“Huh...?”
It was in trying to look away from myself that I noticed it: situated in the cleft between my breasts, the smallest of red lights was shimmering. But it wasn’t coming from my skin. In fact, it seemed like it was emanating out from somewhere deep in my chest. As if something buried there were shining.
I took a step closer to the mirror, staring hard at the light in my chest. Whatever it was must have been shining pretty brightly to be visible through my skin; it looked like a sphere about the size of a golf ball. In fact, it looked oddly familiar.
“It’s from that coffin...”
Yes, that was it. The gelatin in that coffin-like container had had a similar small object floating in it. Obviously, I couldn’t see the pattern or color well enough to be sure it was exactly the same thing.
“What in the world...?”
What was going on here? I put a hand on the mirror, leaning my face as close as I could to the thing. Just then—
“Hikaru-sama!”
“Eeek?!” I shrieked as the door came flying open. “Wha—Wha—Wha—?”
I turned to find Elvia standing there. The easygoing beast girl wore the same innocent smile she always did. Leave it to her to come bursting into a person’s room without knocking and never realize she’d made a faux pas.
“Wh-What are you doing in here?”
“Huh? Oh, I just thought, hey, Hikaru-sama got turned into a girl. Wonder if he’s all right?” she answered brightly. She sounded completely sincere.
“No! I mean, what about the lock...?!”
When we closed our doors, a magical lock was activated that was supposed to make it impossible to open the door from the outside. At the very least, Elvia shouldn’t have been able to just come waltzing in.
“How did you get past the lock?” I exclaimed, meanwhile almost subconsciously moving my hands to cover myself. Elvia, seemingly oblivious, stared directly at me. Assaulted by a sudden wave of embarrassment, I twisted, trying to hide from her, attempting to make myself as small as possible.
“Oh, I borrowed the key from Myusel,” Elvia said, scratching her head shyly.
Ah, yes: Myusel had backup copies of all our keys, so we didn’t have to go walking around with them. That helped reduce the risk of dropping them somewhere outside the mansion. It was all very logical.
Meanwhile, Minori-san, the Amutech bodyguard, was with Shinichi-san. Which meant at this moment, I had no one to keep me safe if the need arose—no one except Elvia. I guess Myusel had given her the key in part because she knew Elvia was my best ally under the circumstances.
“Okay, fine, but you shouldn’t just come bursting into a person’s room! Y-You could at least knock first!”
“Sorry ’bout that.” Elvia bowed her head, but she still didn’t seem to feel particularly guilty. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I reached desperately over to my bed, grabbing my clothes and holding them in front of me to cover myself.
I know, I know. Elvia didn’t mean any harm. In fact, as she herself said, she’d had my best interest at heart. But it was just tremendously embarrassing for anyone to know I’d been examining myself naked in the mirror. I couldn’t look at her. Did she think I was some kind of sex-crazed pervert now? Not to mention, I wasn’t wearing a thread of clothing, and I just didn’t want her to see me that way.
“A-Anyway, I’m gonna get dressed...” I said, trying to indicate that Elvia should step out of the room, when suddenly something occurred to me. I was a woman now. And so was Elvia. So actually, it was pretty strange to be acting all embarrassed. For that matter, if this body was just a construct—just something my soul had somehow been transferred into—then the real me was sleeping on that bed, which meant she wasn’t really seeing me naked at all. So why was I so embarrassed?
The entire thing was making my head spin.
“Er... Hikaru-sama?” Elvia was looking at my feet for some reason. “Have y’ been outside?”
“Huh? Outside?” Did she mean, since I got up this morning? “I don’t think so... why?”
“Your legs, they’re kinda dirty.”
At that, I looked down at my legs, and lo and behold, they were a little bit dirty. It looked like I had been running around in bare feet. I hadn’t left the house since I got up this morning. And I never went out of my way to go out without putting shoes on. So how had this happened?
“I guess I did go to bed without my bath last night...” I said, but that had been in the male body that was currently asleep on the bed. I was sure I hadn’t been in this woman’s form before I drifted off last night.
“Hikaru-sama?”
I was getting confused by the sheer number of unanswered questions. Elvia looked at me blankly. Then she looked at my feet again, smiled with almost blinding brightness, and said, “Let’s hit the bath.”
“Uhhh...” I hadn’t expected that. She shuffled over to me where I stood, still frozen, and grabbed my hand. “E-Elvia?!”
“Nobody likes to go around dirty, right?”
“Well, I mean—yeep!” She hardly waited for me to respond before she started off, dragging me behind her. I had been in Elvia’s arms once, as we jumped from a runaway carriage, and it had given me an appreciation for just how strong and powerful she was. With my weight, I don’t think she knew I was there. If she really wanted to, she could probably tuck me under one arm and run away. All of which was to say, resistance was futile.
Still, I tried. “H-Hold on, Elvia! At least let me dress...!”
“We’re goin’ to the bath. You’d just have to undress again.”
“Not the point...”
She smiled, but ignored me, as she half-dragged, half-carried me down the
