17. Even Better
17. Even Better
The protagonist of [Academy Effort One-Tool Gladiator]. If one were to evaluate that bastard Siwoo, the prevailing opinion was that he was an emotionless robot. To be precise, it felt like an emotionless robot with a self-sacrifice feature additionally installed?
Whether it was raining, snowing, or blowing a gale, even the day after he sealed Alterina, the final boss of chapter one, wrapped head to toe in bandages and drenched in blood, Siwoo swung his sword in the sparring arena.
Even in a life-or-death situation where a single misstep could shatter his core—the source of his mana—leaving him unable to ever swing a sword as a knight again, he threw his body without hesitation. All for strangers who had nothing to do with him.
Of course, looking at Siwoo like that, the comment section often fabricated and teased him, calling him a dumbass who would give up his entire knightly career just to pick up some clueless woman. But even with comments like that, the protagonist of [Academy Effort One-Tool Gladiator] protected those around him in the most ideal form.
Though people did point out the irony that he didn't cherish himself at all, true to a web novel, he miraculously dodged every single death flag, and in the end, he saved everyone he possibly could, so wasn't it a happy ending?
That's why the moment my heart pounded the hardest after possessing this place was when I first met him. Of course, Siwoo was just a clueless little brat back then, but seeing a figure worthy of being called the epitome of self-sacrifice with my own eyes was still quite thrilling. They say a tree that will grow big shows it from the sapling stage, and even as a brat, Siwoo possessed a remarkably respectable human conviction.
......Then why is he like this now?
After dragging my thoroughly sluggish and slumped body off the desk, I turned my head slightly to look beyond the school gates.
"So, in the end, you're saying you can't agree with my opinion?"
"Obviously."
"......Got it. I'll respect that."
The woman with long, yellowish-brown hair who had been arguing with Siwoo tried her absolute best to understand, but she couldn't hide the look of disappointment lingering in the corner of her eyes as she turned around.
......I'm truly fucked.
I let out a sigh as I watched that bastard Siwoo pull off a massive drift right at the very first step of following the original work in any plausible way.
That might not look like much, but it's a remarkably important scene.
It's the long-awaited debut scene of Yuli, the first heroine in [Academy Effort One-Tool Gladiator], and the first meeting of a stubborn utilitarian duo who believe the minority must be sacrificed for the majority.
It's the first buildup for Part 1's climax, where Yuli—who has firmly believed since childhood that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the ultimate truth—falls into joy upon sharing her ideals with Siwoo, who shares her mindset, only to eventually realize that she values Siwoo more than anything else in this world, awakening her romantic feelings.
It was quite pitiful watching Yuli fret over the fact that while Siwoo was the absolute most important thing to her, he didn't cherish himself at all and threw his body around everywhere. Well, none of that matters since it all culminated in a no-romance ending anyway.
Anyway, if he had followed the normal path of the original work, they would have shown incredible chemistry and hit it off brilliantly right there, but unlike the original, Siwoo flatly rejected Yuli's opinion in a single stroke.
"......That's definitely because of me, right?"
A fact I couldn't deny no matter how hard I tried. If I had to pick a single reason why that bastard Siwoo's behavioral principles changed, no matter how much I thought about it, the fact that I got entangled with Siwoo was simply too massive.
Yuriel, who became an orphan after being separated from the side of the archmage Hameln due to some undisclosed reason, wandered from village to village wrapped in a filthy, tattered heap of cloth.
Amidst that, Yuriel witnessed the very bottom of humanity—its dark, sludgy, raw ugliness—with her own eyes, falling into deep misanthropy. She enrolled in the academy to find the parents who made her so miserable, but having transmigrated right around the time I was wandering the protagonist's village while already knowing the original plot inside and out, regardless of any misanthropy, I spotted Siwoo's parents at a glance and immediately ended up living under Siwoo's roof.
Because of that, Yuriel and Siwoo's meeting took place more than a decade early, and that must be why Siwoo's personality changed.
I expected it, but it definitely feels somewhat, well, strange.
Fortunately, as long as I'm here, useless victims won't pop up, but it feels surreal, as if I've erased one of the most important thematic keywords of the story with my own hands.
"What are you doing with that sullen expression?"
Siwoo, who had mercilessly trashed Yuli's convictions, teodeol-teodeol walked over to my desk as if nothing had happened and naturally pulled up a chair to settle down right next to me.
"No, just. Wondering what kind of bullshit you were spewing."
"What, are you jealous? Puh, understandable. But it's nothing, really."
"What a load of bullshit. Seriously."
His illness has definitely gotten worse.
He never acted like that at all in the original work; should I say he's gotten slicker? The guy definitely gives off a vibe of overflowing leisure.
If I were a woman, I might have fallen for that kind of attitude, but since I'm not, whenever he pulls that crap, it just makes me feel gross for no reason. It's annoying.
"Just, you know. Who would agree with a statement saying everyone else can be lived if I sacrifice myself? She was spouting absolute nonsense, so I just told her to buzz off."
"......."
"What. Are you by any chance in favor of that opinion?"
"No, I'm thirsty. Give me some water."
"......You really..."
Siwoo stared at me for a moment as if he couldn't believe it, then let out a hollow chuckle and handed me the water bottle from his bag. It's not like I have zero manners to the point of making him do things like this, but the water purifier in my dorm broke down.
They said it'd take quite a while to fix, so since all's well that ends well, I'm making that bastard Siwoo my water errand boy. And though it might just be my imagination, the water poured from Siwoo's water purifier somehow tastes even better. Somehow, it feels a bit sweeter and stickier. Look, even right now...
"Puh, drinking it down nicely. Good girl."
What're you grinning at? I raised my middle finger toward Siwoo, who was wearing a strangely unsettling smile. Siwoo pisik smiled with a faint smile as he looked at me, then muttered quietly.
"......And besides, apart from one person, I don't give a damn what happens to anyone else."
"What?"
"No, nothing."
"By any chance, do you know that every time you say things like that, I get the urge to give you a knuckle sandwich?"
It's something I've only recently noticed, but lately, whenever that bastard Siwoo mumbles something and I ask him to repeat it out of curiosity, he frequently brushes it off with 'No, nothing.' At first, it was annoying when he'd stop mid-sentence, but now I just brush it off since he's the protagonist.
"By the way, it's fascinating how awake you stay during class lately. Back then, you used to sleep face-down for half the class."
"Ah, that? I don't know the reason myself, but lately I definitely don't get sleepy during class. Is it because I recognize it's class time? Instead, the moment I go to the dorm, I pass out immediately. I sleep straight through. All day long."
"Aha. So you have no idea why, but you aren't tired during class, and as soon as you enter the dorm, you get exhausted and fall asleep in an instant. Is that what you're saying?"
"That's right...?"
The phrasing sounds strangely off, though. I decided to just let it slide. It's not like it's once or twice that bastard Siwoo has talked nonsense.
"Ah, whatever. All's well that ends well. Hey, what's our next class?"
"Autonomous Sparring Class."
"Gotcha, you little shit. Prepare to get beaten up a bit today."
"Ah, why......"
Because I left an overwhelmingly massive impact during our first sparring class, whenever Autonomous Sparring Class rolled around, not a single person would challenge me, nor would anyone accept a challenge from me. In the beginning, a few ambitious cadets challenged me to sparring matches, but even they stopped coming long ago after being indiscriminately schoolyard-bullied. Coming to think of it now, I suppose hiding my power a little bit is somewhat necessary.
Anyway, because of that, the only sparring partner left for me during Autonomous Sparring Class was that bastard Siwoo, and at some point, Autonomous Sparring Class simply turned into sparring time with Siwoo.
"I'm putting on heavy handicaps and doing it anyway, right? Whoever loses today treats us to tteokbokki. Deal?"
"No, you always say that and then whenever you're about to lose, you take off your handicaps and go all out..."
"If you've got a problem with it, get stronger than me."
"......I'm not doing it."
"Ah, sorry, I really won't lift my handicaps today."
"......For real?"
"Have you ever seen me lie?"
"Yes."
......Sharp bastard. Well, even with me saying all this, the reason I request a sparring match every single session is probably because I possess a heart that never breaks under any crisis, just like the one hinted at in the original work.
In fact, though I didn't say it out loud, the fact that that bastard Siwoo didn't become a utilitarian villain is probably thanks in no small part to me sticking by his side for over ten years.
Frankly speaking, unlike the bloodless and tearless Siwoo of the original work, I kind of like this current bastard Siwoo better—full of affection, full of laughter, and overflowing with humanity.
Thinking about it, perhaps bestowing humanity upon that bastard Siwoo, who used to be called a cold-blooded man and an emotionless robot, was the purpose of whoever possessed me into Yuriel. Harboring such trivial thoughts, I moved my steps alongside Siwoo.
Well, that leisurely smile unique to a handsome man who seemed to know everything still pissed me off no matter how many times I saw it.
"Hiiik!? Hiiiiiiik!?!"
"I bought you tteokbokki, after all. This is fine, right?"
With Yuriel's hips dropped down while her butt was hoisted up disgracefully, and her face buried deep into the pillow, I yanked sharply on the ring of the anal beads I had shoved up her anus. Every single time the beads were pulled out jul-jul-i one by one in a string, Yuriel's groans filled the room.
"Yuriel, you might not know this, but today is a crazily happy day for me. Guess why?"
"Heu......, heu....-"
"Hmm... She's not answering. Every time you don't answer, I'm putting the anal beads back in, you know? I warned you, didn't I?"
"Heu... Heuhaek?! Ho-ok!? Heu-euk?!"
Spending a whole week on it, Yuriel's anus had become soft and pliable, and I gently pushed the beads back in one by one. If she were an ordinary person, her sphincter might have ruptured and become unusable, but well, since she's Yuriel.
"I saw it, you see. After sparring ended, when you came up to me triumphantly to shake hands, you flinched for a split second and pulled your body away."
True to her sky-high pride, she immediately composed her embarrassment and put on her usual relaxed expression, but I could tell in that fleeting moment. The fact that, finally, even while awake, Yuriel's body reacted the very second it caught my scent.
Exactly one month spent conditioning her into my exclusive onahole by making her inhale my every scent whenever Yuriel came. Yuriel, you wouldn't know how much ecstatic sensation that fleetingly short time made me feel.
Give it a little longer, and I feel like you'll come simply from my scent while shaking your waist. Ah, right, today is backdoor training. I'll be inserting and pulling out the anal beads for as long as we spent sparring today. Understand?
"Heu......, heu-uuu....-"
"Seriously, why aren't you answering? If you hate it, you could just say you hate it."
"H-Hiiik!? Heu-ek!? Hya-aak!?!"
Well, even if you said you hated it, I wouldn't stop anyway.
Watching Yuriel drool and leak fluids jil-jil from both top and bottom every time the long anal beads shifted this way and that, I unfolded a book I had brought from my dorm room.
The night is long.
Imagining a wedding ceremony that would someday be more beautiful and happier than anything else, just like in this book, I turned the pages with a hum while listening to the sultry classical music playing continuously.