From Now On, I'll Manage Your Body
Back in her own room, Aria sat on the edge of the bed without even changing out of her clothes, restless and unable to settle.
Her heart pounded as if it might burst.
Young Master told me… to come to his bedroom tonight.
She could guess easily enough why he had summoned her after dark.
But she lacked the courage to speak that conclusion aloud.
I should refuse. Refusing would be the right thing…
Yet she had already promised before the spar that she would do anything. There was no longer any grounds left to refuse.
Ah, why did I ever accept such a foolish wager…
She was furious with herself.
Young Master Ian had a notorious reputation even among the maids. Rumors said he was so lost in women that he caused trouble day after day. On her first day at the mansion, when they had crossed paths, that lecherous gaze of his had raked over her face, her chest, her thighs—and the memory was still vivid.
If I walk into that room of my own free will…
I'll have no choice but to collapse helplessly under whatever he orders.
Anxiety and fear made her body tremble.
But… why am I like this?
She kept telling herself she had to refuse and run, yet her mind kept replaying the vivid sensation of Young Master Ian forcibly devouring her lips yesterday morning, roughly invading her mouth.
When the clock hands finally pointed to the deep hour they had agreed upon, Aria at last gripped the doorknob with a violently shaking hand.
Right… I can just refuse.
She was about to open the door when the thought struck her.
…Can I really do that?
Even knowing it was a trap, she had no choice but to walk toward her master's bedroom on her own two feet.
Drawing a deep breath, Aria—still in the neat maid uniform she had worn all day—opened the door to Ian's bedroom with trembling hands and stepped inside.
"Oh, Aria, you're here?"
"I knew you'd keep your promise."
Ian, leaning against the headboard, smiled and beckoned her closer.
In the dead of night, under the soft lighting of the bedroom, his eyes took on a strangely alluring cast.
"You look especially beautiful tonight, Aria."
Aria fought to keep her composure, pressing down on a heart that felt ready to explode. Even the Young Master's light compliment now sounded like a death sentence.
"…Why did you call me here at this hour of the night?"
She tried to keep her voice as calm and level as possible, but she could not hide the stiff tremor at the end of it.
Instead of answering, Ian rose and approached slowly. Then he gently took hold of Aria's slender wrist as she stood frozen with tension.
Ah…!
Before she could refuse, she was drawn along by him, and her body was laid down upon the soft bed.
The plush feel of the bedding against her back made her entire body seize up as if in a spasm.
Ah… it seems my guess was right after all.
Her mind went blank white.
If he orders me now… I won't be able to refuse.
If Young Master Ian commanded her and pressed down on her the way he had yesterday morning… her heart had already long since given up resistance. The submissive nature she had kept tightly hidden was slowly lifting its head.
"Haa… your body always seems to give off such a sweet scent, Aria."
Ian breathed the words softly against her ear.
Aria stared up at him without looking away as he gazed down at her.
Right. This is just another duty a maid must perform.
Serving the master I will one day have to serve… it is something I must do.
She had sworn her life to the count's household.
If I'm going to offer this body anyway…
Caught between misery and a strange sense of release, Aria had reached the point of compromising with herself. She slowly squeezed her eyes shut.
If I can't escape it… then I have no choice but to accept it.
As a virgin who had never known a man, Aria had no other option before the fate approaching her than to close her eyes.
With a soft rustle, Ian's thick fingers lifted the skirt of her maid uniform and touched bare skin.
Yes… it's beginning now…
Aria bit her lip hard and waited for the shame and pleasure that would come.
Ian's thick fingers stroked upward along her white thigh.
Ah…!
At the heavy sensation trailing over her skin, Aria twisted her waist without meaning to and sucked in a sharp breath.
Aah… Young Master's hand is so hot…
Every time his fingers brushed the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, she clutched at her bursting heart and squeezed her eyes shut tighter.
Ah… there's no way out anymore.
From this moment on, both her body and her heart would fall completely under his dominion.
She was thinking that, waiting for the rough pleasure to come, when Ian's fingertips pressed firmly against a deep bruise on the inside of her leg.
"Eut… Y-Young Master…"
A sharp pain mixed with a strange pleasure rose through her lower belly.
But there was no next action of roughly stripping her clothes or pinning her down to greedily sate his desire. He simply examined the wounds all over her body with careful hands, gently caressing them.
What? He wasn't… trying to take me?
With her eyes still tightly shut and her breathing ragged, Aria's head began to spin. The longer the silence stretched, the more impatience and explosive embarrassment choked her.
Could it be… he's just quietly enjoying my reactions?
Her mind was full of every lewd thing she might suffer, yet the next action she waited for never came.
At last, unable to bear it, Aria carefully opened her eyes.
What she saw was nothing like the lewd smile she had expected, mocking her reactions.
…Huh?
What entered Aria's vision was Ian's face, more serious than she had ever seen it, quietly examining the bruises on her legs and around her waist.
"Hmm… as expected of you, Aria. You applied the medicine I gave you well."
"But the places your hands couldn't reach still haven't settled."
"Just a moment—I'll put some more on for you."
"…!"
Aria was so startled it felt as if she had been struck over the head. She had been certain he would trample her and take her without mercy, yet here he was carefully tending the bruised places ruined by day-and-night training, purely worried about her.
Ah…
In that instant, uncontrollable shame swallowed her whole. She had assumed Young Master Ian meant to lust after her body, had lain on the bed with her eyes squeezed shut ready to accept it—and the thought of how she must have looked was mortifying beyond words.
Young Master was only worried about me… and I alone…
Her face burned so hot it felt ready to burst.
"Turn on your side for a moment, Aria."
It was embarrassing to expose her bruises to the Young Master's eyes like this, but Ian paid no mind to such things and calmly scooped out ointment, spreading it over the bruised skin.
"Aah… eut."
When the tips of Ian's fingers pressed and rubbed the swollen flesh, a heated moan slipped unbidden from between Aria's lips.
"Eut…!"
Of course the contusions stung when touched, but as the firm, hot hand of a man carefully massaged her soft skin, a strange heat kept rising from the pit of her lower belly.
Aah… no, I can't make sounds like that…
After diligently applying medicine all over Aria's body for a long while, Ian seemed to decide the treatment was finished. He closed the ointment jar and smiled brightly.
"All done. You didn't cry out once even while I put the medicine on—impressive."
"If it were me, I might have yelled that it hurt a dozen times."
Aria lowered her skirt and looked up at Ian with thoroughly damp eyes. Her chest trembled so hard she could barely stand it.
"Um… Young Master Ian."
"Did you call me here tonight… just to put medicine on me?"
"Hm? Why, Aria? What other reason would I have for calling you?"
Ian tilted his head with an innocent expression, as if he truly knew nothing.
"Don't tell me… Aria, you weren't thinking something strange about me, were you?"
"…!"
That question was the finishing blow. Aria flushed so hard her face seemed ready to explode and could not lift her head. The one who had entertained lewd fantasies was not the Young Master—it was her.
Ian stroked Aria's hair as if she were endearing, while she squirmed in embarrassment.
"From now on I'll manage your body, so I'd like you to come to my bedroom at this hour tomorrow as well."
"You push yourself far too hard, Aria. If someone doesn't force care on you like this, you'll collapse before long."
Ian's gentle voice hammered against her heart.
"Well then, Aria—it's late. Go back and sleep."
At Ian's attitude, Aria stood dazed as if she had received a massive shock.
He really… called me just to put medicine on me…?
Had every rumor circulating through the mansion been false? There was no Young Master lost in women.
I… completely misunderstood him, believing only the rumors.
Perhaps the Young Master she had thought she knew had never existed from the start.
As Aria left the room, instead of cold wariness, an unnameable, strange flutter and a sense of pity toward the man named Ian began to sprout in her chest.
"Your stance has collapsed, Young Master. In swordsmanship, the fundamentals are most important."
Aria's cold, firm voice rang across the rear courtyard.
Thud—!
"Hup…!"
Ian rolled through a cloud of dust and dirt, breathing hard.
As promised, Aria had begun teaching him the sword—but mercy did not exist in her dictionary. If anything, her training was far harsher and more merciless than usual.
"Stand up again."
Yet Aria herself, while teaching Ian, was far from unscathed. From the fierce sparring, her neat maid uniform was already soaked through with sweat, clinging tightly along the full curves of her chest as if ready to burst. Every time she swung her sword and lunged sharply, her white thighs—taut with tension and flaunting sensual elasticity—were subtly revealed beneath her skirt and apron.
"Your focus is drifting, Young Master Ian! Concentrate on the tip of your blade!"
That raw visual stimulus sent a jolt through Ian's mind, but he had no leisure for stray thoughts.
She's really coming at me hard. Not the slightest intention of going easy.
Swallowing the breath that rose all the way to his throat, Ian gripped his sword once more.
Aria's wooden blade came rushing in. In that instant, Ian parried the thrust with footwork identical to hers, as if he already knew the trajectory.
Clang—!
This was already the dozenth Retry since they had started again.
Damn, is this already the twentieth Retry this time…
I'll drill it into my body without mercy until it remembers.
But from Aria's perspective facing him, it was entirely different. To her, this spar was merely the second one after yesterday. Outwardly she maintained her cool, yet inside she was seized by a shock she could never have imagined.
She had sensed something unusual in the previous spar as well, but this surpassed that level entirely.
…Is this even possible?
In just half a day. The basic forms and ordinary footwork of swordsmanship she had shown him only once.
Impossible.
Movements that ordinary apprentice adventurers would need weeks of rolling around just to barely imprint on their bodies—Ian was following them perfectly, as if he had worn them like his own clothes for a long time.
It wasn't mere coincidence.
At the recent Awakening Ceremony, Ian had been granted a useless trash skill and was on the verge of being driven from the family. Everyone in the mansion had clicked their tongues at the Young Master, and Aria herself had believed he would be cast out for that worthless skill and his reputation as a notorious womanizer.
But…
What in the world was this spine-chilling aptitude unfolding right before her eyes?
Something must have gone wrong at the Awakening Ceremony.
There was no other way to explain this unnatural genius. The tools of the ceremony must have erred and misidentified his original skill as a completely different trash skill.
Yes—if that weren't the case…
What the Young Master had obtained was not some trash skill at all, but in truth a skill of tremendously high grade.
The deeper her astonishment grew, the sharper Aria's blade became. The stranger her feelings and confusion toward Ian became, the more mercilessly she drove him, as if reining herself in. It was brutal training and, at the same time, Aria's own deepest form of devotion.
In a few days the Young Master would have to leave this safe mansion for the harsh outside world.
There's no time.
Outside was far too dangerous. Once he was cast out from the family, there would no longer be any shield to protect him.
So Young Master… you must gain the strength to protect yourself.
You must endure my sword.
Beyond Aria's fiercely honed blue eyes, affection for Ian and a maid's obsession with keeping him alive flew together with the flying sweat.
Ian took that merciless blade and was certain her firm lock was beginning to shake, little by little.
Good. Challenge me all you like.
Before this day ends, I will definitely break through that sword of yours.