In the forest, corpses of monsters littered the ground, and red blood stained the grass...
A girl in an elegant kimono sat on the ground with her legs folded into a W, staring fearfully ahead... More precisely, at the pink-haired girl before her, who held a katana and wore a bloodthirsty expression.
A pair of long ears had grown on the girl's head, showing she wasn't an ordinary human. Yet she wore the sacred outfit of a shrine maiden, though it was rather revealing...
The girl couldn't understand why she had encountered such terrifying monsters on her way back from Kyoto. It wasn't even dark yet... and the Witching Hour was still some time away.
Yet she had run into so many monsters...
All the samurai who had been protecting her were killed by the monsters. Thanks to their all-out efforts to protect her, the girl had managed to flee all the way here.
But how could an ordinary human—especially a delicate girl—possibly outrun monsters? In the end, they had caught up with her.
Now... although the monsters were dead, an even more powerful half-demon had appeared. She had no idea what this half-demon would do to her.
Still... compared to being torn apart and devoured by those terrifying monsters, being eaten by this "beautiful" half-demon didn't seem so bad.
If it was just a half-demon, perhaps she could at least leave behind a relatively intact corpse...
Yae Sakura, the beautiful half-demon shrine maiden, had no idea what the girl in the kimono was thinking. But now... Yae Sakura had discovered a way to earn Crystals.
Earlier, a notification had sounded in Yae Sakura's ear.
[First monster slain. Reward: 10 Crystals]
Crystals! They were the most important thing to Yae Sakura. She had crossed over with the account she'd played for several years, so she had no shortage of weapons, equipment, or gold.
She just didn't have any Crystals.
She only needed 2,400 Crystals to unlock the next world, but... before that... she had to complete all the main quests.
Otherwise, even if she had enough Crystals, she couldn't unlock a new world.
And besides unlocking new worlds, Crystals could also increase her strength.
Her current Flame Sakitama was maxed out and fully geared, but most of her other characters weren't!
Especially Herrscher of the Void, Luhua Na, whom she had only just pulled. She was still level 1.
After all, only a few characters were fully geared.
As long as she had enough Crystals, she could instantly max out a new character...
That was why Crystals were so important.
Perhaps because she had slain a monster for the first time, Yae Sakura also received some more information.
She really could return to her original world. All she had to do was unlock every Valkyrie...
To unlock new Valkyries, she had to open new worlds. Each time she opened one, she would randomly unlock a Valkyrie, and she would have to use that Valkyrie's abilities to survive in that world.
How many Valkyries were there in total?
Yae Sakura alone had at least three, while the other characters had several each.
After all this time, Yae Sakura didn't know if she could hold out, but when she thought of her adorable imouto, she knew she had to get back, no matter what!
She couldn't let anyone else have her imouto.
There was one piece of good news, though... After she unlocked all the Valkyries and returned to her original world, only an hour would have passed there.
In other words... no one else would get to enjoy her imouto!
The truth was, her imouto wasn't actually her biological sister...
The first Valkyrie she had unlocked was the maxed-out Flame Sakitama. She'd been lucky!
If it had been level-one Luhua Na, she'd have been in trouble!
To avoid being helpless when she became Luhua Na, she should earn some more Crystals now!
Crystals were all-purpose. They could raise a character's level and buy Valkyrie fragments. The starting Luhua Na was only an S-rank Valkyrie.
After thinking it over, Yae Sakura came back to her senses and looked at the kimono girl, who was cowering in fear not far away.
She wore a rather luxurious-looking kimono, probably made from fine silk. It was very beautiful.
In this era, anyone dressed so well clearly wasn't ordinary.
She was either the daughter of a wealthy family or a noble's daughter.
Yae Sakura strolled over to the girl. The girl in the kimono lowered her head, not daring to look at Yae Sakura, and trembled slightly.
She seemed terribly afraid of Yae Sakura.
"Are you afraid of me?"
Yae Sakura put away her Spirit Blade and looked down at the girl... She was still incredibly pretty, no less so than Yae Sakura's imouto.
She looked about thirteen.
But at thirteen, girls were already considered adults in this era!
"N-no, I wouldn't dare!"
At the sound of Yae Sakura's voice, the girl in the kimono seemed to jump. She hurriedly denied it.
"Stand up and talk!"
Yae Sakura knew this was the world of Inuyasha, but she still wasn't sure exactly when it was. It would be even better if someone could explain things to her.
"...Yes, demon-sama!"
The girl in the kimono fell silent for a moment, then cautiously stood up. But... she still kept her head lowered, as if she wished she could bury it in her chest.
"Look at me!"
Yae Sakura continued in her cool, commanding tone.
If she hadn't turned into a girl, she probably wouldn't have spoken this way to such a beautiful girl in a kimono standing right in front of her—not unless she'd turned into a lovesick puppy, anyway.
"..."
Though Yae Sakura spoke like she was giving an order, the girl in the kimono still kept her head down, not daring to look at her.
"Am I scary?" The girl's behavior puzzled Yae Sakura. She looked like Sakura Yae now, and Sakura Yae was so cute... How could anyone still be afraid of her?
Were you even human?
How could you be afraid of such a cute fox-eared girl?
"N-no... You're not scary, demon-sama. You're beautiful!" The girl in the kimono stammered again. But even as she said it, she still didn't look up.
Yae Sakura reached out, placed a hand beneath the girl's chin, and lifted it...
On closer inspection, she was even prettier than she'd looked before...
"What's your name?"
"X-Xia Ji..." With Yae Sakura's fingers beneath her chin, the girl in the kimono seemed to blush. She hesitated for a moment... then answered.
"Xia Ji?"
So you're the legendary Xia Ji?
"Ji? Are you a princess?"
Not just anyone could use the title "Ji." Generally speaking, it was reserved for princesses.
But in Eastern Island, a lord's daughter could also be called a princess and use the title "Ji."
To distinguish the emperor's daughters from the daughters of ordinary daimyo and lords, the emperor's princesses were also called Imperial Princesses.