Raising the Empress (4)

Or maybe, I thought, she was worried I'd kick her out if she refused — but then I reconsidered.

Nah. That's reading way too much into it.

Come to think of it, a girl who was going to run off any day now wouldn't care about something like that.

So instead of asking Marianne about the training, I decided to go straight to Pashtura the day after a session ended.

"The training I do with that child, you mean? You must be terribly curious about how fast she's growing, Commander♡"

"Well, she seems reluctant to talk about the training she does with you directly."

"In that case, I'm afraid I also… find it rather difficult to discuss that particular matter♡"

"…Is that so?"

"Or perhaps you'd rather join me in bed and we could… ohoho♡"

"We're done talking about this."

As she said it, Pashtura gave a little tug on the scrap of fabric that was only barely covering her chest in that absurdly revealing nun's habit. I shook my head and decided there would be no further questions.

The important point was this: while our superhumans kept a tight, thorough grip on that "training" and its schedule—

"Is it good?"

"Yep."

"Good. You worked hard in training again."

Squish, squish.

"Eep?! Ah… uuuunnngh…"

—I was simultaneously taking care of Marianne's mental state as those brutal sessions ground her down, with soft cheek pinches, good food, and generous rewards. A classic good-cop, bad-cop strategy. At this rate, I was confident we wouldn't be getting a bad ending.

If things kept going like this, by the time she ran off in a month, we should have built up a decent amount of goodwill.

That was what I thought. Then a month passed. Then another month after that.

Nom nom nom.

"Oppa, what kind of training am I doing today?"

"…"

For reasons I could not begin to understand, our Empress-to-be had long since passed the window when she was supposed to escape — and she was still here at our base, scraping her bowl clean.

What the hell.

Why wasn't she doing what I knew she was supposed to do — steal a shuttle, bolt for pirate territory, beat the lot of them into submission, and rise as the Pirate Empress?

Why had she been parked here for over two months already?

And on top of that, she was eating so much and moving so much that the calorie burn kept most of her body from putting on weight… while her chest, through some truly bizarre miracle of human biology, just kept growing.

She was still only somewhere between an AAA and an AA cup, sure. But every time Ignis — who insisted on calling herself "slender" — looked back and forth between Marianne's chest and her own, then sagged in relief that she was still bigger… it was starting to look genuinely pathetic.

Anyway. The point wasn't Ignis's complex. The point was that the Pirate Empress-in-waiting still hadn't left on her journey to become the real Pirate Empress.

I found the whole thing completely incomprehensible, and I said as much to Jessica, thoroughly flustered.

Jessica, for her part, answered in a tone that strongly suggested this was not the question I should be asking right now.

"Commander, it's really very simple."

"…Hm?"

"You take a girl who was dragged off by pirates and lived a miserable life every single day, and you give her warm meals, a place to sleep, and even leisure time."

"…"

"Then, for a child who never wants to go through that again, you put her through the best training and real combat experience possible while making absolutely sure she never dies."

"…"

"You vary the training so she doesn't get bored, and on top of that you hand out praise and rewards at just the right moments?"

"…"

"If it were me, I'd drop any thought of going back to the pirates and just stay right here."

"So what you're saying is… I treated her too well?"

At that, Jessica nodded so hard the big rabbit ears on her head bounced with the motion.

I'm screwed.

After a long stretch of fretting, I could finally say it with certainty.

I'd stumbled across that post on the Gallery by chance, and it confirmed what I already suspected — something about the current situation had gone seriously sideways.

For the Pirate Empress event chain to progress, the Pirate Empress herself first had to either escape from my base or… well, do something.

The event message that proved my suspicions correct made the back of my skull throb.

No — my Empress!

And this wasn't a situation that ended with me simply not "getting" the Empress, either.

It had been mentioned in passing last time — both by me and on the Gallery — but basically everyone had assumed this event would wrap up in a month, two at the outside.

In-game time had always flowed roughly like that, so people figured it would be the same this time around.

The problem was that the Empress-to-be who was supposed to be progressing that event was currently dug in right here.