The Academy Entrance Exam (2)
An awkward silence hung inside the carriage, a lingering aftermath of what had happened the night before.
I deliberately hid my chest—where that strange sensation still seemed to linger—from Ethan, and quietly replayed recent events in my head.
The first signs of Ethan seriously taking up dual-wielding had appeared about three months ago. It was two months after the day he'd formally begun learning twin-sword fencing from Harold.
After Ethan debuted his dual-sword style before Harold for the first time, Harold had begun teaching him in earnest how to fight with two blades. The fact that Harold could teach dual-wielding at all had surprised me, but what surprised me even more was the speed at which Ethan learned.
Perhaps because he'd already built fundamentals from the one-handed swordsmanship he studied before, Ethan showed even more dramatic growth in handling two swords. And in the end, two months ago, he took an entire match off Harold using his twin blades for the very first time—a pure contest of sword against sword, with no tricks or half-baked gimmicks involved.
'E-Ethan has won, young master!'
'Huh……?'
The moment Ethan claimed his first proper victory, I genuinely felt my mind go blank from sheer absurdity. I'd assumed things would end there without anything more touching me until academy enrollment—who on earth would imagine he'd take another match just three months after starting dual-wielding?
The biggest problem was that he'd won through fair and honest skill, with no fakes or tricks. Harold was no fool; he wouldn't fall for the same feint or gimmick twice, so any trick was essentially a one-use tool. But a victory seized purely by increasing the power and speed of his blades, along with his own movement and judgment, only raised the odds of the next victory.
And my ominous prediction, naturally, came true. Twice, three times, four times—and including yesterday's match, Ethan had claimed a total of five victories over Harold through 'pure skill' alone.
As the days of Ethan winning through honest skill piled up, so did the number of times I found myself sneaking into his room at midnight. And each time the frequency of me surrendering my chest to him increased, his touching grew correspondingly more audacious.
Lately, I could even feel that he was focusing less on his own satisfaction from touching my chest and more and more on making me feel good.
'Maid, do you like it when I touch you a little roughly like this? Or gently?'
'I-I don't… know….'
'Or like this, with a slightly narrower spot….'
'Nghh, mhh…! Haahh…!'
'There it is. This really is a maid's weak spot.'
'N-no, it's… not like I have a weak spot… ngh, haahh…!!'
The instant last night's events flashed through my mind, meeting Ethan's face became harder and harder. Worse, judging by his recent behavior, his knack for playing it cool had apparently graduated into outright shamelessness.
The one-minute rule, for its part, had long since become a dead letter. No—had it ever actually been honored, even once? No matter how determinedly I tried to time it to exactly one minute and end things there, I'd come back to my senses to find five, ten minutes had passed, every single time. It couldn't be helped.
…Yes, strictly speaking, it was all my own karma. If I hadn't carelessly misjudged things that day and told Ethan to touch my chest, none of this would have spiraled this far. But seriously, who could have possibly predicted it?
After nearly two years of failing to take a single match from Harold, nobody would have guessed Ethan would rack up six victories in the last half year alone.
I have judged the situation. This is entirely Harold's fault for getting smacked around by his own son on a regular schedule. Strip that Sword Master title off him, the idiot.
Anyway. Having handed my chest over to Ethan once every two weeks for the past two months, I'd lately begun feeling a strange flutter in my chest every time I looked at his face. These days, calming this insane body of mine was consuming a considerable amount of mental fortitude.
Just to preempt any misunderstanding, let me be perfectly clear: it was absolutely not some gooey feeling like love. It was simply that Ethan's hands were skilled enough that my body reacted, and as a result, my body acted up just from being around him, that's all.
If this counts as love or romance, then every prostitute and AV actress on earth must be in a tentacle romance right now. Granted, this world doesn't have AV actresses, but the principle stands.
And honestly, having my chest touched by Ethan's hands didn't do a thing to compromise my rock-solid masculinity. Men do it all the time, don't they? Build a great body and proudly show it off to women, offering to let them have a feel. This was just the reverse of that, nothing more. Lilith's body was, as female bodies went, exceptionally well-built—hardly any different from a lean, muscular man's frame, if you asked me.
…Not that I was asking Ethan to touch it because I wanted to show off this body or anything.
I was quietly gazing out the window at the passing scenery, lost in such thoughts, when a tentative voice calling for me drifted over from Ethan's side.
"M-Maid."
"…What do you need, Ethan?"
"Are you, um… are you angry about what happened last night?"
…So he does feel guilty about having had his fun playing with my chest to his heart's content yesterday. Of course, as his servant I couldn't very well nod with a straight face here, so the most resistance I could muster was denying it without meeting his eyes.
"…No, young master. I am not."
"I-I'm sorry, Maid. I really did just want to see you looking happier…. I was only thinking of my own mood, and I think I teased you a little too hard…."
"……"
And the instant he sensed something off about my mood, he was quick on the uptake, offering an apology before anything else. Truly, this was exactly the kind of thing that scrambled my head instead.
It was this naive Blackwood heir's nature: whenever I got flustered or even a little uncomfortable over 'what happened at night,' he always made sure to apologize by the next day at the latest.
Every time Ethan showed this kind of consideration, my heart could only grow more and more confused. What the hell is this? If you go apologizing first like that, how am I even supposed to react?
If I kept being upset after all that, I'd just be the crazy, unreasonable bitch who wouldn't let it go. If he were like the scumbag of the original game, sneering 'What's wrong with doing whatever I like with my property?' with that shameless, repulsive face, I could at least have nursed some genuine hostility. But compared to that original-game trash, the Ethan of now was so kind, so earnest…
…So kind it made me feel disgusted with myself for comparing him to the original's scumbag, even for a moment.
"No, young master. You have nothing to apologize for."
"…You sure?"
"Yes. You won my chest as your victory reward from your match with Master, so whatever you choose to do with it is your prerogative."
"Maid…."
"…And, forgive me for the shameless confession, but how could I possibly resent you when it was your hands that brought me to pleasure instead? As far as what happened last night is concerned, you needn't attach any special meaning to it."
"…Okay. Thank you for being honest with me, Maid."
I only said it because Ethan carrying a guilty conscience was actually the more uncomfortable option for me. Honest, my ass. I wasn't upset at all.
No—I wasn't upset, but that didn't mean I wanted to feel better in that particular way, either. I'd never wanted my chest touched by Ethan in the first place, and I certainly hadn't expected to be driven to pleasure by it. This was an immutable truth that wouldn't change even four years from now, even after I graduated the academy.
Well, once I enrolled at the academy, there would be no more sword matches between Ethan and Harold anyway, so this bizarre arrangement of ours could finally be laid to rest.
I was staring blankly at the scenery outside the carriage again, mulling all this over, when Ethan carefully struck up a conversation.
"I'm looking forward to the academy, Maid."
"Are you, now."
"…Aren't you excited, Maid?"
"…I am. I'm looking forward to it as well."
The main storyline of Luminor Academy, the magic department classes I'd get to attend as Lilith, the second life waiting for me after graduation—how could anyone say they weren't looking forward to all of that? With thoughts like those, I found I could brush off even the humiliation of having my chest groped by Ethan last night with surprising ease.
"…You're telling me there's only one vacant room?"
…That is, until that evening, when my maid and I ran into a brand-new problem at the inn where we were meant to be staying.