Ulrike. That was what Yukinari normally called her, but it was only the name of the “terminal” girl; behind her was a plant-god. Specifically, Rostruch’s erdgod, Yggdra. Because Yggdra’s main body couldn’t move from where she was, Ulrike had come to Friedland as something like her representative.
“You look rather tired. Did something happen in Friedland?”
Ulrike hadn’t gone to the Schillings residence. Yukinari had asked her to keep an eye on the sanctuary while he was gone. Incidentally, there were plans to build a sanctuary for Yggdra’s representative next to Yukinari’s own residence, but since the defense of the town was being prioritized, the construction of Ulrike’s sanctuary had hardly begun, and for the time being she lived in Yukinari’s building.
“It’s the... the girl from the missionary knights. I didn’t manage to interrogate her...”
“You weren’t able?”
“Well, uh... How do I put this?” Yukinari tried to find the right words, but couldn’t think of a good way of saying it, so he decided to be blunt. “This woman is... I don’t know if you could call her a pervert. She’s got strange preferences. She enjoys being hit, so you can’t really intimidate her. Even torture probably wouldn’t be very effective.”
“Oh-ho,” Ulrike said with interest. And then...
“...Yuki.”
“Lord Yukinari.”
Dasa and Berta, apparently having finished changing clothes, entered the living area.
“What’s... wrong?”
“Oh, uh, nothing. We’re just talking about Angela again,” Yukinari said, scratching his cheek.
“Yukinari was telling me how she derives pleasure from being hit, so he’s unable to interrogate her,” Ulrike said. Then she cocked her head quizzically. “Perhaps I could turn her into a familiar?”
“Huh...?”
“We begin by killing her,” Ulrike said, with a complacent smile that made her look as innocent as a little bird. “Then, before the body rots, I place a seed—or more properly, a sprout—in it. Actually, she needn’t be killed. I can do it while she’s still alive. At any rate, it would turn her into one of my familiars, and I could control her. Her memories would remain largely intact, so I could make her tell you everything you wanted to know.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait,” Yukinari said a bit frantically.
Ulrike, or rather Yggdra, was unusually warmhearted for an erdgod; she wasn’t given to the brutality of attacking or killing people. Still, she wasn’t human. She was, ultimately, a plant. She sometimes had a very different way of thinking from Yukinari, and was capable of nonchalantly saying things whose morality Yukinari would seriously have questioned.
“I don’t want to kill her.”
“No?” Ulrike blinked, perplexed. “I believed it was rather a good suggestion.”
“I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a way to get the information from her...”
Sometimes combat ended in death; that was unavoidable. But Yukinari hesitated to kill someone who wasn’t resisting. Angela would no doubt have laughed and reminded him of the slaughter of Church people he had committed in the capital. But he had been in a frenzy then, and now, with cold hindsight, he felt a certain guilt for it—and that was why he wanted to avoid death as much as possible, even the death of those associated with the Church.
“In that case,” Ulrike said, “the opposite would also be a possibility.”
“How do you mean, the opposite?”
“You say she takes pleasure in pain and torment? Then help her to enjoy herself.”
Again, her expression was all innocence. But she seemed to be thinking along slightly inhuman lines, a somewhat alien set of values.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Hit her, punch her, kick her. Perhaps break a finger or two. Cut off an ear. Hmm... What other ways are there to torture a human...?” Ulrike pondered for a moment. “Ah, rape! Yes, rape. If you raped her, would this not give her the greatest pleasure, on which account she might obey you? It would be what you humans call a win-win. A fine idea.”
“No, I really don’t think—”
“Or do you mean that this Angela girl is not to your own liking, Yukinari? It is my understanding that human males require emotional stimulation in order to pollinate a female.”
Yukinari could only put his head in his hands.
It was all too obvious that Yggdra wasn’t human. She wasn’t even an animal; and her way of thinking allowed her to tread with a smile on ground that humans would consider taboo. Even her use of the word “pollinate” was a sign of how different her views of sex were from most people’s. And the total lack of malice on her part made it difficult to decide how to respond.
I guess maybe plants aren’t big on morality, Yukinari thought.
The sexual behavior of plants, i.e. pollination, was typically not something that happened one-on-one, nor were plants able to freely choose their partners. That choice was made by the wind or by insects, without any deliberate action on the part of the plant.
Of course, by turning humans into familiars, Yggdra gained some notion of the human concept of sex and all that was associated with it, but the erdgod lacked any visceral understanding of it. But still...
“U-Um, Lord Yukinari...?” Berta, who had been quiet until then, spoke up as though she had just thought of something.
“Hm? What’s up? Something bothering you?” Yukinari turned to her like she was holding out a hand to help him out of a terrible swamp.
“Um, there’s... something I want to ask you, Lord Yukinari,” she said, all hesitation.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Lord Yukinari......... Ahem.” She looked down at her knees for a moment. “Are we not to your preferences, Lord Yukinari...?”
“Say what?”
“I mean, your... your desires!” There was an unusual edge to her voice, a sense that she was resolved to this—there was a decisiveness in her tone that was very uncharacteristic of her. Perhaps she had had to work herself up to saying this, because immediately after, she flushed red and looked at the ground.
“Is this about what we were talking about at the Schillings place?” Yukinari sighed.
True, the subject had come up, but Yukinari had passed it off lightly, as though it were a joke. But Berta, it seemed, hadn’t been able to accept that. He hadn’t expected it to come back to haunt him like this. And then...
“Who’s... ‘we’? Does it in...clude me?” Dasa asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes. Us. All of us.”
“That’s surprising. I’m very much within Yuki’s preferences,” Dasa said. “He likes girls with glasses... and silver hair... I think.”
“Hey, wait. Don’t put words in my mouth,” Yukinari said.
“Am I... wrong...?”
The look Dasa gave him brought him up short.