34. Realization (Realization)
34. Realization (Realization)
Tung —
Along with a dull sound, the wooden sword that left Siwoo's hand spun a few times in mid-air and dropped straight to the ground.
"Want to go again?"
"......Nah, that's it for today."
I scratched my head, approached Siwoo—who was squatting down and hek-hek-ing like he was about to die from exhaustion—and cast a recovery spell on him.
"It's like you're attacking too recklessly, or how should I put it... the execution is trashy."
"Trashy execution?"
"I mean... what should I call it? It feels like you only look at the incoming piecemeal attacks and don't see the next move? You know what I mean."
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"It just works, you know?"
"......."
At my utterly irresponsible remark, that bastard Siwoo wore a dumbfounded expression for a moment, but soon let out a pik-sik chuckle along with the words, "Yeah, well, you're a genius."
The Seowol Academy Summer Festival, held two weeks later. Call it an academy festival, but true to the reputation of Seowol Academy, all sorts of prominent figures visit Seowol during the festival period. Bosses of suspiciously giant organizations, the continent's greatest billionaires, or things like that.
The reason they visit the Seowol Festival is, naturally, not just to enjoy the festival, but to discover usable raw gems at the highlight of the final day, the Seowol Summer Tournament. Since the academy cadets also know this, cadets confident in their skills naturally apply for the Summer Tournament to raise their own value and catch the eye of the higher-ups—it's practically the unspoken rule.
Naturally, me and that bastard Siwoo participated too. Well, it wasn't for some outward reason like wanting to make a name for ourselves; we simply made a bet. On which round that bastard Siwoo would get eliminated in.
Under the premise that he doesn't face me, if he reaches the quarterfinals or higher, Siwoo wins; if he gets knocked out early before that, I win. The loser grants a wish to the winner. Something like that.
In the original work, Siwoo's record in his first Summer Tournament was getting eliminated in the Round of 16, so I thought it would be a somewhat balanced bet if I, acting as his mentor, gave advice through sparring to accelerate his growth rate, but actually experiencing it was quite different from my expectations.
......Why is this bastard so weak......?
Of course, even considering the fact that his opponent was me, as I looked at that bastard Siwoo who felt somehow lacking compared to the original work and pondered deeply on why, I was soon able to find the reason.
...It's because of me.
With a bastard who sleeps all day long right next to him, there was no way that bastard Siwoo could feel any motivation. It would be one thing if the gap in military might was something he could catch up to. But since it was at a level where comparison was impossible, he wouldn't even get any motivation.
Thinking about it that way, I felt needlessly sorry, as if I had hindered that bastard Siwoo's growth. Should I pass down some fortuitous encounter to him?
For me, an authority who has read the original work twelve times, finding a fortuitous encounter hidden in the academy is child's play. I should find an amazing fortuitous encounter soon and pretend I don't know anything while handing it to that bastard Siwoo.
That's right. Lately, he's been deeply engrossed in studying mental-type magic, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to fetch something awesome related to that as well. Though it probably won't be of any use anyway.
No, but even no matter how much he's obsessed with that field, he's constantly throwing tantrums trying to hypnotize me at every gap he gets, and every time he does that, I agonize over whether I should seriously pretend to be hypnotized or not. Do I look easy to someone who cut down and instantly saw through even the Emperor's highest-tier illusion, the pinnacle of mental manipulation magic?
"Hey, do I look easy to you?"
"Why all of a sudden?"
"I don't know. I'm in a bad mood, so just take a chestnut to the head."
"Wow, what true character."
While I was concocting a plan in my head to naturally feed that bastard Siwoo a fortuitous encounter while hiding the fact that I gave it to him, that bastard Siwoo in front of me looked at me with an expression as if something had suddenly popped into his mind.
"Why all of a sudden?"
"That's right, let me ask you a favor."
"Yeah, I'm not gonna grant it."
Despite my resolute refusal, that bastard Siwoo walked over as if my opinion didn't matter in the least, picked up a bag stuck in the corner of the sparring ground, fumbled around for a moment, and handed me a paper bag containing something.
"What's this?"
"My room's washing machine broke. Do some laundry for me."
"......Can't you use Cleanse?"
"Yeah."
What a mess. Even if he was a swordsmanship one-trick in the original work, it was slightly pathetic that a bastard who now claimed to use magic—whether mental-type or whatever—couldn't even use a simple purification magic. Should I catch him at a proper time later and teach him everything?
"Oh, and give me the washed clothes tomorrow. I'm a bit busy today."
"......What kind of bullshit is that? Just take it now. I'll use Cleanse for you."
"Tsk. No way. Give it to me tomorrow."
"......Has he gone crazy?"
At the nonsense of that bastard Siwoo, who seemed to be putting extra effort into acting like a jerk for some reason lately, I resolved in my heart that no matter what happened, I had to return these clothes to him right now.
......I couldn't give them back.
"Am I an idiot?"
Yuriel let out a deep sigh from inside the languid and fluffy blankets, regretting her own actions.
Of all times, why did sleepiness have to crash over me then.
But then, waking up and thinking about it, since he had practically lived by supporting her all day long, whining about not being able to return just this one thing until tomorrow made her feel a bit narrow-minded. It was no big deal anyway.
Yuriel, sitting on the edge of the bed with a deep yawn, picked up the paper bag placed right next to the mood lamp with a dazed expression.
"Good grief, why is there so much laundry to do?"
If his washing machine broke, he should've told her in advance. Then she would have washed it for her right away. Was it because he didn't want to bother her?
Things like that didn't particularly matter to her anyway. With such thoughts, wondering what on earth that bastard Siwoo usually wore, Yuriel pulled out the topmost fabric —
"Ah, fuck."
Seriously, why did this bastard put his own underwear right on top where it was fully visible? Is he genuinely insane? Irritation surged rapidly within Yuriel at the thought that she had picked up a pair of men's underwear with her bare hands.
"Ah, that crazy bastard, I'll really kill him tomorrow. No, the smell is soaked into my finger...!??"
"Breathe in, and breathe."
"The smell soaked in......"
If it were her usual self, without a second thought, she would have cast purification magic on her finger and Siwoo's underwear several times over. If it were usual.
"......."
However, for some reason, Yuriel was staring fixedly at her finger with a blank, spellbound expression.
Of course, if anyone else were to see this sight, it would be utterly embarrassing, but since it was a single room to begin with, and even her friend Siwoo had schedule matters to attend to, Yuriel was all alone inside her room —
— or so Yuriel firmly believes. Right beside her, a man who had readjusted her mental barrier to his liking was sneering at her and molding her thoughts to his own will, but thanks to the mental-type magic that had already encroached as far as it could go and the various mental magics being cast in her room without her knowledge, at least inside this room, Yuriel would never notice the distortion of her perception unless Siwoo intended it.
"Now, breathe in, and breathe out, breathe in, and breathe out."
"Breathe in......, breathe out......, heu..., heu-uu......"
"That's right."
Yuriel, considering her heavily kneaded and distorted thought—that 'she must smell the lingering trace of his body odor'—to be a conclusion drawn entirely from her own judgment, brought her finger to her nose and, with a habitual twitch of the bridge of her nose, started keung-keung-ing and smelling it. Without feeling even a shred of incongruity toward such a ridiculously comical action.
Believing that she had never smelled it even once in her lifetime, but actually having smelled it every single day for several years, her once-sharp eyes grew hazy out of habit at the rapturous yet addictive lingering trace of his body odor, her speech trailed off, and her lips slowly began to part.
"Heu, heu-uu......?! Cr-, crazy, I, I right now...! Cl-, Clean..."
"Tsk, no way. There might be some suspicious trap hidden in the underwear, you know."
"Th-, that's right. There might be a su-, suspicious trap......"
"Exactly. Then we should check what kind of trap it is first, right? Come on, bring your face closer."
"Br-, bring my face closer......"
Yuriel, repeating Siwoo's words like a parrot and believing it to be a thought she had derived herself, spewed forth sophistry completely devoid of logic like 'there's a suspicious trap so I need to smell it to check' without feeling any incongruity, and crawled on all fours toward Siwoo's underwear, completely unaware of the fact that her lower parts had already grown damp and were limply trailing threads onto the bed.
"Now, hurry up and check what kind of suspicious trap it is. Bury your nose in it."
"Bury my nose...?"
"Hurry."
"Bury my nose...... no, wait, this is feeling a bit strang..."
"Ah, she's really being a pain."
Puk.
It was over.
Elysia's talent once in a millennium. The daughter of the continent's sole supreme archmage, Hameln. Yuriel's life could no longer escape from the side of her childhood friend, Siwoo.
While Yuriel was asleep, the mental interference-type magic that Siwoo had spent days and nights installing inside her room distorted her neural circuits, and Yuriel's mental barrier had already been interfered with to the point of yielding to Siwoo's will, but as long as she could just step outside Yuriel's room, Siwoo's thought-interference magic wouldn't work on her.
Of course, if Siwoo were to let out his characteristic mana, she would helplessly fall asleep, but at least while she was awake, making her move was entirely up to Yuriel herself.
Today, however, by endless mental-type magic, inside a room crafted solely to knead her thoughts, Yuriel came to remember Siwoo's body odor while fully awake.
Surely, the process of getting there involved all sorts of shady schemes and distortions by Siwoo, but once this night passed, all those thoughts would melt away, leaving behind only a single fact.
That she had sniffed Siwoo's underwear, grown horned-up, and vulgarly masturbated.
To Yuriel, who would remain at the end of the morning after the night passed, with her distorted thoughts and her original thoughts sludgily mixed together, that was the only truth.
Yuriel could no longer live without Siwoo's body odor.
"Hoo-ot...! Hoo-oo-ot...!"
"Ah, she has completely no idea how to masturbate."
Without any further thought distortion from Siwoo, Yuriel—like a horned-up monkey masturbating for the first time by her pure instinct—was buried face-first into his drawers, squatting prostrate, shaking her hips at empty air, and desperately trying to reach climax. Siwoo chuckled faintly at her with a pik-sik and whispered sweet words right into her ear.
"If you want to feel even better, try sticking your fingers into your pussy."
"Hu-ut...! Hu-u...! Pu-, pussy......?"
"Yeah, after sticking your fingers into your pussy like that, press down hard on the entrance of your vagina — !"
"Kku-u, o-ho, o-hoo-ot!??!♥"
"That's right. Now, rest one hand. Grab your nipples tight too, and spin-spin, spin-spin — ."
"Sp-, spin-spin♥"
Yuriel, completely unaware of the fact that her own body had already been conditioned to become as vulgar as vulgar could be through over three years of training, left her thoughts melting in the pleasure bestowed by her first climax, oblivious to the fact that Siwoo had tuktuk-ed her butt and walked out of the room, and continued masturbating obscenely by rubbing her face against Siwoo's drawers until day turned into night, climaxing repeatedly.
"......Should I commit suicide?"
At the awkward and scandalous behavior sparsely coming to mind from last night's somehow hazy memories, the moment I woke up, I shrieked and threw a fit.
"Fuck, fuck, fu — ck."
Has she gone crazy? Has she gone crazy? Has she gone crazy?
It wasn't like she got caught in some estrus trap, yet like a beast in heat, she went and did th-, that kind of thing to that bastard Siwoo's underwear...!
Barely holding back the urge to head straight up to the academy roof out of shame, I recalled the behavior Yuriel showed in the original work in order to quickly rationalize it to myself.
"Was there ever a description in the original work of Yuriel doing this kind of shit......?"
There wasn't.
Barely calming down the thought that committing suicide would be better no matter how much I thought about it, I rubbed my throbbing head and started forcing myself to talk to myself.
"Even if it wasn't in the original work, there must be some hidden settings or something. Today must have been a once-in-twenty-years heat period. Today was. Yeah."
Wondering if perhaps I had developed those kinds of feelings for that bastard Siwoo, I recalled his face, but seeing as the emotion of finding him annoying as hell still dominated my body just like usual, it didn't seem like that.
I decided to just think of it as a one-off heat period that comes once every twenty years for a genius.
"Besides, even when I picture that bastard Siwoo's face, my heart doesn't flutter at all, and it wasn't driven by the opposite sex, so whatever. I just shouldn't do it again from now on. Just not from now on."
With such thoughts, I purified the bed—which had been soaked in love juices because I fell asleep while... masturbating—using Cleanse, and also purified the clothes inside the paper bag on the floor — .
......Purified......
"Ah, you crazy bastard. Cleanse, Cleanse, Cleanse - !"
I got that weird feeling again just now. Fuck.
The only silver lining is that, perhaps due to my still-insensitive body and temperament despite such an incident, after taking a few deep breaths, I could maintain this much composure. That was genuinely a relief.
"Let's change clothes."
Having purified the fabrics in the paper bag to pristine condition as if they were brand new, I took clothes out of the closet and put them on with a now somewhat calmed body.
Actually, at first, I felt an immense sense of aversion to wearing a skirt itself, but after putting on safety shorts, it became somewhat bearable. Though the underwear was still a bit embarrassing.
"This time of all times, I'm so glad I sleep too mu—hck?!"
At the strange sensation of my nipples brushing against the cold fabric, I flinched and let out a small moan.
"......It's happening again."
Something I've been feeling lately: whenever I put on clothes, take them off, or even when I'm active at the academy, every time the fabric brushes against my nipples, something, something feels weird.
Read"...Combined with yesterday, could it be that secondary sex characteristics are hitting right now?"
......Surprisingly, it sounds plausible. If all of this is happening because secondary sex characteristics have arrived now, everything fits together perfectly.
The fact that my nipples have been sensitive lately, the fact that my body weirdly heats up every time I wake up, and that crazy bullshit from yesterday.
It must all be due to agonizingly late secondary sex characteristics.
"Right, there's no way I'd do that with a sound mind."
True to a talent that appears once in a millennium, my libido must be strong enough to appear once in a millennium too. Well, I can account for something like that. Being human, it's natural to have sexual desire. It's only natural reason, after all.
Of course, I don't plan on rubbing my body against bastards with dicks. If an incident like yesterday happens again, couldn't I somehow relieve it with a toy or something?
...That aside.
"......Should I really buy a bra?"
It's a dilemma.