Selling Chocolate with Lily (4)
"The chocolate is sold here."
"Hmm, is that so?"
The woman looked me up and down as if appraising a piece of merchandise.
It felt strangely familiar. You know that lecherous look drunk old men give the girls serving drinks at a bar? That was exactly the vibe. Her intentions were blatantly obvious.
Not that I could really blame her. Hadn't I trained my whole life precisely so that people would look at me that way?
The only flaw in the situation was that the person I'd actually wanted to look at me like that showed about as much interest in me as a rock.
Anyway.
These children of mine had gone far too long without proper attention. Determined to release all their pent-up resentment, I casually undid a button or two of my shirt and struck a pose, making sure the woman got a good, long look.
"Ohhh."
The woman clapped like an approving seal.
"Face: pass. Height: pass. Body: pass. I had no idea a man like this existed at the academy."
"I am, indeed, a rather uncommon specimen."
"You. Become my slave."
"......?"
It never stops being true: the world is absolutely crawling with lunatics. A guy who knocks up his own mother not once but twice, a woman who demands slavery upon first meeting—none of these people are operating with a full deck.
Truly, it's a difficult world for an intellectual like me to survive in.
"I decline."
"Huh?"
Getting rejected should have been the expected outcome, yet the woman looked genuinely flustered. I'd felt a spark-like surge of mana brush past me a moment ago, so she'd clearly tried to pull something—but at that level of skill? Please. Did she take me for some no-name hack of a mage rolling around the streets?
"Huh? That's weird? Tch."
Mana shot out from her index finger.
The hapless Luke, who had been kneeling blankly at the side spectating, took the spark-straight through the forehead.
I could have blocked it. I chose not to. I felt no particular loyalty to him, I was curious what that spell was, and frankly, the guy deserved whatever came to him.
"Bark."
"Woof!"
Having confirmed its effects on test subject Luke, the spell turned out to be rather remarkable.
A spell that turns people into slaves.
Or something of that nature, apparently.
Wait a moment. Then what about all those men trailing behind her in a crowd?
Just as that suspicion crossed my mind, the woman seated herself comfortably on the back of Luke, who was now crawling on all fours.
"The magic works perfectly. Impressive."
Good heavens.
She was one of the categories of human being I despise most in this world.
Do you know what's scariest about engineering school? Is it the mountain of coursework? Please—the sheer volume of it was half the appeal. The assignments pouring in every week? Also good. More things to learn.
Herding socially incompetent engineering students together and forcing them into group projects? Honestly, I enjoyed it. It meant I got to debate and study with my fellow students in a legally sanctioned setting.
But the other students feared every last one of those things with a passion.
That said, I was different from the rest of them in one crucial respect. While every other engineering student groveled—offering liver and gallbladder and whatever else they could spare—to the handful of female students in our department, I alone was afraid of them.
Those queen bees terrified me. One word, one gesture, and they'd bewitch some pure-hearted engineering student and split apart friendships that had taken years to build.
Granted, the problem was that I was usually the one who'd seduced the queen bee in the first place, but you can't exactly redo your own face, can you?
Anyway. Queen bees!
What kind of life had this woman lived, that her magic could perform the queen bee's craft? Looking closer, all those male students trailing behind her had decent faces too. Collecting boys the way collectors hoard figurines in a cabinet—the worst of the worst.
An instinctual, engraved revulsion surged up inside me. The disease known as PTSD, they call it.
Yes. I suffer from a condition in which I bark upon seeing a queen bee. But if I barked now, it would look like I was obeying her command, so I resolved to keep the barking contained.
"If you're not here to buy anything, could you disappear? We're about to open for business."
"How amusing... Do you have any idea who I am?"
"Nope. And I can't say I care."
"You really are amusing."
Seated as she was, the woman gave a flick of her fingers.
The way delivery drivers flick business cards from their motorcycles as they cruise past—a card came spinning and whirling through the air, and I snatched it out of the sky.
Student Council President
Camilla Ermilla
The moment I read the card, every muscle in my body went rigid.
The stiff card crumpled in my clenched fingers.
"Ermilla?"
"Heheh, that's right. As if anyone couldn't know my house."
Oh, I knew it all right. I absolutely had to.
The family of a former Hero. In other words, the lineage of one of the very enemies who had declared Muriel a Witch and sealed her away.
These days they went by the Grand Dukes of the North, if I remembered right.
"Remember my name from now on. I'll be sure to remember yours. Let's go."
The man beside her grabbed Camilla by the shirt collar just as she turned to leave. Camilla's leg flailed through empty air.
"Going where? Did you forget why we came here?"
"Hey, what the hell kind of aphrodisiac is that face supposed to be on? Why don't you just sleep with me instead? One word and I bet you'd spread your legs on your own."
"Well, you could always sell yourself for money... *Sigh.* No, never mind. You—let's go."
The man sighed with a face worn down by exhaustion. We'd only just met, but I was already certain: he was one of those students suffering in service of a Student Council President who did whatever the hell she pleased.
"Sorry about that. Still, I have to verify it—would you sell me one chocolate?"
"That much is no problem at all."
I sold one chocolate to the man, who introduced himself as the vice president. As he was completing the transaction, Camilla—who had lingered with her arms crossed instead of leaving—jabbed irritably at the ground with the toe of her shoe.
"Hey, doggy, I said let's go?"
She was addressing none other than Luke.
Luke, still kneeling before me with unfocused, glassy eyes, raised his arm at her urging and then—crack!—slapped himself across the face. Then, caressing his reddened cheek, he spat out a mouthful of blood.
"What the—? How did he break out of my magic too?"
Luke staggered to his feet and declared, facing a bewildered Camilla:
"There is already a woman who holds a place in my heart... Even were I to fall under a spell, I would never serve a woman like you..."
"Oh, you do, do you? How annoying. Let's go."
Apparently uninterested in a Luke freed from her control, Camilla left without a moment's hesitation. Dozens of male students swarmed out after her, and last of all, the vice president bowed his head and offered an apology.
"Sorry for the trouble."
The vice president had some common sense in him after all.
And so the little typhoon passed on its way.
Luke collapsed in a heap, his legs apparently having given out. Bracing himself on both hands with his legs splayed comfortably out, he grumbled.
"Whew... Not a single normal person here."
"Tell me about it."
Is this an academy or a psychiatric ward? One guy impregnates his own mother, and another is a lunatic who collects men like figurines.
"There are no normal people here except me."
"......"
"What."
"Says the guy who stirs up scandals in high society and sells aphrodisiacs at the academy."
"Tsk. He talks back, this one."
"My apologies. I haven't received treatment yet."
"Get treated, then. And that stuff isn't an aphrodisiac."
Luke took about five seconds before responding.
"Sure, let's go with that."
Sure, let's go with that?
This guy?
"The investigation concluded that it doesn't classify as an aphrodisiac."
Well, it was the outcome I'd predicted. Coffee, which had a similar effect, was already beloved by the nobility—there was no way chocolate alone would get classified as an aphrodisiac. Besides, for those who already drank coffee, the effect wasn't particularly strong, so there was no reason to consider it dangerous.
The students who'd been kicking up a fuss about the chocolate being some kind of love drug also seemed to relax once Student Council President Camilla stepped forward and declared outright that no such thing could be possible.
Granted, the process itself was rather absurd.
They summoned me, stood me up on a platform, and then posed the question to the anxious female students:
—Would this guy have any need for an aphrodisiac?
At which the female students glanced at me and shut their mouths.
—......
No words were spoken, but it was an emphatic denial all the same.
I still don't quite see what my face has to do with clearing me of suspicion of selling aphrodisiacs, but you know what they say—the thirsty man digs the well. Apparently, an ugly man might resort to making such things, but someone like me would never know the need for an aphrodisiac, so I'd never even think to make one.
The claim was so outrageous that I half-wondered if she was throwing the shield at me rather than for me—but no. It turned out Camilla was simply a thorough adherent of lookism, and she had, unexpectedly, meant every word sincerely.
"Since it's been ruled legal, the club funding that was frozen will also be disbursed."
"That's good news."
Muriel, who had been listening to me with her chin propped on her hand, smiled warmly.
"What's all this laid out on the table?"
"Ah, this? Requests that have come in to the club. Apparently, depending on a club's nature, requests like these come in fairly often."
I tore open the neatly wrapped envelope and spilled its contents across the table.
Our club had only been established recently, yet the number of requests we'd received was already quite impressive. The chocolate business seemed to have spread the word about our existence.
Muriel picked up one of the spilled request forms.
"'After eating your chocolate, my workout efficiency improved. Could you possibly make something like a medicine that helps build muscle faster?' it says."
A medicine that builds muscle faster, hm.
I did have something in mind. But I wasn't about to make it just yet.
Supply without demand is no supply at all. In other words, if there weren't enough consumers for it, the profitability would be too low, which would undercut any reason to develop it. So I would do a bit more market research before making the call.
"'I don't want to be a hulking man—I want to be a small, cute girl.' Seems we have this sort of worry too."
Small and cute, given my baseline frame... that would be a stretch, though something close to a woman's body was achievable.
Come to think of it, the two requests overlapped somewhat. One needed male hormones administered, the other female hormones—viewed a certain way, they were essentially the same request.
Maybe there was demand there after all?
At first I'd wondered what kind of requests these were, but honestly, it beat receiving a plea for a baldness cure—a problem modern medicine hadn't even solved.
"Shall I give them a try...?"
I set aside the two requests Muriel had picked out.
Ah, and there was one more thing I'd meant to mention.
"That's right—Muriel. Apparently there's a practical training course coming up at the academy."
"Knowing you, Owen, there's no need to worry about you getting hurt. Though you will have to help make sure the other children don't hurt themselves, won't you?"
"Of course. Naturally. Anyway, it sounds like this training will run for several days, so I probably won't be able to come home for a while."
"Really?"
Muriel closed her eyes for a moment.
"Hmm, now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever been apart from you for days at a time, Owen."
That sounded about right. I could count the nights I'd spent away from home on one hand, and even those, as I recalled, were nights I'd stayed out somewhere after leaving with Muriel.
"It will feel lonely, not seeing your face for days. Without the good-morning kiss, the day wouldn't feel like it's even started, and without the goodnight kiss, I don't imagine it would feel like the day has ended at all."
"It's true, it would feel empty to lose a routine we keep every day."
"Well then, I've decided."
Screeech.
Muriel pushed back her chair with bold resolve, as if she'd just thought of a brilliant idea, and took my hand, pulling me up.
"Then we'll simply stay even closer than usual, so there's nothing to miss. Shall we sleep together until you leave for training?"
Toward her bedroom.
The bed wasn't particularly large. Back when we'd slept together, I was still small, so a bed of this size had been plenty. Once I grew a bit bigger we'd started sleeping in separate rooms, so there'd never been any need to upgrade—the old bed remained as it always had been.
"This is the first time we've shared a bed since you grew up, Owen."
But by now, the bed was far too small.
When Muriel and I lay down side by side, our bodies spilled off the edge and made sleep impossible—forcing us, inevitably, to turn onto our sides.
One pillow, split between us.
Muriel, lying on her side close enough that her breath touched my face, looked at me and finally burst out laughing.
"Saying all that, it really is too small, isn't it."
I laughed too.
Because the sight of the two of us stubbornly lying there anyway, despite knowing it was too small, was just too funny.