"Delicious… this is delicious!"

"Yeah… there are still more crepes so take your time eating."

Watching the woman from the private armed organization enthusiastically devour her third crepe, I sipped my coffee.

—Originally, I was supposed to be eating this with Haruto…

"Phew… I’ve finally calmed down. I hadn’t eaten anything for the past few days. I was starting to think I might have to resort to catching rats in the alley."

"I-I see…"

So she really was homeless, just like she looked.

"Did you know? If you roast a rat whole, the organs smell so you have to properly use a knife—"

"By the way, what happened to your job?"

Cutting off the military woman who was about to bring up a topic completely unfitting for a crepe shop, I forcibly changed the subject.

"The Nemuro Family dismissed me to take responsibility for the failed mission."

"Huh⁉ You got fired?"

The mercenary business is harsh.

One mistake and you’re out?

Well, I’m the reason she got fired but strangely I don’t feel any killing intent from her.

"Normally, it wouldn’t have been strange for me to be tortured and then killed. Just being alive like this is already fortunate enough."

"I-I see. By the way, what’s your name?"

"I am Nagisabashi Nagi. Tachibana Tomoki-sama."

"Ah, so you already know my name."

Well, she was trying to abduct me.

Of course she’d remember her target’s name.

"Yes! You are the one who thoroughly messed up my insides and emotions so there’s no way I could forget!"

"Maybe lower your voice a bit…"

Her voice is unnecessarily loud.

And she refers to herself as ‘this humble one’ (honorific in her speech) so she must have originally been a disciplined soldier.

Though she has absolutely no sense of reading the room.

I guess that’s because she’s lived in a world of blood and gunpowder.

"Putting the ‘insides’ aside, I was basically your enemy so is that really okay?"

"For mercenaries, the enemy to shoot can change even day by day depending on the employer. Personal ideology does not factor in."

"I see."

"However, now I am unaffiliated with any employer. Therefore, my personal desire to have you thoroughly mess me up is now surfacing."

"I see."

No, I said ‘I see’ but I don’t understand a single bit of that!

Why is she looking at me with such an ecstatic, entranced expression when I’m the one who caused her to lose her job?

"I worked in this mercenary line of work so I often had opportunities to take on protection missions for men. However, those very men would treat me as if I didn’t exist. Even when I became a shield and got injured during enemy attacks, it wasn’t rare for them to shout ‘You got blood on me!’"

"That’s awful…"

"I thought that was normal. But you destroyed my perception of men. Stronger and more aggressive than women, the bullet you fired pierced straight through the womanly part of me and shook the important area of my lower abdomen."

"That phrasing is a bit misleading… look, the girls around us are getting nosebleeds and collapsing."

The high school girls at nearby seats who had been eavesdropping were face-first in their crepes, spraying nosebleeds and twitching.

The shop staff hurriedly helped them up so it seems they’re not suffocating.

"In any case, I am completely devoted to you. Please, allow me to stay by your side!"

"Seriously… not a pushy wife, but a pushy mercenary…"

I’ve never heard of a cohabitation romcom like that.

"I do not require a salary of course and I will live and sleep under the eaves of your home. For food, I will procure rats from the streets—"

"Please don’t do that."

If I treated you that harshly, my reputation would drop!

Well, Nagisabashi-san is beautiful and having a hardened military woman who worked as a mercenary act all affectionate toward me does hit some of my preferences but…

The problem is, my house has all sorts of firearms and things…

Ah! But Nagisabashi-san already knows from the previous fight that I have agent-like abilities to handle firearms!

In that case, the secret room isn’t an issue.

From that perspective, leaving Nagisabashi-san alone after she knows my secret wouldn’t be good.

I don’t know when she might leak it…

But still…

If I let Nagisabashi-san live with me while hiding the circumstances, it would definitely cause a huge uproar around me.

Haruto, Tatara-hama-san and Ecchan-sensei would all get mad…

And others too…

Ah! That’s it!

"Nagisabashi-san! I think I know just the right employer for you."

"The right employer?"

Tilting her head, the female mercenary now unemployed watched me as I opened the contact of the girl whose preferences I twisted the other day on my phone.