The Lost Demon Girl (4)
“Looks like it’s about time I decided what to do with these two.”
Rain had hurried off into the brush, covering his groin as he went.
He seemed to have gone quite a distance, and I couldn’t help wondering whether he really needed to be that embarrassed.
After all, I’d traveled with these two for quite a while now, and before this I’d even dragged an elf into the party so that one man could roam around with three women. So why was he blushing over something like this? Had they really never done anything with each other?
It was such a strangely innocent reaction. For a man, he was almost suspiciously unfamiliar with women.
...Let’s not dwell on it.
Odd as it was, it wasn’t exactly important right now.
Even as we stood there, Hydra poison was spreading through their veins, and the longer it lingered, the more troublesome the treatment would become.
All right, then. Time to begin.
- Thunk
I set the antidote, some water, and a clean towel beside me.
It’s already spread more than halfway. In that case, I’ll have to use a bit of my magic to gather the toxin into one place.
Hydra poison was a real pain.
It wasn’t a field boss, but its abilities put it in the elite monster category—in other words, it was stronger than an ordinary mob.
If you weren’t a demon-type character with resistance to poison, then when you were hit by that monster, you had a 30 percent chance of being inflicted with paralysis and poison debuffs, which would deal a hefty amount of damage.
It’s not like there’s no way to cure it, though.
There were several methods, of course.
In Novel Online, you could either kill the Hydra that had inflicted the poison debuff, or drink an item called a Panacea of Ten Thousand Poisons, which could only be obtained in the Demon Realm.
“Hmm.”
For now, I confirmed that my saliva itself wasn’t poisonous.
Just in case, I’d rinsed my mouth with the antidote, but leaving them like this would only make things worse, so I’d better get to work.
- Rustle
First, the dwarf, since she was the worst off.
I slid her top down little by little until the bitten area was properly exposed, then bared her neck.
Her skin had a warm brown tint to it.
In this world, dwarf women looked fairly similar to dark elves, at least in appearance. The main difference was that their stature was quite small, and their bodies simply didn’t grow very large.
“Hff.”
“Ah...”
So it wasn’t as awkward as I’d expected.
I took the small puncture in her neck into my mouth and carefully, slowly sucked out the poison inside it.
It was a little bitter, but manageable enough.
I held her from behind as if embracing her so she wouldn’t move, almost like I was biting the side of a slender neck.
It felt almost vampire-like.
“Nnngh...”
Then her body gave a small jerk and she let out a vague, breathy sound.
Maybe it tickled. Even without consciousness, the body still reacted on its own.
In any case, I kept sucking the poison from her neck.
- Drip...
My saliva, tinged a reddish color from the poison drawn into my mouth, slid down her neck and dripped away, but fortunately Hydra poison wasn’t like some mythical toxin; contact alone wasn’t a problem.
- Sluurp! Sluurp!
“Uu... nnh...”
Still, so this was what dwarf bodies were like.
Back when I’d created her character, I hadn’t really cared much about dwarves. They were small, and their magical ability wasn’t great, so I’d figured they didn’t fit fantasy very well.
And yet, even though she felt small, there was still plenty of adult femininity there.
Her chest was a decent size, and from the curve of her waist, it was clear her body had well-defined lines; it seemed to be her height alone that was small.
“...Ngh!”
“Tch. This one and the other one both just can’t sit still, huh? How troublesome.”
By the time I’d sucked out a fair amount of blood, she suddenly arched her waist again and jerked.
Her body went limp as if the strength had drained away, and I barely managed to catch her before she toppled forward.
In the process, my hands ended up on her abdomen and chest, and the feel of her body—surprisingly soft and supple, whether that was unexpected for a dwarf or perfectly fitting—came through under my palms.
It was a pretty nice sensation, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. It was time to move on to the next step.
“Ngh, ah, haa...”
“...”
This was a bit of a headache.
Apparently I’d taken too much blood, because her breathing grew rough, and she began to loll her head while sticking her tongue out of her mouth.
- Thunk
At this rate I’d need to give her a potion, but would she even be able to swallow it properly? I laid her across my lap, then tipped the recovery potion I’d already taken out little by little into her open mouth.
“Uwaep, beeeh, eh...”
“Damn it, she’s spitting it all out after all.”
But of course she spat all of it back out.
The recovery potion she’d vomited splashed across her chest and ran down her body, making everything feel annoyingly sticky.
Even her underclothes were soaked through, so once this was over I’d definitely need to either change her or dry her off, one or the other.
In any case, her spitting it out like this was a problem.
Healing magic was troublesome to use, and I needed to save scrolls for times that were truly desperate. So this was a nuisance.
Which meant I’d have to use that method again, didn’t it?
“Ngh...”
“Haah. What a hassle.”
I drank the recovery potion.
Only I didn’t swallow it; I held it in my mouth instead.
- Rustle
Next, I closed my lips tightly so the liquid wouldn’t spill, lifted her upper body, and sealed her mouth to keep her from spitting it out while I continued guiding the potion down her throat.
“Mm...”
- Sluuurp
“Hff, mmph...! Mmm!”
With our lips pressed together, I briefly obstructed her breathing and blew air into her so she could swallow the potion.
It counted as a form of emergency aid.
So I didn’t feel anything especially sensual about it, nor did I feel any of the kind of pleasure living creatures were supposed to get from this sort of thing.
Even when I touched, or was touched by, places that were supposed to be stimulating for humans, I only ever felt an absurd amount of pain and nothing else.
Still... I could at least tell that her body wasn’t getting enough oxygen and that breathing had become difficult.
“Hngh, huff! Mmph...!”
So I could understand why she was trembling like this.
- Thunk! Thump! Thunk!
Even without awareness, the body remained alive.
When breathing was cut off, the body naturally struggled, fighting with everything it had to escape that suffering.
To keep her from thrashing around and interfering, I grabbed her wrists, looped a leg around her twitching lower body, then used my remaining hand to hold her chin and press my mouth to hers again.
- Gulp!
“Haa...! Hah...! Ah...”
“Phew. That should do it.”
I figured most of the poison had been drawn out by now.
The dwarf trembled violently through her arms and legs, then gradually calmed down.
Not dead—just relieved, with the poison running through her body mostly gone and the tension finally easing.
Her face was still a little flushed, but her ragged breathing had already begun to settle, so it seemed I’d handled it properly.
“Ngh, ugh...”
That left only the cleric...
...Gross.
I grimaced at the foreign sensation in my mouth.
My mouth was full of a murky, whitish liquid mixed with antidote and blood, and it felt absolutely disgusting.
I wiped away every last trace of it from my tongue, then rinsed my mouth several more times with water.
As for the stains on my clothes... I’d deal with those later by changing.
“...All right, I’ll just prop her up here for now.”
- Thunk
For the time being, I leaned the dwarf against a tree and loosened her chest area a little, figuring that once the heat from the Hydra poison dropped, she’d wake up before long.
Then I turned my eyes to the cleric, Aria.
“At least this one’s in better shape.”
Clerics protected themselves with holy power, so she probably had some resistance to poison—even if it wasn’t on the level of a demon.
Even so, that only meant she was a little better off.
This one, too, had been in serious enough condition to threaten her life.
- Drip...
Sweat beaded on her forehead, and the red liquid slowly trailing down her neck stained her white robes.
It looked like paint dropped onto a blank sheet of paper, but unfortunately this blood was mixed with Hydra poison, so I really couldn’t just wash it in the river.
I’d probably kill a whole bunch of fish, and if anyone used that water as drinking water, it might even kill them too.
...Should I just clean it off later with a cleansing spell?
“Hmm.”
This time I slipped the cleric’s clothes slightly off her shoulders.
- Rustle
Unlike the dwarf, Aria had healthy skin with a faintly pale glow to it.
Clerics always had holy power flowing through their bodies, after all, so they retained their youth much longer than ordinary humans and tended to have pretty impressive physical abilities as well.
That was why people sometimes mixed cleric with fighter or cleric with swordsman to create the job known as a paladin.
...Black?
Her underwear was rather bold, too.
Once I removed the outer robe, I could see black straps of lingerie slipping over her shoulders.
“Huh.”
On top of that, there were bite marks and bruises stained with something red scattered across various parts of her body.
They were mostly on her shoulders and the sides of her chest, and there were even some fairly recent-looking bite marks as well.
Was this what happened when a cleric went around fighting up front?
It wasn’t really my concern, so I didn’t care all that much, but it was still a little surprising.
The dwarf from earlier had been pretty clean, while the cleric alone looked like this; I suppose having just one swordsman must have made adventuring quite a nuisance.
And without anyone watching their backs, a little monster like a goblin could sneak up on them from behind every now and then.
All right, then, you too...
This time I took Aria’s neck into my mouth.
Unlike the dwarf, it felt a little cooler, and I carefully began drawing out the blood carrying the Hydra poison, making sure not to strain her body.
Tch. Bitter.
...Blood really did taste awfully fishy.
I had no idea what mosquitoes or vampires found so tasty about it. Fine, insects were one thing, but vampires could eat normal meals—so why insist on this?
If different races simply had different tastes, the way elves didn’t eat meat, then I supposed there was nothing to be done. Still, I couldn’t understand it—
- Crackle!
“...Mmph?! ”
Suddenly, a blue light began to swirl around Aria’s body.
At the same time, a strange pain surged into me.
- Thunk!
“Mmmph...! Guh, ngh, ugh...”
I hurriedly shoved Aria away and spat out the liquid in my mouth.
This electrifying pain—it was holy power.
For reasons I couldn’t determine precisely, the holy power that continuously flowed through her body had interfered with my ability to touch her.
“Hah! Ngh... Damn, that hurts like hell...”
My body was tingling, and my stomach felt sick.
“Tch...”
The sudden reaction to her holiness even made my stomach cramp as if I’d swallowed a little of her blood.
Normally, simply touching a cleric’s body wouldn’t cause this kind of reaction.
Unless you were one of those walking divine weapons known as a Heretic Inquisitor, just coming into contact with a cleric at this level wouldn’t be painful enough to make me writhe like this.
Maybe the reason was...
“In the end, it’s because my body shrank.”
That had to be it.
My resistance to holy power had probably weakened along with everything else.
My total mana and physical abilities had dropped too, so maybe it was only natural.
So how was I supposed to treat this cleric...?
If I could get them back to the village, there might be a way to neutralize the poison. But for that to happen, the dwarf would need to wake up and show us the way out of this forest, just like last time.
But in this state, I couldn’t treat her myself, and waiting for the dwarf to wake up would take far too long.
“...I guess I’ll have to find Rain.”
That was unavoidable.
I’d already expected this one would be difficult to handle because of the cleric’s holy power.
Let’s go find that swordsman who vanished into the brush a little while ago.