"That's all for today."
In a room where one entire wall was a bookshelf, Livia sat in a chair reading a story aloud to the children.
A great many small children sat in front of Livia.
A little boy tugged at Livia's clothes.
"Hey, Mama Livia. What happens next? What happened to Father after that?"
What she had been reading to the children were the accounts of Leon's past exploits.
A blond boy who looked just like Leon begged Livia for the next part.
"I want to hear what comes next."
Smiling, Livia closed the book in front of the children.
"That's all for today. It's already late, so let's go to sleep. And I'm sorry, but I haven't written what comes next yet."
"Whyyy?"
"I just can't write it yet."
A cute little girl with sleepy eyes looked just like Angie.
She was clutching the clothes of the child who resembled Leon.
"Pleeease write it."
"Because your father's grand adventure is only just beginning. Once it's over, I'll put it all into a book again. And when I do, I'll read it to you first, before anyone else."
A girl with pink hair was leaning against the artificial intelligence — Fact — fast asleep.
Fact was at a loss.
"Children. A reduction in sleep hours cannot be permitted. Now then, off to sleep with you."
"Fact got maaad!"
"Roll him over!"
"S-stop that! Can't you see this child is leaning on me as she sleeps? Argh, I'm downgrading my evaluation of all of you!"
The artificial intelligences had been believed lost in that war, but they had cleverly transferred their data into auxiliary units and survived.
Now they supported the kingdom from the shadows.
That said, they were not being used in earnest to run the state.
The reason was that Leon disliked the idea.
Leon's view — that for now they wanted to manage things with human strength — was the one Angie and the others had adopted.
Livia agreed with that view as well.
"Fact is right. Everyone, if you don't go to sleep soon, I'll tell your father on you."
The children answered all at once.
"Okaaay."
But one black-haired girl remained behind and clung to Livia's leg.
"What's the matter?"
"Mama Livia. Um, um! When is Father coming home?"
Livia looked up at the ceiling, then with a smile pictured Leon's face.
"Now, when do you think? I don't know either. But I think he'll come back once when summer arrives."
◇
The floating island that Leon had acquired.
The one living there was — Marie.
She was walking along beside fields where farming robots worked, on a stroll.
Marie wiped away her sweat.
"Aaah, that was a good sweat. Tonight's beer is going to taste extra special!"
She was already thinking about her evening drink.
Carla and Kyle came running up to that Marie.
Carla was carrying a small child.
"Lady Marieeee! Please don't push yourself so haaard!"
Kyle was also in a panic.
"Mistress! Don't go running around in that condition!"
Marie's belly was swollen.
She was pregnant.
"No way. I'm sick of it. I'm going to break a sweat and drink beer. I'm done holding back!"
"Drinking alcohol in your condition, what are you thinking?! We're heading back right now!"
"No! I want to drink!"
The child Carla was holding had a finger in its mouth.
That child had dark blue hair.
Arriving where the three of them were making a fuss was Jilk, with a leather bag stuffed full of tea utensils and sweets.
"Everyone, the tea is ready."
Carla looked thoroughly weary.
"Mr. Jilk, didn't I say I'd handle the preparations?!"
Kyle took the child from Carla and glared at Jilk.
"Your tea is awful!"
Hearing that, Jilk merely shrugged.
"Perhaps it was a touch too refined for all of you."
But Marie was trembling.
"Jilk — th-that tea set carrier, I've never seen it before, have I?"
"This? I bought it the other day when I went back to the royal capital. It was cheap."
When Marie heard that, her feet wobbled, and Carla immediately steadied her.
"Lady Marie, hang in there! It's still all right. Mr. Jilk has been reinstated as a viscount, so we have a little room in our finances!"
Marie was crying.
"I told you not to waste money!"
Jilk puffed out his chest as he answered.
"It's not a waste. After all, this is a tea set I purchased for eight hundred thousand dia. It's a precious item excavated from ancient ruins."
Eight hundred thousand — that came out to eighty million in Japanese yen.
On hearing that, Marie pressed her hand to her belly.
"Ah, no good. Labor's started. I have to get back to the mansion and give birth."
She had been through childbirth many times already, and Marie was quite calm about it.
Kyle was in a complete panic.
"A doctooor! Doctooor!"
Cradling the child that resembled Julius, he took off at full speed.
Jilk was flustered as well.
"We have to get Marie to the mansion at once!"
And then the sound of the panicked Jilk dropping and shattering his eight-hundred-thousand-dia tea set could be heard.
Hearing that sound, Marie —
"Nooo! Eight hundred thousand — Ah."
— passed out cold.
The one who arrived at such a scene was Mia.
"What are you all doing?!"
Mia rushed up with a stretcher and they carried Marie to the mansion.
Jilk merely chased after them.
"Marie, you can do it!"
Carla turned a frigid gaze on him.
"No, weren't you the one who delivered the finishing blow to Lady Marie? Why are you always getting swindled? Just how much have you lost being tricked into buying ridiculously cheap tea sets as luxury items?"
Unable to withstand Carla's cold stare, Jilk slumped his shoulders.
"M-my apologies."
Seeing this, Mia gave Jilk an order.
"Then go back to the mansion at once and boil some water. Run!"
"Y-yes!"
Once Jilk headed off to the mansion, Mia let out a sigh.
"Honestly, what is he doing? It was the same when it was Mr. Julius's turn. Men really are no good at times like these, aren't they?"
After the war with the empire, Mia had been officially declared dead by Leon and was being kept hidden.
Now she lived with Marie and the others.
Carla gave a wry smile.
"More importantly, are you feeling well, Mia?"
Mia wore a magic tool hanging from her neck.
With it, she could inhale mana.
"With this magic tool, there's no problem."
It was a device that Elysion and the others had prepared for inhaling mana.
Thanks to it, Mia, a New Humanity, could live without suffering.
The magic tool was being distributed in the empire as well, and a plan to develop a device that would scatter mana was in progress.
Marie was groaning in delirium.
"B-Big Brother... transfer me some money..."
◇
This was a continent with a desert.
Newly assigned as a rookie teacher to the academy of the Oshias Kingdom, I — Leon — was in the staff room looking at a photo Marie had sent me.
Around Marie, who was holding up some crop with a delighted look, were three children.
And on the photo a message had been written.
"I'll be sending you rice, miso, and soy sauce again this year. So please give me living expenses."
Several years had passed since I'd safely graduated from the academy.
"Those idiots haven't grown up at all, have they?"
Resting my forehead on my clasped hands, I worried over my sisters who refused to grow up.
The one who spoke to me then was a handsome young man with green hair parted seven-three, the intellectual-glasses type.
"Teacher Leon. Shall we get going?"
Looking up, I gazed at the homeroom teacher, two years older than me.
Right now I was a rookie teacher, the assistant homeroom teacher who supported this man.
— Why is a king like me working as a rookie teacher, you ask?
Because the setting of the fourth installment was this country and this academy.
"Let's do that. Maaan, I'm nervous."
Those who knew the circumstances and could handle them were limited in number.
So I had to ride into a foreign country myself.
"You don't look nervous at all, though. Still, I never thought someone would come all the way from the Holfart Kingdom to be a teacher at our academy."
The Oshias Kingdom was quite far from the Holfart Kingdom, after all.
As nations went, they weren't exactly neighbors, and there hadn't been much in the way of diplomatic relations until now.
"Well, things changed on our end."
The homeroom teacher was tall, and he walked briskly with a straight back.
"Circumstances, huh — well, it does seem to be a rather unusual country. I hear the Holfart Kingdom is one where women are strong. As I recall, it's currently the queen who rules the country, isn't it?"
Hearing that made my chest ache.
Because I was foisting the affairs of state on Angie.
"No, it's just that it's the queen who appears in public — there is a king."
"Is that so? When I spoke with a diplomat some time ago, I was told that a very dignified woman was running everything."
"Aah, the king is shy, so he doesn't come out in public, you see."
"The king is shy?! — I feel a cultural gap."
I am the king, but because of otome game circumstances, I can't do the work of a king.
Like right now.
So Angie was handling everything for me, and I was free to move around as I pleased.
I mean, I'm the king, you know.
I'm supposed to be incredibly important, so why am I working as a rookie teacher in a foreign country? True, it would be impossible to slip in as a student at this point, and as a position that lets you move freely around the academy, teacher was perfect.
But even so, this is terrible.
Starting as the third son of a poor baron family, climbing all the way up to king — and now I'm just a teacher.
I'd like someone to explain how things ended up like this.
And then the classroom we'd be in charge of came into view.
"Here it is."
"Aah, this class, huh."
The plate read "1-E."
Class E — apparently the class at the academy where the dropouts and problem children were dumped.
Or so I'd heard — but Erika hadn't actually cleared the fourth installment either.
There hadn't been any decent walkthrough information from the start.
And there was a very disappointing fact about this academy.
The homeroom teacher puffed out his chest, opened the door, and stepped inside.
"Congratulations on your enrollment!"
At first glance he seemed like a cool, level-headed handsome man, but he also had the passionate heart of a hot-blooded teacher.
He was a serious, good teacher.
When that homeroom teacher opened the door and stepped inside, a blackboard eraser fell on him.
His neatly styled hair was dirtied with the white powder of chalk.
And the classroom was engulfed in a maelstrom of laughter.
A flashy boy with bristling red hair and the buttons of his shirt undone was slapping his desk and laughing.
"What's wrong, teaaacher?"
He was a brat asking a question he already knew the answer to.
A boy with long, straight black hair was holding a spear in the classroom.
"Hmph. Inexperienced. Can you really do the job of a teacher like this?"
Who exactly do you plan on fighting in a classroom? Don't bring weapons in here.
A small boy with curly, short blond hair — the so-called cute type — was wearing a uniform that was clearly the wrong size.
Only the sleeves were long, hiding his hands.
"Come on, everyone, it's mean to laugh."
Even as he said "it's mean," he was wearing a tremendous smile.
He looked like a real nasty piece of work.
And a boy with loose, wavy long blue hair had modified the academy-issued uniform to be even more lavish.
He looked the very picture of money.
"A homeroom teacher and an assistant homeroom teacher — how shabby. Is this academy really going to be all right?"
— If I go home to my country, I'm richer and higher-ranked than you, kid!
These brats had to be the target love interests of the fourth installment.
That's the feeling I got.
The boys laughed crude, hearty laughs.
— That's right! This academy was an all-boys school!
What a place devoid of dreams and hopes.
Personally, I had been hoping for an all-girls school, with cheerful giggly developments.
Ah, no good.
I want to avoid developments where I'd be suspected of cheating, so I have no choice but to think that an all-boys school was actually better.
But it's stifling and overly masculine.
The homeroom teacher picked up the blackboard eraser, returned it to its proper place, then slammed both hands down on the lectern.
"As of today, you are students of this academy! Stop with these childish pranks."
Being called childish, the boys' gazes turned harsh.
Perhaps thinking they'd been looked down on, every one of them was showing a combative attitude.
Getting tossed into a class of delinquents at your new posting — it's just too rough on a rookie teacher, isn't it.
The red-haired boy rose from his seat, opened one eye wide, veins bulging on his forehead, and grinned.
What is with this guy, scary.
"You've got some guts. Then forget the childish pranks — I'll give you a grown-up brawl instead."
To begin with, decent adults don't get into brawls though.
I'm a decent adult, so I don't get into brawls. But if you make yourself my enemy, I'll crush you!
When the red-haired boy started toward me, one short boy(?) stood up.
A short-haired, serious-looking honor-student type — narrow-shouldered and sloping.
"Can you please give it a rest? I came here to study. If you're going to get in the way, would you mind leaving?"
That boy had quite a strong spirit, in contrast to his appearance.
The red-haired boy moved closer and started intimidating him.
"Huh? Couldn't hear you. Say it one more time."
The slight boy — slapped that red-haired boy across the face.
"I said be quiet."
The classroom fell silent.
But the homeroom teacher coolly stepped in.
"You there, violence is not allowed. Come to the staff room later."
And the one who got scolded wasn't the red-haired kid but the slight one.
"Huh? Me?!"
"Of course. You did slap him, didn't you? It's only natural."
The slight child slumped his shoulders.
— But, you know.
His voice didn't quite sound male, and his build was different too.
Was he somehow hiding his chest, or were they just small to begin with — well, to put it plainly — at least one of you, notice already!
There's a single girl mixed in here at this all-boys academy!
◇
Well then, after finishing my first day, I was up on the rooftop musing in the twilight with Elysion.
Elysion was floating near my left shoulder, but had a lot of complaints.
"I have added the one who called my master shabby to my blacklist. Rest assured, by tomorrow I shall make him disappear without leaving a shred of evidence!"
"Are you an idiot? What good does it do to erase one of the love-interest candidates? There might be one in there who befriends the heroine and saves the world. Don't get angry over one or two complaints."
"I'm not angry. I'm simply going to erase him. Delete!"
Elysion had a different kind of annoying quality from Luxion's.
He was a serious, good kid, but he was so serious he tended to go off the rails.
"Let it go. To begin with, did you forget the reason I came to this country?"
"To avoid the crisis of the fourth installment's world, was it not? Still, this world certainly comes close to ruin often."
"I really wish you'd give me a break. By rights, I'm a king. I should be lounging around like Roland, making my subordinates do all the work. I want to slack off like he does."
"The former king Roland was stabbed by a woman a little while ago, you know."
"That was a masterpiece."
But of course, Roland was tenacious. Even after being stabbed, he survived, and on top of that he calmed down the whole mess and even got himself a new woman.
He was the very picture of "the hated child wields the world."
Well, that doesn't matter right now.
More importantly, I never wanted to become king in the first place.
By rights I had been aiming for a slow life, but somewhere along the way, somehow, I'm now the king of a country.
And yet, when I think that Marie is leading the slow life I'd wanted — it brings up complicated feelings.
I pulled a plate from my breast pocket and looked at the image data.
Cleare back in the kingdom regularly sent me photos.
"My kids are at their cutest age and I'm here on a solo posting. Honestly, who cares about the world's crises anymore?"
"Then shall I sink this country? Leave it to me. I'll do it in a single day!"
"You're scary too."
Cheerfully volunteering to sink an entire continent — he's just like Luxion.
That guy was always saying things like "I want to exterminate the New Humanity."
When I see the children's faces, my heart warms — and at the same time I feel restless.
I mean, there are just so many kids.
Just what am I doing in another world, anyway? I've thought that to myself many times.
"Master, more importantly, I have a report on your upcoming schedule."
"Is there some trouble?"
"Yes. Construction of the mass driver is behind schedule. Too many resources are being taken up by the kingdom's reconstruction."
"It just needs to be finished within three years, so for now divert resources to the reconstruction."
"Even so, Master, you have a hard time of it. After three years teaching in a foreign country, an infiltration mission in space, no less."
"— Just where exactly am I headed, I wonder."
Even I was starting to lose track.
Or rather, the question was: where was that otome game headed?
If the developer were here, I'd want to interrogate them for a good hour or so.
No, I'd want to lecture them for a full day.
"You'll be returning to the kingdom in six years! Once in space, even if there's a long holiday, you won't be able to come back."
"The kids will all be grown up by then! They'll forget all about me! Why am I the only one working this hard?!"
As I cried alone on the rooftop, I heard the sound of the door opening.
Elysion immediately vanished from sight and hid himself.
When I wiped my tears and turned around, there stood the heroine of the fourth installment.
"Oh, teacher."
She had apparently been looking for somewhere to be alone, and seemed disappointed to find me there.
She'd ridden into an academy full of nothing but boys, alone.
Her face looked tremendously tired.
It made me feel sorry just looking at her.
"You don't look well. Did the homeroom teacher scold you harshly?"
"I was just given a warning. But it seems to have worn me out."
She had picked a fight with the red-haired boy and ruined the classroom's atmosphere, so probably no one had spoken to her.
I would have to support this child and figure out a way to safely get through the fourth installment's world crisis.
"Well, there's a lot going on, but don't worry about it. If anything happens, come talk to me."
The slight child looked a little surprised, then giggled as she looked at me.
"But teacher, you do seem a little unreliable."
"That's harsh. I'll have you know I'm actually pretty amazing."
As we had that conversation, Elysion, hidden from sight beside me, was muttering something terrifying like "How dare she insult my master, this descendant of the New Humanity — I will definitely erase her!"
— What's this, I'm suddenly getting the feeling this is going to fail.
The heroine looked at me and teased.
"By the way, teacher, you came from a foreign country, right?"
"Yeah."
"Why did you come to this country? It's — not exactly a nice country."
Apparently this heroine, too, was carrying a number of burdens.
I smiled at that heroine.
"My reason for being here? Let me see — because I came to save the world, I suppose."
When I delivered that slightly cheesy line, Elysion praised me with "Master, that's so cool!"
Please, don't compliment me on that.
Because it's embarrassing.
If it were Luxion, he'd snort at me.
And on hearing my line, the heroine laughed.
"What was that?"
Her face was so cute — I wanted to tell her, hey, you're not even trying to hide that you're a girl, are you.
But a smiling face was better.
So I said it as if it were a joke.
"You don't believe me? It's true. I'm a man who's saved the world at least three times. Though I can't save my own household from crises."
"No, I think a person who can't save their household can't save the world either."
"You too, huh."
It's fine. Angie supports things on the home front.
Or rather, I really don't feel like I've built a harem.
As my old man said in the afterlife, maybe it's because I'm not the one keeping them — I'm the one being kept?
The heroine's smile faded, and her face turned a little sad.
It was the face of someone carrying the heavy past and various burdens befitting the heroine of an otome game.
"Then, teacher — if I said I wanted to be saved, would you save me?"
She was clinging to a sub-homeroom teacher she had only just met, asking for help as though grasping at straws.
Her face looked resigned, as if she expected it would be hopeless anyway, yet also like she held a faint hope that maybe.
— Don't make that kind of face.
It'll make me want to reach out my hand.
For a girl to enroll in an all-boys academy, there had to be some serious circumstances behind it.
Honestly, I don't even know what's going on, and yet here I am once again about to try to help the person in front of me.
It's truly hopeless of me — but I don't dislike this side of myself.
Helping a heroine who's all alone in an all-boys school — that's no problem at all.
"Of course. That's exactly why I came here."