Chapter 49: This Woman's Lower Body Is Incredible
Safel Dulla was quite a distance from the academy, so we had to eat lunch and head out right away. Trains ran at night too, but with classes starting up again tomorrow, we couldn't afford to come back too late. Even calling it a two-day, one-night trip, tomorrow's itinerary would only allow us to visit one or two spots. After a brief discussion with no other real options in mind, we settled on a ranch as our next destination.
Yura Konstantia boarded a rented carriage for the day with her two students. Given the city's focus on horse racing, carriages were plentiful and reasonably priced. With time being short anyway, everyone agreed riding one made the most sense.
Ranches were typically located outside the city. They belonged to the "Safel Dulla region," but not the urban heart of Safel Dulla itself. As the carriage rattled along, Beni stole occasional glances straight ahead from within the boxy, enclosed interior.
The seating was the usual arrangement: the two students side by side, with Yura sitting alone opposite them. The difference this time? There was no table between them like there normally would be. Come to think of it, this was probably the first time Beni had ridden in a carriage with Yura. The thought flickered through her mind.
Yura was reading a book about the size of her palm. Her calm, steady gaze fixed on the pages, her gloved fingertips flipping them with a soft rustle. Sunlight slanted through the small window, illuminating her tawny skin. Her sharp eyes slowly tracked across the text, amber irises glinting. In a crowd of ordinary folk—politics aside—she looked like someone any man might pick out at random. If only she showed any interest in that sort of thing, she'd have left a trail of local husbands at every outpost she was stationed at. It was the kind of beauty that even made another woman sigh in admiration.
The cadets gossiped about it too—"She's insanely hot"—though Beni had only overheard in passing, never joining in.
Anyway, for all her stunning looks, Beni's gaze kept drifting not to Yura's face.
Normally, her lower half would be hidden by the table in this setup. What Beni fixated on now were those legs, neatly clad in her crisp military trousers.
In this world, there existed something one might call the sixth sense. Not a metaphor for intuition, nor the body's proprioception. And definitely not a nod to Yura's voluptuous figure.
It was a literal additional sensory organ. What it perceived... well, in Yura Konstantia's language, it was hard to sum up neatly. Even after three years since her past-life memories returned, there were still a few things she hadn't fully grasped. Mostly related to people—especially their appearances.
How did they tell ages apart when everyone stopped aging? With every face so pretty, how did they distinguish the mediocre from the exceptional? Yura had never gotten beyond "you just know when you see it." Because that's all there was to it. Seeing, hearing, sensing it through the soul in tandem with the other senses. Like how those with "good intuition" read someone's "aura."
It was a common ability among this world's humans—and beastkin too. They didn't even give it a fancy name like "sixth sense." Just as distinguishing colors was part of "vision" despite being separate from detecting light, this was similar. You just felt it by looking.
In other words, Yura's current inability to sense it was like color blindness. If forced to name it, maybe "sixth-sense blindness."
Anyway, this sense picked up all sorts of info. Much of it about people's traits.
And prestige was one such trait, perceived by staring at exposed lower bodies. It couldn't be precisely quantified, but you could gauge rough highs and lows. And generally, prestige size was equated with bedroom prowess.
Prestige was the total sum of innate sexual ability: endurance and durability there, internal organ structure, finger dexterity. All scored and tallied. Even technique was innate, like instinctively knowing how to move your arms—no teacher needed. In this world, it was genetic.
Of course, prestige didn't decide everything. A fun time involved many factors beyond it. And it ignored all acquired skills. Still, it was the most intuitive, universal gauge of raw talent in that arena. In a world where growth halted at a certain age with no aging, innate genetics loomed large.
Societally, people often took prestige size as straight-up bedroom combat power. Like comparing penis size back on modern Earth—important as a metric, but not the only factor.
Anyway, Beni had clearly clocked Yura's yesterday—technically dawn today, but whatever.
...And she was still thinking about it now.
"You crazy bitch? You a lesbian or something?"
Anyone hearing about it would probably hurl accusations like that. From this world's women's perspective, yesterday was just a minor mishap. In Earth terms: "Whoops, sorry, didn't know you were there." Even bringing it up later: "Hey, remember the bathhouse? That guy's dick was huge."
Of course, accounting for Beni's timid, shy nature...
Even so, originally, seeing someone pee in front of a man would shock more than glimpsing nudity. Your own exposure sticks harder than what you see, right?
Yet the image wouldn't leave Beni's mind for one reason: that prestige she'd glimpsed.
...Massive. A little. A lot. Specifically, evoking those energy drink ads with the hyper-muscular dude.
A presence that crushed her as a woman. Prestige wasn't physical, yet it felt like radiant, multicolored light pouring from Yura's body.
Back then, her own embarrassment overshadowed it. But now, with time passed, the shock lingered.
Yura didn't know it yet, but during her combat band days, much of the sexual harassment stemmed from this. High-but-reasonable prestige just earned crude jokes—not harassment here, given gender sensitivities.
But Yura Konstantia? A messiah dispatched by a parallel-realm goddess to guarantee combat strength on night ops. Her "that" was a mind-scarring eidetic nightmare, even for non-photographic memories—forcing screams of "Get out of my head!"
Facing her hours later, even primly dressed and seated, the thought crept in unbidden: "Her insides are that impressive...?"
"Beni. You listening?"
"Huh? Y-yes, yep! I am."
A voice from beside her snapped Beni out. Riley had paused mid-rant, staring at her face.
"You think so too, Beni?"
"Uh, you mean... about the horses?"
"Exactly. The Empire's shackled by weak ideas like 'modifying horses without permission is illegal'..."
Riley's eyes sparkled at Beni's reply, plunging ahead.
"So just get permission! See? I'm pretty smart!"
"Uh, um, yeah."
Beni could only muster an awkward smile.
'That's exactly why they made it illegal...'
She thought it, but saying so would just get "I'm not wrong; the law's too soft."
"So, uh, how do you plan to get that permission?"
Logical dissuasion was hopeless. Beni pivoted.
"I'll... uh, use Teacher Chance. Tell her."
"......"
Without hesitation, she tossed it to Yura. Beni smacked her own forehead.
"I'll skip the detailed procedures. You can consult experts for that."
Yura's eyes stayed on her book, but she'd clearly been listening. She snapped it shut.
"But if you're keeping sea things alive for use, you need a solid justification. Especially since Tampmasters are wedge-rank."
On the western continent, sea things got threat-ranked. Thorn-rank: pluckable by hand, barely "threats"—more like regular beasts. Manageable by untrained civilians with decent physique.
Thus, the real threats started with the next five, excluding thorns.
Needle: teetering on beast territory.
Awl: no land equivalent.
Wedge: even armies struggle without big numbers.
Stake: deeper, tougher.
Pillar: what easterners called dragons or dragon kings.
Thorn-to-needle gap was huge: wolf to bear. And it scaled up.
"I wanna ride something stronger!"
"Personal desires aren't valid justification, Miss Riley."
"Guh... then, uh, then..."
Playing with a wedge-rank like a toy? No easy permit.
Riley groaned at Yura's point.
"I wanna spread Groomha culture to the Empire!"
"By Empire ethics, that's not exchange—it's correction."
"Urk, why?!"
"'Cause... it's dangerous, right?"
Beni chimed in last. Yura nodded agreement, then patted her knee.
Not offering a lap pillow. Her left hand rested on her left leg.
"Do you know why my leg's like this?"
"Uh... no idea."
"Wasn't it... during an op?"
Beni ventured cautiously. Holy arts and healing magic weren't omnipotent. Empire conscripts bore all sorts of scars—not rare. Missed windows, irreparable damage, repeated trauma...
"I heard it was during a pillar subjugation..."
"Not entirely wrong, but it's half propaganda. Soldier loses leg mid-pillar-breaking op... perfect hero fodder, right?"
Hence the dramatic name. I never even faced that pillar myself.
Yura gave a faint, wry smile.
"Tampmaster. That bitch did this to my leg."
"That's..."
"Oh, parasite's still lodged in my knee pit."
She said it jokingly, but the mood didn't lighten.
"Tampmasters warp host flesh: tougher, stringier, aura-conductive meat. Like your tribe's mods, Miss Riley—an application."
Warp most of the horse's body, infuse aura for strength. Manipulate infused aura for intense, precise motion. Basically, a super-durable puppet doll, Yura elaborated.
"Problem is, it's fundamentally parasitic. Sea things exist to attack humanity. It could rampage anytime."
"Can't it be healed...?"
"This isn't damage."
Yura patted her knee again.
"This state becomes the new 'normal.' Holy arts or heals just revert to tentacles bursting through flesh, writhing."
Beni paled imagining it.
"That's why it's wedge-rank despite meh combat power."
One hit, you're done. Irreversible. That permanence elevates a mere wriggler to wedge.
"So they kill Tampmasters and leave 'em untreated."
"......"
Silence fell again. Beni figured it was no ordinary wound—unhealable by holy arts—but not this dire.
"Anyway, if you get mod approval from above, no need to source parasites. Borrow the one in my knee temporarily."
Unable to bear the awkwardness, Yura joked. But true to first impressions, her humor fell flat.
"...Sorry, Teacher."
"Hm? No need. Just warning about risks—not scolding."
Riley deflated like a scolded pup, mumbling.
"Nah. We'll just ride live horses as-is."
"If that's your call, I'm all for it. Gotta prioritize your safety."
For all her recklessness, Riley wasn't rotten inside.
...She couldn't brazenly suggest fire play to someone scarred by an arson incident.