Side Story 4: Alde’s Fan Club

— Tisli’s perspective —

“We’re being followed, the two of us.”

When I said that, Alde seemed to have noticed too, and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s right. But there’s no killing intent…”

On the way from the inn to the coliseum, we’d noticed a tail.

Alde and I are right in the middle of winning through the Martial Arts Tournament, so I’d thought the lord was finally getting desperate, but for that, there’s certainly no killing intent to be felt.

Or rather, I feel an uncanny gaze of a different kind from killing intent…

So I said to Alde,

“It’s a bother, so let’s turn down that alley there and lie in wait.”

“Got it.”

Walking the city’s main street, we quickly stepped into a narrow alley between two shops.

To the tail, it must have looked as if we’d suddenly vanished.

And as we hid ourselves in the alley, a flustered presence approached from across the way.

So it is an assassin after all, I thought, readying myself to manifest magic—

“—Huh?”

The people who came bursting into the alley were dressed nothing at all like assassins.

First, there were four women.

Next, they were clad in frilly, fluttery dresses.

And what they held in their hands were not swords or knives, but bouquets and the like.

Those women raised cheers close to shrieks.

“Eeeeeee!”

“Lord Alde!”

“Wh-what do I do?! I’m not mentally prepared yet!”

“Calm down! Just calm down!”

…Lord Alde?

As I sat dumbfounded, the women carried on.

“Lord Alde!”

“A-actually! We!”

“Lord Alde’s—”

“—we’ve formed a fan club!”

A fan club…?!

A fan club—that’s the organization Miss Fottes mentioned before, the one for sharing information about Alde, isn’t it?!

T-to think it really existed…

As I stood stunned, before I knew it, I—who’d been right beside Alde—had been shoved aside, and Alde was surrounded by women.

“Lord Alde! Please accept this bouquet!”

“O-oh…?”

“I brought cookies I baked with all my heart!”

“Th-thanks…”

“This is a brand-name wallet!”

“Eh? No, that’s a bit much…”

“See, I told you! Anything too expensive just puts him off!”

“M-my apologies, Lord Alde!”

“H-hey, hey, don’t cry…! I get it! I’ll gratefully accept it!”

And so Alde began chatting with the women. Utterly, completely abandoning me—his master and second, who’s become renowned as this tournament’s women’s-division dark horse.

“Lord Alde! I-if it’s all right… could you sign this card?!”

“Sign it? Uh… I just write my name?”

“Yes! Ah, and I know it’s terribly forward, but if you could write ‘To dear Ellen’ beside the autograph, I’d be so happy!”

“That much is fine, I guess…”

And Alde, with a slack, smitten look and the women squealing at him, signed for every one of them.

“Thank you so much, Lord Alde!”

“I’ll make the autograph you gave me a family treasure!”

“Please do your best in today’s match too!”

“We’re cheering for you!”

And the women left, still squealing. Like a storm.

Then Alde, scratching his cheek, said to me,

“Man… that surprised me. To think anyone’d want my autograph.”

He said something so utterly oblivious that, in a flat mood, I said,

“I’d heard there were oddballs and eccentrics in the world, but it seems it’s true.”

Saying only that, I headed briskly back the way we’d come.

As I walked through the crowd in silence, Alde called from behind, at an angle.

“H-heey… Miss Tisli…?”

“What is it.”

“What might you be angry about…?”

“I’m not angry at all.”

“Liar. You’re plainly in a foul mood right now.”

“My mood is excellent! Not a single cloud, like today’s blue sky! How-ev-er!”

When I shot a glare at Alde, who’d caught up beside me, I gave him some advice he ought to be grateful for, as his second.

“On the verge of a match, and getting all smitten like that!”

“I didn’t really mean to, though?”

“Mean to or not, you were smitten! Unconsciously! At that rate, weak as your opponent may be, you could be tripped up!”

“All right, all right, sorry. But a fan club’s a temporary thing, right?”

“Not necessarily! According to Miss Fottes, there are fans who chase a competitor and travel from one regional tournament to the next. If people like that chased you, it’d be a bother, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, sure, but for me, that sort of thing won’t happen.”

“How can you say that for certain?!”

“I mean, you’re here, Tisli.”

“……………Pardon?”

At the sudden mention of me, my thoughts came to a stop. And yet Alde carried on of his own accord.

“Besides, I’m not a full-time competitor, so this is the only martial arts tournament I’ll enter—there’s no way to chase me.”

“Even so, they could just hang around you…”

“We’ve got the Magic Vehicle, so once we leave this city, there’s no way they could catch up, right?”

“That’s… true, but.”

“And even if, by some chance, they did hang around, with you and me, Tisli, it wouldn’t even be a problem.”

“Alde and me?!”

“What’s wrong? You’ve been bright red this whole time.”

“I’m not red!”

This whole time, Alde keeps saying things like Alde and I are always of one body and soul—say something like that and anyone would get flustered!

But Alde, with no idea how I felt, wrapped up the talk.

“Well, that’s how it is. So don’t worry about the fan club.”

“Haa, honestly… fine, I understand…”

After that, we walked in silence to the coliseum for a while.

Presently the coliseum came into view, and when we entered the surrounding park, I asked, offhandedly,

“By the way… what did you mean, ‘because I’m here’?”

“Hm? Uh… what are we talking about?”

“You just said it, didn’t you?! That because I’m here, the fan club won’t chase you around!”

“Ah, that.”

Bird-brained Alde, who forgets everything in three steps, clapped his hands.

“I mean, the two of us look like husband and wife or engaged from the outside, right? We’re not wearing the rings during the tournament, but I figured if we wore them, those girls would give up too.”

“……………So that’s what you meant.”

Just as the ring wards off men for me, for Alde it wards off women, then.

“Honestly. Such a misleading way to put it… I’d been certain…”

“Certain of what?”

Brought back to myself by Alde’s voice, I said, “It’s nothing!” and pressed on so he couldn’t dredge it up again.

“In any case, then keep the ring on until right before the match. Like I do.”

“No, but I’d probably forget to take it off and end up competing with it. Then it’s a foul loss.”

“Haa… you really are bird-brained. Fine, then. I’ll bear with it during the tournament.”

“Bear with what?”

“I don’t know!”

I myself don’t even know what I’m angry about!

It’s just that Alde being fawned over by women like that is unbearably unpleasant—

“—Ah, in that case!”

And I promptly hit upon a brilliant idea.

“Let’s make Alde’s fan club men-only!”

“……………Huh?”

“To begin with, the majority of the tournament’s audience is men! In that case, targeting men is bound to liven it up more!”

“W-wait, Tisli!”

“Then there’s no time to lose. Let’s form an official fan club at once and have them cheer Alde on. As a perk, I’ll give swordsmanship commentary. For present submissions, we’ll organize a secretariat and leave it all to them.”

“Presents?! I don’t want handmade cookies from men!”

“Oh? And why is that?”

It was a splendid plan, yet Alde had shown no enthusiasm this whole time, so I glared at him with a loooong, sullen stare.

“You accepted them earlier, didn’t you? Those handmade cookies.”

“That’s because they were from women—Ah?!”

“See! You were smitten after all! Showing your true colors, that’s exactly what this is!!”

“No, that’s not it! I don’t swing that way, so spare me that sort of thing!”

“No! In that case I’ll spare you nothing!”

“Why?!”

“I’ll build you a sturdy fan club made up of brawny, martial-arts-loving men! After your matches, Alde, you’ll be surrounded by those men, and you can chat and dine with them! That way those women can’t come near you!!”

“Are you serious, Tisli?! With you, I’m scared you’d have it organized in no time!”

“Of course I’m serious—I’ll have it built in half a day! Now then, today I can’t attend you as your second, but—”

“Please! I’m begging you, spare meee!!”

Though it was before the tournament, Alde’s pathetic voice rang out across the coliseum grounds.

(And that’s that. To be continued in Volume 3!)

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