Yamiyo no Hotaru

Chapter 12

In 'Firefly of the Dark Night (Yamiyo no Hotaru)', which is basically modeled on Japan around the Edo period when there were neither human rights nor the concept of democracy, Fuso-kuni has a strict class society. Rather, in fact, because the country is overrun by monsters that surpass human beings, and because there are people who have special power to fight against them, the sense of class and hierarchy may be more strict than in the real feudal age.

As for the ruling class, the emperor, who is the supreme ruler of Fuso-kuni, and the royal family stand at the top of the ruling class, and the court nobles, who are in charge of the central government and ministries, the feudal lords, who are in charge of local administration and military affairs, and the exorcist family, who have the ability of opposing monsters of different shapes, reign in the upper layer of the ruling class.

Below them are the landowners, such as big merchants and village heads with interests such as wholesale dealers, who hold the upper middle class, and in the middle of the society are the rich farmers who own large tracts of land, though not as much as landowners, the common samurai who eat the stipend from the feudal lords, the skilled craftsmen, and middle-class merchants who have real estate, privilege, other assets or skills, etc.

Of course, being in the lower class does not mean that all the people are in need of food and shelter. Such a fragile country will soon be destroyed by the Youkai. So, while most of the peasant townspeople have little entertainment and have to work every day, they earn enough to eat and have a minimum savings. Well, there are still some peasants who have to pay a heavy tribute, the urban poor who have to work day jobs to survive, and the untouchables who are treated as lowly people, as the game suggests. As for me? I was born a poor farmer in a cold village. Well, we are lucky that we have private land, though it's not as big as a cat's forehead.

In such a situation, there is the Tachibana family, a merchant family whose roots can be traced back to a noble family that fell and threw away its position as an aristocrat, and belongs to the upper class among the so-called commoners.

This family runs a grain business, which was also important in Japan during the Edo period, and also runs a long-established major trading company that has been in business since before the Great Human Youkai War, dealing with daily necessities such as liquor, soy sauce, salt, sugar, and cotton, as well as luxury goods such as silk cloth and perfumes, weapons and medicine for the defeated warriors and warrior groups, and even imported goods from the southern countries and the continent. In the game, Tachibana Kayo-chan (14 years old at the start of the game), known as Kayo-chan, the item shop owner, is the first store of the trading company, where players can purchase various rare items at a high price.

By the way, this Kayo, as is usual with the characters in "Firefly of the Dark Night (Yamiyo no Hotaru)", is not a character to be captured, but rather a character with unnecessarily elaborate standing pictures and abundant image variations. Therefore, she is often included in the first encounter heroine or harem member of NAISEI-oriented authors in the later secondary works. Above all, the incident in the gaiden novel 'Sad Tale of a Fox Child', also known as 'The Incident of Item Shop Kayo's Parents' Brain Miso Pudding', ignited fans' fantasies related between the two different books.

Well, wouldn't it be a sight to see her parents' skulls cut open and their brains being scooped out with a bamboo whisk and eaten alive while hiding in the carriage's baggage? Then, after the murder of her parents, who were the top management of the merchants' association, the daughter alone had to manage a large merchant's business... Combined with the description of the family in 'The Sad Tale of Fox Child' and some dark lines in the game, fans of the game have been shown a lot of stories in which the daughter sells her body to bad adults in order to protect the store. Uh, yeah. Loli girl who literally put her body on the line for the sake of it... that's pretty twisted.