Quo Vadis? (3)

The sound of a glass being filled caught the microphone.

"All right. A toast."

A woman's voice, pitched a little low. Then the bright clink that followed it — microphone and glass meeting.

"If you drink too fast you might just collapse, so be careful, okay? Everyone, know your own limits and stick to a sensible amount. Me? I'm a werewolf, so I'm fine. Thanks for worrying."

On the broadcast, the werewolf character smiled, bright and easy.

She had deliberately cranked the microphone sensitivity quite high, so the gulp of liquor went straight into the stream as well.

Clink. Charlotte, without a word, tapped her cup against the microphone again.

Honestly, I have to drink about this much before I even get a little tipsy.

Charlotte — Tsunashi Tenka — thought that, and smiled once more.

Most of the viewers believed the werewolf thing was nothing more than a setting for the character Charlotte Lupus. In truth, it applied just as much to the woman inside her, Tsunashi Tenka herself. And not an ordinary werewolf, either. Back when she had lived in France to learn how to control her strength, she had even been told that, on pure physical ability alone, she ranked among the very best of the current generation. A body like that did not get properly drunk on something this mild. Worrying over her drinking was about as foolish a thing as one could do.

If anyone needed worrying over, it was the viewers stubbornly trying to match her pace out of sheer pride.

"Everyone's pacing themselves, right? If our Charutomo go down, I'll be pretty sad, so please be careful?"

The thought made her anxious enough to say it again, and a rush of affirmative replies rolled up the chat. She was just settling into satisfaction with that when a familiar melody reached her ear.

"Oh?"

The ringtone of the voice-chat app Pasta. Even someone who wasn't a streamer would know that song, so long as they played games over voice chat.

"Shtan? I thought I heard she was going to Italy. Wonder what's going on."

"Ah, yeah. I really didn't think a call would come through."

Charlotte said it with a mildly startled look on her face. In reality, of course, she had been given a heads-up beforehand, and had even secured permission from the company staff. Packaging it as a sudden event simply made for a better broadcast. Split hairs and all she had received was a last-minute notice — the collab itself truly hadn't been planned.

"Hello, Shtan?"

"Yes, it's Mary Tepes!"

"You sound well. That's a relief."

"Are you watching the stream right now?"

"Yes. You happened to be live, so I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thought I'd get in touch."

"You're watching chat too, right? There's a whole crowd of little kittens who've lost their way."

It was a faintly preening answer, but Mary was roleplaying a slightly arrogant vampire queen, and no one seemed to find it strange.

"Ah, and this person as well..."

"I'm appearing too?"

"The call's going to run long, and you can hardly sit there with your mouth shut the whole time, can you? Here."

"Ah... yes. Good day. My name is Hinata Shion. It has been a while, Charlotte-san."

"Yeah. Long time no see, Sis... Shion-san."

"Shion-san. Someone in the audience is asking why you don't have a greeting."

"I don't. I'm not a VTuber."

"Come now, that won't do. Shion...-chan, make one and bring it next time."

Mary's voice trembled, just slightly, partway through. She had very nearly called her simply Shion, the way she had been doing lately, without thinking. From Han Seoyeon's perspective as a Korean, the difference didn't land with much force — but apparently the bare name Shion was a far warmer form of address than Shion-chan.

The form they had agreed on before placing the call was precisely Shion-chan. Until recently she had been Sister-san on stream, and abruptly dropping the honorific would have been awkward in its own right.

"If Shtan says so, there's nothing to be done."

"I don't do livestreams. I am not a VTuber to begin with."

"Well, if you think about the work Shion-chan usually does, asking for that kind of preparation would be too much."

Strictly speaking, the volume of work assigned to Han Seoyeon herself was not especially large. Her present reality, though, was running herself ragged in every direction to keep the radical streak peculiar to the Japanese Catholic Church under control. It amounted to a kind of unpaid overtime — and yet she herself did not regard it as a sacrifice in the slightest. After Akaba Akane was attacked by a radical Holy Knight the last time, they did seem to be restraining themselves of their own accord. Even so, there was no telling when they might slip back to the way they had been.

"Anyway! I've prepared wine as well!"

"Oh. Now that you mention it, where are you, Shtan? If it's Italy, it ought to be evening about now."

"A hotel. I came back to the room a little early today. I loafed around, and even though it was early, I had a simple dinner too."

"Drinking at a hotel — that's room service, isn't it? Isn't that expensive?"

"For the True Ancestor Queen, this much luxury is only natural."

Mary said it with a huff through her nose. Of course, considering her actual temperament, there was no way she was accustomed to luxury. She had simply gone on her first trip abroad, and her wallet had grown a little lighter than usual.

"I see. Then we'd better pour the next round once the drink gets to you."

"Speaking of which, what are you drinking right now?"

"Awamori. Kusu."

"Gack. That's over forty percent, isn't it?"

Okinawan shochu, already said to run harsher than the mainland kind — and aged, on top of that. Judging by the chat, she was filling a mug with it, no less.

"Are you worrying about me? That's sweet. Still, it's liquor sold on the market, so it's fine."

"No — once you go past forty percent, that whole 'legal to sell as a drink' standard gets shaky too! Forty-five percent is the cutoff!"

Under Japan's Liquor Tax Act, alcohol may not exceed forty-five percent. Anything past that line has to be distributed as a raw material, not a beverage. Even so, it isn't that bad was no excuse at all.

"Carnivores have strong livers to begin with."

"No, Sharu-chan. If you're going to argue it that way, canids drinking alcohol in the first place is... forget it. I'm sure you'll manage."

In the end she sighed. She already knew the woman could hold her liquor. And if the werewolf herself insisted that being a werewolf meant she was fine drinking heavily, what was Mary supposed to do — pick a fight with that?

"Anyway, I put the order in a while ago, so it ought to be on its way up soon......"

It was immediately after Mary said so. A ding-dong of a melody rang out.

For an instant it was taken for the hotel doorbell, but that assumption would not hold for long.

"Uh... uhhh?"

Charlotte's voice came out vacant, the soul gone clean out of it.

"The digits... six... huh?"

"...The influx ought to have gone up, so a safeword?"

"......"

"No, I— I'm sorry. But I really did it out of goodwill, you know?"

"......"