A Night's Outing
Before they set out in earnest to roam the place called Sector 8, Dojin and Cally dug through the trash one more time, found a couple of bucket hats, shook them out, and pulled them on.
Already rooting through garbage like it's nothing…
Dojin marveled at his own adaptability.
"Ah! D-Dojin, I think you've gotten taller… and your arms and legs look thicker, too…"
He had paused a moment in front of the door, and Cally spoke up from behind him, her voice small with surprise.
"What? Oh, now that you mention it… but that can happen, can't it? How does your kind usually grow?"
"We… well…"
He glared at her, irritated, as if telling her to just get on with it. She flinched and answered.
"As far as I know, we grow much like the natives here. I only looked into it while I was on the run, so I can't say it's exact."
He nodded.
"Right… let's go, then."
Creak!
He opened the door with his senses sharpened, then began to circle the area as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Starting from the cursed house where they had been staying, Dojin and Cally widened their range little by little, ducking into alleys and back out again in irregular patterns, like spies shaking a tail.
Curious why he was moving so strangely, Cally asked from behind him in a small voice.
"Dojin, why are we circling the area like this?"
"Hah… figures. Drift through space long enough and you wouldn't run into situations like this."
He explained that it was a technique for shaking off any possible surveillance and melting into a crowd.
"D-do heroes learn this sort of thing, too?"
"How would I know. I only know the training I got. I knew there were heroes before me, but I never really learned what they studied or mastered. I was too busy picking up whatever techniques they threw at me and knocking down the missions that kept landing on my head."
"I-I see…"
This place is a real mess, though. People are basically living in a sewage plant.
He looked around.
Judging by the level of technology here… it doesn't feel like the medieval world I woke up in as a hero, at least.
Concrete buildings. Multifamily tenements like cheap villas. Culture and technology were jumbled together without any order. Dojin walked along a waterway choked with wastewater, burning the lay of the place into his memory.
No question. The farther south we get from that so-called cursed spot, the denser the population. Is that a brothel district? Oh… red lights here, too?
He moved through the swarming crowd and regarded, with a dry eye, the half-naked women already soliciting customers in broad daylight.
The writing… it's the same script I used back when I was a hero. Wonder if the grammar's changed.
"Hey! I'm telling you, the girls at Daol are the best!"
"Right? Last time with Ritta… god, I thought I was gonna lose my mind!"
"Kh… Ritta… my crotch is already aching."
"And Daol cuts their booze with less junk, too. Last time Bart drank somewhere else, he collapsed and just died. You've gotta be careful."
Contrary to Dojin's worries, he had no trouble understanding the talk of the gaunt, starved men at every stall, their eyes as lifeless as a dead fish's.
Then again, I understood Cally right away. What am I even worrying about. Hah. My head's a mess. Or it isn't.
They kept roaming Sector 8 well into the deepening night. Then Dojin stopped abruptly in front of a street-stall bar whose lights were flickering. As naturally as anything, he picked up a fruit knife and an empty iron skewer lying on a table and spoke to Cally.
"Cally… we're leaving."
"Yes!"
Their footsteps fell. When they were nearly back at their base, Dojin asked her quietly.
"Hey. How well can you fight?"
"Me? I'm stronger than ordinary people, at least."
"Tsk… I'd have to see it to know."
He muttered to himself, then turned into a darker alley.
They stopped short.
"Hey… you there! The woman and the runt! Where you two wandering off to at this hour?"
A man with a thick, rough voice halted them, then closed the distance fast.
"The woman can come play with us… and the runt—ghk!"
Whish! Whish! Whish!
Dojin whipped his arm like a lash and flung the fruit knife and the iron skewer at the two men coming up behind.
"Damn it… strength this lacking. Still, is this much usable?"
"Gaaaaah!! My eye!!"
The thinner man dropped to his knees, helpless, the skewer buried in his eye, his hands shaking violently. Behind him, the bigger man had the knife in his throat. Blood fountained out, and all he could manage was a wet gurgle and the hiss of air leaving him.
Dojin walked up to the thin man, blind in an instant, and spoke.
"Skill… exactly the level of a two-bit thug from a slum back alley. And the goal… the woman? There were places selling people earlier. You planning to sell her off there?"
He set a finger on the skewer he had thrown and gave it a slight twist.
"Aaaagh! Hah… it hurts!! Grrraaagh!!"
He paused.
"Well now… this is pretty good, actually. Not as good as the Malice I felt during sex, but it's its own delicacy. Is this fear? Pain? Something like that? Ah… he gave up already."
It wasn't the thick, clinging richness he had tasted when he was with Cally, but the Malice still had a decent flavor.
"It seems like several things are mixed in together."
"Worth tormenting, then. But he gives up too fast. The despair, too… yeah… it's all ri—"
In that instant Dojin became aware of himself, appraising the flavor of Malice as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Ha… damn it… I'm really not human anymore… haha… hahaha…"
"D-Dojin…"
Cally stood behind him and hung her head like a criminal.
"Hah…"
Shhhk!
He cut the hollow laugh short and yanked the skewer out of the thin man's eye.
Gush, gush! A wet spill—
"Gyaaaaaaah!!"
Blood surged from the man's eye and poured out.
"Mm…… Cally. Don't just stand there like you've committed a crime. Search that man's body. See if there's anything useful. I'll go through this one."
Thuk! Thuk!
Gripping the pulled skewer in a reverse hold, Dojin stabbed the man's neck twice in a flash. A gurgle, a cough. The man clamped a hand over the holes in his throat, blood frothing at his mouth, and collapsed to the ground.
"Tsk… these guys are beggars, too. Cally. Is this the currency around here?"
From the thin man's pocket he pulled a small jackknife and a square scrap of iron engraved with a peculiar pattern, and shook them at her.
"Yes… that's right. It's one penny."
"How much is that worth?"
"Um… as far as I know, it's the price of one loaf of hard bread here."
"Ah… in my day it was gold. Tsk. Feels like just yesterday I was throwing around millions of gold."
Grumbling, Dojin started pulling the man's pants off. When Cally stared a little too blankly, he made an annoyed face.
"The pants look decent."
She nodded without a word and went back to searching the bigger man's body.
For several days Dojin and Cally kept roaming various parts of Sector 8, but the district was too vast to cover entirely on foot.
Schlick! Schlick! Thuk! Thuk!
"It's about time I ran some experiments… ngh! We don't have time, so squeeze your pussy tighter!!"
Smack——!
Dojin slapped Cally where she knelt on the mattress with her hips raised high, and snapped his waist forward.
"Mmph♥ ngh♥ hhaaang! Hnn! Y-yes♥"
Thud! Thud! Thwap! Thud! Thud!
"I'm coming!!"
He drove in to the hilt.
"Hyaaaaa♥"
Spurt, spurt, spurt.
Dojin hauled her ass tight against his pelvis and poured out thick, hot, cloudy semen.
"Hah… hah…"
He drew rough breaths and checked on her.
"Cally? Cally!!"
"I-I'm sorry, Dojin…"
"…"
There was nothing sorry in her face. She was floundering in pleasure and the apology had come out on reflex.
Smack!!
"Get up. Quickly, within reason."
"Hah… my legs… they won't hold me…"
In the end Dojin had no choice but to wait until she recovered.
An hour later.
"Starting today, I'm going to kidnap a few people and run some experiments."
"On what?"
Cally looked up at him. In only a few days he had shot up in height.
"Your saliva. You said it puts people in heat, right? I still don't understand my own Trait, so I should start with what I do know."
"Ah…"
"First I'm taking women. One ordinary woman, and one who sells her body. Grab too many and then I've got to feed them and deal with all the rest of it. Too much of a hassle. You understand?"
Cally quietly raised her hand.
"Go on. Ask."
"But why women?"
"I'll do men too, eventually. It's men who spend the real money on this sort of thing, so the main clientele has to be men."
"I-is that so?"
She looked at him with an expression that understood nothing at all.
"Everything else about you is succubus. Shame the sense for this kind of thing is lacking."
"Hehe…"
"…"
Leaving her bright, innocent smile behind him, Dojin opened the door and stepped outside.
His footsteps fell. He walked toward the open-air market that was busiest in the daytime.
Three rivers ran through Sector 8. From the south, out of Sector 5, came the Tig River, choked with sewage. From the northwest, out of Sector 6, came the Euph River, carrying all manner of research wastewater. And between those two, the largest of them, flowed the Gar River.
Where Dojin was headed now was the market beside that Gar River, the one that cut straight through the dead center of Sector 8.
Thirty minutes of walking brought them there. Dojin and Cally settled into a suitable alley and began looking for a target.
"Dojin! What about that woman?"
"Too thin."
"Then over there…"
"Well… I suppose I should test it on someone overweight, too. But how many centuries would it take to move that?"
Cally kept pointing out the women passing by, but none of them caught Dojin's eye.
I'd like someone I can have a decent fuck with, too.
"Dojin, then what about that woman? She looks unusually well-nourished. Mm… her chest isn't as big as mine, but it's quite something… and her frame looks good, too…"
He stroked her head.
"Good find, Cally. Excellent. Let's move."
"Yes!"
Cally opened her right palm, set it against the center of her chest, and dipped her head in a small bow.