⁂
Thirty minutes later.
“Um… why is it the two of you cleaning Sheryl’s room, exactly?”
Which was precisely what was happening: Maria and Anastasia were in the thick of tidying a room in a genuinely dire state. Not dirty, exactly. Cluttered to the last inch is more like it. Grimoires lay scattered over every surface, and my first impression was of my own study back when I still lived alone. Come to think of it, Bridget used to get on me about exactly that once we married, and once I started taking disciples Merlin took to tidying up of her own accord, which was a mercy.
The mistress of the room, meanwhile, was doing precisely nothing and savoring an apple pie.
“…Not to boast. Zero capacity for daily life.”
“That is genuinely not a boast, no. By the way… why exactly are you sitting on my lap?”
Sheryl had asked Anastasia and Maria to tidy the room, and asked me to sit down in the middle of it. That was her condition for becoming a class representative. The moment I settled cross-legged, she perched herself neatly between my knees.
“…Because Ephthal smells good.”
For the whole thirty minutes since, she’d been sniffing away at my chest and my neck. I’d have liked her to stop. Is this some habit particular to beastfolk?
“You said something like that before, too.”
“…Mm. You really do smell the same as Brother.”
She snuffled along my neck, her nose working steadily upward, and by the time it reached my ear it had started to tickle.
“…Haha. That tickles, so stop.”
I pried her off with a wry smile, and Sheryl puffed out a cheek—
“…………Rawr.”
I was being menaced. Or was she simply angry?
“Are you angry?”
“…Mm. I don’t like being pushed away. So I’m in a bad mood. Bad enough that I might say I won’t be a class representative.”
Both cheeks went up to match.
What a handful, I thought, and opened both arms.
“Sorry, sorry. I won’t push you off again. It just tickled, that’s all.”
Sheryl’s face lit up like a flower opening. Still expressionless, mind.
“Huuug…”
Then she dove into my chest. Maria, still working on the room, turned an exasperated look our way.
“You’re weirdly practiced at handling little girls, huh.”
“Am I? Well, I think she’s honest and a good kid. And for whatever reason she seems to have taken to me.”
“…Mm… good kid? Sheryl is a good kid?”
“A strange one, though.”
At which Sheryl said “Ehehe” and clung on harder. Expressionless the entire way through, naturally.
And so the room got itself more or less tidy, and Anastasia made tea all round by way of marking the moment. The business about Sheryl having no capacity for daily life turned out to be entirely true, incidentally: no tea set, no crockery, so it ended with a trip down to Maria’s room in the dorm to fetch some.
“Ah, Ephthal, it’s about lunchtime, so… here. Eat.”
Maria came out with it suddenly, in the middle of tea.
“…A sandwich?”
“You like beef, right? I put a stupid amount of roast beef in the filling.”
It was a good-looking sandwich, generous with the beef, lettuce tucked in. Let’s see, then. I took a bite. It was good: a steak-sauce base, with a light note of lemon pulling at the appetite.
“How did you know I like beef, though?”
“You can tell that much from watching what somebody eats.”
Then Maria lowered her lashes and muttered.
“…I’m always watching you, so… I’d know whether I wanted to or not. I just do…”
There she goes again, saying things I have no idea how to respond to. Anastasia had frozen solid out of sheer bewilderment.
Sheryl sent Maria a look of naked want.
“…I am hungry too.”
“Yours is here. And there’s one for Anastasia as well, don’t worry.”
Maria pulled paper-wrapped sandwiches out of a parcel.
“They’re from the place Ephthal always eats at, so they should taste good.”
“…Mm.”
Delightedly—expressionless, but delightedly—Sheryl started working through hers.
“Why is mine the only handmade one, Maria?”
“Because Sheryl’s and Anastasia’s are obligation, and Ephthal’s is the real thing.”
Delivered with a completely straight face. Does this girl have no intention of hiding it? No, that’s bad. That’s a bad trend. Anastasia, watching Maria carry on like this, had gone into total freeze, like a PC that had stopped responding.
“Ah, Ephthal. That favor I owe you for saving my life. That wasn’t a joke, I meant it. Give some proper thought to what you want.”
“Meaning?”
“Anything at all, really. For example…”
“For example?”
“Asking me on a date. There’s all sorts.”
Straight face again. Lately she’s really been—
—coming at me hard.
This is… ah, this is trouble. That particular development is exactly what I don’t want to be thinking about right now.
“Ah, that reminds me. Merlin gave me a lunchbox.”
“From Merlin-sama?”
“Yeah. Let’s all share it. Merlin’s a good cook, believe it or not.”
My previous-life self drilled the fundamentals into her, so her seasoning inevitably runs to my taste. There’s a men’s-cooking quality to it. Or rather, a boldness. But it’s genuinely good.
“…Mm. It’s good.”
“That’s a surprise. It really is good… knowing Merlin-sama, I assumed she’d have made something bizarre.”
Merlin’s lunchbox was going over well. That was when I noticed Anastasia looked about to cry.
“Um, uh… I’m sowwy!”
First time she’d tripped over her tongue in a while. What’s the matter?
“U-Um… I-I didn’t think of it! I’m sorry for not bringing anything I’d made!”
“Ah, so that’s it. It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
“B-B-But… this pi—I mean, Maria-san went and made sandwiches! And I’m a slave, and I still didn’t think of it—a slow, thoughtless dolt!”
I could have sworn I just heard ‘pi—’ there. Surely not. Surely she wasn’t starting on ‘pig.’ Anastasia isn’t that sort of girl. She simply tripped over the word. Yes. That version is better for my mental health, so that’s the version I’m going with.
“Really, don’t worry about it, Anastasia.”
Still. I looked around the room. A room without so much as a table, the four of us sitting in a ring on the floor: considered properly, this was quite the chaotic scene. Set against camping out in my adventuring days, though, it was a considerable step up.
“Um… Master?”
“Hm? What is it, Anastasia?”
“This is a complete change of subject, and it’s rich coming from the person who made the tea, but… I can’t drink it hot.”
“Ah, is that so.”
At that, Sheryl turned her left palm toward Anastasia’s teacup.
“Level 1: Create Ice.”
Moisture condensed out of the air, and ice went tumbling into the cup with a clink, clink.
“Awawa, it’s going to spill!”
Anastasia grabbed the cup in both hands, flustered. Both hands weren’t going to help with that, but the tea stayed where it was, so, fine.
“Huh. Handy little utility spell. Making ice that small… actually, I’ve never heard of that one.”
I lifted Sheryl off my lap, stood, set her carefully down on the floor, and turned back around—
“Hey. You. That spell… where did you learn it?”
It wasn’t the schoolboy who asked. It was the Thunder God Emperor.
The first time I ever saw that spell was the night before the decisive battle at the Demon King’s castle, in a tent, out on campaign.
—It’s the Ice God Emperor’s own spell.
Or more precisely: I was the one with modern knowledge, I handed the Ice God Emperor the notion of chilling a drink with ice, and he built the utility spell off the back of it.
“…What is it, Ephthal? Your face is frightening.”
“I’ll ask again. Where did you learn it?”
“…Will you keep it secret? I am not forbidden. But speaking of it… would not be good, I think.”
I nodded. Anastasia and Maria nodded after me, and Sheryl let out a small sigh.
“…My name is Sheryl. Sheryl Oldis. Adopted daughter of a ducal house in a certain country. No… I was. And—”
Sheryl thought for a moment, then gave a small nod.
“The name I had before I was taken in was Sheryl Alford. Which means—the Ice God Emperor… I carry the founder of that line as an ancestor.”
A blood relative of the Ice God Emperor Isaac, then. The one the Fire God Emperor is said to have killed. Now that she’d said it, there was a faint trace of him lingering around her eyes.
It explained the whole thing, though. Why she’d dropped from genius to ordinary, and why she’d been a genius in the first place. Because it seems that damned fool Isaac really did cross the barrier between the races and father a child. I told him and told him to leave it alone, that it would end in nothing but mess. The cat ears had me down for beastfolk at first. She isn’t. It’s spirit blood in Sheryl, not beast, and it runs outrageously thick. Something close to an atavism, which makes her magic power running dry a matter of time.
And after all the times I told him no, I’m the one cleaning up after him? Come on, Isaac.
“Haa…”
Nine years old. Leave her be and she could well be dead within the year. Nothing but trouble, this. Still. She’s an old friend’s descendant, and I can’t very well walk past that.
“Hey. Sheryl.”
“…What? Ephthal?”
“Your dorm-fee waiver runs out soon too, right? And your adoptive father’s cut you loose, by the look of it. If you’ve got nowhere to go, why not come to the mansion where Anastasia and I live?”
Merlin’s going to grumble at me about dragging home strays again. Can’t be helped. I need her where I can watch her, besides. Honestly, give me a break, Isaac. I laughed at myself over that one.
No. My fault too. Normally the coolest head in any room, and then past forty he lost it over a spirit, and while my mouth was telling him to stop, somewhere underneath it I was cheering him on.
“…Ephthal. Your air changed all of a sudden. But… you really do smell like Brother.”
“So? What’ll you do?”
“…Mm.”
And Sheryl gave a small nod, and that was her answer.