Oukoku e Tsuzuku Michi

Chapter 557

「Who are you calling cute!? Whose fault do you think it is that I look like this!?」

Brynhildr shouts as she leaps.

The height she jumped easily surpasses five meters and she traveled twenty meters in one go, so it can practically be considered flying.

「The way you lose your temper quickly like that is cute too.」

Brynhildr’s movement, which left a blur in my eyes, is comfortably dealt with by Lucy.

The palms of both parties press against each other for a pleasant shoving contest and a battle of strength begins.

「This is not pleasant at all! The air is crackling! The ground is splitting apart!」

Celia tugs on me, trying to get me to evacuate.

This certainly has a final battle feel to it, with the burning house in the background.

It’s an even match……no, Brynhildr appears to be struggling while Lucy is cool and composed.

Unless she is bluffing, the gap in power between them is evident.

「Fufu, it’s cute how desperate you are. But if you don’t stop soon, you’ll crack your head again.」

「Silence!」

Brynhildr whacks away Lucy’s hand, and both of them glare at each other from a few steps away……well, Lucy’s smiling though.

「You annoy me to no end with your unnecessarily beautiful appearance! What’s with those clothes!? You really want to emphasize your big boobs and ass that much!? I bet that’s how you also seduced him!」

Lucy turns her head at me.

Even though it’s not the right time for that, the thought makes me a bit happy.

Simply knowing Lucy wanted to capture me warms my heart and causes my crotch to bulge.

「Err, who do you mean by him? Him from the past? Or the present one?」

「Guh!」

「Aegir-sama!?」

The dispute continues, ignoring the fact I fell to my knee.

「Him means him! The owner of the house you just burned! Did you become an idiot after 500 years!?」

「Oh, I can call myself an owner since I also lived in the house. Then again, I can’t deny the possibility that I might have been alive 500 years ago.」

「You’re wrong, Aegir-sama. They’re talking about another man.」

Celia puts the nail in the coffin, knocking me down on my back.

「Aegir-samaaaa!! You two, stop already! Your comments are spilling over to Aegir-sama!」

It’s not possible that a beauty of Lucy’s caliber won’t be approached by men.

Furthermore, I have no say over what happened before I was born.

Nevertheless, emotion often doesn’t see eye to eye with logic.

Lucy grins.

「Shall we talk about it? About the man in the past, I mean.」

「Don’t!」

Lucy laughs with a hand over her mouth as I clutch my chest and roll on the ground.

Of course, this can be considered an act in which both of us are fooling around.

But doing it here was a little insensitive.

「Don’t ignore me!」

Brynhildr’s eyes begin to glow red.

I hastily get up, worried that she’s serious now.

「Smash!」

At the same time she shouts, she plants her foot and pushes off so hard that it leaves a dent in the ground.

A strike so fast that it visibly cuts through the air closes in on Lucy.

「Kyaa, scary.」

Lucy moves back with a soft shriek.

As for me, I can see the line left by the afterimage.

Brynhildr’s fist of fury hits nothing.

Her supposed chest-high swing misses, but gouges a trench in the ground, scatters weeds and sends a blast of wind at me and Celia.

If that hits directly, even the stone pillar supporting the palace will break.

「But……those moves are so amateurish.」

Brynhildr’s leap followed by the grappling and the punch just now……they’re all immature attacks that match her childish form.

She is simply jumping and swinging her arm, there’s no ounce of technique to be seen.

I can tell, now that I’ve accumulated some battle experience, that Lucy’s evasion method as well, is not efficient.

She isn’t dodging with the next strike in mind.

「I couldn’t see anything. It was just dust and the shockwave from the impact……」

The problem is that those unskilled attacks have unbelievable power and speed behind them.

If Celia can’t follow them, then 90% of humans can’t follow them.

I am barely able to catch the movements, but I don’t know if my body can avoid accordingly…… blocking is suicidal.

Now then, with Lucy retreating, I think about stepping in to mediate the conflict, but Brynhildr’s eyes are still glowing.

「You think you’ve dodged me!?」

Brynhildr opens her fist――and like a magic trick, extends black nails from her fingers that are 30 centimeters long.

Brynhildr swipes at Lucy with her claws like a monster.

They don’t reach, but a bad feeling urges me to cry out and warn Lucy.

「Thank you, Aegir. But I can’t dodge.」

Lucy smiles as she suffers deep scratches to her neck and arm.

I don’t understand the logic, but it seemed like Brynhildr’s nails tore Lucy through the tearing of space.

「Lucy!!」

Deep can’t begin to describe the injury.

Her neck is torn in half and her arm is left with a shred of flesh.

It would be more like instant death than a fatal wound for a human.

Blood drains from my face as I let out a roar and rush out.

「Now now, it’s still dangerous so don’t come yet.」

Lucy presses down the gaping hole in her neck and reattaches her dangling arm, then leaps.

She immediately stops bleeding and her gashes seem to magically close up.

Relieved, I sat back down on the spot.

「You really like playing childish pranks. I’m going to have to punish you again.」

Lucy runs toward Brynhildr.

Like I thought, she’s moving without the use of martial arts.

If there was some kind of magic to slow down the scene, it would only look like a peerless beauty was running in a straight line.

Even so, her speed is too fast for Brynhildr to follow, let alone me or Celia.

With a crack and a half-witted groan, Brynhildr’s nails snap off――

「Geh.」

「Uwah!」

And various substances that should not be squirting out scatters from the owner’s head.

「――!」

Siegfried, who was waiting in the back, draws his two swords and jumps forward.

Unlike the vampires’ movements, he moves like a trained soldier.

In spite of that, his speed is inferior to the two ladies.

Not long after I stand up, the twin blades approach Lucy.

「Stand back.」

His lightning-like movement is dulled by Lucy’s rebuke and he is repelled easily with a bare hand.

「So you’re still carrying out the vow to protect her. I appreciate that Sieg. But don’t worry, this is just a scuffle.」

Siegfried promptly bows his head and then hurries to treat……or rather repair Brynhildr.

「You are……alright?」

「Of course not! That bitch wrecked my face and head again……don’t look at me! Don’t look this way until it returns to normal!!」

Brynhildr yanks her frilly clothes up and buries her head in them.

Her appearance was a tragedy, but it seems she’s fine.

「Oh my, when did you start wearing such underwear? I think it’s too early for you.」

Because her clothes were pulled over her head, Brynhildr’s pretty thighs and garterbelt became visible, causing Lucy to scold her.

「I’ve run out of patience.」

「Didn’t you lose it long ago?」

Brynhildr’s eyes shine brightly like a torch.

Correspondingly, Lucy’s eyes also emit a dark red, almost black, light.

As their respective lines of sight meet like beams of light, it creates an illusion of a collision between two objects that have mass, and the resulting explosion spreads throughout the forest…

Birds that fly off in an attempt to escape become rigid in midair and fall at my feet.

Rabbits that jump out of bushes collapse on their side and twitch two or three times erratically before laying motionless.

Deer with unnaturally red eyes bite each other, foxes bite boars and the boars ram their heads repeatedly against the trunk of trees.

The animals must have gone into a frenzy from the exposure to the duo’s malicious energy.

「It’s the end of the forest.」

「I sense that too.」

As expected, I can’t stay as a spectator.

I don’t mind the beasts going into a rage, but the next strike might endanger the lives of both women.

Lucy aside, Brynhildr has helped me countless times until now.

Brynhildr’s head……seems fine, but if she gets torn apart, I wouldn’t know how to fix her.

Siegfried also seems to be looking at me as if telling me to do something.

「The thing is though, I’ll turn into a corpse if I step in without thinking.」

I can’t deny that I’d be happy if I was killed by Lucy’s hand, but I don’t want to die now that I’ve finally gotten the chance to live with her. I also have to keep the promise I made to Nonna.

「Celia, do you have anything I can use? Something that works on vampires.」

「There’s too much going on that I can’t think properly.」

Celia brings all kinds of tools on journeys.

She might have a handy item for this situation.

「Let’s see……a talisman against evil spirits, holy water, spare panties, a silver knife.」

Firstly, the talisman and holy water can be ruled out.

I’ll also leave the panties, since Celia needs them.

The silver knife might be effective, but hurting the two of them is an outrageous idea, so it’s no good either.

「All that’s left are seasonings for outdoor camping.」

Mustard and black pepper and……this is it!

I grab a certain seasoning and throw it.

「That’s enough. I don’t want to see anymore bloodshed!」

They don’t comply with my words.

「Quiet! Could you keep calm if someone ripped your head off so disgustingly!?」

「Back off Aegir. This child won’t learn unless I discipline her strictly.」

Lucy smiles as she turns her reddish black eyes at me.

However, when she realizes what I threw, she screams and crouches with a frightened expression.

The pose she does of holding her head and closing her eyes is the same as the one a normal woman would do when scared.

「You finally recognize how terrifying I am!? If you spin around three times, bark like a dog, and swear to give him to me, I’ll for――」

Meanwhile, the prideful Brynhildr doesn’t notice the projectile.

It was too late to even warn her, so the seasoning flew into her mouth just as she was declaring victory.

「――mmgh!」

Brynhildr presses both hands to her mouth as her eyes go wide.

The demonic aura from her eyes disappears.

「Sorry. I didn’t think it would enter your mouth.」

「――waahd es et?」

She means ‘what is it?’ I suppose.

I answer while displaying an apologetic face.

「……it’s garlic, the whole thing.」

「It’s a quality product of the Roron High grounds, known for its pungent smell.」

Brynhildr faints with her hands covering her mouth.

「I’ll help you spit it out. Lucy, lend a hand.」

「No. The smell is stronger than that of sewage to us vampires. Honestly, I don’t even want to get close……you’re so mean, Aegir. How could you shove such a stinky thing inside the tiny Brynhildr’s mouth……what a fiend.」

It wasn’t intentional.

Oh no, Brynhildr’s face is changing from blue to yellow.

With the matter settled, I sit next to the ruins of the house.

Frankly, I didn’t want to look at the wreckage of the memory-filled building, but I had to wait for Brynhildr to rinse her mouth a thousand times.

Besides, Lucy has several hundred times more memories than me and isn’t saying anything so it would be strange if I complained.

「Fufu, that girl is always like that. She disguises herself as cold-blooded and cruel……yet in reality she has gotten accustomed to a non-human lifestyle in these past centuries. The part at the root hasn’t changed.」

Lucy sits next to me but her gaze is far in the distance.

「Hey Aegir, how old do you think we are?」

Of course, she means how old she looks.

In that case, Brynhildr is 11 and Lucy about 26, I guess.

This kind of question is often asked when I’m playing around with women, so I’m well-prepared.

Children want to be seen as older than they are and older women want to be seen as younger.

On a side note, for women of Mel’s age, it’s better to say an age that is ten years younger.

「14 and 21. Am I right?」

「You’re one off. I am 22 and Brynhildr is 13……that’s the point we stopped aging.」

I pump my fist.

That was a perfect answer. It was more perfect than if I got it right on the mark.

「You’ll explain the meaning of that gesture later, right?」

As I slump dejectedly, Lucy pulls me close and lets me rest on her lap.

Celia clings to my back almost like she’s trying to compete for my affection.

「Is she an acquaintance of yours?」

It was a guess, but I thought it would act as a good lead-in for Lucy, seeing how she has something on her mind that she wants to talk about.

「We’re sisters. Although it’s a bit of a special relationship……unique, if you will.」

I continue with another question, pretending to be casual.

「Do you have other siblings or family too?」

Lucy silently shakes her head.

「No. Brynhildr seems to have increased her household, but I don’t have any real family. It’s just me and Brynhildr. Ah, Sieg isn’t related but he can be considered family. I thought it would be hard for Brynhildr, being the loner she is, to be alone.」

A story is told in a bell-like voice from beautiful lips.

Before I knew it, the conversation was one about history.

It was a story from an inside perspective though, slightly different from the records written in books.

「Long, long ago, there existed a kingdom. It was a rather ordinary nation……not particularly strong enough to invade nearby countries yet not weak enough to be intimidated, one not rich enough to indulge in luxuries but not poor enough for its citizens to starve. It was a kingdom that simply maintained peace for three hundred years.」

「That’s……incredible.」

It’s not ordinary like she says.

What a feat it is to create a nation where there is no war and no starvation for three hundred years.

During the period I acted as feudal lord, I don’t remember a time when there was peace for three consecutive months.

Maybe I was a really bad lord.

「Five hundred years ago, I was just an ordinary farm girl living in that nation.」

「No way.」

I deny her claim.

After staring carefully at Lucy, I deny her once more.

「A peerless beauty like you can’t live uneventfully in an ordinary village.」

Lucy giggles and teases my earlobe.

「I was a little popular. Men in the village were always at each other’s throats when it came to me, the feudal lord and the knight captain of the capital fought over me, and in the end there was even an incident where they got their own sons in the conflict.」

「Eeeh……」

「It goes without saying. Lucy is that great of a woman, so you would want to kill your rivals.」

In any case, I know things don’t end like a normal story.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t be a vampire living alone in the middle of a forest.

「It was a rainy day. I went over to the neighboring village……though I can’t remember what I was going there for. All I can remember are the red eyes, the fangs, the intense pain, and the feeling that my life was changing.」

She was bitten by a vampire.

She wasn’t simply treated as prey, she was bitten to be transformed into a fellow vampire.

「Initially, I had no sense of reason and could only think of wanting blood. I don’t know if I don’t remember or I can’t remember. From that point, I never met my parents again. I would live in a dark cave, and whenever I was hungry, I would suck a human’s blood to survive.」

「In other words, there were lots of enviable men who were sucked to death by Lucy. Man, I’m jealous.」

Lucy smacks my head for being silly, then kisses my forehead as thanks for the complement.

「I lived for close to a hundred years as a blood-sucking monster. Not long after, intelligence and emotion gradually returned to me……and well, I cried.」

They say the older a vampire becomes, the more intelligent and powerful it grows.

A young vampire of twenty or thirty years may be no more than a pawn of their master or a strong independent monster, but it’s not rare for a vampire of a hundred or two hundred years to be smarter than a human. It’s what the legends say anyway.

「Men would come right away when I called in a city. No, there were times before I called when they were lured by the darkness.」

「I mean, if Lucy is tempting them, they would even leave in front of their wives. Those who were unmarried would have no other choice.」

She pats my head and tells me I’m a good boy.

「But that was an unlucky day. In truth, that day should have been when I met my end. The king was coincidentally at the capital and the city was overflowing with guards even at night. I didn’t realize anything as I was going about my usual business and……」

Lucy imitates the sound effects of stabbing with her mouth as she pokes her own body with a tree branch.

When I brushed the branch away and hugged her, she giggled.

「I might have been able to escape now, but it was impossible at the time. I could do nothing to stop my head from being lopped off after being stabbed all over.」

「That’s when I suddenly emerged to cut down all the――gue.」

I interrupted because I didn’t want to think about Lucy’s death, but that resulted in a chop to my head.

My consciousness was knocked out of my head for a second as my brain shook and I could only lay obediently in her lap.

「The one who appeared was the prince that was mentioned. As soon as he saw me, he said, “Oh, how beautiful――be my wife. Vampire? So what? It doesn’t change the fact that you’re a lovely woman”.」

I let out a jealous roar that echoed throughout the forest.