Chapter 25
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: Delicate Touch 2
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Fusion successful!
The texture of the crystal orb beneath my palm changed. It was no longer hard, cold glass, but something lukewarm and soft. A strange elasticity, like touching human skin, pulsed against my hand.
I stared at Queen Helena on the screen. She was still huffing, glaring daggers at me. Her shoulders heaved with rage, beads of sweat glistening just below her collarbone.
"What the hell are you scheming? Why aren't you answering!"
She shouted.
Instead of replying, I moved my fingers. I stroked the surface of the crystal orb slowly... ever so slowly. My gaze fixed on her left shoulder in the screen.
In sync with the motion of my index finger scraping across the orb's surface, Helena's reaction appeared instantly on screen.
"H-Hng?!"
Helena flinched in shock, clutching her left shoulder. Her eyes trembled. As if some invisible something had just brushed past it.
"W-What? What was that just now?"
She whipped her head around. The tent was empty. Not even a breeze stirred the air. But the lingering warmth of someone's hot, rough finger lingered unmistakably on her shoulder.
I curled the corner of my mouth upward. Without lifting my hand from the orb, I cupped its curve with my entire palm. On screen, that spot aligned with the upper swell of her breasts, just below her collarbone.
I pressed down gently. Firmly, like kneading the orb.
"Aaaah!"
Helena screamed, her body arching back against the chair's backrest. Her hands flailed wildly in the air. The heavy pressure bearing down on her chest. The vivid sensation of an unseen palm crushing her skin through the thin dress paralyzed her mind.
"W-What is this! Who's touching me! Who's doing this!"
Her face drained white with terror and confusion, then flushed crimson with humiliation. She looked down at her chest. Nothing was there. But her skin remembered. The heat of that broad, hot palm.
"Ugh... Hnng! What is this!"
Helena's scream tore through the tent's silence. Her voice, crackling with a metallic rasp, blared through the speakers.
On screen, she writhed in her chair like a woman being ravaged by an invisible ghost.
Her hands clutched desperately at her breasts, legs kicking futilely at the empty air. It was a pathetic sight.
I lay flat on the floor, shackled in irons, but I couldn't hide the wicked grin spreading across my face.
'I did it!'
The sensation transmitted to my palm was no longer that of cold, hard crystal. The fused Delicate Touch rode the mana circuits, erasing physical distance.
Where my fingerprints touched was no longer the glass curve, but Helena's soft skin.
The faint rustle of thin silk dress between my fingers, the resilient bounce of her full breasts beneath, even the stiff nub of her nipple hardened by fear and arousal.
The information flooding my brain was so vivid, I could almost smell her flesh wafting to my nose.
It was a perverted idea, but the only breakthrough in this desperate situation. A brilliant stroke from the lecherous emperor's instincts.
I feigned innocence, tilting my head with wide, surprised eyes. But my hands didn't stop. If anything, they grew more insistent, rubbing broader swaths across the orb's surface like exploring every inch.
"What's wrong, Your Majesty? Screaming at thin air all of a sudden. Are you unwell?"
"Ughh! Stop it! Make it stop! Someone's touching my body... Get away! Don't touch me!"
Helena groaned instead of answering. She clawed at her dress, desperately trying to pry off the invisible hand.
But my hand had no substance. No matter how she swatted, she couldn't block the sensations carried by mana waves.
I pressed my index and middle fingers together on the orb's center—right where her collarbone dipped on screen—then slowly dragged them downward.
"Hnnngh!"
Helena's head snapped back. Her pale neck arched like a bowstring, taut and exposed. Sweat-matted hair clung to her trembling cheek.
Her body twisted like a snake on the chair. The white silk dress crumpled and stretched with her struggles, outlining her breasts in stark relief.
The gossamer fabric clung transparently to her sweat-slicked skin, revealing the apricot flush of her heated flesh beneath.
Everywhere my touch grazed, her nerves ignited. The softest parts she'd hidden beneath steel armor were now mercilessly violated by the unseen hand.
'Here it is.'
The sensation shifted under my fingertips. Past the softness of her breasts to the taut, rigid muscles around her tensed abs and navel. I swept my palm broadly downward across the orb, pressing her lower belly.
"Hnnngh... So hot... This feels weird..."
Helena uncrossed her legs, rubbing her thighs together. The inner muscles quivered in spasms.
The damp silk dress rode up between her legs, faintly tracing the shape of her secret triangle.
I didn't stop. I gripped the orb tighter, twisting and rubbing like wringing out wet cloth.
Helena's eyes glazed over. Her unfocused gaze wandered the air, then locked—by chance or instinct—on the bottom of the crystal screen.
There, my shackled hands gripped the orb.
Every time my fingers scraped down its surface, her body jerked in perfect rhythm.
When my palm circled round, the same heat traced the same path over her breasts. Vision and touch aligned in flawless cause and effect.
Helena's red lips quivered. A flash of realization cut through her eyes, clouded by confusion and fear.
"You... crazy bastard."
She panted, grinding her teeth.
"This is you, isn't it? You're the one... touching my body right now..."
She gripped the chair arms until they creaked. Humiliation boiled up like magma, staining her face dark red.
The empire's deposed emperor—no, a chained prisoner—daring to remotely defile a foreign queen through the sacred oath-bound communication orb.
Sure, this mad pervert emperor had already flashed himself earlier, but this tactile violation was on another level.
The sheer unreal blasphemy nearly shattered her reason.
Yet she couldn't draw the sword at her side. The terror that any motion would let my hand delve deeper into more intimate places froze her arm.
Even if she did draw it, it would be pointless.
"Stop..."
Helena bowed her head, expelling ragged breaths. A sweat drop fell from her chin, staining her white dress.
"Get out."
Her voice was closer to a plea than a command.
"Shut this off! End the forced summons! Get out of my sight!"
"I have a condition."
My voice carried through the orb, slipping into the resonance that had just swallowed her moans.
Helena slumped against the chair, heaving for breath.
Sweat plastered her bangs irregularly across her forehead, her emerald eyes drifting blankly. The thin silk dress highlighted the erratic rise and fall of her breasts, broadcasting her physical turmoil without filter.
I kept my shackled hands pressed to the orb's surface.
The glass, still warm with the afterglow of Delicate Touch, transmitted Helena's body heat through the mana thread to my palm.
Her heartbeat throbbed under my fingertips.
"Tomorrow, meet again in the same outfit."
Helena's shoulders jerked sharply at my words. She bit her lip in disbelief.
To wear this shameful, see-through scrap of fabric again—without her steel armor.
Before the enemy empire's fallen emperor, no less. Her hand unconsciously clutched the dress hem, but the sweat-soaked silk only clung more transparently, highlighting her inner thighs.
"And my counteroffer: the Black Forest instead of Emerald Plains."
Helena's brows furrowed. The Black Forest. Curiosity flickered in her eyes. Duke Karls' suggested detour, the emperor's direct territory beside Argent...
"The forest next to Argent territory... Think it over."
"What nonsense is that! That worthless scrap of land!"
She spat through clenched teeth.
I finished speaking, slowly stroking the orb's rounded curve with my palm.
"Aaaah! Fine! I get it, you damned pervert! I'll think about it, so shut off this fucking orb right now!"
"You promise?"
This was enough. Too much stimulus could backfire catastrophically.
Pop.
The connection severed. The orb's glow faded, and silence returned to the Oath Room.