Chapter 103 — Two — Faced (5)
Chapter 103 — Two — Faced (5)
"What did you use to do, in the past?"
Her lips drew nearer.
They came close to Roan's lips.
A sweet fragrance wafted from her body.
The scent of a juicy, sweet fruit.
"I was curious about the feel of your body. Your lips. Your chest.... And below. What kind of face would you make once you were an adult? I kept imagining it."
Fiora smiled with her eyes.
It was a smile fully capable of shaking a man's heart.
A stunning beauty throwing blatant temptation from the bed.
And so, even though she was the sword he kept close at hand, Roan found himself growing wary instead.
He remembered the way she had looked the moment she drank blood.
Yet Insight, Attentive Hearing, and Detection all showed no discernible negative reaction so far.
Roan thought he ought to learn a bit more about Fiora,
but his body was honest.
Beneath his trousers, Roan's member was stirring and swelling in size.
Fiora gazed down at it as if it were something to be cherished.
"How hot must yours be."
As soft fingers stroked down over the glans and shaft through the fabric of his trousers, Roan's body gave a flinch.
When Fiora had first thrown herself at Roan, he had likewise failed to react in time.
He felt both an urge to let her do as she pleased with his body and an urge to resist her somehow.
'Why does my body... feel as if it's frozen.'
It was a first-time experience.
Only then did Roan understand what his trembling meant. He recalled the conversation he had shared with the Lord of the West Blood Territory after their sparring match.
— When you encounter an overwhelmingly powerful opponent, you cower, I suppose you could say. Your limbs feel as though they're moving differently from the usual.
Until now, Roan had never met anyone stronger than himself.
Perhaps Fiora was that first powerhouse.
The Demon King's body grew keenly tense.
Fiora, however, had good instincts.
Without pausing her caresses, she let out a small, bright laugh.
It was a laugh as clear and crystalline as the sound of a bell.
"Roan. Do not worry. I am merely a tool curious about your strength, after all."
Roan's reply, however, sounded rather curt.
"It's not fair. Fiora. Then what about you—who are you?"
Fiora's eyes, which had been softly smiling, widened.
As if startled, she fixed her amethyst eyes on him for a moment, and then a subtle smile rose to her lips.
"You mean me."
Fiora resumed the movement of her fingertips, which had paused briefly, and murmured,
"That is a wonderfully fresh question. As expected, Roan is a diligent and excellent student."
He studied Fiora's words and expression.
Usually when Fiora said something like that,
it was either because he had accurately hit upon her hidden intention,
or because he had splendidly struck somewhere she had never even considered....
"When a woman with a figure like this springs out of a sword, most men would grin foolishly and throw themselves straight at these breasts, you know."
Fiora gave her breasts a slight shake. Her voluptuous—in truth, a word of that caliber could not even cover their size—breasts heaved with violence.
It was true that the urge to do just that kept surging up inside him even now.
Fiora was fanning that desire.
But for some reason, he suspected that the Former Empress's instruction to keep Fiora's jewel stored separately all this time had a reason behind it.
The moment she had acquired a body, Fiora was throwing herself at him brazenly like this, after all.
Fortunately, he was not starved for sex.
He had just finished pouring himself out into Rauka devotedly until dawn.
Once he confirmed that Fiora had no particular ulterior purpose, that she was genuinely and simply pent-up,
then he could wedge his cock between those wicked breasts and cover her face in semen.
But a powerhouse was dangerous by her mere existence.
Until he fully grasped her intent, he needed to stay cautious.
After all, he was not desperately struggling to survive the Hero for nothing.
In his original world, the reason he had paid careful attention to what others said was so that a man with no backing and no overwhelming skill like himself could survive that cesspit of a world.
That principle had never failed him here, either.
Roan sorted through his thoughts.
'Fiora is favorably disposed toward me.
She always has been, and even now she does not particularly dislike my tension or wariness. I don't know the exact duration of her manifestation, but it must have a limit.'
So there likely would be no problem with him asking whatever he wanted.
The worst possible scenario would be her pouncing on him, or something like that....
Suddenly Roan asked in a hard voice,
"You—can you kill me?"
It was a fatal mistake.
Fiora, who had already been unfastening Roan's belt, opened her eyes wide and stared at him.
Her deep pink eyes flashed for an instant.
The moment a smile curved across her crimson lips and her tongue traced across them—
"?!"
Roan's Star Cloud Shield was a beat too slow.
A technique one might see only in a martial arts novel.
Fiora's hilt was drawn into her manifestation's hand, and in that instant she swung the blade at Roan's chest at a speed like light.
But no wound appeared on Roan's chest, which had failed to deploy the shield in time.
For none of the blade Fiora had thrust reached Roan's body.
Gazing at Roan's horrified face, Fiora carefully lowered the sword.
"I cannot kill Roan in any case. That is how this sword was forged. But it was a good question. This is precisely why I cannot help but like you, you see."
As if to reassure him,
Fiora stroked Roan's cheeks with both hands several times.
"Cautious. Thorough. But if your means of defense are not reliable, provoking a powerhouse is unwise. Was it a slip of the tongue? Or were you confident you could deploy that new technique?"
"...It was a mistake."
Roan's words came out sulkier than he intended.
Fiora gazed at him as if he were precious.
"Kiruina probably sealed my power, too, for the day when Roan grew this strong."
Fiora's lips came close to Roan's lips. A warm and sweet breath.
Roan could no longer refuse.
His lips parted slightly.
The instant Fiora's moist tongue met his—
"...?!"
A tingling sensation.
Roan's eyes, which had been closing on their own, flew wide open.
Looking at Roan, who had drawn his lips away, Fiora cast him a sidelong glance.
"Hmmm, you fled."
"Fiora. Who are you."
Now Roan no longer hid his wariness.
"What are you trying to do to me?"
But that question was futile.
Fiora was steadily unfastening his trousers, and Roan had no right to refuse her.
Yet Fiora was a dutiful teacher and companion, so her answer was as dutiful as ever.
"If I had to put it into words, I would call it utilization."
Focused on a trouser button that had not been coming undone easily, Fiora smiled as she looked at Roan.
"I said it earlier, but this is the first time I've ever heard a question like this from a man. Only female swordsmen have been able to pull their minds away from these breasts and ask such things. I was fairly confident, too."
Fiora shrugged her shoulders.
And along with it, her breasts swayed up and down—a heavy surge.
Even in a situation that stirred fear, he could not help but feel his gaze drawn to that soft motion.
"It is a gloomy tale, so I do not care to speak of it in detail either, but I, who once was a living being in the distant past, have chosen to accept the fact that I am now an inanimate object."
The smile on her face remained unchanged, but what could be felt in her resigned words was sorrow.
"Still, fortunately, I do occasionally have moments when I can use a human body. The best method is to receive a human's life force."
Only then did everything fall into place.
Demon Sword Fiora.
The reason she craved blood.
The way she had been blissful while drinking in blood.
And that what she wanted from him now was his bodily fluids.
"You seem to have understood. Yes. Blood, which causes life itself to flow, is supreme. But I cannot harm my master's life. So I content myself with receiving the byproducts instead. A long-overdue pleasure is a bonus."
Her alluring voice grew sticky.
"Such as semen. Or saliva."
Her tongue licked across Roan's lips once more.
It was a sensation as if his lips were being numbed—as if this was what it would feel like if poison touched them—or as if a faint current of electricity were flowing.
"I suppose there is a way where you could spit on me. But the quantity aside, for one thing, it does not sound very pleasant to the eyes. As I said earlier, would it not be better to make use of the opportunity while it is here?"
Insight revealed no falsehood.
Attentive Hearing also conveyed her sincerity.
As far as Roan's skills could perceive,
she genuinely desired Roan's body out of a pure urge to manifest and sexual desire.
"Then what about if you mishandle the force?"
"...Pardon?"
"The force you absorb from me, if it becomes too excessive... ngh...."
"Mmh... ah...."
Fiora had no intention of listening to his questions already.
The instant her moist lips brushed down over the glans, Roan's phallus was already sheathed inside Fiora's mouth.
At the sensation of the hot mucous membrane enveloping the glans and shaft, Roan clenched his teeth. A searing ache climbed up from his lower body.
Under the incredible stimulation, the urge to climax hurtled upward at an astonishing rate.
"And if... that causes the master to collapse.... has that never..., hngh, Fiora, w-wait...."
"Mmph... mmm.... It's, fine...."
Pretending not to hear Roan's question,
Fiora buried her head between his legs and began concentrating on swelling his erect member even more.
But a chill like cold water being dashed over him ran through Roan.
Fiora was simply sucking at his lower body without a word, yet through her incomplete answer alone he had seen the red concentric circles spreading outward.
Roan seized Fiora's silver hair in his grip and yanked it roughly.
"Mmhp—, haa. Do you... like this sort of thing?"
With an expression slightly melted by lust and her mouth smeared with saliva, Fiora gazed at Roan hazily.
"You—were you planning to kill me?"
Focus returned to Fiora's slackened eyes.
"Oh my, that was not my aim. Roan."
Truth.
"It is simply that my yearning to regain my body is great."
Truth.
"Although, if I were to see enough blood for manifestation, there would be no need to draw power from Roan either."
This, too—truth.
Roan's brow furrowed.
The former Demon King had perhaps known this, and fed Fiora blood through his mad rampaging.
Given the side of Fiora he now knew, it seemed altogether possible that she could have coaxed that bastard with words.
"Roan. When I manifest, I can do more things than you might think. I could be your sleepless bodyguard, or I could become a means of carrying out seduction missions or assassination."
Realizing that seduction was now off the table, Fiora began to promote herself in a different way.
Her words grew a little faster.
As if she had grown urgent.
But her presentation did not last long.
"In whatever way. I shall make you... h-helpful...."
Her body began to turn transparent.
For the first time, her face twisted.
"Mm, you are more of an iron wall than I expected. The original Roan would have had cause to grumble."
"My policy is: sex comes after you've shared hearts."
"That is unbecoming of a Demon King."
Fiora's last words were a half-joking rebuke.
And then Fiora's presence vanished completely.
Stillness filled the bedchamber.
Only then did Roan realize that he had been biting his own lip.
Enough that blood had beaded on it.
His lips, which he had barely managed to unclench, throbbed.
"...Fiora."
As expected, there was no answer.
There had been periods when she would fall silent
after they had conversed at length.
Now that he thought about it, in a situation where she was not even consuming blood, conversing with him might have consumed her energy as well.
But if she was originally a person....
giving up on conversation must have been difficult.
Being crazed with obsession to that degree was, if anything, mild. Was it because she had previously been able to manifest occasionally?
To take a further leap,
perhaps her previous masters, upon hearing such words from Fiora, had willingly swung the sword for her sake.
To feed her more blood,
to use her more.
As Fiora herself had said, her methods of use were endless.
She could be used for self-protection, or used to satisfy sexual needs. Whatever the situation, he could not picture her ever refusing.
In any case, for her, it would have been a chance to extend her time of manifestation.
And when the master died in the process—.
She probably would have smiled and said, "It cannot be helped," just as she had earlier.
Was that how she had become a demon sword.
"...Did I push too far?"
It was a story conjured from imagination alone.
Until now, she had simply been 'Demon Sword Fiora,' one of the 'in-game items.' He had never felt the need to look into her deeply.
Even when she talked to him, bullied him, and forced training on him, he had regarded her as merely a convenient tool, something like the only bamboo grove that knew the person called 'me' who had come from another world.
But he had learned that she could become a person.
'In a state where I can't trust the sword I wield.... I need to find out more.'
Was there no document or the like left behind by the Former Empress?
She had left the jewel to the Lord of the West Blood Territory, so he might know something more.
Roan sorted through his immediate tasks and let out a sigh.
'But honestly, this thing..., leaving it like this.'
That fellow, which had risen tall in anticipation of a heated moment ahead, showed no sign of subsiding.
He tried humming the national anthem a few times, but the visual stimulation Fiora's body had provided was too intense.
With a bitter smile, Roan pulled the cord to summon Grünent and entrust the aftermath to her.