Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 23: Did You Let It Get Complicated?
They quickly moved to the warehouse Chronois had mentioned. It was a few minutes’ walk from the classroom, toward the rear of the academy building. The stone warehouse was imposing, almost temple-like, and large enough to rival several ordinary houses placed side by side.
Licia remarked, “I didn’t know a place like this existed.”
Fiona, who had joined them there, reached for the warehouse door, but Ren stepped in to help.
“I’ll do it.”
“Thank you very much.”
Ren reached past Fiona from behind and took hold of the door. He was not quite embracing her, but their position was close enough to make Fiona self-conscious—especially after what she had seen between Ren and Licia earlier.
When they opened the warehouse door, a dusty draft spilled out. Ren and Fiona exchanged wry smiles before looking toward Chronois.
“Chronois-sama, what are we looking for?”
“Well, you see…”
Chronois stood at the front of the warehouse with Licia beside her. With her usual graceful motion, she swung her staff, causing several lines of glowing letters to appear in the air.
“I want you to gather documents from this time period written here.”
“So, you didn’t plan to organize the warehouse yourself?”
“No, that’s right.”
Chronois was smiling, but there was a certain force behind it.
“It’s incredible, isn’t it? They contacted me out of the blue, asking me to retrieve old documents from this place, even though I’m busy. They want it done by today.”
Chronois explained that a government office had contacted her while she was already busy, and that some misunderstanding had occurred over the submission deadline.
The documents were due that evening. Who was responsible for the mix-up could be sorted out later; for now, finding the requested material came first.
Chronois suddenly bowed her head.
Her pointed witch’s hat bobbed as she did so.
“I’m really sorry! I think everyone was looking forward to spending the afternoon together, but…”
“It’s alright! We’ll help with this!”
Ren hurried to reassure her. Fiona and Licia immediately nodded as well. “That’s right!”
Chronois raised her head again, still looking so apologetic that she seemed ready to bow a second time.
They could not leave her feeling so guilty, so Ren stepped farther into the warehouse. Unlike the small room at the back of the library before they had cleaned it, this building held all kinds of stored materials.
(Documents… Documents…)
Despite the amount stored there, the warehouse was well organized. Books and bundles of documents lined orderly shelves. Ren headed up the stairs, thinking he should open the second-floor windows for ventilation.
Once the windows were open, cool air began circulating through the warehouse. Ren then returned to the shelves where the others were searching.
“…Strange, it should be around here.”
“Could it be this?”
“Ah! That’s it! Licia-chan, you’re amazing! To find it so quickly!”
“No, it’s just a coincidence. But there are still more necessary documents.”
As they split up to search the shelves, they found the desired documents one by one.
Suddenly, Chronois said,
“Adults can be so underhanded, can’t they? If there’s been a misunderstanding, they think speaking forcefully will somehow make everything all right…”
Chronois murmured it with a strangely poignant, almost weary expression. Ren had thought this before: at times she had the air of someone who had endured far too many unreasonable demands.
Ren thought he and the others should be on Chronois’s side at times like this.
In less than two hours, they found all the documents. Chronois thanked them profusely, then carried a wooden box they had also found out of the warehouse.
“Thank you so much! Let’s go out to eat together next time! I want to thank you somehow!”
As Chronois left, she kept turning back to bow and thank them. Ren and the others watched until she disappeared from sight.
“Shall we go?”
The wooden box Chronois had brought out contained sample costumes once considered for a student event similar to the Academy Festival. A merchant had prepared them in response to an old order.
Ren, Licia, and Fiona offered to carry the costumes to a document room inside the academy because Chronois was still busy. The three returned to the main building and headed there.
By then, the sunlight coming through the windows had deepened to crimson.
Unlike the warehouse, the document room was clean and free of dust. When they reached the storage area Chronois had indicated, Fiona took one of the costumes from the wooden box and noticed something.
“It’s a little dirty.”
The costume had collected some dust inside the wooden box. Ren picked up the paperwork that appeared to have accompanied the original delivery.
Watching Fiona examine it, Licia made a suggestion.
“Shall we clean them in the changing room?”
“Yes… That sounds like a good idea.”
The academy changing room had showers and a large vanity area, along with magic tools for cleaning and straightening uniforms.
“Then I’ll go ask Chronois-sama about these documents. I can’t exactly go into the girls’ changing room.”
“I’m sorry, Ren-kun.”
“No problem. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Ren parted from the girls, and Licia and Fiona headed for the changing room.
They carried the folded costumes with them.
A beautiful mirror stretched across the entire wall above the long vanity. In front of it, the two girls unfolded the costumes they had brought.
Licia looked at the one she had opened.
“These are waitress outfits, right?”
“I think so, but the skirts are a bit shorter than usual. Maybe it was what the girls wanted.”
Fiona answered with an endearing smile.
Licia held the same kind of costume, differing only slightly in color from Fiona’s. They were cute variations on the sort of clothes a waitress might wear.
Many of the students were nobles, but they were still girls of an age to be interested in cute clothes. That was probably why outfits like these had once been commissioned.
They began cleaning the costumes as planned. A comb-shaped magic tool only had to be drawn over the fabric to remove the dust.
As they worked, the two continued talking.
“I wonder why the Demon King cult was looking for the Ring of the Goddess of Water.”
Licia said.
“Fiona-sama, you’ve heard too, haven’t you? The Demon King cult has started operating in various places again.”
“Father and the Third Prince have been working hard, haven’t they? But don’t you think Ren-kun might be involved?”
“…I do.”
It was not dissatisfaction so much as the expectation that Ren was once again moving in his own way. The Demon King cult was said to be active throughout the world, but Leomel was targeted especially often.
Why? It felt as though there had to be more to it than Leomel merely being one of the world’s foremost powers. There had been the incident at Roses Caitas, then the sinking of Eupheim’s Old Town. The Demon King cult had a history of singling out Leomel.
“…I wonder why.”
Remembering Roses Caitas, Licia wondered again why she had used that power against her own will—why her body had stopped obeying her, and why she had felt as though her consciousness were drifting far away. Without realizing it, she stared into the mirror.
As though searching for something deep in her own eyes, Licia briefly felt the old anxiety return. Then Fiona took her hand.
“Are you okay? Feeling unwell or something…”
“N-No! I’m fine!”
“Really?”
“I-I mean it!”
Licia was surprised by how quickly she calmed down. Whether it was Fiona’s warmth or something else, the restlessness in her chest faded away.
Licia resumed folding the costumes. After holding one against herself to judge the fit, she changed the subject.
“The skirt length is not much different from our school uniforms.”
In other words, they were short.
“That’s true. And all the frills make them look cute.”
“Waitress uniforms like these are pretty unusual. It feels a little strange.”
Fiona raised an index finger as though an idea had just occurred to her.
“…Want to try them on?”
The suggestion was half joke, half genuine curiosity. Trying them on should be harmless as long as they did not damage anything. Ren probably would not be back yet, so they had enough time to put the costumes on and change back.
Even Fiona, who had made the suggestion, found the idea unusual; she had never worn anything like this. Licia was just as curious.
“…Seriously?”
“Quite serious, actually.” Fiona smiled, entirely unbothered by Licia’s slightly broken-sounding response.
“I don’t usually wear cute clothes like this.”
“Me neither, Fiona-sama.”
It was nothing more than a moment’s curiosity about wearing something like this. They each took a costume, turned their backs to one another, and began changing.
A few minutes later, they turned around. Licia and Fiona were both wearing the short-skirted waitress outfits.
They could only imagine how eye-catching the outfits might be to someone else. Still, they planned to change back into their uniforms before leaving, so no one should ever see them like this.
Licia wondered what kind of reaction Ren would have, but she didn’t have the courage to wear them in front of him.
Just as they were thinking about that…
Click.
A doorknob turned somewhere behind them.
“Huh?”
“Someone’s coming…”
Someone had arrived, which was not unusual in itself. This was an academy changing room; any female student might enter. The problem was what Licia and Fiona were wearing. Their short-skirted waitress outfits were nothing like the academy uniform, and being seen in them would be embarrassing—especially by someone they knew.
Their fear came true almost immediately.
“Huh?”
It was Sera Riohard.
Sera froze in surprise. She had returned to the academy alone after remembering something she had left in the changing room—and walked straight into the sight of Licia and Fiona in their unusually cute outfits.
More than ten seconds passed, an eternity in the moment. Their eyes met through the mirror. At last Sera, having apparently reached a conclusion of her own, asked hesitantly:
“D-Did you two let it get complicated?”
She was talking mainly about their first loves.
These were hardly clothes one normally wore at the academy. Licia and Fiona both flushed bright red, and Licia hurried to answer.
“W-We haven’t let anything get complicated!”
“Then why are you wearing clothes like that…?”
“That’s not it! You’ve got the wrong idea!”
“With things looking like this, I have absolutely no idea what you mean by ‘the wrong idea’…”
Sera edged backward, not quite shuffling but moving very carefully.
“S-Sorry!”
She apologized as if she had witnessed something she should not have, then turned to flee. Licia hurried after her and caught Sera by the arm—but with too much momentum, the two of them stumbled out of the changing room.
And there stood Ren, who had accompanied Sera this far.
“Umm…?”
Ren fell silent and scratched his cheek with a wry smile. Through the still-open door, he had also caught sight of Fiona farther inside the room.
Needless to say, both girls turned even redder. Licia had never imagined that simply trying on something cute would backfire this spectacularly.
Wide-eyed and speechless, Licia quietly closed the changing-room door.
At that moment, Sera was still outside.
“I couldn’t find what I forgot.”
“I think it might be better to wait a little longer until the two of them come out.”
“Alright, I’ll do that.”
Sera, for her part, was not entirely displeased to have stumbled onto something so unusual.
“Wasn’t Vayne with you?”
“Yeah. He’s training with Father at the mansion. I came back alone because I didn’t want to interrupt him.”
The setting sun lit Sera’s profile as her thoughts turned to the person she cared about.
“Vayne is working hard, so I have to work hard too.”
Ever since Vayne had been revealed as a descendant of Hero Ruin, his growth had been especially striking, just as Ren had expected. Ren looked forward to seeing how much more dependable his friend would become.
“We were just talking about it earlier, remember? Vayne said he’s nervous about greeting everyone at the Imperial Castle Conference.”
“I know how he feels. But I think he’ll handle it well.”
Surely Vayne would cut an impressive figure before all those nobles.
Someday, Vayne might take up a sword alongside Ren—perhaps to fight together, or perhaps as his enemy.
A few minutes later, Fiona came out of the changing room ahead of Licia.
She cautiously leaned out through the doorway, still faintly flushed.
Then Sera said:
“See you.”
Sera slipped past Fiona and into the changing room. With only Licia still inside, she apparently felt there was no need to keep waiting.
Ren was unsure how to start a conversation with Fiona.
For Ren, matters unrelated to battle had become some of the most difficult things to navigate over the past few years.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to peek.”
An apology seemed like the safest place to start.
“N-No! I’m the one who showed an embarrassing side…”
“No, you looked very cute.”
“Wha…!?”
Ren calling her cute made Fiona happy—very happy—but hearing it so suddenly, in this particular situation, caught her completely unprepared.
Joy and embarrassment flooded Fiona’s face bright red. She covered her cheeks with both hands, faint tears gathering in her eyes.
Even with all those emotions swirling inside her, she managed to say:
“Thank you. Also, I’m sorry for making you wait.”
Saying both the thanks and the apology helped her gradually calm down.