“Alright, everyone got their glasses?”
After the hot springs, everyone gathered in the reserved banquet hall.
“Well then, Sensei, thanks for everything. Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
At Zofia’s cue, glasses clinked together in the air, making a cheerful sound.
“Wow, this looks delicious!”
Lily, holding a fork, her eyes sparkling. The table was laden with delicacies from the mountains and rivers.
As everyone savored the dishes, which highlighted the natural flavors of the ingredients, Zofia looked behind her and frowned.
“Hey… I feel like we’ve been getting stared at for a while now.”
“Ringa feels a sense of resentment.”
“There’s one guy with a clearly different level of excitement.”
At the end of their gazes—sitting alone at a separate table—was Krishna. She was staring at them with a resentful expression.
“Krishna. If you’re going to make that face, you should just come over here.”
“Yeah, come eat with us.”
Zenos and Lily called out, but Krishna clenched his back teeth and shook her head.
“I-I can’t do that. As a member of the Imperial Guard, I can’t just sit at the same table and happily toast with the leaders of the underworld. The situation must be that I came to the hot springs alone on my day off and happened to run into you all.”
“That’s a complicated setup.”
When Zenos said that, Zofia shrugged.
“Is that so? Well, let’s just leave the stubborn woman alone and enjoy ourselves.”
“The food is delicious, but Ringa thinks it’s quite a large portion.”
“It doesn’t matter. My stomach is bottomless.”
“Uuuu…”
Krishna, at the back, wiped the corner of hier eyes and poured sake down her throat.
“Oh, speaking of which, where’s Camilla?”
Zenos looked around, and Lily, who was next to him, said:
“She said, ‘I’m going to have a quiet drink alone in my room.’”
“Hmm.”
“…Phew, I ate too much.”
Having finished dinner, Umin walked down the hallway of the inn, holding his stomach. Because of the large quantity of food, it took her quite a while to finish.
Singing voices echoed from the adjacent banquet hall, indicating that it was quite lively.
“Being alone is nice, but maybe it would be good to come with my colleagues from the clinic next time.”
Muttering to herself, Umin glanced out the window. What spread out before her was pitch-black darkness. Since the inn was on the outskirts of town, there were no other lights, and only the sound of the trees rustling in the wind reached his eardrums.
“…”
She didn’t think of herself as particularly fearful, but she felt a chilling sensation. It was probably because of the strange experience she had in the hot springs.
“…It’s just because I’m tired. I should just go to bed.”
She told herself this and opened the door to her room. Umin stepped inside, and suddenly stopped.
…Plip.
She thought she heard a strange sound.
“…It’s just my imagination, right?”
…Plip.
…Plip.
No, it wasn’t her imagination.
She could definitely hear a sound. It sounded like… blood dripping—
Umin gulped and cautiously moved forward. The strange sound was coming from the other side of the sliding door. She slowly approached and, taking a deep breath, pulled open the door.
“…Huh?”
There, in front of a large sake bottle, was a person contentedly sipping from a sake cup.
Translator’s Note
The bottle described is an “Isshobin” which stands for 1 sho bottle. 1 sho being 1.8 liters. One of those comically large bottles you see anime characters drink during onsen episodes.
However, their body was faintly translucent—
“W-Waaaaaaah!”
She screamed involuntarily, and the semi-transparent person blinked their eyes.
“Oh dear, I’ve made a mistake. I must be in the wrong room.”
Saying that, they took the large sake bottle and cup and floated out the door. Umin, left behind, stood there in a daze and held her head.
“…It’s a dream… No, a dream… This is a dream… Please let it be a dream…!”
“I’m back.”
When Zenos opened the door to the room, Camilla, who was in the back, raised her sake cup and looked up.
“Is the banquet over?”
“Yeah. By the way, I heard a scream from the next room earlier. What was that about?”
“Who knows. It’s probably your imagination…”
Zenos lowered Lily, who he was carrying on his back, onto the bed in the back. Confirming that she was breathing softly in her sleep, he sat down in front of Camilla.
“Ah, I’m tired…”
“Wasn’t it a fun party?”
“It was good until halfway through, but Krishna, who was drinking in the back, got drunk and suddenly started crying and throwing a tantrum, saying, ‘I want to drink near Mr. Zenos too!’”
“Kuku… That sounds interesting.”
“And then, for some reason, a drinking contest started, with the winner getting to sit on my lap.”
The first to drop out was, surprisingly, Reve.
“She was so confident, saying, ‘My alcohol tolerance is bottomless,’ but she fell asleep after one sip. When I looked closely, I saw that she had been drinking water up until then.”
“To think she’s a lightweight with that appearance. How hilarious.”
“After that, quite a few sake bottles were emptied, but the next to fall was Ringa.”
She got drunk and curled up on the table, meowing, and fell asleep.
“Werewolves aren’t cats…”
“In the end, Zofia and Krishna collapsed with their arms around each other, singing.”
“A thief and an Imperial Guard arm in arm? That’s quite a scandal.”
“And then Lily, who was drinking juice, said, ‘Fufufu… Lily wins,’ sat on my lap, and fell asleep.”
“Kukuku…”
After that, he carried the sleeping women to their respective rooms and finally returned to his own room.
“Wasn’t this supposed to be a party to thank me…?”
“Well, it’s fine. For now, enjoy these noisy days. You’re bound to get caught up in some trouble soon anyway.”
“Don’t say such ominous things.”
“Kukuku… A wraith’s premonitions are accurate.”
Camilla tossed a sake cup to Zenos.
“Since you’re pitiful, I’ll pour you a drink. You’re old enough to drink, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know my exact age, since I was in an orphanage in the slums when I became aware.”
Camilla tilted the large sake bottle over the cup Zenos was holding. The empty vessel was slowly filled with a transparent liquid.
In the silence, the night deepened in the hot spring village of Flamme.
And the incident occurred the next morning.
A/N: The story will (probably) start moving from the next chapter.