I rescued Colette. It was just retrieving her from her place by Mel’s and Dorothy’s feet, so it wasn’t especially hard. Still, she managed to break through her limits of happiness in that instant and started to expel her faith from all sorts of places: mouth, nose, eyes...
Ah, oh no. This is super bad, I thought, feeling uncharacteristically afraid. That didn’t mean I could allow myself to freeze, though. If I were to stop for even a moment in a situation like this, the festive mood would be covered in faith. So, I switched tacks, activating Green Magic before all the spewing faith could spread. I had the wind I created gather all the faith in one place, bringing it with me to the restroom along with Colette.
“Oerrgghhh...” Colette groaned.
“It’s okay, let it all out. Efil is making her special miso soup that helps sober people up, so just hold on until she’s done.”
I rubbed Colette’s back, casting a spell to relieve the symptoms of her drunkenness.
“Th... Thank you so much, Kelvin-sama...” Colette muttered. “But I cannot afford to expel all of my faith here...”
“It feels a bit weird to say, but can we stop calling it ‘faith’? I’ll make sure not to do it from now on too.”
“The miso soup is finished, master,” Efil said. “I have already adjusted it to the perfect temperature, so please drink it all at once.”
“Thank you, Efil. Can you do your best to drink it all, Colette?”
“Urgh, not yet...” Colette muttered.
“By the way, Rion-sama helped make this miso soup,” Efil said.
“I can do it.” Colette immediately changed her tune.
Efil’s and my wholehearted support worked, and Colette drank the miso soup in one go. After that, she adopted a very bright expression—it seemed she was feeling refreshed in a variety of ways.
“Sorry, Colette. It feels like I made you keep Mel company.”
“Oh no, I joined them because I wanted to. Mel-sama is not to blame. In fact, I am grateful from the bottom of my heart that someone like me was allowed to be there.”
“I... I see...”
Her expression was so clear and bright that I was actually starting to worry. Rather, I suspected that if she were to go back and meet the same circumstances, she might make the same mistake in her current state.
Yeah, but she’d be happy while doing it, I guess.
“Then please watch how much you’re drinking from now on. If something were to happen to you before the ceremony, Mel and Rion would be very sad. Of course, I would be too.”
“S-Sad?! C-C-Certainly, that cannot be allowed to happen,” Colette stuttered heavily after discovering her faith was in danger. “Urgh... How foolish I’ve been! How blind! My apologies, Kelvin-sama. I, Colette, swear to hold myself precious from now on! Absolutely! I swear upon your name, Kelvin-sama! I would stake my life on it!”
“Uh, I’m glad you understand. But please don’t stake your life on this.”
She was shoving her face ever closer to me, but it seemed Colette was properly reflecting on things, at least.
Yeah, okay, I get it, so please give me some space. The friction between our cheeks is getting crazy. Look, there’s smoke coming out!
At any rate, though my cheek was a little burnt from all the friction, Colette was successfully revived. And she would even hold back on “faithful activities” that could possibly harm her...probably. All’s well that ends well, as they say.
Now then, let’s get back to the party.
“You’re back! Come, we’re starting a devilish ritual to decide the order!” Sera said.
“Uh...what?”
The moment we returned, Sera started spouting something weird.
Hey, you haven’t been drinking, have y—? No, I guess not. If she had, she wouldn’t be able to speak so well. While what she was saying made no sense to me, she seemed to know what she meant.
“You’ll just confuse Kel-nii if you say it like that, Sera-nee,” said Rion.
“Huh? Really? Wouldn’t he be able to get it from the context?”
“Hm...that’d be a bit of a stretch, I think?” Ange interjected. “Er, why don’t you let your big sister Ange here explain? Rion-chan graduated from Lumiest, and the preparations for all the weddings are going well, but there’s still something important we haven’t figured out yet.”
“I see, and that’s when the order came up. Roger, got it,” I replied.
“Ah! I wasn’t finished...” Ange said sadly.
Oh no, that was all I needed to connect all those random things Sera said, at least somewhat. Sera used the word “devilish” because it’s the demon version of holy, so there’s nothing deep behind that, most likely. Jeez, that was so confusing. Still, they’re worried about the order of the weddings, huh? I’m not allowed to get involved in this... I believe the deal was that they’d decide among themselves. I haven’t been told of the order yet, so I was thinking it’s about time. I wonder how they’re going to decide.
“Yes, I think your concerns are warranted, honey,” said Mel. “Which brings me to my suggestion. Ta-dah!”
With that, Mel produced a colorful box. There was a round hole cut into the top of it, and there were seven white sticks inside. Presumably these sticks had numbers on them for the order of the ceremonies. It seemed she was also no longer going to give me time to retort to her about reading my mind.
“As you’ve probably guessed, we’re going to draw lots to decide the order. The sticks in this box have numbers 1 through 7 written on them, meaning the number you draw is the number your ceremony is,” said Mel.
“Uh...we aren’t deciding through battles?” I asked.
“No. Even if we were, you’re not allowed to participate, remember?” Mel reminded me.
“Ah, right...”
“We haven’t told you, Kelvin-san, but we’ve been talking for a long time over the Network about how to decide. After considering a lot of different ideas, we concluded that this was the fairest way. I don’t think it’ll be necessary, but we also put in countermeasures for cheating.”
“Um, you’re pretty into it, huh? But wouldn’t Sera have an advantage, with all her luck?”
Then again, to be fair, there isn’t really any good or bad luck when only the order is on the line. I suppose it might affect the objection system, maybe?
“Of course, we thought of that too. Specifically, we will have Colette do something to make it so that our luck stats will be the same when we draw the lots. Remember how Colette’s father and his friends have those sorts of weird techniques? Destiny Foiled, I think was the name. It’ll be something like that,” said Sera.
“Destiny Foiled? Was there such a technique?”
“The barrier my father and the other ancient heroes used when we fought Serge-sama during the Apostle conflict was Destiny Foiled,” Colette explained.
“Ah, right. Kel-nii wasn’t there during the fight,” said Rion. “It was thanks to that barrier that Fuu-chan lost her protagonist buff and we were able to fight her evenly.”
“Oh?”
“That’s not what you should be interested in right now, Kelvin-kun. Anyway, this will make the drawing even. Now, who will draw first? Or would everyone like to go at once?”
“This one!” everyone said at once, reaching out.
They’d decided to draw at the same time. Shutola (in Trycen) was first, Rion (in Parth) was second, Colette (in Deramis) was third, Sera (in Grelbarelka) was fourth, Mel (in the Isla Heaven ruins) was fifth, Ange (in Toraj) was sixth, and Efil (in the elven village) was seventh.
Hrm...so the weddings Maria and Addams will be fighting in are grouped at the end. I can feel some sort of scheme at work here, but... Oh well. Who cares as long as I get to have fun! This whole affair is going to be filled with battles right to the very end, after all!