Something Pretending to Tour #2
“Varkan County, huh.”
I packed my things piece by piece, sinking into thought.
Varkan County had a port and thrived on maritime trade; the fresh seafood consumed within the territory was famous far and wide. On top of that, we still had three or four other places to visit beyond the county, so there was quite a bit to prepare.
Even so, there was no need to pack too much. We would be traveling by carriage, and we were scheduled to be received as guests in each territory. Staying in places where the infrastructure was already fully in place naturally lightened the load.
“This should be enough.”
I finished stacking everything neatly into a large bag and wiped the sweat from my brow. Most of the so-called luggage was just spare clothes of the same sort; beyond that, only a few small, miscellaneous tools and a handful of throwing daggers.
Having taken a little time to pack my own things, it was now time, as her personal attendant, to pack Helena’s. Ordinarily people handled their own affairs, but in this case Helena’s job was simply to wait. I could have ordered another servant to do it, yet as her exclusive attendant there was no real need.
“Helena. I’m coming in.”
Knock, knock.
I rapped lightly on her door a few times, gripped the handle, and opened it—only for something enormous to crash into me as if it had been waiting. Crushed obscenely flat against my chest yet still managing to convey both weight and softness, it was none other than Helena’s breasts.
“Zion, you’re here! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting?”
Helena met my eyes and raised her voice. I counted myself lucky that I had grown so tall; I was now nearly level with the adult Helena. Otherwise I would already have been buried in those massive swells, struggling to breathe.
“Yes. I apologize for taking longer than expected. But please let go. Other people will see.”
“So what if they do? Everyone already knows how special you and I are.”
“Aigoo…”
I hurriedly shut the door, gently took hold of both her shoulders, and forced her back. If she had truly wanted to stay, the strength would have been more than I could casually endure, yet she yielded without resistance; she clearly had no intention of clinging by force. Perhaps she had decided that getting in the way of the man who had to pack her luggage was a bad idea. Still, my head continued to throb.
“Anyway, I’ll sort your luggage now.”
I separated the dress-storage case I had brought from the ordinary bag and carefully began placing several dresses inside. I knew everything from storage methods to cleaning techniques; given the right conditions, I could restore them to look brand-new. Helena might be a young lady who never wore dresses, but that did not mean she owned none. On the contrary, as a duke’s daughter she possessed dresses more splendid than most—ones that could rival a princess’s.
“I don’t need dresses.”
Helena tilted her head as she watched me pack them right beside her. Ever since early childhood she had been far closer to light armor than to dresses; one could almost say she had never worn one. Yet if the need arose and we had none, it would be a problem. Packing them cost us nothing. Failing to pack them, I suspected, would cost us far more often.
“We might suddenly hold a social gathering… a noble club, or we might arrive right in the middle of one, you know.”
“Wouldn’t a uniform be enough, though?”
“I think so too, but I refuse to hear anyone call you a tomboy who doesn’t even own a proper dress.”
Objectively speaking, Helena’s beauty ranked among the finest. I wanted to avoid any situation in which the lack of a dress dulled that allure. Thinking this way, I realized I had well and truly, sincerely, absorbed the Altram way of thinking.
“A tomboy…? Zion, am I really that unattractive?”
I had only tossed the word out as a joke, yet Helena’s face was thick with disappointment. Not disappointment or anger directed at me—rather, a frustration born of disappointment in herself. I let out a sigh and shook my head, irritated by a situation that could easily invite a double-barreled curse of “manipulative bastard” depending on how one looked at it.
“Helena. How many times have I told you? You’re so overflowing with charm it’s a problem. Just look at the number of marriage proposals you’ve turned down—that alone makes it obvious.”
“Marriage proposals also involve political calculation, so they’re hard to trust. Anyway… do I really look attractive to you?”
Helena still wore an uneasy expression as she asked. It was good that she had grown enough to take others’ evaluations calmly, yet the rebound made her hypersensitive to mine. Even jokes she normally filtered and let slide drew this reaction; that said everything.
“Of course you do.”
Is this that fantasy unicorn—the girl with a strangely dark personality who has no idea she’s pretty and clings to me?
I shook my head in disbelief, recalling the old concepts of the “virgin bitch” and the fantasy nerd guy. Beautiful people were supposed to know they were beautiful; that common sense seemed to be breaking. No—thinking about it, this was a fantasy world, wasn’t it? So a fantasy personality like hers was nothing strange. From now on, “fantasy” might have to be redefined as a place where not only the backdrop but also people’s personalities were fantastical.
“Really…? Then I’m glad.”
Helena smiled as if truly relieved, stroking her chest. The way her hand followed those massive curves somehow looked like she was trying to seduce a man. She certainly had no such intention, yet it felt that way all the same. Probably because a devil had taken residence in me.
“Anyway, now I’m packing for real.”
“Mm. Do whatever you like.”
The words “do whatever you like” sounded strangely suggestive, but that was surely just my imagination. Leaving the blushing Helena behind me, I threw open the wardrobe doors. Light armor—trousers, shirts, and the rest—filled it, all of it familiar from the countless times I had brought her clothes. Yet choosing something from among them presented a peculiar dilemma. The garments themselves looked perfectly ordinary, but the moment Helena put them on they heightened her allure even further. At least by my standards.
“What would you like? Pick whatever catches your fancy.”
“I’ll like anything you choose for me, Zion. No—I’d rather you pick the clothes you want to see me wear.”
I had asked because choosing was hard; the difficulty only doubled. Now I had one more question on my hands.
“No… you should pick what you want to wear. This is a long trip, after all.”
“That’s exactly why I want you to choose the clothes you’d like to see me in. I don’t want you to get bored looking at me.”
“That’s treating Helena like scenery. Stretch it a little further and it means you’d be fine becoming a clown. In other words, something a duke’s daughter must never say.”
“Do you think I’d say this to anyone else?”
Helena showed not the slightest intention of backing down; she clung to my arm like a lover. My arm sank between those soft swells, and the first emotion that hit me was pure awkwardness. The pleasant sensation was undeniable, yet the predicament remained. At this rate I would get no work done, so I sighed in resignation and gave her the answer she wanted.
“Fine. I’ll choose, all right?”
“Mm. Please do.”
Only after I agreed did Helena smile in satisfaction and finally let go. The delay meant I had to move faster. Keeping that in mind, I packed Helena’s clothes according to my own taste. Speed was the priority, yet I folded each piece carefully so the creases stayed sharp.
Packing several outer layers was the easy part. The real issue came next: the critical matter of choosing the undergarments she would wear beneath. An ordinary person would have frozen with shame, stammered, or fled the room. I, however, possessed a Steel Mental. So I felt no hesitation packing mostly black lingerie—without so much as a blink.
“O-oh…”
As I calmly began packing her underwear, it was Helena’s turn to blush and squirm. From time to time she muttered things that lodged right in the ear, but I ignored those too. I liked black, and I thought this style suited the mature Helena. In addition I packed a few sky-blue pieces as a second option when black was unavailable. Both colors had clean lines and elegant patterns; either looked excellent.
“That’s everything.”
After perfectly arranging even the women’s undergarments, I packed the remaining items—cosmetics and the rest. With that, preparations for the journey were finished.
“…Thank you. You worked hard.”
“It was nothing.”
Leaving the thoroughly embarrassed Helena to herself, I neatly stacked the bag and case in a corner and turned my back. With the immediate task done, I was ready either to receive her next order or simply keep her company.
“Ah—do you have any other instructions?”
“Hm? No. If I had to say something, I’m thinking about the dinner menu… but it’s still too early for that.”
Helena snorted and teased me for being a workaholic. The way I finished one job and immediately asked for the next must have looked like an addiction. In truth I was not particularly fond of work; if anything, I preferred to laze around. The reason I kept seeking tasks was that, as Helena grew, the time I spent simply standing or sitting idle had increased. Even after she began teaching me combat techniques at my request, there was still far too much free time—enough to prick my conscience.
“Well then, let’s use this chance to decide where we’ll go and in what order. We start with the county, right?”
“Shall we? After Varkan County I’d like to visit Period Barony. After that, Delos County…”
I nodded and listened carefully to Helena’s voice. The route she had chosen felt rather inefficient, yet she had clearly designed it that way on purpose. By deliberately avoiding a single continuous circuit, she probably wanted to savor as much time outside as possible. It was not that she could never leave, but opportunities to step beyond the duchy had certainly been rare.
“Yes. Let’s do it that way.”
If Helena had decided, I would simply follow. Backtracking might prove a little tiring, but this was a rare journey; as long as she enjoyed it, that was enough. I myself had been glued to Helena’s side and had never properly seen the outside world, so catching a bit of breeze this time sounded wonderful.
“Ah.”
In the middle of it, two names suddenly flashed through my mind and a sound slipped out. Helena asked if I had something to say; I shook my head and brushed it off as nothing. Living so focused on soothing Helena, I had almost forgotten—there were two other dangerous factors in this world besides her. Ellen Redhood and Eve Greenwood.
Ellen Redhood was a mercenary of dark-elf origin. Elves were naturally born with pure white skin, yet mutants like Ellen occasionally appeared. Because of that skin color, dark elves were branded symbols of filth and received contempt and fear in equal measure. Elves originally had no family names like humans; if anything, they used the name of their village in place of a surname. Ellen’s case, however, was different. A woman with nowhere to go, she had taken mercenary work with a few fellow dark elves and earned the moniker “Redhood”—so called because whenever she entered a battlefield her robe’s hood was always dyed with blood.
That alone made her look dangerous enough, yet the true reason for her danger lay elsewhere. After a great war wiped out her entire mercenary band, Ellen—now the last remaining dark elf—was the only one who could obtain the secret arts of an ancient ruin. With the destructive power those arts granted her, she would plunge the continent into even greater chaos.
Eve Greenwood was the heretic and outcast of the Empire’s Magic Tower. In the modern world her research would be common sense, yet here the very concept of minute particles was unknown; she was pointed at and called a stupid girl. After the war shattered the Magic Tower, however, that girl threw herself into her mad research and became capable of single-handedly carrying out large-scale chemical terrorism—in modern terms, a bio-terrorist. Her reason was simple. Even if the Tower had ignored her, to Eve it had still been her precious home. Of course magic capable of countering chemical terrorism was eventually developed, but until then mana users like Helena had only been able to buy time by forcibly raising their mana. Yet both of them were quiet now. The spark of war that would have driven them berserk—Helena—had never ignited a war.
Watching her remain peaceful even past the age of twenty, I had once thought Hypnos had played his hand extremely well. The claim that properly containing Helena would solve more than half the problem had proven true before my eyes. Still, looking at Helena these days, I could no longer feel completely at ease. There was no telling when or how the sparks might fly, so once I had the leisure I intended to seek them out and draw them into the duchy. After all, I believed the famous saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Of course they were not enemies—that was only a metaphor.