It was four in the morning when I finally made it home, at an hour when the sky was still barely clinging to the darkness of night.
“Ugh… I have to cut out the middle of the donuts properly… Everyone at the Demon Lord’s castle…”
Mia was muttering some mysterious nonsense in her sleep as I climbed the ladder to the top bunk.
Staying up late on top of fighting the Black Knight… apparently, I’d been more exhausted than even I realized. The moment I closed my eyes, I slipped straight into sleep.
The next morning, I woke up at seven as usual, but—
“Oniisan, are you feeling sick?”
“No… I’m fine…”
I was unbelievably sleepy.
Well, I’d only gotten three hours of sleep after all. I planned to eat breakfast and then go right back to bed, but even that might be asking too much.
Right in front of me was a plate with a perfectly toasted slice of bread.
Munch, munch, munch—BONK!
“Ow, ow, ow…”
Crap. I’d done it. The moment my consciousness slipped away, I somehow headbutted the toast sitting on my plate. Fortunately, it didn’t look like I was bleeding. For some reason, though, my forehead felt strangely slippery.
“Oniisan, a-are you oka—pfft… pfffft… hahahahaha!”
The moment Mia looked at me, she burst out laughing.
What the heck? What was so funny?
Was there something on my face?
I left the living room and headed for the bathroom. When I looked into the mirror, I found an idiot staring back at me, a lump of margarine stuck to his forehead like some kind of third eye.
Who the hell is this guy?
…Oh. It’s me.
“Yoshi-kun, you couldn’t sleep last night?”
When I returned to the living room, Yuko-san had just brought out a fresh slice of toast.
“Yeah. I was kind of cold.”
I felt bad about lying, but there was no way I could tell her, “I snuck out of the house and fought a black monster.”
Sorry, Yuuko-san.
“Then I’ll put an extra blanket on your bed, okay?”
Ouch. Her concern really hit me right in the heart.
After breakfast.
I couldn’t even bring myself to climb the stairs back to my room, so I stretched out on the sofa in the living room instead. Fortunately, it’s a Saturday, so there was no kindergarten today.
I could take it easy at home.
…
………
………………
How long had I been asleep?
I suddenly heard a bizarre cry—
“GYAAAGHOOO!”
What the?
I opened my eyes to find a monster rampaging across the television screen.
Oh… Was this the DVD Shuji-san had rented?
It was one of those old-school science-fiction fantasy series, starring that red-and-silver Ultra-style hero. One of Mia’s favorite shows.
“Hyaa!”
The giant crossed his arms into a perfect X. A beam of light shot forth.
And at almost exactly the same moment—
“Hyaa!”
Mia struck the exact same pose.
Hey, hey, watch it.
In our case, that really could make a beam shoot out. Magic is all about visualization, after all. There was even a hero who’d accidentally burned an entire inn to the ground and ended up buried under a mountain of debt.
While I was reminiscing about my days of abject poverty, the battle on the television had already come to an end. The monster exploded into a thousand pieces from the hero’s finishing beam.
Good grief.
“Yesss!”
Mia pumped her fist triumphantly.
Then, as she turned around—
“Oniisan, you’re awake…?”
Our eyes met.
“Th-this is, um… I was just practicing magic. Yeah. Magic visualization training. Training.”
Mia turned bright red as she frantically tried to come up with an excuse.
Yeah, right. It looked to me like she was just having a blast.
“A-anyway, Oniisan, why are you so sleepy today?”
Come to think of it, I still needed to explain what had happened yesterday.
Just as I was thinking that, Mia suddenly leaned closer to me for some reason.
“Sniff, sniff…”
She started sniffing around my neck.
“What are you doing?”
“Oniisan, you met some women yesterday, didn’t you? Probably two of them.”
“You can tell that easily?”
“Hmm… I dunno. Just a feeling?”
I hadn’t exactly been pressed up against either of them, and quite a bit of time had passed since I’d met them. Even so… she had an incredible sense of smell. Honestly impressed.
So, I went on to explain what had happened yesterday. How I’d rescued a girl named Shizuku Aitori from a bunch of thugs. How an armored knight who looked exactly like me from my previous life had appeared, and how that had inevitably led to a fight. And how, afterward, I’d met a woman named Phyllis. I also told her about absorbing the “Faceless Mud” and how [Charm Reversal] had activated against Phyllis.
It was better to be upfront about things like this. If I deliberately kept something hidden, it would only come back to cause trouble sooner or later.
That said… I couldn’t bring myself to mention that Shizuku calls me “Master”, or that she suffers from—well—a rather distinctive brand of Chūnibyō delusion involving a persecution complex.
I mean, how would I even explain that? Stating it plainly would likely lead to misunderstandings, yet I couldn’t think of a tactful way to put it.
Oh, screw it—I’ll just put a pin in this for now.
I’ll leave it to my future self.
Good luck, future me.
After I finished telling her everything, Mia fell silent for a while. She was probably taking some time to digest everything in her own way.
I wondered what kind of reaction I was going to get.
Prediction #1: She’d scold me for going somewhere dangerous.
Prediction #2: She’d lecture me with something along the lines of, “Going around picking up girls when I’m not there to keep an eye on you…”
As it turned out, neither was the answer.
“I’m sorry Oniisan. When you were having such a hard time, I was just sleeping like a log the whole time.”
She murmured the words in a small voice.
“Are you okay physically? Does anything hurt? You’ve looked exhausted since this morning. Are you really just sleepy?”
She was surprisingly worried about me.
“You’re not mad?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Um… about me fighting that armored knight without telling you, or about the [Charm] effect activating on Phyllis…”
“Who cares about that stuff right now? What matters is that you’re okay. Come on. If you’re going to sleep, at least sleep in bed. I’ll stay right beside you.”
“Y-yeah…”
Mia took me by the hand and led me toward the bedroom. Before I knew what was happening, she had me lying down on the bed, then climbed in beside me. Sharing a bed with her in the middle of the night would be one thing, but doing it while it was still bright outside made me feel a little self-conscious.
“Want a lullaby?”
“N-No, I’m fine—”
“Oh, come on. Don’t say no. Just relax. Relax alright.”
Ignoring my protests, Mia began to sing softly. It wasn’t in Japanese. It wasn’t in English, either. It was a language from the other world. As I listened to her clear, lilting voice, I found myself being gently drawn into a deep, peaceful sleep.
The next time I opened my eyes, it was lunchtime, and the fatigue weighing down my entire body had completely vanished.
“You look a lot better, too. I’m relieved.”
“Maybe it’s thanks to your lullaby, Mia.”
“Want me to sing for you again from now on?”
“I’ll think about it.”
As we chatted on our way down to the living room, the smell of curry greeted us.
“Fufu. You two really were fast asleep, weren’t you?”
Apparently, Yuko-san had caught us sleeping together. A little embarrassed, we finished our meal faster. Incidentally, Shuji-san wasn’t home. He was away on a kendo club trip and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow evening.
After lunch, we returned to our room.
We started discussing what to do next, and eventually Mia said,
“If we could go out by ourselves, I’d like to meet that Phyllis-san…”
In the Kirasawa household, we weren’t allowed to go out without one of our parents accompanying us. It probably had something to do with the time I’d been approached by the kidnapper Manya.
“We could make a fake with a familiar, but it wouldn’t be able to handle anything too complicated.”
For example, if Yuko-san happened to come into the room, we’d be in trouble. There was no telling whether a fake could convincingly deal with her.
“So what are we supposed to do?”
The moment I voiced my concern—
“—Don’t worry. There’s no problem.”
Someone answered.
It wasn’t Mia. The voice belonged to a woman who sounded older than us, with an unmistakable air of elegance.
“Hello, Yoshito. How have you been?”
I looked around the room. There was no one here besides Mia and me.
What was going on?
“O-Oniisan, look…”
Mia was pointing underneath the bed. A figure was smoothly emerging from beneath it.
She’s a tall, beautiful woman. She had silver hair and radiant, pearl-like skin. Dressed in an extravagant white gown, she carried herself with the unmistakable air of royalty.
—It was Phyllis.
Once she stood before us, she spread the hem of her skirt and gave us an elegant curtsy.
“Sorry for dropping in so suddenly. It seems a teleportation gate to this place appeared in a rather strange location.”
No kidding. Having a person crawl out from underneath your bed was the kind of thing you’d expect to hear in an urban legend.
“Is that adorable little girl your younger sister? She has quite a strong magical presence, too. I suppose she’s one of the people on ‘this side’ as well?”
By “this side”, she presumably meant the world of mages, exorcists, and the like.
I nodded, and Phyllis turned her attention fully toward Mia.
“I am Phyllis Iris F. Clacia. Just call me Phyllis.”
“I’m Mia Kirasawa. It’s nice to meet you, Phyllis-san.”
“Hoh~”
Phyllis looked Mia over with obvious interest.
“Just like Yoshito, you have an aura that hardly seems fitting for a child.”
That made sense. Both Mia and I had experienced a previous life, after all. Our mental ages didn’t exactly match our physical bodies. I wondered if Phyllis found that suspicious, too.
But then—
“Well, no matter. It’s not particularly unusual on ‘this side’.”
She accepted it as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world. Suika had reacted similarly, so perhaps there were actually quite a few people who had gotten a second chance at life.
“By the way, Mia, can I ask you something?”
Phyllis asked in a casual tone.
“Has Yoshito told you about [Charm Reversal]?”
At those words, Mia showed a slight flicker of unease.
“…I see.”
Phyllis, meanwhile, nodded as though something had clicked into place.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to take your brother away from you.”
She suddenly dropped that bombshell out of nowhere.
“After all, I’m five-hundred-year-old, good as your grandmother already. There’s no way I could possibly be a match for him, right?”
“Five hundred years old…?”
Mia murmured the number in a trembling voice, clearly stunned by the unexpected figure.
“Still, until now, I’d never had anything to do with romance. And since I’ve just experienced [Charm Reversal] myself, I’m enjoying the feeling while I can.”
She smiled gently.
“So I have no intention of tearing you and Yoshito apart. I’d be happy if the two of us could get along.”
I recalled what Shizuku had said.
—Phyllis-Iris would use even herself as a test subject to satisfy her intellectual curiosity.
To her, [Charm] might just be another fascinating phenomenon.
＊ ＊ ＊
After explaining the situation with my body to Mia, Phyllis returned to her own place. She crawled back under the bed with a rustling sound, which made the whole thing rather less dignified than it could have been.
If only the gate had been in a desk drawer like Doraemon’s, it would’ve looked a lot cooler.
“.…Now that I think about it, isn’t this trespassing?”
Mia muttered that under her breath.
She had a point. What would have happened if Yuko-san had caught her? Next time, we’d be the ones visiting Phyllis.
Fortunately, it seemed the gate beneath the bed would remain there for the foreseeable future.
“Phyllis-san was certainly an interesting person.”
Don’t worry, Mia. Aitori Shizuku is even more eccentric. Yeah, definitely.
Oh, right. Speaking of Shizuku, I remembered something.
Wasn’t one of Phyllis’s disciples plotting something sinister? She said she was going to report it to her superiors and ask for further instructions, but I wonder what happened with that?
＊ ＊ ＊
Days passed without any word.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—
The only unusual thing happening around me was that Ayano Matsuki had been absent from kindergarten.
Just to clarify, she was the girl I played house with back in the fall, only for things to somehow end in a yandere route. She had an idol-like appearance and plenty of admirers, so her absence had become quite the topic of conversation.
Well, she probably had the flu or something. There were quite a few absences in several classes, after all. It wasn’t anything particularly unusual.
At least, that’s what I thought—
It was only then that I heard from Shizuku.
“……Do you know a girl named Ayano Mazuki?”
Of course I do.
No—What happened to her?
“She’s been kidnapped by Phyllis’s apprentice and is currently missing.”
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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