Chapter 67 — The Dog and I (1)
Chapter 67 — The Dog and I (1)
Roan propped his chin on one hand and appeared to be listening to Helen with a languid expression, but that was not really the case.
Affection +32 was about the level of a mutual flirtation.
It was not the kind of number where someone laid their heart bare and shared deep troubles.
Though he found Helen's attitude puzzling, Roan offered an answer of his own.
"Revenge? Why not go ahead. Seeing the captain's conduct, you are hardly the only person who would want it. The man called death upon himself. At first he was clearly a guest, after all."
And at his next words, Helen was a little startled. It was something she had not expected a demon, especially the Demon King, to admit so readily.
"You said the Goddess told you. That we demons and you humans are both her children regardless."
"...Yes, Your Majesty."
"If the children squabble a little and one more returns to the Goddess's side, the Goddess will hardly be shocked at this point. Thousands and hundreds of thousands have already died in the name of war."
Helen was taken aback, because Roan's face looked melancholy as he spoke.
His long eyelashes trembled faintly.
"In a world this disordered, it cannot be helped. Revenge. Hatred. Sorrow."
Roan's voice, however, did not sound resigned.
"If each person tried to live as best they could, without shame, then I think that is enough. In that sense, I too am struggling to stop the war."
Two things came to Roan's mind at that moment.
"I will give you a chance."
And the back of the middle-aged man he had forgotten for a while, which had risen before his eyes in every hard moment after he decided to live a new life here.
The black shadow that had blotted out that crimson sunset.
He was doing his best now, without shame.
He was working hard.
Roan clenched the hand that had rested on the armrest into a fist. Bolstered by 'Will,' he spoke again as if making a vow to himself.
"Helen. You only need to do what you can. If it fails, let it go. You are not the Goddess. You are merely a human. Do you want revenge? Then do it."
'Appeal' conveyed to Helen everything Roan was feeling—the Will and the resolve alike.
The Demon King's voice sounded indifferent.
Yet a warm energy, as if patting her on the back, reached her.
Helen realized that these words the Demon King was speaking to her were also a vow directed at himself.
Sensing a kinship, Helen smiled faintly. He too was simply a person who struggled before the Goddess.
"Do not try to figure out what choices others will like. Focus on your life. Your own life. Live for yourself. Helen."
Roan's thoughts abruptly touched on something.
It was a thought he had had while watching the Saintess, who always lived in destitution in the game.
In CGs soaked with gore, she had been gasping and laughing even as she felt pain.
He had pitied her for it.
Even though his instincts had sought sadistic pleasure even from that sight, in a corner of his heart, sympathy and regret for her had remained.
So the words the Demon King added were like a fragment of memory drawn from his past recollections.
"You are someone of value to the Goddess simply by being yourself. Helen. You do not need to prove yourself by being tormented by anyone."
At the Demon King's words, Helen's breath caught.
Her hands began to tremble.
Helen's face reddened.
She, too, understood what Roan was talking about.
"How...."
But Roan averted his gaze and remained silent.
As though he had said nothing at all.
Memories Helen did not wish to recall surged into her mind all at once and then vanished. Helen shut her eyes.
The filthy things she had been forced to endure to survive.
The pain she had accepted before she knew it because she could not forgive herself for defiling the body the Goddess had given her.
Once she had thought that if she became a wreck, the Goddess might forgive her. But the Goddess had been merciful.
Even for a broken mess like herself who rejoiced even in her suffering, the Goddess had told her it was all right.
That her joy was her own.
And now the Demon King, too, was kindly telling her she did not need to prove herself through pain.
Tears slipped from the corners of Helen's closed eyes. She sensed the Goddess's footprints in Roan's words.
"It is strange. In Your Majesty's words."
Roan was equally startled by Helen's next words.
"I sense the traces of the Goddess."
"...."
Roan hesitated at a thought that suddenly occurred to him.
Would it be all right if it became known that the Demon King possessed holy power? Would the archdukes come charging in, raising a fuss that he was unqualified to be Demon King?
This trivial power, so insignificant he could simply pretend he did not have it and not show it—that would be the end of it.
Yet he felt that, somehow, it might be a great comfort to Helen.
'I'll just avoid telling the story about the Goddess saving my life. Well.'
He decided to think of it simply.
Because that was exactly what he had been telling Helen all along.
So in the end, Roan focused his power at his fingertips.
As Helen realized what form the gathered holy power was taking, her body flinched and went rigid.
When she finally spoke after a long pause, Helen's voice was soaked with a tremor and the threat of tears.
"Could this be... 'Starlight'...! Such power...."
She had recognized the magic, now obsolete and unknown to anyone else.
Her night-sky-colored eyes shook with fierce emotion.
"You were hiding such, such tremendous power! Could it be that Your Majesty...."
At her next words, Roan was flustered.
"Are you the Goddess's proxy?"
Uh, I'm not anything that grand...?
Roan's concentration broke in his fluster, and the starlight flickered and vanished.
Helen gazed at Roan's fingertips for a moment, as if regretful.
"So you knew everything."
Roan said nothing.
As if she were forlorn, and yet as if she were glad.
Helen nodded with a strange expression.
"So even while knowing I am defiled."
She smiled.
"That was why you spoke to me that way."
Helen's affection began to rise slowly.
Her affection started to pass +40.
"Did you want someone to forgive you?"
At Roan's question, Helen gave a small affirmative.
"Perhaps... I must have."
"Then."
Roan abruptly realized this was the right moment. Words that Helen might accept if he spoke them now.
"I shall forgive you."
The Demon King was smiling. As if to tempt her.
Helen simply stared blankly at his beautiful face.
"If you become my personal bitch."
At the unexpected word, Helen felt her mind go perfectly blank.
"......Pardon?"
But Roan was still looking straight at Helen, his enticing smile in place.
"You would become my personal sow—receiving my punishment, licking my feet, drinking my semen. Then I shall forgive you."
"What...."
Helen's body began to tremble more violently than ever before.
Roan could hear the sound effect of the affection value indicator going mad, ding-ding-ding-ding.
So Roan was able to understand
that the reason for Helen's trembling was different from before.
Her cheeks flushed red with arousal.
"You would be seduced by me, the Demon King, and betray the Church. But the Goddess dwells within me just as she dwells within you. Is that not enough? You do not need to seek forgiveness from humans."
The Demon King's smile was dazzling.
"Your guilt. Your defilement. I shall forgive it all. Become my dog, serve me, and forget everything."
Roan's low, sweet voice constricted Helen's heart. Her body felt as if it were melting.
Once, she might have restrained herself by recalling the doctrine of chastity.
But the Goddess had told her it was all right.
So Helen's answer
seemed a little buoyant.
"Yes."
Helen's affection rose by 30.
Helen's affection reached +70.
Roan's smile deepened.
Seated on the sofa, he inclined his chin slightly.
"Helen."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Here."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Helen rose from the sofa.
Seeing this, Roan spoke in a low voice.
"A bitch cannot walk."
Helen's body halted with a flinch.
But her hesitation was brief.
She had been tamed for a long time, after all.
Helen soon prostrated herself on all fours like a beast.
On hands and knees, Helen crawled forward and sat before Roan.
Roan's smile grew deeper still.
"Your answer to my forgiveness?"
"Thank...."
Helen could not continue.
She was steadying her breath, which had grown ragged with arousal.
"...Thank you, Your Majesty."
"Hm."
Roan smiled teasingly.
"A dog cannot speak in the first place, but...."
Helen's deep blue eyes, fixed on Roan's purple ones, trembled with anticipation.
"I shall permit you to speak, at least. That way."
The Demon King, still propping his chin, looked down at Helen with a deeply satisfied expression.
"You can report every last detail of your shame and pleasure, and beg your master for forgiveness. Is that not right? Helen."
"Yes, Your Majesty...."
As Helen answered as if entranced, she added one more word, as if something had just occurred to her.
In a voice that crept even lower.
"...Master."
Helen's eyes normally slanted upward, making her look faintly angry. Now, with her brows drawn low as she gazed at Roan in this situation, her eyes appeared almost defiant.
That only stirred his lewd desires all the more.
Helen had acknowledged Roan as her master.
The laughter vanished from Roan's face.
His expression shifted to that of a stern master.
Helen unconsciously gulped.
"A bitch who is impertinent before her master."
Roan let out a light sigh.
"You are wearing clothes without permission."
It felt as if Helen's breath had stopped at Roan's words.
"I apologize, Master."
Helen already seemed accustomed to it.
Apologizing to someone had been her daily life. Only the person receiving the apology had changed.
The bewitching master nodded kindly at the bitch's apology. The bitch felt a sense of relief.
"A moment. Excuse me."
She could not remain prostrate on all fours in order to remove her clothes.
Straightening her body, Helen began to unbutton her jacket one button at a time.
It was a training uniform consisting of a simple jacket, a shirt, and trousers, the kind that Evirgio knights wore during ordinary times. The comfortable clothes that Grünent had procured for Helen, who would have been accustomed to knightly attire.
The jacket slipped from Helen's pale fingertips.
Roan watched the scene with pleasure.
Because Helen's hands were trembling, her movements were a little slow, but it was not frustrating.
A self-abasing bitch, even if still clumsy, was endearing enough to overlook.
"Master...?"
Now in only her undergarments, Helen called to Roan as if seeking his permission.
"What is it?"
"My undergarments as well... I must... remove them."
"You state the obvious. What clothes would a dog...."
Roan, who had been speaking, suddenly fell into thought.
In the real world, quite a lot of people put clothes on their dogs. Insulated winter parkas, all sorts of cute scarves, hats, even shoes.
'Ah.... Then wouldn't wearing clothes be fine?'
After a brief hesitation, Roan settled his thoughts.
In the end, the peak of tuning was stock.
A dog was cute and pretty just as a dog.
Let me reflect just my own taste here.
"Take everything off and wear only the shirt."
Helen's eyes widened, but she possessed enough self-awareness not to question him.
"Yes, Master."
Having finished disrobing as Roan had instructed, Helen stood up straight before him.
"At ease."
Again, Helen's body moved briskly to the familiar command. Though her face was flushed with heat.
"Hm."
A satisfied exclamation escaped Roan's closed lips.
The perpetually angry cast of her eyes added to the savor of conquering her.
Through the wide-open white shirt, her large breasts bulged out, unable to be properly concealed.
Her mysterious sky-blue hair faintly veiled them. But it could no longer hide everything, not even the nipples that had already stiffened erect.
'He is watching....'
Under the gaze that seemed to appraise her, Helen did not know what to do with her heating body.
Roan's line of sight traveled downward.
"Hmm."
Helen trembled when she confirmed where he was looking.
The place where his gaze was fixed was the space between her spread legs.
The gap parted between her thighs,
the plump mound of flesh radiated intense heat,
and between them, the transparent, viscous fluid began to drip drop by drop.
The lubricating fluid, anticipating the pleasure to come,
beaded up and, unable to resist its own weight, ran down in a long trickle.
Falling through the air, the droplet of arousal fluid left behind a long, threadlike trail.
At Roan's words upon seeing this, Helen shuddered.
"What a lewd bitch you are."
When she looked at Roan, unable to say a word, he furrowed his brows slightly.
"Answer."
"Yes.... Yes. I am a lewd bitch."
"A lewd cunt deserves punishment, does it not?"
At her master's smiling eyes, Helen unknowingly smiled along with him.
"Yes, Master. A lewd cunt... deserves punishment...."