"At my front door!?" Mayumi Saegusa had given Yunyi quite a fright.
He hurriedly threw on the robe hanging nearby and rushed downstairs to open the door for her.
When he opened the door and saw Mayumi standing there, Yunyi said irritably, "What? Are you here for a night raid?"
Smack!
Mayumi gave Yunyi an irritated slap. "What nonsense are you spouting? I came to talk to you about something important!"
"All right, come in first, then." With no other choice, Yunyi invited Mayumi into his home.
Once they were seated in the living room, Mayumi immediately asked, "Now that your identity's been exposed, are you really not going to hide it at all?"
Yunyi froze briefly, then realized what she meant. In his rush downstairs to open the door, he had thrown on the very robe he used to conceal his identity when he went to catch rats at the abandoned warehouse.
"You've known for ages anyway, so why should I hide it from you? Go on, what's so serious that you came looking for me this late at night?" Yunyi said nonchalantly.
Mayumi opened her mouth, but in the end, she didn't say a word.
In truth, nothing major had happened to make her come looking for Yunyi. She had simply acted on impulse.
Remembering the conversation she'd had with her father at home earlier, Mayumi's mood sank considerably.
At first, her conversation with Koichi Saegusa had been perfectly normal, and she had even felt some concern from her father. But before long, Koichi brought up Mayumi's marriage prospects.
Given the Saegusa Family's standing, Mayumi could not be allowed to choose her own marriage partner freely. In all likelihood, her partner would be a member of the younger generation of the Ten Master Clans, or at the very least, the younger generation of the Assistant Eighteen Houses. Anyone else was out of the question.
At present, Koichi had selected Katsuto Jumonji and Hirofumi Itsuwa as her prospective partners. But of the two, one didn't understand girls at all, while the other cared only about his family's standing. Neither was the partner Mayumi had in mind.
But Koichi didn't care about any of that. He demanded that Mayumi choose a suitable person from the candidates as soon as possible. When he brought it up tonight, Mayumi said that neither of them was suitable. That displeased Koichi somewhat, leading to a minor conflict between them.
In the past, if something like this had happened, Mayumi might have hidden in her room or spent time with her two younger sisters to improve her mood. But tonight, in her anger, she thought of Yunyi, the guy who annoyed her several times more. On impulse, she left home and came to his house.
After listening to Mayumi's account, Yunyi couldn't hold back his laughter.
"You jerk, why are you laughing?!" Furious, Mayumi grabbed a cushion beside her and hurled it at him.
Yunyi caught the cushion and casually hugged it to his chest before speaking. "Don't be angry. I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing because we've actually been through the same thing."
"What do you mean?" Mayumi looked at Yunyi in confusion. She really hadn't expected to hear him say something like that.
"Mayumi, what do you think of the magic I use?"
Rather than answer Mayumi directly, Yunyi asked another question.
"It's special, very special! I can guarantee that no magician like you has ever appeared in Japan!" Mayumi answered with certainty.
"If I came from one of your Ten Master Clans in Japan, what would someone like your father do?" Yunyi pressed.
Mayumi thought for a moment before answering, "He'd probably consider you a prospective fiancé for me and have me spend time with you."
"Magic is much more developed in Japan than where I'm from. If your Ten Master Clans would value something, those people back home naturally would too. To those old geezers, I was as tempting as a juicy piece of meat. From the time I was six, people wanted their daughters to get engaged to me. When I got a little older, a whole bunch of girls my age were sent to my side to develop a relationship with me."
"Before I left at thirteen, there had already been no fewer than five occasions when a girl of marriageable age suddenly snuck into my hotel room in the middle of the night while I was away from home. Compared to me, Mayumi, what you've been through is nothing!"
Mayumi was stunned by Yunyi's words.
"Are people where you're from really that crazy?"
"Hmm... how should I put it? Maybe it's because I have Strategic-Class Magic?" Yunyi said, sounding somewhat uncertain.
"What!?" This time, Mayumi was genuinely shocked!
"Hey, do you have to make such a fuss?" Yunyi helplessly rubbed his ear, which felt a little sore from the noise.
"You really know Strategic-Class Magic?" Mayumi asked incredulously.
Yunyi nodded. He did indeed know Strategic-Class Magic, and more than one kind, at that!
"Well, that's an unexpected bonus!"
Yet after hearing his definite answer, Mayumi's shock immediately faded, replaced by a teasing expression.
"I just had a great idea!" Suddenly, a shrewd light flashed in Mayumi's eyes. She looked at Yunyi and said with ill intent, "Why don't you pretend to be my boyfriend?"
This time, it was Yunyi's turn to be dumbstruck. He looked at Mayumi, hardly knowing what to say!
"Mayumi, could you be serious? Given my circumstances, how could your Saegusa Family possibly approve of me?" Yunyi rubbed the spot between his eyebrows.
Mayumi naturally understood what he meant. She chuckled and said, "You could reveal a little more. As long as you achieve something, combined with how rare your magic is, my father would definitely be tempted."
"Then I might as well turn you into a Strategic-Class Magician, so you'd have enough leverage to negotiate with your father!" Yunyi shot back irritably.
"What?!!!" Mayumi cried out again, making Yunyi cover his ears.
Right now, the words "how is that possible?" were circling through Mayumi's head.
Seeing her frozen in place, Yunyi carefully moved his hands away from his ears. He was somewhat speechless. It was only Strategic-Class Magic. For him, as long as he could reproduce it within his domain, he could grasp the essentials of activating it. He had already successfully reproduced the Thunderclap Tower used by the Great Asian Alliance's Strategic-Class Magician when he was twelve.
But that applied only to him. If he were to help someone else develop Strategic-Class Magic, it would take considerably more effort.
At that thought, Yunyi suddenly felt that he would be getting the short end of the deal. Just as he was about to change the subject, he saw Mayumi's wine-red eyes fixed on him, shining brightly.
"Damn!"