I said, "Well, go in there and show me all them sport clothes, like you s’pposed to"

Nola fidgeted uncomfortably in Dakota’s room, looking like she wanted to be anywhere else but right here with the wicked host.

That was usually how she felt when Dakota called her in to do something for her- but right now she felt that way because she didn’t know what to do. Dakota was busy watching a movie, and wasn’t even looking at her. And when Nola had tried to get her attention, a single withering glare had been enough to shut her up good.

For once, Nola wasn’t talking. And when Nola wasn’t talking, she felt like she was doing something wrong.

Finally, the movie came to a close, and only then did Dakota rise from her couch and turn to the flustered leprechaun, staring at her with a lazy look in her eyes.

Nola winced.

“You… you called me up here?” She stammered.

“That’s right,” Dakota nodded. “How are you doing today, Nola?”

The leprechaun blinked. That… was not the kind of question she was expecting to get from the dark-haired woman. Dakota never cared about her or what she was doing- she just focused on the things that actually mattered to her. Sometimes it was like she barely even knew Nola existed in the first place!

…Frankly? That wasn’t so bad.

Nola quickly shook her head and swallowed. “W-well, uh… I’m, I’m doing alright!” She managed to get out with a shaky smile. “You know how it is, gotta work hard to keep things running, make sure all the trains are running on time, stuff like that! Oh, by the way, have you actually ever seen a train before? Because I haven’t. Not really a thing where I’m from, you know? Oh, but are they fun? They sound like they could be a lot of fun. I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never used one before. What kind of transformation do you like to use to get around? Besides your cane, I mean. Planes? Cars? Definitely not boats, I’d imagine-”

“Nola.”

Dakota’s sharp rebuke froze Nola in place, and she promptly shut her mouth. She paled and nodded her head, stiffening up straight as she waited for Dakota to say her piece.

But Dakota had nothing to say. She just wanted the leprechaun to shut up.

With that accomplished, she turned her attention back to the TV.

“Tell me, what do you think about this little beach party idea that Vivian cooked up?” Dakota questioned.

Nola looked at her in confusion. That’s what this was all about? She’d figured that the reason for Dakota’s bad mood was because Nick had spent all morning with his stepmother and with Sylvia, and actually seemed to be getting along with them. That struck her as the kind of thing the host wouldn’t appreciate.

But… a beach party?

“I-I don’t know, I suppose it could be a lot of fun?” Nola tried to make it sound like a casual, light-hearted thing. “I mean, I’m not able to swim, and no one sent me an invitation, but it definitely sounds like the kind of thing that would be good for the harem to bond over together, don’t you think so? I think so. It sounds like something maybe I’d do, in fact!”

“Yes, I do believe you’re right,” Dakota nodded in agreement, stroking her chin thoughtfully. “It could be an excellent bonding moment indeed…”

She was focusing her attention on that, rather than giving Nick’s time with Amelia and Sylvia any of her focus.

That was something else Nola found weird. Shouldn’t Harem Hotel hosts be focusing on the master, in important moments like this one? Rather than just following the girls around? Is Dakota really trying to avoid seeing Nick that much? …Yeah, I suppose that does sound like her. She’s the kind of woman who really doesn’t care to dwell on things she dislikes.

Nola did have one question though. And since it had nothing to do with Nick, Dakota might even answer it without getting upset at her!

“Can I ask you something? Dakota?” Nola tried to sound as polite and generous as she could, in order to keep her boss from getting mad at her.

Dakota grunted something vaguely in the affirmative, and didn’t even look in Nola’s direction. She was too focused on figuring out what her net movie would be.

…That was about as close to a “yes” as Nola could reasonably expect to get, so she went along with it.

“Um… why did you pull away the cameras when the girls were trying on their swimsuits at the boutique?” Nola questioned. “That could be really good for the audience and ratings, to show all the girls looking so hot…”

Dakota scoffed, then tilted her head back to glance at Nola with a smirk on her face.

“Well, that woman said she didn’t want to do a fashion show, did she not?” Dakota pointed out. “No sense in catering to her then, by giving her camera focus.”

Nola blinked. “…O-oh, really? Is that right?”

“That’s a part of it,” Dakota nodded, turning back to the screen. “But the fact of the matter is, I want to keep that a bit of a secret for a while longer…”

A sly smile curled up her lips as she contemplated future episodes of the show, while Nola just looked more confused than ever.

“Secret? But… but why?” She asked, tilting her head to the side and stroking her chin.

“Because if the first time the audience sees those girls in their new swimsuits is also the first time Nick sees them, the effect will be phenomenal for the ratings,” Dakota explained, as if it was the most simple concept in the world. “Nick’s reaction will be a direct reflection of their own reactions, and they’ll be so engrossed in what they’re seeing they’ll be even more engaged with what comes next. Does that make sense to you?”

“Oh, yeah, I totally get it!” Nola nodded eagerly. She could see it now! “I guess this is one of those things you really have to think about the impact of, huh?”

“Exactly,” Dakota said with a nod. “If you ever want to have any hope as a host… …No, never mind. It’s your inability to realize how things work that led to your season getting postponed indefinitely in the first place.”

Nola’s jaw dropped in shock. “Wh-what!?” She screeched in disbelief.

Dakota gave her a dismissive shrug. “It’s just a fact of life,” she sneered in response, not even bothering to look up from her screen. She’d already chosen her next movie. “The producers wouldn’t have pulled your season if you were able to make it engaging.”

“It-! My season was very engaging!” Nola exclaimed. She could accept a lot of **** from her boss, but she wasn’t about to accept that! “We received plenty of votes and lots of approval! The producers didn’t postpone my season because it was bad! They just had other projects they wanted to focus their attention on! Just you watch! When they come get me and my season goes back into production, then you’ll see! It’s going to be amazing!”

Dakota didn’t have a response to that. For one thing, she hadn’t actually watched any of Nola’s season, and for another, she didn’t really care.

She was more focused on making sure her season was the best it could be, rather than give the noisy leprechaun any type of consideration. What would the bratty girl even do with something like that, anyway?

Meanwhile, Nola just felt like she wanted to cry and scream. But she was better than that!

Seeing that Dakota clearly didn’t need anything else from her (and might not even care if she was still around or not) Nola let out huff, turned, and exited the room.

Dakota didn’t even notice. She just kept focusing on what the girls were doing.

“…And you’re sure about this?” Kim stared at Vivian with a look of shock on her face. “You know you don’t have to spend this much, right?”

“Eh, what’s the big deal?” Vivian scoffed, waving her hand dismissively. “It’s just BP. I’ve only gotta earn some more, right? Won’t be a problem. It’s way more important that we have a really fun beach party tomorrow!”

“Th-thanks for this,” Mary stammered, feeling both very grateful and a little ashamed at the fact that Vivian was so casually throwing her money around for her sake. Mary had spent most of her time on the show saving up money before eventually spending it on her wedding rings. She’d never really been much for spending other than that, and now she didn’t have any BP to speak of at all.

So for someone to not only use her transformation to make sure Mary could wear a bathing suit, but actually buy one for her… well, that meant a lot.

…Of course, Mary hadn’t actually been able to try it on, because Vivian hadn’t used her transformation yet. But that would come later.

Hopefully it would look nice.

“You… you really didn’t have to…” Ella mumbled, looking down. Her face reddened with shame. “I told you, I wasn’t going to swim anyway… I don’t even know how.”

In spite of that, Vivian had insisted that she purchase a swimsuit for Ella as well, “just in case.” Ella had tried to argue, but she couldn’t compete with the other girl’s forceful insistence, and in the end, Ella had relented and gone along with it.

Truth be told, she did like the swimsuit that she’d ended up getting. It looked nice on her, and played into her style perfectly, even if she wasn’t the kind of girl who liked showing off her body in nice clothing.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to die of embarrassment!

“Don’t sweat the small stuff,” Vivian said, shrugging. “I bought you gals swimsuits because I wanted to help! If you don’t want to wear ‘em then don’t!”

“Of course I’ll wear it!” Rose nodded her head rapidly. She couldn’t be happier. “I just knew you were so generous and sweet, buying me something like this!”

Her eyes twinkled with delight as she stared at Vivian, having completely fallen under the heiress’ sway.

Rose might have staunchly opposed her placement on the Gold Digger transformation path, but behavior like this sure made it clear that she liked the idea of someone showering her with luxury and treating her like a spoiled pet.

“Thanks from me, as well,” Marley said, giving Vivian a bashful smile. “I can’t buy my own swimsuit… and technically, I guess I’ve never owned one, so…”

“Are you sure you don’t want to try it on, though?” Dawn asked. “I mean, you seemed pretty adamant, and you really liked it. It would be a shame if it didn’t fit properly.”

“It’ll fit,” Marley said, sounding surprisingly insistent. Apparently, this was a very big issue that the girls were treading on, and nobody really wanted to make a problem about it.

“Well… okay then,” Dawn said with a shrug, not about to argue the point with the slime girl. If Marley wanted that swimsuit then she’d get it. Meanwhile, Dawn didn’t ever have to worry about her own swimsuit not fitting.

After all… even the ones she had from middle school still fit, much to her chagrin.

“Morgana, what about you?” Dawn turned to the goth girl with a curious expression. “Did you find a nice one that you like?”

Like Marley, Morgana had also forgone showing the other girls the swimsuit that she’d picked out. In fact, she’d outright refused to leave the dressing room once she’d changed. She emerged several minutes later and stated that they’d get a chance to see it tomorrow at the beach party, but Dawn wondered if that was really the case.

The other girl’s pale skin practically glowed a bright scarlet, and she wasn’t looking anybody in the eye at the moment. It seemed like she had been true to her word and picked out a suitably daring swimsuit after all!

That was… quite something.

“Are you sure you needed to buy one for me, though?” Holly asked. She wasn’t used to anyone being this charitable to her, either. “I mean, I’m not complaining, it looks really nice! But like… I still have my old swimsuit from before. And that one looks just fine.”

Her old swimsuit was the fetish maid bikini she’d worn to Mary’s bachelorette party. And while it may have been modest by bikini standards, it was still rather suggestive (not that Holly had a problem with that) and in a gesture of consideration, Holly had agreed to pick out something a little more conservative to wear.

She didn’t really care either way. But if that’s what the other girls wanted, then she wasn’t going to raise a fuss about it.

“Look, I’m telling you gals, it’s not a big deal!” Vivian laughed. “I like spending money on clothes, it’s kinda one of my favorite things to do. And it’s not like I can just wear anything, you know?”

She gestured to her slender figure and cocked her hip to the side. “Just because most things look great on me, that doesn’t mean everything does. And if there’s one thing I love more than shopping, it’s finding the perfect fit- what will really bring out a girl’s most beautiful characteristics? So don’t you all get worked up over nothing, ‘kay? I did this one for me.”

She sure made a good case. But Dawn still suspected that she was masking her generosity behind a proud smile.

Mary felt the same way. She beamed up at Vivian, glad that the other girl was doing something so nice for everyone.

Even Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin seemed to be happy with the swimsuit that had been chosen for her, and Mary had never seen the dark-haired girl wear anything other than that leather jumpsuit she had on right now!

Kim, for her part, did look a little more favorably on Vivian after hearing the heiress’s rousing speech. Not enough for her to forget what the noblewoman had spent most of her life doing, but enough to nod in support.

And the money she was about to make off her didn’t hurt matters, either.

“Okay, let’s run up the total, then,” Kim said, checking all the prices and calculating them together. There had been swimsuits purchased for Mary, Rose, Marley, Morgana, Ella, Dawn, Holly, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, and two for Vivian. With a total of ten swimsuits purchased, and averaging out to 200 BP per suit, the total came out to a whopping 2000 BP.

Not exactly a small sum. That was nearly half the BP that Vivian had on her right now!

BP that Kim was happy to accept from the heiress without asking any questions.

“Your total cost comes out to 2000 BP,” Kim informed the other girl, wondering what her reaction would be.

To Vivian’s credit, she didn’t seem bothered by that in the slightest.

“Only 2000? That’s hardly anything! I would have thought it’d be double, easy!” Vivian noted with a laugh. “You weren’t lying Kimmy, that Dakota really does want us buying sexy outfits for Nick’s sake if she’s making ‘em that cheap!”

She didn’t hesitate to make her purchase.

Vivian: 4100 BP – 2000 BP = 2100 BP

Kim: 6800 BP + 1000 BP = 7800 BP

Kim was so happy at making such a tidy sum that she didn’t even care about Vivian getting her name blatantly wrong.

No, there were more important things to focus on right now.

“Are you sure it was really worth spending that much?” Marley asked cautiously. She still felt a little bad. Back when she’d been on the show as Mimi, she hadn’t actually bought that much with her BP, so she didn’t have a good feel for it.

But as someone who’d been eliminated, the idea of a contestant spending BP on her, well… that just made her feel a little weird.

“I’m never going to turn down charity,” Rose declared, even though she had significantly more BP than Vivian did, and could have easily afforded her own swimsuit.

Vivian just laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Marley. Besides, if I want to make my money back, all I’ve gotta do is abduct you for a few hours, right? Keep you tied up in my room for the rest of the day, and that way when I finally send you back to your sister, I get my money back and then some! Just a thought.”

Marley nearly sputtered a giggle in response to the absurd idea. But Kim actually did laugh.

Even though she didn’t like Vivian in the slightest, she had a weakness for dark humor. She couldn’t help herself.

“You know, that wouldn’t be so bad, Marley,” she called from the counter with an amused smirk. “After all, Vivian does live in the Garden Suite. It would be like going home again!”

Marley shot the other girl a dismissive sneer and rolled her eyes in exaggerated disgust. “Yeah, no thanks there,” she laughed, and shook her head.

On the other hand, though, Kim raised a good point. Maybe she could convince the audience to assign her and Carly to the Garden Suite next round. It would be so nice to surround herself with all those lovely flowers…

But they had more pressing matters.

“So what now?” Mary questioned. She didn’t want to leave the store just yet, as she could finally spend some time with Kim. “Have we got everything set up for the beach party that we need? What about swimsuits for Dani and Carly?”

“My sister will probably get a swimsuit cosplay,” Marley pointed out. “And if she doesn’t, well… knowing her, I think she’d be fine with going without.”

“Yeah, that’s true, that’s what happened last time, when we had the first challenge on the beach,” Dawn pointed out. Realizing how that sounded, she quickly corrected herself with more precise language. “The swimsuit cosplay, I mean. Not going naked.”

“Our room has a bunch of swimsuits on display,” Kim pointed out. “Dani can borrow one of them if she wants to, pretty sure. That’s how the room works, right?”

“So that just leaves Gina then?” Rose asked. No one had seen the punk girl since breakfast, when she left saying she had something important to do.

“Does… does she even like swimming?” Morgana questioned. “With that punishment transformation of hers, it might be a bit inconvenient.”

“True, but we should still extend her the option,” Mary said. “…Oh, but what about Sylvia? And Amelia? Don’t they need swimsuits?”

“They haven’t said if they’re coming or not,” Dawn pointed out. “They don’t even know we’re planning this, either. And neither does Gina, for that matter.”

That was a bit of an issue. After all, bringing attention to the little beach party the girls had planned would involve seeking Sylvia and Amelia out on their date with Nick.

If something had “recipe for disaster” written all over it, it was definitely that idea.