Reforming the Perverted Genius
The heart of the capital's bustling streets. Le Ciel, the pinnacle of luxury dessert cafes crafted by the Sterling Trading Company's vast capital. The VIP private room, strictly off-limits to commoners, was a world unto itself—alien and otherworldly.
Flawless marble floors polished to a mirror sheen. A massive crystal chandelier cascading elegant, subdued light from the ceiling. Plush velvet sofas vast enough to swallow a grown man whole. It was a perfect sanctuary for the empire's highest nobles to enjoy refined tea times or for sweethearts to whisper lovers' secrets.
But the air filling this room now was frozen as precariously as a thin glass tossed into the -30°C northern tundra, on the verge of shattering with a sharp crack.
"……."
I leaned deep into the top-seat sofa draped in premium velvet, arms crossed tightly, staring coolly at the table's center.
Dead center on the wide marble table, amid ornate teacups brimming with golden black tea, sat Oscar's thick leather sketchbook—seized just moments ago from the back alley. It lay there like some cursed grimoire that should never see the light of day. My temples throbbed at the thought that any second, it might burst through that worn leather cover, unleashing the sticky, depraved tension of my "forbidden master-servant dynamic" with Reina to devour the entire cafe.
Across from me sat the Class 1-A underground artist, Oscar von Arzen. Or rather, she was crumpled pathetically on the plush velvet sofa, knees tucked under her like she was kneeling in defeat.
"Hic, sob……."
Oscar's face was ghostly pale, drained of all color, head bowed low as her trembling hands fiddled endlessly with the silver spoon from her teacup. Even a condemned prisoner facing the guillotine would chew their last meal more calmly than that.
But on the flip side, one oblivious beast was single-handedly demolishing the suffocating tension of this interrogation chamber.
"Waaah! Cadel! This is sooo good! Super sweet!"
Plastered right against my right forearm sat Reina, scooping greedily into a giant strawberry parfait the size of her face, beaming like she owned the world. Whether Oscar was gasping in abject shame or I was radiating the icy menace of a ten-year veteran dorm supervisor—it didn't matter to this clueless giant dog. Her world was only the sweetness hitting her tongue and the praise she'd get from her master for it.
Reina shoved a spoonful of whipped cream toward my tightly shut mouth, wagging her imaginary tail.
"Cadel, say ahh! Ahhh~!"
"……I'm not in the mood. Eat it all yourself, Your Highness."
"Tch. It's really yummy, though."
I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head like an icicle. Reina pouted her lips but unhesitatingly popped the spoon into her own mouth.
Haa, what to do with this beast who left all her tact in her mother's womb.
I swallowed the rising headache and shifted my gaze to the firmly shut door of the private room.
There stood my unpaid slave No. 1, Elarra von Sterling, who had swiftly buried today's entire spectacular fiasco under the power of capitalism. She stood ramrod straight like a doorkeeper, her eyes gleaming like a tabloid hack ready to pounce on her master's secret orders.
A motley crew of three wildly mismatched colors. With no normal cog turning properly in any of them, I drew a heavy sigh from the depths of my lungs and opened the curtain on the full-scale reformation project.
Tap, tap.
I slowly, dryly drummed my blunt index finger twice on the closed leather cover of the sketchbook. The friction shattered the VIP room's silence, and Oscar's slender shoulders visibly jerked upward.
"……Lady Arzen."
At my low, chilling call, Oscar trembled like a leaf and peeked up—just a fraction, an ant's eyelash worth—to gauge my mood. Her tear- and snot-streaked cheeks were pitiful beyond words.
But as a ten-year veteran teacher, I couldn't let cheap sympathy weaken me now. If I did, I'd never uproot this 18-year-old's rotten artistic worldview. Worse, if her "overwhelming talent for perversion" kept rampaging underground and spreading through the academy, my teaching authority—not to mention my very existence in this world—would be utterly erased.
"What exactly prompted you to start this…… 'creative and destructive' artwork using your classmates as models?"
I stabbed at the facts with a dry tone, like grilling a tardy student in the staff room—emotions fully excised.
"And why, of all things, such coercive, depravity-laden compositions?"
That suffocating tension packed densely in the sketchbook. Recalling the mad pose where I gripped Reina's leather collar and pinned her against the wall with a cold glare made my neck and ears burn hot.
"Sob…… Hic-snaaah……! I-I've committed a mortal sin……!"
No sooner had my icy interrogation landed than Oscar clutched her face and wailed in agony.
"I-I just wanted to capture on paper that…… suffocating tension from your two's perfectly inverted power dynamic……!"
"……I'm but a mere seed."
"I-I absolutely wasn't trying to insult Sir Evans by portraying you as that…… dominant predator on purpose……!"
Oscar's tear-choked confession poured out.
"That day…… when Lady Astrea's eyes were all red and swollen…… You were serving Sir Evans in the student cafeteria……."
She hiccuped, dragging up that horrific past scene.
Haa, I remember. The day my chastity nearly got devoured by a real beast.
"The empire's strongest, Her Highness, following a step behind a low-rank baron's son…… Blushing at his every gesture and glance, submitting like a meek lamb…… The moment I saw that……!"
A grotesque, artist-mad glint—suppressed until now—flashed through Oscar's teary eyes.
"My, my pathetic artistic inspiration erupted like a volcano!"
"Mental domination that perfectly inverts the power balance!"
"The quiet yet overwhelming predator's aura taming an untamable beast!"
"Aah, my pen had already escaped my reason, madly spilling your two's secret, coercive master-servant bond onto the canvas……!"
"……."
I pressed my pinched brow harder, utterly speechless.
Listening to Oscar's desperate, maniacal confession chilled the blood in my veins.
I'd only been flailing desperately to block the beast's attacks and protect my life and chastity. But through this depraved lump's corrupted filter, I'd been perfectly twisted into a "beast-tamer inverting power hierarchies" and "hardcore dominator"!
Haa…… So all my tearful daily struggles to rein in and control Reina just to survive looked like that unhealthy play in other students' eyes? I'm losing my mind.
A tidal wave of injustice crashed over me. But protesting "I was just struggling to survive!" wouldn't help—the sketchbook's devastatingly high-quality results would just mock my excuses.
I took a deep breath, suppressing my pounding blood pressure. Get emotional, and you lose. Severing all emotional turbulence, I refitted the icy mask of the "true educator" who'd guided countless delinquent teens in my past life.
"……Lady Arzen's keen observation and overflowing artistic inspiration are, as a teacher…… no, as a classmate, highly commendable."
At the unexpected dry praise from my lips, Oscar—scrabbling at the floor in sobs—froze and looked up with reddened eyes.
"The exquisitely delicate shading and sharp compositions that maximize the subjects' emotions. Even I, who knows zilch about art, can see it's genius-level talent worth marveling at."
"S-Sir Evans…… Th-that means……."
"However."
I cut her off coldly, smoothly pulling the sketchbook toward me across the marble table.
"Such dank, oppressive compositions are utterly unfit for an 18-year-old's psyche. No matter the talent, using it to fantasize about others' private lives and excrete it underground isn't art—it's violence."
My flawless fact-bomb made Oscar's shoulders quiver again. I lightly drummed my blunt finger on the table for emphasis.
"Wasting your brilliant skills skulking in the shadows producing forbidden doujinshi is a grave misuse of talent. Cease all such work immediately, starting today. The world is full of bright, healthy, peaceful things your pen should capture."
My impeccably textbook-perfect model answer hung in the VIP room. Oscar seemed moved by my profound intent and mercy, tears streaming as she nodded vigorously.
It was right then.
"But Cadel! I like it whether it's above or underground! Can't we really try the stuff in that sketchbook back at the dorm?!"
Reina—who'd been quietly scraping her parfait bowl till now—tossed her spoon aside and latched onto my firm forearm.
The warm flow of my perfect career counseling shattered instantly under the empire's strongest, zero-tact beast.
"……What did you say, Your Highness?"
Her bombshell words slammed my eardrums. I felt the ironclad true-educator mask I'd desperately maintained crack wide open.
Reina pressed her soft bosom shamelessly against my arm, purple eyes sparkling as she drove in the horrific wedge again.
"This! This play drawn in the sketchbook!"
Her white finger, gloved in dragon leather, jabbed precisely at the closed cover—more accurately, the "leather collar" lurking inside.
"I could totally do this great! Just lie down all meek and obedient, wear whatever collar you say, and breathe—that's it, right?"
"……."
"Right? It's like a hunting game where you spoil me, yeah? I'll hold my breath super still. Pleeease?"
"……."
"Cadel, do this with me! Let's try it at the dorm right now!"
"……."
Reina's pure, innocent cry echoed dizzyingly off the private room's marble walls. I froze solid, forgetting to breathe.
This mad beast clearly didn't grasp even 1% of the depraved nonsense spewing from her mouth. Devoid of any sexual shame or secret sin, it was just a giant dog's blind begging for a fun new toy called a "collar" from her favorite master in the world.
But that extreme purity was shoving this situation straight into catastrophic doom.
"H-Hiiiik……!"
Oscar, sprawled across from me, gasped in horror, unable to contain her shock. Her eyes shook wildly like an earthquake.
Through her rotten underground artist filter, Reina's innocent words became a "live spectacle of the empire's strongest grand duchess begging a low baron for a collar and submission—freakish and decadent."
Witnessing the hardcore doujin fantasy she'd only imagined in dank sketches manifesting in reality, Oscar began shuddering as if lost in yet another delusion.
"Your Highness. Please, for the love of god, shut your mouth. This isn't a g……!"
I paled, lunging to clamp Reina's mouth—right then.
"Sir Evans."
Elarra, standing sentinel by the shut door, approached the table with crisp heel clicks, like a competent demon secretary awaiting her master's secret summons. Her face was more serious and resolute than ever, eyes gleaming with capitalist zeal.
"Lady Sterling? What are you scheming now?"
"That deep, intimate anguish…… As heir to the empire's largest trading company, I understand perfectly."
"……What?"
Elarra spouted nonsense divorced from context, then pulled a lavish gold-embossed parchment booklet from her bosom and slid it smoothly onto the marble table.
◈ Sterling Trading Co. Special Magic Tool Division
"The reason you just mercilessly scolded Lady Arzen. Crude 'fakes' scribbled in graphite on scraps of paper can never fully capture Leader's noble, controlling tastes."
"No, you lunatic……!"
"No need to slake your thirst on flat drawings, Sir Evans."
Ignoring my horrified stare, Elarra flipped the catalog pages with a seasoned, corrupt merchant's smile.
"Our Sterling network transcends the empire's borders. From chewy, unbreakable 'restraint collars' tanned from fresh northern wyvern hides, to 'special mithril handcuffs' that bind Her Highness's delicate wrists without a mark, and even 'top-tier bedroom soundproof barrier magic tools' that seal any screams…… er, noise."
As her mad briefing machine-gunned on, the threads of my rationality snapped one by one with audible twangs.
"We can discreetly deliver tonight to Room 101 Royal Suite. Sized perfectly to Her Highness's measurements for the ideal fit. Our company stakes its life on supporting Sir Evans's coercive, flawless tastes!"
"Whoa! Collars! I want the wyvern leather one! Cadel, buy it for me!"
"S-Sir Evans is the true…… overwhelming dominator……!"
Elarra's capitalism-fueled hardcore support. Reina tail-wagging over the catalog in oblivious frenzy. And Oscar, utterly lost watching this 19+ live show, gasping deliriously.
The luxury dessert cafe's VIP private room had transcended mere interrogation chamber into an irrecoverable hell of misunderstandings and depravity.
"……Everyone."
I rose slowly, with crushing heaviness. Snatching the vile restraint catalog from the table, I folded it in half with a crunch and jammed it viciously into Elarra's chest.
"Shut. Your. Mouths. Now."
My voice wasn't mere anger—it was the -50°C northern blizzard's chill, freezing solid.
No trace of my usual aloof tsundere vibe or veteran teacher's sly leisure. This was the purest, most desperate beastly killing intent of a commoner whose survival was at stake.
"H-Hiiiik……!"
Under my horrific aura, Elarra trembled like a leaf, clutching the catalog and scooting backward on her butt. Reina halted rubbing her face on my arm and flinched away. Oscar froze on the sofa like a statue, breath held.
"Listen well."
I straightened my disheveled shirt collar roughly, retightened my choking necktie knot, and swept an icy gaze over the three.
"Everything you've seen, heard, and spewed in this room today—every delusion and nonsense—from the second this clock ticks past, erase it completely from your minds. Whether it's the sketchbook's mad drawings, mithril cuffs, or collar hunting games."
I slammed my blunt index finger onto the marble table with a bang, decreeing firmly.
"If even a whisper of today's events leaks in the academy after this moment? The day that filth reaches Duke Astrea or the imperial court……."
I glared at Elarra and Oscar in turn with bloodshot eyes, foreshadowing the heaviest, cruelest collective punishment a ten-year dorm sup could unleash.
"I won't be the only one on the guillotine. This is no joke."
Haa…… Should I just order Reina to end these two right here……?
I seriously contemplated becoming a fallen murderer-teacher as I looked down at Reina.
"Your Highness."
"Y-Yeah……?"
"Never speak of such irreverent, absurd 'games' again. If you ever innocently blab about this collar play to His Grace…… you'll never eat with me, hold my hand, or play daily games again. Ever."
"Nooo! Absolutely not! I won't tell anyone! I forgot all about the collar stuff! For real!"
Reina flailed her hands wildly, face drained pale, denying frantically. The threat of her favorite Cadel vanishing forever was the one infallible, deadliest collar on the empire's strongest beast.
"O-Our Sterling Company will carry Sir Evans's intimate secret to the grave! Ironclad security! No leaks ever!"
"M-Me too! I swear on my wrists, I won't breathe a word to anyone……!"
Elarra and Oscar nodded like mad, eyes tearing up in survival panic.
Only then did I slowly unclench my fists, finally calming my heart drumming in my ears.
At least their mouths were sealed for life.
Swish.
I snatched the root of all evil from the table's center—the thick leather sketchbook—and tucked it securely under my arm.
"I'll permanently dispose of this unhealthy, dangerous contraband. And Lady Arzen."
At my chilling call, Oscar shot upright on the sofa like a disciplined recruit: "Yes, sir!"
"No amount of physical gag orders will help if we don't fundamentally fix your warped artistic worldview. Another such hair-raising incident is inevitable."
"As a true educator…… no, classmate, I can't let your overwhelming talent rot underground."
"I'm assigning you a special task."
Oscar gulped audibly, the sound echoing in the quiet VIP room. I dredged up from my past life the world's most boring, wholesome basic assignment art teachers gave wayward students for mental discipline.
"Until next weekend, no figure drawing from your pen. No human forms or anatomy whatsoever—not a single piece."
"No…… people?"
"Correct. Instead, draw one perfect still life—the world's most peaceful, healthy, vibrant subject."
"Like a red apple basking in warm sunlight, or a cozy teacup on a serene table."
"Train to find wholesome beauty in ordinary objects, not twisted subject tensions. Understood?"
At my clear, if faded, reformation prescription, Oscar nodded vigorously, eyes welling with genuine conviction.
"Yes, yes! I'll remember, Sir Evans! I'll desperately suppress my dark, rotten, depraved instincts…… and draw the world's most peaceful, bright, pretty apple! Watch my blood-sweat reformation!"
"Good. I expect that resolve, as your leader."
Seeing Oscar's noble repentance, wiping tears sincerely, I finally exhaled in deep relief.
Yeah. No matter how wild the underground golden hand runs, what disaster could come from a round, ordinary apple? Drip-feeding wholesome sunlight like this, she'll eventually grow into a proper landscape artist.
I basked in the massive fulfillment and pride unique to a ten-year K-teacher who'd guided a wayward student's twisted path to the light.
Today's hellish weekend outing—which had drained my blood and shaved years off my life—had borne the beautiful fruit of "true education," ending in perfect happiness.
Of course, I had no inkling in this peaceful moment.
That the underground genius's rampaging rotten instincts couldn't be contained by something as shallow as a single round red apple still life.