Cat Commotion (3)
There are generally two ways to solve a maze: the left-hand rule and the right-hand rule.
No matter how complex the labyrinth, if you keep one hand pressed to a wall and simply follow the path, you can usually crack it with ease.
But it is not a method that works every time.
If the walls of the maze are not connected — if they stand as separate, floating segments — those same techniques only make the labyrinth more tangled than before.
And quite apart from structure, there are cases where neither the left-hand nor the right-hand rule will help you at all.
Namely, when the maze itself is alive and moving — just like this one.
Turn a corner, take a step back, and the place you just left has already become somewhere else. Whole sections of the alley slid back and forth like tiles in a sliding puzzle, rearranging the labyrinth with every shift.
"Going over the top doesn't work either."
He tried bracing against both walls and climbing toward the rooftops, but a transparent barrier sealed the way, denying him any ascent.
Lowen had been testing every approach he could think of to break the maze. No matter what he tried, the labyrinth pushed back. Worst of all was the inability to use any of his buffs — that was the single greatest obstacle.
—Wuum.
As he continued down the alley, a sudden, powerful vibration rolled through his body. A warm heat brushed his cheek. Something that had been locking him down came undone with a sensation like a padlock clicking open.
"This is… divine power…"
The warmth blooming in his chest was unmistakably divine energy — and an extraordinarily potent one at that. He felt it instinctively: the Saintess's divine power had just released the restriction that had been binding him.
Lowen closed his eyes, then snapped them open.
"So even the Saintess can be useful sometimes."
He could see it now.
Divine power stretched across the ground like the roots of a tree, reaching out from some distant point. The maze would keep shifting, but if he followed the direction of that divine energy spreading along the floor, he would find Ariel.
He was working his way through the labyrinth along that trail of power when something brought him to a halt.
"What is…"
A figure blocking the alley stopped Lowen in his tracks.
"…A backside?"
The first thing he saw was a round, bare bottom beneath a flipped-up short pleated skirt. The scrap of fabric that should have covered it was nothing more than a string, leaving the smooth curve of her hips completely exposed. Beyond that, pink hair came into view.
There was a woman.
Long pink hair falling in soft waves. Beside her head, second only to the backside in how much it stood out, a large hat lay discarded on the ground.
"A witch?"
Whether she had heard his voice or not, the backside she had been holding so carefully aloft gave a little twitch.
"Is someone there?"
A clear, crystalline voice.
"Are you in some kind of trouble?"
Lowen stepped around in front of her and assessed her condition.
"I've nearly burned through all my magic power. That's the trouble."
The woman lifted her head and looked up at him with exhausted eyes.
"A cleric, huh? Was that ridiculous divine power just now yours?"
"It was not."
"Figured as much. I can't sense so much as a speck of divine power coming off you."
Still sprawled on the ground, the woman who had claimed to be in trouble introduced herself with complete nonchalance.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Clea Mercante."
She offered her hand for a shake.
"Bishop of the cathedral in Wind-bird Forest. Lowen."
Lowen took Clea's hand and shook it.
"My, a bishop with his divine power completely dried up?"
"What makes a bishop is not divine power, but faith."
"Doesn't high faith usually come with high divine power, though?"
He already had the feeling she was going to be a handful.
"In any case — what exactly were you doing that left you nearly drained of magic?"
"I got startled and released it all without meaning to."
"Did you see a ghost?"
"Please. As if I'd jump at something like that. People are terrified of ghosts, but if you actually meet one, they're adorable."
Clea wriggled and pushed herself upright.
"An unimaginably strong force slammed into me out of nowhere and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Inside this barrier, the only one who should be able to use magic, divine power, or any other ability is me — and then this enormous wave of divine energy hit so hard my whole body rocked. I had no idea someone with that kind of power was living in a backwater village like this. Whew."
Listening to her, Lowen caught on to one particular word.
"Barrier?"
He had already known the alley was strange, and he had already guessed that someone had deliberately raised a barrier over it.
"That's right. This entire alley is my barrier right now."
Clea said it with open pride, looking thoroughly pleased with herself.
If I knock this woman out, can I get free of this maze?
The thought of simply using force rose up, and Lowen shook his head against it.
"Why did you put up a barrier?"
"I'm looking for merchandise. You wouldn't believe how fast it runs."
Clea let out a long, weary sigh and shook her head.
"Ah — for reference, this is who I am."
She flicked her fingers. A crisp snap echoed down the alley, and a palm-sized slip of paper fluttered out of her pocket and drifted up in front of Lowen's face.
He caught the floating card.
It was a business card.
Vice-Master — Clea Mercante
"Robarara Merchant Guild?"
Lowen's eyes widened slightly in recognition. He knew the guild well — it was where he bought the cigarettes he liked to smoke. Even without that personal connection, the Robarara Merchant Guild was famous as a massive witch-run trading house.
Clea cleared her throat with a self-important little cough.
"Ahem. Which is to say, I am its Vice-Master."
The floating card fluttered like a butterfly and slipped neatly back into her pocket.
"So you turned an entire alley into a maze over a single piece of merchandise?"
"That's right. Sorry if you've been wandering around because of me."
"If you're sorry, I'd appreciate it if you dropped the barrier first."
"Sorry about that too. Like I said — not until I find the merchandise."
Clea filled him in on the situation: the product she had lost in the forest four days ago — a single black cat.
"Ugh… I've tried catching it with magic, but it has magic resistance, and the cat can use magic itself. On top of that, it hates women like me and bolts the second it sees me. It's not a unicorn, for heaven's sake."
The unicorn comparison told him exactly what she meant by "women like me."
"Would that black cat happen to have pink eyes and two tails?"
"Oh! That's the one!"
So that was the odd detail. If the little girl had been raising that cat for a long time, the villagers would never have reacted with "There's a cat like that?" every time someone asked about a two-tailed cat. Putting it together, the girl must have stumbled across the cat Clea had lost, taken it home, and then lost it again herself.
"I tracked it all the way here somehow, and I still can't catch the thing."
"I've been looking for it as well."
"Hm? Why?"
"A child in the village asked me to find it."
Lowen showed her the drawing the little girl had made.
"Don't tell me it found an owner it likes in the meantime. That would be a real problem…"
Clea fretted, chewing on the tip of her finger. It was an important cat, commissioned by a noble. Half the payment had already been made; if she failed to deliver, she would have to pay back double that advance. And money aside, there was a more troubling issue still.
"That cat… it isn't an ordinary cat. It's an Absorbing Spirit Cat — a succubus familiar that feeds on a person's vital essence. It will drain a man's essence without discrimination, but from women it only takes a virgin's. And on rare occasions, if it chooses as its master a lewd virgin who secretly loves filthy things, it can even possess her body. It has all sorts of other abilities too… for example, its saliva has an aphrodisiac effect that can drive a person into heat…"
In short, a cat that absolutely should not be left free to roam.
"What happens if it possesses someone?"
"She goes into heat for twenty-four hours straight — until she takes a man's semen into her body."
Yes. A thoroughly troublesome cat.
"Haha, still — virgins lewd enough for an Absorbing Spirit Cat to take a liking to are extremely rare."
She said there was no need to worry about possession, but one particular person kept rising unbidden in Lowen's mind.
A masturbation addict who, whenever she got bored, would slip a hand into her underwear and idle her fingers over her sex. Gentle and diligent in front of others, but in truth a lazy, hopeless Saintess — Ariel.
"Still… she's a Saintess… surely not…"
A Saintess would never fall to something as base as possession.
"I'm just worrying for nothing…"
"Mrr… mrrr… huaaah…"
Ariel, wedged in the wall. She squirmed and strained to free herself, but no matter how she tried, her enormous breasts kept her stuck fast.
"O Lord of Light… please, just make these breasts a little smaller…"
She clasped her hands and offered up a heartfelt prayer, but a god was not some idle freeloader with nothing better to do — there was no chance such a request would be granted.
"Meow~"
As if trying to comfort her, the cat rasped its rough tongue across Ariel's cheek.
"Thank you for cheering me up…"
Ariel stroked the cat. Looking thoroughly pleased with her, it squinted in a contented smile and pressed its head into her hand.
"This really is a strange situation. I can get in, but I can't get out…"
Ariel slumped, dejected. Completely oblivious, the cat burrowed into her chest as if looking for a game, a tiny ball of fur wriggling and worming its way between her breasts.
"Ahaha, that tickles."
Soft cat fur brushed against her chest, and a pair of gently swaying tails patted her cheeks.
"Hyaah—!"
Having worked its way between her breasts, the cat now began to lick them. The coarse, sandpaper texture was so stimulating her shoulders jerked. Ariel tried to pull the cat away, but it dug in stubbornly and groomed her chest with abandon.
"Ha… haah…"
As that rough, scouring sensation went on, her breathing grew steadily heavier. Something was wrong with her body. A floaty, drifting lightness filled her head, and a hot liquid seemed to slosh low in her belly.
Ariel closed her eyes, banished the stray thoughts, and tried to calm herself. But her heart would not settle. Strange ideas kept rising and clinging stickily to her brain.
The seed of a fantasy took root and sprouted.
She had read something like this in a book once.
A woman who crawled into a crawlspace only to get her backside stuck. A stranger who happened to pass by took full advantage of her helplessness and used both of her lower holes without resistance. Her sex and her anus both glazed thick with milky white fluid. Thud, thud. Squish, squelch.
"I'm insane… I'm completely insane… What am I thinking at a time like this…"
But the fantasy only grew larger.
Just as she did when she masturbated, she projected herself into the heroine of the book. Completely exposed, backside thrust out, legs thrashing as she was forced and taken.
And then Ariel startled with a jolt.
"Hueh?"
It was only a fantasy — and yet the man gripping her hips and slamming his waist against her backside was the same man who had woken her that very morning.