Chapter 3
.
#Graduated from high school last year #Twenty years old #Male
A human with these tags attached is generally quite interested in women.
It wasn't something that required any further proof.
I was a person who fit all three of those tags, after all, and I really was quite interested in women.
So, getting a job that required me to have sex with witches 'because there was no other choice'… well, how should I put it?
Ah, yes.
I didn't exactly hate it.
"…In short, I'm supposed to have one-night stands with apprentice witches left and right. Is that how I should understand it?"
But outwardly, I didn't show any sign that I 'didn't exactly hate it.'
Instead, I answered with a dubious expression and busied myself rubbing the back of my neck for no particular reason.
#Graduated from high school last year #Twenty years old #Male
For a human with these tags, pretending not to be particularly interested in women while spouting some unbelievable bullshit was generally the default setting.
How could I honestly respond with something like, 'I fucking love that woman!!' right away?
It wasn't as though I had a face made of iron.
"Oh, do you dislike it?"
"Well… it's a little sudden, I guess. I wouldn't go so far as to say I dislike it, but just…"
"Oh, dear…. You disliked sex after all. Mm-hmm. You really didn't like it."
"……N-no, Team Leader. I wouldn't go so far as to say I dislike it…"
"I must have made a mistake while looking over the candidates one by one for the past few days. I picked you personally because I thought you would really enjoy this sort of work, Mr. Dowon."
Unfortunately, that clumsy performance didn't fool a witch in the slightest.
You think it actually worked?
Absolutely not.
Although her tone was filled with disappointment, the Team Leader's expression still had that eye-smile, as though she found me cute. That was proof enough.
…At the same time, I received the rather unsettling personnel evaluation that 'Mr. Dowon seems like he would really enjoy this sort of thing,' but I didn't ask her to elaborate.
About ninety percent of that was because she was a witch, so there was probably a special reason for saying it.
The other ten percent was because I knew myself well enough that there was no need to ask.
"What should I do…? Should I try finding a man who can't resist women, even at this point…?"
Why bother saying more?
Of course I liked women, too.
In fact, it wasn't just ordinary women—I couldn't resist women as beautiful as witches.
If a woman as beautiful as the Team Leader offered to sleep with me and told me to run around here barking, I probably would have done it without much hesitation.
In other words, I was an ordinary young man.
If my main duty was to sleep with apprentice witches,
and if that was truly all there was to it,
"If you feel this job isn't suited to you, please tell me even now. I'll erase your memories and help you find an ordinary job instead."
"……Team Leader."
"Oh, have you decided it's suited to you now?"
"……Yes."
"…Pfft. Then I look forward to working with you, Mr. Dowon."
This place was, without exaggeration, a paradise on earth where I could get paid to fool around.
After putting on that clumsy act, I finally nodded honestly.
"It's such a relief that you changed your mind, Mr. Dowon. We even received a consultation call recently, but since there was no civil servant here to do the work, it ended with us just making small talk."
"A consultation call… So you use that sort of method, too."
"Even witches know how to use modern technology. The old-fashioned, narrow-minded ones belong to an older generation—about a hundred years older than me, in fact."
Apparently, the Team Leader wanted to emphasize that she belonged to a younger generation.
I briefly wondered whether it wouldn't get too complicated if witches, who could supposedly achieve immortality if they wished, started competing over which generation was superior, but…
…….
Anyway.
There was one thing I needed to keep in mind.
Unfortunately, this wasn't a workplace where having sex with apprentice witches was all I had to do.
It was true that this job included the pleasant duty of having sex, but that was ultimately only a means of 'rehabilitating' apprentice witches who had shut themselves away in their rooms.
The Team Leader herself had said that this department had a horrifyingly high resignation rate.
They must all have been men who couldn't resist pretty women, yet they had chosen to quit rather than enjoy endless sex with witches.
Because the apprentice witches were steeped in a sense of superiority and looked down on lowly humans.
As I had expected, there would surely be countless twists and turns beginning with, 'How dare a mere human!'
And plenty of other things would happen that my imagination couldn't even begin to predict.
…I thought the odds were low, but it would be difficult to dismiss the possibility that my life might be threatened, too.
In other words, to get through this predicament safely…
'Rather than thinking about sex already, I'd better prepare and make as many plans as possible.'
Only then could I turn this place into a paradise on earth.
While an awkward silence lingered, I finally asked the Team Leader a cautious question.
"Excuse me, but I have a few things I'd like to ask before starting work."
"Ask me anything. You can't help but have a lot of questions."
"Would you happen to know why the person who came before me quit?"
"If you mean your predecessor, Mr. Dowon… Ah, I remember. He spent 108 days knocking on the door of one apprentice witch until it was over."
"108 days…?"
"That was a special case. There aren't many apprentice witches with such strong hikikomori tendencies. You don't need to worry too much. Sometimes their witch masters actively help us, too."
"……Hmm."
"Would you like to hear about the others as well?"
"…Please."
To hell with preparation and planning. If the apprentice witch simply did that, there was no answer.
So I let out a hollow laugh, and the Team Leader began telling me about what had happened in the past.
One predecessor got in trouble because he got hard before he had even become close to the apprentice witch he was assigned to.
She added that in cases like that, after treatment and memory erasure were complete, they were transferred to another department.
Another predecessor similarly tried to undress an apprentice witch as soon as they met, and was eventually found horribly twisted up. He, too, was sent to another department after receiving the same treatment as the one before him.
One predecessor managed to spend plenty of time with an apprentice witch through calm, measured behavior, but was ultimately treated more or less like a pet before finally saying he couldn't go on anymore.
Another predecessor managed to have sex, but since the apprentice witch didn't find it pleasurable, they decided to transfer him to another department after having a sufficient conversation about it…
'I'm going crazy.'
Was this really a paradise on earth?
Wouldn't it be more accurate to think of it as nothing more than a midsummer night's dream?
As I agonized over it, the Team Leader added one more thing.
"Mr. Dowon, I'm sure you'll do just fine."
"…Thank you for the encouragement. I'll work hard."
It wasn't exactly something I found reassuring.
*****
"There are currently three apprentice witches whose cases are backed up. I'll tell you the difficulty of each one, and you can choose one, Mr. Dowon."
"I only intended to help you prepare mentally on your first day. I wasn't planning to throw you straight into the work."
Having said that, the Team Leader held up three fingers toward me.
They were slender, long, pretty fingers that naturally drew the eye.
"…Do you mean I can choose according to my preferences?"
"I'll try to accommodate you as much as possible. Either way, I can just say, 'That one was already more behind! Sorry!' and suggest we have coffee sometime later."
"Honestly, it feels like things are being handled in a very ad hoc way."
"That's how witches are, for the most part. We're all connected through someone or other, too…"
"…I understand for now. Tell me about them, and I'll choose one."
"Good. First of all… the lowest difficulty. There's an apprentice witch who's already quite favorable toward sex."
"Then do I even need to work?"
"Maybe she's scared of her first time and simply can't take the first step, so her master couldn't stand by and watch anymore and asked us for help. She asked us to deflower her."
"…Hmm."
Did that mean I could just have sex with her as soon as we met, without any emotions involved, and be done with it?
The moment I heard it, I found that level of difficulty extremely tempting.
This was my first pick for now.
"Next, the difficulty is… lower-middle? Middle? Somewhere around there. This one is an apprentice witch who's more favorable toward semen than sex. What's more, she contacted us directly instead of having her master do it."
"Can that happen?"
"She says that if we simply provide the semen, she'll turn it into a drug and take care of the rest herself."
…….
"You won't get to enjoy ravishing an apprentice witch, Mr. Dowon."
"…That's fine. I don't need that sort of thing, either."
This one sounded dangerous the moment I heard about her.
The difficulty might genuinely be low, but she gave off the impression that I'd be tied to some bizarre experimental table and have a huge amount of semen harvested from me.
…Perhaps if they brought in an ordinary man to do something like that instead of someone from the Rehabilitation Support Department, the other witches or her master would scold them.
Judging by the fact that her case was backed up, she was probably an apprentice witch I would have to meet someday, but I absolutely didn't want to meet her right away.
I naturally buried her in a corner of my memory.
"Lastly, I'd say the difficulty is around upper-middle. There's an apprentice witch who has quit even researching magic and does nothing but play games in her room."
"…Witches play games, too. I thought magic would be more fun than games."
"It might also mean that she hates sleeping with men that much. As an aside, her master is a close friend of mine, so… Hmm…"
"Are you saying that, if possible, you'd like me to handle that apprentice witch first?"
"Well~ if I'm being completely frank, I do sort of feel that way…"
The last one was a game-addicted apprentice witch.
Unlike the other two, who were at least favorable in one way or another, this apprentice witch had outright boycotted magic and seemed to have quite a difficult personality.
…Maybe that's why.
Despite the apparent difficulty, she was the one I found myself most interested in.
"My friend says her talent is pretty good, too. Not quite once-in-a-generation, but apparently she's still comfortably in the genius category, or something like that."
…….
"But since she holes up in her room for the sole reason that she doesn't want to sleep with a man, her master can't exactly scold her harshly, either. She says it's a tremendous headache."
"If her talent had been mediocre…"
"This sort of request wouldn't have come in, right? They could just cast her out and be done with it."
It was a somewhat chilling story, but I didn't dwell on it too much.
"Of course, I'd like you to take this one on first, Mr. Dowon, but it really won't matter if you choose the easiest apprentice witch instead. I'm genuinely fine with it!"
More concerning than that was something else.
It was the Team Leader's attitude, as though she was trying to put me at ease by insisting that she really was fine with it.
Think about it.
If she had truly wanted me to choose freely, she wouldn't have brought up the phrase 'my close friend's apprentice witch' in the first place.
She would have simply given me a rough explanation and left me with the impression that this place was extremely demanding.
And yet, she had deliberately thrown several details at me that were bound to make me uneasy…
"…Team Leader."
"Yes, yes."
I did have to maintain a working relationship, after all.
"The apprentice witch you explained last—could I see a photo of her, perhaps?"
"Oh, wait a moment. I think I have one somewhere… Here you go. Take it."
After putting this one through the wringer a little, I could go have sex with the apprentice witch I'd been told was the lowest difficulty.
Thinking that, I accepted the photo from the Team Leader.