The Results of a Well-Timed Interference
“So, did you figure it out?”
When Owen asked it in that careless, tossed-off way of his, Sylvia, who had been worrying at the problem with a furrowed brow, hesitated before answering.
“Maybe mana sharing happened.”
“We definitely exchanged mana. We slept together.”
“Not mana exchange. Mana sharing.”
He blinked at her as if to ask what the difference was supposed to be.
Rather than explain the distinction and risk poking at something that made her skin crawl, Sylvia changed the subject.
“The palace doctor said my mana had gotten mixed up. I thought that was because of Aeret’s prank, but I think it might have been because of you.”
The thought made her temples throb. She’d been too confused then to think clearly, and only now did she understand why the palace doctor had asked, in such a careful tone, when her assignment with Heston had ended.
The doctor thought I’d exchanged mana with Heston.
When highly compatible people made skin contact, mana exchange happened naturally, and sometimes the other person’s mana seeped into one’s body and affected them.
The better the compatibility, and the more intense the contact, the stronger the exchange became. She remembered learning long ago that, in very rare cases, people could even become attuned to each other’s emotions or circumstances.
That must have been what happened with Owen. But not knowing that, the palace doctor had seen that her mana was being disturbed by someone else and naturally assumed it was Heston, the partner she’d been paired with.
Surely they didn’t really misunderstand it that badly, right? Because if they did, I’m going to end up as some legendary adulteress who had intense contact with Heston for no reason other than a mission. And if a rumor like that gets out……
The thought alone was horrifying.
At the time, when she’d mentioned Aeret to the palace doctor and the man had looked as though he somewhat accepted the explanation, that had been Sylvia’s only comfort.
Uneasy, she bit down on the tip of her thumb. But then long fingers parted her lips and pried the abused fingertip free.
“What’s wrong. You think we’re gonna die?”
When she looked up, Owen’s face was so expressionless it seemed almost dazed.
Sylvia pulled her hand out of his grip and said, “For highly compatible partners, mana exchange can tangle mana together so much that sometimes they end up sharing each other’s arousal. If this had happened with Heston instead of you, I’d have realized it was mana sharing much faster.”
“……”
“That’s because our compatibility test said we were a disaster.”
Her eyes sharpened as she stared straight at him. Owen didn’t look even slightly surprised by her words. His deep amber gaze was more skilled at taking in whatever information the other person offered than at revealing his own. And as she expected, she knew more than he did.
“So it was you, wasn’t it? You tampered with that test back then.”
Four years ago, the only knights without partners were Owen and Heston. Heston had refused to take on another partner because of Sylvia, while Owen, unlike him, had genuinely had no supporter whose compatibility was suitable for him, so he had always worked alone.
The superiors, not wanting to waste Owen’s abilities when he far outstripped the other knights even without a supporter, had decided to test him with Sylvia first, before pairing her with Heston.
Heston was likely to find another partner eventually, but Owen was not. So if Sylvia turned out to be highly compatible with him, they thought it would be better to pair her with Owen instead.
It had been Sylvia’s first compatibility test, but beneath the cold stone platform in the temple, when the blood from Owen’s expressionless face and her own dripped into the round mana orb, she’d felt an inexplicable sense of dread.
So I’ll end up partnered with Owen.
Looking at the way their blood spread through the orb like a blooming flower, Sylvia had thought it then.
Everything she’d worked herself to the bone for until now had been to become a partner worthy of Heston, but God had betrayed Sylvia at every crucial moment. And this time, too, it felt as though He would torment her as viciously as she had hoped for salvation.
It took a day for the result to come in.
Sylvia spent the whole day uneasy and at a loss, and then, in the dead of night, she found herself returning to the temple where the test had been conducted.
The pure white temple, as though made from the bones of a sacred beast, glowed bluish in the dark night. Even if she came all this way, she wouldn’t be able to go inside because of the heavy security, and there was no way to overturn the results anyway. So why had she come here? Just as she was about to sigh in bitter self-reproach and turn back, a dark shadow suddenly emerged from the temple. At first, she thought she’d seen wrong, or that it was some kind of ghost.
But then moonlight revealed brilliant golden hair, and Sylvia realized it was Owen.
For the next four years, Sylvia never once said out loud that she had seen Owen Summers there that day. After all, following his appearance, she’d gotten the result she’d wanted the very next day.
But today, the undeniable truth had been laid out before them again, and Sylvia trembled with belated guilt over her involvement in a crime that had sullied the temple and overturned its results.
Owen looked into her eyes from close range and silently watched as all the things she’d hidden began to sort themselves out neatly in her head.
Sylvia had been certain Owen would sneer and say something cowardly like, So you got what you wanted, didn’t you. But instead, he turned away, crossed the room in a few lazy strides, and went straight to the point.
“So how long are we supposed to keep living like this?”
“What?”
He’d skipped over so much so quickly that she was genuinely thrown. But he only added, perfectly calm, “What happened back then doesn’t matter now.”
“No one can enter a temple that has a Yem-je—a barrier the priests put up—on it.”
“I got in.”
“Are you messing with me right now?”
“What are you worried about? That I might be a threat to the empire?”
“……”
Seeing Sylvia’s mouth press shut like a seashell, Owen gave a soft snort of laughter.
“Relax. I can’t be, plain and simple. If you’re still worried, go ahead and put a restriction on me yourself.”
“I’m a supporter. I can’t use magic like that.”
“You can. If you use the power in the treasure I’ve got.”
The power contained in that treasure was limitless. To think he’d use a reward he’d once risked his life to earn for the purpose of restraining himself again. Was he insane?
Still, that one remark did ease some of her suspicions about him. Maybe that had been his aim all along.
Owen tilted his head to glance at the clock, then nudged the toe of Sylvia’s shoe with his own to get her attention. She was still sitting on his bed.
“We can talk about this later. It’s late, so shouldn’t we deal with this problem first?”
With that, he flicked a glance toward the front of his lower body. It had gone down a great deal from earlier, but after all this time, the sight of it still stubbornly bulging was impossible to ignore.
“Does it usually…… last that long?”
“No idea. First time I’ve ever had it taken care of halfway and then left hanging.”
The lazy shrug of his shoulders was annoyingly smug for some reason. Sylvia tore her gaze away from his body and forced herself back to the topic he actually wanted to discuss.
“This sort of thing will go away on its own once enough time passes. Once the mana that’s left in each of us disperses, we won’t be able to share it anymore.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. It’s rare, and it’s different for everyone. Still, it shouldn’t take more than a week.”
“If it’s mana exchange, does it happen just from holding hands?”
“Do you want to hold hands with me?”
Sylvia stared at him with round eyes, and Owen looked back at her as though she were hopeless. Only then did she realize he was talking about accidental contact, something closer to an incident than an invitation.
She muttered, red-faced, “You’re the one making it confusing,” but went on to lay out how they should handle things from here.
“Just in case, let’s avoid being in the same room as much as possible. And you—absolutely, absolutely do not touch or fiddle with th— that thing.”
When he saw where her finger awkwardly pointed, he laughed as though it were the funniest thing in the world.
“In Vaskon, they say wives put chastity locks on their husbands’ groins. Kinda sounds like that.”
“Don’t say disgusting things like that! Do you know how awkward it gets for me every time you do? Last time it was at Her Highness’s tea party……!”
Her face, which had just settled down, flared bright red like an apple, and her mouth snapped shut. At the broken-off sentence, Owen’s amber eyes lit with sudden interest, as though he’d found a juicy weakness to exploit.
“At the tea party? You got turned on at the tea party? So that’s the clanging sound I heard?”
“If anything like that happens again, I’ll make sure you can never touch that thing for the rest of your life.”
She growled like a cornered little animal. Owen only gave a snort and tilted his head to one side.
“Then you shouldn’t meet Heston either.”
Sylvia was a little taken aback, because she hadn’t expected Heston to be dragged into this conversation so suddenly. When she opened her mouth to answer, Owen’s long index finger pressed against the center of her forehead, as if he were reading the thought in her head.
“Every time you meet Heston, it drives me fucking crazy. Last time, I almost threw up.”
His blunt words sent heat rushing to her face. The realization that he had felt exactly what she had made it unbearable all over again.
If their feelings were being shared as they were, was Owen’s heart also racing every time he saw Heston?
“Whenever your feelings get passed on to me, I jerk off once.”
Owen let out a sigh, looking faintly exasperated by the way her emotions kept rippling through him again, and Sylvia jerked her head up, ready to protest that this was absurd.
“How is that even the same thing? Why would—”
“I won’t even be able to have sex for a while, so I might as well jerk off instead. Ah, hell. At this rate, my dick’s gonna go numb.”
With a flat, utterly unconcerned voice, Owen rattled off obscenities as if he were discussing the weather. When Sylvia covered her ears and glared at him, he gave her a look that practically said, Go on then, try me, and reached down without the slightest hesitation.
At any moment, he looked ready to pull that huge slab of flesh out, so Sylvia decided she’d rather get up and leave the room immediately. Running away was something she was good at, so she managed to escape without having to see anything truly horrible.
“Always disappearing in a flash, aren’t you.”
Left alone, Owen stared at the door slamming shut, laced his fingers behind his head, and collapsed back onto the bed.
“Still, what a pain.”
What was he supposed to do about the morning wood if he couldn’t even touch himself?
It was a serious problem. But he figured the answer would come when the time came, so Owen shut his eyes for now.