"This is the room, huh... Inside are Jeanne, Aura, Lady Reni, and... Amour? When did you get here? Actually, how'd you even find this place?"
When I approached the room from which I sensed presence, the voices inside told me who was inside. Well, they seemed to be talking as quietly as they could, but they'd let their guard down by being inside the room, and they apparently hadn't factored in my physical abilities—they were speaking at a volume I could easily make out with a bit of concentration.
Besides, the fact that Amour was here meant there was a high probability that Chris was running around town looking for Amour, who'd gone missing. Chris still hadn't arrived, and part of that was probably because of our little argument, so maybe I should go look for her. On top of that, eavesdropping on women's conversations wasn't exactly gentlemanly, so I decided to leave the scene—at which point—
"Primera really is a very, very strong rival, isn't she?"
Amour's voice reached me. And then—
"Family background, personality, body... She's top-tier in every category. The only things Jeanne has going for her are the time she's spent with him and her youth..."
"Aura, you know Jeanne's going to be furious if she hears you, right?"
"That's right. Besides, even if Primera is older than Tenma, she's only twenty-three, so it's not like the gap is that wide."
"Exactly. And a five-year gap is nothing compared to Chris. If anything, when you think about having kids, it's practically ideal. Chris may look young, but she's already twenty-nine... Right on the edge of the cliff with no turning back."
"True, when you compare it to Chris... Primera's five-year gap is practically nonexistent... But that's exactly why I'm scared—Chris is the type who'd throw caution to the wind and use any method at her disposal..."
"She put on that big-sister composure and acted like she was above it all, but with Tenma surrounded by young women everywhere and none of them showing any interest in her... and now, on top of all that, someone who's her superior in every meaningful way has entered the scene as a rival... It's impossible to predict what Chris will do. Well, I doubt she'd resort to anything illegal... For starters, I don't think sleeping pills or aphrodisiacs would even work on Tenma."
My brain was sounding alarms loud enough to give me a headache—staying here any longer was dangerous. With just Jeanne and Aura, maybe I could've gotten away with it, but with Reni, an intelligence operative, and Amour, who possessed animal instincts, even the slightest mistake would give me away.
Thinking that, I suppressed my presence even more than usual, moving with the utmost stealth as I tried to slip away... And that was when—
"Ah! Mmph!"
From around the corner in the direction I was heading, a
nuisance
appeared. And that
nuisance
was about to shout my name at the top of their lungs. My nerves were stretched razor-thin from focusing so hard on escaping, and the instant their fingertips became visible from around the corner—
The nuisance
I had already predicted and understood their movements, and my body was already in motion. As a result, before their mouth could even form the "Te" shape, my hand—
Nuisance
—covered their mouth, and I successfully dragged them around the corner.
Looking back on it later, that reaction speed was probably in the top five of my entire life. It was nothing short of a miracle — I was so impressed with my own movement that I wondered if this was what it meant to "enter the zone."
"Mmph!"
"My lady, is something wrong?"
"I thought I sensed Tenma nearby... but I guess I was mistaken."
A few seconds after I'd hidden around the corner, the door of the room that had been eavesdropping burst open, and Amour stepped out to check the corridor. But by then, I had already slipped around a different corner further away and was lying there holding my breath, so Amour was unable to spot me and chalked it up to a mistake.
Cain, the only person I was worried about, had sensed my desperate presence and was keeping quiet... or so I thought—
"Sorry, Cain. I didn't realize."
"Pffuhh! *cough, cough*... *wheeze*... *cough*... I thought I was gonna die..."
Cain, who I'd assumed was being considerately quiet, had in fact been having both his mouth and nostrils clamped shut by my hand while I pressed him against the wall, completely unable to move.
"I honestly thought you'd come to murder me in the most brutal way possible... Did I do something to deserve that?"
Cain was clearly furious, so I gave him a sincere apology — but he wanted to know exactly why I'd resorted to such extreme measures. When I told him the honest truth...
"Pfft! *cracking up*... Tenma, who feared neither Earth Dragons nor Wyverns nor Baikorns, was terrified that his eavesdropping on the ladies would get exposed... *wheeze*..."
He burst out laughing. And perhaps because he was trying not to raise his voice, he kept smashing his forehead against the wall, pounding on it over and over. I thought that kind of defeated the purpose of keeping quiet, but the girls' room was separated from ours by the bathroom and one other room, so the thuds and sounds apparently didn't carry over. Still, at this rate, something was bound to give us away eventually.
"Let's just move somewhere else for now."
"Y-yeah... let's head to the room I'm, uh, supposed to be using... pffft!"
Still not done laughing, Cain fought to stifle his giggles as he led the way to his room.
"We can talk normally in here. This is a guest room — all the walls have been soundproofed."
Having stayed here a few times before, Cain had managed to snag a nice room for himself... I thought about asking him if there were other good rooms available, but if I carelessly made a request and ended up with a room right next to Primera, things could get complicated, so I decided I'd pick one after she arrived.
"That said, those three really seem to have started panicking over Primera's appearance. I mean, it's probably because they saw the baby, saw her pregnant body, and realized she already has a lover — all in one go."
I had to admit, those three caught me off guard too. Well, part of it was that knowing them personally made the shock hit even harder than it did for Jeanne and the others... though, putting Serna aside, the landlady and Flute had both gone completely off the charts compared to anything I could have predicted.
"I mean, it's only natural they'd be self-conscious about it, but directing all that at me is a bit... well, that's how I feel about it, anyway."
"Tenma, that's one thing you should keep to yourself even if you do think it."
When I admitted that had been a slip of the tongue, Cain laughed. He apparently felt that publicly dismissing the attention of women who were interested in you was a breach of manners — but there was more to it than that.
"Lion was practically in tears over how hopeless he was with women, and the one person who finally showed some promise turned out to be a poor match for his taste and ended up morphing into a stalker... If you said something like that in front of Lion, he'd probably burst into tears of blood and lose his mind."
It seemed like he'd just been waiting for the perfect moment to deliver that line. And honestly, with Lion, that wasn't exactly an exaggeration...
"I'll have to be more careful about that. Anyway, what should we do about Chris?"
The conversation had reached a natural stopping point, so I decided to end it there. I didn't want to keep talking about this and give Cain more ammunition to tease me about my love life.
"Shouldn't you be worried about the senior? If you just leave her alone, I'm sure she'll make her way here eventually. Besides, if we go looking for her, she'll get mad saying I'm being treated like I'm lost or something! ...She'd definitely blow up like that."
"...Yeah, that's fair."
I had been planning to use Chris's name as an excuse to leave the moment Cain showed even a sliver of agreement — but, against my expectations, Cain chose to leave Chris be. Well, he was right — Chris would probably get all huffy, saying something like "You're treating me like I'm lost!"... but Cain's expression made it perfectly clear he had chosen to keep teasing me over going to find Chris.
And, just my luck, right when I was about to force my way out of the situation —
"Ugh... I had it rough out there."
Albert appeared, looking like the big bad wolf at the back door, still battered from his ordeal — except —
"Sorry, Albert. Move!"
He looked like a pretty sorry excuse for a wolf, so I didn't hesitate to shove him aside.
"Guh! R-right there is..."
The spot where I put my hand
to shove him
happened to be the exact place where Primera had punched him earlier, and Albert crumbled to his knees with no effort at all. Since the blow wasn't powerful enough to knock him unconscious, he couldn't escape the pain by passing out, and Albert was writhing in agony with tears streaming down his face.
"Damn it, he got away! Albert, you were supposed to hold him down! Honestly!"
"Ca-Cain... help..."
"Sorry, can't right now!"
Conversations like that drifted from behind me, but I ignored them and kept sprinting down the corridor. And just up ahead—
"Tenma... you're not getting away!"
"You two, call for backup while my lady and I keep him pinned down!"
"Backup? Who are we calling?"
"Aura, get the knights, and I'll go fetch Slarin!"
I was being cornered by the female faction. All because Cain, having decided no one could stop me, had screamed at the top of his lungs—"Tenma was eavesdropping on the girls' secret conversations~~~!"—loud enough for the entire mansion to hear.
Amour was the first to react to that shout, chasing after me and cutting off my path, while Reni got ahead of me and came at me with a lasso, and Jeanne used that opening to summon Slarin—who seemed like the most reliable asset. Meanwhile, Cain was barking orders from a safe distance, but Albert, who was still down, and Aura, who couldn't keep up, were of no use whatsoever.
"Mmm... Tenma, you're stubborn!"
"My lady, please move! — Wait, you're dodging that too?!"
"Gyaaaaah! Reni, don't catch meeee!"
"Slarin, please! — ...As expected, you're not joining in, huh."
"Oh, Slarin. Thou wouldst do well to watch from over here."
"Ugh... my stomach still hurts something fierce."
The manhunt targeting me continued in front of all the onlookers who weren't participating. As for the knights, they responded to Aura's request by,
Captain
"She's scared, so she's sorry, but she'll have to decline." And so the old man who'd been watching from the sidelines appointed her to tea-brewing duty instead.
It was a relief that Slarin didn't end up on the enemy's side, but in exchange, Amour's movements were getting better and better, and Ren was becoming increasingly ruthless. That scream from Aura earlier — when I dodged the net Ren threw, I had used Aura, who was closing in on me, as a human shield. That took the net out of play and also knocked out Aura, one of their combat assets — but since Aura was never useful to begin with, you could argue a dead weight was removed and their side actually became more mobile. Besides, it looked like they still had plenty of nets in stock...
"You're not getting away! Hmph hmph hmph hmph!"
I tried to escape with a triangle jump over Amour's head, but Amour pulled off the same defensive technique that the protagonist of a basketball manga used... except—
"Looks like you're a little too short for that!"
Even using that technique, the small-framed Amour couldn't stop me. Beyond her, I could see the exit. In that moment, I was certain of victory... until—
"Huh?! Whyyyyy?!"
Aura came flying at me. Literally.
The moment I dodged, Amour switched tactics — she grabbed Aura, who was tangled in a net and rolling on the floor, and tried to fling her at me in one sweeping motion. But maybe she hesitated just a split second about throwing Aura, because Aura landed well short of me and came tumbling my way.
"Whoa—! W-wait—! Hey—! Whoops—! ...Huh?"
I easily hopped out of the way of the tumbling Aura, but I stepped on the accessory that had been attached to her — the net. Losing my balance, I staggered toward the entrance door, nearly crashing right through it. I grabbed the doorknob to try to regain my footing, and just before I could — the knob turned down and the door swung open. On the other side was—
"Eek!"
"Oof!"
There was something soft. And a sound like a squished frog.
Both of them screamed: "Ahhhhhhh!"
"Primera! Keep holding on just like that!"
The soft thing was Primera, and the squished frog was Chris.
Primera, who had been tackled to the ground, looked thoroughly confused, but before I could slip away, Ren's command came first — and Primera obeyed by wrapping her arms tight around me... right on top of the crushed Chris.
"Guuhhhh... Fine, I'll overlook that for now. What matters more is securing Tenma!"
"Ren, the rope! Give me the rope!"
"Use this."
"I'll handle the binding!"
With a quick succession of moves, I was secured in the blink of an eye, but...
"Brother Cain? For some reason, I'm tied up too..."
"Sorry, I didn't notice. Well, if Primera lets go, Tenma will escape, so hang in there."
I was absolutely certain he did that on purpose. I couldn't see Cain's face due to circumstances, but I knew for sure that voice was enjoying every second of this. Primera didn't seem to have caught on yet, but my current situation was extremely bad. And what made it so bad, you ask?
"You two! How long are you going to stay tangled up on top of me?!"
Right now, Primera and I were in a position where we were hugging face to face. Well, my face was positioned considerably lower than normal... to put it bluntly, my face was buried in Primera's chest. It was soft and pleasant, but staying like this any longer would be problematic in many ways. So—
"Ah! Tenma got away!"
While Primera's attention was focused on Cain, I used magic to cut the rope and made a break for it. However, the mental fatigue had been so intense that simply putting a little distance between Primera and me was all I could manage. So—
"Slarin! Come to me! Shiromaru and Solomon, I need you two to hold everyone back! I'll feed you all the meat you can eat as a reward!"
I called for Slarin and decided to take refuge inside the Dimension Bag stored within her body. Until Slarin arrived, I left the task of buying time to the two gluttons. The gluttons heard the reward I offered and immediately planted themselves in front of Amur and the others to protect me, drooling profusely from their mouths.
"Slarin, hide me until things calm down."
When I made that request to Slarin, who had come to my side, she nodded once and opened her mouth wide. As I was making my way into Slarin's Dimension Bag, I happened to glance at Primera, and our eyes met for just an instant before she quickly looked away. Well, I looked away just as fast, so I suppose we were even, but it was still incredibly embarrassing.
"Once things calm down and I get out, I'm punching Cain first."
Having made that resolution in my heart, I decided to escape reality inside Slarin. Of course, even after crawling under the blanket, I couldn't fall asleep for the longest time. Just when I thought I'd finally drifted off, Shiromaru woke me up.
"Fine, meat it is. If I eat now, I won't be able to handle dinner, so just a little."
For Shiromaru, dinner was also a rare feast, so I decided to give him some meat in the snack category.
"But before that, I need to wash my face. Thanks to Shiromaru, it's all sticky."
My face was all sticky and smelled a little… no, quite bad, thanks to being licked by a drooling Shiromaru. When he heard my words, he put on a surface-level apologetic expression, but his tail was wagging furiously, so he probably wasn't truly sorry. Well, that was nothing new.
"So this is… the dining hall. How convenient. Thanks, Slarin."
When I stepped out of Slarin, I was in the dining hall. I figured she'd brought me here so that Shiromaru and Solomon could eat their meat right away.
"Alright then, let me borrow the kitchen and grill some meat."
Drool was dripping from the mouths of both Shiromaru and Solomon in response to my words. A considerable amount had already been dripping, so Slarin had been wiping it clean, but it still showed no signs of stopping.
"Here, eat this for now."
I tossed them some jerky I'd made for preservation, and the two of them caught it midair, swallowing it whole by the time they landed. I worried whether they'd actually chewed, but knowing those two, they might just be planning to regurgitate and chew it later later. To keep them from pestering me, I handed Slarin some jerky to feed them while I cooked, then hurried to get the meat grilling.
"Here, it's done. It's still hot, so eat it slowly."
I set a large platter piled high with grilled meat on the floor, and the two of them plunged their faces into the mountain of meat with cries of delight.
"So, what's everyone up to now?"
Having taken care of the most pressing matter, I turned to the others present.
In a corner of the dining hall, Amur, Jeanne, Aura, Renny, and Cain—the five of them—were being made to sit seiza. And before them stood Chris with her arms crossed and a stern look, a slightly angry Primera, and Albert, who looked half-dead. Albert wasn't sitting seiza, though—he was in a chair near Chris and Primera, clutching his stomach in agony… He wasn't in that much pain because of me pushing him, was he?
"I'd like to ask you a few things too, Tenma… Would you mind sitting down over here?"
Chris phrased it like a request, but I didn't seem to have the right to refuse. Well, the seat she was pointing to was across from her, not next to Jeanne and the others, so I obediently complied.
"What I want to know is whether the commotion back then was caused by your eavesdropping… Could you explain what happened?"
I realized that if I answered wrong, I'd end up lined up right next to them, so I organized my thoughts before responding.
"First, if you're saying it was caused by eavesdropping, then yes, that's fair. However, I didn't intentionally eavesdrop—I was about to call out from the door when I happened to overhear. At the time, it sounded like they were having a private conversation, so I tried to leave quietly without making a sound."
"And the reason you restrained Cain?"
"I thought that if Cain burst in there, it would definitely become a huge mess. In fact, right after I grabbed Cain and hid, Amur came out of the room looking for me."
"So when Amur came out of the room, Tenma was already gone from in front of the door? And after that, you quickly moved into Cain's room… Is that right?"
Chris was checking with me to confirm whether what she had said was accurate, looking at a paper she'd taken from her pocket, so I nodded. Chris let out a sigh. Meanwhile, Amur and the others, who had been made to sit formally, were gradually growing paler as my explanation progressed.
"Tenma, you're in the white. Well, you were the one who caused it, but it wasn't really a problem on its own. It only became what it did because Cain and Amur and the rest started making a fuss… or rather, Cain is practically the main culprit here."
"Also, Cain said he didn't care about any of that when I suggested we go look for Chris."
"Cain, what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
Chris glared at Cain after hearing what I said. Cain desperately tried to deny it, but the words I'd revealed weren't necessarily identical to what he'd said back then — the nuance was about the same, though — so there was no usual sharpness to Chris's rebuttal.
"So what happened with Albert?"
When I spoke to Albert, who was completely slumped, he pointed at Primera, who was sitting nearby.
"She got me again…"
Primera, who had been pointed at, hurriedly spoke up.
"I-It couldn't be helped! I was convinced that my brother was the one behind everything this time… I just couldn't help it."
"Then I guess it can't be helped."
We decided to let the matter drop on the grounds that Albert had it coming, given his usual behavior. I still hadn't been able to make eye contact with Primera, but since some time had passed, things had recovered enough that we could talk.
For a while, I watched in silence as Cain was being interrogated by Chris, when a servant of the mansion came to announce a visitor. And the guest wasn't after Albert or Primera — they were here to see me.
At first, I was suspicious when told it was a guest for me, but upon hearing the name, I hurried off to the reception room. Normally, the mansion didn't allow guests of guests inside the premises, but it seemed the servant had learned the visitor's name from Primera in advance and had let them into the mansion rather than keeping them outside.