by Fujino Omori
Mikoto watched everything from the shadows. New women arrived when the previous ones finally stepped away from him, almost as if he was showing off how popular he was with the opposite gender.
“……”
“Miss Mikoto? Miss Mikoto!”
“Hey, say something—anything!”
Mikoto stood there like a statue, bangs covering her eyes as she looked at the stone pavement beneath her feet.
The shiver of fright from before became a torrent of terror as Bell and Welf witnessed a miasma of dark energy rise from the girl’s shoulders. Their unusually high-pitched voices echoed through the side street.
She didn’t say a word. However, the aura forming around her body became stronger with each passing moment.
“Lord Takemikazuchi!”
“Well, if it isn’t Haruhime.”
—Then.
“At last, I made them right! Please have one!”
“Andango…Let’s see, let’s see…Hmm?”
Takemikazuchi reached out to take one of the sweet dumplings from the tray in Haruhime’s arms when he noticed something else. His hand went to her chin instead.
“Haruhime, you already ate a few, didn’t you?”
“Whaaa?!”
“There are some big crumbs on your lips…My word, child. Now hold still.”
He pinched the large crumb on her lip between his thumb and forefinger—and ate it.
“Yes, very sweet.”
“Lord Takemikazuchi…Doing such a thing to me…”
“They’re delicious, Haruhime. I’m sure they’ll be most pleased…But yes, I have a feeling you will make a wonderful bride.”
“Eh?!…Do you…do you really believe so?”
“Indeed. You have a good nature and an industrious spirit. That’s exactly what I would want in a bride if I weren’t a god. Ha-ha-ha!”
Snap!
Mikoto definitely heard something break deep inside her.
Step, step, step. She didn’t look up, but her feet carried her forward. She couldn’t even hear Bell and Welf yelling behind her. She was on her way to where the blushing Haruhime, both hands pressed to her cheeks in embarrassment, stood beside the airheaded deity laughing next to her.
“Mikoto?”
“Miss Mikoto?”
The two of them noticed her approach as she came to a stop.
Still silent and engulfed in an aura, Mikoto ripped the lid off the warped container in her arms with a loud SHHK.
“Oh? What’s that…?”
Takemikazuchi tilted his head to the side in an attempt to see what was in the container. Mikoto finally turned to face him, her lips trembling.
“Lord Takemikazuchi…”
Her head snapped up as she raised the container high into the air and screamed with all her rage:
“Lord Takemikazuchi, you brainless man-whore!”
“Bu-UOHH?!”
The whole cake hit him square in the face, splattering everywhere.
“Lord Takemikazuchi?!”
Mikoto jumped away from him as Haruhime’s scream echoed through the street.
That was closely followed by the dull thuds of cake hitting the pavement at his feet.
“Little Mikoto, nice one!!” “Good work!” “Consider me officially a fan of the Eternal Shadow!!” A shower of applause and cheers came from other deities who happened to be hiding in the shadows, but she didn’t hear any of it.
Mikoto turned her back on the stone-faced Takemikazuchi and ran away.
“The hell was that?!”
“Why did you do that?!”
Welf and Bell had caught up with Mikoto after her mad dash through the streets of Orario, and they yelled at her in unison.
All the running had given her a moment to get the fire burning in her heart under control. However, her eyes were filled with regret as she swayed back and forth on the spot.
“I-I’m sorry…My body took over and I just did it…”
“What you ‘just did’ was hit a god in the face with a whole cake!”
“It’s blasphemous! Downright profane!”
Mikoto appeared to shrink under the strength of Welf’s and Bell’s loud voices.
She knew she should do as they said and reflect on the seriousness of her actions, but even still, the heat emanating from her heart was making her arms and legs shake.
“It was a grave error—my devotion is insufficient…But my body wouldn’t listen to me…!”
““…””
“The only option left for me was to splatter something on Lord Takemikazuchi’s face…! It is my fault for being unable to control the urge. I am completely, utterly worthless!”
““…””
“Oh, I could kick myself!”
She dropped to her hands and knees and repeatedly slammed her clenched fist into the surface of the stone road.
Bell and Welf looked on, unsure what to say. “What’s that, what’s that?” came the voices of passing demi-humans on the street, trying to figure out what was going on in the middle of the road. Many sets of eyes were glued onto the girl on the verge of losing her mind.
Mikoto had caught glimpses of Takemikazuchi’s social interactions with other women while they were living at the shrine in the Far East. However, there weren’t many people around, since the shrine was rather isolated, so she never saw enough to make her completely lose herself in the moment.
Things were different in Orario. More people meant more chances to make new connections. Now the only thought in Mikoto’s mind was that while she was working hard in the Dungeon, Takemikazuchi was walking around the city doing that…and it was tearing her apart from the inside.
She was angry with herself, realizing that her anger was stemming from the lack of virtue in Takemikazuchi’s words and actions, as well as her own jealousy. That only added fuel to the fire because she had thought she was more accepting.
Embarrassment was setting in; tears welled in her eyes.
“Umm, eh…Miss Mikoto?”
“What are you going to do?”
Bell tried to gently get her attention, but Welf took a more direct approach with the girl who’d slammed a cake into the face of a god.
Mikoto’s watery eyes lifted from the pavement as she climbed to her feet on wobbly legs.
“Make a cake, as planned…and apologize.”
Her voice was weak and dejected, as if it might cut out at any moment. But she was able to answer the question.
There was no choice but to apologize to Takemikazuchi. However, she didn’t know how she’d react, almost scared of what she might say when she saw him again. A storm of complicated emotions raged within her as she took her first crestfallen step toward home.
Thump, thump. Bell and Welf looked on with worried eyes as she made her way through the backstreets by herself.
The sun sank behind the mountains in the western sky.
As adventurers started emerging from a long day’s work in the Dungeon, dusk fell over a house in a run-down area in one of Orario’s western blocks.
A good distance away from the main street, the house was prevented from getting direct sunlight by the surrounding buildings. This house also sold healing items, but very few people passed by. One familia’s emblem, a basic outline of the human body, hung outside, serving as a billboard, with the words BLUE PHARMACY spelled out in the common language known as Koine. This was the home of Miach Familia.
A party of adventurers made its way through the small maze of shelves inside the store, looking for this familia’s signature product, the double potion. Finding it, they made their way to a young female chienthrope standing behind a long counter. “Thank you…” she said with a wave as they left the store. A moment later, two young ladies made their way through the double wooden doors at the entrance.
Carrying weapons and dressed for combat, the two adventurers called out to Nahza, the chienthrope.
“We’re back, home from the Dungeon.”
�
�W-we’re home…”
One with short hair, the other with long. One set of eyes sharp and focused, the other lazy and wandering. Side by side, they made an interesting pair. The one with short hair clearly announced her presence while the one with long hair made only a half-hearted greeting.
Nahza, who always looked drowsy with her eyes half open, smiled and greeted the two young women as they came inside.
“Welcome back, Daphne, Cassandra…”
The two women, Daphne and Cassandra—both third-tier adventurers and former members of Apollo Familia—walked through the store all the way up to the counter and put a sack of coins onto it.
“Here. Today’s Dungeon earnings. We already took what we need for preparations.”
“Sorry for the trouble—thanks…”
“N-no, no. We’re in the same familia, after all…”
Nahza took the money from Daphne and expressed her gratitude. Cassandra’s long hair swayed back and forth as she spoke.
Nahza, who until recently was Miach Familia’s only member, happily swished her tail.
“Bell becoming famous in the War Game was great advertising…More and more customers come in every day thanks to him, so I’m so glad to have you here to help.”
Nahza smiled, took two flasks filled with juice out from under the counter, and handed them to the two women.
“Are you sure our familia was the best choice…? We have quite a bit of debt.”
“After hearing that ridiculous figure of two hundred million valis, all other debts seem cute by comparison.”
Click, click. Nahza’s artificial right arm, an airgetlám, made mechanical sounds as she moved. Daphne took a swig of the juice and shrugged with a distant look in her eyes.
Both Daphne and Cassandra had gone to Hestia Familia’s first recruiting event in hopes of joining but had reconsidered after the bombshell of the familia’s 200-million-valis debt was revealed. So the two young adventurers thought better of it and traveled a long, winding road that eventually led to Miach Familia’s doorstep. Having already gone through Conversion, they now officially had Miach as their god, and Nahza a friend and ally.
Cassandra had had her heart set on joining Hestia Familia, so she was still a bit disappointed by the outcome.
“Plus, Lord Miach is a great god. With a deity like that at the helm, we had nothing to lose by joining.”
“While I’m glad to hear that…don’t fall for him.”
“As if I would.”
“Heh-heh-heh…”
After a quick exchange of playful banter, “By the way…” said Daphne as she looked beyond Nahza and farther behind the counter. “What’s going on in there?”
Through an open door, she could see two deities sitting on either side of a table in the guest room. One was a handsome man with long marine-blue hair tied behind his neck—Miach, the god of Nahza, Daphne, and Cassandra’s familia. He wore an ash-gray robe that had seen better days, a sign of their financial straits, but his face could easily be confused for that of someone of noble birth.
The other one wore his black hair in two bobbed ponytails on either side of his head—the dignified deity Takemikazuchi.
“The most pointless meeting in history…”
On that slightly irritated note, Nahza left Daphne and Cassandra in charge of the shop and walked toward the kitchen.
The two gods continued their conversation in the guest room, ignoring the sounds of Nahza making her way through the building that served as both their home and their store.
“—That is what happened today.”
Takemikazuchi finished recounting that afternoon’s events involving Mikoto.
After taking a cake to the face, the befuddled deity had sought the advice of a mutual friend of Hestia’s and fellow god living in poverty.
His problem: He couldn’t figure out why Mikoto was angry.
“…”
Miach listened intently to the story from beginning to end without interrupting. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sighed.
Opening his eyes, he looked directly at the deity who couldn’t figure out the cause of his follower’s outburst and said:
“—I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“I know, right?”
THUD! A dull echo came from the other side of the open door. Daphne and Cassandra, who’d overheard the conversation, each slammed their heads into the closest wooden pillar at the same time.
The two deities looked around for a moment, slightly confused. Cassandra massaged the side of her throbbing head as Daphne muttered, “How dense are they…?” They might be gods, but Miach’s and Takemikazuchi’s lack of sensitivity was giving them headaches.
“This is why Lady Hestia’s followers get frustrated…”
“Nahza?”
Carrying on a plate two cups of tea she had prepared in the kitchen, Nahza made her way into the guest room.
She ignored the look on Miach’s face and placed one cup in front of each of them.
“I feel sorry for her…for Mikoto.”
“Oh…?”
“If you truly don’t understand…I won’t tell you to be careful, but…”
Takemikazuchi’s shoulders shifted uncomfortably under Nahza’s gaze.
At the same time, Miach felt that the chienthrope was including him in this as well when Nahza glanced in his direction. “What’s wrong?” he asked. She didn’t respond, only sighed in front of her god. When she was done, Nahza once again made eye contact with Takemikazuchi.
“Think it through carefully, and please accept whatever you may discover…”
Takemikazuchi remained motionless as the mortal’s words rang in his ears. Then he folded his arms across his chest a few moments later.
Steam rose from the cup of tea in front of him on the table, and the deity’s meek face reflected in its surface.
The day of Takemikazuchi’s celebration had arrived.
Mikoto started baking the cake in the manor’s kitchen early that morning.
She had made a few attempts yesterday after returning home, but none of them turned out as planned. She’d even asked Welf and Bell to sample her creations, and each spent the rest of the evening not far from a lavatory. Gloom started to set in, but she was quick to slap her cheeks with both hands and tell herself to focus.
She forced the events of yesterday out of her head and concentrated entirely on the task at hand.
“Excuse the intrusion, Miss Mikoto…About my meeting with Lord Takemikazuchi yesterday, I, um…”
“It’s not a problem, Lady Haruhime. I don’t mind at all.”
“That’s not what I meant…Mikoto, that was—”
“I said I don’t mind!”
Mikoto didn’t even look at Haruhime as she walked into the kitchen, focused entirely on the dough in her hands.
Haruhime wasn’t sure how to respond to Mikoto’s harsh tone and stood there with an apologetic look on her face. The renart left the kitchen a moment later.
Hestia and Lilly saw the brief conversation from a distance and were very confused until Bell brought them up to speed. Their puzzled expressions quickly turned to frustration at Takemikazuchi, but they remained quiet and decided to stay out of it.
Mikoto chased all stray thoughts out of her mind by following The Benevolent Mistress’s cake recipe as closely as possible. First came baking the dough in a metal pot, normally used for rice, over an open flame, and then gathering all the sweets and fruit…And then an impressive cake was complete.
Decorated with many types of berries, no one would have guessed the continent-style cake had been made by someone from the Far East.
“It’s done, but…”
She stood in front of her masterpiece, but now all those stray thoughts were coming back.
There was nothing else left to do. Mikoto lingered in the kitchen until the sky started to turn dark. The time of the celebration was upon her, so she put the cake, plate and all, into a box and got read
y.
Leaving the manor, she made her way through Orario’s twisting streets toward Takemikazuchi Familia’s home while carefully holding the box in her arms.
Magic-stone lamps flicked on as the sky grew even darker, echoing the state of her mind. Many different feelings pulled at her all the way until she reached her destination.
The old, run-down community housing she used to call home was located on a narrow street in the northwest part of the city. Right now, Takemikazuchi and the remaining five members of his familia lived here. Light was flooding out of the living room windows—perhaps the festivities were already under way?
“Forgive the intrusion…” said Mikoto as she opened the door and made her way inside with an expression of uncertainty on her face. Staying true to Far Eastern traditions, she removed her shoes. She was a bit unnerved by the fact that no one came out to greet her. Nevertheless, she walked through the entranceway and down a narrow hall.
Arriving at the door that led to the living room, she came to a stop, took a deep breath, and slid it open.
A heartbeat later, pop!
“—Eh?”
A pleasant sound erupted from above her head, and long, multicolored ribbons and confetti fell around her like snow before she knew what was happening. Real flower petals fell past her shoulders.
She could only stand there, struggling to take in the vibrant display.
“About time you came.”
“Welcome, Mikoto.”
Her friends greeted her with applause and kind words.
Ouka, Chigusa, the other three members of Takemikazuchi Familia, and even Haruhime were chuckling to themselves at Mikoto’s look of shock. They had managed to re-create a Far Eastern kusudama—an origami ball stuffed with whatever the maker wanted and that could break open with a pull of a cord—and hung it on the ceiling.
The room was decorated with magic-stone lamps of many different colors and artificial flowers on the walls. There was also a small mountain of food sprawled out on the table. The Jyaga Maru Kun especially stood out.
