Don't Lie to Your Mother!
"Haah, haah. Hoo... ugh!"
When at last the time came and I reclaimed my body, the pleasure Vincent had hammered into me, exactly as I'd predicted, tormented me without pause—wave after relentless wave. Thanks to that, I spent the better part of an hour buried in his arms, smothering wails that sounded more beast than woman.
Only once my senses returned and I broke down sobbing as though ruined did Vincent finally stop toying with me, undo my restraints, and lay me out on the bed. Watching me cling to him and flounder in the afterglow had apparently put the strength back into his lower half, but he made no move to torment me further, simply waiting until I settled.
The moment my screams died away, Vincent spoke as though he'd been waiting for precisely that.
"Are you okay?"
"...Yeah..."
His caresses had driven into me without rest until I blacked out, and now I was so thoroughly drained that even answering was a struggle—my body simply refused to move as I willed it. But this was no time to lie here limp. Now that I was composed enough to hold a proper conversation, there was something I absolutely had to confirm with Vincent. For the entire time I'd surrendered my body to him, he had been pouring demonic energy into me without pause...
"...Vincent. Your body...? How is it? Are you all right...?"
"My body? I'm fine. If anything, loving you as thoroughly as I did left me feeling refreshed."
"No... that's not what I mean. The demonic energy—your internal energy. How is it...?"
Vincent played the fool, joking around as if he had no idea what I was getting at, but in the end he couldn't hold my gaze and looked away.
"Hmm, I feel fine. Why? Is something wrong?"
"Are you really, truly okay...?"
For an instant, silence wrapped itself around Vincent and me.
"'Something wrong'? You circulated demonic energy like that and thought I wouldn't notice?"
The audacity was staggering.
"I've been tempering demonic energy into my body since long before you were born. Don't even think about fooling me."
"Haha..."
He laughed awkwardly and scratched the back of his head, but his eyes had zero intention of meeting mine. Having been at Vincent's side since he was small, I knew exactly which expression went with which state of mind. And once he'd learned that lying while looking me in the eye always got him caught, he took to dodging my gaze whenever speech became difficult. Had he cleverly buried the truth, perhaps—but a flat-out lie never once escaped me. No matter that you're the hero who struck down the Demon King, don't forget that to me you're still an untrustworthy disciple, Vincent.
"...Quit laughing and answer me straight. You said it was a fragment of the Demon King, didn't you? And you're telling me you're fine? While radiating this much demonic energy?"
Faced with me pressing him, already certain of his lie, Vincent swallowed the excuse rising to his lips. I had put my finger on what had been nagging at me since before.
"It never added up. Even granting it's a fragment of the Demon King, the idea that it could affect you—a hero—this deeply..."
A hero is a being born as the Demon King's destined nemesis. And yet one lone fragment lodges in his flesh, and the hero's reason is devoured by demonic energy without so much as a struggle? Even I could see something was wrong with that picture. I might have to look into whether the Heavenly Demon Divine Art was the cause.
When I checked my dantian, I nearly recoiled at the sheer volume of demonic energy—far beyond anything I'd expected. Nor was it confined to my dantian; as I absorbed the energy flooding every corner of my body, my condition recovered at a remarkable pace. Thanks to that, even I—who had been gasping like a woman at death's door mere moments ago—could muster enough composure to pass for calm. If this much had been converted, something in Vincent's body must surely have changed as well, yet he was determined to hide it to the very last.
"Be honest—doesn't it strike you as absurd? That from nothing more than a fragment of the Demon King, you'd come to wield the Demon King's own authority?"
"How did you know about that?"
"Call yourself a hero, call yourself the monster who stormed the Demon King's castle single-handedly—no one takes the Heavenly Demon Fist full in the face without so much as a blink. You didn't think so?"
When I laid it out like the absurdity it was, his meek "I suppose not?" made my blood boil. It was never that Vincent slighted the Heavenly Demon Divine Art that Ma Cheonseong had passed down to me. In my past life and this one alike, that art was what had let me live as myself. I had no wish to watch my disciple make light of it. That said, the suspicion that the Demon King's fragment had taken root in Vincent's body precisely because of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art made it difficult to vent my anger carelessly.
"Besides, I once had a friend who was well-versed in that sort of news."
At the mention of a connection he knew nothing about, his brow creased. What, am I not allowed to have friends you don't know about?
"So? It's not a Demon King's fragment, is it?"
For all the hero's scheming to derail the conversation with a question, the hero's master was not so easily shaken off. I worried the subject like a hound with a bone.
"Layman though I may be in that field, I've done research of my own, and I know that whatever piece of the Demon King went into your body is nothing ordinary."
True, I was nestled in the arms of my disciple—my son—while he stroked my belly, but I was still his master, and his parent. And there are any number of ways to make a son who's hoarding secrets spill them.
"What did the Order say about your condition?"
The body of the hero who slew the Demon King had developed an abnormality. If they left that unaddressed, the ones with the most to lose would be the Order, wouldn't they?
"The examination came back clean. No problems."
The way his eyes lit up, as if evidence in his favor had finally surfaced, was almost comical. Leave him be, and he'd twist the talk this way and that, cleverly burying the information all over again. I couldn't let that stand. I had to land a follow-up strike before he could collect himself.
"And where was this examination? A branch? Surely not the main headquarters..."
I withheld my suspicion not one whit and picked at every thread until, at last, I unilaterally decreed a re-examination—at which point Vincent voiced his displeasure, asking what the problem was.
"We're doing another examination. And this time, I'll be there to observe."
"Is that really necessary? Branch or no, I doubt the Order would fumble an examination of the hero."
Object all you like. Not this time—this concerns your health.
"That's what happens when you won't give me a straight answer. Keep this up, and I'll have no choice but to interrogate you in front of the party."
I drove it home, firm and final. That stubborn creature, once his mind was made up, did not bend easily. Behold him even now: jaw clamped shut, eyes sliding away. That was a refusal to converse. That was the face Vincent wore whenever he had something to hide.
Watching my disciple carry on like a child caught in a lie, an ominous hypothesis suddenly occurred to me.
"Don't tell me the other party members don't know the truth of your condition either?"
His averted eyes wavered, just for a heartbeat.
"You hid it, didn't you? Why? Is it a secret they mustn't know either?"
At my gentle pressing for an answer, Vincent's expression cracked, if only slightly. I laid a hand on his chest and made my plea with everything I had.
"What on earth have you hidden, that you carry on so? Pour it all out to your master."
I won't scold you. I did my utmost to arrange my face into the most benevolent smile I could manage. Please, let it reach him.
"...They don't really know. About my condition."
"They don't know?"
"If I told them, it'd be that much longer before I could come see you..."
Because his visits to me might be delayed—he'd hidden a matter of that gravity from his own party members?
"...What is wrong with you! With your life possibly hanging by a thread, why hide it from the very people who might be able to fix it!"
Despite myself, my voice rose and I rained blows on the head of my fully grown disciple. Whether he felt any pain, I couldn't say—but as an outlet for the frustration boiling over inside me, I'd call it perfect.
"You said you wouldn't hit me!"
"I said no such thing!"
It was just like when he'd lied to me as a child. Back then, too, I would act the picture of mercy, and Vincent—reassured—would confess his misdeeds, take my iron-fisted discipline, and then protest through a tear-streaked face that my words and actions didn't match. I never said I wouldn't hit you, did I? It was how my mother had scolded me when I was young, and the very same method Ma Cheonseong had used on me in turn. Those two were so alike even in the way they disciplined me that it sent a chill down my spine...
I was sinking into those gloomy thoughts when Vincent changed the subject, drifting back into the past.
"Come to think of it, you got me the same way back then..."
He edged closer.
"Back then, too, you called it a loving smack. All out of concern for me."
As his gaze turned hazy, his breath drew near, announcing exactly what was on his mind.
"Adela. Were you worried about your Seobang-nim?"
What is wrong with this man? One smack and he works himself up and comes at me? Far from hurting, he was—screws loose as ever—overjoyed that I'd worried about him.
"Don't spout nonsense, you fool!"
Meaning to discipline this insolent disciple who showed not a trace of remorse, I raised my hand to smack him once more—but alas, the blow never landed, for Vincent caught my wrist.
"Let. Go."
As I hurriedly squirmed to escape his embrace, he surged over me from above and pinned me down. With his body pressed flush against mine, crushing and subduing me beneath him, Vincent growled low.
"Adela. Are you still treating your Seobang-nim like a child? Keep that up, and I'll just have to show you all over again that I'm a grown man."
"Who're you calling Seobang-nim? I never once acknowledged that. And does a grown body make you an adult?"
That fool of a disciple was trying to play husband again, entirely on his own authority.
"Careful. You'll regret saying that."
The moment Vincent growled, heat flared in my lower abdomen and it began to glow. Ah. Right. This!! It was the crest I'd discovered back when he had his way with me in the bath. When on earth did he carve something like this into my body?
"You—what is this?! I let it slide last time, but what is that thing?!"
The faint pink light rising from my lower abdomen set my nerves on edge. An ominous pink glow, if there ever was one. As if to prove my instincts right, my womb began to throb and whimper in my belly, stoking the heat ever higher.
"It's nothing much. Call it a means of checking whether my wife is ovulating or not."
"What? Have you lost your mind? How could you engrave something like that on me!"
I thrashed and struggled to break free, but the arms locked around me didn't so much as twitch—two pillars of iron. Vincent, who had been silently smirking with all his swagger, opened his eyes. Blue eyes fixed themselves on me. Vincent—unmastered by the demonic energy—kissed me of his own free will.
"Hup—! Mmph, stop! How many times do I have to tell you not to pounce on me out of nowhere!"
In the very moment I was barely holding back his attempt to work some fresh outrage on me, a sound cut short his display of force. It was the bell announcing a visitor.
From beyond the door—briefly connected to the outside through that bell—came the voice of Saintess Kiara.
"May I have a moment of your time, Lord Hero?"