I Was Caught up in a Hero Summoning, but That World Is at Peace

Eris-san said she would personally guide us to the tea party venue, so Kuro and I followed her while chatting along the way.

[Speaking of which, Eris-san, about this tea party, how many people are attending?]

[This time, since it will be Kaito-sama’s first time attending, I just want you to get a feel for the atmosphere. Excluding us, there will be 8 participants. Ideally, I would have also invited some young men closer to Kaito-sama’s age, but I couldn’t find anyone suitable, so it ended up being 8 noble young ladies……]

[Ah, that’s fine. In fact, thank you for being so thoughtful. So, if it’s 8 noble young ladies, does that mean with attendants included, there will be around 16 people?]

Eris spoke with an apologetic tone, but I understood that this world had a much higher ratio of women, and being the only man in a group of women wasn’t unusual for me, so I had no problem with it.

What caught my attention, though, was that Eris said “8 participants excluding us” yet then clarified “8 noble young ladies”, which made me wonder, did that not include their attendants? I recalled attendants weren’t supposed to be nobles.

[Ah, no. At a noble’s tea party, attendants are usually bodyguards. Some feel uneasy if their guard isn’t nearby, but if they wrote “bodyguard” directly, it could be seen as mistrusting the host’s security. That’s why they phrase it as “attendant”.]

[Eh? R- Really!?]

[That said, it’s just that bodyguards are the most common. It’s also possible, like in Kaito-sama’s case, to bring another noble as one’s attendant, so Kaito-sama and Kuromu-sama haven’t done anything wrong. Please don’t worry. The host always prepares extra seating to account for such cases.]

So attendant = guard was kind of an unspoken rule…… I had no idea. It wasn’t that you couldn’t bring a normal attendant, but still, that was a surprising revelation.

[I see. I had no idea either.]

[It’s a noble custom, or rather a convention. If you aren’t a noble, you rarely get the chance to learn about these things, so it can’t be helped. Tea party attendants are just one example, there are many other customs as well. Many of them don’t even have any deep meaning, just things that continue simply because they always have…… I shouldn’t say this as a noble myself, but many are just troublesome.]

Seeing Eris-san give a wry smile as she said that, I suddenly recalled how I’d once gotten confused over the decorative wording in the letters Chris-san sent me.

Thinking about it, that too was just one of the many aristocratic customs. And realizing there must be a whole lot of such things…… I couldn’t help but feel that being a noble really does seem troublesome.

[Still, this was a little unexpected. Well, Kaito-sama is an Otherworlder, and Kuromu-sama has no prior record of attending tea parties, so it’s not strange that you didn’t know the nuance of attendants. But I thought Phantasmal King-sama might have explained it to you in advance……]

[……Ah, well, Alice……]

[……Shalltear would warn Kaito-kun if it were something that might harm him. But if it’s just something that makes us or Eris-chan fluster, she prefers to sit back and watch for fun.]

Right. If not knowing the correct meaning of “attendant” would have put me at a disadvantage, Alice would have told me beforehand. But since bringing Kuro wasn’t completely wrong, and Eris-san had prepared enough flexibility, she probably just found it amusing to watch us learn it the hard way.

Well, when it comes to things involving Lilia-san, she does seem to sympathize and occasionally help out, even if it doesn’t affect me directly……

While I was thinking about this, Alice’s voice came from behind me, though she didn’t reveal herself.

[……No, it’s not like I’ve done nothing, you know. For instance, in this case, I kindly gave a word of warning to a couple of noble families who were plotting something.]

[Wha…… P- Phantasmal King-sama!? That’s……]

[Ahh, don’t blame yourself, Eris-san. You couldn’t have noticed anyway. Those families had very little connection with you, and since I gave them a warning before they even acted, there weren’t any outward signs to see.]

Hearing Alice’s words, Eris looked visibly shocked. As the host, she must have been surprised to learn that some noble families had been scheming behind the scenes.

[No, really, it wasn’t anything big. More like petty or small-time mischief. One was trying to pressure the viscount’s third daughter, who was scheduled to attend the tea party, into casually introducing them to Kaito-san. The other was scheming to sneak one of their merchants in as someone’s companion, since nobles are forbidden from taking other nobles as companions…… It wasn’t anything so serious as a crime, so I just gave them a gentle warning…… Well, they did end up sobbing and rubbing their foreheads against the ground in apology though……]

[……What the heck did you do to them……]

From what I just heard, it really didn’t sound like anything that could be called a major plot…… Basically, one group tried to get a participant to put in a good word about them to me, and another thought about passing off a merchant as someone’s companion. They hadn’t even acted on it yet, it was still just at the planning stage.

Still, if they ended up crying and apologizing like that, did Alice threaten them that badly?

[No, I really did just give a gentle warning. And honestly, it was such a minor prank-level thing that even if they had gone through with it, Eris-san could have easily dealt with it. It wasn’t something that would have harmed Kaito-san in any way either, so even if they had, I’d have let them off with just a scolding……. Well, if there’s one thing of note about how it went down…… I had Eden-san, who seemed bored, “silently stand by in the background” while that was happening.]

[You’re a devil……]

Of course they’d break down crying and grovel on the floor! Eden-san already left countless nobles traumatized, and while people like me who know about Makina’s relationship with Alice might see it differently, to an ordinary noble with no knowledge of Eden-san’s ties to the Phantasmal King, it would just look like Eden-san got angry and came to deliver a warning, right!? And on top of that, having her silently waiting in the background is just way too terrifying.

W- What the heck…… Just imagining the scene feels like a vision of hell. Against my better judgment, I actually felt a tiny bit of sympathy for those nobles who tried to pull something sneaky.

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<Afterword>

Alice-chan : [It’s really just no different from a petty little prank, so I’ll forgive them. Even if it had actually been carried out, I’d forgive it with a big heart…… But I wonder, would this guy in the back forgive them?]

Serious-senpai : [Ain’t that a scene from hell there?]

Makina : [……No, just so there’s no misunderstanding here, I have zero interest in the power struggle between these lumps of flesh, and I’m not angry, okay? If my beloved child had actually been harmed, I’d deal with it, but in this case, that didn’t happen. I only stood in the back because Alice told me to.]

Serious-senpai : [Ah…… I see……]

Makina : [Besides, I only came along because Alice said “Let’s go eat together”, and then asked me to appear as Eden, so I thought that was a little strange……]

Serious-senpai : [Coz this guy doesn’t use omniscience on Alice, so she keeps getting tricked occasionally……]

Makina : [I kind of feel like I’m being used as a convenient intimidation tool, which I’m not happy about……]

Alice-chan : [No, not at all! I had no intention of using you to threaten anyone. It was really such a small matter, so I just took care of it while going out to eat. I had Makina stand in the back…… well, you know, I just wanted my best friend close by.]

Makina : [T- Then I can’t complain~~ Yeah, I get wanting your best friend nearby~~ If that’s the case, I have no objection at all. Sorry for misunderstanding things weirdly.]

Serious-senpai : [The heck, oi!?]