Chapter 52
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: 6.4 Love Hotel
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I really should have killed her back then.
It wasn't something to spare out of naive compassion.
Kill before defilement.
Kill the heroine before she gets defiled.
I should have followed the words of the Saint (Unicorn).
I should have killed her without hesitation, just like I did with Shuji.
"Fuck..."
Hesitating even for a moment.
That was the mistake—picking up on her desperate plea not to die.
I'm human too.
I don't have the stomach to gleefully kill a woman who doesn't want to die.
If I can save someone, I want to. Even if someone has to die, I don't want it to be by my hand if I can help it.
That's the basic human sentiment I'm capable of.
Akane didn't want to die.
She wanted to live—desperately so.
Maybe because she'd died once before. Her attachment to life was especially intense.
I wasn't prepared to bear the weight of her death on top of everything else.
I hoped she'd just live quietly out of my sight. Or die quietly somewhere I wouldn't know about.
So I turned a blind eye.
I knew full well, without needing to weigh it, which was heavier: killing her or letting her live.
Unable to take responsibility, I spared Akane anyway.
"—What the hell are you doing?"
Akane glared up at me with feral eyes.
That look was savage.
And heartbreaking.
The villainess I'd deemed the epitome of evil wasn't there.
Just a wounded, abandoned girl.
I don't want to die.
Like a kitten soaked in the rain.
Having lost her parents, her friends, everything—and even as she lay dying.
A broken Akane was there, like a stray cat that hadn't lost its wild spirit.
"Who the hell are you to hit me? Who are you to get in my way! Naibusu, who the hell are you... who the hell...!"
Akane's outburst dissolved into tears.
I just looked down at her silently.
"...Are you pitying me too? Ha! Yeah, must be hilarious, right? Acting all high and mighty, abandoned by your parents, dumped by Yuu, yet still pathetically clinging to life. Bet that was a real laugh. Satisfied now? You've taken everything from me, dragged me this low—are you happy now?!"
I want to live...
"Or what? Here to kill me again? Yeah, just do it. Better than living like this. Why didn't you kill me from the start? Why let me live just to make me this... this miserable... so miserable... Why me...?"
Akane's final words were drowned in sobs.
Akane had completely broken.
With even her last trace of venom drained away, she collapsed before me and wept.
"...Save me, Naibusu... I don't want to die... Help me, Naibusu..."
.........What an idiot of a woman.
If only she'd been a little honest from the start.
If she'd shown just a hint of humanity.
She never would have had to die by my hand.
She wouldn't have been sold to that lab, abandoned by Yuuki, or forced to grovel before me—the one person she hated most.
You could have been Yuuki's heroine.
Foolish.
So utterly foolish that,
being equally foolish myself, I couldn't just let this foolish Akane die.
I held an umbrella over Akane's thoroughly soaked head.
"Come with me. I'll help you."
Love hotel.
If Korea has motels, Japan has love hotels.
Love hotels are unmanned by default, so you never run into anyone else. A reflection of the Japanese penchant for discretion.
"Come in."
Akane meekly followed me into the love hotel room.
She didn't ask why I'd brought her here.
She already knew Rune Holders could recover mana from a male Rune Holder's semen. Probably heard it from that mad scientist.
And on the way here, she'd steeled herself for it. Prepared to accept even her enemy's semen just to survive.
Of course, that's not why I brought her here. It was simply the most private, safest spot available.
Akane might react strangely to a sudden influx of dense mana, like Teacher Akatsuki did. If she made noises like that at home, my sister would definitely get the wrong idea.
That was the only reason I brought her to a love hotel instead of home.
"Here."
I fetched a towel from the bathroom and handed it to her.
It was beyond towel-dry condition, but better than nothing.
"..."
Akane silently wiped the water from her hair with the towel I'd given her.
Her condition wasn't normal. To be expected after dying and coming back once.
Rune Holders normally recover lost mana over time.
But Akane's remaining mana just kept dwindling—like water leaking from a bottomless jar.
In the original story, there was a character with similar symptoms. A rare disease where mana drained away on its own.
That character survived in much the same way Akane imagined, but met a pathetic end in the end.
I drew Moonlight while Akane dried her hair beside me.
"Eek."
Akane flinched at the glinting blade.
Remembering when I'd stabbed her, maybe.
Hmph. A lifelong trauma? Can't be helped.
You committed your sins—deal with it.
I ignored Akane and sliced my own finger with the blade.
A sharp sting passed through.
I held out my finger as blood slowly beaded up.
"Suck."
Akane stared blankly at my offered finger, then looked up at my face and hesitantly spoke.
"A little blood... won't recover much mana..."
"Sigh..."
I let out a loud sigh, making sure she heard.
Akane's face twisted like she'd been dismissed.
"Listen up, Akane. It's not about drinking blood. The act of 'sucking' the wounded spot itself is what matters."
I don't know what that mad scientist told her.
Probably that blood alone has negligible effect.
Makes sense. A blood pack is just 1% of a person's blood volume. If mana is evenly distributed, you'd get only 1% mana from drinking one dry.
So it's not the blood—it's sucking directly from the wound.
"Those guys probably never sucked straight from the wound. At best, they drew it like a donation and drank, or injected it like a transfusion."
I don't know the exact principle of mana absorption.
My guess: when wounded, mana temporarily concentrates at the injury to heal it. Sucking it up with your mouth before it activates absorbs the mana—like jabbing a straw into a water balloon and the pressure sucking out the water through the hole.
"So quit yapping and suck. Don't you wanna live?"
"Ugh..."
It's really... coming in. Mana's flowing in.
Reading Akane's mind, I could tell she was truly on the brink.
Normal low-mana Rune Holders faint and wake when it recovers.
But that's for those who recover naturally—waking because mana returns while unconscious.
What if it doesn't recover?
She came back from death once, so not fully dead, but she won't wake on her own. Might as well be dead.
"...Pervert."
Her last act of defiance?
Akane shot me a prim glare and spat the word.
Hmph. Got the energy to talk smack now?
The storm clouds in her mind were starting to clear a bit.
"Suit yourself."
"W-Who said no?"
As I pulled my hand back, Akane grabbed it quick.
Pervert, my ass. Be grateful I'm not forcing semen down your throat.
*Slurp.*
Akane cautiously put my finger in her mouth and started sucking.
Glancing at me sidelong, suck suck, like a newborn nursing.
I felt mana draining out with the blood.
...Good. Was worried it might not work.
She hadn't fully trusted me until just now.
But as mana filled her body, she finally relaxed.
Relieved she wouldn't die—and that she wouldn't have to survive on her hated enemy's semen.
"Sniff. Slurp, slurp. Sob..."
Tears welled up again in eyes I'd thought finally dry.
Hmph. As a gentleman, I'll pretend not to notice. She probably doesn't want to show weakness in front of me either.
Instead, I'll enjoy the view of her cleavage glistening from the rain. Fair trade for saving her life, right?
"Ah!"
Akane's mind jolted.
"W-What? What's wrong?"
My mind shook too, busted for sneaking peeks at her chest.
Not busted, right? Eh, doesn't matter if it was. A peek at tits is cheap for a lifesaver. Not even live-action.
But it wasn't that simple.
"Mana's... leaking out..."
Akane clutched her chest as she said it.
Not to shield from my perverted gaze.
She was pressing the spot where I'd stabbed her before—like staunching blood from her heart.
"...Leaking mana? How much?"
"The mana that just came in... almost all of it..."
"All of it?"
"A little left, but... almost..."
Storm clouds gathered again in Akane's mind, freshly relieved.
The drop was steep. She was in deep shock.
Thought she'd survived, only to feel cheated. Like being picked up from rock bottom just to get slammed down again. No wonder the shock.
"...W-What do I do, Naibusu? What should I do?"
"Calm down. I'm thinking."
And I was shocked too.
I'm no doctor or scientist. No clue how to handle this freak situation.
All I know is this world's trash.
That it's the world of that trashy defilement game.
...Ah.
That's how it is.
So that's it.
"...Kh... kuhuhu."
"...Naibusu?"
Akane called out uneasily as I started laughing like a madman.
But I couldn't stop the laughter leaking out.
How could I not laugh at my own pointless flailing, repeating the same failure, my own patheticness?
I looked up from my bowed head, meeting Akane's anxious gaze.
And said it.
"Akane. Let's have sex."