by Fujino Omori
No time to hide—they’re right outside the second set of doors. Can’t run, can’t move. Wham! They’re here!
Dammit, they’re going to be practically on top of me…!
“Haruhime, you seen a scrawny human around…”
I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for impact. The Amazon’s voice trails off, hanging in the air.
Silence. I open my eyes and remember what it must look like from above.
She’s mostly naked and on top of me. This would be perfectly normal here, a pair of mostly naked men and women on top of the bed.
To be more precise, a working lady and her customer.
I still can’t see anything around the enormous breasts in my face, but that means they can’t see me, either. The sound is the echo from the door being slammed open.
“Oh, sorry.”
“As you were.”
The two Amazons quietly close the door and leave. I can barely hear their footsteps as they go back to the first room chamber.
“To think that Haruhime could pin down a man. Didn’t know she had it in her.” That Amazon sounds strangely happy as the two of them close the outer sliding doors.
Shifting my head slightly to breathe, I lie there for a good minute before attempting to move again.
I gently guide the girl to the side and place her softly on the futon. At long last, I sit up.
I take a look around while wiping the sweat off my beet-red face with my arm. All clear. Slowly, very slowly, I look down at the girl.
Completely unconscious, her face looks hot enough to boil water. I tilt my head.
“What the hell just happened…?”
“—M-my sincerest apologies!”
The still-blushing renart bows her head.
I couldn’t bring myself to leave the room—the Amazons wandering around are scary as hell, and I can’t just leave an unconscious girl lying there helpless—so I put the covers over her and waited.
Both of us are fully clothed once again. She’s sitting on her knees and bowing as deeply as possible, that fox tail of hers curling behind her.
“For it all to be just…a grave misunderstanding…!”
“Ahh, um, well, I was the one who snuck in here, so…”
I’m sitting away from her, on the tatami mats rather than the futon, and blushing just as badly as she is. The most I can do is offer an apology.
Trading apologies with someone I’ve never met before, in a brothel…Well, this is different.
“I thought it strange that my appointed customer had yet to arrive…”
She finally raises her head. Those beautiful green eyes of hers are shaking with embarrassment.
She explains that she waited for a man who never showed up in the first room. So when I came in, she immediately thought I was that customer. And the rest is history.
…One man passed out the moment I burst through this brothel’s window. Just imagine what would’ve happened to some poor guy who saw the horde of Amazons come bursting through the windows. Then there was the chase through the hallways. Her customer never made it…
It had to be my fault. I grimace and look away.
“…It may be too late for proper introductions, but I am Haruhime. How should I address you…?”
“Oh, yes…I’m Bell Cranell.”
I finally get my embarrassment in check and tell the girl, Haruhime, my name.
“Well then, Master Cranell…If you are not my appointed customer, then why are you here?”
An inquisitive look takes over her face as she speaks in a soft voice.
Her being in this brothel means that Haruhime is more than likely a member of Ishtar Familia. If I told her that her allies chased me all the way here…What choice do I have? I decide to let every cat out of the bag.
Surely she’s figured out I’m the intruder by now. But she hasn’t called anyone and is patiently waiting for my response.
Above all else, I’ve got a strange feeling that I can talk to this person…She has an aura of innocence that’s completely unlike anyone else in the Pleasure Quarter. I tell her everything that happened in the past few hours, why I became a fugitive deep in hostile territory.
“You have experienced…a rather turbulent evening.”
Her demeanor didn’t change even after I finished talking. In fact, she looks sympathetic.
Do Amazonian manhunts happen that often…?
“The Amazons pursuing you…Was one among them named Aisha, by chance?”
“Do you know her?”
“I do. Lady Aisha has been very kind to me.”
Her voice sounds a little apologetic, but there’s a very honest smile on her lips.
So it’s true, then—that Berbera Amazon has a softer side.
A bit hard to believe, after being chased around town and serving as her mobile kicking bag.
“I have a proposal. Once our time together has come to an end, I shall guide you to the safest escape route. It’s highly unlikely you shall be discovered if you remain hidden in this room until early morning.”
“Eh…A-are you sure?”
“I am. It may be for only one night…but I, Haruhime, would like to lend my assistance to you, Master Cranell.”
It’s hard to believe her; this could be a trap. But there’s something in her smile, something genuine.
My cheeks start burning again. That smile, those eyes, the innocent air about her…She’s amazing.
“Shameful as it is…I do have a request for you.”
“Eh?”
“May we…engage in conversation until the appointed time comes?”
She looks away, her cheeks turning a rosy pink. She must’ve worked up a lot of courage to ask.
She must not get many visitors who aren’t customers.
She’s smiling at me like the main character’s love interest in a fairy tale. I force a smile and nod. How could I refuse?
“Thank you so much!” She smiles from ear to ear and bows down to the floor again, except this time her fox tail is happily wagging back and forth.
She slides one of the shouji paper walls to the side and blue moonlight fills the room. Then she grabs four pillows for the both of us. We get comfortable and start talking.
“Where do you hail from, Master Cranell?”
“I’m from north of Orario, in a small valley behind the mountains…”
Still not sure how I feel about this “Master Cranell” thing, but I let it slide and answer the question.
Haruhime asks me about every little detail of my hometown. North of Orario, a village so small that most maps don’t even bother printing its name…Her expression changes with every answer, hanging on to every word.
Are there many humans there? What kind of view did you have of the mountains? And so many other questions I’ve never even thought about before.
She’s so happy listening. It’s like talking to a really interested child who’s never ventured beyond her own house.
She runs her fingers through her golden hair, clearly enthralled by my answers. Something tells me she was extremely sheltered when she was a little girl.
But why would someone like her be here…?
At the same time, I can’t figure out how someone this pure ended up in the Pleasure Quarter.
She couldn’t be more different from Aisha and the others. The air about her and the overwhelming aura of this Night District are polar opposites. I’m a fugitive, running away from her friends inside the territory of her familia, but here she is, talking to me like we’re at a café or something. Haruhime clearly doesn’t belong here.
“So then, you came to Orario to follow your dream of becoming an adventurer?”
“You could say that. I’d always wanted to, and I didn’t have any money at the time…”
But I can’t just outright ask her.
I hold my tongue and instead wait for her to ask the questions.
Haruhime blinks a few times and blushes again before falling silent. Maybe she realized that s
he’d been leading the conversation the entire time.
I can’t help but giggle at her. She’s a little older than me, so to see her get embarrassed over something so minor seems strange.
“Okay, well then…Where are you from, Miss Haruhime?”
The silence was too awkward. I break it by asking her the same question she asked me.
She sits back up again, her shame disappearing, and looks at the ceiling as if deep in thought.
“My birthplace…is in the Far East.”
I already knew that most renarts are from there. Judging by her name, I kind of had that impression already.
She starts to paint pictures with words, images flowing out of her memory like leaves carried downstream by a river.
“It was a mountainous island country, completely surrounded by a beautiful blue ocean. The four seasons were much more pronounced than the ones here in Orario. Beautiful pink sakura trees covered the land in spring. The songs of semi beetles regaled us in summer. The mountains became brilliant shades of crimson during the frosty days of autumn…and everything was covered by thick blankets of snow in winter.”
Nostalgia is absolutely oozing out her eyes. Her descriptions are even making me feel homesick.
Haruhime’s gaze shifts from the ceiling to the moon, just visible between the shouji.
Bathed in moonlight, she looks more like an artist’s painting than an actual person. Looking at her face in profile, I decide to ask her about her family.
“Miss Haruhime, were your parents high-ranking people? Aristocrats, maybe?”
“How did you ever guess?!”
She nearly jumps off the futon in surprise.
“Just kind of got that feeling…” I mumble as I scratch the back of my head. Then she starts to explain.
“It’s just as you say, Mr. Cranell. I’m descended from a long line of nobles going back many generations. My mother was never present, and my father worked long hours for the government…I was raised by many servants from infancy.”
Years of being trained to be an aristocrat, with no knowledge of the outside world…Raised with a silver spoon in her mouth, she was very lonely in her spacious cage, with very few friends.
Haruhime’s face suddenly becomes clouded.
“Those days came to an abrupt end five years ago…I was disowned when I was eleven.”
“What?!”
That completely blindsided me. I have to stop myself from falling over.
Disowned…Her parents cut off ties with her?
“W-why…?”
“In a state of grogginess…I ate an extremely valuable divine offering that was carried by one of my father’s guests.”
She goes on to explain that another aristocrat, a prum, was staying at their manor when she was eleven years old.
The aristocrat had been traveling to present an offering of purified rice cakes to their deity Amaterasu—and Haruhime ate all of them while sleepwalking.
…What’s up with that? A bead of sweat rolls down my back.
“Did you, um, really eat them?”
“I have no memory. However, there were crumbs around my mouth when I returned to consciousness…I must’ve gotten hungry in the dead of night and my body acted on its own…!”
Haruhime hides her face with both hands, tears starting to pour out of her eyes.
Continuing her story, she says that her father was furious with her after that and demanded severe punishment—but the prum stepped in and said, “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now.” The visiting aristocrat saved Haruhime’s life that day. Being nobles, their families had a great deal of pride and had no choice but to protect it. So Haruhime was given to this aristocrat in exchange for saving her life.
The decision was made in a matter of moments. The prum left their manor almost immediately with Haruhime in tow.
…I don’t want to doubt her story, but that prum sounds extremely suspicious.
I ask her about it, and she says that he treated her very well. Well enough that she became attached to him.
I’m getting an image of a pompous short man wrapping his arm around the shoulder of the weeping girl.
I want to point this out to her, but one look at her crying face and I just can’t do it.
“S-so what happened next?”
“Sniff…Yes. I was in the back of a carriage, no idea where we were…when suddenly a deafening roar came from outside. The carriage was attacked by monsters…!”
Now she’s got me on the edge of my seat.
“He ran away from the horde of ogres, abandoning me in my state of panic…”
“…Eh?”
“…A band of marauders rescued me at the last moment. Once they discovered my virginity, they decided to sell me, here, to Orario.”
“—”
I’m stunned.
The full impact of what she says doesn’t hit me at first, but no words will form in my mouth.
She was sold…to Orario…?!
“What do you mean by ‘sold to Orario’…?”
“In layman’s terms…a homeless, friendless girl like me is brought to the Pleasure Quarter to be sold as merchandise.”
I watch her lips form those words in the moonlight, each of the dots connecting in the way that I had been praying they wouldn’t.
The marauders protected her from the monsters but then treated her like everything else they stole from the carriage. She was still very young, so they didn’t touch her. But they knew that she, her unsoiled body, would be worth a lot of money to the right people one day. And so they brought her to Orario.
“For a city with as many adventurers as Orario, locations such as the Pleasure Quarter are irreplaceable necessities to keep the peace.”
Apparently, strong adventurers have similarly strong urges…
Those venturing out with their lives always on the line deal with enormous amounts of stress. Constantly spending time in the Dungeon, battling against death itself takes its toll. The need to vent stress and frustration can take violent forms, but it can also be relieved legally and peacefully in places like this.
That’s why the Guild turns a blind eye to this place. Its existence reduces the amount of bar fights and property damage caused by adventurers. The Pleasure Quarter is a necessary evil.
Sure, her explanation makes sense. But the thought that the Guild is looking away from the truth—that human beings are being bought and sold—is absolutely horrible. I try to avoid making eye contact with Haruhime, but it’s no use.
My eyes follow her long golden locks to the gorgeous green orbs in the center of her face.
Renarts are a special race within animal people because they are the only ones who are natural-born magic users.
When it comes to magic, most people think of elves right away. However, a renart’s magic is a bit different. Each of their spells is quite unique. I’ve heard that they’re referred to as sorcerers in the Far East.
Therefore, her “saviors” saw her value—in terms of potential strength and economic gain—when they brought her here to the center of the world, Orario, and sold her into this business.
She would have been brought here ostensibly under the guise of wanting to come on her own, but really she came through the gates as merchandise.
This is terrible…
Then she was sold off to the highest bidder. It just so happened that Lady Ishtar was in the area and took notice. The goddess purchased Haruhime to make her part of the familia…
Unable to follow her dreams, she experienced one tragedy after another.
She had no choice but to come to Orario. And now…?
I thought that all the working women here were like Aisha. But how many of them have stories similar to Haruhime’s?
It’s the truth I wish I’d never known.
And I realize something at the same time.
I was completely clueless. But now, after listening to Haruhime, I can never go back.
“Umm…I had
always wanted to come to the continent, being from an island nation. So my wish was fulfilled…from a certain point of view.”
She must’ve seen the gears turning in my head and desperately tries to console me.
But now all I see is pain in that beautiful smile. “It may not be the best of circumstances, but my newfound sisters take very good care of me.” Another attempt to convince me she’s okay.
My lips refuse to open. I can barely even look at her.
What the hell am I supposed to say? I’m an adventurer; I’m part of the reason she’s in this mess.
I want to say, “Let’s run away together, right now,” but I’m a fugitive deep within Ishtar Familia’s territory. The Amazons are still after me. I’m in no position to help her.
But Haruhime’s eyes haven’t changed at all. Another awkward silence falls, and this time she’s the one to speak up.
“There’s also the fact that…many stories of this city have reached the Far East. Orario has always been appealing to me.”
Her eyes soften. That must have triggered my voice to wake up, because it bursts out of my mouth:
“Are you talking about Dungeon Oratoria?”
“The same!”
That’s a collection of Dungeon stories I received from my grandfather when I was a child. It was my bible growing up, Dungeon Oratoria.
It documents in great detail the journeys and deeds of many heroes in Orario. I’ve heard there aren’t many copies of the original book, but I guess the stories have spread around the world.
Haruhime nods energetically in my direction.
“Dungeon Oratoria is fascinating…But the story I remember most was about a group of valiant knights from different countries joining forces in search of the Holy Grail.”
“Isn’t that ‘The Adventures of Garland’? Where the queen was sick and only water purified by the Grail could cure her?”
“You know of it? Then what about the story of a spirit trapped in a lamp and the young mage—?”
“If I remember right…‘The Wizard Aladdin’?”
“Yes!”
That’s the first time she’s sounded excited.
Her eyes sparkle every time I correctly guess the title of the story she describes.
“Don’t tell me—you like legends and fairy tales?”
