"Trainee Tyrkanzyaka!"

I called the vampire back as she was about to leave. Tilting her parasol slightly, she turned only her head to look at me.

"What is it?"

"It was just a dog barking. Don't take it too personally. I'll help you."

"Take it personally? Ho. Leaving aside whether my feelings were hurt, what exactly do you propose to help with?"

Better to bury the memory altogether than make a clumsy show of concern. Tsk. Covering for the Regressor was hard work.

I promptly reached out and took the vampire's hand. It was so small and slender that I felt I could hide it inside my palm. As she flinched, I gently wrapped my hand around hers.

"What do you think you are doing?"

What did it look like? Holding her hand.

But that probably wasn't the answer she wanted. She was rebuking me for rudely taking a lady's hand without permission. Though in this case, "a mature lady" meant mature in the aged-to-perfection sense.

Anyway, rather than make excuses...

"Your hand is nice and cool."

"Cool?"

"Yes. Like stumbling across a tree's shade in summer. Just the right temperature to make you feel good. I think it would stay refreshing no matter how long I held it."

A slightly cheesy line. Taking advantage of her momentary speechlessness, I tugged her hand. She could have pulled free, but her bewildered mind couldn't settle on what to do.

My hand became a signpost for her directionless heart. She followed my lead without resistance.

Drawing the vampire closer with one hand, I stretched my other arm out toward Azi. Wary of the approaching vampire once more, Azi looked up when she saw me.

"Hey, Azi."

"Grr... woof."

"You little rascal. Calm down. What are you, salt? A little water won't kill you. What's got you so upset?"

"Woof?"

"Cheer up! Paw!"

"Woof!"

Azi immediately raised her hand. Chuckling, I tickled her chin. Meanwhile, little by little, I slowly pulled the vampire's hand closer. Azi's hand and the vampire's drew nearer.

'Surely not. Is he trying to make me touch the King of Dogs? How childish.'

Realizing what I was attempting, the vampire hesitated. Her hand stopped moving. She was afraid of making contact.

Not because she feared being attacked. Azi was the King of Dogs, who accepted humans alone. And so the vampire had never been welcomed by any dog. Whenever she walked through a village, its dogs either barked furiously or fled with a whimper.

Thus, every encounter between the vampire and a dog had ended in one-sided rejection.

"It's all right. My dog doesn't bite."

I guided her gently. After a moment's hesitation, she relaxed her hand as though giving me leave to do as I pleased. As for Azi, well, she wasn't resisting me.

I drew their hands closer until one rested over the other.

Naturally, nothing dramatic happened merely because they touched. The vampire didn't shed tears of emotion, nor did Azi bare her teeth.

Leaving aside the fact that the vampire couldn't cry and Azi couldn't harbor hostility toward humans.

What had just happened was simply that insignificant.

I pointed this out to the vampire.

"Dogs bark and shy away from people's hands all the time. A suspicious dog will bark first even at an ordinary stranger. So from now on, just because a dog is a little afraid of you, don't read so much into it and start saying the King of Dogs is your enemy or that you're not human."

Then I turned and glared at Azi. She gazed back at me with bright, wide-open eyes.

"And you, Azi. No barking at people for no reason. Bad dog! Don't you know who this is?"

"Woof?"

"Try living that long yourself. Age is like dust—the more you accumulate, the more it clings to everything you do. Sadly, there's nothing you can do about it. But if you bark at her just because her age shows a little in her mannerisms, how do you think she fee—Ow! Why are you hitting me again?"

"The price of your insolence. Impudent wretch."

The vampire gave a derisive snort.

"You are several times more insolent than either the King of Dogs or Shei. Your very assumption that something so trivial would upset me is misguided."

"Then stop hitting me if you're not upset!"

"You do not restrain your words. Why should I restrain my actions?"

This time, the vampire reached out. Her tiny hand flicked my forehead. Something touched it with a light tap.

It didn't hurt at all. If anything, it was merely a little cold.

With a pleased smile, she withdrew her hand.

"And regardless of what you do, I have no intention of waiting on the King of Dogs. If I am the only one beside her, she will run utterly wild. I would rather not wrestle with a fiercely resisting Beast King."

"I wasn't really expecting you to do any labor, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka. Don't you know me? As you've seen, whatever else I may lack, my manners are impeccable."

"...?"

'Aha. The manners I know must have vanished in this age. I thought these young people were exceptionally rude, but if the times have changed, I suppose that explains it.'

What kind of ridiculous misunderstanding was that?

Me, rude? How strange. Who in the world respected seniority as diligently as I did?

"Anyway, to sum up, these are everyone's positions, right? Me: Azi needs a bath. Trainee Shei: doesn't like the idea of any filthy man except himself washing Azi. Trainee Tyrkanzyaka: you lot do the work. Is that everything?"

"Woof! Me! I don't want a bath!"

"You shut up!"

"Whine."

"Listen carefully, everyone. I have a brilliant plan that will resolve everything at once."

With solemn determination, I declared:

"Now, first, I will wash Azi... but only 'part' of her."

"Part?"

I explained my plan to my puzzled audience.

"I originally wanted to wash her whole body, but with Trainee Shei objecting so strongly, that can't be helped. Instead, I'll scrub Azi's hands, feet, and hair... the furry parts, very thoroughly. Until there's no more fur to shed or dust to cling to them."

My main objective was to get rid of Azi's loose fur and dirt. As long as that was guaranteed, I could compromise on the rest.

"After that, Trainee Shei, who wants to caress Azi all over, can wash the rest. I'll turn a blind eye to a reasonable amount of personal gratification. Let him handle the washing himself. Unlike Trainee Shei, I'm purely concerned with hygiene and cleanliness, so as long as he uses enough water and soap, I don't particularly care what he does with Azi. Though I do resent it a little."

"Stop slandering me! I'm not planning to do anything to Azi either!"

Ignoring the Regressor's protest, I continued.

"And Trainee Tyrkanzyaka, please supervise Trainee Shei and me from a neutral standpoint. Never mind me, but there's no telling what Trainee Shei might do with that head full of dirty thoughts."

"I told you, I won't do anything!"

"Well, what can I do? According to Trainee Shei, regardless of a man's intentions or inner character, lust apparently springs into being the moment he touches a woman's body. I want to be a good person, so I'll give it up. Instead, I'll hand this opportunity over to you."

"Stop making things up about me! I—!"

Apparently furious at the relentless teasing, the Regressor sprang to her feet and shouted.

"I'm telling you, I like men!"

Well, of course. She was a woman.

Unlike me, however, the vampire was profoundly shocked.

"W-what? A man... likes men?"

The vampire's eyes widened at this shocking coming-out from someone she had come to consider her pupil. So astonished was she that she instinctively clutched the back of her neck, despite not suffering from high blood pressure.

Swaying for a moment, she waved a hand.

"I-it is all right. The world is vast, and the times have changed once more. Such things can happen."

"N-no. Wait. Tyrkanzyaka. This isn't—"

"I understand. I do understand, but... would you give me a little space?"

Finally disowned by the vampire, the Regressor stood there looking blank before glaring at me, fuming. She had brought this on herself, so I wasn't sure why she was glaring at me like her mortal enemy.

Anyway, no one opposed my proposal.

"Woof! Woof, woof! Me! I don't want a bath!"

Not a single person opposed my proposal. Three to zero. Passed unanimously.

Azi kept barking something, but dogs didn't have voting rights. If she didn't like it, she could get an ID issued and have the law changed. Of course, if she tried passing off a dog license as an ID, she'd go straight into the pot with soybean paste.

With public support secured, I immediately set about washing Azi.

"Whine, whine..."

Azi stretched her arm out as far as she possibly could and turned her head away as though she couldn't bear to look. She seemed ready to detach her own hand, now covered in water and suds, if only she could. Unmoved, I firmly poured water over it and rubbed it vigorously with laundry soap. Each time, Azi squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered as though trapped in a nightmare.

"Ugh. Look at all this filthy water. It makes my skin crawl to think you've been walking around with hands like these."

Pitch-black water mixed with golden fur flowed into the drain and vanished. I could only offer boundless gratitude to Mother Earth for accepting even this filthy water.

Azi was a dog. She wore a human shell, but the traits dwelling within her body were canine. Though she didn't sweat a single drop anywhere else on her body, her palms and soles had sweat glands and quickly grew damp when she ran around. Sweat, fur, and dust then clumped together into something beyond description.

I practically scraped Azi's soft palms clean. Even when she squirmed from the tickling, I forced her hands open and scrubbed. It was closer to laundering or scouring than bathing. Beads of sweat ran down me, but for the sake of hygiene in Tantalus, I absolutely could not compromise on this.

The sight of me silently scrubbing away every kind of filth was positively sacred. Surely the Regressor, who had accused me of impure intentions, would reflect on her behavior after seeing this. These dispassionate hands, moving solely in the pursuit of cleanliness, without a trace of lust...

"... How obscene."

"What?"

Wait. What had I just heard?

I looked up to find the vampire shielding her eyes with one hand as though she couldn't bear to watch.

"Fondling the hand of a moaning woman in such a lewd manner. It is indecent. What could that be if not obscenity?"

I'd forgotten. The vampire was an old fogey whose morals dated back twelve centuries. To her, even a man and woman holding hands carried an obscene implication!

"No, leaving aside why holding hands is obscene, she's a dog."

"And is that not why I am merely watching instead of using my strength to punish you? Still, obscenity is obscenity, regardless... How scandalous. Shei's concerns were not entirely unfounded."

"Fucking hell."

At this rate, she'd call interlacing fingers an entangling of bodies. I ignored her and concentrated on laundering Azi.

As I washed her, whenever my soapy fingers worked through Azi's thick fur or between her fingers, I had to listen to disapproving murmurs of:

"Oh, my."

"Hmm."

"Tsk."

How miserable. All I wanted was to live somewhere clean, yet here I was, being called obscene for washing a dog's hands and feet. If I'd actually done something obscene, at least I wouldn't feel so wronged.

Even being scolded by a mother-in-law for poor housekeeping would have been less depressing.

"They say a normal person becomes the abnormal one when surrounded by abnormal people..."

I lamented as I washed Azi's hand.

For some reason, the Regressor and the vampire nodded as though they agreed.

I was going to burst with frustration.

'That man. He's good at handling Azi and Tyrkanzyaka.'

With both hands and feet covered in suds, the King of Dogs was now having her hair washed. Even with her head tilted back and a towel covering her forehead, she kept her eyes and mouth shut for fear of stray splashes. The vampire was fiddling with her own hair and muttering things like "How scandalous."

Watching them quietly, the Regressor sank into thought.

'Neither Azi nor Tyrkanzyaka fundamentally hates humans. Neither of them could exist without humans. And yet.'

But in the previous run...

The vampire had been fated to lead an army of blood against the Holy See and suffer defeat... The Regressor had intervened a step ahead, successfully preventing the vampires' uprising and winning them over as allies, but she hadn't resolved their age-old grudge.

Azi had become a monster that tore into humans with tooth and claw. Though the Regressor hadn't witnessed her end, she must have died somewhere on the battlefield. Back then, the Regressor had cut down countless beasts, beastkin, and the mastermind behind the plan.

Compared with the women they were now, that transformation defied all common sense.

'What on earth happened to them in the previous run? No.'

The Regressor turned her eyes toward the man washing Azi. Too flippant in speech and action to seem like an instructor, not quite convincing as a powerful fighter, yet someone whose depths she couldn't fathom.

An outsider who had suddenly appeared in Tantalus.

And the only one who hadn't been there when Tantalus collapsed.

'That man. What on earth did he do to them?'

Without knowing the future, she couldn't be certain. The Regressor had pursued the past, but history had changed the moment she entered this place.

'I originally intended to eliminate every variable, but he was stronger than I expected. So I changed my plan and decided to keep watching what he did instead... But I've already interfered, so I don't know whether this is the original course of events. Things have diverged too far. All I can do now is piece things together from the clues I had before regressing.'

The Regressor's gaze turned downward from the rooftop that housed the water tank, the highest point in Tantalus.

Toward the man who would still be lying silent somewhere below.

'The witness who saw all of this happen inside Tantalus... the undying one. When will he open his eyes? Matching the timing of his awakening with his testimony might tell me something.'

Repeated splashes of water washed the suds from Azi's body. Her lustrous golden-brown fur gleamed even in the dim light. After a cursory toweling, Azi shook her head. Droplets clinging to her fur flew in every direction, and the man, drenched by the spray, grew angry.

It was an idyllic, peaceful scene. The vampire was stable, and Azi was healthy. If this daily life continued, these former pieces of the apocalypse would walk out of Tantalus just as peaceful as they were now...

It couldn't happen, but how nice it would be if it did.

The Regressor emerged from her reverie.

At the same moment, my eyes, too, grew somber as I peered into those memories.