The Girls' Heart-Pounding Journey! (2)
The sun had already set before we could travel very far after leaving Opia's house. The imperial capital's walls were no longer visible from here. Still, we were only in the suburbs of the capital, passing through wide stretches of wheat fields and orchards.
It didn't seem like the search parties scouring the area outside the city walls would have reached this far yet. And since there were residents living here, even if we lit a fire, someone would probably see it anyway….
“Pirel, should we stop by a nearby farmhouse and ask if we can stay the night?”
I was gently asking if she was tired.
“No.”
After exchanging a few conversations on horseback throughout the evening, Pirel had gradually begun speaking to me more casually. I found that more comfortable too. After all… she was my mother.
“I think it’s better to keep moving through the night. If we rest, we should do it outside.”
Pirel answered more decisively than I had expected.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“I am tired, but you’re a fugitive, Kaira. Now, before a proper search begins in earnest, we need to get as far away as possible. Once we enter somewhere like another duchy, fewer people will know about the wanted notice.”
It was a sound argument.
‘Mother… she’s more resolute than I thought.’
Well, even when I was young, she had always been far stricter than Father. She had survived by doing odd jobs in a brothel, begging on the streets after being thrown out, and working in a stable. That experience couldn’t be ignored.
We stopped for a moment at a fork in the road between the farms.
It wasn’t to light a fire or sleep. We needed to give the horses a short rest and decide which direction to take next.
“My butt hurts…”
“You’ll get used to it.”
It had been Pirel’s suggestion to rest at this crossroads. She had said that while selling or lending horses, she had traveled around the capital’s vicinity quite a bit and roughly remembered the roads nearby.
“So where are we going now?”
“I’m looking for a place to leave you, Pirel.”
“I see…”
There was a faint trace of disappointment in Pirel’s voice.
“Well, that makes sense. I don’t know how to fight, and I don’t have any strange abilities like that. We probably can’t stay together forever…”
“You received my memories. Couldn’t you at least use simple magic?”
Pirel tried mimicking the hand gesture for the illumination spell from my memories. The result…
No light appeared at all.
“…I tried copying it, but it didn’t work. Well, I guess just reading someone’s diary doesn’t let you copy the skills they learned.”
“I suppose so.”
The reason Rin could use magic was because she had been born as a magical creature from the start, and rather than simply receiving memories through magic, she had completely synchronized with my brain.
“Kaira.”
Pirel spoke while quietly stroking the horse that was sitting and peacefully grazing on the grass by the roadside.
“Yes, Pirel.”
“What kind of place is Earth?”
It was a question I had been expecting ever since I passed my memories to Pirel. Just from that, she must have realized there was more to my hidden abilities—why I had received them in the first place.
Explaining Earth and reincarnation was the hardest part of all. She must have been holding back from asking until now out of consideration for me.
“It’s not… all that different from this place. The civilization that makes life convenient for people and the studies that explain the principles of the world are far more advanced, but there are far fewer intelligent life forms. Probably our world too…”
I hesitated here. Yes, I realized that this place was now my home, and that it truly felt like “our world.”
“…Our world will soon become as prosperous as Earth. The dwarves are already running automated factories.”
“That’s fascinating. I wish I could go see it someday…”
I smiled sadly.
“I want to go back too. It’s already been over twenty years… No, in Earth time it would only be about sixteen or seventeen years, but still, quite a lot of time has passed. It might look quite different from what I remember.”
“Does it change that quickly in just a decade or two?”
“Yes.”
Pirel looked astonished. Well, of course. Earth was in the midst of a technological revolution where new inventions poured out every few years, while this world was completely different. For a world that had only just emerged from the end of the Middle Ages, that must have been especially difficult to understand.
“Kaira.”
The girl, who had fallen silent under the midnight darkness while lost in thought, spoke again.
“Yes, Pirel.”
“That… creature called Rin. Could you introduce her to me too?”
“Ah…”
That’s right.
She must have known from the moment she received my memories. Perhaps she had deliberately avoided asking until now, worried that I might be hurt by the fact that I had given birth to such a being.
‘Yay! Yay! Give me control, Mom!!’
I quietly told Rin, who was shouting inside my head.
‘Don’t even think about borrowing my body. I want you to show your original form if possible. I’d like to introduce your main body, but it’s back at Mr. Naixon’s house.’
‘Okay, okay! I’ll gather all the split bodies that have been following us and grow them to about the size of my main body!’
…So that was it. It seemed Rin had been leading the other split bodies disguised as rats and insects all the way here.
Since the original reason she created those split bodies was to find her mother, there had been no reason for them to stay behind in the capital.
But I had forgotten one important thing.
“Ah…”
By the time I realized it through the sensation in my ear canal, it was already far too late.
“Hngh, ugh… H-heh?! Ah, eek, ngh, h-heh…”
Because of the shock of Rin forcing her way out of my head, I collapsed with a pathetic expression, drooling saliva and tears while writhing from the foreign sensation.
Whether on purpose or by accident, the slender tentacles of Rin that were emerging were relentlessly stimulating my pleasure.
“Ah, ahng… Mmmgh?!!!”
When Rin finally slid out of my skull with a wet schlup, I dropped to my knees after reaching several overlapping climaxes. The sticky love juices that had completely soaked the skirt of my dress flowed unpleasantly down my thighs, cooling rapidly in the night breeze.
“Whoa…”
A natural gasp of amazement escaped Pirel’s lips. …Her expression held a mixture of slight bewilderment and something akin to disgust.
“Kaira, your pretty face is completely ruined…”
“Ugh…”
To show such a pathetic, climaxing face in front of my own mother of all people. Overwhelmed with shame, I turned my head away.
And then I was startled.
“Hik…?!”
In the direction I turned, hundreds of rats swarming in the darkness came into view, surrounding us.
“It’s okay. They’re my split bodies.”
A voice rang out from above my head. It sounded exactly like my own voice. It seemed Rin had created vocal organs to speak directly.
The mass of slime above my head dropped to the ground with a wet plop, and the swarm of rats surged over it.
Could it really be called “surging”? Countless rats merged endlessly into one mass, gradually forming a large, translucent shape.
Even in the midnight darkness, it was clearly visible—an amorphous, alien creature emitting faint bioluminescence in several colors.
Yes. This was the true nature of the “daughter” I had given birth to.
Pirel seemed a little frightened. She froze in the exact position she had been in while stroking the horse we had ridden.
The newly restored Rin slowly crawled toward her, leaving a trail of wet, glistening slime on the sand.
“Eek…”
It was only natural to be afraid of such a creature approaching. Pirel took several steps back.
Then, from Rin’s large mass, a single pseudopod extended outward.
The tip of that disturbingly human-like arm had five slender tentacles that perfectly resembled human fingers.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Pirel.”
From the utterly grotesque amorphous being came a clear, polite, and feminine voice. …It was exactly the same tone as mine.
“I am Rin, a creation of the great alchemist Lord Naixon and the child that Lady Kaira gave birth to. This is the first time I am meeting you—my grandmother—and I know it may be unpleasant, but I wanted to show you my true form.”
Pirel stopped retreating. After a moment of hesitation, she took the “hand” that Rin had offered.
“U-um… Nice to… m-meet you…”
Her voice was still trembling with fear, but she seemed to have calmed down a little.
“I’m glad you said it’s nice to meet me. Then…”
Rin’s large mass suddenly shrank with a swift motion, transforming into the form of a small girl. The outer layer of protoplasm mimicked the thin, fluttering texture of wrinkled fabric, while the inner part imitated the soft skin of a child.
The part above her head turned into fine fibrous tentacles mimicking hair. The lower part of her torso gradually solidified while extending two large pseudopods.
The silhouette perfectly imitated that of a human girl wearing clothes—down to the point it was almost creepy. Then color gradually filled it in. Light brown hair, transparent pink eyes, pale skin, and…
The dress that the young daughter of the bakery used to wear while helping in the shop.
The sight of me at ten years old appeared once again before my eyes. This time, in physical form.
“I really wanted to show you this appearance. This is what Lady Kaira looked like as a child. Although your memories of her have disappeared, Lady Pirel, this is what your beloved daughter once looked like.”
Rin bowed her head slightly, hesitated for a moment, then quietly continued.
“…I failed to reconstruct Lord Rasail’s genetic information. All I had were the memories left in Lady Kaira’s mind, and aside from that, I couldn’t find even a single small fragment of his remains… I wanted to mimic him if possible, but I’m sorry I couldn’t.”
Pirel pulled Rin into a tight embrace. She must have felt the cold temperature and stickiness of the protoplasmic creature that was merely imitating a human.
“It’s okay. That doesn’t matter anymore, so don’t worry about it.”
Pirel gently stroked the slime girl’s cool hair and added,
“Thank you for helping me and Kaira so well. Please continue to take good care of us from now on. Our….”
The girl’s lips paused for a moment before she added one more word.
“Um, granddaughter?”
The moment she heard that, Rin began hopping up and down with joy. Even though the motion was a bouncy hop, the only sound that came from the slime pretending to be shoes was a wet squelch, squelch against the ground.
“Yes! I will! I will! Grandma!”
Pirel frowned.
“Not grandma. Pirel.”
“Eh… Grandma…?”
“Pirel. Pi-rel.”
Rin’s imitation form slightly melted. She seemed a little intimidated by Pirel’s firm expression and tone.
“Y-yes… Lady Pirel…”
We had talked, the horses had rested, and it was time to set off again. It would be a tiring journey for both the horses and us, but it would be safer to camp after traveling a bit more.
Rin split her body once again into a swarm of rats and other animals, leaving only one split body the size of a large rat that slipped back into my head.
…And in doing so, I had to endure another humiliating climax in front of my mother, my limbs trembling uncontrollably.
“So which way are we going, Kaira? The eastern kingdoms? The northeastern mountain range? The forests or jungles beyond the great river to the southeast? The border plains to the west? Or perhaps heading to a port city in the south and taking a ship up the great river toward the sea?”
“…South. And from there, we’ll take a boat upstream along the great river and head west.”
“That would mean…”
Pirel trailed off. It was the region where Baldenheim was located. A little further and we would reach the direct territory of the Light Denomination.
“I’m going to ask the Saintess for help. To take care of you, Pirel.”
“I see… A place ruled by a strict religion like the Light Denomination seems like it would be rather boring.”
I gently stroked the head of Pirel—my mother—as she muttered those words.
“Well, I’ll respect your opinion, Kaira. Then let’s get going.”
At the crossroads where we had rested for quite a while, we turned to the right.
Only the quiet clopping of hooves and Pirel’s voice as she urged the horse echoed through the world bathed in the pale moonlight half-swallowed by shadows.
The first journey with my mother since I was born.
Its first day slowly drew to a close.