Joyfully Bearing the Ark of the Covenant (1)

"Ninomae-san?"

"Auuu..."

"Can you not hear me? Ninomae-san!"

"Hyah?!"

Ninomae, who had been staring blankly into nothing, startled so hard at Han Seoyeon's raised voice that she hunched in on herself.

"I have packed all of the kitchenware into a box."

"Ah, r-right. You did."

Only then did she notice the box in Seoyeon's hands. Every time it shifted, the dishes set up a loud, rattling clatter of metal.

Whatever sort of daily life people might be living, time flowed on regardless, and at last another weekend had arrived. Put another way, the day Ninomae would leave this house had finally come. And so she and Han Seoyeon had been at the work of moving since early that morning.

"Incidentally, what on earth were you thinking about so intently just now?"

"Th-that's, well... Mm! I was looking forward to our new life!"

"Is that so. I, too, am greatly looking forward to it."

In truth, though, Ninomae's words were a lie. The looking forward itself was sincere enough, and yet—

I was remembering an erotic doujin starring Shion-san and me. How am I supposed to say a thing like that out loud...!

Watching Seoyeon's back as she took dishes from the kitchen cupboard, a certain "play" scene set in a kitchen had risen unbidden to mind. There was no world in which she could admit that. All the less so when she had already "used" the work in question.

A VTuber's R-18 works are, as a rule, handled with care. Most of the time people simply leave them alone, but an agency that truly set its mind to it could bring the hammer down whenever it pleased—and if one dug any deeper, there was even room for that extremely sensitive debate over whether adult works in which VTubers "did it" with one another counted as real-person slash or not.

Even so, there were bound to be people who produced lewd works anyway. Her senior, Maya, however, was a little bold about it. No—quite considerably bold. As if she had traded her sense of shame away for a stick of taffy—or, in cruder speech, with absolutely no brakes—she had simply charged straight in. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Holding your comic out to the very person who appeared in it was not something ordinary nerve could manage.

The contents, moreover, had been extremely explicit. Explicit enough, at any rate, that Ninomae had blushed her way through three full readings since that day.

No. This was no time to be thinking about that. Ninomae shook her head hard, forcing the stray thoughts away.

...Not that there was ever really a good time for thoughts like those.

She returned at once to sorting the luggage into boxes. Nothing drove off idle thoughts quite like physical labor.

"Ninomae-san, where ought I to put this?"

And then, from beside her, Han Seoyeon's voice came again. Ninomae turned her head and found Seoyeon holding some manner of mechanical device.

A head-mounted display—an HMD—along with several other pieces of a set. In short, what people commonly called VR equipment.

"Ah, please put that in this box here."

It was expensive, and it had to be handled with care. Stacking anything else on top of it was out of the question, obviously. Ninomae pointed to a box that was already nearly full.

"You owned something like this as well, I see."

Seoyeon settled the gear into the box piece by piece, sealed it with tape, and spoke. Not that she had ever seen Ninomae play a VR game.

"I bought it relatively recently. Or rather, strictly speaking, I didn't buy it. The company provided it."

Equipment supplied by her agency. In other words, gear for streaming.

Han Seoyeon considered this for a moment, then opened her mouth.

"Has the 3D model finally been finished?"

She had called it broadcasting equipment, and yet Mary had never once streamed a VR game. Which meant that, going forward, there were plans to use VR for games or for something else entirely.

And not merely once or twice. If that were all, there would have been no need to acquire personal equipment; she could simply have borrowed a colleague's for a day.

So why, after never once touching VR, was she suddenly doing so now? The answer to that was simple.

Put the gear on, and it covered the face, which meant a camera obviously could not read facial tracking. One could work around it by calling up preset expressions with hotkeys and the like, but the result would inevitably be flatter than usual. The whiplash of that downgrade was a truly frightening thing, and there would be that much more to mind throughout a stream besides.

Stream without an avatar, then? At that point one might as well not play VR games at all, of which there were hardly any to begin with. That, roughly, had been Mary's stance until now.

Plans in which VTuber colleagues gathered together in VR had likewise had nothing to do with the Mary of up to now. Strictly speaking, it was not only Mary; the whole of the second generation was the same, since none of them had had their 3D avatars finished for very long.

And even then, Mary's had gotten tangled in an outsourcing problem, so she still had not received her model. Or so Han Seoyeon had understood.

"Yes. Apparently it was only just completed yesterday. The agency sent the equipment itself earlier than that, saying the model was nearly done and I should set up a VR streaming environment in advance."

So saying, Ninomae smiled, plainly delighted.

Half a year since her debut as Mary Tepes, and longer still if one counted her previous life in her indie days. Seeing the character she performed move and live in 3D was a first even in that VTuber career, and the feeling was strangely moving. Nor was it any ordinary model. It was a high-quality avatar into which the company, as a company, had poured money.

Watching that expression on Ninomae's face, Han Seoyeon thought that Cinderella must have looked just so upon meeting her fairy godmother.

"Shion-san, would you like me to show you in advance? If it's you, I don't mind."

"Hmm... That is a considerably attractive proposal, but."

Han Seoyeon seemed to hesitate for the briefest moment, and then she shook her head.

"I shall decline after all. I suspect it will be far more satisfying to endure, and see it on the broadcast proper."

She would have been lying if she claimed she was not curious. Even so, she had concluded that it was better, if possible, to see it on stream.

The model-reveal broadcast Mary was planning would hardly flash the model on screen and simply end, would it? She would build the anticipation as high as it could go by every means available, keep everyone on the day itself aching with impatience, and only then, slowly, show it to the viewers.

"A Shu-tan stream must always be at its very best. Were I to be spoiled beforehand, I should find myself in quite the predicament when the moment actually came."

"And that would be disrespectful to Shu-tan, would it not?" Han Seoyeon said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Excuse me? This is an offer coming from Mary Tepes herself, you know?"

Refusing Mary's proposal for Mary's own sake—what was that even supposed to be?

"Well... if you absolutely insist on refusing, then I suppose there's nothing I can do."

"Above all else, for a broadcaster to grant preferential treatment to a single viewer is, in a number of respects..."

"I'm saying I want to give you special treatment."

Ninomae's expression turned faintly sulky. It did not seem that she was truly offended so much as a little dissatisfied.

"You've already given me so much that the viewers will surely forgive something this small."

A house, and furniture, and even a precious holy relic! One could set the bed aside, but the first and the last were favors Ninomae probably could not repay if she worked her entire life.

Ninomae carefully closed her hand around the necklace she was wearing today as well.

"Ah, I know!"

Then, as if a good idea had suddenly struck her, she clapped her hands.

"Then I'll show you the model after that stream is over."

"Hm? Would that not render it meaningless?"

Was the point of a thing like this not precisely that one was shown it in advance? Showing it afterward would be nothing but a late arrival to the news, would it not? Han Seoyeon looked at Ninomae with a puzzled face.

"I'll lend you the VR, so you can use that!"

But at what Ninomae said next, Seoyeon sank briefly into thought.

So... I would put on the VR and behold Mary alive and moving right before my eyes? And at extremely close range, at that?

It did not take her long to understand Ninomae's intent. And at once, the look in her eyes changed.

"What is the price of a viewing ticket?"

"No—would you please fix that habit of reaching for cash at every possible opportunity?!"

"Even so, I could not possibly view something so precious for free..."

"I told you, it's repayment for everything you've already done!"

Seeing Han Seoyeon produce her wallet with a motion as fluid as running water, Ninomae shrieked in horror. In the end Seoyeon set the wallet back down, looking faintly dissatisfied.

"Haa... I really don't think even Yuri-san, an actual aristocratic young lady, pulls out money every single time to this extent. Please keep the red Superchats confined to the internet."

Ninomae grumbled, and let out a sigh.

Then, as if to clear the air, she summoned a grimoire into the empty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠space before her and spread it open—the Belial Catalog.

Black mist rose slowly from the grimoire, wound once around Ninomae, and little by little spread until it filled the room.

And from the mist that filled the room, together with a faint reddish-purple radiance, several women in maid uniforms appeared. It was perfectly obvious, however, that they were no ordinary humans.

Horns grew from the sides of their heads. The legs glimpsed beneath jet-black long skirts were made of hoof and fur, and could not possibly be thought to belong to any primate. As for the rectangular pupils, those hardly needed mentioning.

"Please load this luggage onto the truck in front of the building entrance. Neatly, from the inside out. Oh, and keep your legs properly covered."

"■■■■■■■■."

Hearing Ninomae's instructions, they produced some bizarre sound—something that, if one insisted on describing it, lay halfway between a glurk-glurk and a wet squelch. Then they gathered the black mist, shaped it into boots, and concealed the inhuman portions.

Those uncanny pupils and the horns remained on display, but honestly, that much was fine. The residents of the surface world were, unexpectedly, creatures tightly bound to common sense, and even seeing something like this they were sure to conclude it must be cosplay. All that had needed hiding were the legs, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠which no one could easily take for simple makeup no matter how they looked at them.

"You take this, and you take that... Ah, right. This desk has to be loaded first. And..."

At any rate, once they had finished preparing to go outside, they began carrying the boxes out one after another according to her directions.

The boxes must have been considerably heavy, and yet the sight of them being hoisted up lightly in those slender arms felt deeply uncanny.

"Mmm, this magic really is pretty convenient. I've gotten into the habit of dumping the housework on them."

So saying, Ninomae stretched with a groan.

"Then could you not simply have had those underlings pack the boxes as well?"

"Their judgment seems surprisingly poor. You have to instruct them on every single thing."

Which item belonged in which box, what had to go in first... No, even before that, they had trouble judging which objects they were supposed to bring at all.

Fail to give proper orders, and it would not have been strange for them to try setting the sofa down on top of the VR equipment she had just seen. Since she would have to issue a command for every single object going into a box, it was easier simply to move a little herself.

Still, once they were given clear instructions they were superb at simple labor, so she made good use of them for ordinary housework.

"Anyway, once all of this has been moved, that's the end of it."

"There will still be arranging things and putting them in order once we arrive... but yes, it is fair to say our business in this house is finished."

Han Seoyeon rolled her shoulders lightly, as if loosening them, and came to stand beside Ninomae.

"Do you require holy power for recovering from fatigue?"

"Uh, no. It's not to that extent. ...But the technique you use, Shion-san—isn't it way too convenient, even compared to my magic?"

"Naturally. If Christ and a demon were to fight, the former would win, would he not?"

"Our Lord fires beams from His eyes as well." Han Seoyeon added a remark one could not quite judge to be a joke or not.

Had anyone else said it, Ninomae would simply have taken it for a blasphemous bit. But the hidden world was a neighborhood where common sense did not apply, and that left her uncertain.

"I am joking. Even so, there is no record of Him having fired beams from His eyes."

"R-right?"

"Well. Were it the Lord, it would not be that He could not, but merely that He did not."

"...It really is a joke, right?!"

Han Seoyeon did not answer. She only offered a faint smile.

Master did fire them, though. So Jesus could have as well, surely.

All the while, she held in her heart a thought that not a single person of common sense could ever have predicted.