The Night the Land of Death Bids Farewell (1)
It took roughly five days to reach Inis Madun. Most of the journey wound through a vast wetland where only scattered large trees broke the emptiness. I had never seen this place on my first trip to Cashel Groa. The moment I stepped into the forest that time, I had become a living cocoon for those parasite-spawning insects, and even after my rescue it took me a long while to come back to my senses.
The Great Swamp, where leaving the known safe paths could send you plunging into bottomless quagmires, was desolate yet strangely beautiful. It was a contradictory feeling, but no other words would do. Reeds and cattails, wind-stunted shrubs, and the occasional ancient giant tree all swayed amid the ceaseless rain, wind, and fog.
Both this wetland and the fog-choked forests of Riaska would probably draw crowds of tourists back on Earth, if only for their untouched natural splendor.
It would have been even lovelier on a clear day, but Riaska’s climate made that almost impossible, a small regret. Then again, if clear skies were common here, this swamp would never have formed in the first place.
Ugh…
After three days and a little more, the light-green, damp expanse of plain suddenly ended. Before me rose a dense, moss-draped forest wrapped in thick fog, and an old, untamed path winding through the trees.
The sight was painfully familiar. It was the same forest where I had met the infected deer and the parasitic wasps after leaving Inis Madun.
Horrible memories surged up. Even those mad, deliriously happy days came back with vivid clarity. I hesitated, not wanting to become that again, but I conquered the fear and stepped inside.
Hmph. I’m not the person I used to be.
…….
Whether I was the same or not, the forest offered no encounters. No chance to test whether I had truly changed, grown stronger, or become more seasoned.
Or rather, it was not entirely empty. Every few hours I came across an armed skeleton standing motionless, like some macabre tour guide or signpost.
After living in this land for years and growing used to corpses serving the priests, the sight no longer disturbed me much. This was a strange society kept afloat by the dead performing the labor the living could not, simply because there were never enough people.
So while the eerie figures no longer startled me, they still felt awkward. It was probably too self-centered to assume the skeletons had been placed there specifically to guard my return path.
Thanks to them, I was able to walk the muddy, sludge-filled forest trail without much caution. Aside from the moments when lightning cracked beyond the treetops and sent me crouching, shivering, the journey passed quietly.
The forest path ended without incident. The moment I stepped onto the open riverbank, the Madun River appeared at the edge of my vision. Against its muddy, turbid current lay a small, shabby-looking village—Inis Madun.
It’s been five years. The villagers probably won’t remember me… but Priest Karik should.
I quickened my steps and reached the village just as the sun was sinking into twilight. Since no boats would cross the river at night, I pushed through the misty rain and entered the inn without thinking.
The instant I opened the rough wooden door overgrown with vines and moss, I staggered back several steps in shock.
“Welcome, Lady Kaira!”
“We’re so glad you’re here!!”
“On behalf of all Riaska, welcome!!”
Someone fired several crude exploding tubes at me—impossible to tell if they were guns or fireworks. Thick, acrid smoke billowed up. I closed my eyes, waved it away, and coughed violently.
“Um… what… what is all this…?”
I stared in bewilderment at the inn’s dining hall, packed wall-to-wall with what appeared to be every single person in the tiny village. From the crowd, a small boy stepped forward.
A boy with corpse-pale skin, mid-teens… a face I knew well.
“It has been a long time, Lady Kaira. When Mother received word that you were returning to the Empire, she sent us to wait for you all the way at the forest’s edge.”
“A welcoming party? But I didn’t see anyone on the way…”
“You didn’t? We sent skeletons beyond the forest. You truly didn’t see them?”
“Ah……”
So that was it.
Of course. Animating even a single skeleton was no easy task. In a land perpetually short on labor, they could hardly spare undead to guard unknown travelers.
He had done this for me. To ensure I arrived safely.
I bowed my head slightly in thanks.
“Yes, I did meet them. Thank you for your consideration. However……”
I looked at the bustling crowd, the towering layered cake in the center of the hall—something that could never have been made with the poor flour available here—and the river-mud-scented seafood dishes arranged around it. My expression grew awkward.
“What exactly is all this…?”
“We wanted to thank you for publishing the book that introduces Riaska to the world, and to hold a farewell party as you leave our land.”
Several village men chimed in to support the boy.
“Our Karik—I mean, the priest—asked for it, so of course we prepared everything!”
“You should have seen how widely he smiled with that pale blue-white mouth while getting all this ready.”
“Ah, everyone… please don’t say such things……”
…So that’s how it was.
I melted into a warm, genuine smile and called out brightly to the villagers who had shown me such heartfelt kindness.
“Hehe. Thank you so very much, everyone! I accept your kindness with all my heart and will enjoy the feast together with all of you who worked so hard to prepare it!”
Instantly the hall filled with applause, whistles, children whining for food, and the bright clink of liquor-filled glasses being raised.
I had never liked noisy, boisterous places, yet I felt grateful that the people of this riverside village—and Karik—had treated an outsider like me so preciously. Even surrounded by the loud clamor, I smiled with quiet contentment. The river delicacies, heavy with the scent of mud, tasted like nothing else on earth.
In the middle of that raucous feast, when no one was looking our way, I leaned close to Karik’s ear and whispered.
“Would you like to taste Kaira’s warm, fresh blood…? It’s been so long.”
A seductive invitation.
Late that night, after the excited murmurs of the revelers had finally died away, I entwined my body with Priest Karik. I had carefully folded and set aside all the clothes Bishop Lumina had given me. Naturally, I was completely naked.
At first it was gentle, beginning with our lips.
“Chup… chusup… mmm… mmh… heup… puhaah……”
Karik’s corpse-cold lips and tongue greedily explored me for a long time before pulling back slightly. I clung tightly to the immortal being who wore the body of a boy far smaller than myself, begging him.
“My blood… please drink it. Drink it all… drink every drop of Kaira’s blood……”
Even in the darkness, Karik’s gentle smile was clearly visible. He moved to place his lips against my neck, then hesitated.
“Lady Kaira, the mesmerism……”
That’s right.
I could not give it up. The ecstatic hypnosis cast by the gaze of vampire priests, the happiness of mistaking the sensation of life being drained for supreme pleasure and climaxing again and again—I could not abandon it.
Once I left this place, I did not know when I would return. Priests of death could be found throughout the Empire. Perhaps even in distant territories belonging to other races. But I could not guess how many of those secretive beings would willingly accept a deranged wizard’s request for blood-drinking with sexual intent.
So this pleasure would be the last. I held Karik tightly and pleaded.
“Yes. Please… Even if Kaira’s mind shatters, cast it strongly, so deeply that I cannot escape… mesmerize me……”
Before I could finish speaking, Karik’s glowing violet eyes met my vivid red ones in the pitch blackness. Just from meeting that gaze, I—
“Hehet… ha, he… ahehet… eh… hue… huaat♡”
I drooled from the corner of my mouth and from between my legs, smiling like an idiot.
“I will begin.”
“Yesh, yesheeeet…… hih!?”
Karik’s sharp fangs sank into my nape. The sensation that should have been pain pierced my brain as pure climax, without even passing through arousal.
“Hyaah……! Th-this is—?! Ngh, huuuh… t-too strong—?!”
The feeling of blood leaving me in wet gulps, each red cell that slipped through the wound, struck my pleasure nerves like a whip.
My limbs trembled violently, then stiffened completely. I convulsed as if about to faint. Shamefully, urine trickled from my completely slack lower belly with a quiet sound.
“Slurp……”
Only a single mouthful.
Karik drank only one mouthful before pulling away. It was consideration so my strength would not be overly depleted for the long journey ahead. I somehow calmed my trembling body and embraced him lovingly for that thoughtfulness.
His corpse-like body had already regained warmth. From just that single sip taken from me.
“Good… Priest, it’s good… I love you… ehehet, I love you……”
Karik looked down at me as I drooled and confessed in a broken voice. His expression was bittersweet.
Was he displeased that the love confession had been forced by hypnosis? Did he feel that lying with a mortal woman like me was inappropriate for his holy office? Or was he simply reluctant to part with someone he had grown fond of?
It didn’t matter. What was important right now was not his heart, but mine—even if that heart was nothing more than an illusion granted by mesmerism and blood-drinking.
“Then… I will begin below as well.”
After that priestly, solemn declaration, he hesitated just as he was about to thrust into me the enormous erection that ill-suited his boyish body—now hot with the red life he had taken from me moments ago, like a stake meant to slay vampires.
“Was the blood-drinking… sufficient as foreplay?”
Even through the lingering haze of hypnosis, the question was absurd enough to spark disbelief. Did this man truly not realize that a single mesmerism-laced mouthful of blood aroused me far more effectively than hours of ordinary caresses?
I nodded with exaggerated enthusiasm and pulled his now-warm body into my arms. Rubbing my face against his chest, I made my consent clear. It was a sign that I offered him my entire body, that I would submit to him for the rest of the night.