When a Kind Person Gets Angry
Three hours had already slipped by since Team A began their magical beast extermination mission.
At a glance, that might sound like a short stretch of time — but when you put a resource like time to use, what matters is not the unit itself, but what you fill it with.
There is a famous line from a certain well-known 5v5 AOS game, after all.
It isn't about how much time you have left. It's about how you use it.
Ah, for the record, I quit that game.
I may have just quoted one of its lines, but I actually detest the thing. Those absolute bastards released what they called "maid skins" that looked more like prostitute outfits.
The filthy, grotesque degenerates who defiled my Maid Soul...
I once sent them a fifty-thousand-character email and even staged a protest outside the developer's headquarters. They still showed no intention of fixing those disgusting fake maid costumes, so I dragged the whole thing into a sexual objectification controversy — and only then did they finally fold. The moment a national broadcast ran a segment titled "Games That Cross the Line: Female Characters Turned into Sex Objects," they hastily changed the outfits into proper traditional maid uniforms.
Unfortunately, every other skin I had ever bought got "corrected" right along with them, so I quit for good. Changing a bikini skin into a full-body wetsuit under the name of "censorship"? That was crossing a line.
Honestly, developers have no brains! And neither does the review board that rubber-stamped that thoughtless censorship! All they had to do was fix the one skin that dared to sexually objectify a maid!
Anyway!
When you use time, what matters is not how much of it you spent, but how you spent it!
And our Team A had made extremely productive use of those short three hours.
C-rank magical beasts defeated: a full thirty-one!
That worked out to roughly one C-rank every five minutes!
As a maid who must put even time itself to perfect use, knowing we had spent those hours so efficiently filled me with genuine satisfaction. After all, the sooner the mission ended, the sooner I could return to being a maid!
It feels a little awkward saying this after going on and on about time, but...
One hundred sixty-eight hours in a week? Isn't that a bit lacking?
Even I, the Super-Perfect☆Maid who uses time flawlessly, efficiently, and meaningfully, find one hundred sixty-eight hours a week far too few!
I need at least two hundred thirty-eight hours a week!
And workplaces should institute a two-hundred-forty-hour workweek!
Hm? Why work two hundred forty hours if the week only has two hundred thirty-eight?
That detail is hardly important. What matters is that I would get to work as a maid for two hundred forty hours every week!
"All right, Blanc. Let's move on to the next location."
"Yes, my lady."
Of course, achieving a two-hundred-forty-hour maid week first required graduating from this damn academy!
"Come on! Move it, move it!"
Inspired by the whirlwind performance Lady Noir and I were putting on, Miss Rouge was putting in quite a showing herself. Every time she hurled one of those violently spinning hula hoops, a magical beast's limbs were shredded to pieces. Even after witnessing any number of brutal scenes since arriving in this world, that one was still pretty grotesque.
"Urgh!"
Fragments of beast sprayed in every direction like something put through a blender, and Mister Jerry ended up on the ground retching. Even Lady Noir and I, who were used to hunting magical beasts, found ourselves frowning — so how much worse must it have been for Mister Jerry, who had far less experience?
Still, that ultra-vibrating hula hoop Miss Rouge was swinging around seemed surprisingly useful. With a little modification, couldn't it serve as a blender?
I should ask to borrow it later.
"What the hell is this..."
Shadows churned through the interior of the pack while white flames swallowed everything whole. That alone was enough to erase every trace of the magical beasts in two minutes flat. The two of them, without the slightest thought of resting, immediately prepared to move on to the next site.
And though not quite on their level, the coordination between Desang and Rouge — binding enemies with tree roots while finishing them with chakrams — was excellent as well.
"Is this even right...?"
At this point the travel time between fights was longer than the fights themselves. Jerry could only stare in disbelief at the absurd situation.
Exterminating C-rank magical beasts was never easy, even for students of a prestigious school like Aegis. It was not an especially difficult mission, but neither was it something to take lightly. Team A, however, contained three powerhouses who had long since surpassed the level of ordinary students. Blanc in particular possessed combat strength that would not look out of place among the academy faculty, and even Desang — relatively the weakest of the four combatants — ranked among the stronger first-years at Aegis as a whole.
When students like that gathered in one place, a mission chosen based on "the average ability of Aegis students" naturally became as easy as eating cake.
"Hah. You always act so full of yourself, yet when it comes down to it you can't even make yourself useful."
"Kh..."
Jerry, nothing more than an ordinary citizen, could only stand and watch the others of Team A perform. And Desang, who had never gotten along with Jerry in the first place, was not about to let the opportunity pass. While the other four members of the team raced about, Jerry had been standing there blankly; Desang now looked at him with undisguised contempt.
Jerry wanted to snap back at the cutting remark, but in the end he could only shut his mouth. Even he found his own current state utterly pathetic. What could a perfectly ordinary student who was good at little more than studying possibly contribute to a fight like this? He had at least brought several emergency potions, confident in his alchemy if nothing else, but in a Team A packed with monsters there was never going to be a situation that required them.
"It's all right, Mister Jerry. It's only natural that everyone has different strengths. And the emergency potions you brought may still prove useful someday."
Hearing Desang's words, Blanc approached the trembling Jerry. She had meant to take his side as much as possible and offer comfort — yet her consolation only pricked his pride.
The phrase "may still prove useful someday" landed on his ears as "you are of no use right now." Blanc had not intended any such meaning, of course. But ever since the mock battle a short while ago, Jerry had been nursing an inferiority complex, and Blanc was the very person he admired.
More elegant than any noble, more refined than any noble, and more capable than any noble — a commoner. Jerry had entered Aegis determined not to lose to the aristocracy, and Blanc was someone he could not help but look up to. During the mock duel between Blanc and Noir he had privately rooted for Blanc, and when she maintained the upper hand and defeated Noir he had even felt a vicarious satisfaction. Blanc had not exactly crushed a noble's pride, but to Jerry the sight had looked exactly like a commoner putting a noble in their place.
Being unable to retort to Desang was already infuriating enough. Receiving comfort from the very person he admired while showing her nothing but his uselessness was a situation Jerry simply could not endure.
"Hah. All you can do is hide behind someone else and snarl. Truly incompetent. Even a pet dog would be more useful than you."
"You...!"
Even after Blanc herself stepped in, Desang's mouth would not stop. The continuous stream of insults finally crossed a line, and Jerry — who had kept silent until now — was just about to glare daggers at him out of sheer rising emotion when—
"Mister Desang. That is enough."
With a single sentence from Blanc, the atmosphere that had been a heartbeat from exploding turned ice-cold in an instant.
The smile that had been no different from usual vanished from Blanc's face. The always-warm tone of her voice flattened into a deliberately emotionless, blunt register. The change in a single person was enough to alter the very air of the forest where they had been hunting magical beasts. Even Rouge, who was always bright and energetic, found herself carefully watching Blanc's expression in that moment. Jerry and Desang, the parties at the center of the incident, went pale as if they had suddenly been seized by fear.
"Oblia. Even from where I stand, this time the fault is yours."
While everyone else held their tongues and watched Blanc's mood, Noir could not simply stand by and stepped forward herself. She had wanted to say a word of her own to Desang for both the over-the-line remarks and for angering Blanc, but calming the situation took priority.
"...Right. I went too far this time. I'm sorry."
"Ah... yes. I'll let it go this once..."
Startled by Blanc's unexpected reaction and still feeling a chill down his spine, Desang finally came to his senses and bowed his head to Jerry in apology. Jerry had no desire whatsoever to accept any apology from Desang, but he too was watching Blanc's expression so carefully that he had no choice but to accept it.
Hmm...
Strange.
Should I say everyone seemed unusually sharp-edged today? A strange excitement seemed to be hanging in the air among them. My lady was somehow rushing the magical beast hunts, and while Miss Rouge was always high-tension, she felt even more wound up than usual. Mister Jerry and Mister Desang had always sniped at each other, yet they normally kept at least a minimum of restraint — the things Desang said to Jerry today had clearly crossed a line no matter how you looked at it.
I do not know quite how to put it, but everyone's emotional amplitude felt just the tiniest bit more violent than usual.
Was it simply first-time field training nerves?
"Kuoohhh!"
"Hmm..."
The magical beasts themselves were also off somehow. The C-rank beasts were far more savage and aggressive than normal. Since I was moving among them, parrying their attacks, the change was unmistakable. Magical beasts are living creatures; they feel pain and they feel the fear of death. Yet today they behaved as if they felt neither pain nor fear. Their actions seemed driven by emotion over any biological instinct or reason, and that was enough to leave me puzzled.
It was almost like that perverted woman—
No. Surely not.
For now I would finish the mission and report it to the teacher. Someone with experience might know something.