Chapter 104
“The one who was in that carriage……”
Diana muttered as she looked at Karen.
“Hello, Ms. Diana. I’m Karen.”
“……”
Karen readily held out her hand.
Diana merely wore an unenthusiastic expression and said nothing.
If I had been the one offering her a handshake, I would have said something immediately.
“I look forward to working with you.”
Perhaps even Diana, who was second to none, couldn’t spit in Karen’s smiling face.
She quietly took Karen’s hand.
Karen looked even prettier than she had the last time I saw her. No, she looked even more fuckable.
None of the male candidates who had seen this girl even once would have had a tissue left that night.
Karen’s body was enough to get censored just by standing there.
“Dekal. Nice to meet you.”
Beside Karen, a golden-haired, red-eyed beauty with looks that did not fall behind hers stepped forward.
She was the partner who had matched moves with me during the entrance exam. Stia Harpe.
Unlike Karen, she did not have a figure that radiated such overt sensuality, but her slender body and curving hips were attractive.
Of course, the best part was her pretty face, with the refined beauty of a noble lady, radiating a charm different from Diana’s.
Both Diana and Stia had been raised in privilege, but Stia possessed a dignity that put others at ease.
“Hello, Ms. Plenoer.”
Stia shook my hand, then greeted Plenoer.
“Hello.”
“Yes, it’s nice to meet you. The two of you applied at the Rabbit rank, correct?”
“Yes.”
Karen answered in a bright voice.
“My desire to rise higher is twice as strong as everyone else’s, so I decided to apply.”
Stia cautiously stated her ambition.
Besides Stia and Karen, unfamiliar male and female candidates stood mixed together in front of the statue.
There were about ten of them.
It was rare in Melbrit for men and women to stand around waiting together like this.
So I realized that they were promising prospects who had been summoned—or rather…… had applied—for this emergency mission.
I had wondered what things would be like on the way here, but I felt good after meeting Karen and Stia.
Karen, Diana, and Stia.
Wasn’t this lineup far too luxurious? I felt like my balls wouldn’t have any semen left in them.
A lineup that made me happy just imagining it had become a reality.
“That is an admirable desire for improvement. But please do not forget that you mustn’t push yourself too hard.”
“Yes. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’ve gone and meddled again for no reason.
Now that my task of guiding the two of you is complete, I’ll be on my way.
The student council president will explain everything that follows. Everyone, please take care not to get hurt while carrying out the emergency mission.”
Plenoer withdrew, worrying about our safety to the very end.
The more I saw her, the more I felt she was a teacher who didn’t belong in Melbrit.
“Hmph.”
Diana glanced at Stia, then suddenly left the spot.
“Diana. Where are you going?”
“Now that we’ve come this far, there’s no need for me to stick around unpleasantly.”
“Um……”
Stia looked troubled.
“Did something happen between you two?”
“The House of Harpe is a fallen family. The more respectable a family is, the less they want me near them.”
“Is she just being spiteful for no reason?”
Stia shook her head.
“No, what I just said is only my speculation.
We often met at social gatherings when we were young. Maybe I did something to make her hate me.”
She keeps her distance because it’s a fallen family.
Was she saying that she couldn’t think of any other reason?
I didn’t really know what Diana was thinking. From the moment we first met, that was the only side of her I had seen.
Of course, I had also seen plenty of lovable sides that others never got to see.
“By the way, were you two together originally?
Are you close? You were together when I saw you at the cafeteria, too.”
“We hit it off over talking about Oppa and became friends on the very first day.”
“Karen. You shouldn’t talk about that……”
Stia grew shy as she watched my reaction.
I got goosebumps. No matter how easily men were prone to misunderstand things…… this reaction clearly meant that her feelings for me had grown even more without her realizing it.
I hadn’t even hypnotized her. What was wrong with this girl?
“My skills have improved so much you wouldn’t even recognize them!”
Her breast-striking skills?
I almost blurted it out impulsively, without filtering myself, but barely suppressed it around my throat.
“Really? I want to see it soon.”
I spoke with a double meaning.
I wanted to see her body soon.
She even had the secret weapon, Elmigel. Karen’s breast-striking power would be three times greater.
Even though I was blatantly staring at her breasts, Karen straightened her back and pretended not to notice.
What a good girl.
“Stia taught me swordsmanship.”
“Stia did?”
“Karen is diligent and quick to learn. I thought she’d improve a lot if I polished her skills a little, so I took the liberty of helping.”
“Thanks. I was worried about whether Karen was doing well.”
“I’m so happy I got to meet Oppa again.”
Me too.
Would Stia react if I showed Karen my affection more openly?
“I’m happy too, Karen. I missed you.”
“Really?”
Little by little, I moved closer to Karen.
It was driving me crazy that those huge breasts were just barely brushing against my body.
As expected, Stia, who had been watching the two of us, seemed unable to overcome her curiosity and spoke up.
“What kind of relationship do you two have? Karen told me that you were party members back when you were adventurers, but……”
Stia let her voice trail off awkwardly, as though she regretted asking.
It seemed she was worried it might sound as if she were pressing us on whether our relationship was more than that.
But she was genuinely curious.
“That’s right. We were party members. We’re close, so people sometimes get the wrong idea.”
“I see. Since romantic relationships are forbidden in Melbrit, I asked about something obvious. Please forget I mentioned it.”
Stia’s unmistakably relieved expression was adorable.
Karen looked as though her mouth was itching to say something.
If I had given her permission, she would have blurted out right away that she was Oppa’s cock sleeve.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have cared much even if she had just come out and said it.
I could hypnotize Stia and make her forget…… No, if it were me, I would clearly avoid such a boring suggestion.
Either way, things would pass without much trouble.
As for Stia Harpe.
I simply hadn’t hypnotized her because things had a strange tendency to work out on their own around her, and I wanted to see how far the situation would change.
When it was time to have sex, I would definitely hypnotize her.
I knew Stia had feelings for me.
But I decided to wait a little longer, until I could be certain what kind of feelings they were.
“It looks like someone from the student council is coming out now.”
Karen and I followed Stia’s gaze toward the stairs.
My eyes widened.
Overwhelming breasts swayed naturally with each shift of her weight.
She was the first beautiful woman I had seen in Melbrit. Her most notable feature was breasts that rivaled Karen’s. No, breasts even larger than Karen’s.
Breasts…….
I watched as if spellbound, following their movement.
The woman was taller and more slender than Karen, so the breasts bouncing above her narrow waist possessed tremendous force.
Someone once said:
When a person’s breasts are large, they look slow and clumsy. I had even asked Karen at first whether she could really fight properly with breasts like those.
I didn’t think large-breasted people looked nimble.
But this woman did not look clumsy in the slightest.
Perhaps everyone in the student council was like that, because, like Sia, she seemed almost irritably meticulous in the way she carried herself.
Unable to defy the laws of physics, her huge breasts swayed ever so slightly, but nothing else moved at all.
They say you can recognize a master by the way they walk.
Her body had clearly been trained extensively.
The balance with which she controlled her body was astonishingly smooth.
Had she noticed that I was observing her body?
I felt as if the woman’s frigid gaze had locked onto me.
Jet-black bobbed hair. Her bangs were cut perfectly straight, as though measured with a ruler. Her thick eyebrows, tightly pressed lips, sharp eyes, and strongly defined features gave her a fierce impression.
I couldn’t judge her solely by her appearance, but she looked like a woman whose overbearing attitude had become an everyday habit.
Just imagining a woman like that glaring directly at me and spewing insults on Diana’s level already made it difficult to endure.
I had been diligently observing her appearance, and before I knew it, she had reached us.
“Gather around. Emergency mission applicants.”
The woman spoke.
Her delivery was firm and straight, allowing no refusal.
All the candidates, male and female alike, were already moving their feet.
“The emergency mission is to go to Kepa and annihilate a band of bandits.”
“Kepa?”
“We’re catching bandits instead of monsters?”
The candidates began to murmur.
“Silence.”
At a single word from the student council woman, everyone shut their mouths.
“There are too many applicants. We need five people. We’ll talk after that.”
“……”
While everyone stood there uncertainly, the woman spoke in a low voice.
“Didn’t you hear me?
Everyone except the five remaining applicants, go home.”
“W-We wanted to hear the details, too……”
When one of the female candidates stammered, the woman whipped around.
The candidate who met her eyes fled the main building as though running for her life.
Then one or two more dropped out in succession.
Good heavens. She only glared at them, yet she made them run away. What kind of woman was she?
“Nine remain. Good.
It’s better to have no one who would run away over something like that.
Let’s go to the student council room.”
The student council woman turned sharply and began walking.
Everyone was watching each other’s reactions when the woman turned back toward us.
“Ah. I forgot to introduce myself.”
Forgot, huh.
It sounded remarkably human.
Maintaining the same expressionless face, cold and machine-like, the woman continued.
“My name is Neris Rike.
I am the vice president of the student council.”
I rejoiced inwardly.
After the brief introduction of Neris Rike, the student council vice president, the nine of us, myself included, followed her as though overwhelmed.
At the end of the corridor on the right side of the first floor of the main building was the student council room.
I could feel my heart pounding.
Who would be in the student council room? The student council president, surely.
Perhaps my goal of taking control of Melbrit.
Maybe I could accomplish it here.
Eight candidate students in an enclosed space. Neris Rike, ranked second in Melbrit, and the student council president.
If we were all gathered like this, the benefits I could gain if the hypnosis succeeded would be incalculable.
What should I do?
Should I act as soon as I saw the student council president?
No, should I try hypnotizing Neris Rike before entering the student council room?
I could put the other seven into a trance, excluding Karen. I felt my palms growing sweaty.
Noah’s words flickered through my mind.
Hadn’t he said that Neris Rike’s family had devoted all its strength to opposing magic?
At the time, I had thought there was no way to block hypnosis.
I still felt the same way.
But what if this woman possessed an artifact that could resist hypnosis, even for a moment?
I wouldn’t need three seconds—no, I wouldn’t even need five.
The moment she realized I posed a threat to her body, she would try to subdue me without hesitation.
It was too dangerous.
Stay calm. At least until we reached the student council room.
We arrived in front of the student council room.
Without even knocking, Neris opened the door as though it were nothing important.
Inside was a wide desk that appeared to be used by the student council president. Behind it was a large window overlooking Melbrit’s grounds.
It was a purely administrative space, devoid of even a single personal belonging.
To my dismay, the student council president was not there.
“……”
She had been standing before a tree and looking at me at a moment when I never expected to meet her.
And now that I had come to the place where she ought to have been, she was nowhere to be found.
The strength drained from my body.
“Please close the door.”
The last person to enter closed the door.
I pulled myself together again.
Neris Rike.
With this one woman, I could narrow down my prey. The situation itself wasn’t bad.
“As the president is absent, I will explain in her place.”
Not even a breath could be heard.
Neris briefly looked us over before continuing.
“This mission is a special assignment personally issued by the president to support the growth of talented individuals in the Rabbit and Wolf ranks.
As I mentioned earlier, the mission is to exterminate the bandits in Kepa.
You could say the goal is to quickly identify the problem that occurred in the village and root it out completely. Any questions?”
“Uh, excuse me……”
One of the candidates raised his hand, stammering as though he found it difficult to speak.
I understood how he felt.
“Straighten your back and speak clearly.
Why do Melbrit’s hero candidates have so little spirit?”
“Y-Yes! I’m sorry.”
“What is your question?”
“I heard that this was about rescuing the villagers. What do you mean by saying this is a mission issued to support our growth?”
It was a question that ultimately didn’t matter much, but
it was something I had wondered about as well.
“Isn’t this the time for all of us to go and help them instead of standing around talking?
I don’t understand what you mean by limiting it to five people.”
“Since the number of people who can receive Melbrit’s support is limited, we select those with talent. That is Melbrit’s policy.
Saving people is important as well. The president must have judged that this particular incident was an ideal problem for cultivating the Wolf- and Rabbit-rank candidates.”
“An, an ideal problem?”
The candidate who had asked the question retorted, seemingly dumbfounded.
“If innocent people are being murdered by bandits, what could possibly be more important than rescuing them?”
“Depending on the circumstances, there may be things more important than saving the person in front of you.”
“Is that what someone in the Dragon rank thinks!”
He seemed to be growing more and more agitated.
Neris was a woman who seemed to have absorbed Melbrit’s way of thinking into every fiber of her being—the very sense of incongruity I had felt in Melbrit.
Neris Rike remained still for a moment, then looked straight at the candidate who had asked the question and spoke.
“Then go.”
“……What?”
“Melbrit does not care what a candidate does outside.
If you want to help, go to Kepa alone right now and strike down the bandits.”
“That……”
“I am not stopping you.
Melbrit saves people in its own way and selects those with ability.
If you dislike that, you may leave.”
“Tch…!”
Apparently deciding that he could not bridge the difference in their views, the man kicked open the door and left.
That makes eight…….
Neris continued speaking as though nothing had happened.
“Will the rest of you continue listening?”
“Yes.”
“You receive a reward and catch bandits. Wouldn’t that be killing two birds with one stone?”
The remaining candidates answered positively.
“That is the right attitude. These bandits are not ordinary bandits.
We believe they are humans who have become monsters after taking Red Soulstones into their bodies.”
“H-Humans who have become monsters.”
The atmosphere, which had just begun to improve, rapidly froze over.
“If they have fully transformed into monsters, their average level would be between three hundred and four hundred.
But even if you are of an adequate level, they will be difficult opponents if you lack combat skills.”
“Th-Then do five of us just have to go and deal with the monsterized bandits?”
“Who knows?”
Neris spoke meaningfully.
Didn’t I say it was a bandit ‘band’?
You will have to find out how many there are and how far their monsterization has progressed.”
“Ah, ahaha……”
The candidates who had been speaking so positively moments ago began inching backward.
“I-I’ll go!”
“I don’t think I can handle this with my abilities. I’m sorry.”
All the candidates whose faces I didn’t know fled, and as though we had planned it in advance, only four of us, myself included, remained.
…….
I felt as though I understood why this world needed saving.