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Azur Lane: Episode of Belfast Volume 2 Chapter 4 Part 4

She then glanced at Belfast again,

「I haven’t done anything that would be deserving of praise.」

After saying that, Bel-chan went silent again for a moment and then ran towards Sheffield.

「…… you’re not being honest with yourself really, Sheffield-san.」

As Bel-chan muttered those words in a voice so quiet so that only the two of them would be able to hear it, Newcastle looked up at Belfast just as she closed the lid on the pot that was simmering on top of the stove.

「…… Belfast. As the Head Maid, I would like you to give everyone their instructions now that you are back at the dorm.」

「Yes, of course, Newcastle-san.」

Belfast nodded her head, and she immediately started to help with the preparations for the meal alongside Kent.

「Huh, I knew it! Unlike the careless Acting Head Maid, having the Head Maid by your side really gives you a sense of security and makes the work easier!」

「Hey now…… I think I did my best as an Acting Head Maid, thank you very little!」

Edinburgh shouted those words at Kent while her face became beet-red with embarrassment, and as a result a wave of laughter erupted across the entire kitchen.

「Well then, everyone. Let’s proceed with our respective work and continue to do our very best.」

Saying so, Belfast walked around the kitchen, giving every single maod present a set of precise and personalized instructions. Even though she had just returned to the dormitory from the military commission, she was actively moving around herself, raising the level of work efficiency by a huge margin.

It’s been a long time since she has been working as a proper maid, so maybe that was the reason why she was so enthusiastic right now about returning to her usual set of responsibilities.

In the kitchen, just after all the food had been served, Belfast was wiping the sweat from her forehead as the fatigue from all the events thus far finally started to catch up to her. She could feel that her body was becoming increasingly hotter from all that running around, and additionally she was starting to feel severely out of breath.

「That’s strange…… I don’t feel like I was moving anything more…… than usual.」

But even so, maybe she was a little too tense throughout the evening preparations just now.

At that exact moment Edinburgh went back into the kitchen.

Immediately after seeing that, Belfast pushed her body from the wall that she was leaning against, and asked her sister:.

「Has everyone in the dormitory already eaten?」

「Yes, everyone finished eating their meal a while ago.」

Edinburgh then took a replacement teapot out of the cupboard while answering Belfast’s question, thinking that it was actually kind of strange for her to ask her that, while Belfast glanced at her wrist watch.

「…… It’s been that long, huh?」

She should have just leaned against the wall for a little while, but in reality it took her much longer than she would have thought.

「Aren’t you tired, Bel? After all, you just got back from a commission. Shouldn’t you take it easy for a while?」」

Belfast looked at Edinburgh, and she could see that her face was distorted with worry all over.

She must have been just a little bit tired, that’s all. Belfast thought to herself while going towards the sink and pouring some tap water into a glass cup. It was just now that she noticed just how thirsty she was.

At the moment when she poured water into the glass halfway through and turned around towards Edinburgh again,

「*Cough*, *cough*, *cough*!Kehokke heh!」

She started coughing involuntarily and put the glass on the table, afraid that she might spill its contents all over.

「H-Hey, Bel! Are you okay?」

Edinburgh hurriedly approached her sister seeing what just happened, but Belfast held her hand out and managed to pull herself together.

「I-It’s fine, Nee-san. It’s just that…… Something must have become stuck in my throat. That’s all. Now that I managed to get rid of that something, I’m all better, you see?」

「I-Is that so? W-Well, if you say so, I guess that’s fine.」

With a worried expression still on his face, Edinburgh returned to the dining room with a teapot in her hand.

Following her older sister, Belfast straightened her posture and tried to leave the kitchen. At that time,

「Hey, Bel.」

Suddenly Edinburgh stopped in front of the wooden door leading to the dining room.

When the Head Maid was wondering what happened, Edinburgh turned around and asked Belfast the following question:

「Soon, it will once again be the time for “that question” appear once more.」

「…… Ah, again with “that”, huh?」

Even though Belfast seemed to be slightly off-put by Edinburgh mentioning that matter, she still answered her in her usual dignified tone..

「The answer is still a “No”. And as a matter of fact, I don’t think that it will ever change to “Yes”. Not now and not ever.」

「Tsk….. Oh well, not that I expected anything else.」

Edinburgh smiled wryly as she said those words, at the same time putting her hand on the door’s handle and opening them up.

「But you do know that right now you are not lonely, right?」

「Nee-san.」

Hearing that, Belfast tone had become a little bit more stern than usual, Edinburgh laughed slightly viciously and walked out of the kitchen just like that.

Being left behind, Belfast held her head in disappointment.

「Seriously now, what a troublesome Elder Sister she can be at times.」

As Belfast was able to recall, every now and then Edinburgh would come over to her and ask her “a certain question”. The content of that “certain question” was so ridiculous that after having said “No” to it a couple of times already Belfast got so tired of hearing it that she wanted to make Edinburgh stop asking that in the first place, but her sister just wouldn’t stop at all.

As expected, seeing that there was no longer anything that could be done inside of the kitchen for the time being, Belfast went out into the dining room so that she could shift her focus on serving the people who were still there and eating.

After that, Belfast was swarmed with work, from cleaning up the dinner tables and washing the dishes, to preparing for the next day’s meal.

In the end, all the work was finished around the time the date was about to change, and when Belfast returned to her room, Edinburgh and Bel-chan were already sound asleep.

Seeing the two’s sleeping faces, Belfast chuckled slightly and went up the ladder of her bunk bed.

When she went to bed thinking that the next day would be really tough for some reason, she was overwhelmed by the fatigue of the day and fell asleep in no time at all.

* * *

When Belfast woke up in the early morning, as usual, she found herself more tired than she had been the night before, which was already strange.

Right now it was not only her face that was hot, but her entire body seemed to be burning up.

It was hard for her to breathe because her head was hurting and her nose was all stuffy and clogged up, and her whole body was being rocked by cold chills.

Still, when she got off of the bunk bed to get ready for today’s work,

「…… Nee-san?」

Edinburgh, who was supposed to be still sleeping on the lower bunk bed, was nowhere to be seen.

Belfast wondered where she had gone off to when she almost always slept until the very last minute.

For the time being, she also looks at Bel-chan’s bed.

Then, this one was asleep as usual.

She was so dizzy at the moment that she was barely even able to think about what she was going to do this morning.

She could barely stand while she was changing into her usual maid outfit, but when she managed to get ready and leave the room,

「…… This is,」

All of a sudden, the world around her started to spin in an uncontrollable manner.

Becoming unsteady on her feet, she staggered in the middle of the corridor and ended up leaning her body against the wall..

Her breathing was becoming rough, and she had a suffocating cough that followed right after that, but that was different from the one when she needed to drink some water yesterday.

「What in the world is…… *Cough*, *cough*!」

She thought that maybe Edinburgh had woken up earlier and was preparing breakfast right about now.

Even if she couldn’t remember the exact date, Belfast remembers that there have been some rare days like that in the past. And it’s already been a few days since she had returned to the Home Port from her military commission.