Ex2-2. Tomorrow, Blood Rain Will Fall

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/56/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Once one person accepted it, the rest followed in an avalanche.
Herd psychology is a terrible thing; even cannibalism can be permitted.
It could not be helped. It tasted far better than gamy wild meat, and it was easy to obtain.
At first the women were consumed simply as food.
Then, perhaps as they gained the leisure to enjoy a meal, they began to torment the women before cooking them.
That escalated, little by little, until they took more pleasure in the women’s suffering and screaming than in the eating itself.

“In the end, humans are only this sort of creature. It becomes embarrassing to live on the same plane.”

Watching the men laugh as they prodded a woman over the fire with wooden spears, Alexander murmured to himself.

A little apart from the feast, he chewed jerky made from wild game and wrote something in a notebook.

“Well—what I am doing is not so different. Animals that treat cannibalism as taboo are the minority, after all.”

Was it even correct, from the standpoint of natural law, to call it a sin?
Flay the skin and roast it, and it was no different from beast-meat.
Add salt and pepper, and it became a finer ingredient than wild game, with less of a smell.
The heart was especially popular for its chew; the other organs had a peculiarity, but they were not bad.
Only the hunted had changed—from wild animals to humans. The rule that the strong slaughter the weak had not changed at all.

“If I still find it ugly, is that proof I am the one bound to the human species? Kuhuhuhu …”

In any case, it did not matter to Alexander.
So long as he obtained “material,” that was enough.

 

◆◆◆

 

Demi-Vamp power is truly convenient.
If, for instance, one melts into shadow and travels through it, one can reach anywhere on the continent in a matter of minutes.
That feat, however, seems limited to a few Demi-Vamps of high magical power.
Lina is not one of them, so she had to borrow Leia’s hands and mine.

“Uuu, my head hurts …”

I had not imagined she would complain of something like motion sickness as a result.
I do not feel it much myself, but looking at it objectively, it may be a rather rough method of travel.

“Are you all right? Water … do you want some?”
“If Leia kissed me, I might get better …”

Lina wheedled with both arms spread.

“Honestly … there’s no helping you … nnh.”

Even as she said it, Leia looked rather pleased to kiss her.
Left a little behind by the two of them, still close in an unfamiliar forest, I asked about something that had been on my mind.

“Was it all right to leave Mary and Foss?”

Their two daughters remained with Lalilalai.
From what I had seen, there seemed to be no particular problem—but—

“We could hardly bring them somewhere people are getting hurt.”
“I think it would be fine if you were there, Lady Chigusa … but we wanted to be sure.”

Neither of them, it seemed, was worried about Lalilalai’s childcare.
If they said it was all right, I could only believe them.

We moved on from there, aiming for the nearby village where the wounded were said to be.
Travel by shadow is certainly fast, but one can only specify a place in rough terms, which is inconvenient.
We pushed through dense trees for some thirty minutes—and at last arrived.
About ten Demi-Vamps currently lived in the village.
It had already been emptying out, and after those who had gone to the cities were subtracted, that was all who remained.
Most of the houses were unused.
We walked a street that had become a ghost town and entered the largest building—probably once a meeting hall.

“Could you be … Lady Chigusa?”

Just inside the entrance we came face to face with a woman carrying a bucket of water.
Long gold hair, fairly tall, a slender figure.
A beauty, as the word is usually meant.
We had never met, and yet she seemed to know I was Chigusa.
Even without drinking blood directly, blood and soul are connected. I was made to feel it.

“Yes. As you guessed, I am Chigusa.”
“Y-you really came … I thought it was a dre—ah.”

Splash!
Unable to contain her joy, she dropped the bucket and soaked the hall.
I had thought she looked composed. She seemed to have her careless side.

“Are you all right?”
“I-I’m sorry! I’ll clean it up at once!”

Meaning, perhaps, to fetch a cloth, she started to rush off somewhere.
I covered the floor in black shadow and let it drink the water.
There. It ought to be clean.

“It vanished in an instant … so that’s ‘shadow’ …”

Judging by the reaction, no one in the village possessed magical power.
They ought to have seen the shadows themselves when they were charmed, but perhaps it had been too brief to remember.

“I heard there were wounded. Are they further in?”
“Y-yes! I’ll show you right away!”

Flustered, nearly stumbling, she led us deeper into the building.
The moment we entered the room where the wounded were resting, she said in a loud voice, “Everyone, Lady Chigusa has come!”
Every gaze in the room turned toward us.
Counting the two in the beds, there were exactly six … more than half the village seemed to have gathered here.
I went first to the girl lying in the nearest bed.
Her face was twisted in pain.
When I turned back the sheet, her right arm and right leg were missing.

“This is …”
“There were women standing in front of the cave that leads to the human settlement. They threw something like bands of light from their hands, and when it touched you, you ended up like this …”
“Light magic, then. Natural healing seems to be obstructed as well. In any case, I will treat this first. Leia, please see to the others.”
“Mm. Understood.”
“What should I do?”
“Hold the wounded person’s hand, if you would, and encourage them.”
“Got it. I’ll cheer really hard!”

To tell the truth, there had been no need to bring Lina.
She did not possess any special magical power.
I had brought her anyway, perhaps, because I wanted to spend time with them now and then.
I drew closer to the wounded girl, held out my hand, and began to supply the body with shadow.
The severed limbs were simply gone, so I would have to make new ones.
A Demi-Vamp body has a high affinity with shadow; if I reproduced the previous shape exactly, function ought to return.
Leia, likewise, seemed to be filling wounds with shadow.
And Lina, as instructed, was holding a wounded person’s hand and cheering.

“It really does heal in no time …”

The woman who had been watching the treatment spoke in a somewhat dark voice.
She was probably frustrated that she had been able to do nothing herself.

“If you had not treated them so desperately until today, and if you had not called us, they might already have been dead.”
“Lady Chigusa …”
“Before you feel low, I think you ought to be proud of what you did.”
“Y-yes!”

It did not sound like me, but seeing her smile, I decided that was all right.
Frankly, it was rather embarrassing.

“Lady Chigusa, your face is red. You’ve got a pretty cute side.”

Seizing the moment, Lina came close and whispered in my ear.

“Be quiet, Lina.”
“Hehehe … wait, ow!?”

I do not like this sort of counterattack much.
When I stepped on her toes with my heel, she finally seemed to have learned.

“Still—these scars … this is no ordinary opponent.”

A magician on the level of Leia or Saints, perhaps.
And more than one of them.

“The way they move isn’t human either. When we tried to cut them with our claws, we were thrown off. Are there humans like that?”

Excellent in martial skill, and claws would not bite.
Would such capable humans happen to have survived in a place like this?
That they were all women also concerned me.

“Perhaps …”
“Hm? Leia, do you know something?”
“Not anything specific … but they might be a kind of golem.”
“Golem?”

I could not help repeating it.
It was not that I had never heard the name.
The stone monsters that appear in games, was it?

“Dolls that move by magical power.”
“But they have the shape of women, don’t they?”
“The surviving humans ought to know we don’t take women’s lives carelessly … so maybe they chose that shape to make us hesitate.”
“… How cunning.”

It irritated me a little.

“We still can’t say for certain, though. Not without seeing the real thing …”
“Understood. Then I will go catch one.”
“All right, I’ll … wait. Lady Chigusa?”

I was sorry for Leia’s confusion, but if I wanted it done quickly, one person would suffice.
I vanished into shadow and headed for the cave in question alone.

 

◇◇◇

 

Arriving, I observed the cave while still melted into the dark.
Indeed: four women stood there like gatekeepers.
If they truly were dolls, they were so finely made as to be mistaken for the real thing.
The settlement must have had a rather skilled artisan.
What concerned me was how they had reproduced a surface texture that looked, by any measure, like human skin.
Well—opponents of that degree hardly required caution.
I stepped openly from the shadow and approached the gatekeepers.
The moment they registered me, they looked at me all at once.
The motion was mechanical itself. Dolls, then, without a doubt.

“Hah!”

Before they could take the initiative I closed at speed and cut with claws grown long and sharp.
Then—

Bzzzt!

Just as I had been told, the claws were thrown off.
A tingling numbness in my fingertips.
They seemed to have a barrier up as well.
The dolls came at me together.
I leaned back to avoid the nearest one’s extended arm, caught a strike from the side, and threw it aside.
The thrown doll recovered its balance just before hitting the ground and landed beautifully.
I nearly wanted to give it a ten.
I had no time to admire. Another doll sent a band of light toward me.
The magic that had taken limbs?
No—closer to a beam than to magic.
I arched backward to avoid it.
The fourth leapt high and dropped from directly above, using the height.
Thud—its fist punched the earth.
I shifted my weight further back and avoided it with a back handspring.
Facing them again, I sent out several threads of shadow to bind them.
But the shadows dissipated before they touched.

“So the countermeasures against Demi-Vamps are thorough. How careful. That is why you have survived until today, I suppose.”

The dolls’ inorganic eyes stared at me unpleasantly.
There was something like a boast of victory in that gaze. I could not help a wry smile.
At this level—I had not even finished warming up.
Then, as if to finish it, two loosed magic at me while the remaining two leapt to cut off retreat.
I held a hand forward and concentrated lightly.
From a shadow that opened behind me, threads of “black” incomparably denser than before stretched toward the dolls.
Judging that they would vanish before contact, as before, the dolls did not change their movement.
These, however, were entirely different.
Thud!
The shadows pierced a doll’s abdomen with ease and went through.
From the inside they spread thin threads like blood vessels through the whole body and stopped the circulation of magical power.
Strength left the dolls; they ceased to move.
I sank three of them into shadow to take home, drew the last one close, and put a hand to its surface.
A smooth, silken feel of skin.
No body heat, of course—but there was no mistake. This was—

“Human skin, is it. And living human skin, at that—what a waste of life, to make such a thing.”

What an ugly piece of work.
Taken together with the unpleasant smell drifting from beyond the cave, I understood even then that they were doing something unforgivable.
I would have liked to crush them at once, but I would withdraw for now.
Leia and the others would be waiting.
I sank the last doll into shadow as well, sank myself after it, and returned to the village.
… Thinking, the whole way, of how I would torment the humans of the settlement.