Third Arc: Thirty-Fourth Chapter

"Cose... Lady Cordelia, we've finished the cleanup. The students say they'll start on lunch now. Where's the head chef?"

Anje came over, looking this way and that.

"Oh, is it that time already? The head chef, well, this and that happened, and he went off to tidy his room."

"I see! Then it looks like we'll get into the mansion nicely!"

Anje clapped her hands, and I hurried to cover her mouth.

"Shh! Your voice is too loud! But yes. It's good that we can get in more easily than we thought."

Still, a week had already passed since Michael took the poison and collapsed. Getting in cleanly was all very well, but maybe I had spent too long on it. The grace we had left was one more week. I felt bad for the head chef, giving up his own room for us, but once we were inside I had to move fast and get out.

While I racked my brains over it, Anje drew her lovely brows together, a little uneasy.

"Yes. But it feels a bit too easy. It's going so well that it worries me. I hope it's just needless worry."

"You do worry. I know how you feel. But listen, Anje. A bad result is something your own mood pulls toward you. Picture only the good result. Then a person naturally heads that way!"

I threw out my chest and said it to Anje as confidently as I could. It wasn't that I had no worries myself. But it wasn't a question of whether I could do it. I had to.

"Lady Cosette..."

"Understand? Hold the picture of pulling it off, no matter what. Then let's find the shortest way there. We can do it. Because we're the only two reincarnators in this whole world, a tag team. There's no stronger tag team anywhere!"

At my words Anje went blank for a moment, but little by little her face broke into a bright smile.

"Heehee! That's right! There's nothing we can't do!"

Anje smiled like a clear blue sky and gripped my hand tight.

"I... I had you wrong, Lady Cosette. Honestly, at first I thought you were an annoying bug character. My hidden rival, out to build a harem."

"Bug..."

A bug character. I narrowed my eyes as if looking far away. Come to think of it, my daughter used to shout "It's a buuug!" all the time. How nostalgic.

...What is a bug, anyway?

"Sorry. But once I actually talked with you properly, well, you're not the harem-building type at all, Lady Cosette. You're somehow like a mother. A mother... aha, we're the same age now, so it's a strange thing to say!"

Anje laughed brightly to cover it, but her eyes looked a little wet. My chest drew tight, and before I knew it I had pulled Anje close and wrapped my arms around her.

"Lady Cosette..."

"You can call me Mother. There's nothing strange about it."

"Ah..."

After that, for a while, until Anje calmed down, pretty tears spilling from her sky-colored eyes, I went on gently stroking her thin shoulders.

---

"Teacher! The cleanup's done! You can move into the room whenever you like!"

I could have sworn I saw a tail wagging at high speed. The head chef ran up like a dog that had found its owner, skidded to a stop in front of us, and snapped off a crisp salute.

"Thank you! Then we'll go and pack our things. I leave the mansion's meals to you."

"Yes! With pleasure!"

An alehouse waiter...? Seen off by the head chef waving both arms with all his might, we headed for the inn where we were staying.

---

"You... what are you scheming this time?"

"N-nothing. Nothing at aaall?"

Waiting for us back in the inn room were Georg and Remias, standing planted and grim, and Lady Julia. The three of them had grown very suspicious of the way we kept leaving the inn. On top of that, Sissi was quietly watching us from the corner with a flat, level stare.

Only Anje and I shared the secret of the past-life memories, so I had been moving around without telling the others. Shaking off Sissi when she tried to come along, fobbing Georg off with a jar of mayonnaise. It seemed that had finally stopped working.

"You're far too suspicious!" Georg said.

"Cosette. Knowing you, I doubt there's any point trying to stop you. But please tell us what's going on properly. We're worried," Remias said, brows lowered with sorrow.

Georg looked exasperated, Remias sad. And Lady Julia... ah. Uh-oh. She's really angry.

Hand on her hip, her flame-red hair flying loose, her eyebrows raised like a demon's, Lady Julia jabbed a finger straight at me and raised her voice.

"Lady Cosette? We're friends, are we not? I already hold you dear enough to call you my closest friend. And what is this? You and Anje, sneaking about, on and on! Worrying not only me but Lord Remias as well! Off who knows where, day after day after day..."

...Oof. Once Lady Julia's anger blew, there was no stopping it. Red Julia's furious lecture ran for three hours. By the time it ended, my soul had set off for somewhere far away, Anje was trembling like a fawn, and Georg had shrunk into the corner in terror.

"Women are terrifying..."