I’ve lost everything. All of it, gone.
Danna Ryl sat slumped on the throne in her audience chamber, waiting for it all to end. Confronted with the sight of their stalwart gatekeeper so brutally stricken from the sky, the residents of Kuravanuluox had lost all will to fight and had unconditionally surrendered, leaving the road to the tower open to the invaders from the Forbidden Land.
They will be here soon, I suppose.
She was prepared for the fact that their arrival meant her death. But─
“Mother! Mother!”
How terribly ironic that the voice announcing her demise should be that of her other half, whom she had spent ten long years raising with such tenderness.
“Mother, Utsuwa is here! Utsuwa has come back!”
The girl raced to her and clung to her bosom. Danna Ryl was bewildered, and, unable to bear the unpleasant feelings rising inside her, she roughly pushed Utsuwa away.
“Why are you here? Why have you come? Do you mean to consume me before the masses as I intended to consume you?”
“N-No…! Utsuwa has come here to persuade you.”
“To persuade me…?”
“Yes!” Even under these circumstances, the girlish sparkle in Utsuwa’s eyes was almost blinding.
The invaders stood behind Utsuwa. It seemed so long ago they had first come to Danna Ryl as a diplomatic delegation, standing respectfully before her in this very audience chamber.
“Please listen, Mother. The people adore you. They all want you to stay Keybinder forever… And the people from the Forbidden Land all say the same thing! The thing is, Utsuwa wants to be useful, too, as Utsuwa…”
Ah, so that’s their game.
They need her.
In order to take control of this beautiful city, these invaders from the Forbidden Land mean to elevate my other half as a means of maintaining continuity with the old order. With the support of the Forbidden Land, Utsuwa will take charge of all manner of goods and commodities, while I will shoulder the task of sharing with the people the clemency I’ve received.
Oh, how enviable.
Danna Ryl reached out a gentle hand to Utsuwa’s cheek. Her skin was so smooth, her eyes so bright.
“Do you still love your mother, Utsuwa?”
“Y…Yes! Utsuwa loves Mother! Utsuwa should have just come and talked to you, but I was so scared, and ran away… Utsuwa is sorry. For bringing such shame on you─it’s bothered me so…!”
“Enough of that now, it’s all right. Ahh─Utsuwa. Come here. There is something I wish to tell you.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Utsuwa did as she was told, and Danna Ryl hugged her close again, then whispered in her ear, “If you love me, you’ll stay quiet about this, won’t you?”
“─Huh?”
Danna Ryl touched her horn lightly to Utsuwa’s. The rite required no grand incantations or complex procedures to be carried out. All that was necessary for the exchange of bodies was for their horns to touch.
Now Danna Ryl’s soul was in Utsuwa’s young body.
Finding herself suddenly in an adult’s frame, Utsuwa was stunned into silence, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Danna Ryl shoved her old self away and, from Utsuwa’s own lips, cried out, “Mother just tried to take Utsuwa’s body! Oh, how awful! Hurry up and execute her!” Even as she said this, she grabbed the horn of her old body and, mustering all her strength, snapped it off.
With no horn, our souls can never be switched again. Utsuwa’s body is mine…and so is her place in this world. Danna Ryl ran joyfully over to the invaders from the Forbidden Land─or rather, to her new guardians.
But no one rushed to protect her. In fact, Har Bell leapt up onto the dais and pulled Utsuwa close as she sat there stunned in Danna Ryl’s former body.
“Lady Utsuwa! Are you hurt?!” Har Bell addressed the girl by name, without confusion or hesitation.
A vexed sigh from behind made Danna Ryl’s heart sink, and she turned back to see an extravagantly dressed girl with long blond hair glaring at her in contempt.
“I did expect a certain degree of pointless struggle from thee, but even I had not reckoned with anything this unsightly… One can hardly believe you two bear halves of the same soul.”
“Wh-What do you mean… Utsuwa is Utsuwa…! Look, Mother isn’t even saying anything, because she can’t deny that she’s Danna Ryl!”
“Not one of us present would ever mistake thy foul, unclean soul for young Utsuwa’s pure, clear, unsullied one.”
Her cold gaze was like a dagger to Danna Ryl’s heart. Her eyes brimmed with tears and, feeling as if she couldn’t bear to remain there any longer, she took off running.
“Hey, you know we can’t just let you get away!” The girl with the antlers caught her by the arm and pulled her back.
“O-Oww…! Let go of me!” Danny Ryl cried out in genuine pain. Usually that would be enough, but the grip on her arm only became tighter and tighter. “Why are you doing such horrible things?! I haven’t done anything! You’re the ones who started all this! All I asked was for you to hand over those traitors! I simply wanted to pass judgment in accordance with the law!”
“And you never thought for a second that your law might be wrong to begin with?!”
“Why would I doubt the law when there has never been any problem with it?! Aah, Har Bell─! None of this would ever have happened if you hadn’t gone to the Forbidden Land!”
Har Bell let out an exasperated sigh, and Danna Ryl flushed crimson at the outrageous humiliation of it all.
“You know all too well that this world would have ceased to function because of the mana shortage if I hadn’t gone to the Forbidden Land,” Har said. “The Exinov might’ve staved off the inevitable for a little while by consuming the Nurabehn, but what were you planning to do after that? Start eating each other?”
“We should have farmed the Nurabehn as Zaza Ryl advised!”
“I’m sure this was never of much concern to you Exinov, but the Ignas’s birthrate has plummeted in recent years. I learned about the mechanism behind it all in the Forbidden Land, and now I understand. See, the dilution of beast souls over the course of generations means an increase in the number of Nurabehn born to the Ignas, which would eventually lead to a large-scale uprising.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know! I don’t want to hear anything you have to say! I don’t want to listen to any more of this!” Danna Ryl screamed like a child, her tantrum all the more convincingly childish for the fact that she was in the body of a ten-year-old girl.
It was Utsuwa who finally broke the silence that settled in once Danna Ryl’s cries had subsided. “Please, let Mother leave if she wants to.”
“Huh?! Lady Utsuwa, what do you…?!”
Utsuwa smiled gently at the incredulous Har Bell. “Mother has led our people for centuries, which left her with little freedom. She must be very tired. Utsuwa will give her body to Mother so she can go and be free. And Utsuwa will do her best to take care of all of Mother’s rightful tasks.”
The young woman holding Danna Ryl’s arm looked around at the others, then loosened her grip with a sigh. Not wanting to be there for even one more second, Danna Ryl dashed off, practically tripping over her own feet as she fled the tower.
Ahh─how long has it been since I left that place? Was the sky always this vast, this blue, this deep─?
“Somewhere, anywhere, some place far away…! Where nobody knows me…!”
She ran on, wanting only to escape.