My 15-Day War with My Little Sister (1)
Hot midday sunlight streamed in through the window. When I opened my eyes, I could see beds on either side of me. Apparently I'd fallen asleep on the floor.
Maybe because it was the first sleep I'd had in days, I felt wonderfully refreshed. There was an inexplicable sense of fullness in me, too. I remembered with perfect clarity coming back to the lodging and collapsing — and I shouldn't have eaten a single thing since then.
The floor was hard, but my body was too stiff to get up right away, so I stayed lying there and tried to piece together what had happened last night.
Eun-ah had found me collapsed and woken me. After that, I seemed to have drunk milk she'd brought from somewhere. That milk had been truly delicious — it tasted like Miss Kotori's, the milk I'd had in the bandits' village.
And after that, I thought I'd gathered Eun-ah into my arms, gone outside, and taken her on a date.
"Ahhn! Pwince, pwease!"
It hadn't been a date, had it. I had a feeling I'd had sex with Eun-ah. But had Eun-ah ever called me Prince?
"Ugh."
Trying to recall it in detail brought a headache crashing in. I thought I'd confessed at the end — to Eun-ah. So where was Eun-ah?
Out of habit, I looked at the bed on the right, the one I always fell asleep in with Eun-ah. No one was there. With a pang of disappointment, I turned my head toward the bed on the opposite side.
Kotori lay face-down, and the sight of her was shocking.
She was in a cat's posture — hips hoisted high, face buried in the mattress, eyes closed. I couldn't tell whether she was asleep or unconscious.
The clothes that should have covered her chest had been shoved up above it, as if to show off breasts larger than her own head, and milk was drooling steadily from her swollen nipples.
Beneath her rolled-up skirt, the panties meant to hide her most intimate place were nowhere to be seen; her puffy, swollen pussy and anus — sticky with dried semen and love juices — were laid utterly bare. The sheets seemed to have exhausted their capacity to absorb, with puddles of Kotori's milk pooled here and there.
For an instant the thought delicious crossed my mind and I smacked my lips, but deciding other fluids were probably mixed in there too, I dropped the idea.
I couldn't begin to grasp what had happened. No — I could grasp it. I just didn't want to believe it.
[Lover List]
Kotori
The one I'd confessed to yesterday hadn't been Eun-ah. It had been Kotori. So where on earth was Eun-ah?
The thought that I had to find her this instant seized me, and I pulled out the mask.
[Hero. Where did you obtain that mask?]
My head filled with question marks.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
[I asked where you obtained the mask.]
"It was the quest reward you gave me."
[The only quest I ever issued you was the one to go rescue Miss Kotori. After I delivered that quest to you, the Goddess suspended me for a performance inspection, and I was reactivated today.]
My head grew hot. So those quests had been that Goddess bitch's way of making sure I couldn't get to Eun-ah?
"I think I need an explanation of what's going on here."
The Guide window flickered for a moment, then slowly flooded with pink.
"Honey, hi~? This is your first time seeing me, isn't it! ❤️"
A goddess I'd never even laid eyes on had pulled all that, and now she was acting sweet with me — my skin crawled.
"Honey, the inspection was absolutely necessary — you went and changed the Hero rules, after all~. And yet here I've been, personally crafting quests just for you all this time, and that face you're making honestly wounds me. You enjoyed those quests too, so what's with the look?"
"Because of you, you bitch, Eun-ah—"
"Stop! Even you — call me that one more time and I'll kill you on the spot! And besides, even if you'd ignored the quest and gone straight back to the kingdom, Eun-ah was already gone by then."
According to the Goddess, Eun-ah had vanished during the two hours I was outside the kingdom rescuing Kotori. I was certain I'd dealt with every enemy near the castle walls.
Unless someone had teleported in and carried her off, it was physically impossible. This world had no teleportation of that kind.
Gate-style travel between linked coordinates did exist, but as far as I knew, the kingdom had no gate connected to the Federation. I couldn't fathom how she had disappeared.
"If there'd been no quest and you'd handed Kotori over to the soldiers and come home, you'd have been expelled without ever registering a lover. Eun-ah went missing and you spent nearly three days searching for her half out of your mind — you really think you'd have gone and gotten close to someone else just because you happened to be there?"
"Even with Carol, I could have—"
"How much have you and Carol even talked, and that's true love? Honey, does that even make sense to you?"
It was true that all we'd done was talk for about thirty minutes. Still, with Carol, lover registration would have been possible. And if I bought time like that, couldn't I have found other lovers along the way?
"Honey, I can hear your brain grinding from all the way over here. Carol's a hopeless airhead, so sure — lover registration might work. But the moment Carol turns greedy and sleeps with another man, you lose your Hero's power on the spot. You can't control a lover's feelings. You really are all handsome face and pure little heart~. Honey. With a mindset like that, you'll be dead before long."
The Goddess's words stabbed into every corner of my body. Every one of them was a fact I couldn't argue with, and instead of burning hotter, my head went cold.
Drunk on the Hero's power, I'd beaten a handful of bandits and swaggered around like I owned the world. I'm different, I'd thought. Someone like me could do it easily.
I'd been busy getting excited about winning love — a whole harem, or Eun-ah — without ever looking this world square in the face. If being a Hero were really that simple, my turn would never have come around.
I could not lose my reason. Give flesh, take bone. No — even if I had to give up the bone, I had to take the heart.
Smack!
I slapped my own cheek. Both my palm and my face went numb with the sting. It had to hurt enough to keep me from going soft again. Was I supposed to be thanking the Goddess for this?
"I let you have sex! I made quests so you wouldn't lose your Hero's power! I knocked some sense into that screwed-up head of yours! I gave you everything! And if you still won't tell me thank you after all that, I'm going to sulk."
Ridiculous. She wasn't some fallen goddess — she seemed like an entirely different breed of deity altogether. For now, the smart move was to keep my head down and play along.
"Thank you."
"That's more like it. Honey, I do feel a little sorry for you, so I'll tell you where Eun-ah is. Head to Athens State around seven today, and you'll be able to find her~."
The Guide window flickered once more and settled back into its original green.
I knew Athens State lay to the west of the Märchen Kingdom. Would Carol lend me a horse?
Glancing to the side, I saw Kotori still sleeping soundly. The contrast between her adorable face and the semen-smeared mess of her lower body made me feel guilty toward her.
I hadn't been in my right mind, but in the end, I was the one who'd done it. I allowed myself a brief moment of self-reflection.
Careful not to wake her, I lifted Kotori up and laid her out neatly on the clean bed across the room. To cover her exposed breasts and pussy, I gently drew the blanket over her. The blanket would get dirty, but it could be washed — no harm done.
Tiptoeing with care, I turned the doorknob all the way and eased the door open — the advanced art of killing sound — and slipped out of the room. Time to head for the guild master's office where Carol was.
Carol had told me I could come and go as I pleased, so I passed the secretaries and went straight into her office.
Knock, knock.
"Come in."
I opened the door and stepped inside. Carol sat at her desk, absorbed in her work. Her stately figure bent over her paperwork was beautiful enough to steal the breath from my lungs.
The moment Carol noticed me, she welcomed me with a face softened into a full smile.
"Dongsaeng Yoo Gun! I've been worried sick about you — but your expression looks a little better. Did you perhaps find a lead on Eun-ah?"
At her question I answered that I had, and took a seat in the guest chair. Carol rose from her desk, brewed a pot of tea, and settled in across from me.
"Have some. It's a tea that helps settle the heart."
I could feel the heat of the tea travel down my throat and spread through my body. I felt noticeably lighter.
"There's something I must ask of you. Kotori is sleeping in my room right now."
I explained to Carol what had happened the night before and asked her to look after Kotori for me.
"I'm a little sad I couldn't be the one to become your lover. This is the first time I've ever felt jealous of someone, I think."
Since Carol didn't know I was a harem Hero, she consoled her regret over her tea. Perhaps there would be a next chance. It was about time to depart, so I asked Carol to lend me a horse.
"Carol, could I borrow a horse?"
"Of course. Where are you headed?"
"To Athens State."
At those words, Carol gave me a look that suggested she knew something. She told me she'd have my room changed to a suite by the time I returned, and advised me to steel my heart before I went.
If something had happened to Eun-ah, I doubted my mind would come out of it whole. Still, the Goddess had said I could find her — all I asked was that she be alive. Getting hurt was something that could happen to anyone, and with treatment she'd be all right. Soothing myself with those thoughts, I set out for Athens State.