A Secret Operation with the Butler (15)
A Secret Operation with the Butler (15)
#
"Kehk."
I coughed up blood. Even as the bastard was turning into a burning chunk of meat, he'd landed one last hit on me.
Shit. I knew my skills were nothing special, but I'd gotten careless thinking I couldn't miss the finishing blow. I didn't even need to stab him with my own hands. I could've just skewered him from a distance with the Invisible Hand.
"Yoo-jin!"
I heard Rebecca screaming. After casually tossing me around just moments ago, now she was acting like this...
Rebecca severed every last one of the bastard's tentacles, and when that wasn't enough she even lopped off its head before dashing to me.
"Ah, a-ah...."
Rebecca's face as she looked down at me was deathly pale. This girl. She really broke character in so many ways. She looked like a cold beauty, but I had no idea why she was being such an idiot.
But seeing her face actually made me calmer. You know how it goes. When someone else panics, the person next to them gets oddly composed.
"Kuluk."
Of course, me getting a little composed didn't mean the hole in my gut was going to heal on its own. Shit. This was fucking agonizing. It felt like my insides were tangling up while my body went cold.
"A priest, I have to call a priest—"
"Kk-huk! Hey! Don't press it!"
This idiot butler was pressing down hard on my wound as if she could stop the bleeding! You blockhead!
"Ah, I-I'm sorry... A priest! We must call a priest!"
"..."
A priest? I checked my Status Window.
[Life Force: 490 / 550]
[Status Effect: Bleeding]
I dunno. Looking at the Status Window, that seemed like a stretch.
My vitality was steadily falling. It was damage over time. With the DoT still ticking, would I survive until she brought a priest? No, could this trembling wreck even manage to bring one?
"Kh... hey. Haa... g-going to a priest will take too long... kh. Too long..."
"Ah, a-ah...b-but, without a priest...!"
"No, I said it will take too long..."
"I must call a priest!"
She wasn't even listening. On top of that, the color was draining from Rebecca's face by the second. This was bad. It looked like this girl was genuinely in a full-blown panic.
I tugged at Rebecca's clothes.
"Rebecca...li-listen to me...th-this way..."
At those words, Rebecca clenched her teeth with a resolute expression and leaned her face close to mine. Ah, I'd seen that look often in movies. Did she think I was about to deliver my last words?
...You stupid bitch. Snap out of it, for fuck's sake!
-Smack!
"Kek! What—!"
I tried...to slap Rebecca's cheek, but I messed up and nailed her nose with my palm. Guess it didn't work like in the movies after all. Still, her nose turning red was kind of funny.
Rebecca shed a few tears from the surprise blow, but now her focus finally seemed to turn to me. Good, we could actually hold a conversation now.
"G-get a hold of yourself...i-idiot...the-there's a way...There's a way...fuu..."
"Y-yes, yes...."
"My ability...do you remember...activation condition...s-sexual..."
"Y-yes, I know. Through sexual acts...the ability activates..."
Rebecca's head finally seemed to be working again. Was a beating really the cure for these beast-like beastfolk? As I entertained that species-discriminatory thought, I kept explaining.
"Kh... I-I am going to cast healing magic on myself now, so... with me..."
Only then did understanding dawn on Rebecca's face.
"I-I understand!"
Rebecca flipped up my skirt and practically ripped my underwear off with the ferocity of a wild lioness.
"Y-Yoo-jin..."
But Rebecca still had a bewildered expression.
"H-how should I..."
Ah, what now!
"What is it..."
"You must...get it up first..."
"..."
Right. I was in too much pain right now for my dick to get hard.
...I didn’t have a skill like Forced Erection.
Still, it was fine. I could get by using something else.
I maxed out Pleasure on the Invisible Hand and stirred it around roughly where my dick ought to be. I sank back, savoring the exquisitely bizarre sensation of agony in my upper body and pleasure in my lower.
"Th-the rest...take it from here..."
"Y-yes!!!"
I watched Rebecca bow her head, answering with what was practically a shriek, and then closed my eyes.
Ah. It really felt like I was going to pass out in so many ways.
A warm, wet sensation soon spread, and as a dizzy feeling washed over me like my blood was draining out, I lost consciousness...
# # #
Ariel's mansion.
"Will Yoo-jin be all right?"
"Who knows? He'll probably be fine, right?"
Though Yuri said that, Reni's face was full of worry.
"But for a situation that even required the Holy Sword..."
Ever since Rebecca had shown up in the middle of the night and taken the Holy Sword, Reni hadn't slept a wink.
"Don't worry. That guy's way more brazen than he looks. No way anything's seriously wrong."
Yuri's answer was perfunctory, but Reni knew Yuri was actually quite bothered too. The way she'd skipped her training hall session, rummaged restlessly around the mansion for no reason, and paced back and forth to the front gate over nothing—she was just pretending not to care.
'If only I had the necklace...'
Reni had willingly lent them the communication necklace, but she couldn't help feeling its absence.
'What could have happened that they even needed the sword? If something were to happen to Yoo-jin...'
Her mood was sinking deeper. Just as she was considering whether she should head there right now, Yuri suddenly spoke.
"Something else is way more important than that."
"Huh?"
"Whose turn is it when he gets back?"
"...Huh? Turn, you mean..."
Yuri stared straight at Reni's face.
She'd brought it up to change the mood since Reni seemed so worried, but she still couldn't shake the thought that Reni was being shameless.
'Is she pretending not to know, or does she really not know...'
On the other hand, she could understand why Yoo-jin always sided with this blonde priestess. Anyone would, after seeing those innocent eyes that might as well have had 'I know nothing' written across them.
'With eyes like that, yet behind my back she's been sneaking around so much...'
Given how sloppy she usually was, it probably wasn't even planned. That made it all the more infuriating.
'You can never let your guard down, I swear.'
Thinking that, Yuri continued.
"What do you mean, what? When he gets back, whose...a-amplification turn is it?"
"W-well, that's..."
"It’s my turn, obviously, right?"
When Yuri cut her off, Reni flared up for a moment.
"Y-you already did it with him last night, Yuri!"
"I told you, we didn't. We just slept together, the two of us. Seriously?"
Yuri wore a shameless expression, but Reni's face still looked displeased.
"Liar...there's no way! That Yoo-jin?!"
"Whatever you say, I don't care. Because we really didn't do amplification."
'We didn't do it for real, anyway.'
As far as Yuri was concerned, a footjob fell severely short of counting as having done it. That was practically the same as not doing it, and the same as not doing it meant, simply, they hadn't done it.
Actually, the amplification didn't activate from the footjob anyway, so they really, actually hadn't done it.
Thinking that, Yuri delivered the coup de grâce.
"Plus, you kept cutting in line! Not just the night before last, but several times before that too! Didn't you?"
"Urk..."
"So this time it's my turn, right?"
"Nnggh...!"
Reni stamped her feet like she was dying of frustration, but Yuri had no intention of letting up. It was obvious Yoo-jin would just take Reni's side again the moment he returned anyway. She had to secure her own share while he was gone.
There was a reason Yuri was pressing so hard.
'I've got something to test.'
From Yuri's perspective, Yoo-jin hadn't revealed everything about his abilities. Amplification, transformation, telekinesis, and the rest—she knew about those because he'd told her, but there were other things he was keeping hidden.
'My body didn't feel like my own.'
Whenever he applied Amplification, her body would change. Her senses grew more sensitive, and...
'I end up feeling it more...I don't normally feel it that much...'
She'd touched herself just in case, but sure enough, it felt different than when his hands were on her.
He was definitely pulling some kind of trick. A total incubus.... This time, for sure, she was going to expose his lies.
Plus, he had plenty of other offenses besides that.
Last time, at the inn in Emils—
'He said he fell for me at first sight. When he was the one who practically begged me not to leave in the first place.'
And yet, a guy like that kept putting her on the back burner.
In reality, him saying he fell at first sight was an answer Yuri had forcibly wrung out of him, and him telling Yuri not to leave hadn't been begging but borderline coercion, but those were minor details.
'Anyway, momentum is everything in these matters.'
She would ride that momentum, expose everything he was hiding, and put him completely beneath her heel again, just like last time.
...Honestly, she just wanted to see him grovel at her. Yuri got a pretty...good feeling out of him clinging to her.
Of course, if Yoo-jin had known Yuri's plan, he would have scoffed. He'd already realized she was putting on bravado. In fact, his head was full of plans to torment her instead.
At any rate, after rendering him utterly immobile, she'd interrogate him about his skirt-chasing...
"Skirt-chaser..."
"...Urk."
At Yuri's murmur, Reni swallowed a groan. Both of them knew that given the nature of his ability, he was bound to have dealings with women often in the future, but they couldn't help feeling unsettled anyway.
But Yoo-jin, as if oblivious to their feelings, acted like he'd give everything away to any woman in sight.
Of course, the two of them had been beneficiaries of his pushover tendencies too, but that wasn't the point.
What mattered was that they needed to get a leash on him. To stop him from letting his hands wander on just anyone.
"...Did he touch her?"
"..."
Yuri's question omitted its subject, but Reni understood perfectly.
"What do you think?"
Had he really laid hands on Rebecca? Even though he'd gotten that young? Sure, they knew he needed Simulated Caresses every few hours because the transformation spell had a time limit. But could he really control himself to that extent?
Reni stared red-faced at the floor.
"I, I trust Yoo-jin."
"Really?"
"He said he'd only do it when absolutely necessary..."
"I see..."
# # #
"Uhk...agh..."
"How does it feel here?"
"I d-don't—uk-hk—I don't know...kk-huk..."
"I told you not to answer me like that. Say it properly."
"Kk-huk...ah...agh..."
Rebecca gritted her teeth, but she had no choice but to force out the humiliating words as Yoo-jin demanded.