8. Harboring Defilement

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/8/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

The next morning, the two women who appeared before me made no effort whatsoever to conceal the scent of lovemaking.
The red marks on their necks, their sweat-dampened skin, their dewy eyes—had they embraced the moment they woke, or had they not slept at all since the night before?

“Good morning, Nunnally.”

Chigusa was merely smiling and offering an ordinary greeting. Was I reading too much into it when I found her expression so alluring?
Even her red eyes seemed to seethe with the flames of desire.
Ashamed of the improper fantasies I had entertained the night before, I could not look her in the face and answered with my head bowed.

“G-Good morning …”

At the sight of me, Chigusa gave a soft laugh, sensuously touched an index finger to her lips, and smiled.
Then she walked over, spread her arms as she had the night before, and embraced me—and something soft and faintly moist brushed my cheek.
Surely that had not been … her lips?

“A morning greeting. Did it not please you?”

Seeing how bewildered and embarrassed I was, she whispered like a teasing little devil.

“No … It is not that.”

I could hardly admit that it had delighted me. Yet my heart was pounding so hard that there could be no concealing it.
Pressed this close together, surely Chigusa could feel both the heat of my body and the frantic beat of my heart through our clothes.

“Oh, Sister, you’re so unfair, keeping all the fun to yourself. I want to say good morning to Nunnally too, you know?”
“I do not recall taking anything from you. You may greet her as well, Ellis. You do not mind, do you, Nunnally?”

Before I could answer, Ellis wrapped herself around my arm and pressed her soft body against it through our clothes.
I became acutely conscious of the swell of her breast entwined with my arm.
Why should this make me feel such things when we were both women?
And yet, when I imagined Chigusa’s hands caressing the bare skin beneath those clothes the night before, it was impossible not to think about it.

“Morning, Nunnally.” Continue reading →

7. A Shadow Falls

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/7/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

After breakfast, we lingered at the table for a while, relaxing over cups of tea.
There was something I wished to ask them, and when the moment seemed right, I did so.

“Why did the two of you flee the Discard District?”
“I don’t know if you heard about it, Nunnally, but a soldier’s body was found in the city a little while ago, remember?”
“Yes. If I recall correctly, I heard that someone from the Discard District was found dead alongside him.”
“That was someone I knew. We got caught up in the whole mess, and when it looked like they were going to kill us, we ran.”

Hearing Ellis speak so casually of nearly being killed brought home to me once again that my understanding of the Discard District had not been mistaken.
Yet the blame also lay with the nobles who had sealed its people away and abandoned them without providing anyone to keep order, as well as with ordinary citizens like us. I could hardly despise them for what they had become.

“If you hadn’t taken us in, Nunnally, we might be dead by now. Seriously, thank you.”
“There is no need to thank me. I merely did my duty as a woman of the cloth.”

The way I said it with the face of a virtuous woman made me sick.
I had abandoned someone from the Discard District once before. Why could I not acknowledge my own wrongdoing? Why did I insist on carrying on this charade of being a good person?
When, to begin with—I was not even a true member of the clergy.

“Sister?”

I had become lost in my thoughts when Ellis’s voice, calling out to Chigusa, brought me back to reality.
I realized that Chigusa, who should have been sitting across from me, had vanished.
Before I could look to see where she had gone, she wrapped her arms around me from behind once more.
Her body felt cool against mine, yet beneath that coolness was the unmistakable pulse of life. It was a curious sensation.
Still holding me, she laid one palm over my hand.
Perhaps she had seen my expression and assumed that I was feeling dejected.
If so, she must simply have meant to comfort me, but I could not keep from remembering the events of the previous night.
Ellis’s moans spilling from their room—and Chigusa had been in there with her.

“Honestly, Sister, you really do love cuddling people.”
“You always smile when I do this, Ellis, so I thought it might make Nunnally smile as well. She looked so sad.”
“Did I truly look that way?”
“Yes. You were looking down so forlornly.”
“I…see. In that case, um, th-thank you. But I…”
“Are you unused to this sort of thing?” Continue reading →

6. Today as Ever, the Light Shines Only to Be Defiled

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/4/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

That night, the rain fell with the force of a storm.
At times like these, being alone in this dim church left me feeling strangely lonely.
The childish thought would suddenly come to me—if only someone would visit—yet those were always the times when no one came.
Naturally. There was a downpour outside.
In my room, illuminated by a magical lamp, I turned the pages of my book, now and then casting an uneasy glance at the rain striking the window.
Rustle, rustle.
It was an oft-read novel about an aristocratic boy and girl who abandoned their stations to elope—a book existing solely as entertainment, of the sort no woman of the cloth ought to read.
Then again, I had never been an officially recognized nun in the first place.
I was merely a woman who had let herself into an abandoned church and taken it upon herself to call herself a nun.
It was hardly something to concern myself with now.

“Has the rainy season begun, I wonder?”

Now and then, a murmur escaped my lips to ward off the loneliness.
The temperature had risen of late, and I could feel summer drawing closer.
The height of summer, with its punishing sunlight, would soon be upon us—but before that came the rainy season, when rain like today’s drenched the ground day after day.
It was a depressing prospect.
The damp made food quick to mold and laundry slow to dry.
Above all, foul weather had a way of clouding people’s hearts as well.
I would no doubt receive more requests for counsel.
There was little sense in fretting now over a future that might never come to pass, but this pattern had held true without fail ever since I arrived at the church.
Experience could, at times, prove more reliable than any theory.

“I do hope it will be clear tomorrow …” Continue reading →

5. Falling

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/5/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

 

After meeting up with Lyle, bringing our number to three, we continued along the fence until we stopped at a certain spot.
Here and only here, a hole had been opened in the fence.
I see. At last, I understood what they intended to do.
Going directly into the city to search would surely be more efficient than scavenging for scraps at the dump.
This fence had most likely been built to prevent the people of the Discard District from doing exactly that.

“Your name was Chigusa, right?”

Just before we crawled through the hole, Lyle spoke to me.

“You’re not from the Discard District, so you’ll be fine, but anyone can tell Ellis is from there just by looking at her clothes. If the guards find us, you run. No matter what. Got it?”
“Even if I could defeat them?”
“Don’t get too full of yourself. I don’t care how strong you are—you’re not beating an armed soldier.”

I did not feel that I would lose, but for now, I decided to nod obediently.
It would only be troublesome if he became suspicious of me.
And Ellis, please try not to glare at Lyle so much.
If he discovered the nature of our relationship, searching for food would become the least of our concerns.

Our conversation over, we got down on all fours, crawled through the hole, and emerged inside the city.
It was a back alley in every sense of the word. Perhaps there was a restaurant nearby, because several bags of rubbish had been left there.
Lyle immediately reached for one, undid the knot, and began rummaging through its contents.
There were even some nearly untouched vegetables inside, which could well constitute a feast for people like them.
While Lyle immersed himself in scavenging, Ellis brought her lips close to my ear and whispered.

“Let’s go over there.”

Unable to content herself until the two of us were alone, Ellis took my hand and silently led me away.
Lyle did not notice. He truly did seem to be obtuse through and through.
Having successfully slipped away, we turned a corner and proceeded deeper into the maze of alleys—until we reached a deserted spot.
Ellis appeared to have forgotten even her own hunger. She pressed herself against me like a female cat in heat.
When I playfully stroked beneath her chin, she obligingly mewed, “Mrrrow,” like a pet fawning on her master.
I continued, and before long her mewing turned to moans, her smile grew flushed with desire, and our gazes intertwined. Just as the mood was developing quite nicely—
An unpleasant intruder arrived to spoil it, much as I had expected.

“Well, what do we have here? The maggots from the Discard District have crawled in again.” Continue reading →

3. The Girls’ Fatal Union

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/3/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Dinner consisted of scraps scavenged from the town’s rubbish bins and misshapen vegetables of uncertain origin bought at the black market.
Perhaps because I had gone along to forage for food, Ellis laughed and said, “We found more than usual today.”
The moment we returned to her room, she happily began eating.
Strangely, I was not hungry, so I declined the meal and watched Ellis contentedly stuff her cheeks with vegetables.
Presently, she stopped eating and looked at me.
There was something oddly endearing about the gesture. When I smiled without thinking, Ellis’s cheeks reddened slightly, and she promptly resumed her meal.

“You look very happy when you eat.”
“Living like this every day, eating’s about the only pleasure I’ve got.”
“Life in the Discard District must be difficult.”

Light and shadow. Glory and decline.
The city of Groll, not far from the Discard District, was extraordinarily prosperous by comparison.
That said, its technology appeared to lag considerably behind that of modern Japan, so I suppose it would still be considered developing.
Its inhabitants could enjoy such abundance precisely because they turned their eyes from anything inconvenient and drove it into a forgotten corner.
But those things would continue to swell until the day came when they could no longer look away.
I sensed instinctively that this castle of accumulated refuse—the Discard District—was the shape that reckoning had taken.

“Still, are you sure you don’t want anything to eat, Chigusa? It helps me out, but still.”
“I do not mind. I never ate much to begin with. Missing a single meal does not trouble me.”
“And you’re that strong, too. Where in the world do you get the energy?”

I wondered the same thing, though I could feel something welling up from the very depths of my body.
Presumably, that was the force sustaining me now that I was half vampire.
But I did not know what it truly was.

“Ch-Chigusa, what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” Continue reading →

2. I Discover My First Love in a Trash Heap

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/2/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

When I came to, I had returned to life and was lying in what looked like a garbage dump.
I noticed something strange the moment I stood up.
I could see through both eyes. I had all my fingers, too.
There were no scars on my body, nor any stiffness in my facial muscles.
What was more, my body felt unnaturally light, as though I were no longer myself.
I searched for something I might use as a mirror to inspect what had happened to me, but found nothing nearby.
With no other choice, I left the dump, passed through a place resembling a sewer, climbed a ladder, and emerged outside—
There I found a bleak townscape like the European slums depicted in my history textbooks.
Perhaps because the rain had just stopped, the air was thick with the smell of rotting food.
I climbed out through a manhole-like opening, instinctively found the sunlight beating down from above “unpleasant,” and retreated into the shade.
When I looked into a puddle there, I saw my reflection for the first time.
Though filthy, I had finely textured white skin like silk, red eyes, and sharp canine teeth.
My hair was still black, my face had not changed, and I was even wearing the same school uniform. And yet—had I always been this beautiful? The thought welled up inside me.
That would have been utterly impossible if I were still myself.
It seemed the change had reached not only my appearance, but my mind as well.

“I am…”

—Chigusa Hinata.
I clearly remembered that name, along with every memory of my life underfoot.
But my body was something else entirely.
In short, my conversation with the girl who called herself a vampire had not been a dream. It had truly happened.
She and I had become one, and in doing so, we had survived.
As a half-vampire.

So that was why I had instinctively avoided the sun. Satisfied with that explanation but still curious, I stepped out of the shade and into the sunlight once more.
It felt as though my skin were slowly scorching.
And yet there was not enough pain or injury to declare that “vampires are vulnerable to sunlight.”
Was that because I was half human, or were true vampires simply not as vulnerable to sunlight as the stories claimed?

“More importantly… where am I?” Continue reading →

1. The Union of a Girl in Pieces and a Vampire

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/1/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Continue reading →