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But as Ciel progressively got used to my breathing—and perhaps because she’s gotten closer to divinity, so we no longer need to breathe as much as before—it has become achievable, which led to our unveiling here today. There’s nowhere else for us to show off, after all.

Another reason is that as our interactions with people have increased, the chances of Ciel using Dance Princess in public might increase as well. While Ciel doesn’t really care much about it, I’d feel bad making Ciel dance in silence. I personally want Ciel to always appear at her best.

For Ciel, it’s delightful to dance while hearing my singing voice in a different way than usual, so she proactively cooperated. In fact, you could say that she’s the more proactive one between us.

We’re aiming to reach a higher level of mastery, but that’s something to look forward to in the future.

The sound spirit is making sounds to the rhythm of my song, so I’m sure it’ll eventually be perfect.

For now, since this is a test run, I chose a song that’s on the calmer side; still, it genuinely feels strange to hear my voice while Ciel is dancing. It’s different from when Ciel and I spent the day together. It feels kind of close yet kind of far.

Ciel is having a harder time dancing than usual, but she continues dancing with great delight, and following her lead, the spirits dance as well. The spirits look more organized than earlier, which might be because they’re imitating Ciel’s movements.

As the song ended, Ciel was jumping in joy, cheering, 「That was fun! So fun!」 despite being out of breath. She normally wouldn’t run out of breath just from this, but it must have been considerably tough on her— honestly, it was also tough on my part; I really admire her energy. I feel like she might want to do it more, so I’ll stop her first. I do want to see Ciel dancing, and I do want to sing more, but it’s really difficult to sing in our current state.

Ciel being out of breath means that I’m also out of breath, and singing in this condition is extremely difficult.

『Shall we have a short break before continuing on?』
「It’s a shame, but it can’t be helped. This isn’t a situation to overexert ourselves over anyway.」
『I’m glad that you understand.』

After this, we played with the spirits while having our break before performing together once again.

◇◇◇

「So there hasn’t been any message from the headquarters?」
「Y-yes, there hasn’t. And so, the guild master…」
「I don’t plan to meet them. There should be A-rank hunters other than me, and I don’t intend to stay working here for a very long time.」

With the academy being on holiday today, we went to the Hunter Guild for the first time in a while. Not as the E-rank Ailneige, but as the A-rank Ainsel, so you could say that it’s my first time coming here.

Since I had a mask on and wore my hood low, we were seen with suspicion the moment I entered the building. The hood and mask combo made us look so dubious that no one approached us, so we were able to easily reach the reception desk; since the receptionist was already on guard due to the hunters’ strange behavior, the receptionist didn’t raise a voice when I presented my A-rank Hunter Card. She was very surprised, though.

Nonetheless, since there’s really no hiding our shortness, I still expected some trouble. Maybe the hunters also behave when there are students present, so I suppose I can’t make a judgement yet. Though since the process went smoothly, I guess there’s no need to bother thinking about it.

The reason we came as Ainsel is to check if any information regarding the Artificial Divine Messenger had arrived. The result: there wasn’t. And since we’ve achieved our objective in coming here, I asked Ciel what to do next.

『What should we do?』
『Since we have the time, why not do some work as Ainsel? Since having Ain take on requests occasionally was part of the plan to begin with, right?』
『Understood. In that case, shall we look at the bulletin board, then?』

As I was about to leave the reception desk for the bulletin board, 「Oi, you,」 I heard a young yet proud voice. Though I said young, he’s about as young as Ciel. Not feeling the need to respond, I opted to ignore him. It might have been directed to us, but he didn’t enter my field of vision, and there are other people in my general direction.

While hoping that he would just give up, he unfortunately wasn’t pleased with my response and, 「Oi,」 began to reach for my shoulder. As I moved quickly to avoid it, his hand cut the empty air, causing him to slump slightly forward—or so I saw through detection.

『Is there something wrong?』
『A student was about to approach us, so I avoided him.』
『Really?』
『He didn’t enter my field of vision, you see. But it looks like quiet avoidance isn’t working well, so I might have to ask Ciel a favor.』
『Yes, yes! Feel free to leave anything to me!』

He started shaking violently when I avoided him, so he’s unlikely to let us go. It’s difficult to run away when already targeted, so there’s not much that can be done. After all, no matter what I do, the other party is probably fixated on my appearance.

「Oi! You think you’re too good for me!?」
「Are you speaking to me?」
「Y-yeah! That’s right, you masked b… person.」

As I responded to the person following us—Alcrei—his attitude suddenly changed for whatever reason; it’s clear that he’s shaken. I thought that he found us out, but I did change my voice, so he shouldn’t know that I’m Ailneige.

Hmm, he paused in the middle of saying what I assume to be *’masked b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲,’* so maybe the surprise was because he expected me to be male?

「You have an odd-looking attire, but you’re an academy student too, aren’t you? I’ll let you join my party.」

And while I don’t know what possessed him to say that, I tried my best to suppress my emotions as I responded, 「I refuse.」