Hunted by Obsession
As I opened my door, Rachel was rolling around on my bed like she owned the place. I had definitely locked it. There were no signs of forced entry either. How in the world…? The question answered itself the moment I spotted the window that had been ripped clean out of its frame.
“Rachel.”
“I didn’t tear the door!”
Rachel declared it proudly. What a ridiculous girl. I’d have to speak with the maids again.
“Don’t tear through doors or windows or anything else to get in. The maids have to replace them every single time.”
“But it’s the weekend today?”
The weekend? So what? …Oh. Right. It was the night we were supposed to sleep together.
I stared at her with an embarrassed expression. Sharing a bed with this voluptuous young woman in her prime. I seriously doubted my self-control could survive it.
Still, I had made a promise. Pushing her away now… I couldn’t predict how this low-intelligence puppy girl would react.
There was no helping it.
“Fine. Let’s sleep together. But we wash and use the bathroom separately.”
“Can’t we do those together too?”
“No.”
At my firm tone, Rachel nodded gloomily.
After laying down the rules, I stepped into the bathroom, soaked in hot water until my body warmed up, and came back out. The moment I emerged, my eyes met Rachel’s. She had been waiting right outside the door like an eager puppy.
“What are you doing?”
“I heard you washing.”
Rachel grinned from ear to ear. It was a thought I had often, but aside from being good at fighting, she was catastrophically lacking in every other department.
“Listening to someone bathe is rude.”
“Why?”
“It’s burdensome when the people involved aren’t in a deep relationship.”
“Aren’t we in a deep relationship?”
Rachel’s question left me speechless. What exactly was I supposed to call whatever this was between us?
“We’re lovers, aren’t we?”
No. Why the hell was she jumping straight to that?!
“That never happened.”
“If we sleep together, we’re lovers. We’re sleeping together today. So we’re lovers.”
Where on earth did this insane logic come from? Oh. It was my fault. I was the one who had said we couldn’t sleep together unless we were lovers. Damn it all.
When she threw every tantrum she had in the middle of the hallway, I should have shoved her away no matter what. It was my mistake for negotiating with her.
Even if I tried to explain it to this low-intelligence, lovable idiot, she probably wouldn’t understand. That we weren’t actually lovers and I had only yielded because of her stubbornness.
Aaah. What was I supposed to do about this? She was the daughter of my guardian family. I couldn’t have coldly drawn the line and rejected her in the middle of the hallway!!!!
In that situation, those were the only words I could say!! I already had a mountain of things to do—raising my specs, leveling skills, stacking stats—why did everything keep spiraling this way?! I’m someone who has never attempted a heroine conquest and has zero intention of starting now!!
“Rachel………”
“Yeah?”
It was obvious she wouldn’t understand, but I decided to try explaining anyway.
That it had only happened because of her stubbornness and that we weren’t actually lovers. That it was problematic for a young man and woman to sleep together so casually. I tried to explain it somehow.
“You and I are not actually lovers. Lovers only become lovers when they love each other. The reason I agreed to sleep with you was because you kept insisting on it.”
“We’re not lovers?”
“That’s right. I don’t like you yet. Not as a woman. So………”
At my words, Rachel’s expression suddenly froze. She abruptly rushed forward and began sniffing my clothes.
“The smell of a woman!……”
Ah. That’s right. Lady Cassandra had been glued to my arm the entire day!!
The scent must have rubbed off on me. Even though her intelligence was low, every other sense Rachel possessed was superhuman, and she had caught it immediately.
What would happen now? Would her obsession explode and lead to a Nice Boat ending? So pointlessly?!
Rachel's obsession is intensifying!
Along with the red notification window, Rachel suddenly looked up at me with blazing eyes. Surprisingly, it wasn’t rage born from jealousy that had blinded her.
“Did another woman appear, so you don’t like me anymore?”
She began to look afraid.
The heroine Rachel's affection toward you is surpassing jealousy!
This was honestly a little scary. Just how deeply did she have to love me for a status window like this to appear?
“I didn’t have any friends except Mom and Dad. No one liked me. After I accidentally hurt a maid when I was little, everyone became scared of me. You were the first person who ate with me, played with me, and sparred with me.”
Rachel began shedding tears. She started sobbing like a child, crying her heart out in earnest.
“You helped my mom. I like you so much. I want to be with you. It’s okay if you meet other women. It’s okay if you like other women and stop liking me. Just let me stay by your side. Please don’t abandon me.”
She delivered those lines while sobbing. I had seen them many times before. These were lines I often encountered in the popular broken-heroine genre novels on Novelpia, the site I visited whenever I needed to cool my head.
They were usually the words a ruined heroine would say to the protagonist after making a terrible mistake. The kind of line spoken on her knees, tears streaming down her face, saying she would endure any humiliation as long as she could stay.
But those lines normally appeared after sufficient buildup, after the story between the protagonist and heroine had progressed far enough. They weren’t lines that should come out in a relationship where the two had known each other for less than a month.
If she was already falling into such heavy obsession, what then? We hadn’t even known each other for a full month.
“No, Rachel. It’s not like that.”
“It is! You don’t want to sleep with me because another woman appeared and you hate me now. I did something wrong. Please don’t push me away!”
“No. It’s not… that………”
Originally I had planned to persuade her and send her away. But now that it had come to this, I had no idea what extreme action this girl, filled with fear and terror, might take. That was the nature of obsession.
If the daughter of my guardian family did something drastic and word got out, how would the Catel Marquisate react? I couldn’t do that to Rachel after I had even received the Badge of Proof.
To be honest, I didn’t dislike Rachel. But I didn’t particularly like her either. To me, she was simply an ordinary female classmate.
Rather than wasting time worrying about this, I would rather train more and raise my specs a little. But what could I do? The realistic difficulty had twisted the situation into this, and now that it had, I had no choice but to navigate my way through it.
“Let’s sleep together!!” I shouted.
At my words, the sniffling Rachel looked up at me.
“Sleep together?”
“Yeah. Let’s sleep together. I don’t hate you. So stop crying.”
“It wasn’t that you hated me because another woman appeared?”
“I only went shopping with Lady Cassandra. I told you. She obtained one of the medicines needed to save your mother. I just accompanied her on a date as repayment. That’s all it was. I didn’t do anything more than……”
Ah. We did kiss.
Rachel caught my momentary hesitation with her beast-like intuition.
“You did something, didn’t you?”
“No, that’s………”
When I couldn’t speak, Rachel stood up as if she had made a major decision.
“I’ll do it too!! So please don’t hate me!! I’ll do it better than that woman!! So!!……”
“No! It’s not like that!! Let’s just sleep. Go wash up.”
I barely managed to get through the situation with those words. Only then did Rachel seem relieved and head in to wash. When I heard the sound of running water from the bathroom, I finally let out a long sigh and collapsed onto the bed.
“What kind of mess is this?”
The situation was semi-forcibly pairing me with a woman. Honestly, even I was finding it hard to hold back now. Rachel was incredibly beautiful. Silver hair and jewel-like red eyes. Her body had all the right curves in all the right places. Her hip line, waist, and chest were practically works of art.
When I looked at her long legs wrapped in stockings beneath the Imperial Academy uniform skirt and the prominent chest that even the uniform couldn’t hide, it was impossible not to have dirty thoughts.
It can’t be helped!! I’m a man too!!!!
The problem was that now was not the time to focus on any of this. The Evil Dragon Cult was scheming in preparation for their revival. They would concentrate on targeting characters with weak hearts, sending them Fragments of Corruption to turn them into Demons.
There was also the possibility of a terrorist attack inside the academy, and if more than a certain number of NPCs here died, it would automatically lock in a bad ending and I would face permanent death.
My head was telling me to boldly push Rachel away and concentrate, but the son between my legs was telling me to just lie back and enjoy it.
‘We’re just sleeping. Just sleeping.’
I tried my best to act rationally. Let’s just sleep. Let’s not do anything more than that. I could just sleep, wake up, and train hard again.
As I was thinking that—
“I’m all washed up! Let’s sleep!!”
“Khup!!”
Seeing Rachel dash out of the bathroom completely naked and plop down right beside me, I let out a strange noise.
“Put some clothes on!”
When I blushed and turned my head away, Rachel tilted hers in confusion.
“I don’t wear clothes when I sleep.”
“Please!! At least wear something when you’re sleeping with me!”
“If I wear clothes I can’t sleep. It’s uncomfortable. I want to sleep like this.”
“Aaaaaah……”
Dear god, why are you giving me this kind of trial?
My lower body stiffened immediately. She was a character that a skilled illustrator had poured their heart and soul into for the game company. In real life she could have been a model, yet here she was, naked and giggling beside me.
Her skin glistened with moisture, her hair was damp, and she seemed to give off a strange, sweet scent.
“Let’s sleep.”
Rachel looked up at me without the slightest hint of shame and spoke those words.
I thought about asking her to put on clothes again, but I doubted this cat-like girl would listen. Unable to do anything, the lights eventually went out, and I ended up lying side by side in the same bed with a completely naked Rachel while I wore pajamas.
The bed was sized perfectly for one person, so when two people lay down, our skin inevitably touched.
“Asbel, I like you.”
In the midst of that, perhaps because sleeping next to me felt good, Rachel smiled brightly and snuggled into me. As she rubbed her face against mine while purring, I could feel her body vividly through my thin pajamas.
I had no choice but to lie there, frozen. The son between my legs urging me to just pounce on her and my head telling me to sleep quickly and train to raise my specs tomorrow were engaged in a violent battle.
“Asbel. You kissed Lady Cassandra today, didn’t you?”
Was she a ghost? How did she know? Had she followed me?
“How did you know?”
“The atmosphere was strange. You couldn’t answer right away, right? So I thought you must have kissed. I learned it from Mom.”
Rachel’s voice speaking right beside my ear somehow sounded excited.
“Mom told me. When a man and a woman like each other, they kiss. She said touching lips makes you feel good. And that when the stick between a man’s legs rises, if you put it between your own legs, a baby is made.”
She gave you very thorough sex education, Madam. It’s admirable, but thanks to that I’m now in an extremely difficult position.
Rachel’s leg slid over my waist. Her breath was unbearably hot.
“It’s okay if you meet other women. It’s okay if you become lovers with other women. Just don’t abandon me. Just let me stay by your side.”
“The Catel Marquisate is my guardian family. I won’t treat you that coldly.”
“And…… I want to do what that other woman did to you, too.”
“We really didn’t do much. It was just a kiss. Rachel. Just a kiss…… ugh?!”
Rachel climbed on top of me and pinned my shoulders down with her arms. Asbel—that is, I—was a character with a weak body. The Iron Lion's Greatsword and Blood Thread's Poison Fang were neatly stored on a shelf a short distance from the bed. Before I could even call for them—
“I want to kiss too.”
Rachel’s lips hotly covered mine. The problem was that Rachel didn’t stop there.
‘Aaaah. Damn it! Marchioness!!!!!!’
The marchioness must have explained it properly during sex education. But low-intelligence Rachel had clearly understood it all wrong.
Rachel had interpreted [kiss = sex].