Chapter 608: Nero Messes Up Big Time 

Just as the conversation about the gramophone with Rosalia reached a lively peak, a major problem suddenly surfaced.

Across the table, both Rosalia and Mira were staring at me with cold, accusing eyes.

“I wanted to hear the song that you and Sister-in-law Fabienne sang too, dear Oniisama.”

“Kyuu, kyuu!”

“Ah… next time Fabienne comes to the Heine Margrave House, I’ll ask if she’d be okay with letting you listen.”

At that, the two of them puffed out their cheeks in dissatisfaction.

Did they really want to hear our singing that badly?

The problem was… the songs we’d sung had been completely fueled by reckless enthusiasm and terrible judgment. Thinking back on it now was already embarrassing enough.

No—extremely embarrassing.

And in my case, the song I’d sung had been an anime song.

If there happened to be another reincarnator somewhere in this world, and they heard it, I would never emotionally recover from the awkwardness.

“I wanted to hear it too.”

“E-even Lillie too? This is getting difficult…”

I sent a pleading glance toward Nero, silently begging for rescue.

Nero responded with a radiant smile.

…Wait.

Was this going to be okay?

A terrible premonition suddenly crept up my spine.

He was going to stop the girls properly, right?

I was trusting you here.

“Every song Julius-sama sang was truly wonderful. For some reason, merely listening to them filled even us with energy and excitement. And Julius-sama’s piano performance was nothing short of artistic perfection. Even the royal family of the Kingdom of Raven were moved to tears…”

“W-wait, Nero, stop! Stop right there!”

Panicking, I hurriedly clamped a hand over Nero’s mouth.

Nobody here was supposed to know yet that I was the one playing the piano pieces recorded inside Rosalia’s gramophone.

Father hadn’t specifically forbidden it at the time, but since Lionel apparently hadn’t reported it either, I’d assumed the matter had quietly stayed buried.

But if Nero exposed everything here—

No.

No no no.

I could already see the future.

Father and Mother would absolutely say something like:

“Why don’t you play something for us right now?”

That nightmare scenario flashed vividly through my mind.

With his mouth covered, Nero suddenly snapped back to his senses.

His eyes widened in horror, clearly screaming, Ah, I messed up!

Too late.

Far too late.

As expected of the cardinal of the Julius Faith.

Whenever the topic became praising me, he completely lost all sense of restraint.

Terrifying.

…Actually, were Giovanni and the others okay?

They hadn’t gone and told His Majesty the king anything weird too, had they?

“So Oniisama can play the piano too! I want to hear you perform someday!”

“Kyuu?”

Stop it.

The two of you need to stop firing those pleading beams at me.

Their destructive power was far too high.

And hey, Lillie—don’t join them too!

That just makes it even harder to refuse!

Meanwhile, Nero had finally realized the gravity of his blunder and had turned pale.

Yeah…

This might already be hopeless.

“…Fine. If Rosalia successfully finishes making the gramophone, I’ll play one song for you.”

“What about your singing, Oniisama?”

“Kyuu?”

“I’d like to hear it too.”

“…I’ll think about it.”

No good.

I couldn’t win against these three.

Absolutely not.

Allowing these three to gather in one place was dangerous.

I needed to scatter them somehow before I got cornered any further.

And so, the moment snack time ended, we headed straight for the workshop.

“Oh? There’s something here I don’t recognize.”

Various unfamiliar objects were scattered around the room.

Had Rosalia been trying to build something?

Or had she already finished making it?

Noticing my gaze, Rosalia proudly brought over something that looked like a metal curling iron.

“This is a magical tool I made myself. This section heats up, and then you clamp the hair like this and curl it around…”

“A hair iron! That’s an amazing idea.”

“Hair iron! What a wonderful name. I’ll use that. Lillie and I were just discussing what to call it.”

Apparently, the attachments included with the warm-air dryer alone hadn’t been enough to create nicely waved hairstyles.

And perhaps using only the dryer took too long for proper styling as well.

But with a hair iron added to the process, styling time could probably be reduced dramatically.

This was definitely one of those uniquely feminine concerns I never would’ve thought of on my own.

“Amazing work, Rosalia. Women are definitely going to love this magical tool.”

“That would make me very happy. I’ll show it to Mother and Sister-in-law immediately.”

It seemed this was a freshly completed magical device, hot off the production line.

Just to be safe, I checked its operation personally, but there wasn’t a single issue.

Honestly, there was nothing left for me to teach her anymore.

Her skill had already reached the level of full mastery.

Rosalia no longer needed her big brother.

…Somehow, that made me feel a little lonely.

“But before that, dear Oniisama, please hurry and teach me how to make the gramophone! You haven’t secretly made any other magical tools, have you?”

“Ah—well… now that you mention it, I did make an automatic magic stone crusher too.”

Right.

That reminded me.

I’d been planning to modify the automatic magic stone crusher into a machine for grinding grain into flour.

Maybe I should improve it while I was at it?

It probably wouldn’t take very long.

“Oniisama, tell me more about that too!”

“Alright, alright. But first comes the gramophone. We’ll need to make quite a lot of them, so prepare yourself mentally.”

“Leave it to me!”

“Kyuu!”

Rosalia and Mira puffed out their chests proudly.

Mira, meanwhile, should probably stay back with Nero and Lillie so she wouldn’t accidentally interfere with Rosalia’s work.

And so, our gramophone production began.

As expected of Rosalia—she learned incredibly quickly.

Seeing her grow into someone this capable filled me with ridiculous amounts of older-brother pride.

“The internal mechanisms are fine. That just leaves the exterior casing. That’s the difficult part.”

“What kind of design should we use?”

While discussing ideas with Rosalia, we first began sketching designs onto paper.

If every gramophone used the same composition and appearance, people might think we were cutting corners.

Well, for general commercial sales, that would probably be acceptable.

But for gramophones aimed at nobles…

If we accepted custom exterior designs, we could undoubtedly make absurd amounts of money.

Though if we did that…

Rosalia and I would probably become overwhelmingly busy.

The craftsmen were already drowning in magical tool production as it was.

We might genuinely need to recruit more magical tool artisans soon.

I wonder if there were any trustworthy magic craftsmen lying around somewhere?

Edward came to mind immediately.

He actually seemed like a pretty good candidate.

Maybe I should try talking to him next time.