Chapter 41
Her trembling hands moved toward the buttons of her shirt. Pop, pop. One button came undone, then another, and the thin shirt slipped to the floor. Next came the whisper of a zipper sliding down her skirt, and her pantyhose peeled away like second skin.
Shhhh.
"This much should be—"
The very instant Serafina opened her mouth to say something—
...Now.
Skill Bullet Time has been activated.
I triggered the skill. It was hardly a waste—there was no battle to fight, so burning Bullet Time here was perfectly justified. This was the adult mode, after all. In a way, wasn't I honoring the skill's true purpose better than anyone?
......
The world slowed to a crawl.
Frozen in that single subjective second, Serafina's disrobing form was nothing short of a work of art.
The stockings falling toward the floor were sliding down in agonizing slowness, suspended in midair around the curve of her ankle bones. Her closed eyelids fluttered gently, and her discarded clothes pooled in a soft ring around her feet.
She stood before me in nothing but pure white underwear. Plain, utilitarian undergarments without a single ornament—the standard-issue kind. But the body within them was anything but plain.
A cinched waist, full hips, and above all, a chest that threatened to burst free. Her skin, pale to the point of translucence, gleamed with a milky luster under the lamplight.
Thirty seconds passed. In subjective time, it felt like the blink of an eye.
Pop.
The world resumed its normal pace, and Serafina spoke, her voice tight with embarrassment.
"...Is this sufficient?"
More than sufficient. I'd seen plenty.
"It is, Captain. However, the heart and lower abdomen are also vital mana organs, so..."
Even so, I probed carefully.
"They'll need treatment eventually. ...Was that the phrase?"
"Precisely."
Serafina pounced on it.
"Then would you please lie down on the bed."
"...Understood."
Serafina approached the bed with stiff, wooden movements. As she lowered herself onto it, the old frame groaned beneath her. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, hands folded neatly over her stomach. Her ample breasts shifted under gravity's pull, changing shape.
I reached for her shoulder first. The moment my fingers made contact, Serafina flinched hard. I brushed lightly along her collarbone and upper arm as I activated the skill.
Status Analysis.
Touch of Attunement.
Skill Touch of Attunement (Lv.2) has been activated.
Now at Level 2, Touch of Attunement flowed through my palms the instant I willed it, and without fail I could feel her frozen, stagnant mana responding.
...It's working. Clearly, decisively working.
The sensation itself was different from last time. Before, it had been like releasing a broad current of warm water; now it was as if that current were threading through countless fine channels, spreading with surgical precision.
Sssshhh......
The current branched out along the tiny fissures of a glacier. With every passage, the ice seams melted and the cracks widened, spreading outward like a spider's web. The fractures grew larger and larger, until they had consumed the entire glacier of her shoulder.
KRAKOOM!
At last, the glacier reached its breaking point and collapsed. Where the great mass of ice had melted away, a deep, tranquil lake had formed—like a fjord carved into the land.
So this is Serafina's original mana... The sheer scale is on another level.
It dwarfed what I'd sensed in my own body, and even what I'd felt from Hannah, an awakener of Mana Sense. Expected, perhaps, for a combat specialist.
And then, instinctively, I understood.
At this rate... a near-complete cure might actually be possible.
Not that I intended to attempt it just yet.
Reconstructing the target's energy flow.
"...Mnngh, haaah..."
Serafina exhaled a hot, shuddering breath. The sensation of her mana circuits unlocking completely and rebuilding themselves drained every ounce of tension from her body. Her hands, clenched tight against her shame, slipped loose one finger at a time.
My hands traveled lower. I traced lightly over the upper swell of her chest, then cupped her breasts entirely in both palms. Through the coarse cotton of her bra, the softness was astonishing.
"Captain, the lymphatic tissue of the breasts is also a critical area."
"...I-is that so."
To my casually delivered line, Serafina gave her assent in a voice already gone loose and languid. It was, for all practical purposes, permission.
"Excuse me, then."
I pressed my thumb firmly against the area where her nipple lay hidden beneath the fabric.
"Nnh...!"
Serafina's whole body jolted.
"Does it hurt?"
"N-no, it doesn't hurt. It's just... nnh...!"
Unable to finish her sentence, she turned her face away. Her cheeks were scarlet from end to end.
I kneaded and released, kneaded and released, kneading and releasing, reshaping the soft mounds in my grasp while tormenting the stiff peaks through the thin cloth. It was dangerously addictive.
Status Analysis.
Monitoring the status window, I slid my hands downward. Past the smooth plane of her stomach and the inward curve of her waist, I circled the dimple of her navel. Firm yet supple flesh yielded against my palm.
rubbing slow circles around her navel, I drank in the sight of her. A tidy row of abdominal muscles, a navel made for tracing with the tongue. Just below it, the soft mound of her lower belly where her womb rested, and beneath that, the jutting lines of her hip bones and the shadowed crease of her groin.
Suppressing unnecessary emotional turbulence and guiding the mind toward the most efficient course of thought.
"...Hoooo."
I took a deep breath and steadied myself.
"Now I'll move on to the lower body."
"......Understood."
Serafina hesitated before answering. She had volunteered for the lower-body treatment herself from the start—there was no taking it back now.
I traced my hands along the line of her pelvis. Past the elastic band of her panties, I began gliding down the outer curve of her thigh. My fingertips grazed the soft flesh of her backside.
I studied her panties closely.
Through the gauzy fabric, the faintest outline of her womanhood was just barely visible. No dark patch of hair—she appeared to be bare, and the fabric wasn't damp. Not yet.
"Captain, would you part your legs slightly?"
"...Nnh."
Serafina bit her lip and obediently spread her legs. The panty line running beneath her pubic bone was now exposed in all its raw detail. A sliver of pale pink outer lip peeked out at the edge—not a trace of hair anywhere.
Touch of Attunement.
Heightening the target's sensitivity and inducing a faint, tingling pleasure.
Layering a featherlight, ticklish sensation atop my touch, I stroked the inner thighs I'd dreamed of. The flesh there was impossibly soft and yielding.
"Mmph..."
The skill's artificial sensation had Serafina squirming almost immediately.
"Th-this is strange, Lieutenant. Something... it's tingling, aaaah—?!"
Serafina cried out with a voice pitched high and strange.
Condition: Experiencing orgasm
She'd come. The soft inner flesh of her thighs convulsed violently beneath my palms. Her legs clamped shut around my hand on pure instinct, trapping it—then the tension drained away and they slackened open again.
"Captain, are you quite alright?"
I asked, knowing full well, purely to be cruel. Serafina barely managed an answer.
"I-I'm fine...!"
Swish.
Without waiting for her to finish, I let my thumb drift upward. My fingertips traced along the waistband of her panties.
"It's nothing at all—hyaaak?!"
Just beside the thin fabric, the springy softness of her outer lips brushed my fingertip. Far from resisting, Serafina threw her head back.
"Aahhnn...♡!!"
Serafina let out a sweet, breaking cry. Her body, still sensitized from the climax moments before, reacted violently to even the smallest stimulation.
Her voice wasn't the only thing changing—the panties were too. Dead center on those pristine, unblemished white cottons, a tiny spot appeared, dark as a pinprick, then slowly spread into a growing line.
Looks like it's working.
I withdrew my hand and looked down at her.
"Haah... haah... haah..."
Completely spent. Drained by the skill-induced pleasure, she was panting hard, her breath scalding. Her consciousness seemed to be drifting somewhere far away—her eyes had lost all focus. Utterly defenseless.
Quietly, I hooked my fingers into the waistband of her panties.
"Excuse me. A wound inspection is required."
Serafina, trapped in the lingering haze the skill had forced upon her, didn't even seem to register that her panties were sliding down.
Shhhh.
As the fabric slid down her legs, a pale pink mound emerged, its color a delicate contrast against her jade-white skin.
The outer lips were flawlessly smooth, without a single hair, save for a small, faint inverted triangle of fuzz at the very top. It didn't look maintained so much as naturally sparse—as if she'd simply been born with light body hair.
So she wasn't entirely bare after all.
The hair was simply so fine and pale that it had been invisible through her panties.
Beneath that silvery inverted triangle, a small clitoris peeked out shyly, and between the blushing pink petals, pressed gently together, clear nectar flowed in a ceaseless trickle—the product of her recent stimulation—running down the inside of her thigh.
I swallowed hard and reached out. With my index and middle fingers, I gently parted the slick folds from either side.
Squelch.
Thick, sticky arousal coated my fingers. I aligned my middle finger with her entrance and pressed forward slowly. About a knuckle's depth in, I met a faint resistance.
Status Analysis — sexual experience.
Kisses:None
Intercourse:None
Oral:None
Anal:None
Other:No dating experience; partial physical experience (extensive bodily contact during the Bio-Resonance Attunement Method with Max Jäger)
"Haahnn...?!"
Perhaps it was the strange, alien sensation of penetration—Serafina twisted her hips. Only then seeming to realize that something felt very wrong, her eyes snapped open.
"Lieutenant... right now... where is your...!"
Serafina scrambled to push herself upright. Her hands shot out and seized my wrist on instinct—but for all the urgency, there was almost no strength behind the grip.
I didn't retreat. With my wrist caught, I curled my middle finger where it rested inside her and dragged it slowly along her inner wall.
"Hyaak?!"
Serafina's back arched like a drawn bow.