Outbreak Company: Volume 13

by Ichiro Sakaki

  ....................................................................

  Anyway, that’s the story. The story of how, unbelievably, my options expanded from two to three.

  Arrrgh...

  And so it went. In order to escape from Elvia and Hikaru-san, I fled to the living room, holding my head. Maybe a closet or the attic would have been a better hiding place, but if they found me somewhere like that, I would have nowhere else to run. I liked to think that even Elvia wouldn’t try to jump me in the living room, where anyone might show up at any time.

  Still, I had to ask myself: seriously, what was I going to do? I know it must seem like an indulgent question. A harem was supposed to be every guy’s dream, right? The “harem route” in a gal game was the prototypical example: the best ending, where everyone winds up happy.

  But in reality, I didn’t think it would ever happen. For one thing, there would be arguing for sure. There already had been arguing, between Myusel and Petralka. I don’t think there are many women who would just conveniently go “I don’t mind if you have other women besides me.”

  For that matter, even if, in theory, I could get Myusel and Petralka to both go along with the idea, there was the simple legal problem that I could only marry one person. There would always be a rank, an order.

  Wait—speaking of laws, this was Eldant. Another world. Polygamy might be illegal in Japan, but what about here? And even if it was illegal here, one of the partners to this marriage would be the all-powerful monarch, and she could change the laws! Maybe I should ask Petralka if it was possible to get a one-man-many-wives system recognized in—

  No, no, NO! Stop that! (Rim shot.)

  I ended up putting a little comedy ba-dum-pishh after my own thoughts to try to break them out of the corner they were increasingly getting stuck in.

  Just then...

  “Shinichi-kun?” Minori-san wandered into the living room. The moment she spoke, I flinched, ready to run away at full speed. She looked perplexed. “What’s wrong?”

  “N-Nothing. Really.” I quickly tried to force a smile. I didn’t expect Minori-san to be any more help than Hikaru-san had been. They were both, in effect, my enemies. I wanted to know what I had ever done that made it so fun to torment me, but in fact I already had a whole host of ideas, and I thought it would destroy me to hear Minori-san actually spell it out.

  But there was someone else right behind her.

  “Hullo.”

  It was a middle-aged man in a battered old suit. His narrow eyes and perpetual smile made it look like he was wearing a mask—and that made it hard to know what he was thinking.

  Matoba Jinzaburou-san, that was him. In a word, he was my superior at Amutech. He traveled frequently between Japan and Eldant, handled any importing that needed to be done, and took care of paperwork and other details that needed attending to. That, at least, was the front he presented here in Eldant. Behind all that, he was almost like a spy, sent by the Japanese government to keep an eye on me. He was on their side more than mine—that is, the side that had tried to commit a cultural invasion of the Eldant Empire. In my mind, there was still some question whether I could really trust him if push came to shove.

  But anyway.

  “Matoba-san, you’re here too? What for?”

  “I’m done with my business in Eldant. I’m just about to head back to Japan. But you see, I finished a little early, and thought I would come check on you. And what should I hear but that something rather unusual is going on.”

  “Rather unusual? Gee, uh...”

  “At least, I would consider being in a love triangle with an empress and a maid to be unusual.”

  “Oh,” Minori-san interjected, “if you count Elvia, maybe it would be a love square?” That was not helping! She must have run into Elvia and Hikaru-san on her way here and found out everything.

  “Hmmm. Quite the operator, aren’t you?” Matoba-san said in an appreciative tone.

  “H... Help me, please...” I responded.

  I had a bad feeling, asking this person for help, but this one time, I knew I couldn’t count on Minori-san or Hikaru-san, and meanwhile Myusel, Elvia, and Petralka were all personally involved. There was no one around me that I could turn to for advice. And obviously, stewing about it by myself wasn’t getting me anywhere.

  “Hmm...” Matoba-san said thoughtfully, sitting down in the chair across from me. Minori-san sat next to him, gleefully watching me sweat.

  “I understand being spoiled for choice,” he said. “And I know all three of those girls really care for you. But doesn’t one stand out over the others? Isn’t there one you would pick if somebody forced you to?”

  “I can’t pick, that’s the problem!” I wailed. “Myusel, Petralka, and Elvia are all really cute, and all so distinct, and they’re all great girls, aren’t they?! If I were capable of cellular division, maybe I could split into three of me and date all of them! Doesn’t Japan have the technology to create robot doubles yet? Or clone me or something?!”

  “Uh, you’re pretty much only succeeding in making yourself sound like a creep so far,” Minori-san said, squinting at me.

  “I know!” I groaned. Heck, if I ran into somebody saying all that with a straight face, I would want to punch them with a running start!

  “Hooo...” Minori-san briefly closed her eyes, a concerned look on her face, then she opened them again and turned to Matoba-san with a sigh. “You heard the man. You have any advice for him in your, uh, inimitable style?”

  “Who, me?” Matoba-san said innocently.

  “You’re the one he asked for help. Or at least advice.”

  “Hmm.” Matoba-san crossed his arms, cocked his head, and then sat that way for several seconds. Then he said flatly: “Well, as for me personally, I’d like you to try to bag the empress if you could.”

  “So you’re saying, choose Petralka?”

  “Everything Japan and Amutech are doing here, we do at the pleasure of Her Majesty, because of her vaunted affection for you, Shinichi-kun.”

  “So... you’re not encouraging me to go with Petralka for the sake of love.”

  “I’m saying you should think of things holistically.” Matoba-san shrugged. “The entire problem is that your feelings alone aren’t settling the issue, isn’t it? Then why not consider what else you might gain from the match?”

  Yikes. This guy could be D-I-R-E-C-T. Of course, I knew that already.

  Profit. Value. What that made me think of was Prince Rubert, who had proposed to Petralka practically the other day. He hadn’t proposed out of love, either; for him, it had to do with social position and a number of other benefits. I knew nobles and political types had to think of marriage that way, and that it wasn’t always a terrible thing. But—

  “But in that case, you’d really feel bad for Myusel,” said... Minori-san, surprisingly. “She loves Shinichi-kun so much.”

  “Huh...?”

  “Hm...?”

  Matoba-san and I both looked questioningly at Minori-san. He didn’t seem to expect that comment any more than I did, and his normally all-but-invisible eyes had widened slightly, presumably in surprise.

  “What?” Minori-san said.

  “Nothing... It’s just, knowing you, I thought you would back Petralka.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, if Petralka and I were—hypothetically, okay? Hypothetically, if we were going out...”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I might... Well, I thought maybe you would think that over time I might get friendlier with G-Garius... You know?”

  Minister Garius en Cordobal was Petralka’s cousin and a knight who served near her at all times. Gorgeous, smart, and a fine fighter, it seemed like someone up there must have really, really liked him, because he got all the good stuff. He, however, was—well, let’s say not interested in women, and in fact had been very (uhh) close to Prince Rubert once upon a time.

  And as difficult as I found it to believe, even he—ahem—did
n’t think badly of me, if you know what I mean. Minori-san, in addition to being a WAC, was a completely rotten fujoshi, and I’d thought she would have relished the idea that by getting close to Petralka I would ultimately be getting closer to Garius, too. And yet...

  “Oh, is that what you were hoping for?”

  “No, definitely not.”

  I had only been saying what I thought Minori-san might like. One hundred percent not what I personally hoped for. I like girls. Cute girls. (It’s important, so I said it twice. I’ll say it as many times as I need to.) Men were not on my radar, not one bit. Out of sight, unnoticed, not even there.

  I guess Matoba-san must have been thinking the same thing I was, because he was sort of half-smiling and murmuring, “Indeed, indeed.” During the Rubert incident, he’d seen with his own eyes just how rotten this girl was, so it was a natural assumption.

  “Gosh, you guys.” Minori-san pursed her lips as if to say she found all this very hurtful. She was older than me and normally someone I could lean on, but sometimes she showed a childish side. Her baby face made the sulky expression really cute, and... Uh-uh! Not the time to be thinking about that!

  “I do know how to keep business and pleasure separate,” Minori-san said. She crossed her arms. Just beneath her chest. That only emphasized her boobs—obviously bigger than Elvia’s—and left me with no idea of where to put my eyes... Not the time to be worried about that, either!

  She certainly didn’t seem like she knew how to separate “business and pleasure.” Maybe she didn’t actually realize how she acted?

  “Myusel is the one I’d like to see rewarded,” Minori-san said with a quiet smile. “I’ve seen how faithful she is, living here in this mansion. When you were captured by Bahairam, Shinichi-kun, she was so desperate it almost hurt to see. You know she stole my pistol and pointed it at Elvia?”

  “Minori-san...” Gosh, she really had a kind streak.

  “And...” Minori-san was talking quietly. “Anyway, picturing Garius-san writhing and wishing for his reward is practically enough for me to live on...”

  “Don’t say things like that with that look of pure contentment on your face.”

  “Love that you can’t abandon, even when you know it will never be returned... The gossamer nature of unrequited feelings... It’s irresistible!”

  “You aren’t separating anything!”

  Maybe that rottenness had penetrated so deep she couldn’t separate the two anymore. BL, thou fearsome thing!

  Buuuuut.........

  Hikaru-san was basically in Elvia’s corner, and Matoba-san sounded like he was on Petralka’s side, while Minori-san was openly advocating for Myusel. I’d looked for advice, knowing I wasn’t going to solve this problem on my own, but I found everyone’s opinions completely divided, and now things seemed even worse than when I’d been confronting the whole situation on my own. Was this my fault?

  “Aw, what am I gonna do?”

  Confronted with Minori-san, who even at that moment was staring into the middle distance, picturing how delicious Garius looked as he pined away, I could only slump my shoulders and heave a sigh.

  “Ah-choo!” I quickly put my hand to my mouth to keep the sneeze from flying everywhere.

  “Are you quite all right, Garius-dono?” Elder Zahar asked, looking at me.

  “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

  “You’ve a cold?” The lips beneath the old man’s mustache curled into a thin smile.

  “No. Can’t say there’s been anything unusual with my nose or throat.”

  “Well and good, but... still, the stress must be getting to you. You’ve kept yourself so busy lately. A young man ought to take a break every now and again, let himself relax... But I suppose that won’t do now. I’ll have the royal physician mix up a simple treatment for you.”

  “I would appreciate that,” I said. At the moment I had a great deal of work that needed taking care of, a mountain of issues that had to be addressed. I had no time to relax and recuperate.

  “And I know how you suffer on account of Her Majesty,” Elder Zahar added. I didn’t respond, but I could feel a sour expression on my face.

  Of late, Her Majesty had become ever more eager to leave the castle. It seemed Shinichi was her objective. She had always liked to go to see him, but recently the demands seemed more and more frequent—or at least more insistent. Today, for example, she had proclaimed that rather than finish the two days’ worth of work she had waiting for her, she would go to the school. And ultimately she did, though at least it seems she was compelled to bring bodyguards. Knowing that Prime Minister Zahar would break if she applied enough pressure, she waited for a moment when I was not there, making her little demand of the prime minister alone.

  It was all a great deal of trouble she was causing. It is not that I failed to understand the pressure attendant upon assuming the throne at just seventeen years of age, but if she became too willing to throw her proverbial weight around, it would mean more work for everyone. In fact, just yesterday, it seemed, she personally summoned the chef and gave him some kind of orders...

  Perhaps I would have to give her a stern talking-to one of these days.

  “I must apologize for her,” I said.

  “Heavens, you have nothing to apologize for,” Elder Zahar said with a smile. Still, just now, I was probably the only one in a position to scold Her Majesty. If she was acting selfishly, it could be said that it was because I had been too indulgent with her. “And in any event, this is more important than Her Majesty right now.”

  “Yes... Of course.” I dropped my eyes to the floor.

  The two of us were in what was effectively the deepest chamber of Eldant Castle. This building had been carved wholesale out of a mountain, and there was nothing in the world to rival it for size; it contained a practically innumerable quantity of rooms. Even to consider storage areas alone was to contemplate food stores, treasure rooms, armories, and miscellanies—several of each in sizes large and small.

  Some of those rooms contained things that were not to be taken outside the castle. Some of them had doors that were not to be opened.

  Many of the contents of such places were magical items of unknown construction.

  “Well, quite the collection, isn’t it...”

  At our feet was a panoply of items of every size. All of them magical, that much we knew, but all widely divergent in appearance. Many appeared to take the form of swords or shields, but some looked like eating utensils or clothing, while others had simple shapes like a ball or a stick. It was truly a motley assortment, and it included items we didn’t even know the use of. I could hardly believe there were so many things there.

  “And all of these...?”

  “Yes. According to our records, all of them are capable of interfering with the mind or spirit.” The answer came from a woman standing beside us, a mage who was responsible for overseeing our stores. “I must ask you to be cautious, sirs. Some of these items could activate and put you under magical control at merely a touch.”

  I had just been reaching out to take one of the items, but thought better of it. “I see... Dangerous business indeed.”

  That, of course, was why these items were locked up here.

  “That mirror over there transports anyone who looks into it to a nightmare world,” the witch said, indicating something draped in a cloth and tied with copious ropes. “And that necklace causes everyone around you to be attracted to you if you so much as put it on.”

  “I see...”

  It appeared that mind control took many forms and meant many things. Even the magic rings many of us used on a daily basis were in this category, but the decisive difference between those rings and these items was the degree of control or interference they represented. The interpreter rings were ultimately nothing more than an aid to telepathic communication. The magic worked because both parties had the intention to align their understanding. Hence why even the largely unmagical lizardmen could use t
hem. They were simple as magical items went, the method for making them was well known, and they were in abundant supply.

  But when it came to serious mental-manipulation magic—what might even be called mind control—such items were of a vastly different kind from those simple rings. They could break a human mind, or take away a person’s free will. What’s more, many of them could do it without being activated, so to speak, by any human intention, so it would be all too easy to have an accident. This was risky, what we were doing.

  Some of the items were so old, their origins so obscure, that even the way their magic functioned was not well-known to our mages, and thus counteracting their effects was difficult. Hence the special storage area deep in the bowels of the Imperial Castle. Normally, people in our position would never even approach the place. But necessity had driven us to this dangerous survey.

  Not long before, Prince Rubert of the Kingdom of Zwelberich had sought Her Majesty’s hand in marriage. The prince had attempted to assassinate Shinichi, whom he saw as a potential obstacle to the success of his proposal, by using mind-control magic on Shinichi’s maid, the half-elf Myusel. Thankfully, his efforts failed, after which his proposal was naturally declined and things returned to normal. Such as it was...

  “Our only saving grace has been that Zwelberich has always viewed mind control magic as something to use on demi-humans.”

  There was considerable prejudice against demi-humans in Zwelberich, a strong view that humans were the master race, such that the people of the kingdom saw nothing wrong with using magic on their demi-human compatriots. In fact, it was said in some quarters that Zwelberich knew so much about mind control magic precisely because they had developed it as a way of keeping their demi-human population in line.

  In other words, it was widely accepted there that mind control magic was something humans used on demi-humans; it was not conceived of as something a human would cast on another human. It would not be an exaggeration to say that that fact had saved us during the recent incident. Consider, for example, if it had occurred to Prince Rubert to use mind control magic directly on Her Majesty. She would certainly not have turned down his proposal, and most likely would have ceded all her powers as empress to Rubert, making the Holy Eldant Empire not an ally of Zwelberich’s but a vassal.