The Saintess Candidate Celebration Banquet (1)
For me, getting dressed had always been nothing more than one more ordinary act in an ordinary day.
Self-care? What was that supposed to be — something you ate?
I wore whatever clothes my parents happened to buy and leave around the house, and nothing else. Any sense of fashion had been thrown out years ago.
...Or so I had always believed.
"Haaahm."
Inside the carriage bound for the capital, a yawn slipped out of me before I even knew it was coming. Daisy, seated at my side, turned to look at me with worry in her eyes.
"Unnie, what's wrong? Are you tired?"
"Why aren't you tired...?"
It had started yesterday, after Daisy's hands had all but frog-marched me away. The instant we stepped into the dressing room, Daisy and the household maids seized hold of me and launched into a full-scale makeover that lasted half a day.
"Unnie, let's try this one next! This one!"
"Yeah..."
Dresses in every color of the rainbow kept appearing without end, as if they were being bought fresh off a shop rack and carried straight in.
"This butterfly brooch would go so perfectly with your atmosphere!"
"Yeah..."
As befitting a marquisate, glittering ornaments and jewels rolled about underfoot like so many coins.
"If you want to make an impression, we absolutely have to pull you in this direction. You need to make people feel that 'I want to protect her' kind of charm."
"Yeah... wait, huh?"
From my hairstyle down to my makeup, every maid assigned to the household had gathered around and spent hours on end fussing over my face and hair. I sat there motionless, having cosmetics done to me, and I was dying of exhaustion — yet the one who had been running all over the place dressing me up showed not the faintest hint of fatigue.
"Well, dressing you up is actually really fun? I bet the maids would all say the same thing."
"...Why?"
"Unnie, from your face to your figure, you look just like a doll. Your body is so completely doll-like that pretty much anything looks good on you."
That... counts as a compliment, right?
They haven't decided to start treating me as a bisque doll instead of a person, have they?
"If you're sleepy, want to take a nap?"
"Forget it. I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to in a carriage this bumpy..."
"Really? Then you can just sleep like this."
Without giving me so much as a chance to protest, Daisy pulled my body down and laid me across her own lap.
Wow. This is incredibly comfortable...
"W-wait a second!"
"Hmm? What's wrong? Is it uncomfortable?"
Daisy flinched at my sudden outburst and answered in an anxious little voice.
No, it's comfortable. That's the problem — it's too comfortable.
Even so, an older sister receiving a lap pillow from her little sister? This was not how things were supposed to go. Where on earth had my dignity as an unnie disappeared to...?
"Ugh..."
"Hehe. You look so cute like this, Unnie."
"Don't call me cute!"
I may have ended up looking like this, but until just a few months ago I had been a grown man. And if someone asked whether becoming a woman had actually made me enjoy this more with Daisy... well. I wouldn't have a single thing to say to that.
"By the way, what on earth have you been eating to develop like that? If you've got a secret, share it."
"...Should an unnie who eats porridge instead of actual meals half the time because of her chronic illnesses really be saying that?"
"No facts allowed."
Daisy usually seemed so carefree and thoughtless, but at times like this she landed her hits with surgical precision. Maybe the way she turned vicious in the original story wasn't for nothing.
In the end I couldn't put up a fight, and once I had been laid across Daisy's lap I found myself staring up at the sliver of carriage ceiling I could see, quietly impressed. She really was developed in a way that a certain someone most definitely was not. She might have been the villainess, but I supposed a supporting character of heroine caliber really was built different.
"Eep."
"Hehehe. Unnie's so cute..."
Daisy's hand crept slowly up over my stomach, and a moment later it began to stroke me in slow, gentle passes.
Fine. So what if my masculinity had been all but wiped away? So what if my dignity as an older sister had been driven into the dirt?
Right now my favorite character was giving me a lap pillow and petting me on top of that. Wasn't this the best possible situation?
In the end I gave up thinking and quietly surrendered myself to Daisy's touch — never once imagining that from this moment on, the sisterly relationship we had built up until now was about to be turned completely on its head...
"Unnie, Unnie?"
"Mmh..."
Half-lost in a daze, I cracked my eyes open and found Daisy looking down at me from beyond a pair of hills.
Did I seriously just sleep like a log? With my head on my little sister's lap?
I came to my senses and looked outside. We had left in the early morning, but the hour had already slipped into late afternoon, the sun beginning to sink.
"We're almost there. Time to get up."
"...How long was I out?"
"You probably slept a solid six hours straight? Ah, your hair's a mess. Come here, Unnie. I'll fix it."
Being petted by the little sister who had been diligently stroking me this whole time, receiving a lap pillow, and then falling into a dead sleep in her arms on top of it all. Whatever dignity I had so painstakingly built as an older sister had already hit rock bottom.
I surrendered myself to Daisy's hands and turned my gaze toward the countless signs of life stirring beyond the window. Through the glass I could see throngs of people walking the streets — even more than usual, most likely, because of the celebration banquet.
"Even for a banquet held at the national level, that is a lot of people."
Daisy murmured the words as she worked on my hair, watching the crowds gathered outside.
"The kingdom's been pretty unsettled lately because of the warlocks. They don't have much choice if they want to calm things down."
The Saintess of this world was not all that different from the saintesses of any other fantasy setting. If there was anything that set her apart, it was that this world had no Demon King — so instead, she existed to stand against the heretics known as warlocks.
The reason Yustia had clashed with Daisy in the original story was that Daisy would go on, from the midpoint of the work onward, to join forces with those same warlocks.
"..."
Daisy had suffered so much in the original.
Not long after losing the older sister she loved to a congenital heart condition, the Saintess Candidate Celebration Banquet had been held. And there, she would lose the father she loved every bit as much as that sister.
Camil's death had been something like a natural disaster — nothing Daisy could have prevented. But before she could even recover from that loss, Daisy's mana would run wild during the banquet for reasons of its own — and Calvin, to protect his daughter and keep anyone else from being caught up in it, would throw his own body into the fray, save everyone including his child, and lose his life.
That incident was the turning point where, in the original story, Daisy's personality completely went off the rails.
"W-what? If you've got something to say, just say it, Unnie!"
Apparently finding my lingering, peculiar stare uncomfortable, Daisy shouted at me, sounding embarrassed.
"...Daisy."
"Y-yeah?"
Daisy looked at me in bewilderment at the sudden request.
"Umm. It's not like it's a hard thing to do, but... why?"
"I just have my reasons. Just this once, please do this for me."
"...Okay. I won't use any mana. I promise."
At the word request, Daisy's pupils widened slightly, then melted into a bashful little smile.
...The reaction is a little weird, but she seems to have understood, so that's good enough for now.
We passed through streets blazing with the heat of the celebration. Only after we reached the front of the Royal Castle, where the sons and daughters of noble houses were already in the thick of enjoying the banquet, did the carriage finally come to a halt.
"Marquis Miseria and both young ladies of the house, confirmed. We'll take the carriage from here."
"Mm."
Following Calvin, we stepped into the castle interior, filled with elegant music and lavish decoration. Even for a festival on a national scale, so many people packed the vast halls that the inside of the castle felt almost cramped.
"Unnie still isn't used to banquet atmospheres, so I'll take her around."
"Go on, then."
Huh?
"Go enjoy yourselves a little. You've been cooped up in your room lately, unable to do a thing. You must have been bored."
Before I could even get a word in, Daisy smoothly snagged my arm.
"If we follow Dad around we'll just be stuck listening to stiff conversations for hours anyway."
Right. As if I had ever been given a choice.
Do whatever you want.
A smaller hall deeper inside the castle, where the young nobles had gathered to socialize among themselves.
"Hey. Long time no see, Ivan."
A blond boy in a splendid tailcoat waved as if genuinely pleased. Ivan, who had been sipping his drink alone in a manner wholly at odds with the noisy, heated atmosphere of the banquet, quietly turned toward the voice.
"What do you want, Weiss."
"What's the occasion? You, of all people, showing up somewhere like this?"
The boy called Weiss settled naturally into the seat across from him. The look Ivan gave him was less pleased than thoroughly annoyed.
"What's it to you if I come."
"Well, I mean — you're the guy who usually can't stand crowded places like banquets, and here you are all dressed up properly. That's unexpected. Don't tell me there's someone you wanted to see?"
Just as Ivan was about to tell the casually probing Weiss that of course there wasn't, the image of a girl he simply could not forget flashed through his mind. A girl like a single flower blooming, proud and luminous, beneath the moonlight. The mortifying memory of that day, which refused to fade no matter how hard he tried to forget it.
"...Ah."
"What, is it actually true? Wow, so even a brick wall like Ivan has someone he's taken a shine to? Who is it? How pretty are we talking?"
"It's not like that. I was just thinking about something else, so I was slow to answer."
He tried to deflect, but Weiss was already looking at him with a sly, utterly convinced expression, snickering under his breath.
"What happened to the Ivan de Albion who used to say he'd marry his sword since he was a kid? All that's left is a boy in love. Ahahaha!"
"You wanna die?"
"Hey, I'm kidding, kidding. When you say stuff like that I honestly can't tell if you're joking or not. It's scary."
"...Tsk."
He'd figured that if he came here, he would at least get to see that face one more time. Clicking his tongue, Ivan started to rise from his seat — then stopped, sensing a sudden commotion. A stir had broken out at the entrance to the hall, some distance from the two of them.
"What, is some celebrity showing up?"
Weiss, too, looked toward the hall entrance with curiosity as the crowd began to press in. A moment later the throng parted, and there appeared a white-haired girl with her hands clasped shyly to her chest and her head bowed low, and a red-haired girl holding her close as if she were something precious.
"Huh? That redhead — that's her, the second daughter of House Miseria. Her name was... Daily, was it?"
"It's Daisy."
"Ah, right, right. Come to think of it, you're pretty close with the Miserias, aren't you? But who's the white-haired girl next to her?"
Ivan fell silent. He had come hoping, in a roundabout way, that they might meet — but he had not actually expected it to happen like this.
In that instant the white-haired girl, Camil, lifted her head, and their eyes met.
"Huh? Hey, where are you going? Hey!"
Seeing her raise a hand in an awkward little greeting, Ivan fled the spot at tremendous speed.