91 - Episode 17: The Intruder Under the Moonlight, Part 2 ~What She Wanted, What She Wants~
"I-I'm not taking her, what? Lumilia and Shannon are not, that kind of relationship, yes, master and servant! We are just master and servant!"
"My, my, my."
While Lumilia babbled her excuses in a rapid-fire torrent, her eyes darting back and forth, the yuri-pig smiled with a troubled look, hand pressed to her cheek. However, inside her heart...
(This girl is just too cute...!? )
Her heart was bouncing. Truly, bouncing with all its might on the trampoline of yuri.
"Judging by the exchange just now, it seemed less like master and servant and more like a slightly awkward pair of lovers."
"Lovers...!? I mean, were you spying on us!?"
Lumilia bristled in protest at Marianne, who was grinning like a cat before a cornered mouse.
"I-Impudence! This is impudence!! No matter if you are Shannon's benefactor...!"
"Oh, so it would be fine for Shannon-chan to become someone's bride, then?"
"That, is..."
But this cat would not allow a counterattack. She was curious, but she did not let her guard down. She was truly malicious.
"Once friends. Now master and servant. The one who was always by her side, her greatest confidante. Is that not so? Always together, trusting her more than anyone, more than anything... and that is precisely why you fell in love."
This was Marianne's first time interacting with Lumilia. However, she had heard a fair amount about her personality from Shannon, and had subtly probed into her upbringing and their relationship.
Such lines might normally be taken as delusions, but when delivered alongside a psychological shake-up, the effect was immediate. Lumilia, having been pinned down, should have denied it, but she only gaped, unable to find a second word.
Facing her, the yuri-pig nodded, as if saying, "Yes, yes."
(Yes, yes, I, Marianne Romanette, shall do anything to make the forbidden love of these girls bloom. Anything, indeed.)
Incidentally, people call this kind of action, which changes another's thinking, agitation or brainwashing.
"You think it is strange, that it is not normal, do you not? That a woman would love another woman."
"..."
To the question, Lumilia looked down in silence. However, the lack of a rebuttal was proof enough. Thus, the fool pressed her advantage.
"Biologically, it is certainly strange. Same-sex pairs cannot produce children, and for those in the position of royalty and nobility, it is even more so. However, emotions are not something so simple that they can be settled by theory or logic. Especially the emotion of love, you see."
"What... what could you possibly know!? I am Lumilia El Albestein! The last royalty of this country! Such nonsense...!!"
"You felt your heart flutter when Shannon-chan became a boy after obtaining that magic spear, did you not?"
"...!!"
The rebuttal squeezed out by the young girl stood no chance against the yuri-pig, who had used her tongue as a weapon to deal with seasoned merchants.
"But Shannon-chan was originally a girl, and her heart is still that of one, and since she herself is troubled by it, you feel that directing your affection toward her so simply would be misplaced, so you keep it hidden in your heart, yes?"
"W-w-w..."
"But then you went on a flight together, and becoming conscious of Shannon-chan protecting you with her life, you wanted to realize those feelings and tell her, and while you want to lean on her, you wondered if it would be a nuisance and so you kept a strange distance and pushed her away once, right?"
"W-w-w-w-w...!"
"A bullseye. Truly... how adorable."
"~~~~...!!"
And finally, she had her cornered. With her ears turning bright red, Lumilia collapsed to her knees. The smile the yuri-pig wore while watching this was quite evil.
"How... why..."
"Why, you ask?"
"How do you know?"
To that question, the yuri-pig gave a proud snort.
"I, Marianne Romanette, am one who has discovered countless, yes, thousands of blooming loves, and has seen every one of those paths to the end. A development of this level... for me, it is nothing more than a cliché."
In reality, she had simply collected romance novels centered on yuri in modern Japan, and combined with a bleak youth, her real-life experience was relatively meager. She was not lying, but she was not telling the whole truth either, remaining a truly hopeless fool in many ways.
However, there was no way the fairy princess knew such circumstances, and she was shocked.
"A cliché... my troubles are a cliché...?"
"Yes, a cliché. If I may say, a super-cliché. In my hands, Lumilia-sama's troubles shall vanish instantly!"
"I-Is that true?"
"Yes, Marianne does not lie."
Furthermore, she does not tell the truth either.
"Then, what should I do...?"
As if clinging to such a fool, Lumilia asked with an upward glance. Marianne felt that this girl was indeed cute, a thought that would likely lead her to the other side of sorrow if some certain Saint were to find out, and she lightly crossed her arms.
"First, let us confirm your position."
"Position?"
"Yes. As a premise... you love Shannon-chan, do you not?"
"U-um, that is, well... yes..."
To the direct question, Lumilia nodded hesitantly.
"That is not 'like' but 'love', or rather, you have fallen in love, have you not?"
"Yes..."
"As a woman, you love her! You have fallen in love with her!?"
"Yes...!"
Having extracted a commitment from Lumilia, whose life bar was already depleted, Marianne let out a loud, excited snort. This woman was truly in her element.
"Very well. If you understand that, then the conversation is not so difficult."
"Is it true!?"
"Yes. However..."
"However?"
"Determination is necessary. In this world, you will be doing something that is not normal. There is no precedent, there is no one to rely on, and you will walk a path of thorns where people point fingers behind your back. If you still intend to seize your own greatest happiness..."
"Determination...?"
"Yes. If you wish to run at the cutting edge of the world, there is nothing to be gained by sitting still."
Currently, the civilization standard of this world is the Middle Ages.
Therefore, there is not a shred of diversity.
Religious oppression. Conventional correction. Common-sense judgments.
Exclusion, exclusivity, discrimination, oppression.
All of them bare their fangs toward the foreign object.
Yes, a foreign object.
Even though common sense is something that easily transforms from era to era, people loudly proclaim it as if it were absolute justice and eliminate the uncommon.
Even if the uncommon eventually becomes common sense, right now, in this world, Lumilia's emotions are nothing but a foreign object.
If she intends to destroy that, she will simply be crushed by the clever world with half-hearted determination.
A basic framework that does not waver, does not bend, and does not break.
A proof of existence to be oneself.
If continued, that will eventually become a conviction, the first emotion that leads to an aesthetic.
Namely.
"Yes. It is selfishness. That is a girl's privilege, but at the same time, it is a double-edged sword. The world is not so sweet or kind that it moves for the selfishness of a young girl. If you still intend to push through, you must cast off your former self and change. Yes... become strong, cute, and cool."
That is why Marianne asked, and left it to Lumilia.
"Then, shall I ask. Do you have any unreasonableness you wish to destroy?"
The trigger to move herself.
●
"Oh, Princess. You've come at a good time."
"I mean, where did you go?"
As it approached midnight, Marianne returned to her assigned quarters and encountered the two fools with their heads pressed together around a table.
"What is it? The two of you with your heads huddled together."
"Nah, just a bit. Thinking about how to set up the board."
The board? Marianne tilted her head, and on the table were paper and a pen, with something written on them. At a glance, it looked like a plot for a plan, but ominous words like 'vixen, civil war, can't deal with this, three girls, members, how to break?' were lined up.
"Sensei's guy seems to have a feeling that he's going to be used conveniently. Right now, he's pondering how to play the fool."
"Playing the fool is rude. I'm just not doing it seriously."
"Hmm... so, how is it looking?"
"Considering the aftermath, it's not a good idea to stand out too much. I could just use the soldiers here... keep this between us, okay? In my opinion, the overall proficiency of Albestein is probably not high. If the frontier at the front line is like this, the center must be even worse."
"There are probably a few strong assets like Count Radock, but I think they probably haven't focused much on direct national defense. It feels like they've tied things up with magic stone exports and are defending through diplomacy. In fact, even in a situation on the verge of civil war, other countries aren't making a move. In any case, there are only four days left until departure. Honestly, it's too late to train troops now. For this kind of group battle, I want our gang."
"Ah..."
What came to mind was the Triad's special force, Lotus.
Certainly, if those berserkers were led by their founder, Geoglyph, most weaklings would be crushed in one blow, or rather, run over as they crossed the country.
Marianne and Later tilted their heads, wondering if it was problematic that such people worshipped not the lord, but his son, and a third son with a thin claim to succession, as a god.
However, the Lotus was not a group created yesterday or today. It took two months to straighten out their rotten nature, several years to make them useful, and ten years to grow them into the current special force. Asking for the same level of force in four days was far too unreasonable.
"If we do it, I guess we just gather the elites and strengthen them with auxiliary magic. Sigh... my stock will decrease again."
All three of them knew that the easiest and fastest method would probably be for the three idiots to charge in at full power without restraint and go boom!
But if they did that, it was obvious they would be dragged into the politics between the Leonesta Empire and the Albestein Kingdom later on. Furthermore, before that, there was a very high possibility that the battle among nobles to acquire the three idiots, which had recently calmed down as they checked each other, would intensify. Depressing days would undoubtedly come.
If the three girls were prisoners, that would be one thing, but there was information that Lilitia was being treated politely because she was a Saint.
They weren't thoughtless children who had just gained immense power, so if they were merely under house arrest without being harmed, it was better to move quietly.
In that case, they would shift toward conquering in the so-called orthodox way using the Royalist faction's forces, but then there remained some anxiety about their proficiency. The quick solution would be to super-strengthen them with Geoglyph's auxiliary magic, but only two months had passed since the battle with the evil god. Although he had some stock, if he strengthened the entire army, there was a high possibility it would run dry again.
"Hey, Geo. That auxiliary magic, it doesn't necessarily have to come from your own supply, does it?"
As Geoglyph lamented that he didn't want to turn white-haired from mana depletion again, Marianne suddenly spoke those words.
"Well, theoretically, that's true. However, for army-scale auxiliary magic, Stacking is essential. In the end, I'm the only one who can do that..."
"You mean the ensemble, right? Then, I have just the thing."
At the plan Marianne began to explain, Geoglyph and Later were puzzled at first, but gradually understood the content, and in the end, they completely agreed.
"...Hahaha, I see. You thought it through, Princess."
"Ku, kuku... fuha, fuhahaha... ha-hahahahaha! I see, I see, there was that way! Well done, Marie! This is great! We can make that vixen eat her words, and even turn those serious types into a mess!!"
"Has Sensei's chuunibyou limiter been a bit loose lately?"
"Maybe he's done it too much and his sense of shame has become leaky?"
However, the jabs from the two did not reach the ears of the chuunibyou.
"Alright, alright, alright, it's set! Then the operation name is Operation Macro..."
"Stop it."
And so, they silenced him with a double chop from two platons.
"That hurts!? What was that for!?"
"Why does this man run in a dangerous direction when he gets carried away?"
"At least blur it with something like Yak Culture."
"Can you two really talk?"
When Geoglyph suddenly asked them soberly, the two fools quickly averted their eyes. These two fools also seemed aware that they stepped in dangerous directions when they got carried away.
"Well, whatever. Now... let us begin our plotting."
To be continued next week.