“Oh my god! Lilin!”
There was a brown-haired missile launched my way the moment I crossed into the castle’s larger staff dining hall.
“You’re alive! I thought the worst might’ve happened when you disappeared, and then that big storm rolled in, and all the castle employees started running around like someone had kicked a hornet nest. What happened?? Also, ouch. You’re all pointy.”
I hid my mirth behind one hand as I studied Rio, fully out of her cosplay outfit and settled into an ill-fitting maid’s uniform. She was poking at the metal chestplate of my armor, testing to see if the seam between two plates could cut her finger or something.
Chuckling, I cupped her chin and tilted her face up to meet my eyes. Hers were vibrant and unnaturally purple, with red irritation marks around them.
“That can wait for later. Are you doing okay? You look like you haven’t slept.”
Rio reached both hands up towards her eyes, then paused, forcing herself to lower them again. “Yeah, I slept. It’s just the contacts. No way to store them, and can’t see well without ‘em. No access to the saline solution to keep them hydrated, either.”
That brought my mind into a new tangent. A lot of the people from the convention probably had various medical conditions. Conditions that would need treatment. Treatment they might not have, or would only have a limited supply of.
I added the new headache to my list of problems. Realistically, were I willing to throw around some powers at a factor that would draw too much scrutiny, I could just use a few miracles to cure the various ailments in question. Unless…
“There might be a solution to the medical problems for everyone, actually…” I followed the leading statement with a bit of absent musing aimed at Rio, but I couldn’t really consider it conversational, given that I left zero opportunities for her to speak in the middle.
The gist of my theory was that a deity could fix medical problems, if given ample reason to do so. Deities enjoyed being able to watch a good show, and that meant drama was their currency of choice. Basically, I told Rio about the possibility of requesting literal divine intervention to fix her vision problem.
“That sounds like a lot of effort to go to when I could just find someone who can make me a new pair of glasses.”
I stared at her blankly as she spoiled ten full minutes of my plotting with a simple suggestion. I tried to picture Rio wearing glasses. With her face, I could see round frames balanced on her cute nose, giving her the bookish sort of vibe. Then I zoomed out and applied the mental image of her body from the baths. Her well-trained muscle, slender upper body, and absolutely flawless rear. Thighs that could crush a melon.
“Mhmm. Sure, glasses would work, too.” I’m not even sure if my brain was properly functioning enough to form actual words, but I think I said that to her.
“Anyways, what happened?! Tell me all about the storm!”
“How much did you see?” I queried, after a moment to compose myself.
She let her shoulders slump, sighing in dramatic fashion. “One moment you were there, the next you were gone and some servants gathered us up in a room without windows.”
“You saw none of it, then. Well, I flew up and…” I gave her the rough rundown of the entire debacle with the storm, but omitted Daniella carrying me to the castle afterwards. And the events of the ‘morning,’ too. And the bath with the blond. I did mention Fukushi’s frosty opinion of me, and the duel, minus deeper details of my spells.
“So you can just… turn invisible? With magic?”
I nodded, bending a bit of light around my hand idly. “It’s amazing what you can do when merging a bit of science with magic.”
“How am I supposed to catch up to you?” Rio deflated as she lamented my rather considerable advantages.
Her fears gave me pause. I wasn’t so dense as to not connect the meaning between her words. She wanted to be equal to me. The feeling that statement alone sent through my body made me freeze up. Like cold water had been dumped over my head, I realized there was no way we would ever be equals. How depressing was that?
I reminded myself, then and there, that I didn’t do depressive spirals. I took Rio’s hands in mine, pulled them close, and looked into her eyes. “Don’t try to weigh us against each other like that. It doesn’t matter who is more or less dangerous. Worrying about things like that, and trying to attach values to people? What would happen if you surpassed me? Am I then required to surpass you the same way? It sounds exhausting, and I already have a lot of things to do.”
Rio huffed out a little laugh at my joke, raising her hands to get her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. “I’m sorry. I won’t make extra work for you like that.”
“On a more serious note, how are the others?”
Rio shifted, and I finally was able to get a solid look at them all. They were, in short, a complete mess. Convention clothes had been blended with a wide variety of outfits the castle had on hand, making for a strange medley of vastly different fashion statements. A few people had very clearly not bathed or changed clothes in more than just the day since arrival, and that was just the more normal crowd of fans.
The other cosplayers were all dressed in completely new outfits, like Rio’s maid uniform. The taller ones were done up like butlers, and a few with less ornate costumes had clearly just thrown smocks on after stripping off foam decorations. It reminded me that most of my costume had been left behind at the baths. Including my undergarments, which was embarrassing.
“Hey, Rio, about my costume…”
She nodded happily at me, digging around in some sort of satchel she’d acquired, then produced a neatly folded pile of items. On top… were my black lace underclothes.
I reddened. She’d folded everything. I imagined what she might’ve done with those for her expression to be so damn smug. I took the pile and wished I had a way to carry them better.
“Damn yuri fanatics,” I muttered to myself.
“What was that?” Rio asked innocently.
I shook my head.
“Magic lessons?”
“Nice segue.” She hopped back, making room for me to actually progress beyond the doorway. “Where do we start?”
“Safety instruction powerpoints.” I grinned at her, watching her freeze in horror.
Rio’s eye twitched as she settled a glare onto me. “Lilin. You’re not about to ruin magic for us all, are you?”
I thought about that. Finally, I settled on a resolute nod. “I’m going to ensure nobody accidentally banishes themselves to the plane of fire, where most of the surroundings are… literally pools of lava. Magma? Which one was which again?”
“Is it underground?” I shook my head at her slowly. “Then lava, I think.”
I gave her head pats for the reminder, then turned to face the room at large.
“Who wants to learn magic?”
Everyone gave me wide-eyed stares. Hands shot up after the momentary hesitation ended.
“Excuse me.” The voice behind me was slightly familiar, and I turned to find Minion #1 there, holding a small stack of paperwork. I held up a finger to the crowd, then gestured for the court mage to continue. “We have a number of repair requests and other missives that need sorting and responses.”
“And you brought them to me?”
He looked uncomfortable. “They are things the king would normally handle, but he is… away. If anyone knew how to reach him, it would be you.”
I… couldn’t fault that logic. Still… “Isn’t there a chain of command where these things could be delegated properly?”
Minion #1 shook his head, a rueful look in his eyes. “The advisors failed to appear today. Beyond that, I fear they may seek to sabotage the workings of the kingdom in some ill-thought ploy to vent their dismay at the upheaval.”
I turned back to the crowd. “Who here knows how to handle bureaucratic paperwork?”
Not a single hand rose.
“Fucking NEETs.”
“NEETs?” Minion #1 asked.
I sighed. “Do I have to explain the joke?”
Rio giggled, and it sounded like beautiful bells chiming. “It means ‘not in employment, education, or training.’ A term for people who don’t work and aren’t bound for a particular career in life. It’s meant as an insult.”
Rio glared at me a bit afterwards, as if to convey how disappointed she was in my rudeness. I shrugged back at her, and then gestured broadly at the Earthlings.
“Well, am I wrong? I can’t teach magic if I’m stuck handling paperwork all day.”
“I’ll help unbury you from the oceans of dreaded consequences for your own actions,” she said sweetly.
A new voice joined the conversation, making Minion #1 jump like he’d been struck by lightning. “I suppose that means the Lady Hero will be missing my magic class?”
I whirled on Daniella, betrayal filling my whole being.
“How could you?! After all we’ve done together?”
“Apologies, Mistress. Paperwork isn’t one of the duties of my position. Says so on my contract,” Daniella smoothly quipped back.
Rio glanced back and forth between us, suspicion clear. “All you’ve done together? Mistress?”
I gulped, sensing the end of my days fast approaching. I had a distinct premonition that I’d be handling the paperwork alone.