Flawless Victory Reward (2) (Illustration Ahead)
Magic swordsmanship training with Ethan, student council duties, and the walk home afterward — by the time the evening had slipped past and night had settled in, my head was still a hopeless, tangled mess.
Flawless victory… flawless victory… flawless victory reward…
I'd been racking my brain over a single question: just how far was I supposed to go with Ethan's reward this time?
Honestly, what I'd already let him do was pretty far up the scale. Letting him touch my bare chest with his hands, letting him use his mouth on them — I'd even indulged in the whole uniform-play thing.
So what on earth was I supposed to add on top of that? I had absolutely no idea.
…At this point, haven't I basically done everything a chest can offer?
But if I just repeated what I'd already given him, Ethan would be disappointed — that much was certain. And if I moved on to somewhere other than my chest… well, I couldn't think of anywhere on my body less lewd than my chest, could I….
No, no, no. Absolutely not.
No matter what, that place was off-limits. Not yet. Maybe if the day ever came when I didn't need the saintess's power at all, I could reconsider — but for the sake of that one improbable possibility, my virginity had to stay intact to the very end.
…Granted, with a man mouthing and sucking at my breasts once or twice a month already, talking about "purity" was probably the most ridiculous thing in the world. But whatever — in this world, Lilith's divine power was supposed to persist as long as no actual penetrative act between man and woman took place. That was the lore. The setup. It counted for something.
So, pressing pause on any progress toward the southern territories, I had to come up with some other kind of reward for Ethan entirely.
Among the things we hadn't done yet, the ones that could honestly be called "progress" were a handjob or, at most, a titjob….
A handjob maybe, but a titjob is a little….
Even if the partner was Ethan, the idea of putting a man's thing between my breasts and squeezing it there — just imagining it gave me this strange, creeping revulsion.
It was literally massaging someone's cock with my chest, right in front of my face. How was that any different from giving a blowjob?
Back when I was a man, that kind of scenario had been undeniably hot to fantasize about. But being the one who'd have to perform it made it a play style that was disgusting in every possible way. …Not that I was actually going to do it, obviously.
…Besides, come to think of it, I didn't even know how big Ethan's thing actually was.
If I offered a titjob and it turned out smaller than expected — too hard to wedge between my breasts — that would be its own special brand of mood-killer.
Every CG that had appeared during gameplay was mosaic-censored, so I had no real sense of his size, and honestly, most of the scenes where Lilith got assaulted had made me uncomfortable enough that I'd skipped past them without looking properly.
I had gone into the bath with him once, claiming I'd scrub his back, but even then I hadn't exactly studied the area between his legs.
I'd barged in under the pretext of washing his back — if I'd gone and stared at that on top of it, Ethan probably would have started treating me like some deranged pervert.
So really, the safest bet is just using my hand.
…The problem was how to engineer a situation where Ethan would naturally drop his pants in front of me.
Announcing out of nowhere that I was giving him his victory reward and then telling him to take off his underwear the second we started would be weird. But stripping off his trousers and boxers for him mid-session, while he was happily groping my chest, wouldn't exactly be seamless either.
By that point I'd be too dazed to manage the undressing myself, and Ethan would be too absorbed in my chest to think of doing it on his own….
Ugh, seriously. Why am I agonizing over this?
Come to think of it, the "flawless victory reward" had never even been a formal promise between us.
Ethan had just suddenly asked me for it. If I wanted to split hairs, I owed him nothing — I had no obligation to hand over any such bonus.
The only deal I'd actually made with him was permission to touch my chest in the event of winning the duel with Harold. That was it.
Not once had we agreed on a separate reward for "winning decisively" or "overwhelming the opponent." The one who'd unilaterally changed the rules was Ethan, not me — so there was no reason I had to play along with his revision….
…Ahh, no. Let's not be petty about this. A promise is a promise.
Going back on your word was an embarrassing thing to do, man or woman. A man of his word… well, I was only about half a man these days, but still.
And strictly speaking, I already owed Ethan my life twice over. Framing this reward as part repayment for that made it a lot easier to swallow.
So — back to the real question: how, exactly, was I going to get Ethan's pants off naturally tonight?
Some kind of… natural method….
"Lilith."
"Yes, Young Master Ethan."
"…Uh, should I wash up first? Or do you want to wash first and get ready?"
"There's no need, Young Master. Preparations won't take me long, so please go ahead and take your bath as usual."
"…Right. Okay."
A short while later — perhaps already thinking about what the night held in store — Ethan slipped into the changing room with a faint flush on his face.
I'd done my best to hide the fact that I was carrying around some very specific worries as I ushered him into the bathroom ahead of me, and then returned to my deliberations on the natural art of removing a man's trousers. From somewhere inside the bathroom came the sound of running water.
— Shaaaah!
"……."
— Shaaaah, shah!
…Huh?
Wait a second — there's no rule saying I have to strip him mid-act, is there?
If we started when he was already undressed, surely even Ethan would just… go along with it naturally.
For example, right this minute I could walk into the bathroom with him, pretend I was there to scrub him down, and then smoothly transition into a handjob. That was one option.
Better yet, if the whole act happened in the bathroom, cleanup afterward would be infinitely simpler than doing it outside.
Considering how messy hands get, I'd be better off leaving my gloves off, and my chest would probably end up involved too — so I'd need to make sure my uniform didn't get soaked, which meant….
…Wouldn't it just be easier if I went in naked too?
Around the same time — the dormitory bathroom.
While Lilith was deep in deliberation over what to give Ethan as his "flawless victory reward," her young master was entertaining worries of a remarkably similar flavor.
Looking back… did I really need to say that?
Drunk on the joy of defeating his father in a duel for the very first time, Ethan had blurted out the whole "flawless victory reward" business without thinking. And the more he turned it over in his mind, the more convinced he became that he'd stuck his foot in his mouth.
Sitting there at the dormitory table, watching the expression on Lilith's face as she visibly mulled over what to give him, only made it worse.
If I'd known it would get this awkward, it would've been far better to just take the lead naturally myself.
Truth be told, what Ethan wanted wasn't any grand request.
All he'd hoped for was to add a kiss on top of the usual chest-touching. The two kisses they'd shared so far didn't quite deserve the name.
The first had been a matter of life and death — no argument there. And the second, when their lips had barely brushed for an instant before he came to his senses and pulled away, was strictly speaking closer to a peck than a kiss.
His modest little wish was to hold their lips together a little longer this time — to share a kiss that actually felt like one between lovers.
Thinking it over, quietly meeting her lips in the right atmosphere would probably have worked out far better than bringing up something as clumsy as a "flawless victory reward."
They say girls generally fall harder for men who take the lead.
Lilith was a girl too, so she probably wasn't much different.
Which meant his behavior, in that light, might have read as the worst possible move — or worse, as some pathetic gesture of a boy too spineless to take the reins himself.
"Hoooooh…."
— Shaaaah!
Ethan dumped a scoop of the hot water Lilith's spirits had warmed over his head, trying however he could to wash away the clutter in his mind.
And then, from beyond the bathroom door, came a knock he knew well.
— Tok, tok, tok.
"…Lilith?"
Isabel, quick-witted as ever, had already retreated to her own room a step ahead — so whoever was knocking had to be Lilith.
And just as he'd guessed, a familiar voice answered from the other side of the door.
"Y-Young Master Ethan…."
"…What is it? If it's my change of clothes, you can just leave them out front like always…."
"I've come to deliver your reward, Young Master — for your flawless victory over Lord Father."
"…R-right now?"
"Yes. N-now."
"……."
"May I… come in, Young Master Ethan?"
"Wait. Just— give me a second."
He had no idea what she'd prepared as a flawless victory reward, or why she needed to come into the bathroom of all places — but facing Lilith while he was completely, utterly naked was a mortifying prospect for Ethan too.
He hastily wound a towel around his waist before answering.
"…You can come in now."
"…Yes. Entering."
Could it be — is she here to scrub my back again, like last time?
It wasn't the reward he'd secretly hoped for, but it wasn't a bad consolation either.
Besides, the simple fact that Lilith was thinking of him — that she'd gone out of her way to do something for him — was already more than enough to satisfy Ethan.
And so, without the slightest premonition, he waited for Lilith to appear in her maid uniform.
What stepped through the doorway instead was a version of her dressed in something far, far more dangerous than anything he could have imagined.
— Creeeak.
"…P-pardon the intrusion."
"……Huh?"
Ethan had assumed, naturally, that she'd arrive in her maid uniform or her academy uniform — so when he saw what she was actually wearing, his composure shattered completely.
The first thing to enter were her snow-white thighs.
Then her hips, her waist — curves a single towel couldn't hope to cover.
Even her breasts, which he'd glimpsed more than a dozen times by now, were only awkwardly hidden behind that one thin towel, and somehow that made the whole picture feel more indecent, not less.
With nothing on her but the towel and the headpiece perched atop her hair, the only response Ethan's body could manage was a strangled little sound of awe.
"…P-please don't stare so openly, Young Master Ethan."
"Ah— s, sorry…! S-sorry…!"
Ethan had nothing to apologize for. If it had been anyone else — any man at all — standing in that room instead of him, his eyes would have been drawn there all the same.
For Ethan, who until now had only ever known Lilith's chest, the sight of her bare body was stimulation far beyond anything he was prepared for.
And while he mumbled an apology and wrenched his gaze away, Lilith slipped cautiously up behind him and sank quietly to her knees.
"…F-first, I'll scrub your back, Young Master Ethan."
"Y-yeah…."
"If you could… p-please don't turn around. I, I'm not quite… ready for that yet…."
"O-okay…. I won't turn around. I promise…."
Ethan wrestled down the desperate urge to look at her body and somehow pinned his gaze to the wall in front of him.
Behind him, Lilith took up a bath towel and began working it over his back.
"……."
"……."
In the quiet stillness of the bathroom, where neither of them could manage a single word and only the sound of their breathing hung in the air, the soft rasp of the towel against his skin slowly began to fill the room.