Kanon, seeing her in distress, quietly slipped out of the bedroom, returning with a cup of water.
“Would you like some water to drink?”
“Th…thank you.”
Celesta, her cheeks reddened with a guilty look, accepted the cup offered to her. Apparently, even Celesta could not manage much bluster in the face of Kanon’s gentle smile.
“What is…your name?”
“I am Kanon Kanase. I am a friend of Yukina’s. This is the director and Astarte.”
“…Director?”
Celesta shifted a perplexed stare toward Nina, the mysterious woman standing less than thirty centimeters tall. Furthermore, she employed suspicious spells that could freely alter the shape of things. Celesta’s discomfort was natural.
“Nina Adelard. Some would call me the Great Alchemist of Yore.”
However, Nina boldly introduced herself without regard for Celesta’s bewilderment.
“R-right…”
An expression of even greater confusion came over Celesta, but she cut the subject short, apparently deeming it something she wouldn’t understand either way. She made a heavy sigh and changed the subject.
“…So that pervert is…?”
“That would be Big Bro.”
When Celesta pointed at Kojou, Kanon replied. Celesta’s eyes widened in surprise a little as she said:
“Big Bro? You are his little sister, then?”
“No, by that I mean he’s Nagisa’s older brother.”
Kanon instantly replied with a smile. Celesta knitted her brows in mental anguish.
“Who is this…Nagisa?”
“My friend.”
“I’m sorry… I don’t understand a word that you’re saying.”
Celesta’s shoulders fell in dismay. “Goodness,” Kojou said to himself, seemingly unable to just lie down and watch as he exhaled.
“Nagisa’s my little sister. Kanase and Himeragi are her friends,” he explained.
“Hmmm.”
Then, just say that to begin with, Celesta’s sullen stare at Kojou seemed to indicate. Kojou languidly twisted his lips, glaring right back at her.
“I’m Kojou Akatsuki. You can just call me Kojou. So you were shipped over here to my place. The sender turned out to be Vattler. You know anything about that, Celesta?”
“…Call him Lord, would you,” Celesta replied in a low voice.
“Huh?”
“Do not address Lord Vattler without the honorific, pervert!”
“Oh, come on, that doesn’t matter!”
Using only his abdominal muscles, Kojou forced himself upright as he retorted.
However, Celesta furiously shook her hair as she insisted, “Yes, it does! Lord Vattler is the only person I have… And yet, why do I have to be in a place with someone like…”
“Hey, just to be clear here, you’re the one causing me trouble…!”
Kojou lowered the tone of his voice before the hard-pressed look on Celesta’s face.
Naturally, Kojou had no reason to pay Vattler any respects. Considering the things the man had done to date, Kojou had mixed feelings about even using his name.
But that had nothing to do with Celesta. In the first place, she was the one who’d been stuffed in a box and shipped off to a man she didn’t know. Perhaps Celesta was the biggest victim there.
“So in the end, you don’t actually know the reason why you were shipped to my place—?”
“I’ve been saying that this whole time, haven’t I? Are you an idiot?! You are, aren’t you?!”
“What?!”
“Stop!! Please wait, senpai—! Stay!”
Yukina checked Kojou, who was ticked off over Celesta’s words of abuse, with a tone as if rebuking a domesticated dog.
Then Yukina turned to the foreign-born girl, and as if she was making sure of something, asked solemnly, “Celesta… Could it be that you have amnesia?”
“…?!”
That instant, Celesta’s expression showed visible strain.
Without a word, she leaned forward and strongly bit her lip. Kojou gazed at her reaction in astonishment. Without thinking, his voice slipped right out.
“Amnesia…?”
“Wh…what? Do you have a problem with that?”
The voice with which Celesta rudely retorted had largely lost the barbs from before.
Celesta had lost her memory. She didn’t even know her own name. That would explain her reaction when Yukina had asked for her name earlier.
Celesta’s hostile attitude toward Kojou and the others was the product of anxiety. She was bluffing with all her might to conceal the fact that she had lost her memory.
Indeed, Celesta had no memory. None, save that of Vattler—
“Ah… Er, I mean… I was wrong. Sorry.” Kojou grudgingly bowed his head.
Celesta grimaced in visible discomfort as she said, “Wh-what’s that for? Why are you apologizing? It’s creepy. Are you trying to act superior?”
She spoke in a sulky-sounding tone. She seemed dissatisfied with Kojou’s display of humility.
“Mmm, I see… The cause of your amnesia is likely being bathed in powerful demonic energy at close range. That would make your encounter with Dimitrie Vattler the oldest memory you possess, yes?” Nina inquired while climbing atop Celesta’s head.
Celesta dejectedly addressed the alchemist on top of her. “He is the one who saved me when I was about to be killed in the temple.”
“…Temple?” Yukina mumbled.
She had met Vattler on the verge of being killed at some kind of temple, then was shipped to Itogami Island: That was the entirety of what Celesta could remember.
Kojou asked the homunculus girl in a quiet voice, “Astarte, can we get her memory back?”
However, Astarte’s expression remained neutral as she shook her head.
“Since I do not recognize any traces of head trauma or the use of drugs, I believe the cause is psychological. Magical or hypnotic treatment could force recovery of memory but could also present dangers; so I cannot recommend them.”
“Ah…okay.”
A melancholic expression clouded Kojou’s expression as he stared at Celesta.
Celesta’s face twitched, seemingly thrown off by Kojou’s serious demeanor. “Wh-what?”
“Nah, I just…had an experience that’s kinda similar to yours… No matter how bad a memory is, it’s tough not to be able to remember it yourself and stuff.”
“D-do not lump me in with you. If I can remember Lord Vattler, that is plenty…”
Celesta’s cheeks faintly reddened as she put on a strong front. Thanks to Kojou, her expression seemed to have softened somehow.
Then, taking Celesta’s release from stress as its signal, her stomach let out an odd sound: a healthy, humorous, rumbling noise—
“Er, shall we have something to eat?” Kanon suggested as Celesta doubled over in embarrassment.
Not a single soul objected.
6
Lined side by side upon the dining table were large plates filled to the brim with countless varieties of unfamiliar dishes.
All were bizarrely colorful, perhaps prepared in relative excess, but Kojou couldn’t even imagine how they had been made. He couldn’t even tell the difference between what had been boiled, baked, or stir-fried.
Oddly enough, however, the aroma of the powerful spices hovering in the air piqued his appetite.
“This is cooking from your nation?” Celesta asked with visible anxiety as she prodded the food allotted to her with the tip of her fork.
Kojou scooped some gelled, pudding-like liquid with a spoon as he replied, “Nah… At the very least, I don’t think it’s Japanese food, but…”
His answer was somewhat vague.
Sitting beside him, Astarte was bringing the food to her mouth with robotic gestures. She easily picked a full plate clean, wiped her lips with a napkin, and murmured admiringly:
“Delicious.”
“Ser
iously…?”
Trusting in Astarte’s words, Kojou hardened his resolve and stretched a hand toward some food. Celesta, too, took some with her utensils.
“…It really is delicious.”
Though Kojou could hardly believe it, Nina’s cooking was exquisite. It was a little on the spicy side, but it felt good on the tongue, with a miraculously strong, pleasant taste spreading throughout his mouth. Those weird ingredients of mysterious origin had turned into something far tastier than Kojou could have anticipated.
“Mmm. Certainly, the taste is all right.”
After providing her own commentary, even the foul-tongued Celesta fell into silence.
“But of course. ’Twas I who supervised, after all.”
Nina, in the embrace of Kanon’s lap, triumphantly thrust out her chest. Kanon and Yukina, who had done the actual cooking, were in very high spirits as well.
“Senpai, if you like, I’ll get you more salad,” Yukina said, taking the now-empty plate from Kojou’s hands.
“Ah…thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Also, senpai, you have sauce on your chin.”
“Huh? I do?”
“Yes, I will wipe it off.”
Yukina wiped Kojou’s dirty face clean with all the care of a newlywed bride. Celesta stared with half-lidded eyes, as if the sight of them being so intimate was deeply disconcerting.
“Hey…Plain Girl. What is your relationship to this pervert…? Are you dating him?”
“Eh…?!”
Celesta’s ill-mannered question made Yukina’s voice go shrill.
Kojou looked back at Celesta in visible annoyance. He felt like he’d been asked a similar question roughly twenty-four hours earlier.
“That ain’t the case at all, Box Girl.”
“That’s right. I am merely his watcher!”
“What the—? I don’t get it.”
Celesta glared, shaking her head at Kojou’s and Yukina’s perfectly harmonious rebuttals. Watching it all from the side, Nina and Astarte made silent double nods in apparent agreement with Celesta.
“Well, not that it matters to me,” tediously murmured Celesta. “So are the two of you retainers of Lord Vattler?”
“Why do I have to be a retainer for a guy like that?” Kojou objected. “Don’t even say that as a joke.” Goose bumps broke out over his entire body.
Celesta tapered her lips, quietly voicing her visible displeasure. “You’re not? Then, why would Lord Vattler entrust me to your care?”
“Well, that’s what I wanna know…,” Kojou bitterly muttered to himself.
Having finally awakened, Celesta had no memory, and Vattler had yet to contact any of them. Just as before, the true intent of the Warlord’s Empire aristocrat remained a mystery. But…
“Common sense would dictate that he sent you to Kojou because ’tis the safest place.”
It was Nina who stated the facts in a fairly placid tone.
Celesta’s eyes widened in visible amazement.
“Safest? At this pervert’s side?” she questioned.
“I said I ain’t a pervert!”
Kojou rudely brushed away the right hand Celesta was pointing at him.
Celesta glared at Kojou from point-blank range. “You’re the one who touched my breasts!”
“That’s because you latched on to me all on your own!”
“Ah…!”
The instant Kojou glared right back at Celesta, Yukina’s voice trickled out as if she’d just found something she had dropped on the floor.
“Himeragi?”
“What is it, Plain Girl?”
Kojou and Celesta simultaneously looked at Yukina, perplexed. However, Yukina made no reply. Her head remained lowered a little as she murmured like she was questioning herself.
“I see… So that is it… I should have realized sooner.”
“Realized what? Something regarding this human scum’s acts of depravity?”
“I already said I didn’t touch you intentionally!”
“No, never mind that. After all, I understood from the start that senpai is an indecent person.”
Yukina shook her head with indifference. Kojou instantly became indignant.
“Why’s that?!”
“Never mind that, senpai. I mean the reason the Duke of Ardeal entrusted Celesta to you. Save the First Primogenitor, the Lost Warlord, he probably acknowledges only you as possessing combat capability equal to or above that of his own— Correct, senpai?”
“Well, you might be right about that…”
It was a fact he didn’t really want to admit, but Kojou nodded nonetheless.
To Vattler, a battle maniac, the only thing that attracted his interest was power. Though it was difficult to clearly peg the man as friend or foe, at the very least, he was someone who acknowledged other parties’ worth in battle. That accounted for his bizarre attachment to Kojou—or more precisely, the blood of the Fourth Primogenitor that Kojou had inherited.
“I presume that the Duke of Ardeal believes that none other than you can protect Celesta, senpai, which is why he entrusted her to you,” Yukina stated in a sober, serious tone. The very simplicity of her hypothesis made it all the more convincing.
Whatever his appearances, Vattler was a lord of his own nation, with a large number of loyal subordinates like Jagan. If there was a reason for him to entrust Celesta to Kojou, and not his own subordinates, it could only be because the special power Kojou possessed was necessary: the strength of the Fourth Primogenitor—the World’s Mightiest Vampire.
But simultaneously, Yukina’s assertion made another fact clear.
“That means someone’s after Celesta, right?” Kojou’s expression hardened.
“Yes. Though, in the end, it is only a hypothesis…” Yukina nodded gravely.
Hearing this, the color of Celesta’s face became starkly pale. After all, Yukina’s thought fit Celesta’s last memory.
Vattler had saved Celesta when she was on the brink of being killed. And Vattler had sent the girl he had saved to Kojou, likely to protect Celesta from harm…
“—Concern is unnecessary. The Fourth Primogenitor will protect you,” Astarte declared without emotion.
It was rare for the homunculus girl to personally voice something that was not precise information.
“Yes. Akatsuki saved me as well,” Kanon added with a reserved smile.
“I—I am not actually worried. I’ll be fine even without someone like this pervert protecting me,” Celesta retorted with halting words, turning her face away as if she was blushing. Then, as if to alter the course of the conversation, she righted her posture and said, “Kanon, was it? What do you think of this man?”
“Akatsuki? I have always liked him.” Kanon tilted her head like a little bird.
Kojou’s food stopped in his throat, nearly choking him; the fork in Yukina’s hand audibly fell to the table. Astarte continued “eating” with a neutral look on her face, seemingly failing to notice that her plate had been empty for some time.
“I-is that so?” Celesta pressed without a hint of venom in her voice.
Kanon nodded with vigor and said, “Yes. I love Akatsuki—and Yukina and Nagisa and Astarte.”
“Ah… Th-that is what you meant…” The exchange had clearly drained Celesta’s energy. “Don’t say misleading things like that.”
Limply, Kojou and Yukina lowered their faces in the same way. “What about me?” said Nina, crossing her arms in dissatisfaction at being the only one whose name had not been included.
Then, for some reason, they heard a rattle, which gave them a sense that someone had stumbled, perhaps on the apartment’s veranda. It was a faint sign, one that could, on any given day, be easily dismissed as the mind playing tricks.
However, Yukina reacted instantly.
She drew her silver spear from its case, propped up against the wall, poising it with a fluid motion. The folded triple blade deployed, and the fully metallic shaft slid to its full len
gth.
The blade, reacting to the ritual energy coursing through it, emitted a pale glow.
“—Snowdrift Wolf!”
Yukina sharply invoked the spear’s proper name.
“Nwaa?!”
Kojou, finding the tip of the spear turned toward him, reflexively ducked. Celesta, too, curled up in a ball. Yukina rushed past, sending a sidelong sweep of the spear grazing just above their heads.
Yukina’s spear, dubbed Snowdrift Wolf, was the secret weapon of the Lion King Agency, able to nullify demonic energy and rend any barrier. The dazzling glow of the Divine Oscillation Effect swept toward a corner of the veranda.
“Howuaa?!”
The next instant, they heard the nervous voice of a girl coming from the veranda.
A figure unexpectedly appeared, together with a shower of sparks from her destroyed magical barrier.
She was a young woman, her entire body shrouded in a white robe. She bore an ornamented silver long sword, and a white hood concealed her face.
Under the robe, she was wearing a military uniform modified to be sleeveless and miniskirted. If the first impression she gave off could be summed up simply, it was like a foreigner who’d gotten ninja cosplay all wrong. And it was such a curious foreigner clinging to the apartment’s veranda, observing Kojou and the others.
“Wh-who are…?”
Naturally, the intruder’s most eccentric attire brought an expression of bewilderment over even Yukina’s face. No doubt she never expected a fake ninja like this to breach the anti-intrusion ward she had placed herself.
“Oh-ho… Magical camouflage.”
In contrast, Nina murmured with visible amusement. She was staring at the white robe covering the intruder. A complex magical circle was embedded right onto its surface. It was an extremely high-end military camouflage suit for concealing the wearer, magically obstructing detection by others. Had Snowdrift Wolf not destroyed the robe’s functionality, they likely would never have been able to set eyes upon her.
“…!”
Judging that the intruder’s equipment made her a threat, Yukina put her guard back up. Seeing this flustered the intruder.
“P-please wait—Miss Sword Shaman! I have no intention of harming thee!”
These words spoken, the intruder stripped off the robe covering her. The hood was lowered to reveal a young woman, her silver hair cropped short in military fashion. She seemed to be about twenty years old. Kojou recognized her face.
Bride of the Dark God Page 8