Close Call
Given the nature of this game, I'd always assumed that no matter how careful I was, sooner or later I was bound to run headlong into a situation this sordid. Contrary to my expectation that I'd lose my mind and go berserk the moment it happened, though, I was somehow keeping remarkably calm.
'...?'
That wasn't composure. My brain had simply ground to a complete halt from the shock — which was an entirely different thing from being okay.
"?!!!"
As time crawled by, cracks began to spread through the dam holding everything back, and through those fissures the emotions I'd suppressed started seeping out, little by little. It was, quite literally, the calm before the storm. Before I knew it, everything I'd been holding down surged up all at once, swallowed me whole, and dragged me into a chaos I had no hope of escaping.
'Is she out of her goddamn mind?! What is wrong with her?!'
Never in either of my lives had I felt humiliation this crushing. The shame boiling up inside me made me want to retch, and if only my body had been free, I would have grabbed her by the collar and screamed in her face right then and there.
"Pfft!"
Anyway, having had her fun toying lightly with my nipple, the succubus suddenly burst out laughing. Then, wearing an oddly innocent expression that didn't suit her at all, she said:
"Looks like you really did lose all your power, huh? Damn bitch, you nearly scared me to death back there. You really did."
'...Huh? What — do we know each other?'
What was going on? Judging from what she'd said and the way she was acting, she was clearly someone I had history with. The problem was that none of this had ever come up in the game, so I had no idea what kind of grudge or debt lay between her and Elysia — or just how much trouble I was actually in.
'Then again... so it's true. Nothing about me changed but the outside — to everyone else, I'm still recognized as Elysia. Ha...'
Truth be told, this was something I'd had in the back of my mind since drawing up my roadmap the night before. My appearance had changed completely, so maybe the people connected to Elysia wouldn't recognize me? If so, that would have been a considerable advantage on my end. The Elysia of this game had always been insufferably arrogant, which had earned her plenty of enemies and dragged her into one incident after another. But judging by the succubus's reaction just now, I'd best give up on that hope.
'But still... what on earth is she thinking?'
Nothing came but an unbearable silence, and my anxiety festered the longer it stretched. More than enough time had passed for her to have done something already, yet the succubus merely ran her eyes over my body without making any real move. With any ordinary monster, death would have been an easy thing to picture. But of all creatures, my opponent had to be a succubus, and I couldn't read her next move at all.
"Hmm... I think that's it, alright?"
The succubus, still as a statue until then, suddenly spoke up. The out-of-nowhere remark left me puzzled too, but a heartbeat later, a premonition that something was about to happen had me watching her with mounting dread.
—Swish.
'Wait! What the hell is she trying to do?'
When she abruptly pressed her palm flat against my abdomen, I flinched hard and swallowed past a dry throat. What was she going to do to me this time?
—Zzziiing!
Before I could even begin to guess, black smoke suddenly billowed up from her hand and in an instant began coiling around my entire body.
'...What the—?!'
A chill seeping in from my abdomen raised goosebumps across every inch of my skin. The cold that had entered my body shot through me in a heartbeat and began slowly gnawing away at my body heat.
'Ngh — it's freezing!'
Just as the cold was becoming unbearable, the vile sensation and the black smoke alike vanished without a trace. And then the succubus said:
"Just as I thought. You're cursed, exactly like I figured? I could've bought the nakedness as fallout from the battle, but not a single speck of dirt on you? That was too weird. What are you gonna do, Elysia? Of all the curses out there, you had to go and catch every last fucked-up one of them."
'...'
At least it didn't seem she'd done anything strange to my body. The problem was that of all the people who could have discovered my curses, it had to be the one person who must never find out.
"What a dumbass. Got complacent, and it got him killed. If your opponent is the Hero, shouldn't you at least have some kind of failsafe in place?"
The succubus clicked her tongue briefly as she laid into the Demon King. Apparently she'd pieced together a rough picture of how that final battle had unfolded just from the state I was in now. It was such an unfamiliar sight that I could only stare at her in bewilderment — the demonkin were defined by their rigid hierarchy, and even with the Demon King gone, I'd never once seen one of them criticize him this openly in the game.
"Well then, what should I do with you, Elysia? If I haul you off to the Demon King's army just like this, a promotion's as good as mine already..."
She let the sentence trail off deliberately, staring straight at me. At first her expression was a complicated tangle of emotions, but before long a bitter smile curled at the corner of her mouth and her lips moved again.
"But honestly, where's the fun in handing you over like this? Best case, they just finish killing you, right? Those old fossils would never let a wildcard like you live."
As she spoke, she began closing in on me again, slowly. It was the same situation as before, but having just heard those loaded words, the tension pressed down on me far more heavily than it had a moment ago.
"In that case, wouldn't it be more profitable to make use of you myself?"
This time she cupped and stroked my breasts as she went on. There wasn't a trace of playfulness or lust in her touch — she handled my chest the way one handles an object, and it was deeply unpleasant.
"I've wondered this for ages — how the hell do you play the Hero with tits that enormous? Honestly, 'whore' suits you way better than 'Hero,' don't you think?"
The crude insults left a bad taste in my mouth, no way around it, but my heart was steadier than I'd expected. After all, I'd always known exactly what kind of beings they were.
"Hmm... or maybe not? Looking at them now, they're so huge it's actually kind of disgusting."
'Is this bitch serious?!'
But the moment she prodded that particular nerve, I reacted violently before I could stop myself. Like a stone hurled into still water, the emotions I'd fought so hard to keep submerged roiled out of control in an instant.
It might sound like a humblebrag to some, but my huge breasts had always been a massive complex of mine. A body so far from ordinary was forever climbing onto people's tongues, whether I wanted it to or not. Nobody ever said it to my face the way the succubus just had, but there's a reason they say words travel a thousand miles without feet.
That they were grotesque. That I looked like a slut.
From the women's backbiting — less jealousy than naked, blunt disgust — to the men's cheap jokes that I was too much for a wife but perfect fuck-buddy material, it all found its way to my ears whether I wanted to hear it or not.
"So what'll it be, Elysia? Fail to prove you're useful right now, and you die. Hm? You're far too risky to keep around as a toy. Hm? Quit blinking at me like a broken doll and say something already."
She knew damn well I couldn't move, and she was putting on this whole show anyway. Tormenting a helpless victim like this was a succubus's idea of a good time.
"Tch. Not a single reaction. Boring. Well, whatever, I suppose? You can't even break free of my killing intent, let alone talk."
Having apparently lost interest in my non-response, the succubus seemed poised to try something new.
'What is this? Is she actually going to release me?'
From the looks of it, she was withdrawing her killing intent — and that was the best news I could have asked for.
'The prompt's only visible to me anyway, so maybe I should press it nice and slow so she doesn't notice? No — the opening might last a split second. Just do it fast.'
Between my fingertip and the interface lay no more than a sheet of paper's worth of distance. Bracing for whatever might come, I poured every nerve into my fingertip, desperate to seize the moment when it arrived.
—Snap!
And the chance came at the most unexpected moment. Without warning, the succubus flicked her fingers, and in that same instant the killing intent pinning me down dissolved as if it had never been there at all. With that short crack of sound, my weight pitched forward — but I made no effort to resist. I let myself stagger ahead and stretched my finger toward the [Yes] button.
'Got it.'
A peculiar tactile pulse hummed at my fingertip, and I knew for certain I'd pressed it.
You have used the Teleport Stone.
The instant the message flashed before my eyes, brilliant light erupted outward.
"What the—?! Fuck! Weren't you supposed to be unable to use magic?!"
The sudden turn of events wiped every trace of smugness off the succubus's face — she looked genuinely shaken.
—Bang!
Then came the sound of wind being violently torn apart, and I prayed with everything I had that I would escape before her attack could reach me. But it was an unnecessary worry. To her, Elysia had always been an object of pure terror, and that fear made her choose retreat over attack.
—Vreeee!
In any case, the Teleport Stone activated without a hitch, and moments later a deafening roar and a blinding radiance swallowed me whole.
"Kyaaaaaa! What the hell is that?!"
—Thud!
Before the light had even finished fading, a scream loud enough to split my eardrums made my eyes snap open on pure reflex.
"?!!!"
The very situation I'd dreaded was unfolding right in front of me. The crowds passing along the street stopped one by one to stare, and as shame crashed over me like a tidal wave, I hastily covered myself with both hands.
"What's with her? Why's she naked in the middle of the day?"
"What is this, some kind of event?"
"Seems like it, right? A piercing through her nipple? She's a slut, no question about it."
In an instant the street turned into a madhouse, and perhaps because I was swept up in the chaos myself, the crowd's clamor gradually grew muffled and distant. Even so, a few voices pierced through the din with terrible clarity.
"What the hell is wrong with that woman?!"
"Haah... I just came out to grab a meal, and now this. Let's move along for now, sir."
At the two men's angry voices, I whipped my head toward them — and saw two guards closing in on me, step by step.