Buff
A cool night breeze brushed against Bella's flushed cheeks.
After finishing her bath and parting ways with Yeon, Bella found she simply could not stay cooped up in her room.
To cool the heat coiled around her body and the tangled emotions clouding her mind, she climbed up to the dormitory rooftop and leaned against the railing.
"Haa..."
She exhaled deeply, and her breath scattered into the night air.
But the fire burning in her chest would not settle so easily.
What had happened in the bath just moments ago rose up in vivid detail.
Yeon's soft touch. Pale skin slick with water. Those eyes looking up at her, flustered yet pure. And that completely defenseless face, eyes squeezed shut as she said it was "senior's turn"...
I really almost did something unforgivable.
Bella swallowed dryly once more.
In the moment Yeon closed her eyes, Bella had truly come within a hair's breadth of losing her reason.
The impulse to pin that girl down by force, to leave her no room to resist, to freely indulge every twisted desire she harbored — it had seized her entire body.
She had almost... almost inflicted a wound on that child that could never be undone, never be erased for the rest of her life.
Barely — truly, only barely — had she crushed that impulse with the last shred of reason she had left.
With trembling hands, Bella had grabbed a shower towel and finished washing Yeon as quickly as she could.
Every time her hands touched Yeon's body, the desire that surged up again was a form of torture.
But she did not want to ruin what she had with her. So Bella held on with everything she had.
Why... am I like this?
Bella was confused.
Had she always liked women?
It was a question she had never once considered.
During her academy years she had devoted herself solely to training and study. There had been no room to feel romantic attachment toward anyone.
After graduation she had gone straight to the front lines. In a place where death was routine, she had clawed for survival and treated emotion as a luxury she could not afford.
So why, of all people, was she feeling this way about Yeon?
Simply because they were the same gender?
Or...
Maybe... it's because it's her.
At first she had thought of her as nothing more than a worthless criminal.
But after learning her secret, after witnessing both her strength and her fragility at once, feelings Bella could not explain had begun to take root in her heart.
Whether it was the cold night wind or simply the passage of time, the heat that had scorched her body subsided somewhat.
With a mind a little calmer, Bella came down from the rooftop and returned to her room.
When she opened the door and stepped inside, the air of the neatly arranged room felt somehow hollow.
She intended to take another cold shower and fully settle her thoughts.
But the moment she opened the bathroom door, Bella stopped in her tracks.
In the basket beside the sink, the clothes Yeon had changed out of the day before were still sitting there.
An academy uniform skirt, and the socks she had been wearing.
Ah...
Bella stared blankly at them for a moment.
She should have told her to take them. She had been too distracted and forgotten.
Should she bring them over even now?
But it was already late.
Without realizing it, Bella slowly reached out.
Soft fabric met her fingertips.
A faint trace of Yeon's scent seemed to linger on it.
...I shouldn't do this.
Reason sounded a warning in her head.
This was wrong.
But her body had already slipped free of reason's control.
As if entranced, Bella picked up Yeon's skirt and socks.
And even knowing there would be no going back, she gathered those clothes into her arms and carried them to her bed.
She turned off the lights and lay down, but sleep would not come.
The faint warmth and fragrance rising from Yeon's clothes beside her kept stimulating Bella's senses without end.
In the dark, Bella closed her eyes and once more called Yeon's image to mind.
The night grew deeper, and yet...
The ember inside her that would not die out still burned hot.
Haa... I really thought I was going to die of embarrassment...
What happened in the bath kept replaying in my head.
The flustered look on Senior Bella's face when I offered to scrub her back.
And then, when it came time for me to wash her front — that awkward, scorching atmosphere in the air.
Her eyes had suddenly gone strange and she had said something weird like "This is your fault," but...
In the end she still washed me off in a more or less normal fashion and that was that.
Her hands on my back had been softer than I expected.
But what exactly did I do wrong?
No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn't find anything I'd done wrong.
Was it just a joke?
Washing each other is proper etiquette when girls bathe together... what a weird world.
I had only done what Master taught me. So why had Senior Bella been so startled?
Master had clearly said it was only natural between people who were close. Or was noble society etiquette something else entirely?
No — more than that.
When I bathed with Master I hadn't thought much of it...
Master was small and, well... petite, so it just felt cute.
But seeing Senior Bella's enormous ones up that close...
Somehow it was incredibly embarrassing.
Embarrassing enough that I closed my eyes without meaning to.
Turning these thoughts over, I arrived at the dormitory well past curfew.
"Yeon Bennet!"
Sure enough, the dormitory housemother waiting at the entrance fixed me with a piercing glare.
A lecture, and then a demerit slip came flying my way.
"Five points for unauthorized absence from morning classes, three points for curfew violation. Eight demerit points total. Be more careful from now on."
Eight points, huh...
I took the demerit slip and ran the numbers in my head.
By regulation, hitting ten demerit points meant a week of academy cleaning duty — or being dragged into the infamous Punishment Room for harsh corporal punishment.
Two points left?
I felt the corner of my mouth lift on its own.
Obviously the Punishment Room!
Of course, going past thirty points could mean failing the year, so I would have to manage it somewhat...
But the Punishment Room!
I had heard the rumors about that place plenty of times.
I never got the chance in the first semester, but now that I had lost my power, it would be fine to experience it, right?
Imagining pleasant things, I quietly opened the door to my dorm room.
I slipped in carefully in case Elise was awake, but fortunately she was already fast asleep in bed, breathing soft and even.
What caught my eye first, though, was not Elise's sleeping face.
"Haa."
A deep sigh escaped me without permission.
The room Elise had sweated so hard to clean only a day ago was once again strewn with alchemy materials.
Unidentified reagent bottles were stacked precariously on the desk, and new stains of unknown experimental origin had appeared on the floor.
Next to the scorch mark she had covered with a carpet, there was even a brand-new scorch mark...
I had hounded her so hard to clean, and in just a few hours she had reduced it to this.
But I knew why she clung to her research so desperately.
It was to save her little sister, Sera.
Ugh, nothing I can do about it.
I quietly picked my way around the mess and approached Elise's bedside.
Looking at her face, so deeply asleep, I still felt a twinge in a corner of my heart.
That desperate struggle to protect someone precious...
Still, I have to deal with the curse.
I carefully reached out and rested my hand lightly near her heart.
Just like last night, I meant to check the curse energy remaining in her body and weaken it a little further if I could. But then...
Huh?
The curse energy under my fingertips felt wrong.
Last night I had absorbed a considerable portion of it and weakened it significantly — and yet that same curse was writhing again at full strength. No, perhaps even stronger than before.
It was vivid and powerful, as if it had only just been cast.
Someone... reapplied the curse?
A shiver ran through my entire body.
Jackpot.
That extreme pleasure of having your mind dominated and your will broken.
I could feel it again — and even stronger?
"Heuk."
A strange little sound slipped from my lips before I could stop it.
My heart began to pound wildly.
Thank you so much!
No, no, no! Get a grip, Yeon Bennet!
I hurriedly shook my head and banished the thought.
This was not the time to get excited.
This was a serious situation.
The fact that Elise's curse had been reinforced again meant the one who cast it was still circling around her.
First things first — I have to do something about Elise.
I placed my hand on her body once more.
This time I wasn't simply going to absorb the curse. I meant to analyze it more carefully.
Only by grasping the curse's origin and nature could I track down the culprit behind it and fully free Elise.
Of course, the "side effects" I would feel in the process... well, those couldn't be helped.
Heh heh.
What? Is it morning already?
I had definitely only managed to fall asleep toward dawn after dealing with the curse...
And yet, strangely, my eyes snapped wide open.
Outside the window it was still dark, but my body felt astonishingly light.
I felt no fatigue at all.
If anything, vitality was surging through me.
As if I had slept deeply all night — no, better than that. My condition was at its absolute peak.
Power thrummed from my fingertips to my toes, and my mana sense felt far sharper than usual.
Did last night's curse absorption work that well?
Thinking that, I started to sit up — and from deep in my lower abdomen, a thick, dense wave of pleasure rolled through me.
Different from last night's sharp thrill: a subtle, continuous kind of sensation that would not stop.
As if a pleasant heat were rising from inside my own body.
No way.
I carefully lifted my sleepwear.
Across the white fabric of my undergarments, a vivid bloodstain had spread.
This is...
About once a month.
Arriving without fail — the one thing I could never escape so long as I existed in this woman's body.
And at the same time, ironically...
The period when I became strongest of all.
My period.