Chapter 40
She asks what I'd want to do if I had a Fate Star.
As she slowly strokes my back.
To Professor Mella, I answer like this.
“If you have a Fate Star, there's a favor I'd like to ask.”
“What?”
“I'd like you to show it to me.”
Professor Mella's fingers twitched.
“The mark of your Fate Star?”
“Yes”
“…Do you know where it is?”
“Yes. And I should ask you to let me touch it, too….”
She twitched again.
“T-touch it?”
“Yes.”
“…When you asked what I'd want to do if I had a Fate Star, did you mean you'd make that request of anyone who had one?”
“I wouldn't do that to just anyone.”
It was true that I had to touch every star mark.
But surely plenty of pretty bitches had Fate Stars, too.
That's how subculture games work.
A world flooded with demands to add hot-faced bitches from enemy factions to the roster.
And Fate Star holders are characters who get added to the roster.
If I seriously approached one of those bitches and asked, ‘Excuse me, could I touch the star mark in the most embarrassing place on your body?’ what would happen?
They'd try to touch my internal organs.
I'd probably have no choice but to use somewhat coercive methods with them.
‘I'd prefer to settle things through conversation, too, if possible.’
But what can I do?
I'm the protagonist and player of this world.
The main quest is to touch the star marks of all the Fate Star holders.
【Fate Quest】
〈The One Who Gathers All the Stars〉
Objective: Make contact with every star mark (3/??)
Reward: ■■■■■■
Maron.
Elettra.
Lucy.
Until that number I raised to three by touching their star marks reaches its final value.
“I'd only do it with people who seem like they'd be okay with that.”
“…So I look like someone who'd be okay with it?”
“If it's you, Professor Mella, then yes.”
Mella thought to herself.
‘Look at this lunatic.’
Because, from her point of view, Gilliam's declaration just now was—
‘If he sees an easy woman, he'll go around asking every one of them if he can have her body?’
The star mark.
He wants to see the one in the most shameful place.
And he even wants to touch it.
Naturally, that meant… the union of a man and a woman, didn't it?
‘And I look like one of those easy women?’
What a load of crap.
Does he think I'm that easy?
“Professor Mella.”
“Hm?”
“When did you start learning recovery magic?”
“When I was five.”
“There's a specialized school for that, right?”
“Yeah. I was top of my class when I entered and when I graduated.”
“…Oh.”
“What?”
“I was just thinking you really are a genius.”
“So you thought I was a fake until now?”
“That's not it….”
Mella gave a bitter smile as she ran her hand over Gilliam's back.
Mella Tonishika was a woman with a fierce desire to be special.
And.
“Well, maybe that's not entirely wrong.”
The more someone wanted to be special, the more intensely they felt inferior, convinced they weren't special.
The peculiar, melting atmosphere of the night.
The unusual situation of being alone with a man who was seducing her.
“The world is vast.”
Thoughts Mella would never normally reveal slipped through her lips.
“I was top of my class, but there were quite a few others as good as me. A lot of them went to the Holy Church, too.”
“Couldn't you have joined the Church as well, Professor?”
“My family is here.”
Mella was the eldest daughter.
She had younger siblings to support.
As a healer with the Church, she could earn widespread recognition.
But she'd have to travel all over the world to help those in need of treatment.
The academy infirmary was a perfect fit for her: a stable job in a fixed location.
But.
Whenever she read news in the papers about her classmates making a name for themselves in the Church,
jealousy would rise in her heart.
I had better grades than her.
And she's making a name for herself all over the world.
While I just live as an infirmary professor. Stable and ordinary.
“I see.”
“Yeah. That's how it is.”
The treatment is almost done.
Mella takes her hand off the young man's back.
She was being seduced.
Honestly, she was attracted.
A worn-out playboy.
A piece of trash whose hobby was playing with women.
With a man like this, wouldn't she surely have an enjoyable experience?
Since it was her first time.
All the more so.
He'd handle her carefully so she could feel pleasure without pain.
But even if there wasn't much of an age gap between them, she was still a professor and he a cadet.
She ought to reject him.
That was reality.
Just as Mella had declined the invitation she'd received from the Church.
She had to reject this cadet's advances, too.
“The Church must regret losing you.”
….”
It was then.
The infirmary door swung open roughly, and the room grew noisy.
“Ughhh…! Professor, are you here!?”
“Come out quickly and take a look at this!?”
Apparently, a few male cadets had come in with injuries from playing a ball game like soccer or basketball.
That much was common.
Normally, Mella would immediately step out from behind the curtain and snap, “What is it? It's noisy, so shut up!”
But.
Now she hesitated for no reason.
‘W-what if it gets around in some weird way that I'm here with Everchess?’
Normally, she wouldn't have cared at all. So what if she was treating an injured guy?
But now, she was oddly conscious of him.
Was it because she'd touched his surprisingly muscular back?
Because she'd been seduced?
For no reason.
For no reason at all.
“What, Tonishika isn't here?”
“She might be asleep at this hour.”
“Maybe she's out having fun?”
The male students sat down wherever they pleased and started chatting.
“Damn, shouldn't we just go outside to get this looked at? Can an infirmary professor even treat it?”
“Well… the academy's fine, but if she were actually competent, she wouldn't be here.”
“The most talented recovery mages all end up going to the Church anyway….”
“A healer who couldn't get into the Church is only so-so.”
‘…Ah.’
Mella felt a tightness in her chest.
That's not true.
That's not how it is.
I could've gone, too.
I just couldn't because I ran into the wall of reality.
But she couldn't step out.
Maybe because it was night.
The cadets' careless remarks dug deep into Mella's heart, already more shaken and vulnerable than usual.
‘…It hurts.’
In a bad way.
In a painful way.
‘Are they saying an infirmary professor like me is unnecessary?’
Creeping.
An unpleasant thought began to bloom.
Mella Tonishika.
It was unclear when darkness had begun to grow in the heart of the academy's best recovery mage.
Was it resentment?
An unfulfilled longing?
Or something deeper?
And her desire to be recognized as a recovery mage eventually erupted in the worst possible form.
In the middle of the decisive battle against the <Abyssal Cult>.
In a ward overflowing with wounded.
“Do your best without the infirmary professor you all looked down on so much.”
Mella took her own life.
Her face filled with dark, ecstatic delight as she yearned for those who'd looked down on her to regret it.
Swish!
Gilliam suddenly yanked the curtain open.
“!”
“!!”
Mella herself, and all the cadets who'd been badmouthing her, thinking she wasn't there, were taken aback.
Gilliam glared at them.
That alone was already enough of a message.
Because this was a romance fantasy.
But.
Gilliam, who didn't follow—or couldn't follow—the conventions of a romance fantasy,
“Hey. What the hell are you talking about?”
wasn't satisfied with that alone, and frowned at the male cadets who'd been spouting nonsense.
“You think Professor Mella is at the academy because she's incompetent!?”
“N-no, we…”
“W-we didn't mean that…!”
Gilliam had stripped off his shirt.
And Mella had been alone with him behind the curtain.
This was an infirmary.
Normally, it was an ordinary scene.
But.
Since Mella hadn't come out as soon as the cadets entered, no matter how you looked at it, they seemed like a man and woman doing something they shouldn't get caught doing.
And.
The same thought came to Mella and the cadets.
Gilliam Everchess was a delinquent. A playboy. Scum.
But.
If anyone touched his woman, he wouldn't let it slide.
Wasn't he the guy who didn't hesitate to publicly humiliate even His Highness the Crown Prince?
And now Gilliam had stepped forward in anger because Mella had been insulted.
In other words?
Aha!
Professor Mella had been added to the list of women belonging to that delinquent!
And we'd been caught badmouthing one of Gilliam's women?
Haha!
We're fucked!
The cadets hurriedly got to their feet, injuries forgotten.
“S-sorry!”
“We’re sorry!!”
“We’re sorry, Professor! We didn’t know you were here—no, even if you weren’t here, we shouldn’t have said that—!!”
Gilliam rose to his feet.
“Hey! Apologize properly!”
“Eek!”
“Run! The delinquent's going to kill us!!”
Bang! Clatter!! Pitter-patter-patter!!
“…Tch.”
Gilliam clicked his tongue at the pathetic cadets.
“Professor Mella, don't pay too much attention to those idiots' nonsense—”
A finger touched my chest.
Then pushed.
Until my back hit the infirmary bed.
“…Professor Mella?”
….”
The professor said nothing.
Without a word, she slowly took off her white lab coat.
Black underwear showed beneath the white coat.
Was that just the kind of thing she liked wearing all the time?
And, as expected, a large chest.
The faint moonlight created a scene that suited her already decadent charm.
“Ah, Professor.”
I sat up and grabbed her shoulders.
“It's all right. The healing is enough.”
Some recovery magic required skin contact.
Professor Mella must have been trying to use something like that on me.
But.
‘That was close.’
If that body touched mine right now, I felt like some physiological reaction would happen again on the infirmary bed.
I could do without a woman finding out how big I was down there.
“I'm all healed up, so I'll go find those guys from earlier, teach them a lesson, and head home.”
And while I was being treated, I thought it over carefully. That was definitely the right thing to do.
Maron.
Elettra.
Lucy.
It was scary to go home to the house where all three of them were waiting.
Yeah.
Honestly, it was kind of scary.
But was it right to keep avoiding them and running away like this?
‘No.’
The unexpected quest gave me 24 hours.
If I hid like this, I could probably meet that requirement.
But what about after that?
Life goes on.
My relationship with them will continue, too.
As expected.
I shouldn't avoid it; I should face them head-on.
I have to convey my true feelings.
That's the only thing.
It's the only strategy for someone as oblivious as me to survive in this world.
“Thank you, Professor. Thanks to you, my body and mind feel refreshed.”
….”
“Get dressed. Here. I'll be going now. See you next time.”
I put my uniform jacket back on and left the infirmary, too.
“…You fucking insane piece of shit.”
I thought I heard a strange noise behind me.
Must've been my imagination.
“I'm fucking going to fuck you like a damn dog, you fucking manwhore.”
…Must've been my imagination?
.
.
.
When I returned home, the atmosphere was just as murderous as expected.
“Hey, guys, I'm back.”
Maron and Lucy had the wands they used to cast magic.
And Elettra was gripping her sealed sword tightly.
….”
….”
….”
The three of them sat side by side on the sofa.
I stood in the entryway after opening the front door.
It felt like an interview room. Wow, this kind of pressure makes me uncomfortable.
Representing the three of them, Maron spoke up.
“…What have you been doing until now?”
All right.
This is the important part.
Let's honestly convey my true feelings to them.
“I went out to meet some women.”