Fairy Knight Lancelot.
Her fairy name was Melusine. Her dragon name was Albion.
The mightiest of Winter Queen Morgan's forces, Melusine at full strength could destroy a kingdom single-handed. With her True Name released, as the Last Dragon, she could bring ruin to the heavens themselves.
And yet — this all-powerful, invincible, world-ending being was —
Shin saw her.
Melusine was standing faithfully at the side of the silhouetted figure with the waterfall of black hair, serving her with complete and utter devotion. Just as she had once faithfully served that wretched fairy Aurora.
Fairy Knight Lancelot's state was visibly, deeply wrong.
Those eyes — normally as sharp and piercing as a dragon's — were blank. She stood in silent guard over the "Kaguya-hime" who was reclining lazily on the divan.
Melusine looked exactly like the golden tiger from before.
She'd been charmed.
It was absurd, but Shin had no choice but to accept it.
The Last Dragon of Albion — even a fragment, even without releasing her True Name — shouldn't have been taken out by the boss the moment she walked into a dungeon!
His escort had just spectacularly imploded. Shin's nerves snapped taut to their limit in an instant.
"Careful, young man. No need to be so tense."
The woman behind the curtain spoke softly, her voice carrying that same impossibly warm, impossibly tender quality.
"Relax. I mean you no harm."
"No harm" — then release her from your control and stop hiding. Show me your face.
Shin had no interest in pleasantries. Because at that same moment, the group chat was already erupting — nobody was more stunned than Morgan.
"My true face…"
The girl let out a slow, quiet sigh.
"Very well."
"I cannot release my hold on that knight, not just yet… I need her strength for something."
"But your second request — that I can grant."
The moment she finished speaking, the layers of curtains, in an airless room with no wind, began to part gently on their own, as though a tide were receding.
Moonlight poured down, unobstructed.
For a moment, Shin felt his consciousness briefly stall.
He'd steeled himself for this. But when he actually saw her face —
She was Kaguya Houraisan.
The same features as the NEET princess who liked posting selfies in the group chat. The same air, the same presence, absolutely indistinguishable.
[Moon Princess]: ???
[Moon Princess]: She's Kaguya — then who am I?
[Moon Princess]: What on earth — if I'm not a ghost then what is going on, can someone please explain this to me!
[Queen of Britain]: Something is very wrong. Great Witch's child — if things go sideways, come back immediately!
In the same moment, the group chat was flooding with messages from both Kaguya and Morgan.
The situation was obvious even to a fool — something was deeply off.
"Who are you, exactly?"
Shin asked carefully. As an Ultimate Being, his ability to detect killing intent and malice was razor-sharp — and he genuinely wasn't sensing any hostility from this "Kaguya-hime."
Since she was willing to talk, he at least needed to understand the situation — and ideally find a way to pull Melusine out of this.
"If I said I was Kaguya, would you believe me?"
Silence was his answer.
"Hm. I thought not. After all, from where you stand, there's already another 'me' out there."
"Kaguya" looked at Shin, her clear bright eyes reflecting the young man's image.
She rose slowly from the divan, her bare jade feet — beneath the ornate twelve-layered robes — stepping one by one on the moonlit floor, walking toward him.
"You may call me… 'Yachiyo.'"
She stopped in front of him. Close enough that Shin could catch the cool, delicate fragrance rising from her.
Yachiyo?
Shin blinked. That was the name of the "alternate-universe Kaguya Houraisan" from another timeline.
"But no matter. I'm simply glad you came."
"Let me think… let me think… what should I call you now…"
"What about this…"
In the next instant, "Kaguya-hime" tilted her head, a meaningful curve touching her lips, and in a voice barely above a whisper, breathed two syllables:
"…'My dear?'"
The word fell.
And in the same moment that it did, that vision of unearthly, transcendent, beyond-human beauty flooded every living consciousness within earshot.
[One who hears of him knows longing; one who longs to meet him cannot contain it.]
(The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, Chapter II)
Bang.
Shin felt his perception detonate.
A whisper from a girl so impossibly gentle — and yet to his soul, it struck like a star falling from the sky.
Not only that — Shin realised with horror that his body, as an Ultimate Being able to govern every single cell of his flesh, had betrayed him.
His body had developed a will of its own. The moment her voice fell, his arms opened on their own, without his permission.
He didn't know whether the friends watching the group livestream were more paralysed than he was — but he knew that right now, he had lost the margin to crush the [Rift Talisman] in his hand.
Helplessly, there in front of everyone — or rather, in front of the group livestream — he gently, involuntarily pulled that gorgeous "Kaguya-hime" into his arms.
— Or rather, "Yachiyo."
And the woman in his arms leaned her head against his shoulder without resistance, letting out a soft, satisfied murmur.
"Good boy. Just like that… I really must thank your mother for sending you to my side."
"This time, let me carry the weight you've been carrying for so long."
At that same moment, in the group chat —
The flood of messages, active just seconds ago, went quiet.
A silence lasting several long seconds.
Inside some bamboo somewhere, at some unknown hour in some unknown place, Kaguya found she didn't know what to say.
Her first instinct was that she was hallucinating — that she was watching an AI-generated clip of herself being used for something deeply embarrassing.
"What on earth."
"The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter doesn't work this way. You're supposed to set impossible trials, string your suitors along, humiliate them one by one, and then finally fly back to the moon to make your escape — not hard cut straight to the special CG!"
"I won't accept this. I have my dignity. I refuse."
Kaguya's face went brilliantly red. She felt her entire being come apart. The Great Witch's kid's looks and abilities were both top tier — genuinely the best she'd seen among the men of her acquaintance — but she wasn't that easygoing!
And if she remembered correctly, the Great Witch had mentioned her little Shaya was already "spoken for"!
Meanwhile, far away at the same moment — in the mansion on the Witch's Island.
The Great Witch, who'd had her feet curled elegantly under her and had been watching her son expertly subdue a tiger and rescue a child, now held a teacup in her hand that was emitting faint cracking sounds.
Snap.
To be continued…
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