Chapter 13: The Port City of Quaran
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 13: The Port City of Quaran
Jin was a beauty with hair like ebony, lustrous ash-gray skin, and dark eyes tinged with blue.
Lucy was also a beauty unsuited for a small city, but she couldn't hold a candle to this Eastern woman. However, that wasn't the only reason I was surprised.
“Your name is Jin?”
“That is so.”
I looked Jin up and down once more. Though her aura was a bit different, she looked exactly like the Jin I remembered.
Jin, the Godmother of the Underworld.
A titan who held the underworld of Quaran in the palm of her hand. The one who would later become the witch's vanguard, staining the continent with blood.
What was strange was how she squirmed shyly under my gaze. The way she fidgeted, trying to cover her ash-gray skin with her revealing clothes, also felt out of place.
It was unbecoming of the Godmother of the Underworld, who had seen and done it all. Was it an act? Or was this a discrepancy between the game and reality? Perhaps this was her true self.
“I am Allen. I’m told I’m your first customer?”
“That is so.”
With a satisfied smile, I moved toward the private room. Jin followed silently behind me.
The private room was furnished with a bath large enough for two or three people. The freshly drawn water was clean, and the rose petals scattered on its surface filled the entire room with a deep fragrance.
I removed the cloth covering my vitals and stepped into the bath. The perfectly hot water melted the tension from my body.
“Are you going to just stand there?”
Jin was standing blankly at the entrance, where a screen had been drawn. When our eyes met, hers trembled as if an earthquake had struck. She seemed to force her feet to move, as if they were glued to the floor.
She truly looked like this was her first time. Still, there was a chance this was all an act.
In the game, Godmother Jin was a cunning and cruel named character who had conquered the underworld of Quaran at a tender age.
I couldn't let my guard down.
“Please excuse me.”
Jin came up behind me and began to massage my shoulders. Her touch was incredibly awkward. The reason I couldn't complain was because of the calluses on a specific part of her palms.
As a man with plenty of experience with women, I knew the difference between calluses from hard labor and those from sword training.
Jin’s hands were clearly the latter.
One more thing. The fact that the Jin from the game was by no means a virtuous character served to tighten the tension that had just begun to ease.
Perhaps I was entrusting my neck to the hands of the Grim Reaper.
“You’re quite taciturn. Conversation is also part of the service.”
“My apologies. I am not yet accustomed to it…”
“Tsk. Is it that you’re not accustomed, or that you don’t want to be? You’d better be clear about it. This world isn’t so easy that beauty can solve every problem.”
I nonchalantly slipped from her hands and moved to the massage bed. I gestured to Jin, who was biting her lower lip. There was only one reason a naked man on a bed would summon a prostitute.
Jin’s unusually long eyelashes trembled minutely. Her throat bobbed. She approached with slow steps and began to remove the scraps of cloth that passed for her clothes.
Only after seeing that did I realize Jin couldn't give up her role as a prostitute. Without watching further, I lay down on my stomach on the bed.
“Ah…?”
Jin, who had stopped with her hands on her clothes, let out a soft gasp. I turned only my head to look at her and smirked.
“What a lewd wench. I wasn't even thinking of that, yet you're already jumping way ahead.”
“You jest too much, my lord.”
Finally realizing she was being teased, Jin’s lips pouted slightly. When life sparked in her stone-like face, she became even more beautiful.
“I don’t know what you mean. Start the massage again.”
I buried my face in the bed once more. Jin carefully climbed onto the bed and began the massage. Her hands, now slick with aromatic oil, no longer felt as stiff as before.
If she had used the oil from the start, she could have hidden the fact that she trained with a sword. It seemed her thoughts hadn't reached that far.
She seemed unsophisticated in many ways.
The silence that had fallen was another example. If it had been Lucy, she would have been chattering nonstop. Sex was only a small part of the service, after all.
True service lay in soothing a troubled heart, and for that, conversation was essential.
“If you truly have nothing to say, then tell me about yourself.”
“…I fear I will only trouble your ears, Lord Allen.”
“There’s no need to hide it. There are only two types of Easterners who cross the great ocean. One is a merchant, the other a fugitive. Since a merchant has no reason to be here, you must be the latter.”
Jin’s hands, which had paused for a moment, moved up my back muscles to my shoulders, and soon began to caress the area around my neck. I could also feel her hips, which had been near my waist, rise higher.
She had shifted her center of gravity to put more weight into her hands. With my back to her, I'd have no way to respond if she decided to strangle me. My heart began to beat a little faster.
“There is nothing more suspicious than hiding what everyone already knows. If I were you, I would reveal the obvious truth and hide my secrets within it. A lie is most effective when hidden within the truth.”
Jin’s hands wrapped around my neck. For now, they were massaging gently, but it was a position from which she could choke me with a bit of force.
“Thank you for the advice. However, are you alright, Lord Allen? You've left yourself defenseless in the hands of a fugitive. What will you do if I happen to harbor ill intentions?”
Her voice was as cold as ice. Her hands gripped my neck. Even without applying pressure, my breath caught in my throat. As Jin shed her unsophisticated facade, I felt the fine hairs on my body stand on end.
But I simply smiled. The previous Jin was someone I didn't know, but the current Jin was someone I knew very well.
“If you become a fugitive in the Western Continent too, will you have anywhere left to go?”
Silence fell again. The hands around my neck moved back down, gently massaging the muscles. It was some time before Jin spoke again.
“Why did you say such a thing? Are you perhaps planning to use my weakness against me?”
Her tone was still frigid.
I imagined having Jin under my command. She would undoubtedly be a great asset. The problem was that she was a named character with a significant role in the story. If I interfered with her, the future information that was my greatest weapon would likely become meaningless.
Was Jin worth that risk? I was skeptical. Even if I were to use her, our relationship had to be minimal, just enough not to affect the story.
Having organized my thoughts, I spoke.
“Sir Roland is in the room next door. He’s a pawn acting on the orders of my stepmother, who seeks to usurp my domain. His visit to the red-light district today was likely a ploy to sound me out. I guarantee that if they find out I know their scheme, they will try to kill me.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jin’s hands had stopped moving.
“There is no way for two people who have just met to trust each other. There is only a way to prevent betrayal: by exchanging weaknesses. Fatal weaknesses.”
As I spoke, I turned my body to face the ceiling.
“W-Wait…!”
I was naked, and Jin’s attire was no different from being naked. As she scrambled to cover herself and get off the massage bed, she slipped. It was because of the aromatic oil.
In the blink of an eye, our skin touched. Our faces were so close we could feel each other’s breath.
I unconsciously reached out and touched Jin’s face. The beauty who had existed only in my memory was right before my eyes. It felt as mystical as encountering a fairy from a dream. Perhaps it was because she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
Her ash-gray skin was as smooth as I had imagined, and where our skin met, I felt the vibration of her swallowing—gulp. The reddish tint to her gray skin was strangely captivating.
I broke the silence that felt like it could last forever.
“I have a proposal. For one week, will you help me avoid Sir Roland’s eyes? I will pay you for it. Money is fine, or you can go around telling everyone you have my favor.”
With the turning point of my father’s death just around the corner, I had accepted Roland’s suggestion to come to Quaran because I had something to do in this city.
The problem was that Sophia must not find out about it. Therefore, I had to avoid Roland’s attention.
At first, I had planned to use Lucy. Since outsiders were forbidden from private rooms, I could have fooled Roland if I could just win over one prostitute to go in with me.
But Lucy was fond of Roland, and using her would be like entrusting a fish to a cat.
I needed another prostitute. A trustworthy one.
In that sense, Jin was a suitable accomplice. She was by no means a virtuous person, but it would be impossible to be called the Godmother in the underworld, where all manner of schemes ran rampant, without a sense of fidelity.
“Your favor? What meaning would that have?”
Coming to her senses, Jin quickly got off the bed. As if that wasn't enough, she retreated all the way to the opposite wall.
“I am the heir to a knightly family that, while small, possesses its own domain. I also have quite the reputation for being a scoundrel. If you spread the rumor that you have my favor, you won’t have to receive any unwanted guests.”
This was only possible because Quaran was a small city, and it was situated right next to the Tobalts family’s territory.
For Jin, who had in many ways revealed she was not yet ready for this line of work, it wouldn't be a bad offer.
“A scoundrel…?”
Jin looked at me with an expression of disbelief.
“You’ll need time to confirm if I’m telling the truth. I’ll have your answer tomorrow.”
I calmly stood up and put on the clothes I had taken off. Then, leaving behind a wary Jin, I exited the private room. As I stood in the cool breeze, gathering my thoughts, Roland soon appeared, pulling up his trousers.
“Lord Allen? You’re out early.”
“It seems you had a good time. The sounds were quite something.”
Roland and Lucy had been enjoying themselves in the room right next to mine. Whether it was intentional or not, Lucy’s moans had been loud enough to be heard through the wall.
Thanks to that, my conversation with Jin was masked. But it left a bitter taste in my mouth, as it was a reaction she had never shown with me.
Though, considering how I had been so focused on my own pleasure in the past, it wasn't entirely incomprehensible. Were her moans, so loud for all to hear, because Roland’s skills were that amazing? Or was it a ploy to insult me?
Perhaps it was both. Whatever the case, she was a foolish wench.
“Ahem, how was the new girl from the East? Is her skin really as dark as ink? Is her skin as resilient as an animal's, and is… that place… tighter than the women of the continent, as they say?”
Roland’s eyes gleamed. I liked women a great deal myself, but Roland took it a step further. To covet another woman right after being with Lucy, the ace of the brothel…
Did Lucy know Roland was this kind of person? She must have. Even I, who was not very perceptive, knew of Roland’s womanizing.
And yet she chose Roland over me. I just couldn't understand a woman’s heart.
“Heh heh. I assure you, what you know is only a fraction of the truth. I’ve already paid her fee for a week and made a reservation.”
“Ah, is that so.”
Roland was openly disappointed. He then shot me a sidelong glance, his eyes full of expectation.
Was he hoping I would yield Jin to him, just as I had yielded Lucy? I wondered just how much of a pushover he thought I was. I was a fool to have ever considered this damn loafer my closest companion.
Contrary to my inner thoughts, I smiled.
“Thanks to you, I got to have a fine girl's first time. I'll yield her to you in a week.”
My plan was to get Roland out of my sight in a week. Unaware of this, Roland’s face brightened. I left him behind and mounted my horse. Dusk was settling over the skies of Quaran.