Terror

"Hmm..."

"Mmph!"

"So what are you going to do with this woman?"

Liliana asked, eyeing the blonde stalker who was glaring daggers at me. Murderous intent rolled off her in waves — though honestly, the way she'd been stuck to the ceiling earlier was far more terrifying than those eyes.

Just thinking about it sent a shiver down my spine. Ugh.

"I've got a pretty good idea where she came from, actually."

Stealth that refined, combined with European features — the Iris Guild was the only thing that came to mind. It might not be them, but they were by far the most likely suspects. There was the Elise connection, too.

"What business does the Iris Guild have with me?"

"Mmph!"

I probed her casually, but the blonde's eyes didn't so much as flicker. She was the real deal — active duty, thoroughly trained. She wasn't going to bite on a cheap provocation.

"Haa... I'm busy today."

I didn't have time for this. The odds of a terrorist attack happening today were over ninety percent. I needed to be combing every corner of the festival for anything suspicious, and now some stalker had dropped a headache in my lap.

"You little shit. Who sent you?! Now that you've seen what I really am, I can't let you walk away alive!"

"Mmph! Mmmph!"

Liliana had somehow produced a stick and was jabbing it into the blonde woman's side. With a mana rope wrapped around her mouth, all the blonde could do was make muffled noises.

"What should we do with her...?"

"Why don't we just kill her?"

So the stick-poking hadn't been a joke. That was surprising. Liliana tossed out the suggestion of murder like it was nothing, but I had a different opinion.

"Don't you have any useful magic? Something we could use for interrogation?"

"Mmph!"

No matter how I looked at it, Elise was the only person who would send someone like this. For whatever reason, she'd used the Iris Guild to investigate me. I'd treated her so well — I had no idea why she'd pull something like this. Either way, it was worth trying to find out. Killing her would be a last resort if nothing else worked. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled about murdering a beautiful woman with my own hands. We'd been lucky enough to capture her alive, so we had plenty of time to try.

"When it comes to torture, you're looking at a succubus."

"Yeah?"

Liliana puffed out her chest with a look of supreme confidence. "When it comes to torture, you're looking at a succubus" — that was a sentence I'd never heard in my life.

"Succubi have a ridiculous number of spells designed to accommodate unusual sexual tastes. Heheh."

"Oh... show me one."

I still wasn't sure how that was relevant, but if she was that confident, there had to be a reason. For some reason, Liliana actually looked reliable.

A black current of energy flowed from Liliana's hand toward the crazy blonde.

"Mmph."

"..."

The blonde woman... did not roll around on the floor, unable to endure the tickling. She didn't even show a hint of being ticklish, still glaring straight at me.

"H-huh?"

"She's high-level personnel, even if she doesn't look it. She's probably already been trained against that kind of thing."

"Th-then—"

"Mmph!"

"What's Body Odor Magic?"

"It floods her nose with the smell of stale sweat."

"Oh..."

That was genuinely disgusting. Hadn't she just said these were spells for accommodating unusual sexual tastes? What kind of tastes did the denizens of Hell even have, and what kind of fights were succubi getting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into...?

"Mmph!"

But once again, the blonde didn't look the least bit distressed. If anything, she straightened her back with a defiant air. Yeah, her torture-resistance training was definitely complete. Physical pain was the most basic interrogation method, so that wouldn't work either... Hmm.

"Tch..."

"Nngh."

Even against a succubus's specialty — Arousal Magic — the blonde stalker kept her composure.

"I told you it wouldn't work. She's probably already been trained against sexual desire, too... Wait."

Hold on. Even if she'd been trained... could a person train their womb?

Only one way to find out.

I loosened the mana rope around her abdomen just slightly. Then I placed my hand on her lower belly and injected mana. My mana seeped through her stomach and made direct contact with her womb.

"Mmph! Mmmph?! Nngh!"

"Starting to feel it now, are we?"

Welcome. First time getting a womb massage?

"Nngh! Mmph!"

Every time I injected mana, her body trembled. I'd found the right approach. Now that I had a torture method that actually worked, I needed to set up magic circles — because I had to leave immediately. I created a magic circle to maintain the mana ropes binding the blonde woman, then another to keep stimulating her womb. The womb-stimulation circle took a bit longer, but thanks to my awakening, my magic had leveled up enough that I managed to install it.

"Nngh! Nngh!"

Looking at the blonde woman, bound head to toe and receiving a womb massage, I felt an oddly satisfying sense of triumph. I'd won in the end!

"Liliana. I'm heading out, so keep an eye on her."

"Why didn't my Arousal Magic work...?"

Liliana still looked bitter that her magic hadn't gotten through.

"Just having your libido spike is something you can endure with willpower."

The reason I couldn't resist Arousal Magic was because I was an eroge protagonist. Anything related to sexual desire made ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my self-control evaporate. But this woman was different. She'd probably undergone insane training specifically to resist interrogation.

"Mmm... but isn't your magic basically the same as arousal?"

"Mine's a little different. No matter how much torture-resistance training you do, nobody trains their womb."

If the training involved inserting something into the female genitals to inflict pain, she might have been prepared for that. But she wouldn't have trained to block pleasure from having her womb stimulated directly. And without the precise control that came from Mana Sensitivity, this wouldn't even be possible in the first place.

"Ugh... fine."

"Good. I'll definitely be back tonight, so wait for me."

I ruffled Liliana's drooping hair once and stepped out of the dorm. Time to go find some terrorists.

"Mmm... no matter how I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think about it, this doesn't make sense. Succubi are supposed to be masters of torture..."

Liliana stared hard at the blonde woman writhing in pleasure. Her entire body was bound in mana ropes, and the tights between her legs were soaked through.

"My magic didn't work on her, so why... ugh."

This was a matter of succubus pride. Her mother had always said that succubi were the masters of torture, and Liliana needed to make those words true. Originally, a succubus could arouse even members of the same sex. Exciting women was technically an incubus's job, of course — but there were plenty of men who enjoyed watching two females work each other up, so succubi were expected to have that capability as well.

"Is it because I've never actually done it with another woman involved...? Arousal Magic!"

"Nngh... hh."

"Arousal Magic!"

"Nnnngh..."

"Doesn't seem like much of a reaction."

Liliana tilted her head, looking at the bound Scarlet.

"Nnnnngh!"

Scarlet — a trusted operative of the Iris Guild who had been captured while tailing Lee Ho-yeon — felt like she was losing her mind. What the hell was that lunatic of a cadet who'd seen through her stealth, what the hell was this magic that made her womb throb until her head spun, and what the hell was this woman with the fluttering tail?

"Nnnngh!"

She had prepared for torture through grueling training. She even had a suicide pill tucked between her teeth, ready for any interrogation humiliating enough to warrant it. But whether they'd known about that or not, her body could move a little — yet the area around her mouth wouldn't budge so much as a millimeter.

And in that state, the pleasure of her womb pulsing was nearly unbearable. She'd thought she had already conquered sexual desire, but this kind of sensation was entirely new. If she'd known something like this existed, she would have trained even more ruthlessly.

Of course, considering how Ho-yeon's heroines reached climax after just a few rounds of womb stimulation, Scarlet was actually holding out remarkably well. But as time passed, her psychological defenses against lust grew weaker, and with Liliana's Arousal Magic stacking on top of it, even Scarlet's endurance was approaching its limit.

"Nngh! Nnnngh!"

Scarlet pursued an efficient, constructive life. She worked as a spy simply because it was what she did best. Put another way, she would switch sides in a heartbeat if the terms were good enough. Her own life came first, after all.

But these lunatics weren't even giving her the chance.

"Nnnngh! Mmmph!"

Please, just untie me first. I'll hear you out on terms.

Scarlet desperately tried to communicate that she wanted to negotiate, but Liliana didn't pick up on it at all.

"Hmmm. Womb stimulation, huh... I mean, it really is an incredible sensation."

Liliana stroked her own belly. She'd only been on the receiving end once with Ho-yeon, but the pleasure that had crashed through her entire body that time had been extraordinary. Just thinking about it made the inside of her womb tremble...

"Womb... wait."

Liliana looked down at her tail. She flicked it this way and that — it seemed to have grown even longer since she'd met Ho-yeon, strangely enough.

"Womb stimulation... couldn't I just do it with this?"

A succubus's tail was originally an organ for caressing men, which meant it could stimulate other places just as smoothly without causing injury. That was why she always wrapped it around Ho-yeon's leg during sex.

To restore the succubus pride that had been dashed against the floor, Liliana lifted her tail.

"Nngh! Nnnngh!"

Something about that woman's smiling face made Scarlet deeply uneasy.

"It's way too peaceful."

This didn't feel like the atmosphere for a terrorist attack. Then again, an atmosphere that felt like a terrorist attack would be pretty strange in its own right. If people knew in advance, they'd all just run.

If I were a terrorist, the places I'd target...

If the goal was simply to kill as many people as possible, the middle of the plaza would be the obvious choice. But these people weren't after a body count. They wanted to use humans as sacrifices to summon the Demon King. And the better the sacrifice, the greater its mana capacity.

That was why they so often targeted cadets. Weaker than active hunters, but with far more mana than ordinary civilians — prime hunting stock.

"The park... no. I should head toward the booths."

A crowded area would actually make escaping easier. Plenty of civilians had mixed into the academy today, and security was thin — they could slip away in the chaos.

"Hnn..."

Maybe it wasn't happening today after all. I'd been walking around for hours and hadn't spotted a single suspicious person. I shook my head and was about to sit down on a bench to rest when I sensed a faint tremor of mana beneath it. A fragile pulse I never would have noticed without total concentration.

"What the hell is this."

A small mana device was stuck to the underside of the bench.

"Oh, fu—"

I immediately hurled the explosive into the lake beside me.

Boom! Boom!

KABOOOM—!

A massive spray of water erupted from the lake, and explosions began going off simultaneously all across the Celestial Festival.

"Wh-what is that! It's a terrorist attack!"

"Run! Run!"

Cadets and civilians alike plunged into chaos as blasts erupted from every direction. I surveyed the situation calmly.

The explosions themselves aren't that powerful. This is a diversion.

The water spray from the lake made it obvious — the blasts weren't strong enough to produce casualties. Even a direct hit at close range would only leave a minor burn. The sound, however, was enormous. They were trying to induce a panic.

"Gather around the security forces nearby!"

"Security! Where's security?!"

The surrounding security personnel had drawn their weapons and were protecting people, and the crowds were funneling toward them.

This many security forces...?

An unusually large security presence. And from the officers shouting for people to gather around them, I felt a thick, unmistakable sense of wrongness. If there were this many guards to begin with, Pandemic wouldn't have staged an attack here at all.

I activated Insight, which allowed me to perceive the flow of mana. And I found it — several of the security officers were moving mana in ways that were anything but normal.

"Found you."

That was the real attack. Disguised as security forces, of all things. How long had they been preparing this?

Fwoosh—

I ignited flames in both hands and plunged into the heart of the chaos.