"Pa pa piru ga pi." I sang as I flew.

The air over Nephilz is cool. And damp. Like the wind off a beach. My thoughts become pure when I rise into the air, so I've taken to flying lower than Anime Girl. Still, this feeling of air-headedness is addictive. I flew up a little more, felt my sense of self start to disintegrate, then dived back down.

This is the new drug. I see. Flying in an armoured dress is unexpectedly dangerous, I might become an idiot. Diving closer to the buildings, my hand sought out the scarf wrapped around my neck. I rubbed the comfy fabric between two fingers.

「I lost Niji。My hunting instinct went wild。You saw the results。」

The growl from Yarko sounded like pouting. As if she were saying, 「Oh, danna。I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you from the Psychic Ninja Moon Elf。」Even imagining her saying it felt wrong. Like the scarf she is, Yarko lets it hang. Whatever it is. So interrogation of her was put on hold. Anime Girl would have better luck, I hope, but she's busy scanning Nephilz.

Anywhere with fires, Anime Girl? Should be fires and corpses. No, I'm assuming fires and corpses. 

Anime Girl nodded, then pointed to a Mount I've never been too. One of the Commoner's Mounts. Wait. That isn't on fire. Why did bats fly out of the top? There are bats in this world? As I flew in closer, the daylight evaporated, night filled all of my view with the massive moon as both a backdrop and nightlite.

Castlevania? Castlevania. I see. This must be where the rumors of Demon King(Queen) came from. Stehy and Hohemi wouldn't have said it otherwise, I'm sure.

We flew in towards the top of the mount. A balcony appeared complete with a loli sipping wine in impeccable gothic dress. 

「So。You have finally come。」

The loafer loli swilled her wine in it's glass. Blam Blam Blam. Bullets thudded into her. Her glass fell from her hand, spilling it. Anime Girl got trigger happy. Niji's head inclined towards her airport-friendly chest, as blood fountained out. What kind of piping is inside this youjo. 

「Ahg。。。You have defeated me。Such is the tragedy known as 'life'。」

Anime Girl swooped in as I mounted the railing, both of us standing over Niji as she kept acting out her own death. I kept silent as a few more bullets were issued, Anime Girl must be in a bad mood.

Well, the whole Mount is a magic gothic castle now. That can't be good. This is the Commoner's Mount. Is anyone still alive here? Or, did Niji just turn the whole Mount into a castle for fun?

I regretted everything. Walking towards the inner chamber, I braced myself. No matter what was inside, it couldn't be good. I stopped at the door. It couldn't be good. Should I bother going? My hand latched onto the door.

Normally it would make sense to survey the place, take down a few boss characters and get an upgrade that would let me continue exploring the place. That's how it works, right? But, if Niji turned this place into an evil castle, the tenants here, well...

I don't want to know. Essentially, Niji might have wiped out a lot of the population. If I went further, I might see it directly so...

Yeah. I took my hand off the door, a smile on my face. I'll just pretend it doesn't exist. I'm done. Let's forget about this city, this world, and head full on to the land of 2D...!!

I whipped out the brown and yellow card, staring at it. As I thought, the real world was too difficult after all. I Am A Magical Girl Now! So, let's obscure all the painful things and forget what happened here— wait, why is Anime Girl dragging me and a corpse through the door? She read my mind! Damn it.

And so, I gave up resistance. Anime Girl's pull was enough to get me out of the palatial room embroidered with decrepit finely. We walked through the halls together, Niji reverted to loafer form with Anime Girl spinning her around her finger like a helicopter. 

I think I saw this movie before. When I came across the room, there were two hybrids. A chicken guy and a horse guy. They were chained together by the leg, and there was a rusty hacksaw on the floor. An omnious video played. Whoever did the cleaning here, they didn't exist. Reminded me of home~

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I gained a fervent urge to see the dirty room cleaned up. Ordering Anime Girl, she proceeded to summon maids. I recognized one of them, she was very fitting for the rest of this place. Her sentences end with -ssu~. I could totally make this place my Nazarick. But then, it did feel like too much work, and innocents have already died. If I was planning on killing more innocents and conquering Nephilz, for real this time, this would have been an excellent start. But, nah.

The clean room was more important. The chicken and horse were aghast as they were freed and cleansed along with the tile. Somehow, while I was watching, it also turned into a fine bedroom. The tile is also gone, replaced with carpet. What speed. The maids of [Yume Nasai] are amazing. Yeah, what was I thinking? I could just retire to [Yume Nasai]. It's well stocked, clean, has a countryside and a blacksmith. What do I need an evil tower for?

Cracks in my delicate fantasy of ruling Nephilz broke like a dam. The water spilled forth, washing out any residual dreams of conquest. I floated towards the ceiling, happy, dim thoughts filling my head.

"I'm going to take it easy...!"

Anime Girl tugged on my ankle, pulling me down to the floor. I grew sad. I don't want to see the rest of the aftermath, I complained. Holding the brown and yellow card in both my hands, I sighed heavily, gave the chicken and horse a farewell, then stuffed the card into my pocket.

The maids followed out behind us, maintaining proper posture. Moving from room to room, spreading out, we found bigger and bigger rooms. The Commoner's Mount seems to be a massive boarding house, a barracks for life, really. As we descended the floors, there was less gothic detail and more roaming monsters. The maids cleaned up the monsters; and sent them on their way. It didn't feel right to me to do more killing, so I'll balance out the ecosystem that is already here.

It's like nature. If there's an abomination fashioned together by a mad scientist out of human and hybrid corpses that spews digestive juice out of it's chest, who am I to judge? Well, the maids at least made it presentable. And one got rid of that annoying spewing part. The tuxedo they made for it confused me, was it a man? A woman? Tuxedo's are traditionally male, but if you're going to put a tuxedo on an abomination... I lost my train of thought. All my trains of though might as well be birds in the sky right now.

Because, the barracks look like horror rooms. There's lots of skeletons playing bones. I saw them use tiny bones as gambling chips, and dice. That's clever. They were dirty and I wasn't sure about allowing gambling, but since this is Niji's handiwork I settled on having one of the maids teach them to play proper games. 

And that was how I began distribution of smartphones to the residents of Niji's Mount. I decided to call it Niji's Mount, because, this isn't my fault, so, I'll try and remind myself of that. 

Surrounded by the maids and Anime Girl, I was untouchable, but a few of the residents here did get uppity. There was a dramatic "-ssu~!" and a blood spray. Something troublesome died. May or may not have been a sentient, living resident who would be deserving of basic moral standards or not. They could have been driven insane as well. I put such things out of mind.

Lycanthropes and Zombies seem to have made a patch among the lower floors. As we approached the ground, Lycanthropes of all shapes and sizes were playing games with Zombies. Requesting a maid to find out the series of events from these civil and humble folk occupying the lower regions of Niji's Mount, they spoke amicably of the trials they went through.

Although the upper floors were full of [CENSORED], the lower floors had a much more organized environment. This was because Niji's main attack was on the the top of the Commoner's Mount. The living quarters were mostly wiped out, not many combatants lived here. There was talk of a militia from the maid's report, but they were pulled fully into the horror genre. 

However, Niji's attacks ended there. Upon questioning her, the maids said Niji's plan was to exterminate the entire city, thereby also executing all homunculi, and since she wanted a base first she took this Commoner's Mount for her own. She dreamed up a siege on the Royal Mount. Attacking Royal Mount first would have been a much better target if she was planning to take over the city from the start. Niji apparently thought it was necessary to have many minions, and so the lycanthropes and zombies were set loose on the lower floors to grow her army.

At first it was chaos. The guards of the high walls outside the Commoner's Mount were taken out early on by flying gargoyles. The Commoner's were trapped inside their own walls, and faced between lycanthrope attacks and zombie attacks, they fell into defensive camps.

Having little training and experience for the whole 'if a zombie/lycan bites you, you change into one' thing, they tended to the wounds of the injured. Many died as the injured became their enemy, until someone noticed that they lycans/zombies weren't attacking the ones that changed. They also figured out the means of turning into a lycan/zombie, even a scratch was enough.

And so, the word got out among the Commoner's that since they had no chance of winning, they should just let the lycan/zombies scratch them. The Commoner's took the initiative, lining up for their injured to infect them with the lycanthropy or the zombism. They also figured out that they could choose thanks to the situation, so debates were held, despite the dire situation, as to whether being a zombie or a lycanthrope was better.

In the end the population seems to have agreed on a 50/50 split. Those attached to their former bodies who didn't want a furry option opted for scratches from a zombie, those who were already furry or less human gravitated towards the lycan. 

This quickly turned what was an invasion into a peaceful surrender. Unfortunately, they lost control over their bodies in the process, but public opinion seems to be rather high now that there's less death than before. I'm grateful for that. I guess.

I took to the sky like Peter Pan afterwards. Needed to clear my head.