Outbreak Company: Volume 7 Read online

  From the very start, my excitement levels were at C-L-I-M-A-X.

  “Look at all this sunlight!”

  A blue sky without a cloud in sight!

  The sun pounding brilliantly down!

  Even the sun’s skin-scorching rays practically feel good at this moment!

  Oh, it’s great to be alive!

  And why!

  “Look at the white sand stretching off as far as the eye can see!”

  The sand felt lovely, crunching under my bare feet.

  “Look at the spray from the water!”

  Droplets came raining down, turning rainbow colored where they reflected the sun.

  “Listen to those sweet, dulcet tones!”

  Girls’ playful voices overlapped one another, a pleasure to my ears.

  I spread both arms wide, as if to take in the sun overhead and the whole world before me.

  “Yes! Here we are at the beach in summer! ............Uh, I mean, not technically.”

  But the feeling was close enough.

  Yes: the place where we were was like the sea, but it wasn’t the sea.

  It was a lake.

  We had come to this lake, a short ride from Amutech’s mansion by bird-drawn carriage, for some R&R. It was a piece of land near the capital of Marinos that was owned directly by the Holy Eldant Empire itself, and rulers had long used it to chase away the heat. It was, in essence, a summer palace.

  There was a pretty good-sized lake here—not huge, but big enough to have a beach and even waves, and you could swim in it.

  That’s right. Swim.

  And swimming meant...

  “Oh, how wonderful to be alive!” I gave thanks to all the gods and Buddhas that I had been born into this world.

  It was time for me to experience the full power of three dimensions! I tried to act cool about it, but it didn’t last very long.

  After all...

  “What are you up to?”

  The question came from my approaching bodyguard, the WAC Koganuma Minori-san.

  Normally she dressed in a shirt and tight skirt, very much an I’m-a-public-servant thing. But not now. Oh, not now. For starters, the surface area of visible skin was an order of magnitude different.

  “We came all this way. How about a swim?” she asked.

  Because now, she was wearing a swimsuit.

  And it was, of all things... a black bikini!!

  Her chest, it was like, bounce, bounce, and her butt, it was like, squeezing from side to side as she moved—and her toned hips, they were like, calling out to me... Ahhh.

  Her whole body was a weapon!

  All she had to do was walk, and she had me within an inch of my life.

  Especially the cleft of that chest! The valley that ran between her two pale hills! I just wanted to shove my face into it until I suffocated. Please! I would prostrate myself, do anything, just let me bury myself in there!

  I fought the urge to let my thoughts out of my mouth at a high volume, saying instead, “Heh heh heh. Yes, the opportunity isn’t lost on me...”

  “Not that I care, but you’ve got a nosebleed.” Minori-san narrowed her eyes at me behind her glasses.

  “Ergh. I’d like to bring charges against you for walking around with a weapon...”

  “What are you talking about? Come on, Myusel’s waiting, too.”

  She pointed in the direction of the water. And there...

  “Ohhhhhh...”

  I let out a breath without meaning to.

  Myusel Fourant.

  My adorable maid.

  And now she was like a fairy, no, a goddess of the water.

  For work, Myusel normally wore an outfit that left comparatively little to the imagination, but the chest and thigh areas were relaxed, to make it easy to move, and so I rarely get a sense of her true, uh, proportions.

  Now, however, it was all there for me to see.

  The white halter-neck bikini Minori-san had gotten for her was practically blinding! I had heard in the past that my maid was surprisingly chesty, but now I understood! Not too big, not too small, but undeniably announcing its presence—a perfectly balanced and beautiful bust! And complementing that by covering her lower body with a sarong was the perfect decision.

  Yes, shyness! A bashful expression was the perfect look for Myusel!

  “Minori-san,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I might have been born to witness this very day.”

  “...You know, I think you might be right.” There was a hint of exasperation in her voice, but I ignored it.

  “Master...” Myusel noticed me looking at her and immediately looked at the ground. The way she looked when she was shy like that was absolutely adorable. “It, uh, it doesn’t look strange?”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “I mean... Uh, my...”

  “Perish the thought!” I said, clenching my fist emphatically. “I think it’s absolutely wonderful!”

  “I—I see... Th-That’s good, then,” she said, stuttering and blushing. “I’ve never... gone out looking like this before, so... But if it makes you happy, Master, then...”

  Come to think of it, when did swimsuits assume their current form?

  I saw in a book somewhere that in the old days, they simply consisted of cloth that could safely get wet, and they covered the entire body, sort of like a modern wetsuit. Considering Eldant culture and values, the way the girls were dressed now could well be viewed as equivalent to going out in your underwear. It was no surprise that Myusel felt a little shy.

  But that was excellent, too! Points for bashfulness!

  Even as I was mulling over these happy thoughts...

  “Oof!”

  Out of the corner of my vision, I saw something throw sand in the air like a snowplow kicking up fresh snow.

  I looked over to see a girl with animal ears and a tail, partly concealed by the flying sand, digging madly into the shore.

  Elvia Harneiman.

  A werewolf girl.

  “I guess she really is a puppy,” I said with a fond smile.

  Elvia, of course, was also wearing a swimsuit. With her, however, that meant she didn’t look all that different from usual. A tube top was standard with her, and when she was in her own room she tended to hang around in what amounted to underwear, so it wasn’t like this was the first time I’d seen her this way. But still...

  “Mm... Scandalous.”

  Motion was definitely the key to making the most out of Elvia’s attractiveness. The heart-leapingness that poured from her entire body! Skin and more skin! It seemed to increase her eroticism by at least fifty percent over just standing still. Yes, as if every bead of sweat on her forehead were a diamond!

  And at the moment, she was digging furiously in the sand.

  Which is to say, from my perspective, her behind was clearly visible, and because of the need to give her tail somewhere to go, the bottom of her swimsuit was pretty risqué. And then there was the way she moved left and right and left and right as she dug, as if hitting my libido with a take this! And this! And one of these!

  And then...

  “Shinichi!”

  I turned at the sound of my name to find the owner of this lake. That is, the ruler of the Holy Eldant Empire, Empress Petralka an Eldant III.

  Despite her imposing name, she looked like a young girl, practically a kid.

  She was in a swimsuit, too, but of course her chest was less robust than the others’.

  But let me be clear: that’s great!

  “What is it you’re doing?”

  On top of that, her suit was an old-style school one. It even had a tag on the front, diligently labeled “Pe-tral-ka” in hiragana. T
his was the essential point when it came to olden-style school swimsuits like this one. I had no idea whose stroke of genius it had been—Petralka had enough manga and anime knowledge that she might even have come up with it herself—but it was perfect, the absolute ultimate!

  ...etc., etc.

  I was busy drinking in her beautiful form when—

  “Come on, get in the water,” Minori-san said, giving me a push from behind. “You already spend all your time indoors anyway.”

  “Uh, no, thanks, I’m full—er, I mean...” I looked back at her over my shoulder as she continued to push me closer to Myusel and Petralka. “I thought this was supposed to be your vacation, Minori-san.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” smiled the baby-faced, big-boobed WAC. “But routine is routine. Just because someone tells you, ‘Hey, go out and play’...”

  “Is that it?”

  When it came to a comparison between outdoors and indoors, I think it was fair to say that a member of the Ground Self-Defense Force did most of her work outside, except maybe for paperwork. I bet a lot of people in the JSDF actually preferred to spend their time off lounging at home.

  “I’m actually not the only one taking off today. I wonder what the others are up to,” Minori-san said, cocking her head.

  “I guess there aren’t that many places to go for fun in the Eldant Empire, huh?” I joined her in her puzzlement.

  As I mentioned, this “Ooh! Girls Galore Swimsuit Contest! Can You Believe (etc.)” event was originally about helping Minori-san burn some vacation time. Both she and the other JSDF soldiers here were on a strictly confidential assignment, which was another way of saying that they were essentially on the clock every moment that they were here. In order to preserve secrecy, they also didn’t get many chances to go back to Japan.

  In short, their vacation days just piled up.

  Apparently, a command had come down from above for the soldiers stationed in Eldant to use up some of their accrued leave. If they couldn’t at least report on paper that their troops had had a break, there would be administrative headaches later.

  As we’ve discussed, however, there was a lot of red tape involved in going back to Japan. That left the JSDF people to find something to do with their free time here in Eldant, so there was a distinct risk of defeating the point.

  One of the proposed solutions to this search for diversion was a day in the water. The Eldant summer was just starting, we were getting into the sweaty season, and in addition, Petralka had recently asked me, “What does the expression ‘swimsuit episode’ in this anime mean?” It all added up to one thing: everyone getting together for a day at the beach.

  “All I’m saying is, don’t hide in some corner, just come play,” Minori-san said.

  As we talked over my shoulder, I naturally started walking more slowly. And where Minori-san had initially been shoving me with her arms out, she had begun to lean into the project, using her whole body against my back, her whole— my back— her chest was— her boobs were...!

  “Everyone wants to play with you, Shinichi-kun.”

  “Y-Y-Y-Yeah, you’re right!” Hearing the word play while feeling that soft, round, soft roundness against my back sent my mind directly to the gutter. I retrieved it with an immense effort and heaved a sigh. I would have liked another moment to record this scene of paradise on the hard drive of my brain.

  Incidentally, the female royal knights who had accompanied Petralka were also in swimsuits, allegedly “for protection.” They wore bikini-style suits and a minimum of armor—pauldrons and boots, along with a sword, a combination that looked a bit like the “bikini armor” of the good old days, and it was great.

  I gathered that Minori-san had arranged the suits for them. The designs were kind of plain, but the bodies these women had achieved through rigorous daily training more than made up for it.

  “How wonderful, this peach village! Incredible! La**ta really does exist!” I howled to the shining sun.

  “Rather than talk, why don’t you swim, Kanou Shinichi?” a voice said.

  I stiffened a little and looked to the owner of the voice.

  A young man stood there regally. He had the same silver hair and emerald eyes as Petralka, but it was the fineness of his features above all that gave him away as a member of the royal bloodline. He looked practically perfect; if I were a woman, I think I would fall in love with him at first sight.

  Minister Garius en Cordobal.

  He was the head of the knight forces, the person with practical control over the imperial military. He was beautiful and noble and powerful; he had the brains and he had the brawn—they say heaven doesn’t give two gifts, but he had three or four, and as a fellow man, I had a thing or two to say about how unfair God could be.

  There was just one thing about Garius that I wasn’t envious of at all: his interest in men.

  This knight was, as we say, homo-homoshii: gay. Not, like, happy-gay, I mean gay-gay. Super gay.

  Now, normally he was very self-restrained, so there wasn’t really any trouble, but at the moment I was in a swimsuit too—and I was a little unsettled by the sense that Garius couldn’t take his eyes off me.

  “I know we’re at the beach, but what do you think you’re wearing?” I said.

  “Hm?” he replied, and even his gesture of puzzlement seemed like it could conjure rose blossoms out of thin air. “Koganuma Minori prepared it for me as the most fitting swimsuit for myself. Do you have some sort of objection?”

  Garius’s swimsuit was a male bikini.

  But that wasn’t really the part I had a problem with.

  No, my real concern was the black bowtie he was wearing around his bare neck. How perverted did you have to be to think that up?!

  Worse, Garius seemed to believe that this was proper swim attire as dictated by Japanese culture, so rather than being embarrassed, he wore the whole thing proudly.

  “Minori-san...”

  “Yes?” The root of all evil (or at least all rottenness) around here acted perfectly calm despite the what-have-you-done look emanating from my squinting eyes.

  “What is that?”

  “What’s what? It’s the Bare Butler.”

  “You have some awfully weird terms at your disposal.”

  “You think so?”

  Minori-san looked at Garius, who was smiling unabashedly. I thought I would get dizzy just looking at him. And to top it all off...

  “Now, Shinichi.” Garius came over and put a hand on my shoulder. I almost choked at the touch of bare skin on bare skin, a sensation I had previously been spared by the presence of clothing.

  The gesture was casual, yet I felt his fingers lightly trace the line of my collarbone.

  I was just suppressing a scream when I noticed a female knight coming in our direction, playing with a 3TS. It was one of the prizes we had given the top teams at the imperial soccer exhibition a while ago—specifically, we had given them to the lizardman team, but most of them had no interest in video games, and so had sold them to nobles and prominent merchants who wanted them. So it wasn’t that surprising if Garius or one of his knights should have a system.

  At the moment, the camera on the back of the 3TS was aimed directly at me...

  “Were you able to get it?” Garius asked.

  “Yes, sir. I’m used to controlling this thing by now, so it was simple.”

  She had taken my picture.

  “Hey, just what do you think you’re photographing?”

  “Why, you, Shinichi, of course.” Garius sounded perfectly satisfied and not the least bit guilty about this.

  “You can’t just—”

  “It’s only a personal photograph. There’s no problem.”

  “There sure is! The rights to the use of my likeness—”

  That was as far as I got before I stopped. This was a place that didn’t have so much as the concept of equality—what was the likelihood that “image-use rights” would mean anything to them? Cameras weren’t a thing h
ere, which meant sneaking photos wasn’t, either. So they certainly wouldn’t share my feeling that randomly snapping someone’s picture was some kind of issue.

  “I just wanted to use this Japanese contraption to capture every detail of your body,” Garius said. I thought maybe he blushed ever so slightly—but that had to be my imagination, right? Right. My imagination. It had to be. Imagination!

  Garius gestured to a nearby tree and said, “If you don’t wish to swim, perhaps you’d like to relax in the shade of that tree?” I felt my hair stand on end at the distinct sense that he was inviting me to, uh, join him.

  “Oh, no, uh, I’ll swim. I think swimming sounds like a great idea!”

  Clowning around with Myusel and the others sounded about a hundred-thousand times better than standing here having a vaguely sexually charged conversation with Garius.

  “Okay, cool! Swim time!”

  “Hmm,” Garius said, sounding somehow disappointed, but I left him standing there and ran as fast as I could over to the girls at the water’s edge.

  Let’s turn back the clock to about a week before our beach adventure.

  I was taking care of some random work in my room at our mansion. I was the general manager of the entertainment company Amutech, for what it was worth. I didn’t know what the job looked like from other people’s perspective, but there was actually a lot to do. Other people handled the really fiddly red tape for me, but there was still no shortage of paperwork that I had to make decisions about.

  On top of that, I was teaching classes at our school, so I had to prepare for lessons. All of this still probably made me look pretty relaxed compared to a member of the Japanese workforce or some kid studying for college entrance exams, but for someone whose past experience was primarily as a home security guard, I was awfully busy.

  “Hmmm...”

  And so, on days when I didn’t have to be at school, I was usually surrounded by paperwork. I looked at each item in turn and decided whether or not to go forward with it. Plus, I still had to create a list of stuff we needed to bring over here.

  “Shinichi-sama,” Myusel said with concern as she set a cup of tea on my desk. “If you let yourself get too busy... I’m afraid you’ll harm your health...”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said. I grunted “Thanks for the tea” and took a sip. The faint, sweet flavor of fruit balmed my tired brain and eyes. Oh yeah—weren’t berries supposed to contain nutrients that were good for your eyes? I didn’t suppose Myusel actually knew that, but it was always possible she’d heard it from Minori-san or something.