#4 - The Possessions Inspection No Latecomer Can Escape
—Shaaaaaa…
"Haaaaah…."
I was savoring a long, lazy bath, sighing contentedly. Soaking my body in the warm water felt wonderful, my whole self going soft and languid. But more than anything….
—Squelch… squelch…
"Hnk… hnngh…♡"
Scooping out the semen inside me like this—this, at least, let me work off a little of my shame.
—Plop… dribble… plop…
The milky fluid pooled inside my pussy dripped down below, and watching it, I heaved another deep sigh.
Yes—in the end, I'd lost my virginity. Gotten myself fucked. And by some nameless extra of a guard, of all people.
Worse, that guard could beat any combat-track freshman at the academy I now attended—Lumiere Academy.
And yet I was the one who'd lost. Me—a freshman of that very Lumiere Academy.
Of course, just as the original Sheria had, I hadn't enrolled in one of the combat departments; I was in the Department of Literature and Records, effectively treated as a clerical post. If I went one-on-one against the elites who wielded magic and magical implements, or the Knights Department students training for martial prowess and a knighthood, what would happen? I'd get absolutely wrecked, no question about it.
So the loss itself didn't feel all that unjust. I'd steeled myself for exactly this outcome if I lost.
But if there was one thing I did resent….
"Why… why didn't he take the bribe…."
Garald—that guard I'd never see again—why on earth hadn't he taken the bribe? In the original, Garald was a man in desperate need of money. Hand him a payment and he'd accept it with a beaming smile and wave you straight through.
That was how it went in the alpha version I'd played. More than ten years of living as Sheria in this world had dulled my memories, but this much I remembered with perfect clarity.
Why in the world hadn't he taken it? No—before even that. Garald's condition itself had been strange from the start. Money-grubbing he may have been, but Garald was never inarticulate or slow-witted. Yet the Garald I'd met had spoken haltingly, repeating the same phrases over and over like a machine—though his movements remained as brisk as ever.
The sense that something was wrong nagged at me, but the trail of clues ended there. The information I had was far too thin.
Leaning back against the shower room wall, I tried to churn it all over once more, but as expected, too many pieces were missing.
"Phewwww…."
No help for it, then. I'd just have to resort to the second method.
I stepped out, pulled on the standard-issue shower gown the academy provided, and took my place in front of my desk. Standing there, I fed the faintest wisp of mana into the button set beneath it, and a hidden drawer sprang out to meet me.
The thing inside that drawer.
It was the ledger of my Master—the Master who, one month ago, had gone out to steal a relic just like on any other day, and simply vanished.
When he disappeared and I finally went through his ledger, that was the moment I became completely certain this world was inside a game. Why? Because the ledger took exactly the same form as the one I'd seen in the game.
And this ledger was packed tight with the relics I needed to target—the relics my Master had been meant to target.
I read through the information on every relic inside, one by one, and in the end, all I could do was sink into a deep sigh. Because even in this ledger—my surest and deepest well of information—there was nothing else written at all.
—Whump!
Flung spread-eagled across my bed, I stared up at the ceiling and sighed all over again. Where had my Master gone? And how was I supposed to manage on my own from here?
When my Master—who had been like a parent to me—vanished, and I learned that this world was a world inside a game, the only choice left to me in the end was to carry on his work… to make the same choice the Sheria of the game had made. Because otherwise, the world would surely meet its doom. This world—now my world—would be gone in a single morning.
Now that I'd actually secured the first relic, this silver plate, my head only ached harder. Garald's changed reaction. What exactly I was supposed to do from here on.
I wasn't nearly sharp enough to sort through this mountain of head-pounding information. Truthfully, it was closer to a shortage of information—but if I'd possessed insight on my Master's level, perhaps I could have teased out the secrets hidden within it.
"…Might as well get some sleep."
Yeah. Sleep. I had to be back at the academy come tomorrow, after all.
It had been a week since I'd enrolled, but academy life was the one thing I felt sure about. Life at the academy had been kept remarkably light even in the game, which meant plenty of ways to sidestep the ero events—and through what I could do within its walls, I could gather information that would serve my phantom thief work down the line.
And so, completely off my guard, I drifted into a deep, snoring sleep.
And when I woke again….
"Kyaaaaaak! I'm late, I'm laaaate!!!"
Barely a week into my academy enrollment, I had committed the grand catastrophe of being late. The problem was that after all of last night's ordeal, I'd slept far too deep. I am not the kind of person who's ever late, I swear!
I threw on my uniform in record time, gave my hair a hasty comb and tied it back, and hurried to the academy's main gate. The person standing there was Conradin Grantche. Now that the one-week adjustment period after enrollment and the start of term had run out, he had apparently planted himself at the gate to snag latecomers.
In any case, Conradin Grantche was a second-year in the School of Magic—the Magic Department—and the man who served Lumiere Academy as both student council and disciplinary committee. He was also one of the students whose route led into an ero event. He handed out demerits for lateness and ran irregular possessions inspections—and getting caught out in one of those earned you demerits too.
And if those demerits piled up? The disciplinary professor in charge of the ero events would degrade me by every method he could dream up.
Of course, with lateness, all it took was stating your reason and promising something like "It will never happen again!" and he'd leniently let it slide; refuse the possessions inspection, and he'd usually look the other way with a line like "I'll trust you as a Lumiere student." So if I got past him once with "I'm sorry for oversleeping—it won't happen again!" and refused the inspection outright, I could walk away without a single demerit.
That was the plan I carried with me as I walked up to Conradin Grantche, and yet….
"Late is still late. Commoner."
…His reaction was strange, though?
For all that Conradin Grantche was a noble, he had never been a character with much aristocratic arrogance. How to put it—he was the character most devoted to the role of the "model senior." And now the word commoner was coming out of that character's mouth? How had he even known I was a commoner in the first place?
"How did you know I was a commo—"
"With this magical tool, a student's information is plain to see at a glance."
Tapping a finger against his glasses, Conradin Grantche declared it with total confidence.
"Demerits. And I'll be needing a possessions inspection as well."
"The inspection—could you maybe skip it…?"
"Are you saying you intend to defy the student council's lawful order for a possessions inspection?"
"I-I'm… sorry…."
The words I'm sorry leapt out of me before I knew it. Satisfied by them, Conradin Grantche curled his lips into a smile, then promptly took my bag and began the search. My "possessions" amounted to writing utensils, my student ID, textbooks, and notebooks—nothing more—so it didn't take long. With so few items, what else was there to check?
Thanks to that, when the inspection wrapped up, I found myself thinking one demerit for lateness would be the worst of it. Yes. How very foolish and naive of me.
"Nothing much in here."
"Right…? Then I'll be going now—"
"Hey. Before you go, I should give your body a check as well."
"M-my… body…?"
"That's right."
Conradin Grantche strode toward me with utter composure, and then—
—Grab!
"Hnya!?"
His hand landed flat on my chest.
"U-um… Senior…?"
"Hold still. Unless you'd rather have the demerits."
—Stroke… stroke…
Conradin Grantche began, quite naturally, to stroke the underside of my breasts, and before that weapon called demerits, I couldn't put up the slightest resistance. All I could do was stand there and let Conradin Grantche fondle my chest. If there was one mercy, it was that no other students remained here to see it.
How long did he keep stroking my chest after that? At some point, Conradin Grantche shifted his hand as smoothly as breathing, sliding it up over my breasts.
—Sliiide…
—Knead…
"Mmmnngh…♡"
A wanton moan leaked from my lips, and at the sound of it, Conradin Grantche smirked and teased me all the harder.
"I'm merely searching your body. Does it excite you this much?"
"N-not…♡ ex…cited…♡"
"Oh? Your face is already melted like this, though?"
—Stroke… stroke…♡
—Squeeeze…♡
Conradin Grantche, who had been stroking my chest lightly, suddenly bore down with real force.
"Hnnnnnnngh♡"
That crushing press—his fingers bearing down hard on my nipple, which had stiffened without anyone the wiser. From that single squeeze, the cry of a female in heat—a sound that, until as recently as yesterday, had never once left my mouth—burst from my lips.
"Haaah…♡ Hah…♡ Hah…♡ Hah…♡"
"Hmm. Nothing on you that poses a problem. Go on in."
"Nnn… yes…♡ Hah…♡ Haaah…♡"
Somehow tamping down my ragged breathing, I fled from that student council senior who had toyed with and humiliated my chest. But even then, I still didn't know. That Conradin Grantche's change—that this was only the beginning.