Volume 3 Chapter 1 - The Night of Beginning Part 5
“I’m finished with the bath.”
Along with a reserved voice, Koyuki returned to the room from the bathroom after changing her clothes into the maid uniform.
“Does this ear accessory really need to be attached?”
Koyuki held the optional animal ears reverently with a troubled look.
“It must be attached desu!!”
Lotte asserted at the speed of light. Koyuki was startled with her excitement, then she equipped the animal ears on her head while fidgeting. She was surprisingly weak to pressure, a long rabbit ear was extending from her head with a ‘pyon’.
“…Isn’t it cute?” Kazuki leaked out his voice with a sigh.
“What are you saying, are you stupid?”
Koyuki was glaring with a face that looked the farthest from shame.
“No, I said that you’re really cute.”
“A, again with your slick flattery…”
“It’s not just flattery! Yosh, from now on I will be a maid critic!”
He couldn’t let her keep putting herself down like this forever.
Giving confidence to a girl who's a coward might be the most important job of a man.
“This cuteness is somehow…Hiakari-san’s inner cuteness really suited those frilly frills! Moreover Hiakari-san’s fresh appearance is really suitable as a maid. Furthermore no matter how you cut it, there is something false in a maid uniform that makes it really look like cosplay, but Hiakari-san’s mysterious atmosphere drowns out those hints of fakeness. The color is good too…the monotone’s effective restraint of the maid uniform make Hiakari-san’s bright white skin and silver hair look even better!”
Kazuki’s straightforward admiration made Koyuki’s face heat up bright red.
“Besides it’s not only the appearance that is cute. Hiakari-san that is normally so aloof now became a dedicated cute rabbit-eared maid, why, I can feel the infinite gap between them! But even though that appearance is so sly, I’m not flattering you but I cannot feel that slyness even for a bit in Hiakari-san! Everything, Hiakari-san’s everything are in harmony with the maid uniform…Hiakari-san always said that your worth was only for battle, but perhaps by any chance Hiakari-san was born for the sake of wearing a maid uniform…that’s how cute you are. Hiakari-san’s skin is so white, so it’s easy to see when you blush huh. That embarrassed figure is also so cute.”
“Pl, please cut it out already! Please Stop!”
Toward Kazuki who kept going forever when he was just left alone, Koyuki raised her voice in embarrassment with teary eyes.
“Kazuki-oniisan…you finally took a big step forward! This is what [Moe] is desu!!”
Lotte said so. I see, so this is the feeling of moe…
“Oi, our King. You’re going in a strange direction you know? That way must not be stepped on.”
It feels like Leme tried to pull him back, Mio who was sulking because of the matter in the bathroom also raised her voice in dissatisfaction.
“Wait Kazuki, aren’t you saying cute too much to anybody who doesn’t matter!? Though certainly I cannot deny that for now that girl is so cute that I want to hug her.”
For Mio to want to hug her, Kazuki could understand that.
“Mio as a tsundere maid is also cute. But the one that you wore before was absurdly cute so it makes the one you wear now feel lacking.”
The maid uniform that Mio wore in the Witch Mansion was handmade and fit perfectly on Mio’s body, he could also feel Mio’s sense in its design that made it match Mio so well.
The size of this ready-made maid uniform that Kohaku brought was a little unsuited for Mio.
“Mu―. The cuteness of the past me is truly detestable…” Mio was getting vexed in a strange area.
The current maid appearance of Koyuki has miraculously had the size right on the mark.
“How about me desu?” Lotte too also asked Kazuki by pulling his sleeve.
“For Lotte, rather than maid, the princess image suits you much more. Compared to my desire to receive services from Lotte, I want to make you even happier.”
When Kazuki stroked her head, Lotte was saying “If that’s the case―” and frolicking to Kazuki happily.
“Anyway, Hiakari-san’s maid appearance is cute! You should have more confidence in yourself!”
Koyuki was fidgeting in place while holding down her skirt.
“…B, but to have all this frill attached to the whole body, this squeezing sensation on my hips and the pressure from the socks on my thighs make it a little hard to sleep.”
"For that we have pajamas here.”
When Mio showed Koyuki the change of clothes for three people’s shares, Koyuki was dumbfounded, from there she scowled at Kazuki.
“When you said before that there is no other change…!”
“Because I wanted to see Hiakari-san’s maid appearance!”
When Kazuki became defiant brazenly, Koyuki’s shoulders were trembling all over and she revealed a rare emotion in her.
“STUPID! Stupid…what’s with that…!! Making me look like this and having fun looking at me! Saying cute, cute…stupid!”
Kazuki was taken aback, but a large heart mark was flying from Koyuki’s chest. She snatched the pajamas from Mio and dashed toward the changing room forcefully to change her clothes.
But she wasn’t particularly angry because her positivity level hadn’t decreased.
…In short she only wanted to run away because of the embarrassment.
Moreover she didn’t hate it wholly. That frankness was cute too.
“Maybe because of the cramped room, we can discover Hiakari-san’s various expressions, how fun.”
Though he also understood that this was not the situation where they could be this carefree.
There was nothing more that they need to do today, the time when they need to sleep had come.
“Well then, tonight let’s put the futon side-by-side and sleep.”
Kazuki proposed while moving the futon. This room only has two sets of futon. To make Hiakari-san who was in the state of magic intoxication last night sufficiently rest, one of the futons was conceded to her exclusively while the other three slept in one futon.
Mio and Lotte clung tightly to Kazuki looking like they didn’t want to be forced out from the futon, this was the environment where they couldn’t sleep well both physically and mentally. Mio took advantage of the confusion to put a kiss on his cheek.
If Koyuki had already woken up, as expected he wanted to spread the two futons side-by-side and sleep in a more spacious setting.
“The positioning is really important right? Then tonight too Kazuki will sleep between me and Lotte!”
“……Please wait.”
Mio claimed so exultantly, but unexpectedly Koyuki put a stop to it.
“What, do you have any complaints?”
“If you think with common sense, taking that position is impossible. The number of the females that bordered the male should be suppressed as low as possible. Kazuki should sleep in the farthest end.”
“I, it’s not really a problem okay? Even last night Kazuki was sleeping between us!”
“Even if last night was okay, you cannot extend it to this night. Rather the accumulation that had accumulated might be on the verge of bursting tonight.”
“What is it that was accumulating, how would it burst desu?”
Lotte tilted her head, but a human that could answer that overly specific question didn’t exist.
“There is no way Kazu-nii is going to do that kind of thing! Kazu-nii is out of this world just so you know!”
“Even if Kazuki won’t do that kind of thing, those impure deeds might come from you two.”
“We won’t! I don’t have any desire to do things like that!”
“Who was the one that got naked before?”
“…Au” Mio recalled her own disgrace, she turned red up to her ears and lost her rebuttal.
“…Kazuki, sleep in the farthest side, I’ll sleep next to you and become the protection wall. That’s the most wholesome way.”
“W, wait a minute! Hey, Kazu-nii!?”
Mio who lost her talk with Koyuki looked for Kazuki’s opinion in a fluster.
“Isn’t that fine, this positioning?”
Certainly it was hard mentally to be sandwiched by two girls, what Koyuki said, for her to be the one that slept next to Kazuki, he considered that as a precious happy event.
Koyuki glanced at him and examined his expression with upturned eyes.
“No, no wayyy”
“Then Mio-oneesan will sleep together with me desu!”
Lotte watched Kazuki and Koyuki alternately then she dragged Mio’s hand forcefully.
“Lotte!? Kyaa!”
Lotte fell together with the shrieking Mio on the futon.
“Well then, how about we get to sleep too?”
“…Please don’t misunderstand, since my purpose is to be the wall.”
Kazuki was being thoughtful of Koyuki and slipped into the farthest end of the futon.
“…Is it too cramped for you? You don’t need to be so reserved.”
Indulging in Koyuki’s words, Kazuki got closer to her. Both of their faces were drawing near.
“D, don’t look at me so seriously!”
“Sorry, this range somehow feels so fresh.”
While feeling a little nervous as one would expect, he turned off the light in the room with the remote control.
“Mio-oneesan…coochy, coochy!”
“Kyaa!? Wai-, what are you doing! Aahh…counter attack!”
The instant the room turned dark, Lotte and Mio were starting to make a fuss like they were on a school trip.
It looks really fun, but a man needs courage to get mixed with those girls' games.
When Kazuki was thinking that, Koyuki too was glancing at the direction of those two paying attention to them.
“…Hiakari-san, I want to coochy-coochy too.”
“Please stop. Don’t say stupid things and hurry to sleep please.”
That was a fair argument, but he didn’t want to hear any fair arguments on a night like this where the atmosphere was like a sleepover.
“Coochy coochy!”
After getting lost on where he should attempt to tickle her, it smells like sexual harassment if he did it on her body, so he tickled the long ear that was right in front of his eyes. His finger was making a round trip from the tip up to the base of her ear gently.
“Hyaa!?” Koyuki showed a sensitive reaction.
“St, stop…yaaann…”
…Her tone of voice was somehow strange. Elf’s ears might be a sensitive spot.
“The ear is, no good…! Stop, stop…nnnnnn!!”
Koyuki’s body was shivering in a noticeably big way with ‘buruburu’, so Kazuki stopped his hand in a panic.
“So, sorry, as expected, it's a forbidden act for a man to do coochy coochy…”
“…Pervert! Stupid!”
Koyuki was cursing at him in the darkness. He couldn’t even reply.
“Geez. ……Coochy coochy.”
Koyuki whispered in a tiny voice and tickled Kazuki’s side. She was fairly reserved, rather than tickling it felt more like patting. Kazuki became speechless in surprise.
“…I just want to try that, let’s sleep.”
Koyuki drew back her hand like she was saying don’t do that.
“Mio and Lotte too, don’t keep making a riot, sleep quickly.”
When Kazuki said that, the futon on the other side also became quiet immediately.
The futon was filled with the warmth of two people, Kazuki soon fell into sleep.
―Kazuki and the others were completely ignorant that the situation had already started to move in a grand scale at this time.
————————————————
That man was inside a tasteless underground room.
A man-made underground labyrinth made from simple undressed concrete.
There the number of the Demon Beasts was kept in fixed numbers and restrained from invading the surface, [a controlled Haunted Ground].
His [laboratory] existed inside that labyrinth.
Even though it was closed off from the outside world, using the ether light rechargeable batteries that were brought in, electricity could be supplied, the inside of the charmless room was illuminated by pale light. The man sat down on the desk depending on that light and turned his face to the monitors. The monitors reflected the results of various research.
These were the compilation of all the things that he has performed in this underground for so long…
The fruits of all the unforgivable sins he had piled up.
…He wouldn’t recognize such tripe like the [King of Solomon's 72 Pillars]. While vacantly staring at the fruits of his research, that man, Headmaster of the knight academy, Otonashi Tsukikurou thought once more.
The one who governed the Knight Order should be a king of men brought forth by man’s own hand.
From that point the perfect army of Order was born. The foremost organization of the country, the Knight Order was not an organization that could be pulled left and right on the whim of Solomon's 72 Pillars.
For that purpose, he dirtied his hands in this underground with blasphemous research that should be despised.
―Forcibly drawing out the power of Solomon's 72 Pillars, the Stigmata transplanting operation.
―For the purpose of creating stronger Magica Stigma, the magic faculty expansion operation.
He performed various human experiments. He witnessed many of the subjects' minds and flesh fall into destruction. Before he knew it, he didn’t feel anymore guilt.
Due to these research projects, my beloved daughter will be sublimed as the King made by human hands. If it’s for that, I don’t mind how much ill repute I will leave in the future. The thought of the father who prayed for his daughter’s glory is a magnificent thing.
I don’t mind what happens to me.
There was nothing left to be added to his fruits of research that were projected on the monitors. He was only waiting for that time to come while watching them vacantly.
The voice that led him to these researches whispered softly. That voice couldn’t be heard by ear, it echoed directly inside his cranium, a voice that nobody else knew.
Otonashi Tsukikurou could be said to possess self-confidence in his own sanity, but he was hearing the whispering voice and seeing the hallucination even right now. The avatar of an ominous figure was dancing boisterously inside his cranium.
Sphinx that grew a human head, a man with pitch black skin holding a cane of snake in his hand and wearing a red robe, an ugly woman that swelled out like a blob of fat, a creature with countless tentacles that grew from its cone-shaped head…all of those had one common feature…[no face].
<Faceless God>―The Faceless God was whispering. The wisdom that Otonashi Tsukikurou sought out.
The Faceless God answered the prayer of Tsukikurou. However its method was deviating from human morals. But when Tsukikurou dirtied his own hands, he changed and didn’t mind whatever happened to him. For the sake of his noble goal, his guilt vanished like smoke.
Yellow lights were flickering inside his head, the avatar was dancing around in circles boisterously.
His precious daughter―for Otonashi Kaguya to reign as King. The influence and prestige that he accumulated for his whole life, everything that he owned now would be passed on to that child. All the necessary arrangements in the Knight Order and the government had been finished for that purpose. When the foolish rabble’s greed were tickled and their fears were fanned, they could be manipulated easily. All the vested interests, and even the power of Solomon's 72 Pillars, everything would be passed on to the man-made King.
…No, maybe he should say, to the parasite of the man-made King.
Even more than the young man that Lemegeton chose, his precious daughter was far more appropriate as King. He would prove his daughter by his own hands. There was no factor that could make her lose even in the one in a thousand chances. As a father he must give a push to that glorious back. He was not insane…
Otonashi Tsukikurou was staring at the displays vacantly while merely waiting for the time to pass.
Above the ground, it was a suitable time for the swordsmen to clash swords against each other. That sound could be heard even in his own ears.
The night where the curtain opened had come. It would not be long until the stars were right.
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