"My name is Druella."
Druella went on introducing herself as if she could not hear Koyoi.
"A daughter of the Overlord, and the ringleader behind what's happened to Lescatié."
All expression vanished from Koyoi's face. Concentrating on circulating the mana accumulated in her belly throughout her body did not allow her the luxury of forming one.
"Impressive."
Druella watched the shining mana circulate. Lines of light flowed efficiently to the ends of her limbs, and thence to the talismans she held in her hands. Aside from Koyoi, she had seen only one human capable of utilizing mana so skillfully. And that one had already fallen into the domain of monsters, and seemed quite enchanted with it.
I'm certain this girl will make a wonderful monster.
At the thought of Koyoi's future — squeezing essence from the man she loved, her face melting with pleasure — Druella experienced a love almost like a mother's for her child.
"Now, would you please tell me your name?" Druella asked, but Koyoi did not answer. She was surveying the wall that separated her from Druella, and from her sister, in search of a spot where the mana was weak.
Shaping a vague, fluid thing like mana into a wall meant that its thickness would necessarily become unstable. Especially now, when it was possible to perceive the mana with her naked eyes, it would be easily possible to judge the thickness of the barrier by the concentration of color.
Before long, however, Koyoi gave up.
This thing is already beyond questions of thick or thin...
The quality of the wall of mana Druella had created was on another level from Finé's. In fact, it was probably better described as a true sphere than as a wall. Koyoi realized that it was constructed so that only the outer surface of the sphere was solid, but all the space inside it was also filled with mana.
"Well, alright," Druella sighed, "I'm sure we'll see each other again soon. Let's have a nice, long talk then."
So saying, Druella removed her hand from Tasogare's head, and took a step backward.
"Wait! I won't let you get away!"
Koyoi hurled three talismans at Druella, who had left the mana dome. They flew true at the monster's eyes, heart, and feet, faster than the eye could catch. Every one of them, however, was struck out of the air by Druella's tail.
The talismans had been so powerful that one touch of them would have paralyzed an ordinary monster and brought them to their knees. The monster before Koyoi's eyes, however, had made short work of them with just her tail.
"This is still just the entrance, you know?"
Druella spread her wings, and her feet left the ground.
"Fighting in a place like this just isn't exciting. I suppose this sort of thing really does have to be done all the way inside," Druella laughed obscenely, making a circle with the fingers of her right hand, and passing her left index finger in and out of it.
"Well then, I'll be waiting for you in the throne room. Bye-bye."
Druella leisurely floated up, passed through the castle wall, and disappeared from sight. Koyoi still clutched her talismans, but all she could do was grind her teeth in frustration.
She turned her back to me, but she still never left herself open...
"Ooh, ah."
Bunkichi, still straddled by Tasogare, let out a cry that sounded like it had been wrung from his throat. Koyoi turned her attention to him. He shuddered two or three times.
"Aaah. You came... You came for me..." Tasogare whispered happily, and sighed with contentment.
The low rumble emanating from her body grew louder. The part behind her hips swelled, and something long and thin peeked out below the hem of her torn kimono. It was a pair of orange and white-spotted tails. The two cat tails were growing as Koyoi watched, like plants budding in the spring sunshine. They dragged up the hem of Tasogare's kimono, exposing her lower body.
Koyoi instinctively averted her eyes. Bunkichi's penis was lodged in Tasogare's vagina. Koyoi lacked the knowledge to recognize it, but Bunkichi's testicles were twitching up and down. A long, long ejaculation. Tasogare was using the rise and fall of her hips and the wave-like contractions of her vagina to savor what leaked out with each upward spasm.
When her tails had finished growing, the transformation moved to her hands and feet. The same pattern of white and orange spots as on her tail appeared on her arms below the elbows, and her legs below the knees. Fur grew, covering the skin, which it seemed to split. Her fingers fused into a lump, then rapidly metamorphosed into fur-covered cat's paws.
"Aaah, meooohh."
She raised her face, and let out a caterwaul of joy.
Opening her eyelids, Tasogare basked in the pink and purple-tinted rays of monster realm sunshine. Her pupils, now vertical slits, contracted, reducing the amount of light that entered her eyes. Then, for the first time, she realized that her elder sister was just on the other side of the barrier.
"Sister...?"
A monster slayer must be merciless.
Koyoi recalled what their grandfather had once told her.
Those fascinated by monsters will inevitably cause harm to the humans close to them.
Koyoi grit her teeth.
A monster's fascination is a sickness.
"To treat it..."
You must either isolate them, or dispose of them.
She affixed a talisman to her right palm, then spread the hand open and held it high over her head, as if displaying it to the sky. The writing on the talisman shone. A moment later, it turned to ash and spread into a sphere. Each particle of ash sucked in mana from the surrounding air. The sphere glowed faintly violet, and expanded. When its diameter was roughly equal to her height, the sphere's growth halted. Its purple hue melted like heated glass, and formed into patterns.
This was the secret culmination of Koyoi's skill — a technique for destroying a monster by slamming a massive quantity of mana into them, and forcing their body to take in more than it could absorb.
Tasogare took no action; she just continued to stare at it. As she was also an Amanomiya, she soon realized what her sister intended to do. But she said nothing. She neither begged for her life, nor hurled curses. She only smiled, and shed tears. Understanding everything, she smiled at her elder sister.
◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊
"Sister! Sister!"
Koyoi's attendants desperately struggled to restrain her from running to Shinonome.
Half a year had passed since Tasogare's disappearance. It was just before sunrise, and the first fingers of dawn colored the sky.
Someone had made an attempt on the life of Koyoi's elder sister, Shinonome. The culprit apparently commanded flames, and had attacked her in her sleep. Shinonome had noticed something was out of the ordinary before the attack, and managed to wake in time to evade it. But the would-be assassin's spell had been potent; although Shinonome had cast a defensive spell of her own, both her arms had been burned, and the force of the blast had smashed her into the wall of her room, knocking her unconscious. The people of the household had noticed the noise, and found her collapsed.
Shinonome's life was in no danger, but the burns she had sustained on both arms would leave scars.
"Who was it!? Who attacked my sister!?"
Koyoi vented her anger on her attendants, shouting in an uncharacteristically loud voice.
In the Amanomiya clan, it was usual for even those who trained in the same place to study different subjects. This was so that a master could gauge the quality of their disciples' mana, and teach each one what they were best suited to handle. The same held true even for candidates to become the next head of the clan.
Koyoi's training had focused on large-scale, highly destructive techniques specialized for offense. Shinonome, in contrast, had studied defensive spells and small-scale techniques that supposed a one-on-one confrontation. Koyoi herself was low in aggression and rarely angry. Her personality and magical potential were at odds with each other.
This difference in techniques was a large part of what had split the Amanomiya clan in two. Those who had trained in the offensive arts assembled under Koyoi, and the users of defensive spells under Shinonome.
Therefore, someone capable of breaching — even partially — the defenses of a practitioner on the level of Shinonome, who had trained directly under the previous head, could only be found among Koyoi's party.
Koyoi surveyed the faces of her followers. Every one of them averted their eyes, hung their head, or otherwise failed to meet her gaze.
So that's how it is.
Seeing their attitudes, Koyoi understood. Only one of them had done it, but every one of them knew who it was. And they had deliberately refrained from stopping that one, or from informing Koyoi. Koyoi accepted that the fault lay not with them, but with herself.
It's my responsibility. A chief must know what is in her followers' hearts. But I...
She was surprised to find her sister's attitude completely unchanged. She showed no worry or weakness to those around her. Koyoi pondered the contrast with her own angry shouting.
I lack the capacity to be head...
She had failed to control her followers, and injured her sister. She was not qualified to lead the clan. She could no longer face her sister, either. Shutting herself up in her room, asking and answering her own questions over and over again, Koyoi only sank deeper into the morass of her own thoughts.
A week after the incident, she fled the Amanomiya clan alone, without a word to anyone.
◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊
Koyoi swung to the left, breaking the stare she had exchanged with Tasogare. Then, without a backward glance at her sister, she ran into the castle.
Why? Why? Why didn't I kill her!? Koyoi asked herself as she raced along the corridors. The sound of her footsteps was barely audible, absorbed by the thick, wine red carpet.
She did not delay her preparations to pursue Druella. She withdrew a fresh talisman from her pouch, and chanted an incantation. The writing on it shone, then it left her hand and moved of its own accord, floating ahead of her. This talisman performed a similar function to a tracking dog. Instead of scent, it remembered, and pursued, the mana emitted by its target. Druella's mana was distinctive; it would not mistake it.
Koyoi followed the talisman with her eyes. Her feet never stopped running, but the rest of her brain's capabilities were spent on self-questioning.
What am I doing!? Didn't I swear before taking this job that I would stake the pride of the monster slayers — of the Amanomiya — on this!?
As long as Koyoi had sworn to bear her clan's burden, she had to keep to their teachings. The teachings of the clan were the teachings of its head.
I have to either isolate or kill anyone taken by the monsters! Especially if they're my own kin.
If she had faced a stranger, it would not have been a problem. The mere fact of being watched by an Amanomiya would cause an ordinary monster to cease any conspicuous activity. Against a monster who had been a member of the clan, however, she had been firmly instructed to employ severe punishment.
If one of her kin became a monster, they were finished the instant they stood out. There was no greater shame than for a monster slayer to fall, and become a monster themselves. Tōtetsu had stressed that to Koyoi repeatedly.
But...
Koyoi could not bring herself to kill her younger sister. That final smile Tasogare had shown her was likely the main reason for that. Tasogare had looked truly happy in her sister's eyes. She had never looked like that when she was with the Amanomiya. Even her elder sisters, who must have been with her most, had never seen her look like that.
Was I jealous of Tasogare...? Jealous of her becoming a monster? Because she looked happy?
Her mind had been full of exclamation points, but now question marks began to supersede them.
Is becoming a monster such a good thing? Does it make you happy enough to make a face like that? Was that smile genuine?
The talisman halted. The glow of the writing slowly faded and it fell, powerless, to the floor. It had fulfilled its purpose.
This is the enemy's stronghold.
A wooden door, almost the same size as the castle gate, stood before Koyoi. She gulped audibly. Even through the door, she felt practically crushed by the mana hanging in the air.
Enough. If I don't control my feelings...
She pressed a hand over her racing heart, and breathed to refine mana. The wasted mana that she had allowed to escape her body in her excitement was pushed back against the surface of her body, and absorbed through her skin.
Next, she put her hands on her belly — on the monster mana-suppressing charm. The talisman was radiating so much heat that she could feel the warmth through her clothes.
Alright, I'll be fine. I'll be fine. I'll be fine...
Struggling to convince herself, she put a hand on the door and pushed.
The door swung inward with a grating sound, and a lightness that belied its size. Clinging, visible mana overflowed through the crack.
The first thing Koyoi felt was the overpowering tactile sensation of that mana. Mana was normally invisible to the naked eye. In Lescatié, however, common sense did not apply. Still, to Koyoi, who had spent her days facing mana as a monster slayer, mana with a color was not such a rare sight.
Koyoi's earliest memories were her days of training, with nothing in sight except the hut where she slept. Due the unimaginable months and years that generations of her ancestors had spent training day in and day out in that field, its ground was always blanketed in a white haze of mana.
Mana with a texture, however, was a novel experience.
She breathed deeply in a further effort to calm her feelings. With each breath, a sensation like vegetable gelatin made even softer ran down her windpipe. She grimaced.
The next thing she sensed was a sickly-sweet odor. A number of different sweet scents, like fruits boiled down into concentrates, came wafting to her. She remembered an orchard in the southern region of the continent, which she had come to when she had only just fled the Amanomiya, and did not yet know her way about.
After that, sound. It sounded like a chorus, rising ever higher and higher. After a few steps, Koyoi was able to make out the particulars. It was women's voices. Deep inside, in the same place that the smells emanated from, the voices of several women overlapped.
Koyoi advanced, one stepped at a time so as to make sure of the floor, talismans at the ready. As she closed the distance to the inner chamber, a black silhouette rose up in her vision, which had been a uniform field of violet.
She did not know what it was at first. It formed complicated angles, swaying forward and back, or possibly right and left. When she managed to discern color in what had seemed a mass of black, she finally realized what she was seeing.
It was several monsters and one human, naked and intertwined.
The human man was seated, stark naked, on the tall-backed, gold and jewel-encrusted throne, where once only the king had been permitted to sit. A number of monster girls were wrapped around him, freely exposing bodies so flawless that they might have escaped the world of a painting. One of them was straddling his hips, vigorously shaking her own up and down. Her face was turned skyward, her mouth gaped open, and her pants were practically shouts. Her hair was purple and formed distinctive vertical rolls.
Her Highness...!
Koyoi recognized her. She was one of the members of the royal family who had been listed as targets for rescue and protection at the meeting the night before storming the city. Francisca Mistel Lescatié.
Another woman was kissing the man's lips. Sitting in the gap between him and the princess, she had her arms wrapped around his head, and was wholeheartedly sucking on his mouth. She had pink hair, and appeared far too young to have any sexual knowledge at all.
Two more monsters had their mouths close to his ears, one on each side. A gray haired, strong willed-looking monster with an eye patch was at his right ear. Her lower body was that of a snake, rather than a human, and was knotted tightly about the man's torso, the throne, and her own body. The other was a woman with long, blue-green hair. In stark contrast to the monster across from her, her features gave a gentle impression. Both of their faces were as rapt as could be as they stuck their tongues into the man's ears, sucking and clinging to them. From time to time they withdrew their tongues, whispered something, and narrowed their eyes in ecstasy.
There were four monsters beside the throne.
Two of them were girls even younger than the monster exchanging kisses with the man. They alternated between squabbling to lick the white fluid that spattered their bodies off each other, and twining their tongues together to gulp it down.
One was a girl with short, blue hair lying senseless on the floor. Little spasms ran through her whole body. Her feet were facing Koyoi, displaying her lightly-furred sex to Koyoi's view. A large volume of white goo burbled out from between its clean lines with each breath she took. Koyoi could not see her whole face, but she was able to note her lips, parted in a joyful grin.
The last was kneeling and staring at Koyoi. She looked bored. Her arms and legs, like Tasogare's, ended in animal fur and claws. Her green hair was gathered on either side of her head. She was staring straight ahead with her chin resting on her right hand, which in turn rested on her raised right knee. While the other monsters were besotted with intercourse, she alone watched Koyoi with a clear head. The animal ears that sprouted from her head were twitching up and down.
This is bad!