28 - Episode 24: Three Idiots Exploration Series ~In Order to Enjoy the Hot Springs of the Elf Village, We Headed Deep into the Feresque Great Forest!~
The second installment of the exploration series.
The party consisting of the Three Idiots, Latia, and Kazuha, having departed from Mahora, were walking toward the elf village.
They had used a carriage up until a certain point, but from around the area before the giant's path, they had to pass through a road as narrow as a private path. That said, it was not as overgrown as a beast path, and was reasonably easy to walk. According to Latia, they would arrive around the time the sun set.
"Hachoo! Hachoo! He... tchoo...!"
"Do you have a cold?"
"It is the change of seasons. Be careful."
In the midst of this, Marianne let out three consecutive sneezes. At the two idiots who remained nonchalant, she shivered.
"No, it is not a cold, but rather a chill that does not feel like that...!"
"Hey, Sensei. Could this be...?"
"Hmm... three sneezes. Could it be...?"
In Japan, there is a proverb regarding sneezing. One sneeze means someone is badmouthing you, two means someone is laughing at you, three means someone has fallen for you, and four means you have a cold. As the saying goes, one sneeze means you are being slandered, two means you are being laughed at. And the third... someone is in love with you. It is merely something like a superstition, but there are too many mysteries in this world to simply laugh it off.
And if someone were to fall for Marianne in her current situation...
"Please stop! Please stop! If you put it into words, you will set a flag!!"
As Marianne covered her face and shook her head no, Geoglyph and Later looked off into the distance, a feeling akin to resignation washing over them as they thought that a flag had probably already been set.
"You all really get along well..."
The one gazing at the Three Idiots with envy was Latia. As she led the party and glanced back to say this, Geoglyph scratched his cheek and gave a wry smile.
"Ah, yeah, well, we are kind of like childhood friends."
"...Is that the real you, Geo?"
Since maintaining Demon King mode at all times was mentally exhausting, Geoglyph had returned to his normal state, but Latia wore a somewhat lonely expression. Geoglyph could not understand why she liked his full-blown chuunibyou self, but he understood that depending on his answer here, her affection level might plummet to the lowest depths.
"No, uh, well... if you could think of that as a hidden personality that comes out occasionally..."
"A hidden personality...! So there is such a thing...!? Another version of yourself...!!"
The answer he had given in desperation after hesitating for a few moments seemed to strike a chord with Latia again, as she stared at Geoglyph with sparkling eyes. At those cloudless eyes, he felt a stomachache he had not experienced for a long time since his previous life and fumbled in his pockets, but his favorite stomach medicine "partner" did not exist in this world.
"Even so, childhood friends... I see..."
Picking up the words Kazuha muttered lonely while watching the party, Marianne gasped. Looking at her as if a lightbulb had suddenly gone off in her head, it seemed she had thought of something unnecessary again.
"...Now then, you lot, go on ahead and secure the area."
"What's with the sudden order?"
"Go ahead where? We do not know where the elf village is."
"J-u-s-t g-o!"
She abruptly sent Geoglyph and Later out as scouts, and after seeing them off, she turned back to Latia and Kazuha.
"Now then, this leaves just us girls, doesn't it?"
As Marianne declared this with her hands clasped, the two of them stiffened with tension.
From their perspective, they thought they were bad bugs crawling toward Marianne's man. They suspected this was a move to restrain them, but...
"I will state this first, but those two idiots and I are not in that kind of relationship, you know?"
"Eh?"
However, what came out was a declaration of being single.
Well, certainly, depending on how you looked at it, the composition was like a reverse harem, but the insides were what they were. It was likely the same for the others. The more one knew the inner truth, the more one was excluded from the options.
The common understanding among the Three Idiots was, why on earth should old men have to get together?
"Whether you call us childhood friends, comrades, or brothers... we just happen to be strangely on the same wavelength, it is not a romantic relationship, nor can it become one. To be honest, they are not my type."
"I-I see..."
"I-Is that so..."
At the two who were visibly relieved, Marianne wore a mischievous, mean-spirited smile.
After all, the reactions of the two were such that their elf ears were twitching violently, and while the fox ears that were usually standing straight went limp, their tails were swaying restlessly. Such innocent reactions made her want to tease them to the point where her current girl self and her previous old man self shook hands and issued a joint statement.
"That reaction... I take it there is a chance, then?"
"I-I do not particularly think of Geo as, well..."
"Hawawa... L-Later-sama is, well..."
"I did not say anything about Geo and Later, though."
As Marianne declared this with a refreshing smile, Latia and Kazuha turned bright red, realizing they had been tricked, and complaints like "That is cruel" and "That is unfair" flew back and forth. However, Marianne elegantly ignored them with a "My, how cute," and whispered in their ears.
"Sooo, don't you think we could become very good friends?"
●
A few dozen minutes later.
What Geoglyph and Later, who had hunted deer and boar while securing the area, saw was the sight of three people holding hands happily around Marianne.
Geoglyph and Later instinctively reacted to the three, who had an aura as if a rounded caption saying "Three Idiots!" had suddenly appeared and they were about to jump in unison, but when the three of them replied with a smiling "It's a secret!" in unison, they could not pursue the matter.
"Heh... so this is the soap that is popular in the Imperial Capital... I had heard about it, but it certainly has a lovely floral scent..."
"This moisturizing hand cream? is also a good product... when doing cooking or laundry, I cannot help but worry about my hands becoming rough..."
"Mufufufu. You are both beautiful, so it is worth the effort to maintain you~"
After that, they came out to a slightly open area and decided to have lunch while taking a break.
However, once Marianne used her authority to force the cooking and preparation onto the two men, she spread out soaps and cosmetics from the storage magic she had recently learned and started a lively girls' talk.
"Hey, Rei."
"Hey, Sensei."
Ignoring that noisy scene, the two idiots looked at each other.
"Is some kind of NTR flag being set here?"
"Stop talking nonsense and hurry up and start the fire. Are we not having lunch?"
"Yes..."
It seemed that even in another world, when the gender ratio tilts toward the women, the standing of the men suddenly becomes precarious.
To be continued tomorrow.