Chapter 4: Fighting the Tanuki

The weather was perfect, making me feel optimistic about the examination.

Keith, who wouldn’t be going to the Ministry today since he had to help Father with his work, came to the garden to greet me before I left.

“Be very careful, Big Sister,” he said, for the hundredth time since yesterday.

“Don’t worry. It’s just like a little field trip to the country. There’s nothing dangerous about it! You’re too anxious, Keith.”

“It’s not that I’m too anxious, the problem is that you get yourself into trouble too often. Make sure not to go anywhere weird and not to talk to weird people. Even if they offer you snacks! Got it?”

I was slightly offended that he spoke to me as if I were a grade schooler, but I knew that talking back to him would just make the whole thing drag on longer, so I just agreed.

“Okay. I’ll be careful,” I told him.

I left the mansion (while Keith was still muttering “Be careful!”), and went to the Ministry. When I got there, the others on my team were already waiting. Sora looked aloof and carefree as usual, but Maria looked a bit nervous, and Dewey seemed to be as annoyed as he had been yesterday.

I greeted all of them, and then our (unique) examiners arrived on the scene.

“Are you all set, boys and girls? We’re going to leave very soon!”

Handerson (Laura?) was acting like the friendly boy (girl?) hosting one of the children shows from my previous life. Her makeup was perfect despite it being this early in the morning, and her uniform looked different from yesterday, with new frills and ribbons. How many does she own?

For some reason she had a rope in her hand, and to the other end of the rope was tied... Nathan Hart.

What? Why are these two connected by a rope?! I asked myself.

Laura, seeing me staring, explained. “This is just so Nathan doesn’t get lost! We aren’t into any weird things!”

I wasn’t really thinking of that, but still... didn’t her get-up count as a weird thing to be into, according to her criteria?

Hart, by the way, just stood there silently with a sad look in his eyes. After seeing how easily he got lost yesterday, I agreed that we needed some measure to keep track of him, but... the rope tied around his waist just made him look like an oversized pet.

“Now let’s stop wasting time and go,” Laura said, guiding us to the carriage that had been prepared for us.

This carriage was much larger than the one we had used when going to rescue Keith. Maria, Dewey, Laura, Hart, and I could all ride comfortably on it. Hm?

“Wait, where’s Sora?” I asked, realizing that he wasn’t with us.

“Oh, he’ll be driving. We asked for a carriage, but we forgot to ask for a driver! Whoopsie! I wouldn’t know how to do it, and letting Nathan do it would risk us getting lost. Thankfully, Sora offered to do it,” Laura replied.

I later heard that yesterday evening, when the carriage had arrived, Laura realized that she had forgotten to ask the Ministry to prepare a driver for her. Since he just happened to be there at the right time, poor Sora could do nothing but offer to help.

The fact that she would forget the driver was surprising enough, but what surprised me the most was that she wasn’t able to drive a carriage. Apart from the makeup and clothing, she looked like the type who was good at that kind of thing...

And Hart would get lost even in a carriage? I thought while looking at the man who was lowering his head apologetically.

After waking up to such fine weather, I’d been feeling good about the mission. But now, seeing my examiners, I was having second thoughts. The carriage started moving, and I wasn’t feeling so safe anymore.

At first we were all silent (mostly because we didn’t know what to talk about, given this unique crowd), but after a while, Laura started talking.

“Maria, you cutiepie, your skin looks so smooth. Do you use any special treatments?” she asked all of a sudden, going with a girly topic right off the bat.

Both Maria and I were a bit shocked, but my friend somehow managed to reply.

“No... nothing in particular.”

“What?! That’s not fair! I wish I could have that porcelain skin without putting any effort into it!” Laura said, pouting. Her mannerisms — and only those — were really cute.

Then again, the fact that Maria’s skin was as beautiful as it was without any treatment was surprising to me too... That’s a game protagonist for you.

Every day after I finished my bath, Anne would cover my face in lotions and creams (I certainly wouldn’t do that myself). Because of that my skin wasn’t half bad, though not as smooth and shiny as Maria’s.

“Dewey, love, are you using something to make your hair so fluffy?” Laura asked, smiling at Dewey, whose face was as still as if carved in stone.

...Did she just call him “love”?

“I’m not using anything,” he replied, but she didn’t seem to be offended at the coldness of his reply, just pouting while shouting “That’s not fair!” as she had with Maria, before finally looking at me.

Oh, first skin and then hair... What is she going to ask me about? Unfortunately I don’t even know what kind of treatment I use on anything, since Anne’s in charge of all that stuff. Or rather, Anne’s forcing me to use all of that stuff. How am I even going to reply?

“Katarina, my dear...”

I should probably just tell her that I’ll ask my maid when we’re back home.

“...What kind of sweets do you like?”

“...”

That question was so unexpected that I froze still for a moment. After all my worrying, her question had nothing to do with cosmetics. But wait a second, why am I the only one being asked about sweets? She even asked Dewey, who’s a boy, about his hair... Don’t leave me out of it, c’mon! Praise my hair, or my skin, or something! Of course those two are much prettier, but I am putting — Anne is putting so much effort into my looks! Why sweets?

“...Sweets? Why would you ask that?” I asked, confused.

“Hm... You just look like someone who likes sweets,” she said, bending her head sideways. Again, her mannerisms — and only those — were really cute.

But what did that even mean? I did like sweets, that was true. I periodically checked the snacks that the servants at the mansion bought to make sure that they tasted good, I went around town to look for good bakeries, and I considered myself a connoisseur of all things sugary. Did all of that just... show from my face?

“Don’t you like sweets, honey?” she asked with yet another cute gesture.

“...I do like them...”

“Just as I thought! Do you have any recommendations?”

“Recommendations? Well... What type are we talking about?”

“Let’s see...”

And that is how our discussion of sweets, which went on for quite a while, began. I wasn’t that good at talking about romance or makeup or other similar things, but when it came to food, I could keep at it for hours. I knew everything from the luxury patisseries that served the royal family to the small mom-and-pop bakeries. We even talked about Maria’s homemade treats, involving her in the discussion as well.

“And those cream puffs, you know, the shells are so soft that...” I said, just before my stomach growled loudly... All this talking about delicious things had made me hungry.

Hearing my tummy’s embarrassing sound, Laura giggled and then suggested that we stop for lunch in the nearby town. I wholeheartedly agreed, and noticed that I had been so enthralled in our conversation that I hadn’t noticed how much time had passed.

I wasn’t feeling anxious about the mission anymore, and even Maria no longer had the nervous expression she’d had at first. Dewey, however, looked as aloof as always.

Laura called out to Sora, who was driving the carriage, to tell him that we would stop for lunch.

Since we were so far away from the capital, the town that we stopped at was pretty small. But we were able to find a small tavern, probably family owned, which was just large enough to serve all of us. They only offered a few dishes, but they tasted good.

“Oh, this is so good!”

The bread was soft, the lettuce fresh, and the bacon crunchy. All of these textures, together, made for an incredibly tasty sandwich. I could go for another one... or two... or three...

I asked for seconds, and Dewey glared at me.

“Do you want one too? Here, take it,” I offered, thinking that he was envious and wanted to try out one for himself.

“N-No, thank you. Lady Claes... you don’t seem to disdain the cuisine of such places...” he murmured.

“What do you mean ‘such places’? It’s delicious!” I said, unsure of what he meant.

“I see...” he replied, taking his eyes away from me.

What was that all about?

I had spent almost half a day together with Dewey, and this was probably our first exchange. He looked like he hated me, and, if that was the level of conversations we were going to have, I would probably never find out the reason why. Well, he actually didn’t speak with anyone else either...

Since I’d realized that he was one of the main characters in FL2, I wanted to get friendlier with him so that I could get some useful information. But our eyes didn’t meet for the remainder of the lunch.

I wanted to get another sandwich, but Sora and Maria stopped me because we were running late. The old man in charge of the restaurant noticed how sad this had made me, and wrapped up a sandwich for me to eat later, saying that he was happy to see me enjoy the food that he made that much.

I thanked him from the bottom of my heart and left, ready to go back to the carriage... when something happened.

“Let’s get back on the road now,” said Laura, and we started to follow her when suddenly she jolted in terror.

“Wh-What happened?!” I asked her.

She looked at me with her blue eyes and said, “...I forgot to hold onto the rope... I was holding onto it as we went into the restaurant, but...”

Her voice was filled with nothing less than desperation, and her hand, in fact, wasn’t holding onto anything. We all tried looking around, but Hart wasn’t there.

It was like one of those scenes in manga where everybody is so silent that you can hear the wind blowing... Laura, however, got her cool back, and started giving orders clearly and efficiently.

“He can’t have gone that far. You two look over there, and you two over to that side. I’ll go and retrace our steps. If we split up, we should find him in no time!”

We all did as we were told, but... why did she have to pair us like this?

A passing glance at my teammate’s annoyed expression was enough to make me feel awkward. Laura had split us up depending on who was closer to what, so Maria ended up being paired with Sora and I with... Dewey.

Ugh... this is going to be so bad. I really hope we find him soon.

How did he manage to get lost after walking this little, and in a place with so few people around? I almost wanted to praise him for his talent at getting lost.

Is he trying to play hide-and-seek? If so, he could be hidden in some weird place.

I tried opening the garbage can near the restaurant, but he wasn’t in there.

“I... don’t think he would be in a place like that,” said Dewey, appalled, and I quickly put the lid back onto the garbage can.

We went back to searching for Hart, silently keeping to ourselves... But that wouldn’t do. Even after finding our lost examiner, we would have to perform a mission together... and we certainly couldn’t collaborate like this.

This was the perfect chance to find out why Dewey hated me so much!

“S-Say, Dewey...” I asked shortly before realizing that I hadn’t thought about how to actually ask him at all.

“Is there, like, uhm, anything you hate about me?”

All I managed to do was straight out ask him what I wanted to know. And if he replied “everything”? That’d be the end of it...

While I regretted not having planned a better way to get information out of him before opening my mouth, he looked at me, bringing his eyebrows together in a visibly troubled look.

“That’s...” He stopped for a second, then sighed loudly. “...I come from a destitute family, and I had to start working while I was still a child. I asked to be sent to a free school near my house, and I had to promise that I would keep working while doing that. I put my soul into my studies so that I could overcome poverty one day. My efforts were rewarded, and I graduated while skipping grades, eventually managing to reach a job in the most powerful organization in the kingdom — the Ministry.”

Of course I already knew all of this from reading that mysterious note, but hearing it straight from the source made it sound all the more intense.

“Work was hard, and I barely had any time left to study during the day, so I would often do it at night instead of sleeping. But I wanted to escape that sad state, and I kept going without looking back... That is why I’m here at the Ministry... But what about you, Lady Claes? How did you get into the Ministry?” he asked me, his blue eyes flaming.

“W-Well, I...”

I got into the Ministry because I owned a Familiar of Darkness, but that was top-secret. And the reason why I accepted the job was that I was too scared to marry Jeord right now, and this seemed like a good way to delay the marriage... But after hearing Dewey’s story, I could never tell him honestly. Now, I finally understood his feelings...

Dewey grinned at my lack of a reply. “Why would a duke’s daughter, without any particular magical skill nor outstanding results in a test, ever work at the Ministry?” he said, choosing his words to be as mean as possible.

So that’s why he hates me...

“I have come here to work using the best of my abilities,” he said, and then started searching for Hart once again.

I have come here to work using the best of my abilities too, I thought... but I couldn’t say it. After all, I had just chosen the Ministry as a place to run away to, and had managed to get in without any effort.

If I had shed blood and tears to get a job and then found someone there who wasn’t diligent about what she did and who got her position without even trying, that’d make me mad too. I’d turn sour.

I was reborn into this world as the daughter of a duke, and enjoyed all the benefits that came with that (as well as the doom, but that’s another story). Maybe that had made me too arrogant.

In my previous life I had been the daughter of an office worker dad and a part-time housewife mom, and I couldn’t take money for granted. I remembered going to the convenience store near my house and seeing a rich kid buying the premium ice cream, while I had to settle for the cheapest ice pop...

But now, not only did I eat all the sweets that I wanted, even getting seconds, but I even asked my servants to tell me when the bakery had any new products. Maybe luxury had turned me arrogant... at this rate, I would fall into doom like the Katarina in Fortune Lover.

I reflected that I had never thought about the comfort that being reborn had put me into. That was when Sora appeared, coming to tell us that they had found Hart.

After finding Hart, we went back onto the carriage and left for our destination. Laura kept talking to her fellow examiner, presumably scolding him for getting lost, but I was so shocked about what Dewey had said that I barely listened at all.

Maybe I really was spoiled and entitled... and that would explain why I still had to contend with the Catastrophic Bad Ends.

I tried to organize my thoughts in the only way I knew how: holding a meeting inside my head.

Meeting chairwoman: Katarina Claes.

Meeting representative: Katarina Claes.

Meeting secretary: Katarina Claes.

“Huff... huff... P-Please, everyone, sit down.”

“Huff... No, Ms. Claes, wait, we’re still missing someone.”

“Huff... You’re right... We still aren’t ready.”

“I agree. This meeting was so sudden that we couldn’t prepare in time!”

“I also feel that there have been too many meetings lately. We’re busy people! We can’t just spend all our time in meetings. I’m afraid we can’t do this today. Meeting adjourned!”

And so, the meeting of the Katarinas ended prematurely...

“Wait! Ms. Claes! Please! That won’t do! Let’s have a meeting, even a short one! Ah, Ms. Secretary, where are you going?! This is important to all of us!”

“...You have a point. It’s a drag, but I guess we have to do it. Oh well, what was today’s agenda again? Deciding what to eat for dinner?”

“Not exactly... We must discuss whether or not Katarina Claes is really entitled and spoiled.”

“Hm... Lately she’s been eating sweets all day, eating even Keith’s share, and even asking Maria to cook more for her... She does sound entitled.”

“Indeed. And after graduating from the academy, she has been eating so much that Anne was complaining about her dresses getting too tight. We have to do something about this.”

“A spoiled glutton... That’s not how a young noblewoman should be.”

“At this rate, she’s risking a catastrophe regardless of the Bad Ends...”

“It cannot go on like this.”

“We really have to do something.”

“Mm... What if we ate less sweets?”

“Would that solve the problem?”

“I don’t think so...”

“If Katarina is risking really becoming a villainess, she has to repent and mend her ways.”

“Oh, that is a wonderful idea! But how?”

“I don’t know.”

“...”

“...I remember that our grandma in our previous life used to say something like ‘When you don’t know what you should do, concentrate on doing the things that you must do, one at a time. Eventually, you’ll see the answer.’”

“Words of wisdom!”

“For the time being, let’s do what Grandma suggested.”

“It sounds really deep, so we might as well try it.”

“So the first thing we must do is... get rid of the tanuki and finish this examination!”

“Yes. Let’s concentrate on the tanuki for now.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

The emergency meeting of the Katarinas thus agreed on a course of action.

“By the way, about that grandma... She was the one really into soap operas who was always talking about hot actors, right? Where would she find words of wisdom like those?”

“I think she heard it, in fact, from a hot actor in a soap opera.”

“...Let’s just not think too much about that.”

Just as the meeting finished, and we decided that we would focus on getting rid of the tanuki, the carriage reached its destination.

I was expecting the branch office of the Magical Ministry to be of a size worthy of its name, but it was hardly bigger than a large-ish shop back in the capital. Inside, old men and women were sitting together at a table enjoying tea. This probably doubled as a meeting place for the elderly...

“Oh? Y’all don’t look familiar. Where’s y’all from?” one of them asked us.

“Hello. We have been sent here from the capital,” Laura replied for all of us.

“They make ’em different back in the capital! Look at how sparkly that fella is!” commented one of them.

To these old country folks, a buff man covered in makeup and wearing a frilly skirt was just “how people are in the capital...”

The atmosphere here reminded me pleasantly of my previous life. I was enjoying the sight of these men and women leisurely drinking tea inside the Ministry when a man who looked like an actual employee noticed us. He stood up from his seat and froze with shock as soon as he saw Laura, probably knowing that was not “how people are in the capital.”

However, showing the composure expected of a Ministry employee, he eventually got his cool back and welcomed us.

“That must have been a long trip! Thank you for coming all the way here,” he said before showing us some free seats and serving us tea, along with some sort of berries. “These are a local specialty. Help yourself.” He sounded like a kind person.

“Oh, thank you,” I said, eating one. Unfortunately I don’t know what kind, but, yup. It’s a berry alright.

We ate berries silently for a while, and then the man in charge of this Ministry branch walked into the room.

After taking a look at Laura, being surprised, and quickly regaining his cool, this middle-aged man — with a plump face that just screamed “nice person” — greeted us with the same exact words as his subordinate.

“That must have been a long trip! Thank you for coming all the way here!” After hearing about the examination from Laura and Hart, the man nodded with a smile. “Yes, headquarters contacted me about it. Thank you for helping us out.”

Hart then asked him to elaborate on the situation.

“We usually just set traps all over the place, and that is enough... but this year there are just too many of them,” he said with a sigh.

“Just how many?”

“Around three times as much as an average year. It’s probably because of what happened to the forest.”

“The forest where the tanuki used to live?”

“Yes. Someone from outside the village went into the forest, maybe to hunt or something, and made a mess out of it. So now the tanukis have all run out of it and into the fields. It’s not the first time this happens, mind you, but this year it’s so bad that we had to send people into the forest to fix it up.”

He explained to us that, during this time of the year, the villagers relied on what they gathered from the forest more than on what they could harvest from the fields. Since the village’s well-being depended on the forest, they had to prioritize that.

“So your people are busy there, and you cannot get rid of the tanuki yourselves.”

“Exactly. Which is why we asked headquarters for support,” he said with a tired expression on his face. The situation must have been worse than we imagined.

“Do you know who that outsider could be?”

“Unfortunately, we have no idea. All we can do is get the forest back to normal as soon as we can.”

“I see...”

After we had heard the explanation, the younger employee guided us to the fields that had been ravaged by the tanuki.

As someone who tended to fields myself, I should have been impressed at how large the one in front of me was, but...

“This is terrible...” I blurted out.

“Yes it is. All the farmers are distraught about it,” the Ministry employee said sadly.

The field was extensive, but all of its produce had been either ripped or bitten into, leaving nothing to be harvested. All the neatly aligned ridges were full of holes, probably made by the tanuki’s feet.

“They have tried putting sturdy nets over the plants, patrolling the fields at night, and all other sorts of countermeasures, but there are so many of those pests that it is a lost cause...” he explained, looking distraught.

I remembered that Grandma, in my previous life, used to put nets on the plants too... was that to keep the tanuki away? She had vehemently insisted that I didn’t help her (because I’d make the plants wilt), so I never noticed...

I had built fields both in Claes Manor’s and in the academy’s gardens, but there were no tanuki there, so I didn’t need to take any special measures.

I should probably use this as a learning experience in case I’m eventually exiled and have to live as a farmer.

The field in front of me looked terrible, but the culprits didn’t seem to be around.

“There are no tanuki anywhere, though.”

“Yes. They mostly come at night.”

Oh, of course. They’re nocturnal animals.

“Now that we have seen what they have caused, let’s come back at night to see how many of them there are,” said Hart after assessing the field’s condition. “For the time being, let’s go to our lodgings and discuss strategies,” he continued, and we did as he said.

The village was too small to have an inn, so we were all going to stay at the village chief’s house. Obviously it was much smaller than the manor I was used to, but the small countryside building felt cozy and nostalgic to me.

There were enough rooms for the men and women to sleep apart, so Hart, Sora, and Dewey were in a room, Maria and I were in another, and Laura was alone, in yet another room. The village chief’s wife probably couldn’t tell Laura’s gender, so she put her in a different room to not risk offending her.

I felt sorry that we were imposing so much and taking up three whole rooms, but to be honest, I didn’t think I’d be able to relax sleeping in the same room as Laura, and not only because she was my superior.

After bringing our luggage to our bedrooms, we all gathered in the living room to discuss the mission.

“Now you will all put your heads together and decide how to get rid of the tanuki. The two of us will only be observing, and will not intervene unless the situation becomes dangerous. You will need to plan for the mission and put that plan into action, all by yourselves... And Guy, we’re indoors, you don’t need to keep me tied to a rope...” said Hart, first talking to us and then to Laura, who was still holding tightly onto the rope tied to his waist.

“But I wouldn’t want you getting lost...”

“I am not going to get lost inside a stranger’s home...” he said, and was finally freed from the rope. “Now, discuss your plans,” he continued, and, together with Laura, started silently staring at us.

As the examiners had so obviously removed themselves from the meeting, we examinees turned to each other.

The only solution I had come up with was to trap the tanuki in cages and bring them back to the forest, but after seeing the scale of the damage they’d done in that field, I was sure that we weren’t talking about just a couple of animals here...

“I think that all we can do is make a lot of traps and try to catch them,” said Sora, the oldest in the group.

“I was thinking the exact same thing,” I quickly agreed, since his idea was pretty much the same as mine.

“The damage on the field hints at a very large number of tanuki. I do not think it would be feasible to make that many traps,” Dewey said coldly.

He had a point; if each trap could only catch one animal, we would need a lot of traps.

“What if we built traps that can catch multiple tanuki at once?” I suggested.

“And how would you do that? Do you have a specific schematic in mind?” he replied quickly, staring at me sideways and making me retreat in shame.

“So, do you have any ideas, Percy?” Sora asked him.

“We could just spread some trap-feed,” he replied calmly.

“Trap-feed?”

“Yes. Tanuki feed with delayed-onset poison in it. If the poison acted immediately, the one who ate the feed would die on the spot, and the others would realize that it was a trap. But if the poison only kills them after a certain amount of time, they could even bring that feed back to their den, effectively killing all of them at once,” he explained nonchalantly, as if it were nothing.

“That sounds too extreme... and the poison could also be dangerous for humans and cattle,” said Sora.

“Then we would just need to use a poison that poses little harm to humans and inform all farmers of our plan, giving them an antidote in case their cattle accidentally eat the poison,” Dewey replied without a second thought. He probably had it all planned from the start. “I believe that this is the fastest solution.”

I couldn’t deny that this would probably be fast, but...

“...But the tanuki came into the village because their habitat in the forest was compromised, right? It was humans who chased them out of their home... I don’t think they deserve being poisoned and killed,” I said, feeling compassion for the poor animals, but Dewey looked at me with contempt.

“So are you suggesting that we catch them one by one and bring them back to the forest? Do you have any idea how much time that would take? This is not the time to feel mercy for animals. Kindness cannot solve all of your problems, much less the problems of this village.”

He was right that I had no better suggestions, and I couldn’t argue with his point. I was clenching my fist, unable to reply.

“Percy, you don’t need to put it so strongly...” said Sora.

“I also believe that poison is too dangerous to justify using it from the start,” Maria followed. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it sounded calm and fearless.

“May I hear your suggestion then, Miss Campbell?” Dewey replied immediately.

“I do not have any practical ideas yet, but if we go to look at the field tonight, we will come up with something. There is no need to risk a dangerous solution so early,” she said, looking straight into Dewey’s eyes with the powerful stance of someone who would not retreat.

He remained silent, probably because he was so impressed by the strength of her words.

In the end, our meeting didn’t result in any actionable plan, but we decided that we would discuss our options again after checking the fields.

We all went to our rooms to wait until night time, and I went into mine together with Maria. I started thinking about what Dewey had told me about kindness not being enough to solve all problems. He was right... but I didn’t want to poison those poor animals.

“I’m sorry, Lady Katarina,” said Maria all of a sudden, lowering her head.

“Huh? What’s the matter, Maria?”

“Earlier, with Dewey. I am sorry he was so rude to you.”

“Well, that’s... Why would you apologize for him, anyway?”

“You see, Dewey and I grew up in the same town,” she said with a slightly troubled expression.

I didn’t know that! There was no mention of this surprising fact in the game itself or in the note I found in the book.

“Are you two childhood friends or something?”

The good old trope of falling in love with a childhood friend was very common in otome games, so that would have made sense. It wasn’t in FL, but maybe they used it for FL2. They didn’t really look like friends, but now that I thought of it in this light, I realized that Maria trying so hard to talk with Dewey wasn’t just because of her kindness — it was because she wanted to talk with her friend after being apart for so long. He didn’t really seem to be responsive to that, though.

“No, we lived in the same town, but our houses were quite far from each other. And he is much younger than me to begin with, so we did not know each other so well.”

We were 18 years old and Dewey was 13, making for a 5-year difference. For children that is very substantial, especially if they don’t live close by.

“...But I remember seeing how hard-working of a boy he was... I believe he used to have a warmer personality, but he had to go through so much adversity all on his own that he gradually became aloof, and now he treats everyone coldly,” Maria recalled sadly. Apparently that note hadn’t detailed all the hardships that Dewey had to go through.

This all started to sound like an otome game. Two childhood friends (well, she said that they weren’t, but still), one of which is a boy who goes through a lot of difficulties and slowly turns cold. The girl worries about him and eventually falls in love with him... No! This can’t be! Maria, my waifu, taken by another man?!

But she was the protagonist of a romance game after all, so I had to expect that she would fall in love with someone...

Maria, unaware of how much I was worrying about her being stolen from me now, kept on talking. “To me he’s more than a stranger... I also know how hard it is, having to fight on your own for so long...”

D-Did she really fall for Dewey already?!

“So, Maria, do you... What do you think of him?”

Don’t tell me you love him!

“I... really want him to open up his heart and learn how to rely on people more.”

Phew... This isn’t love, at least not yet. She’s just worried about him.

“Don’t worry, Maria. I’m sure that you’ll be able to help him. You’re the kindest, most wonderful girl I know,” I said, taking her hand in mine.

“Lady Katarina... I am so happy to have come to know you. I love you,” she said, slightly blushing after being complimented, and with her voice full of gratitude.

Having a girl this pretty blush while telling me that she “loves” me made me feel... weird. I knew that she was talking about love between two friends, but if I were a man, I would have gone crazy.

I was reflecting on that when, all of a sudden, something hit my head from behind.

“Wh-What?!”

Bewildered, I protected my head with my hands and looked around. Just beside me, there was a pillow.

It must have been this pillow... but why? Did it just fly into my head?

I was very confused, and I also started feeling someone staring at me. I turned around and saw...

“Why is this bear here?!”

Maria followed my gaze and noticed who was behind me. “You’re here? I told you to wait at home!” she said, surprised.

It was the magic (sentient) teddy bear that used to ride on Maria’s shoulder all the time back at the academy. Larna lent it to us, and it helped us find Keith when he was kidnapped. It was during that journey that it became attached to Maria and started following her around everywhere. It didn’t come with her to the Ministry, so it had been a while since I’d last seen it.

Pochi, hearing my surprised voice, came out of my shadow for just a second, looked at the magic plushie that had caused me to scream, and then, unimpressed, went back into hiding. He probably wasn’t interested in bears.

“You can’t just follow me like this!” Maria said, and the teddy bear looked sad at being scolded... However, when its eyes met mine, if only for a moment, I could tell that its sad expression had turned into a mocking one.

It’s not really feeling bad about being scolded... and it’s trying to make a fool out of me, as usual.

“I am sorry, Lady Katarina. He sneaked in my bag and followed me because he was lonely,” Maria said.

“Don’t worry, Maria, it’s okay,” I said with the kindest smile I could muster, just before giving a “try anything funny and you’ll regret it” look at the bear.

The bear, in response, sent me a “right back at you” look.

You cheeky bear...

Our two-girl room was now a two-girl-one-animal room... well, two-animal if we counted Pochi, who was still hiding inside my shadow.

Maria and I decided to lie down on our beds for a while, since we would have to go out to the fields during the night.

The bear smoothly sneaked into Maria’s bed, and, as she patted its head, it looked at me as if to say “Envious, are you?”

You awful bear...

I briefly considered calling out Pochi to annoy the bear, but that would have kept Maria from getting any rest, so I decided against it. I started thinking of ways to get back at that dreadful animal, and, before I knew it, I was completely asleep.

Later, Maria woke me up and said that it was time. I prepared in a hurry and went to the living room, where the others were waiting. Maria told the bear to stay in her room because it was dangerous outside, and it reluctantly obeyed.

“You’re going to wait here alone,” I taunted it, and immediately another pillow came flying my way.

You vicious bear...

I had to admit that throwing a pillow with those tiny arms was impressive, though.

Sora, Dewey, Hart, and Laura were already in the living room, ready to go. They were all wearing their uniforms except for Laura, who was wearing something that looked like a nightdress. Was she planning to wear something different each time we saw her? That would explain why she had brought so much luggage with her...

We made for the Ministry branch office, and since getting lost at night would be even more dangerous than during the day, Hart was now tied to two ropes.

Once there, a Ministry employee guided us to the field we had visited earlier. We had a lantern, but the dark road was making me feel uneasy, so I tried taking out the magnifying glass that I had borrowed from the Ministry. Just as I was told, its light was so feeble that it was completely useless, so I put it back into my pocket. I kept walking on the dark road, thinking of how convenient having a flashlight from my old world would be right now.

We finally reached the field, and we froze in our tracks... because what was in front of us was too shocking to keep on walking.

“Wh-What?!”

Hours earlier, the only things on the field were a few farmers. Now there were so many animals — not only tanuki, but also rabbits, foxes, squirrels, and more — rummaging through it. The field was so crowded that we couldn’t even take a step onto it.

The animals didn’t approach us. Naturally, being wild animals, they were wary of people. I got the feeling that getting any closer to them could be dangerous.

“W-Were they not supposed to just be tanuki?!” said a visibly shaken Hart to the Ministry employee.

“Y-Yes... Even last night, there were only tanuki...” he replied, shaken as well.

“I wonder what could have caused this to happen in a single day,” said Laura suspiciously. “Did something happen in the forest?”

“We checked it today, in the afternoon, and nothing had changed...” the employee replied.

“Something could still have happened between when you checked and now. We should go and check it,” Laura said.

“That is far from advisable. The forest is too dangerous at night,” the employee replied, shaking his head.

“Umm... Then all we can do is retreat for the time being and go check on the forest tomorrow. There are way too many animals for this to be normal. What do you say, Nathan?”

“I agree. It could be dangerous if we let the newcomers deal with things as they are. Let us get some rest for the night and investigate once the sun rises.”

“Yes, let’s get back before we stumble upon a dangerous animal,” said Laura, prompting us to start walking.

After a few steps, I felt a weird chill run down my spine. Immediately after, I heard Pochi growl from inside my shadow.

“Pochi, quiet,” I said under my breath, and he stopped. I was supposed to keep his existence a secret, and he had almost risked being found out.

“Anything the matter?” asked Hart, who had heard me, but thankfully not Pochi.

“N-No, nothing.”

I was so busy thinking about Pochi and worrying that he would growl again that I completely forgot about that chill from earlier, and I didn’t even notice that there was something wrong with Maria, who was walking right beside me.

We walked faster coming back from the field than when we’d headed towards it, so we quickly reached the village chief’s house.

“Everyone, go back to your rooms and sleep. We will go look at the forest tomorrow,” Hart said, and we all made for our beds.

“Hahhh, I’m so tired,” I said, feeling this hard day of work taking its toll on me as I spread out onto the bed. “It turned out to be more problematic than we expected, huh?” I said to Maria, who was sitting on the bed on the opposite side of the room.

“...Yes,” she replied with a weak voice that was very unlike her.

I turned around to look at her. Even in the poor lighting, I could tell that her face was unnaturally pale.

“Maria! What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I asked her, sitting up and seeing that the bear was already by her side, looking at me as if to say “How could you take so long to notice?”

Her hand felt cold to the touch. We had been walking side by side all the way from the field, but I hadn’t noticed how sick she looked.

“...I am fine,” she said, with a voice so feeble that it was obvious that she wasn’t fine at all.

“Should I call for Laura or Hart to get you some medicine?” I suggested, sure that the examiners would have something ready in case anything happened to us.

“Thank you... But I am fine, really,” she said, stopping me.

“But...”

“I am just not used to the air around here... I am sure that I will get better if I just sit still for a while.”

“What? The air?”

“Yes... The air around here feels... strange.”

I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but this wasn’t the best time to shower her with questions, so I just made her some hot tea and started rubbing her back.

After a while, color started coming back to her face and her hands warmed up. “Thank you. I am feeling better now,” she said with her usual smile.

“You said the air feels strange... what did you mean by that?”

“I cannot explain it well... It just feels heavy, like it did inside the mansion where Master Keith had been kidnapped.”

That mansion had felt weird because a Familiar of Darkness had been summoned inside it, so that made me think of something.

“Are you saying that someone’s using Dark Magic around here?”

“...I cannot tell for sure. Sora looked unfazed...”

Sora, who had become somewhat of a Dark Magic user, was also able to sense it just like Maria could thanks to her Light Magic. But he didn’t look troubled and, if he was, he didn’t say anything. And he wasn’t the type to hide something like that from us.

“...I will try to confirm it tomorrow. For now, I cannot say.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard, Maria.”

Of course, if Dark Magic really had anything to do with this, it would be a serious matter, but... Maria looked so pale just minutes ago...

“I don’t want you trying too hard and feeling sick again. We’re all here for you, so you can rely on us,” I told her, holding onto her warm hand.

Maria, like a stereotypical otome game protagonist, tended to shoulder all of her problems by herself. But she was my friend, and I didn’t want to see her suffer.

“Just rely on us, okay?”

I wasn’t exactly proud of it, but I relied on people all the time. Anne helped me get up and dressed, and she had even prepared my luggage for this trip.

Seeming moved by the strength of my words, Maria nodded. The color had returned to her face, so much so that her cheeks were starting to look red. That must have been because of the hot tea. I was glad that she felt better.

“Now let’s sleep. We have to rest before tomorrow,” I said, standing up from her bed to get back to mine, when I felt something lightly tapping my butt. It was the bear.

I looked at it, curious why it’d do that, but it just looked away. What was that?

I made sure that Maria had gone to sleep, and then I did the same. By that point I was so tired that I fell asleep the second I touched the bed.

I was dreaming of being at an all-you-can-eat sweets buffet. I kept stuffing my mouth with food, but, no matter how much I ate, more appeared. I was happy at first, but there was so much that I could never eat all of it, and I started getting nervous.

The sweets kept increasing and increasing until the whole room was completely full of them, and I started suffocating amidst a sea of marshmallows. The marshmallows were hitting my face one after the other...

Stop! I can’t breathe! I thought right before waking up and seeing a soft round thing hitting my face. Upon closer inspection, I realized that Maria’s bear was standing on top of me and hitting me with its squishy little arm.

So that’s why I was being hit by marshmallows in my dream...

Outside the window the sun was starting to rise, meaning that it was way too early to get up. Why would you wake me up, you heinous—

The bear was pointing at the bed on the other side of the room, where Maria was supposed to be sleeping. I say “supposed to be” because her bed was empty.

Where had she gone at this hour of the morning? I looked at the bear for answers, but it shook its head. It had probably just noticed Maria’s absence and woken me up immediately after.

Normally I would just shrug it off, thinking that she’d gone to the bathroom or something. But after seeing how she looked yesterday I was worried that she could have felt sick on her way there, so I went to look for her.

The bear jumped onto my shoulder, something that it’d never normally do... It must be worried about Maria. Okay, you can ride on my shoulder. But just this once, okay?

I tried going to the bathroom, but Maria wasn’t there. Where is she? Maybe she passed out somewhere! But where? I was looking around for ideas, and my eyes met the bear’s. It moved its arm to tell me where to go.

Why is the bear giving me orders now?! I thought for a second, but then I remembered that this insufferable bear was actually a wonderful magical tool made to search for people. The “insufferable” was so strong in my memory that I had forgotten about the “wonderful” part.

“Okay, just tell me where to go,” I said as I moved in the direction that it was pointing at.

It brought me outside of the house, behind it, and to a tree near the garden. Under that tree, sure enough, was Maria.

“Mar—”

I almost called out to her, but I stopped when I saw that there was someone else standing beside her... Dewey. The two of them were staring at each other with deep, serious expressions. It wasn’t the kind of meeting that you could barge into screaming “G’morning, buddies!”

I was trying to stop the bear from running to Maria when I heard someone’s voice behind me.

“What’s going on?”

I turned around, and Sora was standing there, watchful.

“S-Sora! Why are you here?” I asked him.

“I should ask you the same thing. What are you doing up so early?”

I explained why I had woken up so early (or rather, why I had been woken up so early) and had gone looking for Maria.

“I see... Well, you found her. Why don’t you go and talk to her?” he said.

“Th-They look so serious! I can’t just go in between them like that...”

They were still looking at each other and apparently discussing something, but they were so far away that I couldn’t hear what they said.

“Do you want to know what they’re talking about?” asked Sora.

“Yes,” I told him honestly.

Sora took something out of his pocket and put it against my ear.

“So, what is it?” I clearly heard Dewey saying.

I looked at the thing on my ear, surprised, and I saw that it looked like a megaphone. This thing is probably the reason why I can hear their conversation from this far away... but what is it?

Sora was grinning like a kid when he moved it away from my ear and asked me, “So? Did it work?”

“Yes, I could hear everything... What is this?”

“It’s a magical tool that lets you hear sounds from afar. It only works if you’re close enough to see what’s going on, though.”

“Was this in the warehouse?”

It would have surprised me if this useful tool had been amongst all of that junk, and I didn’t remember Sora bringing anything like this out.

“Oh no, a colleague from my department lent it to me after I asked for something better than all that useless stuff in the warehouse,” Sora explained casually.

I wish I could get better tools too, but I’d never have the courage to outright ask a colleague for something like that...

“I thought this could come in handy for the mission, but who knew it’d make itself useful at a time like this? You want to listen to them, right? Go ahead,” he said before handing me the megaphone, completely oblivious to how shocked I was at his brashness towards colleagues.

Anyway, I really wanted to listen, so I gratefully accepted the megaphone and put the small end on my ear, pointing the wide end towards Maria and Dewey.

“I just thought that you were being too hard on yourself, Dewey.”

“What would you know about that? You barely even know me! Leave me alone!” Dewey’s voice had lost any hint of calmness.

Their conversation sounded like something straight out of an otome game. Was this a scripted scene with Dewey? Was this when they’re supposed to fall in love with each other?

“What do you think of this?” I asked Sora, but he just gave a blank stare in return.

Oh, that’s right. He can’t hear them. I have to do something about that...

I grabbed Sora and pulled him so that his face was right in front of mine. “Can you hear too now?”

“...I can, but being this close is kind of...”

“Shhh! This is where it gets good! Listen!”