Accidentally Formed a Reverse Harem in the Apocalypse Chapter 26 - Water Guns and Sprayers

Ruth Chricerne felt mortified by what he’d blurted out in the heat of the moment.

What… what the hell is wrong with me.

He wasn’t a child—so why had something like Why did you give it to the holy knight but not to me? come out of his mouth?

If he could, Ruth wanted to rewind time by a few minutes and slap a hand over his own mouth. No—better yet, he wouldn’t have rushed toward Elizabeth in the hallway like a rabbit spotting food in the first place.

But what’s done was done.

“……Pardon?”

Elizabeth Keaton, Duchess, was looking at Ruth as though he were the most pathetic creature alive. He hoped it was just his imagination, but it almost certainly wasn’t. Considering their relationship had never been particularly good, suddenly complaining about being treated unfairly would absolutely make her think he’d lost his mind.

Well, since it’s already come to this, I might as well double down.

Ruth decided to be shameless. His tongue, sharpened with sarcasm, was well-lubricated at times like this.

“If you’re going to look after Sir Michael, shouldn’t you treat me the same? I’m the one whose spine nearly snapped casting buff spells and analyzing zombies the moment we arrived.”

As if he were some concubine jealous of the empress who had birthed the crown prince. Even Ruth felt his face burn at how highly he was talking himself up, but he held it in.

Naturally, Elizabeth looked completely dumbfounded. Understandably so.

“No, um… I’m pretty sure I told you then that you seemed exhausted and should go to bed early to recover from the fatigue, didn’t I?”

She had, indeed.

Ruth had stubbornly continued his analysis spells until dawn, frustrated that not a single scrap of useful information could be gleaned from the zombie corpses no matter how thoroughly he dissected them.

And then he’d collapsed for an entire day after that. It was completely his choice, so he didn’t have a leg to stand on.

…Now that I’m saying it out loud, this is kind of making me sad.

Ruth’s expression soured.

He realized he was actually hurt that Elizabeth hadn’t visited even once—only sending servants with medicine and porridge while he was bedridden.

His attempted performance to gloss over the situation morphed into genuine wounded pride.

Ruth tapped at his joints pathetically.

“Ughh, my back. My neck. My shoulders…”

“……What are you doing?”

Crack crack crack crack. As he stretched dramatically, his joints popped like breaking bones.

“A comrade who came to fight by your side is suffering like this… sob sob. Right. Since I’m not an official hire and only came here to ‘help for free,’ you must think there’s no need to look after me…”

“…Ruth, did you eat something strange?”

Even seeing Elizabeth Keaton’s face twist with exasperation, Ruth didn’t stop.

Her sharp, unwavering violet eyes were fixed entirely on him, and… it felt good.

Okay, what am I, some kind of degenerate…

Cursing his own behavior, Ruth cleared his throat.

“I’m just saying—just a little more consideration. Since none of the other mages from the Tower came, I’m covering several people’s share of the work alone. I believe I’m entitled to at least that much.”

It would have been fair if she cursed him out as a shameless thief, but instead, Elizabeth rested her chin on her hand and seriously thought it over.

“You’re right.”

…She’s accepting this?

Ruth was stunned. Even if she’d told him to shut up and get lost, he would have understood. But the new Elizabeth Keaton was shockingly generous.

Her amethyst-like eyes met his silver-gray ones directly.

“Then as a gesture of goodwill, you want water guns and sprayers as well, right?”

Water guns and sprayers?

He had no idea what those were, but at this point, retreat wasn’t an option. Ruth nodded.

“Yes.”

“Alright. Benjamin is already working hard on mass-producing them, but I’ll tell him to give you the second set—the next completed water gun and sprayer—right away, especially for you.”

Elizabeth said it with the warm look one might give a younger cousin begging someone to play with them.

Her gaze practically said: Aww, you really have been working hard lately, huh? You must’ve been so stressed to pick a fight with me like that. Poor thing.
Ruth’s cheeks burned.

“Um, Your Grace. I didn’t say all that because I wanted the water gun and sprayer…”

“Yes, yes, I understand perfectly, Ruth. You’re working hard to resolve the zombie crisis in the capital, right? The Crown Princess must be rescued, and you want to return to the Tower as soon as possible.”

Elizabeth turned her back as if there was nothing more to hear and continued walking. Ruth reached out to stop her—then froze as a realization struck him.

…I completely forgot about Sienna.

No matter how chaotic things were, he hadn’t thought about Sienna even once in days.

Even though the real reason he came to the Keaton estate was Sienna—because of her.

And the person consuming his thoughts right now was…

“Hey, Ruth?”

Elizabeth called to him without even turning around, heels clicking down the hallway.

“Ah—y-yes.”

Hoping the heat rising inside his collar wasn’t visible, Ruth stammered.

“Since you’re bold enough to demand equal treatment, can I take that to mean you’ll work just as hard as Sir Michael, whom I temporarily employed?”

A chill ran down his spine.

Wh-what was that?

Ruth had the instincts of a highly skilled mage.

The shiver running through him warned that one wrong answer would be the same as digging his own grave.

But, of course, his wretched mouth didn’t obey his brain.

“O-of course.”

Saying no here felt like admitting defeat to Michael.

And it would ruin the excuse he’d just created to be taken care of more.

Heh… hehehe. Elizabeth let out a disturbing little laugh.

It sounded exactly like the laugh his biological father—the Tower Master—used whenever he sweet-talked Ruth into what he called “training,” which always turned out to be torture.

“Really? Perfect. There are plenty of tasks where you can be very useful, Ruth. I’ve been wondering how to bring it up first… but since we’ve made a deal, I can stop worrying. Hehehe.”

What… what is she planning to make me do?

Ruth had no idea that Elizabeth Keaton, recognizing his genius across all magical attributes, was planning to use him in as many ways as humanly possible.

In other words, Ruth could never have imagined she saw him as the equivalent of a walking radar and universal skeleton key, ready to be deployed everywhere.

“Well then, I’ll see you later. There’s lots I need your help with.”

“S-sure.”

Why does it feel like I’m getting the worse end of this…

Ruth felt uneasy, but he couldn’t un-dig the grave he’d already made for himself.

“Looking forward to it!”

With a bright, cheerful smile, Elizabeth skipped away.

Ruth stood in the hallway for a long moment.

…That woman is strange.

He tried to ignore his pounding heart…

And to forget that this sensation was eerily similar to what he’d felt when he first met Sienna.

 

 

 

****

 

 

When I returned to my office, I was too busy grinning like an idiot.

Hehehe. A perfectly ripe pumpkin just rolled itself right into my lap!

Oh, great mage, won’t you use your outstanding abilities…
to help me find precious food supplies?

I’d been struggling with how to ask him that, but things worked out beautifully.

Ruth was the type who would follow through on anything he said, even out of pride alone—so he’d come running the moment I called.

“Hehehe.”

One less thing to worry about—food!

As I cheered for the arrival of my brand-new living food detector, Zero gave me a rotten look.

The possession-manager wearing an adorable golden hamster skin was munching on a chocolate chip cookie. It was apparently teatime or something.

「You didn’t care one bit about what that blue-haired mage said earlier… did you?」

“Huh? About what? Him picking a fight? Ruth is just a bit prickly.”

「Never mind. Mmhmm. Just… do whatever you were doing.」

Sighing in resignation, Zero stuffed another cookie into his cheek pouch. He had even pulled out a miniature tea set—like one used for dollhouses—and slurped tea from it.

What a life. A hamster has it better than a human.

“You’re so silly.”

I was reading through the zombie analysis report Ruth and Michael had carefully written.

Something even Zero’s status window couldn’t do—Ruth managed to dig into persistently until he found just one clue.

It does not seem to be caused by disease, but there are faint traces of an artificial force.

If this incident was caused by human intervention, I suspect it was triggered by one of two forces.

Magic or sorcery.

Without one of these two, it would be difficult to cause such a large-scale disaster.

“Magic or sorcery, huh…”

I twirled the pen in my right hand.

If it were magic, there’s no way Ruth—practically the next Tower Master—wouldn’t know about it.

Could there be a traitor in the Tower?
Is there even anyone with enough mana to cast a wide-area spell of that scale?

If not magic… then sorcery?

Sorcery.

One of the five main powers a human born in this world could possess—along with divine power, mana, aura, and affinity with spirits—something mentioned only in a single throwaway line in Flower Path of Death.

Since the male leads used aura, divine power, mana, and spirit affinity, sorcery was treated like a throw-in bonus and never mentioned again, so I barely knew anything about it.

All I remembered was that its homeland was Quina, the tribal union nation bordering Kaladia.

I turned to Zero, who was elegantly gobbling cookies and sipping tea.

“Hey, Zero.”

「Whut iz it.」

With his cheeks bulging from cookies, Zero looked exactly like a real hamster.

“Your access to the status window—you’ve restored it now, right?”

「Of course.」

“Then can you search whether the cause of the zombies is sorcery or magic?”

「That’s easy.」

Zero brushed off cookie crumbs and waved his staff, and a blue status window appeared in the air.

「Requesting code verification.」

[CODE : Access confirmed for NO.00000234232.]

[Possession Management Bureau employee code confirmed. Completed.]

[What do you require?]

「Same request as last time. Search the unknown error in jurisdiction SP-384723 and check whether magic or sorcery was involved in the creation of the zombies.」

The status window shifted to a loading screen.

[Request accepted.]

[Now Loading……]

And then, the result appeared.

[No results found.]