“Why did he come back at such a time?” Haihime’s blank expression revealed that her mental processes had come to a halt and Lily also felt quivers passing through the warm body straddling her.

It took Haihime some time to recover her senses and she glared at Lily fiercely then, but Lily feigned shyness via a flushed face and closed eyes and acted as if she hadn’t seen Haihime’s prior expression at all.

Haihime sighed in relief and ordered the Itsura after getting up, “Come in!”

The Itsura slid the door open and entered inside but showed no particular reaction after seeing Lily lying on the floor with torn clothing through their masks, as if this were a common occurrence.

“Tie her up and keep watch over her! Although she’s no stronger than a mortal woman right now, don’t let your guard down,” Haihime ordered.

“Understood!”

Haihime quietly placed the mirror she seized from Lily within her bosom and walked out.

Lily was able to sense the mirror’s position and knew that it stopped on the corridor for a good while and paced back and forth before finally arriving at a location and stopping there.

Lily sensed that Haihime didn’t intend to carry such an important mirror on her and though she doubted this at first, she realized that it was because Haihime was going to meet Amanojaku1 on second thought.

Lily’s upper body had been trussed up with her arms tied behind her back tightly by two Itsura and was then suspended from the roof beam. After confirming that she had been bound properly, the Itsura also went out and guarded the door.

Although Lily didn’t have her cursed katana on hand right now, she could still absorb the spirit power present in the world, albeit slowly, so her spirit power was getting replenished slowly as well.

As for Haihime, she passed through the dusky corridor and arrived at the temple which had the statue of the Thousand-Armed Buddha.

However, a powerful eldritch energy welcomed her the moment she entered the temple.

A little, purple-skinned man who was less than 150cm tall2 and had crimson flame-like hair standing above Haihime’s couch within the lofty temple came into her view.

This little man had a one-foot-long golden horn on his forehead and exuded a dreadful, gloomful aura. He had scarlet eyes that were accompanied with a fiendish expression as well as glossy youthful skin and donned a cruel smile at all times.

A string of skulls that had been shrunken via some means rested over his neck and though the skulls were just bones, each one of them wore a pained expression and seemed full of grudge, depicting a fearsome scene.
His bared torso revealed his exceptionally buffed body with faintly visible complex vein lines running on it and had a piece of red fur running around his waist.

The small man carried a pretty conspicuous large scroll on his back that had black lacquered wood ends and a bronze-colored silken outer layer, its identity unknown.

The monster stood on Haihime’s couch with his dirtied feet as before without any signs of embarrassment and revealed a taunting smile after seeing the tall and lanky Haihime enter.

The ever languid, laidback and charming Haihime contrarily became a little nervous and hardened her expression when she saw this man and her eyes dimmed a bit when her gaze fell on the dirtied floor and silk-covered couch.

Haihime carried her slender and pretty legs to the front of this little man3 and even kneeled down on one knee before him without showing any signs of blaming him, “Lord Amanojaku.”

Perhaps anyone who hadn’t seen Amanojaku would’ve never foreseen that the leader of Mt. Fuji’s Hundred Demons was actually a little demon who was less than 150cm tall!

However, although he looked like a young human on the outside, he was actually centuries old.

“Keiko. I’ve been waiting here for you for a long time,” Amanojaku’s voice sounded youthful as well, but it carried slight hoarseness and viciousness in it.

“Forgive me, lord. I was handing some official matters.”

“Official matters? Did you capture the mirror girl I wanted you to capture?” Amanojaku asked calmly.

Haihime shivered when she heard this and replied after a pause, “Not yet.”
“Not yet? Keiko, you haven’t been putting in much effort recently. If you keep acting like this, when will… Let it be. I just returned from the depths of Mt. Fuji and am tired from the journey! Wash my feet for me!”

Amanojaku sat down on the couch and stretched his filthy feet forward.

“Understood, let me bring some water then, lord,” Haihime replied obediently.

Around the same time, Lily had also recovered some of her spirit power gradually after being left suspended within the room for a good while.

The rope binding her had also loosened slowly because of her hard struggle.

“Phew…” Lily took a long breath after freeing one of her hands tied behind her back.

The rest was easy work since one of her hands had gained freedom.

Lily released herself from the suspended rope and landed on the floor after a short while and the rope also fell beside her feet momentarily.

The lost art of the Saionji family, the Art of Escaping Rope Bindings that she had learned by suffering embarrassment multiple times had actually turned out useful at this moment.

Lily fixed her clothes first, but she couldn’t do much about them as they were too damaged to hide her whole body.

She then employed a small-scale domain to probe her surroundings and slid the door open silently by using her domain’s power to reveal the backs of the two cat-masked kunoichi guarding the door.
Although Lily had only recovered a little bit of spirit power, she still possessed her original physical strength, so she knocked the two kunoichi out using hand chops with ease.

She then slipped out of the room and saw one more Itsura kunoichi in the corridor.

“Who—Ugh!”

Lily manipulated the sakura in her domain to manifest a flood of petals and choked the kunoichi’s neck, knocking her out momentarily.

She sensed the location of the mirror and sprinted towards it, keeping her guard up on the way while proceeding with agile and silent movements.

When she turned around the corner of the corridor, she saw a relatively private room guarded by two Itsura at the corridor’s end.

Lily manipulated the flood of sakura and knocked the two of them out like before by choking them.

“Phew. It was a close call. I’ve used up my spirit power again,” Lily gasped for air.

She then rushed over and slid the door open before entering the room that seemed to be Haihime’s private room and discovered that her Crescent Moon was actually placed in a corner of this room as well.

She recovered Crescent Moon promptly.

“Aaahhh…” Lily moaned pleasantly and the spirit energy flowing into her body constantly began replenishing her spirit power quickly.

Although she couldn’t see the mirror, Lily could sense where it was. She found it behind a hidden partition inside the closet by using a spirit probe and took the mirror out from within after opening it.

Lily stuffed the mirror inside her sash and concluded that it was indeed a bit risky this time.

It also seemed like Haihime didn’t have ample time to hide the mirror properly as she was in a rush.

However, Lily was now confounded about where to go next.

After remembering that Amanojaku had arrived, Lily recalled the arrogant behavior of Haihime’s as she hit her and also felt some joy after recalling Haihime’s expression when she heard Amanojaku’s name.

“No, I shouldn’t think like that,” Lily admonished herself and decided to take a look at Amanojaku and Haihime’s circumstances, so she began walking over towards the other end of the corridor.

However, out of her expectations, one of the knocked out kunoichi actually woke up because Lily used too little spirit power towards the end and pulled a lever at the corner of the floor silently after seeing Lily’s leaving back within the corridor while crawling on the floor.

“Click!” The floor underneath Lily’s feet disappeared suddenly, and she plunged down into the vast darkness after losing her footing while screaming4.