There was a roar, and in the next moment, Pamil had burst through the door of the Corvette. The bell dropped from its perch and came clattering to the floor.
“Kaoruko-chan,” Shuuhei said, as the two left behind watched her rapidly leave, “nice one!” He gave her an energetic thumbs up.
“Yay, praise from Shuuhei-san♪” Kaoruko cheered, her face flushing as she put her hands to her cheeks.
“Still, Pamil hadn’t realized it at all until now,” Shuuhei pointed out with a shocked expression.
“Apparently not.”
“I guess the reset really unbalanced her knowledge and experiences... For real,” Shuuhei said, a reluctant grin upon his lips.
● ● ●
Meanwhile, with Kyouhei.
Of course, he was certainly not engaged in copulation. He was surrounded by a group in urban camouflage—a special forces squad from the Manninger Commonwealth—and seated on the floor of his home.
Naturally, Sanae was seated next to him with a timid expression on her face.
“S-Senpai... who... who are these people...?” she asked, quivering like a small animal as she burrowed into his side.
“Remember when Pamil got kidnapped?” he whispered, tightening his arm around her shoulder.
“Ah... I do.”
“They’re probably working with the people who did it.”
“Then... Pamil-chan...”
The man calling himself Colonel Walser didn’t seem to be the kind of person to joke in this kind of situation.
However...
“You’re misunderstanding,” Kyouhei called to the colonel’s back. “There’s no Princess Pamil here.”
“Oh?” Walser asked, lifting an eyebrow as he looked back at Kyouhei. “I spent a lot of time and money confirming it. You have spent nearly a year living with her.”
Of course, if you were infiltrating the country with an armed group, you’d obviously spare no effort in getting confirmation.
“But that isn’t Princess Pamil, it’s her body double android! Besides, why now? Who cares about some android of a dead royal family?! And yeah, she might be as good as a weapon, but—”
“An android?” the colonel asked, cutting rudely across Kyouhei. “How absurd. Modern technology could hardly create an android indistinguishable from a human.”
“Huh? But...”
“The Bergmann Kingdom was indeed advanced in simulacra and cloning. Even if they were able to replicate her appearance, her abilities would be impossible.”
“Abilities...?”
“We too were deceived at first, actually,” the colonel shrugged. It was a carefree, smug action, but there was not even an ounce of happiness on his face. It was uncanny, almost like he was a machine imitating a human. “There were many things that looked like corpses scattered around the ruins of the palace after the explosion. We were sure that all members of the royal family were deceased.” Kyouhei looked silently at him. “But then, when we investigated after the fact, we found they were exquisite fakes. Those were the body doubles,” the colonel declared.
“Then...”
The real was a fake.
And the fake was the real one.
Which meant...
“The girl living with you is the real Princess Pamil. To escape our pursuit, she disguised herself as a doll and escaped the palace. Using hypnosis to change her personality, she became a ‘different person.’”
“B-But...” Kyouhei gasped, “then, the lightning, and the superhuman strength...”
“Indeed, that is one of the problems,” the colonel said with a nod. “Those are the abilities of the Bergmann family—their bloodline all have unusual powers. Princess Pamil, in particular, was said to have been the strongest among them since her birth. The dignitaries of the new government are scared of her; they fear that she will use her abilities to overthrow them and take back the throne. She is literally superhuman, and there are many who still revere the royal family as living gods.”
Kyouhei stared aghast.
So that was the reason they had brought such a huge group to capture a single girl, and had even taken hostages in the form of Kyouhei and Sanae.
Even Pamil wouldn’t be able to take dozens of guns at a time. They might even have grenades and bazookas as well.
...Pamil...! Kyouhei cried out mentally.
If she came home, she’d probably be killed. He almost felt like throwing up at the image of countless bullets tearing through her pale skin.
He couldn’t have known. His frantic pleas of “stay away” were even now being betrayed by Pamil racing towards him.