At Last, We Arrive
"..."
Leyre was still in the shopping cart, still under the maids' care.
"Hm-hm~"
Agrippa hummed through her nose, delighted as any MILF pushing a stroller. She really was treating him like a baby, and with her old days as an orphanage maid coming back to her, she rattled the cart along in high spirits.
Marx and Toria guarded him, one on either side.
Marx kept glancing around, and every so often she shot an uncomfortable look at the maid in the cart who was plainly determined to monopolize her human. Of course, she was still wearing Leyre's panties, and they were still packed full of praise stamps, so as far as she was concerned she already counted as specially favored. That took the edge off her unease. The urge to keep him all to herself, though—that she did not like.
Toria, satisfied that last night had given her experience enough, wore a warm smile. Whatever state Leyre was in now, and whether or not someone was scrambling to claim him, it simply wasn't her concern. Sooner or later he would come looking because he couldn't forget her. Even if it was only for the sake of the records, he would come.
Around those three, not far off, the rest of the maids held a square formation and kept him protected.
But where was Hias?
Hias was...
"Hehe~"
She was riding in the shopping cart with him. The cart was narrow, far too narrow for two people to settle into a comfortable embrace, so Hias had decided she would ride while forcibly clinging to Leyre with everything she had.
She wrapped her arms around him as if to say he was never getting away, and locked her legs around him besides, which left Leyre more uncomfortable than anything. On top of that her chest was small, so unlike the other maids she didn't even offer a cushion to cradle him against.
"Hias... at least undo the restraints..."
"Don't wanna. I'm staying just like this."
"Hias... it's an order. Please..."
Only when he called it an order did she let her legs go. Just her legs. His thighs were free at last. She had draped those legs over them and tucked her bare feet—shoes off—between his thighs, and it had been driving him out of his mind.
"Is this a little better?"
"Yeah. Thanks..."
With that maddening stimulation finally gone, Leyre could breathe again.
How had it come to this? The story went like this.
"I'm getting in with him toooooooo!!!!!!"
Before they set out, Hias had thrown herself down and refused to get up, pitching a full tantrum about riding in the shopping cart with Leyre.
"Um, Hias...? If we leave any later we'll be late to the university. Won't you get up?"
"Then let me ride in the cart with Master."
Lips shoved out in a pout, she kept at it.
"I told you it's too narrow! It's an order—get up!"
Hias rose as if she had no choice. She could not refuse an order. Under the Three Ironclad Rules, a maid's basic duty to comply was not something personal desire could overcome.
"All right. Let's go."
"You told me to get up. You didn't tell me to go. So I'm not going."
"..."
Leyre wondered whether he ought to take Hias aside and give her a little love after all. That might get her to listen, at least somewhat. But there wasn't time for it. Once they started he wasn't sure he could stop, and it might run far longer than he expected.
So in the end...
"Ehehe~ Master's arms are so warm~"
He had simply given in to the tantrum.
Hias ran her hands over him, fiddled, stroked him smooth, teased at him, and rubbed her head against his. She looked, in every way, like someone playing with a toy that belonged to her alone.
Leyre didn't exactly hate being handled like that. The teasing that wouldn't stop was another matter. Could being treated as a toy really be called a good thing—especially now, when he had no way to do anything about it, and she was stimulating him all over besides?
If she would only hold back on the stimulation, he might have put up with the playing. As it was, he sighed and did nothing but endure her pinching his cheeks.
Then Hias kissed his neck. Goosebumps raced over his whole body, and inside that cramped cart he jerked away from her.
"Hias! Enough with the games! Stop it!"
"Hmm~? What games? You have to say it properly, or I can't understand that order, you know?"
Giggling, she wiggled her fingers and crept closer.
Leyre was starting to get genuinely angry. Somewhere in the back of his mind he let out a long sigh, and the little three-judge panel in his head returned its verdict: no more going easy on her.
He cleared his throat, as if to say he understood perfectly, and opened his mouth.
"Touching my nipples with your fingers. Running your mouth down my neck and kissing it. Touching me all over, stimulating me, and putting your hands inside my pants. Stimulating my thighs with your feet and taking the teasing any further than that. Hugging me and licking me all over with your tongue. And, more important than any of that—"
He caught Hias by the chin.
"Trying to sexually arouse me."
"E-ehehe~"
Hias made a point of looking anywhere but at him.
"Mmm~ Our baby master is properly angry, isn't he~ Well, of course. Keep getting treated like that when you can't even get any relief, and anyone would lose their temper~"
Agrippa laughed, gently lowered the hand Leyre had locked around Hias's chin, then caught Hias by the scruff of her clothes and lifted. The outfit rode up with her, baring her navel and a soft strip of stomach. Agrippa set her down on the ground.
"So~ let's stop now, Hias?"
"D-did I go too far?"
"You did~ Do it whenever the mood strikes, with no sense of time or place, and it just feels awful~"
"But my old master liked it so much..."
Hias drooped and tapped her index fingers together.
"Your old master was home a lot, you said~ So of course he did~ Which means~"
A profound look settled over Agrippa's face.
"Be spoiled in moderation. And walk."
"Eek."
The face was vicious enough that the sound of fear—eek—actually left Leyre's mouth. It was a terrifying expression, angry past anything he could have imagined her capable of. Could she even form eyes like that? A mouth like that? Had anyone actually built a function like that into a maid?
Full of questions, Leyre shook where he stood.
Marx and Toria, nearby, reacted much the same. Marx's eyes flew wide in shock. Toria put a healthy distance between herself and the scene, determined not to become collateral damage.
"I-I'm sorr... y..."
"You think you're the only one who wants to? I want to too, you know? You think the rest of us aren't holding it in? Do you have any idea how hard it makes people scowl when you do it right out in the open, in front of everyone? Hm?"
Hias trembled, and a few tears slipped free. She was genuinely frightened.
"Apologize to Master. And from now on, ease up on the tantrums."
"Y-yes..."
Hias bowed to Leyre and apologized. He wanted to tell her it didn't have to go that far, but Agrippa's eyes were on him, and he couldn't.
That was when he understood it. Someone who smiled all the time, the moment they got angry once, was scarier than anything you could picture.
And—
"Our baby master~"
"U-uh?!"
"Have a one-on-one with me later, all right~?"
—the fear of having to face Agrippa.
A fear he would have realized someday. Feeling it early, he couldn't refuse. Accepting, on the other hand...
Hm. It probably wouldn't be a bad experience. Leyre decided to accept.
The way a stress binge could sometimes feel good in its own right, getting it from another direction would surely have something to recommend it too.
"There~ now let's keep on toward our destination~"
Agrippa set the shopping cart rolling again.
"So this is... that university."
They had forced another day's march, and arrived.
That day Leyre had spent nearly all of it flat on his back in the cart, hauled along in a state of collapse. The one-on-one with Agrippa had been harder than he'd imagined.
King Agrippa's one-on-one, better known as a counseling session, had done Agrippa a great deal of good.
"Everyone~ shall we head for the College of Engineering~?"
The stress she had been carrying was gone in a rush, and thanks to that she reached the university in far better condition than any of the other maids. She was optimized for competent work. She could probably labor the entire day and still not drop.
"Aigoo, my back."
That didn't mean Leyre was weak. The hard part had been yesterday. He was recovered now.
He climbed out of the cart, stood, stretched his back until it pulled straight, and took in the university spread before him.
"Hmm... so this is a university. The place where human knowledge is stored up and made to grow."
Marx came trudging over and stopped at his side. She reached for a cigarette without thinking, caught herself, remembered she had decided to quit, shook her head, and laid an arm across his shoulder.
"First time at a university?"
"Only ever heard of them. That bastard of a previous master said there was a philosopher he'd studied at university who left a deep impression on him, and he stuck that philosopher's name on me. That's how I found out places like this existed."
Ah. So that was why her name was what it was. Leyre nodded at the unexpected realization.
"I'm quite familiar with them."
Toria came up. When her eyes met Marx's she bowed; Marx lifted a hand in return.
"My former master was a history professor, so I helped out for a while in a university laboratory."
"Right. You said he was a professor... Then this university?"
Toria looked out over the grounds. Set midway up the mountain, it might have been a place where immortals gathered to argue.
"I've never been. My former master commuted somewhere else..."
"I see. Well, anyway..."
Leyre looked at the maids. The maids nodded.
"We stick to the original plan and go get the books. We head for the College of Engineering, gather up every electrical engineering book in the place, and take them with us. Understood?"
"Yes, Master!"
the maids cried.
"Good. Let's go in! For the good life waiting for us!"
The maids stepped onto the university grounds.