The queen dowager's villa. The desk drawer in the study was packed full of illustrations depicting men going at it.
In Japan, this genre was known as BL, or perhaps "yaoi."
"T-This book... Why does Her Majesty the queen dowager have pictures like these..."
Celestine's face had turned completely red.
The picture of a refined lady. Celestine, who should never allow her gentle smile to crack under any circumstance, was apparently reduced to blushing when confronted with a BL book without warning.
(She's kinda cute... wait, no) "Um... logically speaking, this must be the queen dowager's hobby..."
If the queen dowager was the only one who had lived here, there was no doubt about it.
On the desk sat yellowed, unused paper and a pen. Could it be that the queen dowager herself had drawn these?
"Huh?"
Trying not to look directly at the hand-drawn illustrations, he skimmed through them... and there, he spotted a man who bore a striking resemblance to someone he knew.
"Is this... could it be His Highness Andrew?"
Among the illustrations of men entangled with one another, there was a figure who looked remarkably like Andrew Aiwood.
Of course, it was probably just a resemblance... but the other man also bore a likeness to Yusgos Bethras, one of Andrew's close retainers.
"I have no intention of condemning that sort of hobby, but... I'd really rather not see illustrations of men who look like people I know going at it..."
BL wasn't inherently bad. He figured people should enjoy whatever they liked.
It wasn't bad, but... even so, he wished acquaintances were off-limits. Even if they were just strangers who happened to look similar, it still left a bad taste.
"...I'll wait outside."
Celestine, too, averted her eyes from the illustrations and rubbed her own upper arm with her hand as she stepped out of the room.
Since he had grown closer to Andrew and Yusgos than to Rest, the shock hit even harder.
"Are these... well, I suppose I'll keep them stored away forever. But is there really nothing else?"
Rest pulled the drawer out further.
"Hm?"
Then... he felt something catch deep inside the drawer.
"Is there something in here...?"
He reached into the back of the drawer and pulled out whatever it was that had snagged.
It was a wooden box, slightly larger than a palm.
The sealed box had no keyhole, but in its place, a piece of paper had been pasted over it as a seal.
"This is...!"
And then... upon seeing the writing on the paper, Rest's eyes went wide.
That language was familiar to him. Of course it was — it was Japanese, a language he had used casually in his past life.
The riddle on the key at the entrance of the villa had been written in the language of this world regardless of its content, but the writing on the box's paper was in Japanese.
(So the queen dowager really was Japanese after all...!)
Rest murmured to himself with conviction as he read the text aloud.
"'What kind of bread can you not eat?'...Huh?"
It was far too low-level a riddle.
Any Japanese person would know the answer... It was a considerably easier question than the one at the villa's entrance.
"A frying pan...?"
Without thinking, he muttered the answer — and the very next instant, something changed.
"W-What…!"
The paper sealing the box tore on its own, and the box opened.
Light spilled from within, flooding Rest's vision with pure white…
*"Incorrect."* "Huh…?"
A voice reached his ears.
A woman's voice, high-pitched and unfamiliar.
*"Incorrect. The correct answer was… the toast my mama made this morning!"* "…!?"
A woman was sitting on the bench before him.
Behind the bench stood a wooden gazebo, built to shield from sun and rain.
The sky was perfectly clear. Blue stretched endlessly in every direction. The asphalt road gleamed black under the sunlight, stretching ahead and behind, and in the distance, the sea was visible.
"Is this… Japan?"
It didn't look familiar… but it was unmistakably a Japanese landscape.
It was some rural bus stop, and sitting on the bench was a high school girl in a sailor uniform.
—————— Story Introduction *The Poison King — Having Awakened to the Greatest Power, I Command Beautiful Princesses and Become Lord of the Estrus Harem* Volume 3 now on sale! A manga adaptation is also in the works!!
I'm currently in the middle of a consecutive update streak. Please give it a read!