On the afternoon of a certain day, Melody was humming a tune as she went about her usual chores.
With feather duster in hand, she quickly swept clean the furniture, and as she opened a window to air the room…
“Oh my, and I just finished dusting too, more dust is blowing in from outside… No, wait… Isn’t this just fluff?”
A white-colored, palm-sized furball flew in through the window, fluttering in the air. Melody reached out to catch it, but it slipped through her fingers like an elusive animal and began floating about the room.
Melody tried once more, then several times more; but she could not catch it.
“Hmm, I suppose I don’t have a choice here. Extended Limbs“
She did not know what it was, but as a maid, she could not allow some mysterious thing hanging around a room she had just finished cleaning, and she conjured an invisible, telekinetic arm made of force-attribute magic. This magicked arm could extend far beyond her normal reach, so there should be no problem with catching it… or not.
“…Huh?”
Rather than grabbing the furball, Melody’s telekinetic hand simply went right through it.
It was as though the magicked arm did not exist, and the furball continued to float about the room.
“O-one more time.”
She used the same magic again, adding a second arm to aid the first, but… the same thing happened. She definitely should have trapped the furball between both hands, but it simply passed through the enclosure as though there was nothing stopping it.
This turn of events left Melody in shock. Alhough she had no idea how extraordinary her magic actually was, she was still rather confident in it, so she never could have imagined that it would be ineffective against a furball like this.
The fluttering furball, as though riding the wind, eventually floated in front of Melody, and she discovered something about it.
It came as a surprise that underneath the fur, a pair of round, dark-colored eyes stared right back at her.
Could it be that this furball… is actually alive?
The eyes that stared back definitely belonged to a living creature, but Melody had never before seen such a mysterious creature, even in her previous life. She instinctively reached out to take the furball in both hands.
“I finally got yo–… Never mind.”
She slowly opened her hands, but no furball was there… Just what exactly was this creature that ignored magical and physical contact? Melody scanned the room and found the furball still floating about the room.
But as she stared at it in puzzlement, the furball gave a violent shiver, and… it split in two.
“…Huh? Uh, wait, hold on, hold on!”
It was like a cell undergoing mitosis; the furball had split into two identical copies. As Melody stared again in amazement, the two furballs began to shake once more, and… two became four. Soon enough, the four also began to shake, and…
Were these things just multiplying like rats? Melody panicked and once again desperately used her telekinetic arms, but again the furballs simply pass through the hands.
Melody paled with nervousnes, but it seemed a different sort of “hand” would lend her its aid.
“Melody, could you help me with this proble– Ahh! Bugs!!”
Luciana had come into the room requesting help with her studies when sixteen of the furballs ambushed her entrance. The furballs quietly floated in place, staring down Luciana with their collective thirty-two eyes.
Luciana felt an instinctive chill creep up her back; the very sight of these things was physiologically repulsive to her.
And yet she would not retreat; instead, she jumped forward and reached behind her back to pull out a familiar bundle of paper: her harisen.
And though it was a wonder where exactly did she keep it, now was not the time for questions..
Luciana swung her harisen, bringing her full might to bear against the bug-like furballs.
“My lady, physical attacks–“
Melody was about to warn Luciana of her futility, but the next thing she saw left her speechless.
Bonk! The harisen made a satisfying noise as it collided with the furball, which seemed to shatter and dissipate in grains of light.
“Wha?! It disappeared!”
Luciana had not expected the furball to simply disappear, and she looked around the room to search out the other furballs; there was nothing. It seemed that one strike had somehow erased them all.
“My lady, just now, what did you…”
“That’s what I want to know! What even were those bugs?! They were so gross!”
“I do not think it was a bug, but… what was that sound just now?”
When Luciana had swung her harisen, Melody suddenly heard the sound of coins clinking together. Where had that come from? Everything happening right now was such a mystery…
“What’s wrong, Melo–… Melody! The window! The window!”
“Huh? The window..? Ahh!! Another of those furballs is coming in… and it’s multiplying again?!”
Right as she noticed it, another furball flew into the room from the window, and as it came to a floating stop in front of Melody, it immediately began dividing. Luciana leaped into action and brought it down with another great swing of her harisen, but… from what they could see outside, there were many more furballs just waiting to come in.
Melody quickly shut the window to stop any further intrusion, her face still pale.
“Wh-what are we going to do? I left the windows open in the other rooms!”
“And they keep trying to come in… Actually, I think I left the window in my room open, too…”
In the end, the two spent the entire day running around the house exterminating the furballs.
“Ugh! Why do they just keep coming? All they do is get in front of us and multiply! There’s no end to them!”
“Hm, my lady, now that you mention it, it seems the ones outside are just floating about. I wonder why that is…”
(Also, every time my lady swats them down with her harisen, I hear the sound of coins clinking together, and it seems only I can hear it.)
It was still a mystery as to why Luciana was able to hit them with her harisen. Even now, Melody was still unable to touch one, let alone hit or capture it with her magic.
Finally, after a long struggle, this enigmatic furball outbreak ended as though it never happened, and no new trouble dawned the following day. What exactly had happened? Melody was still unable to figure it out.
“Just what in the world were those furballs..?”
“Oh my, is that a Kesaran-Pasaran? I suppose it is that time of year again.”
Meanwhile, elsewhere around the time Melody and Luciana had been dealing with the furballs…
Annemarie, the daughter of a marquis, noted the presence of a certain white-colored furry ball landing on the table.
“Kesaran-Pasaran? Aren’t those the things that appear in the capital once a year for a single day in spring? I’m not sure if I remember, but… they were characters in the game, right?”
Opposite across the table from Annemarie was the crown prince, Christopher.
The two were in Christopher’s private room, discussing plans regarding the future plot progression, when this small furball arrived.
“They are not characters, per se. The Kesaran-Pasaran were creatures peopled called the “Fairies of Felicity”. In the game, they only appeared for a single day every year, for all three years, but really they had nothing to do with the main storyline.”
Christopher dramatically fell over in surprise.
“They had nothing to do with the story?!”
“Nothing at all. They were just enemies you beat in a minigame.”
“Huh? You have to hunt these things or something?”
“The minigame called ‘A Reprisal ♪ for The Fickle Fairies of Felicity’. Defeating these things would earn you Happiness Coins.
“‘Reprisal?’ And… ‘Happiness Coins’? Was it different from actual money?”
“It was a kind of unique currency you could exchange for special items.”
“Oh? So if I did well in this minigame, I could get a really strong weapon?”
“Nope. You would exchange them for exclusive CGs, ones that you do not get just for playing the game. Because of how special the CGs were, most people were really happy to have been able to see them.”
“Oh I get it, that’s why they’re called ‘Happiness Coins’. Not something I really need though.”
Annemarie had a smile on her face as she seemed to recall a memory of the event, but Christopher quickly lost interest in the matter.
“I knew you would say that. Anyway, this is strange. The minigame should not happen if Heroine-chan is not around, so I do not know why they have suddenly appeared.”
“Is that how it works?”
“Well, for starters, to play the minigame, you need to have a certain key item, the Holy Harisen.”
“The ‘Holy Harisen’? Is that why ‘reprisal’ is in the name? That’s so dumb…”
“It was just a joke item. The backstory to it was that Heroine-chan had just awakened her powers and accidentally created that harisen, and then the minigame just starts. The Kesaran-Pasaran that appeared can only be defeated by using the Holy Harisen Heroine-chan made.”
“Oh, now that you mention it, I could never grab one with my hands, and magic never worked either. I remember they show up every year, but nobody reacts to them since nothing really happens.”
“It might have gotten bad if Heroine-chan were here in the capital, so I am thankful that she is not.”
Christopher gave Annemarie a quizzical look as she sighed.
“What do you mean, ‘gotten bad if Heroine-chan here here’?”
“This minigame only happens once a year, so you only have three chances per playthrough. The thing is, Heroine-chan being around caused the Kesaran-Pasaran to multiply endlessly. This was fine in the game, since it made collecting coins much easier, but if that were to happen in reality…”
The two stared down at the Kesaran-Pasaran innocently rolling around the table.
“That… sounds like a terrifying possibility.”
“I know it was just a game back then, but now this is our reality. If Heroine-chan actually was here, and if she did not have the Holy Harisen, could you imagine what might happen to the capital?”
“I don’t even want to think about it. I can’t even joke about how scary it would be if these things were to overrun and swallow up the capital…”
“Y-yeah. We can think about it again when we actually find Heroine-chan… ah.”
A strong gust of wind suddenly blew through the room.
It brought the Kesara-Pasaran into the air, carrying it out the window and back into the world.
Annemarie and Christopher watched the furball fly off, following it until they could see it no more.
Later that night, when Melody returned to her room, she found an unfamiliar item sitting atop her bed.
“What’s this? A picture frame?”
It was a small picture frame with a pink ribbon decorating the upper right corner. There was already a picture in the frame.
“…Is this my lady?”
It was a picture of Luciana, her gallant figure on full display with harisen raised high and ready to bring judgment upon a furball.
“This is very well-drawn, but… who even drew this? Grail, do you know?”
“Woof woof…”
To the side of the room was a certain dog, relaxing lazily with its belly up and a line of drool hanging out.
It was such a languid sight that even someone as gentle as Melody would look on in judgment.
It seemed the day when Grail, the Luthorburg’s pet dog, could act as a true guard dog was still far off.
“My goodness, so many strange things happened today, and it all started with those furballs! I’m getting annoyed just thinking about them again, so I’ll just go to sleep and save it for tomorrow.”
The day’s events had completely tired out Melody, who fell fast asleep soon after getting into bed.
For her, today was full of frustration and failure; neither maid skill nor maid magic had worked against those infuriating furballs.
But Melody already decided things would be different the next time those furballs appeared: she would capture them and have her revenge!
But until then, unaware that they would appear next year, she set off into the world of dreams as she took that vow… Good night, Melody.
Headcanon TL 
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