Chapter One: The Melancholy of an Empress

I, Kanou Shinichi, want to shout it from the rooftops:

Maid uniforms are good!

They are very, very good!

“Boo......”

There isn’t really a settled definition of a maid uniform. To say that it’s the uniform a maid wears might seem tautological, but it’s also completely true. Granted, we have things like sailor uniforms, which started as the outfits worn by sailors but now, at least in Japan, have practically become synonymous with female students. Do me a favor and just forget about all that.

I think the ensemble most people picture when they think of a maid is something like this: a black or dark-blue one-piece dress, a frilly apron, and maybe a headpiece (also frilly).

And that’s about right. It has a functional beauty—totally without ostentation, yet never in danger of being plain. Its very purposefulness is what makes it attractive.

“Booooooo......”

But in the modern age, and especially in Japan, maid uniforms are first and foremost cosplay.

They might come in pink or light blue, for example. The skirt might only go down to the thighs, to be combined with high socks. They might be sleeveless. They’re all about ostentation, excess, trying anything and everything.

Of course, as an otaku who prided himself on his wide-ranging tastes, I loved a good cosplay maid. It was everything I could want. Especially that absolute territory peeking out from between her socks and skirt, like a battle line between innocence and temptation... It’s art. Just the socks alone, working their way up her thighs, were enough to set my head spinning.

“Booooooooooo......”

And yet—and yet!

Does that mean I thought we should pretend as if maid uniforms intended for actual maid work don’t exist? Hardly! We can’t forget our roots—don’t you agree?!

Especially... the color. Dark tones (black being representative) make a person look thinner. Then there’s the whiteness of the apron contrasting with the dark uniform! That’s crucial! The white speaks to the innocence of a young maiden; it’s the one thing about a maid on which I absolutely refuse to compromise!

These uniforms are fundamentally different from outfits whose main appeal is how much skin they show. Praise ye the maid! Venerate her uniform! It is no mere knee-jerk reaction against sexual desire—it presents a panoply of metaphors, creating drama within all who see it. What greater degree of moe could there be?!

“Boooooooooooooooooo......!”

And so on and so forth.

“Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo......!”

Such nuanced and perceptive appraisals—

“Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo......!”

—were completely absent from my mind at that moment.

I was entirely at the mercy of the whirlwind of emotion that welled up within me. I could only lift my voice in admiration.

What a... What a... chest!!

It had just been a morning like any other, and I had just been walking down the hallway of my mansion, when suddenly I heard a door open. And when I looked over—

“Boooooooo......ooo! Boooooooooo............bs!”

It was like an orchard of peaches, a paradise.

Yes! Two rich, juicy peaches right there! Hidden from me only by a white apron and a navy dress. You could practically smell them! They practically cried, Look at us! Two great hills that strived against the fabric entrapping them, as if they might burst through it at any time. So round and perfect! O! O! They weren’t just big, but were flawless in the arc they described...

In the name of all that is good, praise these twin hills!

Sieg—OPPAI!!

“Shinichi-kun?” As I stood there shaking with gratitude, I heard a dubious voice. “What are you doing?”

“I’m worshiping,” I said, pressing my hands firmly together.

Oh thank you, thank you!

Such vast boobs were a dream come true. Boobs are love. Boobs are life.

Worship them properly, and be assured that your life will be extended by a thousand days.

Chapter Two: Magical Girl

I was running. Running as fast as I could.

I had to get away. I poured every ounce of my strength into fleeing.

That was all I could think about as my feet pounded the earth. Several times, I nearly fell, flailing my arms pathetically to steady myself and groaning.

Soon, though, my flight was arrested.

I let out a gasp: a dead end.

Several meters ahead of me was a sheer cliff. There was no more ground for my feet to pound. Everything around me was full of rich greenery; you could almost call it idyllic—but under the leaden clouds that now hovered above me, that pastoral beauty seemed like just a ploy to emphasize how hopeless my situation was.

“Now I’ve got you... tee hee!”

The words came from behind me, with the force of a death sentence. I spun around—and there stood a girl with emerald eyes, staring at me.

The wind caressing the grass of the field caught her silver hair and caused it to dance. Unusually, though, that hair was tied to either side of her head—twintails. They made her look like a different person.

But it was Petralka.

Her outfit, too, was different from usual. She was wearing a white shirt, the neckline of which had unique reverse triangle shapes. It was paired with white socks and a pleated skirt in dark plaid. It seemed pure and simple at first glance, yet her midriff, which was suddenly visible when she arched her back, gave off an inescapable eroticism.

Oh! Be still my heart! I could never confuse that outfit for anything else! It was the one, the only—

Seeraa-fuku! Sailor uniform!

The outfit Petralka was wearing was the quintessential Japanese uniform, worn by female students across the nation.

Then, she slid her right hand into her pocket and pulled something out. It was a little bit bigger than the palm of her hand—a makeup mirror set with an elaborate pattern of gems. She raised the compact high and shouted, “Magical... CHARGE!!”

That very instant, a windstorm sprang up from who knew where and Petralka’s body was wreathed in light. Her school uniform began to disappear piece by piece, and although the backlighting ensured it wasn’t possible to see anything really titillating, it was obvious enough that she wasn’t wearing a thread, the outline of her body clearly visible. Then that mysterious breeze blew in a new set of clothes for her.

The transformation was the work of a moment. I blinked, and Petralka was dressed in something completely different. She was wearing a leotard like a ballerina’s, which followed the lines of her body closely. Along with that was a skirt that stopped just above her thighs. The whole outfit was riddled with decorations, and it didn’t spare the skin at her shoulders and legs, which was almost pearlescent. The compact was now hanging at her neckline, as if to underline its role as the catalyst.

“Say—your—prayers!” Petralka said, pointing at me with a motion so crisp I felt like it should have come with a sound effect.

And then...

“Great! Cut!”

Minori-san’s voice suddenly interrupted us.

The tension that had hung in the air instantly vanished.

“All right, everyone, time for a break! We’ll do the next scene in thirty minutes!”

“Yes, ma’am!” came a chorus of student voices.

The kids were dressed about like usual, but today they weren’t holding notebooks or pens. Instead they carried basic cameras, lighting equipment, and shotgun microphones. Everything necessary to do some filming.

“Nice work, Master,” Myusel said, coming up to me at a gentle jog. She seemed to have judged now to be the perfect moment for a word.

Incidentally, Myusel wasn’t dressed in her usual outfit—either her maid uniform or her going-out dress—either. She wore a sailor uniform just like Petralka’s.

As good as her maid outfit and the suit she wore to school both looked, there was an innocent freshness about a student uniform that I deeply appreciated. The blazer gave her the look of—how do I put this?—a refined adult, and that was nice, but I have to say, it’s hard to let go of the sailor uniform—the style of styles, the classic of classics.

“Shinichi-sama, those clothes... They look wonderful on you.”

“Well, uh... I mean, I’m pretty used to them...” I smiled just a bit awkwardly.

I was wearing plaid pants and a blazer, looking like a student myself. Basically, the guy’s version of the sailor uniform that Petralka and Myusel were wearing. A perfectly normal, unremarkable bit of clothing—at least if you came from Earth. To Myusel, it must have had the savor of something otherworldly.

Um... also, I know it’s kind of ironic for me to be saying I was “used to wearing” a uniform after I had refused to go to school for so long.

“R-Really though, Myusel, the uniform looks great on you, too.”

“You mean it?” Myusel asked, her pale cheeks tinting rose.

“Sure I do. You look adorable. I’m almost head over heels already.”

Myusel was pretty darn cute to start with, the perfect model for a school uniform.

Chapter Four: No Business Like...

The month or so after that was... turbulent, to say the least.

Up until that point, we really just had to gin up something that looked more or less plausible, so things had been pretty relaxed. But if we were going to create an entire movie, there were a lot of details that suddenly had to be changed, including filming a bunch of scenes with the JSDF that we hadn’t originally expected to need. I constantly had to be in about five places at once.

When school was over, there would be a whirlwind of preparations for shooting. Sometimes we would even use our little break periods to get ready.

Even our once-slapdash dragon model suddenly got built out to something that was hard to tell apart from the real thing, ready for any scene where it might be needed. Profuse thanks to the dwarf parents who helped out with that.

We would rehearse repeatedly ahead of time so that when Petralka arrived, we wouldn’t waste a moment of filming time. Our work schedules were detailed practically down to the minute. It was like being a pop idol or something.

But finally...

“All right—cut!” Minori-san called. “That’s it! All our scenes are done shooting!”

I gave a silent cheer when I heard that. Others were cheering, too, and not silently. Everyone there, everyone involved with the film, was punching the air or raising their hands or doing a little jig, shouting and hurrah-ing. It wasn’t just the students, either—the adults who had pitched in to help, the knights who came along as Petralka’s bodyguards, and the JSDF staff present were all part of it.

The first thing I felt was tremendous relief. Given how packed our schedule had been, that only made sense. Now, at last, our movie shoot was well and truly over. It had been a blast, but now it was done.

“Just gotta check the take,” Minori-san said, calling up some recordings on her computer screen. I glanced at them out of the corner of my eye, but then I sat down right there on set, still in my student uniform costume—and just about fell asleep. The hilltop was covered in neat blades of grass that were really very pleasant to lie in.

I was so tired. And yet, inside, I felt a swirl of emotion. Was this what they called a sense of accomplishment?

Of course, there was still plenty of work to do. Editing, music, and sound effects, for example.

Lying there, looking up at the twilight sky, a shadow suddenly floated over me. Trying to move as little as I had to, I turned my head to look up.

“Excellent work, Master.”

Myusel was standing beside me, also still in her filming uniform. For a second, I was fixated on her bare legs, which were visible under the hem of her skirt.

“Master?” Her suspicious voice brought me back to myself, and I quickly tore my attention away from her legs, making myself smile at her. Privately, I was wishing we had designed the skirts to be just a tiny bit shorter, but for the time being that would be my secret.

“You did great too, Myusel. You’re not tired?”

“No, I’m all right. I think you must be far more fatigued than me.”

“You know, oddly enough, it’s not as bad as all that.” The work had been pretty neatly divided, after all. “More importantly...”

I turned my head and scanned for one particular person, whom I soon found.

Petralka an Eldant III stood there, surrounded by students and their parents and looking somewhat uncomfortable. Whatever else she may have been, she was very much the star of our production. Partly, of course, people just wanted to get close to the empress, but she would have been the center of attention even without her royal rank.

She alone, among the entire joyous crowd, was wearing a gloomy expression. Maybe she still couldn’t quite accept that it was all over. So I hadn’t been able to get through to her, in the end...

That’s what I was thinking when a shout came from the distance.

“Your Majesty!”

I turned to discover a mounted knight riding straight for us. For a moment, I thought he had come to retrieve Petralka now that the filming was over, but no.

“You must run!” he shouted, the forest at his back.

For a second, we didn’t understand what he meant.

Run? From what? Why the rush?

“Hrm?” Petralka said, looking equally perplexed. “What are you—huh?”

The sound of total amazement was entirely understandable.

Because a dragon had suddenly emerged from the woods.

“Huh? Wha? What?”

A massive red form was coming our way. There was an instant where I actually wondered how our model was moving without the wyverns. But that was stupid. The obvious weight behind every footstep made it clear that this was the real thing. This wasn’t some clever mock-up. It was a flesh-and-blood monster.

“Is that...?” It had to be the one Garius had mentioned. The dragon people had been reporting in the vicinity of the capital. “And what in the world...?”

Right in the middle of its forehead was something that looked like a horn. But no—it would make sense to have a horn there, but this was clearly something man-made. It looked like a spike or a nail of some kind. It certainly hadn’t sprouted there by itself. It looked like something had pounded it in.

Afterword

Hullo! Light novelist Sakaki here, bringing you Volume 4 of Outbreak Company.

We’ve had Myusel, Petralka, and Elvia on the cover already, so I sort of figured Minori-san would be next, and cooked up a story meant to feature her—but before I knew it, it had turned into a Petralka story. And then there she was on the cover, again. Poor Minori-san. Maybe you really can’t get on the cover after you turn twenty? Are adult women a no-go, even if they have glasses and huge boobs and a baby face?

Then again, Yuugen-shi’s Petralka is adorable (if I may say so myself), so I guess it works out. To those who say they prefer covers with Myusel, I hope the color pages here will soothe (?) your disappointment. This is our first glimpse of her with a ponytail.

By the way, in order to make sure the story clicked along smoothly for this volume, I had to knowingly tell a number of lies, mostly about movie production. Anyone involved in independent film production was probably shouting, “The hell?! That’s not the way it works!” all throughout this volume. Please just laugh it off.

On that note, in a past life, I was involved in some independent moviemaking myself, and it so happened that I had to act in the films as well. I was an assassin one time, an arms dealer another, a father forced into thievery when his construction business hit a dead end, and so on. I often go out in public wearing sunglasses and a street-punk jacket; consider it a tradition (?) from that part of my life.

I guess that counts as a kind of cosplay, doesn’t it?

This book is scheduled to come out in September, and in November a manga version of the series is slated to begin. I’ve already seen the rough draft for Chapter 1, and I think it looks really good. It follows the novel, but scenes are arranged and presented a little differently, in a really interesting way. I think it’ll really grab people. I hear it’s going to be serialized in good! AFTERNOON magazine. If you’ve been enjoying the novels, I hope you’ll check it out.

Now, then.

With light novels, you never really know what’s going to sell until it’s actually out there. And if it doesn’t sell (especially the first volume), then no matter how emotionally invested the author may be, it can get canceled right out from under him. There was a possibility that, on that logic, this series would end after two volumes.

Thankfully, the novels have continued to sell well, and I’ve been given dispensation from my editors to continue the series for the foreseeable future.

That’s given me leeway to start thinking about character and plot development over the somewhat longer term, and in this volume along with the next couple, I’m hoping to plant some seeds that will bear fruit later on. What kind of fruit? Keep reading to find out!

Things have been pretty quiet and slice-of-life-ish for the last several volumes, so in the next book, or maybe the one after that, I’d like to do something with a bit more drama.

I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am. (Note to my editor: I promise I’ll start working on the actual plot tomorrow.)

Hope to see you again for Volume 5!

8/6/2012 Sakaki Ichirou