"Why do you look so nervous? This is not the first time you're here."
Dixie stopped repeatedly adjusting the strap of her bag as she followed Emilia into her house.
Although there were bodyguards and servants all over the place, their existence was more or less automatically tuned out by their upbringing. What Dixie was worried about, however, was meeting Emilia's parents.
"I normally just pick you up and drop you off. It's my first time here."
Emilia hummed thoughtfully.
"Oh, that's true. Welcome in, then. I'd tell you to make yourself comfortable, but let's just take a shower quickly and get going, okay? We can play some other time. Don't want to give our new 'teacher' a reason to complain on the first day, right?"
Dixie could only nod reluctantly. As they moved upstairs towards Emilia's room, she couldn't help but notice how she hadn't seen even a shadow of Emilia's family members. Although she was relieved, she was also curious.
"No one's up yet?"
Emilia shook her head. "More like everyone's already left."
The short haired girl blinked before looking at her left wrist. Unfortunately, the watch had already stopped working since she forgot to take it off in the dojo. It will now forever show four fifteen.
Unable to contain her curiosity, she could only snatch Emilia's slender wrist to check the time. Feeling slightly guilty at the other girl's probing look, she cleared her throat, trying to appear nonchalant.
"It's only like… seven in the morning, right?"
In her nervousness, Dixie's grip had been quite firm. If Emilia had been really as frail as she looked, perhaps she would be clutching her wrist in pain.
Thankfully, she had only shape-shifted into Danielle's form, and her current strength was certainly a bit above the average girl. And once she completed her missions, she would only continue to grow stronger.
"Yeah. My sister usually doesn't leave so early in the morning, but maybe she had something to do. As for my parents, well, let's just say they stay out often."
Dixie remembered the stalker situation had been communicated to the White family by her mom, so perhaps they were busy dealing with that.
'Hopefully everything is fine.'
Her thoughts were interrupted when Emilia finally arrived at the entrance of her room and held it open for her.
"Come on in, oh, and take your sandals off."
"Um."
Dixie quickly took off her footwear, curiously looking around Emilia's room.
It wasn't quite as big as she thought it would be, considering the girl's status. In fact, it wasn't even as big as her own room. But it still gave off a comfortable, luxuriously cozy feeling.
"You want to go first?"
"Eh?"
Emilia blinked in shock, as if surprised by her friend's 'boldness'.
"Hm… could it be, you want to go together?"
Dixie's face immediately exploded into a furious blush. "W-Wha-wha—"
Emilia giggled, deciding she had teased her loyal knight enough already.
"The shower, Dixie. Did you forget?"
"O-Oh, oh yeah. I'll go first!"
Emilia nodded with a smile. "Okay then, go ahead."
It's not like she really needed a shower anyway, considering her strange body did not produce any sweat or smell. Unlike herself, Dixie must have been quite uncomfortable after all the activity in the dojo. It was better to let her shower first.
Emilia picked up her phone and collapsed on the bed with a sigh as she waited while browsing the web.
Recently, she found herself spending more and more time doing this once she learned about it.
There were all kinds of curious things on this 'internet'. It seemed to be an even better source of information than Cynthia. Of course, it wasn't quite as accurate, since her system would often scoff and point out many of its 'blatant lies' from time to time.
Emilia would sometimes idly wonder if Cynthia was jealous of the internet. Her system's brain circuit was quite special, after all. There are no limits to how absurd her thoughts can go.
Not that Emilia had any right to complain.
Emilia turned over and started swinging her legs up and down as she lay on her stomach.
She didn't know how she ended up on this site after browsing around for the corporate trends, but she was too lost in her interest to care.
"Hey Cynthia, did you know, a single human hair can hold up to a tenth of a kilogram in weight without breaking?"
Cynthia scoffed. "Psh, that's like… uh, a hundred times weaker than mine!"
"Oh, and did you know, lobsters are immortal?"
"Nope, they're not."
Emilia paused. She always loved it the most when she discovered something new, and then Cynthia told her something even more wonderful about it.
"Huh, so, tell me… when do they die? Five hundred years? Ten thousand?"
"They die when you kill them, of course."
"…"
The door to the bathroom opened at this moment, and a red faced short black haired girl peeked out shyly.
Although she seemed to have dried herself off before wrapping herself in a towel, there were still a few droplets on the tips of her hair and on her face, giving off a fresh, youthful vibe.
"Uh, Emilia, I-I may have forgotten to bring some clothes, can you help me out?"
"Of course, come on out, I'll let you pick from mine."
"Um, can't you just, hand them to me from over there?"
Emilia tilted her head in confusion. "There's a cabinet inside, full of towels and stuff, right? Don't tell me you didn't find it?"
"I found it! Geez, okay, I'll come out!"
Dixie had been going back to her own home for a shower after the dojo these days. When they had agreed to take one at Emilia's house, her focus had been more on facing Emilia's family than 'what about my clothes'.
When Dixie exited the bathroom with a towel tightly wrapped around herself, Emilia couldn't help but look her up and down.
Although their school's female summer uniform had a short skirt, Dixie usually wore leggings to cover her legs. And in the dojo, of course they had to change into trousers as per the old man's instructions.
"Hmm, your legs are way more muscular than I thought."
"E-Emilia!"
Emilia giggled. "Alright, I won't tease you anymore, come on."
Dixie shyly followed Emilia into the walk-in closet. Only then did she realize that this place was many times bigger than Emilia's room.
"Why is your closet bigger than your room, Emilia?"
"I guess I have a lot of secrets to hide in here?"
Dixie's nervousness suddenly melted away. "Ahahaha… okay."
Her princess really is too silly, after all. Even if she slips up and makes a mistake, she'll probably not even notice, the girl thought.
The black haired girl curiously looked around, finding all sorts of both luxurious and outlandish garments in Emilia's closet. Clearly, the girl couldn't have bought all of this herself.
Perhaps someone had been given the task to 'make sure there's everything she'll ever need in there', and that someone overdid it.
Far away, Noelle sneezed, wondering if her young miss was badmouthing her again.
Emilia finally pulled out a blue knee-length skirt along with a white shirt and blue string tie.
"What do you think of this?"
"Uh, will it fit?"
"Of course. Since this seems like it will be just a little bit bigger than what I need, it should fit you just fine."
"…"
While Dixie was still speechlessly wondering if that was a diss, Emilia quickly left to take a shower herself, fearing that they really would be late.
"T-There's no way she thinks I'm fat! More like, she thinks she's too skinny, and I'm just right. That's it."
The black haired girl reluctantly changed into the clothes she had been given. Embarrassingly enough, Emilia had even left her with a pair of bra and panties.
"U-Uh, I guess I should have told her I did take a new pair from the bathroom cabinet. But these are definitely more fancy, it's called a t-thong, right… c-could they be hers?"
Her eyes darted towards the bathroom door, and after making sure it was closed, she hurriedly took a deep whiff from the garment.
Dixie sighed in disappointment. As expected, they were just brand new.
The girl suddenly froze as she realized what she was doing, and what it would look like if someone saw her.
Hurriedly changing into her new clothes, she waited in front of the bathroom door like a criminal awaiting their sentence.
When Emilia finally came out a few minutes later, she almost ended up colliding right into her friend.
"Geez, Dixie, what if I hit your nose?"
Dixie wasn't listening at all, because she was busy staring at Emilia's tender, flat, and soft white belly. Wouldn't it feel wonderful to… tickle? No, wait…
"W-Wh-Why are you n-naked?!"
Emilia rolled her eyes. She could still understand if this was Koko, but did Dixie fog up her eyes while taking a shower, or did she go blind?
"I'm wearing underwear, am I not?"
Dixie gulped as she realized that although there was a lot more of Emilia visible than she could handle, there was still a lot that remained covered by… hey, why is princess wearing such normal looking underwear? It looks so typical, and covers way too much! Did the stock for that fancy underwear run out or something?! What injustice!
"E-Exch— Oh, no! Yeah, I mean. Sorry, I'm stupid."
Fortunately for her, Emilia was in too much of a hurry to get ready, and didn't pay much attention to her strange reactions.
----------
The area in which Crystal's home and restaurant were located once used to be a very prosperous location. Unfortunately, it was situated between multiple extremely wealthy zones and still occupied by primarily middle-class people, making it stick out to many like a sore thumb.
Many nefarious eyes had thus been set on this area. All kinds of inconveniences and lack of law and order led to residents slowly moving out one by one. Perhaps once the area was completely cleared off, everything would be razed to the ground for some billionaire's dream project.
It was thus no surprise that there were many 'abandoned' buildings around Crystal's place.
And currently, two young boys were hanging off the terrace of the tallest one in the vicinity, eagerly awaiting a good show.