Jashin Average – 12

May 1, 2015 Estelulu 70 Comments

Chapter 12 – The Robbing Evil God

I’m surprised that nobody has criticised me yet for trying to sell expensive bear drawings. Could it be that I rooted out all the humourless people with that 200USD half-chapter thing? Or is it just that my bear pictures are unexpectedly good?

After driving out the survey team-looking people, starting from two days later, the number of intruders suddenly jumped up. On a normal day, 3~5 parties will come to raid us. And because I got fed up with hearing the alarm each time, I changed the settings so that it would only ring once they reached the 4th floor.
At the moment, 80% of the intruders are defeated on the 1st floor, and most of the remainders fall on the 2nd. The only party that made it to the 3rd floor was the survey team from the other day who had come to challenge it again, and nobody reached the 4th floor.

『GYAHHHHHHHH!』

『G-, God dammit… To… in a place, like this…』

Also, regarding observing through the dungeon core, it needs quite a bit of mana, but I managed to reform it so that I could hear sounds too.
The result was that I found out the reason that the survey team ‘s pace suddenly got worse on the 2nd floor. Apparently there’s miasma floating in this dungeon. Certainly now that you mention it, I do get the vague feeling that that word was mixed in amongst the attributes for the dungeon, but I want to believe that in the end it’s just the characteristic of the dungeon and not something that’s my fault. ‘Miasma’ or whatever kind of sounds stinky, so I’m absolutely denying it.

『What a sinister dungeon. The dungeon master has gotta be a pretty dangerous guy.』

『Yeah, we gotta brace ourselves.』

By the way, based on what I heard while eavesdropping on them, there are apparently lots of different types of miasma, but the miasma in this dungeon doesn’t do physical harm like a poison, but apparently has an effect on your mental state. Speaking simply, it amplifies fear, and is a troublesome thing because although this dungeon is one that you need to progress through really carefully even at best of times, the miasma increases your mentral strain right away. In the end it’s just a mental effect and can’t do anything to you physically, so apparently you’ll be alright as long as you keep yourself together, but the act of bracing yourself in itself brings about mental strain, so it’s a nasty one.

『Kuh-, the miasma is too thick! It’ll get dangerous if we go any further!』

『We’re only on the 2nd floor yanno!? If it’s like this on such a high level, just how terrible are the lower levels!?』

Perhaps as an effect of being linked to the exit, the miasma is thin enough that there’s almost no effect, but in comparison to this, the 2nd floor and below has thicker miasma by the level.
…Is it really because I’m on the lowest level?
No, no, the Evil God Aura is supposed to have a weak effect on humans, so it’s probably something else. That’s why I’m not in the wrong.

..*

Proportional to the amount of invading adventurers, the amount of collected items have increased too. Honestly speaking, it’s taking quite a bit of time to sort the items that were collected. Even at a glance there seem to be some things I didn’t really understand mixed in there, so I had to throw them into the item box and check the name… and after I did all this, it ended up taking a surprising amount of time.
And even though I did the work with all my might, sadly, despite the amount of time it took to organise everything, there were a lot of things that I didn’t need. For things like mass-produced swords, no matter how many dozens of them I had there was no use for them, so I think I’ll have them brought to town and sold for money, but if people who should have lost their items in the dungeon saw them while shopping, it would definitely be suspicious so I can’t. In that case, I could just stop collecting them, but now that I’ve already started doing this, it seems that it’ll give birth to some weird speculations in the public if I stop halfway, so I’m hesitant to do so.
I should have told them just to collect the gold. I’m sick of seeing swords already.

『Aah… I’m done, my consciousness… A-, All I want… just my sword… this sword that took me two years of saving up for, can’t…』

And so, I’ve decided to try putting them in treasure chests.
Using the Dungeon Create skill, I created and installed a treasure chest creation box. The treasure chest creation box is a wonderful thing that places the things inside it into treasure boxes randomly around the dungeon. The treasure chest creation box is something that’s used to lure in prey, since normal dungeons steal mana by killing intruders. Placing things like strong weapons or expensive gems into the treasure boxes, they lure in prey using greed.
In my case, I throw in nothing but unnecessary things like weapons, so it’s almost used like garbage collection though.
But still, having said that they’re unneeded, weapons or whatever can be sold for fairly high prices, so it’s not as though it doesn’t attract customers. Moreover, once the news spreads that you can get back the things you lost in the dungeon from these treasure chests, it’ll be possible to sell things under the pretense that we found them in the chest. Well, if we do it too much, as you’d expect things would get suspicious, so we can only sell a few at a time though.
Also, I wasn’t really sure about having only these unneeded consolation prizes, so for roughly every ten, I’d mix in one with enchantment. They might be cursed, but looking at just my tantou, the stats should be good.

『T-, This sword is!?』

『We’d better report this to the church, or else, huh?』

◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

“I am back, Anri-sama.”

“Welcome back.”

Tena had returned from selling things in the city.
Also, since the number of adventurers dropping by had increased, I created a backdoor for Tena to come and go through. I might be a little prejudiced, but about half of all adventurers are rough-looking men. If it were in town then it might be another matter, but I can easily imagine that if they met a girl like Tena in a place with few people, she’d definitely get mixed up with them in a bad way.
Of course, since I can’t say that she’ll be absolutely fine in town, I instructed her to buy a robe for herself to use in town, and not show her face too much.

“I have put the ingredients I bought in the food storeroom.”

“Thanks. And so, how about the thing I asked for?”

“Yes, please have a look at this.”

I asked Tena in an indirect manner like that, to go have a look and see how the Adventurers Guild was treating this dungeon, while she was out shopping. When I asked her about the result, she presented me one sheet of parchment.
This was written on it:

Request:             Suppress the dungeon master of the new dungeon south of Riemel, the “Wicked Cave of the Robber”
Reward:              30 gold coins
Requirements: Present the dungeon core
Time Limit:          None

“Wicked Cave of the Robber?”

Did they discover some other new dungeon?

“It seems that the Adventurers Guild has named this dungeon as such.”

Wai-, they’re talking about this dungeon? Thinking about it, neither the adventurers nor the guild have any way of knowing the official name of this dungeon, so if you had to ask if it was obvious that they’d give it its own name, then yeah, it’s obvious I guess.
But still, by “robber”… Well, I mean, I certainly do take the items and gold of the intruders, so it’s not as though you can’t call me a “robber”, but even though I thought that we’d have a more positive image than other dungeons, the impression they have of us is cruel.

“Unlike other requests, this one does not need to be accepted, so as long as you meet the requirements, it seems that you can receive the reward. This paper has been distributed to all parties.”

Rather than a request, I wonder if it wouldn’t be more accurate to say that it’s basically a bounty already. That I’d have a bounty on my head is not something I could even have imagined when I first came to this world… is perhaps not something I can say, since the moment that I saw the skill explanations.
A reward of 30 gold coins is quite a large amoutn, so I can assent to the sudden surge of intruders. If the conquering of the dungeon doesn’t progress, then the guild will probably raise the reward, so the intruders will probably keep increasing from now on.
If this was a normal dungeon, then the intruders would die once they fell anyway, but as long as you don’t have a series of terrible coincidences, you won’t lose your life in this dungeon. In other words, unlike other dungeons, as long as you don’t give up you can try again, so even if the number of intruders increases, there won’t be much decrease.

I need to strengthen the dungeon to stop them from breaking through to the lowest level, at any cost. Having decided this, I decided to return to the office.

Evil God Average

Jashin Average – 11

Apr 30, 2015 Estelulu 95 Comments

Chapter 11 – A Dungeon With Few Customers

I am now accepting commissions for bear pictures such as this one.
They will all look mostly the same, and will cost 30 AUD each. Leave me an email in your donation message, and I’ll send you the work when it is done.

On the 8th day since I began administrating the dungeon, the first adventurers finally visited.

While I was enjoying my after-meal tea in the residential area that was now on the 12th floor due to the additional floors, I heard the sound of the intruder alarm. Also, the No Life King is still stationed on the 10th floor. I stationed him there as a boss to protect the residential zone, but once I considered that I’ll be adding more layers later, it seemed that the 10th floor was a nice clean place for a midboss, so I decided it might be good for him to continue controlling the floor. Incidentally, even though there’s a midboss, there’s no end boss. I mean, I have no intention of fighting after all.
I’m having the No Life King as a boss room that you need to pass through no matter what if you want to take the stairs from the 10th to the 11th floor, so I’m having him stay there.
Also, it would be boring to be able to simply challenge a boss, so I decided to prepare a puzzle that you had to complete by correctly arranging the stone slates left around the same floor, like the puzzles you often see in RPGs. If you put the sun, moon and star type slates into the pedestal at the very end of the 10th floor, the wall is set to open up and let you into the boss room. Just to make sure, I added the message “Thee who wouldst come in challenge before the throne of the undying one, arrange correctly the skies.” on the pedestal. I get the feeling that it’s basically already solved with this, but it’s for aesthetics’ sake.

..*

Now then, enough about the 10th floor. I need to have a look at the intruders this time. Still holding the black tea that Tena steeped for me, I headed to the office.
There was nothing but a chair, small table and pedestal in the office, with the dungeon core set above the pedestal. After I sat down on the chair, I placed my hand to the dungeon core and used my mind to bring up the information on the intruders. A window opened and showed the inside of the dungeon. In the image of the first floor were 2 adventurer-looking men, and when I looked to them, their statuses appeared.

Name: Lufree
Race:    Human Race
Sex:       Male
Age:      25
Job:       Swordsman
Level:   14
Title:      None

Name: Benet
Race:    Human Race
Sex:       Male
Age:      16
Job:       Swordsman
Level:   4
Title:      None

I didn’t know all this time because nobody except Tena and I had been in the dungeon before, but it seems that I can use the dungeon core to see the status of intruders to the dungeon. However, unlike our statuses, I could’t see the skills or equipment.
But still, for a duo, there seems to be quite a difference in age and levels. Unlike Lufree who was wearing metal armour, Benet was equipped with light weight leather gear. Both of them had longswords in their hands, but the sword that Lufree was using was giving off a more remarkable aura as a sword than the one Benet was holding. I could see a difference not only in age, but in their equipment too. I wonder if it’s a case of a veteran supporting a beginner while he gains experience.
Thinking about it carefully, if the news of the dungeon’s transformationg hasn’t spread yet, then these two came here with the intent of challenging the “Beginners Dungeon”, and it looks like that assumption was correct. The fact was that they had stopped in confusion at the entrance, over the change to the dungeon. But in the end, it seemed that they decided to see what the inside was like, and the two of them carefully made their way into the dungeon.

..*

Before the pair who had cautiously made their way from the entrance room, appeared a wraith and black steel golem, one after another. The two of them stiffened up in shock, but Lufree, the more experienced of the two, regained his senses more quickly and shouted something towards Benet while raising his sword into a guard.
However, Benet was frozen with fear, and couldn’t react to that shout.
The wraith fired clumps of shadow, and though Lufree immediately jumped to the side and avoided a direct hit, Benet didn’t react and was thrown against the wall by the impact. While worrying about Benet who was sliding down the wall, collapsed, Lufree brought his sword into a guard again without any carelessness.
At that point, the black steel golem closed in and swang down its fist. Lufree dodged to the right whilst diagonally diverting the blow with his sword, before swinging the sword in an arc towards the left side of the golem. However, the result of that was the cruel scene of his good sword being broken in an instant. Lufree who had swung his sword was dumbfounded by the broken half of the sword that flew through the air.
At that point, the black steel golem swang the fist that had been blocked horizontally, and with the bewildered Lufree unable to parry, he took a direct blow to the chest and was sent flying roughly 5 metres into a wall, before falling to the ground. Lufree tried to somehow get up, but at that point, the wraith once again fired clumps of shadow, and Lufree who was collapsed on the floor was unable to immediately move, and after being struck in the side by the clump, he was once again sent flying. This time he had apparently completely lost consciousness, and didn’t get up.

The black steel golem neared the unconscious two and collected their items and gold, and after dragging them to the room with the dungeon exit, threw them inside.
Also, because the room with the exit is like the residential area in that monsters are forbidden from entering, the black golem couldn’t go inside. The teleportation circles from each floor also head to this room.

After tossing the unconscious intruders away, the black golem picked up the collected items from earlier, and began walking towards the 1st floor’s item-use teleport circle. The items that he collected will probably be sent directly to the residential area that I’m now in.
For now, I can probably count this times’ invaders as repelled.
In fact, even though I did give orders not to kill anyone, it was still scary to watch. They should have held back enough, but even so, as long as they were attacking, the possibility of somebody dying due to being hit in a bad spot wasn’t zero, after all. As long as the invaders have a certain degree of power, I reasoned that they would probably be able to react to avoid taking fatal injuries, which is why the possibility of somebody dying by accident was supposed to be quite low, but because there was somebody who was obviously a beginner this time, it couldn’t help that I was worried.

Having only just remembered about my now cold tea, I finished the rest before leaving the office and heading to the room next door with the item-use teleport circle.
While walking down the hallway, I considered the adventurer duo from earlier. They were probably lying in the 1st floor room with the exit right now, but they realised that the dungeon has changed. Once they regain consciousness and return to town, they’ll probably report the transformation of the dungeon to the Adventurers Guild.
When that happened, I can think of two reactions the Adventurers Guild will take.
The first would be to send in high level adventurers to survey it, and the other would be to make an announcement and publicly solicit people to conquer it. Only, because it would be difficult to conquer the dungeon without knowing the level of difficultly, I expect that they’ll send an investigation team at least once. Unlike this time, it’ll probably be fairly high leveled adventurers being sent in. I was prepared that this might happen at some point, but now that it’s here, it feels like I’ll be crushed by the anxiety.

When I entered the room with the teleport circle, the swords and items had just been sent in. Repelling adventurers, and then stealing their items… Without even having to think deeply about it, it’s the same as what a robber does. But for challengers to a dungeon, getting only their weapons, items and gold stolen and being returned to the entrance with their lives even after collapsing is exceptional service. Had this been any other dungeon, they woud have definitely died, so although I’m not going to ask them to be thankful, I hope that they’ll think that it was at least better than what could’ve been.
Also, that I stole their weapons but not their equipment… is not because of compassion, but rather because I can’t stand the stink. In this world where people don’t typically take baths, the smell that you get from the armour worn over many days by men who don’t wash themselves is, something that makes my hair stand on end just imagining it.

The spoils of war this time were 2 longswords (though one was broken), 3 silver coins, 25 copper coins, 4 medicinal grasses, and 2 adventurer car────wai-, adventurer cards!?
Oh crap, as you’d expect, taking these away is pretty bad, and to begin with, without adventurer cards or money, the two of them won’t be able to return to town, so my expectations have gotten messed up in various ways.
When I teleported to the entrance room in a panic, I confirmed that the two of them were still unconscious, and quickly returned their adventurer cards. While feeling relieved that my follow-up made it in time somehow or other, I teleported back to my original room. I have to make sure to order the monsters in the dungeon not to take the adventurer cards, later.

◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

Two days after the first intruders, the dungeon alarm rang out once again. It seems that adventurers dispatched by the Adventurers Guild to survey the dungeon are now intruding.
The duo that I beat up had entered in the early afternoon 2 days ago, and had returned to town and reported to the Adventurers Guild. After deciding on the course of action, the whole of the next day they gathered people and prepared, and so today they sent out the survey team…
Mn, the timing matches up.
I quickly headed to the office, and just like last time, sitting on the chair I held my hand to the dungeon core.
In the image shown of the 1st floor were 4 men.

Name: Vaif
Race:    Human Race
Sex:       Male
Age:      32
Job:       Swordsman
Level:   25
Title:      None

Name: Banard
Race:    Human Race
Sex:       Male
Age:      29
Job:       Swordsman
Level:   22
Title:      None

Name: Theodore
Race:    Human Race
Sex:       Male
Age:      29
Job:       Mage
Level:   20
Title:      None

Name: Esel
Race:    Human Race
Sex:       Male
Age:      26
Job:       Scout
Level:   19
Title:      None

It seems that the party this time is quite well balanced. Moreover, even the lowest level Esel is higher level than Lufree from the other day.
It’s probably the highest level party amongst the people that the Riemel Adventurers Guild could immediately mobilise. As expected, the veteran scout who took the vanguard was checking for traps and enemies, and they were carefully and safely exploring.
Even when they encountered a black steel golem along the way, they were a party with clearly divided roles, for example the swordsmen holding up a strong defence, while the mage used earth magic to destroy the ground beneath the golem and stopped its movements.

After they smoothly explored the 1st floor, they found the stairs to the 2nd floor and headed downstairs.
On the 2nd floor, at first their exploration had been going well too, but for some reason it seemed as though their enthusiasm suddenly dampened halfway in. Standing on the spot, they energetically argued with each other, but I feel impatience from their expression.
I didn’t know what they were talking about, so I couldn’t tell what was going on except for the fact that something inconvenient for them had happened. It’s extremely convenient that I can watch what happens in the dungeon like a movie, but being unable to hear sounds is inconvenient, so if I can do something about it, I’d sure like to improve this.

After that, they continued exploring, but Esel who had his concentration messed up stepped on a paralysis gas trap, and except for Theodore who was in the back, the other three were paralysed. Because of two black steel golems who seemed to use that gap to attack, the party was wiped out all too quickly.

Otoburi

Newlywed Life – Chapter 17

Apr 29, 2015 Estelulu 53 Comments

Newlywed Life – J 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.

“Achille~♪ Congratulations on losing your vir■■■ity~”

“Pff-…”

I almost spat out the black tea I was drinking by accident. What a thing to start the conversation with, Your Highness!
It was a blessing that there was nobody else around.

After getting to my workplace, just as I was about to begin with, His Highness intruded on me.
He’s grinning form ear to ear.
Since it’s him, I knew that he would appear before long, but… he’s unexpectedly fast, huh?

“…You are getting in the way of my work, but is there anything you need…? If not, then please leave.”

“Getting shy? Was it that great? Camille’s first-…”

“Miss Beatrix. Shall I reveal to her about how you stalked her, Your Highness?”

“…-!”

His Highness shut his mouth in a fluster.
Hard to imagine from his sparkling appearance, he loves gossip.
The gossip within the castle is one of his favourite things, and occasionally he grasps hold of some ridiculously crazy information.

But, Camille was cute last night. Incredibly cute.
Having her turn bright red, and asking for it with her raspberry eyes moist with tears was honestly… Ah-, crap. I was supposed to be in the middle of working.
I frantically stilled my loosening expression.

“Is Camille off work today?”

“Yes. I don’t want her overdoing it today.”

“Ohhh?”

His Highness smirked happily.
Thanks to his preparations behind the scenes, I was able to marry Camille without a problem.
Because of that, I’m thankful to him… but, it seems like I’m going to be seen through in various ways, so I’m feeling a little complicated about it.

※

“And so you see, since Beatrix is coming, I thought I’d hold my engagement party.”

His Highness’ fiancée, a Count’s daughter, Beatrix Tapas, from the neighbouring country, was presently on her way to castle.
Apparently she’s riding in a palanquin, in the middle of an exaggerated bridal procession.
I was thinking that it would’ve been fine even if they just avoided all the annoying steps and took a teleportation circle here, but Topageria probably has its own pretentions and customs and various annoying things.
They decided to pick teleporting to the capital, and then donig their old fashioned procession from there.

“Your Highness, though the inside of the castle is better than before, it is still not perfect…”

“Yeah, I still haven’t finished cleaning. That’s why I’m planning on cleaning up the remaining garbage at the engagement party.”

His Highness intends on dragging out to the engagement party, those nobles who he hasn’t been able to get a good hold of thus far.

“Even though you know that it might put Miss Beatrix in danger, you will still say such things?”

Moreover, there’ll be a huge crowd of people attending.
If possible, I’d prefer there not to be any problems.

“I want to hurry it up. This isn’t the time for the castle to be disagreeing with each other after all, and I want it to calm down quickly so that we can turn our gazes outside.”

Certainly, the remnants of the extremists who are hiding outside the country are a worry. I understand what His Highness is trying to say as well.

“Understood. Anyway, Miss Beatrix was supposed to be arriving soon, wasn’t she?”

“Mmn. She’s heading here now. She’s supposed to arrive at night. ”

His Highness is in a good mood.
Well, as for me, as long as my workload doesn’t increase, I’m fine either way though.

“And so, I’d like you to lend me Camille tonight. She’s on good terms with Beatrix, isn’t she? I’m sure Beatrix will be uneasy in a new environment too, so I was thinking about giving her somebody to talk to.”

Damn him. It looks like he’s thinking of using Camille as a buffering agent with his fiancée.

“I refuse. Did you intend on calling Camille here on her rest day?”

“You’re refusing for another reason, right? That’s so unfair. Having it so that only you get to get all clingy with your wife.”

Certainly, I’m planning on playing with Camille once I get home today.
If you understand, then don’t give out unreasonable orders, please.

“I’ll be getting busy soon, so I will have to begin staying overnight at the castle. Please let me go home for tonight, at least.”

“Ehhh, come on. I’ll give you a good room you can share with Camille, so you can just flirt all you like there, can’t you? She’ll be getting busy soon as well, right? You two can just use the same room.”

“I do not think it is a good idea to mix business and pleasure.”

“Either way, once Camille becomes my bodyguard, she’ll be staying at the castle anyway, righttt? Sorry, Achille.”

Clad in a sparkling aura, His Highness smiled sweetly at me.

snap…

“Ah.”

Crap, I clenched my fist too hard and my pen broke.
I flusteredly used restoration magic to repair it.

“Well then, that’s how it’ll be.”

Letting out refreshingness all over the place with a smile, His Highmess prepared communication magic. He probably plans on contacting Camille directly.
And Camille would never refuse a request from His Highness.

snap…

“Ah.”

It broke again.

※

“Royce-sama~ Good evening!”

Having arrived at the castle, Camille waved at His Highness with a smile.

I was wondering whether or not to restrain my cheating wife, but after that, she immediately ran to my side.
Perhaps because of what happened this morning, once she was by my side, she couldn’t calm down at all and began to fidget… So cute.

After taking Camille’s small hand, I found that it was surprisingly cold.

“Did you come by air?”

“Mn, it’s faster that way, isn’t it?”

“You’ll get cold outside, so you need to wear warmer clothing than this, right?”

“Sorry, sooorry. It was a call from Royce-sama, so I was in a rush, you see.”

“…”

I was relieved that there wasn’t a pen in my hand.
To think that I was this narrow-minded a person… It’s quite late, but I only just realised.
Various things that I’d been suppressing seemed like they would going to explode all at once.

Because the issue with Miss Beatrix was something arranged in secret, we’re all moving to His Highness’ room first.

“…And so you see, so that Beatrix gets used to this place, I’d like you to help out, Camille.”

“Understood. It would be good if you could quickly get along with her, wouldn’t it, Royce-sama?”

“Yeah…”

To the reply of his airheaded subordinate, His Highness agreed in a slightly depressed tone.
It’s His Highness who took a highly calculated and overbearing approach to this, but it seems that he’s worrying about Miss Beatrix in his own way.
As much as possible, I’d like to help His Highness.

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Otoburi

Newlywed Life – Chapter 16

Apr 29, 2015 Estelulu 65 Comments

Newlywed Life – Q of Hearts (Part 2.5)

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.

“Mm, mmn…”

My eyes lightly opened.

“So bright…”

My body feels heavy for some reason. I might have overslept.
The birds are chirping pii pii.
There are no sparrows in this world, so you don’t hear chuunchuun first thing in the morning.

“Morning.”

I could see a pair of tiredly narrowed cobalt eyes right in front of me.

“…?”

Why is he here? And moreover, he’s not wearing a shir-… Ah.
Right.

“UWAHHHHHHHHHH-!”

I just recalled it!
I …last night.

“HA, HAWAWAWAWA,”

“Could you not scream right in my ear first thing in the morning?”

Even though he threw abusive words at me, Achille’s voice was sweet.

“Um, umm-…”

Unable to hide my unrest, I bolted upright.

“- …Camille, I can see.”

“! …Hyah-”

I forgot! Right now I’m not wearing anything either. I flusteredly dove back under the feather quilt.

“You’re being too agitated.”

“You’re being too calm. I’m kind of getting the feeling that for a while now I’ve been getting flustered on my own, but…”

With an expression that seemed like it could melt anything, Achille pulled me into a hug.
Fuwahh… So Achille can make expressions like this too. Seeing this expression I wasn’t used to on my childhood friend, my face was just about boiling.

“There’s no way that I’m calm, you know? Even now.”

Being I was glued to him in a hug, I could tell from his beating heart what he was actually feeling.
I get the feeling that it’s beating a little faster than usual.

“Ah-, Achille.”

“Huhu… Camille, you were cute last night, you know.”

“Fugoh-!”

There’s definitely no mistake that my heart is thumping wildly enough that we can’t even compare.
Stuck together like this, it’s probably completely obvious to Achille too. Uuu, it’s embarassing…

“I’ll be going to work at lunch today, so we can stay like this a bit longer, right?”

Like that, Achille showed no signs of parting the arms he had wrapped around me.

“Um, Achille. I’d like to get changed, but…”

“Why?”

“Well, I mean…”

Seeing me try to break out of his arms, he gave me a teasing grin.

“If you’re feeling that cold, how about I warm you up?”

“Eh-…? T-, That’s not- …Nn-!”

In the end, my wish to leave Achille’s bed didn’t come true until after lunch.

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Otoburi

Newlywed Life – Chapter 15

Apr 29, 2015 Estelulu 18 Comments

Newlywed Life – Q of Hearts (Part 2)

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.

“Come on, Camille-sama!”

“U-, Uu-”

“Hurry! Please prepare yourself!”

“B-, But… Whoa-?”

Because of the impact from being pushed from behind, I stumbled forward and fell down.

“Aahh-”

bang…

Falling forward because I lost my balance, the door closed behind me with nobody else having gone through.
I even heard the click of the door being locked. Damn you, Aimée, locking me out!
When the time comes, I can unlock a lock of that level at any time, you know.

“…Camille?”

“!”

I could hear the voice of the owner of this room above me.

“Are you okay? Can you stand?”

“Achille…”

In the middle of the darkened room stood the childhood friend who had become my husband.
His neat and sweet face was illuminated by the light in the room.

It’s night right now. It’s pitch black outside the windows, and the only source of light in the mansion are the lights from the magic lanterns.
Having finished bathing and being unwillingly changed by the maid into this outfit, I returned to my room but Aimée who was lying in wait threw me through that door into the next room, and I ended up getting locked out of my own room.
And because of that, I exposed the shameful sight of falling straight forward onto the floor.

“I-, I’m fine. I can stand on my own, you know.”

With my two hands on the floor, just before I was about to get up myself, Achille helped me up.

“You’re not injured anywhere? Show me for a min-… -?”

“…?”

Nn?
What’s wrong? Achille’s words cut off part-way.
Wondering what was up, I looked up at his face, and found that his expression was stiff for some reason.
Not just his expression either; if I looked carefully, his whole body had stiffened up. It’s an expression with no composure; rare for him.

“U-, Umm… Are you okay, Achille? Are you, feeling bad?”

“…”

There’s no reply.

“Achille?”

I tried my best to bring his consciousness back by calling out to him, but there really was no change. His gaze was just fixed on one spot, and seemingly shaking,…

“…Geh-!”

When I looked carefully, I found that his gaze was on me… How do I say this, isn’t his eyes fixed above my sexy negligee!?
Awawawa, speaking of which, I was wearing a super embarassing outfit!

It’s a dangerous outfit that’s an incredibly short, plain black, slightly see-through lace nightwear.
WAHH! UWAHHHHH! What do I do!?
ACHILLE IS LOOKING AT MEEEEEEEE! A-, A hole! I want to bury myself in a hole!
Where is it!? WHERE’S THE HOLE FOR ME TO BURY MYSELF IN-!?

Because of my magnificently uncomposed behaviour, seeing that, Achille instead seemed to be gaining his footing back.
A little calmness seemed to have returned to his expression.

“Camille.”

But, I can somewhat feel a feverish gaze on me.

“Uu-… Um, umm. T-, There are circumstances for these clothes. The maids put it on, s-, so I’ll be going, okay-? …Uohh-”

Before I could finish speaking, I ended up strongly embraced.

“…Camille.”

Like that, I was caught by Achille, and got carried all the way to the bed. He gently put me down on top of the fluffy quilt.

“Y-, You’re wrong-. This definitely isn’t a hobby of mine…”

“You dressed like that for me, didn’t you?”

“L-, Like I said, circumstances…”

Uwahhhh, what’s with this shame-play? LET THIS ENDDD!

“Can I have a better look?”

“No! It’s embarassing!”

Unable to bear this any longer, I hid my whole body behind my two arms.

“Why? It’s cute.”

“Eh-?”

At that moment, my body softly hung in the air, before falling. I can feel the soft bed on my back.

I could see in my vision Achille, and the ceiling of the canopy bed.

“Huh?”

This means… I was, pushed down?

“A-, A-A-A-A-Achille.”

Watching me fall into unrest and behind doing strange things, Achille stifled a laugh. Every single one of his actions is amorous.
He looked down on me with his passion-tinged cobalt eyes.
It’s like being frozen earlier was a lie.

“Camille, am I no good?”

“T-, That’s not it. Don’t I always tell you?”

“Am I, scary?”

I shook my head back and forth.

“Y-, You’re not scary, you know. You definitely won’t do anything cruel to me.”

“Then, having me do that kind of thing to you, are you against it?”

He smoothly stroked the nape of my neck with his finger. As you’d expect, even I could guess his intentions.

“-, hii- ‘m not, against it…”

It’s not that I’m against it. Probably. …I’m incredibly embarassed through.

“I-, It’s okay… I don’t dislike you, after all.”

That’s how it is.
Whatever I say, I like him. I cherish him. I have no objections with marrying him either.

“I won’t do anything cruel to you. I promise.”

“Mn…”

I can believe in his words. Even right now, so that he doesn’t scare me, he’s carefully making sure I’m okay.
I prepared myself, and embraced him.

“I believe you. It’s you, after all.”

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Otoburi

Newlywed Life – Chapter 14

Apr 29, 2015 Estelulu 20 Comments

Newlywed Life – Q of Hearts (Part 1)

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.

Wh-, Wh-, Wh-, What do I do!?
That door.

“Had that sort of meaning…?”

UWAHH, UWAAAAHHHHHHHHH-!
I squatted, my face bright red.

As you’d expect, as a former high school girl, when I received Aimée’s lecture/explanation, I more or less understood.
In other words, the door connecting my room and Achille’s was… a door with that kind of meaning!
I reflexively held my head.
Even when I try to feign calm, the various things in my head and the various things Aimée said… I can’t clear them from my mind.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH――――――――!”

“What’s wrong, Camille?”

At the dinner table, Achille who didn’t know anything was worried about me when I suddenly began screaming with a bright red face.
What do I do? Because of Aimée I can’t stay calm now.

“It-…I-I-I-I-It’s nothing, you, know?”

Because of work, tonight my father is staying at the castle, and there’s nobody at the estate but me, Achille, and the servants.
B-, But… today is the first day since Achille has come here.
W-, Would it be normal for us to do that rite-of-passage thing for newlyweds…?
Aimée said so too, after all.

What do I do, what do I do?

“Camille, want this?”

“Mn?”

When I looked, I found that Achille had scooped out some of the pseudo-crème caramel with a spoon.

“Ah. I do ♪”

“Okay, then open wide?”

When I opened my mouth wide, Achille fed me the pseudo-crème caramel himself.
Hau~n, sweeet ♪

“Can I have moore?”

“! …”

Huh…? What’s wrong? Achille’s ears are a little red.
And it looks like he’s muttering something under his breath. It was too quiet for me to hear anything though.

“Ah-, sorry Achille. If you want to eat it, then…”

“Eh-?”

His cobalt eyes spread in surprise.

“T-, That’s not it-, that isn’t it.”

“What. So I can have the rest then?”

I took up Achille on his “You can have all of it.” and decided to help myself to all of his pseudo-crème caramel.

“Camille, there’s some stuck by your mouth, you know?”

Saying so, Achille ran his long finger along my lips.

“…-nn.”

That moment, a somewhat ticklish and somewhat sweet sensation rushed through my body. What is this?

“ah-… Achille-”

Seeing me like that, Achille stifled a chuckle.

“Cute.”

“…!”

C-, C-C-C-C-Cute he says…? It’s something that Achille almost never says to me!
I can tell that the temperature of my face is shooting up.

Achille narrowd his cobalt eyes lovingly, and looked at the flustered me.
I could see Aimée by the wall, fixedly staring at the fully composed Achille and I who was completely being led around by the nose, but right now I didn’t have the composure to complain to her.

※

“I can’t relax…”

Even in the bath that should have been a place of rest, an incident awaited me.
In front of me, who had been more carefully cleaned by the servants than usual, that appeared.

“Eh-… UEHHHH?”

“What’s the matter, Camille-sama?”

One of the maids called out to me while I was lost.

“Um, you know, this isn’t my usual room wear, you know? Something different’s been left here, but…”

“Please use that as your change of clothes today.”

“…This!?”

My eyes were fixed on that.

“I-, I can’t. Ican’tIcan’tIcan’tIcan’tIcan’t!”

What is this?
What is this overly sexy negligee!?

“I can’t wear something like this…”

With it still fluttering in my hand, I stood frozen.

Seeing me like this, the maids spoke to me troubledly. With a slightly heartbroken expression.

“Please, please wear this. If you don’t wear that, Camille-sama, we will be…”

“Eh-?”

I panicked.
The maid before my eyes began to break down into tears.

“For being unable to complete our jobs, we will be driven away by Aimée to a harsher workplace…”

“Ehh-? Really?”

Aren’t I under huge responsibility!?

For some reason, even the other maids began silently pressuring me with tearful eyes.

“D-, Don’t cry. I’ll make sure to tell Aimée to cancel the staff transfer.”

“You will wear it for us?”

They begged me with desperate expressions.

“No, like I said, I’ll talk to…”

“You will wear it for us, right?”

“No, like I said…”

“You will wear it for us, won’t you?”

“…Yes.”

They pressured me into giving in…
But, if I say that I can’t wear it now, I get the feeling that I won’t leave the bathroom alive. That’s just how desperate they are.

When I reluctantly accepted, the maid joyfully dressed me in the sexy outfit. The other maids all gathered around me with a smile that seemed to say ‘this is our chance’ as well.
It’s like the tragedy from earlier was a lie.
Huh? Could it be… that I was duped?
I’m realising it only now.

But while I was in shock, the maids had changed me into the outfit in question.
Even if I complain, it’s already too late.

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Otoburi

Wedding Preparations? – Chapter 13

Apr 29, 2015 Estelulu 29 Comments

Wedding Preparations? – J of Hearts (Part 2)

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.

“Achille, if anything at all troubles you here, just say so, okay?”

“Thanks.”

Today is a rare occasion where Camille is wearing a dress.
The thick, cocoa brown dress goes quite well with her pink hair.
She’s always wearing her work-use robes, but as you’d expect, she’s cute wearing clothes suitable for a young noble girl as well.

It was immediately decided that Camille and I who are married on paper would be living together.
From today onwards, I’ll be living at the Rhodolite Marquis residence as the next head.
I’m happy about the jump ahead in life as well, but more than that, I’m happy that I’ll be living under the same roof as Camille. I won’t tell her that though.

It’s the Rhodolite house that I visit quite often, but now that I’m living here, a lot of things are fresh.
Camille guided me to my room.
She seems unusually restless. Her cheeks are just faintly tinged peachy pink.

“This is your room, Achille.”

It’s probably something that the servants prepared, and the furnishing is all neatly set.
It’s located right next to Camille’s room after all, and there’s even a door in the middle of the room that leads to hers.

“…”

I mean, I predicted something like this but… it’s that kind of door, right?
Calm down, calm down, me.

I heard that it was a door that was forbidden entry, but since I’m the next head, I can freely come and go anywhere in this mansion.
The only thing was that I was warned that the Marquis and Camille’s rooms were dangerous during their experiments, so it would be better to take care.
The rules of the house are just like the people who live there in that they’re relaxed in various ways…
But it seems like this will turn out to be the best place I’ve ever lived.
The bar, the orphanage, and the viscount’s estate weren’t really places I could really call comfortable.

※

After I finished lunch, I discovered Camille in her room working on something in her room with the door wide open.
While touching the door that connected our rooms, she was worrying about something while trying this, and trying that.

“Camille… What are you doing?”

“Ah-, Achille. I was thinking that I’d fix the wall.”

“Wall?”

“Right. You see, isn’t your room directly connected to my room here? I was thinking that there wouldn’t be any privacy, so you wouldn’t be able to really relax…”

…Hang on.
Does she plan on sealing the door?

Camille tilted her head with an ‘Is something the matter?’ look on her face.
This girl is serious.
It seems she’s seriously thinking about what’s best for me, and trying to seal the door for my sake.

“Umm, Achille… What’s wrong?”

With a mystified expression, she looked back and forth between the door and I.

Asking me with her eyes, ‘What do I do about this?’.
When it seemed like I was going to hold my head at wits end, with perfect timing, a saviour appeared before me.

“Camille-sama, regarding tonight’s dinner…”

It’s the head maid of this estate; Aimée. Her eyes were turned towards Camille inside the room.

“Umm, Camille-sama… May I ask what on earth is it that you’re doing?”

“I was thinking that maaybe I should turn this door into a wall. If I can always come in and out, then wouldn’t Achille be really pitiful?”

“…”

The head maid froze up at Camille’s reply. And then, like that, she looked at me like she was looking at a pitiful person.
I also felt sympathy for this maid who had served Camille for many years.

“I am terribly sorry, Achille-sama.”

“No, it’s fine…”

We exchanged awkward glances with each other.

“Afterwards I’ll have a loooooooooooong talk with Camille-sama.”

Aimée turned an extremely menacing glance towards the lady that she served.

“Mn? What’s wrong, you two? I wonder what colour we should make the wall.”

“CAMILLE-SAMAAAAAAA!”

The chief maid who grabbed the hand of the startled Camille, dragged her downstairs just like that.
Camille… Your position in this house is so low.

I left the education of my new wife to Aimée, and decided just to watch over the outcome.

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Uncategorized

Otoburi – Child Chapter PDF

Apr 28, 2015 Estelulu 6 Comments

Link is up on TOC. Not sure when I’ll do the rest. That was one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve had this year.

Uncategorized

Status Report

Apr 28, 2015 Estelulu 13 Comments

So…

This is too much work, so I’ll finish the rest some other day.

Wahahahahahah~

I’m not really comfortable with uploading the illustrations since that will bring the chance of someone buying the raws to support Sakura-sensei from 1% to 0%.

However, the front and back cover seem to be fair game, so here you are!

Uncategorized

Status Update

Apr 28, 2015 Estelulu 22 Comments

Um, I’ll complete Otoburi arc before I go to sleep, so look forward to it guys!

Before that though, um, I’m going to look into how people make pdfs and epub things, since some of you guys have asked for them. I personally hate pdfs because they’re laggy and make the images ugly, but since I’m not including images for Otoburi, all is well!

If they turn out to be easy enough to make, I’ll go over the earlier chapters for anything I could rewrite better while I’m at it.

Well, only if it turns out to be easy though.

As for what I’m doing after that, I’m not sure yet, but probably a bit of the bear story as a teaser. It’s nothing amazing, but it’s not bad in any way either. Then probably Jashin Average, maybe some other teaser, and then Other World.