Chapter 18
"I understand what you two have told me." Sumirensan said, obviously still annoyed. The mistress of the tavern loomed over us regally while Erim soothed his abused thighs with a cold wet towel and I kept quiet and tried to make myself invisible. I had given Sumirensan the condensed version of what had happened to us while Erim bravely endured his sister"s torture but it had still taken a while to convince her of the truth.
I had proved to her that I was truly a Succubus, undoing my hair dangos to reveal my horns and taking off the cloak Erim had loaned me to expose my wings. I was impressed by her courage when her only reaction to seeing Minoko waiting patiently outside the tavern was to say "My, it"s big."
"So Richy-chan." I jumped when she suddenly spoke to me. Richy-CHAN? Somehow calling me "chan" didn"t sound as friendly as it should have... "What has Erim told you about me?"
" a bit." I tried to collect my thoughts. "He said you don"t discriminate even if someone is a demon...." I said hopefully.
"Well, I rely on my own judgement whether someone is good or not. I"ll welcome someone who"s a member of the demon race if I think they"re a good person but I"d not hesitate to throw out a bad person even if they"re one hundred percent human." My initial image of Erim"s sister being like the Blessed Virgin Mary overflowing with charity and love disappeared without a trace. This person was a total hothead, I realised.
"If the story you told me is true then I feel sorry for you, Richy-chan and I think it"s OK if you stay in my tavern." she went on.
"It is true! It is not a lie! Please believe me!" I protested.
"I didn"t say that I don"t believe you but I don"t trust other people"s judgement about strangers. I trust only what I have verified with my own eyes." She looked down at her younger brother. "I am particularly suspicious when someone is exalted and praised excessively by others since they
tend to overlook any downsides there might be in their companions. Erim"s words about you, Richy-chan, were really over-the-top in that respect hence my suspicions were aroused straight away."
"Sister, Richy-san is a really wonderful woman, she"s like an angel." Erim protested. Me, an angel?
"You see?" Sumirensan said to me. "A pretty girl my little brother met only today and he says she"s an angel." She shook her head. "Unbelievable!" I felt sorry sorry for Erim being admonished by Sumirensan but I had to agree with her. I"d be suspicious too if I was in her shoes. She turned to address me and I quailed.
"So then, you"re a Succubus, Richy-chan. To tell you the truth that"s what I"m most concerned about." She gazed at me levelly. "Do you know why? "
"Is it because I"m a demon?" I asked nervously.
"Not exactly, rather it"s because you"re a demon of the Succubus tribe." she said coldly.
"B- but, you said you didn"t discriminate about things like that!" I protested.
"Hear me out." Sumirensan said, holding up a hand to forestall my protests. "A certain someone, retired now but a renowned hero in her youth told me that she once came across a Succubus in her travels. I can"t say whether it"s totally true or not but that Succubus is said to have enraptured the King of a country and caused its total downfall." She shook her head. "Apparently every young man from one town disappeared overnight because of her." Her voice dropped ominously. "Sucked dry, they say." I shivered. Anyone hearing that story was going to think of Succubi as terrible demons to be feared and attacked on sight. And I was a Succubus. Oh great.
"Looking at you Richy-chan, I don"t think you"re at that sort of level yet but as a Succubus it might be possible for you to do so in the future since you"re fully equipped to do so." Fully equipped? What was she looking at when she said that? "However weak-minded Erim here is a pushover and it would have been easy for you to enchant him
him with your limited Succubus powers and manipulate him into bringing you here to me."
"I"m not being manipulated by Richy-san!" Erim protested, to no avail.
"Be quiet Erim. Drunkards always say that they aren"t drunk." She waved her hand around the tavern, indicating her experience in dealing with drunkards. "You"re just the same in this regard."
I had to agree with her, Erim was obviously irrational in my presence for some strange reason and his utterances on my behalf couldn"t be trusted. So how could I make her trust me by myself? Sumirensan went on to answer my question, unfortunately.
"The powers of fascination of a Succubus do not work on women, however." she said with a purposeful glint in her eye. "So I will now examine you myself to determine the truth."
"Can you actually do that?"
"My examination will be a bit rough. Brace yourself." she warned. What was she going to do to me? However, to gain her trust and get her to believe me I"d accept anything, bear any pain. Focussing on that goal, I prepared myself for the ordeal to come and nodded.
"Your eyes are honest and beautiful," she said. "I could come to like them." She smiled and then went to one knee on the floor before me.
"This won"t hurt a bit." she rea.s.sured me as she gripped the hem on the one-piece dress I was wearing while fixing her gaze at my midriff. "It"ll be over in a flash." What? I pushed down on Sumirensan"s hands reflexively as she started to lift my skirt.
"What are you trying to do to me?" I screamed.
"I"m trying to lift up your skirt." she said matter-of-factly. Pardon? She said that in such an off-hand manner I was dumbfounded.
"Ummm, can I ask why you want to do that?" I enquired, madly rational for a moment.
"Pantymancy, it"s an infallible indicator of the true essence of a woman." she explained. "Because underwear is normally hidden from view under everyday circ.u.mstances then inevitably a woman who is conscious of a man and wishes to
wishes to entrap him will spice up her choice of underwear appropriately. This is not limited to Succubi, it"s true for all living creatures." Saying that Sumirensan tried to lift up the skirt of the one-piece dress I was wearing. I desperately resisted her attempt to forcibly expose my nether regions.
"W- w- wait, stop it, please stop it!"
"If you want to stay in our tavern, please allow me to do this." Sumirensan chided. "I"ll trust you if your panties are plain and undecorated." Her eyes hardened as she pulled and tugged at my skirt hem. "However, if you are wearing sheer or overly-gaudy panties, well, I"m sorry but I would have to think you"ve got something planned for poor Erim here and you"ll have to leave right now."
"I understand what you"re saying but what you"re doing is wrong! Stop it please!" I cried, still trying to hold the hem down against her superior force.
"It"s looking more and more suspicious if you try to hide it like this!" she said. "No way, are they see-through? Or crotchless!" she gasped.
What is crotchless? I wondered. It didn"t sound good. "I"m not wearing anything like that! I"d never wear anything like that!" Whatever they were.
"If you don"t wear anything like that then show me!" she raised the hem a little more as I struggled. "I"ll allow you a little lace but the panties have to be white. Once I can see them I"ll know if you"re just being neat and feminine or whether you"re truly a Succubus planning to enrage a man"s l.u.s.t with your choice of underwear!"
"Please please please! Think of another way of doing this please!" I begged.
"Why are you being so stubborn about trying to conceal your panties!?" Sumirensan countered. "I"m not going to rip off your underwear to investigate whether you"re a virgin or not. Is it that your panties are so ecchi that you can"t show them to anyone?!"
"I"m not wearing any panties! I can"t show them to you because I"m not wearing anything under there!" I screamed. Just then the hem of myhem of my skirt rose above my knees to the middle of my thighs. It was stupid of me to try and stop her, I couldn"t fight off the orc"s strength or the lascivious attacks of Erim"s companions, Succubi were weak creatures physically and even Sumirensan"s womanly muscles were beyond my capability to resist no matter how much I struggled.
"That"s even worse!" Sumirensan shouted. "Let me see for myself! Let go, come on! Show. Me. Everything!"
"Stop, I told you, Sumirensan, I"m not wearing anything down theeeeeeere!" I sobbed as she flipped the hem of the dress up to just under my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
-- it resembled the finest golden silk threads glittering and sparkling brightly in the lamplight.
Splat!! A spray of fresh blood bloomed. Erim who had been paralysed watching the battle between me and Sumirensan had a nosebleed like a manga character seeing something he shouldn"t have seen as I tried desperately to hide my nakedness. Erim"s nosebleed didn"t stop and an ocean of blood spread inexorably across the floor even after my concealing skirt fell back in place.
For a time neither of us were able to move but finally Sumrensan stopped staring at a certain part of my Succubus anatomy lying just below my navel. Ignoring Erim who was white-faced and unconscious from his nosebleed Sumirensan knelt on the floor before me and bowed deeply in dogeza, fingertips together and touching her brow to the floor. It looked like the extremely polite welcome a well-bred landlady of a high-cla.s.s inn might bestow on an honoured guest when they first arrived at her door.
"Welcome, please consider this unworthy establishment as your own home." she said formally.
So it looked like I had found a decent place to stay on the first day of my reincarnation which was lucky of me, I suppose although it didn"t really make up for everything I had lost or what I had gone through.
"…………I am much obliged to you." I just managed to reply to her welcome with equal formality. It had been a h.e.l.l of a day and I was emotionally drained.