The Hero Who Became a Cat

"You're twenty?"

"I told you, didn't I? A hundred years ago, I was a hero."

"……That wasn't just some roleplay bit?"

"H-h-how rude—! You!"

"…So? Let's say I believe you. What's that got to do with the cat?"

"'Let's say I believe you'…? Ugh, this is why kids these days…."

Says the one who looks just as young.

"I, you know, defeated the Demon King a hundred years ago."

"Ah. Is that so."

"Aah——!! Honestly!"

Mariel scratched furiously at her head, clearly irritated, yet she kept talking all the same.

"But the Demon King Azael—right as he was about to completely vanish, he wrung out the last of his power and turned me—"

"Into a cat?"

"Yes! Exactly that."

"Come on."

"What? What's with that reaction?"

"A joke needs at least some restraint. The Demon King and a cat? If you're going to mess around, make it a halfway believable joke. Those two don't match at all."

As if my words had struck a nerve, she flew into a full-blown rage and started arguing back.

"Hey! Kyle Edelrein! This is real!"

"I just finished having sex and I'm exhausted, so don't make this hard on me."

"Ah, this is real! …Fine! If you still can't believe it!"

"If I still can't believe it?"

"Oh my—! Mariel! Who do we have here!?"

"It's been a while! Astria. Have you been well?"

"How on earth have you not aged a single day—"

"Eheh… You're looking the same as ever yourself, Astria."

What…

Mariel had confidently suggested we go see the Headmistress—saying that would settle it—so I'd gone along, half expecting to be made a fool of… but they actually knew each other?

"Headmistress…?"

"Ah~ Professor Kyle! You brought Mariel all the way here? Thank you so much."

"If I may ask… who is she, exactly?"

"Ah, she's a hero."

"…Pardon?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Hmph!" Mariel crowed, swaggering at the Headmistress's side in a way I found thoroughly unappealing, but….

"Is that true?"

"Of course? A hundred years ago— Mariel and I were comrades who risked our lives fighting side by side to defeat the Demon King."

"See…? You wouldn't believe a word I said…."

"To be honest, I was sure she was long dead. Or rather, that she'd simply grown old?"

"And yet?"

The Headmistress and Mariel began trading remarks back and forth.

"And yet I never imagined Mariel would still be alive like this—so fresh, so full of that youthful scent, still holding on to all that vitality."

"E-ahem… Vitality, you say… How embarrassing…. For the record, I wasn't just sleeping for a hundred years either."

"Then what were you doing all that time?"

"Me? I… well, in the meantime… um…."

"Why can't you just say it?"

I cut in, exasperated, and only then did Mariel finally look ready to talk.

"I mean, I told you earlier! That Demon King bastard turned me into a cat right before he went."

"And now?"

"Now… well. I fulfilled the unlock conditions."

Unlock conditions…?

"What were those, Mariel?"

"……Th-that……! To witness the sexual intercourse of a high-ranking figure within the Holy Order."

"…What? Did I mishear that just now?"

I'm only twenty-five. I shouldn't already be dealing with this.

"…No. You heard right? Do you have any idea how ridiculously strict the conditions were? That Demon King bitch… and it wasn't just any high-ranking figure. The way she hated the Order—"

"She did loathe them with a nearly pathological intensity, yes."

"Exactly! So she made it so that the number of times the head of the Order's military force—the Knight Order—had sex was tallied separately from the number of times the Saintess had sex, and on top of that, the first round had to be the two of them coupling. Insane conditions."

Insane. Whose coupling with whose…?

"I'm sorry…? The Holy Knight Commander's and the Saintess's coupling—sex, you mean…? Isn't that an absurdly cruel setup…?"

"That's what I'm saying!! So I had to watch a total of five rounds of sex, and yet…… to think the seal could be lifted like this after a hundred years…."

Mariel clenched a fist, overcome with emotion; at the corners of her tightly shut eyes, I thought I even saw tiny tears gathering.

Wait. But five times…?

"I don't remember doing it five times…."

"Oh my. Kyle."

"They're counted separately for each of you. The actual number barely matters. Once you get that first start going. The real cruelty is why the Saintess and the Holy Knight Commander would ever have sex with each other in the first place. And it's not like I could just ask them to please do it while I was a cat. That insane Demon King bitch!!"

I see… So before I ran into Mariel on the day of the private mass, Erina and I had done it twice.

That would account for four, and the rest must have been filled by what I did with Nariel.

"So you did, then? With Student Erina."

"……Ah."

"And not just once… multiple times, no less. Hmmmm…."

Why is she smiling like that? It's making me nervous….

Creak.

"So because of that, the unsealing was incomplete?"

Click.

Mariel and I kept talking as we opened the door and stepped back into the professor's office I used.

"Yeah—. I did meet the conditions, so I turned back into a human, but it wasn't long before I changed back into a beast."

Calling it five times when, in practice, Erina and I had only slept together twice—and counting that as four—was basically half-cheating, huh.

"What's with that. If that was the plan, they shouldn't have undone the transformation at all."

"That's just how that bastard liked to mess with people. Anyway, after that, you filled in the remaining count for me, so now I've finally got a truly complete, perfect body again!"

For crying out loud.

Anyone listening would think she'd pulled it off all by herself.

"So? Is the Demon King actually dead?"

"Of course he's dead. You're a holy knight, so you might not know this, but there are plenty of magics that keep working even after the caster dies."

"Don't get cocky."

"I think I've earned the right."

As she said it, she lightly thumped a clenched fist against her own chest.

Well, her experience as a former hero is the real deal, so taking pride in that isn't exactly a bad thing….

"Is that so? Fine. I've heard the whole story, so now you can just—"

"Want to have sex?"

"Crazy bitch."

"Wha… y-you. Is that any way to treat the woman who saved this world and this country?"

"Then what about me, the one who turned you from a cat back into a human?"

If you really thought it through, I only exist because the hero saved the world, so maybe I don't have much room to talk….

"Th-that's…. Kngh."

Who cares.

If this is what works on her, then that's that.

For now, momentum is what matters, right?

"Just asking to be sure."

"What?"

"You. Are you strong?"

If she can actually fight, there are all sorts of things I could try with that in mind.

"Do I look it?"

"No. You look like a voyeuristic sex maniac."

"E-ahem. You… should probably start by learning some basic respect for a hero."

"Says the one who shows up every time I have sex, watches the whole thing, and was still going on about sex sex sex just a minute ago."

She keeps using the Demon King's seal as an excuse, but hmm.

She's the type who quietly enjoys everything there is to enjoy. Looks pretty sly to me.

"A-anyway… for all that, I've spent a hundred years as a cat just lounging around. I doubt I'd be much use."

"Well, looking at you now, you just look like a generic 'Female Student #1' you'd pass on the street."

In fact, she seemed to have picked up a student uniform somewhere on the way back from the Headmistress's office; the outfit she had on right now was exactly that.

"Why are you wearing kids' clothes? You used to be a hero, after all."

"For all that, I was twenty when I took down the Demon King. If you assume aging stopped right there, then of course I look just as fresh as the girls my age, right?"

Impressive, I guess.

As if she wanted to show off that freshness right in front of me, she twisted her waist with a slow, seductive sway and shook her hips—and the sight of it was, in its own way, pretty grating.

"On the inside, you're ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a grandma."

"Kyle Edelrein. You… seem to save all your rudeness for me, don't you?"

"Who knows… Maybe our first meeting left an impression that still affects things."

Apparently sensing that she always ended up on the losing side of our back-and-forth, Mariel cleared her throat with a "khem" and scratched at her neck.

Click. Rattle-rattle.

"Hm?"

The doorknob turning.

But the door wouldn't open; it just spun uselessly in place.

After twisting it a few times and realizing it wouldn't budge, a knock came from the other side of the door.

Knock knock.

Erina? She's here already?

Ordinarily, Erina had assistant privileges and wouldn't have any trouble opening the door—but if it was locked from the inside with the secondary lock, that was a different story.

Privacy mattered, so there was a double-lock feature, apparently.

But I hadn't locked it.

I glanced sideways and saw Mariel lightly bonking herself on the head with a cute little expression, and that told me exactly who the culprit was.

"Sigh."

I walked over, unlocked it, and opened the door; Erina stuck her head in at once and slipped inside.

"Professor? Why did you lock the door?"

"No, just…?"

When I looked back, Mariel had already snapped back into her cat form as Sol.

Ugh. That little shit. She's only a cat when it's convenient for her.

"Hmm… Suspicious… But looking around, there's no one else here."

"Well, Sol is here."

"She's a cat, though?"

"Yeah, well…."

"Sol! Come here!"

Nyaaang!

A hundred years as a cat, huh.

The way she dashed over and nestled into Erina's arms, she might as well have been a professional cat.

Well, it was between the girls, so there wasn't really a problem.

Afternoon came, and as planned, I headed to Aiden's laboratory.

Unlike my own office, this place looked like somewhere real experiments were actually conducted—reagent bottles and the like lined the space.

Less a private lab and more of a shared one. Pretty spacious, too. Do the whole Magic Department use this place together?

"Welcome, Professor Edelrein."

Professor Aiden greeted me, and beside him Helena bowed her head in greeting.

Oh….

Both Aiden and Helena were wearing white lab coats here—the kind doctors wore—but in Helena's case…

The lab coat rode up over her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠breasts! And from there it fell in a straight waterfall line.

Helena had quite a few curves of her own, so…

The coats they wore in the lab weren't stretchy enough to give, and they weren't thin either.

Thick, stiff white fabric would never do much to show off a body's lines—or the fit of it.

But wasn't that… exactly the hot part?

Underneath that white coat, holding it up from within, were the two large, round breasts sitting on Helena's upper body, and they left an awful lot to the imagination.

"Ahem. Please, come inside."

In any case, following Aiden's lead, I stepped a little farther in.