In a wooden apartment over forty years old, in a room soaked with mold, drugs, and vomit, a man named Kai Kamon spends his days staring at the ceiling, unable to die. With social phobia and drug addiction, he has fallen out of society entirely.
One night, the ceiling tears open, and Princess Melissa of the Flamme Kingdom falls through. Exiled from her world and stripped of all magic by a transfer spell, she collapses on the filthy tatami floor. She looks around the rotting room and gives him a
The night air had settled, stagnant, in the corners of the room.
Kamon Kai remained kneeling formally on the tatami, looking up at Melissa standing before him. A cramped six-mat room. The stain on the ceiling was as dark as ever, and a thin film of Impurity clung like a membrane to the corners of the walls. The fluorescent light cast a dim glow over her gold-and-silver ringlets.
(I have to say it.)
Kai's throat let out a thin, rasping sound.
(I have to say it. But if I do—)
His fingertips trembled. Sweat seeped into the fists he clenched on his knees. His heart pounded a rapid tattoo deep in his chest. He understood it in his head. These were words that could never be taken back. And still—he couldn't keep them inside.
"…Let me make a contract with you."
His voice came out hoarse.
Melissa was facing the window. Moonlight traced the pale line of her slender neck. She didn't turn around. Her gold and silver eyes simply gazed quietly at the night sky.
"What are you talking about, servant?"
Her voice was flat. Cold. But Kai understood. This woman heard everything.
"A contract of Impurity."
Kai tightened his fists on his knees.
"Make my body a vessel for the Impurity. I'll take on all of yours. That way, even if you keep cleaning, you won't disappear."
His voice shook. Toward the end, it was barely breath.
The room fell silent.
Only the low hum of the refrigerator echoed. The stain on the ceiling seemed to spread, slowly.
Melissa turned around, slowly.
Her golden right eye and silver left eye pierced through Kai. Something wavered deep within those eyes. Just for an instant. A passion like flame spread like ripples on water—and vanished.
Her right hand rose, slowly.
Slender fingers. A hand so pale it seemed translucent. It reached toward Kai's cheek—
And stopped.
Her fingertips were trembling.
Melissa clenched that hand into a fist.
"…How laughable."
Her lips twisted. A mocking smile. But her voice was just slightly hoarse.
"If you shoulder the Impurity, your world ends. That's all there is to it."
Melissa took a step closer to Kai.
"I won't disappear. What disappears is your world."
Her hand grabbed Kai's wrist.
Cold. Fingertips cold as ice dug into bone. Kai's left hand. The burn scars from childhood were carved into his skin as countless marks. Melissa's fingers traced over those scars.
—In that instant.
Kai's vision was dyed crimson.
Flames.
A colossal pillar of fire scorching the skies above the royal capital of Brenahart. Castle walls crumbled, stone buildings collapsed one after another. Screams. People fleeing in terror. The core furnace's runaway devouring the entire city.
(Is this your memory?)
Melissa's past poured into Kai's retinas. The loneliness of a young princess. Days when no one would look at her. The gray sky she gazed up at from the library window. And that night, when she tried to burn everything to ash.
(You carried this alone—)
Kai's chest constricted.
"You saw it, didn't you."
Melissa's voice echoed by his ear.
"This is my Impurity. My sin. It's not something the likes of you could ever shoulder."
Her fingers left Kai's wrist.
Kai pressed his hands against the tatami. His breathing was ragged. Sweat dripped from his forehead. His heart pounded against his ribs from the inside.
(But—)
Kai raised his head.
"I don't want you to disappear!"
His voice became a shout.
"The more I clean, the more you fade. I know that. But I don't want you to disappear. I don't want you to vanish. So please—let me make the contract. Make my body a vessel for the Impurity—"
Tears spilled over.
They wouldn't stop. He didn't even know why he was crying. But he couldn't hold back what was overflowing.
Melissa's expression changed.
The mocking smile vanished.
The color drained from her face. Her gold and silver eyes widened. Her lips trembled.
—She had gone pale.
It was an expression he had never seen before. As if overwhelmed by the passion of the servant she had always looked down upon, Melissa took a step back.
"…What are you saying?"
Her voice was faintly trembling.
—In that instant.
The air in the room changed.
A black torrent poured down from the ceiling.
No—that wasn't it. The stains on the ceiling had all begun to writhe at once. The Impurity on the walls, the dark blotches on the floor, the stagnation pooled in the corners of the room—all of it moved simultaneously.
"A contract, you say."
A viscous voice echoed inside Kai's skull.
"How interesting. You two would exchange a contract?"
The black torrent spread across the room. From ceiling to wall, wall to floor, floor to Kai's feet. The vortex of Impurity raged, encircling the two of them.
Kai's body went rigid.
(Ishu.)
That voice he'd heard on the rooftop. The will of Impurity that had emerged from Kabuse Mamoru's shadow.
"Then I shall make that contract far more interesting."
—Fingers snapped.
A sharp crack echoed through the room.
The next moment, the torrent of Impurity coiled around Melissa's feet.
"Ngh—!?"
Melissa's body tilted. The black Impurity constricted her slender ankles, trying to drag her under.
"Let go."
For the first time, impatience mixed into her voice.
"Your Impurity is mine. Your soul is my feed. I will not let you make any contract."
The black torrent swelled, threatening to swallow Melissa's body.
Kai moved.
Before he could think, his body had already acted.
"Stop it!!"
Kai clung to Melissa's legs.
He wrapped his arms around her slender body. Turned his own back toward the black torrent.
—He would be her shield.
That was all he could do.
"Oh? You would protect that woman?"
Ishu's voice laughed.
"Then receive it with your body. I will sink you into Impurity—your entire world along with you."
—Fingers snapped once more.
Crack.
That sound echoed across the entire town of Haimori Ward.
—
In the hallway of Corp Haimori, Karikago Shizuku let out a scream.
"W-what is this… What is this!?"
The fifty-eight-year-old landlady collapsed onto her backside at the sight of the black stains clinging to the walls. The stains slowly began to take human form. The form of her late husband, as he had been in life.
"No… Nooooo!!"
Shizuku's scream reverberated through the apartment building.
—
Beyond the door of Room 103, Hiyama Sumire was trembling.
"Kamon-san… Kamon-san, are you there!?"
The twenty-nine-year-old visiting care helper gripped the doorknob but couldn't bring herself to open it. From beyond the door, black mist was seeping through the gaps.
"Kamon-san… Answer me… Please…"
Her voice was wet with tears.
—
Third floor of the mixed-use building in front of Kitanuma Station.
Kabuse Mamoru stood staring out the window, not moving a muscle.
The sky over Haimori Ward was muddied black. The streetlights' glow was swallowed by the black mist, blurring faintly.
"…I see."
His lips curved in a thin smile.
"So this is Impurity. Impurity overflowing throughout the town. …Interesting."
Behind his glasses, his eyes glinted coldly.
"That man is the real thing, after all. I will have him, without fail."
—
At every street corner in Haimori Ward, memories of Impurity swirled.
The memories of the dead that Kai had cleaned until now. The elderly person who had died alone in the metropolitan Haimori housing complex. The man who had died in the old apartment building at the western edge of Haimori Ward.
All of them became black mist, raging through the town.
Kabuse Mamoru's memories.
Sumire's memories.
All of them mixed together, churning the entire town into disorder—like a room before it has been cleaned.
—
A wave of Impurity crashed against Kai's back.
A jolt of impact ran through him.
Something was invading from inside his body. Cold. Painful. A sensation like something black crawling through his blood vessels.
"Gh, ah—!"
Kai gritted his teeth.
(I won't let go.)
He put strength into his arms. He held Melissa's body tight.
(I will never let go.)
"I won't let you disappear."
His voice trembled.
"I won't let you disappear. I'll protect you. So don't vanish."
The Impurity poured in through his back. His bones creaked. His organs froze cold.
But he didn't let go.
Melissa's body was trembling in Kai's arms.
"…And you're just a servant."
Her voice reached him, faintly.
A mocking smile. But her voice was wet with tears.
"Just a servant… and yet so impudent…"
Tears spilled from her eyes.
From her golden right eye, and from her silver left eye.
—At that moment, Melissa's past flashed across Kai's retinas once more.
A young girl crying alone in a corner of the royal capital.
A gentle memory of her mother. The hearth fire. Soft hands. A lullaby.
And the palace, burning down.
Everything swallowed by flames.
"Mother… Mother…"
Young Melissa's voice echoed directly into Kai's heart.
(You've been—)
Kai didn't loosen his arms.
(You've been crying alone this whole time, haven't you.)
—Melissa's body began to lose its light.
Her outline crumbled like particles. Golden particles, silver particles, spilling from Kai's arms.
"…Look."
Ishu's voice laughed.
"Your woman is disappearing. Your wish will not reach. Contract and protection—all of it was meaningless."
The black Impurity enveloped Melissa's body. As if urging her collapse.
"Stop… Stop it!!"
Kai's scream echoed through the room.
"…You're so loud, servant."
Melissa's voice echoed quietly.
More than half her body had already turned to particles. And yet, her lips still wore that mocking smile.
"…Clean."
Her final words reached Kai's ears.
"If you are my servant, then clean to the very end."
—Golden particles, silver particles, spilled from Kai's arms.
Melissa's body vanished completely.
"AAAAAAAAAH!!!"
Kai's scream echoed through the skies of Haimori Ward like the sound of the world's end.
—
The room was swallowed by the torrent of Impurity.
The black vortex devoured the tatami, the walls, the ceiling—everything.
Kai's consciousness faded.
His body was cold. Painful. Heavy.
But within it all, a voice echoed.
"Clean."
Melissa's voice?
No—different.
Kai's own voice.
No—neither.
"Clean."
That voice continued to reverberate inside Kai.
The reverberation of Ishu's finger-snap shook the entire town.
The air of Haimori Ward continued to churn, like a room before it has been cleaned.
Within the Impurity, Kai realized that all reality remained exactly as it was.
Everything was there, just as it was.
And still, Kai reached out his hand.
Into the darkness, trying to grasp something.
That gold and silver light that had vanished.
—Clean.
The voice echoed.
Kai's consciousness cut off there.
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