NTR or NTL (6)
Is this NTR or NTL? What? You don’t know what NTR or NTL means? It means I’m not sure whether I stole Dana from that motherfucker or whether that motherfucker is trying to steal Dana from me. They’re technical terms, so it’s understandable if you don’t know them. If possible, I wish I’d never learned them myself. The people who enjoy that kind of thing are definitely insane. They probably have at least some self-awareness about it.
“Grrrrk! Grrrrk! Arrrrrrr! Arf!!!”
Anyway, having transformed into a tiger-grade chihuahua from sheer rage, I gnashed my teeth in fury. If, by some one-in-a-million chance, that son of a bitch whose parents’ chromosomes must have added up to an odd number had any past connection with Dana? If he was her childhood first love or something?
Of course, even if that were true, there wasn’t the slightest reason for me—her current husband—not to be furious. Still, I decided to wait until I at least got the answer. Not because I suspected Dana, but to keep my own murderous intent in check.
R or L. It was one of the greatest conundrums in history, a problem so difficult that even Professor Creepika’s famous “Right Choice Theory” couldn’t be applied.
And Dana’s reaction to the sudden proposal was crystal clear.
She looked utterly disgusted, like a girl watching a deranged wolf trying to grab her leg and shake its hips, and threw a punch.
This was the true face of a twenty-nine-year-old Ulster descendant with a PhD: if she was startled or pissed off, her fist flew first.
A refreshing impact rang out from the purple-haired mage’s solar plexus.
“Gack!!”
His back arched like a live fish. I never expected him to get hit without even activating a single defensive spell. He must have underestimated Dana’s punching power.
Anyway, her straightforward answer was the correct decision in multiple ways. First, it melted my pathetic husbandly jealousy like snow. As expected of our Dana. The trash-tier romance PhD who didn’t even know what love was still hasn’t changed, huh?
It was a petty, far-from-macho way of thinking, but if she hadn’t reacted like that, my spear might have been buried in that hypocritical romantic’s chest a second later.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, what the hell am I doing?”
At some point the spear I’d been holding had returned to bracelet form. The footage in my brain had cut out for about three seconds from the moment I heard the proposal. It felt like I’d been standing next to a boiling pot, tearing open a ramen soup packet, fully prepared to throw the spear.
It must have been an Immortalis assassin messing with my brain using some kind of vaccine. Yeah, that had to be it.
Dana dropped a bombshell that left even me stunned and kept scolding him.
That face is over forty? Even considering he’s from the Ulster branch family, that’s impressive. A talented guy who trained hard at that age would obviously be strong.
Let’s set aside the fact that he proposed while already married. Anything a Kitai guy like me says would just be like spitting while lying down anyway.
“Ahem.”
The companion who had been fidgeting beside the young man cleared his throat. He seemed to understand why Dana was so disgusted.
The young man, still clutching his solar plexus as he stood up, gaped. Ulster people really make a huge deal about marriage every time I see them. His previously dazed eyes rolled toward Dana’s left hand.
Before I knew it I was shouting and executed a hero landing between Dana and that clueless bastard.
BOOM!!!
I landed with a crash like a meteor. In the heat of the moment I wanted to deliver a flying roundhouse kick to that age-inappropriate Botox addict, but the sudden rush from this no-pixie dump-truck bastard left me no time for that.
CLANG!!
I smacked the wand the middle-aged adulterer had unconsciously drawn with the shaft of my spear and sent it flying into the air. Using the footwork I learned during my life-or-death special training with the knight commander, I closed the distance, switched straight into an attacking stance, and suppressed him.
The bounced wand hit the laboratory wall and rolled across the floor. Thanks to that hellish training, I could freely switch the footwork from movement to attack without the slightest hitch. It seemed all that suffering hadn’t been in vain.
“Oh, Nord! You son of a bitch, you came at just the right time!”
Dana’s face lit up instantly and she stuck close to my side.
“I don’t know how you knew, but these crazy bastards suddenly barged into our lab and started throwing a fit about wanting to talk! Beating them up myself feels a bit much, so make sure they spend a few months in bed without dying!”
“Really? Your husband is the kind of man who does what he’s told. Surprisingly, my motivation for violence is relatively high?”
“I know, you idiot!”
The fact that Dana, who knew me well, said that meant I had permission to turn those ball-sack bastards into pitiful rural mutts getting beaten on Dog Day with a 140% real bat.
“Beep. Instant-kill mode activated.”
Tap. Tap.
I smacked the spear shaft against my palm the way my father had tearfully picked up a switch to discipline young Kang Bukho. Could you feel the depth of mercy contained in this? This spear shaft was the true whip of love. The grip was even more satisfying than the oak switch I’d secretly thrown away behind my father’s back. Extremely satisfying.
When I stepped closer the adulterer panicked and raised his guard. To reject someone else’s kindness with such a hostile attitude—sure enough, even though he was from the branch family, he was still an Ulster person, aggressive just like Dana. Since he had similar purple hair, should I call him Purple Turd? No, giving a world-class adulterist like him such a cute name would be an insult to Teletubby Hill. This guy was nothing but an adulterer trying to seduce another man’s wife! The only fitting title for a bastard like this was Handsome Adulterer!
I unleashed the anger I had accumulated from my brief NTR experience.
I used a flight-type technique I had learned by rearranging Armaal’s swordsmanship. Thick wind coiled around my spear shaft. Whooooosh—!!
CLANG!!
When I swung the wind-reinforced spear, Adulterer deployed a shield to block it. It was the technique of engraving magic onto the body—mimicry magic, the same kind I’d seen back in the Ulster village. But the moment the barrier and spear shaft made contact, the surface of the barrier rippled like a soap bubble and weakened.
I quickly realized what the phenomenon was.
“This is… the power of the iron chain that shatters barriers!!”
The spear shaft’s additional option that repelled mana not belonging to me had activated. Honestly, after beating up Yerna I’d had so few chances to fight mages that I’d almost forgotten about it. The black mages I’d fought recently were all the type who buffed themselves with magic and then beat people up physically, like black dragoons.
Crack…!!
CRACK!!!
“Ugh?!”
The spear shaft that had smashed through the shield dug into Adulterer’s side like a Mont-shel cake that had been microwaved for ten seconds. The sensation was so good that a smile naturally formed on my previously stiff face.
THWACKTHWACKTHWACK!!
I gripped the spear in reverse and performed a pole dance as if I were a shaman who had received five million won for an exorcism, joyfully swinging the ritual blades.
Adulterer seemed fairly skilled; for a mage he swung his arms quite skillfully to defend himself. But it looked like he was the type who usually relied on his shield, because after I gave his thigh a solid whack he eventually dropped to his knees.
He had knelt, but he never gained the momentum to fly. That was because I had smacked his now-empty jaw with the spear shaft and knocked him out.
“Gwehh…!!”
Adulterer let out a short groan as his jaw spun and fainted. His mana level suggested he was quite talented, but he apparently wasn’t good at actual fighting. It was a defeat marked by carelessness, panic, and a lack of real combat experience. Like an elementary-schooler with a weak Pokémon getting absolutely destroyed by a Geodude.
“Aren’t you going to attack?”
After dealing with Adulterer I asked the man who had been blankly watching from behind. I was wary that this guy might actually be the real deal and Adulterer was nothing more than a side dish of seasoned crab that came with grilled meat. Even if not, as his escort he shouldn’t be weaker than this guy.
But unexpectedly he only waved his hands as if the idea was ridiculous.
“That guy doesn’t look that old, though.”
He shrugged, and I accepted the surprisingly apt metaphor.
Come to think of it, the people of this world are also surprisingly good with words.
It felt like a long time since I had met such a philosophically inclined otherworlder. I calmed my killing intent and returned the spear to bracelet form.
After he obediently surrendered and we left him abandoned in a corner, we dragged Adulterer’s friend into one of the lab rooms. His companions were waiting in a nearby room. Dana had vouched that he was trustworthy.
“Hey husband. Tell me that purple-haired uncle’s name?”
“I don’t have any brain cells to waste remembering useless information like that.”
In other words, Adulterer was enough. Remembering other people’s names is hard. It would be nice if otherworlders’ names were easy to memorize like Jean Valjean or something in Korean style.
“Wake up, my friend. Wake up.”
Slap slap!
I hit the fainted Adulterer in the eyes with magical light. At first I considered tying him up, but the only rope capable of binding a mage with plenty of mana was my own mana-form change, so I refrained. I didn’t think anything good would come out of his mouth if his limbs were restrained by mana.
“Ugh…? W-where am I…?”
Adulterer was regaining his hazy consciousness. As expected, the wake-up eye-poke was reliable. I snapped my fingers in front of his still-dazed eyes. For the next thirty minutes at least, this lab would become a warm green camp that would take good care of this motherfucker.
Adulterer looked at mine and Dana’s expressions, then nodded. He wasn’t that stupid after all.
“First let’s treat your injuries. It’s a potion. Healing medicine, you know?”
I held out a bowl containing liquid. There were no guest cups in this lab, so I had used an experimental vessel, and since it felt like a waste to spend my own money treating a bastard like this I had diluted it with water, making the concentration quite low. Still, it was at least a low-grade mass-produced potion. It would quickly heal the bruises he had gotten from being beaten.
He hesitated before accepting the bowl and asked.
When I asked—not fiercely, but gently—he set the potion down before drinking it and stole a glance at my left hand.
I grabbed the clueless bastard by the hair and slammed his head into the potion bowl.
“Glubglubglubglub—?!”
Adulterer kicked his feet while drinking the potion. The reaction was so violent that I was a little worried, but good medicine always tastes bitter, right? The potion was probably the same.
More importantly, is this son of a bitch doing it on purpose?
If not, why did he keep bringing up the wedding ring? Did he respawn at his main base if he died? I had plans and a schedule too, you know.
I swallowed my irritation and pulled Adulterer’s face out of the potion.
“Pwahhh—!!”
Like a beverage commercial, Mister Adulterer sprayed potion everywhere. It might have been a bit harsh treatment for someone who had confessed without knowing anything, but he had proposed to a newlywed bride right in front of her husband and still survived unscathed. Forgive me with this, Sasuke.
His energetic answer was pleasant to hear. He seemed moved that I had even given a potion to an adulterous offender like himself. Your village doesn’t have anything like this, does it? Try yielding a little to your skin too.
I left him absorbing the potion through the pores of his face and brought Dana over. I had sent her out just in case, but seeing how this guy was acting, I was glad I had.
Creak.
When I opened the door and brought Dana in, she sighed at the sight of the man gasping for breath.