A Perfect Tactic Ruined by One Mistake
They say orcs lack the intelligence to attempt a night raid.
Just a little lower….
I slid my hand down below her waist. Past the border where uniform trousers met bare skin, over the cinched line of her waist, tracing the smooth curve that led down toward her hips—the spot just above her pelvis, where her spine came to an end.
I could feel her breathing quicken. Slowly but deliberately, I let my fingers slip lower and pressed firmly into her depths.
"Hnngh…!"
As my fingers stimulated the area near her tailbone, Seraphina's back arched like a drawn bow. A suppressed moan burst free, and the muscles along her spine shuddered with a tremor. It was less rejection than a reflexive response—her body surrendering to sensation before her mind could intervene.
But that fleeting flicker of pleasure seemed to snap her back to reason. She twisted away from my touch, and my hand met nothing but empty air.
"…Don't… don't go any lower than that… Lieutenant Jäger."
Seraphina's voice trembled, thin and strained. This was a clear refusal. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have yanked my hand back and apologized on the spot. But I did not withdraw so obediently.
There was a reason for that. The tailbone—the sacrum, in anatomical terms. It wasn't the most intimate of territories, but it was a region of considerable importance.
The bundle of nerves descending along the spine branched out at that point, fanning across the hips and the entire lower body. With just a light application of Touch of Attunement, I could send waves of tingling sensation flooding through every inch below her waist.
More than anything, think of it as an outpost—a forward base I had to pass through on my way down. Whether the destination was her hips or her thighs, there was no path that didn't cross this ground.
I didn't hesitate to activate the skill.
Charming Speechcraft.
"You misunderstand, Captain. There's an important flow of mana near the tailbone as well—I was merely attempting to release…"
The request directly conflicts with the target's core values (bodily chastity).
The target's resistance has negated the skill's effect.
Negative effects from failed persuasion have been greatly reduced.
"…The treatment… only requires my back. Nothing further is necessary."
Seraphina forced the words out. She was likely masking it as firmness, but she couldn't hide the way the very edge of her voice cracked, just slightly.
"Understood. I overstepped the line."
I withdrew my hand at once and bowed my head respectfully. Outwardly, I wore the mask of a loyal subordinate; inwardly, I clicked my tongue.
Not a single inch given, huh.
The valley leading from her tailbone down between her cheeks remained, it seemed, a sanctuary I hadn't been granted access to. Well, it couldn't be helped. Permission to touch the hips was an entirely different realm altogether. Even a woman liberal with skinship would balk at that—and Seraphina of all women? Not a chance.
Pretending to retreat obediently, I raised my hand back to the center of her lower back instead, cupping the muscles flanking her spine in a broad, enveloping grip.
This time, I nudged the pleasure-inducing intensity of Touch of Attunement up by the smallest degree. Just enough not to feel abnormal—enough that Seraphina would grow accustomed to the sensation, slowly and inevitably.
"Haaah…."
Every time my palm glided over a vertebra, a small moan slipped out between Seraphina's lips.
The hand clutching the bunched cloth of her uniform to her chest slackened, little by little. Head bowed, she panted for breath, the pale nape of her neck left utterly defenseless.
Now she's responding.
The pleasure that began in my palm was climbing along her spine, softening the edges of her reason.
"This… this sensation is strange. Jäger… hnn… this is, it's like…."
Seraphina murmured in a voice gone wet. A sensation far too intense to be called treatment, far too sweet to refuse. Caught in that contradiction, she was losing her footing. I answered calmly, shamelessly spinning my lie as though I were some capable physician.
"There is no need to worry. This is a healing crisis. As the frozen mana circuits and sensory nerves come back to life, they trigger a temporary hypersensitivity. It is entirely expected."
"I-is that so…."
She clung to my words like a drowning woman clutching rope. No—she wanted to believe. It was the only way she could justify this shameful pleasure as part of the treatment.
Condition: Mana Overload temporarily and fully controlled. Physical capabilities optimized.
Emotions: Relief at the vanished pain; lingering regret that the treatment might end; blind trust in Max Jäger beginning to take root.
Blind trust.
A phrase after my own heart. This was enough. Pushing any further risked provoking the opposite effect. Leaving while the applause was loudest—that was how you left the most lasting impression.
I slowly drew my hand away.
"…We're finished, Captain."
The moment my hand left her skin, Seraphina's body flinched. Like someone robbed of a warm blanket in midwinter, her bare back radiated a naked, unmistakable reluctance.
"Ah…."
She lifted her head in a daze. Her unfocused eyes drifted through the empty air for a moment before reality crashed back in—the memory of her own half-dressed state, and of the subordinate officer standing behind her.
She started violently, hauling the bunched clothing up over her shoulders in a frantic rush.
"G-good work."
Scrambling, fumbling. Seraphina, without so much as a glance in my direction, hastily began pulling her uniform back together. Then, as if suddenly remembering, she turned to look back at me.
"……Ugh. I—I'm going to get dressed now, so… wait outside for a moment."
"Yes, Captain."
I obediently stepped out of the tent. The wind was bitter and cold, but I decided the rare privilege of witnessing the Ice Witch in a flustered panic more than made up for it.
Rustle. Rustle.
Faint sounds drifted out from inside my tent. The click of a bra hook. Soft fabric brushing bare skin. The steady slide of uniform buttons—each one coaxing my imagination to run wild.
Before long, my name came from within.
"…I'm dressed. Come in."
A flushed face, silver hair in disarray, and breath still rough and uneven. No matter how neatly the uniform covered her, the lingering warmth of what had just passed between us could not be hidden.
Seraphina spoke without meeting my eyes.
"…Thank you. Again."
Her voice was small enough to crawl, but the relief woven through it was genuine. I paid her bashfulness no mind and asked, purely business.
"How does the body feel?"
"Mm… it's… astonishing."
Seraphina slowly rolled her shoulders and flexed her arms. These were the joints that had always ached, the veins that had always twisted with that chronic pain. Yet now, not a trace of discomfort seemed to remain.
"The pain is… gone, like it was never there. My body—my whole body feels light as a feather. You weren't lying after all…."
With an expression of pure disbelief, she stretched her pale hand out toward the empty air. Then she clenched it tight—and slowly, slowly, unfurled it again.
Hoooo….
Blue frost bloomed from the tips of her slender fingers. Not the sharp, erratic, dangerously scattered mana of before. Like a mist rising off a still lake at dawn, the cold energy flowed soft and supple, coiling gently around her fingers. Even at a glance, it was a stable, harmonized circulation of power.
Status Analysis.
Emotions: Relief at the vanished pain; shame at having shown bare skin before a subordinate; a tranquility not felt in years; blind trust in Max Jäger beginning to take root.
"I'm glad. But bear this in mind, Captain. This was a temporary measure. If you strain your mana, the condition could relapse at any time."
"…I'll remember."
Seraphina rose to her feet. Just before leaving, she glanced back at me with eyes full of complicated feeling.
"About what happened today…."
"It's a secret I'll carry to my grave. Do not worry."
Since I had preempted her, she nodded quietly, visibly relieved.
"…Thank you, Lieutenant Jäger. I won't forget this debt."
With those parting words, she practically fled from the tent. Beyond the fluttering entrance, her silhouette vanished into the darkness.
I stayed where I was and licked my lips.
"A debt," she says….
The noble daughter of House Stahlberg was the same, and so was the noble daughter of House Reinhardt. Aristocratic young ladies simply hated owing anyone anything. Well, that suited me fine. Debts were the kind of thing that swelled with interest.
I leaned back deep into my chair and checked the system window.
Current Skill Points: 0
When will I finally hit level 10….
I wouldn't even catch a glimpse of level 10 until this camp defense and the forest assault were over. I found myself already looking forward to what skills I'd pick up at 10.
Level 10, huh… wonder if there'll be some kind of bonus.
Special perks at every tenth level was the unwritten law of gaming. Couldn't hurt to hope that the Harem Overload All-in-One Mod followed it too.
I decided to rest for a while and closed my eyes. I was on company duty tonight, on top of having just given my commanding officer a massage. I'd spent the entire day crisscrossing the battlefield—honestly, I'd earned the fatigue.
Sleeping outright was out of the question, of course, so I passed the time waking at intervals to check the minimap. Close my eyes, rest, open them, scan the minimap, close them again. On and on. I don't know how long I kept the cycle up.
The moment I opened my eyes after one of those intervals, something was wrong on the minimap. From its far edge, red dots had begun creeping inward, one after another. I shot upright at once, every nerve snapping awake. There was only one thing this could mean.
You have got to be kidding me…? Orcs… attempting a night raid?
The orcs who'd lost Kaldor in the day, nursing their grudge, had chosen to strike under cover of darkness. Easier said than done—this was hardly the sort of strategy a mob of orcs who didn't know proper tactics could pull off. And yet they'd picked the perfect moment: the night right after battle, when we'd be drunk on victory and off our guard, targeting the hours just before first light.
Had I been grading the exam, I'd have given them a perfect score. With exactly one fatal flaw.
They had chosen the wrong enemy.
My Minimap showed me the fog of war without the fog, the delay without the delay—every last position, every single one of their approach paths, laid out in crystalline clarity. Against an ability that was practically a maphack, a night raid was worthless.
"Gunter! Hannah!"
I burst out of the tent at once.
"All personnel, up! Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
My roar ripped through the stillness of the pre-dawn and rolled outward across the camp.
