144. It's Too Shameful
144. It's Too Shameful
What was done was done,
and what had to be finished had to be finished.
─Swaaaaa
[Heung....Heuheung...Heung....♬]
A humming sound drifted from beyond the bathroom.
The sound of water falling from the showerhead.
After everything was over, I took the chance while Yuno was in the shower to look around the room a bit.
"...You two really went at it."
The bed was soaked in grayish patches,
and even the blanket was stiff in places.
As I was thinking we'd really done a number on this place, I noticed something. Our dear Mai, what's that in your mouth?
"A used condom."
"Do you think I'm asking because I don't know that."
I was asking because I never used a condom with Yuno in the first place, so why on earth was she holding one in her mouth?
"It's the condom you used with me."
"....Ah!"
Back when I first fed Yuno my essence,
my stamina was nowhere near enough to finish by hand alone, so I'd ended up borrowing Mai's help.
Since she was born to be my personal... whatever, she felt way better than my own hand, better than a toy, honestly.
So, after she'd squeezed out every last drop, she'd taken it back out, collected it in a paper cup, and fed it to her... that was the full story of what happened back then, but...
"There shouldn't even be anything left in it anyway."
Time had passed as time does, and all that remained inside the condom were dried-up, shriveled remnants.
Seeing her turn it inside out, shove it in her mouth, and suck on it, I had no idea what she possibly wanted from that.
"...Really?"
"Sseup."
No, actually, I knew.
What kind of clueless male could look at a female turning a used condom inside out and slurping it clean without realizing what she was still craving?
But the reason I pretended not to know, despite that, was simple.
"It's just... a little spiteful of you, you know."
"...Tch."
If she truly wanted it, all she had to do was say so.
If she wanted what was left inside the condom, she didn't need to show it in front of me.
Ultimately, those actions were all staged 'for me to see.'
And what she gained by showing me like that──the mindset of hoping I would make the first move, it was cute if I wanted to see it that way, but it was still spiteful.
"I worked hard all day. Mai demands a just reward."
"Fine. Want me to buy you some chicken or something?"
"Already ate my fill. And what I'm really hungry for is...."
Not her stomach, but her womb.
Mai pressed down hard on her lower belly with both hands and blinked her eyes.
"Mai is hungry too...."
"You, seriously."
"....Hee♪"
Mai grinned bashfully.
"Trait, Wise Mother and Good Wife. Mai knows everything Big Brother wants. There are no secrets in front of the Heavenly Demon."
"Yeah, you're full of crap."
"But my pussy is tight."
"......."
I had no words.
Without answering, I just picked up the remote nearby and turned it on.
And then,
[I... I, as of today, will be withdrawing from the Athena Guild!]
"???"
What on earth was I watching.
***********************
Bright sunlight.
A refreshing morning.
"Uung....?"
Contrary to her peaceful heart, she felt a slight chill from the empty spot beside her.
"...Chrono?"
She raised her body and looked around.
No one was in sight. Even the blonde-haired girl who usually followed Chrono around was nowhere to be seen.
"....Chrono!"
She called out his name once more.
The room was without a single sign of life.
For a moment, Minerva thought she was in her own room.
"....Could it all have been a dream..?"
Otherwise, it couldn't possibly be this quiet.
At this point, she was starting to find the dream theory more credible.
That Chrono, who was definitely with her before she closed her eyes, would vanish the moment she opened them?
She had heard that occasionally, there were trashy men who just abandoned a woman after the act, but Minerva thought Chrono wasn't that kind of trash.
'No matter that he's an apostle of an Evil God...'
Still, the Chrono she knew was a person far removed from 'trash.'
So it was more plausible to believe that this whole situation was a dream, that last night she had fallen asleep and had an insanely realistic erotic nightmare—but...
─Jureureuk...
"Eut!.....What is this...?"
As she sat up, she felt something trickle down below.
She hurriedly looked down to check, and a thick, white, transparent liquid was soaking the bedsheet.
".....So."
No,
just in case.
She had learned from erotic videos that sometimes, highly aroused women secrete a white mucous fluid.
Minerva dabbed the unidentified liquid onto her fingertip and tasted it.
"Eut....Euuuuu.....!"
A taste that could never be described as delicious.
Nauseating, fishy, and even slimier from having been inside for so long, this taste was──undeniably, unmistakably, the traces of Chrono.
'If that's the case....'
The night with Chrono was not a lie.
Last night. The things that happened throughout the night...
"Heuheot."
...No, now wasn't the time for that.
"Kheum!....Keum..."
She cleared her throat lightly to compose herself,
"....Heueum."
So, was that it?
The night with Chrono wasn't a lie,
but Ultimately, he was exactly the sort of trash she'd first described—leaving behind the woman he'd spent the night with and disappearing...
"...That can't be it."
He must have had some business to attend to outside.
Given that it was already 9 o'clock, he must have hurried out for something he had to do...
"....Something he had to do outside at 9 AM?"
No, there was nothing.
Not a single thing.
Having spent this past week trying to seduce Chrono from his side, she knew his daily routine at least.
And as such, she knew that Chrono at 9 AM might be dead to the world asleep, but he would never be out and about.
'Strange.'
A pounding heart.
An unpleasant heartbeat.
The moment she was slowly seized by strange delusions──
──Ttiririk!
"Eut....!"
The sound of the door opening.
Was it Chrono? No, it wasn't.
Those were not his footsteps.
'What should I do....'
There was... no need to deliberate.
It was a surprise intrusion. If someone opened the door and forced their way in, there was only one way to counter it.
─Seugagak!
"Don't move!"
Minerva swiftly drew the rapier leaning against the wall and aimed it at the intruder who had barged into the room...
"Hiiii.....!"
"....Huh?"
...The guild staff member?
She'd thought it was some thug breaking in for a surprise attack, but it turned out to be a guild staff member.
Having momentarily become a suspicious character threatening a fellow guild member, Minerva cleared her throat softly and sheathed her blade.
"Wh-what brings you here?"
"I-It's almost time for the press conference, so... I came to tell you it's time to get ready!"
"Ahh...."
Now that she thought about it, today was indeed the day of the press conference.
Minerva nodded and sent the staff member away, finally able to calm her agitated heart.
"Haaa, to think they'd just walk in like that───hmm?"
Deulgureok.
Something had fallen to the floor.
It looked like a long cylinder...
".....This wasn't here before."
Upon closer inspection, she saw a hairline crack running horizontally across it.
When she pulled the top and bottom sections, the lid slowly came off.
"This is──a scented candle."
Its purpose was to be lit so one would inhale the smoke.
And this candle was what the staff member had dropped just moments ago.
"........No way."
A chill ran down her spine.
On top of that, a strong intuition.
"No... wait a minute....."
Now that she thought about it, how had the staff member been able to open the door and walk in on his own?
The dormitory doors were structured to lock automatically the moment they closed.
So to get inside, the person inside had to open it, or....
"If he had a master key.... is the only other way."
A master key.
Chrono's disappearance.
And on top of that, the existence of this scented candle.
What this all pointed to was──one single thing.
"....Eup...Ueok...!"
It was disgusting.
She was disgusted.
For a moment, she wished her imagination was wrong, but no matter how she looked at it, she could only think of it 'that way.'
"No, wait. If he truly intended that... there'd be no reason to bring a scented candle."
She denied her own thoughts.
The candle was precisely the reason. If he had brought it because he thought Chrono was here, then the intruder must have believed Chrono was in the room.
Thus, a mistake was made. That mistake could serve as evidence that the Athena Guild people had failed to capture Chrono──but,
'What if they've already captured him...?'
What if they had already subdued him,
and were just trying to lay Chrono back down in the room and put him to sleep with the scented candle?
"No... way. Chrono couldn't be... that weak."
Groundless delusions.
Delusions with only shaky evidence.
Even delusions that leaped straight to conclusions without any process.
Her head couldn't organize a single thing.
If this were about someone other than Chrono, she wouldn't have been this flustered.
But because it was about Chrono, because it was something that concerned the person she loved,
"Minerva, your father believes in you. I've prepared a script in advance, so read it over beforehand."
".....Father."
One hour before the press conference.
The script the Guild Master handed her. The words written on it.
"Why... is there no mention of Chrono?"
"Why, you ask? Well, after a comprehensive review, we found that Cadet Chrono only accomplished things at a cadet level. Of course, we're not just paying lip service; we fully intend to reward him properly later, so don't worry."
There wasn't a single mention of Chrono anywhere in it.
A script solely filled with praise for herself, for the Athena Guild.
Totally ignoring Chrono's existence, crushing it, as if he hadn't existed from the start.
"I see. Of course."
Minerva closed her eyes.
'Chrono....'
The one and only person who had followed her.
From the beginning, forced into an interrogation by the guild members' territoriality,
Constantly harassed in the music club, his instrument broken,
When subjugating the Siren, having all his credit—like marking the coordinates in advance and the Siren's traces—stolen,
During the Queen Siren subjugation, when everyone predicted death, the one person who burned with will alone and fought to the end—far from being praised...
...Now, these actions intended to erase his very existence entirely.
"Since that's the Athena Guild's way."
To be factual, all of this could be her own conjecture.
But too many things had already happened for her to examine them one by one,
"And finally, we will have words from the outstanding, number one contributor to the Queen Siren subjugation──Minerva."
"...........Ha."
Now that Chrono had disappeared,
"I... I am far too ashamed of the fact that I am standing in this place."
"Excuse me.....?"
Even one single, tiny thing was enough to break down her reason.
As a side note,
[Is this what you call a guild! Trampling on a person! Oppressing them! Failing to recognize their worth and politically ignoring them—is this what a guild representing Korea is supposed to do!]
[If you have pride... if you have self-respect! And if you are people of the Goddess, then you must not do this kind of bullshit!]
[W-Wait a moment, euk... The cameras! What are you doing not turning off the cameras!]
[We will return after these messages!]
"Huh? What are you doing, Chrono?"
"..........Yuno."
Chrono, who had watched this entire situation broadcast live.
"That carnal crest, erase it right now."
"Uu... it's a little disappointing──"
"──Right now. Erase it."
"!....Ueung...."
Realizing how serious his gaze was, Yuno immediately began to erase the carnal crest.
She gathered divinity in both hands and burned away the succubus's carnal crest with holy flame until──
"Huh?"
──Only the color of the crest had changed; the crest still hadn't disappeared.
".......Fuck.."
From a light-pink carnal crest,
"Fuck....Fuuuuck.....!"
it transformed into a red carnal crest, one reminiscent of Hera.