Outbreak Company: Volume 11

by Ichiro Sakaki

  ...Seriously though, that would be traumatic. Scary stuff.

  I suddenly realized the students were completely cowed by my ever more impassioned speech. I cleared my throat, hoping to get back to my subject. “Uh, that being the case, just make sure you ask before you take a picture. You’re welcome to come to my house, but you need to remember that rule.”

  That was it. There was a moment of silence, and then:

  “Yes, Senseiiii!” The kids all nodded obediently.

  While Shinichi-sama and the others were at school, Clara-san and I did the laundry and cleaning. Clara-san was capable and a quick learner, and I had very little to teach her in terms of practical basics. At most, I sometimes gave her tips on the best ways to get work done efficiently in this particular household. For example, the best order in which to clean the rooms to finish quickly. Whose laundry to do first, and whose to do last, such that the wash water would stay clean the longest. Things like that. (If you are wondering, when it came to clothing, Elvia-san’s tended to be dirtiest, so we saved her laundry for last.)

  Finally...

  “Let’s take a short break in the living room.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We were walking along hauling the bucket of dirty wash water. We put the cleaning supplies in the storage shed, wiped our hands, and went to the living room. No one else was there. Cerise-san and Brooke-san must have been off doing other work.

  I had Clara-san wait in the living room, while I went to the kitchen and got two teacups. They weren’t fancy cups like I would use to serve Shinichi-sama and the others, and the tea we drank was just cheap stuff, but with a spoonful of honey it was still an excellent antidote to our fatigue.

  “Here you are.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  We each sat on a sofa, with the table between us.

  “Are you feeling tired?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” Clara-san said.

  “I see.”

  “Yes.”

  There, our conversation broke off. When we were working together, there was little need to speak, which made things easier, but the silences could be somewhat uncomfortable when we were resting like this. I searched my mind for something to talk about.

  To my surprise, it was Clara-san who spoke first. “Myusel-san.”

  “Wha? Er, yes?”

  Maybe she found the silence as unpleasant as I did. She didn’t look like it, but then, she hardly showed any emotions...

  “What will we do next?”

  “Let’s see. Around the time the master gets home, we’ll start working on dinner. I’ll have you handling the same things as yesterday. Oh, but today we’ll use deatufos. You’ll need to slice them finely and make sure they’re well cooked.”

  “You don’t use them raw?” Clara-san asked, tilting her head.

  Yes, it was common to eat deatufos raw, and I heard it was quite tasty. Deatufos, by the way, were apparently similar to what, according to Shinichi-sama, the Ja-panese called a “tomato.”

  “That’s right. Shinichi-sama doesn’t seem to cope well with the texture of raw deatufos, and it’s hard to get him to eat them. But he enjoys them if they’re thoroughly cooked.”

  When I pictured Shinichi-sama eating my food and pronouncing it delicious—well, my cheeks flushed at the very thought. To be fair, he praised most of my cooking, but there also seemed to be specific ingredients and flavors he was less fond of, so that certain things he would eat more slowly, or in a specific order. I took careful note of these and made minor adjustments to the menu. All so that Shinichi-sama would be even happier.

  “Understood,” Clara-san said with a brief nod. “If that is what will make Shinichi-sama happy.”

  I didn’t answer, but a thought flashed through my mind. All day yesterday, Clara-san had been asking me if each thing we did would make Shinichi-sama happy. Of course, it was essential that a maid wish to please her master. But strictly speaking, in this household we served more than just Shinichi-sama. There was Hikaru-sama, and the young men’s bodyguard Minori-sama, as well. Yes, we all sat down together for meals, but the truth was that Brooke-san, Cerise-san, and even Elvia-san were effectively servants, so as maids our primary duty was to the three masters of the house. Yet Clara-san asked only about Shinichi-sama. Why? I wondered.

  “Er—ahem, Clara-san?”

  “Yes?”

  “Clara-san, when it comes to Shinichi-sama, do you...”

  Thoughts of my journey to Bahairam flitted through my head. When we had all parted ways, Clara-san had planted a kiss on Shinichi-sama’s cheek. I kept telling myself it had only been a gesture of farewell, and Shinichi-sama had said the same thing, but...

  “Do you... respect him very deeply... or... should I say...” Once the doubt crept in, I couldn’t get rid of it. “As a man... as a member of the opposite sex... do you feel any affection for...”

  “Yes.”

  My stumbling, confused words were met with a single, definitive answer from Clara-san. My chest ached.

  Of course, it was the right of anyone who knew Shinichi-sama to feel any way about him that they pleased. And Shinichi-sama could feel how he wished about anyone else. I was only one of his helpers, and it was joyful enough for me simply to serve at his side—or it should have been. But...

  “Shinichi-sama is the person I love second-most in the world.”

  “Wha...? S-Second-most, did you say?”

  “The first is my elder sister, Amatena Harneiman-sama,” Clara-san answered without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Oh, uh, I—I see.”

  I had no other answer. But Amatena-san was a woman. In that case, could Clara-san be talking not about romantic love, but about affection and respect for someone as a person? Or...

  “I think the question stands for you.”

  “What?”

  “You asked me, but how do you feel?”

  “W-Well, I...!”

  I was lost for an answer. I didn’t even know for sure what kind of like or dislike Clara-san was asking about. Considering Shinichi-sama as a person, of course I didn’t dislike him. He was my master, and on top of that, he was smart, and very kind. I had no reason at all to be unhappy with him. I wanted to see his smile. I wanted to be near to him. With my whole heart, I served Shinichi-sama so that he would be happy.

  Was that feeling simple respect, or...?

  “Shinichi-sama,” Clara-san said as if something had just occurred to her. “He said there was someone he had set his heart on.”

  “......Wha...?” It took me a moment even to process what she had said. Then my vision suddenly got dark, like I wasn’t getting enough blood to my head.

  Someone he has his heart set on.

  Meaning, someone Shinichi-sama hoped to have as his partner. Who... Who could it be? Minori-sama? Elvia-san? Or perhaps Her Majesty...?

  Could it possibly be Minister Cordobal? (I highly doubted it.)

  As my heart shattered into pieces, the names flashed through my mind. Until—

  “I believe he may have been talking about you.”

  “What? About me, what...?”

  “The one in his heart.”

  “But that can’t... I’m not...”

  “To judge from what I have seen so far, though, perhaps I was wrong. It seems the two of you have not so much as ‘held hands’ yet.”

  “H-H-Held hands...”

  I was not so naïve as to miss that she was implying much more than she said. And she was right: what she was implying had never once taken place between Shinichi-sama and me. But then...

  “Come to think of it, he did say something about being sick,” Clara-san said, cocking her head.

  Sick? Shinichi-sama?

  “What do you mean, sick?”

  “It seems that if his body becomes entangled with that of a woman, he will die.”

  “What?! Really?! Is there such an illness?”

  “I hear it is quite uncommon.”

  “Oh
no...”

  It was the first time I had heard anything about this. I felt myself growing more and more dizzy at my own fecklessness. I was aware that since Shinichi-sama’s arrival here, I had served him longer and more closely than anyone. I should have known him better than anyone else in the Holy Eldant Empire. And yet somehow, I had been completely unaware that he suffered from this life-threatening condition; somehow, I had never noticed it.

  Perhaps this sickness was unique to Ja-pan. Maybe I could ask Minori-sama or Hikaru-sama about it later. I wondered if there were certain foods you shouldn’t eat because of this illness...

  “Shinichi-sama...”

  Somehow, the whole thing left me indescribably sad. I stood there biting my nails as some emotion flooded up from inside me. I couldn’t say what it was; I could only try to endure.

  We all ate dinner together, as had been the custom in this mansion ever since I had suggested it. No one was forced to be there, of course. There were times when people just had work to do, or ate dinner on their own for some other pressing reason—but that was the exception. Eating together was the rule, at least in our house. Everyone shared the same table, regardless of position or social status.

  And that included Amatena and Clara. We rarely had visitors around dinner time, and it was dark out, so they could make a quick escape through the shadows to their little shack if they needed to—at least, that was the gamble I was making.

  So we found ourselves at the dinner table, with two more people than usual...

  “Myusel...?” I asked, noticing that something looked a little off with her. She seemed to be letting out small sighs periodically, and she kept pausing at her meal. “You’re not eating much. Are you feeling okay?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Myusel?” I said, a little louder, and this time she flinched in surprise.

  “Er... wha? Oh, yes!” I guess she must have been deep in thought, and not heard me. “I’m very sorry, what is it?”

  “I was just thinking, you haven’t eaten much. I was wondering if you were feeling poorly.”

  “Oh, no, not at all.” She smiled, or at least tried to. It looked a little awkward—it was obvious she was forcing herself. If she didn’t want to talk about it, though, then I didn’t want to pry.

  “Yeah? Okay, but if you’re ever feeling bad, just say so, all right?”

  “Y-Yes, of course. Thank you...”

  I nodded, and Myusel resumed eating.

  When I thought about it, I realized that having Amatena and Clara here meant an increase in Myusel’s workload—more food to make, more laundry to do. Yes, she had Clara to help her, but she had to teach her as they went, so maybe it was still more work for her in the long run. Myusel was the type to put her head down and push through her work rather than ever complain about it; as master of the house, I would have to be the one to notice if she was overstressed.

  So I asked, “How about you, Clara? Getting used to the job?”

  The maid-uniformed Clara looked up. “Yes. I sliced and prepared the deatufos you’re eating.”

  I looked at the red-colored food on my plate. It was a vegetable very similar to a tomato, and I didn’t much care for the texture when it was raw. But when sliced and grilled, the texture changed to something I enjoyed, or could at least tolerate. The taste was pretty good in any case.

  “Really? Cool.”

  So she was starting to get into the swing of the maid thing. She still wasn’t exactly overflowing with warmth or, like, facial expressions or anything. I didn’t expect that to change overnight. I looked at our other stolid soldier.

  “What do you think, Amatena? Going to be able to imitate Elvia?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Amatena answered darkly.

  Oookay. Maybe it wasn’t going so well for her.

  Drowning out Amatena’s noncommittal response was Elvia, pursing her lips. “Big Sis Ama is totally hopeless!” She almost sounded pleased about it.

  “Elvia.”

  The younger girl wilted under her sister’s glare.

  “It’s only natural when you’ve got two such different personalities,” I said with a wry smile.

  Given how similar Elvia and Amatena looked, I thought we might just be able to make this work if we could get their facial expressions and modes of speech to line up just a little more—but that was turning out to be the most difficult thing of all.

  “We just have to be careful, since Petralka and all the students are coming to the mansion on the next break...” That put me in mind of what I’d heard from Garius that morning. “Come to think of it, they mentioned Bahairam at the castle today. It sounds like there really is a major purge going on over there.”

  Amatena nodded but said nothing. I guess she wasn’t impressed; we were just saying what she already knew.

  “But he mentioned...” I went on, “he said this sort of thing has happened a lot in Bahairam. Amatena, you’ve only been releasing our imports on a trial basis, right? You’re not making a bunch of money from them or anything?”

  “Hardly,” Amatena said. “Personal profit is the last thing on my mind in cooperating with you, Shinichi. The ‘otaku’ items we’ve brought in haven’t caused us any particular trouble so far—our missions do officially send us into Eldant, and we simply pass them off as matériel collected on the ground.”

  In other words, a handful of our otaku goods wasn’t going to be enough to get them arrested.

  “But we were not, of course, given orders to collect such things. As such, possession of even one of them could in principle be the basis for an arrest.”

  “Ah...”

  I understood, somehow. No serious harm seemed to be coming from them, so the “imports” were mostly overlooked, but strictly speaking, they were contraband, and if somebody made a fuss about them, Amatena could get in trouble. Compare it to secondary works like doujinshi in our world.

  “But in that case,” Hikaru-san broke in, “why would they make you the scapegoat, Amatena?”

  “Hm. That’s—well, it’s a good question.”

  Amatena was hardly the only person from Bahairam who had infiltrated Eldant territory. She probably wasn’t the only one who had brought back otaku goods—not by a long shot. To purge every single person who had done so probably wasn’t realistic. If you weren’t careful, you could end up booting out half the armed forces from the border area.

  Doujinshi were sometimes handled the same way: an unhappy creator might make an example of one particular work. If you threw the book at one person, it was a warning to hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of others who were doing the same thing: “If you cross this line, this is what you get, see? Watch yourselves.”

  “I don’t know.” Amatena shook her head. “To be frank... without Clara’s warning, I might not have noticed until they were slapping the cuffs on me.”

  “Hmm?” That was odd.

  “Just a thought,” Hikaru-san said with a probing look. “But I think you’d agree you tend to look a little stern, right, Amatena? That you aren’t very open or approachable? And let me guess—were you the same way back in the Bahairamanian military? I mean with your superiors and fellow soldiers?”

  “Yes, I am and I was. No matter whom you’re talking to, whom you’re dealing with, you must not show weakness. The army isn’t precisely cutthroat, but there’s no end of people who won’t hesitate to step on others’ toes on the way up.”

  “Knew it,” Hikaru-san said with an elaborate shrug.

  “Knew what?” Amatena asked, squinting at him.

  “That’s your problem. It’s only natural to want to get rid of people who you can’t tell what they’re thinking.”

  “Hey—Hikaru-san...?!” I said, appalled at his bluntness.

  Amatena, though, seemed to be thinking deeply about something. The silence lasted for a long moment before she said, almost in a whisper, “As it happens, Shinichi said much the same thing.”

  “Huh? I did?”
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br />   “That refusing to show vulnerability ends up looking like hostility.”

  “Oh...” I guess I had said something like that.

  “Happens a lot in otaku clubs,” Hikaru-san said with a nonchalant gesture.

  Otaku clubs... I was an otaku, but I had never been involved in a formal organization like that, and didn’t know much about how they worked.

  “You know what they say: get even three people together and the infighting starts.”

  “Is that how it goes?” I said.

  “Sure is,” Hikaru-san said with a confident nod.

  I gathered that cosplayers often formed groups based on people portraying characters from particular series or the like, and you would obviously get to know the people in those groups. It had to be more fun to shoot the breeze with your friends while you cosplayed than to do it alone. What if all of you were having a grand old time and just one person was sitting there, silent and unreadable. Maybe you would start to wonder: Do we really need her?

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about putting otaku clubs and the military in basically the same category. But from the simple perspective of human interactions with other people...

  Amatena looked down at her hands, silent, as if trying to think of something. Clara watched from her right side, and Elvia from her left, both of them clearly feeling sorry for her.

  I thought I heard a sound in the dark. I opened my eyes, but I felt sluggish; I couldn’t work up the will to move my body. I felt like I was floating on a warm sea, still half sunk in a dream.

  Above me I could see the ceiling of my room—or rather, the canopy of my bed. The moonlight that came in through the window kept the darkness from being total, but the chill in the air and the occasional cries of insects let me know that it was smack in the middle of the night. Still too early to get up. I closed my eyes again.

  With my vision gone, I suddenly became uncomfortably aware of my body. Everything felt heavy, as if something were sitting on top of me. And the weight was slowly moving, from my feet upwards...

  “Hmf...?”

  Was there actually something on top of me? The Sandman kept beckoning to me, but I couldn’t ignore the weird feeling, and opened my eyes again. At which point...