???

"(Sealing your memory data will consequently affect your physical mind. Once it reaches back to your body, your consciousness will turn distinctly from your original self. Although your skills can be kept inside your brain of yours, redoing your talent can only lead to heartache. After all, I merely sealed some of your old memory data regarding your previous world..)"

The words came to Mirai Shizuku — who trusted Vally to accompany her for guidance. She recalled nothing from her origin aside from Vally’s hint. She arrived in an unfamiliar world — a place worth exploring for starters.

Yet, she could feel a gnawing gap in her heart.

Her pride and intentions.

In fact, despite being a grown-up woman, her cluelessness and naivety had outgrown her, forcing her to go with the flow, not caring whether it may have the best result or not. She has to explore this world.

Otherwise, her life would be all for naught but a cage.

She had to act like a tax collector who sought the benefits for the government’s rightful innovation. But first, she has to enjoy its contentment found in another world.

Hence, she got up from her coffin and noted herself about her fresh existence.

* * *

River Camp - Outskirts away from the Kingdom of Reversia

The night was glowing under the dim moonlight. The waterwall drew the flowage with rough burbling sound and hurried currents. There were camping tents and bags— further away from the riverway.

There were only two persons, specifically, both of them were ladies.

A raven-haired lady had crimson eyes, huge bust, and curvaceous hips.

While the other was the lady with the same color hair as the first one except she had bangs on her forehead and a slight — very slight difference from a certain crimson-eyed lady regarding its anatomical proportions. For example, her measurement of bust size and waistline.

Both of them had the color as the raven, all-black passerine bird.

And each of them had the names of Mirai Shizuku and Juliette van Vermiculo.

Juliette was busy showering herself beneath the waterfall while Mirai was sleeping on a certain bedsheet which she took from a certain placeholder.

Juliette was fully naked in the middle of the water while Mirai only wore the dress that came out from a certain cabinet — white lingerie.

She didn't consider it as theft if the owner itself left it behind (probably being tormented by some red coats), so she had the freedom to conserve the leftover stuff.

"Foo, it feels delightfully relaxing," said by a bathing crimson-eyed lady. "I wonder if I smelled stinky for an entire day."

She had been sweating out for many hours, and the salty scent reeked around its moistness. Her body felt floppy around her joints as she needed to stretch her fatigue for an awakening state to normal. The breathtaking water pierced around her skin as it cleansed all-around dirt that stuck on her pores. She cracked her fingers to start the pain for washing the fatigue away from her still joints.

Her mind purely focused on the bath as she washed her hair and entire body.

Mirai had somehow opened her eyes, lingering her eyelids to a constant wake.

She tried to open her eyes, blurring bubbles made her eyes teary.

Until the blur had completely faded away, she realized that someone else caught her. Her first feeling was sole anxiety, slightly giggling her legs with probable fear.

But as she gazed around her surroundings, her feelings had constantly shifted to serene — including that she caught the eye of a conspicuous raven-haired woman with somewhat a motherly like figure bathing beneath its falling water.

"Mother?" Mirai murmured while trying to figure out who she exactly was.

But the answer turned out to be false — the actual answer was Juliette van Vermiculo.

Inspecting while standing up from a bedsheet, her viewpoint suddenly changed from a mother to a stranger. Mirai also realized that she had worn certain white lingerie from somewhere else — which mentioned that it was from a certain cabinet.

Curiously trying to perceive, Mirai undressed her white lingerie and creeped behind her as if she made sure not to create a single noise to surprise her. She tried not to be stupid but also needed to take a bath while setting her plan behind a conspicuous woman.

Until Mirai successfully reached the edges of its riverway, she normally felt the chilling breeze from the water while walking in the shallow heading towards the strange woman who was bathing underneath its waterfall. That woman's ears could bother the noises.

However…

"..."

Meanwhile, Juliette suddenly felt vigilant that someone tried to sneak behind her and was probably aiming to assassinate her, but she also showed that the movement did not belong to a certain newbie or professional assassin. On second thought, she let herself enjoy back into bathing.

Until Mirai grabbed the chance — or perhaps, the pair-chested cantaloupes with her two bare hands groping from behind.

"Hey lady? What bust size do you have?" Mirai gently caressed Juliette's bust.

"Wheee!"

It turned out that Mirai awkwardly introduced herself when she oddly questioned about her size, and somehow, Juliette suddenly moaned and blushed as a chain reaction of being groped by someone with a strange woman's voice. Slick, fluffy touch from her breast intrigued Mirai for a rapid wiggle.

Juliette turned away from her chest as she glared eye-to-eye.

"For Pete's sake! What is your reason for groping my chest?!" Juliette cried while covering her breast with her intertwined arms. "We haven't introduced ourselves in a bit, and somehow, is this what it looks like having the first question with another woman?"

Apparently, Juliette didn't piss at her, but in fact, she was trying to detest Mirai's sense of womanhood.

Mirai felt her sense of guilt, thinking not all women had to pursue another.

"What has gotten into you lately? Were you boozing in the middle of the party?" sighed Juliette while placing her right hand onto her waist.

"Boozing? Do I look like a drunk lady who was desperate to have sex with some fuckboys in the middle of the pub?" Mirai placed her right hand to her chest for exaggeration. "Maybe you need a bit of rationale about different lifestyles as a human being."

Juliette urged herself that she wanted to punch straight to Mirai's face, but she casually ignored that idea and called out for a bit. Her desperation had led to something that she had traumatized before — something she bothered with preoccupying ruckus.

"How about you? What has gotten into you also?" Mirai asked her back.

"No, nothing at all."

Mirai nodded with her awe of curiosity. She could not empathize with her because of her clueless reasons, so to fix their conversation, she shoved it away and demanded to ask for their self-introduction.

"Hey! Strawberry- eyed lady! Who are you? Was it you who gave me a hand? "

Actually, Mirai was the only one who saved herself from the priests, although she had the look of a different persona. Juliette was coincidentally a fetcher that somehow stumbled upon Mirai's monstrous and unconscious state at the right time.

Once again, Juliette had a bit of the boiling head in her mark, but she chose not to do so.

"My name is Juliette van Vermiculo, commander-in-chief of Black Resort Division and a maiden under the House of Delicia."

Juliette grabbed her first turn as a starting point.

Meanwhile, Mirai had no clues of what her name and occupation meant, other than she solely familiarized how it looked like when giving a formal introduction.

"What a pretty name though!" complimented Mirai. "Looks like you came from a certain aristocratic class."

Mirai's guesses were definitely right based on Juliette's introduction. Despite being a maiden under the House of Delicia, Juliette was once a member of her own household, House of Vermiculo. She also mentioned that she was a naïve and pathetic child back in her days, showing that she had something that she kept holding it deeply, but what could it be? What was the "something" being important to her?

Mirai introduced herself without a warning.

"I am Mirai Shizuku! A 25-year-old woman with...….. Huh?"

Mirai realized with hesitation.

Thinking about it, she had informed herself of a certain succubus spirit named Vally who held the responsibility of safeguarding her previous memory data of the time of her previous world, excluding the personal information about herself like a birth certificate. That was the reason she left herself astray.

"Hm?"

Juliette did not understand around her cause of awkwardness in the middle of their self-introduction during their first meeting. Surely, she thought, Mirai had some amnesia, but not in an instant circumstance. That was pretty much as she could predict around her.

"Is there something wrong? For sure, you were not blacked out for a bit," Juliette exasperatedly sighed.

"Yeah, there is definitely something wrong about me, but it's not important to search for."

"That's great, I hope we can build each other up.... Hey! How about we pick up some food for our dinner? Fishes are crawling under the water."

"Sure!"

"Good," she planted her hand down to the water. "Here's one!"

Juliette successfully caught a living edible fish from underneath her in an instant move of her hand. But behind her secret was the fact that she had an internal factor within her eyes, showing like a thermal camera view to grab its easy opportunity.

She attempted back for a second catch.

And…

"Here's two… for us."

Unbelievably, Mirai left herself with a bit of her gasp. She thought a woman like her could do such a thing.

"How about leaving the bath for a time? I will go grab some wood then we'll do the firing."

"Eh?" .

Ignoring her dumbfounded feeling, Juliette finally left the bath on first, followed by Mirai while finding something to dry herself with.

"Here's your towel!"

Juliette threw a certain cloth towards Mirai while carefully placing down two caught fishes. And somehow, Mirai could not catch it at the right time.

"Guess we'll do the work for your reflexes soon," Juliette slowly shook her head.

Mirai grabbed the towel that laid on the ground and used it to wipe her entire body, starting from head to toe. Meanwhile, Juliette dressed in a scarlet two-piece bikini suit, a pair of black high heels, and fingerless laces. She was preparing for departure to hunt some woods.

"I'll be back in a brief time," Juliette winked with a teasing giggle. "Make sure these fishes don't get away back to the river."

Mirai agreeably nodded.

Once Juliette left the camp in a temporary lapse, Mirai suddenly dressed in white lingerie that she had worn from her sleep and sat on the sheet where she slept for moments ago.

“(I guess this is my first salvation in the otherworld… I wonder if Vally safeguarded my memory data well.)” Mirai thought over her wonder.

"Are you calling me?" a sudden cheerful female voice had heard from her mind. "How do you feel about the unfamiliar world you reset in?"

The surprising voice shocked Mirai.

"Vally?"

Somehow, there was no single physical presence of a certain succubus named Vally who symbolized herself as — votum. Was it her invisibility? Or a sole metaphysical existence? Mirai could only know her from the beginning.

"Yes! That's me! Didn't I tell you? I will always be here for you to be provided with some guidelines regarding this world and your ability."

"Yeah! About that? Where are we right now?"

"Hmmm… you're in a world named Terra, specifically somewhere outskirts from the Kingdom of Reversia."

"And my ability?"

"It's called Dark Matter, where most elementary particles don't exist in this world, or we can say that they do unknowingly exist in the universe. Specifically, your ability is the same as mine, but only that I have the absolute capacity than yours. You solely can create cold, warm, and hot elements in any matter. For example, try to cast out something small but flammable in a limited manner."

On the first thought, she could not believe that her ability that she stated — was a kind of that marvelous. She would even tell her first word as "I really don't believe this jerk at all!", but, she already sent herself to this otherworld with fantastical elements that might have sounded unfamiliar to a normal yet former successful Japanese woman who had brought a certain company to a greater determination.

Instead of disbelieving, she tried in a small start.

Mirai extended her right arm like a typical magician would do when aiming towards the river.

"Is this it?"

"You're still in the first step."

"Then what is the next step? How many steps do I need to cast out?"

"Two, and you're in the last one… just picture out what I mentioned seconds ago."

"Yes."

Mirai had a bit of nervousness upon imagining something "small but flammable in a limited manner". She did not understand what and how her Dark Matter worked, other than Vally mentioned that Mirai could just create cold, warm, and hot elements in any matter. Following the basis, she tried to plan her particular scenario.

"(Small but flammable in a limited manner.)"

What did the "limited manner" mean to her?

"I don't care if this is how it goes!" Mirai cried. "But here it comes!!"

Suddenly, the burst which came out from Mirai's right hand had unleashed its certain bullet-like particles which had a single flammable circular object shooting towards the water. However, that "limited manner" didn't match Vally's expectation. The booming effect with a big splash of water had created its effect of a slight seismically transmitting quake around the nearby hit target.

"Woah!"

"I told you to form it in a limited manner! You air-headed slut!!" yelled Vally.

The targeted area was vastly and incredibly devastated when a quarter of the water exceedingly evaporated to a certain phenomenon wherein she planted a certain flammable object beyond its average temperature of a normal flammable matter like a firestorm or such.

"I'm sorry!" Mirai knelt and bowed down her upper body and like a regretful dog. "I apologize that I caused this total devastation."

"I wonder how many casualties are there?"

"I could've rejected your offer."

Anyhow, Juliette might have heard of noise or sensed something strange from the source where Mirai nearly caused the calamity of abusing mother nature, but she could just pass by the problem and wait for her circumstance if she would bear the responsibility of making a ruckus around the camp. At least, all the equipment was normally safe.

Except…

"Looks like your white lingerie had blown away to pieces also," said Vally.

Looking down at her bottom part, she realized that she inadvertently exposed her bare breasts and vulva.

"Gaaah!!"

Or she unintentionally revealed herself fully exposed.

Once she was embarrassingly shocked, she immediately headed towards the tent to find some spare clothes, but unfortunately, there was nothing to find but two fishes and some sleeping materials.

"Might be under the bed sheet!"

Looking underneath it, it remained empty on a clear ground.

"Gaaaah!"

She screamingly gasped, which was the effect of her total embarrassment.

But why did her white lingerie have torn away to pieces? Was it because of her Dark Matter ability?

"Oh, I forgot about one thing, your Dark Matter has externally lived around your body, so if you activate your ability to a certain limitation, any foreign tangible materials most especially your clothes will reactively tear away because of your external charging particles reforming to one certain singularity of your own ideal matter."

"So that means?"

"Whether cotton, silk, wool, cashmere, linen, and even steel alike are very much prone to be damaged easily by the activation of your Dark Matter concentration, especially when you try to charge it from your external factor," Vally explained further.

"You could've said it a while ago," sighed Mirai. "I don't even know that this Dark Matter ability of mine could just externally tear my clothes off in a total obliteration."

"Well, the only way to prevent it is to avoid it — it's either you have to stay naked constantly, or just temporarily dress when you're in a non-combat state."

"Say what?!!"

As a woman with a former fashionable sense, she could not deserve this kind of instance and would lead her to an ultimate level of an embarrassing moment. Even if Vally pitied towards Mirai, she could not think of any alternatives because she bore the ability of Dark Matter.

"Well, you can minimally balance the factor. For that, you will have no problem carrying your spare clothes. "

There were no possibilities to reduce its function or mechanism around her ability. The only thing for Mirai to conserve herself and to deal with the impossibilities was to agree with Vally's suggestion that she mentioned about minutes ago. Being an exhibitionist was the only unfortunate solution to provide a conservative method despite its shamefulness, but according to Vally's suggestion, it was the best recommendation for her recharge.

"Well, I think I have no other choice," Mirai shrugged. "Rather than being naked in the middle of combat is convenient, but I also have to give some manners to some men who dare to feast me with their ogling eyes."

"You can use your ability to fend for yourself through them… if you professionally know how to use it."

"Then how? Can you even teach me how to do it?"

"I've already taught you about it. Two steps and you're ready. I'll just give you a single tip for now. Try to imagine and recognize its ideal form. That's it. Anyway, just call my codename 'Vally', and I'll be there to guide you further."

"..."

She somehow nodded as a sign of agreement.

"Anyway, your partner will be here soon! So you can stop talking over yourself for now! I'll be off for now!"

"Hey! Wait a minute!"

Henceforth, Vally's presence had somewhat disappeared with no actual replies.

Mirai would have asked her last question, but she would not also try to insist on her spiritual companion to do what she meant to be pleased.

So she drew herself out with her desperate sigh.

"What's going on around here?"

A sudden familiar voice had overheard around Mirai's eyes.

It was soothing yet aggressive because she had an alluring voice sounding like a certain popular star from Charlie's Angel.

Once Mirai turned her head behind, she saw a crimson-eyed woman with the same dark-colored hair — carrying some wood for the campfire.

It was Juliette van Vermiculo.

"Ha ha ha! You're finally back," Mirai sarcastically laughed.

"What in the damnation is this?" Juliette dropped the wood because of her shocking reaction. "You've totally blown this place up, didn't you?"

"It was not me! I swear to god that I am just a normal lady who has stumbled onto this sudden devastation!"

"Stop lying, you fool!" Juliette exasperatedly cried. "You're the only human that could do such a bustle to this case created by a certain rational being — which is you and yourself alone."

"(Damn… for a second time, I was being blamed by this Juliette hag.)"

Juliette knew everything that happened minutes ago. She had a clairvoyant ability for the detection of farther distance. Based on her suspicion, she could tell that this unusual self-proclaimed normal lady was a culprit behind this incident all along. But she also understood that the reason behind her white lie was because of her oblivious intentions, considering that it was just an accident for the entire time.

"Let's just get back to work," sighed Juliette. "After all, my tummy is aching for dinner."

"Yeah, I'll go grab two fishes that you've caught."

Fortunately, Juliette kept two fish inside a tent, so it was the sight of relief that Mirai could not mess up their food.

Both of them were preparing for a cooking session such as gathering and setting the wood closely into one place. Mirai was piercing through the fish with a sharp tip of a narrow yet long wooden stick, while Juliette was rubbing the stick towards the piece of grass heap which she placed it on the top of the main variety of firing wood.

Once they finished their set-up, they finally placed two stick-pierced fishes in a diagonal position while arranging the under hold to proper gravitation to let it cook through a radiating mechanism or — grill.

"By the way, where is your white lingerie that I gave you a while ago?" asked Juliette.

"I don't know… it has disappeared for some reason."

Mirai immediately took the bedsheets to cover up her entire body to prevent the cool breeze that might affect her for such consequent causes. Juliette had no issues regarding her two-piece bikini suits being solely worn as her everyday outfit — she also had black high-heeled boots and fingerless laces with her which could add more to its seductive tone.

"That's okay, I'll go grab some spare ones for you later on," Juliette sighed. "Looks like I have to go back from a certain mansion for a pickup and further investigation."

"Wait? So we're not going to your homeplace?"

"Don't worry, some of my subordinates will handle some cases," replied Juliette. "I mostly chose women who will do the investigation in a mansion, and there are also others who are men too, so I assigned them to somewhere different yet correlated to this current aim."

"Good, I hope there are no single perverts who would try to feast their eyes towards me and my entire body."

"It's fine, I've already trained them to alter their self-control."

"..."

With that, they paused their conversation with a sudden voiceless response since both of them did not want to force their chat with inappropriate topics. However, something that made Mirai curious had resumed their talk.

"What does this world look like, anyway?"

"..."

"I really want to know if this world is worth venturing with my eternity."

Juliette had a moment of silence, thinking about how her life had adapted within herself.

"I really don't know," she finally answered. "Other than that there is a presence of war likely caused by the political and territorial dispute. Economic corruption is a thing here and some nobles and masters alike may accumulate whatever they want to please themselves which has nothing to bring its beneficial factors other than their self-delight for just naught."

"That sounds cruel," Mirai reacted pitifully. "Thinking about it, I really can't remember a single thing when I got to this world. Maybe I came from another world where I was originally born, but I am still confused about how and why I may be a vital character who will fulfill something in this world."

"No need to worry! I'll give some bit of a tour after tonight."

"How about your house master?.... Delicia, right?"

"Oh him! He's a good youthful man," replied Juliette. "Despite his ugly and fat look, he is a man with a compassionate heart. His task is to investigate the matter of the problem and solve the cases with my help to further things up with proper research and clues that are relevant for alleging every criminal. Also, he has perverted fetishes about me… so I have to taste his 'thing-in-the-bottom' to relieve his uncontrollable lust. You can say that I took 3-4 hours just to have an 'exercise' with him."

"Ehhh… He he he he he he he he he."

"Oh, have you thought about giving yourself some delightful taste?" Juliette teased her.

"No no no no no, that's not what I mean," Mirai blushed her cheeks. "If you want to prove it, so be it."

"Your pink-flushed cheeks are definitely one proof I had in front of my eyes."

"You smart old hag!"

"And that reaction of yours is the additional one."

With that, Mirai was left with no strength to argue. Juliette got the upper hand, which she could tell that her response was simple yet obvious evidence.

"The fishes are cooked," Mirai somehow shifted the topic to avoid any trouble.

"Good! My stomach is growling too."

Each of them grabbed one grilled fish and munched it with their own delicate refreshment which made them mouthwatering to the fact that it starved them for many hours, and one fish in each of their stomachs could fill two-third of its space.

No problems or objections could stop them.

All they had to do was to enjoy the food with grateful relief.

Spending the night had cost them to overwhelm them with their exceeding fatigue — causing them to sleep.