━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Although Crystal could tell that the silver haired boy still did occasionally follow them like a creepy little stalker — and his disgusting eyesight never strayed far from Emilia's figure — as far as she knew, he still hadn't approached either of them for a while.
When this was compared to his behavior of obstructing them obnoxiously for no reason while blatantly spewing threats just a while back, Crystal didn't think it could have gotten any better. In fact, she was already considering such an improvement a miracle, as she doubted even a restraining order would be so effective.
But when the silver haired boy's perceived presence was supposedly reduced, Emilia still reacted so strongly… it really was no wonder that Crystal grew worried about the girl's feelings.
In reality, Emilia had been perfectly uncaring of the hero's presence, assuming it to be 'the usual', until Sam had told her that Penny and her little band of knights had observed some seemingly unusual behavior from the boy.
Of course, this made her quite curious of Sam's involvement with her little children, but the older girl had cheekily put it off for their date. If she hadn't known better, Emilia would have thought the girl was making a jab at her for always delaying it.
"Although he hasn't come to bother us directly, his existence itself is annoying!"
Emilia would never admit that most of her annoyance stemmed from the fact that the hero didn't have the decency to wait to carry out whatever circus show he was planning until later. After all, she had been preparing for all of these things for so long, and the thought of any of it going to waste because the boy decided to pull of some stunt in the middle of it put her in a very bad mood.
The blonde girl sighed. "Well, don't waste your thoughts on insignificant people."
Unlike Crystal, who had her own doubts to the hero's rather dubious interactions with her, Dixie didn't believe her princess had any positive feelings for the silver haired boy at all. After all, she had made that clear from day one, and she knew for a fact that Amos did everything he could to make things worse for her princess.
Plus, knowing her as she did, her princess only liked cute girls. "Should I beat him up for you tomorrow?"
Emilia's expression had slightly relaxed as Crystal started rubbing the area between her brows, but she couldn't help but frown at her knight's words. "No, Dixie, no need to dirty your hands. Just use them to rub my feet, baby."
If Dixie hit Amos on the head, the poor bastard's skull would probably explode into bits and pieces, and her missions would then become incredibly difficult! Emilia didn't dare be unclear in her instructions at all.
The dark-haired girl gave her a reassuring look, not quite understanding her concern. "Don't worry, princess! I can always use a baseball bat or a crowbar, and throw it away later. And I'll of course wash my hands before touching you—"
Emilia couldn't help but groan, feeling like the effect from Crystal's head massage was almost being negated. "… I love you, baby, but are you trying to give me a headache?"
Dixie flinched. "Ahh, sorry, I-I was just trying to help—"
Emilia rolled her eyes as she motioned for Crystal to stop rubbing her forehead before curling her finger at Dixie. "C'mere, you."
Crystal watched blankly as Emilia's dark haired friend hesitantly leaned over, and although she couldn't see a thing past the girl's dark hair, the sound of 'chu!' made it more than clear that Emilia had given her a kiss before pushing her back with a giggle. "Now be a good girl and don't think of such things. I'll let you know when I need you to break someone's skull for me."
Looking up at Crystal's slightly strange look, Emilia blinked. "Eh? Is Crystal jealous?"
The blonde girl rolled her eyes. "I would be dead from jealousy if I started minding these things with how naughty you are. But you really shouldn't talk like that, you know… Dixie seems very impressionable. What if she really hurts someone?"
Crystal couldn't deny that she had been a little scared of Dixie's dark glare at times, even though it had never been directly aimed at her before. How Koko and Penny could dare to ignore it, she had no idea.
Perhaps having lower IQ really was more of a blessing than she thought.
Dixie felt her lips twitch in annoyance as she turned to give the blonde girl an annoyed look. 'Is she calling me dumb? I'm right here, too.'
Emilia grinned as she wiggled her toes, and her knight went back to giving her a foot rub with a huff. "Don't worry, my baby is a very good girl. Just a little too passionate, but nothing that can't be handled with some love."
Crystal sighed as she turned her gaze away from the dark haired girl who did very little to hide her true thoughts of wanting to lick Emilia from head to toe while pretending to be obedient. It was impossible to expect any degree of normal behavior from someone so obsessed with Emilia. "You still shouldn't joke about crushing people's skull, you know!"
Emilia took offense to something completely different in the heroine's argument than she expected, however. "I'm not joking. She'll do it for me if I ask. In fact, I—"
The blonde girl rolled her eyes as she finally couldn't help it and flicked the forehead of her crush while she was still defenseless on her lap. "That's the worst part, then!"
"Ow!"
Looking at the slightly teary look from the girl, combined with the dark, menacing gaze she could feel coming from the side, Crystal barely managed not to gulp nervously. "S-Sorry."
Emilia just pouted. "Why? You won't do something like that for me?"
Her question immediately threw Crystal for a loop, and it took her a moment to process what it could mean. "D-Do what? Kill people?"
"Maybe?"
The blonde girl gulped. "… N-No. I won't."
The hesitation in her heart had terrified her. Although she knew Emilia, and that she would never do anything really bad, Crystal had thought, for just a moment, that it would be fine if it was her. Even if Emilia was doing something really evil, it would be okay to support her.
How could she possibly think like that?
Emilia's gazed focused directly on her eyes, as if wishing to peer straight into her soul, and for a few moments, Crystal really couldn't breathe.
Shortly after, however, everything seemed to return to normal the moment Emilia smiled. "Oh… then I won't ask you to kill anyone. Don't worry."
Crystal breathed a sigh of relief.
Of course, her crush wouldn't be the same person if she let her off so easily, would she?
"But what if I ask you to hate someone, will you do it for me?"
Crystal felt like her mind was going to explode today. Why had she tried to pry into Emilia's thoughts again? She should have just obediently done as she was told like Dixie. "W-What do you mean?"
The incoming disappointment on Emilia's face was all too clear, and Crystal felt as if even the sun outside dimmed slightly along with her expression. "Aw… my angel won't do even this much for me?"
An instinctual reaction to prevent her mood from getting worse seemed to come from within Crystal, and she hurriedly waved her hands. "I-I will, o-of course, but—"
Emilia grinned, as if she had gotten her exactly where she wanted, which was perhaps not far from the truth. "Then can you hate that silver haired idiot? Like, really, hate him!"
Crystal didn't have to be a genius to realize who Emilia was talking about. There weren't that many silver haired boys in the world, after all. And even fewer that the both of them knew of.
But she still couldn't help but confirm. "Amos?"
"Yeah, you hate him, right?"
"I-I…"
Emilia pursed her lips, and it almost looked like she was ready to start begging. "Please tell me you hate him, it'll make me feel good. Oh, and Dixie, baby, go up a little. Ahn~ Yes, right there!"
Crystal gulped. If Emilia knew just how much she hated the guy, she would probably never ask such a question. Of course, she couldn't expose such a dark, disgusting side of herself like that. Especially not in front of Emilia.
"I-I do hate him, I guess…"
Emilia smiled. "Good! You're only allowed to hate him, alright!"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Brown were meeting again after a long time, this time to discuss something that maybe neither of them ever expected.
That evening, perhaps Emilia had no idea what kind of ideas she had ended up giving Crystal's mom, or that it had been the last tipping point that pushed the woman right into the devil's hands.
Well, Mrs. Brown's hands, but the difference was only in semantics.
But perhaps even Mrs. Brown never expected such a thing, because her mouth was gaping open in shock. "E-Eh? T-Threesome relationship?!"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━