"A title isn't something you can just slap onto your own head because you grabbed some random person off the road and cut them down." Haimer rapped Koharu on the forehead, exasperated.
"They get hammered out properly, across the table, when the gods of Orario convene a Denatus."
"Even if you fancy somebody's title and carve them into eight pieces, without the gods nodding it through in session, you still can't steal that empty name off them."
"And as it happens—"
"If the title you mean is 'Sword Demon'…" Haimer tipped his chin toward the corner of the room. "That name was settled at a Denatus years ago. It's Kisara's already."
At those words, Koharu Narukami turned her neck around, slow as syrup.
Those spiral-marked eyes, empty of any feeling at all, traveled over the crowd in the room and fixed straight onto Tendou Kisara, who stood in the corner hugging her tachi.
"Oh?"
The corner of Koharu Narukami's mouth curved into an interested arc, and her lazy gaze cooled by degrees.
Pinned under a stare with that much physical weight behind it, Tendou Kisara didn't give an inch. A dark, cold light welled up in her pupils, and she stared right back.
A user of Yakumaru Jigen-ryu's Cloud Radiance.
Ramming head-on into a menkyo kaiden inheritor of the Tendou-ryu Iaijutsu.
One of them carried "Slay Because of Slaying." The other, "Heart of the Sword Demon."
Neither woman had drawn a blade. They simply stood there.
And in the handful of seconds it took for those two dense currents of killing intent to meet in midair, the temperature in the spacious master bedroom plunged.
Over in the corner, Warabi Hanasaka shivered before she could stop herself and reached out on instinct, wrapping her arms around the furry limb of the big black bear, Kyoubou, beside her.
Even Tsukuyo Inaba, eyes still closed, tilted her head a fraction, ears twitching in tiny movements as she read the taut, hair-trigger current in the air.
"So this is the one who's been squatting on the name 'Sword Demon'?" Koharu's smile widened.
"You want a fight?" Tendou Kisara's brows drew together.
Koharu Narukami's grin spilled past the corners of her lips. "I only want a look. To see whether the one holding a title granted by Kami-sama actually measures up."
With the two of them a breath away from drawing steel, Haimer stood up.
He didn't waste a single word on it.
Two strides carried him straight into the space between their locked stares.
Left and right, he stretched out both arms, broad palms settling on the slender waists of Tendou Kisara and Koharu Narukami, and drew them inward.
Both women were hauled up against his chest.
"You want to spar, fine."
"But every one of you is Familia I chose myself. Nobody bares a blade in this room over life and death. Understood?" Haimer's voice sounded beside both their ears at once.
Yanked in like that, the two of them went stiff in the same instant.
The cords standing out on the back of Tendou Kisara's hand smoothed away at once. Through the cloth at her waist came the warm press of a god's palm, and the tips of her ears flushed a faint red.
She bit down lightly on her lower lip and forced the half-inch of drawn blade back down into its sheath.
"Understood… Lord Haimer."
Koharu Narukami, on the other hand, went with the pull of his arm, entertained, and let her whole body slump softly against him.
Those spiral eyes rolled about, sweeping the room and the atmosphere that had changed in a heartbeat.
Watching Haimer gather the two of them into his arms with that much possessive familiarity, everyone else wore a different face.
Warabi Hanasaka's eyes went round and her mouth gaped wide enough to fit an egg. Tsukuyo Inaba's lips trembled fast.
Even Onigawara Rin, off in her corner, balled up her small fists, cheeks burning scarlet, clearly flustered by such an outrageous breach of distance.
Watching the girls react, Koharu found it all genuinely amusing. She wanted very much to press her advantage, lean in a little further, and see what other entertaining reactions she could dig out.
But there was the chance Haimer would actually lose his temper over it.
In the end, Koharu didn't dare push too far.
She only crinkled her eyes in a smile and obediently let go of her sword hand.
"Whatever Kami-sama says."
Seeing that both had given up the idea, Haimer released them at last, and the stifling air in the room began to move again.
Just then the bathroom's wooden door creaked open.
A wash of damp, warm steam spilled out, and Mary Kikakujou and the Holy Emperor stepped through.
Marie had come straight from a hot bath, long golden curls still dripping over her shoulders.
Her exotic, alluring face was flushed pink from the steam.
She wore nothing but a simple silk robe, and where it clung to her skin it only made the ripe, generous lines of her figure stand out more.
The Holy Emperor followed behind her, changed into a clean, pure white dress.
Fine beads of water clung to her long silver hair as well.
Her steps still looked unsteady and weak, but compared to the wretched state she'd been in yesterday, her color was worlds better.
"Lord Haimer, we're finished washing."
Mary Kikakujou kept her head slightly lowered, a tremor running through her voice.
Her own shameless boldness the night before still hung vivid in front of her eyes, and facing Haimer now, she couldn't bring herself to lift her gaze and meet his.
Haimer's expression didn't change. He nodded with a smile and gestured at the mattress he'd been sitting on.
"Good timing. You're both cleaned up, and the night isn't over yet, so it's your turn."
Mary Kikakujou drew a deep breath, walked obediently to the bedside, turned her back and loosened the sash of her robe, letting it slide off her shoulders.
She lay down on the mattress, meek and still.
Her back, pale and smooth as mutton-fat jade, gave off a fine, maddeningly lovely sheen under the soft lamplight.
Haimer stepped forward. His fingertip traced across her skin again, and a single drop of dark gold Divine Blood fell precisely into the Grace sigils on her back.
Light rippled. The script rearranged itself.
—Mary Kikakujou, Rank Sublimation, Lv.3.
[Name]: Mary Kikakujou
[Race]: Human
[Level]: Lv.3
[Ability]: Strength: I0 | Endurance: I0 | Dexterity: I0 | Agility: I0 | Magic: I0
[Development Ability]: "Chain Attack" I
[Magic]: None
[Skills]: "Noble Judgment", "Elegant Steps"
A moment later, in a flicker of faint radiance, new Development Ability options surfaced at the bottom of the parchment.
"Marie, two branches came up. 'Thrust' and 'Evasion.'" Haimer read off the divine script as it appeared.
"Your skill 'Elegant Steps' needs you to keep your feet moving in combat to stack its bonus, so 'Evasion' will do far more for your overall fighting strength."
"If Kami-sama says so, then I'll take 'Evasion.'"
Mary Kikakujou answered at once, without a shred of hesitation.
The light faded.
Marie sat up, hurriedly pulled the robe back from her waist and wrapped it tight, then retreated to one side, red-faced, letting out a long breath she'd been holding.
That left one person in the room still un-updated.
The Holy Emperor walked silently to the bed.
She pressed her soft pink lips together.
Pale, slender fingers came to rest at the collar of her dress, and paused there half a beat.
Then, as if forcing a decision on herself, she gently undid the few buttons at the nape and slid the dress down to her waist, baring a thin, delicate white back, all bone and fragile lines.
She eased herself down on the edge of the bed, folded her arms and buried her scorching cheeks in them, unwilling to look at any of the gazes turned her way.
Haimer stood beside the bed. A drop of Divine Blood condensed at his fingertip and fell.
Splat.
The instant it sank into the grain of her skin—
Everything went wrong.
Blinding motes of light erupted from the Holy Emperor's back like a river bursting its dam, and the whole master bedroom flared white as noon.
"Nngh—"
A muffled moan tore out of the Holy Emperor, and her entire body snapped rigid as if lightning had run through it.
The divine script already written across her back began flashing and leaping in wild, patternless bursts, cycling and swapping so fast that even Haimer couldn't take all of it in at once.
His brows locked tight. He immediately clamped a hand on her shuddering, rounded shoulder and forced her body steady.
This was no ordinary sublimation.
Haimer could feel it clearly: the magic inside her, expanded and swollen past all bounds by the suffering she had taken in last night, was tearing itself apart and reforging itself in a manner that could only be called terrifying.
The pulse of that blazing light kept climbing.
Under the stunned eyes of every girl in the room—
The script on the Holy Emperor's back locked into place for the first time.
First sublimation—Lv.2 to Lv.3!
By every rule, that was the point where the light should have drained away and settled into the body.
But in the very instant it froze—
The glare on the Holy Emperor's back didn't dim by so much as a shade. It blazed brighter.
Last night, atop Babel Tower.
With nothing but frail mortal flesh and bone, she had drawn in and shouldered the leaden pain and prayers of hundreds of thousands of Orario's common people.
That unthinkably vast conviction, forged in a hopeless corner—
had burned clean through every boundary of common sense, fusing into an epic miracle that would drop the jaws of every god alive.
—The Holy Emperor entered a second sublimation!
—Vaulting a whole tier outright, Lv.3 to Lv.4!
The light was fierce enough to make eyes water, and it held over the master bedroom for a solid dozen seconds and more.
When it all finally went quiet, the Holy Emperor lay limp on the bedding, dragging in huge gulps of air. Her forehead and her back were already soaked through with sweat.
When Haimer looked down at her back again, he saw it.
A new line of skill text, seared plainly into her skin—
"Miracle Reborn."
Child of miracles.
When the bearer, or a companion within her sight, falls into a desperate situation grave enough to kill, an unforeseeable miracle triggers with an extremely small probability—it may be a mutation of magic, an awakening of will, even a reversal of mana itself.
The deeper the despair, the greater the miracle.
Reading those four words, the corner of Haimer's eye twitched, and a muttered complaint stirred somewhere behind his ribs.
Had she just given birth to some absurd cheat skill?
After all.
In this Orario—in the entire history of the Lower World, for that matter—Consecutive Sublimation was a fairy tale, a punchline.
The only reason Haimer wasn't more shaken was that he knew the future timeline, and the elf with the code name [Gale Wind], Ryu Lion.
Over five long years, Ryu had thrown her life away again and again, piling up a mountain of hidden excelia no one ever witnessed, and that had bought her one brutal, harrowing two-rank leap.
Producing a cheat-tier skill.
"Astraea Record."
—The power to inherit and invoke the magic of her fallen comrades of Astraea Familia.
As for the Holy Emperor…
All told, it had taken her a matter of days.
It seemed he'd underestimated just how much weight sat behind her skill "Virtue Sustains All"—the excelia of bearing and embracing the suffering of others, of pulling the karmic threads of an entire city into herself.
"L-Lord Haimer… what's happened to my body?"
Once she'd caught her breath a little, the Holy Emperor pushed herself upright on trembling arms, tugged uneasily at the fabric slipping off her shoulder, and looked back with a small voice.
"Congratulations, Lady Holy Emperor."
Haimer crushed the imprint parchment in his palm, glanced over at the pack of martial-minded girls in the bedroom who had long since been struck dumb, and laughed softly.
"You're not only the first adventurer in recorded history since the age of the gods' descent to achieve a [Consecutive Sublimation]—you skipped straight over Lv.3 and put a foot across the threshold of Lv.4."
"You also picked up a rare skill along the way that frankly sounds like it doesn't play fair."
The moment those words landed, the wide master bedroom went so silent you could have heard a needle drop. A dead, frightening silence.
The girls exchanged looks, disbelief written all over their faces.
Warabi Hanasaka even pinched Kyoubou's arm beside her, hard and on the sly.
Wondering whether a whole night without sleep had left her ears playing ridiculous tricks.
Amou Kirukiru leaned at an angle against the carved doorframe.
The cloth shirt she'd only just put on still hung open at several buttons.
And right now, her eyes were locked hard on the Holy Emperor, who was still panting prettily on the bed.
For a long moment nothing moved. Then the fever deep in her gaze cooled into something unsettling.
"Interesting…"
Amou Kirukiru ran her tongue along the corner of her mouth and muttered under her breath. "I'd always assumed that whoever got a foot over the Lv.4 threshold first, out of all of us, would obviously be me."
On the other side of the room, Onigawara Rin and the rest stayed quiet.
They traded several complicated glances.
After all, every one of them had climbed onto the Lv.3 step together tonight, and there had been a private little glow of pride about it.
They'd figured they'd all started from the same line, and with talent on their side they could still overtake anyone.
And then—
Not one of them had imagined the Holy Emperor would go rocketing straight up to Lv.4.
For this bunch of proud, high-strung fighting girls, everything churning under the admiration was pure urgency.
Hearing Haimer's praise, the Holy Emperor's cheeks flushed until they looked ready to bleed. All her composure vanished, and she fumbled to gather her disheveled collar closed, wretched with embarrassment.
"I… how could I possibly rise this fast…"
"There's nothing strange about it."
"What you did in the dead of last night, healing an entire city, is a feat no god in the Lower World could accomplish."
Taking the towel Haimer handed her, the Holy Emperor bowed her head low.
Her fingers wound nervously through the towel's fringe, and the flush on her face crept down to the back of her neck. "This… this was only thanks to Kami-sama stepping in at the critical moment. If you hadn't dissolved all that excess backlash of pain with your own hands, I'd have lost my very—"
"Enough, no more deflecting." Haimer clapped his hands together. "We spent the whole day running around cleaning out the stragglers. Everyone's nerves are stretched to the limit."
"Everyone's Grace has been updated now, so anyone who ought to be asleep, go back to your own rooms and rest."
The girls each had their own thoughts, and their hearts were still rolling in turmoil.
But they could hear the thread of weariness in this god's voice, the tone of a man who didn't want to talk any longer. One after another they bowed, took their leave and started for the door.
And then—
Just as they were all about to pass through the wooden doorway.
"Marie."
Haimer spoke up behind them.
Picking out Mary Kikakujou alone, near the back of the group.
"About some rather serious things that happened to the two of you in the middle of last night. I'd like to use tonight's window to talk it over with you properly, in private."
"Do me a favor and take a few extra steps on your way—fetch Lady Rei and bring her here too."
At those words, Mary Kikakujou, who had just reached the door, went from the faint pink of a hot bath to a face that burned scarlet all the way through in one rush.
Last night… that aphrodisiac poison she'd been dosed with…
And whatever had happened at the end of it?!
"Y-yes! Yes, Lord Haimer! I'll go get her right now!"
She'd been unconscious for the latter part of the night, and Marie, red to the ears, didn't dare think about the details. She blurted her answer in a panic, her voice shaking badly.
That single call was enough to make the other girls, already out in the corridor, slow their steps sharply.
Keeping someone behind alone? And adding Lady Rei to it?!
They thought back to that afternoon in the [Pleasure Quarter], to the buxom Aisha leaning on the railing and throwing them winks while she rattled off her filthy, no-holds-barred teasing.
A flood of lurid, downright unmentionable guesses bloomed in the girls' heads.
But most of them just went red to the ears and let their eyes dart everywhere, and by some unspoken agreement not one of them made a single questioning sound. They only quickened their pace, ready to scatter like startled birds.
…
However.
The moment they got the master bedroom door open, the girls walked straight into an excruciatingly awkward scene.
On the carpet of the corridor directly opposite the master bedroom—
stood a certain loli goddess with an eye-catching pair of breasts.
—Hestia, all by herself, barefoot on the floor.
She had a big soft pillow clutched to her chest for dear life.
And her whole face was glaring resentment at them.
After all, the night was already deep.
She had washed herself sweet-smelling ages ago and had been out here forcing her eyelids open, waiting.
Waiting for those little hangers-on to finish up and clear out, so that she—the official patron goddess with by far the murkiest relationship with him—could walk in with her head high and warm up that ice-cold bed of his!
And enjoy a shameless little session of alone time on top of it!
And then!
Oh, wonderful!
No sooner had the jerk shooed off that flock of underdeveloped kittens than he turned around and named that Marie girl with the outrageous chest to stay behind—and asked for Rei the siren on top of her!
One man, two women! Verifying the situation in private?!
Who did he think he was fooling, a three-year-old?!
Hestia's teeth itched with fury.
And the sight of Haimer inside the master bedroom finished her off.
Her head snapped down and she sank her teeth viciously into the corner of the pillow in her arms.
"Big lecher! Big liar! Shameless!"
"If you love being so busy, then fine, I'm not speaking to you tonight!"
Hestia stamped her foot hard.
Her eyes held nothing but a mouthful of sour vinegar.
"You can just stay busy alone until sunrise!"
"I'm going back to sleep by myself!"
With that, Hestia sniffed hard, spun her small frame around in a huff, and bolted with her pillow into the side room across the hall.
BANG!
A heavy, muffled slam rang down the corridor, followed at once by the clack of several bolts dropping into their sockets.
Inside the master bedroom, Haimer heard Hestia's door-slamming performance and could only sigh at it.
He waved the girls off to bed.
Once they'd shut the door behind them, Haimer slowly raised both hands to unbutton his shirt, walked over to the window that hadn't quite been closed, and looked out at the quiet night sky, smiling wryly to himself.
"Come to think of it."
"Ever since that last time—ten thousand years of abstinence—she's turned into a little jar of vinegar."
"Though when I really think about it… I dug that pit and stepped into it myself."
"That aphrodisiac gemstone Ais gave me had a much fiercer effect than I bargained for."
As he spoke, Haimer pushed the window shut, stripped off his shirt and tossed it onto the big bed, baring a solid, broad chest.
Unbidden, the scene from earlier surfaced in his mind—the moment he'd stepped in and forcibly gathered Kisara and Koharu against him.
It had, in truth, stirred a few private thoughts.
If the situation hadn't been so strung-tight just then… he honestly wasn't sure he wouldn't have gone with the flow and done something outrageous.
"Still."
"Ever since I set down those authorities in the Lower World, I've been finding my way back to who I used to be."
The seven emotions and six desires—surrounded by all these chirping, flitting girls, they had been fanned brighter and brighter.
Little by little he was being dragged back toward the easy carelessness he'd had when he was still human.
After a moment of that reverie, something else occurred to Haimer. He turned his gaze slightly toward the closed bedroom door and spoke in a slow, leisurely tone.
"By the way—Tsukuyo should be able to hear this right about now, shouldn't she?"
At the end of the corridor, Tsukuyo Inaba, on the point of returning to her room, halted mid-step.
"Once Marie and Lady Rei get here, I'm bound to make a certain amount of noise in the course of things. Not enormous, but not nothing."
"I altered their constitutions with a forbidden art, and I need to keep feeding magic in to finish the work."
"So tonight I'll have to trouble Tsukuyo to use 'Mind's Eye' and shut out whatever comes from my room as best she can. No sense letting a lot of random noise ruin her sleep in the middle of the night."
"I've always known Tsukuyo to be a good, sensible girl, so I'm not worried about her eavesdropping on grown-up business." Haimer said it all with a smile.
But out there just past his door, Tsukuyo Inaba's cheeks flared scalding hot in a single rush—she might as well have been a ripe Fuji apple!
After all! Kami-sama had said grown-up business! Tsukuyo didn't understand it very well!
It was true that Tsukuyo could be a bit of an airhead about worldly matters, but she was by no means a genuine idiot who knew nothing of such things!
She might never have witnessed for herself what grown-up business actually looked like.
But what she'd been able to piece together from the stray noises of last night was already more than enough to send her imagination running.
And now, layered on top of that, the god she admired had spelled it out as plainly as a person possibly could.
Tsukuyo's chest felt like it held a fawn slamming into a temple bell.
She didn't even need her hearing.
Sheer mortified instinct was enough to make it clear exactly what the dignified, gentle god she looked up to intended to do inside that room next.
____
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