Chapter 24
.
"That's strange."
"Hm? What's strange?"
"Lady Neria's reaction is… how should I put it? She definitely seems receptive to sex now."
"Isn't being receptive a really good sign?"
"Right. It is a good sign, but isn't it strange that she changed this much in just a few days…?"
That evening, after taking another step forward with Neria.
I had planned to make a quick meal out of whatever was in the refrigerator as usual, but my plans suddenly changed.
The reason was that, in response to my report—'Today, I put my fingers inside Lady Neria'—the team leader had texted, 'I'll buy you meat, so come out!'
She even said that if I didn't believe her, I could leave my smartphone and wallet at home and come empty-handed.
Since I needed to take the subway, I brought only my smartphone and headed out.
Since this was a meal outside of work with my superior, one could call it my first company dinner.
Except this was a company dinner where we met in casual clothes, not stiff formal suits.
Since being overly formal would have been stranger, I arrived at the meeting place in the comfortable clothes I wore when drinking with my friends.
And after briefly filling our stomachs with a few pieces of meat at an ordinary, raucous neighborhood barbecue restaurant…
The team leader, dressed not in an old-fashioned witch's hat but in a common black turtleneck, pointed at me with the meat tongs and said,
A well-cooked slice of pork neck dangling from them was an added bonus.
"It could change, you know. A woman's heart is like a reed, after all?"
"A reed…. Hmm…."
"…Huh. Do people not know that one these days?"
"Pardon?"
"Never mind. I suppose it's understandable not to know it these days. The era when people could brag about knowing a little opera is over, too."
A person's heart could change at any time, sure, but even taking that into account, Neria seemed far too receptive right now.
Besides, there didn't seem to have been any particular event to cause it, so I chewed and swallowed a hot piece of pork neck before continuing.
"I think Lady Neria has some ulterior motive."
"What kind of ulterior motive?"
"I don't know yet…. Still, when someone who's always been snarling at you suddenly turns kind, doesn't it make you suspicious, at least?"
"Hmm~ Who knows? Nom. Maybe she just became interested because it felt good once she actually tried it?"
"…No way."
"They say late-blooming passion can be frightening, you know? Once you had your breasts fondled by Mr. Dowon, you naturally awakened to sex!"
"Hmm…."
"Oh, wow, naughty stuff feels really good…? Oh, should I try more…? Oh, his cock looks like it feels really good, too…. Oh, should I just have sex with this guy…. Oh, it would be nice if he poured his cum into me like crazy……"
"Team Leader. There are many ears listening."
"It's too noisy for anyone to hear us anyway. And even if they do, who cares?"
"Who cares…?"
Couldn't that make people get strange ideas?
I glanced around once, with that perfectly reasonable concern.
As expected. Even around us, plenty of people were sneaking glances at the table where we sat.
Even if the noise meant they couldn't make out our conversation, the problem was the team leader's appearance.
Weren't Team Leader Eve's distinctive golden eyes just too conspicuous?
Her black hair could at least blend in among the crowd, but there was no way to hide those beautiful eyes at all.
While I worried alone, the team leader simply bit into one of the fresh green peppers that had come as a side dish.
"Think about it. Some incredibly handsome young man who became interested after hearing my story might make a pass at me, right? 'Miss, how about a hot night with me tonight?' Like that."
"……."
"Heheheh. Actually, I'm only telling you this in secret, Mr. Dowon, but being courted by boys several hundred years younger than me is much more fun than you'd think."
"…I see."
"Unfortunately, ever since I stopped researching, I've spent the past few years with nothing but cobwebs~…."
Words like 'total cumslut,' as people say online, came to mind, but I somehow held them back.
Those are words you use on the internet, not something you say to a person standing in front of you.
But as always, the team leader's perceptiveness—Neria had said there was no magic for reading minds—was so sharp that the thought I'd been trying to suppress slipped out beneath her sly, giggling smile.
"Oh my. You're having a terribly rude thought right now, aren't you?"
"…No, I'm not."
"Pfft…."
Fortunately, she didn't press me.
"Well, anyway, from one woman's perspective… Neria just seems to have gotten interested in lewd things, don't you think?"
"Who knows? I'd be very happy if she'd simply changed her mind, too, but she was someone who clearly said at first that she absolutely wouldn't have sex…."
"Oh, come on…. Mr. Dowon. Take a good look."
"Yes, Team Leader."
Instead, the team leader came around from the other side of the table to my side, still holding the meat tongs.
She slid over and closed the distance in an instant, then continued speaking without losing her smile.
"To Neria right now, Mr. Dowon, you must feel a lot like me. Do you understand?"
"…What do you mean, like you, Team Leader?"
"Like having a pretty older woman seduce you all day long from right beside you."
"……Ah."
"On top of that, she let you touch her breasts and even gave you a little light fondling. You understand now, right?"
"……."
"'Want to have sex? Should I let you come inside me?' She's even saying nasty things like that."
"……."
"…You only don't get hard because you're used to me, Mr. Dowon. If you were some other young man, you'd be fucking hard right now."
…'Fucking hard,' she said.
It was a rather crude expression.
Well.
"…I can understand it."
"…Hehe."
Since the team leader put it that way.
And because people around us were staring so much.
I decided to admit it, at least to a reasonable extent.
*****
6.2 points total on the Compliment Coupon.
For the next several days, things passed quietly without anything happening.
I wanted to earn points somehow and fill it to ten, but I restrained myself because looking too desperate would probably seem like a minus to Neria.
I'd done it partly to win Neria's favor, but as for the result… who knows.
Neria's reactions were so subtle that I wasn't sure how to interpret them.
It felt as though I'd merely done what I was supposed to do.
Would it be fair to say it was like how no one praises an office worker for coming in to work by calling them admirable?
If I'd known it would turn out this way, perhaps it would have been better to work hard while making it obvious I was doing it for her breasts….
In any case, it was already in the past.
"That was good. They really took the feedback about cutting down on the grease a little to heart."
"Thank you…, …and by the way, that brings it to 9.5 points."
"It does."
And so, as of today, 9.5 points.
Just 0.5 points more, and I'd be allowed to touch Neria's breasts again.
…Of course, after having thoroughly pressed against her panties a few days ago, going back to breasts now felt a little anticlimactic, but the basics were always important.
If I kept teaching Neria about lewd pleasure, she might really end up taking back what she'd said before.
Until then, I'd keep working hard.
"…Are you thinking of filling the remaining 0.5 points today?"
Thus, as I was receiving the nearly completed Compliment Coupon from her, Neria asked me a pointed question.
I tried to mull over the hidden meaning of her words, but in the end, I answered honestly.
"I'm a man, too, so I do want to fill it…."
"…You don't know what to fill it with?"
"No. Rather, since it means you'll let me touch your… breasts, I thought that looking too desperate to earn points might feel burdensome to you, Lady Neria."
"……Hmm."
And that burden would be a minus against Lady Neria's sexual curiosity, too.
I didn't bother adding that last thought.
Otherwise, it would simply make me look as though I was being extremely considerate of Neria.
It was an embarrassing action, but it did include a certain amount of calculation.
Perhaps because of that, Neria stroked her chin and let out an unintelligible hum.
After staring up at my face for a moment, she finally shoved a hand deep into the pocket of her usual jet-black jersey and said,
"So you're not going to say something like, 'I just won't touch them, Lady Neria!'?"
"…Hahaha…."
"If you'd answered that way…, no. Never mind."
What an infuriatingly oblique way of speaking.
It wasn't as if she was saying she'd let me have her pussy, anyway.
If she had been a close friend, I could have used various methods to force the answer out of her, but I couldn't exactly grab Neria by the lapels.
Instead, I let the subject drift with a smile on my face, so that someday I'd be able to grab Neria firmly by the hips.
"You should get some rest, so I'll head home early today."
"…Sure, whatever."
As for the 'small incident' that would happen by chance tomorrow,
naturally.
Without noticing it at all.
*****
What are the odds of being caught up in a natural disaster during one's lifetime?
According to a survey conducted in the United States that looked into this, around 13 to 19 percent of adults have experienced a natural disaster.
Unfortunately, as a twenty-year-old man living in South Korea, I hadn't experienced one yet.
I used to wonder how unlucky the people who fell into that ten percent must be.
Just as some people get cancer no matter how diligently they take care of their bodies.
I used to think of it as that sort of bad luck.
"……."
That was definitely how I felt until thirty seconds ago.
「Two <M3>-grade monsters have appeared on the road by the main entrance of □□ Apartments. Please evacuate immediately.」
Emergency disaster alerts emit a siren so harsh and unpleasant that it bothers human ears.
That must be so people can immediately recognize how serious the situation is.
And if it isn't just my smartphone but all the ones around me ringing simultaneously, the unpleasantness is amplified several times over.
Even more so when space directly in front of me warped,
and two insects larger than me and hideous in appearance appeared,
stood up like humans,
and lightly bent and gripped a streetlamp in purple forelegs,
then, for some reason, were casually swinging it around.
This was no longer something that could end with mere unpleasantness.
"Fuck, what the hell is that?!"
"We're fucked…."
"They say it's M3 grade? Zero and one are okay, but from two on it's genuinely dangerous, aren't they…?"
"That's the kind of thing where the death toll hits at least several hundred…!"
This wasn't something that could be solved with a simple 'Run.'
Hadn't television and movies drilled into us since childhood that the first person to do that would die?
Fortunately, it seemed the citizens of South Korea had all received their preparatory education.
The people inside vehicles, and those walking outside like me.
Everyone was too busy standing where they were and staring at the insects.
It was the same when they initiated a conversation with a horrible *kirik* sound.
A few people did inch backward, but no one ran away screaming, 'Please kill me first!'
That was because modern humans so proudly championed individualism.
It felt as though time had briefly stopped.
If the traffic-light signal hadn't changed, I might genuinely have mistaken it for that.
"……?"
And if cold raindrops hadn't begun falling one by one.
I might really have thought time had stopped.
"Fuck, what is this?!"
"Huh…?"
"What? Suddenly there's this in my hand…."
Before I knew it, everyone around me was holding a cute little umbrella.
It was semi-transparent in color.
It was a beautiful, rippling transparency that looked as though it ought to have a tag reading [Material : 99% water].
For some reason, it had been placed in our hands.
"Kieek?"
As though it had known in advance that a downpour would fall here,
"Ke――."
Before long, beneath the now pitch-black sky, a refreshing downpour came crashing down.
Rainwater splashed off the ground and soaked my sneakers.
The sound of rain was nice, and so was the atmosphere, but this was the part I really hated.
Rainwater seeping into my shoes.
If it weren't for this clammy unpleasantness, I think I'd like rainy days even more.
Maybe that's why.
The monsters right in front of me seemed to hate the downpour, too.
"…F-fuck…. What the hell is that……?"
"……."
Leaving the man with the good reaction behind, I quietly looked up at the water-colored umbrella that had suddenly appeared.
The umbrella was perfectly fine.
Of course.
Rainwater couldn't pierce an umbrella.
The cars around us were the same.
It was impossible to see rainwater pierce a car's body unless the car had committed some kind of corruption.
The sidewalk beneath my feet was the same.
The sidewalk that was dug up with tireless diligence every year to use up the budget was casually blocking the rainwater.
Amid the rainwater flowing and flowing like that, unpleasant purple sludge began mixing in.
There was quite a lot of it, too.
"Is this hydrochloric acid or something…?"
"If it were, there'd be chaos all around us. But only those monsters suddenly melted…."
"……."
The two monsters that had made their surprise appearance thirty seconds earlier had disappeared into the rainwater.
No—they had turned into purple sludge.
As people moved aside to let the color pass, it flowed and flowed down the incline until the purple gathered at the grate over the storm drain, where fallen leaves had piled up.
…So now it would get purified and treated….
No, whatever.
"……Phew."
Could Lady Erzel have been nearby?
I let out a deep sigh of relief and belatedly turned off my smartphone screen.
The emergency alert message from earlier.
It was still turned on.