Am I Older Than You, Teacher?
Regrita thought to herself.
She really had gotten lucky.
Of course, it was fortunate that she could see her adorable teacher clutching her slightly swollen lips because they stung from all the kissing. But that wasn’t the only stroke of luck.
‘These were considered unsolved problems in academia?’
The questions Melly had brought with her—the ones that had been labeled as difficult puzzles for decades—were especially lucky.
Regrita had known the answers to every single question from number one to twenty-five right from the start.
‘But since I never learned them from another teacher, I wasn’t lying. Yep.’
Just as she had told her teacher moments ago, she had never hired any other private tutors.
She had simply seen those problems in the thick tomes stored in the library back when she was a little child—long before her horns had even grown in.
Regrita, who had shown exceptional talent in magic from a young age, had no trouble understanding the densely written texts. She had simply remembered them all the way into adulthood.
There was no way for her to know why those books had been in the Demon King’s castle library… but what did it matter?
Thanks to them, she had received a flood of kisses from her teacher and had even been allowed to press her lips against those soft cheeks.
Being kissed by Teacher Melly naturally felt wonderful. But when she got to kiss her teacher herself, her mood soared so high it felt like she was floating away.
The sensation was so ecstatic that her lower abdomen practically buzzed with delight.
Because of that, she had wanted to leave more than just faint marks on those squishy cheeks—she wanted to stamp her lips all over the rest of her teacher’s body too.
‘Hold it in. You have to hold it in, Regrita. You can do this.’
Regrita desperately hypnotized herself to endure.
It was so difficult to suppress her instincts that she had to devote twenty percent of her total mana just to keep her emotions in check.
In all her life, there had never been a single woman she had progressed this far with.
At most, she had held hands or shared a hug. Never once had there been a woman intimate enough with her to exchange kisses.
Of course, whether the kisses she received as rewards counted as intimacy was open to interpretation…
—Oh, today I helped Teacher, so this is a reward. I-It’s okay… right?
Since her teacher had been the one to kiss her first on the day they met, that had to mean her teacher liked her too.
That was what Regrita had decided.
That hadn’t been my original plan at all.
“Uuuu…”
Because the princess had solved every problem so flawlessly, my lips had ended up swollen and puffy.
And apart from my swollen lips, there was another problem.
There was simply nothing left to do.
The princess had finished the test so quickly that there was nothing more for me to teach today.
“Hehe…”
The princess let out a satisfied little laugh as she gazed at me quietly.
I could practically imagine an invisible tail wagging furiously behind her.
It seemed like the princess would be perfectly content with today’s lesson just from staring at my face… but it was making me uncomfortable!
I couldn’t meet her gaze and quickly turned my head to the side.
It wasn’t unpleasant to have someone as beautiful as the princess looking at my face and smiling from time to time. But the fact that my embarrassment rose in direct proportion to that attention was an unchanging truth.
After we spent a while exchanging silent glances in a wordless battle of wills, I—the loser—finally spoke first.
“Umm… Your Highness, I’m sorry, but this is all I prepared for today’s lesson… Should we call it a day?”
“…Already?”
The gentle curve of the princess’s eyes drooped noticeably.
Seeing someone much larger than me looking so dejected made me feel like I was looking at a giant dog that had just had its food taken away. It broke my heart.
Of course, if I ever voiced that comparison out loud I would be executed on the spot, but I genuinely couldn’t think of any other analogy.
“Just a moment… Please wait just a moment, Teacher.”
The princess seemed extremely reluctant to part with me today.
Otherwise, there would be no reason for her to press her soft, plump thighs even more firmly against mine when they were already squeezing my legs.
She seemed to be desperately searching for a reason to keep me here, humming “Hmm, umm…” under her breath until her mouth finally opened again.
“Ah, Teacher. I have a question.”
“Yes? What is it?”
So the method she chose was to ask questions.
Since a tutor’s duties included answering a student’s questions, I had no choice but to wait for the princess to speak.
But did the princess really have anything to ask? From what I saw earlier, her understanding of magic seemed far higher than mine…
While I was thinking that—
“I’m curious about you, Teacher.”
“…Pardon?”
An entirely unexpected question had come flying at me.
“Um… for example, your hobbies… the things you like and dislike? I want to know more about you in detail.”
Desire blazed brightly in the princess’s red eyes.
I had already known she was being very forward with me, but… this felt more like a blind date than anything else.
“…Well, as you already know, my name is Melly and I’m twenty-two years old. The field I was researching was the theory of magical synthesis. I also briefly studied alchemy as a minor.”
Still, I answered her steadily.
If I told her about myself first, I might get to hear about her in return.
After all, she was my student. No matter what, I didn’t have nearly enough information about the princess.
“Twenty-two?!”
But the princess looked utterly shocked when she heard my age.
“Yes? Yes, why…? Is that strange?”
“No, no. It’s not strange at all. But if you were working as an assistant… an early graduate?”
Ah, so she just couldn’t believe someone like me could be that talented?
“Yes, that’s right. I was scouted by my professor after only two years at the academy.”
In other words, I was kidnapped.
Professor Ariel, who had been carefully examining my grades, suddenly told me to become her assistant. She said she would let me graduate early.
I thought it was a good opportunity and eagerly accepted the position… only to endure truly hellish days with no rest whatsoever.
“Your complexion doesn’t look very good, Teacher…”
“Ah, I’m fine! I just remembered an unpleasant memory for a second…”
I flashed a bright smile to reassure the princess, who was stroking my head with a worried expression.
Even so, her hand didn’t stop petting me. It seemed she simply wanted to stroke my hair.
I didn’t mind the gentle way she caressed me, so I quietly let her continue.
“Twenty-two… twenty-two years old…”
“Ah, now that I think about it, I don’t know your age, Your Highness. Could you tell me how old you are?”
For some reason, the princess had a faint smile on her lips as she quietly murmured my age to herself, so I asked.
“Me? I’m nineteen.”
“…Nineteen?”
She had only become an adult last year?
I had assumed she was much older…?
My gaze unconsciously drifted sideways.
There, two enormous mana pouches hung heavily from the princess’s chest.
Then I glanced down at myself.
Although they stood perkily, the two modest peaks I saw were so pitiful in comparison to the princess’s that I felt bad even thinking about it.
To have that kind of development at nineteen… I somehow felt defeated.
“Hmm… At twenty-two, you’ll soon be past the prime marriageable age… so the opportunity is now…”
“…Your Highness?”
I called out to the princess, who was muttering something unsettling under her breath.
She startled with a little “Ah!” and quickly resumed stroking my head.
“It’s nothing, Teacher.”
…I must have misheard that.
I wanted to believe that, but since she had been pressed right up against me, there was no way I could have heard wrong.
We had only known each other for two days. Was she already thinking about marriage?
I looked at the princess suspiciously, but she tilted her head with an innocent expression, as if to ask what was wrong.
It felt awkward to press her any further, so I continued with my self-introduction.
“…And as for hobbies or things I like and dislike, I don’t really have any. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you—it’s just that I’ve been so buried in research that I never had time to think about those things.”
It was the truth.
Ever since Professor Ariel kidnapped me, my life had been nothing but running on a hamster wheel.
Still, since she never stole my research results, my career had gradually built up.
As a result, I was even recommended to the Demon King’s castle and now worked as the princess’s private tutor…
Was that a good thing? I wasn’t sure.
If only my gender hadn’t been changed, I could have lived happily with that enormous salary.
“It must have been hard…”
“Still, it can’t be helped. It was the path I chose.”
The princess, who had been looking at me with pity, suddenly stopped stroking my head.
When I looked up at her in confusion, she let out a soft chuckle.
“By the way, that means you’re older than me, right, Unni?”
“W-Wait, what? Unni?”
I had just been lamenting the fact that my gender had been changed.
And now the word that forced me to confront that reality had slipped from the princess’s lips.
“Yes. Since you’re older than me, you’re my unni. Right, Unni?”
“Ah, uuu… Please don’t, Your Highness…”
“Why not, Unni?”
The princess must have noticed how embarrassed I was in that short time, because she began peppering me with the word “unni” nonstop.
“It feels so awkward…”
“Hehe… All right, Teacher.”
Thankfully, the princess went back to calling me by my proper title.
Still… unni. It felt strange, like she had shoved the truth I had been trying so hard to ignore right in front of my face.
It was fine. After all, in just one week I would go back to normal…
Even if I couldn’t escape the Demon King’s castle, surely they would at least restore my gender.
“Hehe…”
…Would they?
When I met those red eyes that had begun sparkling the moment she learned my age, my conviction melted away like snow.
“Then… since I’ve told you about myself, it’s your turn, Your Highness.”
“Yes? What would you like to know?”
“Umm… just a simple self-introduction… like what I just did for you…?”
After all, I needed to know what the princess liked so I could reward her with it.
And I needed to know what she disliked so I could avoid it.
That was why I asked.
“Ah, if that’s what you want to know, there’s one thing I’ve become very interested in lately. Do you know what it is, Teacher?”
“What is it?”
The princess lowered her head slightly and whispered into my ear.
“It’s you, Teacher. Lately I’ve become very, very interested in you.”