The orientation camp ended, and the stage was set for a pleasant return to regular school life.
The Houjou family had apparently controlled the media, and by the time I was back, the commotion surrounding the attack on our luxury cruise ship had settled down.
After all, the individual who had gone missing in the series of incidents was a male with a zero score. There were no other victims, and the missing male was a guy the Sanjo family couldn’t care less about, so for the powerful Houjou family, it had to be as easy as putting out a small fire in their backyard.
The main members of the Alsuhariya faction in the present world were thrown into jail, and the case was settled.
As for Rei, who had been having issues with the Sanjo branch family, she remained designated as a candidate as its legitimate successor.
The Sanjo clan wasn’t united due to various past events. Besides the coalition of its old bags who desired her to be the next heir so they could use her as their puppet, some were on the lookout for an opportunity to trick her into recognizing them and their offspring as legitimate heirs (while Hiiro Sanjo continued to be ignored).
Rei’s kidnapping did not necessarily mean the person or persons behind it were acting on the consensus of the Sanjo family.
The Rei Route scenario was one in which the regrets and passions of the family swirled and wove around the three Sanjos. If the scenario were flagged to begin with, good old Sakura Tsukiori would surely do something about it, but I was set to play my part, no matter how small, to resist that depressing plot.
Lapis returned safely to the academy, and I was banned from entering Alfheim, receiving a letter that said in about three hundred words that they would finish me off the next time I went there.
Sakura Tsukiori hadn’t changed. She continued to be as elusive as a cat in the sun.
But I did feel that we had gotten closer. She even showed signs of being sweet to me at times, so the theory that she was really a cat became increasingly plausible.
I just wished she’d hurry up, become more aware of her role as the main character in a yuri game, and start targeting girls as her love interest.
As for me—
“I don’t have any money.”
“…Huh?”
That was what Snow said as she handed me my second bowl of rice.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s exactly as I said. What else? Does ‘I don’t have any money’ get converted into something else in your mind, like ‘Give me money to play pinball’? You have a thought process like someone mentally unstable.”
I put the shiso leaves with miso on top of my rice and ate away.
The piping hot rice danced on my tongue and intertwined with the delicious taste of the miso.
“Yum…”
“This is no time to fawn over your food with that goofy look on your face. I’m talking about money, you worthless jerk. Do you realize how hard I work to cut back on expenses each day? The women I come across at the limited-time sales at the supermarket are too good at close combat, and there’s no way that someone like me, who fights from a distance, could ever win.”
I couldn’t hide my amazement as I ate the ika mentaiko (squid with spicy cod roe) and said, “Whoever first combined squid and mentaiko must have been a genius.”
With an astonished look on my face over the exquisiteness of the delicacy, I turned to Snow and whispered, “Are you saying…? We don’t have money?! ”
“That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”
“Sorry, I got carried away. Please refrain from launching a one-sided attack on me with a knife.”
Snow swiftly tucked the kitchen knife in her hand behind her back.
“The money we received from the assassins only lasted so long. Well, it’s okay. I have a way to earn some money.”
Picking at the grilled dried fish, I let the tips of my chopsticks wander in the air. Snow was sitting up straight, quietly eating her meal.
“I’m thinking of quitting doing the dishes after eating and supporting myself instead as an adventurer.”
“That sounds fine, Master. You are permitted to enter the dungeon. But that aside, do not try to make it an excuse to stop washing dishes. Keep it up.”
“As they say, you should strike while the iron’s hot, so I went to the Adventurers Association at our school yesterday…and was told I couldn’t register since I had a score of zero.”
“Huh. Well, that isn’t surprising?”
Eating her pickles, Snow nodded her comprehension—then suddenly came to a stop.
“Wait, that’s no good. You’re jobless, with all the criteria for defeat. Please don’t multiply zero by zero and create meaningless synergies.”
“Hey, maid, don’t treat a student like me as an unemployed NEET. I wasn’t expecting them to turn me down. Maybe my position is too unusual, but I never dreamed that someone with a zero score wouldn’t even be allowed to register as an adventurer.”
I had assumed that there were no particular requirements for registering as an adventurer in the game…but I guess that wasn’t the case. You wouldn’t notice that the requirement was a score of one or over unless you played in a particularly different way.
“That’s not good. This maid of yours had been allocating her resources to the search for her terrible fiancé who’d been missing, so she hasn’t been successful in getting a matchup with work.”
“Hey, maid, stop using the word terrible to describe your beloved master. It makes him sound more like a criminal. And anyway, you work for the Sanjo family, don’t you?”
“Oh, that? They fired me ages ago.”
Snow sighed as she slurped her miso soup with a straight face. “Of course they would. They monitor you, Hiiro, so naturally, they’d find out that I’ve abandoned my duties to take care of Miss Rei and am here looking after you. So they’d definitely fire me.”
“Huh…?! So you’ve been working without pay to date?”
“Huh. I guess you might say that.”
My blood drained.
“Hey, go back to Rei. The Sanjo family pays good money to their maids, right? What are you doing, ruining your life staying with me?”
Snow glanced at me.
“I wonder why. My life would be easier if you could give me the correct answer to that.”
“You idiot. Why didn’t you say so? Now go back to Rei. Rei has plenty of money, so she can probably pay you a salary…”
“No.”
Snow munched away at her pickled daikon radish.
“No…? Why not?”
She put a strand of her hair behind her ear, glanced at me, then turned away.
“…Figure out the answer on your own.”
“I’m asking you because I can’t come up with anything.”
This maid is as stubborn as a mule with her strong will and tight purse strings, and I have not once been able to break through her unassailable allowance system. As long as she’s this headstrong maid who never changes her mind once she makes up her mind, she’ll never let me talk her into something, and I can say with certainty that it won’t help, even if I use Rei as an intermediary.
I was pondering seriously like that when the gray-haired maid began to move like she’d been waiting for the right moment.
Rubbing her knees together, she shifted over to me while remaining sitting and then plopped her head on my shoulder.
“…It’s time for fiancées to get a little physical.”
“Huh? Where did that suddenly come from? A feeble concept like physical doesn’t exist in our fake engagement. We’re Special Attack Team S that will destroy heterosexual relationships and push for same-sex relationships.”
“Will you stop calling me names, making up some dumb team using my initial, and setting me up as its leader? Shut up and act like a gallant romantic.”
“You and your pulpy brain obsessed with love are the ones to shut up. You probably only consume collagen to make it that way. I’ll blast this level of romanticism to pieces with my large-caliber sexual harassment cannon. Oh, dang, Snow, you’re acting a little sexy.” (Laugh.) “Ooh, you slut.” (Laugh.) “Hey, you smell good!” (LOL.)
Snow still looked away as she pinched the cuff of my sleeve and pushed her knee against mine.
“…I was alone all this time.”
“Huh?”
“Would it be a problem…if I said I was lonely like a normal girl would?”
“You are a normal girl, no matter how you look at it.”
Snow smiled somewhat wistfully, leaning her head and her right side against me, and closed her eyes.
“I don’t need any.”
“Any what?”
“Money. I can take care of myself. I’m a woman who chose to be by your side. A lot of ghosts come to me if I get greedy and want too much.”
Still clutching my shirt tightly, Snow smiled like she was content and didn’t try to step any further into my space. She whispered, “So… I don’t need anything more.”
So she said, but I had no other option than to pay her the wages she deserved.
If adventuring was out of the question, then all I could do was get a part-time job, but Houjou Magic Academy didn’t allow its students to work. Besides, even if I tried to work without obtaining permission from the school, chances were extremely low that I could find something that would accept a guy with a zero score.
There was only one way I could think of to make quick money.
“Master Sanjo.”
Once those cozy moments with Snow (I don’t know if she’d meant it as a joke) in place of paying her were over, I went outside the dorm and was greeted by Lily, who was doing the cleaning.
She was dressed in a long black skirt and a white apron dress, which you might describe as a Victorian maid’s outfit. Both her appearance and movements were without a single flaw as she gave me a friendly smile.
“Hello, sir. Are you going out?”
“Yeah, I have some things to do. I was thinking of catching up on my studies. But, Lily, you’re working on a Sunday when even God takes the day off. Are you trying to challenge the limits of human diligence or something?”
“You’re the one who’s challenging the limits of student diligence, setting out to study on a Sunday. The girl is still sleeping. She won’t even twitch unless I try to awaken her.”
Chuckling, Lily gently peered into my face.
“You don’t look well today. Are you all right? Please feel free to let me know at any time of the day if something is troubling you. I’m indebted to you that you’re allowing me to live in your attic.”
Geez, she’s even nice to males. Where is she enshrined? She even hints at her relationship with the dorm leader. Maybe I’ll go to her to pay my respects for the coming New Year’s Day worship.