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"Lady Tasogare is missing!"
An attendant one of the branch houses had dispatched to wait on Tasogare shouted. It was three days after Tōtetsu's funeral.
"Hey, Bunkichi's gone too," someone from the main house exclaimed during the search for Tasogare.
It was true. The boy Bunkichi, Tasogare's closest attendant, had vanished along with her.
"He can't have made off with Lady Tasogare, can he?"
Bunkichi's family had the lowest status of all the branch houses. Even before Tōtetsu's passing, the people of the main house and the more prestigious branch houses had attached themselves to Shinonome or Koyoi. With, needless to say, the ulterior motive of getting in with the contenders for the next head of the clan. Shinonome, Koyoi, and Tasogare were all candidates, but everyone around them assumed that the position would go to one of the two older sisters. Consequently, the job of seeing to Tasogare's needs had been foisted on Bunkichi's low-ranking family.
Naturally, the bulk of criticism was aimed at Bunkichi's family. His parents and siblings, who remained, were showered in verbal abuse by members of the other households.
They're blaming everything on Bunkichi.
Koyoi watched her own attendants mercilessly rebuking them with anger in her eyes. But she could not intervene. Three days ago, she had gone from being "Tōtetsu's granddaughter" to "potential head of the clan." Every move she made, every word she spoke, had come to represent the entire Amanomiya clan. She could not afford to base any action on superficial feelings.
Little by little, her feelings of anger turned on herself, for watching without being able to act. She pursed her lips, and mentally apologized to Bunkichi's family.
If I become head, I won't allow this sort of thing. I won't let this be the kind of family where anyone has to be sad.
A short time later, a note in Tasogare's handwriting was found. A note scribbled on a spare practice talisman.
"Everyone in the Amanomiya clan, and elder sisters: Please forgive an action that will dishonor the family name. I have acted solely on my own judgment; Bunkichi bears no responsibility. Please do not condemn him."
When Koyoi read this letter, her mind turned to how Tasogare had looked on the day of the funeral. Her younger sister had been standing on the veranda and facing the garden, but her eyes had not been watching the pines planted there, or the carefully arranged white sand, or the carp swimming in the pond. She had seemed to Koyoi to be looking at somewhere else, somewhere far away.
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Tasogare probably wanted to escape from the prison called Amanomiya.
For the first time in her life, Koyoi had witnessed the moment a human was corrupted by a monster. Checking the spread of corruption and monsterization was one of a monster slayer's jobs. As a result, while she had seen humans who had already been corrupted, she had never seen the process.
Doon, her mentor, had fallen to the resurrection of his deceased wife. Koyoi had never seen anyone with a will as strong as his. And he had been corrupted in an instant.
Her teeth were still chattering with fear. In her heart of hearts, however, a longing toward corruption that was hard to resist had begun to appear.
Is this how Tasogare felt before she ran away?
After all this time, she was feeling sympathy for the younger sister she had not seen in years.
When Koyoi extricated herself from the vortex of her thoughts, the gigantic castle gate had come into view. Massive and made of metal, it was so large that an ordinary house could pass through it without getting stuck. One look at it made Lescatié's enduring strength obvious.
"When did I...?" She muttered. She had obeyed Doon and fled from the cemetery, but she did not remember which way she had run.
The castle gate gaped open. It had abandoned its duty.
Koyoi gulped audibly. She felt the air charged with violet mana, thick and thin, whispering to her to enter. The fear she had suppressed gradually rose again inside her. The root of the vast mana infesting Lescatié was inside. She must be an order of magnitude stronger than Finé. Koyoi felt certain that she could not win alone.
But...
She looked around her, but she could not see an enemy, let alone an ally. She could only hear sounds. Close sounds from the other side of the ramparts; distant ones from here and there in the residential areas. The voices of tens, hundreds of pairs of men and women crying out their love.
"Aaaahh..."
An especially loud, carnal cry in a woman's voice shook Koyoi's eardrums.
"Come on, just a little more, and you can get free of what's holding you down. That's it."
A different woman's voice. As soon as she heard it, Koyoi felt a chill run down her spine, making the hairs stand on end. And yet, it was certainly not unpleasant. Quite the opposite, in fact.
What is this sensation?
Koyoi was bewildered. It was as if her brain had been directly stimulated. It was the emotion called lust. No one who had experienced it before would ever mistake it. She, however, had spent her time in Zipangu training day in and day out, and since coming to this continent she had devoted herself to her work for the adventurers' guild. Her knowledge of sex was extremely limited. She did, however, know a way to cope with that sensation.
It's because mana is trying to enter my body. So, if I do this...
She took a talisman from her pocket. A new one, with nothing written on it. She held it between her middle and index fingers, and brought it to her mouth. She whispered words into the talisman that did not belong to Zipangu, or to this continent, or to anywhere in this world. Her voice was so faint that it was impossible to hear anything other than that she was whispering. She did not know who was on the other side of the ramparts, but the voice of a woman who still had her reason could only belong to an enemy.
As her incantation rustled the talisman, deep black characters were being traced upon it. When Koyoi's lips stopped moving, the talisman was full from top to bottom with writing. She loosened her sash, and opened the front of her tightly-shut garment.
She let out a short gasp. The intense mana directly touching her skin made the irritating sensation even stronger. She affixed the talisman in her hand to the spot without a moment's delay.
The writing on the talisman glowed faintly, spreading from her belly to permeate her entire body. She let out a sigh. The dangerous sensation was quickly suppressed, and her thoughts grew cool. She flashed a faint smile at her success, but there was not much strength in it.
This is no better than water on a hot stone. Still...
The area was devoid of allies. That meant that the only one currently capable of fighting the ringleader — who was presumably inside the castle — was herself. She took deep breaths, and somehow managed to calm her heart beat, which had risen with fear and stress. Keeping her knees from trembling, Koyoi stepped over the threshold of the castle gate.
Everything around you is meaningless noise and distractions! Concentrate; you have to look into the castle.
She repeated the breathing techniques for refining mana that she had performed every day until she could no longer stand it when she had been in Zipangu. She was conscious of the sensation of the air she breathed in, wreathed in mana, building up in the point just below her belly button where she had just affixed the talisman. The mana remained in her body, and she breathed out only the air.
The Amanomiya clan had learned, through long years of training and research, that women's ability to generate mana within themselves was less than men's. And that, conversely, women were more proficient than men at absorbing mana from outside themselves.
As I thought, the quantity and quality of mana here is on another level.
She sensed that the mana flowing into her was amassing an order of magnitude higher than usual, and with an order of magnitude less waste. Still, it was so dense that even an untrained commoner could see its color with their naked eyes. She did not know that drawing in mana from outside herself here in Lescatié, which was blanketed in the stuff, would backfire. The point below her navel where she was storing that mana was used in meditation. It was also her womb.
"Come now, surrender yourself to pleasure."
She walked along a well-maintained, milky-white gravel path. This was the enemy's stronghold; there was no telling when she would be attacked. She would have to proceed quickly, but also stealthily.
Talismans imbued with sound-dampening magic were affixed between the two wooden teeth of Koyoi's geta. She sent a small portion of the mana stored behind her navel down her legs to them. The writing on the talismans flashed white for an instant, and the sounds of her steps on the gravel completely disappeared.
"That's right. That's the way to release the chains around your heart. Once you've done that, you can be free."
Free.
Her mind, cleared by meditation, became suddenly disturbed. Every time Koyoi heard the woman's voice, it disarranged her thoughts.
"Your head's buzzing, and your bottom feels itchy, right? Right now, your heart is trying to break free of the heavy burden of humanity."
Burden.
Koyoi thought back. Her own life had been nothing but burdens. The burden of being Amanomiya. The burden of being in line to become head of the clan. Burdens heaped on her from all sides. And, as if to match their weight, she had kept as quiet as a stone.
"Your eyes still look a little frightened. It's alright. All a monster has to do is be with a man she likes. She doesn't need anything else. A world just for two."
A man?
She had almost no direct experience of the opposite sex. She had her older and younger sisters, and since she was very young she had spent her days cooped up in the mountains, enduring her grandfather's harsh training. Apparently her betrothal had been decided in her infancy, but she did not know the face, the voice, or even the name of her fiance. After Tōtetsu's passing, the faction of her relatives that had schemed to make her head of the clan had scrutinized her life day and night. She had not even been able to go outside as she pleased.
Doon's face rose in her mind.
He was... different, she decided. She had not seen Doon as an object of romantic love. When he had fallen to Finé, she had felt frustrated that she had not been able to protect him from the monster, but also, for some reason, that everything had fit perfectly into place. Things had returned to the way they ought to be. Nothing could be more fitting.
"Now, call your beloved's name."
"Aah, ah, Bunkichi, Bunkichi...."
Koyoi stopped in her tracks. Eyes wide with shock, she turned her head in the direction the voice had come from.
To her right, on the other side of the hedges planted so as to line the gravel path that stretched from the castle gate, was a channel about twice as wide as she was tall. Beyond that was a garden. In its center were three figures.
One was a monster. She wore a reddish-purple garment that liberally exposed the pale purple skin of her breasts, belly, and thighs. Her hair was long and pale. A pair of wings and a tail, the same shade as her hair, sprouted from just above her equally exposed buttocks. Black and red eyes. Pointed ears. Horns on her head.
One was a man. He wore a black robe, in the style of Zipangu, but his sash was undone, and his belly exposed to the outside air. Beside him lay a pair of straw sandals, presumably his. Occasional shudders shook his lower body, on which he wore nothing but socks. Relaxation and tension alternated on his face.
The last was a woman. Her robe was orange, and also in the Zipanguese style. She was straddling the man's crotch, and pumping her hips up and down. Her face was flushed, and her eyes vacant. Saliva dripped from her slovenly opened mouth. Her lovely hair was cut short, for a woman. From it sprouted the ears of an animal, the same orange as her kimono.
Koyoi recognized them, except for the monster. She could not forget the pair that not only she, but her entire extended family, had been trying to find for years.
"Tasogare!"
Concentrating mana into her lower body, Koyoi leapt. She crossed the hedges and the channel in a single bound, tracks of purplish red light trailing behind her geta.
Why? What is Tasogare doing in a place like this?
Her head was full of question marks. She rushed to Tasogare without knowing what she was doing.
The monster glanced at the ghastly look on Koyoi's face, but quickly returned her attention to Tasogare. An instant later, there was a sound like something bouncing off a wall, and Koyoi froze.
This is the same as in the cemetery!
A pale violet sphere, about six meters in diameter, was spread around the trio. That was what had stopped Koyoi. No sooner had she realized that than she sensed that the monster in front of her was the very enemy she had come to defeat — the enemy leader.
This monster created a barrier like this instantly, without any incantations or tools...
She took a step back from the wall, and drew several talismans from a pocket. Seeing that, the monster suddenly smiled.
"You're really something, making it this far safely."
She shot Koyoi a sidelong glance. On the other side, the monster stroked Tasogare's head with her left hand. Tasogare narrowed her eyes and made a delighted purring noise in her throat.
The monster was touching her sister. Koyoi bared her teeth in open hostility.
"Tee hee hee. This girl must mean a lot to you."
Koyoi's face would likely have terrified an ordinary monster to the point that they were covered in gooseflesh, but the monster did not even change her expression. Still smiling, she watched Koyoi affectionately.
"I have a feeling that this won't be the end of our relationship."
The monster flashed her teeth in a smile, and raised the index finger of her right hand, as if she had just had an idea.
"Why don't we introduce ourselves?"
The monster's pleasantries stuck out like a sore thumb. Koyoi's expression grew increasingly severe.
"I'll do no such thing!"
"My name is Druella."