Chapter 136 — I Was Wrong (1)
"What do you mean...."
Roan's voice quavered with unease.
Fiora spoke then, as if to comfort him.
— This place is ill-suited for a long tale. Now that you have felt it firsthand, you must understand. How utterly vile the energy that fills this place is. That is what Greed is. It never stops until it has seized everything and locked it within its grasp.
And Fiora offered counsel.
— Return to the city of men. Lands where people have long gathered to dwell possess strength. Once we are back in the city, I will tell you my story. That is, if you still take an interest in me then.
"I'll hear it."
Fiora's voice brightened a little.
— A relief! I worried I might be driven away again, as with our last encounter. Though it lacked any savory flavor, thanks to the blood of that demon beast you fed me, I ought to be able to speak for quite some time. Ah, yes. I neglected to offer my thanks. You have my gratitude.
And then Fiora spoke no more.
Roan considered calling her name, but then let it go.
As Fiora had said, what he had already experienced was more than enough to understand the nature of the corrupted land's influence.
If that was so, then what kind of lives were those who dwelt in this desert, enduring the full brunt of this wicked land's influence, having to bear?
Roan could now vaguely comprehend why the Lord of the East Yellow Territory always seemed to carry a shadow of deep melancholy in one corner of his expression.
"...Let us return."
**
By the time they arrived in Birektum, the sun had long since set.
Birektum's gates, ordinarily sealed after sunset, were willingly thrown open for the emperor who had come to the city for the first time.
Even if Roan did not desire it, the emperor's visit was a once-in-a-lifetime event for the mayor and officials who governed Birektum.
It was not until the moon had nearly sunk below the horizon that he finished exchanging the requisite words with them and withdrew to his lodgings.
"Fiora."
The bedchamber was not so vast and sumptuous as the one in the Basel Imperial Palace, yet an air of tidy refinement suffused it.
The desert night, the sound of the storm shutter rattling in the wind beyond the window.
Now finally alone, Roan laid his hand upon the sword and quietly spoke her name.
Fiora answered slowly.
— You have returned to the city.
"Mm."
Roan was inwardly tense.
He did not know when Fiora might manifest and burst forth. Yet Fiora spoke with a laugh, as though she had read his very thoughts.
— Do not worry. To manifest without the will of my master is an exceedingly difficult thing. Last time, I pulled together every last wisp of the meager strength I possessed. That is why I could not speak with Roan for a time after.
"Then am I meant to assist the manifestation?"
— Yes. I would be glad if you did. Place your hand upon the part where the jewel rests and breathe your power into me, Roan. A certain measure will suffice.
Roan hesitated for the briefest of moments,
but soon laid his hand upon her.
He had resolved to hear Fiora's story. If he intended to keep wielding her regardless, he would at some point need the time to face her.
If possible, it would be best to improve his relationship with her before he encountered the Hero or the enemy denoted by ■■.
Just as when he employed sword energy or magic, the power flowing through his body gathered in his palm.
And soon, before Roan's eyes, a naked woman with a magnificent figure appeared.
"Hello."
Lightly waving her hand, she approached Roan with a feline tread. Whereupon Roan abruptly held out something.
"...?"
"Put it on. There's no need to waste power conjuring clothes."
"Oh, my. You will be taking them off anyway."
Contrary to her words, however, Fiora obediently accepted the gown Roan proffered and donned it.
He had thought he'd prepared a size with room to spare, but it seemed it was still insufficient to contain a K-cup.
The bosom, its extreme edges barely veiled, somehow appeared lewder than when she was naked, so Roan averted his gaze.
The instant he sensed her presence, his quickening heartbeat was the instinct of demonkind when confronting a mighty being.
"Fufu. Is it pounding?"
Fiora stretched out a pale hand and stroked near Roan's chest. Roan, however, spoke sullenly.
"The blood tasted bad, you said?"
To Fiora alone, Roan found himself able to abstain from displaying the mien of a Demon King.
The sense that the Demon King's Filter, which was automatically applied, was growing faint.
Thanks to that, whether in the training ground or here, Roan felt as though he were speaking candidly, not as the Demon King or the emperor, but as the substance within.
Fiora, who had widened her eyes in surprise at this unexpected grievance, let out a clear peal of laughter.
"Oh my, were you hurt?"
"Hmph. I did put some thought into it. Well, I don't know the taste of blood myself."
"Roan, thank you."
As if to display affection, Fiora climbed up to sit facing him on Roan's lap and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
The front opening of the gown, which spread apart of its own accord as she straddled him, was far too distracting.
Try as he might not to be conscious of them, Fiora's enormous breasts could not help but enter his vision.
As Roan gnawed at his own lip, Fiora's eyes crinkled with a smile.
"The most delicious is, of course, the blood of a living being.... Human blood, most of all."
She wet her lips seductively.
Her red lips, glistening damp.
Without realizing it, Roan very nearly swallowed his own saliva.
"But knowing Roan's temperament, you aren't likely to procure such a thing. I've no choice, have I?"
The blood Roan had brought was a byproduct of the cooking done in the kitchen.
To suit the taste Fiora desired, he would have to deliberately plunge a knife into the body of a living being....
Doing such a thing merely for her strength stirred a certain aversion in him. The inner substance was, after all, an ordinary person with no experience of killing.
Someday, perhaps, an opportunity might arise to substitute myself in the process when an animal is being butchered for cooking.
"I'm grateful for your understanding. And how do you know such a taste? Is it a preference you developed after becoming a sword?"
"To ask such a question. It seems what was written about me was not in any great detail, was it?"
Fiora's eyes rounded, and she spoke of a different matter instead.
Though it was a topic Fiora was not especially fond of, Roan confessed honestly.
"Mm. There was precisely one line. 'Fiora, chieftain of the yokai, joined the expedition to seal the demon.'"
He could not bring himself to say that she had been edified by the Goddess.
Earlier, Fiora had asked whether she was called the Goddess.
Perhaps she knew the figure from before she became the Goddess.
For instance, the two of them had been friends.
Two who were friends long ago.
If one became the Goddess and the other was known as a sealed yokai, the yokai's feelings might well be soured by it—setting entirely aside whether she was truly a yokai or not.
"A yokai, you say. That is an exceedingly disagreeable word."
Fiora narrowed her eyes, her expression prim.
"Spiritual being, divine creature. There are so many favorable terms. I, for my part, was treated with a fair measure of respect in the place I lived, you know."
"Was your taste for blood also treated with respect?"
"...Fufu."
Fiora laughed.
Moistening her lips, as if recalling the flavor of blood.
"Even before I became a sword, my power was of the sort that is built up from other living things. That is how I was born."
"Like a vampire?"
"It would be troublesome if you classed me with those uncouth creatures."
Fiora shook her head from side to side.
Her dazzling silver hair rippled.
"Those ones steal life. They know nothing of the aesthetics of life. To draw a little strength from the living, and then to watch as the heart, having overcome its terror, pulses once more and fills with blood.... That—that is the true magic of living!"
Fiora's voice grew higher and faster, as if she were slightly overwrought.
When Roan stared fixedly into her eyes as if dumbfounded, Fiora cleared her throat with a small cough and turned her head as if in embarrassment.
"Hmm. Hm. At any rate, Roan would not know. My homeland is very far from here, and my kin were mostly erased by Greed. I once had a number of alluring tails as well...."
"...Like a nine-tailed fox?"
"You know of... a nine-tailed fox?"
Roan shut his mouth with an expression that said he had slipped.
But Fiora was not one to miss such an instant.
"Roan, don't tell me you are a human of the west? That you are not originally of demonkind?"
"I'd simply—heard of it. About Rayorun...."
"Rayorun...."
In a flash, the excitement vanished from Fiora's face.
The emotion carried in that sunken expression and in her words was longing.
Fiora, who seemed to trace her memories for a moment, spoke with sharpened eyes.
"Now that I think of it, something was strange. Even last time when I manifested, Roan was sitting upon the bed. Not on the edge of it."
Had he been?
The most vivid memory was of nearly losing his senses to her massive chest when Fiora had suddenly manifested.
And at the words that followed, Roan gave a startled flinch.
"The people of the Moira Continent do not sit in such a fashion. The manner of seating where both legs are folded atop the floor."
The so-called cross-legged posture.
In his life before becoming the Demon King, it was the posture he had always assumed whenever he sat in his room or on a comfortable floor.
Fiora's deep-pink eyes glittered.
"So that is why you would not give me your name."
Roan could utter not a single word.
As the caution he had laboriously lowered climbed back up,
the heartbeat that had been slowly slackening quickened once more.
Perhaps sensing it as well, Fiora smiled brightly.
"Hmm. Well then, Roan. Very well. Let us make a bargain."
Fiora drew her body closer.
Her vast breasts, with nowhere else to go, pressed heavily against Roan's chest.
Roan's lower half began to respond.
Feeling it, Fiora smiled once more.
"I will show you heaven."
Her voice was sweet and bewitching.
Roan felt a momentary dizziness.
A temptation that seemed impossible to refuse.
Yet Roan gathered his strength and exerted his will.
"That alone holds little appeal. Why are you so fixated upon my name?"
"Because I believe that a relationship begins with names and forms of address. I, for my part."
It was a rather straitlaced way of thinking.
But he could not bring himself to say that aloud. She seemed the sort who might fly into a blaze of indignation at being treated like an old crone.
"And because, though I know there is another Roan, when it is only the two of us, I also wish to call you by your proper name."
Fiora's shoulders lifted in a shrug.
With that motion, the gown slipped ever so slightly.
Her fair shoulder and one of the mounds of flesh that continued beneath it seized Roan's gaze.
In the end, Roan swallowed his saliva.
Wearing a smile, Fiora laid her hand upon Roan's lower half.
Her hand was warmer than he expected.
"Lacking appeal, you say. Were you to try once with me, you would not be able to say so. Did you not enjoy it last time, when I took you into my mouth?"
A great, shuddering tremor ran through Roan's body.
He could not say no.
The truth was, it had been so good it had even reappeared in his dreams.
That sensation, which transmitted a tingling numbness for reasons he could not fathom, had been as stimulating as an addiction.
Understanding Roan's silence as affirmation, Fiora brought her face close to his lips.
This fragrance that spread sweetly,
the scent of sweet fruit.
"Then shall I share an old tale with you? The story Roan has been so curious about. To the extent that I tell my story, I would be glad if Roan would reveal his own as well."
It was a fair point.
As long as it was not a situation in which I was threatened.
In any case, Fiora was the sword to whom he entrusted his life,
and if he ever manifested and made use of her, Fiora would be the one to whom he entrusted his life all the more.
A kernel of unease remained in one corner of his mind,
yet he could not remain forever distrustful and suspicious.
To a swordsman,
the sword is an entity that must be trusted with his very life.
Thus far, Fiora's words had contained no falsehood,
and he sensed no hostility from her.
To reveal nothing of himself and hope to receive answers solely about Fiora—when weighed against the good faith between one person and another, that would not be right.
Even if the other party had been a nine-tailed fox in the past and was a sword in the present.
"...All right."
Roan's head gave a slow nod.
At that, the corners of Fiora's lips drew slightly upward.
The reason he could no longer see the change in her expression was that her lips had covered his own.
A heated breath was conveyed.
The instant Fiora's tongue touched him, Roan's body went numb.
Was it due to the disparity in power,
or the strength she possessed as a yokai?
A provocative sensation that heightened his mood.
Much like swallowing poison.
Roan received her entangling tongue and exchanged saliva.
His reason felt as if it might be paralyzed by the sweet scent that wafted from her.
His lower half, which until a moment ago had been cautiously swelling, had already grown rigidly distended and begun to wet the front of his clothes.
"Ahh, so sweet...."
After the long kiss, Fiora broke away and murmured low.
Was it because of his racing heartbeat? Roan felt, uncharacteristically, his breath quicken.
He could not recall his chest trembling like this since his first love.
"Shall we continue just as we are, then?"
Fiora began slowly to remove Roan's upper garments.
"I'm in something of a hurry."
Fiora laughed playfully and rubbed the space between her legs against Roan's risen length below.
Even through the fabric, the slick, gliding sensation was vividly apparent.