Outbreak Company: Volume 8 (Premium)

by Ichiro Sakaki

  “Oh, uh, on that subject.” The note of pride crept back into my voice. Kanou Shinichi, ready for anything! (Okay, maybe not anything.) “I know someone who might fit that bill.”

  “You do?” Petralka and her advisors looked shocked. I gave them a big grin and a thumbs-up.

  There was still time until dinner. After getting back to the mansion, I dropped my stuff off at my room, then headed for the living area. I didn’t really have enough time to start anything, so I went hoping I would find someone to help me pass the time.

  I peeked into the living room, and saw a couple of girls in there.

  Er, more precisely, I saw one girl and one guy who looked like a girl.

  The guy was Hikaru-san. The girl was Elvia Harneiman, another resident of our mansion.

  She had golden-brown skin, four gangly limbs, and a real joie de vivre. She was a pretty natural girl—okay, almost entirely a natural girl—but I thought that suited her best. You know how makeup would look weird on a dog or a cat? This was sort of the same thing: she was great the way nature made her.

  By Eldant standards, however, Elvia was not a “human.”

  She was a demi-human—a werewolf, one of the wolf-like beast people.

  Although if you ask me, Elvia was less of a wolf and more like a domestic dog—a puppy, at that. Her fuzzy ears and fluffy tail, and the way she kind of bounced everywhere she went, gave an impression of barely controlled eagerness. It made you want to just pet her and nuzzle her to your heart’s content. Which would be fine with an actual dog, I guess, but Elvia was a person, a girl, so I had to fight to control myself.

  Elvia was sitting in a chair, running a pencil along a piece of paper secured to an easel in front of her. Periodically, she would look up at Hikaru-san, then go back to the paper, her pencil working quickly.

  Elvia called herself a wandering artist. The fact was, she was really a spy from Bahairam, but she did have some real artistic ability. She also seemed to like drawing a lot better than spying, and the rest of us didn’t worry too much about her supposed “real” job.

  Across from Elvia, Hikaru-san was sitting completely still. He seemed frozen—not moving a muscle, like a doll. He wasn’t in any special pose; his hands were folded neatly in his lap and he was sitting naturally, but he was so still, it was almost like he wasn’t breathing. I had never seen anyone stay so motionless.

  Elvia seemed to be using her—er, him—as a model for a drawing.

  Hikaru-san was expressionless. Elvia was the picture of seriousness. There was an electricity in the air, and I discovered I couldn’t quite bring myself to step into the room.

  But then Hikaru-san noticed me standing there. “Heavens,” he said. “Is something the matter?” Only his eyes and mouth moved.

  “Oh, no, I don’t need anything special... Just wondering if I can come in...”

  “You’re fine.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks...”

  I came in hesitantly and sat in a chair next to Hikaru-san. Elvia’s eyes stayed fixed on her canvas; she didn’t so much as glance at me. She just kept drawing away in absolute concentration. I knew how focused she could be, but it never failed to impress me. When she was deep in a drawing, sometimes Elvia wouldn’t even hear you if you talked to her.

  Just incidentally, the pencil she was using was one I’d gotten for her from Japan. She always used to work in charcoal, but once I became interested in her artistic abilities, I started to wonder what she would do with more specialized supplies—and it turned out she learned them very quickly, and her drawing abilities immediately improved. She wasn’t exactly using a pen tablet or CG rendering programs yet, but hey.

  “I think we’ll be done soon,” Hikaru-san said, smiling.

  “Right...” I could only give a noncommittal nod.

  Soon the only sounds in the living room were our respective breathing, and Elvia’s pencil scratching along the paper.

  “All done!” Elvia announced suddenly, looking up. She had a gigantic grin on her face, genuinely thrilled, the kind of smile that makes you happy just to see it. She really did love art. Moments like these were when Elvia looked the most adorable of all.

  But, uh, anyway...

  “Shinichi-sama?!”

  Her eyes went wide—she had finally noticed me. I told you she knew how to concentrate. Someone could have a sword at her throat, or a fight could break out, or a natural disaster could bring the house tumbling down around her, and she might not even notice. There was a certain danger in that, but I had to admit, I was a little jealous, too.

  “Wh-When did you get here?!”

  “Just a few minutes ago.” I smiled. “So you were drawing Hikaru-san?”

  “Uh-huh. I like to do faces from time to time, y’know?”

  “And I happened to be passing through,” Hikaru-san added, “so she called me over.”

  We had established that doing art was Elvia’s way of attenuating her beast-person hunting instinct. It involved careful focus, feeling out the object of your attention, and taking it within you—all things shared with stalking prey. That would explain why she wanted to draw still lifes and people as much as sketching from her imagination.

  “Thanks a lot, Hikaru-sama.”

  “Can I see the picture?” Hikaru-san held out his hands.

  “Sure!” Smiling, she handed him the finished product.

  I took a peek, too.

  “Ooh,” I breathed in admiration.

  On the paper was a black-and-white Hikaru-san. This was more than a sketch—it almost looked like a photograph. Elvia had always had a gift for realism, and once she got hold of pencils, with their capacity for precision, I felt like the details of her pictures had only improved.

  “This is incredible, Elvia,” I said.

  “Y-Y’ think so? Heh heh...” She blushed. She scratched the end of her nose, maybe a gesture of embarrassment. In any event, she looked awfully cute doing it.

  “You’ve got him to a T,” I said, looking closely at the “Hikaru-san” on the paper.

  “I guess it has that in common with making figures,” Hikaru-san said quietly, looking at the picture with me.

  “Huh?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you emphasize things, make them more than they are. If the subject’s eyes droop a little, you draw them drooping a little more. If they’re a bit rotund, you make them a little rounder. A touch of exaggeration actually makes the impression more accurate.” Hikaru-san pointed to the picture. “The drawing seems photo-real, but you can see that the details are just a little bit off—a little bit overemphasized. I don’t know if Elvia’s doing that consciously or not, but...”

  Hikaru-san pulled out his phone and pulled up a picture. It was him—wearing different clothes, but looking substantially like Elvia’s drawing. (That’s a cosplayer; of course he would have pictures of himself on his phone.)

  “I get it...”

  I had understood intellectually the technique of emphasizing certain details, but as someone who didn’t do any drawing, I didn’t really have a good personal grasp of it. But with the photo and the drawing side-by-side, I could pick up the differences.

  Things like the angle and the light can make a person look like a total stranger in a photograph, and there was no question that between the two of them, Elvia’s drawing felt closer to Hikaru-san as I pictured him in my head.

  “Again, I don’t think Elvia is doing it deliberately.”

  I guess that’s talent for you.

  “Doin’ what?” she asked, looking a little perplexed.

  “That’s what makes me think that when it comes to the puppet double for Her Majesty, there are some things about the clothes and appearance that we should change,” Hikaru-san said, putting a finger to his chin. “We could just put it in normal clothes, to make it look like her, but because we also want to hide the joints and stuff, I thought maybe custom-made clothing might be in order... Then again, it depends a little on how it’s made. We s
hould probably hide ball joints, but otherwise, it might actually look unnatural trying to cover them up.”

  “Clothes aren’t exactly my specialty,” I said, “so maybe I can leave that to you?”

  “Fine by me. I’m sure Minori-san will have some ideas, too.”

  They both loved cosplay, anyway. I figured it would be a lot more efficient to just let them handle everything, rather than trying to offer my amateur opinions.

  “That just leaves the makeup... or I guess you’d say the paint,” Hikaru-san said. “Mostly we can let the dwarves handle that. Her Majesty looks pretty young, so the main thing will be to emphasize that. Maybe make the stand-in look a little rounder, be sure to get some blush in the cheeks...”

  “I agree with everything you just said,” I told him, “but take my advice and never let Petralka hear you say it.”

  Petralka was somewhat less than happy about her girlish appearance. If anyone described her as young or childish, regardless of whether they meant anything by it, she would get steaming mad. I happened to have received a royal punch to the face at our first meeting—although that was partly my fault for exclaiming “IS THAT REALLY AN ARCHETYPICAL LITTLE GIRL CHARACTER?!” the moment I saw her.

  “Anyway, there are some things we’ll need to ask Minori-san and Matoba-san about,” I said. I was hoping we could get the doll’s external covering—its skin—from Japan, along with the clothing materials and makeup. After all, putting clothes and paint right onto a wooden (or metal) surface didn’t seem likely to fool anybody.

  But that would mean working with Matoba Jinzaburou-san—the middleman between my company, Amutech, and the Japanese government; a classic bureaucrat. And that thought made my skin crawl.

  “So you can’t just make them look identical,” Elvia mused, looking at her drawing and the photo of Hikaru-san. “Who knew this was so hard?”

  “Yeah, sometimes overemphasizing things makes them look more realistic.”

  “Izzat right...”

  “I think we talked about this before.”

  “We did?” She chuckled with embarrassment. Geez, she was one adorable beast girl.

  “You mean you don’t think about that stuff when you’re drawing?” Hikaru-san asked.

  Elvia shook her head. “Uh-uh. Not a bit.”

  I knew it: she wasn’t going by logic but by a sort of intuition, a je ne sais quoi. I had to marvel afresh; that itself indicated serious talent.

  “Oh, here you are,” said a voice as clear and sweet as the ringing of a bell. We turned, and there was Myusel, once more dressed in her maid outfit, in the doorway. “Dinner is ready, but I couldn’t find any of you in your rooms...”

  “Thanks. We’ll be right there.” I got up from my chair, and Hikaru-san and Elvia did the same.

  I had a lot to think about, but priority one was getting some food in me. Who could think on an empty stomach?

  And so I followed Myusel into the kitchen.

  Okay, so anyway, the next day came.

  And I stood wondering how I had gotten myself into this.

  I stood smack in the middle of a large room, desperately concerned about my current situation.

  In front of me was a girl with her back to me. She was wearing very light clothes—probably the best way I could describe what she was wearing was as a camisole and shorts; anyway, obviously very thin clothing that left the lines of her body easily visible. Her bare shoulders and pale legs just about blinded me. It was enough to make me worry that a careless touch might despoil her.

  It was the honored and alluring body of Petralka an Eldant III.

  But...

  Is that... the spell she was talking about before?

  There on her back—her lower back, just above her behind—a complicated pattern was tattooed into her skin. The ink was almost the color of her flesh, so it didn’t stand out much, but I bet you could see it better, say, after she had been in the bath, when the skin was flushed.

  A member of the imperial family was always in danger from assassins and killers. While her royal knights might be able to deflect swords or arrows, powerful and/or long-range magic wasn’t something you could stop with a shield or armor. Hence, her body was covered in spells designed to reflect offensive magic.

  I had seen it work once, but I had never seen the inscription itself with my own eyes.

  Man... It brings home to you just how important an empress is...

  I know it was a little late to be having that epiphany. Sorry.

  “Won’t you hurry and do it, Shinichi?” Petralka urged me.

  “Oh, but, uh...”

  “Yes, what?” She glared back at me over her shoulder. “What makes you hesitate?”

  “No matter how careful I am, I’m still... gonna touch you.”

  “We believe we instructed you not to worry about such niceties. Or what? Do you find the notion of touching our person unpleasant?”

  “N-No, not at all.”

  I had exactly the opposite problem, actually. I was afraid that one stray touch would lead to another, and pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from huffing and panting and getting my hands all over her. All of which, I was fairly confident, would lead to the prompt separation of my head from my body.

  “Not at all?” Petralka pursed her lips in displeasure, turning even more towards me.

  Urgh. That’s a very dangerous angle, Your Majesty.

  I found my brain overwhelmed by the almost-but-not-quite perspective, the small space between the camisole(-ish thing) and her skin through which I could very nearly, maybe-but-maybe-not catch a glimpse of that small chest. It might have been a modest endowment, but it was a girl’s chest just the same. As slight as it was, it pushed up the camisole, hence why there was the tiniest gap between her skin and the fabric, and to see it was like looking into a secret place where I mustn’t look but which was now revealed before meeeeeeeghhhhhh.

  Without really thinking about it, I found myself clapping a hand over my nose and looking away.

  I forced myself to take my eyes off Petralka—and instead looked at Minori-san, who was standing with an exasperated expression on her face. “Shinichi-kun, I get it, okay? But Her Highness was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule for us, so...”

  “...Yeth, ma’am. I underthand.”

  I nodded, then gently took my hand off my nose.

  Safe. No nosebleed. So far.

  Then I took a deep breath.

  That’s right. Calm down, Kanou Shinichi.

  I wasn’t alone in here. Minori-san was with me, and so was Hikaru-san, while several female knights—Petralka’s royal guard—stood along the walls. Maybe the reason I felt so jumpy had to do with the collective suspicion they were leveling at me.

  Right. It’s okay.

  Even on the off chance I totally lost it and committed a crime for the ages, or looked like I was about to commit a crime, someone would stop me. I hoped.

  All too aware that I was maybe relying too much on the kindness of those around me, I reached out for Petralka again.

  “Okay,” I said, taking her delicate arm in my hand. “P-Pardon me...”

  I could hear my own heart pounding in my chest. This was hardly the first time I had touched Petralka—she even used to sit on my lap while we read books together, and I’d been unable to avoid touching her exposed shoulders then. But even so, confronted with the empress in what amounted to her underwear, I couldn’t help the feeling I was doing something absolutely taboo.

  Carefully, oh so carefully, I pressed it to Petralka’s body.

  “It” being the measuring tape I’d borrowed from Hikaru-san.

  “Let’s see...” I ran the measuring tape around her, reading off the number for her waist.

  Minori-san’s job was to take notes, though apparently we were also audio-recording this. Hikaru-san was just an observer; he stood slightly apart, watching me.

  So, what were we doing? In a word, we were taking Petralka’s measuremen
ts. In a few more words, we needed detailed numbers for different parts of her body. This was all so that we could build her body double—her stand-in doll.

  Making a detailed replica naturally required taking detailed measurements. Personally, I felt that job could have been handled by anybody, but someone had the bright thought that as the guy who had come up with the idea, I should handle the measurements as well.

  I guess as sort of the foreman, it made a certain kind of sense—but I made sure to have Minori-san and Hikaru-san with me, the people who would handle making the actual clothes. They knew a lot more about this sort of thing than I did.

  But then came the moment when we were actually ushered into the audience chamber. Petralka had turned to her guards for help removing her clothing, and then standing there in her undergarments had turned back to me and said, “Now, measure. You need not hesitate.”

  “Uh, Petralka...”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t mean to quibble, but... are you sure it wouldn’t be better for Minori-san or one of your guards to do this...?”

  I know, I know. Taking some measurements shouldn’t really be guilt-inducing stuff. But even so, I was a guy and Petralka was a girl, and with virtually nothing but a thin piece of cloth between me and her, I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed.

  Come to think of it, back when we were making the movie, I’d accidentally stumbled into the girls’ changing area, but Petralka hadn’t seemed very bothered then, either. She’d had her guards help her out of her clothes earlier—I guess important people rarely change clothes all by themselves, so maybe she’d numbed any sense of embarrassment.

  Me, though, I couldn’t take this so calmly. Not to mention, I wasn’t just measuring her height or something. We needed the length of her arms, her legs, the size of her hips and chest, and more. I thought girls usually didn’t want guys knowing that sort of thing about them—especially their bust size.

  Or did Petralka just not think of me as a guy? That would have been something of a tragedy in its own right, but...

  “And yet a quibbler you are,” Petralka said, glancing over her shoulder again. “Are you indeed so averse to touching our person?”