Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?

Chapter 256 - I brought a man home, so let him stay < What the fuck!?

These days I want to go home as early as possible. No really, for a middle-class girl like me, I’m really bad with bastards who glare at you like they want to kill you. See, from the point of view of a good citizen, even a “delinquent” is an annoying existence right? Normally you’d avoid them, right? So naturally I’ll return home.

「You just gonna return hey!?」

Ack!? How did he know?

Ugh. Look, my communication skills are weak okay. I’m bad at dealing with intense types like you okay. “Delinquent” types and so on, well, I’ve not really had much to do with them. Until now those around me have mostly been composed types, so they can generally understand me when I say very little, so I’ve been able to get by, but THIS guy is no good. Really, he just comes at me without the slightest regard for my situation.

「Hey, seriously what do you want?」

See, just like this. When talking with the Demon King for example I can just talk, but she’s the exception where I can talk to her normally. Vampire girl doesn’t really want to talk to me in the first place. Argnar and the like will patiently wait for me to begin to talk. But, THIS guy is always forcing me like “speak already, speak right now”.

Umm, what did I come to ask again?

「Hey! We’re busy here okay. State your business already.」

There! Don’t rush me!

「Oni, freeloader, OK?」

See! If you rush me then I can only manage to say a list cryptic words!

「Huh? What’s that mean?」

That’s your fault, yours! Please let me talk at my own pace!

「Blow, you’re crowding Shiro-san and bothering her. In the first place, she did not come here to see you, but me, right?」

「Uh, no, that’s…」

「Back down, okay. Shiro-san, I am sorry about my brother.」

「If you say so, aniki.」

Nice, Balto. You’re not being overworked by the Demon King for nothing. The nice guy who can read the mood.

「Well then, please allow me to hear your request once more.」

Umm, just a moment. Oni, doesn’t make sense so, man? Sheltered, or rather, picked up a man? He’s downhearted so I want to let him recuperate for a while. Yup.

「I picked up a man. I want to put him up at the mansion.」

Ka-thump! As that sound resounds, the hoodlum yelled loudly. What’s this guy doing?

「Wh, what the fuck!?」

Uh, what’s with that halting intonation? Same to you, what the fuck?

「Shiro-san. My place is not a dating spot though. If it is just one person then I shall ignore it, but please keep it to a minimum.」

Hm? Hmm? HMM!?

W, wrong! I don’t mean it that way! Yikes! Now I get why the hoodlum yelled! The words I said, could also be interpreted that way huh!

「Wrong.」

If I don’t bother to correct this my honour will suffer. Though others might grin and ignore me while I deny everything, I’d hate to be labelled that way.

［It’s true. It just happened to be someone who looked like me, so please don’t think of me as a cheap woman or something.］

I felt like I heard that somehow but it’s just your imagination. Dear maid, there’s an idle god here. Please drag her away immediately.

「Y, yo, you, ha, have a guy!?」

Bug off shut up die! It was a slip of the tongue.

「He’s an old friend. He may be useful for the war.」

I make a plea that we don’t have such a relationship, plus I hint about potential gains. With this, setting aside the hoodlum, I should at least be able to get Balto to assent! I don’t know how useful he would actually be in practice though.

「Ahh, so that’s what it was. In that case then there is no problem. By the way, how useful do you think he would be?」

There, you see. A reasonable man is quite different after all. Totally different from the still trembling dim-witted hoodlum.

「Significantly.」

「Is that so. Then that sure is promising.」

Balto showed a strained seeming face for an instant, but I’ll pretend I never saw it. Balto is also assisting the Demon King out of sheer terror only, so like with Argnar he can’t be fully trusted. If he thinks our power has weakened, he would become dangerous to us without hesitation. Even then Balto is opposed to increasing the strength of the Demon King’s army.

Well, Balto’s concern is wide of the mark though. Oni-kun hasn’t even met the Demon King anyway. I don’t know how oni-kun’s feels about this yet either, so it’s up to him to decide what to do next. Whether he actually wants to help our war efforts, or not, that’s still a theoretical question. I have no intention to force him. However, if by his own will he decides to stand in opposition to me then I won’t show mercy.

「I shall contact the mansion myself. I am sure that there are plenty of rooms that are available.」

「Thank you.」

At my thanks, Balto shows a surprised expression. I can show gratitude at least you know.

I’ve gotten Balto’s permission, so there’s nothing else here for me. I’ll clear out before the hoodlum recovers from his freeze.

＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊

「Blow.」

「Uwah!? Aniki, where is she?」

「She left long ago.」

「I, I see.」

「From the look of things, it seems he’s not her boyfriend.」

「Well, it’s not like, I particular care about that though!」

「Blow, I can’t really recommend her, but what is good about her?」

「Wh, what are you talking about?」

「Sigh. My little brother who wasn’t interested in romance all this time, to think he’d then go for someone so incredibly difficult.」

「You’re wrong! It’s just that, when I see her, I suddenly get these intense palpitations!」

「Sigh.」

Author’s comment:

The suspension bridge effect: This is that when encountering the opposite sex in moments of anxiety or fear that those are mistaken for romantic feelings. Particularly when anxiety or fear leads to intense palpitations, that is said to become mistaken for feelings of love.

Notes:

This is quite an interesting title, though hopefully it makes more sense on reading the chapter. Basically, the “<” character is an arrow indicating that the “what the fuck” part is a reaction to the rest of the line.

It’s hard to keep the distinction in the translation but there’s a very big difference between how Blow and Balto speak with Shiro. Balto is smooth and polite while Blow is more like a yakuza and refers to Balto as “aniki” which is like a “rougher” (street tough) version of “onii-san”. When it’s just them together, Balto speaks more casually.

“Sheltered, or rather, picked up a man” - the word for “picked up” that Shiro uses here is rather more generic and can also mean “take care of” but it normally means something like “picked up” as in “picked up a stone”.

“Dear maid, there’s an idle god here” - most likely a reference to D (last seen being dragged away by maids). btw, note that the quoted line above uses［…］rather than 「…」to differentiate between real spoken text and made up lines.