Chapter 74 Return
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
It took two more days for the field to shift again.
On the southern front, the kijo (demon woman) had been the biggest force. When she left, the hole she made did not close. Kujukuri’s science weapons pushed hard and drove the enemy towns into a weaker line. For some reason, she still did not return to the surface. With that power, she should be able to clear the rubble that blocks the dungeon door. No one knew why she stayed below.
Even so, the south moved toward a real end and a ceasefire came into view.
We aimed for a ceasefire so we could put our strength into the main fight in the north. Right now we offer food aid to Isumi and Kamogawa, and use it as bait. We try to split the tired war party and the anti-war faction. At a glance, it all seems to go as Kujukuri Town plans. But pulling food from us is a top goal for Isumi and Kamogawa as well. The clever minds who began this war on their side may have seen this coming.
It is already February. When snow piles up, the number of people who starve grows fast. With deep snow, that number may be even higher than battle deaths.
Even now, more than a hundred Psionic Power users stay on the southern line across three towns, but no one wants more loss. Our people for dungeon harvest are worn down too. As things cool, we see truths we missed before. War cuts down hands, but it also lowers the number of mouths.
If only women fall in battle, the gender ratio shifts a bit toward men. Life is very cheap in these days.
With the snowfall, the fever breaks. A season comes where we just try to live inside what death and ruin left. This killing is only one way to live and bring food. In the city there might be other paths, but in a country life like this, people use all their strength just to get by.
”I brought rice porridge. Please, open your mouth.”
”I do not want it. I am not hungry,” I said.
”That will not do. Please eat. If you do not, then I will not eat either,” she said.
At my bed, Cult Slut-san stood with a spoon of porridge held out to me. Her hair had come loose, and she looked very thin. Her doll-like charm had dimmed a little, yet a cold, ruined kind of beauty began to show, which made me shiver.
I looked at the spoon and asked, “How long have you not eaten?”
”The same as Your Lordship,” she said.
”…All right. Then just a little.”
”Yes. Just a little.”
I gave in to Cult Slut-san. I took a small mouthful, only enough to wet my tongue. A soft, short-lived smile bloomed on her face.
She looked truly happy over something so small.
”Isn’t this a bit sly? Did you borrow the trick from Maggot-san?” I asked.
”What are you saying? First you must eat and get your strength back. Nothing begins without that. This is not a trick. It is common sense,” she said.
Lately, Maggot-san had grown crafty. When I refused the meals the old maidservant brought, she stopped coming herself. Instead she sent in other Imperial Guards—women who had grown pale from worry. With Maggot-san or the old maidservant, I could be selfish and refuse to eat. With the others, I could not. She made me feel, in reverse, the pain of watching someone harm herself.
Maggot-san knows me well. She is a planner.
”Here you are. Please be careful, it is hot,” Cult Slut-san said.
She opened her mouth as if she would eat too and fed me by hand, like a mother bird.
I still was not hungry. But when I thought of the people who could not eat at all, I held down the urge to vomit and forced it in. A little. Only a little. It was a plain porridge with only salt, and maybe that is why it went down.
I slipped a hand to her slim waist and stroked her sunken belly. It was hollow. She too had hardly eaten.
”Please do not say you will kill yourself again. A vow like that has no meaning,” I said.
She had a habit of kanshi (admonitory death), hurting herself to warn her lord. In old times it was a kind of virtue. Even now, I can still feel some of that sense around us.
If Cult Slut-san died for that, I would not stand up again.
”If it troubles you so much, I will not do it. But I am ready to give my life for Your Lordship at any time,” she said.
”Because men are more precious than women?” I asked, a bit bitter.
To die for someone who did not ask—that is selfish. I also saw it: she was only doing what I always did, back at me.
”No. Because you are dear to me,” she said.
”You are right. I feel the same toward the Imperial Guards,” I said.
”I see…” she said, and her face fell a little after she spoke as if it were obvious.
What I meant was close to what she meant. After a short pause, she looked at me with clear eyes and spoke softly to comfort me.
”When I first heard it, I was surprised. Men and women are different kinds of beings. But Your Lordship was born with the heart of a woman. When women near you die, it has always hurt you very much, has it not?”
Her brows bent with sadness.
”The Rare One, right? I am sorry I hid it. And that you can use Psionic Power,” I said.
”No. It is all right,” she said.
By basic common sense, men do not grieve women’s deaths so deeply. In any society, people think so. I told the Imperial Guards that I am a rare sort: I do not hate women or sex, and I do not have the usual male-born sense of special right. I feel a woman’s death as if it were my own. Before now they had guessed it one by one. I made it clear at last. I shared all of Maggot-san’s notes and insight on me—from the day we met until today.
It is not only that I can see a naked woman and not feel upset, or accept curious looks without anger. I see women as the same single human being as myself.
This shocked the Imperial Guards and gave them worry. My mind is unknown to them. They would never say it out loud, but most of their “How to handle a male for Imperial Guards” manual must be useless now, and they must be in a rush.
…No, I have not slept with anyone, and I cannot talk about such a thing anyway.
”Maggot-san got scolded by everyone,” I said. “I felt sorry for her.”
”Some of it could not be helped,” she said.
Maggot-san had known the truth and kept it secret, so the others hit her with harsh words.
”Your Lordship, I would feel the same no matter what kind of person you were. I am very glad you told us. I want to write a song about this feeling,” Cult Slut-san said.
Her hurt smile bloomed again. She looked happy, with no lie in her eyes.
People thought I could use my Psionic Power only with those close to me. Because of that, I went to see Cult Slut-san quite often.
Such easy visits would not be allowed between an education officer and her lord. But she changed her way with me a little. She bent the rule of raising me as a chaste boy, and we talked about my personal needs. We found a middle path.
”You have seed in your stomach already, so when things calm down, try to have the baby,” I said.
”Yes. It is a promise. I will carry it in early spring,” she said.
”…Maybe that is a bit fast. Your body is still small,” I said.
”Is it? But if this stops me from warning you with my life, then I am happy to do it.”
”Well, it is surely better than you cutting yourself open,” I said.
We made a promise. She chose to have a child. I thought it was a little early, but life runs fast in this time. At her age, it was not so strange.
”This way you cannot cut your stomach anymore. I still do not know why we have seppuku culture here when we are not samurai…” I said.
It was to stop her from risking her life to warn her lord. I felt sorry for the child, born for such a selfish reason…
”To explain it, we must go back to the Heian time, when seppuku began. If you wish, I can tell you,” she said.
”Not now. I am not well. Tell me some other time,” I said.
”…I see.”
I felt bad to turn her down, but I knew that chance would never come.
This promise would be a wedge for her, and for me too. We needed weight on each other to keep steady, so we spoke and agreed. Later we would think of an excuse to tell the others. A dirty one, maybe, like she reused what I threw away during sex education.
We were both full of sadness. Even with someone so close in heart, I still had gaps in how we saw the world. It was not about male and female, but about the times we came from. Here, people had little fear of death. Most girls saw a sister or friend die in childhood. The shichi-go-san age had deep meaning here.
But Cult Slut-san understood me. Even if we were born in different worlds, she knew the true shape of my sadness.
She lifted the spoon of porridge again.
”Please eat the rest. You must get well,” she said.
”All right. You eat too. You must keep your body strong,” I said.
”Of course! Before it gets cold, please,” she said.
We ate very slowly. I used one of those dull lines, the kind you hear everywhere, about showing a strong face when everyone returns. It did not comfort me at all, but it helped me take a few more bites.
Four more days passed.
Nights came with screams that woke me. Even with the promise and her care, I lost more weight.
I even thought of walking into Isumi Town myself, where the kijo and the paper-umbrella woman lived. Men should be safe there. Maybe it could work. I played with the thought.
The Imperial Guards had already given up on a rescue by force. They tried to open talks with the town and aimed to gain custody as a kind of payment.
That was only if the three were still alive.
I stayed quiet. Call me weak, but I feared making one more wrong move.
I could not tell when it began. The world lost its shape. Day and night mixed. My throat hurt from crying so much, and my voice sounded like someone else’s.
”To sit here and think the same things again and again… it feels like when I was a C*mslut,” I whispered.
I waited all day for reports from the Imperial Guards. Still no word on Trash-san, Flatty-chan, or Natsume-san.
”I must go get them. They must be alive. …No, they are dead. Wait… who am I going to get?” I said.
I stared at the corner of the room. With no new input, my mind slipped.
Right. I must go get Kaede-san. She was still caught with Trash-san and the others.
Kaede-san had been very kind to me. As an Imperial Guard, she should not have been. It was her strange way… No, what was I saying?
Maybe, since she had no child, her care for me filled that space. It was rare for a grown woman not to have given birth.
The one small light was that Trash-san had not drawn a line through Kaede-san’s name in her mind-list yet.
Two more days passed.
I felt a bit better. I think. The Imperial Guards gave me medicine during meals. They said it was needed for my mind and body. I did not mind. I trusted them.
Thanks to it, my heart was still a mess, but a little lighter. The medicine helped.
I no longer knew what was real, or when I slept and woke. But my feelings had lifted a little.
That night, I remembered a talk with Trash-san from long ago. It was soon after we moved south, before I met Kaede-san.
”Men are often bad people. Why?” I had asked.
”Young Master, please do not say such direct things…” she said.
One day, as a spirit, I visited Trash-san’s room to train my Psionic Power.
It was like a storehouse of strange mystical objects. It was tidy, but full, like I was small and inside a treasure box. It reminded me of an Italian restaurant covered with little decorations.
Trash-san tried to brush off my words.
”For an Imperial Guard like me to speak of a male’s heart is far too bold. Someone of my level must not judge from the lower seat,” she said.
”If you cannot say it, then you also think men have bad hearts, right? If it were praise, you could say it,” I said.
”I will not fall for your word trap,” Trash-san said.
”Oh. Boring,” I said.
To be honest, trying to make her say what she could not say did not make me a good person.
I sometimes asked myself: why are men cold to women?
The value of a man’s life and a woman’s life was clearly different. The reason was simple: for every thousand girls, only one boy was born.
So men were precious, and even if they did cruel things to women, people forgave them.
It was only a numbers game. Like a queen ant cannot be soft to the worker ants, or the nest will fall. That was the end of it.
Still, today I wanted to think a bit deeper. Even if it made sense on paper, I had a small question in my heart. In my previous life, we did not send old or disabled people to gas rooms. Not openly.
After reading books and talking with other men, one truth became clear to me.
It did not begin with prejudice or pride. All men find it hard to feel pain at a woman’s death. It was born in them, though the level is not the same for each one.
People could say this came from long customs and manners. But I thought it was a trait of the living being itself. Just as a woman’s body was a bit different from what I knew in my old world, maybe the men here were another kind of creature. If a species had a 1000:1 sex ratio, it would be strange if they thought the same as a species with equal numbers.
So, I reached a thought: this world where chastity values are reversed for men and women might be a world where men were pushed by nature to dislike sex and dislike women.
Let me explain a bit more. It will be long.
Have you heard the word “selection pressure”? It was a biology term.
It meant the force that pushed a living thing to change and evolve in one direction.
The “force” here was the environment. A classic example: animals in cold places grow long fur. Those with short fur die from the cold, so only long-fur children live. That environment gives pressure to grow long fur.
In hot places, thick fur stops heat from leaving the body and can hold sickness. It is bad for life. So over time, short-fur animals stay. This means hot places give pressure for short fur.
I thought the same thing happened to men in this world.
To give the end first: men who felt dislike for sex could choose the best women. Because of that, I guessed that in ancient times, the kind men died out.
Picture a group of people. In any group, a leader appears—an elite woman who proves her smart mind and strong body.
A man with low interest in sex has no “taste.” He simply joins with the best women in the group and has children with them.
Not like me, who would be happy with anyone I could sleep with. Such a man chooses by the woman’s status and body.
But someone like me, with strong sexual desire, likes many women. Status or honor does not matter. …That sounds bad, but it was true.
Now think of the children, from the view of selection pressure.
First, men with little to no warmth toward women—men like in this world.
Because they always join with the top women, their children, both boys and girls, are strong.
If the child is a girl, she grows up to be a leader and is chosen by men again.
If the child is a boy, he learns to judge good women and will also choose top women.
But some women are not chosen. The lower girls in the group never get children because the top women take all the men.
So only good women have children. Women here feel pressure to be good, or they leave no blood behind.
Well… you may think this is normal. Strong ones have children. This is not special to this world.
But the true scary part is what happens to the men.
A man like me, with strong desire, does not get this pressure. I have children even with the weaker girls, and I am happy to do so.
I do not care for rank or honor. I even feel soft for the sad ones.
So I join with weak girls too, and most of our children will not be chosen by the next men. Because they are lower in the group, they also die more by sickness or accidents.
So boys who inherit my “do not choose” nature cannot leave many children.
This is scary. It means the trait of liking women is slowly dying out.
Yes, sometimes I also join with a top woman. And sometimes a weak woman has a strong child. But compared to men who only join with the top, I leave far fewer children.
In other words, men here feel pressure to “choose” women. Gentle men who do not choose disappear over time.
Men like me are born sometimes, but our bloodline mostly ends. This repeats over hundreds of generations, for thousands and thousands of years.
It is cruel, but men here are pushed to lose warm feelings for women. They may even feel dislike for sex, so they can judge women more harshly.
And that dislike might be why men treat women coldly.
So, more men came to hate women. Nature pushed them. And this became the world we see now.
Well… poor women. This world is like hell for them.
As women worked harder to please men, the men grew even more picky and unkind.
Of course, all this was only my own idea. In fact, this system was the same as the one I knew in my old world. It happened on Earth too, just softer. Here, because of the sex ratio, the problem had grown sharp.
”…Hmm.”
Still, there was some hope.
In recent years, a system had begun to stop men from choosing too much. Men now had a duty to give children to ordinary women. With no “choice,” the pressure slowly weakened.
If a boy was born from a simple town girl rather than a noble woman full of pride, he would likely grow into a kinder man. He would not judge so much and would sleep even with poor girls. His sons could also make children.
Well, that was if the warm, gentle male trait still survived at all. I hoped it was not too late for women.
All this was only from a biology view. If the god of this world had cast some magic “no sex for boys” spell, then I knew nothing.
”Young Master… You look troubled. Do not think too hard. It may harm your body,” Trash-san said.
She had watched me fall silent.
”If it is something you can share, I will help as much as I can. What were you thinking?” she asked.
She looked worried, and suddenly I saw her as someone pitiful. Her beauty and skill were the result of unfair sorting by men.
I felt sorry, so I answered to shake off the gloom.
”Lewd acts,” I said.
”Young Master! Please be serious. Even a small worry, I wish to help clear it,” she said.
”I was seriously thinking about lewd acts,” I said.
”Young Master, playful talk should have a limit,” she said.
She was honestly angry. Her lovely face lost its dreamy shine and turned sharp, like roses turning into thorn vines.
”It was a good time,” I said.
The problem was simple: I did not have the natural coldness toward women that men here had. That was why I suffered.
Still, it was only my own thought. I just missed those small, silly moments with Trash-san.
I sat up from the bed.
While sleeping, I had thrown up the porridge, fallen from bed during nightmares, hurt my finger, and woke with dried blood under my nails. Even my face had scratches. I must have clawed myself.
”Ug… urgh.”
I bent over the nobleman’s waste box in the corner and spat. My mouth tasted sour. Nothing left to throw up.
After spilling the yellow liquid, I crawled back to bed and curled up. I felt like a little maggot.
But I had to stand. My suffering only weighed on the Imperial Guards. It would not help.
”Maybe…”
A strange voice came from outside my room.
”Please forgive me for visiting a man’s room without notice. I came first to bring news. It is me,” the voice said.
Something was off. The tone, the way of speaking—something felt different. At first, I thought my ears were wrong, but the feeling stayed.
Still, the voice…
Calm, gentle, clear, like a flower. Softly husky, with a playful charm. A voice with mystery.
I jumped up from the fog of sadness.
Trash-san. I knew that voice. It was her.
My Elder Sister had come back. She was not dead. It was wonderful.
She had come to see me first.
”It is me. Trash,” she said.
”W-wait. I’m coming. Don’t go. Don’t fade,” I said.
Was it a hallucination? Even if it was, I wanted it. I needed it.
Yes. At last.
After all the bitter medicine and pain, something good had come. My legs shook, but even if I fell, I did not care. I felt invincible.
I had been so afraid. Now, at last, hope had come.
”Come, open the door,” she said.
”Yes, I’ll open it now!”
The hospital room in the south town was not as safe as the men’s area in the north town. The door had three locks. Now, they felt like chains.
My hands shook. I could not turn the keys well.
It was Trash-san. She had returned.
Somehow, she was back with me. My heart leapt. It felt like light filled the world.
”Damn, it won’t open,” I said.
”Please open it quickly,” she said.
”But how? The Imperial Guards said nothing,” I said.
”I lost my terminal. I thought I must show my face to you first,” she said.
I could not wait. I opened the small covered slot beside the door to see her.
Long lashes, a slim face, a beautiful shape that was almost boyish for a woman. It was the Trash-san I knew.
When she saw me, she smiled.
My sight sparkled. She was still so pretty.
”This is the best. Maybe the best day of my life,” I said.
”I am glad. Now please open the door,” she said.
”Don’t rush me,” I said.
”Open it,” she said.
Tears filled my eyes. My heart raced.
But her clothes were not her usual ones. No Kujukuri jinbei, no white uniform, but a plain haori like a town girl’s. Maybe someone had given it to her on the way back.
But that did not matter.
I opened the first of the three locks. It clicked.
I opened the second right away. I could not wait to touch her.
”Hey, um… are the other two safe? I’m really worried,” I asked.
”Yes. They are safe. They say they failed their duty and feel too ashamed to face you. If you forgive them, they will show themselves to you at once,” she said.
As I rushed to open the last lock, Trash-san spoke to me.
Please, do not surprise me like that. Even if they said they could not face me, I would drag them to me. I wanted to see them more.
But now I could relax. Relax…
”Young Master. Is the door not open yet?”
My hand froze.
What did she just call me? She looked and sounded exactly like the elder sister I knew—but that phrase was wrong.
She called me “Young Master.” That was how Flatty-chan called me.
Did she just change how she called me?
”Does it matter…?”
Maybe I was overthinking. I just wanted to see her, hold her, kiss her.
My body screamed to open the door. But because everything else was perfect, this tiny detail felt too wrong.
I was clumsy. I should just open the door and be happy.
”Um… Trash-san, did you just call me—”
”What is it?” she asked.
”No, um… you called me Young Master instead of…”
I stopped mid-sentence.
I wanted to ask, but suddenly it felt dangerous.
If I asked her this, something terrible might happen. That was the feeling.
Why did I feel that? I did not know.
”Young Master, what is wrong?”
Hearing her call me that again—just a little—I felt scared.
I trusted that fear and stopped turning the lock.
”W-wait. Just a little. I forgot to do my makeup.”
”I do not mind. Please show yourself quickly,” she said.
”No! I—I mind! I look terrible to show a woman!”
”Open the door.”
She knocked many times. For a man’s room, she was being very rude. Not like her.
Was she simply too eager to see me?
”Open it. Quickly.”
”Wait! Just a little!”
The knocking grew louder.
She hit the door hard, as if pushed by something. I even felt like she could break it. Maybe it was just my fear, but she really had the strength.
I hurried into bed and tried to choose Trash-san from my mental list and jump to her with Psionic Power.
But I could not.
”What? Why? There is no reason I cannot jump!”
If she had returned safely, she would not block me. She blocked me before only to stop me from seeing her death.
Yet she still shut her heart to me. Was it some unknown rule of my power?
I searched the bed.
Luckily, even in madness I had not thrown away or broken my terminal. I kept it in case they returned.
I called Maggot-san. She answered on the first ring. She never let it reach three.
”Maggot-san. Trash-san is at my door,” I whispered.
”Trash… you say?”
”She returned.”
She was silent for a moment. A strange silence.
”Young Master. You must obey what I say now.”
Her voice turned sharp and urgent. I froze.
”…Okay. I will listen.”
”You must not let that person into your room.”
Her voice cut into my ear.
She did not call the woman outside “Trash-san.”
”Trash has not returned to the town. Do not let her in. Do not answer her voice.”
”…I already answered,” I said.
”I see. Then…”
A horrible silence followed. Maggot-san was thinking.
I used the terminal—not Psionic Power. I did not want to leave my body here like that.
A cold chill crept up my back.
I had made a mistake. I felt like I had moved one step up a staircase I should never climb.
What… what was outside my room?
”Keep the door closed and stay silent,” she said.
Her voice was so quiet I almost missed it.
I pressed my ear to the terminal.
”If it forces its way in, do not resist. Do not provoke it. Use up its time as much as possible.”
”O-okay.”
What was it?
I did not know its nature at all.
But I could not miss a single word she said.
”If you must leave the room, you must protect yourself first, even if many town people must be sacrificed,” she said.
”I can’t do that… but I’ll try.”
”You must. Protect yourself first. I will come at once. This call—”
”I understand. I’ll keep it on and hide the terminal in my sleeve.”
I hid it quickly.
Then, still on the call, I ran to the door. Two locks were open.
I turned them back. The second lock clicked shut.
I needed to close them fast. Make it harder for that thing to enter.
My hands shook. Hurry. Before it got in.
”Oh? What is this?”
A sudden metal sound came from the door.
A sharp, high ring of metal striking metal. Something slid through the small gap and sliced all three lock parts with a snap.
”It seems the locks were broken from the start,” it said.
”…!”
My only defense was destroyed in an instant.
Notes:
• Psionic Power – Mental energy concept in Chapter 35’s lecture. Trash-san teaches it to strengthen the protagonist’s mind after dungeon ordeals.
• Natsume – A female companion and younger sister of Kaede-san, cared for by Kaede-san during their journey through the dangerous valley, at risk of infection from the parasitic creatures.
• Kaede – A female psionic explorer known as Necksplitter, is a veteran assassin and messenger of Lord Ichimatsu. Her appearance is both young and old, with gray hair streaked through black and vibrant, unlined skin. She is graceful yet carries the fatigue of a long life in war, resembling an old hunting dog. Her psionic ability is mysterious and potentially dangerous.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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