Ex2-3. Answer

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/57/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Having carried the golems back to the village, I decided that very night to take everyone and crush the settlement.
I did not take everyone because I needed the fighting strength.
I was thinking of afterward.
No matter how many humans milled about, no matter what genius magician they had, I alone would be enough to subdue them.

First, the defeat of two new golems posted before the cave.
Their performance seemed the same as the previous four; if I drove shadow through them and stopped the circulation of magical power from within, they ceased readily.

“When it was us, we had such a hard time …”

The woman who had come with us looked somewhat stunned. Well—if one fought them ordinarily, they might well be a difficult opponent.
We entered the cave as we were.
Traps, no doubt: stepping on the ground triggered light magic, and it came at us again and again.
Fortunately the power did not seem very high. I crushed each approaching globe of light in my palm.
My hand burned a little, but that was no problem. It would regenerate at once.

When we came out of the cave, men with wooden spears stood blocking the settlement’s entrance.
The spears gave off a faint light; perhaps they had been enchanted.
That, however, was rather beside the point. It could be dealt with however one liked.
The real problem was that the men had lined women up in front of themselves and were using them as shields.

“Heh, hehehe … How about that? You can’t lay a hand on us, can you?”

Vulgar laughter, a vulgar voice, a vulgar face.
All of them worth less than filth, they said that to us.
Between this and putting women’s skins on golems, they seemed to think of us as animals with a nature that would not harm women.

“Would you happen to be the chief of these Demi-Vamp vermin, the one leading them?”

Beyond the surrounding men, a man standing importantly on a low hill spoke.
I had no obligation to answer.

“Well, I suppose that’s it. In other words, breaking the dolls, and coming through that trap-ridden cave unhurt, were your doing. Impressive. Worthy of praise.”

Perhaps he meant to show composure; he began to clap, pat-pat.
Come to think of it, there had been people like this at school.
People who were not ordinarily that sort of character, and who became high-handed the moment they judged their position higher than the other party’s.
Nostalgic, and from where I stood now, also ridiculous.

“So I have a proposal for a clever girl like you. How about withdrawing? I would rather avoid a waste of lives myself. The men pointing spears at you just now are important labor.”
“…”
“No reply, is it. I had hoped for a clever discussion. A pity … All right. Do it.”

The high-handed man gave some instruction. The spearman in front of us moved—and drove his spear into the leg of the woman he had been using as a shield.

“Aaaaaaah!”

The woman’s anguished cry rang through the night sky.
The suddenness sent a ripple of shock through my companions, Lina included.

“Just as I thought. Just as I thought. For some reason Demi-Vamps love their own sex. I don’t know why, but they apparently cannot keep a poker face when a woman is hurt in front of them.”
“Hostages, then?”
“Hahahah! See? A moment ago you were determined to ignore me, and now you’re speaking of your own accord! Kuhahahaha! Ha … ah, forgive me. I’ll answer the question. The answer is yes. Hostages. If you withdraw here, we won’t kill them.”
“Are they not labor as well?”
“Unfortunately, this settlement hasn’t the surplus to keep idle mouths who are clumsy with their hands and who don’t even stir a man’s desire. That isn’t to say there are no other uses—but this use, just now, was more effective and more efficient.”

In other words: lives that could be lost.
No objection came from the men.
Unanimous, was it.

“This is a kind warning, Demi-Vamp. You may think, having broken the golems and the cave traps, that you can beat this Alexander. Or you may mean to borrow the power of Leia Hersig behind you.”

As he spoke, his gaze turned toward Leia.

“… He seems to know you, Leia.”
“Yes. He does. It’s disgusting. He’s probably … Alexander Omicron, I think. I’ve never seen him either, but.”
“What sort of man is he?”
“He’s supposed to be a genius magician, at least … I’ve never met him, so I don’t really know how strong he is.”

From the look of him, he did not seem stronger than Leia was now.

“But even if you had Leia Hersig’s power. You cannot beat me. A pity, but there it is.”
“And what is the reasoning?”
“Hahah, that’s obvious. The difference in power. The difference in power. Shall I show you? Light magic that could erase the likes of you in an instant!”

Alexander raised a hand to the sky. Lightning crackled in his palm, and a sphere of light was born.
It grew little by little, until it swelled to some twenty meters and lit the whole settlement.

“Behold! This is my magi—”

I opened my hand, then squeezed it shut.
The sphere of light vanished in an instant, as if crushed.

“… Ha?”
“Listening to your voice has begun to be painful, so I will end this.”
“W-wait. That’s impossible! My magic—it’s light-aspected! The attribute vampires are weakest against—and this, this easily—!”

Alexander panicked.
Seeing him, unrest spread among the men who had been so composed with women as hostages.
A fine sight.
In that sunken state, then, they might as well go to sleep.
I gathered my awareness overhead, bundled the shadows filling the night sky, kneaded them, and made a clean sphere.
A sort of return courtesy.

“The sky—”

One of the men murmured, looking up.
Responding to his voice, they all gazed at the heavens.

“What is this … Is the sky coming closer?”

It was a reasonable way to see it.
A sphere larger than the settlement was falling from the sky.
From here, a blackness that filled the field of view only seemed to draw slowly nearer.
Watching it, Alexander said, his voice shaking:

“A-a mass of magical power this huge … do you understand? We have hostages! If you drop that, they won’t be unharmed—!”
“Please rest assured. This shadow will harm only you.”

I would hardly do something so cruel as to hurt the women.
—And the black rained down on the settlement.
It painted over everything.

 

◇◇◇

 

Thud! Thud! Thud!
A rhythmic sound of something being struck against a wooden board.
A woman, held from behind by a Demi-Vamp, flushed, brought a blade down again and again.

“Haa, haa, haa.”
“Yes, yes. Very good. At this rate, shall we take the legs next as well?”

When the Demi-Vamp holding her whispered at her ear, the woman changed position and stood before the thigh of a man lying on a large board.
His body was covered in raw wounds; both arms had already been cut away.
Blood soaking into the ground from those stumps left an unpleasant smell in the air.
Squelch!
When she brought the blade down on his thigh, it stopped halfway through the flesh with a wet sound.
Nchaa …
When she pulled it out, there was the sound of blood clinging.
She grimaced openly, but when the one holding her from behind ran fingers along her thigh, the disgust seemed to leave her.

“Let us take it slowly. There is no need to hurry. He’s already dead, after all. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes … yes. I know. I killed him.”
“That’s right. You killed him well. You were very striking then. When the corpse is finished being taken apart, I will dote on you thoroughly.”
“Nnh … ah …”

The reward dangled before her slowed her thinking.
Expectation of pleasure mixed with what she was doing, until the act of dismembering a corpse itself began to excite her.
At that point she was already in the palm of our hand—
Though even without that, the settlement’s women had long since opened their hearts to us Demi-Vamps.

After using shadow to take the men’s consciousness, we protected the settlement’s women first.
Of some seventy discovered, only a handful were unharmed.
Twenty, we were told, had been scheduled for later consumption as food; traces of assault remained over their whole bodies.
Of the remaining fifty, forty-five had had inhumane procedures performed on their wombs by Alexander.
Specifically: once they conceived, the fetus would grow at speed and they would deliver enormous lumps of flesh.
In short, those too had been meant as food.
It made one want to vomit.
The remaining five had not been treated much better; like the others, they were, if anything, glad we had come.
If the alternative was to be killed and eaten, or to become tools that produced meat, or to be used for amusement—then becoming Demi-Vamps was better. That was how they reasoned.

For us, it was a welcome miscalculation.
They had lived in a settlement like this to hide from Demi-Vamps, so I had expected strong resistance.
With so many, though, charming them would be laborious, and the men still had to be dealt with.
How to proceed even a little more efficiently—there I had an idea.
Deal with the men and charm the women at the same time.
Which is to say: Demi-Vamps would teach the methods of killing and dismembering men while deepening their acquaintance.
It went surprisingly well.
Charm and blood-drinking of the women were half complete within about two days of occupying the settlement, and proceeding smoothly.

Now: killing the men was a matter of course. Why was dismemberment necessary as well?
Because Leia and I needed them for a certain experiment.
I would have liked to turn the men’s bodies to ash at once, but once dead they are only meat.
Flay the skin, break them fine, and they no longer look like men.
If we reconstructed from that—might we not make them into women’s bodies?

“When you first said it, Lady Chigusa … I wondered if you were serious.”

When I approached Leia, who had been continuing the experiment in a corner of the settlement, she said that.

“If you try … you can actually do it. Shadow is … anything goes, isn’t it.”
“Anywhere light does not fall is all shadow, so being able to control it seems more versatile than I had thought.”

Standing before the completed result, we were a little surprised, though we had made it ourselves.
We had stripped the skins from the golems and, with materials taken from the men’s disassembled bodies, reconstructed everything from viscera to skeleton to muscle.
To give a new body that could be charmed and drunk from—that absurd fantasy had been realized in a mere two days.
We could not, of course, revive the skins’ original owners, but perhaps the dead women would be a little consoled.
And before our eyes, the body we had made, lying on a bed, at last slowly opened its eyes.
Brain and organs had been made by imitation, so I was anxious whether they would work.

“… U, ah?”
“Good morning. How are you feeling?”
“Goomor … ning.”

That she answered meant her intelligence was not on the level of an infant.
Was it the skin’s memory, or the meat’s? Where had she learned?
Or had she inherited functions from my brain and Leia’s, which we had used as reference in the construction?
While I was turning such thoughts over, the woman sat up of her own accord and began to try to get down from the bed.
Leia and I hurriedly put our hands to her back so she would not fall.

“Chigusa, Leia, fine. I. Can stand.”

Called by name, we could not help looking at each other.
We had not even introduced ourselves.
Had she absorbed memory unconsciously, at the stage of making the body, before she woke—the body is a mysterious thing.
At the same time, it made me glad.
She was, in the true sense, something like a child of Leia and me.

 

◇◇◇

 

Flushed with the achievement of having made a new life, we were so absorbed in playing with her—we named her Glass, after a name I had once used—that we quite forgot what mattered.
Yes: Alexander.
I remembered him at the moment Glass’s charm was complete, the Mark had risen, and we were about to begin drinking her blood.
For the first time in three days I went to the room of a private house where he was bound. There was no trace of the self-assured genius magician; only a haggard man who made one think of a vagrant, a stench hanging around him.
The shadow I had dropped from the sky the other day seemed to have been quite a shock.
I popped into view before him with Leia and Glass.
The moment Alexander saw my face, he was clearly frightened.
At this point I no longer felt the old irritation.
Only a disgust like an insect crawling at one’s feet.

“Hello. Are you well, Mr. Alexander?”
“U, uuu …”

Even when I spoke to him, he only made that sound, hugging his knees and shrinking.
How dull.
This was no different from the miscellaneous men who had lived in the settlement.
No—in fact, that was all he was.
Anyone, any man, once the shell is peeled away, has a similar shape.
Therefore they are unnecessary. Meat is enough.

“I did have something I wanted to show you at the end. Come, Glass—won’t you at least greet him?”
“Who?”

It was natural she would not know, and thinking calmly, there was no need for her to know.
Alexander, however, seemed to recognize her appearance. His eyes went wide as he stared at her.

“That can’t … why …!?”
“You may have thought that if you made golems in the shape of women, they could not be charmed or drunk from, and so you could beat us.”

It seemed I had hit the mark; he remained silent.
I continued.

“Shortsighted.”
“As a countermeasure it … should have been perfect …”

A rather hole-ridden perfection.

“However perfect humans declare themselves, there is always a blind spot—or rather, a shadow.”
“There is no such thing! I only put human skin on golems I made from earth …! How does that start moving with a will of its own!?”

I see. They had been made of earth.
Well—it hardly mattered now.

“My answer to your scheme is this. If they cannot be charmed or drunk from, then give them a body of flesh that can.”
“A body … of flesh …”
“Fortunately there was a great deal of unnecessary meat lying about, so I put it to effective use.”
“Don’t tell me … the settlement’s men …?”
“Yes. And you as well, Mr. Alexander.”

I beckoned to Glass.
She came at a little trot. I drew her close and ran a hand up over the Mark that had risen a little above her hip.

“Nnaaaaah! Hah, hauu!”
“To make such a sound when you have only just been born. What a naughty child.”
“Because. Chigusa. That feels good …”
“Then let us make you feel still better, Glass.”

She seemed to trust me completely as the one who had made her. When I set fangs to her throat, she showed not a shred of resistance.
Rather, she put her arms around my back, clung tightly, and seemed to beg for more.

When the fangs sank in, her mouth fell half open and her voice came in many colors.

“Lady Chigusa getting it all to herself isn’t fair … I’ll have some as well.”

Leia, who had been watching close by, approached Glass and bit the other side of her throat.

“Aaaaaah! Both—no, wait—hiiiii!”

Tossed on doubled pleasure, Glass changed before our eyes into a Demi-Vamp; the drinking, too, was twice as fast.
A soft armful, a faintly cool temperature, white and smooth skin.
When I held her a while, she soon woke, turned red eyes on me, and smiled.

“… Chigusa.”
“Yes. I am here.”
“Mm … I, with this, could I be together?”

It was so dear that I took her mouth as a matter of course.
That may have been Glass’s first kiss.
When she left my lips, Leia drew her in next: a second kiss.
Having been given two deep kisses at once, Glass wore a dazed look.
There was something alluring in that face, and desire rose in me despite myself—but unfortunately there was something I had to do before I took her in my arms.
Whether the act had meaning or not aside, the finishing blow, at least, would be by her hand.
Alexander had been watching our whole exchange in a stupor.
Glass looked down at him without expression, grew her claws, and approached.
Only then did he seem to realize what was about to be done to him.

“… Don’t tell me you mean to kill me? Stop, stop it pleaseee! I’ll cooperate—my mind is useful, I swear it! If you kill me here, a great deal of technique will be lost—you should keep me alive—I ought to be alive!”
“Can I kill this one?”

Glass checked with me. I nodded with a smile.
He was worthless.

“Waaait! I said wait—do you know who I am? A genius! The rare genius, Alexander Omicron! For such a great human, in a shitty place like this—eeee!”
“Don’t know. You’re noisy. Die.”

Without sentiment or aftertaste, Glass tore through his body and finished him in a single blow.
Cut deeply across the torso, Alexander fell, shedding blood, and still howled.

“Haguuh! Guu, aaah, impossible … that I should die so miserably … it can’t be … this is … a dream … it has to be a dre …”

A finishing blow to his stubborn crown.
The thrust that pierced the skull and damaged the brain was wholly fatal for a fragile human.
Without any particular feeling, she turned at once toward Leia and me and flung herself against our chests, wheedling.
The body was an adult woman’s; the manner was a child’s.
That gap made her still dearer.
The place smelled unpleasantly of men’s blood, so we left Alexander’s dismemberment for later and moved elsewhere.
For what purpose? A foolish question.
To love one another, the three of us, of course.
Ah—Lina would join as well, so it might be four.

 

◇◇◇

 

The next day, the dismemberment of all the men and the drinking of all the women were complete.
We withdrew from the settlement. The women who had ceased to be human would live in the village with those who had been there from the start.
We also breathed life into the remaining five human skins used for golems, and the newly born among them would live together as well.
If the ruined houses went unused, the sudden increase in population could not be managed; the village would be busy from now on.
I would have liked to offer help—but I had meant to finish far sooner, and days had passed one way and another, so I am sorry to say I could not remain any longer.
We enjoyed a brief interval with the villagers who were reluctant to part, and then we left the village.
We had gone as three and returned as four.
Taking Glass, who would not be separated from us, we came back to the castle.

“Lady Chigusa, don’t your steps seem heavy?”

Asked that by Lina, I could not help stopping.
Yes. Precisely so.
My steps were extremely heavy. Returning to the castle was gloomy.

“Lina, it’s that … that.”
“That?”
“Miyako and Ellis. Before we left I said we’d be back soon … and in fact we were gone this long.”
“Ah, and you even brought a new woman home, so you were moping about whether you’d get yelled at!”
“Miyako? Ellis?”
“Glass doesn’t know them yet. Those two are people who matter to Lady Chigusa.”
“People who matter. Why angry?”
“They get angry because they matter. That’s what love is. Glass would be sad too if Lady Chigusa left her alone for nearly a week, wouldn’t she?”
“Sad. Angry. Chigusa, cruel.”

Which of us is cruel.
I am already quite depressed; I do not think there is any need to drive it in that far.

“Hahaha. Lady Chigusa this obviously deflated is pretty rare, so I can’t help teasing. It’s funny.”
“Please don’t drive it in any further. I am desperately thinking how to explain myself.”
“Lady Chigusa, I have … a good idea.”
“I have a bad feeling, but I will hear it.”
“That’s unkind … I really do think it’s a good idea.”

If Leia went that far, it was probably a good idea that could actually dissolve Mya-nee’s and Ellis’s anger.
But in this situation, the size of the price required for me to be forgiven was incalculable.
Which is to say: precisely because it was a good idea, I did not want to hear it.
If I heard it, I would have to accept it whether I wished to or not.

“I think … if you told the two of them they could do as they liked with your body for a week, they would forgive you.”
“I think that would kill Lady Chigusa.”

I think so as well.

“But … I can’t think of another way to be forgiven.”
“The sin is heavy.”

Glass’s words struck home.
Yes. That, too, was a fact.
Without going that far, the two of them did not seem likely to forgive me.

“I will try proposing it, at least.”
“I’ll pick up your bones for you.”

Please do not put your hands together.
And Glass, please do not copy her. It has stopped being a joke.

 

◇◇◇

 

Afterward, the moment I returned to the castle, Mya-nee and Ellis closed in on me, and I put Leia’s idea into practice at once.
For a week, they might do as they liked with me.
At that, smiles overflowed on the two faces that had been full of anger; their eyes shone strangely; and before I knew it I had been seized firmly by both arms and marched to the bedroom.
I cannot have been the only one who felt we had walked straight into their scheme.
Whether what waited ahead was heaven or hell.
As I was led away I looked back once, as if asking for help, toward Leia, Lina, and Glass—and seeing all three with their hands pressed together in prayer, I gave up on everything.

Then for a week they did as they pleased. I was at last released in a state that could literally be called near death.
That said, there was genuine love in what the two of them did, and it did feel good, so it was not necessarily hell.