Tamamo invited her guests to sit around the table. While Alma Elma and Micaela didn't hesitate in the slightest, Luka reluctantly took a place around the table. A second later, the wall Micaela opened closed behind them, sealing their only apparent exit.
The kitsune started pouring tea in cups according to an apparently complex ceremony. The hero felt uncomfortable hearing only the sound of tea being served without a word. The lack of sound from the waterfall informed him that the room was soundproofed, and anything could go into this room with everybody outside getting none the wiser. Furthermore, even the normally flirty succubus queen and the hyper energetic, bloodthirsty little seraph were silent, submitting tacitly to the game of the host. He looked at the content of his teacup, as if it was poisoned. As he saw everybody else take a sip, he took one too. The drink in itself had a unique taste that he was unfamiliar with, but was extremely enjoyable. It also was just hot enough to be optimally appreciated, neither boiling nor lukewarm.
Tamamo placed back her cup on the table, her expression serious.
"Let's cut to the point. I decided I really needed to see you after receiving a call from Mephisto, who is now dead shall I add, and then having a little conversation with Nanabi." She snapped her fan open, and started waving at herself. "Since the moment I saw Lilith a few weeks ago, every single conversation I had felt like a punch from a world going more and more stark raving mad. And I have a feeling this conversation is going to be no different." She then glared at Micaela. "So please, start explaining everything."
"I'll let Luka do it."
"Really?" The kitsune looked at the hero. "You must really be someone exceptional to be worthy of the trust of the one who used to be Ilias's first lieutenant."
Lucifina-chan proudly exclaimed herself. "Of course he is, he's my son!"
Tamamo blinked once, sniffed the air, then slowly exhaled as she closed her eyes. "This is actually true. As true as you were supposed to be dead, killed by a mysterious plague that then killed around half of Ilias Village population. Now please Luka. Tell. Me. Everything."
She attempted to glare to impress him, but immediately stopped herself when she noticed his hollow eyes. That were those of someone that had gone through more than what should be reasonably allowed to bear with in a lifetime.
And so Luka counted his story once again. The White Rabbit, the help of the twins, the other Tamamo in Grangold, the war with the Monster Lord followed by the plans of the angels and of the Lilith Sisters... Then he talked about the apparent time travelling offered by Reaper, and then the recruitment and the loss of Ilias with the death of Sonya… He did his best to count his adventure, only being interrupted by Tamamo who demanded more precise information on a given issue, or when she wanted to confirm something with one of the other interlocutors. It took a few hours, and at the end of it, Tamamo looked utterly washed up.
"This. Is. Insane." She massaged her head with her hands.
"I had the same reaction."
"I knew something was fishy when Lilith came by to get me back to the Monster Lord castle, but I didn't think it was that bad."
"When did the fiend came?"
"The eighth of this month."
"That'd be just after the destruction of Luddite Village."
"You might want to know they had already brought back Sphinx, and started some negotiations with Succubus Village. I don't know what it is about, but I don't think it bodes anything good for any human in the Gold Region. And unfortunately, I don't know much more on what's happening than what you already learned... The White Rabbit was mostly a legend, and the Monster Lord mostly kept me out of her plan since I didn't immediately jumped aboard." She shrugged. "I almost never talked with the Lilith Sisters since they came back. Not that they wanted to anyway."
"More surprises down the road… Exactly what we need." Luka sighed. "Why can't it just get simpler… I have the training to deal with every queen class monster one on one, it should have been going more easily."
Tamamo closed her fan and pointed her accessory at the hero. "They're reacting to you. From what you told me, they only considered you a noteworthy pawn in the past at the end of your adventure, when you were getting powerful enough. If you indeed started this adventure as powerful as you ended your last one, you were bound to attract their attention as early as your power was revealed to the world. I mean, your lineage alone made you quite a tasty morsel, and now you're quite the steak." She licked her lips to highlight her point, before starting to fan herself again. "But if their actions are that precise, it means that they knew a lot about your adventures…"
"Yes, and unfortunately, we found out what happened… Our Morrigan told them."
Luka took his head between his hands. "We heard her saying I already told you, please don't call me Morriluka again. If I knew the disasters she'd bring in, maybe I would not have recruited her."
"Only maybe?"
Luka's face reddened.
"Awww… Maybe you should have asked me instead." Alma Elma looked at Luka with predatory eyes. "I would have carried you to Heaven myself and avoided all that pesky mess with the Lilith Sisters."
"Why does it keep happening to meee…"
Micaela humorlessly chuckled. "Maybe you should consider smothering yourself in rotten fish. That would keep every monster at bay."
"Please can we all remain focused?" Tamamo chuckled in front of the small familial dispute. "There's still a lot more I want to know about, such as those twins and the White Rabbit. I also want to make sure the Sixteenth is still fine. Last, we can't stay here the whole day, you're supposed to bring a tanuki back if I'm right."
Luka nodded. "You're right. What do you suggest?"
"First, if it causes you no issue, I wish to accompany you. If you're right, I won't be able to act alone on my own, and if Mephisto's death is any indication, my own life may be on the line."
"Don't you think that will only attract more attention?"
"I made the preparations. Between Yao covering for me and the talismans I placed in my room, the only way the Lilith Sisters would find out I'm missing is if they decide to have fun with my replacement. I have a concealment cloak for travelling incognito, and I'm used to stay under the radar." She looked at Micaela with a sinister smile.
"I can vouch for that." The seraph looked more annoyed than anything else. "As would Eroa, if she was still alive."
"For the last time, I didn't want to kill her, I just got carried away in my fun. And besides, what did she expect when there was a free sinner to punish sign in the middle of nowhere? A hug? She got one!"
"That's…" Micaela chuckled. "Actually pretty funny."
"The only issue remaining is getting sure our Morrigan don't say anything about you. And more globally, getting sure she doesn't communicate with her sisters again about what we're doing.
"That… won't actually be too complicated. Keeping information from someone in the Pocket Castle is curiously easy, and if we find a way to keep her busy… Have Mephisto give her an intel gathering mission or something like that to keep her out of our way while staying sure she doesn't go back to her sisters. Then we'll just feed her false information from time to time."
"Why don't we just kill her?" Lucifina-chan started talking for the first time since Luka counted his tale.
Micaela sighed. "By the beginning of the day, you fought to get her to be the official wife for Luka."
The two Heavenly Knights exploded into laughter.
"That was different!" The small seraph crossed her arms and pouted. "She's responsible for bad things now. Why do we keep her?"
"Because Luka boy didn't wait for your instructions to try to make her his wife…"
The hero hid his face in his hands, clearly ashamed under everyone's gaze.
Micaela cleared her throat. "We keep her around because she's still a valuable asset, and because that would destroy our chance to build a pacific relationship with the Lilith Sisters. As much as I hate them, I want to avoid open warfare with them. It's already unavoidable with angels, which is too much for my taste."
"We'll still have to fight Lilith and the other Tamamo at Grangold… Is what I would have said, but…" Luka scratched his head, his face still red as a tomato. "Nevermind. I have no idea what's going to happen next."
"Great, so it's decided then!" Tamamo got up and made her way to Luka. "Please take care of me, and… I will take care of you well." She licked her lips once again.
"Tamamo? As much as I respect you, I shall ask you to keep your manipulations away from my nephew." Micaela ended her sentence in a particularly venomous tone.
The kitsune tilted her head. "Oooh, are you worried about that? Then why don't you train him on how to notice honey traps? Oh, right, family…"
Micaela sighed. "Please, teach him the basics so that nothing worse than that small issue with Morrigan happen. If she forced him in a moral dilemma just by doing what seemed natural for her, I can't imagine what someone outright malicious like yourself at your apex would be able to do to him."
"Don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't end like Arban."
"Thank you. By the way, was it sincere or a ploy?"
"I don't know either. Now, let's get out..." Tamamo put on a hooded coat and hit the wall with her fist. After a minute, the wall leading to the treasure room opened.
"While we're at it. I'm surprised you did something as cliché and obvious as placing your secret hideout behind a waterfall. And then made it as open as to speak about it in a children story book."
The door leading to said hideout closed, before the one leading to the front of the waterfall started to open.
"First, it's not the only hideout, it was the one the most practical for our meeting, I have at least three in each regions. Second, I want to point out that it's not just behind the waterfall, but behind the secret room behind the waterfall. Third, if it wasn't for the fact that you were looking for me and knew how I proceed, you would never have looked for a precise signature on a wall, then struck said spot with the power of the earth."
"Good point actually." Micaela jumped through the waterfall, reaching a stone behind it.
A few minutes later, the group was outside the cavern. Tamamo pulled an unconscious tanuki from a pile of leaf with a hand, and handed her to Luka. The hero returned her to the shrine, taking care not to disturb Astaroth who was still sulking on her pillow, and then joined back the party who was waiting for him.
"By the way, all that talking made me a bit hungry. I wouldn't mind a snack now."
"Then you'll really like our next destination…" Luke ground his teeth.
"Mmmh, you have my curiosity. What is it?"
"I don't want to spoil it."
He pulled a harpy feather from his backpack, and teleported the party to Grand Noah.
The team started making its way through the tunnel leading to the old fortress known as Minotaur's maze. While their equipment signaled them as powerful warriors, their behavior was so different from one member to another that they looked like a group of wandering tourists rather than a party of adventurers. Luka looked bored out of his mind, Micaela was analytically looking at her surroundings, Lucifina-chan was wide eyed in wonderment, and the two ex Heavenly Knights were gossiping behind them.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but we're going to the Minotauros fortress because the Demon Cow Queen is recruiting them, so we are doing a preemptive strike to neutralize the threat, correct?"
"Yeah, and also, we want to be sure that Sun Wukong don't recruit them for Black Alice.
Tamamo jumped up in surprise. "You did forget that detail."
Damn. I should really be careful.
"Twice." Micaela glared at Luka. "You know what she did in the past? She pretty much broke into Heaven, partied around like a wild animal while we tried to chase her off, and then managed to run away, mostly unscathed. She pretty much broke the illusion of invincibility Heaven had of itself after the Great War by herself alone."
"Not that was a bad thing…"
"And you're telling me we're going to face her."
"Awww, don't worry. Luka boy already did beat her if he's here, no?"
Luka nodded. "She isn't up to her full strength. Not even on the level of a queen class monster."
Tamamo slowly exhaled in relief. "Okay, if she got revived recently, that makes sense. Still, please warn us about monsters like that beforehand next time."
"Sorry, I will."
"It's not that big a problem if you have beaten her on your first encounter. Besides, as the ancestor of all beasts, I may be able to sway her to our side. I just wish I had the time to think of something…"
The party was getting closer to the end of the tunnel when they saw a minotaur waiting at the entrance.
"Damn, you're coming for the sukiyaki party too? I hope there'll be enough…"
Luka shrugged. "We're not exactly here for that."
Tamamo raised an eyebrow as the party continued through the exit of the cave. "Sukiyaki… Oh. I see. Since minotaurs are gluttons that wouldn't come just because their queen called for them, she promised sukiyaki to them. I wondered how she planned to keep them once they'd realize they were trapped without that delicious food."
"She did bring in sukiyaki for everyone."
"Please, Luka, be serious. Sukiyaki is quite expensive, and nobody would be stupid enough to-"
The kitsune stopped, sniffed the air for a second, and went wide eyed.
"She was. She was stupid enough to try to deliver an amount of sukiyaki big enough to feed an army of minotaurs to lure them in." A spot of drool appeared at the corner of her lip. "Too bad, it'll be mine..."
Micaela blinked twice, and then started walking at brisk pace toward the castle. She proceeded to open the doors wide and loudly. She was greeted by the sight of dozens of minotaurs partying and gorging themselves on sukiyaki, without sparing a glance at the huge noise made by the seraph's entrance. She looked around for a minute, her mouth agap, and was soon joined by the remainder of the group. Her brain was having difficulty processing what she was seeing. She then looked at each party members to gauge their reaction. Alma Elma and Lucifina-chan were both drooling, Luka was looking as indifferent as usual, and Tamamo… She was sporting a mad grin that utterly terrified her.
"Oh sweet Heavens, no… No, no, nonono… The last time I saw her with this look in her eyes, we got surrounded by a horde of beezlebubs while covered in gunk… She's going to do something completely crazy, please someone stop her…"
Tamamo happily started sauntering forward, ignoring everybody else.
"Monkey, monkey, monkey… where are youuuuuu?"
She progressed through the maze like castle, followed by the group who stood at the ready. None of the minotaur patrolling the area seemed to notice them.
"Is she always like that?"
Micaela was breathing heavily. "It used to be extremely rare. I wanted to find her because her wisdom is on par with mine, while she has even more knowledge about the thought process of other monsters like the Lilith Sisters. But she also always had a more impulsive, bestial side that had gotten more pronounced since she got sealed into a childish body. The results of her actions can be silly at best, like the time they found an ancient dragon sleeping. Her first idea to tame it involved feeding it tofu and riding it rodeo style."
After a few minutes, the group finally came in sight of Sun Wukong. The Monkey Queen was leaning on a wall near the staircase leading to the throne room of the Cow Demon Queen.
"Phew, that sukiyaki was good, mmh?" She looked at the group that was making its way toward her. Tamamo lowered its hood and revealed herself.
"Sun Wukong! You are accused of collaborating with the mad Monster Lord Black Alice! As the mistress of all beasts, I challenge you..."
It doesn't look like it's going to be different from last time.
"...to an eating contest!"
"I accept!"
Luka's sword slipped from his fingers, falling on the ground in a metallic clang.
This didn't just happen. This isn't real. This is a joke.
What happened next was only a blur passing in front of Luka's eyes. He remembered the two beastly monsters seated around a table, chugging down plates after plates of food while Alma Elma had fetched the Cow Demon Queen as a referee. Did the large minotaur cry when she saw all her effort go to waste in less than an hour? Not that it really mattered anyway. Only him and Micaeala weren't cheering on the duel, too stupefied to even lift a finger, staying completely immobile in front of this unmentionable spectacle. Eventually, Sun Wukong ended the winner as she ate more plates than Tamamo when the stock of food was finished. However, she disappeared in a puff of smoke before the minotaurs could properly celebrate the new victor. Seeing as they had no reason to stay, the minotaurs left the castle and scattered into the surrounding countryside.
When the mess finally died down, Alma Elma, Lucifina-chan and Tamamo were discussing like a bunch of schoologirls, leaving the three other remaining people completely stumped as to what just happened. When Luka turned to see Micaela, he saw in her eyes a light of despair he never imagined appearing into the eyes of the First Seraph.
"Luka?"
"Yes?"
"I want to go home."
"Me too."