Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 3

by Ichirou Sakaki

“I get the logic, but put on some clothes,” Yukinari said.

  “Hrm? Why?” She offered another curious tilt of her chin like a bird, the very picture of innocence. She didn’t appear to have the slightest hesitation or qualm about being buck-naked in front of Yukinari.

  That’s a plant for you, I guess...

  Plants feel no embarrassment at having no clothes on, so maybe it was only natural Ulrike wouldn’t, either. But as we’ve said, from the neck down—her green veins excepted—her body was very much that of an immature girl. It was understandable if Yukinari had some doubts about being exposed to this.

  “This just... isn’t good. In a whole bunch of ways.”

  “Not good? What isn’t?”

  “Well, I mean—”

  He was just trying to figure out how to explain when...

  “Lord Yukinari, good morn—”

  Another girl appeared in the still-open door to his room.

  She looked to be in her late teens. She wasn’t large; this she shared with Ulrike, but she already had the fullness of a woman. This was especially evident in her chest, whose generousness was obvious even with her clothes on.

  Her flaxen hair was tied into braids. She looked gentle and sweet—her features were not firm, and she gave a strong overall impression of simpleness, but she was nonetheless unmistakably beautiful.

  Berta Wohmann.

  She was a shrine maiden offered up to the master of this sanctuary—that is, the “god” Yukinari. Yukinari himself found this somewhat awkward, but no one around him, including Berta, had any objection, so she served at his side without any doubts or questions.

  “Lord Yukinari...” She was standing stock-still with both hands over her mouth, as if to suppress a sound of surprise. Well, she had come to say good morning, and had found her master’s room occupied by a stark-naked girl. A little shock was only to be expected.

  “Right...” Yukinari said with a half-sigh. “Berta, about this... It’s Ulrike’s, uh, morning custom.”

  “Lord Yukinari,” Berta said, blinking her wide eyes. “If you would call me, I would come morning or night to—”

  “Okay, that’s enough. You’re only going to make things worse.” He frowned. Berta had clearly misunderstood the situation.

  Berta was originally supposed to be offered up to an erdgod who ate people, and Yukinari had saved her. But she had been raised nearly since birth as a shrine maiden, so part of her saw “offering herself up” as her whole reason for existence.

  By felling the previous erdgod, Yukinari had become the new one, and it might have been easier on Berta emotionally if she were allowed to give herself to him. But Yukinari, of course, didn’t eat people, and so Berta was left with only one other way to give him her body. This was not out of any genuine sexual desire but because of the duty she felt toward him, and it could make handling her very difficult.

  Then...

  “.........Yuki.”

  Someone else appeared in the doorway behind Berta. Another young woman. He didn’t know when she had gotten there. She was physically smaller than Berta, with a willowy body, so perhaps he simply hadn’t seen her.

  She had close-cropped silver hair, blue eyes, and white skin as smooth as porcelain. Each of these features was unusual and contributed to her nearly supernatural beauty. If she stood silently, it would almost be possible to take her for an intricately wrought doll.

  Her name was Dasa Urban. She was Yukinari’s companion, the younger sister of the person to whom he owed his life, and a master of studying this world. “Complicated” would be too generous a word for their relationship.

  “What are... you doing?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” Yukinari insisted, but Dasa looked deeply suspicious. “I went to sleep, and then I woke up!”

  “With Ulrike?”

  “By myself!” Yukinari shouted.

  But Dasa only looked more dubious; she had pulled her beloved weapon “Red Chili” from somewhere and had the loading gate open, checking to see if it had bullets in it. Dasa would never actually shoot at Yukinari, but—how do I put this?—the insinuation was unsettling enough.

  “Yuki... You womanizer.”

  “I keep trying to tell you, I’m not—ahh, never mind. I’m not gonna argue. Just put your gun away.”

  “I’m told sunlight is quite healthful for animals, as well. Would you like to join me, Yukinari?”

  Yukinari practically shouted at the still-naked girl, “That’s enough out of you—and put your clothes on!”

  ●

  Friedland was a small town nestled among the mountains. Because of its distance from the capital, the central government had comparatively little influence, and administration was mostly left to the locals.

  Along the frontier, towns and villages like this weren’t uncommon. Many had independent administrative structures—their customs and cultures were profuse, but this wasn’t because colonists were sent out to settle new areas. Rather, small nations that had arisen naturally on the frontier were absorbed wholesale into the capital’s territory. The roads were fairly well-traveled, but they were primarily for connecting the capital to the cities of the interior; the small settlements on the frontier rarely made use of them.

  One reason for this was the erdgod cults that could be observed in many of the more remote areas.

  Erdgods: living organisms that had obtained a massive amount of spiritual power. To be more precise, a xenobeast or demigod formed a spiritual bond with the land and became able to influence the environment of a certain area. Once it reached that point, it was called an erdgod. In many cases, the people who lived in these otherwise hostile areas formed a pact with the erdgod in order to ensure a measure of abundance. It gave them a little bit of stability on which to build their lives.

  These were the erdgod cults.

  But all things have a price. No erdgod was fool enough to give abundance to and protect a town from natural disaster without getting anything in return.

  Often, what the deity demanded was human sacrifices.

  The erdgod arose by forming a spiritual bond with the land, but gradually its intellect and sense of self dissipated until it becomes one with the land it ruled. In order to prevent this, it needed to shore up its own intelligence and selfhood by ingesting creatures with great spiritual power—meaning other gods, or at least humans.

  Hundreds or thousands of people might die in a disaster or famine. To give up one person every few years in order to ward off such catastrophes seemed cheap at the price—at least to most people.

  It was no different in Friedland. Except for one thing.

  Just as the erdgod was about to eat the “shrine maiden” that was being offered to it, a young traveler happened to observe the ritual—a boy named Yukinari Amano. And he killed the erdgod.

  As the term “god” implies, killing one of these creatures is not something the average person can do. Even myth and legend contained no stories of a single man bringing down an erdgod. Gods are gods precisely because they have surpassed and rule over even humans, who are the most spiritually powerful of all creatures.

  As a result, Yukinari was hailed as Friedland’s new erdgod.

  Generally, when a town was left without an erdgod, a demigod came along and tried to fill the vacancy. Becoming an erdgod meant ruling over humans as a deathless master, and to demigods—that is, beasts who had not yet become full gods—that was a very attractive proposition.

  It would have been very bad for Friedland, however, if the new god were more evil than the last. It might demand vastly more sacrifices or kill and eat people for sport—in other words, many more people might die.

  What was more, if several demigods were to fight over the vacant rulership, their battle could cause severe damage to the town. Not least because the quickest way for a demigod to get stronger was for it to eat a lot of people.

  The people of Friedland held Yukinari responsible for preventing all of this. By celebrating him as their
new god and proclaiming that their land was his territory, they hoped to discourage demigods from attacking or fighting in the area.

  Now, Yukinari was walking back along the road that connected Friedland to his “sanctuary.” He glanced at the little stream that ran alongside.

  It was a brand-new stream. The fact that the area still lacked much plant life and that there were no fish in the stream despite the beautiful water attested to its man-made origins—as did the way it ran in a perfectly straight line.

  As it approached the town, the river split into smaller branches, carrying water to nearby fields. The ridges in the fields showed that they, too, had only recently been made. The earth was all freshly tilled. Small buds, yet to sprout, soaked up the sun.

  “Everything’s going well... I guess,” Yukinari murmured.

  He had become Friedland’s erdgod at the people’s insistence, but all these changes were only outward; he didn’t have the connection to the earth, the ability to control the environment, that a real erdgod would have. Perhaps he could have gained it if he had known how, but an unending life that eventually saw him lose himself as he merged with the land was completely unappealing to him.

  Neither, however, could Friedland hope for its harvests to remain stable if nothing was done. In the worst-case scenario, a mass famine was a distinct possibility. But even if it didn’t come to that, without the erdgod, the soil would grow less rich. To counter this problem, Yukinari had drawn on his knowledge to create an efficient system of agriculture.

  Truth be told, Yukinari was not of this world. A soul sent from another world had been given to a homunculus called an “angel.” That’s what Yukinari was. The world he had been in previously was scientifically advanced and had a high level of education, so although he wasn’t a specialist in farming, he had several ideas for improving the local system.

  The first one was to use the nearby lake as a source for irrigation ditches to help secure that most fickle of natural resources: water. There was also the possibility of improving soil and fertilizers.

  Of course, there was no guarantee that farming in this world worked just like it had in his previous one, so a certain amount of trial and error was inevitable, but these people had always relied on the erdgod to aid them in their farming. It had simply never occurred to them to try to change the environment with their own hands.

  As a matter of fact...

  “It’s the erdgod!”

  “Good morning!”

  As they spotted Yukinari walking along the road, the residents of Friedland stopped their chores to greet him. All of them were smiling, and that was evidence enough that his improved farming methods were helping.

  “And he’s with Lady Ulrike.” They offered their greetings to Ulrike, who walked along with him. She had come to this land as the representative of Yggdra, the erdgod of the town of Rostruch, and so she was the object of the same sort of veneration as Yukinari. Crops were plants, too, so Ulrike had much to teach, and in a sense, she seemed to offer more even than Yukinari.

  Dasa and Berta were with them, too, but to them the people offered only polite bows. It was less that they took the girls lightly and more, perhaps, that they were seen as Yukinari’s followers—in effect, his familiars, and therefore a part of him.

  Yukinari stopped and called out to a villager. “You’re up and at it first thing in the morning, huh?” Initially, Yukinari had tried to speak with a tone of appropriate respect to the older townspeople, but they seemed to see this as entirely unnecessary, so now he spoke to them perfectly casually. He was a god; he couldn’t appear too humble.

  “Well, we’ve sure never had this much water before. I’m sure we’ll get a bumper crop this year—and that thought makes working a lot easier!” The man sounded as if he might start humming happily right then and there. Everyone around nodded as if in agreement.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Yukinari said, looking at them. He added, “We may be close to town, but we are outside the walls. Watch out for demigods and xenobeasts, okay?”

  “Of course, my lord. Take care yourself, honored erdgod!”

  “See ya, then,” Yukinari said with a wave and set off once more among the fields.

  Berta’s voice, almost hesitant, came from behind him. “They’re all so happy. I mean, you can just sort of...”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Yukinari nodded, a little bit surprised. Berta was—well, not necessarily a group thinker, but it was unusual for her to offer her own opinion or feelings without being asked. Maybe living with Yukinari and the others had changed her a little, or maybe she had spoken up because she was especially pleased by this situation. It would only be natural for her to be happy that the town she’d grown up in was growing more prosperous.

  Berta had had an unusual childhood, but perhaps she was regaining the ability to feel normal emotions, and that would be a good thing.

  As Yukinari thought about all this, a small body squeezed in between him and Berta—it was Dasa. “Yuki,” she said. “We should hurry. It’s not polite to make... people wait.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Yukinari said with a wry smile.

  Dasa had certain social difficulties of her own, although they were different from Berta’s. Neither her face nor her voice betrayed much emotion, but even Yukinari wasn’t exactly sure why that was the case. Dasa had had an upbringing every bit as unusual as Berta’s, perhaps even more so. As an alchemist, she had been forced to live a cloistered life, and when Yukinari had met her, she had hardly been able to see. No doubt all of this had had an effect on her.

  But both of them, now, were very important to Yukinari. He was surprised at how much he enjoyed the life that the four of them—himself, the two girls, and Ulrike—shared.

  In his previous world, he had sought only to live with his older sister. Now, he lived in a house with three women and was trying to guide the future of a whole town. It gave him a sense of fulfillment.

  But even so...

  Hatsune...

  Yukinari found his thoughts turning to the older sister who had been taken from him by death. The two of them had been trapped in a fire from which there was no escape.

  She was dead, without a doubt. Both of them had perished, but he alone had been reborn in this other world and was able to live on in happiness. He couldn’t help feeling guilty about it. Even though it was too late to worry about such things. Even though, looking back on it, he knew there was nothing he could have done about that fire.

  Dasa spoke up suddenly. “...Yuki.”

  This caused him to look up again. He saw three figures coming from the direction of town.

  It was obvious they weren’t out to do farm work. They wore full suits of armor and carried swords at their hips. They weren’t mounted, but they were clearly knights armed for battle.

  “...Hrk.”

  The figure in the middle appeared to have noticed Yukinari and the others. His visor was up, leaving his face visible. He had golden hair and an expression that suggested a refined upbringing—for better or for worse, this young man was the son of nobility. He was handsome, yet somewhat arrogant, or pompous—in any event, his haughty look and gestures gave a rather unfriendly impression.

  His name was Arlen Lansdowne. He had been a missionary knight who belonged to a religious organization called the True Church of Harris. In fact, even now, he was supposedly still part of the Church, although it was something of a façade.

  He had originally been associated with a unit called the Civilizing Expedition, whose mission was to spread the precious truth of the Church among the benighted frontier barbarians with their savage customs. That was why they had come to Friedland. But despite all their pretenses, they were essentially there to convert the people by force.

  The missionaries rejected the erdgod cults, and they ended up attacking Yukinari, who had assumed the role of erdgod in Friedland.

  Yukinari had soundly defeated them. Not only did he overpower the knights, he destroy
ed the statue of the guardian saint, a mechanical soldier that was supposed to be the knights’ ultimate weapon. Dasa had helped, of course, but in effect Yukinari had single-handedly defeated the strength of an army.

  Even so, this victory represented the defeat of only a single squadron. Behind them that massive religious organization, the True Church, still loomed, and if they were to discover that their powerful Civilizing Expedition had been defeated, they would only send an even more vast force.

  So Yukinari had come up with an idea. He wouldn’t kill Arlen and the others, but in exchange, they would send a false report stating that Friedland had been safely subdued. Victorious units of the Civilizing Expedition generally stayed to garrison their conquests, so it wouldn’t raise any suspicions if no one came back. The knights got to live, as well as save face, since no one at headquarters had to know that they had failed in their mission. Meanwhile, Yukinari and the others would be safe from the further attentions of the Expedition.

  All this meant Arlen and the knights occupied an unusual place in Friedland.

  “How goes it, Arlen?” Yukinari called to his former enemy. “Off on patrol?”

  At present, the knights were responsible for overseeing the safety of Friedland and the surrounding areas. Just as Yukinari had warned some of the townspeople earlier, xenobeasts and demigods made their home outside the town walls, to say nothing of dangerous wild animals. Yukinari alone couldn’t possibly protect everyone who went out to work in the fields, so he had asked Arlen and the others to periodically patrol the area.

  This was one of the things the unit would have done anyway after they had converted Friedland. Hence, the knights had agreed more or less readily, despite some hesitation at accepting a request from Yukinari. At any rate, in their eyes it was better than slaving away at menial tasks around town, as they had been doing before this.

  “...Yeah.” Arlen made no attempt to hide the contempt on his face or in his voice. The two men behind him had their visors down, so it was impossible to see their expressions, but they probably looked much like Arlen’s. They had, in effect, become accomplices to Yukinari by delivering that false report, but they continue to think of themselves as missionary knights of the True Church of Harris. If push ever came to shove, they could always claim that Yukinari had threatened them.