Chapter 69
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Sex was bound to be a painful and frightening act, so the apprentice witch had instead become engrossed in games.
The solution was to pound my cock into her and teach her that sex was more pleasurable than she'd thought.
Thus, the first apprentice witch I'd been assigned was rehabilitated to a reasonable degree, and these days, she'd actually begun taking an interest in lewd activities.
I'd worried that perhaps I'd been assigned an apprentice witch who was too difficult from the very beginning, but judging by the results, it had turned out to be a relief.
But the next witch I was to take on would take it one step further….
"Will I be able to see you all day today?"
- Probably? I heard today is your day off.
A girl who found almost any man disgusting just by looking at him.
Even in the entertainment industry, she hadn't found anything she liked, so could she really be satisfied with me?
…Fortunately, Team Leader doted on me, and Neria didn't seem to have any complaints either,
but this one had especially high standards.
"Then I'd appreciate it if you could give me Lady Dorothy's contact information. If she's willing, this will actually be more convenient."
So I wondered whether we'd even be able to have a conversation, but fortunately, it seemed she possessed at least that much kindness.
Her standards had been so high that they'd caused problems with recharging her mana, but apparently she still hadn't let go of magic.
For now, I should be grateful that conversation was at least possible.
- Hmm? Didn't I give you Dorothy's contact information?
"…I didn't receive it."
- Then I'll send it now. You should've said something instead of keeping your mouth shut.
"I'm sorry…."
But with Lady Rin, her teacher, being like this, Dorothy probably had some social skills issues too….
…No. It would be wrong to judge an apprentice witch solely by her teacher's personality.
The difference between Lady Erzel and Neria alone was proof enough of that.
If anything, the opposite.
Even if she cursed me inwardly for looking disgusting and repulsive, perhaps she was a witch who could at least smile outwardly.
Maybe that was why she hadn't been kicked out yet and could continue as an idol trainee.
While my imagination ran wild, Lady Rin sent me Dorothy's phone number.
This time, I saved it properly as 'Dorothy Kihased' myself, instead of saving it under the name of that personality-disaster witch.
"Once I've finished what I'm doing, I'll come to see you in person right away."
- Good. If you succeed, I'll give you a separate reward too, so work hard.
"When you say reward…?"
- Money, of course. I just save it up anyway and don't have much to spend it on. I'm hanging up.
"Oh…."
Personality-disaster witch, my ass.
At least to me, she was the world's greatest witch.
I should have conveyed my gratitude, even if only in words.
The call ended while I, a devout materialist, was getting emotional.
I thought about leaving a message saying, 'I'll do my best!' but knowing Lady Rin's personality, she probably wouldn't like that, so I canceled the idea.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
"Neria is still…."
probably asleep.
Keeping my footsteps quiet, I headed for the bedroom, and sure enough, Neria was still wandering through dreamland.
Perhaps because I, whom she'd been hugging tightly, was gone, she was holding part of the thick blanket covering her body in my place.
…Or was she? Seeing her sleepily chewing and crumpling the blanket with her lips, she almost looked as if she were tearing into some huge piece of food….
Well, anyway.
I couldn't just leave work without even saying goodbye to Neria.
"……."
The problem was that it also felt strange for someone as insignificant as me to wake Neria carelessly and then brazenly announce that I was leaving work.
At least this place showed some consideration for human rights. Just imagine if I'd been working under Lady Rin.
I might have been subjected to something awful with that hot coffee I'd seen before, all in the name of educating a living dildo.
…So what should I do now?
Should I wait until Neria woke up on her own?
Or should I tap her foot to wake her and tell her that something had come up and I had to leave today?
I was crouching in front of Neria's bed, mulling over one thought after another, when
the smartphone in my pocket vibrated once again.
[Dorothy Kihased]
- Nice to meet you.
- Is this Nam Dowon's phone number?
- At least, the messenger shows the same name.
The sender was Dorothy.
Judging by how fortuitously she'd contacted me at this exact moment, Lady Rin had probably passed my number along to Dorothy as well.
As an aside, the stiff sentence endings were remarkably formal for a witch.
I'd seen witches who addressed me respectfully, but this was the first time I'd encountered one this stiff.
What an unusual witch.
With that brief mutter to myself, I sat down on the floor.
[Nam Dowon]
- Yes. That's right.
- I hear you'd like to meet me once, even if it means taking a chance….
[Dorothy Kihased]
- At this point, I thought I might as well grasp at even a straw.
- I've wasted too much time already, so I had no choice.
- To be honest, I don't have high expectations.
- So, what time and place would suit you?
Fortunately, she said her expectations of me were low.
Well, that was only natural. How could someone who had seen enough male idols to be sick of them have any expectations of an ordinary person like me?
Thanks to that, I probably wouldn't get cursed out for turning out to be some squid-faced bastard.
I couldn't do anything about her wrinkling her nose as if she'd seen something disgusting, though.
I steeled myself so I wouldn't be hurt when the time came.
[Nam Dowon]
- I think I can make it around four. I'm not in a position to say for certain.
- And as for the location, I'll do my best to accommodate you, Lady Dorothy.
[Dorothy Kihased]
- I'm in Cheongdam-dong right now.
- Are you nearby?
[Nam Dowon]
- The subway will get me there in no time.
Ah, wait. Had I written that too casually?
I was so accustomed to being addressed respectfully that even something as minor as that bothered me.
Looking at it again, it didn't seem particularly rude, but the other person's wording was incredibly stiff.
Fortunately, she didn't point it out.
Instead, Dorothy made a small request.
[Dorothy Kihased]
- Could you show me a photo?
From Dorothy's perspective, it made sense to check that first.
[Nam Dowon]
- Would an arbitrarily taken photo do?
[Dorothy Kihased]
- Yes. Or one taken recently would be fine too.
- Anything, as long as I can recognize you.
[Nam Dowon]
- Understood.
Something taken recently….
The only one I had was a photo taken while drinking with my friends.
Rather than send one where I looked even uglier than usual, it would be better to take and send one now, even if it was just a quick shot.
I opened the camera app without much thought and held it up to eye level.
"……What are you doing right now?"
"……."
…Sitting on the floor, at eye level.
It was just the right height for my eyes to meet Neria's as she happened to wake up.
"Don't tell me you were trying to take a picture of me sleeping…?"
"N-no, that's not it. I mean…."
"What do you mean, it isn't? You took an ugly picture of me sleeping soundly so you could tease me…!"
"The thing is…."
Wait.
If I said I had been trying to take a selfie, wouldn't that be even stranger?
Who sits on someone else's bedroom floor out of nowhere to take a picture of himself?
While I wavered over which of the two explanations would serve me better, Neria, unlike me, had reached the simple conclusion that she should 'take the smartphone first' and abruptly thrust out her hand.
"Look! It really is the camera app…, …hmm? It's a selfie?"
"……."
"Did you switch it to selfie mode just now? It'd be over as soon as I searched your gallery…, …hmm? There's nothing?"
"……."
"What's this? That actually makes it even more suspicious……."
Then, as though she'd spotted something, Neria began sweeping her thumb broadly along the edge of the screen.
A moment later, at the corners of her lips,
"……Aha…."
unexpectedly,
a tiny smile blossomed.
"Nam Dowon. Are you going to have sex with Dorothy next?"
"…? You know Lady Dorothy?"
"Witches pretty much all know each other. Obviously, there's a difference between being extremely close and merely having heard the name."
"…There are so few of you, so I suppose that happened naturally."
"Right. Besides, her teacher and mine are extremely close."
Hearing that reminded me of being dragged into a subway restroom because of the pressure Lady Rin had put on me.
At the time, hadn't Lady Rin specifically mentioned Lady Erzel by name?
She'd also mentioned something about the employee the Rehabilitation Department had newly brought in….
So that meant Lady Erzel really was extremely close to Dorothy, but she wasn't as close with our Team Leader as I'd thought.
Along with that little Witch Wiki update, Neria said,
"You're going to get fired from the Rehabilitation Department, aren't you?"
"……."
That wasn't good news.
"If you can't do it with the apprentice witch, isn't it all over for you?"
"…That's not entirely wrong."
"Pfft, what are you going to do? Does this mean you'll be mine exclusively?"
"I don't know. Even if I fail, I think I'll probably be assigned another witch…."
"Ahem. Now that you mention it, I suppose that's true. It would be strange to use someone once and throw her away. Can't be helped."
Hup.
With a short little sound, Neria shifted toward the head of the bed.
She'd been struggling with body aches until morning, but it seemed she was at least feeling a little better now.
"I remember she was taking a break because she found sex with men disgusting in itself. Since you're a man too, won't she find you disgusting as well?"
"I've heard that much too. So I'm in a rather hopeless position."
"It makes sense that you'd be at a loss. Rumor has it even her teacher gave up. But judging by the fact that she assigned her to you, I guess she hadn't given up completely."
"……."
"Oh, looking at this, Dorothy asked you for a photo?"
"That's right."
"Hmm. Then I'll take it for you. Stand over there and make V signs with both hands."
"…Pardon?"
When I should have been taking a picture while looking as handsome as possible, what kind of ridiculous pose was that?
I tilted my head, unable to understand her intention, and at that moment the shutter clicked on my smartphone.
As if she were typing something, there was also the tapping sound of her fingers on the screen—tap, tap.
"I sent it for you."
Only then did Neria turn the smartphone back toward me.
On the smartphone she handed me, it said exactly this.
[Nam Dowon]
- (A photo of me staring at the smartphone with a stupid expression. Fortunately, it didn't come out ugly.)
- I'm Neria. I heard you're going to have sex with this guy, Dorothy?
- I had sex with him recently, too.
- Um.
- To be honest.
- He's really good in bed, you know? lol
*****
After seeing the sorry state of the photo Neria had sent to Dorothy,
I let out a deep sigh, muttering, "How could you send something like this?"
What followed was no different.
She'd written that I was really good at sex. Since it was so mortifying I could have died, I sighed heavily again and said, "What are you doing?"
Neria's praise itself felt good, naturally, but doing this would make the other person expect far too much.
It's the same when you're about to eat delicious food.
The taste of simply eating something and the taste after making a huge fuss over it are, naturally, worlds apart.
And now Neria had put strange ideas in Dorothy's head on top of that…….
Would this really have a positive effect?
Hadn't she just made the difficulty higher for no reason?
…Since the meeting hadn't been canceled, could it really be that Neria had pulled it off?
While I was pondering that, I arrived at the meeting place Dorothy had chosen.
"…This is the right way, isn't it?"
A small, densely wooded park.
She'd told me to go all the way inside and find a woman wearing a black baseball cap.
A black baseball cap….
A black baseball cap…….
…….
……Ah.
Found her.
A black baseball cap,
violet eyes like Lady Rin's.
And then, just—
a woman who was absurdly beautiful.
"Excuse me, are you Lady Dorothy, by any chance…?"
She had been looking only at the vending machine until I approached, and only then did she turn this way.
Her gaze swept over me from head to toe, but only briefly.
After giving a slight bow, she abruptly said,
"Mr. Nam Dowon."
"Yes."
"I could tell from the photo, but I think someone like you is fairly good-looking."
"Th-thank you."
"A handsome lowland gorilla. That's what looking at you feels like."
"……?"
"You may take pride in that. I'm more sparing with praise than you might think."
"…Ah, yes."
"But people don't mate with lowland gorillas. Absolutely not."
Like master, like apprentice.
Her social skills had gone completely down the drain.