Outbreak Company: Volume 13

by Ichiro Sakaki

  Close work like this, though, was more like an extension of normal, daily tasks, and a bit of extra strength from the suit didn’t matter as much. Elvia was an artist, so she was pretty good at delicate hand movements, but it wasn’t the same sort of thing as the nimbleness required for cat’s cradle. The closest thing to that was the housework Myusel did, mending clothes and that sort of thing.

  In any event, this was not good. It looked like this competition was going to wrap up sooner than I had anticipated.

  “We can’t let this go on...”

  “It’s all right!” I said, holding back Minori-san, who looked ready to jump into the middle of the deadly trio. “This is quicker than I had hoped... but I thought this might happen, so I’ve already got another contest in mind.”

  “You do?” Minori-san said, and I nodded at her, trying to look confident. Then I turned to my other companion. “Hikaru-san?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He sighed, and produced the thing I had made sure to have on hand, pulling it over on a cart like the one Myusel normally used for serving tea or dinner. It would have been most appropriate for me to present Myusel and the others with it myself, but out of an excess of concern that my presence might make things worse than they had to be, Hikaru-san had volunteered to do the job.

  He pushed the cart directly among the three girls. There were six plates on it, two for each girl, along with two long pieces of wood each—three sets of chopsticks. And on the dishes were...

  “Agility test, round two!” Hikaru-san declared. Myusel, Petralka, and Elvia all turned toward him in surprise. He went on: “Behold! That most venerable implement of Japanese culinary culture, the chopstick! The first person to move these hundred beans from the dish on the right to the one on the left wins the title of sweetest Yamato nadeshiko of them all!”

  “Y—”

  “Yamato...?”

  “Nadeshiko?”

  “Is that like Space Battleship Yamato?”

  No, no it’s not.

  Yamato nadeshiko was an expression that described the ideal Japanese maiden, demure and refined, but they didn’t know that. No, they thought of a classic anime. I know I was completely, totally, not remotely one to talk, but I was starting to think maybe there were some pitfalls to making anime and manga their very first exposure to Japanese culture.

  Hikaru-san seemed to have won them over by sheer force of will, though, because Myusel and the others grabbed the chopsticks with the claws of their forbidden armor.

  “Very well! Let it be a contest, then, for speed with these chopsticks!” Petralka pronounced.

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Myusel responded. And then they lunged at the cart, and the battle began... sort of.

  “Ahh...!”

  “Hrgh... This makes no sense...!”

  “Grr!”

  Coming from a place that didn’t use chopsticks, they were never going to have a very easy time of this contest. They saw characters in anime and manga using chopsticks all the time, so they had a general idea of how they were supposed to work, but doing it themselves? That was something else. It would have been hard enough with their actual hands, but doing it using the claws of a powered exoskeleton was darn near impossible. They clutched at the beans with the utensils, only to have them pop-pop-pop out of their grip. In frustration, they tried to stab the beans, but they were too small and round, and the chopsticks simply slipped off them.

  It was a bizarre sight, three girls in heavy armor crouched over bowls of beans, struggling to learn how to use chopsticks.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you,” Hikaru-san said, not entirely admiringly, as he came back to us. “You sure came up with a real time waster.”

  “It was the only thing I could think of that we could get together in a hurry but that wouldn’t cause any fights.”

  “At least it should buy us a few minutes.”

  Myusel, in particular, was struggling mightily to move the beans from one bowl to another. She was holding the chopsticks more or less correctly, but first she put too much strength into it and couldn’t pick up the beans; then she managed to pick one up, but dropped it halfway there, and when she finally had it again, it would slip away from her. This went on and on. Even for experienced chopstick users, it was a task that would have taken a good five minutes, so I had assumed it would burn plenty of time. Although if it took too long, someone was likely to snap again.

  I was watching the contest develop when Minori-san said nonchalantly, “Shinichi-kun, why don’t you just pick one of them while we still have the chance?”

  “Huh...?!” I felt myself go stiff.

  Minori-san leaned toward me. Behind her glasses, I could see in her eyes that this wasn’t a joke; she looked completely serious. Uhh... was she angry?

  “The whole reason we have this problem is because you wouldn’t make a choice,” she said.

  “Well, I...”

  “You’ve got them distracted right now, but the real contest here is about who you think is ‘cutest,’ isn’t it, Shinichi-kun?”

  “W-Well, I...”

  “She’s right, Shinichi-san,” Hikaru-san broke in. “Those girls’ real ‘objective’ is you.”

  I just didn’t say anything.

  “If you choose one, Myusel and the others have no more reason to fight, and the armor comes off, right?”

  That certainly, uh, seemed like a very plausible possibility. It would be worth trying... probably. I thought.

  “B—But...” I looked away, trying to escape Minori-san’s and Hikaru-san’s gazes.

  Yes, it would be worth trying, but you couldn’t exactly “try” it, could you?!

  Even when I attempted to look away from Minori-san and Hikaru-san, I found myself staring right at the three girls, assiduously working away at their beans.

  Myusel.

  Petralka.

  Elvia.

  Which of them did I find attractive? All of them.

  There was Myusel: gorgeous and even-keeled but somewhat retiring; short and sweet and serious and kind, yet stubborn in her own way; who made me feel more relaxed just being with her.

  There was Petralka: gorgeous and strong-willed, yet somewhat hesitant despite being the absolute ruler of an entire nation; who made me want to embrace her with all my strength and keep her safe.

  There was Elvia: gorgeous and also innocent like a puppy; a little oblivious, but also openhearted in a way that, to my own surprise, sometimes really got my heart racing.

  All of them were really, truly cute. If you asked me to rank them in terms of who I liked best, I genuinely couldn’t. If just one of them had confessed her feelings to me, I would have floated off to heaven at that very moment. Would have exclaimed “I love you, too!” and thrown myself at her without a second thought. I mean hugs, kisses, the whole R-18+ gal-game enchilada. No question.

  Actually, wait. First I probably would have exclaimed, “Why would such a beautiful girl be interested in me? Is this a trap? It has to be a trap! Did you think I would be reeled in by such obvious bait? Think again!” and ended up going completely crazy.

  Why did all three of them have to confess to me at once? Choose one? I’ve played games on Hard Mode, Nightmare Mode, and Completely Freaking Insane Mode, but this was just plain impossible!

  “We believe it is time for you two to admit defeat.” Petralka sounded frustrated, maybe because the bean-transferring wasn’t going as well as she would have liked. “What, do you believe a half-elf and a werewolf can prevail against a human like us?”

  “I do, Your Majesty. You can see I have better fine motor skills than you do.”

  “What?!”

  “Please know that you won’t be able to intimidate us with simple mind games.”

  “Grrrrr...”

  “Y’ ain’t even managed one bean, Your Majesty. I’ve got three already!”

  “Curse you...!”

  O forbidden armor, truly to be feared. The girls were already almost like differ
ent people. To be fair, Petralka had never been the most patient person in the world. And the forbidden armor brought all your thoughts to the surface, making tempers even shorter. It also had a disconcerting tendency to convert the wearer’s impulses immediately into action—including any nasty remarks you considered letting out of your mouth. I shouldn’t have been surprised if the girls seemed a little prickly.

  “Are we to simply endure a contest such as this?!” Petralka suddenly shouted, and then with a sweep of her arms she overturned the entire cart. The dishes went flying, scattering beans all over the ground.

  “What are you doing, Your Majesty?!”

  “Y’ can’t do that just ’cause y’ aren’t winning!”

  “Bah! Hush, pipe down, be silent, shut up!” As the conversation got heated, Petralka lashed out with her arms again and smashed the cart to pieces. “This does not please us! We declare this contest invalid!”

  Myusel and Elvia both looked at her in shock. The tension between them was off the charts. It was like a bomb about to blow. I felt that familiar bad feeling...

  Simultaneously, all three of them took up fighting postures and launched into action.

  I aimed an attack at Her Majesty, but she dodged easily. At the same time, I felt a blunt impact against the “arms” I had crossed in front of me, as if they had been hit by a giant, metal hammer. I managed to plant my two armored legs against the ground, but couldn’t quite absorb the entire impact; I felt myself being shoved back, plowing up earth as I went.

  “Hrgh...” I opened my eyes, which I had instinctively squeezed shut, and was presented with the sight of Her Majesty. Her right arm was extended, as if she had just thrown something, and she was leaning over, suggesting that the impact and reverberation I had felt was her hitting me with all her strength.

  “Minor damage. Commencing na-no-ma-te-ri-al repair.”

  I heard that whisper inside my head again, but I couldn’t pay attention to it now.

  “Engaging hand-to-hand combat mode. Multipurpose field set to hand-to-hand fighting mode allocation pat-tern. Defense, 55 per-cent; mobility, 35 per-cent; postural maintenance, 10 per-cent. Su-per-con-duc-tive-stor-age-bat-tery, low state of charge, mi-cro-gas-tur-bine-en-gines one and two commencing operation.”

  I didn’t really follow what it was saying, but the forbidden armor clearly thought it was helping me fight. I could feel the “screen” surrounding my face and torso increase in thickness.

  “Aren’t you both lucky!” Her Majesty shouted at me and Elvia-san, giving us the glare of a lifetime. “Living in the same house as Shinichi! When you wake up, he is there! At meals, he eats with you! You talk to him freely! When you go to bed, he is still just a few rooms away! You can see him whenever you like! Talk to him whenever you wish!”

  Majesty...

  It was true that compared to us, Her Majesty had much less time to spend with Shinichi-sama. I was the first person he had met in this world, and she was the second, but Her Majesty probably didn’t get to spend half as much time with Shinichi-sama as Elvia-san and I did, living in the same house as him.

  Elvia-san took a flying leap at Her Majesty. The blow could have knocked over a tree or shattered a boulder—if it had landed. But even as Elvia-san reached out an arm, Her Majesty stepped neatly backward, just out of range.

  “We are given to understand that you even ‘accidentally’ encounter him in the bath! We know that cliché from manga! Let us guess—did you also ‘unintentionally’ knock him over and set his heart to racing?! Does he not have many an opportunity for what they call ‘lucky sukebe’?!”

  “So what if he does?!” Elvia-san demanded, pursuing Her Majesty. She had her right arm pulled back, her entire body turned like she was about to deliver a massive punch, but then she spun with her left hip, launching a kick diagonally from the ground. Her Majesty blocked this with an upraised arm, but I could see her lift slightly into the air, perhaps because of the difference in their weight.

  “Shinichi-sama saved my life!” Elvia-san yelled, and grabbed onto Her Majesty’s arm, trying to rip it off. An instant later she spun again, this time launching a reverse roundhouse with her left leg. Her Majesty dodged it, just.

  “Hrrf?!”

  But... what was that in Her Majesty’s august face? A tail?

  It was only a second, but it was enough. Her Majesty, partially blinded, was left open to Elvia-san’s next move: she continued spinning, coming around with a back fist that finally landed. The spin, especially with both of Elvia-san’s feet planted, gave it plenty of power, and this time Her Majesty went flying.

  “There’s one person who said they like my ears and tail! One person who acknowledged me as an artist—who said my pictures were good! Do you know how happy it made me t’ hear that? And it was Shinichi-sama! I’ve never known anyone like him!”

  Elvia-san...

  I understood how she felt. I was painfully familiar with that feeling. My half-elf ears had been, for me, nothing but a source of shame, a reason for people to shun and revile me. But he had had nothing but praise for them. He had spoken up for me, a mere maid. He had taught me to read and write. Shinichi-sama had done all of it, without any regard for what he might get out of it. I had never met anyone like him before. The memories came flooding back to me. I knew this wasn’t the time for such things, but...

  “Eek?!” Her Majesty came tumbling toward me, and we rolled to the ground in a tangle. Thanks to the armor, it didn’t hurt, but I could feel the impact all the way through me, shaking my brain.

  “So I don’t want—I don’t want y’all to take Shinichi-sama from me!” Elvia-san shouted. “Y’ can have anything you want, Your Majesty! All you have to do is ask for it! So don’t take Shinichi-sama away from me!”

  “That’s... my line...” I said, getting up. “Even when Shinichi-sama saw my ears, found out I was a half-elf, he didn’t recoil or get upset. He said they were ‘moe’...!”

  Humans were put off by my ears, of course, but even elves seemed to see them as not quite “Elvish.” I was stuck in the middle, excluded from both groups. A pariah with no home. It was a burden I had borne since the day I was born, an inescapable fact put upon me by the gods. Shinichi-sama had really and truly changed my life.

  I remembered the first day we met. When he had taught me Ja-panese. All the times he had enjoyed my cooking and told me how delicious it was. Just thinking about those things was enough to make my chest tight.

  “Don’t make us laugh,” Her Majesty said, swaying on her feet. “Yes, we are the empress. We can have almost anything we want. But know this: there are things we cannot have because we are the empress!”

  That caught me by surprise. And then I remembered. Years ago, Her Majesty’s parents had died in a struggle for the succession with their siblings. If they hadn’t been of royal blood, there would never have been cause for such bitter enmity, and Her Majesty could be living happily with her mother and father even now. As she stood there biting her lip and looking at the ground, Her Majesty looked so much smaller than usual...

  “You saw it, did you not?! You heard what happened! All the events with Zwelberich! We are not permitted to follow our heart even in the matter of whom we may love! No, even that must be subject to calculation and strategy! For us, there is no love without consideration of the costs and benefits!”

  My feeling of shock redoubled; Elvia-san must have felt the same way, because we both took a long swallow. What Her Majesty was saying—it was true. Exactly because I was a have-not, I never had to doubt the truth of Shinichi-sama’s affection. In fact, that was what allowed me to humbly accept the many things he did for me. But as for Her Majesty...

  “Shinichi is the only one! He is the only one who knew us as an empress, yet never wondered how he might gain from it! The only one who could exclaim ‘IS THAT REALLY AN ARCHETYPAL LITTLE-GIRL CHARACTER?!’ upon our first meeting... Rude though it was! But... That is— It is exactly—”

  “Your Majesty...”
>
  “You say we have everything? That we can obtain whatever we wish for? Yet we have no half-elf ears, no werewolf tail, for Shinichi to moon over! We have nothing to elicit his affections, to draw him to us—we are only a little human girl! And it’s—”

  Her Majesty was truly bellowing now—were those flecks of spittle I saw flying from her lips? Elvia-san and I could only listen in silence.

  “And it is the same with our chest! You with your large endowments have no inkling of how we feel!”

  “But Your Majesty, you’re, like, ‘anorexically thin’ or whatever they said!” Elvia-san objected. “Just the minimum of meat on your bones! Shinichi-sama’s always sayin’ about how ‘small boobs are a big deal’ or something, too!”

  “Shinichi may say what he wishes, but the testimony of his eyes when he stands with us all speaks to where his true interest lies!”

  Well... that was true enough. I had often spotted him glancing at Elvia-san’s very large chest. I have to admit, I had wondered sometimes if bigger was really better...

  “And then you add to this your ‘beast ears’ and tail! All the things Shinichi likes, in one girl! It is unfair! Unfair, we say! It is not even a contest!”

  “But ain’t the same thing true about Myusel?!”

  “Wha...?”

  “Half-elves are, like, the rarest ‘moe point’ for Shinichi-sama or something, aren’t they?!”

  “W-Well...”

  The elf population was simply smaller than that of the humans, and half-elves were even fewer in number than that, so I suppose you could say we were something rare...

  “That is true—Myusel, you have an unfair advantage as well!” I suddenly found myself the object of Her Majesty’s attack. “Not only do you fit Shinichi’s tastes, but you have ‘captured his stomach’ with that delicious cooking of yours!”

  “Yeah, ’s right! Your cooking really is delicious!”

  “Gosh, I don’t...”

  “From the beginning, he has said nothing but Myusel, Myusel, Myusel! Do you have some kind of contract to receive a piece of gold every time somebody says your name?!”