Master (Finale)
“Mmnh... mmmph...”
I twisted and turned inside the stifling, tightly sealed warmth of my body until something soft, heavy, and yielding pressed full against my face.
“Already wanting more the moment you open your eyes?”
“Mmph...?”
“It’s a little hard on me, but... I’m all for it.”
A gentle, chuckling voice carefully lifted my chin.
“Good morning, Noah.”
“Uh... er... Ru— ahem, ahem. Rubi...a.”
“Hehehe... Your voice is completely gone. What am I going to do with you?”
“Hyeek...”
Rubia poked my side and laughed softly.
“Ru-Rubia... did you sleep well?”
“Yes. I slept so deeply for the first time in ages.”
“Mmnh... That’s good...”
I smiled foolishly under the gentle hand stroking my hair and hugged her body tight.
That wonderful scent, as always...
But... why was she so silky-smooth, so soft and yielding and velvety?
“Uh, ah...? W-wait a second... y-you’re completely... naked...?”
“Yes. We took everything off yesterday, didn’t we?”
“Ah... hic—”
“Pfft-hahaha! Why are you acting so shocked all of a sudden?”
“Eh? Hic, n-no... th-that, hic— hweh...”
Every time I moved, my backside stung, and that... that embarrassing place burned and ached fiercely.
My chest, my thighs, my stomach, my back, my shoulders, my neck...
W-why my armpits, even...?
“I’m sore all over too. Does it hurt for you as well, Noah?”
“Y-yes... It stings... and burns...”
“Endure it.”
“Ah, th-thank... huh?”
“Hold on tight and remember this feeling.”
Her lips brushed my forehead with a soft peck.
“These are the wounds we made together.”
“Ah, uh, hwaah... hyeek...”
Those unbearably sweet words made my body blaze so hot I thought I might lose my mind.
I could feel steam practically billowing off my face...
In the end I couldn’t bear the shame and buried my face against her body, clinging tight.
And there, across her back, I clearly felt the scratches left by my nails.
“Uh... why didn’t you heal them...? Besides, doesn’t your body heal on its own...?”
“I’m deliberately holding it back. I want to remember too. If they leave scars, even better.”
“What...? You can’t have scars. Heal them right away.”
Still embarrassed, I wriggled upward until our foreheads touched.
“You don’t need to remember them like that... we can just... do it again. Heal them now. I hate it when you’re hurt...”
Then I pressed my lips to her slightly parted mouth and gently stroked her back.
“...Hah.”
“Ah, uh... does it hurt? I-I’m sorry.”
“You’re... seducing me again.”
“...Huh?”
“You’ve recovered enough, haven’t you?”
“Eh?”
With a sudden heave Rubia sat up and straddled me.
Clink—
“Ru-Rubia? W-wait, these again, when did you—”
She locked the handcuffs around my wrists and exhaled a scorching breath.
“Let’s do it one more time.”
“What...? No, yesterday— not yesterday, I mean... th-that, ah?”
“I don’t know. I forgot. So just shut your mouth. No— wait. Open it.”
“I-I’m still sore... mmmph?!”
“Lady Rubia. Why is your expression like that?”
“Pardon?”
“It may be rude of me to say this, but... looking at it makes me feel rather unpleasant.”
“My, what a harsh thing to say. I’ve always been like this. Whatever do you mean? Hehehe.”
“...It gives me chills.”
[It’s not just me, right? Something’s... off. Rubia’s gotten way too nice all of a sudden.]
“So Lady Cartia thinks the same?”
“You’re always so suspicious of me... I’ve always been kind. People call me the benevolent priestess, so how could I be bad? Right, Noah?”
“Uh, r-right. Rubia is kind.”
“Lady Noah’s testimony has absolutely no persuasive power.”
We sat around the round table for Sirin’s incident report.
Well... maybe not quite an incident report.
Anyway, we had gathered for that sort of meeting.
Sirin sat at the center, Ser to her left, Rubia to her right.
And I was on Rubia’s lap.
“It isn’t that it feels unpleasant, but Ser is right—your expression has certainly softened a great deal.”
“Has it? I think I’m the same as always. Right, Noah?”
“R-right... ahem, hmm... right.”
My completely wrecked throat kept cracking and squeaking.
So embarrassing...
“But why is Noah so pale? Did the two of you not spend the same amount of time together?”
“Hyeek...”
To hide my face, which was practically shooting out heat, I turned and buried myself deep into Rubia’s embrace.
“Hmm, so the two of you did it?”
“Did what?”
“Sex.”
[Slap-slap! Ass-slapping! Mating!]
The smack of Ser’s fist against her palm and Cartia’s completely unhinged remark dragged yesterday’s memories flooding back.
Flesh against flesh.
Fluids overflowing, splashing everywhere.
My mind going blank, feeling like I was going to die.
Every single one of those scenes.
“Hweeeek...”
That low ache stirred again in my lower belly; I clung tighter to Rubia and shook my head hard.
Don’t answer.
Don’t answer!!
As if she understood my desperate wish perfectly, Rubia only smirked at Ser’s question and said nothing.
Then her finger traced slowly down my spine.
Shiver—
“Hgyak?! W-what was that all of a sudden?!”
“Indeed. That was a sufficient answer.”
[What, what? Huh? For real? You actually did it? Holy shit...]
How on earth did Ser and Cartia understand from that?
I was so mortified I thought I might lose my mind...
“Well, enough small talk. Let us move to the main subject.”
Sirin slapped a stack of papers onto the table with a sharp thwack and handed one bundle to Ser, another to Rubia.
“Rubia, you and Noah had some business with a criminal organization called the Red Scorpion not long ago, did you not?”
“Red Scorpion... yes. All sorts of things happened in Urusphier. You remember, don’t you, Noah? That... incident.”
“Mmnh...?”
Red Scorpion?
Urusphier...?
What was that?
“...You don’t remember?”
“...No.”
“That’s... that’s possible. Yes. The situation back then wasn’t exactly good.”
Rubia gave a small smile, stroked my hair, and gently turned my body forward again.
“But why bring up that organization all of a sudden? Back then... well, not completely, but the group should have been dismantled.”
Then a small envelope landed on the table with a soft thud.
“This is...?”
Rubia reached out, rustled the envelope open, and sucked in a startled breath.
“This medicine... isn’t this the drug the members were taking?”
“How much do you know?”
“First, during the interrogation... ah.”
She stopped mid-sentence and glanced down at me for a moment, gauging my reaction.
“W-why...?”
“Well... Noah needs to know what she needs to know.”
She stroked my hair tenderly, then spoke with a resolute expression.
“There was exactly one survivor from the organization, so we interrogated him a bit. As for the drug’s ingredients and effects...”
“Could you explain?”
“Yes... First, the material is humans who possess mana. The effect is a temporary explosive increase in mana capacity. Even those without mana could, after taking it, wield at least the mana of a full-fledged knight... or so I heard.”
[What the fuck, those bastards... they did that shit?]
“Huk...”
Th-they turned people into pills?
And... they ate them...?!
“As I thought...”
Sirin let out a long sigh and set another envelope on the table.
“This is the finished product of that drug. The one that creates those monstrous fellows we encountered. Ser, can you analyze the components?”
“There is nothing this genius does not know.”
Ser grinned playfully, completely out of place for the mood.
Drip—
“Ugh...?”
She bit her finger until it bled, then began drawing a small magic circle on the table.
Slick— swish—
Once she finished a circle the size of a human head in thick blood, she grabbed Sirin’s wrist and placed it over the array.
“I will need some of your mana.”
“Mm.”
Watching the mana flow from Sirin’s body and get absorbed along the lines of the circle, Ser looked satisfied and dropped the pill onto it.
At once a familiar energy poured out of the pill.
“...As expected.”
“Th-that’s... it can’t be.”
“Yes, it is exactly what you are all thinking. Divine power. Lady Rubia’s divine power. There is a little turbid mana mixed in, but for that, the purity is quite high.”
“H-how...?”
Rubia hugged me fiercely against her racing heart and spoke in a trembling voice.
“This is only this body’s conjecture, but... Rubia. There were villages you visited for missionary work, were there not?”
“Yes, there were. Quite a few places... ah, you don’t mean—”
“It is not certain. Merely that the possibility is high. The reason this body has been going out so often of late is to investigate precisely these matters.”
Rustle—
Sirin pulled a map from thin air and spread it wide across the table.
“You recognize them, yes?”
“These places are...”
“The villages you traveled to under the pretext of missionary work.”
“Ah, n-no way...”
“You left faint traces of divine power inside the bodies of those you healed. In case of any possible relapse of illness. Correct?”
“...That’s right.”
“It seems they extracted it.”
The body holding me began to tremble violently.
The hand that had been stroking my thigh turned cold, and her breathing grew ragged.
Seeing her like that hurt so much that I set the greatsword aside, wriggled around, and hugged her body as tightly as I could.
The trembling stopped, and her breathing settled.
“Then... then all the villages I went to for missionary work... have been destroyed?”
“Indeed. Not a single person left alive. Their mana and organs completely hollowed out.”
Clink— I heard Ser set down her coffee cup.
Sirin’s subdued breathing and Rubia’s violently pounding heart reached my ears.
“Everything I did... everything I did to save people... was actually... the act of killing them...”
“Rubia, you have done nothing wrong. Without your divine power those humans would have died long ago, would they not?”
“That’s... true, but...”
“Therefore you need feel no guilt. Cartia is still thriving, is it not?”
Rubia’s embrace buried me even deeper.
“Are there... still places that haven’t been destroyed...?”
“A few remain. Including cities.”
“Hmm... Then would it not be possible to narrow down their next likely targets?”
“Mm. Judging by their movements thus far, the next target will not be a small village but a great city. And that place is most likely...”
Sirin nodded at Ser’s question; her finger traced along the map until it stopped.
“Urusphier and Cartia.”
It halted firmly.
“These two cities, this body believes, are their final objectives.”