It's pretty simple high-school level math actually, as someone on another site pointed out to me before asking me to do better by dedicating half-a-chapter to a mathematical proof next time. I've went on to try researching set theory after that request, but I gave up after remembering why I am writing Touhou fanfics instead of earning an actual income by becoming a mathematics professor or something.
Ack, I've been called out. I did say I remembered basically no mathematics. Trigonometry is one of those things that has basically no bearing on my life so it's just poof, off into the void.
Unrelated: after meeting Rinnosuke and Reimu, I'm betting that Licorice is probably getting the sense that Gensokyo as a whole is a place for weirdos, and it's not just the mansion group.
Congratulations, you managed to correctly guess the topic of the next chapter! As a reward... I don't really have much to give. Uhm... I can draw any Touhou character you want for free?
Light drizzle sweeps past
In the sky is a gold spot
Heavens lighting up
"Sweeping, sweeping, sweeping while making up a tune…" Today, like any other day, Licorice was doing the only job that the head maid had entrusted her with: sweeping the garden. With a broom made of straw attached to a stick, she made motions right-and-left to rid dust from the stone path of the garden. This was strangely therapeutic. Her brain turned off, and she forgot her worries about the future as she swept on and on.
By noon, Licorice had worked up quite a sweat. It was spring by now, and the sun shone brighter every passing day. She decided that she'd take a break. The head maid practiced the same laxness with Licorice as she had with the incompetent fairy maids: our heroine could do whatever she wanted as long as she wasn't causing too much trouble. She didn't know whether to be happy with her flexible schedule or be offended at the fact that Sakuya placed her at the same level as the kid-brained fairies.
Licorice had seen Meiling, when going on a break of her own, requesting tea from Sakuya. She'd have really loved a convenient way to acquire refreshments, but the head maid tended to avoid her like the plague. Our heroine couldn't locate Sakuya outside of the times she was with the mistress, and even then Sakuya did her best to elegantly avoid addressing Licorice directly.
Without a convenient maid of her own to provide drinks, Licorice had to head to Meiling to acquire anything. She intended to do just that today as well. Our heroine, with broom still in hand, marched toward the gates, staring at the clouds along the way. The sky was clear, except for an errant bird going on its merry way…
Wait… Do birds fly that fast? And straight? Where are its wings? Licorice tried to look further, but this bird was quick… and heading straight toward the poor maid!
"What the… Stoja, stoja-" Crash! Licorice found herself flying, and landing head-first toward the ground. Thankfully the grass cushioned her fall, otherwise this story might have ended here with our heroine's untimely death by fatal head trauma.
"Bloody hell…" The 'bird' seemed pretty hurt by her landing. "…I thought I'd use one o' those fairy maids to cushion the fall, but…" She rubbed her hurt back. "Guess it ain't meant to be, sometimes."
Licorice got up to retort the unexpected guest. She was a young girl, clearly a witch judging from her hat, clad in a black dress and golden hair. "Don't use people for cushioning, you…" She couldn't think of a suitable insult at that moment. Her head was aching too much.
"Eh?" The errant tomboy looked surprised at hearing not a little fairy, but a woman. "I thunk that, almost, all the maids were fairies, ya new?" She, upon closer inspection, realized the identity of the new maid. "The blood bag that Reimu mentioned, innit?"
"I'm a human! Hu-man! With a name, you know!" Licorice got up and did her best to dust off the dirt that had gotten on her dress. "I don't want to be called a blood bag by a blonde bird!" She was rightfully pissed off at being smashed by someone carelessly flying.
"I ain't a bird, I'm just an ordinary human who uses magic!" This girl seemed to be proud of her self-proclaimed ordinariness. She puffed her chest out as she declared her name. "Marisa Kirisame, the Ordinary Magician!"
Licorice blankly stared in response to Marisa's declaration. "…Nothing ordinary about being a magician, I'd say."
"And there's nothing ordinary about serving as a blood bag, sweet Miss Licorice." The pair eventually calmed down when they exchanged harmless sass with each other. "So, anywhere got broken? I don't want that mistress of yours getting all rowdy over me spoiling her drink."
"I'm fine, mostly." Licorice then noticed something odd about this ordinary magician. "Wait, why are you here anyways? I'm pretty sure you don't work here."
"Ah-" Marisa averted her eyes from Licorice. "You see, I'm just here to… borrow some books, as usual. Remilia is my friend, you see. Yes, we're very good friends." She waved her hand as she quickly began running toward the mansion. "I'll get going now. I have many books I need to borrow, ya see!"
"Ah… Okay…" Licorice intended to let this incident go. She turned around to go back on her merry way of tea, only to find Meiling jumping with lightning-speed toward her general direction. Our heroine dodged at the last moment, she again found herself on the ground while Meiling sped past her and caught up to Marisa.
"Tíng!" Meiling raised her hands up, ready to engage in unleashing ultraviolence. "Stop right there, criminal scum! Nobody breaks the law on my watch!"
"Ah, good mornin', Miss China. Fine weather, innit?" While casually speaking of the weather, Marisa raised her broom onto her shoulders and swung it like a club. "It's a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, cherry blossoms are blooming… On days like these, gatekeepers like you should be buggering off!"
"My name isn't even… Geez, at least remember my name!" She seemed more offended by her name being forgotten than being told to bugger off. "I'll be sweeping you off the pavement now, if you don't mind."
"And I thought that you'd be polite and piss off when asked. Fine, I won't hesitate to help your poor maid by doing some of the sweeping myself." Marisa swung her broom back down, and got on it. "The usual? Let's go then." She flew off on her broom, positioning herself above the garden.
"Licorice, please beware of stray bullets." After giving this frightening warning, Meiling jumped into the sky to follow her opponent.
"Bullets? What are you talking about?!" Licorice screamed, but she couldn't be heard when Meiling was flying a couple hundred meters above the ground. "Are they going to… No, I didn't see any of them carry a gun." Our heroine was quite concerned about a gunfight happening right in (or above) the garden she was currently responsible for sweeping.
"Do not be afraid, young one." Licorice was startled; she turned around to see the mistress floating down toward her. She carried a parasol to shield herself from the sun. "This is just the morning show we get occasionally. Let us sit back, and relax." She looked around, to see a lack of anything to snack on other than the maid. "How I wish there to be refreshments."
Suddenly, Sakuya. "Here you go mistress." She handed cookies on a silver platter. Her time controlling abilities came most handy in such occasions. The head maid disappeared as quickly as she came; she still had much work to do today.
"Excelent." Remilia threw a cookie into her mouth, satisfied of the timeliness of the head maid. "Now we're ready to a decent show of danmaku."
Licorice had gotten used to hearing unfamiliar terms at this point. "A show of what?" She casually took a cookie for herself, carefully watching the people in the sky. From their body language, she could infer that the two were busy throwing sass at each other. "Is it a contest of sarcasm and sass?"
"No it isn't. I guess you pitiful mortals of the Outside World don't engage in danmaku. Let me enlighten you!" It seemed that today, Remilia was in a mood to play her role as an old vampire. "Danmaku is like wrestling but… like, way cooler, basically." Her air of grandeur broke down when she realized that she didn't exactly have the words needed to properly describe danmaku. "Just watch, okay? You'll get it… probably."
Her situation suddenly reminded her of a play from the Outside World. "…this isn't like Waiting for Godot, isn't it? I don't want to be Waiting for Danmaku." Danmaku being something absurd and nonsensical was a real possibility, considering her previous experiences if Gensokyo.
The mistress wondered who Godot was, and why anyone would wait for them, but she fell silent as the show of danmaku began between the two contestants.
Out from Meiling came a barrage, consisting of what looked to be bullets made of light. This barrage continued in a geometric pattern, with circular spirals and multicolored orbs, some making their way toward Marisa. She flew on her broom, dodging the bullets expertly, The ordinary magician also fired off bullets of her own, though hers was in a more straightforward pattern that looked more like fire off of a machinegun.
The mistress was calm in viewing this fight. Licorice was less so. "Are- Mistress, they're going to kill each other!" Bullets flying around didn't bode well for the health of Meiling or Marisa, or so our heroine thought with her puny human mind.
"Don't fret." Remilia added another cookie in her mouth. "Didn't I say it's like wrestling? People don't intend to kill each other while wrestling, danmaku is like that."
Licorice wasn't convinced, and she was freaking out. "But- But people don't shoot each other while wrestling, mistress!"
Remilia shrugged after receiving such a foolish answer. "At most, those bullets would sting a little." She raised her parasol, arcing it slightly toward the general direction of the fight. "You might want to exercise more caution, though. They might be more effective against ordinary humans."
"…might?!" Licorice had to content herself with staying near the mistress. She was afraid that she might end up being vaporized by a stray bullet. Being deleted from existence by what seemed to be a simple sport by the residents of Gensokyo didn't seem too pleasing to our heroine. "I-"
Any words that Licorice might have wanted to say were interrupted by an enormous rainbow-colored beam of light that emanated from Marisa. Meiling dodged this attack, she was too swift to be caught by such an attack easily.
Remilia seemed enamored by this attack. Her full attention was on the sky now. "What a lovely Master Spark from Marisa!" She almost dropped her parasol from the excitement. All of her elegance had been suddenly erased by childish excitement. "It's been a long time since I've seen this one! Meiling has managed to make Marisa go all out, it seems." The mistress seemed pleased with the performance of her gatekeeper.
A couple more beams pierced the sky, all aimed at Meiling. Licorice had to do her best to shield her eyes as to not go blind from all the light around her. The gatekeeper had managed to avoid the flurry of beams coming from Marisa.
Yet, something unexpected happened. Instead of the usual bursts, a continuous beam now occupied the sky. It wasn't pointed toward Meiling, in fact, it was toward the opposite direction. Licorice, her eyes having gone red from fatigue by now, did her best to look up and see what was happening. Marisa was propelling herself with the beam, and she was heading back-first toward Meiling.
With elegance matching a self-guiding missile, Marisa avoided all attacks coming her way as she accelerated faster and faster toward the gatekeeper. The impact made by the two colliding was meteoric: Meiling was stunned while Marisa continued flying away from her.
After this, the heavens went silent. Meiling had stopped firing, and she came flying back to the ground, Marisa followed suit. It seemed that she had won, judging from her smile. "Another victory for the ordinary magician! Another defeat for China!" She cackled, doing her best to humiliate her defeated opponent.
"Good match, Marisa." Meiling bowed toward her opponent with the finesse of a martial artist. "That trick at the end was dirty, though." Indeed, even Licorice couldn't see how bumping into someone butt-first fit into the spirit of danmaku. Our heroine didn't get the details, but she at least had come to understood that danmaku was a form of dueling, and a sport. Bashing someone with your bum doesn't seem like good sportsmanship.
"A-ha-ha! I'm ready to take on the whole bloody world today!" Marisa, satisfied with her victory, now intended to make way for the library of the mansion.
"Hmph. Are you ready to take on me?" Remilia flew in to block her. She felt a desire to have a match with Marisa after having seen her go all out. "O' listen, ye who art ordinary in thine magic! If you wish to gain access to my acclaimed library, you must defeat me first!"
"No problem with that. Guess I'll have to defeat everyone in the mansion, again." She jumped on her broom, and the mistress followed her up toward the sky. Soon, a barrage of bullets filled the sky once again…
Congratulations, you managed to correctly guess the topic of the next chapter! As a reward... I don't really have much to give. Uhm... I can draw any Touhou character you want for free?
Ever so chilly
Under shimmering daylight
Here be fairies
Next to the Scarlet Devil Mansion sits the only lake in Gensokyo: Misty Lake (a.k.a. the lake). Despite being the only lake in the entire realm, it is quite abandoned thanks to being so far away from any human settlement. Except for the rare adventurous fisher, there are no human visitors of the sane kind.
"Water, water, walking toward the lake. Making up a nice tune, while I slowly walk toward the lake…" Our heroine, who liked to think that she still kept her sanity, walked toward the lake with four buckets in hand. The head maid had finally given her a job other than sweeping the garden path: drawing water.
The Scarlet Devil Mansion didn't use as much water as one might initially think. Its mistress preferred liquid of the crimson kind. The fairy maids didn't require any form of sustenance (despite this, they still stole food and drink from the pantry, much to the annoyance of the head maid). Patchouli herself was a magician, a kind of youkai not to be confused with an ordinary human who uses magic à la Marisa, and similarly required no sustenance. There were only three people in the entire mansion who consumed water: Meiling (only in the form of tea), Sakuya and Licorice.
Licorice put down the buckets right next to the lake. She didn't know how she was going to manage carrying them all once they were full of water. The mansion was up on a ridge; and Licorice was just an ordinary human who couldn't fly like the rest. This is going to be so tiring… She wished that she was an engineer, just so that she could construct plumbing up to the mansion. Or, maybe, she had been an engineer and she just didn't remember it. Maybe she had been a clown. Hell if I know, all I know is that I need to get this water drawn or the head maid is going to be drawing my blood instead. The latter seemed a whole lot less pleasing, despite the fact that she had her blood regularly drawn by a certain mistress.
Our heroine bent down to fill her bucket, only to notice an odd thing. Chunks of ice, containing frozen frogs and fish, were floating in the lake. This was especially odd considering the fact that it was spring, and there was no ice or snow around except for the top of the nearby Youkai Mountain. Thinking about it, wasn't it too cold in general? The sun was directly shining upon her, but Licorice felt the need to shiver.
…this is probably bad news, isn't it? If something felt off, then it was off. That's how things worked around these parts. She looked around her, not noticing anything else that was off. Eh, I have to fill these buckets either way. Licorice wasn't getting paid to stand around (more accurately, she wasn't getting paid at all), she still had a job to do. She continued her job, filling up the buckets while throwing cautious glances around the place. Surprisingly, she managed to fill all four up without any further incident. Maybe there's just a wave of sudden cold sweeping the lake…
Licorice took all the buckets, two in her hands and two carried by her arms, and she slowly made her way away from the Misty Lake.
Until suddenly… Crack! The buckets splintered into pieces, and four bucket-shaped cubes of ice fell onto her feet. "Ebasi!" A whole bucketful of water was pretty heavy, and Licorice threw more curses at whatever or whoever had just frozen her water. She heard giggles coming from her behind, and turned around to find two small fairies a small distance away from her.
"We got her real good, Cirno!" The one on the left was a fairy with short green hair with a yellow ribbon tied at her back. She had a blue dress with a white trim, which looked similar to the one her friend had, and golden wings that extended from the back of it.
"We did, Daiyousei! What a fool!" The other fairy, who was apparently named Cirno, had hair with an aqua color and a gigantic blue ribbon. Her wings consisted of six shards of ice. She high-fived her friend as they continued laughing at Licorice's predicament. "I've always wanted to get back at that Sakuya!"
"…Sakuya? I'm not Sakuya." Licorice was unsure as to how someone could manage to confuse her with the head maid. The two looked nothing alike.
"You have a maid outfit, you're obviously Sakuya!" Only then did Cirno notice something off with 'Sakuya'. "Did you get a tan during the summer?"
"No! I'm just not Sakuya, you idiot!" Licorice didn't have the time to be arguing with a bunch of kids. She had to get a new set of buckets. However, when she turned around, Licorice found herself blocked by a few shards of ice being thrown in front of her.
"It doesn't matter who you are. You have stepped foot in the domain of Cirno, the strongest in Gensokyo!" Cirno flew in front of Licorice, and Daiyousei flew toward her backside. They didn't intend to let her go that easily. "Only the worthy shall leave this place alive!"
How great. Another life-or-death situation. Licorice could only heave a deep sigh. "So, do I have to fight you or something?"
"Of course, in a battle of wits!" Cirno placed her hands on her waist, trying her best to look cool and mighty. "I'll let you know that nobody has beaten me! Ahem, first question." Licorice looked confident. She could easily beat a child. "What is nine plus nine?"
Without hesitation our heroine answered. "Eighteen."
"Wrong! It's obviously nineteen." Licorice opened her mouth to object, but Cirno had already began talking over her. "You have failed. I'll take it easy on a weakling like you, with my strongest spell card. Ice Sign「Icicle Fall」!" With this, she summoned a barrage of ice shards that slowly headed toward Licorice.
"This is unfair-" Licorice did her best to graze through the stream of ice. Thankfully, the ice shards were slow, and they moved in a predictable pattern. First the shards launched left and right from Cirno in a sweeping pattern that moved from her back to the front, and then they did a 90 degree turn to move in the general direction of Licorice. This pattern looked quite beautiful, and our heroine would have stopped to appreciate it if her mortal soul wasn't on line.
Having understood Cirno's current pattern of attack, Licorice realized a glaring flaw in the ice fairy's way of attack. The 90 degrees turn combined with the limited angle of her sweep meant that the shards meant that they never covered the area right in front of Cirno. Our heroine quickly jumped in front of Cirno, and as predicted, the ice fairy continued her pattern without changing it.
"Cirno! Why did you use that spell card?!" Daiyousei was protesting from the back. "She found the blind spot like all the others!"
"We'll be fine, Daiyousei!" Cirno continued Icicle Fall as usual. "It would be too boring if I froze this weakling instantly!" Plus, one couldn't change their spell card mid-attack, meaning that she also couldn't change the pattern she was currently attacking in. "It's not like she can do anything."
Cirno was right. Licorice didn't have any power to cast any projectiles. Or could she? There was one way… "Uhm… Shoe Sign「Fairy Annihilating Throw」!" With this, she committed to a Hail Mary.
"What kind of name is that- Woah!" Cirno barely grazed a shoe flying her way. She had stopped her spell card at this point. "Hah! Idiot, don't you humans need shoes to wal- Pichuun!" The other shoe landed right on Cirno's face. She ungracefully crashed down to earth.
With this. Licorice earned the distinguished title of 'Able to Beat Cirno on Easy Mode'.
"Huh." Licorice was surprised at the fact that a shoe had been so effective against a fairy. "Guess I can participate in danmaku." She made haste to pick her shoes up and wear them again; the wet ground near the lake wasn't that pleasant to walk barefoot.
"Cirno! No!" Daiyousei ran toward her friend. "A- Are you fine? That woman just did a nasty-sounding attack there…"
Cirno coughed, as if she was breathing her last. "No, Daiyousei… I'm afraid that… I've been…" Her entire body went limp. "…annihilated…" She closed her eyes and stopped moving.
"Cirno!" Daiyousei began shaking her friend's cold and motionless body. "She's… she's…"
Licorice was awkwardly standing at the corner while this dramatic event unfolded. Lajnó… Mama, I just killed a man. She wasn't sure what to do. She couldn't console Daiyousei, the murderer consoling the victim's acquaintance would only make things worse. What was she going to do now? Was murder illegal in Gensokyo? Would the Gensokyo Police get her, if such a thing even existed? "Uhm…"
Our heroine was in the deepest pits of despair.
What would she do now?
…
"…she's alive!" Cirno suddenly jerked up, and declared her living state herself. "Gahaha! Did you think that the strongest would be defeated by such a stupid spell card?" The ice fairy looked at the horrified Licorice, and high-fived her friend while giggling. "We got her again, Daiyousei!"
"We sure did, Cirno!" Daiyousei was back to her usual self. She had only been playing her part in this prank. "What a fool!"
"What an idiot!" The fairy pair continued laughing at Licorice.
Licorice took out one of her shoes again. "Vǎrvi po djavolite!" She began running toward the fairies in a berserk state.
"Cirno… The scary lady is running towards us!" Fairies weren't exactly the strongest physically, especially compared to an angry adult woman equipped with a leather shoe.
"I think she wants to play tag with us." Cirno got up and began running away with Daiyousei. She was giggling as if she was actually playing a game of tag. "You're it!"
"Hodi se ebi!"
Like so, Licorice spent the rest of the morning fruitlessly chasing around fairies. She was later reprimanded by the head maid for failing this very simple mission of drawing water, and Licorice was forced to deliver eight buckets of water while carrying them all at the same time as punishment.
Licorice: I'm sorry, but I didn't get the water drawn. There were these fairies and-
Sakuya: You're right, this does sound like some ridiculous fairy tale. And that sounds like insubordination to me. Draw the water again. And make it five buckets this time.
Licorice: But the fairies were- there was one named Daiyousei and she-
Sakuya: There was a fairy named "Big Fairy?" Right, right. Well, I hope this fairy is big enough to help you carry eight buckets of water back.
Licorice: I'm just... just going to go do that now. *Exit stage left, filling a bucket with her tears*
Meiling: ...why are we sending her to the lake when there's a perfectly good well in the garden I use to water the plants?
Just a little note, this series will be going on a little hiatus for a month. Real life has been a real bother, and I need to scale back on my other projects so that I can continue comfortable writing the John Brown Isekai during this period in which I'll be really busy.
After this one month hiatus I should have a whole lot more free time, and any more hiatuses don't seem likely. I have 10 preview chapters uploaded on Patreon (along with chapters for the John Brown Isekai if that interests you), if you wish to take an early look.
Around town travels
Whispers of who's here today
Maids most contrasting
Today was a special day for Licorice.
It was an ordinary day for everyone else though, so things in Gensokyo moved on as usual. It was the height of spring, with fallen cherry blossoms covering the ground and the sweltering sun made most wish that they had electric fans. Unfortunately for those people, electricity wasn't exactly common place in Gensokyo, so they had to make do with flapping paper fans and making offerings to various gods to bring better weather.
Speaking of those who needed paper fans, of course, most of them were puny human mortals like Licorice. However, outside of Sakuya, Reimu and Marisa, our heroine hadn't seen any humans. More precisely, she hadn't seen any ordinary humans for a while now. She had began missing those of her own kind.
Thus, when the time for Sakuya to go on a regularly scheduled shopping trip came, Licorice jumped at the opportunity to follow her toward the way to civilization. The head maid had objected of course, she didn't see a need to drag along someone who'd only hold her back.
Only upon the insistence of the mistress, who wanted to see how her new maid would fare, did Sakuya agree to let Licorice travel with her. No matter how absurd or disagreeable the mistress' orders were, Sakuya wouldn't object, only replying with a handful of witty comebacks before giving in. She wouldn't be a perfect and elegant maid if she didn't do so.
On the way to the Human Village, named after the fact that it is the only human village in Gensokyo, Licorice had her first opportunity to analyze the head maid properly. Sakuya couldn't disappear from sight like usual when she had to make sure that Licorice wasn't eaten by a passing youkai, otherwise the mistress would be angry at losing her maid / pet / blood bank. There was also nothing else for Licorice to do but watch Sakuya as they walked, the head maid elegantly killed off any conversation she tried to start about the weather or anything that'd break the ice.
The thing that occupied Licorice most was Sakuya's face. Contrary to our heroine, who constantly turned her head around to scan the immediate area, Sakuya looked forward with a blank expression. This made her look a tad airheaded, but considering her age and expertise, Licorice shot down any internal notions doubting the head maid's intelligence. In general, Sakuya's facial expression was one that our heroine could only describe politely as a 'poker face', and impolitely as a 'resting bitch face'. She didn't seem to have any other expression other than this, other than the professional smile she donned while greeting welcome guests and a smug smile she donned while 'greeting' unwelcome guests.
However, upon further deliberation, Licorice found that Sakuya's behavior did make sense. She had probably taken this same path countless times, probably even before Licorice's great-grandparents had been born. It only made sense that the head maid would have lost interest in the environment long ago, and perhaps new emotions were hard to come by after having lived for so long.
Her young appearance oft made one forget the fact that the head maid was most likely older than the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, perhaps even the Renaissance. There was even the possibility that she had visited Eastern Rome before its end, or Western Rome, maybe even the Roman Republic? Had Sakuya learned her comebacks from Diogenes, observed the stars on a ziggurat, used her power to help the pyramids be finished on time?
For all Licorice knew, Sakuya's real name might be Eve, and humanity might have begun from the woman in front of her.
Our heroine felt like she might fall into an existential crisis if she stared at the head maid for too much. Feeling a shiver run down her very much mortal spine, Licorice promptly stopped contemplating the heavy implications of immortality. The perfect and elegant maid somehow managed to be scary even when she was not saying anything or pointing a knife towards one's general direction.
Thankfully, she was soon greeted by the houses that constituted the Human Village. She wouldn't be alone to face Sakuya anymore. The village wasn't as small as its name implied, but it wasn't that big either. It was the size of a town, with buildings in a very much Japanese style, filled with people that, forget fitting in the Reiwa era (2019- ), would barely even fit all the way back during the reign of Emperor Meiji (1868-1912). It was as if, similarly to Sakuya, the humans of this village had frozen themselves in time.
Licorice passed the walls of the village no problem, through one of the grand gates allowing passage. The buildings were all constructed of wood, hay and brick shingles, with paper windows covering their walls in place of glass. Shops lined the streets, a different noise and smell emanating from every corner. Their signs were written in Japanese, with a script so cursive and old that someone non-proficient like Licorice could barely read what's written.
This was the peak of human civilization in Gensokyo, and it utterly failed at impressing Licorice. I did not accidentally travel back in time, right? She looked over at Sakuya, standing next to her. The head maid didn't accidentally send us to the past, I hope. Looking at how Sakuya was still keeping the same expression, of being expressionless, our heroine ruled out the possibility of accidental time travel.
Sakuya took out a piece of paper from her apron, containing her shopping list. Licorice didn't understand why she needed a shopping list, someone as ancient as her should have improved themselves to become a genius that could memorize their shopping list perfectly and elegantly, or so our heroine thought. "Alright. Bottle of milk, dozen eggs, one fresh body…" The head maid read the list out loud, slowly and surely. A passerby bumped into her. "Hey, watch where you're going! Where was I? Uhm… Bottle of milk, dozen eggs, one fresh body…" She was speaking to herself while standing in the middle of the street.
Licorice watched Sakuya with surprise. Seeing her fumble over a simple shopping list suddenly made her seem… Our heroine thought it was absurd to use this word to describe a fellow member of the homo sapiens, but the head maid suddenly seemed a whole lot more human. Was this what she had missed about Sakuya when she constantly kept away from Licorice?
After a minute of staring at the shopping list, it seemed that Sakuya was satisfied. She put the paper back in her apron, and began patrolling the shops. "Morning." She greeted a man behind a stall with cold professionality.
"Morning miss-" The man's tone changed when he noticed his customer. "…W- What do you want?"
Sakuya picked up a bottle of milk from the counter. In turn she took out a large bottle of wine from under her apron and left it on the counter. Licorice was curious as to how that fit there, but the head maid probably wouldn't giver her any proper answers. "Is that enough?"
"Ah, yes." Trading milk for wine was more than a fair deal.
"Good." Sakuya promptly left the stall, Licorice following suit. She saw some eggs on a stall just opposite the road, and made her way there to conduct business. While Sakuya was busy shopping, Licorice was busy eavesdropping on the man that they had just bought milk from.
"Who was that woman?" This question came from a woman operating the next stall over to the milk dealer.
The milkman was the one to answer. "The maid of the devil. You know, the human working up in that mansion?"
"Ah that one! I haven't seen her in a long time…" She leaned closer to talk to the milkman. "My great-grandma used to sell tea to the mansion. The maid hasn't aged at all…"
"Huh, really? Is she even human at this point?" The milkman looked even more creeped out by Sakuya's presence. "There's also the odd one next to her. From her appearance, she's definitely a youkai. What are they up to?"
The woman shrugged. "That devil in the mansion tried to cover the land in mist once. I bet it's up to something equally diabolical."
Declaring someone to be not human due to their appearance… Where have I heard that before? Licorice was beginning to notice something concerning: most passersby were throwing equally suspicious looks at them. It seemed that the maids of the Scarlet Devil Mansion were not a welcome sight in the Human Village.
While Licorice had been slowly deliberating on the chances of an angry mob attacking them, Sakuya was concluding her purchase of eggs. "Two, four, six… twelve." This time she took out another bottle of wine from her apron, which seemed to contain massive hammerspace, and put it on the stall as payment.
However, Licorice noticed something odd. "Lady Sakuya, aren't there eleven eggs in the box?"
"Huh?" Sakuya began counting the eggs again, this time going by them one-by-one. "One, two… eleven." She didn't want to believe that she could make such a simple mistake, so she counted two more times. Seeing that she was almost scammed, the head maid leaned over the stall, one of her hands moving toward her apron. Licorice was afraid of what she might pull out of there. "What does this mean?!" She pointed toward the eggs that were clearly not a dozen.
The owner of the stall, who was so scared that his soul might fly out of his body at any moment, gave in and quietly handed another egg to Sakuya. She, in turn, drew her bottle of wine back and stabbed the table with a silver knife she pulled out of her apron. The merchant fell bumside first out of fear. "Excuse me, I was just thinking that maybe, you'd like to meet the business side." She then turned around and left with her dozen eggs.
Licorice followed her, only to notice something even more odd. "Lady Sakuya… You just left a silver knife for the merchant. Aren't those expensive, as in, more valuable than wine?"
"…" Sakuya paused. It looked like she hadn't thought this through. Her careless act meant that she had accidentally paid the merchant a whole lot more. "…right." Suddenly, the knife reappeared in Sakuya's hand.
"When did you-" Licorice quickly arrived at the answer. She probably paused time and picked it back up… Still, how did she make such a mistake? Our heroine looked at Sakuya. She was still maintaining her poker face, perfectly and elegantly.
Their last stop was a funeral parlor. Compared to the other buildings in the Human Village, this building looked like it was constructed more recently. Licorice remained outside, while Sakuya went inside. What business does she have there? I'm pretty sure that nobody has died in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Her question was answered when Sakuya came out carrying a large and long object covered by a blanket. Putting two and two together, our heroine figured out that this object must be a human body. This is probably what she meant by 'one fresh body'…
With this, Sakuya's shopping list was complete. Licorice was glad to get out of the human village; the disdainful looks thrown at them was a bit too much. The maid pair walked out the village, looking mighty suspicious due to what Sakuya was carrying…
Sakuya suddenly stopped walking. Still looking at nothing in particular, she talked "Are you not afraid?" This was the first time that she had initiated conversation with Licorice during the entire day.
Licorice didn't know how to reply at such a sudden and vague question. "Huh? What am I to be afraid of?" Other than your temper, maybe.
"My mistress instills fear in the hearts of men. Time bends to my will. I'm currently carrying a human corpse." Her voice, maybe this was just a misconception now held by Licorice, but her voice seemed to carry the slightest hint of some sort of emotion. "I've seen, you've seen, how ordinary humans react to my presence. So…" She slowly turned around to meet Licorice's gaze. The head maid stressed every syllable. "Why. Are. You. Not. Afraid?"
The question was still overly vague, but Licorice did her best to give an honest answer. "Because…" This was a pretty heavy question on our heroine's part. A child vampire with unfathomable power… A time bending maid… And a human corpse… She did tend to do her best to forget such heavy-hitting manners, but being confronted directly had left her no choice. "I… The mistress is honestly terrifying, but she's like a child, I don't… I don't think she's an evil, or bad person." I'm just surprised that I haven't been murdered yet. "I don't think that, considering how easily you went in and out of the funeral parlor, you obtained that body without permission."
"It's the body of someone who recently drowned. They'll be made into dinner for the mistress." Sakuya stated so matter-of-factly. She seemed to be gauging Licorice's reaction.
"Right, if they haven't been murdered for that express purpose… I don't see a problem with it, really." Licorice was more of the utilitarian type, or so she probably was. She herself had forgotten any life experiences that might have shaped her thoughts. "And… About you." Licorice took a few steps, getting closer to the head maid. "I'm honestly afraid because of you. I… I don't know what you have lived through, and I get that you're nervous about me." They were directly eye-to-eye now. "I don't want to be enemies with you. I don't think you want to be enemies with me, I hope that's not the case. I'm afraid that we might end up hating each other for no reason, but I'm not afraid of you in particular." Our heroine conjured a smile. "We're human after all. We do stupid things."
Sakuya was silent. She had to turn around to avoid the gaze of Licorice. With a deep sigh, she uttered only one word. "…Fool."
"Huh? What?" Licorice felt the emotional atmosphere she tried to build collapse. "What does that mean, Lady Sakuya?"
The head maid refused to answer, and avoided showing her face to Licorice the best she could while they marched back to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Licorice might as well change her name to "Pollyanna".
Just a little note, this series will be going on a little hiatus for a month. Real life has been a real bother, and I need to scale back on my other projects so that I can continue comfortable writing the John Brown Isekai during this period in which I'll be really busy.
Despite my plans for a hiatus, I couldn't stop myself from writing another chapter. You shouldn't expect regular chapters for another month, but I might or might not end up end up with another chapter again. It depends on where I can squeeze free-time from and how much I can endure not sleeping for a night.
Body like fine steel
Refined into full sharpness
Let us trade blows
Today was not a special day, for Licorice or anyone else.
"Sweeping, sweeping, this is a whole lot of sweeping to do while making up a tune…"
Going on her business as usual, our heroine was again relegated to the task of sweeping the garden path. The incident with Cirno had made her chances of ever going out without supervision very low, any place outside of the Human Village wasn't safe for any ordinary folk like Licorice.
Becoming food was a whole lot more likely if she was to wander out, though her chances of becoming food in the mansion was non-zero as well. Still, Licorice had gotten used to working under the mistress, and she was sure of the fact that she wasn't going to be slaughtered any time soon. Thank you, B-type blood.
Other than her broom, Licorice had also been granted another tool: grass shears. She carried it under her apron, a technique learnt from Sakuya that our heroine did her best to replicate despite her lack of ability in the manipulation of time and space. She'd do her best to trim the plentiful hedges in the garden during her round of sweeping.
"Cutting, cutting, why are there so many hedges in this God-forsaken garden while making up a tune…" Our heroine was surprised that the mansion hadn't turned to a jungle by now considering how understaffed it was.
She did actually feel bad for the head maid in that regard: Sakuya was doing all the work inside the mansion. Licorice was only helping with a tiny little bit of it. Our heroine couldn't help but admire how hard-working her boss was, despite Sakuya's penchant for Timonism.
Her round slowly came over to the gate of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, conveniently around the time where she was getting thirsty. Meiling didn't move an inch from the premises, so she was always a reliable source of tea and chit-chat.
"Take this!"
"Āiyā!"
Instead, she found Sakuya and Meiling engaging in combat, not of the danmaku kind. First off, they were on the ground not flying, and second off, they were making actual physical contact with each other. From Licorice's view, the situation looked quite scary. Thankfully, Sakuya didn't have her knives out, otherwise the situation might have been deadly.
Our heroine didn't exactly know what to do. It was not like she could intervene in the fight; Licorice was an ant stuck between two elephants crashing into each other. "Hey, could you please stop?" The fighting pair ignored her. All Licorice could do now was watch.
And watch she did, noticing an important detail that she had missed. This wasn't some petty fight; this was a sparring match between professionals. Sakuya and Meiling were going for punches and kicks that weren't aimed at anywhere that could be lethal, avoiding the body and allowing the other to block their strike. Their performance looked brutal (yet entertaining) nonetheless; the ground around them shook when they collided into each other.
The match only ended when Meiling took a few steps back, having been left out of breath. "One second, Lady Sakuya…" She sat on the grass to recuperate. The gatekeeper was smiling, despite her tired state. "That was a good match." She stretched her arms as if she hadn't been warming up for the last few minutes.
Sakuya joined Meiling in sitting on the ground. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't frowning. In fact, Licorice found her poker face to be less poky than usual. "Indeed, it was. Have you intensified your training lately?" Sakuya took out a cup out from her apron, for all Licorice knew under that apron lay an entire universe the head maid could pull out crap from, and she poured tea from Meiling's pot of tea that sat near the gate. She handed it over to the gatekeeper. "You look tired. Here."
"Ah, you didn't need to… Xièxie, Lady Sakuya." Meiling took the cup and took a big gulp out of it. "So good… It's a bit different than usual. A bit sweeter, perhaps?"
"I found a bit of honey in the pantry, and decided that it'd do no harm to put it in the tea." Strangely, to Licorice, Sakuya was watching Meiling drink the tea instead of doing anything else. Not to mention the fact that the head maid was standing oddly close to the gatekeeper. She didn't poison the tea now, did she? Is she watching to make sure that Meiling dies?
Licorice didn't intend to stay unnoticed any longer, not to mention the fact that she had gotten quite thirsty standing out under the sun. She slowly approached them. "Good morning, Miss Meiling and Lady Sakuya."
"Huh- S- Since when have you been here?" It was rare to see Sakuya act surprised, and Licorice sensed a hint of bashfulness revealed between the broken poker face. "Don't you know that you shouldn't interrupt people while they're on a break?"
In contrast, Meiling was very calm in response to receiving an unexpected guest. "Good morning, Likǎolisū." She extended the pot of tea toward Licorice. "Tea?"
"Wait." Sakuya extended her arm to block Meiling from committing acts of handing out tea.
"Hm? What's wrong?" Meiling held the pot back, worried that something might be awry.
"I…" Sakuya turned her head to avoid the gaze of Meiling. "…prepared this tea specially for you. Don't go around wasting it on a fool who doesn't understand the intricacies of tea!"
Great, she thinks of me as a fool now… "If that's such a problem, then you should prepare something fit for fools." It was Licorice's turn to attack. "I've had to mooch from Meiling to acquire anything to drink, even water!" Our heroine didn't even know where the kitchen was, and she hadn't dared navigate the mansion by her lonesome in an attempt to find it. All her food either came from Meiling or Remilia.
"Āiyā? Is that true, Lady Sakuya?" This was the first time that Licorice had seen Meiling be angry at anything. "Didn't the mistress tell you to take care of her properly, Sakuya?"
Sakuya wasn't actually afraid at all of the angry Meiling, she was much more powerful compared to her. "I- I…" Two knives suddenly seemed to materialize in her hand, one flew next to Meiling and the other toward Licorice. Thankfully, both of them lodged themselves on to the ground, but knives flying in one's general direction was threat enough on its own. "Shut up, all of you!" She swiftly got up. "I just forgot, okay?!"
"Huh?" Licorice was unsure as to how such a thing could happen. "I don't think you normally get to forget about feeding another person…"
"Look, you suddenly appear, and now there's some ordinary mortal that I need to look out for! It's normal for me to miss such a trifling matter in a sea of troubles!" Sakuya seemed to have said enough. "I'll lead you to the kitchen later." She sat down next to Meiling again.
"Thank you?" Licorice wanted to switch topics; such needless tension didn't make her feel comfortable. I guess she did genuinely forget… "Anyways, that match you just had was amazing."
"Right? People in Gensokyo always talk about how elegant their danmaku is, but they forget about the beauty of martial arts." Compliment on her close-quarter combat skills seemed to have inflamed the excitement within Meiling. "Compared to four-thousand years of history, the art of danmaku is naught but a child."
"I wish I could pull off stuff like that." Licorice was quite worried about her safety, considering that even an idiotic ice fairy could easily pulverize her if things came down to actual, proper fighting.
"To be honest, I don't think you'll ever have a chance to reach anything like Lady Sakuya's level in your limited lifetime. But!" Meiling got up to flex her muscles. "You could still reach a higher level. Come join me in my daily tai chi exercises and you too, may one day be able to draw water from the Misty Lake without problem!"
Is she trying to sign me up for a gym or something? "Sure, it's not like I have anything else to do other than sweep the garden path occasionally." A bit of exercise never hurt anyone.
"Perfect! Then we'll begin…" Meiling stretched and yawned "…the next day. I need to rest now…" She leaned to the wall protecting the garden and closed her eyes.
"Oh. Okay. Good night, Miss Meiling." Licorice had gotten used to Meiling's ability to suddenly fall asleep.
Sakuya, who was still sitting next to her, didn't seem as calm. "It's far from being a good night, or night at all! Meiling, you're supposed to be doing your job guarding the gate you fool!" A knife flew out towards Meiling, this one finding itself lodged right in her forehead.
"Āiyá!" It seemed that the knife had certainly helped awaken Meiling.
"Miss Meiling!? Are you fine?!" Licorice rushed over to nurse the skewered Meiling. A knife being lodged in one's head usually didn't bode well for the one receiving the knife.
"Ah… It's nothing, Licorice." Meiling was certainly not behaving appropriately for someone who had a knife lodged in their head. She calmly removed the knife, with no blood or wound to be seen. The gatekeeper lazily rubbed the place where the knife had been. "That hurt, Lady Sakuya!"
"It's a knife. I'd be concerned if it didn't." And Sakuya was too calm for someone who had seemingly almost committed homicide. Thinking about it further, Licorice realized that this act couldn't be homicide due to the non-homo (as in 'not human') nature of Meiling. She was still sure that this was still an abuse of authority on Sakuya's part.
Thankfully, for Sakuya at least, the OSHA was like the ocean in Gensokyo: there was no OSHA (or an ocean).
"Right? It'd be pretty bad for us if those knives weren't sharpened enough." Meiling cracked a smile and then laughed. It seemed that she didn't mind being stabbed by the head maid that much, probably due to the fact that such simple attacks didn't work on her. Licorice would have minded it a whole lot more if she was stabbed, for example.
"Lady Sakuya, please do not use the same methods for waking me up!" Our heroine wanted to make sure of this after having seen the head maid's avant-garde methods.
"Huh? Why not?" Sakuya seemed a bit puzzled and offended at this request. "Knives are pretty effective at making people wake up. What do you know about my job, anyways?"
"It's more that I know that I can't survive being stabbed…" Licorice was even more puzzled. Does she not instinctively know how durable ordinary people are? That'd explain a lot of things, like the time that the head maid had held a knife against our heroine's mandible. "I'd die if you did this to me, you know. Please, I beg of you, don't."
"Really?" Sakuya responded as if Licorice had said something profound about the human condition. It seemed that she seriously hadn't considered the fact that our heroine was much more fragile than her. "The mistress would be mad if that happened. I'll try to not do so."
Wings of oddest kind
Glow like a gamer's PC
That little devil
Food. The fuel of the human soul, literally, metaphorically, metaphysically… In every way, shape, and form, food has shaped man's journey upon this green earth. From our ancestors running after deer, to them learning how to farm, to forming civilizations based on those farms… In short, food is very important for humanity as a whole, a fun fact that you might not have known up until now.
"Ah… Pure bliss." Licorice, like her mortal ancestors, had gone on a long journey for her food. The head maid had forgotten that she was a human with a need for food, and the way to the kitchen was a long one rife with confusing corridors.
Yet, our heroine had persevered, and made her way to the kitchen at last. "…Now, what the hell do I cook?" Licorice didn't even know if she knew how to cook. Guess I'll have to find out what I know. Now, what do we have here…
The kitchen in question was a surprisingly small one considering the massive mansion. Most of the employees were fairy maids who didn't need food either. The implements here looked like they belonged to a few centuries prior: a wood-burning stove made of steel lined up with various pots of tea, copper pans and pots that were flanked by a stainless-steel pan that looked out of place, and wooden cabinets filled with whatever the head maid had managed to buy.
The thing that caught Licorice's attention most was an errant box of steel: a modern fridge. She approached towards this familiar box, as if she wanted to shake hands with a fellow being from the Outside World. This must be where the good stuff is, right? Our heroine could hear her stomach rumble at the sight of this majestic box. She gently opened the door…
"Po dyavolite!" The fridge door opened to reveal a fully intact human corpse covered in cubes of ice. Licorice didn't want to take a closer look, so she closed the fridge door as eagerly as she had opened it.
Well... That's ruined my appetite. She was clearly lying to herself; her stomach was as rumbly as it was before. Licorice was currently concerned with her own sustenance and a corpse clearly didn't need her help. Our heroine let bodies stuffed in fridges stay stuffed where they were.
Having failed to acquire any ingredients suitable for humans (of the non-cannibal kind) in the fridge, Licorice headed for the cupboards. There she finally found the quintessential items of Western cuisine: eggs, flour, butter and milk; along with a random assortment of ingredients that were too large in number to count. The cupboards, just like the mansion itself, seemed much bigger in the inside.
With her ingredients found, Licorice took a pan into her hand and stared it down while trying to figure out what to put in it. What can I cook? Uhm… Eggs? Fried eggs? No, that's too simple…
Licorice found herself immersed in questions of cuisine. She couldn't hear anything else amongst the clangs of the pots and cupboards that she was interacting with during her brainstorming.
So immersed in fact, that our heroine didn't notice that someone had come to visit her. "Hey miss." Licorice felt something tug the hem of her skirt. Judging from the voice it must have been Remilia.
"Oh, mistress… mistress?" There seemed to be something different about the mistress. Her hair was blond. "Did you dye your hair? And…" Her eyes drifted to the odd "wings" of "Remilia", which looked like a bunch of Christmas lights lined up on two thick twigs. "…is it Christmas already? I thought that it was still spring." Her sense of time had been messed up since coming here, especially due to Sakuya's shenanigans.
"Ufufu. Of course! It is Christmas, my dear…" The mistress faltered while trying to remember her maid's name. "…Liquor? As they say, 'New Year, New Me'." She used her hands to fling her hair around, showing it off to our heroine. "Blond suits me more, no?"
"Of course, of course!" How did she forget my name? Whatever, I'll just play along with the mistress for now. Licorice (or Liquor) decided that she'd praise the little mistress a bit. "Compared to your old hair, you look much more… alive. And the lights are really… what do you call it… avant-garde!"
"Yes, yes!" The mistress clapped her hands together, looking pleased at the shower of half-baked compliments. "Gold is much better than silver, obviously! That girl would never get that."
"That girl?" Is she referring to Sakuya? "I think she's just a bit biased due to the color of her own hair." Honestly, silver fits the head maid much better than anything else.
"Flandre! Licorice!" The door of the kitchen suddenly opened to reveal… the mistress? "I heard that just now. That's no way to refer to your big sister!"
"Ah. I've been found out- Ce dracu!" The gold mistress's shoulder met a quick slap coming from the silver mistress.
"And you! You dare turn traitor, saying that blond hair is much better than silver." Now the downfall came upon Licorice.
Licorice was too befuddled to properly respond to this point. The population of mistresses had suddenly doubled, and she didn't know how to deal with it. "Mistress, did you go through mitosis? Who's this other girl?"
Now was the mistress' turn to be befuddled. "My… My toe sees? My toe doesn't see anything!" Remilia pulled the other mistress in front of Licorice's view. The other mistress flailed her around and legs trying to run away, but Remilia's grip was far stronger. "This brat right here is Flandre. My little sister."
Flandre blew a raspberry at Remilia. "I'm not little!" She was still trying to escape, but her rude little gesture had made Remilia's grip stronger in frustration. "There's only five years between us. Five years doesn't matter much when compared to the hundreds of years we've lived!"
"Aw, a little sister?" Licorice instinctively went to pat Flandre's head. "What a cute little creature you are- Sikter!" Her hand was met with Flandre violently biting down to drive her off. Our heroine understood the answer and she withdrew her hand as far away as possible.
"Flandre! That's quite rude." She let go of her sister. Flandre slingshot away, only barely managing not to fall to the floor. "You have to politely inform the humans before you draw their blood." Remilia's standard of 'polite' wasn't that high considering how she had introduced herself to Licorice.
"That's for weaklings who are stuck as final bosses." Flandre puffed her chest. "I'm an extra stage boss. I get to draw blood however and whenever I want!"
"Yes, and you suck at sucking." Remilia's palm met her face, and she also rolled her eyes. "You always end up destroying whoever comes here. I've had countless meals ruined by you!"
"Hmm… Meals…" Flandre's hand went to her stomach. She was quite hungry, hence her appearance in the kitchen. "Speaking of which, can I consume Liquor now? Where's Miss Sakuya?"
"Huh? We've always had liquor." Remilia did agree with Flandre on one point: she was hungry. "I think that Sakuya's currently busy in the garden. There's no one else to…" Her eyes shifted toward Licorice. "…prepare food? Licorice!"
Licorice's mind had drifted away from the bickering sisters. She took a moment to return back once she heard her name. "Yes, mistress?" Our heroine had been thinking about food as well. Her stomach was as empty as it had been at the start of this chapter.
"You shall get the honor of preparing I, Remilia Scarlet, and my sister a meal." She dragged a stool and sat on it in anticipation. "Do not disappoint us."
"Yeah! Human cuisine!" Flandre jumped on her sister's lap since there were no more stools around. She flapped her legs impatiently while waiting for Licorice. Remilia embraced Flandre from behind to make sure that she wouldn't end up falling, and the big sister groaned while having to bear the full weight of her energetic little sister.
Crap… Sakuya must be really good at cooking. The appliances in the kitchen suddenly looked much more threatening to Licorice. These girls must have really high standards. She didn't know if she could even come close to meeting their sky-high expectations. Do I go for something fancy, or something basic?
Then, as if she had received a revelation from God himself, a name popped up in Licorice's head. Palachinki. Everyone loves palachinki. With this, our heroine got to work. Egg, milk, flour… mixing bowl, a mixer… they don't have mixers here. A spatula will have to do. "Palachinki, palachinki, tryabva da napravya malko palachinki…" She caught a satisfying tune that coincided with her movements.
"Sorã, what's she doing?" Flandre leaned toward Remilia to not let Licorice hear her.
"I think she's casting some sort of esoteric cooking magic." Remilia didn't understand one bit of the strange language that our heroine was using. "Magicians always use something powerful like Latin, Hebrew or Classical Chinese." Of course, she only knew of this from Patchouli, who was adept at various languages (including, but not limited to, Esperanto).
Remilia knew a considerable amount of Latin from her Romanian heritage, and the language that Licorice was speaking sounded nothing like what Meiling spoke. "It must be Hebrew, considering I can't recognize any of it." She reached this conclusion through logic that was simply flawless. "Maybe I should ask her to teach me some Hebrew. I've heard that those skilled at it can do powerful acts, like splitting a sea apart."
"Sister, there's no sea in Gensokyo for you to split apart." Flandre was the one to point out this obvious problem in Remilia's plan.
While the Scarlet sisters were busy arguing the benefits of learning Hebrew, Licorice was busy with making palachinki. This was a very simple dish, one that could be made at a quick pace like the current situation demanded. Licorice started with adding and mixing milk and eggs, before pouring flour into the mixing bowl. She didn't follow any strict measurements, adding milk and flour to either increase or decrease the viscosity of the mixture. Eventually she reached a satisfying viscosity, one where the batter flowed like thin syrup.
Our heroine suddenly realized a crucial misstep. She had forgotten to light the stove.
Licorice searched for knobs to open the gas before she realized that this stove was fueled by wood. Thankfully, there was a familiar combination of flint and steel hanging by the stove. With quick addition of firewood and kindling (a stack of old newspapers) and a spark from the flint the oven was ready to go.
The rest of the process went smoothly with the lighting of the stove, this process consisting of putting batter on the pan, flipping to let the other side cook, and then putting the finished palachinka onto a plate. In under twenty minutes, Licorice had a stack of two dozen palachinki. I must have done this a lot… She added some honey on top for the mistresses, no child would ever object to extra sweetness on their food.
"…and I'm just saying that Hebrew has this real cool alphabet!" The debate about Hebrew was still raging on in the background. Both sisters paused when they saw Licorice approaching them with food.
"Here you go mistress…es." Licorice looked around the room to see if she had any place to put the plates on. There wasn't any. The only seating in the room was currently occupied by Remilia (who was currently occupied by Flandre).
"We'll just eat it here." Remilia took the plate from Licorice. Normally one would have problems with balancing a plate containing a dozen palachinki stacked on top of each other. Thankfully, being a vampire with amazing strength came with the benefit of being able to easily hold such a plate with one hand.
"Gimme!" Flandre took the plate with less elegance than her sister. She sat the plate on her lap, taking one palachinka to examine it. "…this is just a really thin pancake. I thought you'd make something more exotic. Like fried cicadas."
"Uhm… I'm pretty sure we didn't eat fried cicadas wherever I come from." Licorice didn't remember ever eating any bugs. Do vampires like to eat bugs?
"Thanks for the food." Remilia was much more elegant in her ways. She took the first bite. "Mmm…" The mistress nodded in approval. "Quite… decent. You pass."
"Yes, you pass!" Flandre joined her sister. "I won't have to destroy you."
Licorice had learned from experience that she shouldn't underestimate the children of Gensokyo. Even then, such a big threat coming from such a little girl failed to be intimidating. "Please don't destroy me."
"Don't worry, I'll make sure she behaves. You will, right?" Remilia threw an intimidating gaze toward Flandre. She didn't want to lose a reliable source of blood and pancakes.
Flandre gave a bright, somewhat reassuring smile in response. "I won't! Probably." She finished the last palachinka. Now she was quite troubled: her hands were covered with honey and grease. "Miss Licorice?" She extended her hands towards the maid as if Flandre didn't know what to do when her hands were dirty. Remilia did the same as her sister.
Can't you people clean your own damn hands? Licorice didn't exactly have a choice, however. She took a kitchen towel, the closest thing she could find that'd help her. "Alright, open them wide…"
"Hey, that tickles-" Flandre was making quite a fuss while Licorice got to work cleaning. Do vampires even… can vampires be ticklish? That was the sort of question that Licorice didn't think she'd ever ask.
Curiosity got the better of her. Our heroine tickled Flandre's sides for the sake of science. "Pwhaha-" The little mistress fell on to the floor laughing. Thankfully, for Licorice's prospects of survival, Flandre didn't seem mad at all. In fact, she seemed to be having fun.
"Peh. Weakling. You disgrace the vampire race by falling to such an easy a-hahatack?!" Remilia also received her fair share. The mistress seemed to be equally ticklish as her sister, and soon she was rolling on the floor alongside her. "You- You're a bold human…" Such an act seemed to entertain Remilia as well.
The mistresses soon got up back on their feet. They both seemed sufficiently fed and entertained. "You have done your job well today. Farewell." Remilia curtsied, flying off to do devil-knows what.
"Bye-bye, Miss Licorice!" Flandre simply waved goodbye, lacking the elegance of Remilia even though she had lived with her for over four centuries. She flew off to trail her big sister.
Licorice turned back to the now empty room. She realized a major problem. There was something else that was currently as empty as the kitchen.
Growl…
Our heroine hadn't made any food for herself.
Her stomach was still as empty as it had been at the start of this chapter. Touhou Futsuudou is back! Chapters will be posted regularly on Saturday as usual.
Princess of the fish
Swimming in the freshen'd lake
Buckets here always.
Today was another beautiful day around the Misty Lake. Despite Gensokyo entering summer, the area around the lake stayed cool as usual thanks to the mist covering it. Youkai would commonly come to the lake to cool off and socialize, meaning that summer wasn't the best time for your ordinary human to visit the lake.
"Dear God, why are there so many buckets…" Licorice groaned as she slowly climbed down to the lake. It wasn't a long walk from the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but carrying four buckets at the same time made it feel a bit longer. She had been tasked, again, by Sakuya to carry water to the mansion after her first failed attempt.
Our heroine was determined to not fail this time. She came right next to the lake, and put down all four buckets. With her newly freed hands, Licorice checked under her apron to make sure she was ready in case she had to use a spell card; she was relieved to find that her spare shoes were still intact under the apron. She also had a frying pan, in case of close combat, and a bottle of sake, in case of close bribery.
"Alright, let's do this." Licorice carefully approached the lake with one bucket, constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure no errant fairies were approaching her. She felt the cold water slowly envelop her feet as she got closer. I hope I'm not going to catch a cold after this… Slowly lowering the bucket, our heroine managed to finally draw water for one of the four buckets.
The second bucket went without incident as well, so did the third. Licorice didn't want to jinx it, but it felt like she might actually be able to draw water successfully. Our heroine approached the lake for a final time, with the fourth bucket in hand.
This was it. Soon, it'd all be over. Unless…
"Po dyavolite, what is that?!" Licorice took a few steps back upon noticing a large black blob swimming deep under the water. She ran away to the shore of the lake, dropping the bucket in shock. The bucket filled with water sank to the bottom as our heroine watched with great dread. Great, I just lost another bucket.
Unlike her lost bucket, the black blob was quickly rising up to meet the surface of the water. As it got closer, Licorice realized that the thing approaching her wasn't a big black blob. It was a person (?), quickly swimming up the lake to reveal themselves. "Hm? I thought I heard someone run…"
Licorice had hidden herself behind a local tree. Her unexpected encounter was with another woman, with dark blue hair that was dripping with water. Our heroine noticed a lack of proper human ears on this woman, she instead had small, fin-like appendages in place. Her green kimono, with extra frills like anyone else in Gensokyo, made her look like a living seaweed.
"Did she fall and drown? Oh no. That'd be quite bad…" This woman of the sea seemed to be quite worried about having potentially drowned someone. She was scoping the area around her in an attempt to find Licorice.
Licorice, feeling bad for making the woman so concerned, decided to reveal herself. "I'm still alive, don't worry." She slowly walked toward this greenly clad woman, noticing another detail under the clear lake water: She didn't have legs. The bottom portion of her body was that of a fish, which was wagging around to keep her afloat. I guess she's probably a mermaid of some sort… Though, don't mermaids usually live in ocean water?
"Ah! So sorry for scaring you. My name is Wakasagihime." The mermaid bowed down in a mix of apology and greeting, her head submerged into and back from water as she did so. "I was so excited to have a guest, you see. One doesn't get to see new faces around this lake… The faces that are frequently here are usually the cold, mischievous kind that want to freeze me for entertainment." She shivered, even though she herself normally swam in the coldest parts of the water with no problem.
"I see…" She must be talking about that ice fairy. "I'm Licorice Meidou, the new maid at the Scarlet Devil Mansion." Licorice suddenly had a genius idea. "Say, if you can swim so well, could you help me out and bring my bucket back? I just dropped it, and the head maid will give me quite a bit of trouble if I don't retrieve it."
"Head maid? Do you mean Sakuya?" Wakasagihime wasn't unfamiliar with what happened when one crossed Sakuya. She quickly went back to the lake to search for the bucket, returning as quickly as she submerged. Wakasagihime now had two buckets in her head, one shining like silver and the other one shining like gold. "Was this what you had lost?"
A golden bucket and a silver one… I know how this kind of tale goes. "No, that axe- Ahem, neither of these buckets are mine. Mine was a simple, wooden one."
"There are plenty of wooden buckets down there. Let me see…" Wakasagihime dove again, this time taking a long time to resurface. She was holding an intact wooden bucket that Licorice had lost. "Was this what you had lot?"
"Yes, that's my bucket. Thank you, Miss Wakasagihime." Licorice took the wooden bucket, conveniently filled with water, back.
"Glad to be of help." Wakasagihime, now bucketless, politely bowed again to Licorice. "Let me not keep you from your work any longer. Please visit me again when you're not busy, it gets quite lonely around here."
Before Wakasagihime could dive back, Licorice called out to her. "Wait, wait. This isn't how this is supposed to go!"
"Huh?" Wakasagihime stopped just before she jumped back into the water.
"Aren't I supposed to get the silver and golden buckets as a reward for my honesty?" The Honest Maid was surprised at the sudden change of script.
"…Is that how it works?" Wakasagihime looked down to the water, where her shiny buckets lay. "But I don't want to part with my shiny buckets if I don't need to…" She looked a bit sullen and unwilling.
Licorice, upon failing to convince the mermaid to give up her material possessions for free, decided to switch tactics. Her hands began digging around her apron for help. Shoes? I'll just lose them if I throw them at the lake. Pan? I don't think getting into close combat with a mermaid in her home turf is good idea. Besides, I'm not some sort of hooligan! Why is combat the first thing to come to my mind?! The logic of Touhou had infected Licorice, making her think of initiating danmaku as the first choice of conflict resolution. Her mind was set on the path of peace when she heard the tingle of a large glass bottle.
"You don't have much booze in this lake, right? I'll give you this entire bottle if you give me both buckets." Licorice extended the bottle of sake she had "borrowed" from the pantry. "Besides, a mermaid doesn't have much use for a bucket, right? This bottle is a real fine one, it's the kind of stuff that the mistress herself drinks." Actually, Remilia preferred wine, tea, and blood, but how was this mermaid supposed to know that? Such innocent little lies about the mistress' preferred way of committing underage drinking was okay in Licorice's book.
"Oh…" The prospect of alcohol was sufficiently tempting, even for a mermaid. She took the bottle, and went back down to return the buckets without further word. "Here you go, Miss Licorice!"
"Pleasure conducting business with you." Licorice took the buckets as Wakasagihime disappeared back into the lake to sample some fine sake.
"Aren't these buckets a bit too light for being gold and silver?" Licorice knocked on the golden bucket. A light, plasticky thud resonated back.
Licorice should have remembered that in at least some of the stories, the reward for honesty was just surviving and not being punished by a fae-like being.
Like, I remember reading a version of the buckets story where the hero was investigating the disappearance of a bunch of people. He went to a meadow with a suspicious number of trees, dropped his bucket/sickle (can't remember which) into a well, and encountered a mysterious gnome. The gnome offered gold and silver versions - and plenty of other fancy equivalents - all of which the hero denied, and with his trick thwarted, the gnome left in a fury. Doing so broke the gnome's spell, revealing that everyone else who failed the test turned into a tree.
Many umbrellas
Lost without a second thought
Never recovered
"It's spring!"
…It's pretty late to announce that. Licorice watched as a fairy flew by, announcing the coming of spring to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. The season had seemingly passed by without much rain, which was good for our heroine. Rain meant mud; mud meant that the garden path had to be cleaned even more thoroughly.
Now, with the slow arrival of summer, meant the arrival of much humidity and heat. This was quite displeasing to Licorice, who was only used to dry summers. Breathing was difficult, the constant noise of crickets made one go mad, and she constantly needed to take a break from work to fetch water. This was like Hell, except Hell was a real place (according to Patchouli, Reimu had once ventured there and beat up some of its inhabitants) and she was currently supposedly on Gensokyo.
Licorice intended to go back to work after having seen the errant fairy announcing the spring, but something strange happened. The once clear sky was covered by clouds, and rainfall quickly came along with them. It wasn't raining cats and dogs, nay, it was raining giant whales and dragons. It was as if all the water left unfallen from the dry spring had suddenly sprung forth.
The flowers and trees suddenly bloomed, and spring finally and truly came to the Scarlet Devil Mansion in an unprecedented manner. Licorice ran around frantically, trying to find the closest space where she could save herself from the sudden rain. She found a small pavilion in the garden, where she took shelter while praying for the rain to be over soon.
"God, I know I haven't been amongst the best of your flock. But, in this time of crisis, I beg of you to stop this damnable rain. Or, at least, send me an umbrella or something. You can at least do that, right?" Licorice looked up to the sky, but no divine umbrellas fell down. "Come on, you must have a few umbrellas to spare up there in Heaven!" Still, no umbrellas, parasols, or clear weather. "Fine, keep being a stingy old git, won't you?" The Heavens above her only responded with even more rain, as if God himself was giving the finger to the human below him.
Licorice tapped her foot at the wooden pavilion floor, crossing her arms while waiting for the rain to end. She then slowly began marching in a circle around the pavilion while her arms were still crossed. Our heroine was bored out of her mind.
"Boo!" A voice suddenly rang out from behind her.
"Bog, mamka ma du eb- Ow!" Licorice jumped from surprise, hitting her head on one of the posts holding up the roof of the pavilion. "Hasikter!" Our heroine lost her balance and found herself crashing onto the ground.
In front of our grounded heroine was a girl, smiling in a victoriously cheerful manner. "Yes! I finally managed to get a human!" Despite her effect of causing great fear to our heroine, Licorice's unexpected guest looked as non-threatening as anyone could ever look. She was a young woman, around the height of Licorice, with her short hair and dress composed of a light blue color that reminded our heroine of the clear sky. Her eyes were unusual, in that one of them was the same sky blue while the other was a deep red. She carried an umbrella, colored purple in a manner reminding an eggplant, which had one eye printed on top of it and a large tongue freakishly hanging out below that one eye.
"Why the- Who are you?!" Licorice hastily took out the emergency frying pan from under her apron. She pointed it towards her foe, as if she was wielding a sword of legend that'd smite her opponent.
Licorice's opponent took a few steps backwards and sideways, expecting to be shot by a blast of danmaku. She had closed her eyes in anticipation of being annihilated. "Forgive me, Lady Sakuya!"
"Lady Sakuya?" Licorice could guess what was happening. "I'm not the head maid."
"You aren't Sakuya? I thought that the only human maid around these parts was that a woman named Sakuya." The girl with the umbrella quickly became more at ease. "So, you're just some ordinary human? Though, ordinary people don't get this scared of me anymore…" She also became a bit depressed upon the mention of unscared humans. "Are you fine? I didn't break anything, did I?"
Licorice got up from the floor with the help of the strange girl, dusting off her own dress as she did. Our heroine returned the pan to where it belonged under her apron. This girl seemed to be of the youkai kind, judging from her referring to humans as a separate species, fighting her would be pointless and potentially life-threatening for Licorice. "I'm fine, don't worry. I'm Sakuya's coworker, Licorice Meidou. Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"I'm Kogasa Tatara, former umbrella, current human-scarer." Kogasa bowed to Licorice in greeting as she gave her odd job description. "A youkai needs to eat, and your fear is what I eat! Let me add, your fear today was the best that I've tasted in a while. Thank you for the meal, miss! I'll probably be unable to taste anything for a while, you know…"
First my blood type, now my fear… Am I destined to become youkai food or something? "I see…" Licorice noticed the giant umbrella that Kogasa was holding. "Say, could you help me with a little something?"
"Hm? Of course, as long as it is something that I can do. Not that a measly weakling youkai like me can do much…" Kogasa's emotions seemed to go to and fro like a metronome, between being cheerful and depressed.
"I need to go back to the mansion as soon as possible." Licorice was getting peckish, and the rain showed no signs of stopping. "Could you lend me your umbrella? I really need it."
"You need…" Kogasa made a squealing noise out of excitement. "You need me?! An umbrella?! Really?!" She spun around in another over-the-top show of cheer. "Oh, it's been so long since I've actually done my real job as an umbrella! Or, well, nobody actually ever used me, so I guess this is my first time…"
Licorice was taken aback by the dramatics of Kogasa, but she had gotten used to dealing with youkai by now. "So… Umbrella?" She extended her hand to take Kogasa's umbrella, only for Kogasa to draw it back.
"Sorry but…" Kogasa protected the umbrella with her arms, clutching it tightly. "…this umbrella is part of my body, I'm the umbrella and the umbrella is me. It'd be like if I requested you to give your legs to me."
These youkai sure do have weird anatomy… I guess she's supposed to be the embodiment of an umbrella? "Then I'd like it if you could accompany me, protect me from the rain, you know, the usual stuff that umbrellas do."
"Yes, ma'am!" Kogasa quickly marched next to Licorice, and held her umbrella up high to cover both of them. Her smile reached from one side of her face to the next. "You shall not have one drop of rain reach you!"
Licorice promptly lead herself and Kogasa out of the rain, and toward the Scarlet Devil Mansion's main building. The wooden sandals of the cheerful umbrella clopped and sloshed through the yard as the pair slowly walked. Licorice watched the garden that had already become a muddy mess that'd take a long time to sort out with a displeased look on her face.
Thanks to Kogasa's generous protection, Licorice found herself without a drop of water on her outfit by the time she reached the gate. Our heroine opened the gate, before turning around to thank her umbrella (which was an action that she never thought she'd ever have to take). "Thank you for your… Are you crying?"
She also never thought that she'd see an umbrella crying.
"It's just- It's just that-" Kogasa paused to sniffle a bunch of times. "Waah!" The not-so-cheerful umbrella jumped toward Licorice, hugging her tightly. Perhaps a bit too tightly, Kogasa was a youkai and Licorice was a puny human. Our poor heroine could hear concerning noises come out of her ribcage. "I've always wanted to do this!"
Young lady, it's not even been an hour since we've met. Licorice didn't exactly know how to react to someone who was basically a stranger react to her so emotionally. She instinctively embraced Kogasa back, out of a sense of pity and not wanting to be the one making this situation turn awkward by not hugging back. Our heroine was now covered in the rain water that was dripping down from Kogasa's umbrella (or were they tears?).
After a few more minutes of crying, Kogasa retreated back from Licorice. "Are you fine now?"
"Yeah! Finer than I've ever been!" The metronome that was Kogasa had returned back to being cheerful. "Thank you, miss! If you ever need an umbrella again, don't hesitate to call me!" Before Licorice could thank Kogasa for her service, the cheerful umbrella had already flown off to the distance.
Licorice took this moment of calm to examine herself. All that water from the umbrella… It probably wouldn't have differed much if I had just decided to wing it and go out in the rain without her. Not to mention… She disgustedly gazed at her shoulders, where Kogasa had just rested. …Is this snot? Can sapient umbrellas produce snot?
Having safely made it into the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Licorice made her way for the kitchen without further thought. Not only did she need food, she also needed water to cleanse herself of youkai snot.
Since the my main work (the John Brown Isekai) now has a chapter releasing on Saturday as well, I'll be moving the schedule of Touhou Futsuudou 2 hours earlier for a release every Saturday at 17:30 GMT.
A most candid friend
Lurks here and fixes piping
Do not distract her
Another day, another round of sweeping.
Licorice, through her newly gained experience in thorough drudgery, had slowly come to understand why so many geriatric old farts resided in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. This was a changeably static place, of variable intransience, where one could be at peace or at chaos whenever they wished.
The problem was, for our heroine, both of those states weren't good for her. Peace meant more sweeping, and chaos meant…
"…kakvo po djavolite, why is there a giant hole on the ground?!"
The cobble path of the garden was interrupted by, none other than, the aforementioned giant hole in the ground. As far as Licorice knew, holes on the ground didn't appear suddenly. She was obviously uninformed on the topic of sinkholes, though leeway could be granted to her from the fact that she couldn't even remember her own name let alone remember what a sinkhole was.
"Alright, which one of you šibánjacite is responsible for this?!" Although this mansion wasn't her own, nor was she going to pay for the repairs, she'd probably be tasked with the repairs as the one responsible for the commonwealth of this path. Licorice had gained a small sense of pride in her role as pathsweep. She wasn't going to let some errant youkai ruin her day without making them taste her shoe, despite the fact that she'd realistically be easily beaten up by any youkai whose name didn't start with "Cir" and end with "no".
Licorice took out her trusty frying pan as she scouted the area around her. She swung her weapon around, trying to look threatening. She only ended up looking ridiculous to anyone observing her. "You have the chutzpah to ruin my path, yet you lack the balls to come out, eh?" The youkai weren't human despite some having a human-like appearance, so it was actually a given that they wouldn't have any balls of the reproductive kind.
Our heroine eventually grew tired of her vigilance. It seemed that the culprit had already ran away. The only thing left for Licorice to do was investigating to figure out what had happened. Maybe this was just a sinkhole that had formed under the mansion like any other, run-of-the-mill sinkhole. Or…
No, this isn't natural at all. Licorice looked down at the hole, which was actually pretty easy to climb down and up to, to see various tools scattered around a tool bag. She jumped down to take a closer look. Closer inspection revealed that these tools had been placed near a series of pipes, leading from the general direction of the mansion to the water fountain that laid in the center of the garden. Somebody's definitely attempting some sort of sabotage here…
Picking up a pipe that had been decoupled from its brethren, Licorice had a hard time lifting it up. It was pretty heavy, pretty unlike the plastic pipes that she had apparently seen. The pipe was a dull gray color, metallic and… This is lead, isn't it. Our heroine instinctively scratched the piping to reveal the shiny lead underneath. What a fun prospect. It made sense. The mansion was pretty old; it'd be weird if the piping wasn't made of lead.
For all I know, the mansion is painted with lead-based paints as well… I don't want to think about all that lead dust flying inside the mansion. Somewhere, in her amnesiac mind, Licorice had stashed away the expertise needed to identify this sort of thing. It felt odd, to not have knowledge of your own name while having the knowledge that lead acetate, while tasting sweet, constituted a health hazard. I'm going to die of lead poisoning before I get eaten by some outlandish youkai.
Before lead poisoning however, Licorice suddenly had a new concern. Someone was behind her, suddenly as was usually the case with the assailants of our heroine, and a crowbar was about to make contact with her body.
"Šibánjako!" Licorice turned around at the last moment. Out of pure chance, and perhaps a little help from her training with Meiling, she met the quickly approaching crowbar with her pan.
Our heroine had learned, through cold hard experience, that one was not to trust appearances in Gensokyo. Still, Licorice was surprised to see the appearance of the one who was about to brutalize her with a crowbar. Her opponent was a little girl, no bigger than your garden-variety Cirno, whose crowbar was about as big as the rest of her body. She looked to be an engineer of some sort, with a ridiculously large bag and an equally ridiculous amount of pockets lined up around her light blue dress. A small green cap, reminiscent of a certain number two to a certainer Italian plumber of fame, sat atop her blue hair tied into a twin-tail.
"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my lawn?!" Licorice was ready to beat the rascal in front of her into a pulp.
The little engineer looked, despite what her sudden attack might suggest, shy and timid. She backed away when Licorice turned to face her. "A- A… Aiee!" The little engineer retreated from this engagement.
"Hey! You almost murdered me back there! Don't be acting all shy now you kópele!" Licorice acted too late in throwing a shoe after her. The shoe plopped to the wet ground sadly, only serving to remind our heroine of her failure.
"Likǎolisū-xiǎojiě! Is something wrong?" Meiling flew down, just not in time. "I heard someone screaming just then." She didn't seem too concerned about the hole.
"You know, there's a giant hole here. The pipes are made of lead, the mansion is coated with lead… Those are kind of wrong, I'd say." Licorice jumped out of the hole. "Not to mention the fact that a little girl almost killed me with a crowbar."
"Oh? Is that so?" Meiling seemed calm, too calm for someone hearing about her coworker being assaulted. She scratched an itchy spot on her face, doing it so calmly that it infuriated Licorice in such a moment. The gatekeeper continued staring idly for another couple seconds while she tried to remember something. "Āiyá! I remember now, Lady Sakuya called one of the kappa, named Nitori, over to take a look at the plumbing. Something about the water fountain in the garden, if I remember correctly."
"So, I almost died for a decorative water fountain?" Licorice was glad to hear how valued her life was. "Please, never let a kappa near me again."
"That's odd… I've heard that Nitori isn't the type to approach humans voluntarily." Meiling hummed, trying to solve this mystery. "Maybe she was angry about you interrupting her work, and she tried to extract your shirikodama?"
"A shirikodama… dama (玉) as in ball, and shiri (尻) as in…" Licorice's hands went somewhere towards her posterior. "…is that what I think it is?" She didn't exactly know what a shirikodama entailed, but it didn't seem to be a pleasant thing to have extracted from you.
With his, Meiling didn't answer further. Licorice didn't want to ask further questions. They both went on their merry ways.
Later on, after having sobered up, Licorice requested the mistress to have the lead piping and paint be replaced. Remilia didn't want to waste money on such a vanity project, especially as there was only one person in the entire mansion who could be affected by lead poisoning. Remilia was more enthusiastic to get them replaced when Patchouli taught her that a high amount of lead in the human body commonly lead to anemia, not to mention all the other factors that could lead to her blood bank running dry.
Thus, Licorice saved herself from getting her shirikodama extracted, while also avoiding further lead poisoning.
Later on, after having sobered up, Licorice requested the mistress to have the lead piping and paint be replaced. Remilia didn't want to waste money on such a vanity project, especially as there was only one person in the entire mansion who could be affected by lead poisoning. Remilia was more enthusiastic to get them replaced when Patchouli taught her that a high amount of lead in the human body commonly lead to anemia, not to mention all the other factors that could lead to her blood bank running dry.
Considering just how many good artists are in touhou fandom the cover art is a crime against Gensokyo. IT alone makes me skip the fic in its entirety. I get that it's probably the author's own work, but holy hell... just find someone to properly represent the characters or erase it all and leave the text only
Let me present to you the new cover that has been improved thanks to the constructive criticism quoted above:
The hell's an oni?
Our heroine does not know
She's too drunk to learn
"Ah, the lake's beautiful today, isn't it Sakuya?"
"It is beautiful as usual, mistress.
The head maid and mistress sipped their black tea in unison, watching the calm waters of the Misty Lake.
Licorice was watching these two immortals from the side, admiring the lake herself. It was quite a beautiful lake admittedly, but no environmental beauty would be worth sitting around a couple hours to admire or so our heroine thought. She herself had gotten bored after half an hour of lake gazing. These two immortals, who had likely watched this lake decades before Licorice's parents were even conceived, didn't seem to be bothered with the prospect of wasting their endless time on Earth.
It was an odd feeling, really. Here she was, in front of two people from ages past, casually drinking tea with them. Licorice could honestly understand why the villagers were so freaked out about Sakuya; one was forced to face their mortality when confronting an immortal, and facing such a thing wasn't a pleasant feeling.
Our heroine would one day die, her body would become prime fertilizer, her bones would crumble into dust, yet Sakuya and Remilia would sit here drinking tea as casually. Would they even remember her? Licorice's lifespan probably amounted to nothing more than a little, zero-dimensional point in the endless one-dimensional ray that constituted their life. Thinking of it further, everyone's lives amounted to nothing when faced with the endless universe that they inhabited…
"Licorice, are you fine?" Remilia gently, or as gentle as a superhumanly strong vampire could be, shook our heroine. She woke up from her trance. "Your tea is getting cold."
"Thank you for your concern, mistress. I'm fine." Licorice set all that aside for now to drink the tea that had gotten lukewarm by now. She didn't want to speak about this topic; what would immortals understand of mortal concerns?
"Nah, ya' don't look finesh." Licorice quickly turned around, one hand in her apron, to meet the sudden voice coming from behind her. "How 'bout a drink to calm yershelf?" Her guest was a strange girl, though she was pretty normal by Gensokyo standards, with two long horns protruding from her long ginger hair. Her face was red as a tomato, and her whole body was swinging around as if there was an earthquake localized just beneath her legs. Her sense of fashion was equally odd, her quite ordinary whiteish blouse and purple skirt combo being turned less normal by three chains attached to her, which had three various geometric shapes attached to them.
Licorice wasn't sure what to make of her appearance. "So… are you supposed to be a goat youkai? Or a unicorn with two horns?"
"No! I'm Suika Ibuki, an oni. Oni!" She raised her hands and her fingers curled as if they were the claws of a vicious monster. Licorice responded with a blank stare. This only served to infuriate Suika.
"Oni! Ya know, the shtrongest youkai in all o' Gensokyo!" This didn't get a reaction from our heroine either. "What kinda human are ya?!"
For Licorice, who didn't even know what the hell an "oni" was, being scared of youkai wasn't exactly a thing that she had been able to learn naturally like the rest of the humans in Gensokyo. There was a little girl in front of her, not unlike the mistress she had now been long acquainted with, and that was all her flawed mortal brain was able to process. "An ordinary one, presumably. I can't even fly, and my danmaku consists of shoes and slippers."
"Oh?" Suika seemed a whole lot calmer, though she was still wobbling around without pause and her speech was slurred as all hell. "I can appreshiate that, yer a couragoush one aren't ya? Shomeone sho weak facing an oni without pissing their pants, that'sh a first!" Which, to be precise and clear, it was impossible for Licorice to piss her pants for she was currently wearing a dress.
"Uhm… Thanks?" Our heroine decided to take this as a compliment.
"So, what are you here for?" Remilia had been staying quiet, watching Suika's astonishment with great amusement. "We only have tea here, nothing an errant oni like you would like." The mistress was still a bit salty from that time when Suika had beaten her and her maid.
"What kinda party are ya' havin' without anything to drink?!" Suika opened a gourd that had been swinging around her waist. She went around, pouring drinks into everyone's empty teacups. The oni herself needed no cup, the gourd itself was satisfactory. "Drink up!"
"I kind of have work to do later today…" Sakuya was hesitant. She was less so when the mistress began drinking while motioning the head maid to raise the cup.
Licorice was just about to raise her own cup when Suika interrupted her. "Hey, ya' wanna compete with an oni in a drinkin' game? Whoever passesh out firsht loses." Humansh don't get to compete with oni much anymore, ya' know."
"Oh?" Licorice took a good look at the girl in front of her. Her body was little, clearly not one suitable for containing high amounts of alcohol, and she was already drunk. This would be an easy victory for our heroine. "Of course. Don't cry when I beat you." She had a smug smile on her face when she raised her cup for cheers. "Nazdrave!"
"That'sh the spirit! Kanpai!"
"Hmph. It's improper for a maid to drink during working hours, but… Cheers!"
"Don't worry. I intend on beating this errant oni, for she's nothing compared to us vampires. Noroc!"
They all cheered and emptied their cups. Suika immediately gave everyone a free refill. This went on for a few more minutes, then those minutes turned into half an hour. Her gourd seemed to be bottomless.
"Snore…doamnă… are… you, my mamă?" Sakuya was clinging tightly to the mistress, while she was sleeptalking about events from long ago.
"Zzz…Turci blestemați…O să te înfig în țeapă..." Remilia had gotten drunk too. Not from the alcohol, the lack of blood in her system meant that alcohol couldn't actually circulate within her body. She had just gotten "drunk" from the environment of drinking.
The only ones left standing were Suika and, much to the oni's surprise, Licorice. "Znaesh li, razkazval li sŭm ti za onzi pŭt... Kogato, znaesh li, napravikh neshto..." She extended her cup to Suika. "Mov ippaj kure kuvdatsaj!" Her already thick accent had only gotten thicker, and her Japanese was impossible to understand by now.
The oni didn't need to understand however, as she poured more into Licorice's cup. "How the hell are ya' shtandin'?!"
Licorice laughed like a carefree idiot while she downed the cup in one go. "Sujka-tsan va… eee… ningjen no kotov va- so! Ningjen no kotov va namerŭijna!" She swung her cup around while trying to reply in Japanese. "Umoren sŭm. Leka nosht." Our heroine finally gave in. She fell onto the grass headfirst, joining the others in snoozing…
…
…
My head hurts like hell. Licorice couldn't remember what she had done last day, but her hungover state gave her a pretty good idea as to what might have happened. She found herself back in her room in the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
Rising up from her bed, her head feeling like a woodpecker had perched onto it, our heroine saw something unusual on her desk. A jug, with a catfish-like creature trapped in it. There was a note attached to this unusual gift.
This guy's the sake bug. Give him water, and he'll quickly turn it into sake. You deserve to have him after last night's performance. Let us drink again sometime!
– Suika Ibuki (the oni from last night if you don't remember)
Licorice had many questions. Like the fact that a creature turning water into sake violated the laws of physics, or the fact that the bug subsisting only on water broke the laws of biology. There was also one last question:
What the hell is an oni, and why is a watermelon (suika) writing letters to me?
She truly didn't remember the entirety of yesterday. Translations:
Nazdrave (Bulgarian) / Kanpai (Japanese) / Noroc (Romanian) = Cheers! doamnă (Romanian) = mistress Turci blestemați… O să te înfig în țeapă... (Romanian) = Damned Turks... I'll put you on a stake... Znaesh li, razkazval li sŭm ti za onzi pŭt... Kogato, znaesh li, napravikh neshto... (Bulgarian gibberish) = You know, did I tell you about the thing... When I did, you know, something... Mov ippaj kure kuvdatsaj! (drunken Bulgaro-Japanese) = Mou ippai kure kudasai! (Japanese with slightly weird grammar) = One more please! Sujka-tsan va… eee… ningjen no kotov va- so! Ningjen no kotov va namerŭijna! (drunken Bulgaro-Japanese) = Suika-san wa... ningen no koto wa- sou! Ningen no koto wa nameruina! (Japanese with slightly weird grammar) = Miss Suika... Humans- Right! You shouldn't underestimate humans! Umoren sŭm. Leka nosht. (Bulgarian) = I'm tired. Good night.
Could we get translations of the lines in other languages at the end of the chapters? If it's a one off like the cheersing here, or like when Licorice swears, it's usually not too difficult to Google translate it or just guess it from context, but here there were a bunch of lines and it's just a pain to have to plug in each one.
Also, the sake bug seems like a useful gift to keep around. Not for Licorice to use for herself, but as a handy way to get youkai drunk and convince them not to eat you.
Could we get translations of the lines in other languages at the end of the chapters? If it's a one off like the cheersing here, or like when Licorice swears, it's usually not too difficult to Google translate it or just guess it from context, but here there were a bunch of lines and it's just a pain to have to plug in each one.
You're right, I should've put one for this episode especially considering the fact that two of the lines are "Japanese intentionally badly transliterated into Bulgarian cyrillic and back into Latin script to emulate a drunk Bulgarian trying to speak Japanese" and the rest of the lines are "Bulgarian transliterated into Latin script which translation software can't easily understand". I've added the translations now and I'll add translations in the future.
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(17) Patchouli Knowledge ～ The Girl of Knowledge and Shade
Some letters unknown
Need further education
On Cyrillic script
Dust. Mold. Dusty mold. Dusty, moldy books. The great library under the Scarlet Devil Mansion contained all of the aforementioned, and more.
Amongst those who fell into the "and more" category was Licorice, who had headed down there to deliver tea to Patchouli on Sakuya's orders. Her poor lungs were protesting with every step taken down to the library; ventilation wasn't exactly a primary concern for a library predominantly visited by immortals and their ilk whose lungs were resistant to petty concerns such as mold and dust.
The library, just like everything else in this convoluted mansion, was hell to navigate. The towers upon towers of bookshelves blended in at one point, and Licorice would be totally lost if not for the occasional fairy maid to ask directions from.
Eventually, our heroine found her way down to where Patchouli was supposed to be. She did find Patchouli, but she also found another magician of the ordinary kind accompanying her.
"Hey! Cough, hack!" Patchouli was struggling to stand up and breathe while struggling with Marisa over a book. Her usually pale face had gone red, becoming almost indistinguishable from a ripened tomato. "I was reading that! This is Remi's property!"
"Eh?" Marisa tugged on the poor book that was stuck between their hands. "You're immortal; you can read it whene'er I croak!"
"…but won't you-" Patchouli seemed distracted by the prospect of Marisa dying. The ordinary magician gave all her strength on a final tug, but this was not enough to separate the librarian from the book. She instead ended up tugging Patchouli along with the book, and the librarian speeding towards her ended up knocking Marisa to the ground along with Patchouli.
"…it's hard to breathe with you bein' on top." Marisa ended up being crushed by Patchouli after their "unfortunate" little "accident".
"Huh? Cough, are you implying that I'm heavy?" Still, the pair stayed like this without any attempt to separate. Both of them were smiling, and Marisa had joined Patchouli in looking like a tomato.
Licorice awkwardly stared from a distance, debating whether she should ruin their little moment. It'd be a whole lot awkward if they were the ones to notice her though, since it'd look like Licorice was watching them like a creep. "Umm, excuse me?"
"What th-" Patchouli jumped off from Marisa, though "jump off" was an exaggeration considering her sluggish movements. "Since when were you here?!"
"'Tis the ordinary human. Yo." Marisa was a whole let less flustered. She raised her hand to greet Licorice.
"Here's the tea from the head maid." Our heroine went on as if she had seen nothing, calmly putting the teapot down to a nearby table that Patchouli had set up. There was something odd on the table however: a set of old books which were definitely not in Japanese.
Licorice picked up one of the books, inspecting the writing that looked a whole lot familiar compared to what little Japanese she could read. "What are these?" They looked out of place among the usual books of the library.
Marisa got up from the ground. She helped Patchouli raise herself up too while replying to Licorice's query. "Those are some of them foreign books that Remilia's dog fetched from Kourin."
Patchouli dusted her clothes before continuing to explain where Marisa had left off. "Yes, those are magic books written in some enigmatic language. I was trying to decipher its runes before someone arrived."
Marisa bashfully laughed at Patchouli's last comment. "Ah… I couldn't help myself when I saw mushrooms in one of those books." She picked up the book with a green cover and flipped to the page she was referring to.
"Don't they look real delish?" Marisa's mouth had already began watering at the sight of the mushrooms illustrated in the book. "There be magic circles and whatnot illustrated in the other pages, maybe it's talking about a way to summon shrooms? I'd find out if someone wasn't interferin'. Marisa's elbow dug into Patchouli to emphasize who she had a problem with. Patchouli retaliated by striking Marisa's elbow with a thick book right in her ulnar nerve (a.k.a. the "funny bone") which caused Marisa to jump in pain.
Licorice however, was interested in the book for reasons other than mushrooms. "Could I take a look?" Marisa obliged, and Licorice flipped to the front page of the book.
"…M.A. Gu… Guranova. Applikatsiya. Appliqué?" Licorice suddenly had the full attention of all the magicians in the room (which were only the pair in front of her).
"Ha?! Ya' can read them magical runes?!" Marisa suddenly flew right next to Licorice. Patchouli followed soon afterwards. "I thought that you din't know magic!"
"Sssh. Let her read!" Patchouli put her finger in front of Marisa, which shut her up. "Come on, what does it say?"
Licorice did her best to continue reading. "Dopushcheno Ministerstvom prosveshcheniya Sŭyuz na Sŭvetskite Sotsialisticheski Republiki v kachestve uchebnogo posobiya. 'Approved by the Ministry of Education of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a textbook', I think." The language of this book was odd. She could read the writing easily, but the language itself was equally foreign and familiar. Our heroine had to slowly and carefully translate, mostly from the context gathered from the words she could understand.
"The USSR?" Patchouli got even closer to the book, as if she could read the writing. "I didn't know the Soviets delved into magic."
Marisa looked at both Patchouli and Licorice, awaiting exposition. She didn't find any exposition, so she had to act proactively to learn. "…What's a 'Soviet'? Are they a covenant of witches?"
"No, the Soviets are… or, more accurately, were a state in Eurasia." Patchouli still hadn't gotten used to the fact that the Soviets had fallen, especially due to the fact that most material in the library was from before the 90s. "I'll lend you, emphasis on lend, a book on the Soviet Union if you wish to learn more."
"Mm. I'll take a look later." Marisa tapped on the shoulder of Licorice. "Come on, I can feel that we're getting to the good parts!" She could already taste the mushrooms she'd be summoning with the spells from the book.
"Ahem. Dlya uchashchikhsya pedagogicheskikh uchilishch po spetsial'nostyam "Doshkol'noye vospitaniye" i "Vospitaniye v doshkol'nykh uchrezhdeniyakh. '…for students of teacher training collages in early childhood education' and 'education in early childhood'? I think that's the gist."
"They taught children magic?!" Marisa was surprised to see what the Outside World had been up to. "I thought that magic was a dying art in the Outside World. Maybe those Sowyuhts were trying to revive it."
"Hmm… So that's what the Cold War was about." Patchouli nodded her head as disconnected bits of modern history began coming together in her head. An immortal witch like her didn't bother to learn information on petty topics like 'capitalism' and 'communism', so her knowledge of the reasons behind the Cold War was surface level at best. "The United States were angry at the Soviet Union for trying to revive magic, and that's why they were at conflict for so long. The United States won, which is why magic isn't practiced anymore on the Outside World."
"The United States? Those were the guys who landed on the moon and fought the moon rabbits, right?" Marisa said something that made no sense to Licorice, but she was used to this by now. Patchouli nodded at Marisa to confirm that what she said was true.
"Izdaniye vtóri pererabotannoye i dopolnennoye. Moskva "Prosveshcheniye". 'Revised and enlargened 2nd edition, Moscow "Enlightenment"'. That's it for the front cover." Licorice took a quick peek at the following pages. "Hmm… I think I get what this book is about..."
Marisa jumped in excitement. "It's Soviet magic, right?!"
"…This is a book for prospective art teachers." Licorice showed some other pages, containing simple examples of collage and appliqué meant for children. "These are some examples for activities to do in class. They are definitely not magic circles."
Marisa and Patchouli were in shock. All their hypothesis about communist magic were shattered. "So… no shrooms for me?" Marisa seemed most shocked of all.
"Hmm… This could be a pretty good danmaku pattern." Patchouli wasn't all too miffed. "What are the other books about?"
"This one's 'Tips for Women', the other is 'Wild Fruits and Medicinal Remedies', and the last one is 'A Brief Historical Guide to Bulgaria'." Clearly, none of them were related to magic in any way or form.
"Oh, that one could be useful." Patchouli picked up the book about wild fruits before immediately realizing a huge problem. "Actually… The flora in Gensokyo probably differs wildly from where these were published. I don't think it'd be of much use." She handed the book over to Licorice. "Could you find where this was published?"
Licorice headed for the cover page, where she quickly found the answer. "Sofia." That was a pretty familiar name. "Sofia… Sofia, that's a city in Bulgaria." She flipped through a few pages. The language in this book was a whole lot familiar compared to the other one.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Bulgaria is pretty far away. It's right next to Yugoslavia, if I remember correctly." Patchouli knew not of Yugoslavia's fairly recent demise. She suddenly raised her head toward Licorice. "Wait, if you can read their language, then does that mean that you're from that place?"
Licorice slowly nodded. "…Yes, I think I'm from Bulgaria." It made sense, considering that Licorice had been speaking and thinking in the Bulgarian language. She also vividly remembered scenes of Sofia, of grand churches and run-down Khrushchovka-like apartments in tandem. What she did back there, however, was still unknown even to herself.
The librarian tilted her head in confusion when she realized the origins of Licorice. "How did you end up all the way in Gensokyo then?" Gensokyo was somewhere in Japan; Bulgaria was somewhere in the Balkans. Those two places might as well be completely separate worlds. "You even know Japanese. How did you…"
Licorice shrugged. She honestly didn't know the answer to such a complicated question. "I don't know. Stuff happens."
"Is this the work of Yukari?" Patchouli stared up into the ceiling while pondering a question that Licorice could definitely not comprehend. "What's she planning?"
"I dunno. Thinkin' too hard is bad for your health!" Marisa slapped Patchouli on the back, making her enter another fit of coughing. "Oops. Sorry." She tended to forget how fragile the librarian was.
"Cough, hack, blech, be a bit gentler, won't you?!" Patchouli gently pushed Marisa away. "You don't know how to treat a lady properly."
"Hey, I treat myself pretty well." Patchouli was about to strike back at Marisa's cheeky response, but she couldn't bring herself to do it once she saw the ordinary magician's casual smile directed towards her. Marisa inched closer to Patchouli. "C'mon, you've got a long life to live. Don't fret yourself over the little things, ya hear?"
They completely forgot about poor Licorice, and her Bulgarian troubles. Our heroine had completed her task, of delivering tea, so she headed out to let the magicians do magician things. Here are more images from Applikatsiya, if teacher's material from the 80s Soviet Union interests you in any capacity:
Fun activity for children: make a battleship out of paper for the Motherland!
The kid on the left would have gone on to work on the Ministry of Propaganda if the Soviet Union hadn't collapsed before they grew up.
Scenes from the various states of the Soviet Union. People do tend to forget that the USSR wasn't just Russia.
The Soviet Union collapsed when they couldn't pay the legal fees after Disney sued them for the image on the right.
Hm. I guess if the Soviet Union has already fallen then Licorice hasn't been gapped into Gensokyo to create a glorious workers' paradise. I'll have to find a new theory on why she's there.
Current working theory is: to stir things up very slightly.
That, or Yukari is a dedicated Mari/Alice shipper and this has all been one elaborate plot to prevent PatcheMari from happening.
Hm. I guess if the Soviet Union has already fallen then Licorice hasn't been gapped into Gensokyo to create a glorious workers' paradise. I'll have to find a new theory on why she's there.
If you want to see Gensokyo as a glorious* workers'** paradise***, then I invite you to check out the new Touhou fanfic I began writing this week: Post-Soviet Gensokyo.
*Terms and conditions may apply.
**Terms and conditions may apply.
***Terms and conditions may apply.
A great purple mist
Made of endless clouds and gaps
The mastermind is here
Licorice was, after her daily round of sweeping the garden, free to do whatever she wanted for the rest of the day. She'd usually wander around the Scarlet Devil Mansion, idly chat with Meiling, or visit Patchouli to have a more intellectual sort of conversation.
Today however, she had something else she could do: reading. Licorice didn't know enough kanji to read anything more complicated than children's books in Japanese, but she could easily read the Bulgarian and Russian books that Patchouli had acquired. Thus, her boredom could be lessened thanks to not having to talk to the same people over and over again.
Our heroine sat in her room, on her bed to be exact as she had nowhere else to sit other than the ground. In her hand was a cookbook from the 70s, detailing the secrets to Bulgarian cuisine.
After she had made palachinki for the Scarlet sisters, Licorice had been asked by Remilia to make food from time to time. This was why she was currently trudging through a cookbook, which was honestly a pretty boring task, to try and find something that might please the mistress. She had also had a pile of books sitting next to her lap, waiting for their turn to be read.
"Tursko kafe? I don't think I can get anything resembling Turkish coffee here. Not to mention the fact that children usually don't like such bitter drinks." She spoke to herself while skipping the page containing something that she definitely couldn't make. Plus, Licorice preferred tea over coffee. "I should probably look at the pages with tea instead of coffee…"
Mentioning and thinking about drinks had made Licorice quite thirsty. She set the cookbook aside, turning around toward the jar that contained her dear comrade: the sake bug. Our heroine poured a miniscule amount of sake from the jar to a small cup that rested right next to it. "Ah…" That's quite good. Using sake instead of water might seem like a bad idea to some, but to someone like Licorice there wasn't much difference between the two except for taste.
Turning back around to the cookbook, she found it missing along with all the other books she was reading. Licorice turned her head around, ducked under the bed, opened the windows to see if the books had somehow flown off, but her books were nowhere to be seen. Did that ordinary magician steal it? No, I'd have definitely noticed if she suddenly flew into the room.
Extraordinary events happening to this ordinary maid were quite a common occurrence. Books suddenly disappearing was more than extraordinary: it was nigh impossible, breaking several laws of physics and logic. Nor did these two actually matter in Gensokyo, so books disappearing wasn't too surprising when Licorice thought about it more deeply.
No matter the possibility of books suddenly disappearing, our heroine still had to face the fact that she had nothing to read anymore. Licorice internally cursed the fiend that had spirited away her books. Her curses did nothing to fix her current predicament. Perhaps consulting Patchouli would? Licorice headed out of her room to do just that when…
"Eek!" Something grabbed her ankle. Our heroine looked down to see a hand covered by a white glove coming out of… she couldn't exactly describe where the hand was coming out of, so Lovecraftian was the source. A bunch of red eyes stared at her from a gap of purple opened up below her feet. It was as if the boundary between reality had been broken by the gloved hand grabbing her ankle.
Licorice did her best to pull her leg out of the hand's grasp to no avail. There was only one thing her left to do now. Our heroine pulled her last card up from her sleeve. Iisús Hristós… Bóža… Allah… Marija, whatever-or-whoever-the-hell-is-listening-to-me-right-now, I know we haven't been on the best of terms lately… But, in your infinite grace, may you bequeath me some of thine grace and help a member of your poor flock get out of this sticky situation? She could only pray for divine intervention.
Then the hand let go. Huh. Divine intervention usually doesn't tend to favor me, but… Our heroine didn't have time to think about theology. She began running towards the library in hopes of finding Patchouli and requesting her help. The labyrinthine corridors seemed to wind longer than they usually did, and Licorice swore that she could see more of those purple holes appearing on the walls as she ran.
Our heroine finally managed to make her way to the gates of the library. She practically jumped toward the door, opening it faster than humanly possible. "Patchouli! There's a weird monster chasing after me!" To her surprise, Patchouli was immediately within her sights sitting on a throne of books as usual. She was also joined by someone who wasn't familiar to Licorice…
"Ah!" Our heroine screamed when she saw the woman in front of her. Her arm was stuck in one of those eye-filled holes she had just seen! "Miss, your arm! Do you need help?!" The woman in front of her, a blonde lady with a purple dress and a cap similar to the one that Remilia and Patchouli usually wore. She was carrying an umbrella with her other hand despite the fact that the library was most definitely indoors, and she was way too calm for someone whose arm was stuck in what looked to be creature out of Lovecraft's worst nightmares.
"Hm? You showed up." The woman in purple turned to her with golden eyes that were half-closed. It looked like she had just woken up; the woman's voice was slow and cloudy, her sentences flowing slowly like clouds in gentle wind. She retracted her arm, covered by a white glove, from the gap. "As expected, my plan to make you run over here worked." She looked generally disinterested in the entire existence of Licorice other than that.
"Sorry about that, Licorice. I can't exactly control this creature of fickle whimsy." Patchouli shot a glance towards the woman in purple. "This right here is Yukari Yakumo. Before you ask, no, Yukari is not a human. She's a big maker of trouble, and someone you generally shouldn't mess with if you want to keep staying alive."
"How rude." Yukari was smiling despite her verbally chiding Patchouli. It was clear that she didn't mind being insulted. "Is this how you want to introduce me to the little damoiselle?"
"I'm just telling the truth. Do whatever it is you wanted to do with Licorice." Patchouli returned back to staring at her book. "She's a bit fragile, take care to not to break her too much. It'd be nice if you could keep Licorice in a state where she's not beyond repair." She said these last lines without staring up from her book.
Breaking?! Licorice wasn't enthused to find out what might soon happen to her. She was less enthused when Yukari stood up. The woman was like a beast towering over her; our heroine's neck began aching while trying to keep respectful eye contact. She must be about two meters tall… Yukari's stature by itself was enough to intimidate Licorice.
Yukari took hold of Licorice's chin, forcefully turning her head around while she was closely examining her. "Hmm…" Our heroine wasn't exactly in a spot to go against Yukari, so she sufficed by praying that she wouldn't be killed right then and there. "Huh." Then Yukari let her go, apparently having satisfied her curiosity.
"I've seen a lot, by that I mean a lot, of things in my life. Rarely am I surprised or disappointed." Yukari took a few steps back from Licorice. "This maid has surprised me by how much she has disappointed me."
"…What?" Licorice knew she had to be offended at such a statement against her character. Her survival instincts stopped her from openly doing so.
"I just thought that there'd be more behind what the villagers called 'the new devil in the mansion'." Yukari took out her fan and began flapping it disinterestedly as if she wasn't currently speaking to anyone in particular. "I'm surprised that the little brat hired someone as uninteresting as this maid." She rolled her eyes around and yawned. "I've got nothing more to do with you or this place. Ciao." The floor beneath Yukari opened to reveal one of those frightening purple gaps. She casually fell in and disappeared from sight along with the gap that she had opened. It was as if Yukari had never been in the room.
Licorice's eyes were locked to the floor where Yukari had disappeared from. "…Patchouli." She slowly turned around back to the librarian. "What the fuck was that?"
"Mm?" Patchouli tilted her head ever so slightly upon hearing Licorice mention her name. "Oh. She's gone. Don't fret over it too much. Yukari's not someone you mortals should ever have to deal with." She pointed toward a pile of books that was next to her own throne of books. "Here are the books that Yukari borrowed. You can take them back." With this she tilted her head back down to her book.
"Okay?" Licorice took back her precious pile of Bulgarian books, cradling them in her arms. She had made her mind on one thing while making her merry way out of the library:
I'm going to jump off the window, fake my death, escape to the countryside, and never come back to the mansion if I ever see one of those purple gaps again.
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(1⑨) Rumia (ft. Doremy Sweet) ～ Youkai Hiding in the Darkness
Night of lightlessness
One's eyes don't see too afar
Actually, it's day
Licorice was once again wandering near the Misty Lake. Not because the head maid had requested her to bring water, that problem had sorted itself out thanks to the fact that the plumbing over at the mansion had been repaired. No, after the whole ordeal pertaining to gaps and a certain old hag, our heroine had a desire to be somewhere other than the mansion. She had brought along a healthy stack of books, a less healthy stack of scones, and a couple sets of slippers in case of an (not an un)expected fairy encounter.
It was quite a clear day too – perfect for a session of lazily sitting down and reading a cookbook or two. The scant clouds parted way, letting the sun shine through as if God himself was embracing Licorice after having tormented her for so long. Our heroine was happy to see the heavens be so accommodating, and her general outlook was equally as bright as the sky she was currently under. Coming out today was definitely a good idea. She quickly located a tree situated next to the lake under which she firmly planted her backside on the soil.3
Today would be a good day. An awesome one even. That's how it felt like to Licorice anyways, and feelings were what were currently important.
Alright, on to reading. Where was I… Mayonnaise, that's it. That's where I was. Having found her bookmark, our heroine proceeded to do what one would normally do with a book: reading. One page, two pages, a chapter, sleep…
Licorice had, at one point, managed to make her way into the land of dreams.
"…Oh, it's that odd lady again."
I was in an odd place. Quite an odd one – somewhere that looked like it came right out of an old music video. Grids of light, overlaid over an endless starry black void… This is definitely odder than that other place. What was it called again? Gen… Uhm… It's so hard to properly pronounce. But…
"Hello? I'm talking to you here."
There's a person in front of me. One with a red hat that looks like it was stolen right off of Santa's head. Her deep blue eyes are directly looking at me. I should probably answer. "Hello?" Taking a look around, I think I get what's happening. "Is this where I'm going to be judged?"
"Judged?" The woman in front of me raises her brown so high that her forehead is squished until it can hardly be seen. "We don't do that here."
Welp, I guess death hasn't come for me yet. "So, if you aren't Saint Peter and this isn't the Pearly Gates, then who are you?"
"This is the Dream World, and I'm Doremy Sweet, manager of this place. You've met me a couple of times before." She bowed down politely like any other resident of Gensokyo, that's what it was called. "Pleased to meet you once more."
Of course, I made sure to return to bow to her. Can't go around being rude to people even if you're floating around in space. "So… How do I return? The head maid is going to be really mad if I don't get back in time. Plus, I need to cook for the mistress today, train with Meiling and…" While counting all of these, I was quite surprised as to how used to I had gotten to life in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Me being alive is quite a surprising thing honestly, especially considering how the first day went.
"Everyone returns eventually. Unless you die in your sleep." Doremy yawned after having casually made remarks about death. "Oh, I can feel you getting further."
"Really?" Why does my arm feel wet so suddenly? I looked down. To my horror, there were bite marks and saliva on my arm. And… My cheek. My cheek!
"Hmm… Quite a predicament." Doremy was as calm as ever. She waved me goodbye. "Good luck to you then."
I was too busy screaming to say farewell to the ruler of dreams.
"Mmh… What kind of dream was that?" Licorice slowly opened her eyes. The sun was… not shining directly towards her eyes. To be exact, the sun was absent. Everything else was absent. All had become a black void at this point, yet Licorice was not blind. She could see herself, and…
"Nom nom…" …a young girl biting her cheek furiously. Her black dress blended into the background while her blond hair and red eyes pierced through it. "Why are humans so hard to chew?!" She complained while not ceasing her untowardly act of chewing a human being.
"Excuse me? Miss?" Licorice was a tad bit too calm, mostly due to the fact that fangs biting her flesh weren't that new to her. "Could you… give me some personal space, pretty please with a crimson cherry on top?"
"Sheesh amlive?" The girl's response couldn't be heard properly from the fact that her mouth was filled with Licorice's cheek. She raised her head after making a couple more attempts at taking a bite out of our heroine. "Peh! What kind of rotten meat are you?"
"Pardon? Sakuya always says that I'm fresh meat!" Licorice attempted to push the errant youkai away, but the carnivore refused to budge. "I won't be having you disrespecting me, little girl!"
"It doesn't matter! Rumia is too hungry to care whether you're rotten or not!" With this she bent down to chew on Licorice again.
Our heroine was having none of it. She did her best to stay calm while quickly searching for something useful under her apron. "Pan Sign「Brat Punishment」!" As the attack name suggested, Rumia's face met with a speeding pan. Some may talk of unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects; this was the case of an unstoppable force meeting a movable object. Fueled with months of doing tai chi, the pan had become a mildly formidable force of punishment.
Rumia, whose face had become as scarlet as a ground cherry, looked stupefied for a brief second. Then she fell to the floor, completely knocked out from the surprise attack. Licorice had managed to score her second victory in danmaku (?).
She didn't have time to celebrate much though. Having almost been eaten had made her lose her willingness to stay outside for much longer, especially when the perpetrator of said eating was currently laid next to her.
Licorice retreated from the premises, back to the mansion where she had tried to take a break from. Sakuya later chided her for having taken a holiday despite the fact that the Scarlet Devil Mansion didn't have any holidays for its workers.
Our heroine was punished with having to sweep the dust off of books in the library, which probably didn't bode well for the health of her already lead-laden lungs.
