The Incompetent Hero and Pirate Suppression (2)
"You put this together rather quickly."
"It's all for Dandong's sake as well. Something of this scale is only natural."
A short distance outside the city, in a place where few people ever came, a wooden building had been raised in secret. I stood admiring it when Hwa Mirim shrugged as if it were nothing at all.
"What do you think?"
I turned to Seollin, who stood beside me studying the place with a careful eye. After a moment she nodded.
"Hmm… well. For something thrown together in a hurry, it isn't bad."
Not bad. Meaning poison production was possible. Which left only the matter of time.
Judging her part finished, Hwa Mirim shrugged again.
"Then I'll take my leave. Should you need anything, I'll leave a contact here—just say the word."
"All right."
Hwa Mirim departed, and only the three of us remained—myself, Baekryeon, and Seollin.
For the time being we would stay here, waiting while Seollin brewed her poisons. Once we had enough, we would strike the pirates.
"So what kind of poison are we going with? Something with a strong effect?"
"Lethality itself doesn't really matter. If the effect hits too fast, though, the timing gets hard to manage. I need something that can put them down for certain, but takes a while to kick in."
"Sorry, but poison isn't that versatile. Effects vary by constitution and by how you use it. Meaning there's going to be some margin of error. Just keep that in mind."
"Got it. Every time there's an error, the only ones in danger are us after we've already snuck onto the pirate island—so don't stress too much."
"When you put it like that, it just makes the pressure worse, you know?!"
With that, Seollin spun on her heel and vanished into the building. For all her snappishness, Haoman had already stocked the place with raw materials for poison. She was probably getting straight to work.
Baekryeon, who had been watching alongside me, smiled faintly.
"I am glad Lady Seollin looks so pleased."
"Pleased?"
"Indeed. Doryeong may not have noticed, but it seems Lady Seollin felt herself something of an outsider."
"An outsider, huh…"
Of course she did. She had chased after us on her own. It would have been stranger if she hadn't felt out of place.
"She looks happy now that there is work only she can do. I find that a relief."
"Well, if you're going to tag along uninvited, you ought to earn your keep."
"Come now, do not say such things. Without Lady Seollin, dealing with those pirates would have been far more difficult, would it not, Doryeong?"
"Dealing with them isn't hard. The problem is quietly subduing the ones who try to run."
Crushing every last one of the bastards who had raided the Tang Clan would have been easy enough. The trouble was that the battlefield was the sea, not solid ground. You couldn't chase down every single one who fled across the water. Still, if I'd had to find another way, I would have found one. For instance…
Flip the entire ocean upside down…
Of course, if it came to that, I wasn't sure my sword would survive the ordeal—and I preferred to avoid that kind of chaos if I could help it.
I was still earnestly fretting over environmental destruction when Baekryeon glanced around, then took hold of the hem of my clothes, her face coloring.
"Ahem… Doryeong."
"?"
"Have you… built anything up, by chance?"
…Ah. Acting like that, it was obvious what she meant.
"Built up? Built up what?"
"Th-that is…"
But answering her straight would have been no fun at all, so I played dumb. Of course Baekryeon wasn't so dense that she missed the act. Her lips pushed out in a tiny pout, her brows drew together, and she spun away from me.
"If all is well, then that is enough."
"You're sulking."
"I am not sulking."
I slipped my arms around her from behind and began to stroke the places she was weakest, slow and deliberate.
"Nnh…"
"Living with Seollin around, you haven't had a chance to let it out—so it's all piled up, hasn't it?"
"…Yes."
Baekryeon gave a shy little nod, then lifted her face to look at me. She pressed a bashful kiss to my lips and came, softly, under my careful touch.
"Do you want to?"
"I want to…"
I scooped up the pitiful way she was looking at me—princess-carry style—and carried her into the lodging built right beside the poison workshop.
"It's cleaner inside than I expected."
More than that, the timber itself was solid. The soundproofing would probably hold up well.
"With this, we won't have to worry about Baekryeon's moans leaking outside and making her all embarrassed again."
"It is mortifying—please do not say such things, Doryeong…"
Baekryeon's face went scarlet, and a shiver ran through her body.
A rough look around the interior showed a living room and kitchen on the first floor. The second floor was the residential wing, divided into three sizable rooms. Prepared for the three of us, no doubt—myself, Baekryeon, and Seollin…
"Which one do you want? You always make such a mess once you get going, so I'd rather not use my room."
"…Th-the middle room."
Unable to bear the shame, Baekryeon buried her face against my chest and answered in a tiny voice.
Late that evening, in the temporary poison workshop set up in Dandong, Seollin sat scowling at the array of raw materials and tools spread before her.
"…Hah."
She leaned back hard in her chair and let out a long, deep sigh. She had answered him with such confidence earlier—but this was nowhere near as simple as she had made it sound.
"I'm… the kind who uses poison, you know."
Any martial artist of the Tang Clan was drilled thoroughly in the properties of countless poisons, how to deploy them, and how to handle them safely. But the people who researched and made those poisons were a separate group entirely. Tang Clan fighters received their supply from them and put it to use.
…Of course, she knew the bare minimum of how to brew. You couldn't always count on a shipment from the clan, so she had learned how to extract usable toxins from what nature provided and cook up a rough batch when needed. But still…
A paralytic… and not a fast-acting one, but something that only takes hold after a certain amount of time has passed since ingestion—I barely know those formulas at all.
A flicker of regret for her past self—the one who had so readily said it was possible—washed over her. But what was done was done. As a martial artist of the Tang Clan, failing to keep a word she had spoken with her own mouth would be a disgrace to the entire sect!
So this had to be solved somehow—without letting him know.
If I really can't manage it, I could send a secret request back to the Tang Clan… but the whole point of us being out here like this is to keep the Beastman Alliance from catching on to the alliance between the Tang Clan and Jang Cheon-woo. Can I really just casually ask the clan for help?
"…No. I can't."
Whatever. She would rest for today. It had only been one day. If she threw herself into research from here on, she would figure it out.
Seollin rose from her seat. Just in case, she had already warned both Leon and Baekryeon that there was a risk of accidental poisoning, so neither of them would come wandering in. She could thrash around in here for a few days and no one would be the wiser.
Her stomach growled.
"…I'm starving."
Come to think of it, she had been so buried in research she hadn't eaten properly. She hurried toward the residential building—only to find the house dark. Everyone must already be asleep.
"Is it that late already…?"
The rooms were on the second floor; the first was common space, and the upper level held the private chambers. Seollin headed straight upstairs.
Ah… nnh…
"?"
Haaang… huaang…♥…
Just as she was about to go to her own room, a strange sound drifted from the middle chamber. Something like… a moan.
"…No way."
A possibility flickered through her mind. She had heard that Baekryeon and Leon had been traveling together for a long time. If that was the case…
"…Gulp."
Seollin swallowed without meaning to. She had only ever encountered the joining of man and woman in novels and erotic prints. She had never seen it for real. Curiosity got the better of her. Moving with the careful footwork she had learned in the Tang Clan, she approached the door and eased it open.
Huaaaaang♥ Haaang♥ Haaang♥ Huaang♥
Creak, creak, creak—
Slap, slap♥
The moment she cracked the door, a thick, sour scent of sweat hit her nose, along with some other strange smell she couldn't name. It wasn't unpleasant, though. If anything…
"Huaaaaaaang♥"
Before the thought could go any further, a moan thick with heat and pleasure drove itself into Seollin's ears and burned itself into her mind. Only then did she understand: inside the room, Baekryeon was coupling with Leon.
Moans so full of heat that the usual Baekryeon would never have made them. Cries of pleasure so saturated they set a listener's body alight.
"Huaang♥ Ha-eung♥ Huaaat♥"
Both of them were naked, of course. And however long they had been at it, the bedding beneath them was soaked through with sweat and love juices, dark and wet.
Atop a man's body cut with muscle that was neither excessive nor lacking—every line of it radiating masculinity—a slender, fragile woman's frame straddled him, bouncing hard up and down. Seollin was overwhelmed, and yet she could not look away.
Th-that's… the joining of a man and a woman…?
She had studied sexuality, of course. She had seen it in erotic prints and novels. But watching it with her own eyes was something else entirely—something that went beyond mere knowledge, something she had no words for.
"Huiiiiiit♥"
Baekryeon and Leon, who had been going at it so fiercely, suddenly stopped. Baekryeon's body shuddered, her strength seeming to leave her as she collapsed against Leon's chest. He patted her back gently and carefully laid her down on the bed.
Was that the end? Seollin wondered—but the two of them pressed their mouths together, Leon trailing kisses down Baekryeon's throat as they whispered to each other, and then they began again.
This time it was the reverse of before: Baekryeon underneath, Leon on top, driving into her.
Squelch…
Watching that sight, Seollin found her own sex growing wet without her even noticing.