Outbreak Company: Volume 12

by Ichiro Sakaki

Could she be talking about... Garius? Prince Rubert fit the bill for someone he absolutely couldn’t marry. Was Petralka trying to get my advice about the two of them? Of course! Since Rubert had proposed to her, Petralka couldn’t very well go to Garius about this. Instead, she wanted the opinion of a total outsider—namely, me. So why couldn’t she just come out and say she was asking about Garius? I guess she’d been a little embarrassed to let me know she was worried about him. Petralka tried to act strong whenever she could, and this was probably part of that. Gosh! What a sweetie, being so considerate about her cousin like that...

  As I was busy moe-ing it up, Petralka went on, “For reasons of position, the two absolutely cannot marry, but meanwhile by this person’s side there is another—even if they do not have, ahem, any kind of special relationship as of yet.”

  Ahh. This other person had to be Petralka herself. Rubert and Garius had feelings for each other, but for reasons of state, Rubert had proposed to Petralka.

  “Insofar as this other person is of perfectly acceptable position, that person would make the better partner...” Petralka was a woman, which meant getting married to her was, you know, possible, and that alone made her highly preferable to Garius. Not to mention that when it came to imperials and royals getting married, there were matters of succession to consider. “And suppose that this were a source of great anxiety to you... and that you began to think that you had to give in, to give up. But then... there were also moments when you believe the person you long for may not... may not dislike you; indeed, may very much have feelings for you.”

  An obvious reference to what Prince Rubert had said at the tea party—pretending to compliment Petralka while secretly describing Garius.

  “What would you do?”

  “Good question...”

  That was one seriously twisted love triangle, I thought. Petralka didn’t say anything, but watched me intently as she waited for my answer. She must have been really worried about Garius, because her face was beet red. In fact, she almost looked like she might cry... Uh, er, Your Majesty? I know I’m supposed to be a neutral third party here, but... when you look at me like that, I start to get this funny feeling...

  Okay, the first thing to do was to calm down. Calm down, Kanou Shinichi! We weren’t talking about me. I wasn’t involved. I could be detached and rational about this. I took a deep breath, trying to stop my heart from pounding in my ears.

  Who knows what Petralka thought of me as I stood there silently trying to decide what to say? Finally she blinked, looked at the ground, and said, “It has gone unremarked all this time. Perhaps it would be best to continue that way.”

  Mm. That sounded like something straight out of a romance manga: better to keep it inside than to confess your feelings and screw everything up or get hurt.

  “Of course, even a moment’s thought about one’s position makes clear that things were never going to go on forever as they had. But these recent events have made certain decisions far more pressing...” She almost sounded like she was talking to herself. Suddenly she stopped and exclaimed, “W-We do not speak of ourself, you understand?!”

  “Y-Yeah, I got that. I understand!”

  “Indeed? We urge you to keep it in mind.”

  “Right, I’m—I’m keeping it...”

  I nodded almost frantically, but Petralka continued to glare at me for a moment longer. Why did she look sullen?

  Oof... The way you stare up at me like that is just too adorable, Your Majesty. It makes me think all sorts of wrong things, so I wish you’d stop. I mean, for one thing, we’re standing way too close, and I can feel the heat off your body, and I’m afraid you can hear my heart racing...

  Umm... what were we talking about, again?

  Oh, right! The love triangle. Hmmm...

  “Okay, so,” I said after a moment’s thought. “Is this really a decision that absolutely has to be made right now?”

  “What...?” Petralka blinked, seemingly not expecting my question. “W-Well, it...”

  “There’s no answer right now, right? I think maybe that’s okay.”

  “Shinichi.........”

  “There’s no answer. Maybe that is the answer, for now. Maybe later, when times change, it’ll be possible to find another answer.”

  “But... is that not simply running away from the question?”

  “Is that a bad thing?” I smiled awkwardly and scratched my cheek. I guess as someone who had run away into home security guard-ism after being shot down by his oldest friend, I wasn’t really one to talk. But then again... “Look,” I said, “I was a NEET once.”

  “A neat?”

  Oops... I guess she didn’t know that word.

  “It’s, uh, well... Huh. Guess I never really told you about this, did I?” The whole thing with my friend, my failed love story—I’d never actually told Petralka the whole thing. Myusel knew, but... “So, uh... way back when, there was this girl I liked, an old friend of mine. And I told her how I felt about her—this was back in Japan, see? But she just... didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “D-Didn’t she indeed?” Petralka looked almost surprised.

  “I let myself get totally down in the dumps over it. I shut myself in my room, stopped wanting to do anything. I spent all my time running away from reality... I never went outside. Just stayed in my room, letting time slip away.”

  Petralka just looked at me; she didn’t say anything.

  “But then the Japanese government, uh, hired me as General Manager of Amutech. It’s a pretty crazy story, but that’s how I got here, to Eldant. That’s how I met you, Petralka, and everyone else here. And I couldn’t have asked for more kindness for a bumbling otaku.”

  I wasn’t suggesting in any way that it was a good thing to be a NEET or a shut-in. But let’s just say you never know where life’s going to take you. If you find out you can’t push, try pulling. If you assume you can never run away, if you think straight ahead is the only direction you can ever go, then you might find that some opportunities close themselves off. I had a sneaking suspicion that when it comes to living our lives, there wasn’t really such a thing as “the right way,” nothing saying “this is how things have to be.” If you made a choice, and you didn’t regret it, that was enough.

  And if that was the case, I didn’t think there was much to gain from rushing a choice you had to make. Maybe you couldn’t put it off forever, but if you had given it all the thought you could, if you had agonized and ruminated and considered and still hadn’t come up with an answer, then maybe that was a sign that right now wasn’t the moment to make that decision.

  “If you absolutely can’t choose one way or the other, then put it off for a while,” I said, again with that awkward smile. “Is that such a bad thing?”

  Petralka looked at me, blinking furiously. Then, glancing at the ground, she said, “Can it be a good thing?”

  “At the very least, I don’t think it’s... bad.”

  “Indeed...” Petralka almost whispered, and then she looked up at me again. This time her face was—bright. Cheerful. I didn’t have a lot of life experience to back up my attempt at sage advice, but I guess it had worked for her. “Indeed.” The smile she gave me made my heart feel like it was going to jump out of my chest.

  Argh, this girl is cute to death!

  But as I stood there with the moe practically rolling off me...

  “Your Majesty!” someone called. I flinched. Er, we’re not doing anything! I swear! Nothing’s going on here!

  Before I could start stuttering excuses, I turned around and saw Prime Minister Zahar, breathing hard as he ran toward us.

  “Ah! At last I’ve found you!”

  Petralka immediately stood up a little straighter. She nodded at me, the smile on her face telling me that a burden had been lifted off her shoulders. And then she went running—in exactly the opposite direction from Zahar.

  “Your... Majesty...!”

  Petralka (seventeen years old) was o
ff like a shot, and Zahar (definitely not seventeen) was never going to catch her. At last, the elderly minister came to a halt in front of me, out of energy for the chase. He stood there, bent double, trying to get his breathing under control. It hurt just to watch him cough and shake like that.

  Ummmm...

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said that stuff about it being okay to run away?

  “Are... Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Th-Thank you... for your... concern...” Zahar huffed.

  To assuage my feelings of guilt, I went over to the prime minister and started gently rubbing his back, trying to help him get the wheezing under control.

  Cleaning a house means more than making sure everything is spic and span. When Shinichi-sama, my master, comes home, I want him to be as comfortable as possible in his mansion, so not only does the house have to be clean, all the little details have to be just right. Of course, we have our gardener Brooke-san to take care of the landscaping, but I make sure to sweep the entranceway and periodically weed near the front door.

  Today that’s just the sort of thing I was doing, sweeping leaves and dirt out of the foyer, when I suddenly found myself sighing. It made me realize how long I had been standing there sweeping the same spot.

  This wasn’t good. I had so much to do: laundry to bring in, dinner to make. I couldn’t afford to stand around, uselessly sweeping the same piece of floor over and over. I put the broom away in a hurry, collecting my dustpan and setting it aside. But before long, I found myself letting out another one of those long, unhappy breaths.

  Not good? This was downright terrible. All yesterday and today, I had barely been able to concentrate on my work.

  “Shinichi-sama...” In spite of myself, I gazed in the direction of the forest—past the interweaving branches, toward the castle that towered over it all. Eldant Castle, where Shinichi-sama was at this very moment. He was, as I understood it, there to try to talk Her Majesty the Empress out of marrying the Prince of Zwelberich. Loek-san and Romilda-san’s parents had seemed to think Shinichi-sama was the best person for this job. And certainly, he was very good at expressing himself to Her Majesty. Yet even knowing that, I still felt...

  Anxious. Uneasy. Distressed. And all the more so because I knew how well Shinichi-sama talked to Her Majesty. What if, as he tried to convince her not to go through with this marriage, he began to focus on her as a woman? And if she began to see him as a man? Then...

  “I...”

  When I had shared with Shinichi-sama my anxiety that Her Majesty had begun to view him as a possible partner, he had laughed it off and said such a thing wasn’t possible. Yet as smart as he was, I believed that this time, he was wrong.

  I had been driven to consider my own feelings by talking to Clara-san during her time at our mansion. Until then, I had left them ambiguous, tried not to think too hard about them. I was certainly aware of the immense respect I had for Shinichi-sama, but I hadn’t decided whether it was the esteem of a servant for her master, or if it was something I felt for him as a man above and beyond his station. It wasn’t a decision I had needed—or, honestly, even wanted—to make.

  Maybe the same thing was true of Shinichi-sama when it came to Her Majesty. And what would happen if, in light of these recent events, they came to acknowledge that they had feelings for each other? The thought made my heart ache. But look at me: a person of my lowly position had no business interfering in the affairs of my master and an empress. All I could do was watch, and see what happened. That almost crushed me, and yet I had no choice at all. Together, those two facts left me empty.

  “Shinichi-sama...”

  Just speaking the name of this person I had such profound feelings for almost threatened to steal the breath from my lungs. And yet, it seemed I couldn’t stop that name from coming to my lips. Kanou Shinichi-sama. My master, to whom I owed so much. The person who changed my very destiny. The man who accepted me with a smile, with no thought for the blood in my veins.

  I sighed again. How many times was this today? I had lost count. And just then...

  “Heartsick, my dear?”

  I caught my breath and looked in the direction of the voice. A figure was coming toward me. It wore a long, dark cloak that concealed it almost from head to toe. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell who it was. All I could determine was that this person was about my height—and that the voice sounded like it belonged to a young woman.

  “May I ask who you are...?” I said, automatically assuming a respectful posture.

  Shinichi-sama had come from another world called Ja-pan, to help bring his land and ours together. In other words, he was a most unusual person. It was what had gotten him kidnapped by the neighboring kingdom of Bahairam, caught up with an anti-government gang, and might yet see him targeted again. Could this person be after him, too?

  I kept a close eye on the woman as she came to a halt in front of me. “I travel these lands telling fortunes,” she said. “I heard rumors of the master of this house, and came to inquire humbly if he might wish to employ my services.” I could see her looking steadily at me from under her hood.

  “You’re a fortune-teller...?”

  “I am,” she nodded.

  It wasn’t unusual for fortune-tellers to visit the homes of nobles or prominent businessmen—houses with money to spare. How often in politics or business does one come up against a decision with no easy answer? When such people simply couldn’t decide on their own, they would employ one of these soothsayers. I had even heard it said that some such households kept specialists, a fortune-teller specifically in their employ.

  I had been told that my mother, who had an uncommon power called “the Foreseeing Eye,” had used it to help establish her family’s business. Although this power was not quite the same thing as fortune-telling. In any event, this woman might have been hoping that, with a little luck, she could become Shinichi-sama’s—that is to say, Amutech’s—resident fortune-teller. Having such a post with someone who was in the good graces of the empress herself virtually assured a life of ease—or so it would be perfectly natural to think.

  “Um, I’m afraid my master isn’t in right now...”

  “You, Miss.” The woman almost seemed to be shoving aside my words. “There is much on your mind, is there not?”

  “What? Er—”

  “Might you be... wracked with love, say?”

  I felt myself shiver. Yes, that was it: love. This was love... wasn’t it? Hearing someone else say it made it feel so much more real, almost impossible to doubt. “How... How did you know...?” I asked.

  “My crystals show me everything,” the woman said, producing something from her cloak. It was a necklace hanging around her neck, strung with crystals. It had several overlapping leather straps, and in the middle of it all glittered one crystal substantially larger than the others. “I can see. You are beset by a torturous love, are you not?”

  I couldn’t form words. I could feel my hair standing on end with shock and fear; it was like she could see right through me.

  The woman continued in a voice kind enough to soothe my fears, yet unrelenting in its insight into me. Sounding almost musical, she said, “I will tell you a thing that happens: a maid may grow smitten with her master.”

  I could hardly breathe.

  “And this, too, sometimes occurs: a half-elf, though of station most humble, may reach beyond her place and dare to love a human being.”

  “Wha—?” Without meaning to, I touched a hand to one ear. Inside the mansion, nobody worried about my being a half-elf. They were too kind. This, too, was thanks to Shinichi-sama. So when I was indoors, I didn’t take pains to hide my ears with my hair. But outside...

  “I... I—I...” I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment.

  “I am beginning to understand.” A small smile crossed the hooded woman’s face. “And what is more... This master of yours, he fails to recognize how you feel for him, yes?”

  “You even know that..
.?”

  Fortune-tellers ran the gamut, from charlatans who simply said whatever came into their heads in hopes that it would strike a chord with their audience, to those like my mother who truly had unusual abilities, who could indeed see things others could not. This woman appeared to be one of the latter.

  “That, and more. For all appears in the crystals.” The woman’s face was half hidden in shadow, but she sounded almost eager. “What is your wish? Shall I lend you their aid?”

  “W-Would you?! Oh, but...” I had nowhere near enough money to hire an actual seer. Even a single question to someone competent enough to serve nobles and their like would surely not come cheap.

  “Worry not. I ask not for payment in coin, only in kind. Perhaps you would see fit to put in a good word for me with your master.”

  “Oh, I... I see...”

  “Look closely at this crystal. It will show you what you should do.”

  “Y-Yes, ma’am!” I moved closer to the fortune-teller, gazing at the crystal as she said. A few seconds passed. I was perplexed; I didn’t seem to see anything in particular.

  “Look veeery closely. Very closely indeed. The crystal is only a catalyst. It is your own will to discover the truth that summons an answer from the void.”

  “All right...” I squinted my eyes. And then... What? What was that? A feeling, almost as if I myself was being sucked into the crystal. A light seemed to flash within it, and when I squinted even harder to try to get a better look, I felt myself being pulled further into the blackness... “Wha...?”

  My head felt fuzzy; I couldn’t quite make myself think. I tried to bring something, anything to mind, but the thoughts slipped away like water through my hands.

  “Hoo hoo...............”

  As if from far away, I heard the fortune-teller laughing. Yet I felt as if I couldn’t quite be sure... And finally, the darkness overtook me.

  Chapter Four: Love’s Freedom

  The sun was just setting behind Eldant Castle. Minori-san, Hikaru-san, and I arrived back at the mansion via bird-drawn carriage.