Is It a Misunderstanding?
The soft scratching of a fountain pen across parchment filled the air. The faint metallic tang of ink mingled with the musty scent of aged paper, settling heavily in the tightly sealed study. I idly twirled the pen between my fingers, rapidly organizing the tangled threads of my current situation in my mind.
I am a slave trader destined to die in this world. Not only Elina and Vivian, but every step Victor has taken in his life is shadowed by countless omens of death. Even the Jinzo Evelyn, whom I had coincidentally acquired this time, was a ferocious hound that could tear out my throat at the slightest misstep.
But surviving and truly living are two different things. And I had chosen the latter.
To survive long in this world by ripping apart every lethal variable that threatened my life. To enjoy the world my little sister had created while living out my natural lifespan. That alone held enough meaning.
I would seize the leashes of every factor that threatened me and demand absolute obedience. I would eliminate my weaknesses and sharpen my strengths to their keenest edge.
As my thoughts chased one another, a neatly pressed black-and-white uniform entered the corner of my vision. It was Elina, now wearing a maid apron adorned with white frills instead of the heavy knight’s armor from her past. She stood as rigid as a statue, even her breathing suppressed.
“Kyuwoo……”
At her feet, a fluffy white bundle kept tugging at the hem of her skirt with persistent whining. Even as tiny claws scratched at her ankles, Elina did not move a muscle. Only her sapphire pupils followed the precise trajectory of my pen tip.
Two suffocating hours passed like that. Eventually, Lua grew tired on her own and crawled onto the soft cushion prepared in one corner of the room. Soon, peaceful snores filled the air as she fell fast asleep.
Three hours. Elina still had not broken her posture. Not once had she bent her knees. She didn’t even wipe away the beads of sweat that rolled down her temples and along her pale neck—an excruciating display of endurance.
I set the fountain pen down beside the inkwell and stared directly at her.
The most efficient method of control to bind both Elina’s body and mind to my will. This cruel neglect that prevented her from deciding even a single breath on her own until I permitted it was the surest way to imprint absolute obedience into a slave.
“Ancient elf breathing technique. How long can you normally maintain it?”
My heavy voice sliced through the silence. Elina’s breathing hitched for a split second.
“As long as I remain conscious… I can maintain it continuously.”
“How much has your Mana Heart recovered?”
“……Approximately thirty percent.”
Considering the power she once unleashed on the battlefield, that figure was already threatening enough. But it was still far from sufficient to swallow this brutal market whole.
My previous life’s cold calculations and this body’s instinctive desire to train meshed together perfectly. All I needed to do was raise her value to its absolute peak and ensure that sharp blade pointed at the enemy’s throat rather than mine.
“Master.”
Elina moistened her dry lips and spoke cautiously.
“May I…… ask a question?”
“Speak.”
“Recently, while operating my mana, I’ve felt a faint sense of foreign obstruction.”
An unpleasant sensation of the meridians tangling during mana flow.
“I wanted to ask if you could personally examine the state of my Mana Heart.”
Elina’s maintenance request.
I pushed away from the chair’s backrest and slowly rose to my feet. Elderly mages who had mastered mana to its limit could discern another’s realm with a mere glance. But for those in combat professions who wielded their bodies as weapons, the method was different.
One had to comprehensively read the minute twitches of muscle, the rhythm of breath, the faint killing intent leaking from pores, and the size and flow of mana during operation.
In cases like Elina’s, where the meridians were tangled, the surest solution was to directly inject my own mana into her circuits and force the blocked sections open.
I circled the desk and approached until I stood right before her. The distance was so close our breaths nearly mingled. Elina’s upturned eyes churned violently like crashing waves.
The black-and-white maid apron covering her chest swelled so tightly it seemed ready to burst. An overwhelming volume that not even her corset could restrain. Her breasts, firm and buoyant without the slightest sag, filled the front of her shirt to the point of bursting, radiating an almost violent presence.
I reached out with my right hand toward the narrow valley formed beneath her heavy breasts, where the tightly stretched fabric created a deep crease.
A soft, feverishly warm crevice. My rough palm slid smoothly into that secret underside of her breast.
“Hngh……!”
Elina hurriedly pressed her lips together. The dizzying sensation of supple, elastic flesh pressing heavily against the back of my strong hand. At the same time, my palm made perfect contact with the closest point on her ribcage to her beating heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The violent pulsation and scorching body heat transmitted through the fabric and into my skin. In that instant, my figure—backlit by the room’s light—reflected densely within her moist pupils.
The carelessly rolled-up shirt sleeves. The thick, corded muscles extending beneath them. The prominent veins and the thick knuckles buried deep beneath the taut underside of her breast. The thick neckline rising above the neatly buttoned collar and the broad, beast-like shoulders.
An overwhelmingly masculine presence surrounded her vision completely, like a predator gazing down at its prey. She was trapped within this unfamiliar and oppressive proximity.
When the calloused male hand brushed and dug into her sensitive bare skin, a vicious thrill raced up her spine, making her back twitch.
“I’m going to send my mana through. Accept it as it is.”
I drew mana from my core and pushed it heavily toward the area around her heart. A violent act of forcing another’s energy into one’s own pathways. If the recipient resisted or the injector pushed too forcefully, both could be placed in danger.
It was a sensation that made Elina’s Mana Heart boil while explosively scraping at the sensitive nerves surrounding it.
“Haa…… ngh, ahh……!”
Though she tried to hold back, biting her lips until they turned red, she could not swallow the moans that escaped. Pain and pleasure mixed to an extreme degree, sending a shock that bleached her mind white. In an instant, her sweat-drenched black hair cascaded messily over her shoulders. Her firm inner thighs convulsed endlessly from the forced stimulation.
The moment her legs buckled, unable to endure the stimulation, Elina’s survival instincts overrode her reason to keep her from collapsing. One of her smooth legs wrapped around my thigh like a snake. At the same time, her two arms, with nowhere else to go, tightly embraced my waist.
A seductive, obscene posture that looked as though we were pressed together for an intimate dance beneath a glittering chandelier.
I did not push her away. Instead, I gently supported her waist with my left arm.
“Focus.”
I spoke again to Elina, who was losing concentration.
“Concentrate only on your Mana Heart.”
Injecting energy into another’s circuits demanded extreme focus from me as well. My jaw clenched tightly. Beads of sweat gathered heavily at the end of my thick neckline before they finally lost their battle against gravity and fell.
The sticky droplets struck Elina’s pale collarbone and shattered.
“Haa, ah…… M-Master…… ngh……!”
Elina panted, gripping my waist so tightly that her arms lost all color. In the past, she had danced mechanically with countless noblemen at social balls for the sake of her family’s prestige. Yet not once had any man made her heart race this madly.
Her heart had only ever pounded on blood-soaked battlefields.
As my mana violently tore through her tangled meridians, a deep sense of fulfillment exploded from the depths of her core. An overwhelming pleasure she had never experienced before licked sensually across every inch of her body.
Sweat trickled stickily between her breasts. The solid pressure of Master’s firm thigh pressed fully against her own. The male before her, dripping sweat onto her collarbone. His rough breathing, the veined neckline, the powerful forearm supporting her waist.
Elina felt with painful clarity how these visual and tactile stimuli were driving her arousal to its absolute limit. She could not tell whether this horrifically ecstatic pleasure was merely a physiological reaction to the mana flow, or a thick, uncontrollable heat directed at the man before her.
“Remember the path I just traced.”
I stopped injecting mana and slowly released the arm supporting her waist. In the peaceful room, Lua whimpered softly in her sleep on the cushion, twitching her hind legs. But inside Elina’s head, irreversible misunderstandings and feverish heat had already turned everything into chaos.
The moment in the slave waiting area of the Valois family when he had hurled insulting words at her. The man who treated her as nothing more than a tool. The faint resistance and desire for revenge that had lingered inside her were completely burned away by the heat that had filled the study.
In the empty space left behind, only obsession, longing, and an inescapable, deep carnal desire for me surged upward.
It was a night of terrible delusion, clinging stickily to her flushed cheeks.
Once her ragged breathing returned to normal, the ancient elf energy flowing from her core circulated through her body far more smoothly than before. The intense mana resonance between the two of them had heated the study to a dizzying degree.
Elina had once traversed countless battlefields. Whether allies or enemies, there had been no shortage of men who stripped naked in madness or shame to humiliate her. Yet the grotesque, barbaric nudity of those men was on an entirely different level from the refined yet explosively masculine physique of the man before her now.
Her gaze quickly scanned over my sweat-dampened shirt. With an instinctive gasp, the pale skin of her neck flushed bright red.
“Ah… Thank you, Master. It feels… as though my meridians have been completely cleared.”
Elina bowed deeply, her voice hoarse as she offered her thanks. Beads of sweat traced a dizzying path down her spine beneath her bent back.
“I only cleared them. Remember the sensation from today.”
I indifferently pulled down my sweat-soaked sleeves and turned to return to my seat.
“Master.”
Elina’s heavy voice stopped me in my tracks.
“If it pleases you… may I wash you?”
Her moist eyes dug stickily into my neck. Loyalty masking an unmistakable longing and obsession.
I said nothing and turned my gaze toward the cushion. I gently grasped the scruff of the sleeping Lua, who was snoring softly. The little bundle dangled in the air, whimpering in her sleep.
Holding Lua in one hand, I looked down at Elina.
“One question per day.”
A curt rejection. A very faint—but unmistakable—glint of disappointment and regret flashed across Elina’s sapphire eyes. The fingers gripping her skirt tightened and relaxed repeatedly.
“Take a shower and go to sleep.”
“……Yes, Master. Have a peaceful night.”
Elina bowed once more with perfect politeness, then left the study, leaving behind a sticky heat laced with the scent of sweat.
With a click, the door closed. Still holding Lua by the scruff, I headed toward the bedroom.
In the bedroom, Silvia stood waiting in a neat, formal posture. As soon as I entered, she bowed deeply.
I casually tossed the Lua in my hand onto her designated cushion. Then I walked straight up to Silvia and roughly tore open the buttons of my sweat-soaked shirt, which clung to my skin.
With a flutter, I tossed the discarded shirt carelessly into her arms. The moment I did, my firm pectorals glistening with sweat and my broad, beast-like shoulders were laid bare before her eyes.
As if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, she accepted my damp clothes with an expressionless face. Yet her gaze lingered on the defined lines running from my thick neck down across my chest muscles. A faint heat bloomed across her previously pale cheeks.
Fearing that the impure heat in her gaze might be noticed, Silvia quickly lowered her silver lashes and busied herself with folding the clothes.
“Anything unusual on the third floor?”
Even to my dry question, Silvia finished organizing the garments first.
“I guided her to the bathroom, provided clothing, and carried out all your instructions without issue.”
“No attempts to harm you?”
“……No. There were no physical threats or sudden actions. She merely…”
Silvia’s teal-brown eyes trembled slightly.
“Said, ‘You smell lovely too,’ and smiled languidly. Other than that, nothing else occurred.”
Since she had spoken with such pride about her lineage, it was unlikely Evelyn would suddenly attack. Still, I needed to ensure she could not engage in any behavior that might become a threat.
“I left a list of slaves who can be put to use within a week on the table in the study. Review it and begin their training first.”
“Yes, Master.”
Silvia gathered the clothes, bowed deeply once more, and quietly left the bedroom.
In the silent bedroom illuminated only by moonlight, I threw my sweat-sticky body roughly onto the bed. Every muscle in my body was screaming. After receiving Evelyn’s magical power, the unexpected blood donation, and forcing open Elina’s meridians, my stamina had far exceeded its limits.
An excruciating wave of exhaustion crashed over me. I let go of consciousness and fell into a deep sleep almost instantly.
When I woke up, I would have to tell Theo to make the highest-grade restorative tonic.