The oni were all staring at me. Only Yuugi was smiling. She stepped forward through the steamy air to look down at me.

“Ohhh, did you bring some cowards with you?” she asked as she caught sight of the crystal.

Remember the– Patchouli tried to telepathically tell me. Yuugi reached out and pinched the rock. It popped between her fingers like it was made of dirt. I held my bag closer to me, even as I continued to shed clothing.

“We don’t appreciate spies around here.” Hoshiguma Yuugi’s smile had a lot of teeth. “Are you a spy, little man?”

“No!” I said. Calling me little was mean. I was only four or five inches shorter than the muscular oni, if you didn’t count her red horn. “My name is Jake Thorne. I’m a student of danmaku.” It was sweltering as I hopped out of my snow pants, and my shoes accidentally came off with them.

“Hoshiguma Yuugi, arm wrestler.”

She stuck out her hand for me to shake, so I dropped one of my shoes and shook it. I tried to straddle the line between ‘firm’ and ‘please don’t break every bone in my hand.’ It felt like I was shaking hands with a bronze sculpture covered in sandpaper, but she didn’t pop my knuckles like Remilia had. That was a good sign, I thought.

“Few people get naked so unenthusiastically around me,” said the orange-haired youkai as I stripped as fast as possible. It was sweltering.

“I was going to stop before the last layer,” I said as I stuffed clothing into my backpack. “Wait, did you say unenthusiastically?”

She laughed.

Yuugi’s huge muscles relaxed, and her form shrank to be a bit more feminine. She was probably on the shorter side of six foot three, I thought, as she seemed to shrink before me. Her shoulders narrowed and her hips widened. Her unreal cup size didn’t change a centimeter, although calling it ‘cup size’ was disingenuous, because she clearly didn’t wear a bra.

“Better?” said the oni while giving a sharp grin. “I was in a defensive mood.”

It was then that I noticed that all of the oni had changed. Where there’d previously been red, blue, and green men in swimsuits and loose kimonos, I was now surrounded by technicolor women in a state of undress. Oni could change their gender at will! If I wasn’t trying to shove my foot back into my shoe, I’d have made a note.

They converged on me like piranha on a chicken leg.

“He’s delicate, I can tell–”

“Oh, such pale–”

“Hey handsome, want to test your–?”

“I like your hat!”

One of them grabbed at my sock, pulling at my toes. I yanked my foot back.

“If you’re thirsty there’s frost outside!” grunted Yuugi as she kicked the offending oni in the stomach. There was a crunch and the red demon was thrown over the wall. “Everybody back off!”

The other oni all retreated like dogs that had been scolded. Yuugi nodded, and gestured for me to follow. She led me toward a large dark building in the fog.

“Did you–will she–?” I asked. Yuugi rotated and stretched her bare foot, and I could swear that it was the iron link that popped rather than any bones.

“Your Highness, don’t tell me this human gets to skip rotation too–” started a green Oni. Yuugi punted that one just like that last.

“Don’t worry, they know where the door is,” said Yuugi. “Unlike some of our visitors!”

“Sorry about that,” I said.

“Fucking wimp, quit apologizing.”

“I’m s–so ready to stop apologizing!” I’d only done it once, so I assumed it was less circumstantial and more like life advice. I followed her through a doorway, and into a stone castle with paper walls lit by lanterns with tiny glowing skulls in them.

Yuugi was walking ahead of me. She held up her red sake dish off to the side, probably so she could see where she was going. It was as wide as my hat.

“You’ll have to forgive the guys stuck in the bailey,” she said. “We punish ‘em by leaving them out in the cold. They are sober, and lonely.”

“Wait, that’s cold?” I asked.

“Metaphorically speaking. Also literally.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “Humans are so fragile, huh? Let me warn you. Don’t go to bed with a lady oni, or your little fella will crumble like a burnt incense stick.” She stuck up her hand, and when she snapped her fingers it flashed and boomed. “Or snap off.”

“I see!” I said. This time I did take a note, for Arnold’s sake.

“We normally approach humans as men for a reason. We’re hard as hell.”

“I, uh, I noticed.” I didn’t think that sexual relations with a male oni would be all that much safer.

“Our mouths are soft though.”

“T–thanks for the advice.” I failed to write it down. I was blushing, and thanks to Pavlovian conditioning, I thought of Maroon. If all the oni were this lascivious the fairy would probably hate this place. I hated it a bit already. I was apparently being led away from a fatal orgy, to who knows what.

Thinking of the fairy allowed me to calm down a bit. She’d have approached this with equanimity; Maroon didn’t even understand sexuality well enough to be uncomfortable, and she wouldn’t fear for her life because fairies (usually) re-manifested on their own. I doubted oni would try to seduce them in the first place.

Although I was in danger, surrounded by lecherous gender-swapping demons that also probably wanted to eat me, I could always escape by calling for help. I kept the possibility in reserve.

We passed through a smaller courtyard, one with a couple of stringed instruments artfully arranged around a rock. It was better lit than the perimeter had been, and even had short trees and flowers underneath the light of a vengeful spirit in a cage.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“The King’s feasting room,” said Yuugi. “That’s where I left the other human. Miss Conti.”

I swallowed. I hoped Sasha was still in one piece.

—

The King’s feasting room was a hall with a large, long, low table in it. At one end were curtains; at another was an immense set of doors, at least twenty feet tall. Multiple doors led off from the hall to other rooms in the castle.

There was seating for twenty with twenty cushions. There were plates and half-eaten dishes strewn all along the table in a messy arrangement. Scraped rinds, unwanted fibrous vegetables, and soggy grilled mushrooms sat atop messy plates. There were bits of gristle and charred meat scattered on the table as well, but none bigger than a booger.

The oni were messy eaters.

Based upon the nicest-looking cushion, the King would sit in the middle rather than at one end. The setting in front of that seat gave me pause. A large rack of ribs sat in the middle of the table. It had been picked clean, and indeed, many of the ribs were missing entirely.

My heart began to pound in my chest. I looked around for other bones, and found a few. There was a suspiciously long leg bone. Had Sasha already been–?

“Hey! It’s Jake!” said Sasha from a doorway. She and another lady I knew were standing next to a pile of furs, the clothes of the monster that had carried her away. She had a sake bottle in one of her hands. “How have ya’ been?”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Good,” I said. Relief flooded me as I walked over to her. “I’m so glad to see you!”

“Same!” she slurred, sloshing her bottle. I realized that at some point she’d changed clothes.

“I, uh, like your swimsuit.”

The one-piece was black and ruffled in certain places, making it the least revealing clothing I’d seen at the oni stronghold so far. It suited Sasha very well, somehow both goth and non-ostentatious. Compared to Yuugi’s overly tight white shirt, and the kimono and bikini bottoms of the other oni, it was positively refined and demure.

I noticed she still had her spiked collar, but it was missing a single spike.

The lady with Sasha had a green bikini on, one that would be very eye-catching if I could remember to focus on her. She also had an extra eye, one that was exterior, blue, and closed. I had just started to wonder how I knew the organ was an eye when Yuugi interrupted me.

“We’ll get you your own swimsuit soon,” said Hoshiguma Yuugi. I hoped they had trunks. I’d sooner wear a tasteful lady’s one-piece like Sasha’s than a speedo. Sasha smiled at me, but the smile didn’t touch her eyes.

“You’re real, right?” she asked. She shoved me. Tears were leaking out of the corners of her eyes, which were sunken. “Wow! You are!”

“Have you been drinking this whole time?” I asked my roommate. She stared at me with a surprisingly intense gaze. I noticed her eyes were bloodshot.

“Who hasn’t?” asked Sasha. She lifted her sake bottle to her lips.

“Have you… eaten anything?”

“Nope,” she said, looking at me and wobbling slightly. “I’ve been told not to do that, in Hell.”

“We’ve been trying,” said Yuugi. “Do all humans hate mushrooms?”

“I can’t speak for others,” I said.

Sasha had been missing for the better part of a week. My heart began to pound again. Had she been on a days-long bender with the oni? Her cheeks were flushed, but strangely sallow. Her skin was pale and her lips were cracked. My roommate was undoubtedly dehydrated, and on the verge of alcohol poisoning. She might be about to drop dead! How had she survived?

I’d gotten there barely in time.

“We need to get Sasha some water as soon as possible,” I said. “Alcohol isn’t–”

“Speaking of which,” said Yuugi. She practically shoved her giant red sake dish into my hands. “Drink.” The oni looked at me with a gaze that could crush skulls.

“I’d rather n–”

She grabbed my shoulder like a hydraulic press. “I insist. It’s a rule in Hot Spring Town that all guests drink. Eating is optional; drinking is not.”

“Hot Spring Town?” I asked.

“Yes. This place. I’m the manager and the King, so I make the rules. Now drink!”

I nervously took a sip. The sake was strong and it burned. I coughed.

“We’ll have to work on that,” said Yuugi. Various oni were entering the room and taking seats at the table. “You’ll get lots of practice, don’t worry about that!”

“Thanks,” I wheezed. Sasha looked at me with pity. The lady beside her handed me a sake bottle and I reluctantly accepted it.

“Sit right here,” said Yuugi, gesturing toward a cushion beside the place of honor. “You’re just in time for this week’s feast.” She pulled one of the ribs off the rack, and crunched on it like it was a carrot. The orange-haired oni talked with her mouth full. “We’re about to have lunch. Dinner tonight is the real event!”

–

The room slowly filled with oni, and not just any old oni, but a collection of the most insanely muscled monsters I’d ever seen. After myself, the lady in the bikini, and Sasha, Yuugi was the smallest person in the room. The table was long, but we were sitting shoulder-to-iron-shoulder because all of the other youkai were huge.

Two smaller green youkai brought in an extra cushion, which was put at the end of the table. The little green oni didn’t even have horns, and they left the room as quickly as they’d come. A massive red oni explained to me that they were goblins, not proper oni, but if they ‘got horny enough’ they’d be promoted.

The red oni was upset. I could tell that I’d displaced him from his grumbling. He had glasses and slick black hair, with two curled rams horns on either side. He wore a speedo and a tie, which is how I could tell he was refined, but his arm muscles were as big around as my leg. By looks, he was both the strongest and the smartest one there.

“Humans are even lower ranking than goblins,” he said.

“Is it because of our skin color?” I asked. No humans were red, green, or blue.

“What? No, it’s because you aren’t youkai.” He shook his head. “Humans are so racist.”

“That seems a bit… hypocritical to say.”

“It’s not fair that humans get the places of honor,” he complained to Yuugi, while pushing up his glasses and loosening his tie. He adjusted it every six or seven seconds; it was always either too loose or too tight. “Skipping the rotation is also massively unfair. Dishonorable, even.”

“But what would happen to them out there?” asked Yuugi while glaring at him in a way that would have made me empty my bowels. She didn’t look as hugely-muscled as him, but I had no doubt about who was more powerful. By then most of the seats of the table were occupied, except for the one opposite her, which only had a half-full cup of sake. The goblins were carrying away plates, and I caught sight of one scooping the scraps into his mouth.

“That wouldn’t be fair either,” he acknowledged. “Still. The waiting list is long!” The single sip of sake had affected me–or perhaps it was my growing fear–and I felt woozy. Even so, I was there to gather information.

“Pardon me,” I said. “Waiting list?”

“Most oni aren’t allowed to feast with the King,” he said. “We have to wait for our turn, and for a spot to open up. Hoshiguma-sama is a democratic King, so she rotates through advisors–” I wasn’t about to tell him that that wasn’t how democracy worked at all–“but cutting in line isn’t fair or democratic.”

“My edict is that the humans are spared,” said Yuugi, “I’ve decided to help my subjects by delivering them from temptation.”

“Why do you want humans to be spared?” I asked. “Not that I disagree with the policy!”

“I don’t want to encourage human invasions,” she said. She took a sip of sake. “And my concern was justified. Was there an army right behind you, by the way?”

I hesitated to answer. Just then, a new youkai appeared opposite her, as though springing from nothing. She literally was, except the ‘nothing’ was actually the sake cup and the youkai’s appearance was like a zoom on a microbe. She grew out of it.

The newcomer had two long gnarled horns, one of which had a ribbon on it. Her hair was strawberry blond and tied in a loose ponytail. The hair grew darker as she grew in size. Her wide set eyes made her seem brutish. Her clothes were a plain white blouse and a purple skirt.

She grew and grew until she was an entire five feet tall. Her horns made her taller than me, though.

“Pfuckin, never again,” said the oni, her voice thick.

“You bathe in sake once a week,” said Red, the oni next to me whose name I might never learn.

“Is that another human?” asked the newcomer with a smile. “Exciting!”

“Yes,” said Yuugi. “This is Jake Thorne, lame-ass student.”

“And I’m Ibuki Suika. Arm wrestler,” said the two-horned oni as she shook my hand like she was cupping a butterfly.

“I already used that one,” said Yuugi.

“Leg wrestler,” she replied with a shrug. Suika was one of the four oni that Wiki had warned me about. Her power was to change the size of things, including herself. “Tell your friend on the other side of the crystal that I have a bone to pick with her! For spraying me with water!”

“It was you who carried off Sasha!” I said.

The oni swelled until she was twelve feet tall in about a quarter of a second, pushing others out of the way to either side. Her horns poked holes in the ceiling next to holes that were already there.

“IT WAS!” she said, and her deep booming voice caused the plates to rattle and scatter. Suika shrank back down as raucous laughter filled the room, her own laugh undergoing a doppler shift from base back to shrill.

“Let’s have lunch!” said Yuugi while clapping her hands. And the goblins brought in lunch.

–

Lunch involved a bunch of the little green youkai bringing in foodstuffs–mostly rice porridge and grilled plants and fungi. The plants weren’t always things I could identify, but I did recognize some persimmon fruit. It occurred to me that no new meat was available. I soon inferred from the conversation that meat would be the highlight of the feast that evening.

The oni had left one half (or one tenth) of a partially-eaten carcass on the table for a week. I didn’t trust their food, nevermind legends about not accepting a meal in Hell. What did they grow their mushrooms on, I wondered? We’d passed a few foul-smelling latrines on our way through the castle.

The lunch was also accompanied by repeated calls to drink. Every oni had an alcohol container of their own, mostly ceramic cups or mugs or jars that were decorated in colors that matched the oni holding them. Some containers might have been magical. The two official characters definitely had artifacts to drink from.

Thanks to Wiki’s tutelage, I knew that Yuugi’s red sake dish made any sake within it more potent. I’d experienced that directly. During the meal I saw her spit in it and relish the higher percentage backwash, before offering some to Red, the oni on my other side.

Suika’s purple gourd was more of a sake generator. It could simultaneously turn water into the rice wine, and also magically steal evaporating water from every gourd in existence. Whenever she stoppered it the jug refilled. I wondered if defying entropy was a consistent theme of Hell.

More than once an oni asked for wine, and she filled their containers indiscriminately. Suika had to do this often: toasts abounded, even at lunch. This was probably where Satori and her minions got the alcohol to sell on the surface. I hoped it wasn’t magically-concentrated spit from Yuugi’s dish, instead. Thinking of Satori almost led me to an insight about one of the guests at the table.

The first call to drink threw me off guard.

“To humans!” shouted Yuugi, before raising her dish to her mouth.

“To humans!” chorused back the youkai and Sasha.

Everyone drank, so I lifted my jar. I endeavored to take as little as possible. My time in Hot Spring Town would be a balancing act, between being polite and keeping enough of my mental faculties to remember to escape before I died of intoxication. I prepared myself for a strong sake taste.

I sputtered. The jar was full of water.

As the oni started to sing songs whose words I did not know, I looked around Yuugi’s ample frame and toward Sasha, who was sitting on her other side. She met my eyes once, then continued to pretend to be drunk. Beyond her, Koishi smiled at me and waved.

Koishi! She was the one who brought oni sake to the surface, and the one who had given me water! I sighed in relief. We had an ally, here.

Sasha wasn’t sloshed; she was pissed–angry, rather–from not eating real food for four days, and probably sleep deprived from hunger.

The meal went on, and as the oni drunkenly sang and arm-wrestled and punched each other, and as I sipped my secret water, I thought our chances of survival were going up. Just to be safe, I avoided eating anything even as my stomach rumbled.

It would probably be much harder to resist eating meat at dinner, I thought.