blood to put me to sleep instead of killing me. I didn’t know much about poisons in this world, let alone poisons that came from lizardmen, but Myusel had sucked out much of it and Cerise had given me her blood with its toxin-neutralizing qualities—and this stuff still knocked me clean out for a while. It had been serious, fast-acting stuff. I trembled to think what would have happened if I had actually eaten any of that food. Talk about your narrow escapes.

I looked around as things came back into focus, and there was my maid beside the sofa, in a posture of abject apology.

“Um... Myusel?” I said. “What... What are you doing?”

“M-Master, I... I...” Myusel wouldn’t even look up; she kept her face pressed to the floor. She seemed to feel she didn’t have the right to look at me. I knew she was trying to apologize, but I was starting to feel guilty myself just looking at her. “...I’ve done... the most terrible thing...”

Presumably she meant the whole trying-to-poison-us thing.

“What the heck happened?” I asked. It did appear to be Myusel herself, and not some imposter, who had poisoned the food and then tried to stab me. I also remembered, however hazily, Myusel trying to get the poison out of the wound on my cheek and then helping me drink Cerise’s blood. So it didn’t seem like she had just snapped and decided to murder me.

...Er, wait.

Ahem. Uh.

I also seemed to remember she had gotten Cerise’s blood into my mouth by putting it into her mouth and then...

So, uh, ahem, well, was this... was it sort of... my first k-k-k—

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!

Was it?! And with Myusel?! Had we really—?!

I mean, I wasn’t unhappy that it was with Myusel—in fact, that was great, but—arrgh, dammit, thanks to that poison, I could hardly even remember what it had felt like! That was no fair! And it didn’t even taste like lemon, it tasted like blood! Yes, poison-neutralizing blood for which I was very grateful to Cerise, but still! I wanted a do-over!

As I was busy mentally crying out to some god somewhere:

“Myusel...” Minori-san crouched down next to Myusel, who was still trembling so hard you could hear her teeth chattering. “It’s okay. We know you would never try to kill Shinichi-kun.”

That finally got Myusel to at least raise her head. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying.

“We know it wasn’t you, so tell us,” Minori-san said. “What happened?”

“What happened...” Myusel blinked her moist eyes and tried to think. Finally she said, “J-Just outside the mansion, I met a fortune-teller... She said she would tell my future using her crystals. She said to look into the crystals, and then...”

“Some kind of hypnosis, maybe. Or mind-control magic?” Hikaru-san said. He was standing behind Minori-san, his arms crossed. “If there is such a thing.”

Yeah... Magic. Magic that would let you control someone’s mind or spirit. That would explain why Myusel, the real one, had suddenly tried to murder me. She was doing it against her will; someone who wanted to get at me had made Myusel her tool.

“That’s a good question. I’ve seen Tifu Murottsu, of course, and I’ve seen people start fires with magic, but I’ve never seen any kind of mind-control spells. Does that sort of thing even exist? Come to think of it, don’t the magic rings prove that there is magic that can interact with a person’s brain?”

“Magic for the domination of someone’s heart or mind is not much known in Eldant...” The comment came from Brooke. “But I have heard that a tradition of such magic exists in the Kingdom of Zwelberich. It’s said they use it to control their demi-human slaves.”

“Control their... demi-human...”

We already knew that discrimination against demi-humans was rampant in Zwelberich. But discrimination like that always ran the risk of making the subjugated people so angry that they finally rebelled. I guess Zwelberich used mind-control magic to keep that from happening. For those slaves, it must have been like being chained and bound without any physical restraints at all.

“So Zwelberich...”

“Hold on,” Minori-san said. “We don’t know that they’re behind this. This was an extremely sophisticated assassination attempt. We can’t jump to conclusions just based on what we think. All the more so if it involves politics from this world. One wrong move, and this could turn into an international incident between Eldant and Zwelberich.” Minori-san took Myusel by the arm and hauled her to her feet. “First things first. Let’s go to the castle. If someone is really out to get you, Shinichi-kun—if they commit a large number of troops, or set the mansion on fire, or who knows what—then I won’t be able to protect you alone. The castle is a well-defended, public place where I have to assume they won’t want to try anything if they don’t have to.”

“Good idea. I’ll... I’ll go get ready.” Still finding it slightly difficult to breathe, I forced myself up off the sofa.

So that was the story. Brooke ran to call us a bird-drawn carriage, into which we duly climbed and headed for the castle. “We” included me and Hikaru-san, as well as Minori-san and Elvia for bodyguards. Myusel was there, too; we would need her to explain what had happened. Not to mention that now that the assassination had failed, there was a chance Myusel herself would be targeted, to keep her from telling anyone what she knew.

“I hope Brooke and Cerise will be okay,” I said quietly. I felt the carriage rocking softly under my feet. Partly because you could only fit so many people in a carriage, and partly out of concern that the culprit might come back to the mansion, we had left Brooke and Cerise to guard the house.

“They’ll be fine,” said Minori-san, who sat beside me with her gun at the ready. She probably figured you never know when the next attack might come. At her feet sat a suitcase with a 9mm machine pistol, smoke bombs, and a variety of other toys. The suitcase itself was bulletproof and could be used as a shield. She looked like she was ready to go to war.

As for me, I sat between Minori-san and Myusel, with Hikaru-san and Elvia sitting on the bench across from us.

“Considering our would-be assassin used a poison that doesn’t work on lizardmen, I don’t think she was ever after Brooke or Cerise. She didn’t even know that masters and servants eat together in our house—I don’t think she could have imagined it.”

“So you think she was from the Kingdom of Zwelberich?”

“Even in Eldant, it’s not exactly normal for everyone to eat together like that, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” Myusel confirmed, shaking her head.

“You see? That alone doesn’t prove anything. Even the mind-control magic—technology crosses borders easily enough. And we still don’t have any actual evidence.”

“I... I guess you’re right.”

Maybe it seems obvious to say, but mind-control magic didn’t leave any physical traces, so we had nothing to submit as evidence. Myusel had said she had been under someone else’s control, but we had to take her at her word, along with the tremendous deviation from her normal behavior. If someone countered that Myusel had decided to kill me of her own volition for some unknown reason, though, we would have no objective way to refute the claim.

“I assume the culprit had a story in mind,” Minori-san said. “She probably planned to make it look like the demi-human servant finally got sick of her master’s abuse and decided to kill the humans. Lucky for us, we had Elvia to sniff out that poison.”

Myusel didn’t say anything, but I saw her shudder. She had been the one who made the poisoned food, so maybe she felt like that was a jab at her.

“Myusel... It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” I said. I hesitated for a moment and then—summoning up extra courage because I was a nasty otaku whose number of years without a girlfriend was exactly equal to his number of years alive—I took her hand.

“Shinichi-sama...” Myusel looked at me, her eyes damp. Her smile never failed to bring me joy, but this misty-eyed expression—how could I not get moe about this? It was so sweet, and I felt my heart start pounding.

But, uh, never mind that...

“You suppose this person didn’t know about Elvia?” Hikaru-san said, looking curious.

I could see where he was coming from—if our attacker had known there was a werewolf in the house, they wouldn’t have used a poison that could be detected by its odor. It seemed like Elvia didn’t even have an especially exceptional sense of smell by werewolf standards.

“Who, me?” Elvia looked almost as perplexed as Hikaru-san.

“Or maybe they misjudged just how good a werewolf’s nose is,” Minori-san said. If the culprit was someone with a low view of demi-humans, it might make sense for them to underestimate demi-human abilities. “Or maybe it’s because Elvia isn’t officially a servant in our household.”

“Ah, I see,” Hikaru-san said.

Myusel, Brooke, and Cerise-san were all, on paper, employees of the Eldant state, posted to our house as servants. If the assassin had been looking at employment records while planning her strike...

“Eldant couldn’t exactly just hire on a former Bahairamanian agent,” Hikaru-san said. “So she wouldn’t be in the paperwork.”

We had managed to win Elvia over to our side, but in principle, she was still an active spy for Bahairam. Call her a double agent of a sort. That had benefits for Eldant, too—or anyway, that was how I’d explained it to Petralka and Garius to get them to go along with it. The effect was that Elvia lived in our mansion, but she didn’t exist in the official records, any more than a stray dog or cat we’d taken in.

“Well, I’m sure glad she was there,” I said.

“Aw, you’re makin’ me blush,” she said, giggling a little and scratching the back of her head shyly.

“The point is, the attempt to poison us failed,” Minori-san said. Her voice was flat, almost like she was reciting from memory. “So the killer went after Shinichi-kun, hoping to at least take him out. If she could do that and then shut Myusel up somehow, she still might be able to make it look like a demi-human maid who’d tried to kill the master she resented. The maid tries to poison the man and fails, and knowing that there’s no escape, she takes herself with him and everything is over... I’m sure that was Plan B.”

“What was important to this criminal was to make it look like an inside job,” Hikaru-san said. “She could have picked Brooke or Cerise to do it, but she chose Myusel... Maybe she was angling for a love affair gone wrong?”

“L-Love affair...?” That was awfully blunt!

“Goes something like this: Myusel and Shinichi-san are an item, but the difference in social status between them means nothing can come of it. They can never publicly proclaim their love, never get married. So one or both of them settles on a suicide pact.”

“But why would I—why would she—? Who even benefits from that crazy story?” I said. Personally, I thought the abused-servant-gone-berserk thing was more than sensible enough.

“Why don’t we ask Her Majesty?” Hikaru-san said.

“What...?” Petralka? Why would we ask her? Did this have to do with the whole thing about Petralka seeing me as a man? I mean, not that I thought she did, but if she did, hypothetically...

Okay, say Petralka was in love with Kanou Shinichi. And say Shinichi and his servant were, uh, well, you know... And then say that Myusel, in a fit of desperation, kills them both. What then? What then...?

“Her Majesty becomes that much more receptive to a marriage with Prince Rubert,” Hikaru-san concluded.

I caught my breath. So Zwelberich really was behind this? But even all this was just speculation—we didn’t have any proof. The important thing now was to get to the castle and tell Petralka and the others about this. Whether or not Zwelberich was involved, a VIP of the Eldant Empire had been the subject of an attempted assassination, and that was almost certainly something the government needed to know.

As I was thinking all this, though...

“Um...” Elvia cocked her head as if she had just realized something.

“What is it, Elvia?”

“Is... Is this the right way?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t go to the castle all that much. Maybe I’m just getting mixed up—but aren’t we supposed to come out of the woods eventually?”

That got me to look out the window. She was right: I would have been expecting to see the city come into view about now, but all I saw was trees shrouded by the darkness of evening. I edged up out of my seat to get a better look—

“Yikes!”

The carriage rocked violently. Everyone else was fine—they were still in their seats—but it threw me back, on top of Myusel.

“Woopf!” I felt myself caught by something soft.

Soft? That had to be...

“Eep! S-Sorry...” I managed, scrambling away from her.

“N-No, it’s all right...” Myusel said, looking studiously at the ground.

I could still feel the brush of her chest against my cheek. She wasn’t, y’know, huge, but you weren’t going to miss that there were two gentle hills there, and I’d had my face pressed right up against them.

Ohhh... Ahhh...

As I trembled with emotion, Hikaru-san regarded me with a mixture of awe and fear. “Shinichi-san... Going for the lucky-perv thing even at a time like this... Truly, you are a force to be reckoned with...!”

“I wasn’t going for anything,” I protested. “It was an accident! I’m innocent!”

And I was innocent, but that was starting to seem less and less important, because the carriage wouldn’t stop shaking. In fact, it was getting worse. We each looked around for something to grab hold of so we wouldn’t be thrown out of our seats.

“Wh-What the heck’s goin’ on?!” Elvia cried. Thanks to her tail, she could keep her footing even with the carriage pitching and rocking, and now she went over to the window that looked out of the passenger compartment at the driver’s bench.

I heard her gasp. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“There’s no driver!”

“Huh?!”

How could that be?! Elvia helped hold me up as I stretched to peer through the window. And she was right: the driver’s bench was empty. Plus, the huge birds that normally pulled our carriage sedately along had obviously gone berserk. Hence all the shaking. And on top of that, the reins had been cut so we couldn’t easily get the birds back under control. Someone had been very thorough.

This was bad. It looked like things were genuinely out of control. Then...

“Shinichi-sama! This is real bad!”

“I think things are already pretty bad! You mean there’s something worse?”

“We’re headed for a cliff!”

“Hrk...?!”

Werewolves have excellent night vision, so Elvia was able to see where we were going better than the rest of us.

Minori-san acted quickly. “No choice—!” She swept the inside of the carriage with a glance, then gave the doors a kick. I didn’t know whether it had more to do with strength or technique, but they flew open with a crash. It almost looked like they had been ripped clean off, and outside, I could see the nighttime forest whipping by at an incredible pace.

“We have to jump!”

“Jump?! You mean from in here to—to out there?!” The incredulous question came from Hikaru-san.

His reaction was only natural. Our carriage was moving at a serious clip. It’s not like we had a speedometer, but I would have guessed we were doing around 50 kilometers an hour—almost as fast as a car. We weren’t exactly going to be landing on asphalt, but breaking bones if we came down wrong was still a definite possibility. And, considering the likelihood that those bones could be our spines or our skulls, a very worrying one.

Then again, this seemed like a better option than simply plunging off a cliff.

“Myusel, can you slow us down using magic? Even just for a second?” Minori-san said.

“Y-Yes, ma’am!” Myusel quickly began chanting an incantation. When I heard it, I immediately guessed what she was planning to do. It was that familiar spell, Tifu Murottsu. That wasn’t a surprise; Myusel didn’t know that many different spells. But she wasn’t going to use it the normal way this time. The source and the direction of the magic were different.

“Tifu murottsu!” we chorused.

As soon as I figured out Myusel’s plan, I hurried to recite the spell. We fired our magic directly forward, pitting the momentum of our spells against the rampaging carriage.

Bam! The carriage trembled with the shock, but it also slowed down visibly. We had each dropped Tifu Murottsu about a meter in front of us, something that would normally have been suicidal. But in this case, the two wind blasts had the effect of killing the carriage’s speed.

“Now!” Minori-san shouted.

“A-Are you sure about this?” Hikaru-san said, still obviously hesitant. And who could blame him? Even slowed down, the carriage was still going at a pretty good rate. Not to mention, Hikaru-san was wearing one of his fluffy, frilly Goth-loli dresses, which probably wouldn’t make it any easier to land.

Unfortunately for him, we didn’t have time to dither. That cliff was still coming at us alarmingly fast.

“Elvia!” I shouted. I had been in a very similar situation once, back in Japan. It had taught me, among other things, that werewolves had the agility to leap from one moving car to another. And Elvia, who had been the werewolf in question, immediately understood what I was asking her to do. She grabbed Hikaru-san in her arms.

“Don’t mind me, Hikaru-sama!”

“Huh? Eeyipes!”

Hikaru-san’s shout trailed away as Elvia jumped out of the carriage, Goth-loli boy and all. She landed—but not on the ground. The incredible strength of her legs allowed her to leap several meters. She planted both feet against the trunk of the tree beside the road, absorbing most of the impact before dropping delicately to the ground.

Yep. That’s what I’d been hoping for. Myusel, Minori-san, and I followed her out of the carriage. We didn’t have a beast girl to carry us, and we certainly didn’t have Elvia’s physical prowess, but we each rolled as best we could, and combined with the reduced speed of the carriage, we managed to make it out without breaking any bones. Although I managed to hit my back on a rock in the ground at the very last minute, so that hurt a bit.

“Gnnrrr...”

“Shinichi-sama, are you all right?!” Myusel jumped to her feet and came running over to me.

“F-Fine, thanks.” I took her hand and let her help me up. Minori-san was already on her feet, her gun drawn, looking this way and that. Not far away, Hikaru-san was upright but leaning on Elvia for support. I guess our little stunt had taken the wind out of his sails.

“What about the carriage?!” I said.

We all looked in the direction of our runaway ride—just in time to see it disappear from view. It went right over the cliff.

I ran over to look down after it. It was about seven or eight meters to the bottom. Below, I could see the smashed carriage—and the birds who had been pulling it. To my surprise, the two of them were flapping around energetically. They might not have been able to fly, but I guess they were still birds—lighter than they looked. And good for them. Oxen or horses would certainly have broken a lot of bones in that fall. Maybe somebody slipped the birds some drugs or something to work them up; in any event, I didn’t see myself wanting to get close to them as they thrashed and kicked.

One thing was clear: if we had stayed on that carriage, that would have been it for us.

“Why did they go crazy...?” Myusel said fearfully, coming up beside us and looking over the edge of the cliff. “And what happened to our driver?”

Minori-san came over to us. “Whoever did this was either posing as our driver to begin with, or took their place somewhere along the way. They must have either poisoned the birds or put a spell on them, then jumped off the carriage and hid somewhere.”

“So it was supposed to look like an accident?” I mused.

“Most likely.”

Wait a second...

“Accidental” deaths were a pretty effective assassination method in that they didn’t leave a lot of evidence, but they lacked the certainty of poisoning or stabbing your target. I mean, look at us: we’d managed to escape. The birds pulling the carriage weren’t even dead. Meaning...

“You think the culprit is around here, waiting to make sure they got us?”

“Shinichi-sama!” Elvia, still holding onto Hikaru-san, shouted. “There was somebody over there, just now!”

Myusel made to run in the direction Elvia indicated, but Minori-san grabbed her hand. “Myusel, you stay here.”

“B-But...” Her face was bright red. I had hardly ever seen this before—but it looked like she was furious. “That fortune-teller—that woman—sh-she made me... I nearly...”

“I know how you must feel, but we’re dealing with a professional here,” Minori-san said quickly. “And you’ve seen her face, so she’ll be especially eager to rub you out. Let me handle this!” Then she made sure she had a firm grip on her pistol and started running.

“Minori-sama—!”

“Myusel, Elvia, you stay with the boys, keep them safe!” Minori-san said, and then she disappeared into the darkness among the trees.

A figure flitted through the woods. Its speed was impressive, given how dark it was and how many obstacles there were in the way. Whoever we were dealing with, maybe they had assumed from the start that the poison might not finish the job. Maybe they had planned this “accident” all along. Maybe they had studied the topography here, knew already where the trees grew and how best to get away from the scene of the crime as quickly as possible. Or maybe they were even using magic to allow them to see in the dark.

Whatever their methods, I was in danger of losing them. I didn’t have any night-vision equipment.

“Stop right there! Poosuto!” I shouted as I dashed after the fleeing figure. I was sure they could hear me, but, thinking they might be outside the effective range of the magic ring, I added the command in Eldant as well. Although we called it that for convenience’s sake, the language shared its basic grammar and primary vocabulary with the languages of several of the surrounding countries, so it served as a sort of common tongue. Even if the person I was pursuing wasn’t from Eldant, there was a good chance they would understand what I was saying. Then again, there were only so many things I was likely to be shouting in this situation.

It was all a moot point, though, because the person showed no sign of slowing down.

“Fi uoi tonoodo poosuto ia katta uoi!” Stop or I’ll shoot!

Now I’d given fair warning. I leveled my gun at the fleeing figure. Still they didn’t slow down. Not that I’d really expected them to. There was a good chance they didn’t even know what a gun was. Of course they wouldn’t stop because I warned them I would use one. And if they were really a professional assassin, they might not have stopped anyway.

Okay, fine. Never make a threat you aren’t willing to carry out. I pulled the trigger on my 9-millimeter.

It was the middle of the night, in the woods, with me trying to hit a moving target with a pistol. I knew single shots weren’t likely to land, so I switched to three-round burst fire.

The pistol’s earsplitting report shook the chilly night. By the light of the muzzle flash, I saw the figure flop to the ground. Perfect. I’d aimed at the legs and feet, to avoid killing them.

I moved in on my opponent, gun still at the ready. Suddenly, the figure tossed mightily across the ground. Were they trying to roll away from me? Or—

I got a bad feeling. I pulled up my gun, which emitted a metallic screech.

It was complete luck that I was able to block it. And by “it,” I mean the small, black bladed weapon, a sort of throwing star, that was now buried in the trunk of a nearby tree. The killer must have expected they might need to use it at night. It wouldn’t be very deadly... unless perhaps it was covered in that lizardman poison.

Anyway, the point was made: if I didn’t approach carefully, I was likely to buy the farm. I kept working my way closer, but slowed down.

The assassin took that opportunity to drag themselves to their feet and start running again—or rather, shuffling quickly. Clearly, they hadn’t given up hope of escape.

I could smell blood in the air. At least one of my shots had definitely landed. Unfortunately for me, they had landed on someone who didn’t give up very easily. This enemy was earning my grudging respect—they were obviously tough stuff—but I almost had them now, and I wouldn’t give up, either.

Could I have just shot them in the back? Sure, but I didn’t want to take the risk of killing them. We needed this assassin alive so that we could find out exactly who was behind all this. Lone wolves could be killed off and not be any more trouble, but if some organization or even some country were responsible, then they would simply send someone to replace whoever we took out.

I worked my way along. Now that my opponent could no longer run, I didn’t have to worry about losing sight of them. I holstered my weapon, pulling on a blade-proof glove instead. This was a personal item; not standard issue. It used carbon plates and woven aramid fibers, like a bulletproof vest. I could hold a weapon by the blade, be it a cleaver or combat knife, and be completely safe. The glove was awfully thick, though, so it wasn’t easy to use a gun while wearing it.

I took one more look to make sure of my opponent’s exact location—and then I jumped on them from behind.

Maybe they had been expecting me to come in for some hand-to-hand fighting, because they bent forward, dodging me, then pulled something from under their cloak and thrust it out at me. A dagger, painted black so it would blend with the night.

I dodged. Honestly, a stab with a knife from unsteady footing wasn’t likely to do a lot of harm. Sometimes such a stab could be deflected by clothing or even skin; it rarely reached the vital organs. But again, if the blade was poisoned, then even a scratch could be deadly.

My opponent stabbed again, and then again. But their movements were simple—I could see all kinds of wasted motion, and more than anything, they didn’t commit to the strikes. Instead they came at me with a series of short jabs, maybe worried that I would grab their arm if they tried anything more serious. Of course, if they knew all they needed to do to win was to scratch their opponent, then this would be a sensible strategy.

It was starting to look like my foe was a specialist in assassination, but not necessarily in the fighting arts. Calmly, I took a step closer. Nice and deliberate. My opponent was still jabbing at me with the knife, but I passed it using my gloved right hand—and in the same motion, I drove my now raised right elbow into my opponent’s chest.

“Hrgh!” There was a short, sharp exhalation of breath. My opponent leaned over, and I took advantage of the movement to grab their arm. I turned in a half-spin, using my back and hips to lift them into the air, then pulling on their arm to bring them around and slam them into the ground. A classic shoulder throw.

“Gagh!” My opponent hit the earth, gave a shout, and stopped moving.

There are a couple reasons police forces and similar organizations in Japan teach their people judo instead of karate or kenpo. One is that judo throws are safer for dealing with knives than systems where you attack head-on, but most of all it’s because judo throws double as control techniques. Most people can survive being thrown once or twice, but when you hit the ground, the air goes out of your lungs and even the toughest opponent will be briefly rendered immobile.

That didn’t mean I was going to take my eyes off my enemy, of course. I stayed in a fighting posture and watched the other person closely, but they didn’t move. Out cold, I suspected. It could be an act, a ploy to get me to lower my guard, though, so I watched very carefully as I shuffled closer, bent down, and then reached out to take off the attacker’s hood. I pulled it off in one swift motion.

“She’s a woman...”

Not only that, she was a woman I recognized. I didn’t know her name, but I remembered her single, long ponytail. She was Prince Rubert’s attendant, the one who appreciated a good man/man romance. It was going to be pretty hard to deny that Zwelberich was behind this now. I was sure Hikaru-kun was right—Prince Rubert wanted to take out Shinichi-kun because he was standing in the way of the prince’s marriage to the empress. A lovers’ double suicide would be a convenient excuse.

“What a shame,” I whispered with a half-smile. Just when I had finally discovered that there were fujoshi in this world, too.

If nothing else, though, I was starting to feel better about our situation. If she’d had any co-conspirators, they would have attacked me long ago. This would-be assassin appeared to be acting alone.

I stood up and looked back. I thought I heard footsteps and sensed someone approaching. When the person finally emerged, though, I could only stare. “Huh?”

It was Shinichi-kun who appeared from between the trees.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. Maybe he had come chasing after me. Out of fear for my safety, no doubt. He was awfully selfless, but by the same token, he could be pretty oblivious to the danger he was in at any given time. It was great that he was so compassionate towards everyone, but I wished he would be a little more sensitive to how bad that could make things for himself. He acted the way he did not so much out of courage, but out of a strangely low opinion of himself. And because I was his bodyguard, it was my problem.

Anyway...

“Shinichi-kun, it’s still dangerous, you need to—”

“Tifu murottsu!” he shouted over me, raising his right hand. He was aiming... not at me, but just beside me, at the Zwelberichian assassin.

“Huh...?! I whipped around again to see the woman crashing into a tree, her cloak dragging her like a parachute. I watched in astonishment as she slid down the trunk and settled on the ground.

“Sh-Shinichi-kun, haven’t you ever heard of overkill?” I knew she had tried to murder him, but even so, there was no reason to use offensive magic on a helpless opponent.

“It wasn’t overkill,” he said. “Look.” He was pointing at the assassin. No... wait, what?

“Shinichi-sama!” Myusel appeared next—I assumed she had gone after Shinichi-kun—followed by Elvia, still half-carrying Hikaru-kun.

Still looking where Shinichi-kun had pointed, I discovered that there was a bottle, lying half-buried in the leaf mold. It was made of a pale ceramic. I couldn’t tell exactly what was inside, but it was uncorked and rolling on the ground near us.

“I think it’s poison,” Shinichi-kun said. He went over and crouched by the bottle, then thoughtfully took out a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to pick the thing up. Whoever this assassin was, this bottle could be evidence against her. Maybe he’d remembered some detective show he’d seen and realized he needed to avoid touching it. Not that I figured they knew how to lift prints in this world.

“She was lifting it to her mouth,” he explained.

So she had only been pretending to be unconscious. Then when my back was turned, she had intended to drink the poison and kill herself.

“Thanks. I’m impressed you noticed that.”

“When you fail to kill your target, you take yourself out. That’s, like, Assassination 101 in the movies. You know—‘dead men tell no tales’?”

“That’s great and all, but... I think I told you to stay put, didn’t I?”

“Er, yeah... I guess you did. Sorry.” Shinichi-kun shrugged apologetically. I still didn’t understand exactly why, but this boy obviously valued the safety and well-being of others far above his own. That sort of thinking made heroes of some people—but it got lots more ignominiously killed.

“So what do we do with her?” Shinichi-kun said, indicating the assassin.

“I think the best thing we can do is take her to the castle and give her to the authorities.” We were just guests of the Eldant Empire; it wasn’t our place to pass judgment on people from other nations, especially when those people were servants of a visiting royal. Getting unnecessarily involved here had diplomatic incident written all over it.

Of course, one could argue that since we had all nearly been murdered, maybe they deserved what they got—but we could leave the Eldant Empire the choice of letting this go. It would give them serious leverage with Zwelberich, a favor they could call in when it really mattered.

“Hikaru-kun, can you walk on your own yet?”

“Er, yeah... Thanks, Elvia. Sorry.” He scrambled away from Elvia. He didn’t look completely steady on his feet yet, but good enough to manage.

“All right, Elvia, then can you carry our new friend?”

“On it!”

“Just watch out. I think she’s unconscious for real this time, but you can’t be too careful.”

“Sure thing!”

Elvia went over and hefted the woman up. That was when Shinichi-kun appeared to notice something.

“Huh? Is she...?”

“Uh-huh. Prince Rubert’s attendant.”

“Yikes!”

Elvia had never seen the woman close up, so she hadn’t connected the dots, but Shinichi-kun and Hikaru-kun both looked suitably shocked. Myusel had already met the woman—but in the guise of a fortune-teller. It must have been startling in its own right to realize she was a servant of the royal family of Zwelberich.

“I know we suspected Zwelberich might be behind this, but...”

“To think, the prince’s own attendant was the culprit...”

It was possible the woman wasn’t actually a professional assassin. If Zwelberich had intended to kill Shinichi-kun all along, they certainly would have sent someone with no known association with the prince to do the job. Plausible deniability on the off chance the guy was caught. That suggested this plan had only been dreamed up after Prince Rubert had met Shinichi-kun. Only after Rubert realized how close the empress really was to him. He’d had to make do with the people he’d had available.

In any event, all I could do right now was shrug and sigh. “It’s going to take a long time, explaining this to Garius-san and the rest.”

The next day, in the audience chamber of Holy Eldant Castle. From the ornate decorations to the knights who stood at attention, to its sheer size, this was a room purpose-built to communicate the power of the country’s ruler. And right now, the atmosphere inside it was tense.

Petralka was, of course, sitting on the throne at the far end of the room, and as ever, she was flanked by Garius and Prime Minister Zahar. Below their raised dais stood not only the knights, but a panoply of Eldant counselors, along with me, Minori-san, and Hikaru-san, representing Amutech. But for once, we and everyone else there were merely spectators. The real star of the show was Petralka—and the handsome man standing across from her.

Rubert, Sixth Prince of the Kingdom of Zwelberich. The tension in the air came more from the advisors than it did from Petralka and Rubert. Demi-humans like Eric-san and Rydel-san looked especially worried: they had a lot riding on this. Specifically, their entire futures.

For today, Prince Rubert was going home. Petralka would at last have to answer his proposal one way or the other. Depending on what she said, the demi-humans of the Eldant Empire might abruptly find themselves in a very bad place. Nobody expected the Prince of Zwelberich to start being all buddy-buddy with demi-humans just because he married the Empress of the Eldant Empire. Prime Minister Zahar watched the proceedings with unease, shooting anxious glances at the other counselors—and at me—several times. He understood what was at stake for the likes of Eric-san and Rydel-san.

To my surprise, when Petralka finally spoke from the throne, she didn’t seem quite able to look up. “Prince Rubert...” The strain in the air thickened. I had no way of knowing whether Petralka noticed it or not, but she looked up as she said, “In regards to the matter of... your proposal...” As she raised her head, I thought her eyes met mine—that she spared the briefest glance in my direction. But maybe I was just overthinking things. The slightest, weariest of smiles tugged at her lips, but she quickly controlled it and looked directly at the prince.

Then she said: “We cordially refuse.”

That was it. Three words. All that followed was an almost painful silence.

It didn’t last long, though. A buzz started that quickly spread throughout the throne room.

Of course, we of the Amutech contingent had known this would be her answer. But we hadn’t had enough time to inform Eric-san or Rydel-san. I glanced over and saw the two of them sharing a very satisfied handshake, as if to say Yes! And here I thought elves and dwarves weren’t supposed to get along.

“Silence.” Garius’s voice cut through the chatter.

There was no doubt in Petralka’s eyes as she looked at Prince Rubert. I saw no question in her mind. Her expression was calm, composed, as if it came from a realization or understanding that had given her strength. She looked downright, well, adult. Certainly different from the way she’d seemed when she had come to me for advice.

And as for Rubert...

“Is that so?” he said with a little shrug. “A shame. I am truly disappointed.”

The words were those of a man whose marriage proposal had just been turned down, but not a flicker of real emotion passed across his lovely face.

“Will you ask our reasons?”

“No, Your Majesty. I pride myself on accepting defeat graciously.” A tiny smile crossed Rubert’s face. “Indeed, I rather prefer being rejected with such finality.”

“Indeed...?” Petralka returned his slight smile.

“However, the bonds between my nation and the Holy Eldant Empire still stretch back some six hundred years. I have faith that my own unsuitability will in no wise undermine that relationship. May our alliance and our amicable exchange continue as it always has.”

“But of course.” Petralka and Rubert shared another smile, friendly this time. Somehow, they didn’t look like a man whose proposal had just been turned down and the woman who had said no. (Maybe it was just because they were both so pretty?) I thought back to my own moment of romantic rejection and marveled at how a truly cool guy continued to look good in all circumstances.

And then, with surprising suddenness, it was over. And that’s the story of how Prince Rubert did not get married to Petralka an Eldant III of the Holy Eldant Empire.

About an hour after the assembly in the large audience chamber, I found myself in the small one—the one I was more used to. It was less than half the size of the room we’d been in earlier, and although it was built in much the same style, it had no windows and thicker walls and doors, to enable quieter, more private conversations. Petralka was there, as was Garius, and Prince Rubert.

And one more person. A woman was kneeling in front of Rubert, her hands bound with wooden cuffs and a gag in her mouth. I found the sight a little shocking, but apparently this was standard procedure with criminals in the Eldant Empire, and considering that this person had tried to commit murder, she was probably lucky her situation wasn’t any worse.

It was Rubert’s attendant. The would-be assassin who had targeted me and my friends.

Petralka began things in a dispassionate, just-the-facts voice. “Last night, Shinichi and other members of his household were attacked at their mansion.”

The follow-up came from Garius. “This woman is from Zwelberich. Indeed, she is one of your companions, Prince Rubert, is she not?”

The question was rhetorical, obviously. Garius and Petralka both would have recognized the woman. Not to mention she was clearly visible on the video from Minori-san’s in-castle camera—although I strongly suspected we didn’t want to have to submit that as evidence if we didn’t need to.

Prince Rubert was silent. But he didn’t look at me, or at the assassin, or even at Petralka. He stared straight at Garius.

“We won’t press matters—this time,” the minister said. His tone had changed; he no longer spoke with the stiff formality of someone addressing the prince of an allied nation; instead he sounded almost casual, like he was talking to a friend. The only people in this room were those directly connected to the attempted assassination. Maybe he was signaling that we didn’t need to treat this as a state occasion. “I believe the motives of the Zwelberichian party are more or less clear,” Garius continued, with a glance at Petralka. “I would never permit this marriage to proceed.” His voice carried tremendous finality.

More than a few people, including myself, Eric-san, and Rydel-san, had worried that Garius might be swept up by his feelings for his former boyfriend, Rubert, and welcome a match between the Prince and Petralka. At this point, though, it was looking like we had badly misjudged things.

“Shinichi and his companions may not be Eldant citizens, but they are honored guests of our empire. An attempt to harm them is difficult to overlook. If you had hoped to press your suit with the empress, there were other ways of doing so. I think you grew a little overeager.”

Garius was Garius. I guess he had been busy investigating things; we just hadn’t known about it. He had looked into things like the political situation in Zwelberich and its relationship with the countries around it. I hadn’t heard the details, but I gathered that something about the domestic situation in Zwelberich at the moment had Prince Rubert at a bit of a political disadvantage. A marriage with Petralka would have allowed him to completely turn the tables.

“We will not forget this matter, but neither do we intend to make it public. We have scarcely more to gain than you do from an open confrontation with the Kingdom of Zwelberich.”

“Mm.” Prince Rubert sensed that this was no time for excuses. A quiet smile tugged at the edges of his lips. “You’re more formidable than you appear.” He looked—not at Garius, but directly at me.

What? Me? Formidable? Huh?

Was he saying that because I had evaded an attempted poisoning and captured an assassin? But that had been all thanks to Elvia and Minori-san, respectively; I had hardly done anything except almost get killed. Or was he addressing me as the representative of my entire group?

But he wasn’t done. “I see it now. You are truly loved.”

“Wha...?” What a weird thing to say. And now, of all times. I just didn’t get this guy... “Wh... What do you mean by that?”

The question was out of my mouth before I could think about it. Prince Rubert didn’t answer, though; he just kept smiling that quiet smile.

Sometime after the refusal in the audience chamber...

Garius and Prince Rubert walked through the halls of the castle, looking almost like they were trying to avoid being noticed, and went out into the courtyard together—alone together. They found the shadow of a large tree to stand in, somewhere it wouldn’t be easy to spot them. And there...

Rubert looked around the neatly manicured garden. After a long silence, as if the question had just occurred to him, he asked, “How long have you known?”

“From the start,” Garius said, standing beside Rubert. There was no inflection in his voice, and he didn’t look at the Prince. He stood completely still, clearly almost forcing himself not to move. His emerald eyes just stared straight ahead. He seemed intent on keeping a small but unwavering distance between them. “I knew why you had proposed, and I had no interest in letting it go forward.”

“I see...” Rubert smiled and nodded. The look on his face was downright untroubled. Was he impressed that his plans had been so thoroughly thwarted? Or did he just want to maintain the appearance that it didn’t bother him? “Here I was sure I had you fooled.”

“You thought...” Garius said softly. He sounded almost emotional. “Looking back... All the way back. The way you befriended me, stayed close to me. Was all of that just part of a grand design to make this possible?”

What a question. He wanted to know, in other words, whether everything that had happened between them while he was in Zwelberich, the relationship they’d had, if it had all been part of a plan leading up to this moment. Was he really asking that? Even I knew that was years and years ago, but if so...

“Oh, yes, of course,” Prince Rubert answered without hesitation.

He actually admitted it!

“Naturally, I didn’t have these specific circumstances in mind. But I’m an adept enough player of this game to have known that somewhere along the line, a friendship with you was likely to come in useful.”

“So the things you whispered to me, it was all—”

“We lot’re royals,” Rubert interrupted, switching to a brusque tone of voice. “And as such, the freedom to love is something we don’t have and will never have. We’re a part of the machinery of the state. Tools to be used to shore up its fortunes. Your own feelings, any affection for anyone else—if it can be used, you use it. That’s what it means to be a member of a royal family. And in return, we’re granted endless powers and privileges. Am I wrong?” He looked Garius in the face, seeking confirmation.

This beautiful young man who had just confessed to being a master strategist—the gentle smile had vanished from his face as if it had never been there. In its place was an emotionless mask.

Garius said nothing; he simply stood there. He, too, was expressionless. For an instant—the barest fraction of a second—I thought I had seen his face flinch, like a child’s the moment before he bursts into tears. But I blinked, and found Garius just as composed as ever.

“No, you’re not,” Garius said with a shake of his head. “Everything is exactly as you say.”

Prince Rubert met this with an ambiguous smile. He didn’t look especially pleased to hear Garius agree with him. Instead, he almost looked...

“Well, I believe it’s time for me to be going.” With that, Rubert set off across the courtyard with all dignity. Neither man betrayed any pain at their parting. Rubert didn’t stop, didn’t look back, but disappeared into the castle. For his part, Garius just kept staring in one direction.

I had never seen such an abrupt goodbye.

But I wasn’t the only one here to appreciate this.

“Pant... Pant...”

When I noticed how heavily Minori-san was breathing, how bloodshot her eyes were, there in the shadows from which we had been watching the conversation, I quickly moved to restrain her.

“IS—”

Hikaru-san and I both clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent another outburst of “IS THAT REALLY REAL ACTUAL BL” or whatever was coming. Minori-san tried to fight us, but Loek and Romilda jumped on her, too. They had been here at the castle with their parents, and Hikaru-san had brought them along in case we had any more “incidents.” It turned out he had been right to worry.

“Mmmrrrf! Mrrmm!!” Minori-san was still trying to shout something in spite of our impromptu gag. Thankfully, blocked by two palms, her voice didn’t carry. It did kind of tickle, the way her lips were moving against my hand, but I could bear it.

Suddenly, though, I felt Minori-san’s body go limp. Huh? Had we been a little too enthusiastic blocking her mouth and suffocated her?

“M-Minori-sensei?” Loek and Romilda jumped back. Our rotten WAC slumped to her knees; in fact, she proceeded to fall face-first onto the ground. Her lips opened and closed like she was having trouble breathing. Worried now, I put my ear close to her flapping mouth.

“...Koganuma Minori... regrets... nothing...”

Ahh. Having observed an all-too-loaded conversation between two handsome guys at close distance, she had become terminally moe. You know, when your heart bursts from sheer delight?

I took this in in an instant, and felt better. She would be fine. We could leave her alone.

Loek and Romilda, though, naturally didn’t realize what was going on. “Minori-sensei!”

“Don’t die on us!”

They helplessly shook Minori-san, still on the ground and completely white (figuratively speaking) from moe overload. Then...

“Shinichi... Is that you?” Garius turned toward us and called out.

I guess you can’t exactly hide five people at close range making that kind of noise.

“No, it’s uh—”

“You heard everything?” He had a slight smile on his face. It didn’t look like he was going to chew us out for eavesdropping. In fact, I thought he seemed almost relieved. He didn’t seem like his usual, unflappable self, but almost like a little kid who hadn’t been sure what to do. The only real question was how I should respond. Before I could figure it out, though—

“You’re up, Shinichi-kun.” Minori-san, who had come back to life in the meantime, put a hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear.

“What...?”

She had been on death’s doorstep just a moment before, but now her fingers were digging into my shoulder so hard it was uncomfortable. Adjusting her glasses with her free hand, she said, “The only cure for the agony of love spurned is a new love born.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hey, ouch, that hurts!” I looked at Hikaru-san, standing beside Minori-san, as if to say Help me!, but he grabbed my shoulder, too.

“Minori-san’s right,” he said. “You’re the only one who can comfort Minister Cordobal now.”

“Yikes!” The next moment, the two of them were shoving me forward, out of the shadows. Directly at Garius. “Uh, um, uhh...” It was all I could do not to fall over. A few stumbling steps later, I found myself standing in front of the knight. Our eyes met. “Uhhhhh... ahem.”

I quickly looked away, no idea what to say to him. I could see Minori-san and Hikaru-san both clenching their fists and nodding at me from the shadows, urging me on. But what the heck were they expecting from me? I mean, I knew. But still...

“That’s a lot to put on my shoulders...”

Even I could tell how wounded and dejected Garius was feeling. Setting aside all the liking-men stuff, I did want to make him feel better somehow, if I could. But I was a girlfriendless shut-in of a NEET who had never so much as been on a date, so what was I supposed to do?

Garius smiled a little to see me so at a loss. “It seems you’ve caught me at a rather less than flattering moment.” Then he turned away, as if he didn’t want me to see his face right now.

He started walking. Was he just going to walk away? His bearing was as regal as ever, yet the disappointment in his mood was almost palpable.

“H-Hey, Garius-san?”

“Hm?”

He stopped. Thank goodness.

He glanced over his shoulder at me, and I scoured my brain for something comforting to say. I played back the conversation I’d just heard in my mind, desperate to find some other spin I could put on the words.

And then it came to me.

“That thing Prince Rubert said earlier...”

Your own feelings, any affection for anyone else—if it can be used, you use it, he’d said.

“Wasn’t he pretty much admitting that he cares about you, Garius-san?”

Something unusual happened then: Garius’s eyes went wide in an expression of surprise.

“Yes, he ended up using those feelings for political ends, but the feelings themselves were real, right? He’s, like, the ultimate tsundere.”

The same was true of what he had said before that. The freedom to love is something we don’t have and will never have. Wasn’t that, in essence, a way of lamenting that because he was born a royal, Rubert could never openly express his love for Garius, however great that love might be?

Garius stood silent for what seemed like ages.

“Of... of course, that’s just my... my personal interpretation...” I said, rapidly losing confidence. Garius knew Rubert about a million times better than I did. I was just an ignorant outsider offering baseless speculation.

Finally, Garius said, “I see.” After what appeared to be a moment’s contemplation, he smiled a peaceful smile. The way he narrowed his eyes, the way his expression looked almost affectionate—in a way, it reminded me of Petralka. No question the two of them were related. He didn’t exactly look like he was suddenly full of energy, but the shroud of darkness that had seemed to hang over him a few minutes before had dispersed. Assuming I wasn’t just imagining that, then I guess I had managed to make him feel at least a little better.

I let out a little breath. “Well, uh, I guess I’d better be going...”

Job done, I turned to go back to my friends, who were still “hiding” nearby.

About a second later, though, someone pulled on my hand so hard I almost pitched forward. It was Garius, who had come up quickly.

“Thank you, Shinichi,” he said, still grasping my hand tightly.

“D-Don’t mention it. I’m glad you’re feeling a little better.”

Garius’s face was definitely closer to mine than was absolutely necessary. I looked away from him a bit.

He seemed to be feeling better, and that was what mattered. I had done my part, so I wanted to go back to my friends. I wanted to get out of here! (I really did, so I’m saying it twice!)

Garius, though, didn’t seem to pick up on my private wish. “Your help, Shinichi, seems to have relieved me of a great many burdens,” he said. “For that, I must thank you.” He smiled tenderly at me.

...Tenderly?

“G-Gee, that’s great...”

“If I may ask, have you no thoughts about these recent events?”

“Huh? Should there be?”

“I see...”

Excuse me...?

I thought I saw a shadow pass over Garius’s face, but maybe I was just imagining it. The gaze he leveled at me was so intense... I found myself wishing I could look away, or at least get this over with. Quickly. Please?

“U-Um...”

I had a rapidly expanding bad feeling. I glanced back at the others in hopes of rescue, but Loek and Romilda were just watching, wide-eyed but uncomprehending; Hikaru-san was positively enjoying this; and Minori-san was giving me a huge thumbs-up.

Forget the encouragement, guys!

“Shinichi.” Garius almost whispered my name. His face was very, very close.

Too close! Too close!

If this were a gal game, I’d be wondering where I had taken the wrong path. That thought constituted my attempt to escape from reality as the door to a new world forced itself open before me.

It was several days since Prince Rubert had gone home. The employees of Amutech were in the small audience chamber, giving our regular report. Myusel was with us today. Partly that was because she was slated to teach at school—but it was also because as a half-elf, and a maid at that, she had been understandably avoiding the castle while Prince Rubert was here.

The first thing Petralka said from her place on her throne was, “These events have provided a valuable lesson.”

“What events?” I asked.

“Everything involving Prince Rubert,” Petralka said with a thin smile. It had been days since the prince left, so I’d thought maybe she was talking about something else, but apparently the prince and everything that had happened with him was still in her mind. “There is no need to hurry,” Petralka said, and for some reason she looked away from me, into the distance. “We have decided that we shall take time to consider, to think, and to find an answer.”

An answer? She’d already answered Prince Rubert’s marriage proposal... ahh. But there were sure to be a lot more proposals in the future, and she would have to think about what to say. To me, as a twenty-first-century Japanese person, Petralka still seemed young—maybe too young to be getting married. But this world thought differently. Women married younger, and empresses were seen as eligible earlier than most. Suitors would come from both inside and outside Eldant. She’d refused this time, effectively returning us to the status quo. But the idea of marriage had been planted in Petralka’s mind, and it wasn’t going to go away.

“By the standards of Ja-pan, we are yet young to be married, is that not so?”

“Er, yeah. Yeah, that’s true.”

In fact, people were marrying later and later in Japan—the plummeting birthrate was becoming a real problem—but I figured most places in the world would consider your mid-teens pretty early to be getting married. Considering how bothered Petralka was by her childish looks, I wondered if she might see marriage as a sign of adulthood, and be eager to get hitched because it would help show that she was fully grown up. But then again, nothing says still a kid like the urge to prove you’re an adult.

From that perspective, maybe Petralka had started to mature. To become an adult, you have to start by recognizing that you’re a child. Or at least, I thought so. I was hardly a wizened old man myself, so maybe I wasn’t one to talk.

“That being the case...” Petralka leaned on the right arm of her throne and looked—not at me, but at Myusel. The maid promptly straightened up. “We will not brook your overtaking us while we take our time to think, Myusel.”

“Wha...?” The befuddled interjection came not from Myusel, but from me. Why was Petralka suddenly talking to my maid? Was she telling Myusel not to marry anyone before Petralka herself did? No, that would be tyrannical, wouldn’t it? Or did she have something else in mind?

It looked like I was the only person who was confused, though. Myusel sort of shuddered fearfully, but then, to my surprise, she replied with a firm nod. “Understood, Your Majesty.”

“Mm.” Petralka nodded back at her.

An empress nodding at a maid was like the heavens nodding at the earth, yet the two of them seemed to be recognizing each other almost like friendly rivals. Or was that just my overactive imagination? I was starting to feel uncomfortable; I wasn’t sure where to put my eyes. My gaze was just darting this way and that when it happened to meet Garius’s eyes as he stood beside Petralka.

Oops. Now that I had looked straight at him, I couldn’t exactly look immediately away again. I forced myself to smile as pleasantly as I could and tried to think of something harmless to say.

“Uh, I guess it’s been a bit of a rough few days for you too, huh, Garius-san?”

Shoot! I didn’t realize until the words were out of my mouth that it wasn’t really the right thing to say. It was like pouring salt in his wounds.

But Garius, with no sign of offense, said, “Not at all.” In fact, his smile seemed more genuine than ever. “These events offered me a chance to do some thinking as well.”

“Oh, uh, they did?”

Garius looked so... cheerful. I guess he considered the matter of Rubert settled for the time being. I didn’t know how he had managed to accept it so quickly, but if he felt okay about it, and even thought he had learned something from it, then that was great.

Still smiling, Garius went on, “Value the truth of things above appearances and pretensions—that’s one way.”

“Come again...?”

“A public marriage may not be necessary, if the substance of the relationship amounts to the same thing. It’s just a possibility.”

“Huh...?”

What was he talking about? Er, I mean, if Prince Rubert had married Petralka, then Garius would practically be—well, I knew we had considered that possibility, the idea that one royal marriage could serve two purposes. But why bring that up now? And why look at me while he said it? And so seriously?

I was just starting to really sweat when Petralka clapped her hands and exclaimed “Yes! That is indeed a possibility!”

I guess this made sense to her somehow.

“Ow!” I was still at a loss to understand what was going on when somebody pounded me on the back. I glanced over my shoulder to find Minori-san, using one hand to cover her mouth and the other to slap me heedlessly on the back. Again and again. It was like she couldn’t hold it in. What the heck was going on?

“A public proposal? Garius-san... oh, what an operator!” Minori-san exclaimed gleefully.

“Er...?”

“Oh, come on! You don’t have to be embarrassed!” She continued to smack my shoulder, practically laughing out loud.

Well, at least there was one thing I understood. I might not know what was going on, but it was obvious that Minori-san had completely lost it. Again.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And that really hurts.” She might be a girl, but as a trained member of the military, her open-handed slap was enormously powerful. And painful.

“Uh—Um, Shinichi-sama?”

“Huh? Wh-What is it, Myusel?”

“I’ll... I’ll be sure to give it my all, too...!”

“Huh? All of your what?”

Even Myusel was jumping on the nonsense train now? She had clenched her fists in a kind of I’m-on-it! pose. Was I seriously the only one who wasn’t getting this?

“H-Hey, Hikaru-san...” I said, turning to the one person who had been quiet the whole time so far. He was given to outbursts of 100% chuunibyou-ism, sure, but his slantwise take on things had a sort of rationality all its own. I figured he probably had the closest thing to an objective perspective on whatever was going on here. “C-Can you explain—”

But Hikaru-san didn’t say anything, just put a hand to his cheek and let out a very long sigh. Then he narrowed his eyes at me and finally spoke: “I really, really want to hit you right now.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“Y-You too, Minori-san?!”

So I really was the only one who wasn’t getting it?!

“Do you think maybe he has some kind of sickness that makes him this dense?”

A sickness! They said I was sick!

Wait—and dense?! Why?

“C-Come on, what’s happening?”

“Ohhhh...” Hikaru-san let out a very pointed sigh.

..................................................................................................Oh.

Then, and only then, I finally put the pieces together.

Myusel. Petralka. And me.

That was—but we—

Hikaru-san gave me a sarcastic look where I had frozen with fear, sweat dripping down my brow.

“Eh, looks like you’ve got plenty of time,” he said. “Think about your options and get back to us.”

（つづく）

To be continued...