Beyond the Tenth Floor
"Shall we head out soon?"
Jun, still lying in bed, glanced at the clock in the corner of the bedroom and said as much.
The time was ten in the morning. It had already been three days since he'd returned from the Labyrinth and sunk into a stretch of thoroughly carnal leisure.
He'd rested enough. It was time to get back to work.
"Nooo♡"
"Slurp, slurp"
"Mmph♡ Mmmph♡"
Well — he seemed to be the only one who thought so.
"Our little Juni isn't going anywhere until he's finished all of Maman's milk. Understood?"
Fortuna, fully slipped into mommy mode for the first time in a while, pressed her M-cup breasts — already brimming with milk again despite having been suckled all night — against Jun's face.
"My looord♡ Slurp, slurp. You taste so exquisite♡ Slurp, slurp. This humble wife, this humble wife — suck♡"
Dohwa, licking and sniffing at his neck and chest as she greedily claimed his fluids and scent, draped her upper body over his as if she would never let him leave.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
"Mmph♡ Mmmph♡ Nngh♡♡♡"
Rebecca, still blindfolded, gagged, and cuffed, was locked in a furious dance with Jun's manhood — and at the mere suggestion that he might be thinking of something else mid-performance, she shook her hips even harder, even more obscenely.
"...Haa."
When his beautiful wives turned into heat-struck females begging for affection, he could hardly refuse them coldly — not as their husband, not as their male. Still, a mind so lost to lust that it no longer knew moderation needed correcting.
Crack! Crackle!
"Kyaaah♡"
"Nngiiih♡"
"Mmbububuh♡"
Electric stimulation at full output. His wives' backs arched like drawn bows almost in unison.
An hour later, Jun left the house and headed for the Guild — with his wives still trembling at the waist, their faces dazed and dreamy, trailing along beside him.
"Hahaha! I told you to rest, and you spent three straight days doing nothing but night work!"
"Guild Master!"
Carol, standing at the Guild Master's side, barked the moment he laughed and said it. Even so, the Guild Master didn't stop grinning.
"So that talk about winning at night wasn't a lie. Look at those faces — completely blissed out."
The Guild Master opened his remaining eye in a sly leer and looked at Jun — or more precisely, at Rebecca, still clinging to him with that same dreamy expression. It ought to have been embarrassing, yet Rebecca paid it no mind at all, simply leaning into Jun like a woman full of sweet affection.
And Fortuna and Dohwa, tucked into his collar to hide from prying eyes, were no different.
As he quietly accepted their coquetry, Carol entered Jun's field of vision. Unaware of his gaze, she snuck sidelong glances at Rebecca, then let out a long sigh and touched her own cheek. A moment later her face crumpled into a pout. Rebecca's skin, glossy from soaking up a man's affection, made a merciless comparison with her own, wrecked by several nights of sleepless work.
"Pfft!"
The Guild Master, who had been secretly watching her just as Jun had, couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing. A thick smile slowly — very slowly — spread across Carol's face.
"Guild. Mas. Ter. Shall we get to the point."
"R-Right."
Her smile was exceedingly beautiful, yet Jun could not find it beautiful at all. Goosebumps prickled along his skin from a chill that had no business existing in midsummer. Even the mighty Guild Master seemed to feel the same; he rubbed his arms for no reason and nodded at Carol's words. Ranker or not, there was no withstanding a spinster's hysteria.
If you know that, do something about it!
Why me? You're the one who poked the hornet's nest with your teasing, Guild Master.
Anyway! I can't hold a conversation in this suffocating atmosphere, so fix it! Or we can just sit here like this!
Haa∼. You owe me a meal later.
After finishing their covert exchange of glances, gestures, and mouthed words, Jun pulled a letter from Dowonhyang and handed it to Carol.
"Jun, what's this? A love letter, perhaps!"
"No, it's not."
"..."
"W-Well, you could say it's something similar. Though I didn't write it."
When the warmth on Carol's face began to freeze over again, Jun hastily added the rest. Carol looked up at him, flushed, demanding an explanation with her eyes.
"I have a friend who's as good as family to me. He's in the capital right now, so we can't meet — we exchange letters instead. The problem is, I can't reply when I'm inside the Labyrinth. So..."
"S-So?"
"In my last letter I mentioned that there's a noona who helps me a great deal, someone who knows all my circumstances and schedule, and I asked if he'd like to correspond with her as well. He readily agreed — and sent a letter addressed to Carol along with his reply."
"I-I see. Then it doesn't really mean anything major..."
"I've written so often about your good points that he says he'd like to get to know you. Give it a try, Carol. And I'm not just saying this because he's my friend — he's a truly wonderful person. Kind and pure enough that even Fortuna approved, and extremely cute-looking."
Gulp.
At Jun's added remark, Carol swallowed for no particular reason. Then she set her face with resolve and carefully tucked the letter into her breast pocket.
Jun-jun.
Fortuna, somewhat recovered by then, poked him in the neck and sent a thought.
Yeah? What is it?
Aren't you going to tell her who the friend is? Carol's going to be shocked when she finds out later.
Can you tell who wrote it?
Yep! It's Skinny, right?
Correct. Even after parting ways, the friendship between Jun and Harry hadn't changed. The two of them wrote letters checking on each other once every three days — a week at the latest. He also kept up a steady correspondence with Leon and those who had followed him to the capital — Leonard, Donald, Linda, Heni, and Robin — but none of them wrote as frequently as Harry.
For the record, the person with the fewest exchanges was Leon. He'd been such a nuisance when he was nearby, yet the moment they were apart, his interest seemed to drop right along with the distance. As evidence: of the mere five letters he'd sent, every one contained nothing but perfunctory greetings. At first he'd at least written about academy life, but after becoming student council secretary, even that vanished — as if he were guarding something. Was he hiding something good?
So are you going to tell her or not?
I'm not. Carol's position isn't low, but if she learned Harry's true identity she'd feel pressured.
She already had the burden of being roughly twice his age. If Harry's status sat above hers as well, even a Carol desperate for romance would push him away — even if Harry approached first and showed interest.
And Harry being the Saint needs to stay as secret as possible.
Through their letters, Harry had learned that Jun didn't need his help for the time being. To keep Leon from latching onto him for the imperial succession, and to stay wary of the cult Jun had described in his letters, Harry had decided — just days after finishing his education as a Saint — not to publicly announce his identity. As a result, only a bare handful of people within the Church knew who he truly was. And that would likely remain the case unless danger fell upon Jun or some corner of the world.
But is it true? That Skinny said he wants to get along with Carol?
Yeah. It's true.
Perhaps because he'd never received a mother's love as a child, Harry — now at the age for romance — was desperately searching for a woman who could give him a sense of maternal warmth. With only eccentric old priests around him for his Saint education, it was only natural that his interest would settle on Carol, whom he'd come to know through Jun's letters.
I hope it works out. I don't want to feel guilty when I haven't done anything wrong.
How painfully those longing glances Carol had been casting had weighed on him. Jun spoke, praying that things would go well between his friend and Carol.
"Carol, I'm sure it'll turn out well. Don't be afraid — send a reply."
"A-Alright. Thank you for introducing your friend, Jun."
"Hahah! Has the sun finally risen on our eternal spinster Carol? I ought to pray to the Bright God that this works out!"
"Guild Master!"
"Carol, fix that habit of yelling. Men don't like that sort of thing."
"Mmph!"
The Guild Master's teasing must have been mortifying; even after shouting, Carol looked ready to fire off another retort — only to clap both hands over her mouth at his follow-up. For a clever woman to fall for a lie like that... she really was desperate.
After a good laugh at the sight of her, the Guild Master let out a long breath to settle himself, then looked Jun straight in the eye.
"Shall we have a real conversation now?"
"...Is that alright?"
Jun asked, glancing sidelong at the corner of the Guild Master's office. The Guild Master only grinned and said nothing. Apparently it didn't matter.
"Alright. So what's today's topic?"
"...I understand. I'll think about it."
"Good. It's for the sake of the world, so try to lean toward the positive if you can."
At the Guild Master's words, Jun said nothing more. He simply bowed his head in farewell and left the office with his women. The Guild Master stared blankly at the door for a moment after he'd gone, then turned to Carol.
"Doesn't seem like he's interested, does it?"
"No. From everything I've seen of Jun, he has neither the ambition nor the vanity you'd expect at his age. No amount of sweet talk will make him easy to recruit."
"Even if the goal is saving the world?"
"If saving the world means he and his people die, it's worthless. Even if the world ends, as long as he and his people are safe, he doesn't care. I'm certain that's how he thinks."
The Guild Master had been about to say that surviving a world's end would be pointless anyway — then something occurred to him, and he exhaled a deep sigh.
"If he goes into that subspace, he could survive even if the world ends."
"Yes. He's already set up the bare minimum of infrastructure. Given that he lives inside the subspace rather than a house even on the surface, I'm sure he's made it quite livable."
"...Worst-case scenario. We need him desperately, and he wants nothing from us. No — more than that, how can living beings even enter a subspace?"
"I inquired with the Magic Tower. Every answer came back the same: impossible. If a subspace becomes an environment where life can survive, it's already no different from a world of its own. No matter how gifted someone is with spatial affinity, a human creating an entire world is impossible."
At Carol's explanation, the Guild Master scratched his head, then spoke toward the corner of the office that Jun had been looking at earlier.
"You heard that? Got anything that might tempt him?"
"Hmm. Nothing among my possessions is particularly valuable, I'm afraid."
Then, accompanied by a clear voice like jade beads striking one another—
Zing∼
Two women, one tall and one small, appeared from empty air where nothing had been.
"Do we even need him that badly? I can find the path just fine on my own."
The shorter of the two — a woman with a dainty face, hair the deep blue of the sea, and breasts far too large for her petite frame — crossed her arms in open dissatisfaction. She hated the idea that they needed him, that they would have to cling to him for his sake. If he had been a woman, she would have accepted it readily. But he was a man, and she refused to do any such thing.
"No. We need his help. Reaching the tenth floor in a mere five months, even with an incomplete party, means he possesses both formidable power and precise detection ability."
The taller of the two — a woman with a slender figure, white hair and golden eyes that called someone to mind, and equally enormous breasts — opposed her companion. If what the Guild Master and the chief receptionist had said before his arrival was true, he was someone they absolutely had to bring in as a comrade. If they could recruit him, she was prepared to grant as much as she could. That was her duty.
"Elysia! Are you serious!"
"Yes. That is precisely the duty I, the Hero, must bear."
"I don't want that kind of duty!"
"No, Iris. You must bear it as well. You, too, are the Saintess who carries this world's fate."
"...Hmph!"
The smaller woman — or rather, the Saintess Iris, small in stature but large of heart — snorted as if she didn't want to hear it. Gently stroking her head, the larger woman in every sense — the Hero Elysia — turned to the Guild Master and the chief receptionist.
"Even something trivial is fine. If there is anything that might give us room to persuade him, please tell us without hesitation, whatever it may be."
At the Hero's question, the Guild Master and Carol looked at each other for a moment. Then, almost simultaneously, their gazes settled on a particular place.
"...Huh?"
"I-I knew it would come to this! This is exactly why men are—!"
The two pairs of eyes were pointed squarely at the generous hearts of the Hero and the Saintess.
Had Jun been present, he would have said this:
That, too, was the correct answer.