Ventorino Kingdom - Sprouting (5)
The coat was gone.
“……”
Clara froze in place, stunned into silence.
She had considered this possibility, too. No matter how cleverly she hid the coat in the alley, nothing was ever perfect. Someone might find it and take it away. If that happened, she had planned to return to the palace at once through the secret passage.
But now there was a problem.
Why... why... why now of all times...?
Thud, thud, thud.
Footsteps sounded close by.
It was proof that someone had already come right up to her.
If she opened the secret passage now, there was too great a chance of exposing the door. If anyone learned of a hidden route leading into the royal palace, it would leave a massive hole in the kingdom’s security. As a princess, Clara hesitated over whether she could allow that.
But she was naked.
Technically, the thin underwear she wore meant she wasn’t completely bare, but there was hardly any difference at all.
“I’m sorry.”
Her hesitation did not last long.
She turned toward the dead-end wall, intending to open the secret passage. No—she tried to.
Tap.
“A woman wandering around alone in the dead of night... and naked, no less. Show me your face.”
“……”
Ah... ah, ahh...
When had he come this close?
The hand resting on her shoulder felt unbearably hot and heavy.
W-What do I do...?
Was he a soldier on patrol?
From the voice alone, and from the feel of that hand, it was definitely a man. A man’s palm. A man’s voice. What’s more, from the way he spoke, he seemed to suspect she was some kind of succubus. Given her clothes—or lack thereof—that reaction was hardly strange.
Normally patrols moved in pairs, but Clara had no room to think about that now. It had only been a month since she’d started sneaking out for nighttime strolls. She had thought she might get caught someday.
She just hadn’t expected it to be tonight.
“If you won’t answer and you won’t move... should I take that to mean something else?”
“……!”
As her silence dragged on, the man issued a warning. Clara gasped and hurriedly spoke.
“W-Wait a moment...!”
“I’ve been waiting quite enough already.”
“I-It’s just... I mean...”
“I’ll count to three. By then, raise both hands and slowly turn around.”
“No, wai—!”
“One.”
“Ah...!”
He began counting.
One of the three had already passed. Not ten—just three. That felt cruel. At least count to five, wouldn’t he? There was too little time. Not enough to think of anything else.
No way out...?
“Two.”
“Hngh!”
“Thre—”
Just before the man could speak the final count, the princess shut her eyes tight and raised both hands over her head. Then she prayed to God and spun around in a rush.
She felt the negligee she wore whirl to the side. A moment later, as she completed half a turn, her body sank downward. The paper-thin underwear was somehow both cold and uncomfortable.
“……”
Clara did not open her eyes.
No, she couldn’t.
She simply didn’t have the courage.
Yet a voice reached her, giving her courage that wasn’t courage at all.
“...Princess Clara?”
Ah...
She’d been found out.
He was so close, and yet he recognized her face instantly in this darkness. He must have been quite high-ranking among the nobles. If he was out on patrol, he was at least a squad leader in the guard.
With complicated feelings choking her chest, she slowly opened her eyes.
“Ah...”
The face reflected in the princess’s blue eyes was far closer to what she had expected than she’d imagined. She had thought his voice sounded young, but he was younger than she’d ever expected. A face so handsome it was almost satisfying, with an air of youth that suggested he wasn’t even twenty yet.
He was about her height. He wore light clothes instead of armor. A single sword hung at his waist. And his hair was a dark red.
She spoke his name with a puzzled tone.
“Sir Valdes... why are you here...?”
“I’m not a knight yet, but... well, that’s beside the point. I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“Eek...!”
Clara shrank in on herself.
She had almost forgotten, startled as she was by this completely unexpected person.
She was half-naked, caught wandering at night.
“W-Well...”
“To answer your question, I was on patrol. There’s been that matter, so I couldn’t help being a little uneasy. Now then... how about we hear the princess’s answer?”
“……”
It was a perfectly normal reply—no, more than that, it was an excellent one.
Despite being a half-demon shunned by the kingdom’s people and hated by countless others, he was still walking the streets at night because he was worried about them. And not long after recovering from his injuries, no less. He really was the sort of man her father wanted to turn into a hero and use as the people’s spiritual pillar.
By contrast, she had been walking the streets at night for the same reason, yet her purpose had been far more impure. As royalty meant to protect the country, she was doing something ridiculous like this without even caring all that much about a demon attack. It was shameful.
Drip—
“Ah... hngh...♡”
At the same time, she felt strangely aroused.
The icy look in the boy hero’s eyes.
And the way his gaze brazenly skimmed over her body in secret.
It made her groin burn hot enough to forget how dangerous the situation was.
“Still no answer, I see.”
“A, ah, um...”
“Well, I don’t really need to hear it to know.”
As he said that, Valdes’s gaze became even more blatant as it raked over her body. His attitude said he didn’t care if she caught him staring. And Clara could see it.
“Ah...”
The thick, sticky desire sleeping in his eyes.
H-Huh, huuuh, hnnng...♡
If this had been any other day, she would have shouted that it was indecent and gotten goosebumps all over. But now it was different. Her heart was pounding with an inexplicable thrill, and her sex was tingling.
Before she realized it, Clara swallowed hard and unconsciously stepped forward so her body would be easier to see.
Until just a moment ago, she had been flustered and curious.
She wanted to know how he would react.
Would he call her a pervert? Or would he, instead, act like a pervert himself?
Honestly, either outcome sounded enjoyable. But if she thought a little farther ahead, the latter would be better. Being called a pervert and getting excited by it would be nice in the moment, but she couldn’t imagine what would come after that.
The first was dangerous for her future as a princess, but the second was dangerous for her future as a woman. Personally, either path scared her, but the latter seemed more stable. If she surrendered her future as a woman, then perhaps she could keep making pleasurable things happen forever.
And her instincts proved correct.
“I’d never have guessed the princess I risked my life to save would be such a pervert that she likes exposure.”
Valdes wasn’t even being respectful—he was openly mocking her.
“Nnh... I-I’m not a pervert...”
The princess quietly denied his words. It wasn’t because she truly thought she wasn’t one. She had already accepted that she was a pervert who enjoyed exposing herself. She denied him because she was expecting something else.
“What do you mean, not a pervert?”
As she’d hoped, Valdes moved in close.
Squeak.
“...Hiee!”
Then one of the boy’s moderately thick fingers touched the top of Clara’s panties. Right on the underwear that had already become soaked and sticky with so much arousal it could barely do its job.
“You’re dripping filthy cunt juice everywhere.”
“F-Filthy...? Hah, c-cunt juice...?!”
When his finger touched her, Clara’s body trembled violently.
It was the first time she’d heard the word filthy, and the first time she’d heard cunt juice. She knew the basic meaning of the first, at least. And she knew it fit her rather well. But the second was completely new to her, and yet it landed in her mind with unsettling clarity, making her feel strangely embarrassed.
“And here I thought you were a princess with a fiancé.”
“A-ah... d-don’t talk about Lloyd...”
She had never dreamed he would speak his name so blatantly.
It made the princess’s head clear a little.
Even if she was indulging in that precarious, dangerous pleasure called exposure, she still loved him. Deeply. So deeply that she even wondered whether she should wrench herself free and run away right this instant.
But this was a dead end she herself had led him to, and opening the secret passage would take a little time. There was no way she could escape safely from Valdes, who was strong enough to fight demons head-on. That realization made Clara freeze even more.
“Does your fiancé know? That Clara’s such a hopeless little pervert?”
“Hngh, h-hngh...♡”
She couldn’t answer his question.
Every word he spoke sank deep into her chest, stoking her excitement.
He kept bringing up her fiancé, Lloyd, and now he’d started using his name outright. Add in the slander she’d never imagined hearing as a properly raised princess, and then the teasing touch of his finger over her panties—it all left her intoxicated with arousal.
Valdes’s finger pressed hard against the swollen little bud beneath the cloth.
“Not answering?”
“Hahhng...! Ah, haa... I-I don’t know... Lloyd doesn’t know... anything... hngh...”
“Of course he doesn’t. Who’d ever guess the fiancée of a man who clung so desperately, as if he’d die without her, would be such a filthy bitch?”
“Haaah, hngh! A-A bitch...”
A word used not for humans, but for animals or monsters. It meant the same thing as woman, but the feeling was entirely different. Dirtier. Lewd.
“You’re getting turned on just hearing the word bitch? You really are a pervert.”
Valdes’s other hand seized her breast over the negligee.
Beautifully cared-for breasts that even the fiancé she loved had never touched. Breasts that were supposed to belong only to her husband and children were now being handled by a man she had barely even spoken to.
Valdes kneaded her breasts with somewhat rough hands. He couldn’t manipulate mana or anything of the sort, but her young, well-kept body was helpless in the grip of a male’s fingers, rising and falling as it was toyed with from above and below.
“Ngh, hngh... haa...♡”
And yet Clara still offered no resistance, keeping both hands raised beside her head.
“You like it? Having a stranger younger than you knead your tits?”
“A-ah... m-my... tits...”
Not breasts, not bosom—tits. What a vulgar word.
But that same vulgarity only made her more excited.
“Y-Yes... I like it... being touched there... I like it...♡”
The princess repeated his words as if possessed.
“Hah! ...What a filthy little bitch.”
“Nnngh, hngh, haa...”
“Ha. You get off to this kind of talk too? A masochist with an exposure fetish... a woman like this is a princess of a nation? Those poor subjects. Or should I say they ought to be grateful? Their princess wanders around naked every night just so they can feast their eyes on her.”
“Huuuh, haa, hngh...”
“Amazing you hadn’t been caught until now. ...Hey.”
The boy, a little older than her little brother but no longer bothering to even use her name, spoke in a casual tone. Clara didn’t find that strange at all. On the contrary, she reacted as though it were perfectly natural and answered in alarm.
“Hngh! A-yes.”
“What were you thinking while you were wandering around?”
“Ah... w-well...”
When Clara fumbled and failed to answer, the hand massaging her breast suddenly tightened.
“Kyaah!”
“If you don’t answer... I’ll just leave.”
“......I-I was just... thinking all sorts of things... that maybe I’d get caught by one man and become his, um, s-slave... or maybe get caught by several people...”
“Like a group-fucking den?”
“A-a, group...”
“Wow... and you were thinking that while your cunt was already leaking, too. How have you even survived until now? Don’t tell me you’re still a virgin...?”
“N-No! I’m still... s-still... a virgin... yes...”
“Really? That’s impressive, too.”
Valdes removed his hand from her breast. For a heartbeat, a hint of disappointment crossed Clara’s face, but before she could even notice it herself, his body was already driving her back against the wall.
“Mnh...!”
As the princess felt the cold touch of the wall on her back and the boy’s firm, warm body pressing against her front, her whole body jolted. The different temperatures, front and back, made her situation all the more painfully clear.
“Now I’m curious.”
“Huh... wh-what?”
“If you lose your virginity right here... what would your fiancé think later on?”
“Ah...”
The princess’s face turned white.
It was too dangerous an image. She had imagined countless times being violated by other men during her midnight strolls. But she had never thought about what came after. It had only ever been fantasy for arousal, something that would never really happen.
But now that possibility was right before her eyes. And if she were to marry after losing her virginity... then of course the wedding would be ruined on the first night, and both families would erupt into chaos.
“……”
“What do you think, our princess? Hm?”