12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (7)
12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (7)
"Troupe Leader?"
When I didn't answer, Yurakne called out again. Her voice was closer than before. A few more seconds of silence and she would almost certainly try the door.
I answered as quickly as I could.
"Yura, is that you?"
The reply came in a rush, but my voice stayed perfectly steady. The power of The Smiling Man saw to that.
I fumbled for an excuse while I spoke.
"What brings you to my room?"
"I was in my bathroom, and the sound of water kept drifting up from below."
"Ah. I must have been a little noisy, then."
"No, it wasn't loud at all. I was just worried you were pushing yourself too hard when you should be resting......"
While we talked, Reina stayed frozen exactly as she had been, her bottom thrust out toward me. The slender line of her waist, visible through the cascade of golden hair, gave a tiny quiver. Between the pale mounds, her starkly exposed pink folds twitched again and again.
She, too, looked thoroughly on edge.
"Wh-What do we do, Dad?"
At least her memory and her reasoning were intact. She still understood that no one could be allowed to see us pressed together inside the bath.
If we went back to the game-and-avatar analogy, she was facing the kind of danger where a stranger you had met in a game might unmask your real-life identity.
"Are you sure you'll be all right on your own?"
"Yes. I can manage to prop myself up and stand."
I spun a story about dissolving medicine in the hot water and treating my body with the steam. Yurakne, whose hand was already on the doorknob, sighed and let go when I told her that letting in outside air would ruin the treatment.
"That's too bad. I even came down in fresh underwear, just in case......"
Fresh underwear?
Reina, who had clearly caught the implication, turned to look at me with wide eyes. I gave an awkward laugh and pretended not to notice her stare.
"Let's bathe together next time. Just the two of us."
"Th-Then you absolutely must tell me the day before! I have to wash and get ready as well, you know."
Wash, was it? The moment I heard that, I felt an odd pang of regret.
Yurakne had six armpits, after all, and perhaps because of that, her scent was richer than other people's. I liked that faintly sour, living scent of her body.......
I made a private promise: if another chance ever arose, I would ambush her with no warning whatsoever, and I hurried the conversation to an end.
"Understood. We'll do it together when the opportunity presents itself."
"Tee-hee, yes! Then have a good night."
I heard her close the door and walk away. Reina let out a relieved sigh and sank deeper into the water.
She had been staring toward where Yurakne had disappeared. Now she pushed her bottom back between my thighs and pressed herself against me, even closer than before.
"We almost got caught."
"We did. That was close."
We stayed like that for a long while. Eventually, she turned her head and looked back at me, cheeks flushed.
"P-Please keep washing me......"
She spoke, then started to push herself up again. I stopped her.
"Stay still."
"But......if I don't move, how will you li-lick me?"
Even as she said it, Reina's face went red. Though she had been bold enough to demand we bathe together, apparently the thought of being licked clean embarrassed her.
After all the times her demands had nearly sent my heart into my throat, seeing her flustered like that gave me a thoroughly petty surge of satisfaction.
Uncomfortable, is it? I felt the same way, young lady.
I buried my nose in her hair and whispered into her ear.
"Dad's going to use a spell. Will you close your eyes? It might be a little grotesque."
She flinched and squeezed her eyes shut.
When I saw that, I laughed inside.
I see. If she acts like a child, all I have to do is tease her like one.
Congratulating myself on the discovery, I opened my mouth as wide as I could.
What I intended to do was no different from before: I was going to wash her with the only part of my body I could still move.
Plus, I'd had one more idea. If I was modifying things anyway, there was no reason to confine myself to the original shape. I could alter length and size however I pleased.
I sent my request to the Evolution Lab and poured Devoluts into it without restraint.
Soon enough, something long and eel-like came crawling out of my mouth. It squirmed, bright scarlet—my tongue.
The tongue coiled around her neck like a snake and slid downward. She jerked at the contact, but when I murmured that it was all right, she leaned back against me and settled into a more comfortable position.
Through my Extension of Senses, I could feel her skin exactly as though I were licking it with my real tongue.
It was a genuinely electric experience.
The other four senses spanned a spectrum from minimal to maximal. Taste alone had always been confined to the few square inches of surface inside my mouth.
Now, through this stretched tongue, that sense of taste was multiplied dozens, hundreds of times over, flooding into my brain. It was a pleasure nothing in an ordinary body could ever provide.
I was profoundly grateful for The Smiling Man. With my dopamine receptors paralyzed, I stayed utterly composed no matter what pleasure or terror I faced. Without that, I might well have lost control and thrown myself on her.
I savored every corner of her. My tongue swept down into the hidden places her own hands could not reach.
I remembered the careless way she had washed the cleft beneath her breasts earlier. I split my tongue into two and used each fork to coil around a breast and knead.
"Hngh!"
Every time I applied pressure, soft foam spilled from my tongue, and a moan slipped from her lips.
I did not know exactly where the Member Quest drew the line for "clean." So, operating on the usual definition of "washing," I simply thrust my tongue into every part of the body that gets washed.
"Hh, ngh!"
The tongue now slid through the cleft of her backside and surged between her thighs.
She must have been embarrassed to have that place washed; she drew her thighs together and refused me entry. But another end of the tongue, the part that had stretched toward her feet, wormed between her toes, and she let out a sob that was almost a cry before the strength drained from her thighs.
The tongue waiting beside them missed no opening and slipped inside.
"Ah......ah......ahh!"
She thrashed in rough resistance, but my tongue showed no mercy and scrubbed every crevice with stubborn diligence. When it stimulated her lower belly and that spot at the same time, her hips bucked upward.
The water surged high, heaved violently, and then went still all at once. Hot air clung to the surface like the shore after a typhoon.
Everywhere it passed, the tongue left a slick trail of saliva. It carried the scent of fresh fruit. It emitted a special compound meant to soothe both body and mind.
But perhaps my modification orders to the Evolution Lab had been too abstract. Or maybe I had supplied far more Devolut than necessary.
I had asked for something roughly equivalent to body wash, but the effect had been wildly excessive.
Covered head to toe in my saliva, she stared into nothing with the glazed eyes of someone drugged. Her intense reactions to my work likely had not come from mere sensitivity alone.
"Hah......haah......haaah......D-Dad, hmm......"
Reina lay limp, her face flushed scarlet. I told myself I would have to be a great deal more careful about chemical modifications from now on, and I drew my tongue back into my mouth.
The moment the washing was complete, a quest resolution window popped up, and her eyes fluttered shut as she fell asleep.
Earlier, I would have found this situation difficult. But not now. I had a tongue.
I tore open the skin from my lower lip down to beneath my neck and brought out a tongue even larger and thicker than the one I had used to wash her. Then I split the skin on my back and grew another tongue of similar size there.
With one tongue I cradled Reina's body, and with the other I braced myself against the floor and wriggled forward like a grub.
In the game, there had been monsters of that sort—creatures that thrust giant tongues through splits in their skin.
You could call it an application of 'Palm Mouth.'
When I caught my reflection in the mirror, the shape was unspeakably grotesque. I looked like some kind of snail, wearing a human shell named Wonderstein on my back.
Clearly, there was no way I could wander outside like this.
Ordinary people would faint, of course, but even my traveling companions—who knew I was a BioMancer—would be horrified.
Making Reina shut her eyes had been the right call.
I wiped the water and mucus from her body, then dressed her.
After that, I laid her carefully on the bed.
"Mmm, Dad......"
Was it me her four-year-old self saw in her dreams, or was it Simon?
I pulled all my tongues back into my body, then moved my arm and set the mask over her face.
The effect was immediate.
In her traits, the Shadow vanished, and Persona surfaced in its place.
***
When Reina opened her eyes, she stared at the ceiling for a long moment and murmured.
"Was that...... a dream?"
A smile flickered across her lips, equal parts satisfaction and regret.
If it had been real, how mortifying that would have been.
And yet, if it had been real, how wonderful that would have been.
She was still murmuring to herself when she turned her head—and froze solid.
Wonderstein was right there, face full of mischief, grinning at her.
"Huh?"
He had apparently decided it was his turn to tease her. He whispered:
"Did you sleep well, my dear daughter? Hoo hoo. Doesn't it feel nice and refreshing after bathing with Dad?"
"Uh, h-uh, n-nn, huh......?"
Every scene from her "dream" flashed through her mind in rapid succession.
Her head blazed with heat.
"Hoo hoo, what's the matter? Was my bathing service not to your liking?"
"Eek!"
Reina shot upright on the bed, then bolted for the window and leaped straight out.
Wonderstein watched her figure dwindle into the distance, burst out laughing, and checked the message floating in the air.
[Reina Magier's Affection level has increased by 5.]
[As a reward for reaching Affection level 15 with Reina Magier, an additional effect has been granted to 'Persona - Weeping Woman.' (Next reward: Affection level 30)]
Once outside the manor, Reina ran without a single thought in her head. She did not even know where she was heading. She simply moved wherever her feet took her. She ran wildly until her breath came in ragged gasps, and only then did she realize she had already descended all the way to the foot of the manor hill.
While she stopped to catch her breath, everything that had happened while the mask was off came back to her in vivid detail. No matter how tightly she shut her eyes or shook her head, the images refused to fade.
'What have I done? I've lost my mind! I'm insane! I'm insane!'
Taking a bath with the Troupe Leader of all people?
Granted, she had appeared in front of him in nothing but her underwear before. But that had been only for a moment while she was changing.
This was on an entirely different level.
Both of them had been stark naked, and on top of that, under the pretext of washing each other, they had touched and licked one another's bodies.
'Why did the Troupe Leader—! No, the Troupe Leader could not even move his body properly; it was all because I stubbornly insisted....... Arrrgh, what do I do now?'
It would have been so much easier if she could call the unmasked version of herself "another me." But Reina could not deceive herself. The her without the mask had been unmistakably her.
The feelings she had experienced then were less like another personality seizing control and more like a loss of self-restraint running wild.
'How am I supposed to look the Troupe Leader in the face after this? Though I am going to have to keep looking at him.......'
Either way, this mask could only be removed by the Troupe Leader.
And living without it was out of the question. The instant the mask came off, mimicking a four-year-old became her first and overriding priority—above all else.
She agonized over it again and again on her way back to the Golden Carnival's lodgings, but in the end, only one conclusion remained possible. It was the same answer she had been circling for days.
"You're late."
Simon stood in front of her room. He had seen her return to the manor and come down from his own quarters.
He stared at her with cold eyes.
"Today was supposed to be your last day of friendly association with those people. Don't forget—after tomorrow, they're your competitors."
His tone was stiff, and his voice held not a single trace of a parent's affection.
In the past, she would have tried her hardest to find love for her somewhere inside those words. But not anymore.
She knew the truth now.
Reina looked straight at him. Until this morning, she would never have had the courage to do this.
Maybe it was because she had just done something so utterly outrageous. Nothing else in the world felt frightening anymore.
"Troupe Leader Simon."
Something flickered in Simon's eyes. He had noticed that Reina's attitude was different from usual.
Seeing his discomfiture, Reina steeled her resolve and spoke.
"I'm leaving the circus."