Keishi Miyamura is being dragged by the princess along the hallway outside her room. He is wondering why he didn't feel surprised even a little bit by the fact that Aina is the country's princess. "Maybe the reason was that I've always considered her the princess. Yeah, that must have been the reason. Nothing has actually changed." Keishi thought.

Aina told him with a sweet voice that she would like to talk with Keishi more, but they didn't have enough time. She would like to introduce Keishi to the King and the Chancellor as soon as possible. Keishi felt quite curious about how Rastalia's royalty looks like, and it still felt like a dream to him somehow, so he didn't prepare carefully for the meeting.

"So, could you tell me about the world lines thing..."

Keishi now recalled one thing he has been wanting to ask Aina for a long time. Are world lines something similar to the image that Keishi is having inside his head? He is wondering about that.

"Ah, hero-sama, world lines are... How can I explain it to you..."

Aina is tilting her head again. This seems to be her natural cute instincts that she is not even aware of it herself.

"They are actually like this."

Keishi was quite surprised when Aina gracefully sat down and pointed at some ants following a trail on the walls' bricks.

"This is like one world line. And this one is like another..."

Aina pointed at another trail. This trail of ants was a line at the bottom of the bricks, so the two trails were kind of parallel to each other.

"Those? You mean those trails are world lines?"

"How can I say this... When I look at these trails, I instantly think about world lines. You see, do you think the ants following this trail can see the ants following another trail?"

Aina is pointing at both of the trails. The explanation that Aina is telling Keishi reminds him of the Physics classes in school. Keishi was no good at calculating the Physics' math problems, but he was good at imagining the concepts of Physics. Keishi's friends often asked him for help when they couldn't imagine something.

That's why Keishi can somehow understand what Aina is trying to say.

"Hey, you promised to call me Keishi-kun. Anyway, I think you meant the world lines are like these trails, and the ants are the people in the world lines. The people in one world line can't see the people in another one."

Keishi was quite confident that he got it right. And he was correct.

"Yes, hero-sama... ah, I'm sorry, Keishi-kun. That's correct. But what would happen if an ant is smarter than the other ants, and that ant is able to see both of the trails?"

Aina dexterously picked up an ant, and moved it from one trail to another one.

"That ant, or should I say, that person would be able to go from one world line to another... Ah!"

Aina smiled.

"Yeah, you got that right, Keishi-kun! You could say I am the special ant."

"So you are able to see another world?"

"You could say so... Ah?"

Aina suddenly disappeared when they were squatting and watching the ants!

Keishi quickly turned around and saw a pretty girl wearing a maid black-and-white dress, with kind of sharp eyes and robotic features. The short yellow-brown hair which looked like the canary bird was covering half of her face, giving off a mysterious air. The first thing Keishi thought when he saw her was "Oh, is this a maid robot? This isekai really has everything." And the maid was pulling Aina's dress away from Keishi.

"What kind of situation is this? Maybe it's not dangerous though..." Keishi thought.

"Don't touch princess-sama with your filthy hands." The unknown maid spoke. Although the voice was cute, Keishi couldn't help but feel that it was quite cold and indifferent. But he gets a feeling that she is probably human, not a robot.

"I didn't touch her!" Keishi almost blurted out something like "I didn't touch her although I really wanted to", but he was able to restrain himself this time.

"Keishi-kun didn't touch me, Meldy. The hero wouldn't do something like that! Don't bully him, Meldy!"

Keishi heard Aina trying to save him from this trouble and felt so moved. "Meldy? Quite a cute name though. Too cute for your character." Keishi thought that Meldy's character was probably quite mean, and it's not as cute as the name, but he managed to restrain himself from speaking it out loud.

"... Anyway, such a dirty man should stay away from my princess."

"Dirty? Hero-sama just came from another world, you know? It's normal that he's a little dirty. But we don't have time for that! I would like him to meet my Dad and the chancellor!"

"Do you mean this guy brought all the dirtiness from another world to this world?"

"Hey, isn't that too mean? Shouldn't you be showing a tad hospitality?" Keishi almost shouted. He thought he didn't deserve being treated like this, and this girl was even meaner than he thought.

Despite Keishi's annoyance, Aina laughed at the maid's words. Although Keishi couldn't resist the cuteness of the first laughter he has ever heard from his waifu, he still felt irritated that Aina is not taking his side. Keishi also gets the feeling that these two girls are really close.

"Don't look at me with those eyes, dirty hero. You are clearly dirty. I can smell it."

Meldy came close to Keishi's body and sniffed.

Although Keishi got the precious experience of being close to a woman just an hour ago, he is still not used to being too close to a girl. He is beet red, and powerless in front of the Meldy who is sniffing all around his body. He could hear Aina saying "Hey Meldy! Don't do that! It's not polite!" but his head is kind of hazy.

"Oh, here it is. The dirty thing. It smells like a boy's saliva."

Melty pulled something that looked like a girl from Keishi's jacket pocket.

It's Aina's figurine.

He managed to put it back into his pocket before going to another world.

"Oh! This... this is me?"

Aina snatched the figurine from Meldy's hands and looked at it with amazement.

"Isn't this quite cute? Hey Meldy?"

Aina is looking at the figure from all the angles. This makes Keishi happy, but it also felt a little weird for him. She is even looking at it from the bottom, where you can see the skirt of the game's Aina and two pretty, slender legs.

"Oh, even this part is well-done... but the color is wrong..."

Keishi and Meldy both busted up laughing.

Before she realized, Aina also busted up laughing too.

They are all thinking the same thing. "It has been a long time since the last time I was able to laugh this naturally with others, like childhood friends."

O

This is a story from a long time ago. When Rastalia didn't exist as a kingdom.

When the King and Barista Leonhart still have never fought side-by-side.

As a kid, Barista had everything. He was born into a royal family, and has everything provided for him as a matter of course. Luxurious food, silk clothes and even girls. Although he was quite smart, he never had to think too much about anything. Life was enjoyment, luxuries and freedom.

But that couldn't last forever, just like many things in life.

One day his dad just came to tell him something with a saddened face.

"We lost everything. Your little brother threw our business away in a gamble. I'm sorry, but I have to sell you out as a slave."

Barista didn't understand any word he said. "Lose everything"? "Threw our business away"?

"Slave"?

He just stood there like a stone statue.

"Don't hate me, it was my only choice."

Those were the last words he has ever heard from his Dad.

The next days were hell. "Hell" is too light a word, it was nine-level deep hell.

He became a slave and had to serve at another royal family. He had to clean clothes, wash dishes and do mundane stuff that he has never thought he would have to do one day.

But it was nothing compared to the "games" that the children forced him to play.

He was starving and tied to a chair.

One kid put a stick into honey and waggled it around in front of his mouth.

"Hey, lick it!"

Even now, as the chancellor, Barista is still annoyed and scared of the word "lick". He ordered everyone around him not to use it.

Every time he was able to lick one bit of the honey, the bad kid just pulled it away.

But he was so starved that he had to lick it again and again, while that family's kids were laughing in madness.

He does remember one kid that did not laugh at all, but also didn't say anything to help.

The man who would become the King.

He would remember that kid's face, with hatred. A little bit less hatred than other kids, but still hatred.

One day, he was ordered to throw the trash away.

In a back alley, he saw an eerily green shining dagger. It had a weird serrated shape, and was emitting really cold air that made him shiver.

"Kid, you are able to see me?"

It took a while for Barista to realize that the dagger was talking to him.

"You are quite good. I have waited here for a long time."

"Come, pick me up."

Barista was fueled by his curiosity and did as the dagger said.

"Good. Now I am your owner. You belong to me. I'll protect you as long as you protect me. But if you betray me, I'll kill you right away. Remember that."

Barista wanted to know how sharp the dagger was, so he tried to cut the wall.

Creepy green beams of energy were shot out of it, and swirled around like snakes.

With an exploding sound, the whole wall fell down, and the bricks were flying everywhere.

Barista stood there in amazement.

He knows his life has changed forever.

And he knows what he wants to do right now.