Chapter 15: Results
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 15: Results
Early morning.
Rubbing her bleary eyes with a half-awake face, Sera rose from her bed. Still in her pajamas, she washed her face first before getting dressed.
"Nnnngh...!"
As the first to wake, her morning routine began as soon as the sunlight hit the inn. She would take the Sunstone lamps hanging in the second-floor hallway and move them to a sunny spot on the exterior wall. Sunstones needed to soak up as much sunlight as possible during the day.
For the few guests who ate breakfast, she pushed a pot of soup near the hearth—which looked like a wide fireplace—and piled kindling like hay and dried leaves over the smoldering logs. She struck a piece of iron against flint to spark a fire.
'Is Yoo Eon still sleeping?'
Sera knew he always ate breakfast before heading out. While two meals a day was the norm in the medieval era, many people in the Labyrinth City ate three.
Yoo Eon had stayed out quite late last night. Since it was barely past 8:00 AM, she figured he wouldn't be awake yet.
'I'll tell him to eat breakfast and then go back to sleep.'
With that thought, she climbed back up to the second floor and opened the door to the room at the very end of the hallway, the one Yoo Eon always used.
"Hyaah...!?"
There, sprawled comfortably on the bed and wearing nothing but his underwear, was Yoo Eon.
"Oh... oh my goodness...! I'm sorry, Yoo Eon...!"
Sera quickly raised her hands to cover her eyes, but she couldn't help peeking through the gaps between her fingers.
"H-He's definitely asleep, right...?"
Unlike her own, his thighs and calves were packed with hard muscle.
His abdominal muscles were deep and well-defined, and as he lay slightly tilted, she caught a glimpse of his sharply chiseled obliques. His pectorals were broad yet finely detailed, and his thick forearms were corded with veins that stood out like a spiderweb.
Even though it was the same type of bed as hers, it looked cramped because of his broad shoulders.
But more than anything else, one thing caught her eye.
'T-That's... his penis...!'
Inside his wide, loose boxers, his manhood looked like a prisoner trying to tear through the fabric to escape.
Since Yoo Eon was sleeping as still as a corpse, Sera couldn't understand why his member was in such an aroused state while its owner was unconscious.
'Wouldn't that be painful...?'
To her, it looked incredibly uncomfortable. Because he was wearing underwear that didn't fit his size, his private parts seemed to be suffering.
The parts used for reproduction were meant to be the most precious areas to protect, regardless of gender. Well aware of this, Sera stepped forward to "rescue" Yoo Eon's manhood from the uncomfortable prison of his small underwear.
'I-It looks like it hurts... I'm just going to let it out....'
Elastic materials were hard to find in this medieval setting, so the waistband of Yoo Eon's boxers was tied with a string rather than an elastic band.
It was a knot that should have been easy to pull and release, but it had been tied by Yoo Eon, a man of immense physical strength.
'W-Why won't it come loose...?'
Thinking it was a simple slipknot, Sera carefully reached out her slender white fingers and pulled at the string.
'Urgh...!'
In reality, it was only a brief moment of about five seconds, but to Sera, it felt like an eternity of suffering. If Yoo Eon were to wake up right now, the sight she would present to him would be utterly ridiculous.
No, "ridiculous" didn't even cover it. She was a woman trying to strip a sleeping man just to look at his genitals.
She would surely be branded as the Labyrinth City's number one pervert.
Slither—
'Ah! It's undone!'
Just as her racing heart was about to burst, the knot gave way. She expected his aroused member to taste the fresh air immediately, but...
'It's so tight...!'
Because the boxers narrowed slightly toward the waist, loosening the knot didn't mean his manhood would instantly pop its head out like a snake.
However, something else was released.
'T-This is...'
The air that had been trapped inside the underwear, relatively stagnant due to the lack of airflow, began to escape freely now that the knot was undone.
"H-Hup..."
She caught a whiff of an indescribable, subtle scent. Her nose, now as red as a carrot, drifted closer to his crotch before she snapped out of it.
'I-I-I've lost my mind...!'
She regained her senses and stopped.
But at this point, Sera felt a sense of relief.
'Mmm... this should be less uncomfortable now, right...?'
Ostensibly, the reason she had untied the knot was to relieve the discomfort of his swollen member, not to ogle it.
Of course, this was just a lie she told herself for self-preservation.
In truth, she really did just want to see it.
'G-Get a grip! Doing any more than this is....'
Should she let all the effort she put into untying that stubborn knot go to waste and give up here?
Or should she go all the way, pull down the underwear, and finally see it?
The problem was that simply pulling them down wouldn't be easy. His member was standing tall and rigid, pointing toward the sky.
It would require a high-level maneuver: pressing down on his member with her fingers to lay it against his belly while simultaneously pulling the underwear down.
The biggest issue, regardless of the difficulty, was the fact that Sera's fingers would have to touch it.
'U-Uuugh...!'
After agonizing over it, Sera made up her mind. But the moment she touched the tip of her left index finger to his member, she realized something.
'Ah...'
Of all the masculine parts of Yoo Eon's body, this was the one performing the most masculine feat. With her thin arms and fingers, she couldn't possibly hope to push down his towering manhood.
In terms of thickness alone, it was thicker than her own forearm. Sera, who had grown arrogant thinking she might be strong because of the lean muscle she'd gained from working at the inn, was taught the difference in power in a very primal, masculine way.
To pull his member down toward his abs, she would need to use her entire left hand, filling her palm with it.
She would have to wrap her soft palm around the head and gently curl her slender fingers around the rest before she could even attempt to press it down.
Touching just the tip was one thing, but wrapping her palm around a fully engorged glans? That was practically...
'H-Handjob by proxy...!'
No matter how curious she was, Sera had no intention of arm-wrestling a penis.
'He's even handsome when he's sleeping...'
After staring at his sleeping face for a long time, she finally went back down to the kitchen. She sat there for a while, staring blankly at the fire while clutching her beet-red cheeks.
* * *
"Phew, I slept well."
I had practiced my skills all night and only fell asleep when the eastern sky began to turn red.
I wanted to wash up since I'd sweated quite a bit while moving around during the night, but since it was dawn and the bathhouse fire hadn't been lit yet, I just went to sleep.
"Did I untie the knot in my sleep?"
I readjusted my sagging boxers, got dressed, and headed down to the first floor.
"Sera. Good morning."
"U-Ugh... I-It's 1:00... PM right now...."
"Ah, I guess I woke up too late."
"No... it's fine...."
The results of practicing my skills all night were remarkable. Just as Ravi predicted, I succeeded in using the skills exactly as I wanted. Thanks to that, I managed to replace an entire forearm or an entire leg with the muscles of a Direwolf.
And the most surprising part was this.
'Is this a third field of vision?'
It was the vision from the eyes of the Direwolf Alpha. It was like looking through a thermal camera; people appeared to be glowing brightly. I didn't even have a clue what it was at first.
But I eventually figured it out: it was Mana Detection, an eye that could see mana. Of course, if I looked through it for too long, I got a headache, so I had to switch back to the eyes of a common individual.
It seemed that trying to use an ability I wasn't born with caused a mental overload.
And, after much deliberation over whether to try it due to fear of side effects, I finally succeeded.
Thump— Thump— Thump—
Even while standing still, the Direwolf's heart boasted incredible pumping power. And the Direwolf's lungs absorbed far more oxygen. Both were from the Alpha entity and possessed extraordinary performance.
Of course, I couldn't use them all the time. If I oversupplied oxygen with the Alpha's lungs and heart while doing nothing, I got dizzy, like when you blow into a tube with your mouth.
So, I decided to use them only during combat—specifically, when I was using a lot of Direwolf muscle and my body was about to run low on oxygen.
This was a massive achievement. To summarize the effects of my skill:
It seemed like a pretty good skill. The best part about knowing its capabilities was that I no longer had to get hurt on purpose.
Until recently, I thought injured parts were replaced by monster organs, but now I knew that wasn't the case.
"With this... I can make a shitload of money."
I was itching to get back to the Labyrinth. If I encountered a monster with powerful physical strength, I could just eat its muscle.
If I found a monster with strong mana, I could just drink its blood.
"Cobalt Grade isn't just a pipe dream anymore."
I could even reach Cobalt, which was considered the threshold for high-ranking explorers.
"Phew, shall we head to the Labyrinth?"
All that was left was to get stronger.