"Ah, are you joking?"
Kei laughed in disbelief at the peddler-like man’s words. At Kei’s words, Jigeuril smiled softly as well.
His beautiful violet eyes curved cunningly. His arrogant lips lifted at one corner as he spoke, sounding half-joking, half-serious.
"Do you think I came all the way to this freezing place just to crack a joke?"
"...Is it true?"
*Christ.* He’d actually have to trust this man first. Kei looked at Jigeuril with doubtful eyes, thinking, *No way…,* but Jigeuril merely shrugged and said,
"Well, saying it works on anyone regardless of age or gender might be a bit over the top. It seems I haven’t tested it on newborns. But even a grandmother long past menopause
or a strapping, swarthy-skinned man whose only feminine trait was his neatly trimmed nails have been confirmed possible, so it’s not impossible."
He simply hadn’t done it because there was no need to deliberately impregnate a newborn. After all, only depraved sexual deviants would want to put it in a newborn.
Did Kei want to put it in? At Jigeuril’s words, Kei grimaced in disgust and shook his head.
He couldn’t for the life of him understand how nothing but spine-chilling words kept pouring from those pretty lips.
"Come to think of it, there was a case in a rural village called Obeuria where a man stood trial for raping his next-door neighbor’s newborn baby to death.
The judge seemed quite troubled over whether to charge the lunatic who said, ‘She was just too sexy,’ with simple infanticide or with rape and murder.
Even though the result was the death penalty either way."
"P-Please stop with such stories."
When Kei spoke, his face pale and rigid, Jigeuril flashed a grin. It was a smile that seemed to taunt him.
"You’re so stiff. —What I’m saying is, that herb truly has such an effect. Or rather than an effect, should I call it magic?
Anyway, with just that, you becoming a mother isn’t exactly an insurmountable task."
"...Why would I become a mother…."
For a moment, Kei imagined himself heavily pregnant and rubbed his arm, which had broken out in goosebumps. Talking with this man felt like waves of exhaustion rolling in like storm clouds during the rainy season.
He had thought he was still young and possessed a steel-like physique forged through exercise, but lately, he tired all too easily, growing fatigued and drained.
Whether aware of Kei’s feelings or not, Jigeuril looked down at Kei’s slender belly with narrowed eyes and said,
"Why? You don’t like it? I think it would suit you well. I daresay you’d be incredibly sexy if you got pregnant and grew all plump and round."
Should he take this as sexual harassment? He wanted to bury this man on the spot, but Kei, lacking both the rank and ability, merely smiled bitterly
and said, "Well. I don’t think so."