I Favor the Villainess - CH 218

“…”

“…”

Claire-sama and I were rendered speechless by the sight in front of us.

We were in a resort owned by the empire.

It was a small log house on the shore of a large lake on the outskirts of the imperial capital.

We’d received permission from Philine and His Majesty Sein to rest for a few days here.

I couldn’t explain that the apostle told us to flirt, so we took time off under the pretext of healing our fatigue in recognition of our achievements.

To begin with, His Majesty Sein and Dor-sama were against putting more burden on us, so our suggestion was accepted without any resistance.

They were reluctant to let us participate in the battle that would intercept the demon’s offensive, but as expected, they agreed to it.

This is singing my own praises, but considering that the scale of the attack was unknown, it would’ve been a bad move not to use my and Claire-sama’s strength.

Putting that aside, right now in front of me and Claire-sama, Mei and Alea were playing in water.

This lake had wide shallows, so we let them play to their hearts’ content while making sure they wouldn’t go too deep.

At first they were splashing water on each other, swimming, and playing around, but perhaps they got tired of it, as before long, their way of playing changed.

“Alea, I’m doing it!”

“Very well, Mei!”

Mei waved her hand left and right, and the condensed magic burst, creating waves on the lake.

By waves I don’t mean something as cute as ripples.

They were large waves that could easily swallow a large number of people that you could see in large swimming pools in 21st century Japan.

On the other hand, Alea was cutting the incoming waves with a twig.

Normally, a slash with a twig would be useless against big waves that Mei was causing.

However, Alea made numerous intense slashes reminiscent of Dorothea that offset Alea’s waves.

“Um… Claire-sama…”

“… What is it?”

We took out chairs and a table on the terrace of the log house and watched them, overwhelmed by the spectacle that unfolded before our eyes.

“Could it be?”

“Yes.”

“By any chance, are they stronger than us already?”

“What a coincidence, I was thinking the exact same thing.”

I thought from the start that both Mei and Alea were talented children.

However, they were even more abnormal than that.

Apparently, Mei caused such a phenomenon with pure magical power than had not taken on any attributes yet.

Alea was also holding just a twig.

Because we have experience in real combat, Claire-sama and I could still hopefully win in that, but when it came to the pure combat ability, they might have exceeded us.

We’d never make them stand on a battlefield, but even if they did, they’d be more than enough strong.

“We… have to be a little careful with them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Mei and Alea are in a dangerous position.”

“Dangerous?”

Huh?

I didn’t understand what Claire-sama was trying to say, so I urged her to continue with my eyes.

“They’re still little kids who go to kindergarten, right? Despite that, they have disappropriate amount of power… This imbalance will definitely cause some problems.”

“I see.”

What was natural for those two was in no way natural to the kids of the same age.

Groups of children are more or less sensitive to oddities.

It’d still be okay if they were branded as geniuses, but there was a high likelihood they’d be rejected as something foreign.

In fact, Mei had already refused to attend kindergarten once.

“Ohh, four colored and colorless. What an unusual sight.”

“!?”

While watching Claire-sama astonished by being suddenly spoken to, I thought, “this pattern again.”

“Apostle-san, I told you not to suddenly appear.”

Today, the apostle seemed to possess one of Mei and Alea’s bodyguards.

She was one of two women that as I explained some time ago were hired by Dor-sama.

She was my former boss and also a familiar face to Claire-sama.

“This time you possessed the head maid, huh.”

“It was only her and another person in the vicinity after all.”

That’s right.

One of the bodyguards was as a matter of fact François House’s head maid from the noble era.

I’d known she was good at domestic work, but only recently did I learn that she was also skilled as a bodyguard.

When Dor-sama introduced her, I was extremely surprised.

By the way, I’d thought the apostle could only possess people from the spirit church, but there seemed to be no particular restrictions.

At worst, there’s a possibility they’d possess Claire-sama or me.

“No, that’s not possible. You two are an exception. If I could do that, there’d be no trouble from the beginning.”

“Can you naturally read minds?”

“Ah, excuse me.”

As usual, only said something with a deeper meaning.

“Apostle. I somehow understand four-colored refers to Mei, but how is Alea colorless? If you’re ridiculing her lack of magic aptitude, I have an issue with that.”

Claire-sama looked like she wouldn’t forgive the apostle depending on their answer.

“No, no, it’s not that simple. Alea Barbe’s aptitude – colorless is a rare talent.”

“Hold on. The number of questions I have is increasing. Is Barbe Alea’s surname? Do you know Alea’s identity?”

“Let me explain both.”

Having said that, the apostle brought a chair from the log house and sat down with us.

That doesn’t really matter, but why were they interfering when they’d told us to flirt?

“Of course I know Mei Barbe and Alea Barbe’s identities. We know the identities of all mankind.”

The apostle spoke like it was somebody else’s problem.

It actually wasn’t their problem, but I got extremely angry hearing about Mei and Alea’s circumstances again.

“Well, they have you now, so isn’t that fine? Another thing, Alea Barbe’s colorlessness is the opposite of Dorothea Naa’s nature.”

“Which means?”

“Dorothea Naa rejects all magic, however Alea Barber’s colorless nature allows her to house all kinds of magic inside her body.”

“What do you mean by her body housing magic?”

“It will be easier if she does it than if I had to explain. Please call for them.”

Claire-sama and I tilted our heads, but we called out to Mei and Alea since we had no other choice.

“What is it, Rei-okaasama? We were just at a good spot.”

“It’s not time for lunch yet, right?”

They looked like they still hadn’t played enough.

It was great that they were energetic.

“Mei-sama, Alea-sama. Your mothers said they want to see your secret technique.”

The apostle said while pretending to be the head maid.

Secret technique?

“Eeh! Head maid, did you talk about it!?”

“We wanted to make it a surprise after we practiced some more!”

Seeing Mei and Alea’s reaction, I thought that they had something special in mind.

“I apologize. However, your mothers said they wanted to see it by all means, so it slipped.”

“Jeez… Can’t be helped.”

“It can’t be helped.”

With those words Mei and Alea stood a little apart in the log cabin garden.

“Watch us! Alea, let’s go!”

“Very well!”

As we were watching to see what they’d do, Mei created a flame arrow in her hand and threw it at Alea.

“Watch out!”

At once Claire-sama and I formed magic bullets to shoot it down, but the apostle raised their hand to stop us.

“Please watch.”

The flame arrow created by Mei hit Alea and burst into flames – or so we thought.

“… She is… clad in flames?”

Alea’s body was wrapped up in red light.

It was like she was absorbing magic.

“What… in the world is that…?”

“That’s the colorless disposition. She can’t use magic herself, but instead she can absorb every kind of magic and make it into her own power.”

Magic absorption – that was perhaps even more of a cheat than Dorothea’s magic nullification.

“Mothers, please look! Mei, do it!”

“Yup!”

In response to Alea’s call, Mei this time threw a boulder at her.

“There!”

Alea brandished the twig and flames bisected the boulder.

“This Alea Barbe’s technique – let’s call it a magic sword for convenience – can penetrate Dorothea Naa’s magic nullification. You said earlier that they are stronger than you two, but there’s no way. The combination of the two of them is a match for Dorothea Naa.”

The apostle chuckled in amusement and continued.

“However, the strength of you two isn’t in that direction, right?”