8 The Scarlet Mist EX part 1
Editor: Acerman
-Morning, Hieda Mansion-
In Gensokyo, humans usually never went near the river for fear of Kappa, so they build a well in their village. Big families usually have their own well to use, but for normal folk, they could only use the public well, and in Hieda Mansion well, there's a black hair teenager, top less with towel cover up his waist, and bucket of water in his arm. He splashed his whole body with it.
"COLD!"
'Dammit, cold things will always cold whenever how many time you repeated it.'
Right now, I was 'bathing' using the well, water in the well was always cold because it was from underground, away from any heat source, and the best thing about this is that it's fast. 4 splashes and I was done. I don't know about those people that take 100 hours just to take a shower, it's just a waste of water at that point. There's also an ofuro in the mansion, but let's be real, who wants to take a hot bath in the middle of summer?
"Let's eat breakfast, pack some lunch and go to Remilia's mansion after that."
Yes, Remilia's mansion. 3 days have passed since Remilia invited me to her mansion, and of course I prepared a ton of things for this day.
First, I had bought a few new abilities and done an experiment with all of them in those 3 days.
[Parallel Thinking]
[Lets the User better Multi-Think]
It had a price of 10.000 AP, and it's worth every point I spent. Counter Armor, Quadra Wings and shooting Wind Bullets, all of them at the same time is easy, GG EZ LIVE.
[Swordsmanship Lv.3]
[Lets the User learn swordfighting]
At a total of 7.000 AP, it allowed me do fairly decent sword wielding. "What sword you ask me?", well, it's my new Spell Card. Since I got Vector Change to Lv.5, I tried to make all kinds of Spell Cards, and with my new skill, it's all kind of interesting. But of course it's still gonna be a secret until I fight someone…and I just jinxed myself, GOOD JOB ME!
And with all those new skills, my level went up.
[Lv.43 Light Performance, Arah]
And my title changed since I invented all of those new Spell Cards, probably because I used lots of light based attack from it.
Second, I bought a counter-measure for a vampire and a new item.
[Garlic Juice] x 3 ea = 150 IP.
[Infinite Water Kettle] = 5.000 IP.
Well, I don't plan to kill a vampire, so I only need an item they hate. Also, I bought something that I should buy from the beginning.
[Infinite Space Waist Pouch – Add-on: Laundry] = 5.000 IP
[Laundry selected clothing material inside the pouch]
It was only 5.000 IP! I think it should have been worth more than that but I will take it, especially at that price. This is practically godsend for me; no more washing clothes with my hands, no more worried if my clothes are still there when I leave the mansion. This will surely solve my entire fresh clothes problem when I'm living alone in the future.
And the best of the new item is the thing on my neck!
[Perfect Voice Synthesizer] = 10.000 IP
[Let the User change their voice with gathered voice sample]
With Mimicry String, this is a perfect tool for trolling someone when you are fighting them! But of course I need their voice sample first to make the target voice. The tool is in the shape of a choker, with the color of black and thin enough that people will just ignore it as just a black line in a neck. The power of system, anything is possible as long as you paid for it.
And for emergency, I bought 3 pair of the usual pills, the vitality and mentality pills. I should stock up those pills more often from now on.
"Thanks for the food."
I finished eating my breakfast. I'll pack my lunch and tell Akyuu where I'm going. Hope she won't do it again like last time.
-Akyuu POV-
"…this should do it."
I finished writing all of the information about the Scarlet Devil Mansion from the conversation few days ago. It seems like the Vampire has been living in Gensokyo for a long time, with the mansion location and their resident, it's no wonder that they never have been discovered until now.
"…But control over fate huh. Its sound surreal."
The Vampire was claiming that she can control fate. Her claim is difficult to prove because her ability is technically changing someone's future, but future is something uncertain. If she is changing someone's future then their original future will be changed by her, making the changed future happen in present time and because of that, since nobody knows what their original future is then nobody can claim her ability took effect on the target except the mistress herself.
"It's a bit regrettable that I don't have definite proof of her ability in my record, but beggar can't be chooser; I have to record everything."
I slouched and put my hand on my chin.
'…I wonder if she can change my fate as well.'
As I keep thinking that though, I heard someone's voice from the corridor.
"Hey, Akyuu-chan."
It's Arah voice.
"Over here Arah-san," I called him to the main room.
"Oh, there you are," he entered.
He approached and sat in front of me.
"I just wanna tell you that I'll head out now"
"The same as usual?" I inquire.
"No, right now I want to go to the Scarlet Devil Mansion."
"?! Then-"
"Then Akyuu-chan will wait quietly here in the mansion."
"…"
"Please promise me you'll do that."
"…Then, Arah-san too. Please promise me you'll come back unhurt."
"Of course, who do you think I am?"
-Late Morning, Youkai Trail-
-Me POV-
"You are just our food, human! Just accept your fate!" yelled the Youkai in front of me.
…I wonder when the Youkai will stop harassing me; this has become my daily occurrence now.
[Lv.27 Were-tiger]
I continued walking normally toward SDM when this thing suddenly jumped in from the side and stopped me.
Its appearance is like what you expected from were-tiger while also wearing a male Yukata.
"Didn't you hear anything from other Youkai about how badly they lose to me?"
"Hump! Those guys are only weakling, I'm different!"
Typical self-centered attitude from Youkai. Think they are stronger than anyone, some of them deserve that attitude, but majority of them are just weaklings.
"Alright then, let's gets this over with."
I trust my right hand and gather Light Energy in it, and guess what; this is my normal Danmaku bullet! I did it, Mom! Are you proud of me yet?!
"Danmaku?!"
With Parallel Thinking, I kept gathering the energy while shooting them at the same time. I suppose this is the first time I've used it on live combat.
"Even though you can use Danmaku, you will still gonna lose to me, human!"
He starts charging at me and I started shooting at him.
"Your puny Danmaku doesn't even hurt me!"
'He's still charging me even though my Danmaku hitting his body, guess I have to adjust the quantity and the power to be higher than this.'
As he getting close to my position, I stopped shooting and prepared to blast him away.
I do 'Kamekameha pose' and gather Light Energy between my hands.
'Full Power 'Light Blast' Test in live combat'
"Fly!" I trusted forward with both of my hand.
*BOOM*
"GUWAAAAAAAH!" and he's gone.
According to my calculation, based on his flying trajectory, he'll land somewhere near Youkai Mountain, probably the base.
"Hope the Youkai stop harassing me now that they know I can do normal Danmaku," and with that said, I continued my walk to SDM.
-Afternoon, Scarlet Devil Mansion-
She's obviously sleeping.
Even though she pretends to guard the gate, she's without a doubt, sleeping.
Hong Meiling stood with her arm crossed, eyes closed leaning back against the wall. I usually call that pose "cool anime guy waiting".
"Hey! Meiling-san!" I called her.
…She's not moving.
I walked closer to her.
"MEILING-SAN!" I shouted this time.
…She's still not reacting, what happen when someone walks up to the gate?!
I had an idea, a bad one at that, one I need to adjust my Counter Armor first.
'Erase counter, expand armor by 5 cm.'
Done, let's try this now.
I move my hand toward her shoulder and then grab it.
*THUD*
Suddenly I felt like I was flying. All I can see is just blue sky and a cloud that speeding up downward, and I felt something hard crash into my back.
...my brain tells me that I just got send backward by someone, and this someone is so strong that they can send me flying with a single move. My brain tells me that I currently sprawling on the dirt like a fucking idiot.
I push my whole body with my ability from sprawling position and back to standing upright on the ground.
Meiling pose right now is just like before but with her left arm trusting forward to what I guess to be where my head was.
Oh, she's starting to wake up, she's stretching her arms, her eyes slowly opened,…let's just keep quiet about what happen.
"Meling-san!" I called out to her again.
"…Hm? Oh, why it isn't Arah-san I see over there. But, why are you here?" She asked me.
She recognizes me! A beautiful woman recognizes me! I feel so popular right now!
"Yes! I come here to sightseeing the mansion, your mistress invited me personally when I was playing in Reimu's house." I answered while jogging toward her.
"I see, then there's no problem letting you in." she then proceed to open the gate. "Please come in. I hope you enjoy your stay in here." She smiled at me.
"Of course, thanks Meiling-san." I smiled back while passing over the opened gate.
"You're welcome, now then, let's start dreaming again…" her word slowly getting quieter.
'I can still hear you, you know.' I smiled disarmingly.
-Scarlet Devil Mansion-
As I walk on the garden path, I looked at every part of the garden
'All of them are roses, every part of the garden is covered by it. This is the first time I've seen these many roses.'
I marveled at the sight of the garden as I walked towards the mansion door. I kept looking left and right until I reach the door.
'Should I knock? Is Sakuya-san even gonna heard my knock? I heard the inside of the mansion is way bigger than it look outside.'
As I thought about how I approach the door, someone opened it from the inside, revealing Sakuya.
"Good Afternoon." I saided.
"…Good Afternoon. I see you actually coming to our mansion, and alone at that." She said coldly.
"Haha, well, I'm really curious about what's inside the mansion, so here I am." I smiled back.
"Then you must be a fool to only coming here based on your curiosity alone. Do you even know how naïve your thinking is?"
"I just have to take the consequence and solve it on my own then."
Sakuya must've be slightly irritated with me because she didn't say anything for a while.
"…So, can I come in now?"
"…Yes." She replied, full opened the door for me.
'Wow, I can even feel the hate toward me from her indifferent tone.'
"Excuse me for intruding." And finally, I'm inside the Devil Mansion.
-Sakuya POV-
After I guided the guest from the main door, I started taking him towards the main ballroom. I peered out the corner of my eyes, 'This youngster seems like enjoying himself.'
He keeped looking around the hallway even though the only thing he saw was a couple of painting and the occasional passing fairy maid.
"All of the painting so far only have anything to do with the color of red. Is it because Remilia's following some kind of theme?" he asked.
"Yes, mistress likes the color of red, and with that reason she decorated her mansion with something that has correlations to the color of red."
"Is that also the reason why she calls herself the Scarlet Devil?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure it's not because part of her name is "Scarlet", and that making her have obsession with that color?"
"…No."
He should feel grateful that he's considered a guest, and mistress told me that they must be protected while touring the mansion.
"…I wonder if she likes the pink color too."
"…No"
…He really should feel grateful.
-Main Ballroom, SDM-
"This place is so wide!"
He looked amazed by the sheer volume of the ballroom.
The ballroom has wide empty space with the purpose of hosting a great number of guests. There's a podium to the front for the presenter to speak and there's another platform to the side for musicians to play their music, with a piano taking occupancy. The room was well lit with sunlight streaming in from the windows high above.
"I bet this room can hold more than 100 people."
"To be more specific, it's 154 guests with furniture placement. The number varied according to what kind of guest we are invited; the previous number I mentioned are for human-sized humanoid beings."
"…that's a roundabout way of saying what a human looks like."
"I'm sorry, but there's a whole lot of creature that resemble human so there's no need to associate what I said just now to be only human."
"I see, that make sense." He nodded understandingly.
He turned to look at the piano on the side. His eyes expressing familiar feeling, like something the mistress eyes would sometimes express, a kind of mischief.
He then turned to look at me.
"Sakuya-san, can I play the piano please?" he pleaded.
"…Mistress said if someone wants to play the piano and they are good then let them be." I said.
"And if they are playing bad?"
"Punish them for polluting the air." I said it with a smile.
"…D-don't worry, I play good, you won't be disappointed, ha-haha-haha." He laughed awkwardly.
"Fufufu." I laughed as well, but with more finesse.
After that little exchange, I guided him to the Piano, my heels clacking across the marble floor.
"I'm gonna do sound test first with the piano, if you didn't mind." He alerted me.
"It's okay, I didn't mind."
As he sits on the piano seat, I prepared a Danmaku knife.
"…Sakuya-san, I still didn't do anything."
"Don't mind me, don't mind me." I 'assured' him.
He pressed 2 keys. I prepared 2 more Danmaku knives.
"…Sakuya-san, your confidence in me is outrageously low."
"What do you mean?" I responded with a smile.
He sighed, "Whatever, let's do this."
And finally he started to play.
'Well, I'm surprised. He's actually playing the piano, and the sound it makes; it flows smoothly. Its feels so natural; does he have prior experience with a piano?'
Truthfully, I never had any expectation for this boy, from when he asked if he can play the piano, I felt so happy I could punish him, I already was preparing to throw a knife at him when he started playing the piano.
But I was wrong, I actually impressed with he plays so wonderfully, and the music he played, it somehow reminded me about Remilia-sama.
'…I might have to change my impression about him.'
He played for about two minute, coming to a crescendo, and then an end.
*clap**clap* I clapped at his performance.
"I must say, that was a wonderful performance."
"Thanks you. By the way the name of the music is "Septette for the Dead Princess". It's originally meant to be played with six other performers; it's a shame that you only hear it with 1 instrument."
"I see, then do you know about "for the Dead Princess" part?"
"I don't know, I just guessing it's probably because the creator of the music was thinking about his dead wife when he created this music."
I nodded understandingly, "Just for curiosity, what did you think when you played that music?" I inquired.
"…What did I think huh?" he started rubbing his chin. "I probably think about Remilia."
"…Why?"
"I know she's not dead but it's probably because she's a vampire and she probably happy if she's called Dead Princess because how deadly she sounded like."
"…Anything else?"
"What? No, nothing else. I think that's just what I think when I played the music." He claimed.
"I understand, now then, let's continue our tour."
"All right." He got up from the chair and started following me.
I continued to guide him through the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
-Me POV-
After a while, I finally realized something.
That time, when Sakuya ask me "Anything else?", if I actually give her a 'wrong' answer, she was probably gonna try and skin me alive right there. It's not like she actually can do it, but she probably was gonna try to kill me for it.
I don't wanna be hated by Sakuya; she's THE perfect & elegant maid. Many people like her in the community, including me! In the canon, she originally like 'Vampires be the best, fuck all Humans' and cold all the way through those interaction. She believed she must maintain that cold attitude because she's the servant of a vampire, but when EoSD happened, she witnessed her all-powerful master, Remilia, get defeated by a Human, Reimu, which made her mask crumble, having her gradually become more soft in her interactions. You don't want a girl like that hate you forever in your life.
People also theorized from all the canon information that Remilia true purpose for starting the incident was so that Sakuya could witness her defeat by a human, the shrine maiden, resulting Sakuya to mellow her attitude. Remilia did this because Sakuya was having a hard time to adjust living in Gensokyo, and since they need interaction with the Human to acquire furniture, food ingredients, etc., she needed Sakuya to get over her unwillingness to properly interact with other humans. She-"Arah-san?"
"Y-YES!" I asked, startled.
I looked in front of me and what I saw in my eyes was a woman with silver hair worn in long braids on both sides of her face, green bows decorating the ends and a white maid headband. She sported a pink/white and dark blue French maid's outfit with an apron, short sleeves and a green ribbon.
She tilted her head, showing confusion about my reaction just now.
"Are you already tired from all that walking? If so then we can take a break from the touring." She offered.
"No, I'm just daydreaming a bit; I can still keep going."
"Are you sure? A boy of your age tends to be reckless."
"I'm okay; I'm already 15 years old after all."
"Oh my, that's too young, we really should rest for now."
…too young? Sakuya-san, I know you stop your aging and freeze your body to stay looks like 20-ish years old, but how old actually are you? 50+ years old? 100+ years old? 200+ years old?
"Arah-san, why do I have a feeling you are thinking something rude?"
Women's intuition is scary boys!
"I-it must be just your imagination Sakuya-san, because there's no way I could think something rude about such a beauty."
"Hm, I have my suspicion ever since the first time we met in Hakurei's house, but it's finally appeared, your philanderer attitude that is. Just so you know, I only belong to mistress, so please keep your flattery to yourself." She said it with a slight curtsy.
WHAT MY IMAGE HAS BECOME! I FUCKED UP ONCE AND THIS IS WHAT I GET?! THERE GOES MY CHANCE WITH ANY OF TOUHOU CAST!
I must quickly change the topic.
"S-speaking of your master, where's Remilia? I haven't seen her for a while even though I'm in her mansion." I hurriedly asked.
"Remilia-sama? This morning mistress decided to visit the Hakurei shrine, if things are going smoothly then the mistress is in the Hakurei's house."
"To Reimu's house? In the day? Alone?"
"Yes, I planned to accompany mistress to the shrine but she convinced me to stay put in the mansion. As for the daylight, she has her parasol to cover herself from the sun."
…Remilia going alone to Hakurei Shrine.
*Rumble*
We looked toward the window; it's raining outside.
"Rain? I hope mistress is okay."
Sakuya walked toward the window and she gazed out at the rain through it.
"…Only the mansion area is having rain pour down on it?"
…Only SDM to has rain suddenly.
"Don't tell me," Sakuya thinking for a while, and then look back at me. "Arah-san, I'm sorry but the tour need to be stopped for now. I suggest you go out the mansion through this window, and head straight back to the Human Village."
She bowed deeply to me.
"Once again I am sorry, this is an emergency situation, please go back immediately."
She then disappeared before my eyes.
*Rumble**Rumble*
The rumble of the blackened sky and the sound of water drop from the rain filled the air.
…Don't tell me right now is that time.
*Ding*
[Quest Alert]
[5* The Rainbow Vampire]
[Play with Flandre]
*KA-BOOM*
Thunder sound roaring in my ears as I read the quest message.
"…What?"
Editor note:
As per author's request, I shall now leave the Author's note unedited
Author note:
I'M VERY SORRY FOR THE LATENESS! DOGEZA-ING TO THE GROUND!
I have my reason for this lateness, actually 4 days ago my religion, muslim, have a holiday, so I kinda stop writing for 2 days, and when I'm starting to write again, the mood isn't there yet, so I spend 2 more days to get back into writing mood again. That's it the reason for my lateness, I guess.
And then for releasing the chapter, min. 1 chapter per week and max.2 chapter per weeks, that's it, it become more difficult to write as the story keep going, so that's how much I can do with my skill alone. As for the edited version, you guys need to wait for several days for it to be finished, I guess. My editor usually work fast to fix my mistake.
Now, that's out of the way, I recommended you guys to watch this people on youtube:
1. minusT.
2. Harpoonneet.
3. Spotty Len.
Those guys make the best Touhou shit in the world, especially minusT, HE'S A FUCKING GOD, YOU ARE A HERETIC IF YOU DON'T KNOW HIM, EVERY THING HE CREATED IS A MASTER PIECE, INCLUDING HIS OLD WORK. Fuh~, glad I finally said it to you people.
Acerman, Ha-haha-hahahaha there's no way he can just casually meet with the Big Boss right?...RIGHT? There's no way he's stupid enough to go near all those Big Boss, RIGHT?
I have a couple of plan in the future for him, so just wait for his adventure, dude.
