The Snowball Effect of the Letter (2)
The viscount's manor that governed Ludel was quiet and elegant. The second-floor bedroom was wallpapered entirely in soft pink. A canopy bed overflowing with frills, a large teddy bear, and romance novels scattered across the floor. Right in the middle of it all, a girl in an extravagant dress was rolling around on the bed. She was Elise, the young lady of the Ludel viscount family.
"Kyaaaak! What am I supposed to do! The male lead tells the female lead, 'You're the only poison that makes my heart race!' He's insane!"
Elise buried her face in a pillow and kicked her legs wildly. The book in her hands was The Duke's Dangerous Contracted Engagement. It was a currently trending all-ages romance novel from the capital. Of course, there were 19+ versions as well, but Elise's doting viscount parents personally inspected every single novel delivered to the estate and confiscated anything remotely inappropriate. As a result, not once had such a book ever reached her hands.
"Mari! Did you hear? The top graduate from the capital academy has settled down in our village!" Elise shot upright and shouted.
Mari, the maid who had been dusting nearby, replied in a completely expressionless voice.
"I heard."
"This is fate! He must have come here for me!" Elise's eyes sparkled with dreamy delusion. "The top graduate! He has to be an intelligent, cold-hearted black-haired beauty with crimson eyes who only shows warmth to his woman!"
In truth, Hans had been an unremarkable low-ranking graduate during his academy days, overshadowed by nobles to the point that his name hadn't even been remembered. But inside the isolated viscount's estate, where outside rumors were heavily filtered, the fragmented news that reached Elise had been gloriously distorted through her rose-colored romance filter into "the reclusive genius who conquered the capital academy."
"He probably just came because the housing was cheap, my lady," Mari said, tapping the desk sharply with her duster. "And if he really was the top graduate, wouldn't he be smart enough to avoid settling in a backwater village like this..."
"No! He definitely has a wounded soul! He's exhausted from the complicated power struggles and came here in search of true love!" Elise wasn't listening at all. "I must melt him with my warm affection! Ah, just imagining it makes me tremble!"
"In reality, he's probably a smelly, unemployed adventurer," Mari said mercilessly. "And my lady, last month you got obsessed with that wandering minstrel and left the window open for a 'window-side romance' only to get bitten by mosquitoes fifty times."
"Ahem! That was... a trial and error!" Elise cleared her throat and dashed to the mirror. "I need to prepare. There's no telling when he'll come to propose! Mari, where did you put my battle outfit? The one with the deep cleavage!"
"It's in the laundry," Mari answered with a sigh. "Besides, they say he's a commoner. If a man like that proposes to the lord's daughter, it's not romance—it's ambition for social climbing. The probability that he's a con artist is 99%."
"Oh, Mari. You really have no sense of romance!" Elise winked at her reflection in the mirror. "Just wait for me, my prince. This Elise will soon come to your rescue!"
Mari shook her head slowly. She already felt pity for whatever poor man had been caught in her lady's delusion radar this time.
Near the imperial capital, in the Magic Tower's Third Research Lab. The desk was buried under a mountain of magic scrolls and research papers. Amid the chaos, a woman was sipping coffee while reading a letter. Messy red hair. Dark circles that reached all the way to her chin. It was the female mage, Yuria.
"Pffffft—!" She spat out her coffee. "Cough! Cough! What the hell is this?"
The letter in her hand was the one Karen had sent.
[...When the deep knot inside my body was stimulated, my mana core vibrated violently and a clear liquid gushed out.]
"This crazy muscle-brained idiot..." Yuria shook the letter with a dumbfounded expression. "This isn't some magical phenomenon. She just came really hard!"
She pulled a tattered book from deep inside her desk drawer. The Demon Queen's Fifty Shadows. It was a hardcore erotic novel listed on the empire's banned books index. Yuria flipped familiarly to page 324.
"See? It's exactly the same. 'When her honey spring was stimulated, holy water burst forth like a floodgate had opened.' This is straight-up squirting!"
Yuria clutched her head. "This won't do. That naive fool has gotten herself completely scammed. Turbid energy my ass!"
She wanted to pack her bags and rush to Ludel right this instant. But the pile of research assignments on her desk held her back.
"Haa... If it weren't for that old Magic Tower Master and his damn deadlines..."
Yuria picked up her quill to write a reply, then paused. She looked around. Male mages muttering to themselves in the corners of the lab. Greasy hair, vacant eyes, mouths mumbling things like "mana arrangement... formula..." They were nothing but zombies.
No hope here.
Yuria was twenty-five years old. Her theoretical knowledge was impeccable. She had read every banned book there was, making her bedroom technique knowledge equal to the Tower Master's level. But real-world experience? Zero.
I want... to experience it too.
Her gaze fixed on Karen's letter. The man who had conquered Karen... The one who had tricked that ignorant knight with ridiculous nonsense about turbid energy and developed her to this extent. His skills had to be insane.
I want to try that too. I want to squirt!
Yuria swallowed hard. Of course she knew this was all sexual. But...
I can just pretend I don't.
The corner of her mouth curled up slyly.
What if I go there too... and enjoy myself while using research and verification as an excuse? If even Karen fell for it, there's no reason I can't fall for it too, right?
Yuria threw down her quill.
"This is no time to be writing a reply."
She sprang up from her seat.
"Tower Master! I've discovered a critical magical mutation! An on-site investigation is urgently required!"
Yuria's eyes gleamed with desire. Research deadlines and reports were pushed to the back of her mind. Her burning determination to obtain approval for the business trip—even if it meant fighting tooth and nail with the senile Tower Master—ignited like wildfire.
In the kitchen of the Moonlight Shelter inn in Ludel, the sound of a knife slamming against the cutting board rang out with unusual ferocity. Chef Ben was mincing meat. As if chopping someone's throat.
"Goddammit... Everything was fine before that bastard showed up."
He had believed himself to be the true operator of this rural inn. The owner, Masa, had relied on him because of his cooking skills. Masa's body. Those voluptuous breasts and hips he had stolen glances at, using those memories as fuel for countless nights of masturbation at home.
Money? I don't need it. If I could just do it once—if I could just untie the strings of that apron on Masa, I'd gladly live as a slave for the rest of my life.
But on one side of the stove, a stamina stew that Masa had prepared to feed Hans was simmering.
"This isn't for customers. It's for Mr. Hans when he returns. He's been looking so thin lately."
Whenever Hans's name came up, a blush would bloom across Masa's face—a woman's expression she had never once shown him. Ben's eyes darkened with murky gloom.
He needs to disappear. If only that bastard were gone... everything could go back to the way it was.
Beyond simple jealousy, a criminal impulse flashed through Ben's mind. The kitchen knife in his hand gleamed with a chilling light.
At that very moment, while Ben was lost in his delusions, Masa stood by the inn window, gazing outside. In the distance, a luxurious carriage bearing the temple's emblem had come to a stop. Hans was stepping down from it, while young priestesses bowed their heads toward him with lingering reluctance.
Again... Another new woman?
The dishcloth in Masa's hand trembled violently. Jealousy gripped her chest so tightly it was hard to breathe.
Why does he keep going outside? Am I not enough? Or is it because I'm too old?
But she soon took a deep breath and suppressed her emotions. She had recently realized she had been pushing him too hard, becoming overly obsessive. The anxiety that Hans might have his heart completely stolen by other women if she continued like this.
I need to change my strategy. Instead of being a nagging wife, I should become a warm nest he always wants to return to.
Masa forced the corners of her mouth upward. Equipped with the most benevolent smile in the world, she prepared to welcome Hans.
"Welcome back, Mr. Hans."
But Hans didn't even have time to hear her greeting before he made a beeline for the bathroom.
"Ugh... It stinks! Blegh!"
Hans was frantically rinsing his mouth with water from a bucket. He grabbed coarse salt and scrubbed his raw, swollen tongue. Karen had been somewhat tolerable, but the concentrated bodily fluids of Lucia, who hadn't washed for several days, were nothing short of a biochemical weapon. The stench had seeped into every single taste bud, refusing to fade. His tongue was so swollen he couldn't even feel anything anymore.
"Ugh..."
Just then, the bathroom door opened and Masa stood there. Hans flinched and quickly wiped the foam from his lips.
"Mr. Hans, are you feeling unwell? You look terrible."
Masa didn't get angry. Instead, she gently guided him with a caring touch and sat him down at the dining table. She scooped up a spoonful of the stamina stew she had prepared and fed it to him.
"......"
It tasted like nothing. His tongue was completely numb.
Masa approached, held his chin, and examined the inside of his mouth. The swollen, raw tongue. The reddened, inflamed roof of his mouth. Masa's eyes narrowed slightly. She instinctively knew. These were the traces left behind after enthusiastically sucking on someone for a very long time.
"Oh my..."
Masa's voice flowed out coldly, yet sweet as honey.
"Who did you lick so diligently that your tongue ended up like this? It's all swollen and puffy."
"T-that's... It was unavoidable during the heresy interrogation process..."
"Shh." Masa pressed her index finger to Hans's lips. "I'll listen to your excuses in bed. I'll bring some medicine, so wait for me in the second-floor room."