Hell-chan: "Hey there! Long time no see! How've you been?"
God dammiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!
First, allow me to explain my massive screw-up.
The Galactic Empire Spearmanship Federation and the Galactic Empire Jojutsu Association.
There is no real difference between a federation and an association.
It is purely a matter of administrative structure.
It's a trivial detail, so don't sweat it.
At any rate, the martial arts practiced at Rikochi's family home are like a tiny mom-and-pop shop.
Run totally half-assed.
Compared to that, the federations and associations are the ones muscling their way into the military and the police.
With weapons like spears, there are so few practice venues that the art has been dying out left and right.
You see... gymnasiums... they refuse to rent to people practicing with long polearms because it damages the flooring...
To be frank, unless it's a family-inherited art like the naginata of the Isono household, you simply can't learn it.
That's why the Galactic Empire's cultural affairs department steps in to protect them.
And once that injection of public-fund love hits, these organizations gain real political clout.
The victims of this system are the military honor guard—the ceremonial specialists—and the officer academy cadets.
They get strong-armed into every single ceremony without fail.
Cadets in particular have to frantically scramble to practice right before every ceremonial event.
Unless they happen to be in the honor guard, cadets almost universally despise spearmanship and jojutsu.
Ceremonies usually fall around the same time as bayonet exams.
Their heads are already completely bursting just trying to pass bayonet qualifications, so piling spear and staff drills on top of that is pure unadulterated hell.
And now, those thoroughly obnoxious organizations had arrived.
They traveled all the way here on a passenger ship just so they could brag, "I was the one who developed the Kamishiro-style!"
Hey, you bastards. The only reason you can even cruise here on a commercial liner with minimal security is because we fought off the Pruon Nation, the Pirate Guild, and the Corpse Eaters.
Do you even realize that?
Under normal circumstances, this place isn't just a front line—it's a Mad Max anarchy where people say, "Law? What's that, something you eat?!"
We and our friendly nations pacified this sector through immense sacrifice and grueling toil!
And those folks from Amada Security guarding you right now?
The muscle under those uniforms is straight from the Pirate Guild, you know!
Yet here they were.
A bunch of old men.
Or rather, practically every single one was an alumnus of the military honor guard.
You'd think the military would foot their bills, but no, their funding comes out of cultural affairs.
Whatever. I'll just send them on some quick sightseeing and kick them right back out.
Out of pure spite, I'll make them sit through a Kishin Nation match and a bout by the Armored Rikishi from the Repsitore Nation.
I want to drag things out as much as possible so my audience with them lasts under thirty minutes.
However, the moment those damn geezers docked at the spaceport, they threw a tantrum demanding to see me.
"Grant us an audience with His Majesty the King of Chronos!"
The military honor guard may pose as soldiers, but they are essentially civil servants.
Their offices sit right inside the central government bureau buildings.
Perhaps because of that, seeing through the classic stalling tactics of a bureaucrat was second nature to them.
They caught on immediately.
Amid all that chaos, out of the dozens of tour staff...
One of the sexy companions who essentially doubled as an escort went missing.
Melissa's mom.
Melissa's mom was the leader of the travel agency's sexy companions.
Meaning, yes, that kind of cruise.
I swear, I am going to murder the federation officials who arranged this trip!
Later on, Wifey would completely snap over it too.
The company would eventually be driven into bankruptcy.
At this point, however, the agency was still fully operational.
Normally, a missing crew member would be flagged as a suspicious person by all departments and apprehended immediately.
The problem was the inflated sense of importance granted to the federation officials.
Amada Security prioritized the VIPs. They were big shots, after all.
Under ordinary circumstances, a missing companion was treated as a simple runaway. In a month's time, she'd become an illegal alien.
The priority list was obvious.
All they did was file an incident report.
Usually, the punchline in these scenarios was getting duped by a Lepsitolian and sold off to a criminal organization.
Those kinds of underground industries belonged to the underlings of the Pirate Guild, so word should have reached my ears anyway.
Even if an independent criminal syndicate broke away from the Pirate Guild and pulled something, the intel would reach me without fail.
Because I pay my information broker fees, after all.
The same went for assassination attempts against me.
The instant someone attempted to procure a weapon, the intelligence would land on my desk.
However, this runaway wasn't looking for illegal sex work, nor was she a terrorist.
For some reason, she was hitchhiking her way across the royal capital of Chronos.
The fact that she could pull that off in the first place was all thanks to the terrifyingly high accuracy of modern translators...
Later, testimony claiming, "She just looked like a broke tourist from the Taikyoku Nation," would turn up in the investigation committee's report.
That was the problem... you really couldn't tell just from looking at someone...
Hitchhiking all the way to the palace.
She had no idea she wasn't allowed into our private residential quarters.
First, she wandered straight into the public garden area.
There, she walked right past me and the Imperial Guard while I was watering the okra in the planter boxes I tended as a hobby.
Yet neither I nor the Imperial Guard took any notice, letting her pass right by.
No incident report had crossed my desk, and I had no clue what Melissa's mom currently looked like.
Assuming we were local gardeners, Melissa's mom casually strolled on past.
Everyone looked so young, after all.
Setting aside the fact that I had clearly lost the contest when it came to projecting royal dignity...
No one would ever guess we were the ones actually living inside the palace.
And that was when disaster struck.
Karen-san, who knew absolutely nothing about Melissa's family background, entered the palace flanked by her escort.
The only person Melissa ever talked to about her mother was pretty much just me.
Aside from me, maybe Rikochi, since her mother hailed from the same hometown. Those two were the only ones who knew the details.
Melissa hadn't even been actively searching for her mother; it seemed she had simply requested that if anyone spotted her, they keep an eye on her so she wouldn't cause unnecessary trouble.
Her mother didn't reside on the planet where Rikochi's family home was located, however.
Because of that, no one even had a lead on her whereabouts.
Melissa's mom approached the completely unsuspecting Karen-san.
The escort moved to intercept, but Melissa's mom was a seasoned veteran of customer service.
With a practiced smile, she spoke up.
"Excuse me... I have family in the Kamishiro Squad. I was hoping to see them..."
Confronted with that, even Karen-san was at a loss for how to proceed.
She was not intimately familiar with the roster of the Kamishiro Squad.
She knew my wives and the usual gang very well.
However, she was not privy to everyone's private family circumstances.
Still, Karen-san was competent.
She was so remarkably sharp that she reported the matter straight to Fairy-san.
Arguably the single most appropriate course of action.
"Lady Luna, someone claiming to be family of the Kamishiro Squad is requesting a meeting."
"There is nothing on the schedule... Hmm, who are they here to see?"
Karen-san clearly sensed something was off.
After all, whenever family members of our comrades visited, they dressed to the nines and brought an entire retinue of clan guards.
The families of the officer academy alumni had been elevated from commoners to nobility in recognition of their distinguished service during the Zork War.
Because they poured everything into maintaining appearances, they were naturally impeccably refined.
From Karen-san's perspective, her impression was simply, "What a disheveled old woman."
Karen-san offered a polite smile. However, it carried the chill of an absolute zero blizzard.
"Whom are you here to see?"
"Melissa Tachibana... no, Melissa Kamishiro Chronos! I wish to see her!"
At that moment, Karen-san's worst suspicions were confirmed.
A slovenly dressed older woman demanding an audience with the Martial Consort of Chronos.
Utterly unthinkable.
"We will look into it, so please wait in the reception room. Come, escort her."
Karen-san's escort was the Ninja Corps.
The ninjas were apparently trembling so hard their knees were knocking together.
"Karen-san was terrifying," they told me later.
And so, they began escorting her to the interrogation room disguised as a reception room... completely by the book, of course.
The security shutters on the floor where my office was situated were already slamming shut.
The real disaster was that, due to a communication breakdown, word never reached Melissa.
Melissa was currently walking back after finishing a training session on the Kamishiro-style obstacle course, accompanied by the Tachibana Style disciples acting as her personal guard.
And that was precisely where the two parties collided head-on...
Later, as the full story was recounted to me, all I could do was let out a pathetic whimper.