Human Rights for a Grad Student? (1)
"Hey, Lucy."
"So you talk down to me even knowing I'm a research student."
"Want me to call you Senior Lucy, then?"
"No. From a boy, I rather prefer the casual tone."
"Weird taste."
"Only when it's you."
"How do you even know who I am?"
"Word is there's a freshman who, from the very first day of enrollment, has been walking around with a girl on each arm."
"Shit, who the hell is that?"
Lucy blinked.
"Well. That would be you, wouldn't it?"
"Not me."
Sure, I'd walked alongside Maron and Eletra now and then, but "with a girl on each arm" was stretching it past the breaking point. It had to be somebody else — or a rumor with no legs under it at all.
"…You really are quite the scoundrel, just as the rumors say."
"?"
"Never mind. Forget it. At this rate I'll end up falling for that scoundrel myself…."
Lucy cupped her own chest from below and lifted.
They bounced.
"…."
"What? Not going to do that thing from earlier?"
"Damn, those tits are insanely hot."
"…Somehow even cruder than last time?"
The target's mood is not particularly bad.
Compliment Points:+10(1590 → 1600)
Why on earth did this woman give points for that? Wasn't this a little too easy?
Grateful, though.
"…Interested in my chest?"
"Any guy who says he isn't interested in breasts is either a liar or dangerous."
"Hmm…."
Lucy jiggled her chest again.
Bounce.
Being inside a subculture game world was fantastic. The romance-fantasy angle was a bit of a shame, though.
Thinking about it made me mad. If I was going to get isekai'd anyway, how much better would it have been to land in one of those hardcore games I actually liked? I could have rescued heroines whose backstories I already knew, grown close to them along the way….
"…."
Come to think of it — wasn't I already doing that with Maron?
Eletra's psychology was still a mystery. And Lucy….
I knew exactly what story she carried.
"How's research-student life treating you?"
"Eh, same as anywhere. Hard when it's hard, doable when it's doable."
"Aren't you stuck in an especially brutal situation, though?"
Lucy went still.
"I wonder. How would a boy like you know that?"
Because I read the original.
The reason Lucy Merhantia became a terrorist who attacked the academy was simple: she had been ground down by a vicious advisor.
Day and night, lab work and the professor's personal errands forced on her without end. The moment she produced a good idea, he stole it as his own achievement — and then kept finding excuses so she could never graduate.
One year. Two. Three. Four….
Crushed under relentless overwork and abuse, Lucy eventually developed a sickness of the mind.
The world went gray. Apathy. Everything was painful and difficult. Even something as simple as tidying her room felt like the impossible task of lifting a mountain.
Her body went through the motions on autopilot — clocking in, analyzing research data, feeding the advisor's pet dog, watering his plants, running his errands, coming back.
Then one day.
Lucy watched a carriage rattle down the street and thought, If that hit me, I wouldn't have to go to work.
A healthy person would have simply decided not to go if they didn't want to. But to a mind already sick and broken, death felt like the only escape.
A peaceful smile on her face, she started walking toward the carriage — and a hand caught her.
"Are you all right? You look… terribly exhausted."
When the only rope lowered into your despair is laced with poison, you still grab it.
That was Lucy's first meeting with the cultists of the Abyss Cult.
Not that I could tell her I already knew her future. Luckily, I had a convenient excuse ready.
"That advisor of yours has a nasty reputation. Being the son of a duke, the rumors travel pretty far."
"…."
"Lucy."
"Yeah?"
"Sometimes running away is the only right answer."
The Lucy in front of me was still a first-year research student. But graduate students got dragged into the lab the moment they finished undergrad — before the official semester even started. Which meant Lucy had already been under that advisor's thumb for about three months.
She put two fingers to her lips in a V again.
"…Unexpected."
"What is?"
"I thought you were just pretending to be dense on purpose."
"…I think you've got the wrong idea. I have never once pretended to be dense."
Because I actually was.
Even after transmigrating into this world, I'd already pulled one or two oblivious stunts. Or two or three. Maybe three or four.
But.
"Whether someone's socially dense and how they respond to another person's feelings are two different things."
Through twelve years of school and into university, I'd always had friends.
Kim Si-woo is clueless as hell, but as a person? He's the real deal.
That was how my friends used to describe me.
Drinking together, pulling all-nighters on group projects and mainlining caffeine, grilling meat by a summer stream….
Right. I was dense. My ability to read the fine grain of someone's gestures, glances, and expressions lagged well behind everyone else's. But when I saw someone sad, I could comfort them. When I saw someone struggling, I could help. And so I actually comforted people, actually helped them, and lived that way.
Friends grew out of that naturally.
That was the life I'd lived. And it was the life I meant to keep living.
If only it hadn't been that women-dominated company….
I'd been so desperate for a job I'd sent applications everywhere and ended up there.
Maybe I should've stayed unemployed a little longer.
If the gender ratio had been even halfway balanced, I might have gotten along with the male coworkers and things would have turned out differently. Water under the bridge now, though.
"Whether you're dense or not, and how you respond to emotion, are separate… hmm."
Lucy rested her face atop her chest, which was propped on the fence. The view that rose all the way to her throat was, frankly, devastating.
"Then what emotion is the boy feeling toward me right now?"
"Worry."
"For a woman you met yesterday? Just because she's a research student?"
"We did only just meet, yeah."
Everything I knew through the original work was one-sided knowledge and information, nothing more.
But.
"We're neighbors. Neighbors help each other out."
"……Neighbors."
Lucy echoed the word under her breath — then burst out laughing.
"Heh… heh-heh."
"…Did I say something weird?"
"No — heh, heh-heh… what's weird is the boy… heh-heh-heh…."
It wasn't weird.
Lucy was simply happy to hear it.
I'll help you because we're neighbors.
The fact that she lived in the noble dormitory made it obvious enough — Lucy was nobility herself. And among nobles, neighbors were usually the ones who snarled at each other the hardest.
Yet Gilliam's words didn't feel like hypocrisy or performance. Because she could see his eyes. Because she could feel that he meant every word.
How could a heart be that pure and clear?
See? I told you. He's a boy.
And the boy was right. Ever since starting research life, Lucy had been rotting from the inside out.
Of course he couldn't have known that much when he said it.
He'd only been making the general observation that research students have it hard… and even so.
It reached her.
The boy's comfort, deep in her chest. In her heart.
"Heh… heh-heh…."
Something hot surged up inside her. Her throat tightened.
"Here."
The boy held out a cup of hot tea. When had he even prepared that?
Lucy took the cup.
"You spiked this so you can knock me out and jump me, didn't you?"
"…?"
Gilliam looked at her with complete seriousness.
"Why would I do something like that?"
"…Ngh."
Lucy made a strange little sound before she could stop herself.
What was that just now? Why did he say it so seriously?
Wait….
Does he mean he doesn't even need to?
That spending a night with a woman named Lucy Merhantia would be trivial without resorting to drugs or anything of the sort?
…Bold of you, boy. But that's a misunderstanding on your part.
She was not that easy, not that cheap. Just because a boy she'd met yesterday coaxed her into bed did not mean she would casually hand over the purity she'd protected all this time.
Right. Of course not.
To firm up that conviction, Lucy decided to run a little mental exercise. The fact that she felt the need to "confirm" anything was already a red flag, but anyway — she closed her eyes and pictured Gilliam Everchess.
Mysterious silver-gray hair. Honey-sweet eyes. A face so cleanly handsome it was almost unfair. Height just right for looking up into. A lean, solid build with proportions that made a uniform look unfairly good.
And that Gilliam lifting her chin, speaking with savage, brutal hunger:
— Hey, Lucy. Spread your legs.
And she, of course, would respond by—
"Y-yes…♡"
Huh?
That was not how this was supposed to go.
Lucy startled so hard her body jerked. The hot tea in her hands spilled across her fingers.
"Kyaah!?"
"Careful."
Gilliam caught her hand. A man's hand — delicate-looking, yet thick. How would it feel if those hands gripped her waist?
"Uh… ah… nngh."
A strange noise slipped from Lucy's throat.
"…You okay? Want to go inside and rest?"
Gilliam's face drew closer. Up close, he was even more handsome.
Wait — what had he just said?
Go inside and rest?
…Together?