She had a competitive spirit bubbling inside her - I had known this since long ago.Even when we first met face to face, we ended up bumping lips in the carriage while having an intense war of nerves. Fundamentally, she was just a very competitive person.
It’s not that she lacked compassion either. When Selvier changed the Doki Doki Maid Cafe experience into Cthulhu, wasn’t she beside herself trying to stop it?
Going further back, even when I met Selvier in our hometown village, she would subtly show concern. She clearly had a kind heart.
And her hatred was great enough to burn away such inherent nature completely.
Competitive spirit and compassion.
Keeping these aspects in mind and pushing forward, we could become close quickly. I knocked loudly on Yuri’s door and gave my all in acting.
“Yuri, I got shampoo in my eyes and can’t open them!”
Details are important in acting. So I really did wash my hair. It was also true that I couldn’t open my eyes because shampoo got in them.
Then Yuri opened the door panting, with an expression suggesting high blood pressure, and shouted “Ack!” at me. Young Yuri was quite expressive with her emotions.
“How many times is this now, just go die in a hole or something…!!”“Yesterday when you got crushed at chess you said you’d give me one free pass! I’m using that now, so quickly bring me a bucket of water…!!”
“I never said anything like that, though?!”
“It was written in small print on the contract!”
“That’s a fraudulent contract!”
You should have read the contract carefully, then.
It wasn’t a serious contract. I goaded her into signing something full of ‘u mad bro?’ clauses like ‘you’re fucking terrible at chess’ and ‘whoever loses here becomes a dog’.
If it had been the adult Pink-Haired Lesbian, she would have turned around three times and barked realistically without an ounce of shame, but Yuri trembled with embarrassment and just muttered “…Woof.”
It was cute.
Even Pink-Haired Lesbian was fun to tease, huh. I felt such a strange impression. And I still do now.
Though she was huffing and puffing greatly, instead of turning me away at the door, she spoke.
“…Ah, really. You…! I shall fetch water in a bucket so wait!”
“If I go blind like this… will I never be able to see you again…?”
“I said I’m getting water now!”
Crash Bang. I heard her hurriedly going inside. I could also hear her muttering to herself ‘Bucket, where’s the bucket…’
Living as her neighbor for several days, I approached her in a friendly manner while simultaneously proving that I had excellent control over my sexual desires.
Not that I had dropped my pants or anything to verify it.
A succubus can tell at a glance whether a person is sexually aroused or not. In a way, it’s only natural. Isn’t it a necessary ability for choosing prey?
Yuri naturally had this ability too. Thanks to that, things became easier.
My heart was consistently calm and quiet every time we met due to the Sexual Desire Suppression Magic. As such, she began to open up little by little.
I wedged myself into that opening and pressed in with my whole body, and this is the result.
Splash──!!
Cold water pours down like a waterfall, targeting my head. I wiped off the shampoo foam quickly. After she poured all the water, Yuri asked.
“Should I fetch another bucket?”
“Ah, I’m kinda clean now. Though having about half a bucket more would be nice.”
“If you’re somewhat clean, then do the rest yourself!”
Yuri threw the wooden bucket. I caught the bucket while staggering, then followed behind her with small steps while making conversation.
“Aiyaa, why so cold again. Do you have a towel at home?”
“Are you planning to steal it again?”
“I didn’t steal it, I just borrowed it temporarily to wash and dry it properly before returning it. And now my upper body is all wet and damp. What if I catch a cold from not drying off?”
“That’s your problem!”
Though she says that, there’s no sign she’s going to chase me out. Running it through the Tsundere Translator, it means I can use a towel.
I walked into Yuri’s house with a bright smile. As a result of infiltrating like this whenever I had the chance, I had roughly figured out the internal layout.
The dry towels should be around here, right? I think they were stacked near the bathroom.
Found them. I grabbed one and shook my head vigorously. While doing so, I could hear Yuri shouting from far away in the kitchen.
“Put it properly in the laundry basket! And don’t think about stealing it this time!”
I wasn’t planning to steal it this time. Since I already had secured a reason to visit her home by returning towels, I didn’t need two towels.
When I went to put the used towel in the laundry basket, there was already a visitor inside.
Plain underwear made of poor quality cheap fabric, with no design or aesthetics. It was pitiful.
Unable to contain the regret welling up from the depths of my soul, I ended up running to the kitchen while holding the underwear.
Yuri seemed to be preparing to make stew. She was wearing an apron. I denounced her while holding the underwear.
“Oh you girl, you, how can you wear underwear like this?”
“…Ah, aah…!! Wh-What are you holding, what are you doing?!”
Yuri made a blank expression like someone hit on the head with a hammer, then her face turned bright red and she lit both fuses. An expression of trying to somehow package overwhelming embarrassment as anger.
But I’m angry too. How can someone be so careless about their attire?
“Fashion is only complete when you pay attention to the unseen parts, but how can someone who earns decent money buy and wear something like this!”
“P-Put that down right now. I’ll kill you, you hear me?! I’ll really kill you-!”
“I’m confident I’ll die from heartache before you can kill me. Hey, you’re just wasting that pretty face of yours. Before even talking about liking or disliking men, this is a matter of wastefulness… Ow! That hurts! Seriously, that hurts!”
“Put it, put it down! I said put it back right now!!”
Yuri silenced my opinion with force by unleashing a barrage of strong punches. With this extremely vulnerable avatar, Heavenly Demon-Movement is difficult. I cannot resist.
I had no choice but to surrender to external pressure and put the underwear back.
“…Even thinking about functionality, those rags are no good. I understand not wanting to dress up, but at least pay attention to quality? The comfort itself is different, you know?”
“Aish, seriously-!!”
I got hit one more time in the midst of my grumbling.
===============================================================
It’s mealtime. Yuri placed the roughly made stew in the middle of the table, and we ate it by ladling it into wooden bowls with a soup ladle.
I took a big spoonful and tasted it, then gave a cold evaluation.
“It would have been better with about 2.5 pinches more salt.”
“…Then you make it! You!”
“Alright. Tomorrow morning, I’m the stew chef. Leave it to me.”
“If it’s not tasty, you’ll have to pay for the ingredients!”
Good.
With this, I’ve secured a reason to visit tomorrow too. This is how the unstoppable wheel of becoming closer keeps rolling. I’ve sufficiently appealed my character, and though Yuri grumbles, she seems quite glad for my presence.
They say humans are social animals, don’t they?
In a life surrounded by thugs always asking for a fight, having an acquaintance you can comfortably joke around and talk with must be quite positive.
If we just steadily accumulate time like this, restoring our original relationship isn’t just a dream.
Completely narrowing this remaining awkward distance, we can become friends again. However…
That alone is not enough.
It’s not that I’ve forgotten my purpose. I kept reminding myself constantly. I’m here to save Pink-Haired Lesbian, and I need to obtain clues to reach the second basement floor.
This world’s first basement floor is reconstructed by modifying Pink-Haired Lesbian’s mental barrier. It’s no different from a tightly closed castle gate, trying to stop those heading towards the deeper parts of the mind, the second basement.
So I guessed that ‘permission’ might be the important point.
Perhaps it works in a way where Young Yuri, the gatekeeper, needs to trust and acknowledge me, and open the path to the second basement. That’s why I’ve been building intimacy like this.
I could also find evidence supporting this guess. The existence of the 『Key』 that Yuri always wears around her neck. It dangles suspended on a string.
It’s an object with a suspiciously large amount of information. And it felt extremely artificial. This must be where the Queen’s hand touched.
Once, when I asked her “What’s that key?”:
“You don’t need to know.”
Young Yuri showed an extremely defensive attitude. It was twice as strong as the wariness she showed me when we first met.
As a result of very gradually and carefully extracting related information, I found that she has an obsessive compulsion to protect this 『Key』, and memories have been implanted of all sorts of people trying to steal or pilfer the 『Key』.
I even heard a story about how she ended up cutting ties with a somewhat close friend from the Extermination Squad because they tried to steal her 『Key』.
At that moment, I felt it. If I tried to approach the key any further, the relationship I had built up would completely crumble. So I’ve been pretending not to be interested. But…
I had never heard Pink-Haired Lesbian talk about such an important key necklace. Though she tended to hide her past… there’s a difference between having some clues and having no clues at all.
I check my memories. Pink-Haired Lesbian showed no signs of having worn a ‘necklace’ in her behavior, habits, fashion, in any aspect.
So, this is an object deliberately created by the Queen.
Instead of scattering clues throughout various parts of the world, the Queen seems to have concentrated the clear conditions in a single symbol called the 『Key』.
Therefore, to go down to the second basement floor, I need to obtain that 『Key』.
This proposition seems very true.
While I was observing Yuri with a smile, organizing my thoughts at the same time. She must have felt my gaze, as she looked up at me with a blank expression and blurted out.
“…What are you looking at?”
“You look pretty when you eat.”
Her face turns bright red in a flash. Young Yuri’s defense stats are as low as the Tower Master. She gripped her spoon like a knife and pointed it at me, hiding her embarrassment by pretending to be angry.
“You, are you really impotent…?!”
“Want me to show you?”
When I made a gesture of taking off my pants, she quickly turned her head away.
I felt a joy of victory rising from deep in my chest. I won. I’m dominating Pink-Haired Lesbian…!!
After being the one getting beaten all the time, becoming the winning side feels satisfying.
Well…
While getting her trust steadily and having her hand over the 『Key』 would be the best scenario, I’m also considering physically stealing it if the situation doesn’t allow for that.
So, after sufficiently lowering her guard, I will attack at a decisive moment and get the key.
In that case… Young Yuri would surely be hurt, but even so. Mustn’t I do it? Because I need to save her.
Should I call it a sound strategy? I hid my dark intentions behind a smile and continued casual conversation.
“How are things lately? I heard the Extermination Squad work got complicated. You were tracking a group of Black Wizards, right?”
“…It is troublesome. We raided a location that the Defense Bureau told us was their base with my seniors, but there were only small fry. We only got one piece of information. Do your job properly, Defense Bureau.”
“Our guys probably tried their best too. Still, it’s good that you got some information, what is it?”
“Information about the hidden bases of the Black Wizard group 『Red Regeneration』 and their collaborators.”
I heard that the group called 『Red Regeneration』 that the 440’s Extermination Squad was tracking aimed to obtain new and healthy bodies by sacrificing people.
They mainly approach nobles, tempting them with attractive conditions like fixing their ugly faces or changing their weak bodies into muscular ones, and get sponsorship.
“Since the documents are encrypted, my seniors are working day and night… but once the analysis is complete, we should be able to achieve results.”
“There’s going to be a bloodbath.”
“It’s a justified bloodbath.”
Yuri showed her hatred for the Black Wizard group with a sharp statement. As if she would tear them in half just for appearing before her.
I was resting my chin on my hand when suddenly. Something flashed through my mind.
“……”
“…Why? What is it?”
“No, I just remembered something I had forgotten. I need to send a report to the Imperial Family.”“Are you crazy? Hurry! Hurry and go send it!”
After making that excuse to Yuri, I left for now.
===============================================================
I had been constantly feeling uneasy about the suspiciously quiet Queen.
Though attempts to keep me in check were still coming now, like reversing my vision or suddenly feeling burning pain… How should I put it… There wasn’t anything substantially severe, I guess?
The occasional pain that penetrated my defense was something I could just take and endure. The Queen must know that too.
She could have chosen any other period, but there must be a clear intention in specifically choosing this point in the Year 440. She probably planned to use events that occurred during this period.
In that sense, I suspect the Black Wizard group 『Red Regeneration』 matter is, so to speak, the main scenario.
I had been guessing that she might be trying to make Yuri despair through this scenario…
“…Did this fucker pull some clever trick?”
After checking on Yuri and returning, I thoroughly searched this body’s spawn location, the house, like looking for lice. I lifted the carpet, pried open the attic floorboards.
And in a secret space that appeared when pushing aside a cabinet in a corner of the house, I found ritual tools used in Black Magic and a petition paper with a red handprint.
I looked at my palm. When I compared it to the petition, it matched exactly.
This means that the identity of this avatar, which the Queen prepared to mess with me… is a member of the Black Wizard group 『Red Regeneration』. The one Yuri is tracking.
Ah, okay. So, this is how you want to play it?
Fine. You mean to entangle me in an antagonistic relationship with Yuri, right? Then I just need to take the stance of a reformed villain. After all, this version of me that dropped here hasn’t hurt anyone.
I’ll set the mood right and then say… ‘I got carried away wanting to fix my sickly body. But seeing you made me repent. I’m sorry. But since I haven’t committed any crimes yet, give me a chance. I’ll cooperate.’
If I approach it this way…
Wait.
Wait a minute.
I… that is… modified the ugly appearance. Before coming in.
I modified the avatar’s modeling, but didn’t overwrite the setting of this world itself. In other words, I became a ‘young man who suddenly became handsome after being a fat pig of an orc’.
That, from the outside, looks like… I desperately rubbed up against 『Red Regeneration』, sacrificed people, and finally changed my appearance.
I got caught in my own trap!
“If I change the information, even if it is only now…!!”
Not a chance. As if having properly caught her opportunity, the Queen was holding tight to the related information and taking a defensive stance. She plans to paint me as the villain like this. This motherfucking bitch.
I’ve suddenly become… a villain obsessed with a hero (who in some sense protects the city’s security)…!
===============================================================
The Queen watching all this from the 『Nest』 finally relaxed and smiled. In her thought process, he seemed to have no way out.
His techniques that surpassed human capabilities made her break out in cold sweat, but…
It was a situation where he must obtain the 『Key』 to enter the second basement floor, the deep part of the mind. However, he was now tagged with the setting of being a 『Red Regeneration』 minion, and Yuri Lanster preciously guards her key.
Click click click.
Fate will flow towards a future where his identity being exposed. Because the Queen will make it so.
Be cornered, Wizard. Become thoroughly anxious and struggle desperately. And at the end when driven to a dead end, shout that it’s for Yuri Lanster’s sake and snatch the key from her.
At that moment. When Yuri’s consciousness, her mental barrier, defines the wizard as an ‘enemy’, due to experiencing extreme betrayal…
The moment this small world becomes hostile to him. That will be when the Queen reveals her claws to hunt him, tear him to pieces, and devour him.