The Purity(?) Acknowledged by the Unicorn Lord
"Hee-hee-hee... how very interesting."
"You could talk this whole time?!"
The unicorn halted a hand's breadth from my face and, all at once, fixed me with a look of grim, stone-faced seriousness.
"Virginity is not simply a matter of still having a hymen."
"Pardon?"
Then it began to circle me, letting the words fall quietly.
"Taking it in the back instead of the front is, of course, an automatic fail..."
"Ahem..."
The VTuber in the gothic-lolita dress cleared her throat.
"Harboring lust toward a man even once is also a fail."
"Ah... nn."
Next, the cat-eared girl flinched.
"And it should go without saying that masturbation is a fail as well."
"I'm in heat. What do you expect me to do..."
The red-haired wolf beastkin flushed and fidgeted.
"...Bathing with a man is a fail, too."
"No way!!! Miss Owner scrubs me raw because she says I reek of dog hair—what else was I supposed to do!!!"
Even the puppy nun, who looked the most innocent of all of them, bounced up and down as if she'd been grievously wronged.
"You, however, are different. A pure, faint scent drifts from you, like a petal that has only just begun to open."
"Is that so?"
Unlike with the others, the unicorn went on, watching me with a gentle eye.
"You have kept your body's chastity. You have never once felt desire for a man. You have not even masturbated, and you have never allowed the touch of the opposite sex."
"Uh..."
I turned the unicorn's words over and reached back into the past.
Purity? Please. Man or woman, I'd never once gotten laid—a born forever-alone. That one was a pass.
Masturbation, though...
Fair enough. After I became a woman, I never laid a hand on this body. The urge barely showed up, and it felt like the status window was watching the whole time, so I couldn't bring myself to.
And as for never allowing a man's touch...
That was probably just because I was an orphan. A daycare teacher used to help when I was little, and after that I always washed myself alone.
Even so, ordinary contact—the kind you got in a place like the military—seemed to have been left out of the count.
"What manner of being are you?"
"..."
The unicorn's face had gone earnest.
Those women were the normal ones. I was the abnormality. That was why he asked—what was I, to have guarded my purity so absolutely?
Then who was I?
The worthless wreck who wore a soldier's rank and still couldn't protect my only blood when the Tower collapsed?
Those loser years I spent farming a likable nickname on the Physical Spec-Ops board?
A pretty girl with a sexy figure and a beautiful face?
No. None of those.
"I am a saintess. A saintess in service to Era, Goddess of Mercy—her blade, and nothing more. I strike down evil, and I save the little lambs."
"Is that so. And that is why you possess the chastest, cleanest purity of all."
Honestly, it made even me cringe to hear it out of my own mouth. I didn't care. That was the self I wanted to be.
And then every unicorn on the farm threw its head back and screamed at once.
"Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!!!"
"Eek?!"
"This is..."
The Kemono Live members weren't the only ones thrown. The viewers were just as lost.
Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
From far off, a presence began to approach at a slow, measured pace, its bearing so noble the other unicorns could not even be compared to it.
"Our king..."
"..."
The unicorns knelt before their rightful sovereign, and the one who had been questioning me lowered his head as well, reverence written all over him.
A moment later, the king of the unicorns addressed me, and the air around him was solemn.
"Will you not stop?"
"No. I will not stop."
I had already lost my one and only little sister to the sin of hesitating for a single instant.
"Will you not break?"
"No. I will not break."
I was no longer who I used to be—the one who ran from the military and drifted, hunting for somewhere to hide from the guilt.
"And even so, will you fight?"
"Yes. I will fight."
I had a calling now, and the strength to match it. There was no reason not to fight.
"Good."
With the three exchanges finished, he nodded slowly, a satisfied smile on his face.
Fwaaaah—!!!
In that instant, a blinding radiance erupted around the Unicorn King.
"This is..."
He vanished like a mirage, and where he had stood, something long was driven into the earth. Like a divine spear.
"The Unicorn Lord turned into a weapon...?!"
"Don't tell me someone who can actually earn his recognition just showed up..."
The Kemono Live members stared at what lay before them, faces blank with shock.
The hunters in chat were no different. Shock came pouring out of them.
"So this is... my weapon?"
As if possessed, I picked up the Spear of the Unicorn Lord.
It settled into my hand like it had been waiting there, the balance perfect. The shaft was beautiful—ornate, and yet held in check. Brightest of all was the blade, rippling with gold, shining clear as glass.
"I understand why you gave this to me, but... it's still a heavy burden."
The Unicorn Lord had tested me. A question of whether the purest and most upright of all was truly ready to walk that road of hardship.
"Fine. I'll take it on."
The unicorns seemed to want an awful lot from me. At the start, the whole point had clearly been sorting virgins from everyone else. Maybe, though, they had laid the board like this just to call someone like me.
"Eh...?"
I had finally gotten a serious mood going, and his habitual slander smashed it to pieces.
"HEY!!!! You insane bastard, Kim Heon-ppung!!!!!!"
I unloaded a brainless ban-beam into the chat, which was spewing absolute nonsense.
"Good work, Elia! See you next time!!"
"Yes...!"
Holy lance in hand, I left the Unicorn Realm, clasped hands with Fenrir—whose red tail was wagging like mad—and said my goodbyes.
"Yes!"
I parted from the other Kemono Live members as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Even then, all four of them still walked off with a unicorn horn. Absolute misers.
"Excuse me. This is my stream, you know?"
Once or twice I could let it go. Watching them keep on about some other woman, though, was an eyesore.
"J-jealous?! I wasn't doing anything like that!"
"You stay out of this!"
All I'd done was say one thing, and chat started oozing every kind of simp nonsense while the status window talked garbage. It was enough to make me dizzy.
"Uh... hard to say."
If there was one real problem, it was that I had no idea how to handle a spear. If I wanted to use a melee weapon, I'd have to get trained by a specialist instructor, wouldn't I?
Chat kicked up another racket over who, exactly, was supposed to teach me.
"Whoa..."
The hunter who went by Incompetent Warrior carried, just as I'd seen on the gallery, a raw inferiority complex about the narrowness of her skills.
"...Thank you."
An ominous feeling brushed past me. Still, better to learn from someone who at least looked like an expert, right?
"Hup...! Hah!!!"
"Yes!"
With a new spearmanship instructor, I kept at the training exactly as she taught it.
Whoosh—! A bounce. Swish—! Another bounce.
Everyone else could watch me train and still talk about nothing but my chest. Incompetent Warrior, though, was dead serious about the spear, and she coached me with her whole heart.
"Yes?"
Right in the middle of me thrusting for all I was worth, she said it in a grave tone.
"Uh... you're right."
"Then what do I do?"
"Nngh..."
I'd been so pleased to have a new weapon, and now a weakness like this.
"Yes?"
While I was still groaning over it, the status window spoke up out of nowhere.
Ding!
"Oh."
Come to think of it, there had been a quest like that. Now I understood why the status window had told me to stream.