"Well, that’s that. I’m just glad I managed to neutralize it without having to destroy the thing."
Rest let out a long sigh as he looked down at the silent, fallen golem.
As he’d sensed when he first used Life Search, the construct only possessed a tiny amount of mana. It had likely been sitting idle for so many years that its internal energy reserves were almost entirely depleted.
"If it had been in perfect condition, I might not have had a choice but to smash it to pieces..."
Ten thousand Large Gold Coins—a ten-billion-yen asset. The thought of destroying it made his stomach churn. Even if it wasn't his own money on the line, he preferred to avoid such pointless destruction.
"Are you all right, Rest-san?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Once she was certain the battle was over, Celestine stepped forward.
"It truly was a high-performance Combat Golem. I wonder why someone would station such a thing in a basement like this."
"Only one way to find out," Rest replied. "[Lightball]."
He conjured several spheres of light, casting a glow across the spacious chamber. As the darkness retreated, a shocking scene was finally revealed.
"What...?"
"This is...!"
Rest and Celestine both gasped at the same time.
The room was filled with... BL Illustrations. Every kind imaginable.
The walls were covered in paintings depicting men in various states of entanglement. Novels of the same genre were stacked on the tables, alongside what appeared to be hand-drawn Manga Books. There were even plaster statues of naked men entwined with one another.
"T-This... This is what the Combat Golem was protecting...?"
Ten thousand gold coins. Was a machine worth ten billion yen really installed just to guard this? Rest wanted to yell at the late Queen Dowager for such an absurdly extravagant waste of resources.
(Wait... now that I think about it, weren't there similar illustrations at the Beach Villa, too...?)
It wasn't even a question anymore. Shoko Sanada had been a full-blown fujoshi.
While the ground floor of the mansion served as a gallery for her nostalgic landscape paintings, this hidden basement was a private sanctuary for her collection of BL items.
"What a colossal waste of effort... I mean, I know hobbies are personal, but still..."
Everyone was entitled to their interests. Whether it was BL or anything else, she was free to like what she liked. But as the person caught in the middle of it, Rest felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. He had no idea how to even react to what he was seeing.
"Well, whatever. It doesn't look like there's anything else here, so we should probably head back, Lady Celestine."
"..."
"Lady Celestine?"
Rest called out to her, but she didn't respond. He wondered if the sheer shock of the collection had left her in a daze.
"...I see. So there are things like that as well."
However, looking closer, he realized she wasn't dazed; she was deep in thought.
"Not just simple pairings between men of the same age, but a deliberate focus on age gaps... relationships between young men and elders who could be their fathers. And the use of knight uniforms to add specificity and stir the viewer's imagination... Her Majesty the Queen Dowager possessed a terrifyingly profound depth of thought."
"..."
Rest was speechless. They were both surprised, but Celestine seemed to be accepting the situation with an unexpected level of intellectual curiosity.
(Wait... did those drawings at the villa actually awaken something in her...?)
"Lady Celestine...?"
"Oh, my apologies. I was lost in thought for a moment."
"I... I see."
"I am sorry for dragging you into such a troublesome mess today. I will be sure to make it up to you properly at another time."
And so, the "date" with Celestine came to a close.
Technically, it had been a high-culture afternoon of art appreciation, but Rest was left with a strange, nagging sense of unease lingering in his heart.