A Treatment Beyond Palpation
"If you dislike it, shall I discontinue the treatment?"
"I'll need to check the circulation in your upper body as well. This dress is rather tight, I'm afraid."
Without waiting for an answer, I slid both hands beneath her neckline.
"Hah…!"
Serafina drew in a sharp breath. But I didn't stop—I pressed deeper. The whisper of silk brushing the backs of my hands lasted only a moment before I met something truly worthy of admiration.
Fullness. Plump, overflowing volume that packed my palms completely, bouncing back with springy resistance no matter how hard I squeezed.
"Nnngh…!"
I spread my fingers wide and seized that ripe fruit for all it was worth. With every movement of my fingers, their outline rose and vanished, again and again, beneath the navy silk of her evening dress.
"Your heart rate is elevated. The mammary tissue is… considerably tense as well."
"D-don't say things like… nnh, that…!"
I kneaded her chest under the pretense of diagnosis. Her nipples had already stiffened into hard, angry little peaks. Before long I caught one adorable nub between thumb and forefinger and gave it a twisting pinch.
Touch of Attunement.
Touch of Attunement (Lv.1)
Sharpens the target's senses and induces a mild surge of pleasure.
"Hahh, aahnn…♡?!"
Serafina clutched my shoulders and shuddered violently, her head thrown back.
"Hah…!"
She hastily clapped a hand over her own mouth, apparently as startled by her cry as I was pleased by it.
"Th-that just now…!"
Smiling with satisfaction, I withdrew my hands from inside her evening gown.
"No need to worry. That was a natural reaction—the flow through your upper body has begun to release."
"R-right… this is treatment, after all…."
She accepted the lifeline I'd offered her. What a convenient, delicious excuse it was.
And then I moved on to the main event.
"Your upper body is more or less stabilized, Major. Now then… let's examine the most important area."
My hand slid downward. This time, through the slit of her dress—advancing without hesitation toward the most intimate place of all.
"Nnnh…?! W-wait a moment…!"
"With Mana Overload, the lower abdomen—the region around the womb—is the critical zone."
I repeated the same words I'd used last time. The next line was obvious.
"…The area of contact, and its… extent?"
"You truly are a model officer, Major."
This made everything so much easier. It had worked last time, so she had no grounds to refuse.
"I need to check the progress of your last treatment. I'll examine it directly, with my own eyes."
But perhaps this was a different matter entirely.
"L-look at it…? Here?"
Serafina stared at me in shock.
"Palpation alone cannot achieve perfect attunement. Only by observing the flush of the skin and the state of the mucous membranes can I make an accurate diagnosis."
Leaning back against the seat, I made the demand without a shred of shame.
"Spread your legs and show me, Major."
"……."
Her eyes wavered violently.
"…Insane. You've lost your mind."
Was it because I hadn't invoked Charming Speechcraft? Serafina's resistance was stronger than I'd expected.
"First you grope my body however you please under the guise of 'treatment,' and now you want me to… spread my legs like a common whore and show you what's inside?"
Her face flushed a mottled crimson. Instinctively she shrank backward, trying to put distance between us.
"I know full well the position I'm in, Captain, but there are limits. There is such a thing as propriety."
She seemed genuinely, deeply insulted. This was the last shred of her pride—just as she had pushed away my hand when I stroked her hair moments ago.
'…Shall I push, then?'
But unlike before, I had no intention of backing down. The reins of this relationship were in my hands anyway. If this was a hurdle I'd have to cross eventually, there was no reason not to cross it now.
"…My apologies."
I removed my hand from her thigh and drew my upper body back. I even withdrew the arm supporting her waist and raised both hands in surrender. The warmth that had been cradling her vanished in an instant.
"You're quite right, Major. Conducting oneself this way inside a vehicle… it is beneath the dignity of an officer."
"…What?"
The one thrown off balance by my ready retreat was Serafina. She had apparently expected me to persist, to plead my case to the bitter end.
"We'll end the treatment here, then. Please return to your seat. I'll drive you back to your quarters myself."
Avoiding her eyes, I adopted a briskly businesslike manner.
Serafina's composure was now visibly crumbling. Perched awkwardly on my lap, unable to go forward or back. Climbing off meant ending it; staying meant continuing—either way, she stood to lose something, trapped in a perfect dilemma.
"…W-wait."
In the end, it was Serafina who spoke first.
"M-Max… wait. Please."
She clutched my shoulders in desperation. Far from climbing off, she seemed about to burrow even deeper into my arms.
"I-I was… wrong. I thought… I thought wrong…."
A small glisten of moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes.
"All because of… because of my flimsy little pride, I doubted your kindness. Rank, nobility—what good is any of that posturing… when I can't even look after my own body, and I still insist on standing on ceremony with you."
She pressed her forehead against my chest. Her voice was trembling.
"…I'm sorry. I was a fool…."
Concealing the satisfaction that threatened to leak onto my face, I answered with the same hard expression.
"But you said, Major, that you had no wish to be seen."
"…I-it's not that I don't want to…."
She squeezed her eyes shut, and at last, with trembling fingers, seized the hem of her dress.
"…I'll do… whatever you tell me to do."
Slowly, she lifted her hips. Her delicate hands drew the fabric of the dress gradually upward.
Swish—.
As the navy silk slid up her thighs, they revealed flawless white skin, and hidden between them—just as yesterday—black lace underwear.
"…Nnh."
At last her fingers caught the edge of her panties, and the lace slid down along her smooth legs. Then, slowly, her knees parted to either side.
Beneath the mound covered in pale silver hair, the firmly closed petals of pale pink began, following the slow parting of her legs, to reveal a soft seam.
"…Is this… enough?"
Unable to meet my eyes, she asked with her face turned away.
I gave no answer—only looked, closely and deliberately. With the utterly unapologetic gaze of a physician making his diagnosis.
Her body was already fevered from kisses and caresses. The parting seam glistened, drenched as though soaked in honey, and at the mere touch of my gaze it flinched, contracting and relaxing over and over.
And then—drip.
A single bead of clear arousal surrendered to its own weight and fell, leaving a dark stain on the leather seat.
"Ah…."
At that shamelessly explicit sight, Serafina let a moan slip free.
"Th-that's… just my mana… being unstable…."
That one drop, she insisted, as if her secret shame had been exposed—her face burning red as a boiled beet.
Instead of answering, I reached out and scooped up the slick arousal with my index finger.
Sticky.
As I lifted my finger, the thick liquid stretched into a long glistening thread before finally snapping.
"Your mana is unstable, you say…."
Rubbing thumb against forefinger, I tested the viscosity of the clinging fluid.
"If that's truly the case, Major, then your condition is far more serious than I feared."
"……."
"Because this hot, thick, syrupy liquid… simply won't stop flowing out of you."
I brought the coated fingers up before her face. At the lewd, heady scent of a female in heat, Serafina's pupils trembled.
"Look. For a mere byproduct of mana, isn't it terribly… indecent?"
"Hnngh…."
Crushed under the weight of her shame, Serafina bowed her head. Her ears—no, the skin all the way down to her collarbones—had flushed scarlet.
I chuckled softly and wiped the fluid from my fingers against the tender inner flesh of her thigh.
"Well, the cause hardly matters. What matters is…."
I pressed my finger gently against her soaked entrance.
"That you're this wet here, waiting for my treatment."
"…Nnh!"
"Excuse me, then."
My thumb and forefinger parted the closed petals left and right, revealing the hidden pink flesh beneath.
It was unmistakably different from Hannah's. Where Hannah's was plump and soft as ripe fruit, Serafina's was thin and sharp, like a finely carved statue. The outer lips held little volume, but the delicate folds within were layered like petals folded over petals with exquisite precision—so refined it might almost be called aristocratic.
With my index finger I searched out the small bud hiding at the upper edge of her entrance—a shy little thing cowering beneath its hood.
"N-not there… hnngh!"
The moment I circled her clitoris with my thumb, Serafina convulsed, her thighs clamping tight around my waist.
Touch of Attunement.
Touch of Attunement (Lv.2)
Amplifies the target's pleasure.
Channeling pleasure through my fingertips, I tormented her clit relentlessly, using the drenched arousal as lubricant—flicking it, pressing it firmly, sometimes scraping it ever so lightly with the edge of my nail.
"Hh—nh! Hnnngh! A-aaahh!! M-Max…! I-I can't…!"
She shook her head like a broken doll.
I left her clit and, fingers together, pressed my middle and ring fingers into the drenched entrance of her pussy.
Slurp.
"Hh, nnnghh…!!"
Tight, and scorching hot. The pressure was tremendous—every fold of her inner wall pressed against my fingers with vivid, undeniable detail.
Squelch, squelch.
"Please try to relax. If you clench like this, I can't attune you properly."
I said it calmly as I curled my fingers and dragged them down her inner walls.
"Hnn, hnnngh…!"
She tried to push my forearm away, but everything below her hips was responding with complete honesty—rolling her hips, trying to swallow my fingers even deeper.
Spreading my fingers like scissors, I stretched her walls wide, then closed them again and drew out, over and over, each motion accompanied by a wet, obscene squelch.
"Haah, haah…."
Before long, her breathing had grown ragged. That empty little hole gaped and fluttered, craving something larger. A clear signal that my fingers alone were no longer enough.
I pulled my fingers free.
"Ah…?"
Serafina's face clouded at the sudden emptiness.
"You seem to be ready."
I nodded toward my own crotch.
"From here on, you'll have to do it yourself."