Karen Florence (1)
Stab! Karen Florence drove her fork—gripped in a reverse, dagger-style hold—down hard into the meat on her plate.
She had put so much force behind the blow that the tines punched clean through the bone buried inside the meat in a single stroke. That the plate hadn't shattered in the process was impressive in its own right—a neat demonstration of just how precisely the girl could meter out her strength.
So "Battle Nun" isn't a title they hand out for nothing.
Delicate as she looked, she was evidently exceptional where skill was concerned. Come to think of it, that novel had shown the occasional character holding the post of "Battle Nun," but they'd crossed paths with Rihardt so rarely that I'd simply brushed it off—huh, so people like that existed too.
Meaning the two of them had already crossed paths, long ago.
Since I'd never read the novel through to its ending, there were bound to be gaps in what I knew. Rihardt's past, which was never properly brought to light. The moment, whatever it had been, that had finally bent him out of shape for good.
I was possessed mid-read, so I suppose it couldn't be helped. Still—if you're going to possess someone, the least you could do is wait until they've finished the book first.
It was one of those moments when my resentment toward the inconsiderate bastard who'd thrown me into this world came surging up all over again.
Warily, I studied Karen Florence as she shoveled meat into her mouth with naked irritation.
The Battle Nuns—one of the militant orders founded by the Church of Lou, which worships Lou, god of light, if I remembered right?
They wielded a power of an entirely different order from mana: miracles worked through faith in God. Divine power. From what I'd heard, it was something like an authority bestowed only on the handful of humans God himself had chosen.
Which meant this tiny girl was capable of working those very miracles. It drove home, yet again, that this world really was the setting of a fantasy novel.
Come to think of it—gods actually exist here, don't they?
In the world I came from, gods had been little more than hollow names; here, they were real. Someday, if the chance ever came, I wanted to ask God himself just how, exactly, I had ended up in this world. Not that such an opportunity was liable to come strolling up and introduce itself.
Crunch. Crunch.
How considerate of her—someone was kindly supplying background noise to whip my scattered focus back into shape. That someone being one Miss Karen Florence. Though in truth she was less interested in my concentration than in venting her displeasure. Either way, it certainly held my attention.
(For the record: that crunching was the sound of her chewing the meat skewered on her fork, bone and all.)
"Miss Karen Florence."
"What."
"Is there something you wished to say to me?"
"No."
"You've been staring at me for some time now, so I wondered whether you had something you wanted to tell me."
"Ha. Aren't you a little full of yourself?"
I would have loved to be full of myself. She'd been radiating I can't stand you from start to finish, and a little consideration for the person catching it wouldn't have killed her. Simply watching that girl beam fervent hostility at me in real time was draining the life right out of me. She wasn't actually going to jab that fork into my throat over some minor misstep... right?
With such a deeply strange young master in my service, I could never quite afford to let my guard down. Between Karen's menacing theatrics, I honestly couldn't have told you whether the food was going into my mouth or up my nose.
The only one who could stay perfectly composed amid this whole miserable situation was, of course, Rihardt. That damned brat.
That said, I could see why the damned young master had gone out of his way to put Karen Florence and me in the same room.
He wants to see how I'll win over the Karen who's hostile to me and bring her down to the Basement. That's the test.
Almost as if to prove he really did have a sadist's streak, the man set a remarkably high bar. And yet it didn't look outright impossible. For one thing, the simple fact that she was fond of Rihardt made everything considerably easier.
I was still sketching out a rough estimate in my head when Rihardt broke the silence.
"Karen, I'm really sorry."
A rather out-of-nowhere apology. I narrowed my eyes and studied him. What was he playing at?
"Wh-what's with the s-sudden apology?"
The fork that had been stabbing petulantly at her plate went still. Karen's furious momentum deflated in an instant.
"It seemed like my carelessness upset you quite a bit."
At those words, the red-haired Battle Nun opened and closed her mouth, looking for all the world as if she'd never been angry at all—just embarrassed. What is this thing called love, that it can tame a beast that ferocious?
"H-how did you kn-know I was mad?"
So stammered the Battle Nun, her face dyed every bit as red as her hair. She'd thrown her fit practically wearing a placard that read I'm angry—and she'd honestly believed Rihardt wouldn't notice? Truly, this girl was every bit as simple as she looked.
Rihardt didn't bother with the obvious retort—it was written all over you, wasn't it?—and instead spoke gently, in the tone of a patient tutor.
"If someone brought an unexpected guest into our plans, I'd be upset too. I never meant to slight you, Karen, so I hope there's no misunderstanding."
"Slight me? Rihardt, I-I've never once thought anything like that."
"Thank you for saying so. The truth is, I brought Lucy here because I wanted you to hear it from me first, Karen. You're an important person to me."
"The f-first? An i-important person?"
You're my first—in my experience, that phrase is the most devastating weapon in existence, gender be damned. Sure enough, the eyes of the girl who'd been bristling with thorns a minute ago were already turning soft and glassy. He was patently smoothing her over with sentiment rather than sense, and there she was, smiling goofily like a woman being fed sugar. The thought came unbidden: so it's true what they say—a handsome face pays for itself. This was hypnosis. This was a love potion. Am I wrong?
"So if anything ever bothers you, I want you to tell me freely. Anything at all."
Karen scratched roughly at her head, then heaved a long, long sigh.
"You never said one word about bringing anyone. I thought today was going to be just the two of us, all cozy."
"I see."
It wasn't a hollow reply. His tone carried what sounded like genuine regret, and I wanted to applaud Rihardt's skin-crawlingly fine acting. To care not one whit, and still produce a reaction like that—in the world I came from, he'd have walked away with the Best Actor prize at Cannes and had change left over.
"And seeing the two of you like that, so close together—do you have any idea how jealous it made me?"
Once the dam holding back her complaints burst, the grievances poured out like rapid fire.
"Karen, Lucy is just a maid."
"Even if she is a maid! Sh-she's pretty, isn't she? That girl."
Karen Florence's speech was fraying at the edges now.
"You're more beautiful, Karen. Beautiful enough that there's no need to compare yourself to Lucy in the first place."
He hadn't said cute—doubtless to sidestep the girl's complex about her looks. Even his word choice was deliberate. The meticulous bastard.
"You know that's an empty compliment, right?"
Somehow, that didn't look like the face of a woman who took it for an empty compliment.
I had to manage my expression for dear life. Watching this little farce unfold, I could feel a cynical sneer trying to force its way onto my face.
"As an apology for this mistake, I'd like to invite you to my family's estate. What do you say?"
"Invite me?"
"Yes. Whatever good intentions I had, I still upset you—and I'd like the chance to make it up to you."
"Hm. I-is that so?"
"Just tell me whenever you're free. I'll have a splendid gift prepared, too. Ah—and of course, Lucy won't be there that day. It'll be just the two of us. Nice and private."
I couldn't help but admire the man's natural buildup. So my presence—all that pointless noise—had been nothing more than the opening move for that one line.
Karen Florence nodded her head up and down so fast it nearly rattled loose.
"Okay! I'll come—r-right now, even!"
You really do have a talent for this, Rihardt.
Annoying. Annoying, annoying, annoying.
Karen Florence was in a fouler mood than she could ever remember, and it was all the worse for having to keep this sticky, murky feeling off her face. She had never been one to swallow the things she wanted to say, and calm was proving entirely beyond her.
This was breakfast—breakfast that the one and only Rihardt had personally invited her to share. It would have been a lie to say she hadn't hoped to use the occasion to move things along between them. But had heaven seen fit to send down a trial as punishment for a nun's impure heart? An uninvited guest had appeared—a woman so polished that comparing her to Karen Florence was nearly laughable—seated right at Rihardt's side.
Lucifer.
Her hair, the dull gray of leftover ash, was neatly arranged and spilled down to her shoulders. Her eyes, drab to match, were damp with a quiet melancholy that lent her a decadent, haunting beauty, and her finely cut features matched any textbook image of a lovely woman. And that was hardly all. What of the figure that even those shapeless clothes couldn't hide—a nipped-in waist, a softly swelling chest, hips that flared just so, a prettily rounded backside? Comparing her to Karen, whose body might as well have belonged to a child, was an insult to the woman in itself.
Suppose you stopped ten random men in the street and asked which of the two they preferred, Karen Florence or Lucifer. Ten out of ten would pick the woman called Lucifer. And somewhere among those ten would be Rihardt.
That was the part Karen could not, by any means, forgive.
...A maid, of all things. How dare she.
A woman loathsome enough for prodding at her insecurities alone—and as if that weren't enough, even that block of stone called Rihardt was showing her warmth and fondness. Deductions on top of deductions. Look at them, even now. Wasn't honey quite literally dripping from the man's eyes? It was agonizing to watch the two of them whispering together at a distance fit for lovers.
Next to her, I might as well be a sack of barley set out beside a jar of honey.
Truly, she was an eyesore if there ever was one. Karen resolved to settle the estate's pecking order at the very first moment Rihardt's eyes were elsewhere.
...Or so she had resolved.
Then why... why am I at Rihardt's estate?
When she came back to her senses, Karen Florence was—already, inexplicably—at Rihardt's estate.