Chapter 71
“If you walk east from here, you’ll come to a large village. You can leave when the sun rises. I… will go in the opposite direction and draw their attention.”
Saying that, I slowly began to walk away.
I walked toward the door, showing Yuchi Hye the back of a man with no tomorrow.
She couldn’t say a word and could only watch me leave.
‘It’s about time she took the bait, isn’t it?’
But I had no intention of actually leaving Yuchi Hye behind.
This was a game of chicken with her. Whoever looked back first would lose.
‘Did I misjudge things…? This would be a bust if she didn’t take the bait.’
I’d scattered all the bait. I’d even cast the line.
All that remained was for Yuchi Hye to bite.
“Wait!”
‘That’s it.’
A prize catch.
***
“Are you… planning to go to your death?”
“…I said I was going to draw their attention.”
“Liar! You clearly said earlier that you’d follow me soon!”
Phew, she had heard me after all.
I’d been worried that she might not hear me because I’d muttered it quietly as part of my act, but fortunately, that hadn’t happened.
Yuchi Hye glared at me with a rigid expression and shouted. But I could sense the concern she felt for me beneath it.
“…I’m going to die soon anyway. Now that I’ve betrayed the organization, there’s no way I can survive.”
“That’s not true! Come with me… You saved my life. I’m sure I can help you!”
Just as expected—she really was exactly as expected.
She was an incredibly kind and righteous heroine.
Yuchi Hye took my lies for the truth and was genuinely worried about me.
Sigh… What an easy mark to exploit…!
“It’s too late to struggle to stay alive. This body is already tainted. I suppose I must simply pay for my sins.”
“But running away is cowardly! If you want to pay for your sins, you have to stay alive! Until the very end! You have to live in repentance!”
“Cowardly? Haha… You’re right. I’m a coward. Someone like me could never bear the weight of my sins and hold my head up.”
“No! You can… I-I’ll help you!”
This is it… This is exactly it!
One of the defining traits of a wuxia heroine: pointless meddling!
When you read wuxia novels, the heroines of orthodox sects in particular do a lot of truly incomprehensible things,
and one of them is subjecting readers to frustrating plotlines by helping insignificant supporting characters just like this.
From a reader’s perspective, watching her clench both fists and declare that she can do it and will help is the absolute worst development.
What if she got hurt for no reason, or even ended up kidnapped? How terrible would that be!
But here, in ‘Heroine Netori,’ this was exactly the development I’d been waiting for. I knew I could count on it!
“…Why are you being this kind to me…?”
“Because you’re the one who saved my life! And… because you’re not a bad person…!”
“Haha… Even though I’m the man who abducted you?”
“But you only did that to save me!”
“…That doesn’t erase what I did.”
“You didn’t do it because you wanted to! You suffered while doing it! That’s why you saved me!”
Damn… This was insane. I’d only tossed her a little bait, and she was interpreting it this far.
With her head filled with ‘justice,’ Yuchi Hye seemed to have already decided that I wasn’t a bad person.
Thanks to that, the odds of my plan succeeding had risen even further. Was this really working? Seriously?
“Sigh… At this rate, I won’t be able to leave until sunrise. I’ve said it repeatedly, but I’m not going to my death. I’m going to draw their attention.”
“Stop! I’ve told you repeatedly, but I can’t let you leave like this!”
When I ignored her and tried to leave, Yuchi Hye came hurrying over and blocked the doorway.
Good, I’d gotten her this far. Then… shall I start the next step?
The 100-point random box had given me a cheat item worth at least several tens of thousands of points.
It was such a good item that I’d been saving it, but this seemed like the perfect time to use it.
“Phew…”
I let out a loud sigh as if putting on a show, then pulled a small bottle from inside my robes.
Then I shook it in front of Yuchi Hye and revealed what it was.
“This is an aphrodisiac. It’s also called a lust drug.”
“……Whaaaat?!”
“If you keep blocking me, I’m going to drink this.”
“W-whaaat…? Why?!”
At my shocking declaration, Yuchi Hye was startled, and her already-large eyes grew even rounder.
She looked so adorable that I nearly let my expression soften, but I held it in and maintained a stern face.
“As you know, drinking an aphrodisiac makes you a slave to lust. It makes you want to rape the woman in front of you.
Do you want me to take your virginity? If not, then for your own sake, don’t stop me.”
“Are you… threatening me?”
“Yes, I am. Is there any worse threat than this to a virgin who is about to be married?”
“Ah… But… I can’t let you go like this. Don’t give up on life! Please…”
“The world has taken everything from me. The more I resisted, the deeper I fell. And now you’re trying to take even death away from me?”
“B-but! That’s why a brighter future is sure to come! There must be a way… Ah!”
Ugh, fuck… This is so cringey. I can’t do this anymore.
If I kept this up, I was afraid I would stop being myself.
Not just anyone could say things like this out loud.
It took someone like Siwoo to pull it off.
So I forced the next stage.
Right in front of Yuchi Hye, who was still trying to persuade me, I drank the aphrodisiac.
She rushed toward me to stop me, but by the time she arrived, I had already finished drinking it.
Yuchi Hye clearly hadn’t even imagined that I would really drink it, because she stared at me with a dazed expression.
In the reflection in her large pupils, I saw myself trembling all over.
The aphrodisiac’s effects were incredible. I felt as if I were going mad from wanting to pounce on her immediately.
But I endured with superhuman willpower and spoke to Yuchi Hye one last time.
“So… you’re the one who made me drink this… ngh, haa… Leave at once… The moonlight is bright, so, haa… you won’t lose your way… ngh.”
“N-no…”
“Heh heh… A miserable end, just like my life… Haa…”
“Ahh…!”
====
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The man in front of her drank the aphrodisiac right in front of her.
She tried to stop him, but she couldn’t.
In an instant, she felt an intense heat radiating from him.
Without realizing it, she took a step backward.
“Haa… haa…”
He appeared to be holding out for now, but it was only a matter of time before he became a monster of lust.
She had to run. She had to leave, just as he had told her.
If she stayed, he would rape her.
She was about to lose the chastity she was supposed to preserve until her wedding day.
“It can’t be… Sob, sob… Why would you make such a choice…?”
But she couldn’t bring herself to leave so easily.
The aphrodisiac turned whoever took it into an incarnation of lust. If that desire was not satisfied, the person who took it would suffer until death, ending their life in a hideous fashion.
Therefore, if she ran away, he was as good as dead.
That knowledge made her hesitate.
No matter that he had saved her life, he was still a stranger she had only just met,
and as an assassin for a lowly organization, he had likely committed no small number of sins.
There was no way she could give him her virginity.
But the look in his eyes when he discovered her hiding place…
The voice with which he calmly confessed his circumstances…
The sight of his back as he said he would leave to protect her…
Each of those things made her heart ache with a wistful sadness.
His claim that he saw his younger sister in her had not been a lie.
She felt sorry for him. She pitied him. She felt guilty.
As a member of a martial arts clan, she felt responsible for him.
It felt like the fault of the orthodox sects for failing to root out the unorthodox ones.
But that didn’t mean she could give him her first time.
But that didn’t mean she could let him die.
“Ah… Gongzi! What am I supposed to do…?!”
She had to weigh her chastity against a person’s life and make a decision.
It was an impossibly difficult dilemma for an unmarried maiden.
On top of that, she already had a fiancé…
And wasn’t she also the owner of the Taiji Yin-Yang Physique, said to appear only once every thousand years…?
“Haa… Aaaah! Aaaaargh!”
-Flinch
As her inner conflict deepened, his howls grew louder.
She had to make a decision quickly.
-Creak
She turned her back on him as he writhed in agony.
Then she opened the door to escape from this place.
Of course, choosing her chastity was the right thing to do.
…But was her chastity really valuable enough to let someone die right before her eyes?
Wasn’t the promise she had made to Gongzi—to live her whole life righteously—meant for a moment like this?
Leaving him to die here was in no way a righteous act.
-Click
She closed the door she had opened and locked it.
“I’m sorry… Sob… sniff, Gongzi… But… you’ll understand me, won’t you?”
“Sniff… You’ll still love me like this, won’t you?”
-Rustle
She took off her clothes.
She exposed her naked body before a man—the naked body she had never shown even to her fiancé.