Experiments and Preparations – Q of Hearts (Part 2)

Note: Please don’t read it in the little pop-up for the reader. For some reason it doesn’t reflect my later edits (which I often make a lot of after publishing), so please click ‘view original’.

One Day I Became a Burikko Villainess Noble Girl, out now.
Honto tutorial here.

Think of it as throwing money at the author and Alphapolis, and getting a book with squiggles and pretty pictures as a pleasant extra.

---

…It’s cold.
There’s also the fact that it’s winter, but no matter when I visit this place, it always feels dim and cold.
The castle dungeon.
Even though it’s still daytime, there isn’t a single ray of light that reaches this place.

“Ah-, Achille… You did say that the tattoo experiment problem would be all fine but, this place is…”

With Achille leading me by the hand, I descended the stone staircase, lit by the light of a magical lamp.
Also through the use of flame magic, it seemed that the dungeon was always kept at a certain temperature so that the prisoners wouldn’t freeze to death.
But still, the fact that it still feels a little chilly might be because they’re only warming it to the bare minimum.

Because I spoke to Achille about experimenting with “a tattoo that stops forbidden magic”, today it seemed that I would be experimenting on something he prepared in the dungeon for me. As expected of Achille… He works fast.

“There was a kind fellow who voluntarily wanted to cooperate with your experiments, you see.”

“There’s a person like that?”

How suspicious.
I mean, cooperating with the experiments means that they’d have forbidden spells cast on them, you know?
An experiment that Achille banned me from conducting on myself, as well as an experiment that I was hesitant to perform on Achille.
A person who would volunteer to help with such a dangerous experiment… is a massive M!

Still led by the hand, I continued deeper and deeper into the dungeon.
On the way, we passed by Miss Claire and Count Tito’s cells.
Beyond here are the places where those involved with the commoner extremists are held, and they’re completely full at the moment.
The further we continued in, the gloomier the atmosphere got, and the number of lamps steadily decreased as well.

“Is it further in?”

“Yeah.”

Uu… Is that how it is?
I’m not really all that great with dark places though.
I can hear the loud sounds of some liquid dripping.
A damp smell assaulted my nose.
If I were locked up in a place like this, I don’t think I’d be able to stay sane…

“Achille, you’ve stopped, you know?”

“We’re good.”

“Eh…?”

In the very deepest part of the dungeon, Achille placed his hand against a large iron door.
From the rust here and there on the door, you could feel the history of the dungeon.
Taking an old-looking key from his pocket, he inserted it into the keyhole.
With an unpleasant creaking sound, the door slowly opened.

“Come.”
Beyond the door was pitch black so I was a hesitant, but gathering my will, I took a step forward.
Perhaps noticing that I was a little afraid… Achille immediately walked to my side and put his arm around my waist.
He did it naturally, but in this posture, he was surprisingly close, so I couldn’t relax.
After fixing a light to my fingertips and walking in the darkness for a few minutes, we arrived before a large iron fence.

“We’re here.”

“T-, This place?”

The depths of the tightly guarded dungeon.
Would the person I’m meeting be inside that pitch-dark cage?
If you stayed in a place like this for a few days, you’d go craz-… Could it be that that’s the purpose of this room?
A-, A torture room or something?
When I looked at Achille questioningly, he smiled as if to say that I needn’t worry.
I’m not relieved at all.

※

“Heyy, why if it ain’t Camille Rhodolite.”

Suddenly, a man’s voice rang out from inside the cage. It’s a voice I’ve heard in the past.
The deep voice of that hateful man who gave me a terrible time during the incident a little while ago.

“Achille… I don’t think it’s possible, but could it be that the kind fellow who wanted to cooperate with my experiments was…”

“…Yeah, although he’s the principal offender during the extremist occupation incident.”

“W-, W-, Why is it Galuf Sharohm?”

Because of the shock, my voice went shrill.
Why is an enemy like Galuf helping with the experiment?
What’s more, according to Achille, he volunteered. S-… Suspicious!
After timidly approaching the prison bars, I could see a person’s figure inside.
They had all their limbs bound, and surprisingly, they seemed to be doing quite well despite the environment.
The J of Clovers… is a person with a strong will.

“Ah-…”

The chains that are binding him are a mana-sealing item for prisoners, aren’t they?
Ironically, they’re made of the same material as the steel trap that Galuf used on me previously.
He’s a person who can use forbidden magic without blinking after all, so it’s a natural measure.

“Oi, heartless dude over there! I’ll go along with your deal, so fulfil your end, yeah?”

Galuf shouted at Achille who was standing behind me.
Achille frowned in displeasure.

“…Of course I will.”

“You don’t sound believable at all!”

“Shall I interpret your words to mean… that our deal is off?”

“…-!”

In that instant, Galuf fell silent.
What do they mean by deal…?
To use Galuf as the guinea pig of all people, just what is Achille thinking?
I stared hard at him.

“There’s no need to worry, Camille. I’ve got permission from up top after all, and I’ve got his consent as well.”

“…But, is this really okay?”

“Experiment to your heart’s content. There’s no problem even if by some tiny chance the experiment fails. On the contrary, how about you *do fail once or twice?”

“Oi! You still holding a grudge, damnit!? Heyy, Camille. How ’bout you leave this vindictive boyfriend of yours, and change to me?”

“Please do not speak to Camille so familiarly. Also, I am her husband.”

So little tension…
To think that Galuf Sharohm can have such a light-hearted conversation in a situation like this. You really can’t make light of him.
His nerves and guts are incredible.

“Achille, it’s a bit unceremonious, but would it be fine if I start the experiment?”

Since we have permission, I’m sure there’s no problem.
I’m reluctant about performing the experiment on people other than myself, but I’d already decided earlier that I needed to complete a magic tattoo that protected us from forbidden magic.
Entering the cage after having Achille open the door, I drew a chain-patterned tattoo on the hand of the immobile Galuf, from his right wrist down to the fingers.

“Ohh? Pretty skilled, ey? So you used this tattoo to nullify my forbidden spells as well, that time?”

Looking on from the side, Galuf spoke in interest.
Thanks to my tattoos, his plans during the raid failed, but despite that, doesn’t he hold any grudges about it?
For exactly what reason did he cooperate with the extremists…?

I finished drawing the chains in no time. All that’s left is to use forbidden arts and test it.

 

Experiments and Preparations – Q of Hearts (Part 1)

Note: Please don’t read it in the little pop-up for the reader. For some reason it doesn’t reflect my later edits (which I often make a lot of after publishing), so please click ‘view original’.

One Day I Became a Burikko Villainess Noble Girl, out now.
Honto tutorial here.

Think of it as throwing money at the author and Alphapolis, and getting a book with squiggles and pretty pictures as a pleasant extra.

---

“Hachuu-!”

The sound of a little sneeze rang out through the empty room.
Now that the winter is approaching, the inside of the castle is getting colder and colder. I can see my breath.
Like every year, it’s the season where everybody uses flame magic.

The days went by as I stayed at the castle and did my job.
There were plenty of things I needed to do, after all, and I was close to both the castle library and my workplace now, so there wasn’t really a problem though.
To think the day would come when I would be sleeping at the castle just like my father the marquis.
This morning, thinking that it wouldn’t be great to leave the marquis estate unoccupied, I said “What if it’s just me that stays at home, and travels to the castle for work?” when for some reason Achille’s mood took a nose dive. And so, I immediately escaped to the Magic Building.

Right now I’m in the middle of seriously doing my job.
Just now I had just been exterminating an infestation of crawlers that had popped up in the rural areas of the country, and I’m just coming back from it.
Crawlers are grotesque-looking giant caterpillars.
They’re an annoying pest that occasionally pop in the countryside and eat up all the crops.
A hateful thing that shines in my ‘top 5 monsters I’m bad at dealing with’ list. Once they grow up, they end up metamorphosing into yet another grotesque thing; a moth monster.
These monsters eat not only the crops, but attack livestock and humans as well, so once they appear on the farms, you have to quickly exterminate them.

※

Now then, about the “creation of a tattoo that stops forbidden-magic”… today, I’ve finally succeeded in creating one that isn’t limited by number of uses.
With this, we should be able to deal with most forbidden arts. The scale designs have changed to a chain design.
With this, all I need to do now is cast a forbidden spell on myself to test out the effectiveness… but, unfortunately, right now I’ve fallen into a state where I can’t.

Last time, I casted a forbidden spell while looking in a mirror to test.
In that case, even if I failed, there wouldn’t be anybody hurt besides me; a relatively peaceful choice. If I immediately dispelled it, there wouldn’t be any harm done after all.

But, last time when I finished the final test for the scale tattoos, Achille ended up seeing everything, so this method was banned.
According to him, casting forbidden magic on myself was insane.
But hey, if you don’t test out its effectiveness, you can’t use it in battle, right?
If by some chance the tattoos weren’t good enough during a confrontation with the Heroine, the situation would turn really bad.

“Hmmm, what do to?”

I was thinking about somehow getting permission from Achille to test it on myself, but… I ended up running away from him today when his mood worsened. I regret the slip of tongue from this morning.

Royce-sama and Achille are really busy working to deal with the commoner extremists, so I don’t feel right just sitting around, but there’s not much I can do to help when it comes to that.
All I can do is working on a way to combat forbidden magic, and remodelling spells to deal with the Heroine.
But if I can’t do a live experiment, I’ll be really troubled.

Even while all this is happening, the number of forbidden magic victims might have increased.
And what’s more, for some reason that Heroine has been obviously aiming for Achille and trying to win him over too.
If the Heroine cast forbidden magic on Achille… I absolutely wouldn’t be able to stand it!
As long as there’s a way to defend against it, I want to hurry up and test it.

I thought about quietly testing it in secret but… this mana sensing device known as my wedding wing is on my finger, so I’d definitely be discovered.
Uuu… Damn you Achille, to have prepared this far.
He really is a husband that overlooks nothing.

※

After finishing work, I timidly returned to my room.
It’d be nice if Achille’s mood has returned to normal.
I have to somehow get permission from Achille to experiment.

“Huu…”

I let out a sigh of relief.
It seems that Achille hasn’t come back to the room yet.

“He’s been quite busy lately, after all. I wonder if it’s overtime.”

Tossing off my work clothes, I changed into homewear.
In just my underwear, I was just about to put my clothes on, when the door opened to a clack.

“…-!?”

Turning around in surprise, I found Achille frozen in front of the door, more shocked than I was.

“-gyaaahhhhhh――――!”

If you trace it back to the start, it’s my fault for boldly changing right in front of the door though.
I didn’t think that Achille would come back so quickly after all!
In a great fluster, and still wearing nothing but underwear, I hid myself behind the sofa.

“Camille, you forgot this…”

Achille picked up the homewear that I had forgotten in my panic, and tossed them towards the sofa.
It seems that his anger from this morning hasn’t dragged out until now.

“Uuu…”

Letting him see me like this. How pathetic.
While I was changing on this side of the sofa, Achille was kind enough to wait in front of the door.
It’s great that you’re not moving from the door.
But you know, if you keep sneaking so many glances this way, won’t I start to mind it?
I wonder if you couldn’t wait outside, instead.
…After somehow getting my clothes on, I timidly left the shadow of the sofa and made my way to Achille.

“S-, Sorry about that, Achille. I showed you something unsightly…”

“Why were you changing right in front of the door? What were you going to do if someone other than me opened the door?”

Although he was nagging me, the arms that wrapped around me were kind.
Even when I show him ugly behaviour like this, Achille won’t leave me in disgust.
He’s an extremely broadminded husband that I’m glad to have.

“Camille, your hand.”

Giving him my hand like a dog, Achille’s bony, white hand overlapped with mine.
As expected… I don’t know when, but my body’s been completely conditioned to these pathetic reactions.

“…A new tattoo?”

You sure have good eyes.
It seems he immediately noticed the new tattoos on my hand.
A small, silver chain that wraps around my right wrist…

“Mn… It’s a magic tattoo to defend against forbidden magic. I haven’t tested it yet, so I don’t know how exactly how effective it is, though.”

Thanks to a certain someone, I wasn’t allowed to experiment after all.
While staring right up at Achille, he sighed.

“It seems that you didn’t decide on your own to test forbidden magic, huh.”

“I mean, you’d get mad at me, right?”

“Obviously. To think of casting forbidden magic on yourself…”

“…But Achille, you’ll need tattoos for your plans against the Heroine, right?”

“Even so… Hahh.”

Massaging his brows as he sighed, Achille suddenly stopped talking.
While hoping that he’d given up and would give me permission to experiment, I peered into his face expectantly, only to have my chin lifted up in his fingers, and my gaze locked in place.

“Ueeh?”

“…Then how about you test it on *me?”

His clear cobalt eyes stared right at me.

“Eehhh?”

“You can just draw that tattoo on me, and then test a forbidden spell on *me. Even if anything happens, you of all people would be able to deal with it, right?”

But then, if anything happens, *Achille will get hurt.
Even if only for a little, he’ll have to suffer a forbidden spell.
The magic tattoo is still in the experimental phase, so there’s no proof that it’ll actually work.
To use Achille as a guinea pig in such a stage…

“…Don’t want to. I’m not going to cast forbidden magic on you.”

My voice trembled unwillingly.
With my chin held, I couldn’t move about, so only my gaze moved away.
I mean, I definitely don’t want to have Achille do something so dangerous.
That would be putting the cart before the horse.
Even if there wasn’t any risk, firing a forbidden spell at Achille is something I just can’t do.

“Why? Isn’t it safer to have two people experimenting over one?”

“I said I don’t want to! Don’t make bad jokes like that! Even if you don’t get hurt, I still don’t want to!”

If I let go of this chance, I might not be able to do human experimentation anymore.
But if I have to use Achille, then…

“Rather, wouldn’t it be better if you cast it on *me, Achille? I mean, look, I’ve already got the tattoo on.”

In that instant, Achille looked disgusted.
Even though he said stuff about it being cast on him! Why is he against casting things on me*!
This time with dissatisfaction as well, I once again stared up at Achille.

“You sure say cruel things, huh… Just like you don’t want to cast forbidden arts on me, I don’t want to cast it on you either.”

“…Achille?”

“I’m the same, you know? Why is it that no matter how long it’s been, you still don’t understand?”

Above my eyes, on my nose, on my cheeks… Achille’s lips fell on them one after another.
In contrast to his scolding voice, his touch was so kind that I stood there with my eyes closed and accidentally forgot to resist.

“When you’re hurt, or in pain, I suffer as well, after all.”

When I opened my eyes again, Achille was making an incredibly sad expression. My chest hurts.
He usually doesn’t let his feelings show much.
All I see is his poker face, or his angry face, and occasionally a laugh.
The only one he’ll show such a pained expression to, is none other than me.

“S-, Sorry.”

Just now was my fault. I went and meaninglessly said something hurtful.
I can’t use forbidden arts on Achille. I don’t want to. Definitely not.
But despite that, in my annoyance, I told Achille to do the same thing to me…

For now, I’ll give up on experimenting on both myself and Achille.

※

“Take care of yourself more, Camille… But even if I say that, I’m sure you’re just going to be careless when it comes to your own safety, so from now on just think of avoiding danger as something for my sake.”

“Uu-… Okay.”

I parted from Achille’s hands, and sat on top of the sofa in seiza.
Although I do get the feeling that somehow I was led into a direction convenient for him, it’s obvious that this time I was at fault, so I had no choice but to obediently nod to his comment.
It can’t be helped if I suffer, but if it makes Achille sad, then I definitely don’t want to.
I don’t want to be the reason he makes that kind of expression again.

“As for the human experimentation, I’ll figure something out. You don’t have to worry about a thing, Camille…”

“But, Achille…”

If we can’t test on ourselves, then just how on earth does he plan on testing it then?
While I was looking uneasy, Achille gave me a soothing smile.

“It’ll be fine.”

---

“Camille, your hand.”
The term he uses here is the Japanese dog command for ‘shake’/’handshake’.

Also, did anybody else suddenly have the words “Riajuu wa BAKUHATSU SHIRO!” erupt from their mouth as they were reading this? No? Just me?

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The Winter is Almost Here – Q of Diamonds (Part 3)

Note: Please don’t read it in the little pop-up for the reader. For some reason it doesn’t reflect my later edits (which I often make a lot of after publishing), so please click ‘view original’.

One Day I Became a Burikko Villainess Noble Girl, out now.
Honto tutorial here.

Think of it as throwing money at the author and Alphapolis, and getting a book with squiggles and pretty pictures as a pleasant extra.

---

“And so, His Majesty agreed, and sent me here instead, you’re saying.”

I’m a little angry.
Marrying me off in place of Camille?

“You’re angry, aren’t you… But I couldn’t consider any noble girl other than you, Beatrix.”

I don’t understand his taste at all.
Even though he was with that adorable Camille for so many years he wasn’t interested at all, and instead takes a liking to me?
I’m tall, and relatively muscled too. To think he likes a girl who swings around a sword as her job.

“Achille was in support as well. In support of bringing you, who knows about Frau Monier because of the story, into our Garnet. His judgement was correct, wasn’t it. You seem to know the thing in more detail than Camille, after all.”

…Mn, well, I was pretty into the game, after all.
His Highness Royce might think of me as a really knowledgable person but… I’m actually just a gamer.
Please don’t look at me with those sparkly and expectant eyes.

“The second is to strengthen the ties between our nations. Thanks to Frau Monier messing up various things in our country, there are a bunch of nobles who want to go to war with Topageria, you see. In particular those old, foreigner-hating bureaucrats… are a little worrying, after all.”

War…?
I can understand wanting to avoid it somehow.
I don’t want war between our two nations either. Right now I have people important to me in both countries.

“The third is that by giving exceptional conditions for the engagement, I’m using myself as bait to gain Topageria’s cooperation. Right now the commoner extremists are hiding in Topageria. In order to catch them all, Topageria’s cooperation is essential.”

I was thinking that he was a prince who did nothing but sparkle, but that isn’t the case.
He’s seriously thinking about his country.

“I really am sorry for getting you wrapped up in Garnet’s issues. But I don’t regret it, you see.”

His Highness stood up from the opposing sofa, and walked towards me.
Every movement was polished and refined. While feeling nervous, I looked towards him.

“U-, Um?”

His Highness Royce walked as far as right before my sofa, and suddenly got down on one knee.
Truly like a prince out of a fairytale. Despite the situation, he didn’t feel out of place at all.
As expected of the prince-character, Royce Garnet.

“…I want you, Beatrix.”

“R-, Royce, what are you-? Please don’t kneel in front of me!”

While smiling, he took my hand while I was panicking… and kissed me on the palm.

“…!”

Rising up through my face… was a suddenly rush of heat.

“What a thing to do…”

Because of my unrest, the voice that I protested in grew weak…
My heart is thumping away.

“I couldn’t hold back in front of you… Would the top of your foot have been better?”

“I-, I don’t have such hobbies-!”

I immediately moved my legs away.
Ever since I’ve come to this castle, I’ve just been toyed around by this prince.
Even when I flare up at him, just like this time, my pace is immediately destroyed.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me. But, I would be happy if you opened up to me, even if just a little.”

Royce’s azure eyes wavered in unease for a moment …at least that’s the feeling I got.
Even though he used his authority to force me into being his fiancée, why is he making a face like that?

What is this?
Just as I’m thinking that he’s pressuring me with a dark aura, he looks at me with pleading eyes like that…
A kiss on the palm is… an expression of entreaty, right?

I don’t understand him at all.
In my life so far, this is the first time meeting somebody so hard to understand.
Even though the in-game Royce was so much easier to understand. Even though he was supposed to be a harmless man who did nothing but smile… The man before my eyes is somehow strange.

Even after that, His Highness continued to tell me about the state of Garnet but…
More than the contents of this conversation, I was more concerned with His Highness himself.

I was concerned with him, but it definitely wasn’t in a romantic sense.
I mean that I was concerned about what sort of personality he had, okay!?

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