The Most Awkward Moment in the World
The most awkward moment in the world.
“Melina.”
“What is it, Master?”
“Would you permit me to inquire as to the precise reasoning behind the cruel and inhuman remark you just uttered? May I ask that?”
“Why are you talking like that?”
“Because I’m in shock.”
I still hadn’t recovered. The line Melina had just delivered to Eres sounded exactly like she was checking off every bad-ending condition on the list.
“You don’t… possibly… like me, do you…”
“There’s no way I’d feel anything like that for a kidnapper. It’s disgusting.”
Ah, seeing that genuine look of contempt on her face actually brought me some relief. No, wait. Now I was worried for an entirely different reason.
“Then why did you say it?”
“Sigh… You saw it yourself. My sister can never beat you.”
It was true the gap was tragically vast, but still! Even so, she still had the belief that she could do it!
“It made me feel sorry for her, spending her whole life chasing after something impossible.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that once you lost your usefulness I might hurt you? That would truly be something you could never take back for the rest of your life.”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“Hey.”
“I’ve been watching you for six years. Could you really endure being genuinely despised by a woman who’s been stalking you?”
Thump.
At a loss for words, I gave Melina a light flick on the crown of her head. I controlled my strength as much as possible, but it must have still hurt. Melina clutched her head, tears welling up.
“Please fix that habit of resorting to violence the moment you lose an argument…”
“Then fix your habit of trying to defeat your master with logic.”
“I’m not a maid, I’m a hostage. And you’re not a master, you’re a kidnapper. Resisting an evil criminal is a virtue.”
“Changing your position whenever it suits you… Just talk first and hit later. I still haven’t relaxed my stance.”
“Look who’s talking…!”
Whatever she found so unfair, she kicked at my leg, but that area was still in combat readiness. To Melina it was no different from kicking an iron pillar. Whether from pain or anger, she turned her head away from me and let out a small groan.
“What are you going to do after saying something that strange? If you want to deceive Eres, you’ll have to keep acting. I have no intention of playing along.”
“Am I crazy? Clinging to an ogre like you? We can just separate public and private matters.”
“Well, that’s true. It would be weird to act lovey-dovey in front of others.”
Setting aside how common it was for someone to take their own maid as a lover, it wouldn’t look good to outsiders. Naturally, we would keep our distance in public. And since Eres wouldn’t invade our private space, if she ever came to the dormitory, we could simply say we were maintaining distance in front of a guest. Yeah, no problems at all.
“More importantly… I’m starting to worry more about whether that building over there is really the lodging we’ll be using.”
“According to the map, it should be.”
“Looking at that, you don’t have any thoughts?”
“I think it has a certain charm.”
“Sigh…”
The academy dormitories officially prohibited members of the opposite sex from entering. It wasn’t that no one snuck in and out, but they couldn’t officially approve it. If you wanted to bring a servant, it had to be someone of the same sex, but since I had brought Melina—not a servant but Melina—this was what we ended up with: an abandoned dormitory rumored to be haunted.
“Eh? There are ghosts here?”
“It’s just a rumor.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“It’s trivial… There’s no way ghosts actually exist.”
This was a world where magic, monsters, demons, and magic swords existed. But ghosts? Of course not. It was obvious.
“You should have told me!”
“Was there any need to?”
“Then don’t ever say it! Why tell me after we’ve arrived?!”
“It’s a quiet, nice lodging. The empty lot behind it can be used for training.”
“Stop changing the subject!”
It was tucked away in a corner so there were few people around, making it quiet. Since it wasn’t originally used, there were no other residents besides us. In the original story, monsters had been hiding here, but now that official residents had moved in, they must have cleaned it up. Even if they hadn’t, it didn’t matter. I could handle it.
Judging by the vines and moss covering the building that no one had cleared, there were probably still monsters inside.
“It looks like today will still be busy. I’ll help with the cleaning too.”
“It’s fine. What is a count doing…”
“To resolve these complicated emotions, I need to move my body. Let’s finish quickly and go train.”
As we crossed the threshold of the old wooden building, the musty smell of an abandoned house hit my nose. For a place left unattended so long, there wasn’t much dust flying around. Maybe because all the windows and doors were open. Thanks to that it was ventilated, but just how long had they been left like this?
“The inside is cleaner than I expected.”
“Don’t say ominous things.”
“Huh? Did I… say something strange…?”
“There’s that kind of thing too.”
Still, the inside really was clean. Better than expected. It felt like someone had started cleaning and then stopped halfway. If they were going to do it, they should have done it properly. Did that mean they had no intention of trying that hard?
“The academy people must have done it… Not ghosts…”
“I told you there are no ghosts. It’s just hidden monsters.”
“Isn’t that also a problem? You don’t find this lodging the least bit suspicious?”
“Honestly, I like it.”
“Eh.”
An old-fashioned wooden building with a spacious shared foyer and curved staircase. Looking up from the entrance, the fact that it opened all the way to the top-floor ceiling was a nice touch. Something I had seen often in the game. Or rather—
“Do you know why only this part of the floor has a different color?”
“There is one… Maybe they replaced it?”
“They say the chandelier hanging from the ceiling up there fell.”
“Eh.”
It was like something out of a mystery manga. A place where cell signals wouldn’t work, the only bridge serving as an exit would collapse, or a storm would hit so you couldn’t sail a boat. That kind of place.
“M-Master…? You’re joking, right? Maybe they just spilled a paint can or something…”
“It really fell. Look, doesn’t the ceiling look strangely empty in its design?”
“Uuuuugh…!”
Melina shook her head wildly from side to side, babbling incoherently. She tried to cling to my arm like before, but I pushed her forehead away and stopped her. Instead, I grabbed that hand and sat down.
“Why would they leave a place like this standing… They should close it down…”
“It’s not like it hit a person. It was just—”
“…What? Why did you suddenly stop mid-sentence—”
“Mel. Look at that.”
If I wasn’t actually seeing a hallucination, then someone was sleeping on the sofa in the corner of the shared foyer.
“I-It’s a person, right? Not a ghost…”
“There are no ghosts in this world. Of course it’s a person.”
And everything I thought was a hallucination today turned out to be real.
“Looks like there was someone else using this dormitory besides us.”
“You mean there’s another person like you…?”
“Would it be someone like me? It must be a wicked villainess who insisted on bringing a man to the academy.”
“Still, please don’t pick a fight.”
The boy lying on the sofa trying to sleep was dressed far too shabbily to be an academy student. Probably a servant someone had brought. Or perhaps a family member they had no choice but to bring due to circumstances.
But why? The reason for this ominous feeling was—
“Mel. Have you seen this man before?”
“No, it’s my first time seeing him.”
“Don’t joke. You must have seen him somewhere.”
“I said I don’t know him, so why—”
I had seen him somewhere. Black hair, a height that wasn’t very tall as if someone had sucked all the growth out of him, and a frail build. It wasn’t a 100% match. But the character who had appeared very briefly when I played Endless Fantasia ten years ago—
“Uuu… Huh? Sister, you’re back already…”
Because of his trash father’s influence, he had a tragic past of not being able to grow up masculine.
“Melina…? You’re Melina, right!”
“No way… Brother Pih…?”
Eres’s younger brother and Melina’s older brother. The unfortunate man who had suddenly lost both his sisters one day and ended up serving his garbage father for the rest of his life—Pih.
That meant…
“Why is Brother here…”
“I followed my sister! She enrolled in the academy!”
Since that trash father Pog was gone, there was no need to stay in their hometown! So he came with Eres, which meant…!
“You’re really going to stay in this dormitory? It’s an abandoned building with a lot of bad rumors…”
“Yeah. My little sibling said they’d clean it.”
“I see. You should rest soon too—”
The other student using this place was…
“Sister! Melina! Melina is here!”
“…Luke Colwen.”
“E-Eh, Eres—”
“U-Uuu—”
“What’s wrong, Melina? And if it’s Luke Colwen… Don’t tell me you’re—!”
“Uwaaaaaaaaah!!!!”
This was a peaceful academy. Formal classes started in two days, but the staff were already busy preparing. They were also busy managing the students who had just arrived today.
“Male dormitory! I’m fine with it, so please assign me a room in the male dormitory right now!”
“What are you saying! Miss Melina, a woman, cannot enter the male dormitory! Haven’t we already explained this?!”
“Then I’ll enter the female dormitory!”
“Please speak reasonably, Count Colwen!! After all those warnings, are you now changing your words because you don’t like the lodging?!”
““The unreasonable thing is this current situation!!!!””
It was incredibly busy! The academy!
Afterward, the academy showed a level of desperate resolve similar to what the Colwen Count family had displayed six years ago. Luke and Melina swallowed their tears and retreated.
“I beg you! When I wake up, let everything that happened today be a dream!”
“Hic, I said things like thaaat… Why did my liiittle sister and broooother appear theeeere~!!”
“Damn it… Why won’t I get drunk?! I even trained my liver by hitting it, so the detoxification function shouldn’t have been strengthened too!!!”
We drank until the sun rose and stayed out all night.
And then.
“Um, Sister…”
“What?”
“Tomorrow is the first class. You should sleep…”
Upon hearing those meaningful words, the sibling and the enemy immediately stayed out all night.
“When you return.”
“Y-Yes…”
Eres was standing motionless in the foyer, waiting for them.