Chapter 15: The Fluffy Trial

The morning after Viola’s attack, at the golden log house.

It should have been a quiet morning, a time for everyone to recover and heal. Instead, the mood in the living room was tense and heavy, almost like a battlefield.

Allen sat on a fluffy cushion in the middle of the room, expected to take the lead.

Luna, Misha, Pee, Kuu, Aria, Sui, and the kobold representative who had been freed from brainwashing all sat around him in a circle, each with a serious look on their face.

“…Um, everyone? I’m fine. Even my injuries were healed instantly with Luna’s magic…”

“— No, Allen. This is not a matter of personal injury. It is a holy war to clarify our ‘defense system’ as an organization, and above all… to identify the ‘war criminal’ who exposed you to danger.”

Luna adjusted her glasses and spoke in a cool, precise tone. In front of her was a grimoire that detailed last night’s events minute by minute.

“I dub this the First ‘Fluffy Guardian Responsibility and Inquiry Trial.’ The defendants are the new residents who allowed themselves to be brainwashed, and… you, Misha, who let her guard down despite being in charge of security.”

“…Objection. …The brainwashed girls merely fell into Elizabeth’s cunning trap. …And I protected Allen-sama until the very end, fighting until my scales scattered. …Shouldn’t the one to be blamed be you, the mage who couldn’t foresee the assassin’s approach? Thieving human.”

Misha replied in a low voice, and the tension in the room grew even stronger.

“W-Wait, stop fighting! I’m telling you, it’s no one’s fault!”

“Please keep quiet, Allen-sama!”

Kyuu…

As everyone talked over each other, Allen could only let out a small cry and curl up into a ball.

“…To begin with, the problem is that Allen-sama’s surroundings are far too lax. …If we had just physically confined him in a cocoon of my threads twenty-four hours a day, he never would have been fed such poison.”

Aria sent out sticky threads from her fingertips and gently wrapped them around Allen’s feet.

“That’s not fair, Aria! If that’s the case, burying him inside my feathers is the safest option! Poison macarons can’t reach him up in the sky!”

“It is my responsibility, as the one entrusted with managing his meals… From now on, I will absolutely not allow anything to enter Allen-sama’s mouth unless I have poison-tested it first. Even a single cup of water, I will pass it to him mouth-to-mouth…”

Kuu held her kitchen knife tightly, her face red, while Sui tried to swallow Allen’s tail and murmured, “…If we melt, together… it’s safe…”

“Stop!! The discussion is getting derailed!”

Luna slammed her hands on the desk to stop everyone.

“Listen closely. In the end, we were caught off guard like that because everyone lacked enough love for Allen.’ …Therefore, as punishment for today, we must restrict our approach to Allen… No, wait, that won’t do. The opposite. Everyone, we will thoroughly ‘purify’ Allen and beat his spirit back into shape so that he never attracts such defilement ever again!”

“Eh, purify…?”

Allen’s uneasy feeling turned out to be correct.

Before Allen realized it, the so-called trial had turned into a contest to see who could heal him the most and show off how much they cared.

The first punishment: The “Rite of Mana Cleansing” by Luna.

Luna forcefully sat Allen on her lap and took out a brush imbued with mana of the highest purity.

“Allen, sit still. …It will be a disaster if even a single particle of that purple mana’s residue remains deep within your fur. …I will wash it all away, down to every last cell, with my indigo mana.”

Scrub, scrub.

Luna brushed Allen so hard he thought his skin might come off. Each time her mana flowed into him, he felt a rush of pleasure, and found himself relying on her more and more, even if he didn’t want to.

“…Hehe, how is it? My mana is dancing inside your body, isn’t it? Tell me it feels good, Allen.”

“…A-Agh. …It feels good, but you’re brushing too hard, Luna…”

The second punishment: The “Rite of Body Temperature Synchronization” by Misha.

Misha pulled Allen away from Luna, lay down on the living room floor, hugged him close to her chest, and wrapped her large tail around him several times.

“…Luna’s magic is far too superficial. …Allen-sama, I will cool yesterday’s terror with my cold scales. …Now, listen to the sound of my heart. …Until it becomes one with your pulse…”

Misha’s embrace was tight, almost impossible to escape from. Pressed between her soft skin and cold scales, Allen felt his fluffy body squeezed so much that his mind started to go blank as her intense feelings surrounded him.

The third punishment: The “Rite of Sanctuary Decoration” by Pee and Aria.

Pee stuck her most beautiful feather into Allen’s head, and Aria began wrapping Allen’s body round and round like a mummy with “barrier silk threads” that repelled mana.

“With this, curses from the outside won’t reach you!”

“…Yes. …As long as you are inside my threads, you are complete as the safest doll in the world.”

“…Pah! I can’t breathe!”

When Allen poked his nose out from the gaps in the threads, Kuu brought over a special “Mental Stabilization Soup.”

“Allen-sama, please take this. …It is an extra-rich soup, made by boiling down my love to the absolute limit. If you drink this, your bad memories, the sensations of other women — they will all completely vanish.”

It wasn’t really soup anymore, but a golden lump of liquid mana. She made him drink it, filling his stomach with her love.

The trial did not end.

Every time someone petted Allen, another would jump in with a “Me too!” His golden fur was constantly being pulled, stroked, dampened, and dried.

At dusk.

Out on the log house’s terrace, Allen was sprawled out, completely exhausted.

After all the grooming, Allen’s golden fur now shone with an almost unnatural brightness.

(…There’s no escape. Enemy or not, in the end, I’m just stuck with this ‘violence called love’…)

Just as Allen covered his face with his short mascot hands,

Click.

The chain around his neck gave a gentle, fleeting sound.

“…?”

It was a change brought about by swallowing Elizabeth’s mana during yesterday’s fierce battle.

The chain’s color was tinged with a deeper purple than before, and it had begun to respond to Allen’s “will” to some extent.

Snap, snap.

When Allen focused his mind, the chain floated up gently, sending Aria’s threads and Pee’s feathers scattering off his body.

(…I can control it a little with my own will. It’s strange—the more Elizabeth-ane-sama controls me, the more power I get to protect myself.)

Allen stared at the setting sun visible from the terrace.

In the plaza, the girls who had been freed from brainwashing were working frantically to build a new house for Allen.

In the living room, Luna, Misha, and the others had begun arguing again over tomorrow’s “grooming schedule.”

“…Allen, so this is where you were.”

Luna, looking a bit calmer, sat down beside him.

She didn’t pick Allen up this time. Instead, she quietly sat close to him.

“…I’m sorry. …It was scary yesterday, wasn’t it? …If I had been more dependable, I wouldn’t have had to put you through such a terrible experience.”

“…Luna. It’s not your fault. …I’m the one who needs to become stronger.”

“…You are already strong enough. …Doing something so reckless in your mascot form. …But, Allen. …Please, don’t rely too much on the mana of those two. …I’m scared… that you might truly cease to be yourself.”

Real tears welled up in Luna’s eyes.

Allen gently placed his golden paw pad over Luna’s hand.

“It’s okay. …I am me. …As long as you, Misha, and the others are here for me, I won’t lose my way.”

“…Allen. …You’re so unfair sometimes. …If you say things like that, it just makes me want to let go of you even less.”

Luna gently pulled Allen close, letting him bury his face into her chest.

It wasn’t as tight as Misha’s embrace, but it was a steady, gentle warmth—a kind of caring that would never let him go if he tried to leave.

This was the gentle comfort of daily life.

Even as he resisted the dangers of the Royal Castle, Allen’s heart was slowly giving in to the sweet attachment he found here on the frontier.