by Yuu Kamiya
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This is a fairy tale from long in the past. More distant than the sea—
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. Her hair was so golden as to make the Moon jealous. Her eyes were so bright as to make the stars fade. Her voice was so sweet that it put songbirds to shame. Tales of her beauty resounded across the seven continents. Men came from all over the world to seek the princess’s hand in marriage.
The princess decreed:
“To the one who gives me the most wondrous gift—let me grant him my love.”
Many men came and presented her with dazzling gifts. Gold, silver, and gemstones were beneath mention. A hundred fiefdoms, a thousand castles, ten thousand servants—all were given to the princess.
But the princess was unmoved.
“Please, I would like something more lustrous. Something still more wondrous.”
More men came and presented her gifts without equal. Words of love matchless in the world were beneath mention. Secret treasures matchless on Earth and divine treasures matchless in Heaven were given to the princess.
But the princess was not satisfied. No beauty was beautiful to the princess. No love was surprising to the princess. No treasure was new to the princess.
—There was nothing in the world that could impress the princess. And still the princess insisted:
“Come—is there not something still more wondrous?”
—And then, one day, a certain prince came before the princess. This prince was different from any the princess had seen before. He was young and strapping, yet shabby in guise. It appeared that he had nothing—no treasure of any sort. But then the prince showed her a small, small treasure.
“Princess, let me present you with a treasure you have surely never seen.”
The treasure he held out was more wondrous and beautiful than anything in the world. The princess let out a breath of astonishment. She swore her love to the prince. And the treasure was—
……
“This is it! This is ‘true love’!” she cried, slamming shut the book in her hands. And so, seeking true love, she fell into a long sleep, waiting for the day when the man bringing that small treasure she’d heard of in the fairy tale would appear before her.
—Ignorant of what was to come.
What she had been reading was a fairy tale. But what she sought through sleep was no mere tale, no story. Long in the past, more distant than the sea, fully eight hundred years ago—
—It was a historical fact, one at which no Ixseed could help but stifle a laugh.
EASY START
Werebeast country—in the Eastern Union, on the outskirts of the capital, Kannagari, there was situated the mansion of Izuna Hatsuse, former ambassador of the Eastern Union in Elkia. Built of wood in a manner resembling the traditional Japanese residential style, in a room fragrant of fresh tatami floor mats woven of simple rice straw, amid stillness and darkness befitting the classical phrase, “The dead of the night, when even the trees and grass slumber,” a lone shadow moved.
“…Shiro, are you awake?”
The shadow bounced up from its futon and directed a quiet whisper to its neighbor.
…There was no reply, only the peaceful sounds of sleep. Hurriedly, but holding its breath so as to make no sound, the shadow rummaged by its pillow. Then, having grasped the contraband it sought, it withdrew stealthily to a corner of the room.
“Clear on the right, clear on the left—all clear, no one here but Shiro,” he whispered, manipulating what was clutched in his hands as his face emerged from the darkness.
A young man with black eyes, black hair, and dark circles under his eyes that ruined his physiognomy. Sora, eighteen. One of the two monarchs of Elkia, the last nation of Immanity. The monarch paid careful attention to his surroundings as, with a tablet computer in his left hand and a box of tissues in his right, he whispered loudly and proudly:
“I believe this is the opportunity—I shall finally be able to release my venom!!”
—He was a pervert. Were they to see their king as he was now, the people would surely cry Alas! as they wet their cheeks in sorrow. But withhold judgment, if you would. It had been over two months since he and his younger sister had been summoned to Disboard, a world where everything was decided by games. In the blink of an eye, he had ascended to the throne of the cornered human race of Immanity and had played countless killer games alongside his sister, Shiro—games in which they had overcome other races that flagrantly cheated using magic and supernatural powers. Then, they had reclaimed Immanity’s territory, going so far as to swallow up the third-largest nation in the world. He, Sora, had been in the thick of those games. He’d interacted any number of times with countless girls—not only humans, but an angel-girl, an elf-girl, and multiple animal-girls. At times during the games, or in the bath, they’d bared their flesh while he manfully tossed sand to obscure his vision and averted his eyes—and though meager vestiges of this Peach Blossom Spring were recorded on his tablet and smartphone, since his little sister was always by his side, until today he had never been able to…er, what’s the word? Partake! Would you dismiss such a man as a mere pervert?
—Yea, ladies, let it be said: You may despise him utterly. But, gentlemen, surely you can understand?! Thinking of the steel soul of this virgin lad of eighteen as he endured to the present day, can you hold back tears? Is it not rather worthy of respect, to have come this far? Yes, having come this far—is this not what one might call love? His young sister was one thing. But to protect the swarms of girls around him from his own impulses—this virtuous and honorable will—if not love, then what shall it be called?
…Is there room for argument—surely not! Well, probably not…I think.
“Call me a pervert if you will. I can’t take it anymore—no, this is a noble gesture!!”
Clutching his heroic resolve to his chest, Sora put his hands to his underpants, and—
“Uh, ummm…ex-excuse meee…”
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!”
Sora fell to the tatami with a girlish shriek at the voice that addressed him from behind. Three individuals responded to the shriek.
“…Brother…if you’re gonna do it, be quiet…”
Giving up on pretending to be asleep and rising, his sister with her red, half-open eyes under her long, pure white hair—Shiro.
“Mmf… Hey, look, plenty of assholes here already, please. Let me sleep with you bitches, please.”
A little Werebeast girl, her black-haired and animal-eared head peeping down from the attic—Izuna Hatsuse.
“Master, is there violence afoot? Shall I slay? Are there heads to be taken?!”
The Flügel girl appearing from thin air, a geometric halo floating above her head—Jibril.
Each of their three voices resounded with its own distinct meaning. Rolling on the tatami and fixing his underpants, Sora could not help but yell, “Doesn’t this world have the concept of privacy? Is mine being invaded or what?!”
Then, just as he zipped his fly—
“Wait—who the hell are you? How dare you peep on the sacred practices of a wise sage?!”
As Sora pointed and screamed, everyone finally seemed to notice, and their gazes collected upon a silhouette that sat as if melting into the darkness. A shadow in the dark room—so inconspicuous as to be unnatural.
“I say,” said Jibril as she illuminated the room with magical light from her fingertip and twisted her lips in displeasure. “One able to approach my master without my notice—what could it be but a Dhampir…?”
“A Dh-Dhampir?”
Thereupon, Sora and the rest looked back at the “shadow.”
Jibril’s illumination rendered just visible a girl in attire so black it seemed woven of night itself. She had blue hair, scintillating violet eyes, white fangs, and wings on her back like a bat’s. While she looked like a girl in her mid-teens in human terms, she was indeed the very model of the kind of vampire Sora and Shiro knew from fiction.
—Nosferatu, No Life King, nightwalker… Their countless aliases spoke to the dread they inspired—but in this girl’s case—
“I-I can’t go ooonn…Pleaaase…S-save…meee.”
—Her troubled face and thin-worn voice made short work of that dread.
“Stealthy and phantomlike as ever—unfortunately, while they have the ability to scurry about in the shadows, I happen to have a talent for casting rays of light…” Jibril continued with a sarcastic smile. “I thought you had finally put your talent to good use and quietly disappeared. It is my deepest regret to see this is not the case.”
“C-casually harsh as ever, Jibril.”
Even Sora winced at the insult directed at the girl, who seemed ready to stop breathing at any moment.
But Izuna, dropping silently from above, tilted her head and said, “Yeah, I heard from Grampy that Dhampir had died miserably, please.”
“…Huh?”
Jibril’s verbal abuse was simply a merciless expression of her true feelings. But Izuna had no malice and was simply using the wrong words. So that meant this was a race that should have been extinct—?
“…Ixseed…Rank Twelve…Dhampir…” Shiro explained, throwing a raft to the drifting Sora. Crawling off her futon, she recited the information she’d memorized. “…A race that survives…by sucking, blood—souls, from other…Ixseeds.”
But as Shiro continued—“…the Ten, Covenants…”—Sora grimaced a silent ah.
—The Ten Covenants: the absolutely binding laws that Tet, the One True God, had set forth in the world of Disboard. The First: “In this world, all bodily injury, war, and plunder is forbidden.” If you took that rule and applied it to the “vampires” Sora knew—in other words, a race that attacked and bit people—that injured them to suck their blood—
“Uh, so, what? That means—they can’t suck blood without permission?”
The girl’s silence, but for the slightest breath, confirmed Sora’s supposition.
…To Sora, who seemed convinced by the girl’s troubled expression, Jibril nodded.
“If I may add, Master, if one is bitten by a Dhampir—”
“You become a vampire, huh? Well, that’s par for the course.”
Which meant hardly anyone would give permission unless they wanted to be a vampire—
“…Come again? No. Well, that’s not the case.”
“Huh, what? Isn’t that how it goes?”
“Dhampirs suck one’s soul via one’s blood or other body fluids and develop by mixing it with their own souls, thereby amplifying their power. Meanwhile, the one bitten also experiences a mixing of souls—and falls prey to a peculiar illness.”
Which meant, as Jibril stated with her sunny smile: “In general, this is absolutely disadvantageous to the one bitten.”
“…What kind of pathetic vampires are you?”
May I grant thee immortality and the vast power of the night. A race that didn’t even have these seductive words at their disposal was just a pestilence. Having heard the tearful tale of Dhampir, Sora turned back to the girl and swore under his breath. Anyway, that explained why it was surprising they weren’t extinct. But conversely, that also raised a question for Sora.
—Why aren’t they extinct?
“P-pleaaase…I-I feel I’ll surely…dieee… Be-bequeath me your soul…”
As Sora considered the issue, the girl started to breathe in rapid, shallow gasps as if begging. True to her claim that she would die, her voice was raspy and cracked—and yet.
“Look, Jibril just told me if I give you my soul I’ll get a disease, so why would I do that? Die, dumbass.”
And yet—it was quite nasty to wake up to someone dying before your eyes. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to help. But, come on, to be a virgin with a disease? Sora scratched his head.
“Oh, Master, I did not explain sufficiently. If one is not bitten, one is not afflicted.”
—Hmm?
“Biting and sucking blood through their fangs—‘mixing of souls’—is a dhampir’s only way to develop. But as far as merely maintaining their life, oral consumption of the subject’s bodily fluids will suffice.”
“…Your point being?”
“The bodily fluid that is the densest in soul after blood, as well as being ingestible without biting, is—”
Sora’s movement after hearing Jibril’s next word…
“Seme—”
“Are you all right, miss?! I’ll save you right away! How could I let you die?!”
…defied the ability of anyone there—Shiro, of course, but even Izuna the Werebeast and Jibril the Flügel—to catch more than his afterimage.
To call it instantaneous did the action a terrible disservice; this was a change in stance of fearsome speed. Sora picked up the Dhampir girl, carried her to a corner of the room, laid her there carefully, and—nodded deeply.
“I see, they’re not vampires. Good lord, she’s a succubus!”
No wonder they weren’t extinct. Who would let them go? Sora, his mind screaming, started undoing his belt, but—
“…What’s ‘see-men,’ please?”
“…Brother…R-18…is off-limits…”
There were the gazes of two children under the age of eighteen to consider. Or in other words, the signal to force-quit the “tee-hee-hee” event had popped up.
“…Again? Again, really?”
Sora, on the verge of tears, looked to the heavens. It always happened this way. Sora—virgin, eighteen—will you allow your cock to be blocked here? Will you avert your eyes from the countless Peach Blossom Springs, cast sand yet again to obscure your vision—and will you do so for all time to come?
…It’s not right. This can’t be right!!! Rrrgh! Sora ground his teeth. The mind he’d used to resist and overcome all obstacles! Was it not time to strain it to overcome this? Now, of all times!
—And so Sora turned and looked into his sister’s cold eyes with hardened resolve.
“…Shiro, imagine someone’s fallen into the river with their clothes on and almost drowned.”
“…Mm.”
“To perform artificial respiration as needed, to remove the wet clothes that rob the victim of heat, and to then provide warmth… Is this R-18?”
“…………Uh, no…”
“Right, and why is that? Because it’s to help someone! Because it’s to save someone’s life! Because it’s a virtuous act!!”
Sora nodded exaggeratedly, still with the cloudless gaze of a gentleman, at the girl lying in the corner of the room—wasting away in the truest sense, no longer able, evidently, to even produce words.
“Ah, it is true, to human eyes, we must appear insensible. But there can be no doubt that this is a necessary rescue, a virtuous act! And so, Shiro, your brother has no choice! I must cast aside shame, plunge into the culture of another race, and save this damsel’s life!! So could you look away for a minute, pleaaase?!”
—Perfect Rationalization equipped.
—Let the rebellion begin!
“…If she just needs, body fluid…then what about, saliva…?”
As Shiro’s brief mumble brought his Perfect Rationalization (lol) to the end of its one-second-long life, Sora stiffened.
Jibril thought for a bit, and then, with a smile of one pitying a troubled race, said, “It should do. The concentration of soul is hardly on the same level, but it should suffice to save her life, I suppose.”
“…Mm, then, I’m gonna…”
Shiro walked toward the Dhampir girl lying at her brother’s feet. And then, bringing her face
close to the girl’s—
“W-wait, Shiro! That’s…wrong, somehow! Your brother won’t allow it!”
“…Artificial respiration… A virtuous, act…”
Sora rushed to stop her, but Shiro looked back at him with cynical reproach. As Sora activated his brain cells posthaste to rationalize some kind of rebuff, suddenly—
—Hey, isn’t it pretty much fine for girls to kiss? It wasn’t R-18. It was totally wholesome. And it was, in word and in truth, a humanitarian act. It is also worth mentioning that Sora himself didn’t have a problem with, you know, a bit of girl-on-girl…
…But for Shiro to do it is wrong, somehow.
—Why? Sora shook his head at the question that momentarily popped up. “No! It is harmful to the moral education of children to have them French! I refuse!!”
He decided not to think about it too hard and looked around hurriedly. Izuna looked bored. Shiro looked cynical. But Jibril—
“J-Jibril! Give your—”
Izuna was too young; Shiro was a no. At times like this, he wished Steph was around, but—
“If it is your command, Master—I should be delighted to kiss a wretched, defective life-form that makes a mosquito look fortunate by virtue of being able to suck blood freely. But if your wish is to save her life, I cannot recommend it.”
Sora winced slightly at her subtly chilling, poisonous tongue, but Jibril went on.
“Were I to give her my bodily fluids, I suspect she would vaporize. The receptacle of her soul, you see, is simply not up to the concentration.”
—Ixseed Rank Six, Flügel. Why did they always gotta be so, you know…off the charts for everything?
“…’Kay, so…I’ll just…”
Shiro lifted her bangs with her fingertips and brought her face toward the girl’s—
“Th-thaaat’s righht! We’ll use sweaaat!!”
Sora’s brain, boiling instantly to reveal the alternative, made him shout it without hesitation.
“S-sweat’s a body fluid, too! Howww abouuut it, Jibril?!”