Hypnosis, I Haven't Fallen for It Yet?
Thwack!
"Late answering my summons again, I see!"
"Gah!"
A sharp, bone-deep pain exploded through my shin. My body sprang off the ground on pure reflex, both hands clamped around the right leg her spurred boot had just driven into.
"Stand up straight."
It felt like I'd jammed my little toe into a doorframe. Tears sprang unbidden to my eyes. The elf in front of me, however, didn't seem to register any of this. She clicked the toe of her spurred boot against the floor — tap, tap — and started laying down the law.
"I have asked you, time and time again, never to be late when I call. No matter what you are doing, the instant I summon you, you are to come running. How many times has it been now? Do you take me for a joke?"
You bitch.
She knew. She knew perfectly well I'd just come sprinting over here panting like I'd gone toe-to-toe with Usain Bolt in the hundred-meter dash, and she still kicked me. Then again, what was I expecting? The moment this woman opened her mouth, racial slurs and verbal abuse came pre-installed. As if this bitch was ever going to take my circumstances into account.
"I said stand up straight, you Yellow Monkey! Are my words not even words to you?!"
Thwack!!
I was still trying to breathe through the pain in my leg, telling myself I could trash-talk her later — or go scream Elves have donkey ears! into a bamboo grove — when her boot came flying into my shin a second time, utterly without mercy.
"Gah! What now?!"
"Does an elf need a reason to beat her slave? If anything, I should be the one asking questions. Why are you huffing and puffing like that? Are you angry? So furious that I kicked you in the shin that the tears are welling up?"
"N-No!"
What a complete fucking bitch.
She knew exactly what I was thinking and stomped my shin for it anyway. Of course, the cursing stayed in my head. I would have loved nothing more than to drop the groveling and just swear at her properly for once — this elf who spent every waking hour being a pain in my ass — but all I had in my hands was dirt and dust from the backbreaking work I'd just come from. Meanwhile the elf smirking down at me had a holster strapped to a thigh that had no business existing on a body like hers, and jutting from that holster, plain as day, was a manners-injection device by the name of revolver. So the swearing stayed internal. Or, on rare occasions, slipped out when she left an opening.
And today, as always, a fresh dose of injected manners sent my waist bending of its own accord.
"I'm sorry!!"
"Heh-heh. Well, at least you know how to apologize when you've done wrong. I'm not entirely pleased, but even with that dwindling intellect of yours, you've shown me the considerable progress of recognizing your own faults and begging pardon. Just this once, I shall be especially generous and forgive you!"
"…"
"And your thanks for that would be…?"
She just keeps going.
Only after she'd wrung a thank-you out of me by sheer force of will did the elf consider our little greeting complete. A bright smile bloomed across her face, and she started patting around her own ass.
"The reason I called you is right here… huh? Wh-What? It should have been right here…?"
She tried to pull something from the pouch hanging off her hip, but it wasn't cooperating. She bent forward, groping around inside it.
"Huh? What? Wasn't it in here? I'm certain I put it… hup, there…!"
The man whose shin she had just demolished did not let the opportunity pass. I swept a thoroughly impure gaze over every inch of her.
The vintage spurred boots that had just wrecked my joints. The chaps that left her pale thighs and the micro hotpants beneath them completely exposed. The poncho slung over her shoulders. And finally, the western hat that, together with the revolver, completed the cowboy look. The elf was a walking piece of obscenity, and I catalogued every last bit of her with the thoroughness of a man taking revenge.
"Mr. Monkey? Could you give me a small hand with…?"
"Ah."
I may have been a little too obvious about it. The wicked cowgirl elf, who had been flailing both hands around, quietly folded her arms over her chest.
"Those filthy eyes. After all the effort I have put in, could it be that your etiquette training is still insufficient?"
"Pardon? I'm not sure what you mean…"
Honestly, though — with those barely-contained breasts straining against a bikini top, those massive things bigger than my own head, those twin monuments to abundance sitting right there in front of me — how many men on this earth would have looked away?
She knows full well that covering them that sloppily, when her hands can't even hide them, just makes them look more obscene.
I wasn't enough of a man's man to just reach out and grope those milk jugs without fear of death. And if I played dumb any further she really was going to draw on me. So I offered a halfhearted impression of I have no idea what you're talking about, but if I offended you, I apologize. The elf trembled with rage for a moment, then clicked her tongue and pressed on.
"…Fine. Even a Yellow Monkey as inferior — no, as downright savage — as you can, if I refuse to give up and continue to embrace and guide you with my boundless love and generosity, grow into a proper thinking being."
"Bullshit."
"What was that?"
"Sorry, I didn't catch that?"
She eyed me with lingering suspicion. Then she swung those enormous breasts like a pair of counterweights, used the centrifugal force to spin herself around to face me, and thrust the bulging pouch at her hip in my direction. As if to say, Go on. Take it out.
"I shouldn't have to warn you, but if you try to climb above your station again this time…!"
"I won't. I'm not. You know I don't push it that far."
Of course, my eyes were somewhere else entirely. Even with her back turned, flesh spilled out between her armpit and her side. Those breasts were a national treasure, no exaggeration — the lifeline that had kept me clinging to this miserable existence through every last one of her cruelties. A filthy, magnificent ambition stirred in me, the dream of one day sinking both hands into that chest and squeezing to my heart's content. But as the elf had just pointed out, if I pushed my luck any further there'd be nothing left of me. I reached for the pouch she'd held out.
What's in here that's got her like this?
It looked plumper than usual, and it had a bit of weight to it besides. More importantly, the fact that she'd called me over at all meant whatever was inside had something to do with me. I figured I ought to have some idea of what this elf was about to put me through, so I opened the pouch without any extra groping and pulled out the contents. Midway through, she ground her heel into my foot as punishment for peeking at her chest, but I didn't let it show. I just kept drawing the thing out.
"So what's in here that's so… huh? It's a book?"
"You already knew that without my having to say so. Instead of asking me what kind of book it is, why I brought it, or where I got it, you simply said, 'It's a book.' You simple Yellow Monkey!"
"Yes, yes, as you well know I haven't got a cultured bone in my body. In that case, might I inquire as to what sort of book this is?"
"Hmph!"
As if I'd asked something painfully obvious, the elf twisted her torso toward me, wagged a finger with a series of tongue-clicks, and then, with a thoroughly satisfied little laugh, enlightened me.
"You look curious, so I shall tell you! This is a book I received from Miss Dyna."
"Ah."
Unlike the books in the elf's room, this one was distinctly grimy and a little worn. So she'd gotten it from someone else. I went up on my toes and snuck a look at the title of the book she was clutching to her chest like a treasure.
"The title is… let's see, Amazing Hypnosis Even Beginners Can Mas— gah!"
"Who said you could read that?!"
She stomped on my foot again. The title was written in English, so I'd been squinting a little trying to parse it, and she'd caught my gaze and driven her heel down once more.
"At any rate! As you can tell from the title alone, this is an artifact discovered in a dungeon! It is a terrifying ancient tome left behind by the old humans, recording methods of placing hypnosis and brainwashing upon a target! And more to the point — I give you a moment's opening and you immediately try to do something indecent to your own master?! You wicked Yellow Monkey, second only to Black people!"
If I hadn't twisted aside, the spur on her boot might have raked my shin open. I yanked my foot free in a hurry. The elf snorted at the sight of me hopping around clutching my leg like a fighting rooster, then abruptly turned her back on me again and asked,
"So. Do you understand why I acquired this book from Miss Dyna?"
"…No."
The most obvious answer in the world. The elf, however, looked thoroughly pleased with herself. She slipped her hands between those massive breasts to fold her arms, then flashed a smile so radiant it could have brightened the mood of anyone looking at her.
"Heh-heh. If it were up to my heart, I would love to tell you it was to correct that rotten mind of yours! But this is, first and foremost, something I prepared as part of my research!"
"Uh… even so, isn't this the kind of thing that would raise some serious questions? Ethically? Human rights-wise?"
"Pardon? Does a slave like you even possess such things as ethics and human rights?"
"…"
The way she shot back, as if I'd just said something completely insane, shut my mouth on the spot.
That aside, though — who'd even fall for something like that?
I'd heard somewhere that for an ordinary person who wasn't a trained professional hypnotist, putting someone else under was either enormously difficult or close to impossible. And that even if you managed it, it was extremely dangerous.
Honestly, if knowing the theory was all it took for any idiot to go around hypnotizing people, the whole world would be crawling with four-eyed hypnosis senpais.
A snort tried to escape me. I crushed it with superhuman patience. On the other hand, the possibility wasn't zero, so I made a firm resolution not to let my guard down.
"Let's see… first, an object to… focus the subject's attention…"
Whatever else I might argue about, picking a fight with an "ancient" artifact over the very thing it claimed to do was a spectacularly stupid way to die. I gave her a vague nod and stared at her with a look that said, And? By then the elf had already pulled a silver coin from her pocket and was rolling it between her fingers, several pages into the book.
"Now then. This is entirely your own fault, you understand. Despite that useless body and that rotten little mind, you have been granted the opportunity to make a great contribution to my research. You will regard this as the honor of a lifetime!"
She carefully closed the book, then flicked the coin in her hand so I couldn't miss it. My eyes followed the glint of it spinning in the air, the way anyone's would.
"Focus your gaze upon the object… and now, Yellow Monkey, from this moment on, mm, y-your eyes will slowly begin to close! And you will gradually sink into sleep!"
"…"
If I didn't play along she'd only get worse, so I shut my eyes and pretended to cooperate. In the darkness, only the elf's voice reached my ears.
"From now on, every time I flick this coin, you will desperately want to obey the commands of the one who flicked it. No — you must obey them. Do you understand so far?"
"Yes…"
I had no idea what the book actually said, but my performance must have matched the examples, because the elf kept talking in a voice that was getting more and more excited.
"Until the coin is flicked again, you will follow every command absolutely, without the slightest doubt, and you will regard obedience as the most natural thing in the world!"
"Yes…"
Yeah, right. Fat chance.
Whether or not she could hear that thought, the elf sparkled with delight and pressed on.
"Heh-heh. Wonderful… then, for now… when I count to three, you will open your eyes. Ready? One, two, three!"
I'd already committed to the bit, so I snapped my eyes open with a theatrical Huh?! like I'd just come off a stage. Sure enough, the elf was beaming at me, itching to mess with me this instant. She clearly thought I was under.
Now, how should I mess with her?
The elf, who had no idea what I was thinking and was giggling to herself about what to make me do first, opened her mouth.
"Did it take? Those vacant eyes of yours look the same as always, so it's rather hard to tell. Well then, as a test… who am I? Answer with your ugly, honest feelings."
"Why, you're none other than that infuriating pointy-eared Celestyn Four-Leaf Clover who goes around bouncing those goddamn enormous tits, making a man want to fuck you like a dog, aren't you?"
"W-What did you just say?!"
I'd thrown out something suitably insulting, just enough to let her know she was being toyed with. The satisfied smile that had been sitting on her face froze solid. She spent every day calling me Yellow Monkey this and Yellow Monkey that, but the moment the same energy came back at her at that voltage, she clearly didn't know what to do with herself.
"Y-You actually said it, your true feelings, your true… hah… I told you to speak them and you actually…!!"
The thought of those revolvers emptying a cylinder into the dirt at my feet made me wonder, briefly, if I'd overdone it. But she'd stomped my shin twice today. My feet were swollen and so was my nerve. This much, I figured, was the minimum required to feel better.
And yet.
"H-Heh-heh. Fine. I… I know your t-true feelings now, so there's n-no need to keep spouting that sort of thing at me, heh-heh… I'll just have to correct you thoroughly later, so thoroughly that a n-naughty thought like wanting to violate your master will never cross your mind again…"
"Um, Miss Celestyn…?"
I'd expected her hand to go for the holster any second. Instead she stayed frozen in place, letting out the creepiest little laugh, and started trembling — not at the shoulders. At the chest. Whenever those things started heaving like that, smoke and gunpowder usually followed, so I shrank back a little. What I got instead was the elf looking at me with an expression of the most profound satisfaction.
"Heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh… it took perfectly! Of course! Of course the ancient humans were such terrifying beings!"
"…?"
Against every expectation, the elf was lost in rapture, arms wrapped around herself, drinking in the joy with her whole body.
"Yes. You've fallen completely under my hypnosis… now I can finish my research. Heh-heh, heh-heh-heh…!"
"H-Hypnosis…?"
"Forget that. You don't need to know."
"Yes…"
Coming out with actually, I'm not under at this point felt… wrong, somehow. The elf, smiling bright enough to lift anyone's mood, confirmed once more that I was (supposedly) hypnotized, then issued her next command.
"Now then… you are a Walker!!"
"U-Uuuuurgh…"
"That's enough — ohoho! The results are certainly reliable!"
Once again I played along, swaying like a man under hypnosis and finishing with a startled look that said Ah, my body is moving on its own?! The elf's wicked laughter only grew louder. All I could do was secretly pour cold sweat down my back and wait for whatever she was going to order next.
After a long moment of savoring her triumph alone, the elf — apparently with a great deal still on her to-do list — suddenly shoved that enormous chest of hers right in my face.
"Your actions, too, follow my words without a single complaint… good. Very good."
No matter how many times I looked, those things were absurd. The demonic gravity of that cleavage yanked my gaze over before I could stop it, and for a second I even forgot I was supposed to be acting hypnotized. I just stared, blatantly. Contrary to what I expected, though, the elf only murmured good to herself and nodded.
"Given what you said earlier, and from what I can observe now, there doesn't appear to be any problem in that department, so perhaps… th-that first? No. No need to rush. Better to proceed step by step… after all, this Yellow Monkey has no choice but to obey me without a shred of doubt…! Then again, the last time I told myself to take it slow, three years went by…"
What is she even trying to make me do?
Watching her mutter her thoughts out loud right in front of my face, I was starting to get curious myself. She seemed to wrestle with it for a while longer. Then — maybe I was imagining it, but her face looked a little flushed — she gave me her next command.
"Ahem. Yellow Monkey? R-Right here, right now, you will pull down your trousers and present your penis to me!"
"…Heh?"
I should have just told her I wasn't under from the very beginning.