Chapter 3: The Fiancées' Bridal Course part 1

One day in the 3rd month, 1,547th year, Continental Calendar
Hello, I’m the candidate to become Souma’s first primary queen, Liscia
Elfrieden.
On this day with the end of winter drawing near, and the coming spring
beginning to make itself felt, all of Souma’s fiancées were gathered in a
certain room in Parnam Castle. I, Liscia was one of them. The rest were
Aisha the kochiji, Juna the lorelei, and Roroa, the former princess of
Amidonia.
There was no sign of Souma here, and even the maids who were always
waiting in the corner of the room had been asked to leave today. On top of
that... this room was weird. There was a blackboard, desks, and four desks
and chairs. The desks were lined up in a row, making it look almost like one
of the classrooms at the Officers’ Academy.
“Hey, Big Sister Cia?” Roroa asked. “What’d we all get called in here
for today?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” I said. “If anyone here would know...”
I looked over at Juna. However, Juna only looked down and shook her
head.
“I’m sorry. Lately, even I’m not sure what goes through that lady’s
head.”
“If Madam Juna doesn’t know, then the rest of us don’t stand a chance of
figuring it out.” Aisha rested her hands on the back of a chair, tilting her
head to the side in puzzlement.
It was a fair assessment. That lady was completely unpredictable. Just
what was she thinking this time?
Then the door to the room opened, and the one who had gathered us here
arrived.
“I see everyone’s here.”
It was the blue-haired sea serpent beauty, Excel Walter.
In addition to being the commander-in-chief of the National Defense
Force, she was a beautiful woman who looked to be around twenty-five.
With her blue tresses, from which tiny horns sprouted, trailing behind her as
she walked, she had always been a picturesque beauty. But this time, she
was carrying something in her hands, too: two bundles that were as thick as
dictionaries. One was wrapped in white, the other in black.
Excel left the bundles on the lectern, then pulled out and donned a pair
of spectacles and a square academic cap. “Now then, let’s have you all take
your seats.”
“U-Um... Grandmother?” Juna hesitantly raised her hand and asked.
“What is it?”
“Um... I thought you had good vision?”
“Oh, these spectacles? They’re just ordinary glass, not corrective
lenses.”
“Then why are you wearing them?”
“It gets me in the mood.”
Her mood?! That was the issue?! Wait, what was she about to start?!
In the end, we were each ushered into our seats by Excel with no clue
what was going on. From Excel’s perspective at the lectern, going from left
to right, we were seated Aisha, Roroa, me, and Juna.
Excel started to write something on the blackboard. When I read it, it
said:
“First Lecture — Bridal Training Course”
Yeah, I wasn’t even sure where to start.
For one thing, by “first,” did she mean there were going to be several of
these gatherings?! What was a bridal training lecture even supposed to be?!
Then Excel tapped lightly on the lectern.
“Now, all of you will be becoming Souma’s brides this year.”
““““...””””
We all got very quiet. We were ready for it, of course, and we even
wanted it now, but having someone else point that fact out to us still felt a
little embarrassing.
Excel told us, “Though some of you will be primaries and some of you
secondaries, the fundamental nature of things will be the same for all of
you. There is a husband and a wife, they build a household, eventually
children are born, and they become a family. If the family is harmonious,
then they will be happy; if it is not, they will become unhappy. The problem
is that if there is discord in the royal family, that leads directly to discord
within the kingdom. Princess Liscia.”
“Y-Yes!” I responded and stood up without meaning to. It was just like
being back in officers’ school.
Excel gave me a serious look and asked, “Princess Liscia, you have no
relatives outside of your father and mother, yes?”
“Uh... Yes. That’s what I’ve been told.”
“Why is that?”
“When my mother’s father... that is to say, the king before the last one
died, there was a succession crisis, and nearly every member of the royal
family but my mother was wiped out.”
“Yes. That was a painful time,” Excel said with a truly pained look on
her face. “The three dukes and I distanced ourselves from that conflict. If
our military forces had gotten involved, it would have turned into a civil
war, after all. We were all desperate to keep our forces in check. Instead,
there were bitter struggles within the royal house that set even the closest
relatives against one another.”
“Um... was the problem in that conflict ultimately about who would take
the throne?” Aisha raised her hand and asked.
Excel shook her head. “We think that was only a secondary factor. The
first and foremost cause must have been the former king’s policy of rapid
expansion.”
“His expansionism?” Aisha asked.
“Yes. In the time of the king before the last one, our country launched a
number of foreign wars that greatly expanded our territory. Meanwhile, the
expanded territory sowed the seeds of conflict within the country. The
occupier and the occupied; the conquerors and the conquered; the killers
and the relatives of those killed... It gave birth to a lot of confrontational
relationships like that. There were interventions by other countries that had
lost land, too.”
“...Well, my old man had it out for you all pretty bad,” Roroa, the former
Princess of Amidonia, said with a shrug.
It was a bit of a relief that she said that like it had nothing to do with her.
The Principality of Amidonia had used corrupt nobles to interfere in our
affairs a number of times. What they’d done had caused a lot of trouble for
me, but it was really just reaping what we had sown.
I was grateful that Roroa, as an Amidonian princess, was taking the
stance that it didn’t matter to her. If Roroa, who looked up to me as her “big
sister,” ended up resenting me because of a dispute between our countries...
I’d be sad about that.
Excel nodded and continued. “Those seeds of discord need to be slowly
removed, but the rapid expansion didn’t allow for that.”
Eventually, the old king had died, and the lingering seeds of discord had
germinated into the succession crisis. If the people they hated supported one
royal, people would back another opposing horse in the race. That was how
the dispute over the succession had turned into a proxy war for all of the
discord in the kingdom.
“That was why it turned into such a quagmire.” Excel sighed sadly then
looked straight at us. “Fortunately, His Majesty Souma’s reign is not so
dangerous as that of that predecessor of his. The reason that the country is
unshaken even after absorbing Amidonia is that he has worked diligently to
create a solid enough base to prevent that. He is not as glamorous as the
first king, but rated on the stability of his reign alone, he is the best king this
country has ever had. That’s why, even once His Majesty Souma is no
longer on the throne, there won’t be an ugly succession war like that one.”
That was Excel’s appraisal of Souma’s reign. Yeah. I agreed with her.
I might think the way he reigned was too roundabout at times, but he
was carefully and cautiously moving this country forward. If you
considered that he’d been summoned as a hero, I didn’t think there’d ever
been such a plain and ordinary hero before. Even so, Souma made me feel
secure. Though he himself was weak, he made me feel like I was being
protected by something big.
Excel banged on the blackboard. “That said, we mustn’t get complacent!
It must never be forgotten that if there are cracks between king and queen,
or even between queen and queen, there will be those who appear to take
advantage of them. For the sake of the country, you must build a
harmonious relationship between husband and wife, and a harmonious
household. To help you do that, I will have you take my ‘Bridal Training
Course.’”
I could more or less accept what she was forcefully saying. But what
was this “Bridal Training Course” that she kept on leading up to?
“Um... why are you the one lecturing us anyway, Duchess Walter?” I
asked.
Excel giggled and gave me a confident smile. “I don’t look it, but I’ve
been alive for five hundred years. I’ve fallen for my share of gentlemen in
that time, but death has always been the only thing that could separate us.
I’ve always made sure to have at least one child with each of them, too.”
That was... Okay, yeah, that might be kind of amazing. Now that she
mentioned it, Excel only looked like she was in her mid-twenties, but she
was a woman who had experienced childbirth. She even had
granddaughters like Juna, after all.
Excel puffed up her ample bosom with pride. “I will teach all of you
how, as queens... no, as women... to stay with the man you love until death
do you part. How you should act as a wife; the way gentlemen think; and
everything from how to support your husband, to ways to perform your
nightly ‘duties’ in the bedroom in a way that makes your marital relations
go more smoothly.”
N-Nightly duties...
The moment we heard those words come up, we all gave pretty blatant
reactions. We all must have imagined times we’d be in that sort of situation
with Souma.
Roroa was blushing with a wry smile, while Juna’s cheeks turned pink
and she covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wandering. Aisha,
meanwhile, had a goofy, happy look on her face, so it was obvious what she
was thinking about.
...I could feel my own cheeks burning, too.
When she saw our reactions, Excel coughed politely. “I believe I will
have you all start learning about such things now. I already have His
Majesty Souma taking individual lessons with me, after all.”
The moment she said that, Juna looked as shocked as I felt.
Some weeks ago, Souma had taken Juna with him and left the royal
capital. That was when Excel had drugged Juna, and when she was alone
with Souma, she had... well... she had given him some lessons on what men
and women get up to at night. I was the only one Juna had told about that.
I’d been keeping it a secret from Aisha and Roroa. That was because if they
found out, they were bound to cause a scene.
Juna had asked me, as the one who had been with Souma the longest, to
subtly ask him what had happened during the time they were together.
“Um, princess...” Juna leaned in and whispered in my ear so that Aisha
and Roroa couldn’t hear. “So... what did His Majesty say about that time?”
“The thing is, Souma says he doesn’t remember it,” I whispered back.
“He doesn’t remember?”
“Yeah. He remembers taking lectures about, um... h-how babies are
made, but everything after that is a blur.”
When I had asked him about that day, Souma had tilted his head to the
side and said:
“I remember everything about the super embarrassing lecture she gave
me, but... I don’t remember a thing after that. No, it’s not so much that I
don’t remember, but that my mind is refusing to let me recall it, maybe?
...Honestly, what did happen then? I know I was embarrassed by the
lessons, and I was feeling really parched... Excel gave me a drink and... It’s
no good, I can’t remember anything after that.... No, I feel like it’s best that I
don’t remember.”
Souma had tried to squeeze out what he could remember of it, but in the
end, he’d seemed to come up empty. It didn’t feel like he was hiding
something from me or trying to dodge the issue, though. He seemed like he
had truly lost his memory, or sealed it away.
Just what in the world happened to Souma after his classroom lesson? I
wondered about that...
“Now, in marriage, as in war, intel is key,” Excel lectured. “Once you
know what your partner thinks of you, how they look at you, you can begin
to get a feel for how you should act. If you can catch them off guard, and
show them a gap between their impression of you and how you act in a way
that isn’t displeasing, that can help keep things from getting boring. Know
your partner, know what they look at, and your marriage will never be in
danger.”
Aisha raised her hand. “You are right, I do wonder what His Majesty
thinks of me. But His Majesty is not here, and if we called him, do you
think he would be willing to come?”
Excel gave her a wicked grin. I... had a bad feeling about that.
“Have no worries. I have this right here.”
When she said that, Excel unwrapped the white bundle. Inside were a
number of white notebooks. Excel gave one of them to each of us.
The cover of mine said “Top Secret” and “Not to be Taken Outside.”
This was beyond suspicious...
“Um, Duchess Walter, just what are these notebooks...?” I asked
hesitantly.
Excel flipped through her own notebook and said, “Hee hee. About the
white notebooks I just gave you, you see... Why, they have what His
Majesty Souma thinks about each of you written in them!”
““““Wha?!”””” Everyone looked down at their notebooks in unison.
In this notebook?! No, but... How?
Excel explained it with a strangely glossy and gleaming smile. “These
notebooks contain the things I heard from His Majesty during his ‘private
lesson.’ When we finished with the classroom lecture, his majesty said he
was feeling parched, so I gave him some juice mixed with tequeur. When I
asked him all sorts of questions after that, he was very eloquent.”
So that was it! Juna and I looked at one another, despite ourselves.
Tequeur was a very strong alcohol. It had a light flavor, and would go
completely unnoticed mixed in with a glass of juice. Souma must have
drunk a lot without realizing it, then been thoroughly interrogated by Excel
about his feelings for each of us. The embarrassment of it all must have
caused him to suppress the memory of it.
While I was thinking about that, I looked at the notebook in front of me.
If Excel was telling the truth, that meant this note contained the secret
feelings Souma normally kept hidden away deep inside his heart.
Oh... When I think about it, my heart suddenly starts racing...
I wanted to know, but maybe also kind of didn’t... but I did want to
know, after all. I mean, I cared enough about Souma that I’d want to know
what he thought about us.
While I was thinking about that, Excel, unconcerned with our hesitation,
opened her book and continued.
“Now, as I said earlier, the secret to a harmonious marital relationship is
to know your partner, and to know how they see you. Let’s look at how His
Majesty Souma looks at each of you. First... Roroa.”
“Meowhat?!” Roroa reacted like a startled cat.
“First we will begin with his appraisal of Roroa.”
“Wh-Why me?! Shouldn’t you be doin’ the head fiancée, Big Sister
Liscia, first?”
“There isn’t any particular reason for it,” Excel said. “I simply thought
we would start with the person who first met His Majesty the most
recently.”
“Well, sure, I’m the newcomer here, but... Well, it beats goin’ last, I
guess.” Roroa seemed to have reluctantly accepted it.
...Huh? I was going last, then? Urgh... That meant the tension would last
longer or me, and I didn’t like that...
Excel pushed her spectacles up, then looked down at her notebook.
“Now then, this is His Majesty Souma’s appraisal of Roroa.”
“Wh-What’s this? I’m gettin’ weirdly tense.”
“Ahem... According to His Majesty, ‘I like how Roroa’s so bright and
friendly. It’s amazing how she manages to get in close with whoever she’s
talking to. She can be a bit black-hearted, but that’s just one of her charms.
It makes me happy seeing her treat Liscia like her big sister. Besides,
Roroa’s financial sense is out of this world. To be completely honest, the
kingdom’s economy couldn’t run like it does now without Roroa and
Colbert. I’m grateful to have her with me, and to have her as my fiancée.’”
“O-Oh...” Roroa put her head down on the desk. She was covering her
bright red cheeks with her hands. “This... This is pretty darned
embarrassin’,” Roroa said, writhing a little.
Yeah, I was a little embarrassed just hearing it. Souma wasn’t the type to
come out and say this stuff to us straight, so when he came out with his
unvarnished feelings and said things like, “I love you,” or, “I’m grateful to
have you at my side,” it really made an impact. Now that it had come to
this, I was suddenly very interested in what he thought about me.
While we were agonizing over what was to come, Excel continued
reading with an expression like it was no big deal. “Furthermore, when I
asked His Majesty, ‘Do you have anything on your mind when it comes to
Roroa?’ his answer was, ‘I know it was a war, but it still bothers me that I
killed her father.’”
“Wha?!” Roroa stopped writing in embarrassment and immediately
snapped back to her senses.
“‘It was a kill-or-be-killed situation, but I’m still her father’s killer.
Roroa says they weren’t close, but what if that isn’t how she really feels,
and she actually doesn’t want to marry me... There are times I worry about
that,’ he said.”
“I-Is he stupid?!” Roroa shouted.
I felt like I’d had ice cold water dumped over my head, too. Oh, right... I
realized. If these were Souma’s true feelings, it would include the
insecurities he didn’t normally show us. To think he’d felt that way about
Roroa... I’d never have noticed.
Roroa got up and stomped her feet in indignation. “Darlin’, you dummy!
I’ve already considered all of that! I’m with ya because I wanted to be, so
why’re you thinkin’ about that stuff?!”
“Roroa!” I stood up, and gave Roroa a hug. She ceased stamping her
feet with tears in her eyes.
I could also understand why Souma would feel guilty when it came to
Roroa. It was because Roroa was important to him. Still, even with that
said, it was wrong for him not to take her affection for him at face value.
Roroa sobbed and rubbed her face against my chest. “Ohh... Big Sister
Ciaaaa.”
“I know. We’ll have to tell Souma off later.”
Aisha and Juna nodded. It might have been something he’d done
unconsciously, but he was going to have to pay for making our “little sister”
cry.
After waiting for Roroa to settle down, Excel spoke to her. “The reason
His Majesty thinks about that is because he loves you and you’re important
to him. You understand that, right?”
“...Yeah,” Roroa said. “That’s why, though it’s frustratin’ that my
feelin’s ain’t gettin’ through to him, I was a little happy that Darlin’ cares so
much about li’l old me.”
“If you understand that, then you’ll be fine,” Excel said to Roroa with a
smile.
It had been a bit tumultuous, but now Roroa’s turn was done. Next,
Excel called her granddaughter’s name.
“Juna. His Majesty’s appraisal of you is, ‘She’s pretty, she’s beautiful,
and that about sums it up. I don’t mean just her looks, or her voice— I mean
her heart, too. I feel like, of all my companions, she’s the one who is always
taking a step back to look at the larger picture. She’s truly the ideal woman.
I wonder sometimes if it’s okay for me to have her as my fiancée, but I
wouldn’t want to let anyone else have her. I’m trying to do my best to be a
man who is good enough to be her husband, but it’s frustrating that I can’t
quite manage it.’”
“So that’s how His Majesty feels...” Juna was wearing a slight, but
happy, smile. Well, of course, any girl would after hearing “I wouldn’t want
to let anyone else have her”... you know?
Excel kept on reading. “So, when I asked him, ‘Do you have anything
on your mind when it comes to Juna?’ his response was, ‘Juna is too mature
and not good at letting others indulge her, so when she occasionally lets me
spoil her, as a younger guy, I feel really special.’”
“...Excuse me, but I was under the impression that His Majesty and I are
the same age?” Juna broke in.
Now that she mentioned it, I had heard that Juna was supposed to be
turning twenty this year, just like Souma.
“This is something His Majesty realized later, but in his world, a year is
apparently 365 days,” said Excel. “The days in our world are 384 days, so
with the gap between the two, you would be a year older in Souma’s
world.”
The gap between the two worlds’ years was 19 days. 365 divided by
19... In about 19 years, it would add up to a full year’s difference.
This fact sent Juna into a rare panic. “I-I was older than His Majesty
Souma? Excuse me, what did His Majesty have to say about that? He’s not
against having an older woman, is he?”
I didn’t think Souma would ever reject Juna just because she was older
than him, but she probably couldn’t help but be worried. By the way, when
she mentioned the possibility of him not wanting an older woman, Aisha
looked like she’d just been hit by a stray bullet. You could never tell how
old someone from the long-lived races was by their appearance, after all.
We hadn’t been told how old she was right now, either.
Excel gave Juna a big grin. “Don’t you worry. This is what His Majesty
Souma said: ‘In my world, there was a proverb: “Find a woman one year
your senior, even if you have to wear metal sandals to do it.” Juna is a
woman worth wearing metal sandals that won’t wear out, and searching the
entire world to find. There’s no problem with it at all.’”
“...I’m glad.” Juna looked deeply relieved.
Next, it was Aisha’s turn.
“His Majesty’s appraisal of Aisha was...”
“Um? Why did you suddenly pause there?” Aisha burst out.
“Well... ‘She’s like a pet.’”
“Say what?!”
“““Oh...”””
“Whaa?! Why do you all look satisfied with that answer?!” Aisha
shouted.
No, I mean... You know? When Aisha was with Souma, she was like a
pet dog, catching prey for her master and then going, “Praise me, praise
me” as she wagged her tail, after all.
“According to His Majesty Souma, ‘Aisha is a strong, noble, and
beautiful warrior. It would be fair to call her this kingdom’s greatest
warrior. It’s reassuring to have her at my side... or it should be, but I feel
like I just can’t leave her alone sometimes. It’s supposed to be her job to
protect me, but I end up wanting to protect her... Well, when there was that
disaster in the God-Protected Forest, I did see how emotionally fragile she
could be, after all.’ To my question of, ‘Is there anything on your mind
about her?’ he responded, ‘That I hope we can sit at the same dinner table
forever, I guess.’”
“Uwahhh! I’ve failed as a bodyguard!” Aisha wailed. “But still, when he
says, ‘I can’t leave her alone,’ and ‘I want to protect her,’ it made me feel a
little happy, stupid meeee!”
While Aisha laid her head down on the desk, stuck between feeling
happy and pathetic, Roroa patted her gently on the back. It looked like
Aisha was in shock, but as for me... I felt a little jealous of her, maybe? If
she was like a pet, it meant he cherished her just that much, and I wanted
him to say he wanted to protect me, too.
Wait! Have I always been this prone to jealousy?
Hearing Souma praise his other fiancées, I caught myself feeling
envious of them, and it shocked me a bit. This was a feeling I couldn’t let
myself embrace, wasn’t it? I was the candidate to become Souma’s first
primary queen. More than anyone else here, I had to respect the harmony
between my fellow queens. I felt the hand I was holding my collar with
clench tighter.
At last, my turn came.
“Finally, Princess Liscia... For this one, I should start with his response
to my question, ‘Don’t you have anything on your mind when it comes to
Princess Liscia?’ I suppose.’”
“Huh...?”
Why were we starting with the “Do you have anything on your mind?”
question for me? I wanted to find out what Souma thought of me, just like
everyone else had. While I was thinking that, Excel shook her head silently
with a smile.
“There’s no need for that. I think his appraisal of you is summed up
quite succinctly in his answer to this question. This is what His Majesty
said: ‘Nothing.’”
Nothing? He didn’t have anything on his mind when it came to me? No
fair... He’d had something for everyone else, hadn’t he? And yet... when it
came to me, it was “Nothing”...
Why...?
“Princess!” Excel barked.
I’d nearly gotten lost in my thoughts, but Excel’s voice snapped me back
to attention
“Oh! Sorry.”
“Listen until I’m finished, please. His Majesty continued on to say this:
‘I told her the most important thing on that snowy day. I don’t have
anything more to say than that.’ Now, as for what he said on that snowy
day... I refrained from asking him in detail, but I think you must have some
idea what he meant, right?”
It came back to me. Of all the days I had spent with Souma, there was
one day in which I vividly remembered that it was snowing. It had been the
31st day, 12th month, and 1,546th year of the Continental Calendar. Last
year’s New Year’s Eve.
“The truth is, this is something... I really ought to have told you before
Aisha, before Juna, and before Roroa...”
That night, on the terrace of the governmental affairs office, Souma had
said it.
“Liscia... I love you. Please, marry me.”
Souma had proposed to me in the snow that had just begun to fall. He
had already told me the most important thing, and there was nothing else
left to think about. That was what Souma said.
I see... I had already received them, hadn’t I? The feelings that Souma
held dearest. The moment I thought that, there was a warmth in my chest.
Then...
Slap, slap, slap, slap... Roroa, Aisha, and Juna all started slapping me on
the back.
“Ow...! Hey, stop it! That hurts!” I shouted.
“““...”””
“I dunno,” Roroa said. “It feels mighty unfair that only Big Sister Cia
gets it.”
“Ohh... Something special just for the two of you, I’m so
jealoooouuuus,” Aisha moaned.
“Oh! Dear, how shameful of me...” Juna said.
When I looked at the jealous Roroa and Aisha, and Juna who was
blushing in embarrassment about what she had just done, I broke into a
smile.
Yeah... That was right. Everyone could feel jealous, or that things
weren’t fair. The fact that I was candidate to be the first primary queen had
nothing to do with it. It was a feeling I had just because of how much I
cared for a person. That being the case...
“...Hey, Roroa, I’m jealous of the rest of you, too, you know?” I said.
“Hm? Are ya?” she asked.
“Yeah. I wanted to be told, ‘I like this about her,’ or, ‘I don’t want to let
anyone else have her,’ or, ‘I want to protect her.’”
“Hmm. Well, maybe that’s just how it goes.”
That was why I had to accept it, not deny it. Because I realized this
feeling was important.
With all of our appraisals over and done with, Excel clapped her hands
together.
“Now, you all understand what Souma thinks of you. From here, I think
we’ll go into some more practical knowledge of how to improve your
marital relations.”
“‘Practical knowledge’?” I echoed without thinking, for which Excel
gave me an incredibly nice smile.
“Didn’t I tell you at the very beginning? In this lecture, I teach you how
you should act as a wife, the way gentlemen think, and everything from
how to support your husband to how to perform your nightly duties in the
bedroom in a way that makes your marital relations go more smoothly. I’ll
be ever so very thorough teaching you about that.”
““““...”””” We all fell into dead silence.
Right. Now that she’d mentioned it, she had said that was what this
course was about.
“Um, Grandmother? Setting the other parts aside, well... D-do we
absolutely have to take your lectures on our nightly, um, ‘d-duties’?” Juna
asked.
“L-Like Juna said,” Aisha added. “It’s just too embarrassing...”
“I’m a little interested, y’know?” Roroa put in.
“R-Roroa!” I shouted.
“Huh? You ain’t interested, Big Sister Cia?”
“That’s... Maybe a little, but...”
While we were acting reluctant, Excel gave us a look that seemed to say,
“I’ve already planned around you feeling that way,” and she patted the
remaining black bundle confidently.
“Oh my? You’re sure you want to pass up this opportunity? If you take
my lectures to the end, you’ll receive one of these in commemoration.”
As she said that, Excel unwrapped the black bundle, and inside there
were notebooks just like before. However, these books were thin, and their
covers were black. Their covers carried the even more dangerous sounding,
“Documents Contain Top Secret Classified Information,” and “Dispose of
by Incineration After Reading.”
They were being treated like forbidden books, but Excel opened one up
and began flipping through it as if to show it off to us.
“This black notebook contains the [censored] that His Majesty Souma
wants you to do for him, or that he wants to do for you, and the situations
involved.”
““““Huh...? Whaaaaaa?!””””
The look in everyone’s eyes changed.
[Censored]? Wait, seriously?! I thought.
“I heard all of this after plying him with even more tequeur, so I’m sure
of it,” Excel said. “In short, these notebooks contain the naked truth about
his desire for the four of you that His Majesty Souma normally keeps under
control and hidden away.”
So this was it!
Juna and I looked at each other once again. Little wonder he had
suppressed the memory. If he’d remembered blabbing about all of this
embarrassing stuff, I was sure he’d never be able to look any of us in the
eye again.
Everyone looked intently at the black notebooks. Excel made a show of
flipping through one of them so that only she could see.
“My, how interesting. It seems he wants to do different things with each
of you. With Roroa... Hoho. With Aisha... I see, so that’s how he likes it,
huh. With Juna... Oh, my, to be so young again. And with the princess...
Hee hee.”
Hee hee, what?! What exactly was written in there?!
Though Excel was beautiful as she gave us a sidelong glance with a
seductive smile, she also looked like a demon lord. I dunno... I had to feel
sorry for Souma after all this.
“Um... Duchess Walter? I think those notebooks are going a bit far...” I
hesitated.
“Oh, you don’t want them, then? In that case, they’ll have to be burned
like it says on the cover...”

Chapter end