Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume6 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 3===

“Zukooon.”

After preparing enough breakfast for everyone on the top floor of the luxury apartment where Aika lived, Biondetta sounded as exasperated as if she had been presented with a bed of nails.

She bent her hips, set plates down on the glass table, shook her tail, and showed off her thighs between the black knee socks and the risqué bottom of her Oiran-style mini-yukata.

“So after I went to so much trouble removing the other 23 possible locations for you, the Diamond Master Key has gone missing and the Golden Treasure Chest was stolen by the Queen? And retrieving the hostages was only a detour. Our goal wasn’t the tomb keepers or the twin shrine maidens; it was the Founder’s Gallery and the Natural History’s missing entries, wasn’t it? What are you even doing, you useless little brother?”

Biondetta even added a lineup of brown bottles full of antibiotics no one else wanted.

She may have been right.

If they were only after the Founder’s Gallery, then what he had done was indeed mostly a detour. He would not acquire the missing entries by rescuing someone. Government would have retrieved the passed-out members of Bridesmaid along with the traps Kyousuke had set up around the zoo, but he doubted they would provide any further hints. But as long as he went by the name Alice (with) Rabbit, he could not abandon a life about to be lost before his eyes. Especially when those lives would be lost due to a distortion caused by the White Queen.

And more importantly…

“C-can someone please explain to me what is going on with Claude Magentarain and the White Queen? What happened, why did it happen, and where did the Diamond Master Key and Golden Treasure Chest end up?”

“Oh? It isn’t often you don’t have a complete grasp of the situation, Onii-chan. Is this an especially tricky one?”

Even before the food had arrived, Aika had been sitting at the glass table and fidgeting in her swimsuit. She sat with her legs below her and her ankles angled out to either side, her hands were planted on the floor between her thighs, and her bikini butt was wiggling restlessly.

The breakfast Biondetta had made had as much oil and cream as carbonara and her huge sweet tooth led her to make truly devastating drinks and desserts, but Aika’s messed-up sleep schedule meant she was fully awake early in the morning and she put little concern for her health into her meals. The two of them seemed to be a good match here.

The only part of this Kyousuke could call a win was rescuing all of the hostages. The Diamond Master Key and the Golden Treasure Chest had been stolen, but he still had the ancient map. Renge, Higan, and Sekurtiti were safe and they had captured Azalea and Fractal.

It felt like the derailed last train had finally been brought back on track. They were already at the point where they could observe the White Queen without an Artificial Sacred Ground, but they could still get a new start on this. No one else could force them to action and they could continue at their own pace.

Speaking of Renge and Higan…

“H-hey, Onii-chan? Those shrine maiden sisters are wandering over toward the liger again, so do something about it.”

“Really? Again!?”

“Why are people’s souls so inexorably drawn toward warm fluffiness? Even in their mindless state, they may be affected by a desire to return to their starting point…that is, the womb.”

“I really doubt this is anything so profound. And Higan! Not that way!!”

The blonde shrine maiden was slowly crawling toward the strongest creature, so Kyousuke grabbed her by the hips and pointed her in a different direction like a toy train. The white liger herself looked a little frightened, like a wild animal coming across the light and noise of a smartphone for the first time, but that was not a good thing. A wild beast was at its strongest not when it was hunting but when it came across something irregular and felt the need to protect itself.

The twins would most likely be back to normal that afternoon.

Repeating the same action endlessly was the same as continually using up energy without any rest, so he wanted to feed them if possible. But…

“Tah dah! Today’s breakfast is cream pasta, which counts as noodles and stew at the same time. But I made sure to make it Hokkaido-style by adding in plenty of potatoes, carrots, and broccoli, so it should go down easy despite its full volume.”

“…None of that sounds like something I want to eat in the morning.”

“The secret to increasing the illusion of luxury is to add a square of butter on top☆”

“I really don’t think this is Hokkaido-style! Are you sure it isn’t just the potatoes and butter making you think that!?”

Kyousuke doubted this breakfast would go down easy anywhere except for at a judo training camp, but he could not refuse what he was served.

“What about you, Sekurtiti?”

“If you give me a small plate of it, I will make an attempt. It has a very fascinating aroma.”

Modified China Dress Lu Niang Lan had not said a word this entire time, but she only held her raised knees between her arms, collapsed onto her side, and wallowed in her melancholy. She did an impressive job of reminding him of a cicada shell.

“Heh. Eh heh heh. Showing off your cooking skills and winning everyone over through their stomachs used to be my job. She’s taken everything from me…”

“Lu-san. That doesn’t matter and you should probably get up. Your underwear is pretty much entirely exposed right now.”

“Ah!? W-what am I doing? Was I hoping to win Kyousuke-chan over that way just because I was losing sight of myself? I am the Perfect Dragon who killed Government Award 1000 barehanded. I need to have more confidence in myself.”

“What does a look at your panties matter? My client has gotten a nice look at my white and pink stripes, so it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Ohh!? She beat me to the punch there too!?”

The modified China dress truly started to sink into an invisible bog, so it looked like ignoring her for the time being would be the best option. Also, the temperature of Sekurtiti’s gaze had been dropping ever since the topic of panties came up, so he really wanted to change the subject.

Then again…

“It’s not like you’re any match for the girl only wearing bandages and some decorative lace. She was wearing a yukata yesterday, but she’s reverted to this at some point.”

“Ahem. That was only a disguise meant to blend into the crowd so we could rescue the hostages. There was no real reason to continue wearing it. …More importantly, Shiroyama Kyousuke, do you really think a girl’s underwear is more than just a piece of cloth? Do you see more value in it than is evident at face value?”

“If you think that’s going to make you sound normal, I’ll have to seriously ask you if you really don’t see how wearing only bandages is perverted. And don’t think you can get out of this by calling it your uniform.”

Kyousuke’s expression was entirely serious, but Biondetta’s was entirely the opposite as she whispered to him from the side.

“By the way, I actually haven’t been wearing any underwear since I changed into the yukata.”

“Bff!?”

Not even Kyousuke could ignore that comment.

“W-wait… You mean even back then…or the other time when you were going a little crazy?”

“Neh heh☆ Then do you want to see for yourself?”

With a devilish look on her face, Biondetta gently grabbed the sides of her mini yukata’s hem and emphasized how close to the very base of her thighs it was.

The chaos continued as they ate breakfast.

Biondetta’s incredibly misguided selection turned out to be as terrible a choice as Kyousuke had expected, but the skill of her cooking was not bad. It would have been perfect if he was coming back to it after an exhausting day instead of waking up to it.

“Nhh! Cough, cough!!”

The brown bandage girl (with Y-shaped lace decoration) choked after eating just a little bit, but when Kyousuke tried to rub her back, she held out a hand to stop him. She seemed to be enjoying it, so this may have been her way to experience it. It was more like playing with fire than supplying nutrients.

The smell seemed to draw out the white liger’s hunger, but she ate a gigantic hunk of raw meat like normal. It looked wild, but this was because a pure carnivore’s digestive system was surprisingly delicate. Unlike omnivores like humans, carnivores were restricted to only meat.

“Scallops,” said Aika. “I don’t see any at all, but I can taste scallops in this…! So good..!!”

“Well done noticing the secret ingredient paste I added, little lady. After all, this is Hokkaido-style.”

“But it oddly doesn’t compete with the meaty flavor of the thick-cut bacon!?”

“That’s just how wonderful Hokkaido is. And if you eat it in such a hurry, you’ll get your cute cheeks and modest chest covered in the sticky white sauce. Or are you doing that on purpose?”

“Stop that.”

When Sekurtiti lightly scolded them with the golden tiara on her head, Biondetta worked with Sekurtiti to wipe off Aika’s mouth and chest.

Kyousuke started to think he should leave Biondetta here instead of in his cruiser. The seasonal Oiran mini-yukata demon was pulling off history’s greatest performance as a shut-in sitter.

“So, Kyousuke-chan, what are you going to do now?”

In the name of observing the enemy, Lu Niang Lan took a spoonful of the cream pasta soup (it was mostly a white stew) and tasted it with the tip of her tongue. She also cut to the heart of the matter. Her bad mood may have made her feel like being a little mean.

Kyousuke spun his fork around for no reason as he answered.

“Whatever we do, we’ll have to settle each thing in turn. Our main focus will of course be on Claude Magentarain. Since he isn’t connected to Azalea and Bridesmaid, we can probably throw out the theory that he’s made from some detailed humanoid Repliglass. In that case, we need to start making some guesses as to how the real Claude would have started working with the White Queen and pursuing the Founder’s Gallery. Nothing is as frightening as fighting someone whose actions you can’t explain.”

He could only come up with 2 possibilities.

Either Claude himself was seeking the Founder’s Gallery or he was trying to prevent Kyousuke from reaching it.

“If he is interfering because he’s afraid I’ll find a way to oppose the Queen, then I think the Diamond Master Key and the Golden Treasure Chest will have already been destroyed.”

“Munch, munch. You don’t look too concerned about that possibility, sir.”

“In that case, the Queen would have crushed the chest as soon as she took it from me at the zoo. Since she went out of her way to take it back with her, I doubt it has been destroyed ''for the time being''.”

Of course.

Knowing the White Queen, she very well might have been waiting to slowly crush it underfoot in front of him at a later date. And with both the chest and key, they could unlock the former. He had to be on the lookout for despair on the level of finally taking it back and finding it empty or finding the real data swapped out with something completely unrelated.

“But this also changes depending on the relationship between Claude and the Queen. If he’s purely a worshiper, he’ll do anything she asks. If he’s trying to use her for his own purposes, then he would have control of what they do. And in that case…”

“Then it would be more than just the Queen’s selfishness. Claude would have to have a reason to go after the key and chest.”

Sekurtiti soaked the tip of her fork in the white soup as she spoke. She did not seem to observe Aika using a spoon to scoop up as much as she wanted across the table.

Kyousuke fell silent for a moment.

He recalled what that man had said:

''“The Natural History’s missing entries and the Queen’s territory beyond that are too much for you to handle. Leave this to a ghost from the past. If I feel like it, I’ll give you some of the leftover scraps. …You see, I too have business with ''her''.”

The eyepatched man had definitely said that as he smiled and adroitly stole the Diamond Master Key.

“Is Claude after the Founder’s Gallery? He did mention the Natural History’s missing entries. But if so, what for…? To create a doll or artificial vessel like Azalea wanted?”

If Kyousuke was going to start somewhere, it had to be there.

Also, it did not sit right with him that Claude was seeking the Founder’s Gallery and yet already had the completed White Queen with him.

If he was trying to place the Queen’s soul inside an artificial vessel just like Azalea, then it was possible his was incomplete and could only be activated temporarily. And if he would be able to fill in the missing piece once he reached the Founder’s gallery, the White Queen would gain eternal stability in this world.

If that theory was correct, it would truly mean the end of the world.

“…”

Meanwhile, it did not particularly matter to Kyousuke if Claude was the first to discover the Founder’s Gallery. He could always tail them to the location. Of course, that would require him to defeat Claude before the man achieved his goal. It would be difficult to find a way to safely hand over the ancient map on Sekurtiti’s back, but if he could disguise it as a coincidence…yes, if he had a detailed analysis of the Lifelong Emblem on her back done at a hospital, and then intentionally let that data leak out, he could get it to Claude.

“Whether to defeat him or manipulate him, his location is what matters. I just hope we can find a way to locate him.”
Kyousuke stopped spinning his fork around.

And he spoke.

“Lu-san. I’d like to purchase something fairly dangerous from your Illegal supply shop. Can you calculate out how much it’ll cost me?”