“I’ll give you a clue to help you solve the mystery of the fog…”
“No thanks.”
Alsuhariya’s arms remained outstretched as her expression stiffened. She slowly lowered her arms, walked around me restlessly, then looked into my face.
“I said I’ll give you a clue—”
“Get lost.”
Alsuhariya gave up and sat down next to me.
“Don’t hate me. You and I are the same. We’re both here to destroy yuri girls—Hey, stop that! I’m just kidding! Don’t push me with your foot! Stop slowly scaring me as you push me off this gate!!”
She let out a sigh of relief when I reluctantly forgave her.
“Okay, then we’ll try an approach from another angle.”
Alsuhariya extended her index finger in a neat, straight line.
“I’ll give you power.”
I looked at her. The corners of her mouth curved upward.
“The Magic Eye.”
I opened my eyes wide.
“Are you going to open it?”
“I know everything about you inside out. I also understand the mechanism behind opening the Magic Eye. However, because we’d be forcing it open, the burden on your body is impossible to tell, and you may not be able to handle it with your current state…but it will at least be a trump card for when you need it.”
The demon smiled as she made her offer, to which I smiled back and shook my head.
“No, I don’t think so. The only time I might need it would be if I had to confront Chris Esse Eisbert…but I won’t fight her. We’ll just remain hypothetical enemies.”
“I don’t know about that. An assumption is merely an assumption. Sometimes the flickering of reality can lead to unexpected outcomes.”
Alsuhariya’s eyes were so round that it looked as if she had jade embedded in them as she gazed at me from the depths of the abyss.
“The Hiiro I know would probably end up going sword to sword with her.”
“Uh-uh. I’m not interested in committing suicide. Now get lost. I’m trying to get some training, and you’re in my way.”
“Do as you please. I won’t interfere with your path. But if you change your mind, you can whisper in your ear, for I’m your wonderful partner and your one and only absolute ally.”
After shooing Alsuhariya away, I went back to thinking about the fog.
A wild bird was singing.
Its drawn-out cries echoed through the murky night. The ball of fire inside a lantern flickered in the cool breeze that blew through the trees, and the surface of the water where the light was projected seemed to tremble in response.
The rustic open-air rock bath was surrounded by rocks that had been polished to a rounded shape.
The crescent moon’s rays shone through the curtain of leaves. The moon and the lantern cast light onto the steam behind me, creating a pattern of light where natural and artificial light intersected.
Plop, a splash of water sounded.
Droplets of water flowed down her shoulders, colored a cherry blossom pink from the heat. Her hair, soaked in the hot water, spread out and drifted, as if reaching out to my elbow.
Blushing, Rei was blowing bubbles with half her face submerged in the hot water.
Back-to-back with her as she sat in the bath stark naked, I let out a breath through my wide-open mouth.
H-how had this happened? She had said, “After you,” and I was supposed to have taken a bath before she did. Wh-why had she joined me, naked, like she owned the place? In a yuri game world, a male like me shouldn’t be allowed to soak in a hot spring bath with a naked heroine, right?
I dipped my face in the hot water and proceeded to kill myself, but no matter how long I waited, I was not called to heaven. It appeared that Alsuhariya had created a layer of air on the surface of my face in an attempt to prolong my life.
Every inch of the demon was made of magic operators. By manipulating it any way she wanted, it was easy to perform simple magic, even without a magic device.
The troublesome thing about fighting a demon was the activation of such simple magic…but all I could say at this point was that I was unable to die because of Alsuhariya.
With no other choice, I raised my head.
The light was flickering leisurely behind the lantern.
Either my master or one of the holy archers must have lit it. The rays of the moon and the light from the lanterns were reflected on the surface of the murky hot water.
Plop. Below my line of sight, ripples hit my arm.
Out of a corner of my eye, I saw fine skin, and I felt the warmth of her shoulders brushing against mine.
“Hff… Hff… Hff…!”
Wide-eyed and sweating profusely, I cautiously took a glance at Rei.
Sh-she wasn’t having any weird thoughts, was she? N-nothing naughty was going to happen, right? Th-this was a yuri game. If…worse came to worst, the only thing left for me to do was to stop my heart so fast that Alsuhariya wouldn’t have time to react… But…could I manage that…? Oh, heck, I had to try it…!
“…Brother, dear.”
I jumped.
“Y-yeah, it’s me! Your brother! And you’re my sister! We’re siblings!!”
“Due to the circumstances of the Sanjo family, that’s how things are between us, but…we’re barely related by blood, and we’re distant relatives… Article 734 of the Civil Code prohibits marriage between direct blood relatives or collateral relatives within the third degree of kinship… Various obstacles stand in the way for a male and a female to get married, but… You and I can certainly tie the knot without any issues.”
“Hff, hff, hff, hff, hff, hff!!”
A faint line of tears formed in the corner of my eye.
Th-this girl had been looking into it. She didn’t have to, but she did. Was she studying civil law? Was she hoping to become a civil servant or something?
“I don’t want you to misunderstand, but this is just a part of us communicating as a family. It’s an accident that occurred because Astemir told me that no one was bathing. You’re the overly conscious one. In fact, I’m getting a hint of naughty thoughts wafting in the air, as if you’d been hoping for a chance to get physical with me.”
A chance to get physical with her? She’s making me sound like some idiot addicted to sex. The vocabulary she’s built by reading women’s manga has come so far that she can even sniff out power words.