A New Contract
"Seol-ah. You okay?"
"Mm. It wasn't that big a deal."
After everything was finished, I called Astra back down from upstairs.
At the time I hadn't had room to think about anything else, so I'd sent her up there — but looking back now, maybe I should simply have told her to step outside or go home.
Was my room that messy? Astra's expression was a little... odd.
Not that big a deal, she says.
I turned a lukewarm gaze on Baek Seol, who was putting on a tough front in front of Astra.
After all that fuss — changing conditions midstream just to barely cancel the side effect...
Sensing my look, Baek Seol hunched her shoulders, then shot me a glare and mouthed a warning.
Don't you dare say anything weird to Yuna.
No. Look — the Astra you're so busy covering for has already done pretty much everything with me...
Well. Even between close friends, talking about swallowing another man's semen would be hard.
Especially since neither the cancel condition nor the extra condition had required anything of the sort.
Anyway, Baek Seol's side effects were all cleared now...
"What are you going to do now?"
"What do you mean?"
"Earlier you were saying I should report this ability to the Association and all that."
"I already told you. I've dropped that idea. If you decide to come forward, I'll fully cooperate — but I'm not going to force you if you don't want to."
I'd wondered if she'd only said that earlier because the side effect kept her from moving freely and she was just trying to get out of the moment — but apparently not.
That kind of line was pure Astra.
"What about you, then? Just keep running the restaurant like this?"
"While I'm at it, I plan to keep providing buff dishes to Astra the way I have been, and help her grow."
I'd ended up saving Astra by buffing her in a crisis, but that wasn't going to change how I lived.
"That's a shame... but yeah. Like you said, if your ability gets out carelessly, you could become a target for villains."
"Thank you for understanding."
"But you're going to keep using the ability on Yuna?"
"We made a contract."
If I was going to hide the ability, never using it at all might have been the right answer — but I had no intention of stopping the buffs for Astra.
For one thing, Astra wants it too.
I hadn't asked for the full story, but Astra was starving for growth.
If I suddenly cut off the buffs that had been helping her, she would be crushed.
I'd gotten fairly close to her, seen enough of who she was to want to cheer her on, and I wanted to keep pushing her forward.
...Of course, part of me was also looking forward to the acts that would come with continuing to buff her.
And one more thing. I was harboring a quiet hope.
Could my ability grow too?
The powers superhumans wield tend to grow the more they're used.
Not just raw superhuman force.
Awakening a power doesn't mean you can control it right away. Having gained a brand-new ability they never had before, superhumans spend a long time honing it, building proficiency. As they do, control and versatility improve separate from raw power, and the superhuman grows another step.
I'm a superhuman too, so maybe my ability will grow the more I use it?
More buff dishes per week, or being able to put powerful buffs on myself... or maybe even directing the side effects.
I had a little hope that using my ability would make it grow.
It's not completely baseless. The extra conditions didn't even exist at first, and then they appeared.
I thought about the extra conditions that had gotten attached to my ability's side effects.
They hadn't been there when I first buffed Astra, but now every time I buffed Astra or Baek Seol, a new extra condition appeared.
That was a change in my ability too — so maybe the more I used it, the more it would change?
People want to use power once they have it. I wanted to handle the ability dwelling in me better, and grow it further.
After all, this power was my own special something that no one else had.
"Anyway, for a while I'll keep providing buff dishes to Astra from time to time and watching the results, same as before."
"Mmm..."
When I answered Baek Seol with that desire and resolve in my voice, she let out a strange little sound.
"Yuna growing is good, but... then Yuna would have to go through this kind of thing every time..."
Having experienced it herself, had she roughly figured out what Astra must have been going through?
Worried for her friend as a fellow woman, Baek Seol pulled Astra over for a moment and whispered in her ear.
"Yuna. Are you really okay? From what you've told me and from what happened to me, if you keep taking Siwoo's buffs, those... those kinds of things..."
"Mm. I'm fine."
Like trying to stop a friend from selling her body for money.
Soothing Baek Seol, who was sincerely worried about Astra in a situation that was somewhat similar.
"We haven't gone as far as... the real act yet. And you've experienced it yourself, so you know — Siwoo is gentle enough about it."
"...Gentle? Wait. You mean you haven't gone that far?"
Baek Seol's expression turned strange at her friend's words, and she thought back to what had just happened.
Gentle...? That image of him using the Puppetization side effect on her like a tool?
He didn't force himself on me using the side effect, true...
She couldn't say it in front of Yuna and Siwoo, but when she'd accepted the side-effect cancel earlier, Baek Seol had steeled herself to lose her virginity.
The Puppetization side effect on her. And the perfect excuse of "canceling the side effect."
Of course she'd assumed Siwoo would take advantage and take her body, and she'd thought Astra had gone through the same, and wanted to share that pain.
The reason she'd changed her mind the moment she heard Yuna had been through it and decided to cancel the side effect today was for that.
At least if someone shared the same pain, she could comfort her.
But that wasn't it.
From what Yuna was saying, she hadn't lost her virginity or been forced either, and Baek Seol herself had been touched a little but nothing severe.
Of course, somehow she'd ended up swallowing Siwoo's semen with her mouth...
She was also aware that her body, under the command move yourself, had simply reenacted a scene from a book she'd once read.
It doesn't seem like he's luring Yuna with growth as bait out of lust or anything either...
She trusted the man named Siwoo since he'd saved her life, but he was still human. A man. Of course he had sexual desire.
So she'd been braced for something severe — but it had been a ways off from that resolve...
"And if it's Siwoo..."
"Hm?"
"Ah, never mind."
She didn't fully understand, but Yuna genuinely looked fine.
Not just saying comforting lies to reassure Baek Seol — she really seemed okay.
"If that's the case..."
If the person herself said she was fine, there wasn't much more to say.
Especially after experiencing firsthand how Siwoo's ability transcended common sense.
If the growth Yuna's shown so far is because of Siwoo's ability... it's only natural to want it.
It was a shame he wouldn't use that ability for better heroes, but using it for Astra, one of the few real heroes, wasn't bad either.
In fact, even while hospitalized and unable to train properly, Baek Seol's own ability had improved a little, hadn't it?
Thinking of her friend going through those things left mixed feelings, but in the end it was a good thing.
"Mm..."
I hadn't overheard the whisper, but I could roughly guess what they were talking about, so I just watched Baek Seol.
Her short temper was a flaw, but she was the one who called Astra a true hero and burned with competitive fire.
The one who'd slumped when she thought she could no longer stand beside Astra.
And now she knew the secret I'd been hiding.
Since she already knew the secret anyway.
"How about you cooperate too, Baek Seol?"
"What?"
"Huh?"
"You receive buff dishes from me regularly like Astra does, provide me with the data, and in exchange you get the growth benefits."
The same contract I'd made with Astra.
I proposed it to Baek Seol as well.
"Siwoo... are you serious?"
"Why not? I originally proposed about once a week for the buffs, and like I said before, my ability recharges about two to three times a week."
More precisely, it recharged roughly once every three days.
If I only provided a buff once a week per the contract with Astra, the remaining charges would just go to waste.
Buff charges only stacked up to two.
I could keep using them on myself in daily life like I had been, but...
The gap between buffing myself and buffing a hero is just too big.
As if amplifying a hero's power was the proper way to use it.
Which is why — to learn more about my ability and develop it, I felt I needed to buff heroes more.
I'd also thought that no matter how much I buffed and observed just Astra, there was a limit to what I could learn.
I need at least one more person for comparison to get more accurate data.
"Me too... like Yuna..."
Hearing my proposal, Baek Seol looked tempted and kept thinking.
She was a proper superhuman in her own right. One who'd worked herself half to death to stand alongside Astra — so the lure of easy growth would be hard to resist.
"But then..."
Even so, Baek Seol didn't jump to say yes; she lightly brushed her lips.
As if recalling the taste of the semen she'd swallowed just earlier.
If she accepted my proposal, she'd go through similar things — maybe worse — and she seemed worried about that.
Of course I understood. As a woman, there would be hard parts to accept.
"I won't force you if you don't want to."
"Then..."
"But if you do accept, you might grow on equal footing with Astra and be able to support each other."
"!!"
Not just chasing after Astra, but being able to protect her from the side — that temptation.
Hoping she'd take my offer, I scratched right at Baek Seol's desire.
From what I'd seen, she placed huge meaning on Astra, depended on her, admired her, and was quietly obsessed with her.
"I'll take it."
"Great."
And just as I'd expected, Baek Seol accepted.
The moment the number of people receiving my buffs became two.
I remembered someone I'd forgotten and turned my head that way.
"Ah. I didn't ask you separately, Astra — is this okay? Of course it won't affect the buff dishes I give you..."
"...I don't know."
—Whip!!
"...??"
And Astra, who'd been left out while Baek Seol and I talked, when I made a contract with Baek Seol, somehow turned her head away with a sulky look.