“Oh. Elvia.”
The wolf girl was running toward us down the hallway. “Welcome hooome!” She ground to a halt in front of us, grinning. The fluffy ears that hung from her head flopped, and the fuzzy tail that grew from her behind wagged like a happy puppy. This was the girl we had been talking about at the castle: the former Bahairamanian spy, now our resident artist, Elvia Harneiman.
“That should be our line,” I objected.
“When did you get back from Bahairam?” Myusel asked.
In addition to being Amutech’s live-in artist, she was also our smuggler—specifically, quietly helping to get otaku goods into Bahairam. I know that all sounds very cloak-and-dagger, but all I really wanted was for Elvia to help Bahairam realize the neat stuff that was available, and maybe to start thinking that it could be worth their while to be friends with Eldant. Call it an information campaign. Granted, when I suggested the idea to the Eldant leadership, I did deliberately use the phrase “cultural invasion.”
“Just got back this morning!” Elvia said brightly.
All her movements tended to be exaggerated. Like, if she nodded, her whole body would shake as she flung her head up and down. It inevitably made her bulging chest, straining at her tube top, inescapably apparent.
And not only was her shirt basically an undergarment, her pants were low-rise shorts, so her midriff was completely out there. Maybe she did it for ease of movement, but this amount of skin, this amount of exposure—let’s just say it really caught the eye. The only saving grace was that the way she acted was so innocent, it didn’t really come across as sexy.
“And so, uh, Shinichi-sama...”
“Everything went okay, right?”
“Huh...?” Elvia looked at me in surprise.
“Oh, uh...” I tried to put my response in the least unsettling possible way. “Actually, we were just at Eldant Castle by special summons. They said there seems to be more fighting on the border with Bahairam, and to be careful.”
“O—Oh...”
Was it just my imagination, or did a cloud pass over Elvia’s face?
“You just look like nothing bad happened, and I was glad to see it.”
“I definitely get why Garius seemed so uptight, with stuff like that happening,” Hikaru-san said from behind me.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Minori-san said. “And you can’t exactly go building a Great Wall just to try to keep the country safe.”
“The people who kidnapped Shinichi-san made it all the way to this mansion, right?”
“They sure did. I know we’re on the outskirts of the capital here, but that still puts us fairly close to the border. There is a mountain range that would make it hard to bring a big army across, but still...”
“U-Um...” Elvia said, looking anxious. “I-If it turns out, uh, that the Bahairamanian army invades, er... What happens to me?”
“Oh, you’re okay, Elvia, you’re fine,” I said, forcing myself to smile reassuringly.
Minori-san, though, shrugged a little. “They’ve made an exception for you, Elvia, but if someone from Bahairam were to enter Eldant unofficially, illegally... well, they’d probably be arrested and executed.”
“E-E-Executed?!” She stiffened.
Minori-san didn’t hold back. “That’s what would have happened to you if Shinichi-kun hadn’t intervened. He pushed to keep you on as our artist because of your drawing skills, but if you hadn’t been an artist, there would have been nowhere to hide.”
“Is—Izzat right? I mean... Sure it is...” She was nodding again. She suddenly looked especially pale—I wondered what was wrong. Was she still feeling guilty about having been a spy for Bahairam...?
“I told you, Elvia, they aren’t going to do anything to you,” I hastened to remind her, but she didn’t relax. What was going on? Was there something else she was worried about? “What’s the matter?” I asked.
“...I-It’s nothing.”
“Come to think of it, Elvia-san, didn’t you say there was something you wanted to talk to Shinichi-sama about?” Myusel asked.
“Huh...?!” Elvia sounded desperate.
“Is there? What is it?” I asked. Now that I thought about it, it had sounded like Elvia had had more to say.
“Oh, n-no, really, it’s nothing!”
“Yeah? But—”
“N-Nothing at all! I swear!” Elvia was practically shouting now. Then she spun on her heel and dashed back down the hall. Almost like she was running away...
“The heck?” I said, scratching my head. It sure didn’t look like nothing.
“I don’t know...” Myusel said, equally befuddled. I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought Elvia was acting strange.
Minori-san, meanwhile, was looking down the hall after Elvia. I was disturbed to see that her usual easygoing look had been replaced by the stern demeanor of a JSDF soldier.
We all ate dinner together. That was sort of a custom at Amutech—or at least at our mansion.
Minori-san, Elvia, Hikaru-san, and I were there, of course—but so were our servants, who never normally ate with their masters in Eldant society. They included Myusel, as well as our gardener Brooke and his wife Cerise, another maid.
Brooke and Cerise, by the way, belonged to a race called the lizardmen. They literally looked like walking lizards. Everything about them was lizardlike, including the fact that they were cold-blooded and laid eggs. That meant they needed a slightly different menu than the rest of us. Lots of raw stuff, primarily.
Having to prepare separate meals for different species meant Myusel, who cooked for us, had extra work to do, but Cerise had been able to help since she got here. Myusel told me meals were much easier for her now.
Anyway...
“So the upshot is, we need to have a special class where we teach the kids about how to be polite when they’re doing photography,” I said, summing up our day.
“I hope we can do it sooner rather than later,” Hikaru-san said, sighing. “I can’t stand getting my picture taken too much more.” As a cosplayer, Hikaru-san was more than used to posing for photos, but there was a limit to his patience when it came to people taking pictures without asking.
“So far there’s been no harm done, but we can’t wait until after somebody secretly snaps a photo of somebody else,” Minori-san said.
“Er... It might already be too late for that...”
“Huh...?”
“Huh? I mean, uh, nothing!” I said, shaking my head.
If Loek wanted to delete that photo before it became a problem, this was the time... though since Romilda and everyone had already seen it, it was already too late. Sooner or later, Minori-san would find out about that picture, and I imagined it would lead to a scolding Loek wouldn’t recover from for a while.
“Myusel, doesn’t it bother you when they snap a picture like that?” I asked, hoping to deflect the conversation in another direction.
Myusel had been listening to us without saying anything, and seemed a little surprised when the conversation suddenly turned to her. She blinked for a moment before collecting her thoughts. “Me? I just think... it’s so incredible to be able to capture a scene in an instant like that.”
Ahh, what a sweet, naïve perspective. Sometimes, hearing Myusel talk made me feel like a deeply polluted creature. I mean, obviously I’m not going to claim I’m always totally innocent.
“And it comes from the desire to keep photo-graphs of the people and places you care about nearby.”
“That’s true enough.” (Uh... if we’re dividing motivations into affection and malice, I guess carnal desire falls under affection.)
“If I had a chance, I’d like to—” Myusel glanced shyly at me, then quickly looked away. I saw her cheeks flush just the tiniest bit. Wait...
“Myusel, do you want a camera, too?”
“What? Oh, no, I could never...” She looked down and seemed to shrink into herself. She looked so modest, so restrained—it was unbelievably moe.
“It would be hard not to want one when you see everyone around you using them, huh?”
“Er... Ahem, well, that may be partly true...”
I knew Myusel, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to just come out and say that she wanted a camera—so I would have to say it for her. She probably didn’t need a complicated DSLR or anything; a nice, small fire-and-forget daily model would be fine. If I asked, I could probably get one sent over with the next regular shipment.
“I don’t think a camera is exactly what Myusel’s aiming for,” Minori-san interjected with a sly grin.
“Wha...?”
It wasn’t?
“M-Minori-sama!” Myusel sounded uncharacteristically frantic. Minori-san seemed to be enjoying this.
Wait. What’s going on here?
Was this what they called “girl talk”? (Note: probably not.)
“Anyway, I’ll ask them to send over a camera for you, Myusel,” Minori-san said. Then she glanced around the table. “By the way, speaking of cameras, I was thinking of having them print out some of the pictures we took in Japan. Myusel, Elvia, you want any?”
“May I?” Myusel asked.
“Sure. We’ll bring some by for Her Majesty, too.”
“That reminds me, I never showed Brooke and Cerise any of our Akiba pictures.”
I had brought them some dried fruits and some Haku*** Kairo hand warmers as souvenirs from Japan, and I had already given them those—but I had never shown them the photos.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened my pictures from Japan. I held the phone out across the table so Brooke and Cerise could see.
“What is this towering fortress...?!”
Confronted with a photo I’d taken of Myusel in Akiba, Brooke didn’t remark on our maid’s wardrobe, but rather on the background. Considering Brooke was a former military man, I guess it made sense that he would notice the terrain right away.
“Petralka said the same thing. But it’s not a fortress, those are buildings. We call them skyscrapers.”
“And what unusual outfits,” Cerise offered. (I guess it took a woman.) “But they look very good on all of you.”
Brooke and Cerise were both covered in scales, so they sometimes didn’t seem very expressive. It could be almost impossible to tell what they were thinking just from their faces, but by paying attention to their conversation and the general vibe they gave off, it was possible for me to tell that they were intrigued by the photographs.
“Seeing as Myusel and Petralka survived having their pictures taken by everyone in that huge crowd in Akiba, I guess they’re pretty used to being in photographs by now,” I said.
“True,” Minori-san replied. “Considering how they started... That would impair anyone’s judgment.”
Strictly speaking, they had been in front of the camera before, back when we made our movie, and in Akiba a camera punk (but note: he was around thirty years old) snapped our pictures. But having a sea of cell phones and digital cameras aimed at you probably overwhelmed those other memories.
“Okay, we’ll print pictures for Myusel and Her Majesty... What about you, Elvia?”
No answer.
“Elvia...?”
“Buh?!”
She seemed to hear us for the first time, looking up suddenly with a shiver.
“You seem kind of out of it,” Minori-san said. “Everything all right? You haven’t eaten much, either...”
She was right: almost all the food was still on Elvia’s plate.
That was unusual. Elvia seemed to have what you might call poor mileage—the rest of us often watched stupefied as she shoveled food into her mouth. Myusel always made sure to give her extra-large helpings at meals, and she was still usually the first one done. Yet tonight, she had hardly eaten anything.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t been part of our conversation at all, either. She just seemed really down somehow...
“Doesn’t it taste good?” Myusel asked, concerned.
“N-No, that’s not it at all!” Elvia said, and hurriedly began eating. “It’s great, just like always!”
A moment later, though, her hands stopped again. She was definitely worried about something.
She’d seemed strange ever since she got back from Bahairam—or more precisely, ever since we had talked about what happened there.
“Hey,” I said gently. “Are you worried about Amatena and Clara?”
Amatena. Clara. Both from Bahairam, and both people who had been involved with my kidnapping. And Amatena, as it happened, was Elvia’s older sister. The two of them were serving with the Bahairamanian military in a little town near the border. Which meant, to our chagrin, that they would be on the front lines if war ever broke out.
At my question, Elvia stiffened. All the hair on her bushy tail, which had been hidden behind her chair, stood straight up as if she had gotten a big static shock.
“Sh-Shinichi-sama, why would you think...?” The strain on her face was unmistakable.
“Why? I mean...”
I thought it was perfectly natural to worry about your family back home.
“Incidentally, Elvia.” This time Brooke spoke up, nonchalantly, almost as if he’d just thought of something.
“Y-Yes?! What is it?” Elvia’s voice hit a new octave.
“That little shed I wasn’t using—I cleaned it up and cleared it out. It’s available whenever you might need it.”
“Th-Thanks.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
This was the first I’d heard of it. Sure, the grounds of our mansion had several small sheds scattered around. One of them had been remodeled into a place for Brooke and Cerise to stay, but the others we just left, using them to store our junk.
“She asked if she might use it,” Cerise said.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Well, uh, er...” Elvia’s hands were noticeably sweaty. “O-Oh yeah! M-My paints and stuff! I’ve got all my supplies and half-finished pictures and everything, and I needed a place to put them!”
“Couldn’t you use your own room?” We had given Elvia one of the mansion’s more spacious bedchambers. Had she really accumulated so much that she still needed more space? But when had she gotten all those supplies?
“O-Oh, you know... I just wanted to keep my work outside of the room... Oh, humidity! The humidity is bad for them! So...” Elvia cut herself off and jumped to her feet. “I j-just remembered something I have to do! I’ll have dinner in my room!”
“Hey—”
Before we could stop her, she swept up her plate and rushed off.
“I wonder if something’s the matter with Elvia-san...?” Myusel said.
“She’s been acting weird ever since she got home,” I agreed.
Was she so worried about Amatena and Clara that she couldn’t even eat? But then why would she go out of her way to take dinner to her room? Was she planning to have it for a midnight snack?
Hmmm. Nothing quite made sense.
“Then again,” I said, “Elvia’s always acted a little bit weird.”
“True that,” Minori-san said. “Like the time she shoved you to the ground and jumped on top of you...”
“What?! Did that really happen?!” Hikaru-san exclaimed, shocked.
...Oh yeah. Hikaru-san hadn’t been here for that. He didn’t know exactly how Elvia got during her “phase of the moon.” I gathered Elvia had been doing laps around the mansion and other things to try to make her phase less overwhelming.
“Elvia comes into heat during her phase of the moon,” Minori-san said matter-of-factly. “And Shinichi-kun—well...”
“Oh my God,” Hikaru-san said, putting his hand to his mouth as if he had heard something vile. “Did you take advantage of her?”
“What? No! No, I didn’t!”
“That’s just what a man would say. Disgusting.”
“Hikaru-san, you’re a man!”
How could he act so detached?! If they had sent hi
m instead of me to be Amutech’s general manager, he would have been the one who ended up on the floor, right? But then again, maybe he would never have tried to save Elvia in the first place? Hmm, but wait...
“It didn’t happen! Nothing happened! And I was the one who got jumped!”
“Ooh, a slutty bottom?”
“I! Am! Not!”
You (completely, totally rotten) WAC! Don’t go saying every confusing, misleading thing that comes into your brain!
“I didn’t do anything! Hey, stop, don’t look at me with that drawn, searching face! I’m innocent, I swear! I want my lawyerrrrr!”
I felt like I had been framed—but nothing could get Hikaru-san’s icy glare off me.
And so with this and that, evening came on.
I was in my office, trying to map out the curriculum for the photography course, when I heard a knock on the door and looked up.
“Shinichi-sama, it’s Myusel.”
“Come on in.”
I quit typing on my keyboard; the door opened, and in came Myusel with a cart. “I brought an evening snack for you.”
“Thanks.”
The cart had sandwiches, a tea set, and a single cup.
Hm? Why was there a cup along with the tea set?
“I see you’re working late,” Myusel said with a smile, wheeling the cart over to my desk. She put the sandwiches next to my computer. “May I ask what you’re working on...?”
Most of the time, Myusel just quietly left again after she had brought my snack, but recently, at my request, she had started staying to talk a little. Working alone at night, I sometimes found my thoughts going in weird directions, and chatting with her helped me take a step back and get some perspective on what I was doing.
“We need to sit the students down and teach them about photography. I was just outlining a possible course.”
“Ah... You’re thinking of this morning.”
“Yeah. If we explain it to them sort of the way Minori-san explained it to Petralka, they’ll probably get it... I hope. There are so many things that are common sense to me, that I have to remember need to be explained to people here.”
“I see.” Myusel nodded and passed me the cup. “Here you go.”
Outbreak Company: Volume 11 Page 4
