The Wizard's Story (7)
The Wizard's Story (7)
#
"You're late."
Yuri came back even later than Reni. I'd thought about doing something with Reni while Yuri was gone, but she came back carrying a whole stack of books from the Church and I never even got a chance to suggest anything. I'd been lazing around the room on my own, just drifting in and out of a light doze, when Yuri finally knocked on the door.
She just scowled at my scolding without a word and sat down heavily on the bed, letting out a deep sigh. What the hell. This girl... d-don't tell me she didn't wanna do it?!
"What? What happened?"
"The training hall."
"Huh?"
"...They said my total mana pool's way too small."
"Yeah?"
That figured. Before sending Yuri off to the training hall, I'd wiped her buffs with Sex Warrior's Performance.
My buffs were far too powerful. If I gave Yuri an S-rank buff, no one could possibly mistake her for an Iron Tier adventurer. Her excessive mana pool would draw unwanted attention, so we'd agreed that she'd go to the training hall without any buffs. And yet...
"So they wanted me to start with the mana-expansion curriculum. But looking at this thing... yeah, I get it now. Almost nothing in it's useful—it's all bundled crap to squeeze money out of you."
Yuri pulled out a pamphlet and showed it to me.
"Look at this. This is the mana adaptation course. It's got nothing to do with skills, just increases your total mana pool. Fine, so far so good. But then there's conditioning training, orienteering, wilderness survival. Stuff I do not need at all. And they told me this is the only mana curriculum they have. It's unreal. They bundle all this useless junk together and act like they're doing you a favor... so I asked them to at least tell me what I'd actually be learning, and they said it starts with tracking. Tracking! How long d'you think I've been working as a hunter? You really think I need to sit there learning that stuff? No, okay, fine, fine—it's an archery academy, I get it. But this is a mana-expansion curriculum, so why are they teaching field butchery? I'm not opening a butcher's shop. I asked why I'd need that, and they said since you can't haul whole carcasses out of a dungeon, it's good to learn! So then shouldn't they make a basic adventurer curriculum and a separate mana curriculum? But they said no, can't split them up. I couldn't believe it, so I went somewhere else, right? Every other place was exactly the same. If you ask me, the bastards are all in on it together. They're flat-out determined to bleed beginners dry from the get-go..."
"..."
"You listening?"
"Huh? Yeah, yeah... uh-huh..."
...So the gist was, she'd gotten the runaround from academy counselors who'd pushed a one-size-fits-all package and come back with nothing.
Still, she hadn't let those bastards get one over on her. Good to know she was sharper than I'd thought. But the way she was staring daggers at me told me she was expecting more of an answer than that. I wracked my brain for a solution...
Wait! I remembered reading somewhere that when a woman talks about her problems, she wants empathy, not solutions. In that case...
"Wow, seriously? That's insane. Bundling crap like that, that's awful! Those guys are total scumbags. I've been through bundle scams myself, I know all about it. Where I used to live, we had these scammers called phone-sellers... oh, want some wine?"
"..."
Yuri looked at me just a little bit pityingly. W-was that not it? No, really—unless you tell me exactly what you want, how am I supposed to know whether to empathize or offer solutions? Just as I was about to say so, she pouted.
"Ugh... I was actually planning on doing all kinds of stuff today..."
She stared at the paper bag she'd brought, disappointment practically dripping from her eyes. Whatever she'd stuffed in there, the bag was mangled all out of shape.
She stared at the bag for a long moment, then opened her mouth.
"Anyway. So. That thing you do. The permanent amplification. Exactly how much does it go up?"
"Uh, mm..."
The permanent stat increase attached to the Holy Buff.
Last time, when Reni and I went for the longest session, it was 0.3%, but that felt like it was because I'd kept teasing her all through it. Still, I couldn't exactly give her the detailed version... so I gave her a rough description in numbers.
"...If you focus strictly on the sex, I'd say 0.5% might be possible?"
"0.5%..."
"You know this stuff accumulates, right? It might look tiny, but it really is a huge deal."
"Yeah..."
Yuri flicked another glance at the paper bag, then wore a face that was equal parts frustration and embarrassment as she spoke.
"Th-then for today... just... f-focus on the amplification..."
"Ah, okay."
She looked incredibly wronged. She'd planned something for today, but it had fallen through, and she was furious about it. Was that what this was?
Silly girl. There was actually another way to increase her mana pool without attracting attention.
I kept my sly thoughts hidden and pulled Yuri toward me.
"Come here."
"Ah..."
...
"Ah-heut! N-no! Y-Yoo-jin, wait! Yoo-jin! Just a secooond! Hah-euk!"
"What do you mean, ‘just a second’? You said you wanted to focus on amplification, didn’t you?"
"T-too much! No! Ah-heuk! This... this isn't right—it's weird! Hah-euk!"
"What's weird?"
"I don't know! Out! S-something's coming out!"
"What d'you mean, something's coming out? Use your words."
"No! No! Ah-heu-euk?! Haaaaaah-ooot!!!!!!"
"...What're you gonna do if you gush it all out like that? All that hard work putting it in you. No good. Let's start over..."
"Aaack! P-p-please! Just a second! Break! Let me take a breeeeak!!!!"
"We've still got a long way to go to hit today's target, don't we? If you rest now, when are you planning on raising it?"
"Please... please... a-ah, no! I'm sensitive right now! No—!"
...
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!!!!!"
...
"I... I'm dead!"
"Sheesh..."
"I've finally gone and killed a person with sex. I fear myself. My Sexual Stamina is truly terrifying..."
"I-I'm not deaaad..."
"Can't be helped. They say you should untie the knot you made. Dead means they need reviving. And now, it's time for resurrection se—!"
"Hey... stop... stop it... hey... hey! No! Noooo!!!!!"
"'Hey'? You keep getting awfully casual with me, don't you?"
"O-okay! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Yoo-jin! I'm sorrry!"
...
"Heu-aaaaaaaaaahht!!!!!!"
#
In the end, Yuri passed out completely. The permanent amplification came out to about 0.4%. That much even without deliberately dragging it out and teasing her. Still, considering it all accumulated, it was a pretty encouraging result.
Yuri lay facedown with me still inside her, breathing softly. Probably too worn out to go any further. No point messing with her while she was asleep either. Maybe I should just let her rest as she was.
Just as I was about to fall asleep, I noticed the paper bag Yuri had kept glancing at. She'd been licking her lips over it even before we started having sex... What on earth was inside? I used my Invisible Hand to bring the bag over and looked inside.
"Th-this is..."
The bag was full of objects I'd never seen before, but from the perspective of my... cultured expertise, these were unmistakably adult goods. So that was what kept her so late, was it? She'd spent the morning and afternoon going around training halls, and the evening browsing an adult shop!
Inside were a slender vibrator, anal beads, and an anal plug. And w-was that an enema kit?!
...Did this girl actually have an interest in the back door? A shiver running through me, I lightly touched Yuri's asshole. And then—
"Nn-nn..."
Yuri clamped down around me, letting out small moans....Th-this girl! S-so that was her kink! This meant new pleasures were in store.
Of course, I wasn't doing this purely for enjoyment. To strengthen 「Creepy Dog Persona」, I needed a bit of... special play, so I had to keep developing new kinks like this.
Still, anal... I really wanted to test it out on the spot. But Yuri didn't seem to have prepared for it, so I'd have to wait patiently for another chance. A shame.
I quietly packed the paper bag back up the way it was, put it back where she'd left it, and fell asleep.
#
The next day.
In the dining room, Yuri was giving me a look that could kill, and Reni, seeing Yuri like that, was staring at me like she wanted to swallow me whole right along with her.
"A-a person..."
Yuri started in on last night's events, her voice still trembling.
"When someone asks you to stop... y-you really have to stop. If you keep going until they die... if they actually die..."
"No, you don't die. You know I'm paying attention to all of that, right? The sex automatically recovers your stamina in the first place—"
"Shut up."
"Yes, ma'am."
"...So, so—is that how it's gonna be from now on? If it is, I c-can't do it... can't take it..."
I cleared my throat. I'd deliberately kept quiet yesterday, but the training hall mana pool problem actually had a much simpler solution.
"No, what happened yesterday just sort of turned out that way. But for the mana pool thing, we could just use a lower-level buff."
"...A lower-level buff? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Mm..."
Had I never explained it to Yuri? I told her about the buff ranks. It was a little embarrassing, but if I groped her breasts...
"Why didn't you tell me this until now?"
"What d'you mean, why? There just wasn't really a chance to... mention it?"
"...Then back then, in front of the Goblin Dungeon, you didn't even need to go that far."
Yuri's expression turned serious. What the hell was she talking about? Back then I'd done it because I genuinely needed to use every card available. Did she think I'd forced the issue with someone I had no intention of sleeping with simply because I was a creep? My face stiffened.
"Look, back then—"
"I don’t care how much you wanted to do it with me. You can’t just bulldoze your way through like that, can you?"
"What?"
"You didn't tell me about that buff being a thing because you wanted to do it with me, right? That's it, isn't it?"
-Grrrk.
A horrible sound came from Reni's back teeth! N-no, why was she spinning everything to suit herself like this?!
"Th-that's a separate issue. Anyway, let's just get past the training hall problem. More importantly, there's another issue."
"What?"
"..."
I wasn't sure how to put this. That elf wizard was definitely going to raise hell in the future. To prevent that situation, I needed to find out what her circumstances were right now... The elf's rundown mansion bothered me, and above all, I couldn't get my mind off that pig fiancé's proclivities, the pedo figurine I'd seen at his mansion, and the fact that I'd gotten turned on there anyway.
Wait. Was he automatically a bad guy just for being a pedo? Sure, by my standards he was scum, but this was a different world—their ethics might be different? And if they were... what was I supposed to...
"Yoo-jin?"
At Reni's prodding, what came out of my mouth was a rather off-kilter answer.
"Is it... so here, is it... okay to, uh, do it with kids?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
The atmosphere plunged to a cosmic cold. Yuri fixed me with a wordless, ice-cold glare. In contrast, Reni had her eyes shut, murmuring something incessantly as if in prayer.
"GoddesswhywouldyougivemesuchatrialpleasehelpmesothatIcanpurifyYoo-jin..."
"Hold on! That came out wrong! I didn't mean it like that! I'm not like that, I swear!"
"...Then what did you mean?"
I took a deep breath and sorted my thoughts. The reason I needed to look into the elf's personal situation. Which meant I'd have to explain from the beginning...
It was a talk I'd known would come someday, but it looked like that day was today.
"...I know a few things about what's going to happen in the future."