Dogeza
"That's what you get for getting all cocky."
"…"
Even after hearing me, she said nothing for a long while. Was she embarrassed? Or had she blacked out and couldn't get up? I'd calibrated my strength to fall just short of knocking her out — had my math been off?
Shff. A moment later, the girl who'd been flattened into the ground slowly lifted her head. Slumped weakly on her behind, she brushed the dirt and rock dust out of her hair.
"Ah…"
Oh dear. She's not all there.
Concussion, maybe? Like a woman whose brain had melted, she drooled at the corner of her mouth and stared blankly into space with eyes devoid of focus. Such a disgraceful display — as her teacher, I could not let this stand.
"Hey, snap out of it."
Smack!
Shock therapy, then — I slapped her butt cheeks to test the waters. Right, left, alternating to a steady rhythm, but she still showed no real reaction.
Next up.
Squish.
Hmm.
I kneaded her plump breasts.
A size rivaling Eva Amethyst, the protagonist of Academy Yuri Princess — famed as the bustiest character in the entire web novel. Merely touching them steadied my body and mind and cleared my head. She was the one who'd told me, back at Chloe's party, that I could play with her chest however I pleased, so I'd knead to my heart's content while waking her up in the process. Knead, knead. Squooosh!
Yes. This. This was happiness. This was life. A size that wouldn't fit in my hands no matter what, and that springy resilience that bounced right back no matter how hard I squeezed. These were natural breasts — not a drop of silicone in them? A national treasure. An honest-to-goodness national treasure.
She still won't wake up, even after all this?
Strange. She remained out of it. Should I tease her a little? It was the perfect chance to try the emergency first aid I'd read about in books as a kid. Pinch!
My fingers closed on her nipple. That stiff little bud jutting up beneath her clothes — I seized the hardened outline trapped inside her bra under the thin shirt and pulled.
"Nnh…"
Terre shuddered from head to toe as if jolted with electricity. Her even breathing gradually quickened, and color bloomed across her pale cheeks.
Fun. Talk about a deliciously hot situation. A woman left helpless, as if under hypnosis — and here I was, touching her, rubbing her, stroking her. A scenario that looked ripped straight out of a HxMina eroge.
I wanted to do what came next. My cock, swollen and aching with lust like a beast in rut, cried Next! and begged to be let out.
"Ah, if only I could savor this a little longer."
But I held myself back. Terre had only given me permission for her breasts, so anything beyond that was out of the question. I could have pressed on without a shred of hesitation, sure — but my neck would have been sliced clean off. By whom? By Yuffie, who treasured Terre above all else. When it came to her little sister, she loved her fiercely.
The circumstances might change the details, but sexually mistreating Terre was Yuffie's trigger button — more than enough to set off her trauma. Terre herself never dreamed what sort of horror she'd nearly been subjected to, but Yuffie remembered that day. The knowledge of being betrayed by a beloved lover could drive her mad all over again, so I never crossed the line. It wasn't as though I was desperate enough to play tug-of-war with my life on the line, after all. Whenever boredom struck, Yuffie would offer me her pussy, and when I tired of that, I could simply ask Marin to take over.
As I thought, it would be better to just castrate him, wouldn't it?
After all, there was even that dangerous Writer lurking about, racking her brains day and night over how to "deal with" me. Best not to stir up any more trouble here, I decided.
Well, this is the only option left.
If slapping her cheek didn't work, kneading her breasts didn't, and pinching her nipples didn't, then exactly one means remained to me. I infused mana into my index and middle fingers, wreathed them in a halo of light, and pressed them to Terre's forehead.
"It'll hurt, so bear with it."
A broken machine only starts working again after a good beating. There would be no mercy. Without ceremony, I snapped my fingers with everything I had.
Snap!
"Kyaaah!"
With an adorable shriek, Terre toppled over backward. Clutching the lump rising on her forehead, she pushed herself upright.
"Uuugh, my head…"
"You okay?"
"Huh… what about me?"
"Don't you remember? I drove my fist straight into the crown of your skull."
"Ah…!"
With her memory jogged, her shoulders flinched as though it had only just come back to her. The scattered fragments clicked back into place, and once she'd pieced the situation together, she looked up at me.
"You're awful. Truly. Such treatment for a delicate woman…"
"If all delicate women were like that, they'd be biting their tongues and dropping dead left and right. You pulled out a Divine Artifact and came at me, if I recall."
"Hmph…"
With nothing to say for herself, Terre pouted and dodged my gaze. So the girl did know how to be ashamed, it seemed.
"You've gotten even stronger since our first fight."
"That's what students do. I came here to grow, too — if I stayed stuck in place, wouldn't that be the truly strange part?"
"Everyone else is tearing their hair out over their plateaus, and here you are charging ahead all on your own. Is that the difference a man with mana makes?"
Terre, and Chloe too. Compared to the other academy students, they stood a heaven-and-earth distance above the rest. But what they aimed for were the Guardians bearing the title of Royal — Yuffie and the Sword Saint, the near-supreme beings of this world. For those chasing an impossibly high wall, sluggish growth was as good as standing still. Someday, an incident would spark dazzling growth in both of them, and they would stand shoulder to shoulder with Eva — but that was a story for the far-off future.
"Thank you. That was a good experience."
"Yeah, yeah. Knowing who to pick a fight with is a skill too. Be more careful next time."
I hoped my teachings had reached her. Though, in truth, the only thing I'd taught her was a lesson in getting her head on straight.
"Well then, I'll be going."
Terre moved to take her leave. She brushed the last of the dust from her clothes, rose to her feet, and started toward the mouth of the cave.
"Ahem."
And where did she think she was going? I caught her shoulder and stopped her in her tracks.
"And where's the apology, huh, brat? I still have business with you."
"Oh my, whatever is the matter? I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't know, my ass. If I'd lost and then snuck off with the Divine Artifact, would you have just let it slide?"
"I'd have chased you to the very depths of hell and dragged you back. After mobilizing every last soul in House Citrine to hunt you down, I'd carve out that lying tongue of yours and broadcast the whole thing live."
"You're a vicious piece of work yourself."
The words go take notes from your big sister climbed all the way up my throat, but they would obviously only backfire here, so I swallowed them down along with my spit.
"Fine, fine, I'll do it. I'm sorry."
She bowed her head at a perfect ninety degrees, apologizing in textbook form. A crisp, noblewoman's gesture — had she performed it on an official stage, even a dissatisfied victim could not have found a single thing to fault.
"You really think a bow is enough of an apology?"
Stingy. This was my victory reward? This was a heartfelt apology?
"Terre, I staked a Divine Artifact on this. And you mean to settle the debt with that flimsy little bow?"
"Oh dear… was it, now?"
Cold sweat beaded on Terre's forehead. Her composed expression, which hadn't shown a single crack until now, crumpled like a car bumper slammed into a wall. She must have had some inkling, back when I'd wagered the Divine Artifact — the weight of the apology I was demanding. That a single bowed head would not buy forgiveness. And with the condition attached that I had to be satisfied before any excuses would fly, Terre had no loophole left to slip through.
"Um… may I ask just one thing? This forgiveness of yours — it doesn't involve anything indecent like demanding my body, does it?"
"You mean offering yourself? Well, in a sense, that would count as a show of remorse."
The lore book did mention the high lords of House Citrine resorted to that often. Pinning crimes on ordinary citizens and forcing relations upon them — yes, hmm. No wonder that girl, so well acquainted with the Citrine family's present-day dirty laundry, would be touchy on the subject.
"Wow. Our House Citrine's young lady must have maggots wriggling around in her head. I never dreamed you'd dangle something I couldn't even fathom as an 'apology.'"
"Phew."
Terre let out a sigh of relief deep enough to sink the ground beneath her. Judging by the reaction I'd shown, she must have read the situation. The worst-case scenario she'd braced herself for was never going to happen.
"What I want is this."
I turned on my phone screen and showed her the pose of penance she was expected to assume. As she stared at it, her eyes went so wide they nearly popped out of her skull.
"Y-you… you, this is—!"
"What was it called again — a naked dogeza? I've always wanted to see one. Please and thank you."
As I snickered, her face flared crimson. Still a hundred — no, a thousand times better than losing her virginity, no? And hadn't the lore book mentioned that this world had a time-honored tradition among true connoisseurs of receiving apologies stark naked, no matter whether the apologizer was man or woman?
It's simply common sense in noble society, everyone. Please, don't misunderstand.
"Okay…"
In the end, Terre pulled off her sweater and skirt and tossed them aside — then the bra that had barely been wrangling her enormous breasts, and her panties after that. The more skin she bared, the noticeably slower her hands became, but she never stopped. And the way she hid her face behind her arm out of sheer embarrassment and shame along the way? That was the erotic highlight.
"There. That's everything, right?"
At last she stood before me as she had on the day she was born — completely nude. The way she fumbled to cover her nipples and her pussy with arms slender as chopsticks was honestly adorable.
"I'm sorry…" she said, prostrate and flat against the floor, her voice practically crawling along the ground.
"Tsk — your voice is far too quiet. I can't hear a word. That's lacking in sincerity. Sincerity, I say."
"…I'm… sorry."
Terre's frail little voice — the sound of someone praying a mouse hole would open up and swallow her whole. Only then, satisfied, did I award her a passing grade.
