249. Deception 9.
249. Deception 9.
Dawn broke.
Five hours of kissing — a first in my life, and one I sincerely hoped would never be equaled.
Because I genuinely thought I was going to die.
"...You didn't let me sleep."
"If it was good, that's all that matters."
Good for you, maybe.
Once she discovered my flank was a weak point, I spent a long stretch producing nothing but groans.
My body was still trembling faintly.
Utterly drained, I collapsed near the water channel fed by the waterwheel. Lexi sat beside me, dipped herself into the channel, and scooped water with her hands to clean me off.
"You made quite the expression."
Lexi grinned, massaging my body with obvious indulgence.
The world is a strange place.
Rolling around with a woman who'd issued a death threat until I was wrecked.
I rolled myself into the channel and submerged.
The cool water soaked through me, cold against my skin.
"That extract you secrete has an incredibly sweet scent, you know. I wanted to lick every drop."
Extract.
When a person is truly exhausted, their body's balance breaks down, and what comes out is 'sweat.'
Roughly translated, Lexi's words had crossed a line.
"...Look. Do you not understand the saying about too much of a good thing?"
"Let me offer you some life advice."
...Why was I receiving life advice from someone crouched down, scraping off something pale and sticky?
Still, pretending to listen seemed like the right move.
"Most things you think are excessive turn out to be nothing much once you actually do them."
Oh, great. More old-person wisdom.
"Are you having a moment of post-nut clarity or something?"
Lexi's ears flickered.
If she were a Hosott, she would've tilted her head at that.
"Post-nut clarity?"
"Never mind."
"...You say incomprehensible things sometimes."
Lexi pulled me up from where I was sprawled in the channel and licked my lips.
That lewd tongue.
"We did nothing but kiss for hours. Doesn't your tongue hurt?"
"Yours tastes good, so I don't care."
"...Excuse me?"
Seizing my dumbfounded pause, Lexi's tongue invaded my mouth.
I opened the inn door quiet as a mouse.
But Edelin was already awake somehow, writing something in a book. Her gaze when she looked at me was as impassive as ever.
"Did you have a good time out?"
...Busted.
Now that it's come to this, act confident.
"Yes."
I answered with an utterly nonchalant expression.
I passed Edelin and buried myself in bed, and in the blink of an eye, sleep swept over me.
"Are you tired?"
"...Yes."
"If it were me, I could resolve your sexual urges without the physical stamina loss resulting from intercourse."
...What was she getting at?
Was this about why I'd done it with Lexi?
"...I'm not doing it with you, Edelin."
"I'm offering to resolve your sexual urges without intercourse, so there's no problem."
I'd tossed that out as a sulky parting shot, but her unexpected reply stunned me.
...When Edelin had rejected me before and said those words, I'd been so angry — but in the end, it had meant something else entirely.
She'd meant she could 'erase' my sexual desire.
It had been my misunderstanding.
My heart grew complicated for no good reason.
"I hope you'll consider it. Also, word came from Seths during the night. She says she'd like to meet with you. She's waiting for you in District Four at the moment, but..."
Seths.
The person who'd become bewitched by the baby.
I'd been vaguely avoiding her, but it was time to settle things between us properly.
"How about you go in, have a conversation, and then take some time to rest?"
I was grateful for the consideration.
"Yes. I'll do that."
Crack—!
The moment I agreed, the empty air tore open.
A door stood there.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a door like this.
When I opened the door to District Four and stepped inside, Seths was visible, seated on the nearest bed.
Today, unlike usual, she wore a beige robe and looked up at me — her expression strange.
Different from her normal self. Sharper, maybe?
Yes. She was on edge.
"Hello?"
"I heard everything."
"Heard what?"
"The sounds you made. When you were feeling good."
Seths was looking at me with eyes damp with an eerie heat.
...How had she heard?
There hadn't been anyone around — I was certain of it.
"How did you hear?"
Seths gestured with her chin at me.
"The badge."
...Damn it. I'd forgotten.
This badge provides the Honored Guest's information to Dragonia.
"It doesn't... show visuals too, does it?"
Seths nodded, rolling her green eyes as she glanced up at me.
Then her lips parted.
"It does. ...So, could you do that with me too?"
An outrageous request.
"No."
I was exhausted right now.
I sat on the sofa, eating grapes and forcing sleep away as much as I could.
"...I figured as much."
Seths smiled bitterly and approached me.
She sat across from me and shot me a sidelong look.
"Terup has an estrus cycle."
...I'd never heard of anything like that among other Ain.
"Really?"
"But since she can't get pregnant every year, she hires a man each time it happens. I wanted to ask you for that."
...When I was on Earth, I'd never once enjoyed this kind of luck with women.
'If anything, I was on the unlucky side.'
Was this what it was like to be good-looking?
Women fighting over you like this?
Seths was lying.
Hadn't I just heard it from Edelin before visiting?
"Isn't it possible to erase sexual desire with magic?"
"There are side effects. Your chest and hips shrink, and your skin gets worse. It doesn't suit me."
"I didn't realize you cared about that sort of thing."
Seths bristled and glared at me.
The sight was rather endearing.
"Of course I do!"
"Don't misunderstand. I just meant that since you're already beautiful, it felt like you were being greedy."
The corners of the bristling Seths's mouth twitched upward.
Soon her wavering lips burst open.
"...All talk!"
Using magic to erase someone's sexual desire — it might be a similar principle to suppressing female hormones.
No, it probably was exactly that.
If so, what Edelin had been about to do to me was no different from chemical castration, wasn't it?
It sent a chill down my spine.
"So, why have you suddenly stopped setting foot in here?"
Seths fiddled with the tip of her tail, glancing at me.
"What did you mean when you told that Rektalian she was bewitched?"
"If you were listening, you'd know. You're bewitched by me too, Seths."
"By what? Don't tell me you're swaggering around because you're handsome?"
I'd expected her to get angry, but she didn't.
Instead, she looked at me with a face of genuine curiosity.
...It wasn't a power I'd wanted, but it was a power I was embarrassed to confess.
"It's a bit difficult to explain. It's not natural."
"Anyway — because of that, I've become bewitched by you, and you think that's wrong?"
"Yes. So... I'll stop being your Honored Guest."
I unfastened the badge and held it out to Seths.
Seths took the badge and looked up at me.
"I'm sorry. For troubling you all this time."
"What's there to be sorry about?"
Seths placed her own badge on the table and leaned her weight against the armrest.
After a pause of about one beat, Seths's lips parted.
"Your perspective isn't wrong, but would you like to hear about mine too?"
"About what?"
"When Hain created the world, she gave animals various instincts and drives. And all living things have the desire to eat and the desire to reproduce."
So in a world where creationism was orthodoxy, sexual desire was understood this way?
Edelin seemed to think so too.
The perspective was fascinating.
"Focus."
Seths's tail swayed, tapping the sofa softly.
"And?"
"The ones who defy those instincts the most are the Ain. Because we're capable of deep thought. That thought and our nature meet, and that's what creates the strange creatures called Ain."
"What are you trying to say?"
"You — isn't your thinking diseased?"
What nonsense was this?
Seths tilted her head, staring at me intently.
"Excuse me?"
"Living things are made selfishly. They're wary of other creatures and hide their assets. And they actively live for themselves."
Sounded like the kind of bullshit an independent Ain would spout.
"Are you saying I'm strange because I don't act like an animal?"
Seths's eyes narrowed.
"That's the problem. Why do you think Ain are special?"
What kind of contradictory thing was she saying?
Hadn't she said it with her own mouth?
"You just said yourself that Ain are the creatures who defy animal instincts the most."
"Are you stupid? Normally, people come up with all sorts of abstract reasons first. 'Is there a reason to help people?' — like that!"
"...What are you talking about?"
"What kind of idiot spills all his secrets to an assassin who wrecked his life — within a single month? By revealing all that, you're giving her the means to try to kill you again."
...How on earth did she know this?
Had information about Lexi already spread among the Dragonians?
"Didn't it work out well in the end?"
"Before the outcome, it was an unknown. Unless you're a complete moron, you would've known that."
"Edelin was there from the start, so it was safe. And I'll never visit Hapstenburg again anyway."
"No, you're not that thoughtless a person. You've experienced firsthand that Immortals have no borders — you know that well."
Seths narrowed her eyes as if interrogating me and crept toward me slowly on all fours.
"The strongest drive among living things is the reproductive drive. Eat, sleep, shit, fuck, get fucked. So what comes next?"
Seths approached me with a sly face, and her long, slender hands gently wrapped around my throat.
Then something sharp pricked into my neck.
...Claws like a pocketknife had extended and were gripping my throat.
"The safety drive."
"I'm a Holy Child. I won't die anyway."
"If your neck is severed or your heart is pierced, you die. And you're not a Holy Child, are you?"
Then Seths, still lightly gripping my neck, climbed on top of me and nestled against me.
Seths's face arrived right before my eyes, then drew even closer.
"You — why haven't you been speaking your own thoughts this whole time?"
"...What?"
"You've been reading my words only on the surface and answering."
Seths rubbed her face against mine, then went completely limp against me.
"Charlotte told me. That you seem like a dutiful person. That you had no real reason to go to Hapstenburg, but you went simply to keep your promise to Edelin?"
"Yes."
"No. You wanted to be called the Holy Child, and the Immortals also believe you're the Holy Child. You're calculating. Because you kept up the act, Yunaira's real Holy Body is safe."
Seths smirked, resting her head crookedly on my chest and looking up at me sideways.
...Had my actions been this transparent to someone who knew everything?
"You can never go back to Yunaira, can you? So why court danger for people you'll never see again?"
"Because what's precious to me is there."
"Yeah? I suppose so. But after everything's over, what are you planning to do with your life? Start a principality or something?"
She suddenly jabbed at a sore spot.
What to do afterward. Maybe deciding that was the most important thing of all?
"...I haven't decided yet."
Seths's eyes narrowed, and she smiled darkly.
"...So you're living entirely for others, aren't you?"
She'd struck the heart of it.
I was acting only for Jul and Shireu.
"You have no selfishness. And so you don't understand selfishness."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Look closely at Drekkar's situation. To buy our Magic Tower's tools, Drekkar has constantly exported goods to maintain the exchange rate. But the plague destroyed that rate."
"I know."
"But..."
Seths buried her head against my neck and brought her lips to my ear.
"This thing called the Holy Blood... a means to restore the treasury and the exchange rate has appeared...?"
...!
Seths's slender hand stroked down my spine.
"Did you think everyone would just sing your praises?"
...No.
I'd sold them a drug.
Because I'd received something of value from them.
"Countless humans — at least a good number of them — will think this about you: 'Where exactly was this so-called Holy Child while half the human population was dying?' 'Couldn't he have helped us sooner?'"
My thinking had been shallow...!
If the truth that I'm not a Holy Body were exposed, wouldn't that be a perfect recipe for war!
"Tens of millions will distrust you, and some will hate you. If someone strikes the flint of deliberate slander against you, the oil of suspicion will catch fire. And then every flimsy little plan you've been counting on will be shattered."
A chill ran through me.
Everything I'd done to protect Shireu could very well become the foothold that sends Shireu straight to hell.
Seths, wearing the expression of someone who'd just declared checkmate and was daring me to counter, stroked my chest.
Even as she looked at me openly, her hand continued downward.
"Of course, you weren't wrong. But the uneducated masses will define the Holy Child as evil and try to harm you. You know what that's called? A conviction offender."
I'd been far too complacent.
"...What should I do?"
"First, become my Honored Guest again."
Seths unfastened her badge and held it out to me.
When I took it and pinned it to my chest, Seths's eyes curved into crescent moons.
"Good... Also, make sure you come here at least once every two days."
"I'll try."
A long, slender hand slipped inside my shirt.
"I wasn't originally this kind of person. You're the bad one. Coming here reeking of that lewd scent... and then telling me you'd stop being my Honored Guest? Why are you stirring me up?"
Seths sent me the same look Lexi had worn last night, her hands roaming over my body.
"Tell me. At night, you were sobbing and letting out those strange, suppressed moans — what exactly did she do to you, and how?"
A voice like she was throwing a tantrum.
"No, why would I...?"
"You're my Honored Guest, aren't you?"
As if it were a natural obligation, Seths cut me off and leaned her weight onto me.
"She shoved her tongue down my throat and toyed with me. It choked me, made me gag, and she did it violently and suddenly at a moment when I was sensitive and struggling."
Even when my heart had been ripped out and my fingers severed, I don't think I'd ever reacted as intensely as I did then.
It felt awkward to continue, so I glanced at Seths — and saw she was... shifting on top of me.
This was someone who normally wore at least undergarments, but inside her unbuttoned robe, there was nothing.
Shallow breaths were escaping her chest.
...Wasn't this supposed to be a public space?
Why was she acting like this?
Perhaps sensing my gaze, Seths looked up at me.
"What... are you going to help me...?"
Her drawn-out, moisture-soaked voice trembled faintly.
...It wasn't luck with women. It was perverts I'd lucked into.
No one here is normal.
"I'm very tired right now."
Seths glanced up at my face, then went limp, her two hands wriggling busily inside her robe, working herself up.
"You think your ability is unfair...?"
"Looking at you right now, I'm fairly sure it is."
"Hah... That's why you're hopeless...! We're Ain who use Hain's power...! It's an outrageous ability... it's... charm...!"
...Charm?
This power was charming?
This power came from the babies in the laboratory you people killed?
Of course, she probably wasn't talking about the power itself, but a power is ultimately just a power.
"Show it off! Flaunt your power, boast of your achievements! You have to mingle among people and grow arrogant. You have to become a person of high renown to protect yourself."
Seths unbuttoned my shirt.
"I'll help you. So, what happened last night... Tell me everything, from the beginning..."
Seths rubbed her body against my exposed bare skin and began breathing hot, rough breaths onto my chest.
What kind of perversion was this?
...One thing was certain: there was no chance of an early night.