This Body's Gifted as Hell
"Ugh. Piece of shit."
Seira set the bottle down on the bar and used it as a brace to haul herself up.
"Seira! Come around this way just once more!"
"I've got money to spare!"
The customers were still calling after her. The ones who'd seen the stage were still riding that high, and even those who'd come in late and missed the show were pounding their tables, swept up in the rumor that she'd put on one hell of a performance.
Seira hesitated for a moment.
...No covering left, and my dignity's hanging on a single scrap of cloth?
But it was money.
She made a slow circuit of just a few more tables. Mid-pour, if a fingertip so much as grazed her thigh—
"Nnh..."
Her hypersensitive body reacted first. Even so, she filled the glasses with cool composure. Some of the patrons traced her cheeks with their eyes; others aimed their gazes under her skirt—
"Keep that up and you'll blow your balls off."
On stage she had been an object of lust, but up close she was something you didn't dare touch—an expensive, dangerous flower. That was Seira.
She poured for the last table and tossed out a line.
"That's last call for tonight."
Making her way back toward the bar, Seira let out a sigh.
Making money's easy. The stamina on this body is complete garbage, though.
One ride on that pole and her legs were still shaking, the scrap of cloth covering her was riding up, and the men were in heat like dogs...
"Boss. Let's settle up."
At that moment, nothing occupied Seira's brain but numbers. It was hardly the attitude of an employee, but given tonight's take, she could've told the boss to massage her feet and it would've been fair.
"Ohoho! Of course. Our pretty little lady."
The boss's grin looked like it might never come down. Seira settled at the bar with a lazy sway and watched every click of the abacus, every coin that went into the pouch. She didn't miss a thing.
"Base pay of ten silver a day, plus one percent incentive—that's thirty silver. Tips: one gold piece and two hundred seventy-four silver. Is this even a number that comes out of our shop?"
If the incentive ran that high, the boss had just vacuumed up something like a quarter's worth of revenue. Still, this was her place. A little respect was due.
"You look happy."
"You coming in for two more days is the source of all my happiness."
"Just give me enough for a meal for now. And in case you're wondering—if you stiff me, I'll burn this place down and hunt you till you die."
"My, how scary. Don't you worry. You think this is my first day in business?"
It was a pretty hefty sum for that kind of talk, though. The pouch Seira had earned didn't just jingle—it sloshed. The boss fished ten silver out of the bag and winked.
"Get plenty of rest, and come in looking pretty tomorrow, alright?"
"Got it."
Seira plucked the coins from her hand and gave a lazy wave, barking at the men who tried to follow her out.
Wrapped in a borrowed cloak, Seira stepped onto the street and licked her lips. It was nowhere near the gold pouch she'd originally had, but a single day's work had more than covered a functional robe, plus inn fees, meals, and spare clothes besides.
I'll earn tomorrow too. And the day after. I'm going to wring every last drop out of this fucked-up body and get the hell out of here.
The night air mixed cheap liquor with the metallic grind of carriage wheels. The streets still held their share of rowdy drunks, but Seira slipped through them with ease, heading for the inn.
No—Leon, setting that name aside for a moment, peeled off the sweat-soaked uniform to dry and muttered to herself. A single candle wavered from the ceiling. She'd washed herself clean, her purse was getting fatter, and yet...
Leon lay naked on the cheap bed, licking her lips as she thought.
"With this body... how far can I actually go?"
This wasn't just some appearance-altering spell. The structure of the body itself had changed, the senses too—something more tightly, more sensitively bound than a simple glamour.
Anyway, if this was—surely not, but if it was permanent, she had to stop the escapist jerking off and actually figure out how to reverse this body.
Leon Belgard. Unaffiliated mage. A man the clerics and the magic guilds alike had called a rootless heretic.
The discrimination he'd faced had left him hating official outfits like the royal palace and the magic guilds, but if this body was really going to stay this way, she'd have to go crawling to those bastards anyway.
"Let's see... the Royal Mage Corps."
Leon, who'd once blown a forbidden-magic experiment and caused a mana explosion in the Capital Southern District. He'd barely slipped out of that one by arguing he wasn't the ringleader, but the palace was probably still listing him as a person of interest.
But with this appearance now... this face, this body—would they even recognize her? Maybe she could play dumb and at least get her hands on the old records... ah, no. Too many precious, high-and-mighty types in a place like that. Walk in wrong and she'd probably get locked up for insulting someone just by opening her mouth.
Pass.
"The magic guild? Access would be better than the royal palace, at least. Those guys are picky as hell, but still."
The closest one happened to be Servella Tower in the central region, where the elite mages gathered. Prideful, insular bastards—but one thing was certain: they were obsessed with magic.
If she showed up, though, those assholes would slap labels like "restoration potential," "mana circuit realignment experiments," "gender-transition mana effects" on her and get obsessed with the research. And since Leon wasn't guild-affiliated, getting in would mean submitting her own body as a research subject. Basically entering a Who Can Fix Me First competition.
They might actually fix her... but how many people would pass her around before they actually did was anyone's guess.
Pass.
"So that leaves mercenary bastards and the clergy?"
Unaffiliated types were as rootless as she was, so their magic research wouldn't amount to much. Clerics, though. Yeah. Clerics!
"Cleric Mage groups. They say it's not magic—it's the power of the gods."
Of course they weren't exactly a friendly bunch either. Their view of unaffiliated mages was "wandering heretic." Reach out a hand and they might just burn you.
...But I'm an unknown woman now, aren't I?
It was obvious, but it was a pretty useful card. With this face, this body, playing the pitiful woman cursed and seeking help wasn't even out of the question.
Plus, Cleric Mages treated bodily aberrations and abnormal mana distortions as targets for purification. Exceptional magic like bodily reconstruction might even fall under the restoration branch of holy magic. And they wanted faith, never money.
"Umm..."
Though if she didn't go back and just stayed put, they'd check if she was a virgin so they could make her a nun, and if she did go back, her identity would get exposed and she'd just pile up more hostility.
But there was a clear reason she had to reverse this, beyond having been turned from a man into a woman, beyond this body that was all huge tits being a pain in the ass. The longer this went on, the more her mind—the part that recognized mana circuits—would adapt to this body.
The problem with adaptation was that it meant settling in. Even if she took a week off, mana still had to be honed with precision. Leon closed her eyes and swept a hand through her hair.
"...Alright. First, I make a shitload of money at the tavern through the day after tomorrow."
After that—
The Eliyes Monastery, where the Cleric Mages were. She'd pay them a quiet visit. Trap or opportunity, it was currently the most plausible place that might actually put her back to normal.
Destination set, travel funds to be earned here first—all that was left was to knock out a good night's sleep.
This body, however, had other ideas.
"Ugh, fuck, why's it tingling."
Between her legs—nothing was even touching her, but those soft thighs and that unused, defenseless pussy kept faintly scratching at her insides with the sensation of riding that pole.
"Unbelievable. Truly unbelievable."
Seira flicked the blanket aside with one hand. That moment on stage, grinding her crotch against the pole, the covering slipping off, metal grazing flesh—that subtle sensation kept flickering through her mind even now.
"Shit, why'd I get this sensitive..."
She grumbled and spread her legs. Her bare pussy, even after washing, was already a little wet again. She gave it a light rub with the blanket she'd kicked aside.
"...Nnh."
A small gasp slipped out on its own. Her mind had cooled, but her body was still burning. Before she knew it, Leon was bringing her fingers there, muttering.
"Just once. Just to take the edge off."
This was quality control, not masturbation. As if telling herself that changed anything. Her hips were already lifting slightly.
Pleasure, it turned out, arrived more quietly and more secretly than you'd think. Eyes closed, she whispered as she slowly rubbed the entrance of her wet pussy.
"Fucking hell..."
She filled it with two fingers, and even that simple stimulation made her insides twitch and suck them in. Wet flesh coiled around her fingers like a welcome. She swept her tongue across her lips and grabbed her breast with the other hand. That springy tit overflowed in her palm, spilling between her fingers.
This heavy, clinging sensation, this elasticity... it pissed her off, but if she were the one looking at a body and a face like this, she might've thrown money at it more than a few times herself just to have a go.
She pushed her fingers in deeper. A wet, sliding sound as they went in, and a tremor rippled from inside.
"Nnh, hah... damn it...!"
Her hips rocked, her legs spreading a little wider, and a hot flush spread naturally along her inner thighs. One hand still kneaded her breast; the other pressed into her vagina and moved slowly. Her body was absurdly sensitive.
She lifted her hips and pushed herself up onto the pillow. Legs spread, a tingling pleasure climbed from below, racing up her spine. One knuckle deeper, then a twist to the side—
"Hah... haah, nngh..."
Her body remembered on its own the place it wanted. It was a circuit of sensation entirely unlike a man's—deeper, more tenacious. A woman's erogenous zone: one touch and the body flinched; press twice and the breath punched out of her.
But she had no intention of stopping. This was a body she'd be free of in a few days anyway—all the more reason.
"Ah, fuck... I'm coming...!"
When her fingers buried themselves to the root, her breasts twitched, her back arched, and electricity shot all the way up her spine. Legs stretching out, she bucked her hips, trembling at the bursting sensation, clutching the blanket tight. For a long while, nothing filled the room but her thin moans.
"Nngh."
She pulled her wet fingertips free and drew her legs back together. Sweat pouring, inner thighs still warm. Her brain was still spinning, her body absurdly flushed.
"...Tomorrow... I'm actually going to calm this down."
She muttered that and tossed, trying to sleep. But she had a feeling, as always, that those words wouldn't be kept.
Because this woman's body went crazy far more easily than she'd ever expected.