Chapter 522: Resolve (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 522: Resolve (3)
The hearts of Ice Elves are made of a special ice crystal.
This gave them an exceptional talent for ice magic and martial arts of extreme yin, and naturally, their history was filled with figures who had left behind significant achievements.
Valentina, born with a talent so rare it could be counted on one hand in the tens of thousands of years of Ice Elf history, eventually reached the 8th Circle.
However, her exceptional talent proved to be a poison, as the immense yin energy she was born with acted as a fatal toxin to any man who approached her.
This was also why Valentina had never once held a man's hand in her centuries-long life.
Though a large part of it was her personality; she felt not even a shred of interest in men.
Because of this, rumors once circulated within the White Magic Tower that she might be a lesbian.
Such a rumor about the Tower Lord, a figure whose status in Russia was considered higher than even the Kremlin's dictator.
But considering Valentina's usual words and actions, the rumor wasn't entirely baseless.
She not only avoided men to a degree that could be called severe mysophobia, but a story had even quietly spread among the Russian people that she had refused the dictator's handshake at an official event.
A tabloid rumor even made the rounds that the incident had caused the dictator to smash all the furniture in his office with a golf club.
In any case, it was a rare case in the long history of the Ice Elves for someone's innate yin energy to be so strong that even simple contact with a man was difficult.
But a solution did exist.
Though the process was annoyingly cumbersome, the Ice Elves, who had writhed in loneliness for decades or even centuries, had no other choice.
Valentina, of course, was an exception.
While not quite a misandrist, in her eyes, men who couldn't even overcome the base desire of lust looked like monkeys.
Like oil and water, Valentina had always considered men to be beings that could never mix with her life.
But contrary to her thoughts, the men around her wouldn't leave Valentina—who possessed a beauty like a pure white anemone blooming on a snowy mountain—alone.
The situation improved after she became the Tower Lord, but until then, she had to endure a relentless stream of courtship.
The heir to a Russian conglomerate once knelt in front of her house for five hours proposing, and she had received marriage proposals from nearly every noble family in Europe.
At its worst, she once received nearly thirty confessions in a single day.
As a result, she earned not only the envy and jealousy of the women around her but even their resentment. From a crazy non-mage woman who came at her with a knife, to the daughter of a conglomerate family who led the effort to ostracize her at the training academy simply because a man she liked had confessed to Valentina.
As they say, a woman's greatest enemy is another woman; Valentina had faced all sorts of people and been tormented by them since she was young.
Perhaps those experiences were one of the reasons she pushed men even further away.
When she first met Kang Hyun-woo in London, Valentina thought he was no different from any other man.
While wary of her sudden appearance, he was also stealing glances at her chest and thighs.
Displeasure rose to her throat, but she suppressed her emotions because she desperately needed the elixir he had won at the auction.
After receiving the elixir in exchange for her teachings, she had all but forgotten about Kang Hyun-woo.
But soon after, Belmoras's large-scale terror attack occurred in the middle of London, and a news article stating that the new King Arthur and a Korean mage had made significant contributions to suppressing it caught her attention.
If it's Kang Hyun-woo, surely...
Having encountered Belmoras's executives several times, Valentina had a grasp of their skill level.
Kang Hyun-woo was certainly skilled for his age, but he was by no means at a level where he could face them.
Naturally, her suspicion turned to the source of the information: the British royal family.
To release a false article for him, a mage from another country... did he have an affair with the princess? Or was it related to King Arthur, who was said to have awakened during the attack?
Valentina was certain that Kang Hyun-woo would soon announce his naturalization to the UK and his engagement to either the princess or King Arthur.
But the moment she came face to face with Kang Hyun-woo at the White Magic Tower, she felt her assumption might be wrong.
Not even a week had passed since they parted in London, yet the flow of his magic power had become noticeably more stable.
Furthermore, his total amount of magic power had increased considerably, and he seemed to have made some magical achievements.
Although it seemed he hadn't broken through the wall, he had clearly reached the very end of the 5th Circle.
On top of that, it felt like he was hiding something more, so the article about his exploits in the Belmoras terror attack wasn't a complete lie after all.
I heard he hasn't even been learning magic for a year... Is he the same type as the Gray Tower Lord?
A talent that defied convention.
Glimpsing a fragment of a genius who might one day stand at the same height as herself, Valentina felt an interest in another person for the first time in a very long while.
Moreover, she was currently filled with disgust, not just discomfort, from Dmitri's confession a few days prior, so she felt a speck of favorability toward Kang Hyun-woo, who seemed to be on bad terms with the Vice Tower Lord.
Although Dmitri had overwhelming support and popularity among the mages in the tower, Valentina, who knew he was an executive of Belmoras, wanted nothing more than to kill him on the spot.
In any case, while helping Kang Hyun-woo with his training as promised, the moment Valentina heard that he knew about her daughter's existence and the demon's curse, she intended to silence him by killing him without a moment's hesitation.
But was she possessed by a ghost?
Upon hearing Kang Hyun-woo's baseless boast that he would break her daughter's curse, Valentina had brought him to her mansion, a place she had never let anyone enter before.
If her past self saw this, she would have condemned her for being out of her mind.
And yet, she was desperate.
Even a sliver of hope was enough.
Soul, honor, humanity. She had already given up everything.
If it meant she could break the curse on her daughter, she would willingly join hands with a demon.
That was why she had allowed a man no better than a monkey to have her body.
...How foolish.
Valentina frowned at the blatant, glistening lust beyond Kang Hyun-woo's eyes.
He was no different from the other men who had looked at her with their disgusting gazes.
He was supposed to be an intelligent being like herself, yet the sight of him acting like a monkey in heat, buried in his base desires, was displeasing, to put it mildly.
“Tower Lord, if you'll excuse me.”
“...Do as you please.”
Valentina turned her head away sharply.
No matter how much she disliked it, she had no intention of revoking her decision now.
For her daughter, she could give up her body as many times as needed.
Of course, that didn't mean she intended to lie under a man and moan coquettishly like the women in those vulgar videos.
It was the last shred of pride she couldn't surrender as one of only three Archmages in the entire world.
Ssk-
“-Hic?!”
But her resolve was rendered meaningless. The moment Kang Hyun-woo's hand touched the nape of her neck, a strangely cute sound escaped her lips.
Valentina's eyes widened as she hastily covered her mouth.
W-What...?!
Unable to believe such a vulgar sound had come from her own mouth, Valentina's eyes trembled more perilously than ever before.
Seeing her reaction, a deep, unconcealable smile bloomed on Kang Hyun-woo's lips.
Flinch-!
...?!
The moment Kang Hyun-woo's fingertips touched her nape again, Valentina could no longer deny it.
His touch was strangely hot and felt good.
But this was absolutely impossible.
Normally, just by touching her body, he should have been exposed to her potent yin energy, his bones aching from the chill.
But there was no sign of that from Kang Hyun-woo.
No, on the contrary, her yin energy was melting away helplessly before his yang energy.
I-Impossible...
Valentina's yin energy, inherited strongly from the bloodline of the Ice Spirit King, was not the kind of energy a mere human could handle.
At the very least, it should only be possible for a half-blood who inherited the lineage of the Fire Spirit King.
“Hngh...?!”
As Kang Hyun-woo's hand once again traced from her nape to her cheek and earlobe, Valentina found it hard to keep her senses amidst the warmth she was feeling for the first time in her life.
It wasn't even a sexual touch, yet the stimulation spreading faintly throughout her body was dangerous enough to make her instincts sound an alarm.
Despite her will, erotic sounds kept leaking from between the lips she held clamped with both hands.
But the real problem was just beginning.
Squish-
Gasp...?!
Without a moment's hesitation, Kang Hyun-woo grabbed Valentina's pure white breasts with both hands.
“Whoa... damn...”
In that moment, Kang Hyun-woo let out an exclamation of awe without realizing it.
An exquisite texture, as if his fingers were being sucked in, filled his palms.
Between the folds of her naturally parted negligee, her light pink nipples revealed themselves.
...Why are her nipples already hard?
Flick, flick-
“Ngh, ughn...!!♡”
Twitch, twitch...!!
As he lightly flicked her nipples with his fingertips, Valentina bit her lip hard and her body trembled faintly.
Momentarily surprised by her much stronger-than-expected reaction, Kang Hyun-woo gained confidence and began to move his hands more actively.
He kneaded Valentina's breasts with his large, thick hands, buried his head in her bosom, and left marks on her white skin.
It was just a basic warm-up to build excitement, but with every touch from Kang Hyun-woo, Valentina had to rub her legs together to soothe the throbbing in her lower abdomen.
Shudder, shudder...!!♡
Hah, hngh...!! M-My body feels strange...!!
As if awakening her frozen sensuality, a warmth she had never felt before spread gently through her.
It didn't take long for the unfamiliar stimulation to become a vivid pleasure that heated her entire body.
“Hoo... The marks came out nicely.”
Kang Hyun-woo smiled in satisfaction as he looked at the marks he'd left around Valentina's collarbone.
Six hours from now.
If he failed, her life would be lost as well, but he had long since cast aside such pressure.
As he'd said before, all he could do was his best at the task at hand.
Whoosh-
“I will now begin to break the curse in earnest.”
Kang Hyun-woo threw off his shirt and gently stroked Valentina's clenched thighs.
The moment her vision filled with the powerful male physique, a shocking, unbelievable scene flashed through Valentina's mind.
It was an image of herself, lying beneath him like a prostitute, letting out vulgar, coquettish moans.