Ding-ding-ding!
Ding-ding-ding!
"Ugh, shut that damn alarm already! Who's gonna turn it off?!"
Curled up on her soft bed, the pink-haired girl clutched her blanket tightly, her face scrunched in clear annoyance. Yet despite her grumbling, her eyes remained stubbornly shut.
She issued her command in a voice as sweet as mead—regal, imperious—but unfortunately, at this hour, no one was around to heed her royal decree.
"Aaaaaah! Damn it! Fujimaru! Fujimaru! Are you there?!"
Finally driven to her limit by the incessant ringing, the queen snapped open her honey-gold eyes—but the look in them was anything but sweet. Instead, pure irritation flared within. Like a petulant child throwing a tantrum, she snatched the alarm clock from her nightstand and hurled it straight at the bedroom door.
Thus ended the brief, three-day lifespan of the once-dutiful alarm clock, adorned with a cute Hello Kitty design.
"Ugh, can't even get a decent night's sleep…"
Hugging a pristine white pillow, she fussed with her pink bangs, pouting like an irritable kitten. Again and again, she called out a certain name:
"I said! Fujimaru! Where the hell are you?!"
"I'm here. What do you need?"
The boy in question stood in the doorway, toothbrush dangling lazily from his lips and a glass of tap water in hand. His eyes were still half-lidded with sleep, utterly oblivious to the girl's rather… revealing state of undress.
His gaze fell instead on the now-deceased (in the most literal, physical sense) alarm clock lying on the floor, and a pang of silent mourning stirred within him.
"That's the 115th one already. If you hate alarms so much, just stop buying them," he sighed, his tone laced with weary resignation. "Look, my family's already stretched thin just sending my sister to university in England. I've got to work part-time just to get by—if you keep wrecking stuff like this, I'll be eating dust by tomorrow."
"Ugh, it's just so annoying! It's totally not cute at all, not matching its adorable design one bit!" she grumbled, lips pursed in a sulk.
Of course, someone like her would never admit fault—Fujimaru Ritsuka had long since accepted this fact, and being the smart guy he was, he knew better than to waste energy arguing over something so pointless.
"You really ought to rein in that temper of yours," he said gently, a note of caution in his voice. "This isn't Connacht anymore—and even the Kingdom of Connacht in Ireland is long gone. This is just peaceful, ordinary Fuyuki City."
He paused, then quickly changed the subject: "By the way, I made some breakfast…"
"Bring it in here. I'll eat after I finish getting ready."
Rubbing her sleepy eyes, the girl known as Medb spoke with the imperious tone of a queen—completely disregarding the fact that she was, in reality, a guest living under someone else's roof.
Yet this unusual arrangement had already gone on for a full year in the quiet city of Fuyuki.
...
Medb had no official identity or background. Even in Japan—a country where ID documentation can sometimes be lax—she was a complete undocumented person, a true "ghost" in the system. Her presence here was purely the result of an accident.
Fujimaru Ritsuka wasn't a magus. His family certainly wasn't part of any prestigious mage lineage; in fact, their involvement with magecraft only began a few generations back—and even then, it was really his older sister, Fujimaru Rika, who had taken a serious interest in it.
Ritsuka himself preferred a quiet, ordinary life: school, part-time work, and peaceful retirement. His life plan didn't even include a romantic partner.
But fate had other ideas.
One day, while absentmindedly opening a letter his sister had sent from England (where she was studying), he accidentally activated a magical ritual circle she'd drawn in their home long ago—and just like that, the legendary Queen of Connacht materialized right before his eyes.
And just like that, the utterly clueless Ritsuka found himself dragged into the mysterious ritual known as the Holy Grail War…
"To be honest," he said with a wry smile, "I'm not really all that interested in the Holy Grail…"
Her Majesty the Queen didn't seem to mind her Master's ignorance at all. With a casual flick of her white-furred cloak, she settled comfortably onto the Fujimaru family's sofa and, in her usual charming manner, declared exactly that.
As it turned out, their personalities clicked almost instantly. Medb, the self-proclaimed Queen of Connacht from the western lands of Ériu (Ireland), was utterly fascinated by everything in the modern world—while Fujimaru Ritsuka had zero interest in getting tangled up in any "Holy Grail War nonsense."
The two of them simply decided to ignore it all and keep living peacefully together. And thus, one year later, the once-legendary—and notoriously ruthless—Queen Medb had successfully transformed herself into… a full-blown shut-in otaku.
Even Ritsuka himself found this outcome hard to believe. Could it be that the historical records he'd read were somehow inaccurate?
After all, Medb had always been synonymous with cruelty. Having personally researched Irish legends and local poetry, Ritsuka knew the accounts weren't mistaken—but the more he tried to reconcile myth with reality, the more his head ached.
Given they'd already spent a whole year living together, he eventually just let it go. Besides, the girl now sprawled on the couch in a T-shirt, utterly absorbed in her handheld game console, had simply become part of his everyday life.
"Uh… I might be coming home a bit late today," Ritsuka said casually, sipping his post-breakfast coffee.
The girl on the sofa merely waved a hand—though it was clearly just an absent-minded gesture. A moment later, realizing what he'd actually said, she sat bolt upright and peered at him with curious eyes.
"You're going to school?"
"It's still vacation—who'd go to school right now…?"
Even after a full year, Medb rarely left the apartment—Ritsuka had practically turned a fearsome ancient queen into a homebody. Her only window to the outside world was the internet and television, so despite his highly predictable daily routine, she still hadn't quite grasped the concept of summer and winter breaks.
"Actually," Ritsuka explained, "my sister sent a message saying her professor and his fiancée are arriving in Fuyuki today on a private jet. She asked me to pick them up and show them around the city."
"Your sister's professor… isn't he a magus?"
"I guess so. I don't really know much about that stuff."
"Eh…"
Unbothered by Medb's drawn-out, oddly meaningful sigh, Ritsuka simply shrugged on his jacket and hurried out the door, leaving only her voice behind.
"Wear something warmer—it's pretty cold out."
Ritsuka couldn't help but smile as he reached for the doorknob. But the moment he stepped out of the apartment, a sudden wave of dizziness hit him—so intense it felt as if his very soul were detaching from his body…
"What's… wrong with me…?"
He'd already made up his mind: no more Holy Grail Wars, no more supernatural nonsense—just a quiet, ordinary life.
So why wouldn't fate just leave him alone?!