Reinerrude Atel

In the end, Tomo’s attitude didn’t change after that, but it seemed she really had been frightened after all, so I stayed with her until we met up with Yuika.

When Yuika learned what had happened to Tomo—that she had effectively been abducted and held captive by Tojo and the others, and that she had been in an extremely dangerous situation for a girl—she immediately flew into a furious rage, looking ready to storm their hideout herself.

She was shouting, “Time for a raid!” and getting weird looks from everyone around us.

While calming Yuika down, Tomo explained that I’d managed to rescue her before anything happened, along with that mysterious story she’d concocted about me being some kind of martial arts master, but apparently even Yuika couldn’t believe something like that when it was suddenly dumped on her.

“Rinne’s a martial arts master? What’s that supposed to mean? Is there something you don’t want to tell me?”

Apparently thinking Tomo was trying to dodge the subject, Yuika gave her a suspicious glare.

Yeah, well, that was the normal reaction.

“I’m serious! She was knocking those guys down left and right! She was crazy strong!”

“No waaay. You’re lying.”

“Grrr… Rinne, show her! We’ve gotta shut Yuika up!”

“If she doesn’t believe it, isn’t that fine? It’s not like I’m going to be hurt just because she doubts me.”

“You’re way too detached about this!? Hey, Rinnee! Show her! Otherwise it makes me look like I’m lyingggg!”

“It’s not like I particularly need her to believe me… Tomo, let go. Stop clinging to me. And don’t put your weight on me.”

“Rinnee!”

“Fine, fine, I get it. I’ll show her, but what do you want me to do?”

“You know, something that goes like, gwaaah!”

“Such eloquence.”

I’d recently learned that gyaru were creatures who lived by vibes and intuition, but even I had no idea what I was supposed to do with an instruction like “something that goes gwaaah.”

That kind of explanation only worked on someone who shared the same wavelength as you, Tomo.

At the very least, hearing that description wasn’t enough to make me go, “Oh, that thing.”

In the end, at Tomo’s request, I took off my shoes and performed a roundhouse kick that stopped a hair’s breadth from Yuika’s face, at which point she stared at me wide-eyed and finally accepted it while muttering, “Scandinavia is insane.”

I was fairly certain Scandinavia wasn’t exactly famous as the birthplace of martial arts.

I’d already reported Tojo and the others to the police, and by the time we left the abandoned factory, we could hear police sirens approaching, so I assumed a whole lot of them had been arrested and transported to the hospital.

I’d used magic to brainwash them and carved curses into their souls so that, once they regained consciousness, they would confess every crime they’d committed to the police, along with all the embarrassing things from their pasts they’d never want anyone else to know, so the rest was the police’s job.

I escorted Tomo all the way home, and apparently Yuika was going to stay with her tonight.

I had something I needed to take care of as well, so I decided to head home for the time being.

“—Welcome home, my lady.”

“…I knew you’d be here. And you’re blatantly trespassing, too.”

When I arrived home and opened the door, Reinerrude, wearing the same familiar maid uniform and sporting the same familiar face, greeted me as though it were the most natural thing in the world, bowing her head.

“The locks of this world may as well not exist. I have also properly disabled the security system, so please rest assured.”

“You’re telling me to rest assured after blatantly breaking into my house?”

“My, my. I am Your Majesty’s—rather, Lady Rinne’s maid. Therefore, this hardly qualifies as trespassing, does it?”

“I don’t remember signing an employment contract with you… Well, whatever. Let’s talk after I change.”

“Certainly. I have prepared some refreshments and tea for you in the living room.”

“…Thanks.”

She had brazenly broken into someone else’s home, yet had already familiarized herself with the place well enough to prepare tea and refreshments.

Then again, with Reinerrude, it was less that I was surprised and more that I was exasperated, because there was this strange combination of trust and proven experience telling me that of course she could manage something like that.

Reinerrude Atel.

Just as she herself had declared, in my previous life when I had been the Demon Lord, she had been my close aide, attendant, and maid. You could even call her my right hand.

Her race was Dark Dragon Demon.

Her true form was actually an enormous black dragon, sinister enough in appearance to be called downright ominous.

Back when I had been traveling through the Demon Realm in my previous life, I found Reinerrude as a dying child and took her in, caring for her until she recovered, but even after her wounds healed, she refused to leave my side. She had also been the one who never accepted my reasons for choosing reincarnation, right up until the very end.

Because of that, she had even gone charging into the gods’ clan to pick a fight and caused all sorts of trouble… though I had thought she finally accepted it in the end.

…Yeah. She probably hadn’t actually accepted it.

Otherwise, there was no way she would be here now.

After changing into comfortable clothes in my room and heading to the living room, the smell of freshly baked cookies struck me with an almost aggressive richness, made all the more tempting because I hadn’t eaten lunch and was starving.

Beside the table where those cookies had been laid out stood Reinerrude, who had already finished preparing the tea and now stood ramrod straight beside the table, watching me.

“…Did you bake those cookies?”

“Yes. I judged that the household appliances would take too long, so I prepared them using magic.”

“…Prepared them with magic? Don’t tell me you used spacetime magic.”

“Yes. I accelerated the flow of time slightly.”

…Spacetime magic was, fundamentally, not the sort of thing anyone was supposed to use for something like this.

That was without a doubt the least cost-effective way imaginable to bake cookies.

Half exasperated, I sighed and walked over to the table, at which point Reinerrude began fidgeting slightly as she watched me.

…Ahh. Right.

That was how she was.

I stopped in front of Reinerrude and spread my arms, and her eyes widened dramatically despite the expressionless face that had earned her a reputation for being utterly stone-faced.

“Come here, Reine.”

“…!”

It was only a short phrase, but apparently it was the one she had been waiting to hear.

Reinerrude’s expression crumpled, tears spilling freely down her cheeks as she threw herself into my arms and squeezed me tightly.

Mmph. Since she was a little taller than me, I ended up having to tilt my face slightly upward.

Even the difference in our size was the same as it had been in my previous life.

“…I… missed you…! So much… all this time…!”

“…Yeah. I missed you too, Reine.”

She was tall, and everyone around her called her stone-faced, yet she never so much as twitched at those remarks.

But apparently the way she occasionally hugged me like this and wanted affection from me hadn’t changed at all since our previous lives.

Even the way she fidgeted impatiently but forced herself to wait until I gave her permission was exactly the same, and I couldn’t help smiling.

I gently patted Reinerrude’s back as I waited for her to calm down, and after several dozen seconds had passed,

I spoke again.

“…Reine, if you hug someone from this world with that much strength, you’ll crush them, so be careful.”

If I hadn’t reinforced myself with magic, I’d probably be dead right now.