Thanks to Shiro's goodwill, I was able to take up residence in her grand mansion.
It was a welcome arrangement, but honestly, I wasn't used to it.
In this world, I'd spent half my time living in dumps, and the other half wandering around in a blind fury.
There had been occasions where I'd stayed in abandoned houses — ones whose owners had been lost, or driven out, or simply vanished — but I'd never once stayed anywhere as magnificent as this.
Actually, even counting my previous life, I don't think I'd ever seen a mansion this impressive.
Calling it lightly a "manor" would hardly be an overstatement — it was practically castle-sized.
Over the past few days, I'd been able to ask the mansion's servants all sorts of questions.
I would have preferred to hear things from Shiro directly, but she rarely opens her mouth.
She wasn't exactly talkative in her previous life either, but in this one she barely speaks at all.
Our exchange in that otherworldly space when we reunited had made that abundantly clear.
Communicating with Shiro is difficult.
So I went ahead and posed questions to the servants here and there, little by little.
Ideally I would have asked everything at once, but I felt bad about tying up people who had work to do for extended periods.
And thanks to that — or perhaps in spite of it — I'd managed to learn the faces and names of the mansion's staff, and I think we'd reached a point where we could talk fairly comfortably.
I was technically a guest, but I had no real status to speak of.
Rather than a guest, I asked them to think of me as a freeloading squatter, and some of the younger staff did exactly that.
As a result, I was able to have various conversations, and the things I'd been wanting to know gradually came to light.
First of all, this apparently was a country of the Demon race.
At some point, I'd crossed out of the Human race's territory and set foot into Demon race lands.
Not that it was any surprise I hadn't noticed.
Neither Humans nor Demons looked any different on the outside, and their lifestyles were more or less the same.
If someone hadn't told me, I never would have guessed they were Demons.
And apparently, demi-humans like me were virtually nonexistent here.
My mental image of the Demon race was something like a horde of devils, but apparently there were no Demons with wings or horns.
In other words, if I didn't hide my horns, I'd stick out like a sore thumb.
If I ever had to go outside, I'd better conceal them under a hat or something.
As for Shiro's true identity, even the servants in the mansion seemed unsure, and all manner of speculation was running rampant.
The Demon King's aide. The Demon King's sister. The Demon King's body double. And so on.
I'd heard she was acquainted with the Demon King, but hearing it again from other people's mouths still came as a surprise.
Moreover, piecing together the various rumors, it seemed she was on extremely close terms with the Demon King.
Some people even said they bore a resemblance — maybe they really were close relatives.
But it was all hearsay, so the only way to know for sure would be to ask her directly.
Shiro was a mystery.
I knew for certain she was a fellow reincarnator like me, but what she'd been doing in this world until now, I had no idea.
I was a little curious.
After all, she was obviously stronger than me.
I don't mean to brag, but I'm strong.
There had been a time when I genuinely believed there was no one in existence who could beat me.
It wasn't arrogance — the power I wielded when I activated Rage was, I believed, second to none in this world.
And yet, the moment I laid eyes on her, I was convinced I couldn't win.
I didn't even need to use Appraisal.
Why I felt that way, I honestly couldn't say myself.
But it was far too certain to be called mere instinct.
If I had to put a reason to it, it would be that otherworldly space.
Since I'd dabbled in spatial magic myself, I could read — at least in part, if not entirely — just how absurd that space was.
A vast expanse that seemed to stretch on without end.
A space where even the flow of time had been manipulated.
If the person who'd appeared through it hadn't been someone I recognized, I might have assumed it was the work of a god.
A god, huh.
What I remembered was the man in black who had defeated me in that battle.
The man who had brushed aside my Rage-fueled power as though I were a child and laid me flat with ease.
My Status should have been maxed out when I activated Rage.
There was no way anyone could have defeated that so effortlessly — not under normal circumstances.
Shiro had called that man a god.
Part of me wanted to ask why she had any connection to a god, but I wasn't sure she'd answer honestly.
Speak of the devil.
Shiro came to visit my room.
Her all-white attire gave off a distinctly unique atmosphere, and combined with her original beauty, it radiated a sort of untouchable sanctity.
The only differences from her previous life were that everything — her hair, her eyebrows, even her skin — had turned white.
And that she always kept her eyes closed.
I didn't know why she kept them shut.
But according to the servants' rumors, opening them would supposedly rip the soul right out of you.
When I invited Shiro into my room, an unexpected figure appeared from behind her.
"You!"
Apparently it was equally unexpected for them, too — their eyes went wide.
It was the vampire girl I'd fought on equal or greater footing back then.
If Shiro was to be believed, she was a fellow reincarnator and my former classmate, Negishi Akiko — but…
Hadn't she been the violent type who'd try to blast you with magic the moment she laid eyes on you?
"Ugh!"
Negishi's spell was stopped by Shiro.
Impressive.
In that single instant, she'd intervened in the spell's construction and crushed it.
I couldn't quite figure out what Skill would make such a feat possible.
Incidentally, Negishi's groan was produced because Shiro, as if to add insult to injury, drove a spinning kick into her side.
Yet Negishi's body didn't so much as flinch where the kick landed — unnaturally so, which meant it probably wasn't just an ordinary kick.
More importantly, was Negishi okay?
Her body was bent into an L-shape on the spot, and blood was gurgling from her mouth.
Bones that absolutely should not break in a human body were definitely broken, weren't they?
Shiro observed Negishi's condition, then calmly and forcibly straightened her contorted body back into shape.
From Negishi's mouth rose a scream so utterly indescribable it was almost beyond endurance.
Just hearing it felt like it could shave points off your SAN.
But the injury was already regenerating — impressive, to say the least.
Things had been crazy from the very start, so what was going to happen next?