Cid liked cute things.
They reminded him of the dog he had in his previous life, and of his childhood friend Delta.
And right now, there was one such adorable creature standing right in front of him.
Hmm. To be fair, she was so exquisitely delicate she looked almost like a doll...
Well, she actually was a doll, so never mind.
Ahem. Start over.
A tiny, extremely cute little girl with an exquisitely delicate appearance, eyes darting away, speaking in a tone she clearly thought was full of authority even though it was obviously guilty and lacking confidence, giving off a soft, fluffy feeling, with even a faint trace of maternal warmth in her gaze...
She was truly one of the world's treasures.
Cid's hands itched.
He had petted a cat before coming here, but now he wanted to pet Natsuki-chan too.
Of course, he still had his reason.
Rushing up to her just now could be explained as emotional excitement. Very background character-like.
But if he actually started petting Natsuki-chan now, then his background character identity would face a major crisis.
For a doll with simple logic like Natsuki-chan, she was genuinely easy to fool, but also genuinely difficult to deal with. That was why he had always maintained the image of a good student in front of her.
As these random thoughts ran through his mind, more than ten seconds passed.
Natsuki Minamiya also noticed that the atmosphere had become strange. The guilt and unease in her heart were pushed down, her rationality came back online, and the soft, fluffy feeling around her disappeared. She turned her head toward Cid.
Natsuki Minamiya turned quickly.
But Cid changed expressions even faster.
The strange look on his face vanished, replaced by an expression of tearful joy.
The restless hand that had wanted to pet Natsuki-chan instantly moved to his chest and clasped together.
His eyes blinked once, and the gaze that had been softened by cuteness instantly switched to one of gratitude.
"Thank you so much, Natsuki-sensei.
Don't worry. I'll leave right now, and I'll never come here again."
After making that solemn declaration, Cid hurriedly turned and left.
Watching Cid flee in a panic, Natsuki Minamiya rubbed her forehead with a headache, let out a sigh, and turned to look toward where Rossweisse had been sitting...
No one was there.
"Natsuki-chan, look!"
Rossweisse's voice rang out.
Natsuki Minamiya turned and saw Rossweisse standing off to the side with a silly grin on her face, holding something in her hand.
"Sigh.
Rossweisse, can't you make me worry a little less? You know perfectly well that you can't hold your liquor, yet you keep drinking anyway. And you're never careful. I almost thought you'd wandered off just now."
Looking at the former Valkyrie from the North, Natsuki Minamiya could not help sighing again.
Rossweisse was usually serious and aloof.
But every time she drank, she turned into this.
She could not hold her liquor, but refused to admit it, and still kept drinking anyway.
She really was the type who was bad at it and still loved playing around.
Thankfully, Rossweisse never drank alone. She always dragged either her or Misaki Sasasaki along.
Otherwise, she probably would have been picked up by someone long ago.
Natsuki Minamiya had never underestimated the ugliness of human nature.
"Natsuki-chan, are you joking? I already told you, back then I was that rotten old man Odin's..."
"Stop, stop, stop. I know, I know. You've said it so many times I could practically recite it by heart.
Go on, what's in your hand? If it's something someone dropped by accident, give it to me. I'll take it to the security team."
Rossweisse had only gotten halfway through her protest before Natsuki Minamiya interrupted her and shifted the topic to what she was holding.
Just as Natsuki Minamiya said, she had heard Rossweisse's story so many times she had lost count.
It was always the same.
Rossweisse used to be Odin's personal guard and often had to drink on Odin's behalf.
Then she would start complaining about how awful Odin was, how recklessly he behaved, basically cursing him in every possible way.
After that, she would complain about how Odin had ruined her life in this way or that way, and finally arrive at the conclusion that the reason she still had no boyfriend, and that her years of being single equaled her age since birth, was all Odin's fault.
Odin should go die.
"Hehehe, it's something good, Natsuki-chan."
Rossweisse's usual calm and intelligent image was nowhere to be seen.
When drunk, Rossweisse was just a goofy fool.
She giggled and unfolded the item in her hand for Natsuki Minamiya to see.
"So now you've started calling me Natsuki-chan too?"
Natsuki Minamiya casually complained, but then let it slide.
At this point, aside from Cid, all her students called her Natsuki-chan anyway. One more Rossweisse did not make a difference, and one less Rossweisse would not either. She was already used to it.
And besides, would telling a drunk person not to call her Natsuki-chan actually do any good?
She had serious doubts about that.
Of course, Misaki Sasasaki was an exception.
"A coupon? This becomes useless after tonight. No point taking it back. You can use it if you want. By the way, where did you pick it up?"
Natsuki Minamiya took the item from Rossweisse, looked closely, and saw that it was a free bill coupon with an expiration date of today.
If she brought something like this back to the security team after tonight, it would just become a piece of waste paper.
She had no interest in wasting the effort to return it to the owner, so she handed it back to Rossweisse and casually asked where she found it.
"Umm... it fell out of Cid's pocket just now. I even saw several more inside!"
Rossweisse replied in a cute tone, then went back to drinking.
"You must have seen wrong. Cid doesn't look like the kind of person who would be a regular at a place like this. There's no way he'd have coupons from here."
Having just convinced herself that Cid had not been drinking, there was no way Natsuki Minamiya would believe Rossweisse's words.
She simply assumed Rossweisse, just like her, had seen things wrong.
Otherwise, how could Cid have no smell of alcohol on him at all? Did the alcohol just evaporate?
"Ahaha... you just didn't see it yourself, Natsuki-chan. I'm a Valkyrie from the Norse pantheon. Even if I'm a former Valkyrie, I was still Odin's guard once. There's no way I could have seen wrong."
Rossweisse boldly drained another glass of alcohol and let out a satisfied sound. Being doubted by Natsuki Minamiya clearly hurt her pride. In order to prove she had not been mistaken, she even brought up her past experience as one of Odin's guards as evidence.
Although she had indeed misjudged something earlier.
Just now, when Natsuki Minamiya avoided looking directly at Cid, she thought she saw Cid reveal a very strange smile.
Of course, she knew that must have been her imagination.
How could Cid possibly show such a strange and disrespectful smile? After all, Cid was one of the rare good students who never called her Rossweisse-chan.
Thinking about it that way, Rossweisse started to feel a little guilty.
Coming to a bar while carrying discount coupons in his pocket... if someone said he was not here to drink, who would believe it?
But someone as well-behaved as Cid drinking alcohol? That felt impossible.
So... could she have been mistaken again just now?
Despite these thoughts, Rossweisse showed no hint of doubt on her face.
"Then how do you explain that there isn't even the slightest smell of alcohol on Cid? Did it just evapor—"
Tap.
Before she could finish speaking, something dripped down and hit the floor with a faint sound.
In the noisy bar the sound was insignificant, but with Natsuki Minamiya's abilities, she still clearly heard the droplet hitting the ground.
Her gaze lifted toward the ceiling.
There was a visible water stain on the ceiling.
Following the stain downward, she saw small droplets scattered across the smooth floor.
She stepped forward, bent down, and touched the largest droplet with her index finger. Then she raised it beneath her nose and gently sniffed.
The droplet had fallen exactly where Cid had been standing moments ago.
"The smell of alcohol?"
Natsuki Minamiya spoke softly, her brows furrowing.
Her earlier conclusion began to waver again.
The possibility that both she and Rossweisse had misjudged things did exist, and it was not a small possibility.
The body she used while moving outside was a body formed from magical power. It was not impossible for the information transmitted back to her true body to have some small errors.
Rossweisse's words were usually reliable.
But Rossweisse was currently drunk, and the words of a drunk person could hardly be trusted.
But then another question arose.
Why was there suddenly a water stain on the ceiling?
Such a shallow stain would disappear within a few minutes. That meant it could not have appeared more than three minutes ago.
The problem was that she had been sitting here drinking with Rossweisse for over half an hour.
A few minutes ago, she had not seen anyone boiling water nearby. She could even say with certainty that within the last ten minutes, the only person who passed this exact spot was Cid.
So where did that patch of moisture come from?
Did the shop clean the ceiling before they arrived, and the stain only just shrank to this size now?
Leaving aside the obvious smell of alcohol.
One of them was a witch and the other a Norse Valkyrie. If the ceiling had been wet half an hour ago, would they really have failed to notice?
Who did they think they were fooling?
And it was not that she was overthinking.
In her more than ten years as an Attack Mage, she had seen far too many powerful people die at the hands of weaker opponents simply because they overlooked small details around them.
She herself had even experienced being killed once or twice.
Of course, her body was formed from magical power. As long as her real body remained unharmed, she could simply spend some magic and recreate another magical body.
The more she thought about it, the more puzzled she became.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Natsuki Minamiya felt as if she had caught hold of something, a faint clue that made her want to keep digging deeper.
"Waaah... anyway, it's all that stinky old man Odin's fault that I can't find a boyfriend."
A drunk person's train of thought really does jump all over the place. Just moments ago she was feeling guilty, and now she was blaming her inability to find a boyfriend on her former boss again.
Rossweisse suddenly shouted beside her, interrupting Natsuki Minamiya's thoughts.
Seriously, how did we end up back on that topic again?
Natsuki Minamiya took a deep breath. The fleeting inspiration she had felt was already gone. With no other choice, she carefully began sensing the surrounding magical power, trying to see if anything was abnormal.
She checked several times.
Nothing.
There was not even the slightest fluctuation of magic.
With her train of thought broken and no clues left, Natsuki Minamiya finally stepped forward and grabbed Rossweisse, planning to leave.
If something felt wrong but you could not figure out what it was, then leaving was always the safest choice.
"No, Natsuki-chan! I haven't had enough yet. I still want to drink!"
When she tried to pull Rossweisse away, Rossweisse refused and loudly insisted on continuing to drink.
At that moment, Natsuki Minamiya found herself missing Cid.
Cid was truly a good kid.
And most importantly, he did not call her Natsuki-chan.
Taking another deep breath to suppress her irritation, Natsuki Minamiya began persuading Rossweisse.
"Alright, stop drinking. If you keep going you're really going to pass out... Your coupon is about to expire. After midnight they won't accept it anymore. You should go settle the bill quickly."
At first she used the usual line she employed when trying to get Rossweisse to drink less. Halfway through, however, she realized that method never worked on her.
So she immediately switched tactics and targeted Rossweisse's weakness for small bargains.
"Right, we need to pay quickly. The coupon expires today."
The effect was immediate.
Rossweisse instantly perked up and rushed to the counter to pay.
...
As for Cid, the moment he left Natsuki Minamiya's sight, his expression changed into one of disdain as he let out a quiet laugh.
"Heh. Foolish Natsuki-chan played right into my hands."
His flawless acting had once again successfully fooled Natsuki Minamiya.