"Cough... All right, let's go home!"
Durandal faked a few coughs, unable to stand the atmosphere any longer. Even though they were all "the same person," for some reason it only made things feel stranger. She had no intention of lingering here.
"Mm."
Rita handled it a little better than Durandal. The awkwardness on her face quickly vanished, as though nothing had happened. When she left with Durandal, she even took Durandal's hand on her own initiative.
With Rita taking her hand, Durandal lowered her head and glanced at it, but did not refuse.
Oh, right, she had forgotten to mention it... Rita and Durandal were wearing the same style of outfit today.
"Lady Durandal, please go in first. There's a surprise!"
After returning home to the Imperial Capital, Rita stopped and let Durandal enter first.
Durandal looked at Rita a few times, paused briefly, then calmly pushed open the door and walked inside.
"Welcome home, Master, meow..."
The moment Durandal entered the house, eleven girls stood in a row and softly welcomed her in unison.
"You all..."
Durandal looked at the eleven girls before her—Akame, Sheele, Tsukushi... and Sirin. All of them were dressed in cat-eared maid outfits...
They were still dressed as maids, but each wore a pair of adorable cat ears on her head, with a long cat tail hanging behind her.
"Master, you've worked hard, meow!"
At that moment, Cornelia carried a stool over to Durandal, placed it down, and had her sit on it.
Durandal still had no idea what was going on. Dazed and confused, she sat down on the stool as Cornelia instructed.
"I'll help Master change her shoes, meow."
Tsukushi carried the slippers Durandal usually wore at home and crouched before her feet. She lifted one of Durandal's feet onto her