Red Is Three Times Faster
When I finished the performance and returned to my original spot, the gazes that met me were filled with admiration and astonishment, unlike before.
“……You’re truly incredible.”
“It was nothing.”
“Nothing? Can’t you see the looks on everyone’s faces around you? With that alone, you’ve skyrocketed your own value.”
Lize, who had been the first to speak to me, was now openly showering me with praise that bordered on outright flattery. It was rather embarrassing, but it seemed I had successfully misled her about my identity.
Having mistaken me for a talented pianist, Lize asked with a voice brimming with curiosity.
“By the way, Mr. Raemon. What exactly do you do? I have quite a wide network in the arts world, yet I’ve never heard of a prodigy like you……”
“I’m just an ordinary person. I receive some sponsorship from Chairwoman Regalia.”
“……An ordinary person?”
“Yes.”
At that, Lize glared at me as if to say, Does that even make sense? But I stood my ground. What could she possibly do about it? If I said I was an ordinary person, then that’s what I was.
“─Then I shall visit you again next time.”
“Do that.”
After finishing her conversations with the corporate chairpersons, Regalia let out a quiet sigh and immediately turned around. She headed straight for the scientist who had caused a scene and was now casually chatting away.
In truth, she had wanted to run over the moment his piano performance ended, but she couldn’t. She was, after all, the chairwoman of Evils Enterprise, and she had numerous duties she was obligated to fulfill. Even this party was an extension of her work.
As she approached the area crowded with heirs and successors, those who saw her made awkward expressions and quietly stepped aside. To them, Regalia was both close and impossibly distant. They were still mere eggs, while she was already a giant moving on her own.
“That semiconductor project seems impossible to complete within ten years, doesn’t it?”
“Hmm─ then where do you think would be good to invest?”
“Well, if it were me, I’d probably─.”
The scientist was calmly conversing with the heirs. That fact irritated Regalia. While she had been harassed by other businesspeople because of him, he was laughing and chatting as if nothing had happened?
Regalia frowned slightly and walked toward the scientist. Noticing her approach, he slowly turned his head.
“─Young Lady.”
“Ah, my sponsor has arrived. Chairwoman. How did you find tonight’s performance?”
Watching the scientist begin his act so naturally, Regalia started a conversation with her eyes alone.
“Why did you act without saying anything?”
“Didn’t I tell you not to cause trouble!”
However, the scientist apparently failed to understand her true feelings and gave a completely off-the-mark reply.
“It seems the Chairwoman was also satisfied with tonight’s performance? Well, the piece I played today was a new composition I hadn’t performed for you before.”
“……Yes. I was surprised.”
She really thought her heart was going to drop out of her chest. Why on earth had he stepped forward in a place like that? What if he had made a mistake? What if his skill had been mediocre and he received harsh criticism? What excuse was he planning to give?
The scientist had either not considered any of that, or he had been so confident that such thoughts never crossed his mind. He had stepped onto the stage and proven his ability.
Thanks to that, everyone who had been curious about his identity had disappeared. Instead, the number of people who wanted him had only increased. For Regalia, that was even more troublesome.
“I’d like to hear that performance again once we return.”
If one were to translate the meaning for the scientist, who couldn’t read between the lines, it meant We’ll talk about this when we get back.
The party ended. While everyone returned to their respective cities, Lize sat inside her car with her eyes closed, recalling the sonata she had heard that night.
The sweet melody, like a full moon rising in the night sky, lingered in her ears. The performance she had heard once refused to leave her mind.
She tried humming it from memory, but it somehow felt clumsy. If only there were an album, she would buy it and listen, but since it was an original composition, no such thing existed.
In other words, the piece she had heard tonight was one she could never hear again anywhere else. Unless she brought the performer back to play it for her.
He really was a peculiar man.
Lize thought back to the performer she had met that night—the partner Regalia had brought along. He hadn’t fallen for her seduction so easily. Considering there were lines of men who would give her everything after merely seeing her skin, it was astonishing.
And when one considered that her charm wasn’t simply from her natural appeal but from her ability, it became even stranger.
How did he resist my power?
Until now, the only cases where someone had resisted her ability were these: they possessed an overwhelmingly powerful ESP that could ignore hers, they were so old that sexual desire no longer existed, or they were homosexual.
Barring those exceptions, no one had ever escaped her fascination. It even worked on women─so for an adult male to evade her ability was simply impossible.
He didn’t seem homosexual either. She clearly remembered the heated gaze he had sent toward her cleavage when she had drawn close. Though he had quickly looked away, it had been the instinctive look of a male.
He didn’t appear to have any special ability either…….
It was an unprecedented exception. Lize felt a surge of curiosity at this unexpected situation.
I want him.
As the successor to a major corporation representing an entire city, she had obtained everything she had ever desired. This was one of the rare times she had found a treasure she wanted but could not immediately claim.
Was this what a one-sided crush felt like? This burning impatience? Lize hummed the melody of the piece she had heard that night. Each time she recalled it, her feelings for him grew deeper.
“─Scientist. Do you have two lives or something?”
“Pardon?”
“Why do you keep causing trouble like this—really!”
Upon returning to headquarters, I had to endure a scolding from Regalia. Honestly, I felt a bit wronged, but her words weren’t entirely unreasonable.
“You just had to stand quietly by my side! Why on earth did you play the piano there?!”
“Well, because the people there were getting too curious about my identity……”
“Then you should have played some reasonably famous piece! Why did you perform something so absurd—!”
“It is a famous piece, though……”
It was a masterpiece that literally everyone on Earth knew─ Upon hearing that, Regalia glared at me in utter disbelief.
Feeling her murderous gaze, I quietly lowered my head and admitted my fault. Right… even that much was apparently not allowed…….
Truly, the most troublesome thing about coming to this world was exactly this. The gap between Earth and this world. The fact that I couldn’t just bring over any science or art without consequences was a real headache.
“Anyway. You don’t have any more hidden talents that I don’t know about, do you?”
“Well…… I don’t know what you don’t know.”
“Tell me everything! Whether you’re good at drawing! Or good at sports! Anything you’re better at than others!”
“I can’t draw, and I’m not good at sports. How could I beat people who can run faster than cars with their bare bodies?”
“Anything else? Please, just tell me in advance so you don’t cause any more accidents later!”
Regalia stomped her feet as she shouted. It wasn’t something one should think while being scolded, but she looked adorable throwing a tantrum like a child. However, as if she had read my thoughts, the boss suddenly released an overwhelming aura and looked down at me.
“……Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Haa─ Really. I shouldn’t have picked you up just because you looked interesting……”
Regalia, who had been furiously scratching her head, left a warning to be careful and returned to her room. The clock had already passed the hour when children of the new country should be heading to dreamland. She had probably forced herself to overcome the exhaustion weighing down her entire body just to lecture me.
I knew all too well how difficult it was to fight off heavy eyelids, and how much harder it was for a child to do so. Feeling sorry toward her, I returned to my own room.
Promising myself to be more careful next time.
The next day, rain poured down like crazy. A completely soaked Aile came to the lab, sniffling and complaining.
“Reaaally…! Scientist…! Please make me a weapon! A weapon!”
“……What are you talking about all of a sudden? And why do you look like a drowned rat?”
“It’s because…!”
According to Aile, a crazy speeding car had zoomed past her, splashing through a puddle and drenching her completely. By the time she realized what had happened, transformed into a magical girl, and tried to get revenge, the car had already disappeared far beyond her sight.
Hearing that, I asked back in disbelief.
“You’re trying to get revenge just because you got a little wet…….”
“But still…! Aren’t you angry…!? Your colleague got splashed with water…!”
“I’m not saying I’m not angry, but it’s not to the point where I need to make you a weapon for revenge.”
However, Aile kept trembling as if she couldn’t calm down unless she took revenge with her own hands. Every time she clenched her fists and shook, water dripped from her skirt and hair.
At this rate she would catch a cold─ I quickly sent her to the shower room to change out of her wet clothes. But when Aile returned, she was still steeped in rage.
Vira, who had been quietly listening to her story from the side, suddenly let out a sound as if she had just remembered something.
“That sounds like a villain.”
“A villain? Doesn’t this city not have any villains?”
“He’s active in other cities.”
Mosped. A villain who drives a supercar and speeds like a madman. He ignores traffic laws like signals and center lines and simply drives recklessly. That’s what they called him.
Hearing that, I asked again in disbelief.
“Wait, a guy who drives around in a supercar is a villain?”
“Because he’s so ridiculously fast that no one can catch him. There’s even a rumor that his ESP is driving itself.”
“How can someone’s ESP be driving……”
Nothing about why he became a villain or why he had never been caught made any sense, but Aile seemed to feel differently. Upon learning she had been victimized by a villain, she passionately insisted to me.
“S-Scientist…! He’s a villain! A villain!”
“Yeah. I heard.”
“To be humiliated by a mere villain…! This is a disgrace to the villain organization…! Y-You clearly told me to protect my pride…!”
Watching Aile throw my own words from a few days ago back at me, I realized I really needed to watch what I said in front of the kids.
Otherwise it would definitely come back to bite me. The old saying that the mouth is the root of all evil wasn’t for nothing. I sighed and looked at Aile.
If I didn’t grant her request? There was a high chance she would ignore everything I said from now on. Kids always threw huge tantrums over small, trivial things.
“So you want revenge?”
“Y-Yes─!”
“It doesn’t have to be a weapon, right?”
“Huh? Eh?”
“What meaning is there in beating someone like that with violence?”
From what I had heard, that villain was a crazy speed demon. Guys like that couldn’t simply be broken with violence. There was only one way to get revenge on them.
“You have to crush them in their own territory.”
However, there was one problem.
The boss told me not to cause trouble less than half a day ago…….
Well, this much probably wouldn’t count as causing trouble. Besides─ it wasn’t going to be me causing the accident. It was going to be Aile.