Chereads / 幽霊物語 Yureimonogatari / Chapter 17 - 幽霊物語 16

Chapter 17 - 幽霊物語 16

Behind Princess Alice Cheverie stood Queen Minerva Cheverie, a taller and more mature clone of Alice that was her mother. Adjacent to Minerva was the king of the War God Faction. What do I know about the WGF? Not a lot. I know that they have immense military strength and control a large portion of Europe. I also know that their power is enough to conquer a large portion of the world if they chose to do so. What did the WGF want with me, Sasaki Yuji? The royal family wanted me to put a ring on the princess and have a child with her.

"Why do you want me to marry you, and have your children? I'm not of nobility."

"Simply because you intrigue me. The word in the afterlife is that they made a spot at the top of the ranks just for you because you were too powerful. You're considerably handsome as well, and you seem like the best candidate to be my husband."

"Let's not rush things. We just met."

"That's okay. We can rush it, we'll get acquainted soon enough."

"What makes you so certain?"

"Because a war could break out and we need your cooperation to prevent it."

"You've taken things from zero to one hundred really fast. A marriage is one thing, but a war? How can you be so sure?"

"To put it simply, all the leading alliances and groups of the world have their eyes on you, because you are the most powerful spirit that anyone has ever seen. All of these world powers would do anything to get you on their side, including decimating nations and starting a global war if needed. I know you don't want anything bad to happen to you, and I know that you just want a normal school life. That won't happen if you assist us."

"So what do you plan to do about this issue?"

"If you marry me, then most of the major parties will respect your choice and back off. Not all of them, some will still go to great lengths to acquire your strength."

If I marry this princess, then most of the looming threats will go away. I was in no state to consider marriage. I still had Noriko, Rin, Miwa, Ayumi, Mochizuki, and my girlfriend Tamae to consider. If Noriko or Rin were aware that I'm pondering marrying, that would add two more threats to the could start a war category. What am I to do in this situation? "I'll consider marrying you."

"That answer will suffice for now, because you're not the only thing that could cause a war in the immediate future. There's a much more pressing matter that the War God Faction could use your help in resolving. Also, I'm persistent so even if you say no to me now, you'll say yes eventually." I could sense the determination in Alice's voice. Nice. I like girls who have strong resolve.

"So what is this current issue?"

The Chui kingdom of beastmen has laid siege to the snow woman village Shiramaki. The village is nearly destroyed and the snow women's ice isn't enough to fight the raw strength of the beastmen. All the villagers have been forced to hide in their homes to stay safe. As it stands, the village and its people won't last another three days. This is a big deal because this is one of the two existing snow woman villages that's on the line. If it's taken out, the snow women could face extinction, and if word gets out that the beastmen or Chui kingdom threatened the existence of the snow women, a chain reaction is sure to happen. Worst case scenario is that other nations will attack Chui kingdom, and then other nations will attack Chui's attackers, then they get attacked, and it continues until the entire world is at war. It's not just the humans at risk here, It's all the races. Quite the predicament I had on my hands. I was going to fix it though, so a certain detestable snow woman didn't get any more annoying then she needed to be.

"I see. Alice, I'm going to head toward Shiramaki today. I need to make some preparations first though."

"Very well. I know my judgment was correct in picking you to be my husband, but let us see if you can live up to my expectations."

And then I went home.

"Miwa, Noriko, Rin, please come to the living room."

"What did you call us for?"

"I'm going to be leaving again, and it could be a while."

Noriko said "So you can go to some girl's house?"

"No, Noriko. I'm going to prevent a war. Don't worry about it too much, I'll be okay, and I'm not going to some girl's house."

I was walking out the door when I followed up with "I'm going to visit an entire village of women." By the time that sentence registered in Noriko and Rin's brains, I was long gone. I had attempted the teleport by thinking about your destination method. Shiramaki. Shiramaki. Shiramaki. Shiramak- success. My magic had worked. I hadn't given thought that a snow woman village might be cold though, so I was startled a bit when I arrived. I used a spell conveniently named Frostbreak to keep myself warm. Oddly enough, this spell doesn't use fire. It creates a vorpal barrier around the caster that consumes cold air, and releases it around the caster's vicinity as thermal energy. After that, I approached the village. Across the glacier was an army of large beastmen assaulting the village with an assortment of fire weapons. I was preparing to take them out by freezing them over, then I thought maybe the snow women wouldn't appreciate my help if some outsider guy comes in and beats them at their own art. I wondered how the snow women would react if they could not defeat the beastmen with their ice but I could. I was wasting time on trivial concerns such as that, and I quickly freed my mind from distraction. I used Arcane Frostfire to launch a large volley of ice and frost across the way toward the enemy beastmen. My attack was powerful enough to freeze all the projectiles from fire siege weapons mid air, as well as disable all the enemies and their weapons. Though I had only taken out one of many beastmen squads attacking Shiramaki, I pushed toward the village. Upon my arrival I identified myself as an ally, and was brought to the village hall where a large group of snow women were holed up for the time being. Neither the village leaders nor the other snow women question my allegiance, because they all saw me take care of that group of beastmen. Some of them were looking at me like they had just met their savior, others were giving me the please make passionate love to me eyes. Can't say I blame them though, I they rarely ever get visitors and some of them had never seen a male before that day. I also enjoyed the attention. After giving a report and getting situated, I had an encounter with someone I should have expected to run into, but didn't.

"Well, if it isn't Suzu. Is this where you went after you failed to kidnap me?"

All of a sudden, she was a shy and reserved girl, the polar opposite of the Suzu I came to dislike. It was as if I turned her switch off. Really hard.

"Y-yes. I live here."

As annoying as this girl is, I was still going to try to fix things for this village. Not just for her, but for all the snow women living there. Although it was for Suzu just a bit. No point in lying about it.

"That's interesting. Well, I'll take care of this."

There were still three more armies to take out. One to the south, east, and north. The south army went down easily. They so graciously allowed me to cause a mild earthquake underneath where they stood as the ground consumed them.

I wasn't happy at all that I was attacking and potentially killing people, but the beastmen attacked first and they knew what a declaration of battle entails. That didn't make me feel better. Not at all.

The east army has heard about the defeat of the west and south armies, and surrendered. I flash froze them out of mercy to melt later, no, they wouldn't melt later, not at Shiramaki, the cold as hell snow woman village. Flash freeze my be a harsh magic to hurl upon the poor army when they surrendered, but I didn't need them playing tricks on me. The north army was braver than the rest, and sent their proudest warrior to the front to challenge me to a duel.

"My name is Eguchi Hachiro. I will be your opponent."

"Eguchi-san, it appears you've already lost."

He looked at the arm that I had cut off with a hypersonic wind disc. Not very catchy, I know. You can blame me for that, because I had the pleasure of naming it. Out of frustration through the writhing pain, Eguchi said "All of you attack that man!"

My power caused me to develop a cocky attitude I didn't like. "Please try harder next time." I said.

I had frozen their army, too.

After that, I reported back to the village hall where the village leaders were. The four attacking armies have been taken care of.

A woman came out to speak. A tall woman, one with blue hair and brown eyes. Slim waist. Very rounded posterior. F cup most likely. Age twenty-eight. She said "Thank you for taking out those armies. We sent out an SOS to everywhere we could, but you were the only one who came to help."

"If you're going to thank someone, thank Princess Alice Cheverie of the War God Faction. She sent me."

"I'm glad that the WGF had their reasons to assist us-"

"I'm not with them per say, I was just doing them a favor."

"Even more reason you should get the thanks. You truly are the hero of Shiramaki."

I, Sasaki Yuji, am the hero of Shiramaki. The hero that defeated four armies of beastmen from the Chui kingdom alone. I didn't live that one down.

"I can't believe I haven't introduced myself. I'm Amari Kazue, the head of this village."

"Sasaki Yuji. Pleasure to meet you."

"Yuji, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for all you've done. You're always welcome in Shiramaki."

"It's my pleasure."

What is this, chick fil-a? Why did I say that? Was it that hard to say thank you? Way to go, me in the past.

"I should be going now, Kazue."

"Wait. Can't you stay a while?. You deserve a reward, and we rarely ever get visitors, especially males. The last time we had a man visit was fourteen years ago. You might be a man, but you're a special man."

Kazue decided she was going to get close and personal to me. She was clinging to me with the tightest grip I had ever felt. It was tight. And it was cold. Her breath when she went to whisper something in my ear was cold enough to freeze up my ear canal. But I didn't mind it. She felt good, especially when her breasts were against me. And so, that day, I spent a passionate evening and night with Kazue the beautiful snow maidens of Shiramaki, and became the patiarch of the village.

That's a lie. Sorry. I couldn't do that to Tamae. Instead,

"Mom!"

Suzu got mad at her mother for embracing me. That's right, her mother.

Amari Kazue is related to Amari Suzu? Who would have guessed? Is what I would say if it wasn't fucking obvious. I even put it the name Amari in italics a while ago to help make it clear.

Also- She's Suzu, a high school student's mother. Kazue is twenty-eight. Don't bother with the math, because Yuji will explain this for you. Although snow women can be born from conception, ninety-nine percent of them aren't. They are born from snow and ice, literally. Snow and ice transmogrify and create a woman, who inherits the snow and ice. Suzu is a true snow woman, born from a glacier. Though the ages are weird and so are the circumstances, Suzu is Kazue's adopted daughter.

"Sorry dear, I've just never seen a man so suitable to be your father."

What? Me? Suzu's father? While it would give me an excuse to teach that brat some etiquette, I'm taken and too young to be a father.

"Are you shitting me, mom? He's my classmate! We're almost the same age! How could he by my father?"

Ouch. Being rejected hurt. But it's not like I didn't agree.

"On top of that, how is he the most suitable to be my father? It's not that you've never seen a man more suitable, you've just never seen a man! You just want a lover."

Kazue was not going to stand there and take her daughter's shit without retaliation.

"That's not true at all, and if it was, you couldn't do anything about it! If I want to make him your father I'll to it."

I played along with this little argument, because I sensed that like me, Suzu wanted to ascertain the true intentions of her mother.

"Fine then mom! Go ahead and do what you want with him, it doesn't matter to me. You can sleep with him for all I care!" Was the lie that Suzu told her mother. Kazue was damn well aware that was a lie and Suzu did care for her own reasons. Maybe, I thought, Suzu really would care if Kazue slept with me because Suzu doesn't want her mom to beat her to it. No, that most likely wasn't it. Kazue still used it as a teaching moment for her daughter. It was also an excuse for Kazue to experience the warmth of a man before I left the village. Kazue asked one of her subordinates to prepare a room, to which I was dragged forcefully. I wasn't dragged forcefully. If I wanted to put a stop to it I could have. But. I had no intention of putting the moves on Suzu's mother. Nor did I have the intention of letting Kazue put the moves on me. Oh no. Though it sounds like a great idea on paper, I would not betray Tamae's trust to get it on with a snow MILF, as beautiful as she was. I also wasn't even sure if Kazue was serious or was just bluffing to teach her daughter a lesson. When we arrived in the room Kazue told me You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this day.

"You want to get to baby making that bad?"

"I do. And I'm not the only one. All the snow women of this village hall have become desperate for you, because you're a man. And I'm sure once the the other villagers who were hiding in their homes hear about you, they'll want a piece too. But not me. I'm not desperate. You've just flipped my switch with your brave acts and heroism."

"You sure you've seen a man before?" I asked her. A foster mother seeking to have a high school boy's child doesn't exactly scream I have experience and taste in men.

"Of course I have. You're just special to me. Regardless of your gender, the way you just came and helped us without questioning it is selflessness I've never seen in anyone. It just so happens that I got lucky with you being a guy. Rather, we got lucky that you're a guy. If I decide to share you with the other snow women, that is. I'm oh so tempted to keep you to myself." The sincerity in her voice was plain to hear. She was not only sincere, but serious. Her actions proved it.

I didn't notice until I looked up from the ground that she was undressing. And wow. What a sight to see. For the sake of keeping my account clean, I will only say that her naked body was beautiful and her breasts were large. No further detail will be given.

Kazue made her advances, and I shot them down. I might have been a tad too late, since she was already naked, but I wasn't going to cheat on Tamae.

"Kazue, sorry for making you go through the trouble of stripping, but I don't think this is going to happen."

"You don't have to tell her."

"Even so, I'll still pass."

"Do you still not trust my intentions? I'm not just thirsty at the sight of a man like the rest of those ladies. I wouldn't get in the nude for any man. You're special to me. Your brave actions made it obvious that you have a pure heart."Yeah, okay. "To put it simply, you're the only one for me, Yuji. I love you."

I highly doubt what she was feeling was love, but Kazue was damn persistent about it.

I will admit that what I'm about to put into account was my mistake, and I should not have done this.

Kazue still hadn't picked up that she was being rejected, so she jumped into me as I was sitting on the bed. By this point I had fully adjusted to her being naked. I gently pushed her off of me, until she was just sitting next to me. This is the part were I fucked up.

I softly laid the ends of my hands on her cheeks, and have Kazue a kiss on the forehead. It was like I was comforting your sad, crying little cousin, except it was a grown woman in the nude, being consoled by a high school student. I said "Kazue, my fair snow maiden, I love you too in a unique way."

Oops. Big mistake.

"I haven't known you for very long, but you tried your hardest to protect your people today, by sheltering lots of them here, and even sending an SOS to every available outlet. It must not be easy managing Shiramaki on your own, so I know you're a hard worker and I'm proud of you, and I love and admire you for the devotion you give to this village and it's people." Look at me. Talking in a motivational sense. What am I, a preacher? No, maybe more like a father? Actually, neither, no preacher or father is going to give a pep talk to a woman while she's in the nude. I'm just a high school kid who's full of himself who put his self righteous ego inflating encouragement on another.

"Yuji, I knew you would understand my feelings! Now, let's make love."

"Can't, sorry."

"Why? Are older women not appealing to you?"

"It's not that, but I wouldn't call you older. You're still young."

Her being "older" definitely wasn't the problem. My girlfriend was "older". Plus, lots of guys prefer more mature women.

"The point is, I love you, but not in that sense. We've also just met, so that kind of thing would be improper."

I said that, when I slept in the same bed as my girlfriend before she was my girlfriend, on the first day we met. To be fair, I didn't sleep sleep with Tamae, I only shared the bed with her.

"I don't get why you hold back. A girlfriend isn't even a problem, I'm fine with being a mistress as long as you give me attention."

She wasn't getting it, but god damn lady, have some pride as a village leader. She definitely didn't need to be a mistress.

"Yuji said he loved me and that's enough for now."

She got the wrong idea, but not too bad, right?

"Hey Kazue, you got a phone?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Let me see it."

For a woman who lives in a secluded village, her phone was shockingly high tech.

"There Kazue, I put in my number as a contact in case something comes up and you need me or my help."

It's the least I can do for misleading this poor snow woman, I thought.

"Thanks for giving me your number, Yuji. It means a lot to me. It's like we're a couple now."

She was visible ecstatic, similar to a six year old child would be when they got a new toy or some candy.

"We're not a couple, but feel free to fantasize."

Another mistake.

"I definitely will."

"Can you do one thing for me, Kazue?"

"Yes?"

"Put some clothes on."

I wasn't minding the o naturale look but I let my morals take charge rather than instinct.

"Oh, is my body not to your liking?"

"No, it definitely is, and under different circumstances or in an alternate universe I might have accepted your advances. Just not in this world or under these circumstances."

If this story ever gets popular enough that it gets picked up for an anime adaptation, sorry animators. This will be one hell of an awkward scene to animate. On a side note, please make me look good as the main character. Thanks.

"Who knows Kazue, maybe in the future, something terrible will happen to me and the only thing to make me better will be your love."

I had doubted that such an atrocity existed that could only be cured by the affection of Kazue, so I told her that little farce to make her feel better. That was just another mistake. What I didn't realize is that I wasn't making her feel better at all, I was just leading her on, the same painful experience that I had been through in my middle school days. Make fun all you want, you can't help who you like or love, and having them lead you on like you're their pawn hurts inside. I'm not talking about Noriko, I'm talking about another girl, the second. The story of the second is for another day.

After Kazue got dressed, I gave her my goodbye, and returned to the WGF headquarters where I was given thanks by Alice. Next I went to the inn, where Noriko and Rin questioned where I had been since I only told them I was going to prevent a war, to which I asked them to lay off for a bit. I went up to my room and laid in bed.

Then, a sudden ding noise.

Then another.

Then another.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

I had received several messages on my phone.

Amari Kazue 5:37 PM

I told the other women at the village that we made love

Sorry.

Also, you saw me naked, so that means one day you'll have to take responsibility.

Okay?

From that day on, Kazue would text me day in and day out about anything and everything.