Bawling, Bloodsucking, Mist

“Uh… What do I do?”

“Ugh, hic… A-Aaaaaaaa… It was Harvey’s Archives, but now it’s become a Bread Archives…”

For the time being, Tooyama piled the books on the desk and held his head.

“Ah… Somehow, sorry.”

“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!”

Bawling. Harvey continued crying while soaking her glasses. Tooyama recalled a painful experience from the past. It was the same as that time he had made a girl cry at school.

“Uh, yeah… C-Calm down. Look, this book on the history of bread is really thick, you know? Look, from the time of Sumerian civilization… Hm?”

Trying somehow to calm her down, he tried soothing her. Since this one seemed to like books, he tried to persuade her with the nuance that a Bread Archives was not bad either—

“No… Wait, wait a second. …Why are there descriptions of Sumerian civilization and the Fertile Crescent…?”

He stumbled over a sense of wrongness.

The book titled The History of Bread certainly described the path of bread in the modern history that Tooyama knew as knowledge.

“Isn’t that strange? Normally, something like this… Shouldn’t it record the history of bread in this world…?”

Tooyama had completely expected that the origin of bread would be recorded based on the history of this world, this other world.

The wrongness he had noticed without thinking felt almost like nausea.

“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaan, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, pweh, pwaaaaaaaan.”

Harvey’s full-on crying interrupted his thoughts.

“Aaah, enough! You’re noisy! Don’t cry, I’m thinking about something right now!”

“Wah… He yelled… No, no… Scary, scaaaaaryyyyyyy…”

He yelled instinctively, and of course, yelling at a wailing girl only made her wail even harder.

Harvey’s tears grew even stronger.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, what is with this garbage-tier mental-fortitude four-eyes? Hey, weakling glasses, don’t cry. I’m sorry, okay? Look, try taking a slow deep breath. Deep breaths.”

The politely insolent adult attitude and bottomless air of villainy from earlier were gone. Tooyama dealt with Harvey in the mood of soothing a small child.

“Fu, pi, pweh… I-I-I…”

Crouching down and meeting Harvey’s eyes, he urged her to breathe deeply.

“That’s it, just like that, just like that. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in.”

“Breathe, breathe… Ah, it smells nice…”

Tooyama soothed Harvey. Surprisingly, it looked like it might work. Before he knew it, Harvey had stopped crying and softened her face a little.

“Right? Look, this book smells like good bread. I’m telling you, it’s definitely nice. A library that smells like freshly baked bread would go viral.”

At that moment, Tooyama was clearly making the mistaken assumption that he might unexpectedly be suited to something like childcare.

“…No, that’s not it.”

“Huh?”

Harvey quietly shook her head.

“You. From you, there is a very, very nice smell.”

“Oops, the flow changed somehow.”

Harvey, who until moments ago had been bawling like a small, cute creature, went blank-faced and stood up.

“A savory smell, a rich aroma… Fermented, boiled down, fragrant…”

Clearly, her eyes were strange.

Her eyes, which had held a precise beauty like glass beads, were now feverish and distorted like a failed fried egg.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, Harvey, your eyes look kiiiind of bad. That face is a very bad face. …Those are eyes like a monster species that’s found prey.”

He had seen those eyes before. A monster species. Yes, they were like the eyes of a predator that had found its favorite food—

“…Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?”

“…Huh?”

“Ah, a-ah, I know this feeling. It isn’t the feeling of Harvey, the familiar of knowledge. It’s older, much, much older. The feeling from when I am me, myself, I.”

Harvey covered her face and bent her body. Her small frame trembled, shuddering and twitching.

Tooyama instinctively stepped back one step, then two. The feel of the carpet was strangely heavy.

“Hey, wait, hold it. Don’t move any more than that. Don’t come near me.”

“Savoriness. What is flowing through that body? Like, you seriously smell good. What? Are you inviting me?”

Flutter, flutter, flutter. Harvey raised her face. The traces of her tears remained clearly, but there was no longer any lamentation or panic on that face.

Harvey stood there with flushed cheeks, eyes wide open, and her body restless. Around her, countless bats with black wings flew about, appearing from who knew where.

“Hey, you’re leaking bats.”

“Ah… I feel very good right now. Is it because you messed up Harvey’s Archives…? The me who is Harvey and the me before becoming Harvey are getting all mixed together…”

Harvey licked her pale lips. Her tongue, red as if stained with blood, moved alluringly.

“Hey, now that I look closely, you seem insanely delicious.”

From the mouth that grinned, canine teeth—no, fangs, clearly longer and thicker than a person’s—peeked in and out.

“Wow, impressive canines.”

Dash. For once, Tooyama instantly chose to flee. Without looking aside, he ran through the gaps lined by the large bookshelves of the Archives.

“Wait! Why are you running!?”

“Shut uuuup!! Of course I’m running from a woman with huge fangs, drooling and commanding that many bats!”

She was fast. Harvey, along with a great swarm of bats, chased Tooyama as if sliding over the ground.

“Hehehe, wait, wait! I won’t do anything rough, seriously!”

With a swelling motion, darkness and night took shape from Harvey’s back. Wings. The thin wing membranes were dark as if night had been pasted onto them, and the claws were the color of darkness.

“Wings?! Damn it, both you and Drako are so cool! What are those black wings?! Bat wings?!”

Tooyama opened his eyes wide. He spat words at Harvey, who floated through the space up to the high ceiling of the Archives.

This is bad, I can’t escape.

“H-Hehe, ah, what is this? Seriously, what is this!?

When I watch you run away, I feel like I can remember something! Me, me, me, me! Right now, I feel more like me than ever!”

“Damn it, acting smug, bawling, and getting all excited—what a busy person! Hey, this is a warning! Don’t chase me!”

Tooyama continued running through the fragrant scent of bread. He turned right and left around the bookshelves, trying to get even a little farther from Harvey.

However, between an existence with wings and one without, there was a performance gap so large it became sad.

“Hehehe, mortal! Good, good! That desperate face! Your sweat, your breath—ah, how, how savory they are! You’re inviting me with such an irresistible face, you pervert.”

“Who’s a pervert?! You ultra-pervert weakling four-eyes!”

Harvey looked down from the air at Tooyama, who was desperately fleeing, and breathed hotly. Her expression was melting and dazed.

Tooyama realized she was playing with him, but he did not stop running, shouting as he tried to get even a little farther.

“Hehe, heheheheh, heheheheheheh, this is fun… This is so fun…!!”

“Whoa!? No way!?”

A black torrent like a waterfall. Bats. Harvey, floating and spinning lazily through the air, waved her finger.

With that alone, the swarm of bats instantly wrapped around Tooyama and restrained his body.

“Caught you.”

Softly, softly. Tooyama floated in the air, caught and suspended by the swarm of bats.

He ended up in a posture as if his hands were tied behind his back, and his neck peeked out from his poor sleepwear. Seeing that, Harvey gulped.

“Ah, no, no, no, no! Your collarbone, your nape! Showing them off that much! You really are inviting me!”

Harvey was excited, dancing through the air while hugging her own shoulders.

“Damn it, you… Bondage play with bats? That’s way too advanced.”

“Hehe, hey, come on, look into my eyes.”

Tooyama spat out those words painfully, but without paying them any mind, Harvey flapped her wings and closed in on him.

Her trembling glass-bead eyes caught Tooyama Naruhito.

“Huh? —Gh.”

A numbness ran through Tooyama’s body. A strange numbness similar to a sweet sensation. Regardless of his own will, his body stiffened and could not move. It was like an exaggerated version of the difficulty moving just after waking up—

“Hehe, ah, these eyes, so this is how I use them… If I charm my prey, it becomes easy…”

“Gh, ah.”

While stroking around her own eyes, Harvey immersed herself in pleasure. She laughed happily like a child who had found a new toy.

“Hehehe, hehehehehe. Ah, I can see inside your flesh and skin, something red and warm… Beautiful…”

“Damn it, you… What did you do…?”

Harvey stroked Tooyama’s cheek. Her fingertips were long and porcelain-like, white as a corpse, and her touch was gentle.

With a touch like combing the hair of a beloved lover, Harvey continued to toy with Tooyama’s face.

“Hehe, humans, humans, humans. Ah, we are the nobles of the night, spirits of the planet, impossible possibilities of humans born from the stars… Hey, be aware that you’re an offering. Be more, more afraid. Look with those eyes more. Just a little more, and I feel like I’ll remember myself…”

“Damn it…”

“Ah, hehe, cute… You’re scared, yet strength is leaving your body, right? That’s how we and you are made. Predator and prey… But relax. I’ll drink you carefully, very carefully, little by little.”

“There’s nothing relaxing about that…”

This was bad.

Tooyama was truly panicking. The numbness not leaving his body was one thing, but what was truly bad was that his will to resist was steadily fading.

There was some trick in those eyes.

The fighting spirit that should normally well up in him—Tooyama was the type of person whose fighting spirit rose from anger and hatred—somehow would not work against the woman before him.

“Ah, right now, I feel more like myself than ever… You’ve got to be kidding. Even without anything to do with angels or whatever, right now, I’m getting closer to my true identity… I can’t remember my name or anything like that, but just a little more, and I’ll understand what kind of existence I am…”

“Your search for yourself is way too dangerous. Hey, let go. Seriously, don’t get any closer than that.”

Harvey continued immersing herself in pleasure in ecstasy. In contrast, Tooyama calmly grumbled.

“Huh… You’re more stubborn than I thought. Mortals should be unable to resist the eyes of us nobles of the night. Explorer aptitude… Is this the influence of dungeon intoxication?”

Seeing Tooyama’s state, Harvey opened her eyes a little wider and looked him up and down as if licking him from below. Her nature as the familiar of knowledge strengthened her interest in this rare thing even more.

“You keep saying stuff that makes no sense…”

“Hehe, those eyes. They scared me at first, but now they’re nice. Very nice. Melting eyes like that into mush is exciting, isn’t it? …Ah, I thought of something good. Since I’m also Harvey, and since I’m also the familiar of knowledge, then—”

“Wait, what are you—”

A bad feeling accelerated.

“I prefer lovey-dovey play, you know. More than doing things by force.”

“Ah.”

Her eyes caught Tooyama.

Tooyama’s mutter was like a short scream.

Harvey’s eyes, their glass-bead-like irises, wriggled as if he were looking into a kaleidoscope—

“Beginning connection to knowledge domain. Otherworld, Archives are invaded. Search: only bread knowledge. Change connection from Archives to familiar of knowledge Harvey. Acquiring existence information of other familiars. Recognizing authority information of the familiar of ‘Beauty and Woman’… Hey, look into my eyes.”

Harvey, the familiar of knowledge, was the power itself that possessed all knowledge of every world.

Therefore, she even possessed knowledge of familiars, existences equal to herself. Faced with the alluringly rebellious look in the eyes of the man before her, Harvey could no longer suppress her excitement.

His trained body, the sweat fragrant with stress, the blood boiling within.

She wanted those so badly she could not bear it. She could no longer wait for the moment when they would be offered to her.

“Ah.”

This time, Tooyama’s movements stopped completely. He remained caught by the swarm of bats and went limp, unable to move.

“That’s right. Now, look more into my eyes.”

The combined use of the night power she herself did not know and the power of the familiar of “Beauty and Woman” was, in a sense, equal to a charm that could even corrupt a god.

As a noble of the night, as a predator, she could not suppress her excitement. At the sight of the finest bait, she was gradually recovering the true self she should have forgotten.

“Hehe, hehehe, hehehehehe.”

She became intoxicated by that excitement.

Her supposedly brilliant mind and the knowledge she should have possessed both grew hazy, because Harvey was drunk on the man called Tooyama Naruhito.

Seeing Tooyama exposed with a limp body, caught by the swarm of bats, Harvey could not resist swallowing.

“It’s all right, it’s all right, I’ll be gentle, so come on.”

Drip, drip.

Harvey did not notice. With her lengthened canine teeth—no, fangs—exposed, she continued drooling heavily from her mouth. The drool falling from the air scattered and fell to the distant floor.

There was an answer. To what she herself was. What sort of existence she had been before becoming Harvey, and where she had come from.

“Ah, I can’t stand it… It’s all right. I’m sure it will feel good for you too.”

“………………”

“It will be delicious and pleasant for me, and just pleasant for you, probably. It’s all right. I’ll take good care of you. Just the tip.”

Gently, Harvey waved her finger. The swarm of bats that had captured Tooyama in midair followed that movement and lowered him onto the carpet.

Harvey flapped her wings, which melted into the darkness of night, and moved soundlessly toward Tooyama Naruhito.

With her eyes distorted by desire, without restraining her overflowing drool.

With the knowledge of Beauty and Woman, she used even stronger words of charm.

Those words—

“I like you… I love you… So, give it to me.”

She said those words.

The familiar, who had become blind in full virgin mode, had completely forgotten what kind of human her master of dreams was.

The essential fear she should have seen earlier, and the hideous scars born from a certain woman’s worship-like fanaticism toward it.

She should have known all of it—

“If you like me, then you’re an enemy.”

Click.

Tooyama Naruhito’s switch turned on.

His fighting spirit returned.

All mental contamination no longer reached Tooyama Naruhito.

His ego, already worn away, already broken, and already distorted from the start, would not break any further even if it was not complete.

“Huh?”

Even in a dream, Tooyama was an explorer and an adventurer. Therefore, he kept staring at that adventure endlessly.

“Come, Relic Blade.”

Mist appeared from Tooyama’s neck, and smeared in it, a chipped blade appeared as if growing from his throat.

“Bieh.”

In the blink of an eye, the bats restraining Tooyama Naruhito let out tiny screams, were chopped to pieces, and turned into a mist of blood.

—I choose this country. I will die with that person’s ideals. I cannot stay with you, and that hurts so much and frustrates me beyond measure. So, Tooyama-kun.

The hypnosis implanted in Tooyama Naruhito overreacted to the engraved words.

—Do not become an ordinary person. You will not bend to anyone, and you will absolutely never stop walking. I am the same, the same as you. Love and romance are nuisances that stop your steps.

—Do not become an ordinary person. A you who reaches an end with someone else is far too inconsistent with my interpretation. Because you are…

“There’s no way I’d be loved. There’s no way anyone would like me. …So, you’re an enemy.”

The hypnosis burned into his head destroyed Tooyama’s brain. The instantly flipped switch changed Tooyama Naruhito’s choices into something simple.

“H-Hehe, ah, an insane woman, a filthy woman… So that’s it. Seriously impossible, and genuinely gross. Way too intense.”

Harvey laughed while wearing the curtain of night. What the familiar’s eyes clearly saw was an obsession equal to a living spirit clinging to Tooyama Naruhito.

“I… won’t be loved by anyone… So…”

Staggering, Tooyama stood up.

A weapon was in his hand, and a reason was in his chest.

That suggestion, equal to a curse, would not allow Tooyama Naruhito to stop walking.

Easy peace, fulfilled happiness from the love of the opposite sex—all of that was cut away as inconsistent with interpretation by the scar of an abnormal person, and it was firmly engraved into Tooyama.

“Hehe, ah, cute… Distorted and twisted beyond help, and yet still living without breaking… Ah, mortals really are the best.”

Though she was a transcendent being, she accepted even that scar. At the sight of him continuing forward without despairing even after being broken, she let out a hot sigh.

“Relic Blade.”

Tooyama Naruhito’s choice was simple. Enemies were disposed of.

He gripped the handle of the blade growing from his neck and pulled it out.

He aimed the tip of the chipped blade at the woman cloaked in bats.

“Ah, that sword. So that is what it means after all. That shitty old man… From where did he set this up…?”

Seeing Relic Blade, the chipped blade pulled from Tooyama Naruhito’s body, Harvey narrowed her eyes and clicked her tongue.

“This is a warning. If you come any closer to me, I’ll dispose of you. I do feel guilty about filling the library with bread. I’d like to settle this peacefully if possible.”

If she backed down, good. If she did not, he would dispose of her.

The judgment could not be simpler.

“…No, no, no, that has the opposite effect. That kind of thing gets me fired up. That woman who distorted you seriously pisses me off, so I’ll steal you from her, Tooyama Naruhito.”

The transcendent being wore a deep smile at Tooyama’s state.

“I warned you.”

His gaze sharpened.

“Hehe, I won’t listen.”

The familiar, however, smiled bewitchingly to the end.

Tooyama pointed the mist at her.

“Huh?”

Fwoosh.

The mist did not spread. With a sound like it was deflating, the mist became thick and continued spreading, but it was not moving according to Tooyama’s will.

—My hero, come this way.

Rattle, rattle. The bookshelves throughout the Archives shook greatly. A voice echoed with a rumbling sound.

“Tsk, time’s up… huh.”

Harvey sighed and snapped her fingers. She sat deeply into a chair that appeared, pouting her lips in boredom.

—That is correct, familiar of knowledge, fragment of a Norse god of knowledge. You cannot defile my hero with your base desires.

The voice echoed. At the same time, the mist grew thicker and heavier.

“Wait, what is this? I can’t see in front of me… Relic Blade won’t obey…”

No matter how much Tooyama tried to suppress it, he could not control Relic Blade. This was the first time something like this had happened since he obtained the Relic—

“Hah, well, whatever. Somehow I lost interest. Our master of dreams, let’s meet again in your next dream. I’ve become interested in you.”

“You, your character is completely…”

Even Harvey’s figure was no longer clearly visible through the mist. The heavy mist wet Tooyama’s body as it clung to him.

“Right, this is me. The lingering scent of the real me you made me remember. See you again, Advanced Explorer. If that senile old man seems like he’s about to do something indecent to you, call my name immediately.”

—Do not lump me together with you, base blood monster, parasite masquerading as a noble of the night.

“Uh… I really don’t understand what’s going on anymore.”

—My hero, leave the Archives.

The voice echoed. At the same time, Tooyama’s feet floated again. The fluffy mist finally became solid and began carrying Tooyama’s body like a conveyor belt.

“Whoa!? The mist, damn it! It’s been nothing but this crap today!”

Tooyama, whose feet had been scooped out by the mist and who had fallen on his rear, was carried away just like that.

Resistance, or anything else. He was carried along, swept by the situation.

“Hehe, see you again, Tooyama Naruhito. It’s all right. There are no enemies of yours here.”

“What are you saying—wahblah!?”

Harvey waved her small hand. Soon, her figure disappeared from sight.

“Hah… I wanted to drink just one mouthful…”

However, the leaked murmur was blocked by the heavy mist and bookshelves that smelled of bread, and it did not reach Tooyama.