Squish, squish.
"Wh-wha… h-how much longer are you going to t-touch them…."
"Just a little more."
Squish, squish, squish.
"Nngh…."
I had made myself comfortable and was thoroughly enjoying Dorothia's cheeks.
Ah, this is a problem.
I can't stop.
These cheeks genuinely deserve to be called legendary.
And her proportions were just right, too—when she sat on my lap, her head landed at exactly the perfect height for poking and prodding.
And yet she still had that mature charm about her. Dorothia, isn't that a little overpowered?
Though, well…
*Young Mistress is still a bit more satisfying to squeeze….*
Not that Dorothia was lacking, of course.
It was more like… they were in different categories.
If Dorothia was soft and pillowy, Aiolette was springy and resilient.
And Aiolette's reactions were tastier, too.
"U-um, how much l-longer is this going to…?"
"Oh."
I'd been spacing out without realizing it.
Right, it had been a while. Time to head back.
*If Rustil catches me dawdling, I'll never hear the end of it.*
I lifted Dorothia off my lap and set her down on the floor.
The moment she was down, she immediately started patting her own cheeks, as if checking to make sure they were still attached.
Verifying structural integrity, I supposed.
Fair enough—I had been at it for a while.
"Um, Senior?"
"Eek!"
The moment I spoke, Dorothia flinched like she'd just encountered a wild animal.
I wasn't a monster. I'd only been squeezing her cheeks for about an hour. The reaction seemed a touch excessive.
"I'm not going to eat you. Relax, Senior."
"M-my cheeks… they feel like they've doubled in size… a-and I'm the senior here…."
Oh dear. There was a faint tremor in Dorothia's voice, like she was on the verge of tears.
It seemed having her cheeks manhandled by a junior had wounded her pride as an upperclassman.
Hmm… maybe I overdid it a little.
Time to smooth things over.
"Think of it as a facial massage. It's all the rage among students lately—massaging a close friend's cheeks."
"R-really…?"
"Of course! I only did it because I wanted to get closer to you, Senior. Did you… not want to be friends with me?"
"N-no! I, I want to be f-friends with you too…."
*Easy.*
Dorothia seemed unaccustomed to saying things like that—her voice grew smaller and smaller toward the end.
Her reaction was so guileless that my conscience pricked me for just a moment. But I quickly snapped my shameless smile back into place and took Dorothia's hand in mine.
"I'm so glad! So we're close now, right?"
"Y-yes…! J-junior…."
"Oh, come on, Senior. Just call me Gladia."
"G-Gla… dia…?"
"Yes, Dorothia. We're friends now."
With that, I looked at her and deployed my Perfect Maid smile.
She stared at my face for a moment, expression blank, then slowly nodded.
Excellent. Dorothia: successfully befriended.
I'd been hoping to get close to her once I arrived at the academy, and it happened even faster than I'd expected.
I released her hand with a light, cheerful tone.
"Well, now that we're friends—shall we go find my young mistress?"
"Y-yes! G-Gladia…!"
Dorothia called my name, glancing away with an awkward little smile, then let out a small, shy laugh.
"Heheh."
She was unbearably cute.
I couldn't help it.
"Come here!"
"Eeek!"
Just one more look at those cheeks.
***
Ahem.
I got a little carried away and indulged in her cheeks again.
But I stopped at ten minutes this time!
Dorothia seemed to have gotten used to it, too—she didn't really resist.
In fact, when I held out my hand, she actually tilted her cheek toward me.
Well, well. The body is honest, isn't it. Heh.
Anyway, playtime was over. I genuinely needed to rejoin Aiolette's group before things got dangerous.
Rustil would be arriving soon.
"Alright, Senior. Enough chatting—let's head to my young mistress. She's terribly fond of me, so she gets anxious when we're apart too long."
Dorothia patted her cheeks one last time with a faintly reluctant air, then nodded at my words.
"Y-you're right. Let's go."
Dorothia fell into step behind me.
We'd already agreed on a meeting point with Aiolette's group, so we just needed to head there.
Still, having been separated from Aiolette for this long—genuinely the longest stretch in a while—I felt a faint unease.
*She hasn't caused any trouble, has she?*
The Hero Research Club's relic-exploration activities were events that appeared fairly often in the game *Saintess & Hero*.
If I recalled correctly, participating gave you a chance to obtain rare items.
The one issue was that random events could trigger without warning.
*Hidden enemies suddenly jumping out, or the floor giving way and dropping you into a trap.*
Not that I was genuinely worried about Aiolette and Cruje being in danger.
When we'd entered, I'd done a quick sweep with Heart-Sight and hadn't detected anything threatening.
But this was reality, not a game. There could be things I didn't know about.
And if something I hadn't anticipated had set Aiolette off and she'd gone on a rampage and broken a few relics in the process…
*Rustil is going to lose her mind.*
Rustil's territorial instincts were already strong by nature. The thought made me more anxious, not less.
Right. No more dawdling.
I needed to get to Aiolette and get out.
As if reading my mood, Dorothia quickened her pace and came up beside me.
"G-Gladia… is s-something wrong…?"
"No. I'm just a little worried about my young mistress. This is practically the first time she's done anything without me nearby. She'll be fine, won't she?"
"D-don't worry! This is Stellar Academy…!"
Dorothia thumped her chest reassuringly.
"In my e-experience, nothing dangerous ever happens here… except maybe the headmaster chasing you…!"
Wasn't that the most dangerous thing possible?
*But the way she said that….*
That was a textbook flag-planting line.
Wasn't it common knowledge in this world that whenever someone said something like that, something immediately went wrong afterward?
And then, as if to complete the incantation, Dorothia delivered the finishing blow.
"A-and besides, the headmaster personally c-cast protective spells on this place, so n-no one unauthorized can get in…!"
She'd gone and recited the full summoning ritual.
Something was absolutely about to crawl out of the woodwork.
Ah… so this was what it felt like to be the only two-eyed person in a village of one-eyed folk.
Surrounded by people who defied common sense, and I was the only one suffering for it. Again.
I stopped.
"G-Gladia…?"
Dorothia stopped with me.
I could feel her looking up at me, clearly baffled.
But I didn't answer her unspoken question. Instead, I raised the staff in my hand high.
And brought it down hard against the floor without hesitation.
*Boom—!*
A wave of sound erupted from the tip of the staff and spread outward in all directions, racing along the floor and walls of the ruins.
The ripple expanded like rings on water, struck the surrounding walls and structures, and came bouncing back to me.
The skill I had learned desperately, in order to survive after falling into this world.
Echolocation.
Using the returning waves as a medium, I detonated the detection range of Heart-Sight outward in a burst.
After sweeping the area, I let out a quiet breath.
"…As I thought."
"Wh-why… what's wrong, Gladia…?"
"Senior… get ready."
I told you—plant a flag and nothing goes right.
*Ching!*
I drew my sword.
[Trait ⟨Sword Saint⟩ activates.]
[⟨World's Trial⟩ is nullified.]
My vision cleared. I left it behind and lunged forward, slashing at empty air.
*Shhhk!*
"GAAAH!!"
"Wh-what!?"
Dorothia's startled cry rang out behind me.
What else? The ambushers her flag had summoned.
A moment later, the uninvited guests revealed themselves fully—robed figures who might as well have been wearing signs that read *I am suspicious*.
About twenty of them, by rough count.
*They really came in numbers.*
Realizing their concealment had been blown, they immediately reached for their weapons and moved to charge.
"Damn, we've been spotted! Attack—"
*BOOM!*
"AAAARGH!"
But lightning fell from the air before they could finish the order, scorching through the ambushers in an instant.
Dorothia's magic.
Lightning-attribute 1st Circle magic—Thunder Call.
Three years of surviving Stellar Academy, and the instincts showed—the moment she'd collected herself, she'd fired without hesitation.
Wait, wasn't that the same spell she'd been preparing when she was wary of *me* earlier?
It was only a 1st Circle spell, but she'd cast it without an incantation and it still hit that hard? She was going to fire *that* at me?
*…I'm going to need to squeeze her cheeks for at least thirty minutes later.*
Thinking that, I was already charging at the enemies.
Mana surged through my heart in an instant, concentrated into my feet—and detonated.
The recoil launched my body forward as if space itself had folded.
Maintaining that momentum, I swept my blade through the enemies still reeling from Dorothia's spell.
*Shhhk!*
The moment my sword drew a silver line through the air, the heads of the men at the front came cleanly off and sailed upward.
*Thud. Roll.*
Before the blood even had time to fountain, I had already punched through the center of their formation and arrived at their backs.
"These crazy—!"
The enemies who had just watched their comrades lose their heads screamed in a mix of horror and fury.
Several of them frantically reached out toward me.
What was this? Were they asking for a handshake?
"Oh my, such popularity… I'm sorry, but these hands belong to my young mistress."
"What are you—! You're insane— GAAAH!"
*Slash!*
Instead of a handshake, I swung my sword and severed every outstretched hand in one clean motion.
The enemies who'd been preparing spells screamed as their casting hands flew off.
Well. In the spirit of generosity—
They say a handsome face requires symmetry. I was doing them a favor, really.
*Slash!*
"AAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
And into the enemies who'd just lost both hands, Dorothia's pinpoint ice magic arrived.
*Crack!*
Sharp ice spikes drove mercilessly through the chests of the screaming, handless figures.
"Gh—hk…!"
With short, final gasps, they crumpled to the floor and did not move again.
Once I confirmed all the enemies were down, Dorothia approached me.
She wore an expression that looked nothing like the mage who had just been killing people without mercy—cowed, uneasy, and faintly mortified.
She'd boasted that nothing dangerous ever happened here, and then enemies had immediately appeared. She was embarrassed.
"Wh-who are these people…? I-I've never seen anything like this here before…."
She was stammering more than usual—clearly shaken. I gave her head a light pat to calm her down, then used my sword to lift the hem of one of the corpses' robes.
"Senior. Look at this."
"!!"
What was revealed beneath the robe was unmistakably inhuman—pointed ears, sharp teeth, and a horn jutting from the forehead.
The race that had attacked humanity alongside the Demon King a thousand years ago and plunged the world into despair.
Demons.
"It seems we're not the only ones who are fans of the Hero."