"This is hopeless."

"Completely impossible."

"Hum, maybe you should look for another job."

"Rikimaru-chan is sorry."

It's been 3 days since Rikimaru came to live in Lovers' Mansion.

The initial plan was to have Rikimaru working as a maid, so she had received some training for that in the first few days she's been here.

So now me, Lizel and Hisoka were looking over Rikimaru's maid work for a little while to give the final verdict. I honestly expected us to just give her the approval and that'd be the end of that.

But reality wasn't so kind. Rikimaru was not only completely clumsy in doing any and all domestic tasks, she broke a lot of things as well. It seems she is still considerably strong as a former Candidate. That, or she's under some kind of curse.

What I found most interesting was the washing machines incident. Basically, Rikimaru just had to put the clothes in the washing machine and wait for it to finish. I expected it to be her saving grace. But somehow, the washing machine broke down when she went to use it. She tried another one, and it simply spontaneously combusted.

It must be some kind of curse. I can't think of any other possible explanation.

In any case, after 3 days, it's clear Rikimaru simply cannot be a maid. She'll probably somehow kill us all if we keep her on the job.

"I wonder what we should do. I mean, I don't mind letting Rikimaru stay, but I imagine she'd feel bad if she was simply freeloading, so I'd like to let her do something to help."

"No, Rikimaru-chan doesn't mind freeloading. Rather, Rikimaru-chan prefers that."

She said with such a bright smile. She was being 100% honest.

… I know what I said, but I'm going to take it back. If she wants to stay, she'll have to work.

"I'd say she should just resign herself to being Yuuto's concubine."

"Given her skillset, it seems to be the most realistic option."

I don't really like doing something like that, it makes me feel like a bad guy. But even I have to admit it might be Rikimaru's best option here.

"Rikimaru-chan doesn't mind that. Rikimaru-chan came here expecting this kind of thing. Besides, even if Yuuto is Lovers' Candidate, he's still a human man. Surely Rikimaru-chan will be more than enough for Yuuto."

"I'm not sure. Even before Regenerate, Yuuto was already amazing. Now, he essentially has limitless stamina."

"Currently, only Rin-chan can match Yuuto in bed alone, but matching him is also her limit. But maybe the former Strength Candidate could use brute force. Should I add this to the Anti-Yuuto Plan?"

"Yes, this could be important later on."

"Is Yuuto even human anymore?!"

What is this dangerous-sounding thing? Anti-Yuuto Plan. Are they making a plan in case I go crazy or something?

"What's this plan?"

"Until recently, us of the female camp were simply satisfied that Yuuto now has practically limitless stamina, but our eyes were opened after Rumi and Miyako's visit. It's no good if we're the only ones who cum until we faint. The Anti-Yuuto Plan was born out of the desire to satisfy Yuuto even with Regenerate."

"Lizel told me to put this plan in the highest priority. Currently, Rin-chan is the cornerstone of this plan, since her Regenerate can match Yuuto's. But I'm still looking for a way to defeat Regenerate without relying on her."

"Aren't you trying to do the impossible?! Rather, if it bothers everyone that much, I could find other ways to spend my mana so I don't recover as much."

"No, that would be putting the cart before the horse. Regenerate brings Yuuto back to your perceived ideal condition. The fact that it keeps allowing you to have sex means you aren't truly fully satisfied, so it means we're failing as your Cards. Don't worry, we will win, or we will die trying."

Is that how it works? It's a strange hill to die on, but I guess I should leave them to it? Also, couldn't you have come up with a better name?

We got completely sidetracked there. We should think about what to do with Rikimaru.

"Myaa has a suggestion nyaa."

Myaa, originally one of Stella's Cards and now my catgirl maid, raised her hand and said that.

Somehow, she has a little bit of an unofficial leadership role amongst my maids. The hierarchy is: her on top, Maki and Rebecca as her advisors, and everyone else below.

"Since Riki-chyan is stryong but dyumb, we should just yuse her as a donke- Myaa means, we should yuse her stryong points. There's lots of jyobs that need brute strength that myany girls can't do nyaa."

It seems they have gotten considerably close for Myaa to call her Riki-chan. But I'm also pretty sure she was about to call her a donkey.

Anyway, it seems to be a fair proposal. Since strength is Rikimaru's only good point, we'll just use that. Put her to do whatever brute-force task there is.

Lizel and Hisoka agreed, and so we settled on that. Rikimaru would be the donke- I mean the brute strength maid.

"I feel I was somehow really offended though?!"

For her to even break character, I guess she's actually mad. Oh well, not much to be done about it.

I was in my study. Today was another day of hard work, but I've also been making progress.

"Excuse me."

Someone knocked at the door and then entered. It was Maki. From the looks of it, she had come to clean.

"Let me just put everything away so it doesn't get in your way."

I had already finished what I needed to do for the day, so it wasn't really a bother to put it all away. Once I was done, I let Maki do her job.

This room has a special magic lock that only I can open and it can only be opened by someone else when I'm inside. I could only think of it as inconvenient for the maids, but Lizel said it was important to help avoid information leaks, and I was forced to agree when she said that.

So I didn't have much choice other than to sit and wait for Maki to finish. I'll do my best to try and not get in her way. I'll just quietly sit somewhere.

"!"

That was my plan, but then I saw something that I really didn't expect to see. It was so unexpected I doubted my eyes until I saw it again.

How should I put it? You know that scene when the maid is cleaning and then she bends down, so there's a panty-shot? That's what I expected.

But it's not what I got. Maki wasn't wearing panties. She wasn't wearing spats or anything either. There was simply nothing under her skirt.

I'm not complaining about the view. But it was unexpected. I didn't think she was the type to go commando. I guess I should silently pretend I haven't noticed it?

Maki continued cleaning. She was… bending over a lot. I wonder what it is that it's so hard to clean. Well, given that even her ears are red, I can take a fair guess as to what she's doing.

"Just so we're clear, you do know what I'm seeing, right? Did Miyabi or someone tell you to come here like this?"

"Y-yes, I mean, no. Yes, I know what Yuuto is seeing, but no, no one told me to come here like this."

"Well, I won't say anything about it, but I am a bit surprised that Maki is the type to go commando."

"No, that's wrong. I usually wear my underwear properly. But I just… had an idea before coming here."

"And what idea was that?"

Maki seemed a little embarrassed to say it. She only began talking after I promised I wouldn't think she was weird or anything like that.

"Well, there is that kind of setting, right? Where the master forces the maid to submit. Obviously, there was no way to do it with miss Miyabi, but it was something I was always curious about, so I thought that, with Yuuto… As I thought, after what happened to me, it's weird for me to want something like this."

"No, I think it's fine."

The fantasy, or it is a fetish? Anyway, whatever it is, seems pretty normal. And if we take into consideration what happened with her and Rebecca, I guess you could say it shows progress that she could have a fantasy like this without any problems.

But I do understand where her nervousness is coming from. Honestly, I'm kinda happy she didn't just think of me as a pervert who'd be turned on by anything, but rather as someone normal enough that I might be weirded out. Though ultimately I wasn't.

I think I should go along with her to show that it's fine.

"I think you missed a spot there."

"Huh? O-oh, right."

There was nowhere else to clean up. But Maki got on all fours to check the spot I mentioned.

I got up from my chair and walked up to her. Standing behind her, my hand naturally moved to caress her private place.

"Mm!"

Maki still pretended to clean as I caressed her. I guess it's part of the setting.

I kept teasing her, but I focused on the outside. Maki was starting to get wet enough to wet my finger.

"Nn, t-this dirty spot is, mm, stubborn. Nnn, need more strength. Aan! I-I, fingers~"

"Uuh, yeah, I get it."

I guess Maki was getting frustrated, for her to ask for my fingers like that.

So I popped two fingers into her. Maki's back arched, and she almost hit her head because of it.

While being careful to avoid any accidents, I fingered Maki. It wasn't hard to find where she felt good, so I kept attacking it.

"Aam! Nn! Mmh! I, I'm-!"

She must have been really into it, because it didn't take her long to cum at all. I felt like my fingers might be crushed inside her with how much her walls tightened around my fingers.

Her orgasm was mostly internal, so it didn't dirty anything, but the setting required it, so I'd go with a cliche line. We've come this far, might as well go all the way.

"What a sloppy maid, getting everything dirty like that. You need to be punished."

"Yes~ please punish me~"

I swiftly took off my pants and got into position. Before going ahead, I broke character to confirm that everything was fine with Maki.

She gave me the ok, so I was going to go ahead. But, just as I got the tip in, we were interrupted.

"Excuse me, is Maki here-?"

Just as we were getting to the good part, Rebecca came into the room. You can imagine the scene she saw.

"Um, sorry to bother."

""Wait.""

She was about to leave, but we couldn't let her go with that misunderstanding.

… Wait, what misunderstanding? We were really going to do it. Well, that was the usual flow of these things, so we kinda acted before thinking.

Since we already stopped her anyway, we figured we should explain things to her. But there was no way to clear up a misunderstanding that doesn't exist.

"I am a bit surprised to hear about Maki's fetish, but otherwise I don't think there's any problems. I mean, we were going to be Yuuto's Cards as well at first, so I suppose it's more like making up for lost time. Besides, weren't we with him and miss Miyabi in the Yuugaoze mansion? This kind of development isn't unexpected."

"I-I guess not."

Even after hearing that, or maybe because she was told that, Maki was even more embarrassed.

"By the way, why did you come here, Rebecca?"

"I came to see if Maki needed any help, or to invite her to hang out if she was already done. But I didn't expect her to be personally cleaning Yuuto's wood haha."

"Uuuu."

So it was just bad luck that interrupted us, huh. Oh well, lady luck doesn't always smile at me.

Rebecca got up to leave, but Maki held her hand.

"It's unfair that only Rebecca got to see my embarrassing side."

"What do you mean? We often took baths together, so I've seen Maki naked a bunch of times. Even Yuuto's… stuff, I saw it plenty with miss Miyabi that time."

I'm not sure how to react to that. I'll take it as a good thing.

Maki, seemingly unsatisfied, began to speak.

"Yuuto, the truth is that, ever since that night with miss Miyabi, Rebecca and I have always talked about how we imagine it feels with Yuuto. Rebecca always says she doesn't think Yuuto would like to be with her because she isn't girly enough. Rebecca thinks I haven't noticed, but she often masturbates thinking of Yuuto, saying that she wants you to make her into a proper woman."

"Wha- you! If I do it often, Maki does it everyday, and even in public when she thinks people won't notice. Even before the night with miss Miyabi, I heard Maki say she wanted to have Yuuto's big hard thing inside."

The two continued fighting like that for a while. But for some reason, I kept popping up in their conversation even though I was just sitting there quietly.

I guess this is the sign of a strong friendship? They may be fighting, but it's not like they dislike each other.

I am a bit troubled how to react though. In the end, all I could do was wait for them to finish, and we didn't even get to continue from where we left off.

At night, almost at time for bed.

I figured I'd take a bit of a walk before doing a different kind of exercise. I wonder who will be waiting for me when I get to Healing Lovers room. I'm already excited.

"Haaa!"

"Good, keep it up."

I heard voices, so I looked in that direction. I saw Miyabi and Poran training together.

Poran was doing her best to try and land a hit on Miyabi, but Miyabi was easily dodging. Yet, Poran was insistent and didn't give up.

I felt nostalgic watching that. It has been a while since I trained with Miyabi. Maybe I should do it again sometime soon. But I feel like, if we stick so close together and sweat so much, it'll quickly devolve into something else.

Anyway, I figured I'd watch them for a while.

"You're doing good, but not good enough."

"Yes woof!"

Poran was trying even harder, Miyabi couldn't dodge everything now and had to block some attacks.

But I could see Poran's main problem. She's yet to pick a fighting style. Will she defeat her opponent with strength, speed, or technique? It might seem like a simple question, but fighting is more than just throwing punches.

Because she didn't even know that, she was having trouble with an experienced opponent like Miyabi.

As much as Poran tried, she just couldn't land a hit on Miyabi. Once Miyabi noticed Poran was starting to slow down, she went on the offensive.

She easily slipped through Poran's defenses and then grabbed her by her shirt (by the way, it seemed to be just a normal plain shirt, not her maid uniform). Miyabi then lifted Poran over her head and slammed her on the ground.

That was a really loud noise. I got worried for a bit.

"Are you alright?!"

"Ah, Yuuto, were you watching? Don't worry, I did it properly so it wouldn't hurt much."

Poran didn't seem to be seriously hurt, just tired. But still, it was a big scare for me.

"Uuu, Poran is embarrassed that Yuuto saw that woof."

"What is this?"

"Poran asked me to help her get stronger, so we've been training for a few days. Well, I say training, but it's basically just sparing."

"Poran wants to get stronger, to at least not become a burden woof. And if possible, to help Yuuto and everyone else woof."

I appreciate the sentiment, but I also feel like it's misplaced.

The people we usually fight are not ordinary opponents, so it's too much to ask for a young girl to be able to fight on that level.

It'd be a different story if she were my Card. In that case, she could probably reach that kind of level. But I am a bit unsure about making Poran a Card.

Well, as I say that, I'm properly ogling her chest through her now transparent shirt because of her sweat. But this is this and that is that. I'd prefer if she didn't have to fight, is basically what I'm saying.

"Well, I'll leave Poran to Yuuto. I'm gonna go take a bath."

Miyabi left. I sat down beside Poran to wait for her to rest a bit.

"Say, Poran, you know it's fine to not get stronger, right? I'll protect everyone. Or do you not believe me?"

"That's not it woof. Poran believes Yuuto, but Poran still wants to help. The feeling of not being able to do anything when someone you love is taken away… it's horrible woof. Yuuto will protect everyone, Poran believes that. But there might be a time where Yuuto isn't around, or when the enemy can be defeated by Poran, or when Yuuto needs help woof. That's why Poran, and everyone else as well, should get stronger."

I see. So it's not that she's aiming for the impossible. She just wants to do what she can.

I can't argue against that. Even if I can protect everyone, there may be a time when I'll need other people to protect themselves while I make my way to them. Or maybe there will be multiple opponents and I'll need to entrust some of them to someone else.

I give. Poran is on the right in this subject.

"You should think of how you want to fight first. It's fine to learn many ways, but start with one and focus on that. I'll help find someone to train you in whatever you choose. Also, I'll buy you some training gear tomorrow. That shirt is a bit troubling where to look."

"Yuuto's the best woof!"

For some reason, Poran took off her shirt and hugged me. I know I said the shirt was troubling, but it's even more troubling without it.

Oh well, I'll let her excitement die down a bit before telling her properly. In the meantime, this is a good chance to feel Poran's softness.