Refill
The moment the door opened, I almost instinctively took a step back.
...What is this room?
Why is it so complicated?
The scene unfolding before my eyes was nothing like the neat, elegant living space I had expected of a noble young lady.
The room itself was by no means small. Even by academy standards, it was one of the more spacious double rooms.
But what filled that generous space was not refined furniture or luxurious ornaments...
It was alchemy equipment.
Test tubes, beakers, burners, reflux apparatuses, mysterious catalyst jars, and all manner of elemental charts.
A faint chemical odor hung in the air, and scorched marks and stains that were unmistakably the remnants of alchemy experiments littered the floor.
Beside the bed sat a bent potion bottle. On the desk, reagents and notes lay scattered in complete disarray.
Previous roommate... just what kind of war did you fight here...
No wonder the student who swapped rooms with me had looked so unusually cheerful.
Yeah. There's no way I can live in a place like this.
I sat on the bed and quietly watched Elise. She had her back turned to me, silently turning the pages of a book.
It was painfully obvious she was trying to look indifferent.
I steadied my breathing and spoke softly.
"That incident back then. You did it, didn't you?"
The sound of turning pages stopped.
Elise's shoulders trembled ever so slightly.
"Wh-what are you talking about."
"If you keep pretending you don't know, I'll have no choice but to tell everyone what I know."
Elise slowly turned her head. She forced her expression blank, but deep in her eyes, fear flickered.
She twisted her lips into a crooked smile and said,
"You? Right now? You dare try to blackmail me?"
Her tone was pure mockery, yet her fingertips trembled faintly.
"A girl cast out by her own ducal house, with a reputation in the gutter... who do you think would believe a word you say?"
I swallowed and took another step forward.
"True. Maybe my words won't change a thing."
Then I leaned in close to her face and continued.
"But Elise. There's one interesting little fact I know about your younger sister back home... and if that comes out, the conversation might change, don't you think?"
"Wh-what... fact...? What could you possibly know about my sister?"
Even as she said it, her voice quavered with unease.
I narrowed my eyes and finished in a voice laced with cold scorn.
"Well... let's just say that if it ever got out, House Raphaellasia might find itself in a rather awkward position."
Elise lowered her head without a word. Lips pressed tight, trembling eyes fixed on the floor.
"But... if you do as I say... I'll never breathe a word of it for the rest of my life. How about it?"
I slowly curled the corners of my mouth into the most wicked, satisfied smile I could manage and whispered to her.
After a brief silence, Elise finally gave a slow nod. It was the motion of someone who had given up on everything.
"...Fine."
I deliberately called out to her with a casual expression.
"Good. Then... first order."
Her shoulders flinched.
I jerked my chin toward the potion bottles rolling haphazardly across the desk.
"Clean this room. Right now! At this rate, even I'm going to get contaminated!"
"Hah... but—!"
"No!!! There's a dedicated alchemy lab for a reason!!! Why are you doing this in here!!"
She hesitated for a moment, then muttered in a voice barely audible.
"Too many... people..."
"Haaah..."
"Not easy."
It felt a little like twisting the knife in her wounds, but for the sake of her future...
I shot her a sidelong glance and tossed out,
"That's exactly why you never got along with your last roommate either."
She stared at me blankly for a second with a faintly hurt expression, then flared up and shouted,
"Sh-she said she understood!!!"
"Do you have a conscience or not? Of course she'd agree if a ducal princess ranking far above her offered."
Thud—
"N-no. That can't be..."
I planted a hand on the shoulder of the stunned Elise and barked,
"So clean that stuff up already!"
The cleaning was finished.
Or more precisely, Elise finished the cleaning.
I sat on the bed and watched her scrub the floor with a sullen face for quite a while. The sheets had been changed, the reagent bottles neatly arranged, and the burn marks... well, those we just covered with a carpet.
Surprisingly diligent...
I hadn't expected her to do this well.
"I-it's done."
Elise tossed the last rag under the desk as she spoke.
Slumped shoulders, exhausted breathing. And then, furtively, she stole a glance at me as if gauging my reaction.
"...Yeah. Good work."
When I answered like that, she glared at me for a moment before whipping her head away.
Now the room was quiet. Just the two of us left. Without a single word.
Silence.
Stillness.
Ugh... this is way too awkward.
Should I try talking?
No. If I say something pointless, I'll only put her more on guard.
"……."
"……."
She was the playable character with the absolute worst social skills, and I wasn't much better...
I sat on the bed with my legs crossed and arms folded, glancing pointlessly toward the desk before shifting my gaze to Elise. She sat on the sofa with her arms crossed, sneaking peeks at me.
We kept reading each other's faces without speaking, until finally, after a long silence...
"...I'm going to sleep."
Had her wariness eased a little? Elise strode over to the bed, wordlessly flung the blanket open, and burrowed straight under it.
With her back turned and face buried in the pillow, she quietly pulled the covers up to her chin.
Phew... finally.
Of course I wanted to sleep too.
Really.
But...
The reason I had forced myself to give up a single room and stay here.
Only after confirming Elise had fallen asleep could I secretly check her condition.
So...
Hurry up and sleep, Elise.
I stared at her blanket-covered back and blinked quietly. Sitting there in a state of empty-minded waiting for her to fall asleep,
I held my breath so as not to break the silence and began anxiously watching the rhythm of Elise's breathing.
Until she truly fell asleep, I had to survive alone in this tedious air.
Once I confirmed Elise was asleep, I quietly let out a breath.
Soft breathing.
The occasional rustle of fabric beneath the covers.
The gentle rise and fall of her back visible over her shoulder.
...She's out.
I carefully rose from my seat and surveyed the room once more.
It was definitely tidier than when I first walked in, yet a lingering sense of disorder still hung in the air.
No conspicuous magic circles or barrier devices.
I had already snuck a look while Elise was cleaning earlier, but...
Just in case I had missed something, I narrowed my eyes again.
But,
Nothing. Nothing that looks like a curse medium... at all.
The curse was still hiding somewhere inside her body.
For now, I had no choice but to check directly.
I quietly approached Elise's bedside. Then carefully, I peeled back her blanket just a little.
This size... hmm... passable?
Hidden by her underclothes, I couldn't measure properly, but they were just barely large enough to call substantial.
...Is this even okay, though?
I hesitated for a second, but I was no longer a man anyway.
We're both girls, so touching a little is fine, right...
Sorry...
Still, I apologized inwardly out of conscience as I placed my hand over her chest—precisely over her heart.
Thump.
The moment my fingertips rested lightly, a familiar vibration brushed against my palm.
I stirred the faintest thread of mana and began analyzing the curse by following the grain of that vibration.
When it came to contamination, I was more confident than anyone else in this world.
— Ssssss...
Mana spread. And that was the moment.
Crackle—
...What?
Suddenly the flow of mana twisted.
A foreign energy starting from my fingertips began surging back up my arm in reverse.
This is...!?
Without a second to spare, the curse that had been inside her body raced up my mana in an instant.
An extremely precise and complex design.
Very few beings could create something like this.
First, the disaster-class monsters. But if they had moved, Master or the Level 9 powerhouses would never have failed to notice.
Which left only...
The Cultists of Contamination, after all.
When I had lifted Elise's curse before, they must have sensed it and crafted this new curse from the start with me as the target.
But...
They picked the wrong curse by a mile.
The curse that had ridden Elise into me began slowly devouring my body.
A pain as if my skull were being torn apart.
An external will trying to seize control of my mind through the cracks in my consciousness.
Endless whispering voices. Creeping fragments of emotion. Every single word drove into my awareness like an awl.
I have to resiiist...
The despairing yet ecstatic moment when will is stripped away and ownership of the body passes to someone else.
Unable to move without someone's command.
Thoughts remain, but action is forbidden.
Eyes open, yet what fills them is another's will.
Wanting to open my mouth and speak, yet no voice comes.
Not wanting to kneel, yet the body moves on its own and submits.
Wanting to die, yet moving to live.
Wanting to live, yet walking toward death as ordered...
Miserable, and powerless...
"Heeut... haauk..."
Unique Ability Masochist has been activated.
Along with overwhelming pleasure, power far surpassing Level 5 flooded into my body in an instant.
A force incomparably greater than when I was punished or tormented in front of the students.
Ah.
My mind cleared in a flash.
This...
Can I get a refill?