Milano in Chaos (1)
***
It was the day after I slipped into a state of deep confusion, having finally realized that Ilena was somehow generating even more bizarre misunderstandings than I'd bargained for.
*Slurrrrp.*
"Wow, this stuff is tasty. Where'd you get it?"
"I'm glad it suits your palate. It's one of our star system's specialties — Milano tea leaves."
"Is that so? I guess once you become a planetary President, you get to drink the good stuff, huh?"
"Mm, well — not quite President yet, technically. The accurate term would be President-elect. My authority as President doesn't take effect until tomorrow."
"Eh, today or tomorrow, six of one."
In the span of three months, I had risen from the mayor of a single failing frontier city, through the chairmanship of a city alliance, to the leadership of a planet with a population of ten million — and now people everywhere were losing their minds calling me the God of Buying the Dip and the living embodiment of Life Is All About Timing.
Which was a bit of a problem, honestly.
At the same time, I was here to pay a kind of tribute to President Heisenberg — one of the two horses pulling our branch's carriage, who had served as both strategist and brain trust and driven the branch's growth to where it stood today.
There was just one wrinkle I hadn't anticipated. As Ilena had told me before, his affection stat had spiked into instant overdrive only because it had been maxed out by a hex at first. She'd assured me that once the curse wore off about a week later, his devotion would naturally fade.
And indeed, the last few times we'd met, he'd maintained an impressively cool, golden-sun disposition, which had me thinking, Ah, so the effect's completely worn off now!
So when I went to see him this time, I half expected him to bring up renegotiating our contract now that he'd become the planetary President — we were, after all, bound together by nothing but the terms of that agreement.
But contrary to my expectations, the moment we actually met — alone in a sealed room, ostensibly for security reasons —
*Sniff sniff sniff sniff.*
*Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-haaaah.*
"Um..."
"Oh, don't worry. I, Lime Pedro Heisenberg, before I am this planet's President, am a gentleman. I have absolutely no intention of acting without your consent."
"No, that's not — I mean, we're about to go head-to-head with the Milano System's central government, and I'm just wondering if this is really enough."
"While my overflowing affection for you is a separate matter entirely, I have hardly degenerated to the point of imposing myself on an unwilling party."
He'd graciously brewed me an expensive tea with superb aroma and flavor — and then lain down under the table, asking nothing more than that I rest my freshly shoe-shod feet upon his face.
And in that position, he kept up a lunatic rhythm of *sniff sniff sniffing*, breathing strange heat into the feet that would soon wear my stockings.
Partway through, he gazed up at me with eyes so blazing with yearning that I gave a nod of permission — at which point he went to full licked-kisses, smooching away without reservation.
Watching that spectacle, the words where exactly do you see anything less than a MAXED affection stat? practically fell out of my mouth on their own.
But at the same time, the reaction Ilena and I had predicted on the way here — the let's break this off moment — never came.
If anything, his affection toward me was so deeply embedded that it bordered on a master-and-servant devotion, which meant I could at least rest easy knowing he'd never stab me in the back.
Just as I was mulling all this over, President Heisenberg, still diligently *sniff sniff sniffing* at my feet, spoke up.
"If anything, it's you I find puzzling, Lady Benya — permitting me to do this at all."
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"Under normal circumstances, a person would recoil in horror at behavior like this. Or bolt from the room without a second's hesitation."
"...Hmmm. You're not entirely wrong, I guess."
"To be perfectly honest, I fully expected you to refuse, and I had prepared no fewer than thirty-five separate simulation scenarios for engineering a second meeting afterward."
"Whoa."
*Shhhhhhh-haaaah.*
"...And yet you simply granted it on the spot. Frankly, it left me the flustered one."
There he was, gazing at me full of bewilderment, as if to say, why on earth did she let me do this?
At his words, I lowered my head and wrestled with the question for a moment. Then, after due deliberation, I gave a shrug, took another leisurely sip of my tea, and opened my mouth with an air of utter nonchalance.
"I mean, it's my body. Do whatever you like with it."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Well, if you'd asked me for something sexual, I'd have handed you a clone instead and been on my way. But that's not what you wanted, is it?"
"I — well, no, but—"
"Then we're square, aren't we? Besides, if all you want after toiling away as one of our two workhorses is this much, I can grant it a hundred times over."
"..."
That's right.
I had no idea what the other players thought, but what was the point of running a cute girl skin in the game in the first place?
It existed precisely so that everyone could go oh my god she's adorable and pat you on the head, or go god she's hot and toss lewd jokes your way, and you could sit back and enjoy the show.
Well... a certain subset of players who had gone full corruption of the fairer sex route were reportedly already fielding their own soccer teams' worth of children at this point.
Not that I'd gone down that road myself. As with the prison guards a while back, my policy was simply that as long as nobody crossed the line, I couldn't care less what anyone did with my body.
On top of which — as I said — the prison guards had utterly lost their minds and put me through the wringer, so my psychological resistance threshold for the perverted President's all I want is to suck your feet and go *haaa~* conduct had been ground down to almost nothing by the sheer weight of his track record.
Yet at this behavior of mine, President Heisenberg froze for a brief moment. Then, after a pause —
"Lady Benya."
"Yeah?"
"You must treasure your own body. Especially the body of a young woman."
"Uh — huh?"
He said it with an expression and a tone of the utmost gravity, and the moment I saw it, I felt the thought click into place: Ah. There's the misunderstanding-machine in motion again.
To be fair, that lasted all of two seconds. However solemn the face, however grave the voice —
When my feet were still clamped to either side of that solemn face, it was physically impossible to take him seriously.
I gave a light snort at the sight of him.
"Okay, okay, I get it. But you're really sure this is enough payment? Nothing else you need? Because if not, I'm heading back and putting you to work."
"...Then I would be most grateful if you would squeeze my head between your thighs."
"Hehehn."
Notwithstanding his serious act, President Heisenberg never — ever — passed up an opportunity to recharge his desires in the strangest of places, so I nodded, and then did as he wished: like mounting a horse, I settled the President's head between my thighs and applied a suitable squeeze.
Well... in the process, I absentmindedly crossed one leg over the other knee, which wound his entire face up in my thighs like a coiled rope —
"Ughh! Uhooh! Hnnnnnnnngh!!!"
"Nyeheh."
Which did result in the captured President Heisenberg transforming himself into what could only be described as a living air purifier.
***
And so, having recharged the President with what I can only call a dose of pure Benya-mana — yielding a productivity buff of +200% (probably) —
"So what will you do now, Doctor?"
"Nothing much. Let's head back to the branch. There's nothing left for us to do here anyway."
"Quite right, Your Ladyship. I shall summon the shuttle on standby nearby and arrange our return to the branch."
"Otsu."
Having handed out the reward and finished our business at the government building, we were just about to make our leisurely way back to the fortified Milano branch when —
*CRASH!*
*Whoosh! Ting-grrrrrr... BOOM!*
"Kyaaaaagh!"
"Terrorists!"
"Nobody move! From this moment, this building belongs to the Milano Guard!"
"We shall protect Milano with our own hands!"
"What the actual hell."
"Oh dear. How troubling."
Out of nowhere, the first-floor windows of the government building shattered, and smoke grenades and flashbangs came hurtling through the gaps and detonated.
Moments later, they revealed themselves: heavily armed robbers (?) — self-styled Milano Guard — wrapped head to toe in swaddling so thick that not a single face could be identified, firing their guns into the empty air for effect.
What kind of neighborhood was this violent, that not a single calm day could be had? As I watched, I could feel it sinking in: so THIS is why the local dignitaries and the megacorps, all desperate for order, throw their support behind us.