“Young Miss, we’ve arrived.” Just at that moment, the bird-drawn—er, or rather, golem-drawn carriage—came to a stop, and the dwarf directing the golems from the driver’s seat alerted us in a low, rumbling voice that we had reached our destination.
We didn’t find any especially compelling clues at the Guld Workshop. The place was big enough that you could truthfully call it an underground city, but the spot where they found the “coffin” just looked like a dig site, rocks and dirt everywhere and not much else. We took some photos and videos and then decided to leave.
“Okay, see you later,” I said as we entered the house. No sooner had we gotten inside than we all went our separate ways, mostly to our rooms. As the head of Amutech’s school, I had to reorganize the teaching materials we’d used that day, record everything that needed to be recorded, and do other fiddly paperwork. By the time I was done with all that, Myusel would probably be calling us for dinner.
I pulled out my phone, checking some notes as I walked down the hall.
“Huh?” I could see something walking in the other direction, toward me. It was a basket so big you could barely get your arms around it, packed to overflowing with laundry. Talk about a bad center of gravity: the basket wobbled to the right, then to the left, looking like it might tumble over at any moment.
Obviously, I don’t mean a laundry basket had sprouted legs and started walking around. There was somebody holding it, somebody coming this way. They must have just been to get the laundry. There were only a couple of people who handled the laundry around here—and from the pale, white legs I could see peeking out below the basket, I knew which of our maids it had to be.
“Myusel,” I said, coming to a halt, and the towering basket of laundry stopped, too.
“Shinichi-sama...” The person who peeked out from behind the basket was exactly the one I had imagined. She had flaxen hair tied in twintails, a headdress on her head, and she was overall completely beautiful. Her ears were pointed like an elf’s, but she was actually a half-elf, with one elven and one human parent. She was also our mansion’s maid, Myusel Fourant. “W-Welcome back—welcome back?!”
She sounded a little bit panicked. Normally she would have met us at the front door, but I hadn’t seen her today. The trip to Guld Workshop had meant getting home a little later than usual, so I had assumed she was busy with some job. Apparently she had been collecting the laundry out behind the house, and hadn’t realized we’d gotten home.
“I’m so sorry, sir, I should have been there to greet youuaaahhh!”
“Oh—!”
I don’t know if she tripped on something, or if she just lost her balance from that awkward position, but Myusel went falling on her bottom with a shout. The basket slipped out of her grasp, depositing its contents all over the hallway. Oh well... It happens. Around here, it happens more than you might think.
“Are you okay?” I asked, collecting some clothes as I worked my way over to Myusel.
“I’m sorry! I’m very sorry! I’ll clean this up right away!”
“Calm down, it’s all right,” I said with a grin as Myusel started grabbing clothing in a tizzy.
By and large, Myusel was a perfectly capable maid and a hard worker, but once in a while she would try to push herself just a little too far. In case you’re keeping track, this means that not only was she a half-elf and a maid-san, she was also an adorable klutz. If checking too many boxes on the moe list was an arrestable offense, Myusel would have been in jail a long time ago. Er, not that I know exactly who polices those sorts of things.
Anyway...
“I’ll help you,” I said.
“Thank you, sir...”
It was a familiar sort of conversation. I started collecting whatever was nearby, draping the clothes over my arm as I went. A towel, aprons that looked like they belonged to Myusel and Cerise-san, my T-shirts. I was going along, innocently grabbing whatever was within arm’s reach, when—
“Hrk—!”
Something came falling out from where it had been hiding under a towel, and I froze.
It was a piece of cloth, elegantly embroidered and covered in frills. It almost looked like some kind of 3D model: there was nothing inside the cloth, yet it ballooned out like a bowl, suggesting the shape it assumed when it was worn. A second piece of cloth just like it was attached to the first, with a cute little bow of red ribbon in the middle. The other side from the ribbon boasted a cloth belt and U-shaped clasps, matched by little hooks on the other side. It was completed by straps, if you will, that could rest over the wearer’s shoulders.
...........................
Uhh, I guess this wasn’t the moment for detailed description.
It was—it was—it was—Ahhhhh, it was—!
“Bravooooo!”
No, wait, that wasn’t the word—brassiere...! That was it! I started to quake as I stood there holding the brassiere.
Okay, so, obviously, it wasn’t like I had never seen a bra before. Even the dollar stores and supermarkets sell ladies’ underwear in Japan, and I had seen mannequins wearing them plenty of times. And I had seen my mom’s and sister’s clothes drying on the wash line before. But those were all completely different from the article of underwear that was in my hand at this very moment. It didn’t belong to my family, and it wasn’t a never-worn display piece at the store. It had, in fact, been in contact with the body of a girl I knew very well. In other words, me holding this bra was like—well, not an “indirect kiss,” but you get the ideaaaaaaghhh!!
Wait, hang on, I thought, coming back to my senses. Who does this belong to?
It was too small to be Elvia’s, and she tended to wear tube tops anyway, so the shoulder
