Outbreak Company: Volume 13

by Ichiro Sakaki

  Naturally, if the use of powerful mind control magic caused the victim to suddenly speak or behave very differently from normal, that would be a liability. We might have noticed such a change in Her Majesty—but then again, we might not have.

  Eldant lagged behind Zwelberich in the development of mind control magic, but it was now necessary that some research be done in that direction. The events of the previous days had made that painfully clear. Without some example to follow, however, any work we might do would be no better than groping in the dark. But by the same token, if we could procure some kind of mind control magic that we might use as a yardstick, it would be a boon to our research project.

  Obviously we couldn’t go to Zwelberich asking for help. Thus, Elder Zahar and I had come to this storeroom full of forbidden magical items in hopes of finding an example to follow.

  “Excuse me...” We were surprised by a girl’s voice, flat and toneless. Elder Zahar and I looked up from the items at our feet, peering deeper into the room, from whence the voice had come.

  Two humanoid forms loomed there, each a good two heads taller than me. Despite being basically human in shape, they didn’t feel quite human, and the length of their limbs was obviously not to normal human proportions. Dolls? No—puppets.

  Made of wood, metal, and leather, these things could be controlled by magic, in order to do work for their masters. They represented the safest way to transport magical items that could be dangerous to touch—and the dwarves were the undisputed masters of controlling such creations. The two puppets walked up to us, accompanied by heavy footsteps, and on the floor they set a box they had been carrying.

  From behind them appeared two dwarves, the ones who had been controlling the puppets. One was a petite young woman, the other a gruff older man. Both had the short stature and greyish skin characteristic of dwarves, but that was about all they had in common. The girl was Lauron Selioz, a young woman exceptionally talented in the control of dolls and puppets, to the extent that she had even been given the duty of puppeteering Her Majesty’s body double. She rarely showed much emotion, but Elder Zahar and I were both well acquainted with her diligent work, and she was a natural choice for this job.

  The middle-aged man was Rydel Guld. He was the foreman of Guld Workshop, one of the very best production centers in the nation. It was his family that had excavated the royal castle. Despite being a dwarf, he was accorded a status nearly equal to that of a human noble; he was one of the empire’s most important people. He was also Lauron’s former superior. He, too, had been summoned to control one of the puppets. They would both normally have been too important to bother with menial labor like this... but considering what we were actually doing, we needed to keep our numbers small and trustworthy.

  “My, my... This is going to put this old body through the wringer,” Prime Minister Zahar said, casting his eyes once more over the magical items lined up before us.

  We weren’t talking about a handful of inventory. We had dozens, or perhaps even hundreds, of items to inspect, many of which were immensely dangerous to handle, and we didn’t know if any of them would even be of help. It demanded vigilance and care—dangerous and draining work.

  “But it will prove a good opportunity,” I replied. Even before the events with Zwelberich, I had been considering the burgeoning necessity of investigating mind control magic. For example, the so-called “Puppet Drake” developed by our neighbors Bahairam: that, too, was presumably a form of this magic, although also not intended for use on humans. Such magic might not seem destructive in and of itself, but it was very much a weapon. Setting aside the question of whether we would use such a weapon ourselves, so long as our enemies had it, it was incumbent upon us to learn at least enough to prepare countermeasures.

  Sounds like something Shinichi would say, I mused, and the thought brought a smile to my face. I had learned much since he came to our country. Shinichi, evangelist of the culture of another world entirely, had a way of shaking us out of our most entrenched notions—what might be called tradition if one were feeling favorable, and meaningless habits if not. More than once, he had called my attention to things that had seemed so natural to me I had never even thought about them.

  He was an interesting man. Someone the like of whom I had never had around me. I had the surprising feeling that if we were to consult with him about this magical research, he might think of some method we hadn’t considered. Sometimes there is a perspective one can only gain by not being too close to a matter.

  When we were done with this selection, perhaps we could both go with Her Majesty to Shinichi’s mansion, as a way of refreshing ourselves.

  The thought comforted me as I gazed at the heaps of magical items sitting before us.

  Chapter Two: More Like HARMOR!

  Rest days meant taking it easy on both my body and my mind. I might have been a teenaged former home security guard, but I did teach at my school on a regular basis, plus I had my job as Amutech’s General Manager to deal with, and all of that could make a person tired after a while. No matter how sweet it looked like I had it, this was legitimate work I was doing.

  So I usually spent my days off checking out the newest anime, manga, and games, no rush, just taking them in. But today, I wasn’t in the mood.

  “Siiiiiighhhhh...”

  Through the window I could see a gorgeous blue sky, not a cloud in sight. It was the sort of weather that would normally energize me just looking at it, but the way I was feeling at that moment, it made me want to shake my fist at the sky and shout, “Are you mocking me?!”

  “What am I gonna do...?” I moaned, rolling from side to side in my bed.

  Myusel. Petralka. Elvia.

  All of them cute. Extremely cute. Wildly, wickedly, out-of-this-world cute.

  Honestly, all of these girls were way out of my league: me, Kanou Shinichi, whose “specs” as a human being were absolutely, completely average, or even below average. Normally, if you told me I’d won the affections of girls like these, I would have been skipping for joy.

  No, the real problem was that I’d won them all at once.

  “Gaaahh...”

  They say every dog has his day, and every guy has his moteki, his moment in the sun, but who knew it could come on so suddenly? And who knew it could be such a headache? I sure didn’t. I apologize for all the times I thought, Explode, you damn Real! (I mean, not that I really knew for sure if I was a Real right then or not.)

  I kept wondering if maybe I should go the harem route, even if people did call me monstrous or pathetic. But every time I had that thought, I remembered the nightmare from the other day. And then I added Elvia to it. Oof.

  Those were the thoughts going through my head when a voice all but burst through the door.

  “Shinichi! Are you there?!”

  “Heek?!” I sat up in a hurry. “Wh-Wha? Petralka?!”

  “Indeed. A ‘Yes, I am here’ would have sufficed.”

  “Er—Uh—”

  “Hmm! As ever, your room is rife with interesting things, Shinichi!”

  “B-B-But why?!”

  Without so much as a knock she strode into my room, examining the manga, figures, and everything else around: Petralka, the Empress. I could only sit there in shock.

  This wasn’t the first time she had barged into my room, but all the others had been back before the room had a “lock” on it. A lot had happened (including a good deal I didn’t want to remember), and now every room in the mansion had a magical lock. I’d thought mine had been set. The locks activated automatically, so I didn’t even give them much thought. Doors either had to be opened from the inside, or you had to have the key. Or so I’d—

  “Oh...”

  Standing there in the still-open doorway, I caught sight of a fidgety Myusel. She was holding a card-like piece of gold, most likely the backup key she had been entrusted with. She had copies of all of our keys, in case ours got lost or destroyed. I figured Petralka had coerced her into open
ing my door. They might have been fighting over me (or something, I guess, so to speak), but when the Empress commanded, a common maid like Myusel had no choice but to obey.

  “Wh-What’s going on? Why are you here?” I asked. I unconsciously grabbed a comb and ran it through my hair.

  Uggghhh! I look disgusting even by my standards...!

  Until very recently, I had been virtually indifferent to my appearance. But in front of a girl who was (at least with a very high degree of probability) in love with me, I would have liked to have looked just the slightest bit more impressive. I mean, golly gee, after all, I am a boy! (Sorry, I know it sounds kind of creepy to have to say it myself.) I quickly tried to straighten my shirt, which unfortunately was thoroughly rumpled from my tossing and turning on the bed until just a moment ago. All of this was almost unconscious, a reflex reaction.

  “Is there some kind of emergency?” I asked, and Petralka’s lovely eyebrows drew together. I could almost see the “Grrr...” sound effect behind her. She covered the distance to my bed in a few quick strides, put her hands on her hips, and glared at me.

  “Are you saying we cannot come simply to see your face?!” Her cheeks were flushed red. She had pale skin to begin with, so a blush really stood out.

  Er, but getting back to the point...

  “Huh...?” It took me a moment to grasp what she was saying. Then I felt my own face get hot in a hurry. I guess she was telling me that she’d come here for no other reason than to see me. Plus, Petralka had sounded angry, but then she looked away from me, almost like she was embarrassed. Arrrgh, it’s so cute! It’s mucho cute-o, Your Majesty! (See? She’s so kawaii that I’m mangling foreign languages to say it!) All by itself, it was enough to leave my heart on the verge of overheating.

  And at that moment...

  “U-Um!”

  Myusel, sounding a bit distressed, came into the room. That snapped me out of my raptures about Petralka’s adorability.

  “Myusel?” I said.

  “Um, well...”

  She had come into the room, yes, but then she immediately stopped, and didn’t say anything else. Or maybe she couldn’t. She looked weak and vulnerable, watching us from a distance with an expression like she might burst into tears at any moment. She wanted to object, that was the vibe I got. The hand she put to her chest, as if to steady herself, seemed at once so strong and so fragile.

  Just having those big, watery eyes turned on me is so ahhhhhh!

  This was bad. Anything more and this would be very bad. My heart wouldn’t be able to stand it. I would keel over. Die. Check out, shuffle off this mortal coil. Shinichi has left the building!

  Then there came something that only pushed me closer to the edge.

  “Shinichi-sama!” A third person came bounding up to the open door. Needless to say, it was Elvia. “I drew this picture of ya, Shinichi-sama! I wanted t’ show.................................................?”

  She flounced into the room, with a big smile on her face and her tail wagging so fast I thought it might fly off. Then, for the first time, she registered the situation: Myusel standing some distance from the bed, Petralka standing right beside the bed, and me sitting on the bed. She looked at each of us. The girls’ eyes all met. Nobody said anything.

  Was it just me, or was there an instant where it felt like they might all kill each other? It had to be my imagination. Had to. Probably. I’m sure it was. Because if it wasn’t, that would be awful.

  An unpleasant silence pervaded the room. At last, Petralka spoke.

  “Pardon us, but Shinichi is busy entertaining us.” She looked at me. “Aren’t you, Shinichi?”

  “Huh? I mean, not really—”

  “Sometimes I wish y’d give me your full attention for once, Shinichi-sama!”

  “Er...”

  “U-Um, Shinichi-sama...”

  First Elvia, then even Myusel (with obvious hesitation) lined up beside Petralka by the bed.

  “I w-w-was thinking,” Myusel said, “it’s been so long since, uh, I asked you to h-help me with my Ja-panese...” Her unique, pointy half-elf ears peeked out from beneath her flaxen twin-tails. Normally pale enough to compete with Petralka, right now they were so flushed it looked like she had a fever. “I d-don’t suppose you could...?”

  “I could, er, but...”

  I could never refuse a request from Myusel. But:

  “Shinichi-sama! You gotta look at my picture first! I think I did a great job, don’t you?!”

  “Both of you get to live in this house with Shinichi! Cede his attentions to us for one day!”

  “Yeah, but I don’t get to go t’ school! I can only see Shinichi-sama when he’s around the house!”

  Suddenly, Petralka and Elvia were arguing, and it felt like the strangest sight I had ever seen. A former Bahairamanian spy like Elvia would, you might think, know better than to get in a fight with the empress of the country she had been spying on. I wondered if Hikaru-san was somehow behind this. I could hear him now: “When it comes to love, status and social position have nothing to do with anything.” And I could see Elvia taking him completely at his word.

  Petralka being who she was, she seemed committed to fighting for me fair and square, rather than using her immense authority to elbow Myusel aside. At the very least, she’d implied as much to Myusel. I wondered if the same thing went for Elvia. That would make her one upstanding young lady. I wondered if that was the sort of thing empresses were taught as rulers.

  “Oh, b-by the way, Petralka...”

  “Hrm? What is it, Shinichi?”

  “Is it, uh, okay for you to be here? I mean, have you told Garius-san?” I was afraid she would get in trouble again if she had left the castle without permission.

  “That will not be a problem,” she replied.

  “Really?”

  “Garius and Zahar are otherwise occupied with some business or other in the bowels of the castle. They will hardly notice if we step out for a few minutes.”

  “I think that’s going to be a very big problem!”

  “We have bodyguards! It is fine!”

  “Ugh...”

  Fine wasn’t the word I would have chosen.

  She thought Garius wasn’t going to notice this? When Petralka referred to her bodyguards, I assumed she didn’t mean the official royal guard, but the unit of maids that sometimes protected her. They knew a smattering of combat techniques so that they could keep Petralka safe (it had certainly saved my neck back when Japan had sent a special ops squad to get me), but they still couldn’t hold a candle to a squadron of trained knights.

  “C’mon, Shinichi-sama, y’ should come to my room!” Elvia grabbed my right arm like an overexcited child. I could hardly resist her werewolf’s strength, and I found myself dragged through space behind her.

  “Yikes—!” Elvia was hugging my whole right arm against her body. Very, very tightly. And everything above my elbow was pressed right up against her—her ch-ch- her chhaaaaahhhhhhh!

  S-So, so soft...! I thought in a rapture, my head lolling from side to side.

  A second later, my left arm found itself ensconced in a feeling no less soft and warm—wait.

  “Myusel?”

  I looked over and realized Myusel was clinging to my other arm. Okay, so she wasn’t as well-endowed as Elvia, but there was no question that it was there, I mean her chest, and with my two arms sandwiched next to the girls, it was like their boobs were saying, take this! No, take this! And one of these—aaahhhh!

  “...Y’ gotta let him go, Myusel.”

  “I... I will not...!”

  The two of them glowered at each other, still pulling on my arms.

  Ow ow ow ow ow!

  Elvia was tugging mercilessly, while Myusel, doing the best she could, hung off my other arm with her entire body weight—all things considered, it was pretty uncomfortable.

  Argh! Whoever heeds my cries and lets go first is my real mother...!

  Wait, what was this, th
e judgment of Solomon?

  Was this... Could it be...? Was this one of those moments when you discover that war is hell...?!

  I groaned, overtaken by a rapidly increasing bad feeling. But then—

  “Both of you, let go of Shinichi!” Petralka shouted, her voice tinged with panic.

  Elvia and Myusel both looked startled, and bolted away from me as if they had been physically struck. Petralka’s words had been, without question, an order from the Holy Eldant Empress. I’m not sure if even she herself realized how different she sounded from when she had been arguing with Elvia earlier. But at an imperial command, neither Elvia nor Myusel could do anything but obey.

  Released from the girls’ grips, I let out a sigh of relief. Still, my arms longed to feel once again those chests, the touch of which they still remembered. Then again, if I’d stayed pressed up against them like that, who knows if my such-and-such might have done you-know-what right there in front of everybody—so I suppose I should be grateful to Petralka for rescuing me.

  “Ah... Er... Ahem...” With Myusel and Elvia looking at her, Petralka suddenly seemed abashed. So I was right: she had instinctively adopted the tone of an empress a moment ago, but she hadn’t forgotten her own vow to battle Myusel on fair terms. She had broken the rules, really, and now she was feeling sheepish.

  What a delightfully maladroit girl.

  “Shinichi was in trouble, you see...”

  “That will never do, Your Majesty.”

  This riposte to Petralka’s would-be excuse came not from Myusel or Elvia, but from someone who had appeared in the still-open doorway: Hikaru-san. He marched into the room and crossed his arms with an elegant motion. He looked like he was ready to give the lecture of a lifetime; at the very least, you couldn’t deny the authority he radiated.

  “Wh-What do you mean by that?” Petralka asked. Even she looked slightly cowed.