N and Fantasy:Story1 Part1

I No Longer Know How to Define N and Fantasy: Part 1

Heading outside is difficult. I attend N High School, where they have a certain extracurricular activity: treasure hunting. You can end up encountering an aggressive vampire or saving the world, so it’s kind of a pain.

Below, you find a fantasy world of swords and magic.

Above, you find a colossal assault landing spaceship.

That’s the simplest way to sum up this world.

But the people who lived here didn’t particularly mind.

“That thing? It’s like the sun or the moon. I don’t care about anything that’s out of reach. It’s just there.”

The assault landing spaceship did nothing at all.

It really was just like the moon.

But what if, on a whim, its cannons started moving one day? Doesn’t that scare you?

“What, are you a child afraid of the stars falling from the sky? Not even a philosopher or bard would worry about that.”

People apparently had difficulty caring about anything out of reach.

For example, people got angry with how luxuriously the royals and nobles lived, but surprisingly few gave serious thought to stopping that waste of tax money.

For example, a ring dropped from a ship had to be on the ocean floor somewhere, but no one would consider searching for it.

But people also failed to notice the value of the things that were within reach. Like the childhood friend next door or the bread they ate every day.

It was all about balance.

It was about acceptable limits and amplitude.

People most desired the things that looked possibly within reach but not quite. Their hearts were shaken by how very close they were to snagging it.

So what in the world was this?

There was a giant ebony coffin with metal decorations.

And a silver-haired vampire girl sleeping within.

…Well, to be honest, I had known this was coming. This was an old mansion seemingly sinking into the bay since the coast had been eroded down by the waves. So finding a coffin in the damp and salty basement had not been too much of a surprise. But even if the walls were rotting and the carpet was moldy, this had originally been a ridiculously big mansion. My entire home would fit in its basement. I had assumed there would be lots of shiny gold, silver, and jewels inside to show respect for the dead.

In other words.

I had expected a skeleton.

That wouldn’t have been an issue. Since I’m a treasure hunter.

So this was actually a problem.

A serious problem.

The coffin was stuffed full of glossy raven feathers.

And half buried in those was a petite girl sleeping on her back. She had long silver hair and skin so white it seemed to reject all light by reflecting it. She was wearing…not quite a dress. Would you call it pajamas? It was kind of like a short red dress, but its see-through material was more like a camisole. Really, calling it underwear felt best. Was the red jewel at her flat chest a ruby? No, did it have a red liquid sealed inside? Hopefully she wouldn’t claim it was a saint’s blood or something.

She didn’t look exactly alive, but she didn’t seem dead either.

I focused on her pink lips. I pressed my index finger against them to gently open them…and yup. She had long, sharp canine teeth.

I could reach her.

She was within reach, but difficult to handle. That was the perfect combination.

Now, back to my initial problem.

“What do I do?”

Even if it was rotting away, breaking into someone’s house and wondering what to do about them felt wrong. But I had spent a lot of money on this. It had taken a lot of preparation and investment. I had bought intel from an information broker, worked out a concrete plan, prepared the travel supplies (including camouflage), gathered my work tools and weapons, and then paid for food and lodging along the way.

Treasure hunting wasn’t easy.

I had broken in here because I thought I could make up for all those expenses. No, I had expected to get 10 or even 100 times that in profit. Yet this was what I found. With nothing to sell, my debts would weigh me down.

…From a certain perspective, running across a vampire girl was a decent treasure.

But treating them like a product just because they had no legal protections wasn’t my style.

Even if she was a little girl, she might come in handy in a fight, but making her a familiar would be way too expensive.

Which meant…

What was I going to do?

I thought for a while and started to zone out.

“Nh, hh?”

That was when I heard a gentle and sleepy voice.

It was soft as a whisper and accompanied by some warmth.

It came from the coffin.

The girl half-buried in raven feathers stirred and opened her eyes.

Her enchanting gaze pierced me.

Then I felt a soft and wet sensation on my finger.

Yes, I had forgotten about parting her lips to confirm she had fangs. I had stuck my finger into the vampire’s mouth.

So…

“Whoa!?”

I finally yanked my hand back as hard as I could while hearing a violent snap of teeth against teeth. A displeased look entered the silver-haired girl’s eyes when her prey escaped.

This was bad.

Like, really bad.

I didn’t care how lame I looked. I had fallen onto my ass, so I crawled backwards to get as far from her as possible.

The vampire silently stood from the coffin’s black raven feathers. Her long silver hair shook and the feathers flew as if to celebrate her awakening. And her hair really was long. It went past her hips and possibly all the way to her ankles.

“Puny human, you have my praise for courageously sacrificing yourself as an offering to me.”

Let’s not jump to conclusions, okay?

And maybe don’t lick your lips with your tiny tongue as you say that!?

“But if you have made up your mind, do not hesitate. Why would you shame me like this?”

The fluttering feathers were clearly moving in a specific direction.

They reminded me of iron sand being manipulated by a magnet. They gathered together to form giant bat-like wings growing from the girl’s back as she crouched at the coffin’s edge and smiled fiercely.

Yeah, this was really bad!!

Just as my throat went dry, those wings gathered the wind. And her small body was launched toward me with the force of an arrow!

“Possession Right Arm!!”

Just as I shouted that, I focused on the small weapon I pulled from my sleeve. It was a parchment charm about the size of a piece of paper money. But I did not attach it to the vampire’s forehead.

I pulled it out with my left hand and attached it to my right upper arm.

It didn’t matter that my clothes were in the way. With a sound like water being poured on a red-hot piece of metal, a scorching pain ran through my arm. The text of a curse would have appeared there below my clothing.

I ignored the pain and peeled off the charm.

Forcefully.

It was like using some powerful tape to pull out the pin of an invisible grenade embedded in my body.

“?”

The vampire looked puzzled while using herself as a projectile by flying just off the floor.

Her right arm twisted around unnaturally. The one hand reached for her throat and squeezed as if she were trying to strangle herself.

I had acted on reflex.

I hadn’t considered the consequences.

So I hadn’t done it on purpose.

I certainly didn’t expect her to be so caught off guard she lost her balance and dove face-first into the floor.

And this was by no means a soft landing.

Her forehead crashed into the floor like a wet rag and then slid along it. Her red camisole flipped up and revealed a butt wearing surprisingly cute underwear. But I was too busy rolling to the side to stare. The silver-haired vampire continued on, broke through a few columns, slammed into the thick wall, and finally came to a stop amid all the crashing sounds.

A pure gold decoration fell from the wall.

What was that?

The letter Z?

That was the letter of endings. If it was cursed, I wouldn’t be able to sell it.

I stared into the cloud of dust filling the damp basement like a small cumulonimbus cloud. I felt some soft and nice-smelling warmth on my back and shoulders. There was likely a translucent short-haired woman clinging to me with her wings flapping. She had her arms around my neck.

Although I couldn’t see her because she was so close to me.

“Ha hah hah! Did you really think you could defeat the human to whom I have lent my power? Also, hands off, raven girl! This is my offering!!”

“I’m not an offering.”

Also, this really hurt.

The power was convenient, but the conditions needed to activate it were too much of a pain.

After all, the power source was a curse. I could fight the pain with some medicinal herbs, but only that girl could break the curse. And if the curse spread to 20% of my skin, my life would be at risk.

It was the same as full-body burns.

Since I only needed a small charm to activate it, it could seem like I had near limitless use of it, but that was not even close to being true. I couldn’t break the curse until I got back to town and it would accumulate each time I used it, so I wanted to avoid using it if possible.

Meanwhile, the source of the curse was pressed right up against me.

“My, my. Let’s not lie to ourselves, okay? But I’m not going to force you to see the truth. In fact, the trick to keeping a fish fresh before cooking is to give it a stress free life where it is oblivious it has been captured.”

She had short red hair and skin that was more pink than white. She only wore a one-piece swimsuit with frills attached to make it seem more dress-like. She had horns on her head, bat wings on her back, and a snake tail on her butt. And as usual, she was quite full of herself.

“Sounds like you could stand to go without any food today,” I said.

“Please no. Starvation is not my idea of fun SM play. Sob, sob!!”

Meanwhile, I heard the sound of some small stones clattering down within the cloud of dust at the crash site.

No.

A moment later, something spiraled around. The raven feathers forming the vampire’s wings blew away all the dust.

“I see.” A frighteningly low voice spoke from the center. “So you have the power to apply a sympathetic curse to your own body as a means of controlling the corresponding part of your opponent’s body. That is indeed difficult to deal with when you are not expecting it. It would be especially devastating for someone armed with a holy or demonic sword.”

“…”

This was bad.

Really bad. She was already analyzing it. And accurately at that. The succubus giving me this power was far from all-powerful.

I had to end things before I made a mistake. It was that kind of power.

And she continued speaking.

“But those conditions do not allow you to control critical body parts like the brain or heart. You have to apply a curse to the same part of your body and the great heat and decomposition that produces would kill you. So you can only control the extremities: the arms and legs or certain senses. …And once you know it’s coming, it can’t catch you off guard!!”

The whirlwind of raven feathers cleared up.

The red camisole girl wore some kind of protectors over every part of her body. They looked like rubber belts and they tightly bound her petite body. They were of course colored black, so they may have been made from those feathers.

This was bad.

It didn’t matter if I had control of her body from within if she bound her own movements from without. It was like taking control of a human and finding them to be a bucking bronco that refused to listen.

“Offering, I appreciate you letting me enjoy the thrill of the hunt instead of just offering yourself up to me, but it is about time to end this. After all, I am starving.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she made another charge.

Was there nothing I could do this time? I started to squeeze my eyes shut, but the demon clinging to my back rubbed her cheek against me and whispered softly into my ear.

“Possession Right Leg.”

Another curse charm.

I attached this one to my right thigh. I ignored the scorching and rotting pain as I ripped it back off.

“Heh heh. How naïve! And are you sure you want to injure the leg you need to escape me, offering!?”

My resistance proved futile.

She continued forward. She was going to dominate me at this rate.

All I could do was try to trip her up with her own leg.

And a moment later, I heard an odd noise, the vampire girl tripped quite spectacularly, and she was rendered immobile.

Oh.

It was like seeing someone pull the wrong string when operating a marionette. She had wrapped what amounted to rubber bands around her arms, legs, and entire body.

“Bwah!? W-wait, what is happening!?”

The shrimp vampire kept losing her balance and falling back down. She had covered herself with springs and she must have been surprisingly delicate. The shock of being tripped by her own leg had caused the clasps to come loose and the full force of those belts had been unleashed on her body.

The succubus possessing me grinned.

“Ehh? The entire point of those things was to restrict your own movements in case your body parts were taken over, right?”

“…”

“So they must be stronger than you are, right? And in that case, why should we bother challenging you? Just knock you off balance and you will suffer the same fate as someone trying to show off with training restraints.”

“Kh! But have you forgotten? I have these raven wings that you can’t control!”

“Master Human, control her back. Especially around the shoulder blades.”

“Right. Possession Shoulder Blades!”

Attaching and removing the curse charms could be tricky with the back.

But it was incredibly effective.

The rubber belts dug even more tightly into the girl’s body.

She blinked in confusion and her mouth flapped wordlessly.

“Hghh! W-wait. What is going on!?”

“Vampires can transform into ravens and other animals. So even if those feathers are a part of your body, you already had a ‘full’ body without them. So the question is: where were they originally attached? You can ask the same about horns, tails, or a mermaid-like fish tail, but the simplest example is wings, isn’t it?”

“Kh, kh.”

“So if I control the connection point, I can prevent you from controlling those black feathers. I know you were probably still half-asleep, but you shouldn’t try to claim everything you see in front of you.”

“Dammit! So you didn’t really do anything! It was all that demon’s doing! She gave you that power and told you how to defeat me!! Have you no shame, offering!? Fight on your own! Make an actual effort!!”

“This human has already put it an effort by encountering a navigator like me while wandering this world, ignorant one. So now his only job is to sip the delicious wine of victory! Now, Master Human, how about we supply the delectable finishing blow?”

The translucent demon pushed on my back to get me to step forward.

The vampire girl was fully bound on the floor, her back was arched backwards like a shrimp, and she glared at me while trying to hide the fear in her eyes.

“Wh-what are you going to do to me?”

“Nothing at all,” said the demon. “But are you sure you want us to just leave you, a vampire starving for blood, just lying here? You cannot return to your coffin or get even a single drop of blood to drink. You can only lie there unable to move.”

“What!?”

“It’s sure to be painful. Pure agony. The best possible prey is right there, but all you can do is lie there and starve. How – ev – er, we might just be willing to lend a helping hand. But this would normally be none of our concern, so you will of course have to make it worth our while.”

“What do you mean it’s none of your concern!? You were the ones who did this to me!”

“Master Human, if it would not be too much trouble, make a small cut on your right index finger.”

“The curse is still in my shoulder blades, so I don’t have very good control of my hands.”

“Oh, that’s right. Then lend me your hand.”

“W-wait. I don’t want you using a knife.”

“Don’t say that, Master Human. Especially when I am infecting you with curses all the time. Here, just a quick prick. Hee hee. It won’t hurt if you relax.”

The translucent succubus herself could grab a pair of scissors or a knife, but she apparently could not interfere enough to lift them (pushing me forward was the most she could manage). I think she said she could not lift anything heavier than she was.

I was reluctant, but we had to end this somehow. The enemy was an immortal vampire, so I would never know when she would attack me in my sleep.

And once I obeyed, the change in the shrimp vampire was dramatic.

Her eyes were glued to the small drop of blood on my finger.

“Ah, ahhh!”

“Now, vampire, swear to throw out everything for this one drop of blood. We will release you as soon as you promise to never again lay a finger on this human.”

“S-s-screw you! Blood is food, so there’s nothing wrong with drinking every last drop I can get my hands on! You really expect me to bow my head for one measly drop? You expect me to beg and stick out my tongue to catch it? Not a chance! I’m not hungry enough to throw out my pride!!”

“Then we will wait until you are.”

“…What?”

“Master Human, you have three days’ worth of portable food with you, correct? You can eat that for today and hunt the animals outside to supplement the rest of the portable food from then on. You should be able to last a full week like that.”

“That plan means I’ll starve if the hunting doesn’t go well.”

“Which is why we can head back into town if you don’t catch anything on the second day. We can leave her lying there for a good long while. I mean, it’s not like she can escape under her own power.”

“So I’ll have enough time to get this curse broken?”

In other words.

While the vampire stared in confusion, the translucent demon provided an ultimatum.

“We can wait a month or half a year if need be. And in your shrimp state, you can’t even crawl into your coffin to enter sleep mode. Now, vampires have poor fuel efficiency in normal mode, so can you really continue your hunger strike for that long?”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!?”

I had been forced to use my Possession Body, which I generally tried to avoid, so I crushed up some herbs and rubbed them on the curse text on my skin. Not that the herbs were really all that effective.

“…”

“H-hey, is she okay? She’s covering her face with her hands without saying a word. And more like she’s half-dead than depressed.”

“No matter what she might want to do, she cannot fight a contract made in blood, so she is not a threat to you, Master Human. A demon like me knows just how absolute such contracts are. Although in my case, I do not regret it in the slightest.”

“?”

“Also, worrying for her will only hurt that prideful vampire more. Heh heh. Yes, your words are stabbing into her. Peh heh heh hah hah hah!!”

There was no real treasure in the nearly-flooded old mansion, so I had no more business there. I would need a new job to do something about all the debt I now had. And I needed to head back to town to get someone to mediate for me.

Thus, we were on the road.

Vampires seemed like they had a lot of restrictions like the weakness to sunlight and inability to cross running water, but that didn’t seem to apply to this one much

Or rather, she used those raven feathers to create a giant dome that blocked the sun like a parasol and to dam up the rivers so she could cross.

The more I saw, the gladder I was I had been so quick to secure my safety back there. With a power that adaptable, being her target for 10 or 20 years to come sounded like a nightmare. My life would have gone past gray and become pitch black.

“I will never forgive you. This is an injustice. Your treatment of me is an unreasonable and absurd injustice. I have surpassed time and death to become a new species altogether. I am the queen of the indestructible feathers which have eliminated all possibility of annihilation. I swear on my name of Heartphilia Lags Coldblood that I will spill the blood of all who insult that name.”

She was still covering her face with her hands and muttering to herself. In fact, there was so much resentment in her voice it was reaching the level of a curse that could summon a monster!

But the translucent demon clinging to me remained carefree.

“Eh? What was that? Can you say that a little louder? Is it so hard to make out because you’re covering your face? Then how about you move your hands? I wonder what expression we would find there. If you’re blushing, biting your lip, and fighting back tears, I’d probably laugh my ass off. Ha ha ha.”

“Dammit! I swear you’ll regret this! Maybe I can let the talentless human slide, but never you, demon!!”

The vampire – Heartphilia was it? – finally moved her hands from her face and clenched them.

By the way, her expression was exactly what the succubus had guessed. And she really did laugh her ass off as promised.

This slowed us down a good bit.

We were still a long way off from the city, but the sun was setting and night would fall soon.

“This is as far as we’re getting today. We need to pitch a tent, gather rocks, build a stove, and hunt some animals or fish. …The portable food is a last resort, so I want to avoid using it.”

“Heh…heh heh heh hah hah! I see. So it will be nighttime. It will soon be my time to shine! I was waiting for this moment!”

“Oh, humans are generally not nocturnal, so you need to do things their way,” said the succubus. “Simply put, do not leave the tent.”

If you were not in a fortress city protected by thick walls, you did not want to be in a forest or field at night with animals walking around. When sleeping at night, I needed to leave my portable food in a bag outside the tent.

That was normal enough, but would Heartphilia accept it?

“Heh heh. You do as you wish. It matters not to me.”

“?”

It worried me when she was too obedient.

Then the silver-haired vampire held her head high and held her index finger out toward my nose.

“The contract in blood prevents me from directly attacking you. But do not get a big head, offering! A vampire as wise as me has already found a loophole in that contract!”

“Have you now?” said the succubus. “Is it that you can indirectly attack him?”

“Gulp!”

“For example, you cannot bite him, but you can bite other people, turn them into vampires, and have them gang up on him?”

“No, no, don’t say it! Spoilers are bad! Just how high-spec are you!?”

Heartphilia really did seem on the verge of tears. This sounded like a joke, but it was actually pretty dangerous. What would happen if I brought her back to town with me?

“Not to worry,” whispered the demon. “There is a way of stopping this ecstatic idiot. Can you assist me with that before going to sleep?”

“There is still some time.”

“Then why not acquire some food? You might be exhausted, but you don’t want to use your portable food if you don’t have to, right? It’s your lifeline in case of emergency.”

“…”

“…”

The two of us turned to look at our new hunter.

Promising Newcomer Heartphilia shrunk back.

“Wh-what? What are you plotting!?”

We answered her in unison:

“Go hunt down a Raging Pig. A Level 5 shouldn’t give you too much trouble, right?”

“Dammit! Dammit! Goddammiiiiiit!”

She did not sound exactly elegant as she did so, but Heartphilia swung her arms around wildly and scattered raven feathers everywhere while actually putting in an effort to capture the designated prey.

The vampire chased after the round hunks of meat (Lv. 5) that popped up all over the green field. It was kind of a heartwarming scene.

By the way, the Raging Pigs seemed to just pop up from the ground because they dug holes to use as dens. Heartphilia attacked with a giant fist made from raven feathers, got hit by a desperate tackle to the hips, and rolled along the ground a bit, but as an immortal, she managed to hop right back up (with face red with rage).

I was busy rubbing sticks together like a drill to gradually get a campfire going.

“It’s nice having an extra set of hands.”

“That’s why I always tell you to quit being a cheapskate and form a party,” complained the succubus.

“That would only end in a fistfight over the treasure, so nah.”

Whatever the case, it looked like I would not have to sleep on an empty stomach tonight.

Raging Pigs were tasty no matter how you cooked them. But on the other hand, they were dangerous if you didn’t cook them enough. That was common knowledge, but I wasn’t using a brick oven in a kitchen. A campfire was not the most powerful thing in the world and you could never underestimate food poisoning.

“Thanks,” I said when she returned. “Y’know, the Raging Pig would’ve been enough, so why do you have a giant Hraesvelg too? I appreciate the feast, though.”

“That king of the field probably tried to steal the meat she was carrying. Capable gofers are so wonderful. You have the makings of an excellent familiar.”

“Pant, pant. Gasp, gasp. Y-you will pay for this. Lend me a memo pad so I can make a note of it! I need to chart out how many times I’m going to hit each of you!!”

And.

As time passed, night fell.

The nights were shockingly deep when away from human civilization, so even a small light source seemed bright. That meant the sputtering remnants of our campfire and the moon overhead. The rolling hills of the field itself resembled a dark ocean.

But we were in a tent near the campfire. It was no more than some cloth coated in wax and oil for waterproofing.

“Hey,” said Heartphilia while squirming around in the tent.

“What?”

“Why are you holding me in your arms like this!? What, am I a reasonably-priced body pillow recommended for beginners!?”

“Don’t blame me. The succubus said this was the best way to ensure my safety.”

“And why wouldn’t you question that conclusion!? At least a little bit!? Your soul has rotted away due to that convenient walkthrough navigator!! There’s no life in your eyes!!”

“Heh heh heh,” laughed the succubus in question. “You cannot directly harm him, so the best way to prevent you from heading out at night and mass-producing vampires is to fall asleep with you in his arms. You can’t break free of his grasp, so you have no choice but to spend the night like this.”

“Do you never shut up!? I can’t stand people like you who give such precise instructions you might as well be giving out spoilers!!”

Is that what this was?

She hadn’t used the contract to make Heartphilia simply obey my every word, so it felt pretty imprecise to me. Or were their more loopholes if you went for a more all-purpose solution?

I had heard AI research could run into problems where the AI would hang up if it had too many options available.

“Master Human, what do you think about this luxurious situation where you can chase after a cute vampire without a care in the world and, when you do catch her, she can’t resist at all?”

“I’m tired, so I just want to get some sleep.”

“Sure. Then we can have some fun in your dreams.”

I ignored the shout of “What, this doesn’t even excite you!? It doesn’t feel special at all!?” and tried to get to sleep.

However.

“If I twist this like this.”

“…”

“And bend my arm like this…I still can’t get out. Damn.”

“…”

“But maybe this gap would…ah.”

“Why are you shoving your soft parts against me?”

“…! Don’t be ridiculous! I am not a desperate girl who couldn’t restrain her desire!”

I couldn’t get to sleep with Heartphilia squirming in my arms.

But I still had to hold onto her with all my might. This vampire would not just obey my every word. If she did slip out of my arms, she could turn who-knows-how-many people into vampires to kill me for her.

“Ugh, stop this! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be used like a tool or hugged like it’s just one step in defeating a boss or one section of climbing a mountain!?”

“Do you really think that’s how I see this? We’re close enough that you should be able to hear my pulse.”

“Huh? Your heart really is pounding. That’s odd. It wasn’t doing that before!”

It was true my emotional reaction had been more subdued when I was only following the succubus’s instructions. After all, none of it was my idea and yet it was all going so well, so it felt like my own will was being rejected from the world.

But the emotions returned once that demon withdrew.

I was holding a girl in my arms, her sweet scent reached my nose, and I felt surrounded by her softness and warmth, so of course my heartrate was going to rise.

“Heh heh heh. I see, I see. So I can get your heart pounding. I’ve still got it after all. Heh heh.”

“Why does this make you so happy? This seems like the natural reaction.”

“…! N-no reason, you fool!”

Heartphilia blushed red and rubbed her forehead against my chest. She may not have wanted to look me in the eye.

Now, while she could not move from here, neither could I.

The silence must have been too much to bear because she started speaking in the moonlight.

“You said you were a treasure hunter, didn’t you?”

“What about it?”

“Why? With that succubus’s guidance, you should be able to make all the money you could need in human society.”

“Oh, that.”

That might be true.

If I started a business on the succubus’s instructions, it was almost guaranteed to succeed. No, I would only need to get her advice while betting towers of chips at a casino.

But…

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Mh.”

“I can feel myself fading away at times. The more I succeed, the stronger it is. So if I used success in the city to amass wealth, I doubt I could bear it. I want to do something on my own. Even if it isn’t much.”

I knew that was really just an excuse.

I would have lost my life long ago if not for that demon’s support. I might as well have been saying I would catch my own food before heading out to a safe fishing hole.

But not even that would work if you didn’t know how to fish.

I didn’t want to end up the kind of person who just had a cooked fish plopped down on their plate when it was mealtime.

This way I could acquire true freedom one day.

“Hold on. She gives you such a good deal and you think it’s a nuisance?”

“I’m not sure I would say that.”

I saw it a little differently.

“I want us to be equals. I want us to see eye-to-eye when we speak. So this isn’t a bad thing and I don’t want to treat her like a problem. …It’s just that I want to do things for myself.”

“…”

“I want to end our contract. I feel like I can only truly face her once I shake off this unilateral and extraordinarily useful contract. But that’s going to take a lot of preparation. I need magic items and I need money to buy them. That’s why I hunt treasure.”

I realized I was the only one speaking anymore.

Heartphilia looked up at me from my arms and finally said something.

“Oh, I thought you were just wandering aimlessly, but it sounds like you’ve thought this through.”

“?”

“But wait. Can’t the succubus hear all this? She possesses you, right?”

“It’s like the secrets hidden below the bed. You can guess they’re there, but you choose to ignore them.”

“I see…”

The vampire girl seemed to understand the balance of power now.

“Y’know, I wasn’t sure a girl would get what I meant by secrets below the bed.”

“…!! Sh-shut up!! Quit teasing me!!”

But after revealing so much about myself, I found myself curious about her.

“So what about you? What do you plan to do after this?”

“I will of course make up for this ongoing humiliation. Using your blood.”

Well.

This was going to be a problem.

“Let’s say you did accomplish that. What would you do then? Return to your coffin and go back to sleep?”

“What’s wrong with an elegant life in a moonlit seaside mansion?”

“Am I supposed to be jealous?”

“You’d better be!! Only the chosen one is permitted to live in that special mansion and enjoy the tranquility of the cold moonlight. Eternal days of never-fading glory await me there. What could be more aesthetic?”

“It really bothers me that you didn’t mention a thing about friends or companions, you lonely immortal.”

“Damn you!! Do you have something even more magnificent in store for you!? Something better than my aesthetic vampire life!?”

…

“Hard to say. But I do know life in any form is better with connections to others. Everything looks different. Although maybe that makes me too reliant on everyone around me.”

“Mh, mhhh.”

Then again, maybe there was no point in arguing with someone who wasn’t even human. Maybe she was like a cat and sleeping for more than half the day was normal.

But then Heartphilia spoke.

“No, I have an actual goal in mind. My long slumber and gathering of human blood was meant to gather strength for that goal.”

“?”

“Heh heh. You see that up there?”

She pointed toward the tent’s entrance.

Or was it at the starry sky outside?

No.

Was she pointing at the colossal assault landing spaceship floating in the night sky like a second moon!?

“I will take that back. It was originally my toy, but my administrative privileges were stripped from me and I was launched down to the surface.”

We had made it back to town.

And Heartphilia immediately looked puzzled.

“That sign is all rusted. What is this place called?”

“Yokohama.”

The name I provided rang hollow in my ears.

The place looked nothing like it once had.

“Although I thought the sign was still pretty readable.”

“Did you really think the great Heartphilia Lags Coldblood would need to know how to read the local writing system known as kanji?”

“It’s written in the alphabet right below the kanji.”

“…”

Not that I knew the literacy rate of vampires.

The world had greatly changed in the past few years.

When I looked up, I saw a giant wall that rivaled skyscraper in height. It was originally an instant-setup wall used by…I think the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism and the Ministry of Defense to quickly set up anti-tsunami embankments. The heavy metal wall continued past the horizon to the left and right.

The translucent demon whistled while clinging to my back.

“The wall is even greener than before. I’m not sure if you should call it mossy or grassy, but it looks ready to rot away and fall down.”

“This is better than the seaside area. It’s rusting away there.”

The wall was officially to protect the human living space from the many monsters wandering the outside world, but I wasn’t sure how useful it really was for that.

I walked right through the front gate with a succubus possessing me and Heartphilia did the same with her mysterious dome parasol floating overhead.

The actual city of Yokohama no longer existed. At most about a third of the buildings had survived and the rest had crumbled or collapsed. Fantasy-style homes and shops made from brick and stone (which were all we humans could manage now) filled the empty space left behind.

The royals and nobles did not want to live in the old skyscrapers. They could collapse at any time, so they were generally abandoned or maybe used for storage.

But this was still better than outside the walls.

The many monsters had destroyed those buildings beyond recognition, the greenery had erased any sign they had even existed, and you could not see a single asphalt road or other evidence a city had existed there.

I noticed the vampire was not even looking at her surroundings.

“What, aren’t you interested in this new place?”

“Do not underestimate a vampire. I might have been sleeping, but my link remains active. I have been monitoring you offerings in my dreams. Monitoring you from above.”

“Above?”

When I asked that, Heartphilia winked and pointed into the blue sky.

She meant the giant assault landing spaceship floating there like a celestial body

“Does she really expect us to believe that?” asked the demon.

“Hmph. You don’t have to believe me.”

The nonhumans seemed to be arguing.

“I know everything,” continued the vampire. “Like that leaning stone tower or that arena where the wall between the best seats and the prisoners has crumbled away!”

“Umm, are you referring to that abandoned building and the remains of that sports stadium?” asked the succubus.

“Don’t try to act smarter than me. What you call things doesn’t matter.”

“Come to think of it, you were counting on your fingers with the firewood, weren’t you?”

“I am from an older age! You can’t expect me to keep up with these newfangled things like ‘addition’ and ‘subtraction’! Have you forgotten just how long I have been sleeping!?”

The world had only changed a few years ago, so what had she been doing before that?

“You can’t read and you can’t do simple arithmetic in your head. Looks like the chosen one surprisingly dumb. Did you have a fully voiced support system to help you control that flying ship?”

While I let my skilled navigator handle the argument for me, the phone in my pocket received a number of alerts:

• Homework Deadline Alert for Class 2-1

• From the Student Council

• Notice from the Beautification Committee (1/4)

• About the Checkout Limit for the E-Library

• The Homework Deadline Has Passed (Important)

• Notice for Students Needing to Make Up for a Failure

• Your Field Trip Deposit Has Been Received

“Tch. I’ve got a backlog of N High School events again.”

The internet signal only covered the city itself, so I always received this baptism when I returned from a trip.

But there was something else I wanted to deal with first. I logged into N High School on my phone to place my cartoonish avatar in a 3D school building and sent a short message.

“Ran into some trouble during some extracurricular treasure hunting. Need a curse breaking skill ASAP. Help me, #1 Student Council President.”

The trick to getting your message to stand out from that busy, busty, and black-haired girl’s hellish inbox was to mix in just the right amount of attention-grabbing phrases.

As usual, I had a response in less than half a minute.

“If you’re at school, then visit the Student Council Room. Also, I am #2! I might be President, but that’s just for show. I’m #2 waiting for the return of your sister who beat up the teachers and took the Headmaster position despite being a student!!”

My timing must have been poor.

That girl was always really obviously on edge once a month, but pointing it out was a good way to trigger an eruption, so I had to just go along with it. It made me glad I wasn’t a girl.

But while I was trying to figure out how to convince her to give me what I wanted, I heard something flying by overhead.

It was small flying device with faded colors. It had six pairs of rotors and it carried a small box with something like the arm from a crane game (which only existed as online games anymore).

“Hey, Mega Tits. Why did you send a Soaring Bird again?”

“That’s your homework☆ I’m way too busy thanks to a certain someone’s sister, so you mix the curse breaker yourself. Don’t worry. Follow the instructions in the Alchemy III-C video and you’ll be fine.”

The mystery unmanned distribution network known as Soaring Birds had existed before the Collapse of N and they continued to carry packages around even though no one knew who owned them. They couldn’t carry anything heavy, but they were certainly useful for N High School’s experiment supplies and textbooks.

“Dammit,” I muttered to myself. “She has to know I’ll screw it up and go crying to her yet again.”

Then I noticed a new reaction from nearby. Heartphilia was staring at the small cardboard box.

“Ho ho? Is this from one of those ‘school’ things I’ve heard about?”

“?”

“She lives in a coffin year-round, so it must be a strange sight for her,” said the succubus. “Especially when you humans have continued studying after the Collapse of N by creating a VR school in an online game space.”

“I do not live in a coffin!” shouted Heartphilia with face red.

The school supplies covered in writing, numbers, and other symbols may have seemed unusual to her.

In the past, everyone had gotten up at a set time, changed into a uniform, and walked to a boxy school building with a school bag in hand, but all that had changed.

We now lived in a fantasy world of swords and magic as far as the eye could see. Schools and offices only still existed in this small corner of life.

Of course, not everyone had accepted this new world. A lot of people had fiercely resisted, clung to the old ways, and tried to protect how the world had been.

What happened to those people, you ask?

That should be obvious.

They all died.

They were crushed by the waves of the changing times.

I think the more carefree people called it a restoration.

The old way of thinking had separated everything between an open county and a closed country, but that had all collapsed.

So the only ones who survived were those who desperately clung to their lives. Instead of giving up on this new age, we continued to hope to live in this new way.

Some had abandoned their cars and learned how to drive carts.

Some had abandoned concrete and figured out how to lay bricks.

…And some had taught themselves magic like their life depended on it.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the cardboard box, so I sighed and spoke.

“I don’t know how to do any of this and I can’t even imagine how it would come in handy.”

I would have to put off the mixing and curse breaking. It was going to take some time before that busty black-haired President cooled her head.

So I scrolled through the other notices on my phone and dealt with the backlog of emails.

“But I also don’t want to just throw this stuff out. The world of qualifications and academic history suddenly ended one day, but we don’t know when this world of swords and magic will end either.”

“That’s not quite right, Master Human.” The succubus laughed and corrected me. “You just refuse to accept that the age of test scores and salaries has ended and you’re hoping it will make a comeback someday. So you want to keep up with your education so you don’t regret it when that happens.”

“…”

“Besides, isn’t the online N High School really just an invite-only social network? Looking at the overall spirit of the organization, it’s easy enough to see what you humans are like.”

Was that how it worked?

Maybe so.

No one knew what the N of N High School meant. It was apparently a declaration of the intent to never abandon education so we could determine the cause of the Collapse of N. But I didn’t really care.

Part of me would get lost in reminiscing about my old life even as I lived in this changed world.

I liked talking about how good things used to be.

So maybe I did want to reject what we had now.

Maybe that was why I followed the guidance of a succubus who could provide unending comfort without me having to lift a finger.

The alarm clock was blasting in my ears, but it had no effect.

All so I could proudly say that my everyday life with my stepsisters had been “the best”.

“There sure are a lot of monsters in this city,” said Heartphilia.

“The ones you see wandering around here have been tamed and domesticated.” I explained that while looking at the huge lizards pulling the carts. “There is a very limited supply of gas and electricity these days, so we need their labor. The Soaring Birds can only carry small boxes.”

“But wait. Then what was that big wall for?”

I sighed at her question.

“Officially, it’s to keep monsters out. But it’s really to prevent illegal immigration. There are 1.5 million people inside Yokohama’s wall. And like I said, there is limited gas and electricity. People demanding various rights are more of a threat than violent monsters. The ordinarily weak are much more of a pain than the irregularly strong. That’s the age we live in. That’s the state of this shitty new world.”

For one thing, even the biggest wall was meaningless against flying wyverns and digging linddrakes. Not to mention the Hounds of Tindalos or Saint Germains that could warp through time and space. In other words, the walls were never effective against monsters in the first place.

But Urayasu’s old amusement park area had announced it was taking a humanitarian stance by accepting anyone unconditionally and it had collapsed in only 6 months. Supply had not kept up with demand, a sense of unfairness had erupted within the new immigrants, and they had rioted until it all fell apart. I’d heard that Haneda and Ocean International had set a new policy after that.

“That said, Yokohama can’t survive as an independent city. We need to trade with other cities, so we want to avoid making waves. So instead of announcing an isolationist stance, we used the monsters as an excuse for building the wall.”

That was also why I had been allowed through the gate with a succubus possessing me and why a vampire like Heartphilia had been let in. Tamed monsters were a valuable source of labor, so they were handled as carefully as oil fields and natural gas once had been. That much was written in N High School’s history and civics texts.

“What are you going to do?” asked the demon.

“Head home for now. I want to forget about everything and sleep like a log.”

“Yes, yes. That’s what you want, but what are your more realistic plans?”

I sighed.

I toyed with my bangs before answering.

“After getting my things home, I’ll try to convince the President to help me and then visit my little sister. I need information.”

After attempting four more short emails, I finally convinced the busty black-haired girl to give me a completed curse-breaking potion to remove the cursed writing of the Possession Body.

I would prefer to omit the details to preserve my adolescent pride, so I’ll just give a small excerpt.

“If you ask me, no one is as reliable as you, President.”

“Is that so?”

“In fact, I can’t figure out why you’re not at the top. Like, why’s my older sister the Headmaster? She’s just an overpowered idiot who thinks brute force is the same thing as magical skill. I’m so very thankful I go to the same school as someone as smart, sexy, and friendly as you! I’m so, so glad I came to N High School!!”

“Is that so!?”

…

…

…

“Later, Mega Tits. Those tits and your items are all you’re good for. Ah ha ha ha!”

“Wait! This is how you treat me once you get what you want from me!?”

I was probably just angry because of how hard it was to convince her this time.

Even in this new age, my little sister Anna did not leave the city. She had no interest in swords or magic.

She was all about money and information.

In a way, she had been uncorrupted by the collapse and continued to live with her values intact.

But how she followed those values had taken a 180-degree turn.

“Welcome to the Extra (Bunny) Virgin Casino!!”

She too attended N High School, but this was the result of choosing only the classes focused on money. It made me a little sad as her brother who diligently and busily worked as a treasure hunter.

“Oh, it’s just Onii-chan.”

The bunny girl clearly looked disappointed and I waved an annoyed hand in response.

My bob cut little sister asked a question while fidgeting with her black ears and costume.

“So what do you want? You refuse to drink or gamble even with those laws gone, so I know you’re not a customer.”

“You’ve gotten a little too comfortable with those things. But anyway, the intel you gave me was phony.”

“What?”

“You said there was treasure in the seaside ghost palace. You liar! All I found was a coffin and a worthless vampire!!”

When I pointed my thumb back at Heartphilia, the look in the new-age bunny’s eyes changed.

“Oh, she’s super cute!! You really found her out there? She’s history’s greatest treasure!!”

“S-stop that, human! Get off of me! Keep it up and I will bite you!! And what is this shop for anyway? All I see are complicated numbers everywhere.”

“Yes, if you are so high society (hah) you have to count on your fingers, roulette and dice would be a bit out of your league,” commented the succubus.

“I’ll tear you in two!!”

“Oh, so you can at least count to two.”

“I swear I’ll do it!!!!!”

“Hey, Onii-chan. If you don’t want her, can I have her? I bet I could bring in tons of customers with a vampire bunny.”

Heartphilia screamed, so I decided to intervene.

“More importantly, I need info. Your bogus intel has me in the red, so I need a way to pay back what I borrowed before the deadline. If you feel any responsibility at all, then help me.”

Treasure hunting was an official N High School extracurricular activity, so why did the student have to pay their way!? And when I’m already paying tuition, dammit!!

“Hmm. I’m willing to loan you some money if you’re in a bind. My casino is loaded after all. I can even lend you a few bodyguards if you’re afraid of being out at night.”

“I’m not letting you place me at the mercy of your debt collectors like something from a harsh shoujo manga, my yakuza little sister.”

“Heh heh,” laughed the demon. “And you already need my support for your extracurricular treasure hunting.”

Agh!

When can I break free of this freeloading lifestyle and gain some independence? (sob)

Meanwhile, my little sister did not seem to care much.

“Y’know, Onii-chan, I get my data from drunk regulars, so I can’t guarantee its accuracy. I’m willing to help you if you’re okay with that.”

“As long as it’s more credible than the last tip. I just want some fancy treasure so I can get my treasure hunting credit. And ideally I’ll be able to pay back my debt with it too.”

When I went over the ground rules, the flashy bunny girl cleared her throat.

“They say a storm is coming as a low pressure front moves south. The Soaring Birds are taking a different route than usual to avoid the area, so it’s practically guaranteed.”

“Hm? Just the weather? …No.”

“Right. The powerful winds are going to bring a floating continent to the skies of Yokohama.”

“…”

“According to a customer, it’s the collection of ruins blasted into the air by the eruption of Mount Victoria. That means it contains the Golden City. You won’t even have to search for treasure chests because all the walls and floors are made of solid gold.”

That name alone was a sign that the Collapse of N had happened. There were a lot more Western-sounding names in the past few years. The terrain itself had changed. Mystery buildings and ruins had appeared all over the place.

“Seriously? This isn’t just more nonsense?”

“It’s up to you whether you believe it or not. But you’re licking your lips, so I already know you’re going for it.” My little sister shrugged. “The floating continent is going to stand out, but the other students tend not to get involved in search of treasure. I mean, getting to a floating continent isn’t easy and the monsters there are really high level. Are you still doing this?”

“If I don’t, I won’t get my credit and I’ll be crushed by debt.”

“Hey, Onii-chan. Do you really think our old life is coming back? I mean, everyone might be hoping for that.”

“…”

“But not everyone’s that strong. A lot of people have found new ways to be happy in this new world. I know I have. But are you prepared to stick with it? Are you prepared to overturn everything again in another collapse?”

“I’ll never be satisfied until I do.”

I kept my voice low as I replied.

A failure of a brother shouldn’t have been speaking like this to his success of a sister.

“It’s the only way to make it up to mom and dad for raising us. They got up early every morning, rode the packed train without a word of complaint, and gave up on the idealized family life to both get jobs so they could support their children. I can’t just pretend none of that work ever happened.”

“I see. Then have it your way.” The bunny girl sighed. “But never forget that giving up is always an option. If you end up failing, I’ll always be here to support you. So give it your all and keep at it, Onii-chan!”

I knew what I had to do.

“The floating continent will be above Yokohama, huh?”

The translucent succubus was already working out a solution.

I had just received an insulating cloak from one of those Soaring Birds. Hooray for online shopping. And for some reason, the vampire had become a ball of curiosity as soon as she heard the word “cloak”. It was a little annoying. She had called it aesthetics, but I had a feeling she would love silk hats and monocles.

“The first decision to make is whether we ride the wind or fight it,” said the succubus. “I recommend fighting it 8-to-2. It would be fastest to accelerate by running up the wall of the former landmark viewing tower and then fly up into the sky.”

“There’s going to be a storm. Can we really keep a stable trajectory?”

“For this short a time, yes. The biggest question is whether or not you can make a contract with a trustworthy magician who specializes in acceleration. But you also won’t want to just post a public notice on N High School’s message board. If they know you’re headed to that gold-filled floating continent, they’ll try to overcharge you like crazy. And since timing is crucial, they would win. The time limit is on their side.”

“I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“Possession Right Arm. Anyone will agree if they have a blade pressed to their throat. And the fear will be all the greater if it’s the blade they had brought to use.”

“I see. Then how about we search for a magic user who does not need a lot of exaggerated movements and gestures during ceremonies? That way they can keep going even with their right hand taken. Now to access N High School’s student registry. If the encryption key is the same as before…”

The vampire sighed next to me.

She rubbed her temples.

“Are you a freeloader in everything you do? Now you’re getting someone to carry you?”

“Hey, at least I’m aware of it.” Her words actually hurt a lot, so I made a quick response. “More importantly, I’m taking you with me. I’m afraid what would become of Yokohama if I left you behind.”

“Heh! So you finally realize just how fearsome the great Heartphilia Lags Coldblood is!”

“Yes, yes,” said the demon. “You’re very special.”

“Hey, offering. I think it’s about time you told me how to shut this demon up.”

I answered the tearful vampire’s request by patting her head, but that only made her angrier.

In the storm, I arrived at a rusty viewing tower that was leaning a bit. It had once been a major landmark and we were placing our feet directly on its wall. We used magical assistance to run vertically up it. And we accelerated. The air felt like sticky jelly, but we continued upwards. The raindrops felt like pachinko balls at this speed. And we passed the top of the tower while defying gravity, the air resistance, and the stormy winds and rain.

We flew.

We crossed the gap.

The explosive noise reached my ears after a short delay.

We tore through the dark clouds and found the clear blue sky beyond.

As we followed a mountain-like arc, we began to descend again.

The sky was shockingly blue and the storm below looked unbelievably calm. The fluffy clouds looked white from above. And below us, we saw a giant landmass at the impossible altitude of 5000m.

It was a floating continent.

The massive chunk of land had been launched by the ley line eruption of Mount Victoria and it looked like a giant had grabbed a clump of sand and left it there.

At this point, there was nothing to be afraid of. We let our momentum carry us down towards the unnatural continent. We landed on an open area of land.

It was predictably cold, so my breaths were white.

If not for the insulating cloak, my rain-soaked clothes might have frozen solid.

“Bwah! I know we calculated it all out, but it’s so much more reassuring having solid ground below your feet.”

“Space is so close.” Heartphilia reached upwards while protected by her flying parasol of black feathers. “My home is so close.”

“Keh keh keh. The atmosphere alone still has another 100km from here.”

The translucent demon really needed to learn when to hold her tongue.

I looked up too and the assault landing spaceship did look bigger than from the surface. Or it seemed to.

“To review, our objective is to steal from the Golden City. Paying back my debt is top priority and I’d like to turn a profit if possible, but gold is heavy. If we weigh ourselves down too much to move, this will all be a waste of time. I can get my school credit as long as I can prove I found some treasure, so I don’t need to get greedy. …Succubus, what monsters are around here?”

“Sirens that produce status effects with their song and wyverns that specialize in physical attacks. None of them are too bad individually, but you might be in trouble if they work together. You could even be tormented to death before you can do much of anything.”

“Defeating them wouldn’t earn much money, so I want to ignore them as much as possible and focus on the golden city instead. Let’s decide on a weight limit. How about 30kg per person? Any more than that would be too dangerous.”

“Wait, are you expecting me to carry it too? You dare you use the great Heartphilia as a servant!?”

“Shut up, Miss Counts-On-Her-Fingers. Do we need to shrimp you up again to get another blood contract? Oh, I know. Next time, we’ll make you say ‘nyah’ after every sentence and always smile cutely for the camera.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll do it!!”

The vampire blushed bright red and agreed, so we had a plan.

Luckily, the intel appeared to be legit this time. We were walking on old stone pavement, but the old temple in the distance sparkled in the sunlight. At this point, the odds of it being brass or gold-plated seemed low.

And just as we started in that direction…

“Ohh? Is my adorable little brother going for the Golden City too???”

…!!!!!!

I could not fight the chill racing through my body, so I immediately tackled the vampire to the ground.

Heartphilia did not have time to complain.

Spears of light dropped toward us in quick succession. It was like a downpour of rain. If I hadn’t moved us into a gap, we would have been skewered.

I had done that through familiarity with the person, not skill.

And who was that person? The answer was obvious.

“Nee-san!”

“Long time no see, my adorable little brother.”

A sexy older girl stood there with her long and fluffy chestnut hair fluttering in the high altitude wind. She wore light armor and a miniskirt that were colored white with primary color accents here and there. She did not have any sort of weapon, but that was because she primarily used magic.

To be blunt, she had adapted to this age of sword and magic better than anyone.

Everyone agreed she was N High School’s #1.

She was the greatest and strongest magician who had defeated all the teachers and taken the position of Headmaster while still being a student.

And she had chosen the same extracurricular activity as me.

She was my undisputed competition as a treasure hunter and the worst possible rival.

“Dammit, Anna!”

“Oh? You shouldn’t be blaming our cute little sister here. She only gives people the information they ask for. Of course we would end up in competition if we’re using the same source. That’s all this is.”

Yes.

I had a tendency of running into her everywhere I went and it never ended well for me. And when I finally got fed up and asked that bunny sister for somewhere our older sister wasn’t, I ended up with bogus info.

Oh, and this older sister’s nickname was Almighty.

She had the exceptional skill of using fire, water, wind, earth, and every other kind of magic. I stood no chance when I only had the secret technique of Possession Body which required using a curse charm to place the succubus’s power inside me. In fact, looking at pure firepower, she was powerful enough to pick a fight with all of Kansai. She really did seem like the perfect Headmaster. You couldn’t hope to challenge her on your own.

“There’s tons of treasure here. Too much to take it all for yourself. We can get our credit just fine, so why not get along and share it?”

“But where’s the fun in that?”

It was an immediate answer.

And a complete rejection.

For one thing, my Headmaster sister had positioned herself as a god of war and the foundation of Yokahama’s defenses, so she didn’t need this treasure hunting extracurricular. She was the symbol of the city and the power-hungry royals and nobles were eager to please her, so she was promised a luxurious lifestyle even if she just sat in her leather chair.

But she had ignored everyone’s expectations. As if she had no interest in social status or money.

So why had she shaken free of all that, chosen an extracurricular activity, and started visiting ruins all over the place?

“I hate living a boring life.”

“Nee-san, fighting isn’t the only way to have fun.”

“But only my adorable little brother gives me what I want. You actually face me instead of falling on your ass and tearfully begging for mercy before the battle even begins.”

“Argh! You damn schoolaholic and legit berserker! Succubus!!”

“Yes?”

“Ah ha ha! Use whatever you want! Cheat like crazy!! Anything else would just be boring! The world is as soft as damp bread, but then there’s you, my adorable little brother! You give me something I can sink my teeth into!”

Heartphilia had clearly been left behind by all of this, but there was no time to explain.

Honestly, about half the reason I couldn’t let go of the succubus was because of this sister! They really need to get a teacher to lead the extracurriculars!! And I mean an actual adult!!

The battle had begun.

There was the bare ground, a stone-paved path, and the green grass and flowers covering it all. The golden city could be seen shining in the sunlight in the distance. And it all existed on a continent that remained airborne by unknown means.

There was no range that gave me the upper hand over my Almighty sister. She could slaughter any opponent with a volley of magic at close, middle, or long range.

So the closest thing to a strategy I had was to challenge her at the range I was best at.

I pulled one of the curse charms from my sleeve.

“Possession Right Leg!!”

“Oops.”

In exchange for a burning and rotting pain, I took control of my sister’s right leg, making her stumble. However…

“Break curse.”

“Posess-…”

“Exorcise + Defend!!”

“Dammit, both at once!?”

“And here’s a special curse-breaking for my adorable little brother☆”

You would think she was barely trying.

Each time she completed some magic using the incantations on her beautiful lips or the signs with the fingers of her left hand, all of my effort was rejected in an instant.

I had traded my entire life for this power and it burned my skin with a curse each time I used it, but she brushed it off so easily!! I could see why the Student Council President had been reduced to tears after having her trademark move stolen!!

But even if it was nearly instant, she still had to use some of her resources to respond to my attacks. I dashed through the downpour of magic to move closer.

I wanted to be right up next to her!

“Hee hee.”

She laughed.

And she responded to my move without falling back.

“An exorcising blade in the left hand + the element of light.”

“Kh!!”

“She’s going for a diagonal slash,” said the succubus. “Jump left to avoid it! Once you’re close, she can’t escape!!”

I obeyed her instructions with all my might.

I leaped to the side.

I rolled along the ground, but before I could get back up, my sister’s lips and fingers moved.

“A wicked blade in the right hand + the element of darkness.”

“!!”

Two swords!?

Not even the succubus knew what to tell me.

Even if the one sword missed on its way back, I couldn’t figure out how to avoid the next attack!!

And then…

“That is enough, human girl!!”

A large mass flew in from the side.

It rivaled a large dump truck in size, but it was actually a collection of raven feathers.

The explosive roar and crash of impact were reminiscent of a train crash.

But.

And yet.

“Hee hee.”

That one voice dashed any hope or relief I might have felt.

The blades of light and darkness sliced the feather hammer in a cross shape and the feathers scattered.

My sister stood there unscathed like it was only natural.

“Excellent. I welcome surprise attacks from last-minute fighters. Anything less would be boring. Yes, I can sense the world around me right now!!”

Meanwhile, Heartphilia was livid.

“Explain this! I thought you two were siblings!”

My sister changed her target.

Her endless varieties of magic clashed with the vampire wings which branched into something like tentacles. Explosions and flashes of light filled the midpoint between them.

In the short time this bought me, I whispered with the succubus.

I knew Heartphilia would be pushed back eventually. Challenging my big sister in strength was suicide.

“Got any good ideas?” I asked.

“The most efficient plan is to abandon the vampire, head to the Golden City, snag the bare minimum of gold you need, and dive back to the surface.”

“Other than that.”

“I had a feeling you would say that. But everything else would be ultra hard.”

Our whispered conversation only made the vampire angrier.

“Hey! Why are you taking a break? This mess is your fault!”

“That’s right,” added my sister. “What do you think you’re doing? If you don’t challenge me with your combined strength, you’ll just bore me.”

Oh, no!

Both of those extraordinary fighters were focused on me!!

“There’s no time,” warned the succubus. “You need to make a decision now!!”

“I know that!!”

I had no choice but to do it.

But “it” was not some heroic action.

I turned tail and ran off at full speed.

“Oh, dear.”

“Get – back – here, offeriiiiiiiiiiiing!!”

Naturally, they both launched attacks on me without holding anything back.

Gold and black.

I was pursued by two different deluges, torrents, floods…oh, it doesn’t matter what metaphor I use.

Anyway, I looked back over my shoulder and…

“Possession Right Arm!!”

I used a single curse charm to possess a right arm.

But I had already proven it didn’t work on my big sister.

Luckily, I wasn’t targeting that Headmaster.

There was someone else there.

“Whoa!?”

Heartphilia’s right arm moved around against her will. That threw off her aim and directed the storm of feathers toward my sister. It wouldn’t harm her, but I knew it could match her magic. So if I used it right, I could redirect her magic attacks like a pinball.

Nothing was more destructive than her magic, but I did not direct it ahead of me, behind me, or to either side.

I sent it straight down.

To the ground.

To the floating continent itself.

The disconcerting tremor below my feet was far more frightening than an earthquake on the surface.

No.

The ground actually tilted.

It was falling.

The entire floating continent was falling.

“My adorable little brother…you’ve really done it now.”

“W-wait, what did you do? Explain it to me!!”

The two of them only now showed some concern, but they had already shown me just how ridiculously destructive they could be despite how they looked.

My sister’s magic in particular could easily bring down a piece or two of this floating continent scattered through the air by a ley line eruption. Heartphilia had proven how powerful she was by managing to stop that even if just barely.

“Now, Nee-san, are you ready to listen?”

“Why should I? I don’t care if this things crashes. In fact, that sounds like a lot more fun.”

As usual, everything she said was insane.

But this was already over.

“Are you sure about that? Yokohama is below us.”

“…”

“I made this happen, but the only one who can protect those 1.5 million people is you, Headmaster of N High School. So could you maybe use your unmatched magic to guide this falling floating continent toward the ocean?”

“So that was your plan.”

“You can’t refuse, can you? You might ignore your mascot status, but that doesn’t change that you’re Yokohama’s god of war. You can keep wandering the world as a treasure hunter because you always come through when it really matters.”

I smirked like some kind of cheap villain.

I didn’t care what happened if I got the bare minimum of gold I needed from the Golden City. I could do that before or after the place crashed. Everyone else could share the rest for all I cared.

But my older sister was different.

Because…

“If you don’t come through, your strength will be judged worthless and unreliable. Then you will be a symbol of fear. The hunter will become the hunted. You might like fighting, but I doubt that would be much fun, Nee-san.”

“Oh, honestly.”

She scratched at her head and sighed.

“What a boring conclusion. I will make sure you make up for this later, my adorable little brother.”

I don’t want to remember what happened after that, so I’ll keep it quick.

My sister jumped out in front and caught it in her slender arms.

Caught what, you ask?

The falling floating continent, of course.

By the way, after the floating continent fell in the ocean (or was thrown there by my older sister), it initially spread fear and confusion through Yokohama, but the realization that it contained the Golden City caused a different sort of panic and mania.

And I went to a convenient buyer of gold: my little sister’s casino.

“Oh, Onii-chan. Have you checked the gold market today? Thanks to that Golden City, the price has plummeted.”

“Eh?”

“Thanks for your business. Looks like you have a long way to go before you pay off your debts.”

“Are you kidding me!? I really did risk my life on that adventure. Even if it was only a sibling rivalry!”

“This isn’t great news for me either, so I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”

My bunny girl sister sounded exasperated and I felt a soft warmth embracing me from behind.

But it was not the translucent demon.

For some reason, the arrogant succubus was staying hidden. Which left only one option.

“Hello, my adorable little brother. Your gentle, kind, and busty big sister is here to make sure you make up for what you did.”

“Wahhh!? Do I never get a chance to rest!?”

“I’ll make us some bentos, so I’d like to enjoy a nice relaxing picnic outside. Let’s shut off all our phones and forget all about the Board of Directors, the Student Council, and all that management work.”

“Hey, no fair!” said Anna. “I’m hurting from the crashing gold market too. A lot of my best customers are staying home because they lost a lot of money, so he owes me something too. I can go with you two, right? Right, right!?”

The vampire placed a hand on her chin and breathed a quiet sigh as she observed the commotion from a short distance away.

“Hmm.”

Then came the day of the picnic.

I was really in no position to be doing something like this, but if I didn’t “make up for” my mistake, it was clear they would make me regret it using both money and violence.

It was a sunny day. A green hill sat below a blue sky. Time seemed to slow to a crawl just by walking a bit out from Yokohama. …Of course, that was only if you were strong enough to deal with the animals and monsters out here.

When my older sister opened the picnic basket on the cloth she had laid out, Heartphilia said something.

I frowned.

“An official request?”

“Yes. It occurred to me when we were visiting that floating continent and the ship felt so much bigger and closer.” The vampire gave an exaggerated nod in the shade of her flying parasol made from raven feathers. “Could you use that same method to take me to that ship? I can reward you with what is on the ship. Diamonds, platinum…you name it. I could even give you minerals and jewels not found anywhere on this planet. I just have to share little enough that it won’t drive down the price, right?”

“I think that’s easier said than done.”

“That vampire has to count on her fingers, so I wonder if she can actually calculate out your reward,” added the succubus.

“Then you can just take whatever you want from the ship! Hmph!”

I looked up into the sky.

Like always, the assault landing spaceship was floating there like the moon.

“Reaching the assault landing spaceship would be a lot harder than the Floating Continent. The sky and space are entirely different things! How am I supposed to reach that?”

“What does your demon have to say?”

“It would be possible,” said the demon in question. “It’s never been done before, but with some help from his monster of a big sister…”

“See!?”

“Why do you have to be so perfect!?”

There were some things you didn’t want to do even if you could. Didn’t I get a say!?

Meanwhile, Anna cheerfully pulled out a blueberry and cream sandwich (or would you call that a kind of dessert?).

“But, Onii-chan, what are you going to do about your debt? And your N High School credit? With the best customers away, you won’t get any good info from my casino.”

“Kh!”

“I guess you’ll have to switch to a different extracurricular and come wear a bunny suit at my casino.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions!”

“Eh? Eh?” said our older sister. “But if you do that, I’d become your best-paying regular just to see my adorable little brother! I’d visit every day and hog him all to myself!!”

“I do not run that kind of establishment!”

My sisters’ fantasies were reaching dangerous territory, so I had to change the subject before they tried to make it a reality.

I faced the translucent demon.

“You shouldn’t make promises we aren’t prepared to keep. How exactly do you propose we do that? Surely you aren’t suggesting we build a rocket or shuttle from scratch in this era.”

“I’m not that delusional. Okay, first let’s set aside the question of survivability.”

“I’d really prefer that be priority #1!!”

“I’m just leaving it until later because it’ll be easy to solve. Now, what would be the best location? Mount Rokkou? Lake Kawaguchi? Korakuen? No, I think Urayasu would be best. It’s closer and has the necessary facilities.”

“Wait, don’t tell me…”

“We want a roller coaster.” The succubus winked at me. “It’s the same idea used to run up the side of Yokohama’s viewing tower. We’ll use a structure that provides more distance to build up speed. With the support of your monstrous older sister’s magic, you can blast yourself into orbit while using any excess resources for life support and trajectory calculations. Although that last part will probably mostly rely on Heartphilia.”

“A human-powered mass driver!? Are you insane!?”

I felt dizzy.

Common sense had clearly collapsed along with civilization.

“But.”

Things seemed to be coming together, but a worrying thought occurred to me.

“Should we really give that vampire what she wants?”

“You can’t watch over her 24/7 and hold her while you sleep forever, can you? She’s immortal, so you would have to look after her until the day you die.”

“Ugh.”

“You have to let her go eventually and wouldn’t it be best to do so peacefully?”

“Yeah, but…”

I looked up into the blue sky and at what floated there.

“Should we really send her to that assault landing spaceship?”

It was like the sun or the moon.

Whether you wanted to or not, it was big enough to see it wherever you were.

But didn’t that mean it was watching over every part of the earth? I didn’t know how accurate it was, but what happened if it fired down on the planet? We would be defenseless. Couldn’t it wipe cities and countries off the map?

The assault landing spaceship had never done anything before.

Everyone used that fact as a guarantee it never would.

But what if someone reached for it, arrived there, got inside, and activated its systems?

That guarantee would go up in a puff of smoke.

Even if she claimed to be its owner, could we really just give it back to her?

In fact.

If we could reach it, wouldn’t it be better for everyone if we dropped it into the ocean to entomb it in the watery depths?

No matter what anyone might be planning, we knew where to go next.

Urayasu.

The ruins of the old amusement park.

Specifically, the roller coaster that could be used as a magic mass driver.

“That’s a pretty long trip from Yokohama,” explained my older sister. “We might be able to find water, but we need plenty of portable food. But we don’t want to weigh ourselves down with anything too bulky, so let’s avoid canned foods. It might not taste good, but dried foods is the way to go.”

When buying this much, we couldn’t use the convenient Soaring Birds. We had to walk around the market ourselves.

The crowded stone-paved road was surrounded by open air shops. A lot of people here carried swords or spears, charms and crystals were for sale, and my little sister was walking along with us in her bunny girl outfit, so you could really tell how much times had changed.

My older sister (despite being Headmaster of N High School) seemed to have nothing at all to do (well, not really, so the busty black-haired Student Council President was probably in tears), so she had no issue with joining us. Of course, we needed her as a human magic booster, so we would’ve been in trouble had she backed out.

Also, she was about the most powerful ally you could have. On the other hand, you never knew when she would go nuts and attack you.

“I miss when we could ride a train there real quick. It takes days now. But it’s not like we’ll be crossing a deserted wasteland the entire way. There’s Yurakucho, Ueno, and I’m sure there are small villages left in the Tokyo area, so we should be able to resupply between trips through hell.”

That came from my bunny little sister. She apparently planned to leave Yokohama dressed like that. With the price of gold crashing (thanks to me), she was searching for the next hot commodity.

With the internet segmented between towns, gathering information was dangerous work. Any cables buried outside the walls would be dug up by monsters and you rarely saw the Soaring Birds outside the city. Maybe it was an issue of signal range.

“Hey, vampire,” said the succubus. “I know you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the kanji and prices on signs here, but zone out and we’ll leave you behind.”

“Not to worry! Because I am their client!! And the client is god! Hwahah!”

Where had she learned that phrase?

Anyway, we had gone to the market in the old Chinatown to gather supplies. Shops set up in tents were found both inside and outside the ruined buildings. Some of the shopkeepers had to be N High School students working on a merchant-related class, but it was hard to tell who they were since I had only interacted with their avatars. That said, all of the products looked sketchy and like there was a story behind them. The labelled prices might as well not have existed. It always came down to haggling with the old guy running the shop, so no one paid them any heed.

“But I do want some proper food. Maybe something from Gen-san or Kimura’s place? Where are their tents set up?”

“Someone at the casino said Gen-san was beat up by the vigilantes. They found out he was making mayonnaise by filtering the waste oil from the drain.”

“Ugweh!?”

I doubled over and produced a rather disgusting sound, but please forgive me.

Meanwhile, my older sister remained carefree.

“That’s what you get for eating premade processed foods. It might say ‘hamburger beef’ on the ingredients list, but you can’t trust that. But if you gather the original ingredients yourself, you know what you’re getting.”

“Like flour?”

“You need to go back to the wheat. Crush it into a powder yourself and there’s almost no chance there’s anything else in there.”

You have to go that far back?

And even that’s only “almost” no chance? Well, I guess you could crush some as a sample and put it in a centrifuge to test for agrochemicals.

Also, how dangerous a life had I been living without realizing it?

By the way, the dried portable foods were generally dried meat, dried fish, dried fruit, or carbs like cookies or biscuits.

That might not sound like a great dinner, but it was meant as a last resort. You had to think of it as better than a single chocolate bar when trapped on a snowy mountain.

We could usually manage by hunting birds, fish, and other animals on the road. But that didn’t always work out, so you needed a backup plan.

“Meat and fish are a must, but I’d like a big drum and some cherry blossom chips if we can find some for cheap. Smoking meat is faster than drying it in the sun. But if that doesn’t work, we’ll have to gather stones and build a stove.”

“Onii-chan, do you understand what she’s saying?”

“Why are we living a survival lifestyle in the city? Does our big sister think we’re camping out on a desert island?”

We let that big sister come up with a plan while we went around searching through the junk. Trying to find a bargain could be fun, but our lives were on the line this time.

The bargain this time turned out to be a thick disaster prevention manual from the former age. It provided travel routes for people who could not return home, so it would tell us what areas to watch out for on the way to Urayasu.

Of course, the disaster specialist who wrote it could never have imagined someone using it in an age when dragons and griffons were walking around.

“So what would be the best way of getting from Yokohama to Urayasu, Onii-chan? Following the remains of the 357 or heading north along what’s left of the railroad?”

“The old coastal roads are flooded in a lot of places and you find a lot of cyclopes and hydras with a taste for humans around there. But the stations along the railroad have been transformed into something like toll gates. They’ll try to take you for everything you’re worth if you want to get through. Since Urayasu is our goal, we might be able to take a boat across the ocean.”

“That’s fine, but the floating Ocean International is basically run by pirates after they tried to expand their rights. I know it can’t be easy getting by without any farming or livestock, but it’s a real pain.”

None of the options sounded especially good.

Heartphilia had looked interested in all the different products for sale, but she must have gotten bored with it. She was immortal and could get by as long as she had human blood to drink, so survival goods must not have seemed very valuable to her.

“Is that everything?” she asked.

“Yes, for now. Okay, let’s head back home and smoke the fish and pork. To smoke it right, we need to give it about 8 hours.”

“There’s more!?”

Heartphilia complained, but then my little sister Anna interrupted.

“Calm down. If you’re bored, how about you help me cook some biscuits? There will be plenty to do.”

“I am not a cook!”

“Eh? But doesn’t the title of chef have a nice ring to it?”

They continued their discussion as we started to leave the market in the old Chinatown.

Then something cut by in front of us.

It was too big to be a butterfly or moth, but it was too small to be a pigeon or crow.

“A bat?”

“!?”

Heartphilia tensed up more than any of us.

Then a dark screen covered the scene before my eyes.

At first I thought it was a sandstorm like the ones you saw around Tottori. Something blocked the sunlight and it grew as dark as sunset.

That was how many there were and how densely they were packed into this space.

“Don’t let them bite you! These are a vampire’s bodily extension just like my feathers. If they sink their fangs into you, they’ll suck out all your blood!!”

How were we supposed to do anything about it? I tugged on Anna’s hand since she was closest and tried to toss her into a nearby building.

But someone took an extraordinary action before I could.

It was our berserker of an older sister.

“Explosion.”

She spoke that one word.

And she formed a symbol with her left index finger.

That was enough to blow away the spiral of bats trying to reach her and the little sister behind me.

Thousands or tens of thousands of bats rushed in to fill the space this had cleared, but…

“Interception + Scatter.”

She only moved her lips and her left hand.

They were blown away. They were torn apart and scattered. They were like summer insects flying into a fire. Or like a swarm of bugs gathering around a bug zapper set up there to kill them. I almost felt sorry for that great threat.

No matter how densely the bats gathered together, they could not harm either of my sisters.

The thousands or tens of thousands of assassins were obliterated without even leaving ashes behind.

“Tch!!”

I heard a loud tongue click.

And the remaining spiral of bats cleared up. The person must have realized my older sister was an inhuman monster and this would get them nowhere.

A tall woman stood in the center of the panicked road. She did have some nice curves, but she was so tall she still looked slender.

“Human, you have my respect for doing damage to Dark Lady Harisdalea, ruler of everything from the seasons to menstruation. You are well worth making one of my own.”

“Flame + Freezing + Blast + Stone + Tree + Gravity + Multiplier + Thunder + Light + Darkness.”

“Eh? Wh-what is that strange light gathering around your left ha-…”

“And altogether, that goes kaboom!!”

My older sister did not even let the woman finish speaking.

The noise passed the limits of my eardrums.

The light passed the limits of my retinas.

And once it had all cleared, all that remained was what’s-her-name the vampire curled up in a corner of the road and trembling.

…And hadn’t she said something embarrassing about menstruation?

“The scariest part is how she can do all that without doing any damage to her surroundings. The destruction was entirely contained to this 1 meter square.”

Even my navigator succubus was shocked.

When up against that sister, it wasn’t about winning or losing. It was about finding a way to avoid fighting her at all costs.

“Kh, but don’t think you have won. We vampires have deeply infiltrated the political and economic worlds and we can have human society do our bidding. Puny human power is no more than the power of groups and everyone knows what happens to a sheep that strays from the flock. Tremble in fear as you find yourself all alone in this wide wor-…”

“Okay, let’s continue this discussion in that abandoned building over there. I don’t want my cute little sister or adorable little brother seeing this.”

“Seeing what!? Um, wait! I’ll be done talking soon!!”

It was obvious who was in control here.

The tall and slender vampire trembled tearfully as she continued.

“Uh, this is about Miss Heartphilia Lags Coldblood over here.”

“What about me?”

“We cannot have you returning there.”

Oh, right her name was Harisdalea. Anyway, she pointed up into the sky.

“Or rather, we cannot allow this planet’s lifeforms to reach outer space.”

“What do you mean?”

Was this about more than just vampires? They weren’t just fighting over what they did with the assault landing spaceship?

Harisdalea fidgeted and repeatedly poked her index fingers together in front of her chest as she answered.

“Why do you think monster appeared on the earth in the first place?”

“That sure would be nice to know.”

“Well, um, that is because this planet was designed a final dumping ground for dangerous lifeforms.”

“The evolution of life goes back 3.5 billion years.

“Or does it?

“When you view the genealogy of lifeforms, you will find some areas that cannot possibly be explained by the repetition of natural evolution.

“In other words, you will find missing links.

“Mutations caused by viruses or radiation?

“No, no. Can’t you think of a much simpler explanation?

“Yes.

“They were brought from elsewhere and abandoned in the cage of gravity known as earth.

“Even we wish to avoid extinction if at all possible. No matter how troublesome a lifeform we are talking about. But we do not want them anywhere nearby either. A sample needs to remain, but we cannot have them covering the land either. Lifeforms of that sort were gathered on the solar system’s third planet. In other words, earth.

“The monsters?

“Yes, we brought them here and dumped them here. That is how the system works after all. I couldn’t tell you why there are so many of them, but we needed to send them away from us while keeping their numbers at the bare minimum for scientific purposes. Think of it like a zoo or a nature park. The strange buildings and ruins that appeared are, well, something like the playground equipment in a zoo’s monkey enclosure.

“We do feel bad about it.

“But this was for the good of the world. And I mean the broader world beyond this one undeveloped planet.

“We cannot have you reaching outer space.

“No one wants that.

“We went to so much trouble gathering these dangerous lifeforms and closing them in an inescapable cage of gravity, so we can’t have you constructing a means of escape for them.

“That is why we are always observing you.

“The Sputnik and Apollo projects were especially worrying.

“You could say they were what triggered the green light for the Collapse of N. Although it took some time to actually execute it because we had to wait until the time was just right and set everything up perfectly to keep ourselves safe and free of responsibility.

“That is the truth of the matter.

“We cannot have you reaching outer space.

“And we certainly cannot have her regaining administrative privileges over the mothership that gives us authority over the surface!

“Do you understand now? If so, I hope you will make the wise decision!!”

After hearing her out, I decided to rely on someone else.

“Get her, Nee-san.”

“Yes, of course. Okay, come with me to the back alley from hell, will you? I can acquire special tools almost instantly using the Soaring Birds. By the way, do you prefer eye drops or ear picks?”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!! You aren’t making any sense. Why don’t you understand just how logical it is to keep those ferocious lifeforms from escaping their cage!?”

“Because you surrounded our yard with a fence and dumped lions and tigers inside! How do you think it feels having to live with those things!? If that’s how you do things, then it’s time you got your ass kicked by the monster of a sister this planet created!!”

“Hee hee. My adorable little brother? We need to talk once this is over.”

I had a thought while watching Harisdalea dragged away by my older sister.

“Um, if you can just dump them on earth, does that mean the other planets have a similar environment?”

“Heh. Do not assume the broader world we speak of can be explained in terms of three-dimensional space. Spread the wings of possibility and imagination and start thinking about parallel worl-…”

“Nee-san.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll explain everything, so please wait!”

And just as she started sobbing, something else arrived.

“?”

At first, it resembled the mooing of a cow or neighing of a horse.

Then it transformed into an impact powerful enough to break through a nearby brick wall.

I flinched back from the loud boom. Small shards of brick hit my cheek, producing a sharp pain.

It was obvious what had caused this destruction.

“That cart’s…dragon!?”

“No, it’s more than that,” warned the succubus. “Look around you. All around you!”

Electricity and gas were limited in Yokohama, so there were a fair number of tamed monsters. Small dragons, griffons, and unicorns were used to pull carts. Arachnes and lamias climbed the walls as cleaners and wyverns flew through the air for express deliveries.

There was no sign of that now.

At first, the surprised people began booing the cart driver, but things changed when they saw the driver shaking their head.

This was not just a simple mistake.

Had something happened to send the tamed and harmless monsters out of control!?

“Crap!”

“Outta the way! I’m getting inside that sturdy building!”

“Don’t push!!”

The panic spread in no time. The division between sidewalk and road vanished as the crowd filled everything. All while several monsters went on a rampage.

“…”

The look in my older sister’s eyes changed as she effortlessly protected my little sister behind her.

But…

“Wait, Nee-san!”

My shout created a moment of hesitation.

Her power was incredible, but it was a little too incredible. This was the same reason the armies of the old age had not been used to resolve issues within their country’s borders. This was not just a vampire. The rampaging dragon and the cart driver were part of Yokohama. If she used that method, she would become a symbol of fear.

After all, she was Yokohama’s god of war.

During that moment of indecision, both my sisters were swallowed up by the crowd. The most I could manage was to grab the small vampire’s hand.

“That Harisdalea person is gone,” whispered the translucent demon clinging to my back. “She or someone on her side scattered something. Maybe pepper or chili peppers. The monsters have sensitive eyes and noses, so wasn’t there a string of assassinations using irritants like that to have the monsters go on a rampage and kill the cart driver or a pedestrian?”

“Oh, those attacks that were like hacking a self-driving car.”

That comparison might make it sound new, but horses could be surprisingly delicate and getting them to throw a VIP from their back was a very old method. I know all about things like that because my history teacher has a tendency to get sidetracked in class.

Heartphilia did not seem satisfied with that explanation.

“Would she really have set up insurance like that? To be honest, she didn’t seem all that smart.”

“She probably had a smarter partner working with her. She did say they had infiltrated human society.”

“A partner, huh?”

Even in the noisy crowd, Heartphilia managed to sound forlorn.

Yes, the other vampires like Harisdalea had refused to let her return to that ship floating in the sky.

She was still a dangerous vampire. I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to let her regain administrative privileges over that assault landing spaceship.

But I couldn’t bring myself to laugh at her.

Even when I saw her hanging her head with a look close to laughter in her eyes.

I decided to change the subject. In order to focus on the immediate present instead of the distant future.

“Look up above.”

“At my assault landing spaceship, you mean?”

“No. Only the express delivery wyverns are acting normally. The irritant must have been scattered on the surface, so it didn’t affect the wyverns in the sky. Also…”

I waved the hand not holding Heartphilia’s hand.

“Look at my hand. If this was a simple accident, no one would have slashed me with a knife while walking past.”

“Wait! Offering!?”

“Don’t worry. Their lack of skill is pretty obvious when they couldn’t finish me off when they had the element of surprise. There wasn’t any poison on the blade, so even if they are the intellectual type, this may not be their specialty.”

But this did tell us something.

The enemy was not after the vampire who wanted the assault landing spaceship. They were after me. Or maybe they had categorized me as an ultra-dangerous person because I could control Heartphilia through the blood contract.

“But they might not give up after this one attack,” said the succubus. “Once they realize you’re still alive, they will make a U-turn with knife in hand.”

“I know. So let’s get going, Heartphilia. We need to get out of here!”

“W-wait, offering. What about your sisters?”

“Anna has our older sister with her. She hesitated earlier, but if her family is in danger, that sister will destroy the world if need be. It won’t be an issue!”

Part of the reason I wanted to stay away from her was so she wouldn’t see my wound.

At any rate, I worked my way through the crowd while holding the vampire’s hand. If I didn’t hold my ground, it felt like I would be at the mercy of the crowd.

Things were pretty bad everywhere I looked.

Carts were flipped over and old walls of concrete and new walls of brick had been smashed. I could hear screams, shouts, and sobs from all over. And the humans were not the only ones shedding blood. I saw one dragon fallen on its side and waving its head around after hurting its leg in its rampage.

Just a pinch of spices had caused enough chaos for Harisdalea to escape.

The efficiency might be impressive, but it was not a pleasant scene.

Not even a little bit.

“Pant, pant! Where are we going!? To that stone tower!?”

“The old buildings will be crammed full of people by now. The knife user can swim this sea of people, so we won’t be safe there.”

And it was all over if they decided to change tack and just send a bunch of large monsters in our general direction. A direct hit would of course be bad, but I didn’t want to think about how many people would be hurt if a crowd like this was knocked down like dominos.

Which meant…

“We need to get rid of that sea of people. We can reduce the threat level by escaping to somewhere deserted!”

We crossed a small bridge and arrived at a river with its banks reinforced by walls of cracked concrete. There wasn’t a nice rocky shore since it was situated a step lower than the surrounding area, but some sort of maintenance walkway did run along the edge.

And it led into a tunnel.

The river water flowed below a road there.

“A culvert, huh?”

“Not a bad idea,” said the succubus.

“As a resident of the night, I would prefer a more elegant form of darkness!” protested Heartphilia.

There was no time to argue.

We slid down the steep concrete slope and into the river. We followed the walkway along the edge and ran inside the underground waterway known as a culvert.

Back to Illustrations

Return to Main Page

Forward to Part 2