Chapter 50: Reaping the Harvest - 3
Chapter 50: Reaping the Harvest - 3
Leticia couldn't believe her ears.
"Wait, what did you just say...?"
"Exactly what it sounded like."
Jiha offered her a meaningful smile.
"I've been thinking. I might have pushed you a little too hard. Now I'm trying to build a more amicable relationship."
"......."
"If I keep hounding a Unique Grade like you and you start holding a grudge, that's going to be trouble down the line, isn't it?"
"Right, so you've finally grown a spine. Why the sudden change?"
Leticia's expression softened slightly.
Anyone who had already dealt with Jiha would be more on edge in this situation, but Leticia still didn't really know him.
Jiha spoke with brazen calm.
"You have to understand, I had no choice but to be rough and rude. I have my own position to consider, people watching. Sometimes I have to get nasty even when I'd rather not. We're from opposing camps, after all."
"Hmm...."
"Now that we finally have a chance to talk alone, I'm laying it out."
Up until now, Jiha and Leticia had always met with a third party present.
So he was sweet-talking her, claiming he'd never meant to be rough.
Watching Leticia's face relax after just a few words, Jiha was inwardly cheering.
Couldn't he just bite her outright?
If he did, she'd be able to resist for a while.
On top of that, according to his intel, Leticia had a hand-to-hand combat technique that could send her flying like the wind and smash buildings, and a Special Ability that let her strike through defenses.
The moment he bit her, Leticia would go berserk, and that was a serious danger.
'Don't clash head-on. As much as possible....'
Lower her guard, then get close.
Taking it as Jiha sincerely asking for forgiveness, Leticia gave a haughty nod.
He was the one bowing his head first. As a higher grade, she could afford a little magnanimity.
Especially if it hadn't been his true intent, but something circumstances had forced on him.
Wasn't Leticia herself being forced to maintain her engagement by the Elf Council right now?
"Alright, fine... It's not incomprehensible. So long as you behave yourself from now on."
Relaxed, Leticia uncrossed and recrossed her legs the other way.
Her sleek legs shifted with elegant grace.
Leticia's figure was slender yet feminine.
Her lustrous blonde hair, the gently swelling chest beneath her light green clothes—all attractive, but it was those long, pale legs that really captured a man's gaze.
She brought to mind a deer bounding lithely through the forest.
Leticia herself seemed unaware of her own appeal; she showed no particular reaction even when Jiha openly stared at her legs.
"So you said you'd get rid of my engagement. How? I'll say this upfront...."
"The specifics are confidential."
The moment Leticia took the bait, Jiha cut her off flat.
A reflexive disappointment flickered across her face, but Jiha was firm.
"But I'll tie the resolution of this incident to your engagement and handle it cleanly. You're worried the security officer might catch on, right? If I step in, it ends neatly."
Jiha had pinpointed the reason Leticia had come to Blue Seal alone without telling anyone.
"You've already seen my work up close, after all."
"......."
Leticia nodded.
Ever since meeting Jiha, she'd been overwhelmed by him from start to finish.
His skill at handling things—wiping out Pamin's crew, slipping away without taking the blame, and reaping the benefits—had been genuinely impressive.
Even if Leticia herself had been stuck with the clean-up, driving her up the wall....
Setting aside personal feelings, Jiha truly possessed an exceptional mind and force of action.
Among all the men Leticia had seen, he was the most outstanding.
No, perhaps even including the women.
Leticia had already half-convinced herself that the dark elf Enril must have recognized his ability, and that was why she gave him special treatment.
"...It's a shame you're human."
If a man like this were an elf, she wouldn't have minded being engaged to him.
Looking back over everything that had happened, Leticia sighed.
"Fine. So what do you want? What do I have to do for you to take care of my problem?"
She'd swallowed the hook.
Jiha kept his inner thoughts in check and spelled it out calmly.
"Let's go back to what you said at the start. You came here to make me your slave, didn't you?"
"Right, well. That offer still stands."
Leticia had dropped her guard considerably.
She'd been inwardly uneasy, thinking of the man in front of her as some shady predator, but here he was voluntarily lowering his head, wasn't he?
To the now-unwary Leticia, Jiha extended his terms.
"I'll have to test whether you're really qualified for that."
"A slave testing his master? That's...."
Leticia let out a hollow laugh, but she wasn't angry.
After all, Jiha seemed to finally be bowing to her, so there was nothing to be upset about.
"Fine, I'll accept it. How do you intend to test me?"
"Obviously, I'll test you as a man tests a woman."
Jiha's voice dropped low.
Leticia tilted her head.
"What's that supposed to...? More specifically?"
"I touch your chest for ten minutes. If you can endure that without reacting, I'll take care of all your problems."
"...What?"
Leticia reflexively covered her chest with her arms and pulled back.
Just when the conversation seemed to be going so well, what on earth was he saying?
Without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow, Jiha pressed her.
"What's so surprising? Did you think I cared about your grade or your wealth?"
"No...."
The demand was so outrageous that Leticia couldn't even get angry right away.
This was the first time she'd ever heard such an ignorant, insulting request.
If she had, she'd have kicked them instantly and ruptured their organs.
"I touched them just yesterday, didn't I? What are you playing so hard to get for?"
"That was you doing whatever you—!"
Recalling the tavern incident, Leticia flared up with renewed fury, but Jiha's voice pressed down on her.
"Enough with treating men like jokes."
"......."
Jiha had suddenly become a different person and was intimidating her.
Under his threat, Leticia stiffened.
Against an ordinary opponent, she'd have repaid him with immediate violence, but Jiha honestly made her uncomfortable.
On top of that, the atmosphere had been relatively soft, and then he'd suddenly turned dead serious, making her wonder if she'd done something wrong.
Jiha exploited that opening.
"Elf, Unique... the only thing about you I'd even bother with is your worth as a woman. You've probably been parading your fiancé around as your personal accessory, but I don't intend to be treated the same way. Not in the slightest."
"No, that wasn't something I wanted eith—"
"Don't make excuses to me. I'm only talking about objective facts."
Jiha shut it down hard.
Leticia, at a loss, trailed off.
"Even so, why that kind of condition...."
"How do you judge a woman you've never tried?"
Jiha spoke coldly and shrugged.
"But hey, I know my place. So ten minutes. I'll see if you're a woman worth using."
"......."
"If you manage to endure it well, I'll wash my hands of this cleanly and deal with your current problem and your engagement all at once."
Leticia didn't doubt Jiha's ability to handle things.
If Jiha set his mind to it, he'd definitely pull it off.
But still, saying she should just endure a human touching her....
As Leticia agonized, Jiha sneered.
"This is ridiculous. If I'm offering to help you, shouldn't you be offering up your entire fortune? Weren't you the one in a position to do anything if you could just break your engagement cleanly?"
"......."
Leticia bit her lower lip.
Just as Jiha pointed out, if she could annul the engagement to Pamin without any discord, nothing would be too precious to her.
"All you have to do is bear it for just ten minutes. If you can't, we drop this here. Then you can spend the next hundred years or so staying engaged."
"......."
At his words, Leticia's resolve wavered.
She knew she couldn't hold out for hundreds more years in this engagement.
"I've got nothing to lose here. Shall we end this talk now?"
When Jiha made as if to stand, Leticia reacted without thinking.
"...F-Fine. Fine."
"What?"
"Just ten minutes. That's it. Nothing more. I won't allow it."
In the end, Leticia accepted.
Normally she'd never have agreed... but the fact that it had already happened once blunted her resistance.
"And I won't accept this kind of test a second time. Just this once."
Leticia had judged that since letting Jiha touch her chest would only be unpleasant, there'd be no real problem.
'She's blindly believing that, even though there's absolutely no guarantee it'll be the same this time.'
The prey had walked right into a simple trap.
"...Your answer?"
As Leticia pressed him anxiously, Jiha nodded as if he had no choice.
"Well, you seem to have made up your mind, so I'll cut you some slack."
"......."
Leticia steeled her resolve.
Letting a vulgar human male touch her chest was utterly impermissible for a high elf... but the offer to annul her engagement without a hitch was just too tempting.
"...Ah, one more thing."
Leticia spoke, her voice tense.
"You will never let it leak that this happened. If my honor is sullied, I will absolutely not let you live."
"All this fuss over a pair of tits. You really are playing hard to get."
"...I'm not joking around right now."
At her threatening tone, Jiha gave a dry laugh.
"I have no intention of gossiping. It's your own conduct you should worry about."
"Right, then...."
Jiha looked toward the wall.
Since this was a VIP room, there was a grandfather clock.
"Let's start now, then."
"Huh? What? Now?"
Leticia, who'd been steeling herself, looked flustered.
"Being alone is better for you, isn't it? I don't mind touching you with other people around."
"That's completely ridicu—"
Leticia was dumbfounded, but quickly understood.
Hadn't this man in front of her kneaded her chest as he pleased right in front of everyone?
There was no guarantee he wouldn't do it again if things went wrong.
"...Fine. Then, uh...."
Leticia spoke, suppressing her shame.
"Go ahead...."
"Say it properly. What do you want me to go ahead with?"
"You...."
Leticia glared at him with furious eyes, but Jiha just smiled leisurely.
"I told you this was a test. I'm testing if you're worth using as a woman."
"......."
"I'm the one grading you. Say it properly."
Never having been pushed so forcefully by a man before, Leticia realized she had to follow Jiha's will right now.
His ability was beyond question.
What if this was a lie? What if he was just toying with her? Then she'd simply make him pay the price.
She was a Unique Grade. Even a hundred ordinary Commons couldn't stop her from smashing him to pieces.
Leticia asked one more time.
"...That plan of yours. It really is certain, right?"
"If you do well."
With the final confirmation over, Leticia faced her shame.
"M-My... chest...."
"......."
Jiha observed with satisfaction as the blonde elf, her face flushed red, struggled to force the words out.
He'd put considerable effort into this, and now the fruits were right before his eyes.
"My chest...."
If all he wanted was her blood, he wouldn't have needed to go this far.
His plan was to completely subjugate Leticia, just like Enril or Yura, and put her to good use.
To do that, he had to thoroughly smash through her mental walls and her pride.
Leticia was on the Purple side. Chances to tame her wouldn't come often, so when an opportunity arose, he had to pin her down perfectly.
"P-Please... touch...."
It took Leticia nearly half a minute just to complete a single sentence.
It must have been agonizing; her face was dyed a deep crimson.
"I didn't quite catch that."
"What?"
At Jiha's cold remark, Leticia looked flabbergasted.
"I said it clearly!"
"If it didn't reach my ears properly, it didn't reach them."
Having risen to his feet, Jiha folded his arms and looked down at her coldly.
"And the sentence was sloppy. You left out who you're asking to touch you, and where. Am I supposed to take that as permission to rub your tits with my foot or something?"
"What kind of utterly unreasonable...."
"Learn your place."
Thud.
Jiha placed his foot on the armrest of the sofa where Leticia sat and looked down at her.
As his face drew close, Leticia reflexively held her breath.
She wasn't aware of it, but she was being crushed under Jiha's presence.
"Right now, you're in the position of making a request of me. Express it more politely. More explicitly."
"How can I possibly say something like...."
"If you can't do it even when I give you the method, then it's meaningless. What a worthless woman."
At Jiha's snap, Leticia looked like she had nothing to say.
"If you really want what you're after, do it properly. More politely. With full awareness that you're the one asking."
"That...."
Leticia swallowed hard several times before opening her mouth with a trembling voice.
As if she couldn't bring herself to say it while looking at Jiha, she stared down at her own lap and stammered, forcing out words she'd never even considered before.
"M-My... chest... p-please...."
"......."
Feeling the man's gaze bearing down on her, Leticia went red all the way down to the nape of her neck.
She absolutely could not stand this situation.
She'd rather bite her own tongue and die.
But the thought circled in her head: having started, it was better to finish than to quit.
"W-With your hands... p-please... touch it...."
Letting out a long sigh, Leticia finally completed the sentence.
As if it had been incredibly difficult, she gasped for breath and raised her head to glare at Jiha.
At the rebellious look in her eyes, as if silently asking whether this was enough, Jiha smiled.
"Since you're begging so much, I suppose I will."
He'd make her a docile little lamb.