With lady Sharon leading the way, we arrive at the Third Dungeon in the eastern district of the city. The entrance is guarded by the Kingdom’s soldiers.

In this country, the harvestable resources of its dungeons have long since been an inextricable part of its citizens’ livelihoods. On our way to the dungeon, I saw inns, diners, taverns, equipment stores, dealers that would pay for made-in-dungeon items, and other such establishments that cater to Explorers all over the place.

It turns out that in this country, people working jobs related to Explorers or dungeons actually take up a whole thirty percent of its population. I suppose the mining towns of Earth in the old days would have looked similar to this.

 

“Milady, I have a question.”

“What… *huff*… is it?”

It was an hour’s walk from the guild to arrive at this dungeon, a relatively short distance. Nevertheless, we have been walking rather quickly, and used to the lifestyle of a noble as she is, milady is being somewhat out of breath at the moment. It makes her look quite… sultry.

She’s monopolizing all the gazes of the male Explorers around us. No surprises there; the jiggliness is rather obvious.

“I have heard that dungeons attract monsters. In that case, how do dungeons inside cities replenish their monster supplies?”

“…eh?”

Milady shows an adorable expression with her mouth wide-open. It seems she hasn’t ever thought about it before.

“U-umm, yes, that’s right, the soldiers must be going outside of town to capture—”

“Excuse me, sir—yes, you, sir, the rather intellectual-looking mister with the glasses,” I say, 30% a compliment, “would you mind answering something for me?”

“At least let me finish talking, Letty!”

 

Faced with a cute little lady in her teens and her maid, the glasses-wearing man in his late twenties (who also looks like he’s never had a girlfriend) is all too happy to talk.

According to him, outside the city and in the Dark Woods, there are holes in the ground that only suck in monsters. People call them ‘monster pitfalls’.

These strange ‘pitfalls’ only ever appear around a dungeon, and so the current leading theory is that these holes are tunnels created by the dungeon, like roots of a large tree, in order to capture monsters.

Thank you for your answers, mister glasses. Farewell.

 

Once again, I’m struck by how convenient this world is. Truly.

For example, Skills. In a normal world, I doubt that the idea of ‘quantifying Skills in visible form’ would even exist.

Perhaps this world might have an Administrator of sorts.

I haven’t ever met one before, however. I only know what the Maid Chief told me. At any rate, the gist is that Administrators are “those who act the role of gods”.

Some among them even believe themselves to be actual gods and tell whatever sapient lifeforms on their world that “I am your creator!”, but apparently, there’s no such thing as a being powerful and human enough to create a whole world. Those with the capability to create on a planetary scale would have mindsets much too alien for them to ‘perceive’ the world in that way.

Administrators can be broadly categorized into two types: one, they could be the Will of the World type, one that acts like an enormous computer to maintain the world in an eternal, mindless vigil. This type is fine.

But the second type, Parasites that have latched onto a world, are a lot more dangerous. The reason is that some Parasites may have human minds and emotions, and they would isolate a country or even a whole continent from the rest of the world to turn it into their playground.

That sort of Parasites are rare, it seems. But if this place turns out to be a carefully-managed ‘sandbox world’, then things might just get troublesome…

 

“Oh yes, Letty, we will need to prepare your own equipment too.”

Milady says in sudden realization. She then looks into her wallet and frowns.

“There is no need, milady. I do not particularly mind.”

“But I do!”

We’re going to the dungeon to earn money in the first place. We wouldn’t be here if we have the spare money for equipment.

“We’ll just earn it back later. You will be getting some decent equipment, even if it takes all the money I have. No objections allowed!”

“Understood, milady.”

Milady has made her decision. As her maid, it is no longer my place to say anything. If there is a thought to be voiced, however, then I suppose it would be that all the money she has isn’t actually enough.

“Then may I be allowed to make my pick of equipment, milady?”

“Of course. Go ahead.”

And so I go in the store alone while milady takes her rest.

 

I return fifteen minutes later right on the dot, my maid uniform still unchanged.

“…Letty… what is that?”

“A fortunate discovery, milady.”

Milady seems to want to say something more, but she hasn’t needed to worry. She should know that a maid’s uniform is also her combat armor.

What I purchased was a single weapon that took all of our funds.

“With this Orc Killer in my hand, I am as a bull given wings, as a maid given a feather duster.”

“What a strange metaphor, Letty.”

 

This Orc Killer that I bought is an enormous spiked club made of magic iron. Magic iron is iron that strongly retains mana, and the strength of the material would improve upon attuning with the user’s own magic power.

This thing has been collecting dust in a corner of the weapon shop. From what I’ve heard, it has drunk the blood of so many orcs that it has since turned into a sort of cursed weapon; it’s extremely effective against orcs, but in return the weapon would enrage every orc that catches sight of it. Nobody wanted to buy it. It was how I managed to get it for so cheap.

The shopkeeper was blubbering in tears when I bought it. He must have been overjoyed to have finally managed to get rid of it.

I’m sure it wasn’t because I used the Maid-style Shopping Technique to get it for a quarter of the price.

 

“Come, come, let’s go, milady.”

“Hey-wait-are you really sure that’s enough?”

 

So it is that we enter the dungeon without any problems.

This Third Dungeon is inside a city, and thus it isn’t particularly difficult. It’s suitable for even students and beginner Explorers.

Fundamentally, dungeons mean resources. Useful dungeons are protected by the countries, while dungeons forming in farmlands or are undesirable in other ways would be exterminated.

This particular dungeon is one of the more unusual ones. It generates a very useful resource: rock salt. The country very much values the Third Dungeon, for it removes the need to import salt.

And now we come to the reason why this dungeon is considered a beginner’s dungeon: the monsters inside this dungeon all have high blood pressure — possibly due to their high-sodium diet — which weakened their kidneys and subsequently, their health.

 

“I see that the meat of monsters here wouldn’t make for good ingredients.”

“I’m not going to eat monsters from anywhere, Letty!”

 

The food in this world all contain mana. As mana is also a sort of nutrient, food rich in mana would taste stronger.

The obvious conclusion would be that animals that have turned into monsters due to mana would taste more delicious. Unfortunately, this is not so. The meat of monsters has too much mana, and anyone eating monster meat would get a stomachache.

Which is why monster meat isn’t normally eaten. There is a method to remove the mana, but there is also a more fundamental problem that removing mana doesn’t fix: the taste. Monster meat tastes so strongly that no one can eat it much.

In other words, monster meat in this world is seen as a sort of canned food with the most offensive smell ever.

I can deal with the smell and taste too, yet the caterpillars and centipedes hadn’t been very well received by milady. How strange. I thought it was delicious.

 

We enter the dungeon. There’s a lot of people inside. About as much as the amount of people walking around a shopping district in the early morning, I would say.

“L-Letty, stay behind me. It’s dangerous.”

“Yes, milady.”

Milady is acting like an older sister protecting her younger sibling. So precious.

She’s wearing a second-hand set of leather armor, with a staff in her hand that also looks used. She really looks the part of a magician. Unfortunate for her efforts, her much-too-obvious clumsiness just makes her look like a baby lamb that people should protect instead.

And now, the wolves that walk and talk like young human men are coming closer.

“Hey there, young ladies. Would you like to-”

“My, there’s a caterpillar.”

A giant caterpillar just happens to show up at the right time. I jump out from behind milady and crush it into paste with a swing of my spiked club.

The magic iron club is still intact even with my magic pouring into it. What a wonderful weapon.

This caterpillar was around two meters long. It felt weaker than those in the Dark Woods, if I remember correctly. Ah, but milady is standing stock-still with her staff in hand.

“My apologies for interrupting your conversation.”

“Holy shit, a Crawler just got one-shotted…”

I give my one-meter long spiked club a light swing to flick off the caterpillar juices on it. The men’s faces pale, and they immediately make their escape.

 

“Letty?! Didn’t I tell you to stay behind me?! That’s one of the stronger monsters on the upper floors!”

“Yes, milady. A maid’s place is certainly behind her mistress.”

I nonchalantly return to my spot behind her. Indeed, no maid should be so brazen as to stand in front of her mistress.

“Do you actually understand what I’m saying?!”

My… I have erred, it seems. On the other hand, milady now knows me to be combat-capable, and she has allowed me to fight in the front.

“…right, Letty, you’ve killed Crawlers in the Dark Woods already, haven’t you…”

“I used a kitchen knife and a pot lid back then, milady.”

“…”

 

Anyway, we decide to go a little bit further in. Partly to avoid the men’s irritating gazes, too.

I believe his highness Joel and Karl have been going into this dungeon not to earn money, but to train. This dungeon has been here for almost a thousand years, and it has over a hundred floors. It’s unlikely we would meet those nuisances if they’ve gone deeper in.

“Milady, this wall here has a different tint to it.”

“Ah, that’s salt. So there’s a new floor now.”

We’ve finally found what we came here for. Milady takes out her mining tools.

Those caterpillars have magic stones inside them, which can be sold for five small silver coins (about five thousand yen) each. However, like last time, I’ll be keeping them for the magitools in milady’s room. I have no plans to sell them.

One 500-grams pot full of salt would sell for two small silvers. Somewhat expensive, as I expected. Just this single mining spot should net us quite a bit.

“I can’t believe we found a floor with salt so close to the surface that’s still untouched. We’re really lucky this time!”

“Indeed. Fortune must have smiled on us due to your good deeds, milady.”

“C-come on, Letty…”

Not used to being praised, milady immediately turns bashful.

…I can’t believe her family would turn their backs on such an adorable young lady. Perhaps I should take matters into my own hand…

“L-Letty? …you’re looking kind of, umm, evil…”

“Oh my, please forgive this maid. Milady looks so cute I accidentally let loose my inner pervert for a moment.”

“What in the world are you talking about?!”

It’s love, milady, the love between a mistress and her servant.

 

“Would it be time for us to return, milady?”

“Let’s take a look a little deeper. Maybe we can even find a dungeon item.”

The unexpected haul has gotten milady quite eager.

The salt we’ve collected is currently inside milady’s Bag of Holding. Apparently it uses magic stones as batteries to allow one to store around 100 kilograms’ worth of things in it, no matter how large or heavy they are.

It’s very handy. It also makes me wonder why milady has it, considering how poor she is. According to her, it was one of the things her birth mother had left for her, as well as the only thing she had managed to keep for herself.

The more baggage it stores, the faster the magic stone would run out. Perhaps we should try to hunt more monsters on the way for their magic stones, then.

Following lady Sharon’s guide, the two of us go deeper inside. I stay on guard, at times using my magic power to intimidate and chase away the small-fry monsters that wouldn’t be profitable, preventing them from approaching milady.

Then I feel something moving deeper in. I stop.

“Letty?”

“I feel the presence of humans, milady, though somewhat some way away. It wouldn’t be a problem if they are simply other Explorers. Still, I recommend caution.”

“…got it.”

Milady nods, her face serious. She understands what I wanted to say.

Milady’s relatives aren’t the only ones to spurn her so, as her undeveloped skills in control of magic has also caused her to be shunned by her peers. Noble houses of lower ranks and commoners wouldn’t dare show her contempt, of course, but there are still people like Karl. Better to be cautious than not.

“…and he used to be such a good, honest kid back then…”

“Milady…”

…is it your hobby to set up flags so enthusiastically?

 

“Milady, please step back.”

I step in front of her the moment I feel several presences coming from further ahead.

“What happened?”

“…something is coming.”

…not people, it seems. They walk on two legs, but their footsteps feel much too heavy and warped.

 

“WAAAAGGH!!”

 

Appearing in front of us are green-skinned monsters with faces resembling pigs.

My, my, how strange. The monsters immediately go mad with rage the moment they see us, slamming their wooden clubs against the ground and making quite a lot of unpleasant noises.

“…o-orcs…” Milady squeaks.

I see, these monsters are orcs… then perchance, was my Orc Killer actually the flag that has called them here?

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

“For tonight’s dinner, we have fish tartare garnished with herbs as the starter. The main dish is roasted meat served with fruit wine and blackcurrant sauce. After that, we have a salad made from wild forest pickings. I was gifted some choice figs from the dining hall, so I thought to make compote for dessert.”

 

In her room at the girls’ dorm of the magic academy, milady is sitting at a table full of food I’ve made and served. She stiffly nods with cutleries in hand.

“A-ahh, yes…”

It has been three days since I became milady’s provisional Partner. She was quite shy at first, but she has since then gotten used to my presence. I’ve also moved out of the guest room and into the servant’s room, the one connected to milady’s own.

Ever since milady allowed me to take care of her, I’ve been making use of all the knowledge and skills that the Maid Chief had taught me, especially when it comes to cooking for her. And since milady seems to have been making her own food all this time (even as clumsy as she is), she has been looking very happy these days.

“Lady Sharon, is it not to your liking?”

“No, not that! Letty’s cooking is always the best!”

Milady says, jumping up from her chair. But then she immediately looks back toward the food, looking worried.

“Just… how much did you have to pay for all these?”

 

From what I’ve heard, the lowlives at her home have been treating her rather coldly, and milady was forced to watch her spending as a result.

The noble children going to this school all have servants with them, courtesy of their families. Yet milady has nobody: no butlers, no maids, not even any cooks. While her esteemed younger brother only brought along a maid and a manservant, they also have the extravagant funds to get chefs from outside the school to make them food.

…maybe I should pay them a visit.

 

Me? As Foreigners summoned from another world, I and the rest of my class can eat at the school’s dining hall for free until we decide on a Partner. We also receive clothing and other living supplies from the country, and they even give us three gold coins a month as ‘living allowance’.

A single gold coin comes to about one hundred thousand Japanese yen. That means we get three hundred thousand yen a month. Quite generous, I must say.

Well, they did kidnap us through dimensions. I suppose it’s the least they could do.

At any rate, it means that since I’m still just a provisional Partner, I can apply for the three gold coins allowance. But a while ago, when I was about to do that to get the money for our food and other supplies, milady scolded me.

“I expect nothing less from lady Sharon,” I told her then. “Milady is blessed with such integrity that rivals the size of your chest.” 

Then she whacked me with her slipper.

 

Anyway, back to the present.

“Yes, milady, this meal costs almost nothing.”

“…mm???” She exclaims in open-mouthed puzzlement. How cute.

“There is a rather large forest to the west of the city, just a short walk away. It is where I have collected the wild ingredients and hunted the meat for this meal.”

“The forest to the west… wait, hold on, isn’t that the Dark Woods?!”

My? Milady’s face has gone pale. I wonder why.

“T-that place is full of monsters! It’s dangerous!”

“Is that so, milady? It would explain why the strange-looking giant caterpillars and centipedes had been hostile. I was fortunate that there had been so many to hunt.”

“…eh? …then, you mean…”

Milady looks down on the meat she has been eating with unease.

“Indeed, milady. The roast was made from the centipedes and the caterpillars. The tartare was made from fishmen. I made the salad by mincing the carnivorous plants. Of course, I have already done the cleaning of residual mana from the ingredients, so milady has no need to worry.”

 

There is a lot of meat walking around the city on two legs, but even I know it’s not fit to serve to milady. I’m not so indiscriminate.

By the way, milady has been looking rather green ever since I told her about the perfectly good ingredients I got. She’s holding a hand to her mouth.

“Urp…”

“Milady?!”

Goodness, did the monster meat not agree with her constitution? I hurry toward her to rub her back, but she raises a slipper to slap at me the moment I get close, her eyes wet and her brows scrunched up. The slipper is accompanied with an adorable squeak of effort.

What a relief, she seems quite energetic. However, I can’t just keep getting hit time after time like this.

I let milady’s strike whiff past me and strike a pose like a certain yellow-jumpsuit-clad man. I bounce on my feet, wiping a thumb on my lips even though they aren’t even bleeding, and I wag my finger. Milady releases a fierce cry of outrage and charges at me with slippers in both hands.

Our relationship-building exercise lasts all the way until the next morning.

 

“I’m going to the dungeon!”

Milady says, after waking up from a nap from morning until noon. There are a few dark circles under her eyes, but she seems quite lively.

There’s no school today. This country is similar to Earth in that they also have seven days in a week, and that one day is set aside as a rest day.

“Understood, milady. I shall wait for your return.” I say, bowing respectfully.

Milady’s shoulders tremble.

“L-Letty…? Are you not coming with me?”

She looks at me like an abandoned puppy.

Although Lady Sharon is one year older than me, she is slightly shorter in height. That means that whenever she gets affectionate, she automatically makes this extremely unfair upturned-eyes look. She doesn’t even seem aware she’s doing it.

“Would my presence be acceptable then, milady?”

“We’re not going to class, it’s fine… come with me, please?” Milady asks, sounding almost like a child begging.

“Understood, milady.” I reply with a nod and a grin veering on being excessive.

And so the two of us stand together to face a terrible threat looming upon us: a lack of food funds.

 

Dungeons exist in this world. Not only that, they’re even considered to be a crucial aspect of civilization.

The dungeons of this world aren’t ruins, labyrinths, or any sort of man-made structures. They’re simply just a type of monster.

From what I heard, their origin was a sort of ‘hermit crab’ that had transformed into a monster. Upon their births, the monsters called ‘dungeons’ would burrow into the ground, consuming the nutrients and minerals inside the earth to create an extremely sturdy cave system.

The cave system would then release a slight amount of mana to attract other monsters, and in return the dungeon would live by absorbing the excess lifeforce and magic power of the monsters that had come to live inside it. Dungeons themselves were rather benign monsters, all in all.

Then things changed about a thousand years ago.

The humans at the time had known that the exposed minerals and metals generated in the walls of dungeons were of extremely high purity, and they began to kill the monsters in the dungeon and mine the precious metals.

This had brought changes to the dungeons themselves.

As humans fought with monsters inside dungeons, their injuries and deaths would then release lifeforce and magic power of high purity for the dungeon to absorb. The older a dungeon was, the larger it grew.

Dungeons had ‘evolved’, in a manner of speaking. They had even acquired the ability to read the remnant memories of dead creatures inside them, and in time, they began to turn their ‘shell’ into stone hallways as they looked upon the knowledge of humans, creating weapons and other pieces of equipment with forms and qualities that would appeal to humans. Dungeons no longer attracted only monsters; they had learned to attract humans.

 

Dungeons used items, minerals, precious metals, and other such valuables to lure in humans, getting them to fight the monsters living inside their shells and harvesting lifeforce and magic power.

Humans went inside dungeons to gather not only valuable minerals and items, but also monster materials and even combat experience for their soldiers.

And so it came to be that the humans of this world entered a relationship of mutual benefit with the dungeons. Symbiosis.

Here ended the exposition.

 

Right now, milady and I are heading for the eastern side of the city, where the Third Dungeon of the Kingdom is.

Milady isn’t wearing her uniform today. She has on a cheap-looking set of leather armor instead.

“Geez, it’s what the school gives me! I can’t help it!”

“Indeed. As financially-challenged as we are, I understand that a new set of armor would be the height of luxuries.”

“…you’re not wrong, but somehow I’m feeling really irritated right now.”

Oh no, I did not mean anything by that. Please believe this maid, milady.

 

Speaking of which, at first I thought the nobles here would be like the kind I often see in fiction, people who bring along a huge procession of guards and horse carriages whenever they go out. In this world, however, it’s not rare to see nobles coasting around town with just a single carriage and coachman to accompany them. Even people of high nobility do the same thing.

I suppose it goes to show how safe this city is, the slums excepting. It seems it wasn’t because milady was exceptionally poor that she went alone to the commoners’ shopping district.

 

“…Letty, did you just think something weird?”

“Milady, is it true what they say, that people with bigger breasts are worse at math?”

“What has that got to do with anything?! Geez, come on, look, we’re here. It’s the Explorer’s Guild.”

Distraction successful, it seems.

By the way, readers, do you need me to explain about the Explorer’s Guild too?… fine.

 

The Explorer’s Guild is a government department that oversees the dungeons. They also buys dungeon items and monster materials. As people entering dungeons can range from individuals to organized mining groups working for a business, supervision is of the utmost necessity.

 

Lady Sharon, too, has done her registration back when she was a third-year as a part of the school’s curriculum.

One may wonder why a noble such as milady would risk herself so. The answer is that since the noble caste of this country were descended from powerful people of ages past, beside the typical responsibilities expected of them, they also have an obligation to dive into dungeons and bring back for the country items of qualities commensurate to their noble rank.

Milady’s own family, a marquis house, has often been the target of ridicule from the other noble houses, the only exceptions being the rare times they managed to bring back rare items from the dungeon’s lower floors. They’ve lost quite a bit of dignity, I hear. Serves them right.

 

“Listen up, Letty. Even if we encounter some unpleasant characters inside, remember, our safety is the most important.”

“Yes? Ah, yes, understood.”

We’re a group of two girls. Will some fun happenings be waiting inside for us, then? Like, “Hey hey hey, this ain’t no place for spoiled little brats,” or maybe “Get over here and pour me a drink, girlies.”

No matter who or what may threaten us, I shall swear on my name of Fleurety, the maid lieutenant-general, that they will be reduced to atoms before they could befoul milady with their touch.

 

We enter the Guild. Turns out the building isn’t the kind that also doubles as a tavern, one that has drunkards lolling around all over the place. Instead, it looks like a modern city hall with its white plaster walls and smooth stone floor.

“Hold on, Letty, why do you look disappointed?”

“I was thinking that the facility seems cleaner than I expected, milady.”

“At any rate, let’s take a look at what’s available. I hope there’s a trading firm somewhere posting mass requests…”

 

“Oh, Sharon?”

Milady’s shoulders faintly tremble upon hearing the voice. She doesn’t move, so I turn to look in her place and see three boys and three girls, all wearing very familiar attire. They gaze at us with varying expressions.

Aah, I see. Unpleasant characters indeed.

 

“Hey, Fleurety. Get away from that girl. Your place is next to me.”

The one to have called at me was Karl, that boy who made a fuss the other day.

And the girls, no wonder they look familiar. The three girls wearing the uniforms of that middle school are exactly those classmates of mine who have pushed me down the cliff. “Crap, it’s Kamishiro,” they whisper the moment they catch sight of me.

Is this a group date? Quite poor taste they have, both the boys and girls.

Well, the girls aside, Karl is still nominally milady’s friend from school at least. As her maid, I am required to maintain a certain level of respect.

 

“My apologies. I am lady Sharon’s maid at the moment.”

“Y-yes, that’s right, L-Letty is my P-Partner!”

Milady’s operating system has finally rebooted. She fire back at Karl, sounding as imposing as a three-year-old with a speech impediment.

“Hah, please. It’s not even official yet. Come on, Fleurety, stop staying with that idiot girl. She’s so poor she can’t even get anything better than those cheap leathery rags. Be my woman and I promise you, you’ll live like a queen.”

…should I turn him into fertilizer?

And he’s even making advances to me despite the three girls still standing right next to him. Does he not notice them glaring at both me and him?

 

“That’s enough. Calm down, both of you.”

Again? The men of this world just have to be in the limelight all the time, it seems. So tiresome.

So the newcomer is, surprise, his Highness Joel. I didn’t expect to meet the second prince of the country here, of all places… does he have too much time on his hand?

He has along an entourage of several imperial knights, as I expected. He is royalty, after all, and he can’t afford to go without bodyguards like nobles do.

“Karl, I see that several of the ladies are with you. You would do well not to attract any unwanted trouble.”

“Tsk.”

“Karl! That attitude is unacceptable!”

“Shut up, brother! This doesn’t concern you!”

“Andy, Karl, stop. I am telling you to calm down.”

 

Apparently that one imperial knight is here too. Honestly, they’re all the same to me, prince or not.

 

“How about you, Sharon? I understand you might have much to say…”

“…no, your Highness. I have no objections.”

“I see…” His Highness Joel replies curtly, nodding to milady and turning away to walk toward the guild’s reception desk. Karl does a mock spit at milady and leaves the guild, his arms wrapped around the three girls’ shoulders.

Milady’s face is looking quite tense again.

Which reminds me, milady is one of his Highness Joel’s fiancee candidates, isn’t she? Is she being nervous? We should get a move on before she destabilizes and returns to her habit of sounding high-handed again.

 

“Excuse me, lady Sharon…”

That one imperial knight came back again, and he calls for milady. I suppose they would know each other, considering they’re both of marquis families.

“…sir Andy.”

“It has been a long time since we can talk like this, hasn’t it? I apologize for my brother.”

“N-no, please pay it no mind. Besides, I must also thank you for your kindness the other day…” Milady says, her face turning red in agitation. She seems rather flustered…

…oh my? Might it be?

 

Milady’s heart-to-heart needs no intruder, so I decide to relegate myself to the role of observer. I erase my presence and move away without making a sound, climbing up the wall and clinging to the ceiling to watch over the pair.

Hush now, little baby over there. Don’t point your finger at people, that’s rude. Ssshhh.

And then, to add to the atmosphere, I begin to hum a romantic tune.

 

“Your birth mother, lady Kyria, had accepted me as her student during her time as an imperial knight. And yet… lady Sharon, if there is anything I can do for you, please tell me.”

“Thank you, sir Andy, for taking such good care of me just because I was her daughter…”

“No, lady Sharon, you are not just her daughter to me. Both I and my brother have known you ever since your childhood, after all. I still can’t believe Karl would take such an attitude to you… and worse still that he would treat you so, when you are a fiancee candidate to his Highness.”

“…yes…”

 

Milady’s expression hardens once again, and she clams up. Sir Andy gives her a bow and return to his Highness’ side.

I stop humming the romantic tune to instead switch over to something more melancholic to fit milady’s current mood. She finally realizes the background music and looks up, her mouth agape upon finding me.

“L-L-L-Letty?!”

I jump from the four-meters high ceiling and land without making a sound, gracefully dropping into a bow right in front of milady.

Hush now, that staff member over there, I don’t need the applause.

“Letty-why-how were you there?!”

“Because I am a maid, milady.” I proudly answer.

Milady doesn’t seem to be satisfied, for some reason.

 

***

 

“Tsk, that bitch’s getting a big head on her.”

“I can’t imagine why his Highness Joel could have picked her as a fiancee candidate.”

“And what’s up with Kamishiro? Such a stupid look.”

“She’s getting cocky too.”

As the group moved away from the guild, Karl’s two male underlings plus Botan and Denko, two of the middle-school girls, launched into a stream of disparagement with surprising coordination.

Meanwhile, the group leader himself was behind them. Karl walked in silence, every single one of his steps radiating a displeasure of unknown reasons. Nobody dared to be the first to make conversation with him.

Walking next to him was Hina, one of the summoned students. She was deep in thought.

 

On that day, Hina was the one to have thought of the ‘prank’ to push Kamishiro, the girl who had been a thorn in her eyes, down the cliff.

Hina used to go to the same primary school as Hao. She had looked up to him ever since they were children. It wasn’t even a crush; she liked him the same way one might like an idol on the other side of a screen, that was all.

Upon entering middle school, when she first met the girl named Kamishiro, she saw the face the girl hid behind her bangs only by sheer chance. Hina’s own appearance still made her look a bit like a child, and she longed to have the kind of figure and beauty that Kamishiro had.

Hina was envious.

And it irked her that the target of her envy continued to hide behind that curtain of hair, with head always hung low. And when Hao and Sei started trying to talk to the lonely-looking girl, Hina’s envy turned into hatred.

 

“Hey… you don’t like that either, right?” Hina said to the boy next to her.

“What?” Karl growled.

Hina almost shrunk back, but she swallowed her nervousness and proposed her idea.

“Then… wanna lend me a hand?”

---

A/N: The most dangerous threat that the young lady and her maid faced was their food expense.

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

A/N: A recollection chapter.

---

The very first time I woke up, it was to a lifeless world of darkness.

 

I knew nothing. Not where I was, nor what I was. I only had a vague feeling that I used to be living in some other world, somewhere not here.

 

Yet as ignorant as I was, my mind still possessed a strange sort of knowledge, enough so that I could recognize my current form as something like a mass of slime.

A part of me was finding the whole thing unnatural, uncomfortable. Another part much more instinctive was driving me to catch these strange bug-like things and eat them.

Every time I crushed a bug, I felt sweetness, a physical satisfaction, but it was also accompanied with a kind of forlorn homesickness. I stopped eating the bugs to instead spend all my time chasing thoughts that never go anywhere. My body shouted at me, telling me it was hungry, but my mind was filled with nothing but sadness and sorrow, robbing me of all will to live.

 

I had enemies.

Well, not quite exactly ‘enemies’, to be accurate. Among them were slimes like me, as well as some sort of things that looked like clouds of mist. They were probably of the same species as me, and they were trying to eat me.

I wasn’t scared. I also didn’t want to be eaten by them.

I ran-uh, I mean, I strategically retreated, forcing my deteriorating body to carry me away.

But they were faster. As they were slowly but surely catching up to me, something resembling an incredibly small ‘magic circle’ suddenly appeared in front of me in a burst of shining light, and it sucked me in.

It was a tiny, tiny summoning circle, and it was unstable. If I hadn’t been so weakened, so starved, I probably wouldn’t have passed through it.

 

I arrived somewhere bright. Thinking that my hunters wouldn’t be able to catch up with me now, I jiggled in relief.

 

“Yes, I did it!”

 

This might be the first time since I was born that I heard words of meaning, I thought.

As I gradually got used to the light, I came to realize that I was in a room built out of stone. Standing in the middle of the room and looking at me was a small girl.

She was a cute thing of about five years old, with silver hair and violet eyes. Her dress itself was finely made, though I could see fraying threads here and there. Her gaze was fixed on me with evident joy.

Then I felt a connection opening up between us, a conduit through which poured into me her loneliness and her magic. It filled my weakened body with strength.

As small as she was, I was still smaller. She beamed at me, reaching out a hand to brush against me so gingerly, as though afraid that any more force would pop me like a balloon.

 

“Hey… will you be…”

 

The very moment she finished her words, the magic circle once more sucked me in. I took a look around to see that I was already back in that world of darkness. The magic circle must have been incomplete, I thought. Not enough magic power.

Memories of the girl passed through my mind, accompanied by a faint sadness. Yet this was no time for sentimentality. My fellow creatures of darkness had been lying in wait for my return, and they were now approaching me.

But I was no longer the same.

The slimes attacked. I slipped through them, using the power I’d regained thanks to the girl’s supply of magic to eliminate my enemies. Ooh, tasty.

 

After that, well, I kinda went a bit out of control.

I still didn’t know what sort of creature I was, but my instincts seemed to know how to fight, so I listened to it. I killed and consumed more of those things that looked like me.

I had thought the cannibalism would have bothered me at least a little bit, yet I felt nothing at all. I wondered why?

 

I was on a roll. I kept eating, eating, and my body began to feel heavier… hold on… was I getting fat? I got stronger but also slower, so my hunting speed didn’t improve.

If only I was faster. If only I was more nimble.

If only I had a longer reach.

If only I had more limbs, so that I could hunt more of my prey…

 

…

 

Splat! My black claws tore apart a small simian thing.

In the end, I turned into some sort of spindly creature with suuuuper long legs that looked a lot like a golden orb-weaver spider, only pure black in color. Why the heck did this happen?

I asked for it, that’s why.

With the transformation, I got even cockier. The small slimes and clouds of mist no longer satisfied me, and I began to hunt the small monkeys.

The little guys were quite powerful. With my new ability to spin threads like a real spider, however, I grew strong enough to deal with five of them at once without breaking a sweat.

 

Some more time passed since then. I might have gotten a bit too arrogant.

I found a monkey somewhat stronger than the rest, with a slightly different fur color. I killed him after a difficult fight and surprise, surprise, he dropped something that looked like some dried seaweed upon his death. It’s like a video game. Then a while after, all the monkeys and slimes near me vanished.

Had I gotten powerful enough for them to avoid me? I thought, full of myself.

I was wrong. Apparently I was smarter than them, but also with a weaker set of survival instincts.

 

“…eep?!”

 

I only realized its existence after it got much too close.

Something terrible was coming, something impossibly brutal. An oppressively enormous presence was heading in my direction.

The monkeys and slimes had ran away because of the arrival of this thing. At least give me a warning! Weren’t you my neighbors?!

 

What arrived was a horror in the shape of a human wearing a maid uniform.

I knew, just from a glance, that both running and fighting would be meaningless. To the giant in front of me, I was but an ant-no, a microbe. I couldn’t even look at her. I immediately dropped down, my face scraping the ground.

I thought I felt a flicker of something changing in the aura of the horror before me as she saw my perpendicular prostration.

The innumerable strands of hair on her head stretched out toward me… ah, they weren’t hair, they were gold-colored snakes… the swarm of snakes stared at me, watching me. The horror looked at the nest I built out of my threads… aaaand she decided to get me as takeaway. Somebody help me…

 

In the end, I wasn’t eaten.

Apparently the monkey with the weird coloring that I killed had been a subordinate of the horror-I mean, Miss Horror. And since I killed it, now I had to work for her as a replacement. I was hired, to be paid with an exceptional salary of 1 kilogram of dried seaweed a day, and my job was to make clothes (that were going to be worn by women, it seemed) with my threads… Why seaweed?

What? No, I didn’t call you a horror. Hmm? I have to call you the Maid Chief? Ah, yes, understood.

Once she found out I could speak, I was, for some reason, provided with a maid uniform and repositioned into the maid squad as a newcomer.

A spider wearing a maid uniform. Surreal, right? Who made this? The Maid Chief herself, surprisingly, and it was handmade too at that.

 

Thus began my maid life. Proper language and manners were beaten into me. Memories of what was probably a past life, combined with the fact that I picked things up decently quickly had helped me to, in time, climb up the ranks to become the Maid Chief’s assistant.

The existence of a maid implied the existence of a master that she would serve. Then I really had to wonder how ridiculous the horror-ahem, I mean, the Maid Chief’s master had to be, if they managed to make her into their servant.

But I was just an insignificant spider. I would never have the chance to meet that sort of deity in my whole lifetime. It’s actually relaxing, in a way. Hahahah.

…what? The Lord wanted to meet me?

Seriously…?

 

From what I’d heard, the underthings that I’d been making days and nights from my threads, a material that I could proudly say to be even better than silk, had been presented to the Lord. And that they’d caught her attention, as unbelievable as it was.

Darn it, I should have cut some corners… Not like I actually would, though. The Maid Chief would chastise me. Severely.

So now, I was being dragged toward the Lord’s place for an audience.

The Lord was, umm, how do I say this, she were giving off so much golden light I couldn’t even see what she looked like. Anyway, before her overwhelming presence and divinity, I unconsciously and instantly did a perpendicular prostration. Again.

By the way, a ‘perpendicular prostration’ was when you touched the ground with your head while your butt pointed up in the air, which made your lower body perpendicular to the ground. Seeing my strange posture, the masked maid beside the Lord cackled as she held her stomach.

 

Life was such a strange thing. You never knew what tomorrow might bring.

I wasn’t sure what had endeared me so to the Lord, but she had decided to grant me a Name herself.

Fleurety.

The Lord was the only one who could bestow Names to creatures like us. With a Name, my power was stabilized and dramatically strengthened.

With my power and my abilities, I was granted a thousand subordinate maids and the duty to eliminate the enemies of the Lord.

Fleurety, the Maid Lieutenant-General… what did being a maid have to do with this?

A question came to my mind and was out of my mouth before I could think about it: why a lieutenant-general? Then the Lord spoke as though I’d asked something obvious: Fleurety’s supposed to be a lieutenant-general, right?

It seemed like my name had a history behind it.

 

Anyway, while I still had no idea what it meant, I was on the fast track to success.

Yet although my life seemed to be smooth-sailing, I could see dark clouds waiting for me on the horizon. My power had been growing unimpeded until now, but it was plateauing these days.

But well, I still had enough strength to deal with most enemies I encountered anyway. Excepting the Maid Chief and the Lord’s aides, I was considered one of the more powerful among my colleagues, so I wasn’t really that worried. I continued to live my life as carefree as ever.

Then one day, I was called to meet the Lord once more… was I going to get my pay docked?

 

It seemed the Lord knew the reason why my power hadn’t been growing. To summarize what she said, it was because I hadn’t completed my first Contract.

My Contract…? The moment I heard the words, I was reminded of the adorable girl.

…I still hadn’t fulfilled my Promise with her.

Ever since that day, for every single moment of my life, she had been occupying some corner of my mind. But knowing that I couldn’t enter that world by my own power, a part of me had already given up.

I could say that I was busy living for myself, that I hadn’t the spare time… but it would just be an excuse. The girl had given me the power to live, after all.

I want to see her again, I thought idly, I really do. I wished that I could meet her, could become her strength.

I wanted to fulfill our promise.

I wanted to meet her again, and this time around, I’lI—

 

And right at that moment, I thought I felt the Lord smirking.

Oh no, what a gaffe… Of all the things I could have done, I had made a wish in front of someone who might as well be a goddess. I might not have said it out loud, but a wish had still been a wish.

“…eek?!”

A golden magic circle abruptly appeared on the ground below me. The Lord spoke as I panicked.

She said that the bond between me and the girl was a string that connected us, that pulled us together even through time and space, that would allow us to meet once more.

 

Then I returned to the body I once had in my past life, and I met my lady once more.

 

*

 

That’s it, everyone. The flashback is over.

My? It seems the remaining people had gone ahead and passed away while I was busy with my lengthy reminiscence. I had planned to teach them a bit of a lesson, but when I heard of their intentions toward lady Sharon, well, I just… accidentally.

At any rate, I order the meat still under my control to deal with the expired meat, and I head for milady.

 

“Tsk, the fuck are they doing, comparing dick sizes? Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

“W-what are you doing?! What about the store-”

“Hah, well aren’t you just precious. Don’t be so scared. Just listen to what you’re told and you won’t be hurt.”

“Y-you’re…”

“Heheh… that’s right, I’m going to kidnap you and sell you to those dirty old noblemen. Do what they want you to and you just might live even better than you are now, you know?”

“N-no… somebody…”

“Nobody’s coming. You only have yourself to blame, little girl. Weren’t you taught to not follow strangers? Hey, come now, don’t run.”

“No… no, someone… Letty!”

 

“Yes, milady. What is your order?” I speak.

“…Eh?” My fearful lady says, looking like a bit of an idio-ahem, looking rather flabbergasted, her cute little puppy-dog eyes opening widely.

“Letty?!”

“Yes, milady. Fleurety is here.”

“W-what about that woman…?”

“She was blocking my way so I relocated her, milady.”

“Blocking your way…? Why are you here…?”

“I am here because milady called for me.”

I speak as gently as I can, enveloping her still-shivering hand with both of my own as I try to reassure her. Milady squeezes back tightly and presses her face to my shoulder.

 

“…thank you…” she whispers, her voice muted and quavering.

 

*

 

After we came back to the dorm, I made dinner for milady, then helped change her clothes and bathe her. By then, it was near lights-out in the dorm.

I lay milady down on the clean and carefully-made bed. I turn off all the lights except for the lantern I’m holding. Milady speaks, sounding somewhat forlorn.

“…good night, Letty.”

“I wish you a good night, lady Sharon.”

 

Despite her unease, it doesn’t take long for her breathing to slow down. She must have been tired. But even when asleep, her hand is still looking for something to grip, to give her comfort.

I silently walk toward her and kneel down by the side of her bed. I take her hand in mine.

Her breathing calms down. From her small lips comes barely a whisper.

 

“…Letty…”

“…yes.”

 

Asleep, milady looks so much younger. I look at her face and remember.

You had been just a child back then. You had called for me when I was still weak, and you had given me the strength to live.

That day, lady Sharon had spoken to me.

 

“Hey… will you be my friend?… please?”

 

As the light of the moon slips through the curtain gaps and falls on the two of us, I gently stroke her hair and give her a smile.

 

“Yes, lady Sharon. I am here. I will always be here.”

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

Two men moved, slinking through the crowd of people as they approached their target.

“Excuse me, miss. Can we talk with you for a moment?”

In a dark alleyway with no sign of anyone else, one of the men called at her. Can’t get any more suspicious than this, he wryly thought to himself. But the girl, formerly a denizen of a peaceful world, showed neither caution nor surprise as she turned around.

“How may I help you, misters?” She said, tilting her head, a blank look on her face.

The men unwittingly gulped.

They had heard that she was one year younger than the students who had done the summoning, being barely fourteen years of age. But the girl in front of them was displaying a kind of exotic allure that belied her years, that had perhaps come from her mixed heritage.

…no wonder the young master was obsessed with her, they thought.

 

The two men had taken a request from a count whose child had been one of the student summoners. They had been asked to persuade the girl to become the count’s son’s Partner.

The results of the summoning this time had been rather unusual: human youngsters. Furthermore, they were extremely close in age to the academy students, and all of them were quite good-looking.

Though the degree of interest might vary, both the male and female students had been exuberant for the newcomers. But the sweet, still-somewhat-childishly cute girls among the summoned hadn’t attracted the count’s son’s attention; he was instead infatuated by the beauty of this particular girl only, and rather than trying to win her over by himself, he had called for his father’s help.

 

“My name is Christo, and I work for a noble’s house. My lord was deeply impressed by your beauty, and so I am here on his behalf to extend to you a cordial invitation to a dinner meal.”

“My, is that so…”

The girl wearing a maid uniform gave a faint smile that reached her wine-red eyes.

“But I am my lady’s maid, and my duty is to take care of her. I shall have to decline…”

“No no no, please wait for a minute. You’re still not an official Partner yet, right? You shouldn’t be. Why not allow my lord a chance?”

“My apologies.” The maid girl refused the offer without a second thought. Christo was flustered.

From what he’d heard, this girl had become the Partner candidate of a marquis’ daughter. However, the noble girl had been the daughter of the previous wife who was a lowborn, and the child was shunned by her family. Subsequently, she had not received a complete education in her younger years, which had resulted in her current lack of skill in magic control and low grades.

The count had said with absolute certainty that after the orientation today, the maid girl would have known that the other students were much better choices and thus, would be swayed by the dinner invitation.

Barely any time had passed since the summoning. What had happened between the marquis’ daughter and this girl?

Why was she so fixated on her?

 

“…I suppose that’s it, then.” Christo said after a few moments of silence.

“Thank you for your understanding.”

“But you know… I don’t plan on returning empty-handed.”

 

Christo himself was the third son of a baronet house that hadn’t been particularly wealthy. Upon becoming an adult, he was kicked out of the house without any support.

Until then, as poor as his family had been, Christo had still been living as a noble. He couldn’t bear to work under commoners. It hadn’t taken long for him to fall in with the criminal crowd, yet even in the underworld, Christo still found himself without any particularly notable achievements.

And then, from a contact he had among the nobles, a job dropped into his lap. A job that required him to leverage his status of being an alumnus of the magic academy in order to infiltrate the place.

He couldn’t afford to fail this job. The count had told him to use as light a touch as he could, but the man had lived among criminals for far too long. He turned to the plan reserved only for when negotiations had broken down.

 

“That marquis’ daughter? I heard she’d gone downtown by herself to buy some supplies to prepare for you.”

“Milady…”

The girl’s lidded eyes opened a fraction wider.

“The miss is being quite careless, I must say. Shops for nobles would be much safer, though considering her reputation, they wouldn’t be an option. No, she could only go to the shopping district that serves commoners… and well, that means—”

Mid-way through his gloating, Christo abruptly stopped himself.

The girl in front of him was still smiling as she always did. Yet Christo felt a faint chill running down his spine, his foot taking an unwitting step back.

“…get her.” Christo gave the signal to his partner.

Something was wrong, he felt, even if he didn’t know what it was. As it was, he might as well kidnap both this girl and the marquis’ daughter, then let the count sort them out. So went his simplistic thoughts.

The other man moved toward the girl, quickly and without hesitation, his experience in criminal work apparent.

 

But the man suddenly stopped, a croaking noise slipping from his mouth.

“What’s going on?” Christo said, but no reply was forthcoming. The other man was rooted to the spot as though paralyzed. The girl poked her head halfway out from behind him, her smile unchanging, her dark gaze pointing at Christo.

He gulped, reeling backward from the fear that struck his very instincts. But he was stopped by a wall that hadn’t been there before.

“W-what?”

The wall behind him looked as though it was made from pure, concentrated darkness. He struck it, to no avail. The same solid blackness had extended to completely surround him.

“Where are you going…?”

A voice came from behind him. He shrieked.

He turned around from pounding the wall. He saw the girl standing there with her perpetual smile, and near her was his partner… but the man’s arms and legs were twisted, his limbs jerking every which way as though he was a marionette being made to follow an eerie dance.

Christo squeaked, his legs giving out.

The girl walked closer, closer, and her hand brushed against him. His gaze was stolen by the sight of her lustrous lips as they slowly parted to reveal a gaping maw of darkness. Inside, he saw an innumerable swarm of something crawling, skittering.

He screamed in mad terror.

 

***

 

Still wearing her uniform, Sharon arrived at the shopping district that mainly catered to commoners.

“E-excuse me, I’d like that cup and that toothbrush…”

“‘Ere ya go! Thanks for yer business, lassie!”

People nearby were thinking her to be a girl from a well-to-do family as they looked at her magic academy school uniform, but none thought her to be an actual noble. She was being much too shy.

Any other day, and Sharon might have been more arrogant — perhaps too arrogant, even — as she acted the part of a proud noble. But as elated as she was, her status was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment.

 

The girl called Fleurety summoned from another world had decided to become her Partner, even if things weren’t official yet.

She had chosen Sharon.

Her father was much too meek. Her stepmother didn’t want her. Her little brother was rebelling against her. The maids and butlers scorned her. Ever since her mother was gone, Sharon couldn’t recall herself having a meal with the family even once.

It was why Sharon had clung to her status as the daughter of a marquis house more than she needed to, why she had begun acting as proud as she had.

Her decision had borne fruit, perhaps, considering that she had become the third fiancée candidate for the second prince. Yet it had also resulted in her becoming the target of jealousy from the other girls, and there was no one she could call as friends.

Then Fleurety appeared.

Admittedly, Sharon felt like the girl was… indecipherable, at times, but on the other hand, the maids at her home didn’t even consider her as anything. More than being her maid, the possibility that Fleurety could be her friend was what had set her heart dancing.

 

“Buying the things needed for your Partner is a noble’s duty too, right? Mmm, it is, yes.” Sharon mumbled to herself.

 

The young lady continued with her shopping, her mood still buoyant. Then she realized she hadn’t bought clothes for Fleurety, and she took a look at her diminished wallet.

Moving out of her home and into the dorm had relieved her of a lot of stress, but due to her stepmother, her allowance had also been reduced to the bare minimum. The dorm’s dining hall did serve food, although it was closer to being a commoner’s fare. When nobles came to the dining hall, it was only to make conversation with commoner students — no noble would ever eat in the dining hall alone by themselves when they had servants to make food for them.

Considering her future expenses, Sharon decided to leave enough for food. For the rest, she would have to bow her head to her little brother from another mother, Yohanne, and ask him to lend her some money. Even as uncomfortable as she was of the idea, she had no other choice.

The family sent Yohanne as much money as he wanted. He even brought along a personal maid.

Yohanne would likely lend her the money if she bowed to him, but she was certain that he and his maid would be making snide remarks and unpleasant comments toward Sharon for quite a long time afterward. Just thinking about it was already making her feel depressed.

 

“Hey, young lady. We’ve just opened up a new clothing store. Wanna take a look?”

“Eh… me?”

Sharon turned to look in the voice’s direction. She saw a woman in her late twenties, wearing some very revealing clothes.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m talking to you. So setting up the store’s all fine and good, but our place’s a bit far away from the main streets, which is why I’m here advertising. Do us a favor, please? Just come take a look.”

“Well…”

Maybe just a look is fine, Sharon thought, though she would be far too embarrassed to wear something that showed as much as what the woman had on.

“Aaah, I see… Don’t worry, we sell decent clothes too. Besides…”

The woman moved to whisper in Sharon’s ear, sounding sickly sweet.

“…we also have some classy stuff that would still get the gentlemen’s horses running, if you know what I’m saying. As lovely as you are, young lady, surely you have one or two guys you’re pining after, right?”

Her words brought to Sharon’s mind the faces of the boys at the summoning, and her own instantly felt hot.

“And even if that’s not the case, our stuff’s cheap, too. Just a look, okay?”

“…I guess just a look won’t hurt.”

Well, clothes to meet with boys aside, the store might have something on the cheaper side that would look nice on Fleurety, Sharon thought, without a hint of wariness. The woman guided her into a dark alleyway.

 

The distinctively rotten smell of back alleys assaulted Sharon’s nose. She gulped down her nausea, her hand reflexively shooting up to cover her mouth.

“Sorry about that,” the woman chuckled, “should have picked another path. Anyway, the store’s over there. We’ll get through quick.”

“Y-yes…”

The woman was practically pushing Sharon in. Deeper and deeper they went, walking through gloomy alleys that didn’t even have a single soul, much less a shop. Sharon’s apprehension mounted with every step.

After a while, Sharon was deep enough in that she no longer heard the hustle and bustle of the main street. Some time after she walked past a shadowy side path that looked just like any other, five men appeared from within. They began to follow behind her.

 

“Is that the noble girl?”

“How about that, she’s quite the bombshell… can’t wait to have a taste.”

“Dude, she’s for selling to another noble. Damaged merchandise won’t sell as much.”

“Come on, it’s just gonna be a stripshow. That’s okay, right?” The fourth man said, looking behind him for agreement.

The fifth man wasn’t there.

 

“H-hey, where’d he go?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Did somebody leave? Who was it?”

 

The third man turned toward his colleague walking by his side. There was nobody there.

 

“W-what?! Where’d he go?!”

“He’s gone too!”

“What the hell… what the fuck is going on?!”

 

Their colleagues were vanishing into thin air one by one, and nobody knew when it had happened. The alley was getting darker and darker as though they were stepping into some other dimension. The remaining men huddled together in fear.

 

“H-hey, look at that…”

One said, his voice quivering. The rest looked in the direction he was pointing to, into the depths of the alleyway that had abruptly turned midnight-dark. They could see the silhouettes of four people walking toward them in lurching, twitchy steps, like puppets on strings.

“…C-Christo…?”

Somebody let loose a raspy whisper as they noticed their missing teammates, as well as another familiar face. Christo had been the one to have hired them for this job, and right now he was supposed to be negotiating with the main target.

But was he really Christo? Were they really their teammates?

Their skins were the color of dead men, and there was no life to be seen in their eyes. They looked like zombies.

Zombies were monsters created when low-ranked spirits possessed corpses that had accumulated enough of the ground’s mana. But that sort of low-ranked spirits should have been completely eradicated from the city, and besides, zombies didn’t even have enough intelligence to speak in the first place. And yet right now, the remaining men were hearing groaning voices of anguish coming from Christo and their shambling teammates.

“…help…”

“hu…rts…”

“…kill…me…”

Faced with a sight that wouldn’t be out of place in the most hellish of nightmares, the remaining men were paralyzed with terror. And then from behind the four shambling dolls, a girl appeared, like a beautiful flower to slice apart the darkness.

“…y-you’re…”

Clad in a high-quality set of maid uniform, the girl pinched the hem of her skirt to give a bow as elegant as any noble lady, her lips twitching in a faint smile. Then she violently plunged her arm into Christo’s back, her hand wetly going through his organs to grab his jaw from the inside to move it like a ventriloquist’s puppet. From his lips came the voice of a young girl.

 

“Greetings. My name is Fleurety.”

 

A warm wetness spread in the pants of the three remaining men as their knees buckled, their expressions nothing but despair.

They had thought the earlier sight of their shambling teammates had been the most terrible moment of their lives. They were wrong.

 

“…d…demon…”

 

Hearing the whisper, the lovely girl’s lips stretched to her ears in a grin.

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

It’s morning. The ground is dappled with spots of sunlight weaving through the leaves, and I hear the chirping of unfamiliar birds.

I iron my lady’s uniform, carefully brushing off errant specks of dust from the fabric, and I hang it outside the closet.

The pot full of water I placed on the stove (which uses magic stones as fuel) is beginning to boil now. As I listen to the bubbling water, I take out the magic stone from the magitech iron and use the leftover heat to iron the newspaper ink in place.

Paper technology in this world has been developed and popularized enough to be used to make newspaper, albeit the quality still leaves quite a lot to be desired. The paper I have in my hand is just a thin gossip rag for nobility, but milady is a noble. She’ll need it.

Next, I slice off a few pieces from a hunk of salted pig carcass and drop them onto a heated frying pan. As the fat begins to ooze out of the slices of dead meat, I crack open the shell of some unborn creature to drop a viscous glob full of protein into the pan. To finish, I take a lump of kneaded-and-baked carbohydrate and lightly toast it in the oven, then place everything onto white tableware while I wait for the brown rotten leaves to release their color into the hot water.

“…mmm…”

My, it looks like the smell of burning dead flesh has woken lady Sharon.

As milady crawls out of bed, I set the glob of fat-covered protein and the lump of carbohydrate onto a serving cart and push it in front of her.

“Good morning, lady Sharon. How are you feeling?”

“… mwaah… ‘morning…” Milady greets me with her adorable voice as she rises from the bed, her nose twitching and her eyes still bleary.

She looks toward the window for a few moments. Then she jolts, doing a double-take at me.

“…eh? Wha?! H-how are you here?!”

It seems milady has finally become aware of reality.

“Of course, that is because I am your maid, lady Sharon.”

“Uh, yeah, of course… no, that’s not what I’m asking!”

Milady retorts with so much energy I’m sure she’d have a bright future as a comedian. Oh, but she hasn’t needed to worry. I know what she means.

“Yes, the window over there—”

“EEEEEEEHHH?! THIS IS THE THIRD FLOOR!”

“—was my original plan, but I didn’t think I could enter without breaking the lock, so I asked the dorm mother to lend me the key.”

“…”

This magic academy is a boarding school. Lady Sharon is a daughter of a marquis, which makes her high nobility. It’s why she has a private room on the third and highest floor.

While the female dorm has a dining hall and a large public bath, this room also has its own bathtub, toilet, kitchenette, and basically every other things one needs to live. It’s perfect for my lady, considering how withdrawn she is.

From now on, she’ll never have to eat alone again.

“…did you just think something weird?”

“I would never.” I instantly reply without showing a hint of guilt. Milady believes me, it seems.

“Umm… so, you’re…”

Lady Sharon speaks, sounding hesitant. Then she opens her mouth again, this time seeming more confident.

“…Letty?”

“Yes, lady Sharon.”

Milady’s finally called me by name! I release 100% of my aura in a beaming smile as I reply, and milady shows a hint of redness on her cheeks and ears.

“Y-yeah…” She says, looking away from me in embarrassment. She sits back down on the edge of the bed, her négligée-clad body in full view of me, completely defenseless.

It seems the shock has completely erased what I said yesterday from her mind, about letting me touch her chest.

…I smirk. Just. As. Planned.

“Which reminds me, Letty… are you sure coming to my place was a good idea? I thought his highness Joel had said that the Partner explanation was moved to today instead…”

That’s right. That lout was the one to have butted in between me and my lady before I could swear my oath of loyalty to her.

He was the one to have kicked me into a guest room and forced me to stay there as he spoke some drivel about “allowing the others a chance to introduce themselves” and “deciding a Partner after the orientation”.

Us summoned students did get some knights following us around in the shadow as bodyguards-slash-watchers. However, I am a Maid. I wouldn’t be stopped by such trivialities.

“In my wish to serve you, I have snuck out to come here first thing in the morning. I am lady Sharon’s maid, after all.”

“I-I see…” Milady answers, trying and utterly failing to sound nonchalant, her fingers twirling in embarrassment.

Milady does look the type to have few friends, after all…

*gurgle…*

“Eep!”

“Oh, yes, I have taken the liberty to make breakfast from the ingredients in the kitchen. I am not aware of milady’s taste, so please forgive me if milady finds it too simple.”

I pretend to not have heard the sounds of her stomach. Instead, I take off the cover of the serving cart and set the dishes.

“Waaahh…” she says, her eyes glittering, “bacon and eggs, a croissant… there’s even black tea and the newspaper! Did you do all this, Letty?”

“Yes, milady.”

Right, that’s the name of the stuff. I don’t exactly eat, so I only remember them as ‘rotten leaves’ or ‘dead flesh’.

“I asked the dining hall to share with me some of their freshly-baked croissants. I made the rest with the ingredients in the kitchen, although the tea was something I got from the dorm mother. It came from her secret stash, she said.”

“The dorm mother?! But she’s so strict…”

The dorm mother is a woman in her forties who’s very intense in her speech, but I was very sincere in my request, and so she was happy to give me the tea and the key.

“…so good.”

My lady gives her praise after she has had a taste.

…it’s such a simple meal, and she’s devouring it. How has she been eating all this time?

“I knew it, she has no friends…”

“What did you just say?” Hearing my whisper, lady Sharon gives a piercing gaze toward me with her eyebrows raised.

My, it seems I lost control of my mouth again. I’ll have to fool her somehow.

“Oh no, milady, it isn’t what you think. I was just thinking that not wearing underwear when you sleep is also a cause of sagging, and that right now your sleepwear is making two little ‘tents’—oof!”

“W-WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?!”

Lady Sharon blushes crimson as she throws her slipper at my face, interrupting me.

Looks like I’ve succeeded in distracting her. All’s well that ends well.

After the meal, I’m now helping milady to dress herself. Lady Sharon looks at me in puzzlement.

“By the way, Letty…”

“Yes, what is it?”

Despite her former fluster at my sexual harassment-I mean, my words of caution, once it was time to change, she didn’t even balk at showing me her hefty melons. Nobles are such strange people.

“…where did you get that outfit?”

Looks like lady Sharon is curious about the high-quality maid uniform I’ve been wearing since morning.

*

“I may be the second son of a count, but my uncle has promised me a piece of his territory…”

It’s now the morning class hours of the magic academy. Instead of teaching, the school is using the time for orientation, wherein the summoner students would introduce themselves to us Partner candidates.

All of us are right in the middle of our budding years of puberty, when we begin to take notice of the other sex. Boys are looking at girls and girls at boys, their gazes passionate upon finding someone they like.

“L-listen up, people, I-I am the first daughter of a marquis!”

I wonder if lady Sharon’s nervous. She’s being very high-handed in both attitude and gestures, yet still stealing glances at me all the while. And so before I know it, I was already giving her a standing ovation and shouting “Bravo!”. Which made me the target of a lot of glares, so I’m forced to — very reluctantly, I must add — stop myself.

“I’ve heard you introducing yourself as Fleurety. Be my Partner!”

Karl, the one who got scolded yesterday by the knight that was his brother, declares, calling me by name and staring at me quite intensely. A hushed commotion instantly starts up among the nobles, while some of the love-struck girls in my class sigh dreamily.

I suppose some people do like the high-and-mighty type, but someone with no interest would just find him really annoying.

Which is why I just smile at Karl and give him a thumbs-down. The nobles just tilt their head in confusion at the gesture, while several in my middle-school class cough as they fail to completely contain their amusement.

Only Eric Marsaw, one of the instructors of the academy, seems to have realized what I meant. He hastily changes the subject.

“W-well, let’s leave the talking for later, no need to choose right away. We should see what Skill everyone who were summoned this time have first.”

The ‘humans’ summoned into this world — in other words, people from Earth — would receive powerful magic upon the summoning. It happens because people from Earth don’t have magic.

What, you don’t understand? Goodness. Fine then, I shall elaborate.

This world is filled with ‘mana’. There’s mana in the air, in the water, even in the earth. The people of this world breathe the air, drink the water, and eat the food grown from the soil, subsequently increasing the ‘magic power’ they have in their body.

Children born from people with strong magic would have more magic from the start. Countries were founded by the really powerful people with strong magic, which was how the noble caste was created.

Mana is the source of magic power and at the same time, a kind of nutrient. Increased magic power also leads to increased physical strength, allowing one to learn the skills to fight against monsters.

But Earth has no mana. Or to be more precise, Earth now barely has any mana left, which resulted in the people no longer possessing magic power.

All life is supposed to possess magic power, yet the creatures of Earth have survived for over a thousand years without any.

Imagine people used to living on high-altitude regions with little oxygen who were then sent to lower ground. The humans of Earth would then begin to rapidly absorb mana like a sponge in water and turn into what were practically superhumans.

The end. Explanation done.

Oh yes, we were talking about Skills, weren’t we. Of course I remember.

Creatures with magic on this world are affected by how they spend their time, their preferences, and in turn they would gain special abilities (which are, in fact, a kind of natural magic) that are called Skills.

People summoned from Earth will be gaining Skills when their minds are already mature, which apparently often results in them gaining useful Skills.

And to help people understand their power more easily, a magitool  to read and display one’s own Skills as words has been developed. Apparently that’s what we’ll be using today.

This world is very complete, isn’t it? Very convenient.

“Now, please take turns and place your hand on this crystal ball.” Instructor Eric says.

The middle-school students begin to form a line, their expressions showing both nervousness and excitement.

“Then I’ll go first…”

Looks like we’re starting from Sei.

The boy stands in front of the ball, somewhat tense from being the first, and his finger touches the surface. Bright letters begin to appear inside the ball.

[Light Magic Aptitude] [Holy Aura] [Divine Blessing] [Martial Arts Talent] [Foreign Tongue]

A chorus of oohs and aahs comes from the people of the academy.

“Is this… good?”

“It is. A human always get from two to four Skills, but I rarely see someone with so many useful Skills.”

The instructor continues into an explanation, which I’ll summarize as follows: normal people mostly have Skills related to their livelihood, such as [Cooking Aptitude] or [Farming Aptitude] or [Increased Walking Speed]. People with magical or combat Skills are rare.

After Sei, other students are also shown to possess many practical and fantastic Skills such as [Healing Magic Aptitude], [Automatic Mapping], [Regeneration], and etcetera.

Hao, one of the two students that act as the leaders of the boys with the other being Sei, his best friend, is also notable for his Skills: [Flight], [Increased Physical Speed], [Wind Magic Aptitude], [Eagle Eye], [Foreign Tongue]. The nobles’ eyes lit up in sheer excitement.

“So the last person would be…” Instructor Eric says, prompting everyone to look at me, standing alone and quite obviously given a wide berth. My, how strange. I don’t recall doing anything particularly eye-catching…

I leisurely walk forward. Instructor Eric looks as though he wants to say something.

“What might be on your mind, sir?”

“Umm, well… I was wondering why you’re dressed in clothes of a servant’s…”

“That is because I am a maid.”

“…”

My answer didn’t please him, it seems. I pay him no mind.

I walk up and nonchalantly brush a finger on the crystal ball. The shining words appear…

[The Amazing Maid]

Nobody says anything for quite some time.

I think I know what this is. It must be that thing where people like to tack ‘amazing’, ‘incredible’, or ‘fantastic’ onto their titles all the time, right?

I smile, completely satisfied by the results of my Skill identification. The room ceases its silence as a commotion breaks out.

“‘Amazing’…?”

“Could it be a composite Skill?”

“Am I the only one who notices she has the word ‘The’ in her Skill?”

“Hold on, how in the world is she understanding the language without [Foreign Tongue]?!”

“Did she make that expensive-looking servant uniform by herself too?!”

Answering the academy people’s confusion, I pinch the sides of my uniform’s skirt that extends all the way to my ankles, and I smile a telling smile that gives nothing away.

“That would be a maiden’s secret.”

I continue to be enigmatic until the end of the orientation. Everyone leaves for their own dorm rooms, looking weirdly tired. I wonder why?

“A moment please, sir Eric Marsaw. What would become of my and lady Sharon’s Partner contract?”

“Oh, yes, there’s that too…”

Instructor Eric replies, making a bit of a face. Lady Sharon’s shoulders twitch. She’s been trying to listen to us.

“Ah, but before that, I just want to tell you that I’m only of low nobility. You can just call me ‘teacher’ or ‘instructor’.”

“Understood, instructor.”

“So about the contract with miss Sharon… well, how about this. Somebody might make a fuss if we make it official right away, so let’s go with a tentative contract. You two will be ‘provisional Partners’ for the moment. I don’t think they’ll complain at that.”

“Thank you very much.”

It’s rather galling that we can’t become Partners straight away, but at least this way I won’t need to sneak around to stay with lady Sharon.

Milady continues to act nonchalant, though I can see her skipping a little bit on our way back to the dorm. So cute.

But just before I could follow, instructor Eric calls.

“Please wait.”

“What is it, instructor?” I reply, not bothering to hide my faint displeasure at the interference to my time with lady Sharon. Instructor Eric shrinks back a bit but continues to speak, his voice almost a whisper.

“Be careful. Your strange Skill has both turned away some people and attracted the attention of some others. Watch for those around miss Sharon…”

“…I understand, instructor.”

I leave for lady Sharon. Several shadows follow behind me, silently, avoiding attention as they come closer and closer.

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

A/N: The first chapter I wrote turned out to be exactly 6666 Japanese characters.

---

Hello everyone. Fleurety here.

The fog upon my mind has cleared. I’m feeling great.

My lady’s brain still seems to be blue-screening. I give her a smile and walk over to stand beside her.

Not right next to her, of course. My place is one step behind her.

 

Then my lady finally reboots, jerking her head around at me like a broken phonograph.

 

“W-w-w-w-haaaat?!” At last, she blesses me with her adorable voice. “W-why did you, umm…”

“I am Fleurety, milady.”

“F-fuh… flur…etti…?”

“If you’re not used to it, feel free to call me ‘Letty’. Oh yes, which reminds me, I have not yet asked for your name. My apologies.”

“I am Sharon de… hold on, why are you standing next to me?! And what do you mean, your lady?!” Lady Sharon says, her hands flapping so much it looks like she’s doing sign language in fast-forward.

I give her a few gentle taps on the shoulder and a smile.

“Of course, that is because I’ve decided to serve you, lady Sharon. Or might you be dissatisfied with me, perhaps?” I reply.

“N-no, that’s not what I meant! I—”

 

“A moment, please, Sharon.”

 

And then some asshole decides to interrupt our heartwarming moment, right when I and my cute-as-a-button lady were in the middle of affirming our master-servant relationship.

“Sir Joel!” Lady Sharon says, turning around in surprise.

With his air of composure and striking looks that would probably make him quite attractive to a certain demographic, the guy looks like the quintessential fairy tale’s prince, even with the slight bit of confusion showing on his face at the moment.

Oh, right, I almost forgot. Judging from the architecture and clothing I see around me, this world’s probably somewhere around the Middle Ages, or maybe nearing the end of it. I also see light sources floating in the air that use no electricity, so I guess we’d been magically summoned.

“Excuse me, Sharon. Would you allow me a few moments to talk to her?”

“…yes, your highness.” Milady answers, looking strangely… meek? Her face now seems sort of stony-looking, and her voice sounds stiff. Does she not like this man?

This cannot stand. For milady Sharon, this lowly maid Fleurety shall send this brute away from the mortal coil… if not for the fact that she called him ‘your highness’. A wrong move here might just worsen milady’s standing.

“Miss, I would ask for your name.” He says, his question sounding more like a command. The guy’s obviously used to giving orders.

“Yes, milord, I am Fleurety.”

“My name is Joel, and I am the second prince of this country, Argrey Kingdom. Miss Fleurety… do you understand what is happening at the moment? Why have you decided to serve miss Sharon? You have been summoned here—”

 

“That’s right! There’s no way that halfwit girl could get a Partner first! There must be something wrong!”

 

So today is the day for interruptions, is it…

This time, the one who spoke up was a tall, brown-haired boy. Ignoring the fact that he has just insulted milady Sharon, just his frivolous-looking face alone is already criminal enough for a sentence of a million deaths. Sir Joel is a real prince in comparison.

“Karl, enough! You’re in the presence of his highness!”

One of the knightly-looking guys standing on guard scolds him.

“Be quiet, elder brother! In this academy, you’re just an imperial knight! You can’t tell me what to do!”

And now they’re getting into an argument.

What a pain… I’m not so good at remembering people’s faces and names, so having so many new characters showing up all at once is way more than my memory can handle.

“We’ll have her choose again after she gets a full explanation! Once she knows who that idiot girl is, there’s no way she’d choose someone so inferior!” Karl says, all the while ogling me from top to bottom without even trying to hide his gaze.

I must say, this doesn’t feel very comfortable. My mother had been pretty developed so I’d like to think I inherited a bit of that, but my body is not for your pleasure, Karl.

Beside, my own pair is just about average. I would have thought lady Sharon’s huge tracts of land would make the guys a lot happier, right?

Anyway, I have to say my lady’s bosom is truly amazing… not like I’d say it out loud, though.

“Milady, your breasts are breathtaking. May I touch them?”

“W-w-what are you talking about?!”

My, I accidentally let loose my true thoughts. Unbefitting of a maid indeed, but it can’t be helped. There’s no way anyone can possibly dislike a cute big-boobed girl, be they men or women.

 

“You shut up already!” The knight from earlier pinned Karl to the ground, eliciting a grunt from him. “Your highness, I must apologize for my brother’s discourtesy…”

“Pay it no mind. As Karl said, he and I are but classmates of the same year at the same school. He has not insulted me. Please let him go.” The prince says.

“…understood. My apologies to lady Sharon, as well.” The knight says, turning toward milady. And blinks his eyes several times as if not comprehending the sight before him.

No surprise there. He didn’t seem to have heard our talk, but he is seeing milady turning crimson-faced as she covered her chest with both hands.

Noticing something strange, lord Joel and several others turn puzzled eyes on us. In place of milady who’s looking seconds away from blowing her fuse, I pinch my skirt and smile, trying to pass the matter off as nothing important.

 

“…umm, excuse me!”

I hear a voice, somewhat nervous, coming from within the summoned (and subsequently ignored) classmates of mine. Sei is speaking with his hand raised.

“What will happen to us…?”

 

“””…ah.”””

 

***

 

After the summoned Earthborn students received a quick summary, they were guided into the academy’s guest rooms to rest. The detailed explanation would be done tomorrow.

The academy had prepared enough private rooms for all of them, but anxious as they were, many had asked to stay in groups of two or three people. Each group was now having whispered discussions of their own in their respective rooms, talking about the day’s events.

 

In a room for two, Fua was the first to speak.

“Hey, Ginko… what’s going to happen to us?”

“Yeah…” Ginko replied to her best friend half-heartedly. With what had happened, even the strong-willed girl was finding herself at a loss for words.

Is there a way to return to their old world? Would they be forced to live in this one? Would they ever see their parents again? What would their lives become?

In this world, fifteen was the age of majority, while the girls were only fourteen this year. Even here, they were still considered children.

Their anxiety felt crushing. In an attempt to look away, to not have to face their unease, both began to search for something to talk about. Anything at all.

“Umm… so, about Kamishiro-san. Has she always been like that?”

“…I dunno. We never talked much… she walked out so confidently back then. Alone. It’s like…”

Her personality’s switched completely, the two shared the thought. Bewildered as they were of Kamishiro’s actions, they still felt as though their worry had lightened, just a little bit, as they recalled the sight of their classmate.

“And also…”

“Yeah…”

 

“”Has that always been her given name?””

They spoke in a chorus, the same question passing through their minds at the same time.

 

Meanwhile, while many of the students were distressed, there were several girls who shared their anxiety only on the surface. Inside, they were shouting with joy.

These girls knew what this world was.

 

There was a certain otome game with the title The Lines of Light, Darkness, and Love.

The game was set in ‘The Sandbox World of Fanteria’, or to be more precise, the ‘Argrey Kingdom’ inside of it.

 

Ten years ago, this game was first released for household game consoles.

Despite the content being a typical otome romance game, it had enjoyed a period of popularity among gaming enthusiasts thanks to its extremely detailed setting and dialogue writing for its characters.

The game’s main character was an Explorer who would find her true love among the many, many ‘capture’ targets. At the end, she, together with her chosen lover, would create a new country of “Argrey”. The game was rather unusual due to having an element of city-building in its gameplay.

 

Three years after the first game, the second iteration, Light, Darkness, and Love 2 was released.

The developer was a no-name company, and the first game hadn’t been exactly a best-seller, so gamers were rather justifiably suspicious of the second title. But once more, the game made waves on the internet.

The second game’s story was set two hundred years after the birth of Argrey Kingdom, in the Magic Academy newly built in the capital city.

Similar to the first, the amount of possible dialogue were so numerous as to make walkthroughs useless. The game gained popularity for its high replay value, and different from its predecessor, it even had an element of country-management such as allowing the player to make changes in the school’s educational content or pass legislations. The game was such a mish-mash nobody knew what the target audience was.

 

And another three years afterward, the game Light, Darkness, and Love Online was released.

The second game had looked as though it took the budget of an AAA game to be made, but there hadn’t been any news about it selling particularly well. And yet, the third game seemed to have gone a step even further beyond. Rumors began to circulate on the internet that the games were being made as a hobby of some millionaire somewhere.

This time around, the game’s peculiarity was mentioned right in its title: it was an online game.

Like a certain hunting game, this game allowed people to join password-protected rooms to play in groups with a maximum of four people, and they could play as female protagonists in the same game world.

The game was set in the magic academy of Argrey Kingdom, another two hundred years after the setting of the last game. The player played as one of the summoned heroines, and their goal was to ‘capture’ one of the target male characters. Except for when playing with friends, there were cases where two or more people chased after the same target, which sometimes even led to flame wars on the internet. And with its inclusion of an element of action-RPG gameplay, the game was the very definition of chaos.

 

And then, at the end of last year, the fourth game, Light, Darkness, and Love Online 2 – The Millefeuille of Love, was released.

Once more, the game was so detailed people were outright making conspiracy theories now, about how the developer could afford making a game at such a scale when they had absolutely no other intellectual property to make money from.

The newest game was, once again, an online game, and this time it allowed over 10 people to play together at the same time.

The stage was set in the magic academy after another two hundred years had passed. A whole middle-school class with eight female students and eight male students, for a total of sixteen, was summoned to the academy. The player would either play as the first heroine, a daughter of a viscount, or choose from one of the sixteen students.

The first twist of this game was that the player could choose to play as one of the male students.

Perhaps the game had intended to attract more male players with this decision, but in case the player chose a male student, not only could they choose to seduce one of the villainous female characters, they could even go for the male characters (though the difficulty in this case was stupidly high). This had resulted in the game attracting a lot of girls and women who wanted to see sausages rubbing together.

Another twist was that the game was a 3D open world game, something very rarely seen in this genre. There was a character creation process for the player character too, and the students that would become NPCs would be randomly created from a pool of several thousand different appearances and personalities, and even they could be capture targets. The insane degree of freedom had induced many an exasperated laugh from the players.

 

The strangest thing about this series was that despite all the development cost, there had been no advertisement at all. The developer had also refused any and all reporters, from game magazines or otherwise. The series became legendary on the internet as memetic games that normal people would never know about.

 

And now, the middle-school girls who knew about the games had been summoned into exactly that world, just like how it had gone in the fictional story. They did notice that there were seventeen people summoned, different from the sixteen in the game, but their excitement had quickly overpowered their vague puzzlement, and they soon forgot about it.

 

There were five main capture targets, plus extras. (The age mentioned was the age they were at during the current school year).

 

Yuri de von Argrey, 19 years old. The Crown Prince of Argrey Kingdom.

Joel de von Argrey, 15 years old. The Second Prince of Argrey Kingdom.

Andy de Mercia, 24 years old. Son of a marquis. Commanding officer of the imperial knights.

Yohanne de Michel. 14 years old. Son of a marquis. Fourth-year student of the magic academy.

Eric Marsaw. 27 years old. A baronet. A teacher at the magic academy.

The extras were non-player characters that the player could talk to.

 

Serving as the villains were three noble girls, plus extras.

 

Emilia de von Argrey. 13 years old. The first princess of Argrey Kingdom.

Camilla de Reese. 20 years old. Daughter of a duke. Guest lecturer at the magic academy.

Sharon de Michel. 15 years old. Daughter of a marquis.

Other antagonists included some other player characters.

 

No matter who the player’s target was, the villain girls would always be heavily involved, making trouble for the player. As there was no precise route to follow, the players hated these villain girls.

 

The students who knew of this game world began to think.

Within one year, they had to find a Partner and ‘capture’ them.

But in case there was another Player Character beside them, then there was a risk that this other PC would be chasing after the same target as them, or making trouble for them.

That meant they must not let anyone else know that they were a PC. Information was the most powerful weapon here, and by hiding what they knew, they would also be keeping the other PCs in check.

 

Among the female students, the girl named Kamishiro had offered herself as a Partner candidate to Sharon, one of the villainesses. They suspected her to be a Player Character too, but to confirm it would require them to reveal their own knowledge. It was risky.

 

As they hid behind their smiles and their nervousness, the girls quietly sharpened their fangs. They were ready to put all they had into this, to hold nothing back.

So began a deadly game of romance.

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

T/N: No this isn’t more bunnygirl. This is another novel from Haru no Hi written about a year or two before that one, and this one has a much more direct connection with Akuma Koujo.

---

Inside a dilapidated castle was an old, dusty room, built out of stone and used for ritualistic purposes. A small magic circle was drawn on the floor, squiggly and deformed.

“Yes, I did it!”

It was the voice of a young girl. In this dwelling that looked as though it belonged to an evil witch of children’s fairy-tales, the girl seemed less an inhabitant and more a captive.

A child no more than five, she had silver hair and violet eyes, wearing a dress somewhat worn-out but distinctly of the noble caste. She beamed at the thing resembling a small slime that had appeared in the magic circle. Her hand stretched toward it as she spoke gently, adorably.

“Hey… will you be…”

***

Drip.

Drip.

Cold droplets of water wet my cheek, and I slowly, blearily open my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling… just kidding, nothing so cliché, it’s just a cloudy sky instead.

Hold on… why am I sleeping here… ?

Had it been soft grass that I was feeling on my cheeks and my back, then it would have been possible that I’d accidentally dozed off from the comfortably wide-open outdoors. But as it is, I’m currently lying on something hard and uncomfortably angular. Considering the rusty bikes and refrigerators I see around me, this should be the illegal garbage dump near my school.

I remember now… I came here to clean up the trash as an extracurricular activity.

Looking from the school toward this direction, you’d see a cliff several meters high. And since there was a natural dip in the ground under it, people from nearby towns have been coming here to throw away their fridges and TVs. The unlawful dump had been a bit of a problem.

Really, what were they thinking…

And while I don’t exactly hold the school in high regards for making its students clean the mess up, I think even less of the more idiotic of the students who were only making things worse when they throw away their water bottles and convenience store lunchboxes. At this rate, this dump is never going to go away.

And those who contribute to the problem are also the same one who never help out with the cleaning. In the end, it’s only the serious students that get the short end of the stick.

…by the way… who am I?

“H-hey, isn’t this kinda bad…?”

“What the hell are you saying Denko, didn’t you agree to this?”

“B-but, I mean…”

“…d-did she die?”

“No way…”

“Hey… let’s get away already…”

“But our group’s gonna be suspected…”

“Then do you have an idea, huh?”

“Wasn’t it you who pushed her, Botan?!”

“B-but Hina-chan told me to do it too…”

Oh yeah… I think I remember a bit now.

I was pushed by the girls who are, even now, getting into a hullabaloo (do people still say that these days?) on the cliff.

They’re only speaking about how to protect themselves. I hear nothing about calling for the school nurse or an ambulance. None at all.

The cliff looks… about five meters high? If below me had been smaller pieces of trash, then maybe they could have acted as a mattress to cushion my fall. As it is, however, it was after our cleaning, and so the only garbage left were the large stuff that the students couldn’t deal with. Basically, I was pushed from a height equivalent to the second floor of a building onto a pile of metal, landing either on my head or my back.

Yup, that’s more than enough to kill.

If a person falls from high enough for them to do half a roll in the air, then it’s also a height very much lethal. I could have broken a bone even if I landed on my legs, and I could have been stabbed by a rusty, broken length of metal from a bike, too.

“Oh, it’s raining…”

“We really should go…”

“Come onnn, let’s get back to the classroom. I don’t think anyone’s gonna come looking in the rain.”

“…but what if they find her?”

“W-we’ll just tell them we only poked her a bit and she fell all on her own! It’s an accident!”

“…are you leaving?”

*kracka-thoooom!*

“””AAAAAAAAAHHH?!”””

Ominous lightning struck at just the right moment, and the three girls screamed in chorus. They screamed because of the thunder, obviously, and not because I’d talked to them after I got up and climbed the cliff. Who would scream when their classmate was just asking them a question? That’s just rude.

“K-Kamishiro-san?!”

Oh yeah… that’s my name… isn’t it? My family name, anyway.

The three girls who pushed me are now staring at me with a bit of guilt, a bit of relief… and a lot of fear.

“…w-why…”

“W-weren’t you dead…?”

“The blood…”

“It’s… it’s not my fault!”

“NOOOOOO!”

“Hey, wait—” I say, but they’re already tripping over themselves in fright as they run toward the school.

“Come on…” I mutter, exasperated.

They acted as though I should have died. Such rude people.

The drizzle turns into outright rain, the beads of water soaking my hair heavily. I absentmindedly bring a hand to my head and notice a strangely thick wetness on my finger that isn’t water. A closer look reveals that my hair is matted with an amount of blood in far excess of a scratch.

Ahh, I see. No wonder. Normal middle-school girls are totally gonna be terrified by this.

The sky rapidly darkens. The rain is a downpour now, the water beating on the schoolground to turn dry dirt into darkened mud in short order.

I’m soaked anyway, so I just use the rain as an impromptu shower to wash out the blood, then head toward the girls’ locker room to get my change of clothes.

I enter the school building, ignoring my indoor shoes — as dirty as I am, changing shoes would just be a waste of time anyway — and go right for the sophomore locker room.

I don’t meet anyone on the way. The juniors and seniors are probably still in their classes.

Luckily, I’m wearing my PE jersey for the extracurricular cleaning. If I had been cleaning with my uniform, I’d have to go home wearing this eye-searingly red jersey.

There’s nobody else in the locker room beside me. I take out a small key from my pocket.

…my memories are getting clearer now.

I open the correct locker, my locker, without having to think twice. It’s not like it’s difficult. Mine is the only one as dirty as it is.

I suppose those three girls might have done it because I erased their scribbles from my locker. It’s amazing, in a way, how they could be so childish.

I take out the towel from my locker, undo the long braid that comes to my chest, and thoroughly wipe off the moisture from my hair.

“…why’d I keep this?”

My front bangs go down to my nose like a black curtain.

…oh, yes, I kept this so long because I used to not want to let other people see my eyes.

When my hair was dry, my bangs only went down to my eyes, so it hadn’t bothered me that much. As I am now, though, it just feels really irritating.

I take a look around. As luck would have it, there’s a sewing kit somebody left behind, and I find what I’m looking for inside. Small, but serviceable.

Snip.

Locks of hair fall to the floor.

As amateurish as I am, getting my front bangs straight was the best I could do, but I still looks a lot better than the walking curtain that I used to be.

Now that that’s done, I’ll have to change… luckily, my underwear’s still dry.

I quickly change into my blazer uniform (it’s a public middle school’s uniform, and there isn’t much about it you can describe as ‘cute’), then take a look at myself in the full-length mirror placed against one of the walls.

“Oh… so that’s what my face look like…”

The lights suddenly buzz and begin to flicker, covering me in bouts of alternating light and darkness.

In the mirror, I see a girl with glossy black hair and dark-red eyes. She looks like an unfeeling doll, with all the things that were keeping her on the right side of the uncanny valley stripped out.

Might have sounded like I was describing someone else, but yes, that’s me.

*CRACK-krrrr…”

Another flash of lightning, followed by rumbling thunder. The lighting gives out completely. In the pitch-black darkness, a pair of crimson eyes flicker as though candlelights.

***

The town was neither an urban city, nor was it in the countryside. It neighbored a government-designated city and was also adjacent to a national highway, but at the same time, it was why the town was only a place for people to pass by and rarely go into.

The town had no lack of households, though the vast majority of them were old families. There were barely any young people. All the children of age within thirty-minutes walking distance from the public middle school didn’t even take up more than one class for each grade.

“…teacher’s late. And we just have homeroom left, too.”

Ginko, the class vice-president, a girl with an assertive streak that showed in her appearance, grumbled.

“I think she’s dragging out the staff meeting again…” Fua, a timid-looking glasses-wearing girl, answered.

Ginko thought of their homeroom teacher, an old maid with so much enthusiasm in making her students do “voluntary service” that she half suspected the woman to be involved in some sort of shady religion, and she nodded, convinced by Fua’s words. Ginko then released a small sigh.

Nevertheless, she understood why the woman was giving them the work. It was this class.

Sophomore year, Class 1 — there was just one class anyway, so it wasn’t like the numbering meant anything — but the point was, the class only had seventeen students who were all in their second year, and yet there was still a distinct lack of unity.

The eight male students weren’t the problem. They fit together well enough.

Part of it was because most of the boys were quiet, but mainly it was thanks to Sei and Hao, two good-looking students who acted as the leaders to bring them together (despite their somewhat strange names — “saintly garment” and “winged king”, respectively).

On the other hand, it was exactly the two’s handsomeness that broke apart the nine female students.

Three of the girls were actively chasing after the two boys and sabotaging each other.

Another three were watchers, who mainly involved themselves in malicious gossip and bullying as an outlet for their frustration.

Ginko and Fua, who tried to stay away from the mess, unwilling to be involved in the drama.

And finally, a girl shunned by all the other girls.

At first glance, the female students seemed harmonious enough. The grade only had the seventeen students, plus there was no other class to change to, so the group was “tight-knit”, so to speak. Now, most of the class just called everyone else by their first names, no matter if they were a boy or a girl.

The only exception was the ignored girl.

When they had been in their first year, Ginko and her friend had thought to bring the lonely-looking girl into their group. But before they could, the two aforementioned boys had approached her, either out of kindness or a sense of duty, and it had been the beginning of her misfortune. Aside from Ginko and Fua, all the other girls began to pretend she didn’t exist.

Even Ginko didn’t think the situation was anywhere close to being good, for sure, but if she had gone ahead with her original plan, the two boys would make things complicated with their own unwanted actions.

It was another one-and-a-half year until graduation, give or take a few weeks. The undeniable fact was that she didn’t want to rock the boat, to have to spend that much time in a class split into two warring sides when there were no other classes to change to.

“…it’s kinda quiet today.” Fua said.

“It is.” Ginko replied, turning a quick glance around the class.

Everyone had already changed out of their jerseys back into their uniforms, except for the three bully girls. They kept whispering to each other, looking scared.

That reminds her, where was that girl…? She was the only one to not be back yet.

‘…and what was her first name again…?’

*CRACK-grrrr…* 

“Kya!” “Waah!” “Eep!”

A bolt of lightning struck, this time quite a lot closer to the school, and the lights shut off. Several students screamed.

The rain intensified, beating down on the building. The sky grew darker and darker. Somebody gulped, and silence descended in the room.

“My, what’s wrong?”

The voice of a girl softly rang from the classroom entrance, triggering another chorus of screams. Since when had the doors been open?

“…K-Kamishiro-…san?” Sei, one of the aforementioned boys, whispered raspily. The confusion in his voice was shared by everyone else in the room.

The girl, Kamishiro, had been the target of bullying due to her mixed heritage, being half-Japanese and half-Turkish. It showed in the lines of her face, the color of her eyes… and children were creatures that could so easily reject those different from themselves, even if no one would bat an eye at her once she grew up.

The girl had been the quiet type in the first place. Early on in her life, she had realized herself to be different from those around her, and soon afterward she began to keep her head down, hiding her face.

But now, she wasn’t doing that anymore. Now, she carried a completely different air, a cheerfully intimidating smile on her face.

As though she had died and been reborn…

*CRACK-grrrrTHOOOM!!*

Blinding lightning and deafening thunder drowned out the students’ screams. The glass windows shattered, and the classroom was flooded with light.

The students continued their screams of terror and shock except for a single girl, the girl named Kamishiro, who showed a look of surprise on her face for a single moment. Afterward, she smiled and slowly closed her eyes in realization and acceptance.

***

“Success!”

“Yes, we did it!”

“EEEEeee that’s awesome! They’re humans!”

A chorus of cheers mixed with relief came from the students of the magical academy as boys and girls appeared from the enormous summoning circle.

For many students at the academy, it was the fifth and final school year, the year when they would turn fifteen. The noble children with strong magic among them would summon intelligent creatures from another dimension to contract them as servants called “Partners”.

While the summoning was a part of the curriculum, to the students with strong enough magic to handle spellcasting, the Partners that they summoned themselves would be their proof of graduation from being magicians to become ‘magi’. And among nobles, being a magus was a certain kind of prestige.

There were many, many dimensions of all kinds to summon from.

There had been summonings of dragons, lunar wolves, or other such mythical beasts with both power and intelligence; and there had also been summonings of elves, dwarves, and other such Demihumans that didn’t exist in this world.

And they were still the safer results. Depending on the school year, there were also cases of monsters such as ogres and trolls being summoned, and it had been the reason for the tense atmosphere and subsequent palpable relief among the students.

Now, the relief of the magi-in-training were turning into loud and excited cheers. After all, the summoning this time had given them humans, life-forms of the same appearance as them.

Unconfirmed information had it that human-inhabited worlds were dimensionally far apart, and so summoned humans were rare. Furthermore, summoned humans often gained powerful magic, and legends had it that they only showed up every several centuries.

“…phew.”

In this year’s summoning, the students with powerful magic numbered seventeen.

Among them was a severe-looking girl with silver hair and violet eyes named Sharon. She rubbed her fingers, trying to relax from the white-knuckled grip she had on her staff, and she breathed a sigh, expression still tense.

Looks like I managed somehow… she thought.

Sharon wasn’t very good in her magic control. If the summoning had failed here, she might just become the target of blame from everyone else. As the daughter of a marquis, she couldn’t afford to invite any further disgrace.

The cheers gradually died down as the academy students remembered what they had to do next, and the tense nervousness returned.

The “Servant Contract” mentioned earlier was a ritual with quite a few similarities to the “Slave Brand” curse, and by law, it was only allowed to be used on dangerous subjects such as criminals or monsters.

But the summoning of intelligent creatures would have abruptly ripped them away from their normal lives. Rarely were they friendly.

They might be fearful due to the change. They might wail in grief. Or they might even forget themselves in rage and attempt to bring harm upon the summoners.

It was why the tense atmosphere wasn’t limited to the students alone. Even the knights standing by, those who had been deployed by the kingdom to protect the young sons and daughters of high nobility, were waiting with bated breath.

To the noble students who had summoned members of a sapient species, those to whom the Servant Contract wouldn’t be allowed, not being chosen would be considered a shameful stain on their records.

As nobility, they needed to be able to display their worth to the summoned, to convince them to become their Partner and servant, and they had one year until graduation to do it. After that year had passed, the Partner candidates would be employed by the country. Those who hadn’t been chosen would never again have the chance to gain a Partner.

The results of the summoning this year were children the same age as the summoners. They were seemingly of the same ethnic group, judging from the black hair they all shared.

The sudden summoning had made them fearful and heavily confused. There was even a girl among them who looked as though she was about to cry at the drop of a hat, and a few among the student summoners hesitated to speak up, feeling somewhat guilty.

The first to speak would make an impression, but also risked being the target of the summoned people’s grudges. Who would take the role?

The air was charged with tension as the students’ mind whirred with thoughts on how to best approach the situation and how to obstruct their rivals. Meanwhile, Sharon took deep breaths, trying to calm her thundering heart, and she began to search among the summoned humans, seeing if any would deign to serve someone like her.

The laws only allowed one to summon intelligent creatures from another world once, no more. The reason was because supposedly, the first time was the only time a Soulbond could be established, and the Partner who had chosen and been chosen by a summoner at that time would empower their master to their maximum potential.

And the more powerful the Soulbond the summoner had, the more likely they would be chosen.

But Sharon felt nothing but unease with the knowledge

‘…what do I do if no one chooses me…’

Sharon had made a mistake in her younger days. A mistake that made this summoning no longer her first.

As tension mounted, Joel, one of the students and the second prince of the kingdom, decided to become an example for his subjects. But just as he was about to put his feet forward, one girl walked out from the group of summoned people, her steps calm and composed.

The noble students gulped, drawn by her presence, by her exotic beauty that could only be born from a confluence of bloodlines, from a meeting of different cultures. They lost themselves in her hair, a gleaming black of obsidian; her skin, fair and delicate as velvet; and her eyes, a mesmerizing shade of vermillion that spoke of the powerful will behind them.

As everyone continued to be captivated by her beauty, the beauty of a doll, she walked onward, unmolested even by the knights that were supposed to be protecting the academy students. She headed right for the second prince Joel… and quietly passed him by, instead stopping in front of Sharon who was standing in the back of the crowd. She daintily pinched her skirt and gave a curtsey, one practiced and full of elegance.

“Greetings, my lady. I shall be in your service. Please, call me ‘Fleurety’.”

In the year 893 of the kingdom’s calendar, the month of Firstfall, thus began the story of a single clumsy villainess and a maid who came from another world.

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