A Slice of an Unremarkable Journey
The journey had been utterly ordinary until that moment.
“Mmph… ohh… haaah… ngh… uht… mmmph… slurp…”
I avoided the capital of Valdenheim County, sticking only to the small rural villages as I walked. Northward. Ever northward.
In the early days after resuming my travels, I had lived in constant fear. Yet the whispers never came. The shadowy tentacles never sprouted. It was almost as if they were mocking me for being afraid of something that wasn’t even there. No matter how I examined myself, there was nothing else dwelling inside me.
But… then why was I so anxious?
To soothe a heart that trembled for no reason, I had no choice but to lean on people. On the fleeting warmth that would vanish as soon as it brushed against me.
“Haa… uhn… uht… hoo… haaah… mmm… heuk?!”
It felt good to entwine my body with a man. A man’s warm, firm root filling me from within, while his hot, sweat-slicked body wrapped tightly around my small frame. That sense of fullness… the feeling of being protected… and the stimulation that reminded me I was still alive. All of it combined.
I knew that a woman’s body would pay a heavy price for being so reckless just to satisfy fleeting desire. But not me. After all, I had learned how to turn back time long before I ever knew a man. Even if a child took root inside me, I simply had to rewind time and it would be gone.
I was aware this was no different from chasing momentary pleasure with drugs. Since I could no longer erase memories by rewinding time, these sickening recollections might pile up until I was irreversibly broken. Still…
Still, I couldn’t stop.
“Ohh… uht, ngh… ugh… pwaah… kehek, kuh…!”
The easiest place was always an inn. All I had to do was seduce any man who happened to be there. Even if there were no travelers, there were always villagers who had come to drink.
The technique was simple. Smile with my eyes and ask if I could join them for a drink, then flirt shamelessly beside the sturdiest-looking man. My experience working at Arto’s brothel proved useful. In these moments, the sweet scent of freshly baked bread that clung to me seemed to act like an aphrodisiac.
Because I followed only country roads, there were many nights I couldn’t reach an inn. No one would open an inn or tavern in a place travelers never visited. Occasionally there were kind-hearted barons who kept guest rooms in their mansions and offered lodging in exchange for news of the outside world, but I could not knock on such doors. I was still a wanted fugitive, after all.
“Uht… haaa… th-there… n-now… sl-slow… kahk?!”
On those nights, I would secretly slip into the most secluded farmhouse in the village. A middle-aged or elderly bachelor living alone in a rundown house far from the others usually had his reasons. An ugly face, perhaps, or a chronic illness. They were men lacking in many ways.
Yet even they were not without lust. Most were ugly, smelled bad, and had little stamina, but they all still had cocks between their legs.
A little coaxing was enough. Wearing nothing but a thin shift in a house after sunset, gently stroking the nape of their neck, and their desire to ravish me would ignite instantly. They craved a woman’s body even more greedily than healthy men, since they had likely never had the chance before.
And if I was lucky, just like now—
“Ohh… uht… ngh… mmmph, mmm… slurp… chuup, chuuuup… slurp…”
I sometimes found new companions on the road.
They didn’t look like particularly high-quality people, but I encountered a pair of adventurers in the grasslands bordering the forest just as I was about to leave Valdenheim. Or rather, I spotted two figures who looked like travelers in the distance, cast Mobia's Haste, and ran toward them panting.
They claimed to be swordsmen who had learned from the same school. Their appearance didn’t suggest they had trained under retired knights from the city or sword instructors from the Imperial Capital, which made me slightly suspicious. But there were plenty of wandering adventurers dressed in rags, so I assumed they had learned from such people.
When I stubbornly insisted on traveling with them, they looked surprised but exchanged meaningful glances. Of course, I smiled back in the same meaningful way. At the very least, I thought, I could enjoy the taste of both their cocks every night until we reached the destination of their request.
On the first day, we walked longer than expected even after sunset. The two men carried torches themselves. They said camping in open ground might get us robbed.
Even after entering the forest long after dark, they kept walking far off the path in search of a campsite. Hundreds of meters from the road, deep enough into the night woods that no one passing by could see our fire.
Before they could say anything, I summoned a magical light above my left hand and pulled out a large bundle of firewood, stacking it high. Enough to last the night. They froze at the sight.
Regardless of their reaction, I lit the fire and spread out my sleeping bag. Then I removed my robe and set it on my pack. Without stopping, I stripped off my sturdy traveling dress and boots as well, climbing onto the sleeping bag wearing only plain underwear and a simple cotton camisole.
I looked at the two men who were staring at me in stunned silence.
Both of them held daggers in their hands. Their posture made it clear they intended to attack me.
To them, I offered a bright smile and a suggestion.
And so this was the situation I now found myself in.
“Chuuup… chu… gluck, gluck… gluuuck… pwaaah… haaah… y-you really… have so much… stamina… ngh!!”
“I don’t need your commentary. Shut up and suck.”
“Yes, heee… mmp!! Ohh… ho, ghok…”
…Back at the brothel, there had been many customers who enjoyed this sort of thing. These two must simply lack any sense of refinement.
The moment I met them, I had realized their goal was my body from the start. If I hadn’t suggested traveling together right then, I would have been raped on the spot and disposed of, buried in the ground like trash. After all, this was a deserted road with no one to interrupt.
…Even if I had been raped, taking a man inside me was still taking a man inside me, so it didn’t really matter. But I wanted to be the one in control, at least at first.
I had to be the one doing the fucking.
Their movements had been far too suspicious from the beginning. With a mental age well over sixty and nearly a year of practice reading the expressions of low-quality men at the brothel, I could see through such an obvious atmosphere immediately.
I had simply pretended not to notice.
Camping far from the roadside? That was an obvious lie. Anyone other than a sheltered country girl with no experience meeting strangers would have seen through it.
…Though it seemed there had been more than a few country girls who had fallen for it. Every time their bodies touched mine, I read fragments of their past. They were not wandering adventurers as they had claimed.
It was true they wandered while wielding blades. They traveled from city to city, seducing young girls who had just come of age and dreamed of becoming adventurers, or young women who couldn’t travel alone and were desperate for company. They offered to escort them, then, once they reached a place far from civilization, they would rape and murder them, erasing all traces.
Perhaps it was because a young, pretty mage had walked right into their trap. The bastards had become far too excited and let their true colors show too clearly.
“What a shame, this bitch. She’s the tightest one we’ve ever fucked. Her cunt squeezes like a hand gripping me. And that smell…”
The man above me sniffed several times at the crown of my head.
“It’s like walking past a bakery. Does this woman carry bread on her head or something?”
“Ohh… ngh, uht♡ B-bread… scent… th-that’s… right…”
With my voice muffled by the cock in my throat, I gave the same answer I always did. Then, as I resumed sucking him off with relish, something caught my attention and I asked one more question.
“B-but… wh-what… is… so… sh-shameful…?”
“Of course it’s a shame. We’re going to kill you soon. Just like the others—by cutting off your head.”
“Eh… ehh…? B-but… I… gave… myself… so… willingly… spread… my legs… for you… heuk♡”
They laughed. It was the laughter of men who had finally understood why the girl who had tidied their campsite, lit the campfire, then immediately stripped and meekly prepared herself to be fucked had done so.
“I was surprised you caught on so quickly. Well, I suppose even if you look like this, you’re still an adult who knows how the world works. Being a mage probably helps your head work fast too. But we never promised to spare you just because you spread your legs. Sorry, but we’ve never spared any of the girls we’ve caught before. We can’t give you special treatment.”
“Heup… ngh, ohh… ahah♡”
As he spoke, the man savoring the way my throat membranes clenched around his cock grabbed the hair I had tied to one side and yanked hard. With tear-filled, hazy eyes, I looked up at his face in a daze.
“But seeing you make that broken, stupid face and enjoy it even though you know you’re going to die… you really are a crazy bitch, aren’t you?”
“Hic♡ Yes… hehe…”
“I’ve said it several times, but it’s such a waste… a real waste. It feels like the inside of her cunt is moving on its own. Like she’s deliberately massaging me with her pussy walls…”
The man thrusting into me from behind sounded genuinely regretful. The one gripping my hair shook the cock buried in my throat in agreement.
“Her throat too. She looks so young, but I wonder how many men she’s seduced? A kid like her—has she worked as a whore?”
“Still, since she’s a mage, she must be an adult. We saw her use magic, after all.”
With those words, another violent twitch of his cock tormented the inside of my throat. The merciless sensation of semen being pumped directly past my esophagus made me shudder violently as I gagged.
“O-oehhk… u-uehhk… kahk!! Koff, koff…”
I had eaten almost nothing, so although I retched, only a small amount of sour gastric fluid mixed with the fishy semen came out. It burned my uvula. The sticky fluid soiled the fern-covered forest floor.
In a daze, I offered a confession-like monologue to heighten their arousal.
“I-I… hehet♡ I… am… Kaira… I… have… worked… as a whore♡ too…”
At that moment, the atmosphere froze solid. Even the man behind me, who had seemed intent on fucking me until my pussy was ruined, stopped moving his hips.
“…Worked as a whore…”
“And her name… is Kaira…?”
“Yesss… yeheee… K-Kaira… I… uht…”
Still slumped with my shoulder against the sleeping bag, I repeated what I had said moments ago. Kaira was a good girl, so she didn’t lie. Kaira was…
“Fuck… this woman… I thought maybe when I saw her red eyes, but…”
“That… hero… no, the witch…? Why… why is she here…?”
“What are you doing?! Grab your dagger! She may look like that but she’s the hero! If we don’t stab her now, we’re dead!!”
Aaah… so that’s it…
Elvira… had reported me… The last wanted poster I saw… had been updated…
The Witch of Sand, Kaira, was last… sighted… in a brothel district…
Something reflected the flickering orange campfire light and flew toward me like a meteor. I reached out and caught it.
“Kuh…! She caught the blade with her bare hand…?”
I didn’t use Veltara's Transparent Shield. It was just my bare hand. The sharp edge dug into my soft palm. My little finger was almost completely severed and dangled limply. It hurt. Blood flowed. But Kaira was fine. Because she was a good girl, she had to endure it. If she lost her mind over something like this—
It felt like something would never come back…
Besides, my pussy and throat had felt so good just moments ago, so I could endure this much pain.
“Uhehehe… why…? Just now… you enjoyed… Kaira’s… pussy and… mouth-pussy… so much… Please… do more… more♡ Heuk?!”
“Stab her already! If we just cut off this bitch’s head, we’ll be pardoned! No, we’ll get a pardon and several sacks of gold coins!!”
The dagger swung by the man behind me pierced my back. What a fool. He hadn’t pierced my heart, nor damaged my lungs or liver. After slaughtering so many innocent girls, it seemed he had never learned how to deliver a fatal blow.
“I-it hurts… yooou… It hurts, so it feels… ehehe♡ even better… but… the blood…”
It felt like my intestines had burst and their contents were leaking into my peritoneal cavity. It wasn’t immediately fatal, but in an era without disinfectants, it was a wound that would be difficult to survive… It didn’t matter. I could just rewind it. More importantly, the thing before my eyes…
“But… I think… I’m going to lose consciousness soon… and there’s no time… so… I’ll say goodbye now… The rape… was enjoyable… I’m sorry… I couldn’t do more for you…”
I reached both hands forward and backward, gently grasping the wrists of the two terrified criminals.
“Time Rewinding.”
The two severed heads rolled across the blood-soaked ground.
“Yes. The bounty has been paid. Please count it. If the amount is correct, sign the receipt.”
A sunlit office. A man with red mustache and red hair placed a sack of Imperial gold coins on the table in front of me as I sat on the guest sofa.
Gold coins, not silver. It was money I had rarely seen. Contrary to my expectations, each was only the size of a fingernail. Still, one of these tiny coins was apparently enough to feed a family of four for a month.
After being raped—or something close to it—by the two men in the midnight forest, I had hurried onward and left Valdenheim. This was the capital of Count Vestevene’s territory, located directly north of Valdenheim, bordering the vast Ogre Plains to the west. Visiting a large city like the capital was inconvenient in many ways, but it had to be done.
I had to visit the Adventurers’ Guild branch and exchange the two heads in my bag for money.
“Seventy coins… correct. I have received them.”
“They were men who wandered constantly, so catching them was never easy. You have done us a great service. Though I am merely a branch manager, I thank you on behalf of the entire Adventurers’ Guild.”
“Not at all. It wasn’t so much that I did what had to be done… as that my own life was in danger. I was simply lucky.”
“Indeed. Losing someone as distinguished as you would be a serious matter for the Empire as well.”
The branch manager treated me with the deference one might show a great celebrity. It was the power of the guild membership badge I had presented.
“It is truly an honor to meet you, Lady Rin the Alchemist.”