Construction
The roar of engines shattered the early morning quiet.
Vrrrrrrrm!!!
“Hey! Put it down right there!”
“Got it!!”
The ground trembled.
Rumble rumble rumble!!!
“Mmm…?”
From the first light of dawn, the outside world had been noisy. Green Prism Emerald, Ayame Hanazawa, had been jolted awake by the commotion echoing through the building since before sunrise.
“Ughhh…”
Beyond the thin plywood wall they had installed to divide the room, her younger sister Erika let out an irritated groan.
“What the hell is all that noise? Today isn’t even a flower delivery day.”
Ayame quickly threw a cardigan over her pajamas and hurried out of the living space that took up half the shop.
She moved swiftly toward the back door of the store. The moment she stepped outside, what she saw left her stunned.
“Hey! You two over there, it’s heavy so lift it together!”
“Yes sir!”
“Foreman! Where do you want the cement?”
“Over there!!”
A group of burly men were hauling countless trucks and construction materials around to the rear of the building.
“What on earth…”
As far as Ayame remembered, the only tenant in this building was the flower shop she ran. The landlord had shown no interest in reviving the aging structure whose commercial value had all but vanished. He had simply reduced her rent a little and done nothing more to maintain the status quo.
While she stood there in confusion, someone approached her. A man with a regent hairstyle wearing a shabby work jacket. His somewhat intimidating face made Ayame instinctively step back, but he bowed politely.
“Good morning. Are you the owner of the first-floor shop?”
“Yes?”
Surprised by his unexpectedly courteous tone, she pulled her cardigan tighter and answered.
“Ah, yes… that’s right.”
“I’m sorry for the noise so early in the morning. We’re doing interior work for a new tenant moving into the third floor.”
“Construction?”
Just hearing the words new tenant and construction was enough for her to understand the early-morning racket. But the number of trucks seemed excessive for simple interior work.
The man noticed her scanning the vehicles and gave an awkward smile.
“Ah, the new owner on the third floor also decided to remodel the building’s exterior walls at the same time.”
“Excuse me?”
Ayame’s eyes widened at the news she was hearing for the first time.
Why…?
“Haven’t you heard anything about it?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Then you should probably contact the landlord. Well then.”
Having delivered his message, the man disappeared from her sight and returned to work. Watching him go, Ayame felt a vague sense of unease begin to take root.
A few hours later, after the sun had fully risen, Ayame called the landlord. What she heard matched exactly what the man from earlier had said.
“Really?”
“I see…”
Click.
It was true. A new tenant really was moving into the third floor.
As she replayed the landlord’s words, Ayame felt her heart sink.
“Remodeling? If the building gets cleaned up and looks better… does that mean the rent will go up? Or maybe they’ll ask me to vacate the shop?”
She paced restlessly through the store before opening hours. Behind her, the door opened and her sister came out yawning.
“Huuuahm! It’s so damn loud I can’t even sleep. Sis! What’s all the noise about?”
“Ah, Erika.”
Erika, who clearly hadn’t slept well judging by her sullen expression, strode into the shop. When she saw the trucks visible through the window and the workers bustling about, her mouth fell open.
“What the hell?”
“A new shop is opening on the third floor.”
“Ugh. So annoying. What the hell at this hour?”
Grumbling, Erika turned to head back to her room, then paused and looked back at Ayame.
“Sis. My graduation ceremony is coming up soon. Can I have some allowance?”
“Erika.”
“Tch! Fine!!!”
Bang!!!
“Haa…”
Ayame could only sigh at her sister’s even fiercer-than-usual reaction. The heavy sigh came from the worst-case scenario she alone was imagining—that they might have to leave the shop.
The day construction began.
Veronica approached me. She wasn’t here for sex or a blowjob; she had a tablet tucked under her arm, clearly indicating she had something to report.
“Hm? You have something to report?”
“Yes, Lord Theo.”
She politely knelt and looked up at me.
“The background investigation on Green that you ordered has been completed.”
“Already?”
“Yes. We were lucky enough to find a detective, so things went smoothly.”
Well, this was Japan after all. They even had an official job title called “detective” and operated openly. It made sense that such a profession would exist in this world too.
When I nodded, Veronica began her report.
“Her name is Ayame Hanazawa. She is twenty-two years old. Her younger sister, Erika Hanazawa, is nineteen and is scheduled to graduate from high school soon.”
“Oh.”
I had felt a little disappointed seeing her in a school uniform in the photos, but it turned out I could still fuck her.
“Ten years ago, right after Eternal disappeared and peace returned, their parents died instantly in an ordinary traffic accident.”
“A traffic accident?”
“Yes. The interesting part is that her position is healing. She saved countless people and comrades, yet she couldn’t even use her power to save her own parents.”
“That’s amusing.”
“Technically, the magical girls’ powers had already been reclaimed after the Demon King subjugation, but it seems she didn’t see it that way.”
Veronica swiped across the tablet and continued.
“Her neighbors genuinely pitied the sisters and offered comfort. But she apparently didn’t have the strength to endure it.”
Still carrying the habit from when she used to wear glasses, she flicked her fingers in the air as she spoke.
“She found it unbearable to stay in A City, surrounded by all the people she had healed. So she took the life insurance money from her parents’ deaths and fled to D City, which had suffered relatively little damage from the Demon King’s army.”
Made sense. In the anime, the protagonists were all concentrated in A City, the main stage where most of the chaos happened. The only episodes set in other cities were the beach ones, right?
Ah, so that’s why Green joins so late in the sequel, almost at the very end.
“She ran away and opened a rundown flower shop on the first floor.”
“Correct. It seems she wanted to earn money while taking care of something. After moving to D City, she completed a florist training course and even graduated. However, by the time she became an adult, she had already spent more than half of the insurance money.”
“Well, with a young sister to look after, that makes sense.”
“The building they moved into is the current first-floor flower shop.”
“Their home is inside the shop?”
“It was an illegal extension done by a previous tenant. They apparently decided it was too burdensome to pay both rent and shop lease fees separately, so they began living inside the store with her sister from the moment they moved in.”
The rest of the report was exactly what I had expected. True to her timid personality from the previous series, she couldn’t even talk back to rude customers or wholesalers who overcharged her. In a dead commercial district, her shop was just collecting flies.
“She must feel some guilt toward her sister.”
My words made Veronica’s eyes sparkle with interest.
“Exactly right. They fight often, and it’s mostly about money.”
Let’s see.
I now understood why they lived here.
“Veronica.”
“Yes, Lord Theo.”
“If I touch girls who used to be magical girls with demonic energy, will the Prism Stones react?”
“Hmm.”
Veronica pondered my question for a long time before answering.
“I cannot say for certain. But if you do anything to her using demonic energy, there will definitely be a reaction.”
“Is that so?”
“Back when Eternal was the Demon King. During the period before the full-scale invasion, while we were growing our influence using demonic energy, no magical girls contracted through the Jewel Tree or Prism Stones appeared.”
I already knew that part.
“However, in this case she has already returned her Prism Stone. There are records stating that if the next Demon King appears while the previous user is not too old, she can use it again. That suggests there will be restrictions on directly using demonic energy.”
So even after returning the Prism Stone, the connection remains faintly intact?
“Then I’ll have to marinate the little sister in demonic energy and break Ayame without using any.”
At my words, Veronica looked at me with eyes full of anticipation.
“What?”
“Ah, it’s nothing. I simply assumed you would observe Ayame from a distance for a while.”
“Why not? As long as I don’t use demonic energy, if I do it well I can fuck her pussy, enjoy it together, and turn her to my side, can’t I?”
“Ah.”
Of course, I couldn’t be completely certain it would be safe to corrupt her without using demonic energy. Still, it should be more tolerable than openly spraying her with it.
After all, we were still five years before the sequel even began. It would be awkward to start fighting magical girls already, and my forces were still insignificant.
Even so, I had to give it a try. If there were any problems, there would be signs. Until then, I would build up my strength as much as possible.
“Then we should welcome Erika as our store’s first customer.”
“Understood.”
“After we bring Ayame down too, we’ll expand our forces aggressively.”
“As you command.”
Having roughly sketched out a plan, I spread my legs. Veronica set the tablet aside and came closer, taking my cock into her mouth.
“Hngh!”
“No external schedule today, right?”
She nodded.
“Then we can do it all day.”
Squirt!!
Instead of answering, Veronica came hard, her love juices spraying as she shook her head vigorously.