Mostly Man’ya still made meaningless “Gyu!” noises, but at just three days old, she could already call Cerise amu-amu (Mama) and Brooke apu-apu (Papa). Sometimes she would even parrot an Eldant word here or there.
Man’ya, if you were wondering, wasn’t wearing a ring to enable interpreting between the Japanese and Eldant languages. But I had learned enough conversational Eldant to understand what she had said. It was a simple word that meant: food.
“Eeeyow...” I hissed, her tiny teeth digging into my hand. But I fought the urge to shout. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t cry. The whole point was to make Man’ya realize I was stronger than her, so it was imperative that I seem unconcerned about her attacks. “Hm? Did you do something?” was what I wanted to communicate.
Heh... I curled my lips slightly in an attempt at a disinterested smile. It hurt, but I could endure.
“See? It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt at all,” I said, like the heroine of a certain anime beckoning over that fox or squirrel or whatever it was. Kanou Shinichi, time to strut your stuff!
“Gyu!”
“It doesn’t hurt!”
“.........”
“It... doesn’t...”
“.........”
“.........”
“.........”
“Aaaaargh yes it dooooooooes!”
This kid’s fangs were really painful! Tiny but so, so sharp! And she had, like, thirty of them, all digging into my hand at once! I flapped my arm, trying to shake Man’ya free, but she seemed to have decided it was her turn to strut her stuff, and stayed steadfastly attached to me. Out of options, I took a tree branch I had brought along for this purpose and wedged it into her jaws, using it like a lever to force them open.
I was somehow able to free myself. Ahhhhh. My right hand was starting to look like a pincushion. Too many more of these bites and it would be as torn up as if it had been hit with buckshot.
Man’ya, for her part, was still staring at me...
“...Raemu.”
“Not raemu!” I exclaimed.
So she really did see me as her next meal!
“Aw, for...!”
Man’ya and I had known each other for all of five days now.
We seemed destined to be predator and prey forever.
There was a long and winding road ahead, filled with traps and danger, hurdles and obstacles, and lots of other words that meant a rough time.
I was in an absolute slump.
Over the past several days, I’d tried a few different things to make friends with Man’ya. I’d gotten down on all fours so we were the same “height.” I’d tried tempting her with a toy, and sometimes even came up behind her and just swept her up in a hug. But every attempt ended with her exclaiming “Raemu!” and clamping her jaws down on my arm, fingers, or other readily available extremity, sometimes so hard I almost jumped out of my clothes. I was covered in bite marks by now.
“It hurts...” I groaned as I soaked the wounds in medicine.
“Are you all right, Shinichi-sama?”
I was lying on the couch in the living room, Myusel attending to my various injuries. Man’ya’s teeth were small—or if you will, fine—so there wasn’t a lot of bleeding, but they did create an extensive network of delicate punctures that stung every time they were swabbed with medicine.
“Not really, but yeah,” I said, trying to smile. “I’m real sorry about this, Myusel. And thanks.”
I took another inventory of my body: my arms and legs were covered in bandages. Real gauze rolls; the little stick-on things weren’t doing the job anymore.
“Man... How do I convince her I’m a friend, not food?” I sighed.
“I’ve got an idea: how about you just give it up already?” This exasperated suggestion came from Hikaru-san, sitting on the other couch reading a book. He shrugged elaborately and closed his reading, looking over at me—or really, at my bandaged hands and bitten fingers. “I think if you get any more hurt, Brooke is finally going to commit hara-kiri.”
“Hrrm...” I was unsettled by how easily I could picture it. “Wearing long sleeves and pants has done the trick so far.” Myusel had finished bandaging me, so I rolled my sleeves back down.
Hikaru-san wasn’t wrong: if I drew too much attention to the wounds, I was afraid Brooke would try to “take responsibility” for his kid again. I didn’t think any of this was particularly his fault, but knowing something about Brooke’s social position, I hardly expected him to just go, “Y’know, you’re right!” and laugh it off. (Did lizardmen even laugh?)
And so, with that in mind, I’d been keeping my quest to make friends with Man’ya a secret from Brooke and Cerise.
“Seriously, quit already. It’s the perfect solution: Brooke doesn’t have to kill himself to make up for his daughter’s attacking you, and you don’t have to kill yourself trying to get on the kid’s good side.”
“But what if she starts by thinking of me as prey, and ends up thinking of all of humanity as a potential food source? It’s all well and good when I’m the only one she’s biting, but what if Petralka were to come over and Man’ya went after her?”
We would be lucky if Brooke was the only one who had to “take responsibility” for an incident like that. Heck, lizardmen could end up extinct in the Eldant Empire.
“She hasn’t shown any interest in biting anyone but you, Shinichi-san. I think it would be fine. But if you’re really worried, the simplest thing would be just to keep her away from any humans for a while. Lizardmen mature fast. Once she can understand language a little better...”
“I get what you’re saying, Hikaru-san,” I said with a half-smile, interrupting him. “But this is Brooke and Cerise’s daughter, and I really want her to understand that I’m a friend. I’m so eager to get to know her.”
Or to put it another way, it was disheartening to be the only one who wasn’t her friend. Man’ya seemed to like everyone else in the house just fine. And Brooke and his family weren’t going anywhere. It wasn’t realistic to hope I could just avoid his kids forever.
“It’s okay, Shinichi-sama, I’m sure of it.” Myusel, wrapping up her most recent round of first aid, clenched her fists as she spoke. “I know you’ll find a way to be friends with Man’ya-chan!”
“Myusel, baseless, subjective pronouncements are going to trap Shinichi-san, not help him,” Hikaru-san said. Man, he was cold. Right, but cold.
“I don’t think it’s baseless...” Myusel looked at the ground for some reason. “Like me... Before I came here, I was always... a little shy, I guess. I made a lot of mistakes in my work. But in spite of all of that, Shinichi-sama, he...”
I blinked. “Shy? You, Myusel?” A little retiring, maybe. Clumsy for sure. But I had never thought of her as outright shy. “You never seemed that way to me.”
“But that’s exactly what I—because I’ve been able to work with you, Shinichi-sama...”
According to Myusel, at her last posting, she had been frequently criticized as “careless” or “slow.” She had worked at three separate noble houses before she came to our place, but never for very long—hardly more than a trial period at each, you might say. Plus, the complication of being a half-elf made her reluctant to talk to people, so she couldn’t even get close to the other maids at the places she worked. She ended up bullied, isolated... It didn’t sound like a good time.
Now that I thought about it, back when we had first met, she had come across as terrified that she was going to be yelled at every time she made a minor mistake, and now I realized that maybe it was because she’d felt this mansion was her last chance.
Obviously, I hadn’t realized at the time that Myusel thought she was shy, or that she was hiding some kind of inner turmoil. Instead I just burst out, “IS THAT A REAL MAID?!” and generally made such a fuss that she probably felt she had better start talking or she was going to get left behind.
“So it’s... thanks to you, Shinichi-sama,” Myusel concluded, her cheeks red.
Whoa-oh-oh. Too cute!
“Yep. Okay. Thank you very much,” Hikaru-san broke in, sounding put out for some reason.
Oh, what?
“Anyway, Shinichi-san, if you’re really dead set on this, I won’t stop you.”
“Cool. Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.”
At the very least, I was going to get myself out of the “raemu” category.
Myusel was a superb maid. She said she hadn’t worked very long at any one place before this, but when I thought about how that was exactly what had enabled her to end up at our mansion, I was secretly kind of grateful for it.
When it came to food, in particular, you couldn’t hope for a better cook. I have to think that at her previous workplaces, the senior maids, not to mention any professional cooks, probably didn’t let some newly arrived broom jockey anywhere near the kitchen. So I’ll bet none of her previous employers ever suspected her culinary gifts.
She showed special attention to the details in her cooking. In addition to herself, a half-elf, this mansion was populated by humans, a werewolf, and a couple of lizardmen, for a total of four different races, and Myusel made separate dishes with specific ingredients for each of them. As a werewolf, for example, Elvia had stronger senses of smell and taste than the rest of us, so even when her food looked approximately like ours, it was often just lightly cooked, without any spices. Brooke and Cerise, by contrast, got a thoughtful assortment on their plates, but it was generally raw. Vegetables might be pickled, but never cooked. Periodically, Myusel would add fruits to get them some variety.
And what about Man’ya? She ate substantially the same things as her parents, just a little less of them. She sat between the two of them in a high chair Brooke had built, chowing down with gusto. Pickles, in particular, she would simply swallow whole.
“Do you like it?” Myusel asked, looking at the child sweetly.
“Gyoo!” Man’ya replied, nodding. She didn’t, however, bother to stop eating. She seemed really... baby-like. In that respect, it seemed like lizardman and human children weren’t so different. Myusel wasn’t the only one who smiled when she looked at Man’ya; we all did.
“Master,” Brooke said out of the blue. “I really am sorry t’ ask, but might I be excused from my duties for the day tomorrow? M’ wife and I are going to do our homecoming.”
“Homecoming?”
“Strictly speaking, we’d be going back to our clan’s reservation,” Cerise said. “It’s about a half day’s journey from here by bird-drawn carriage.”
“Oh, really? Sure, fine by me. But why so suddenly?” I had no particular reason to stop them. But neither of them had ever mentioned going back to their reservation until this moment. Why bring it up now?
Brooke had once been considered a hero of his clan, and Cerise-san was the daughter of a prominent chieftain in the Tribal Council, so if something was up at home, they might well be called back. If this “homecoming” was just for a pleasant visit, then I would be happy to send them on their way, but if something serious was going on, they needed to go deal with it, not waste time asking for my permission. And they should spend more than just one day on it.
But Brooke said, “We’ve got it in mind to inform the chieftains about Man’ya.”
“Oh, is that all? Wait, you never told them?”
“We figured on waitin’ until all the eggs had hatched, but...”
Incidentally, it was now nine days since Man’ya had been born. The other eggs hadn’t hatched yet, although we expected they would soon.
“Man’ya was born just a bit too early, it seems.” Brooke looked at the child sitting next to him. Man’ya, who was stuffing herself with so much food she looked like she might burst, noticed him watching her and looked up at him, cocking her head. As gestures go, it was—well, it was adorable! “I’m aware of how a heated egg might hatch sooner than the rest of a clutch,” said my gardener, “but it’s just been too long. We wanted to tell the chieftains about the birth, and confer with the elders about the other eggs.”
Ah—that made sense. Man’ya looked happy and healthy, but they were worried that her premature birth might cause problems down the road. They probably wanted to ask if anyone else had experienced anything like this, and see if they could get any advice.
“Besides, we’re worried that once the others are born, we might not be able to take enough time to go back. Best do it when we’ve only one.”
“It’s fine by me,” I said. “Oh, but Myusel, you’ll have to take over all of the housework for the day. You all right with that?”
“Er, yes,” she responded, a little surprised when I suddenly turned to her. “I’ll be fine.”
I guess she had handled everything all the time before Cerise got here. And there was no school tomorrow, so I could help out, too. We would manage.
“Pardon us for the trouble. And thank you very much,” Cerise said, and she and Brooke both bowed their heads. Even Man’ya nodded in a monkey-see-monkey-do imitation of her parents, getting a smile out of all of us.
“We’ll just leave Man’ya to play by herself like she always does, so you won’t need to worry about her,” Cerise said.
“You’re not taking her with you?”
“The carriage will only take us partway,” Brooke replied. “The last leg’s a challenging stretch through the mountains. I worry it might be difficult with Man’ya. Anyhow, we only intend on the briefest stay. Best to travel light.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t imagine a ten-day-old human infant being apart from its parents for an entire day, but Man’ya could already walk on her own and even eat solid food. Maybe it would be safer if she didn’t go on any hikes. You know what they say—curiosity killed the... uh, lizardman.
“Sounds good. Just leave Man’ya to us.”
“We’ll make sure everyone other than Shinichi-san keeps a close eye on her,” Hikaru-san said.
“And just what makes you say that, Hikaru-san?” I demanded. “Is it because you’re a bully? Are you bullying me?”
“You, Shinichi-san, need to focus your efforts on not being raemu.”
“Hrm...” I grumbled. Not much I could say to that.
“Be a good girl and do what they tell you,” Cerise said to Man’ya.
“Gyu!” Man’ya answered, and waved her arm.
Brooke and Cerise left the mansion early the next morning. For the rest of us, life went on pretty much as normal. Myusel had housework to take care of; Elvia was in her room drawing. There was no school, so Minori-san and Hikaru-san were both in their own rooms. And as for me...
“All right...!”
Breakfast was over, and I was on my way to the yard with some fruit Myusel had prepared for me. It wasn’t a snack for myself; I was going to give it to Man’ya. My plan was that by plying her with fruit, I would teach her that I wasn’t food, but a giver of food. A feeder, not to put too fine a point on it. I felt a little pathetic having to resort to what amounted to bribery, but considering the epic failure of the “look cool” approach, I was starting to get a little desperate.
“Today’s the day!”
The current situation wasn’t just bad for my fingers; it was taking a mental toll on me to constantly worry that Brooke might do himself in to save his family’s honor.
Taking pains to hide in the shadows of trees or among the grass, I looked for Man’ya. I knew she was playing in the yard somewhere. I was afraid if I just suddenly called out to her, she’d bite me, so I would have to pick the right moment to give her this fruit. I was starting to feel like the gamekeeper for some wild animal.
“Man, it’s kind of hot today.”
It seemed brighter than usual. I was starting to sweat as I wandered around the yard. I wiped it away on my sleeves, looking around for the little lizardman (lizardgirl?). And then I spotted her, crawling around on the ground with her back to me.
I stopped. It looked like she was digging in the dirt.
Perfect.
“Man’ya...” I called. With a strangely lethargic movement, she raised her head, then turned toward me.
Keep the initiative...!
Ready to pull my hand back in a hurry if she looked like biting me, I held the fruit out to her. I pinched it between my fingers so that even if she dove for me, she would get the fruit first. (Though there was always the possibility she would ignore the fruit and just bite my hand from the side. Then it would all have been for nothing.)
“Here, this is for you.” I could feel my heart rate increasing, but I kept hoping for the best as I waited for a reaction.
Man’ya stared fixedly at the fruit in my fingers. And then, suddenly... she swooned.
“Whoa!” Wary of being bitten, I reached out too late. Man’ya simply toppled to the ground. She didn’t fall—it was almost like she had gone unconscious.
“Man’ya?!”
I looked at the child splayed on the ground, then pitched my fruit aside and reached out to her with both hands. That was normally the instant I would have been bitten, but now there was no sign of an attack. She was eerily still, and when I touched her, her scales, normally chilly, felt weirdly warm to the touch. In fact, they were hot.
I picked up Man’ya in my arms, then set off for the mansion as fast as I could. For a child, she was quite a load to carry. But she was completely limp; she didn’t move a muscle.
“I wonder what could be wrong with her...” Minori-san said, looking down at Man’ya where she lay on my bedroom floor.
In addition to my bodyguard, Myusel, Elvia, and Hikaru-san were all packed into my room—in other words, everyone in the house except Brooke and Cerise.
It was Minori-san who had helped make Man’ya comfortable when I brought her in, and Myusel who had brought the damp towel now resting on the child’s forehead. We had put her on the bed at first, but Hikaru-san had hit on the idea that if she had a fever, the floor might be better, since warm air rises. And it was true that Brooke’s little house didn’t have anything like a sofa or bed, just rush mats on the floor. Maybe direct contact with the ground or the earth was best for lizardmen.
Outbreak Company: Volume 14 Page 10
