Chapter 55
Several hours after we decided how to deal with the hypnotist.
The banquet was over.
The nobles in the banquet hall all set down their wineglasses and went their separate ways.
I too left the lord's castle with Elena and walked through the city's nighttime streets.
'It's over.'
The aftermath of the Monster Wave still remained, but its lingering echo resounded within me.
The tutorial was over.
Whenever I closed my eyes, I remembered the moment I first awakened in this world.
I thought I was going to die that day.
If I had raped Elena as in the original, I would never have escaped my fate of death.
If I'd been even a few minutes late, I would have raped a novice adventurer holding a battered old sword in the corner of the guild, and the difficulty of my life would have risen exponentially.
If I had raped her, how would I have survived?
Even if I killed Elena ahead of time, I would die at the ending.
Even if I begged Elis for forgiveness, I would die.
Even if I fled far away, I would die if Elena couldn't clear the ending.
If I monopolized all the items, Elena wouldn't grow and I would die.
Death. Death. Death.
I would've entrusted my body and mind to Eck and gone around sleeping with women.
With only those few minutes making the difference, fate had been overturned.
I was able to help Elena and maintain the conditions for the true ending.
Whether she could remain a virgin or not.
It was an essential element of the true ending.
Because the route to the true ending could overlap with the route to the normal ending almost one hundred percent of the time, I had planned to guide Elena through a virgin playthrough for the time being and switch routes if I failed along the way.
'I wasn't sure at first.'
The conditions for the true ending.
A virgin playthrough.
In an adult game, making it to the ending while protecting a virgin's purity sounded nice when put that way, but in reality, it was like crossing a minefield.
Monsters raped women.
Villains targeted women too.
Even the traps were designed for women.
The game was full of filthy patterns I could barely avoid even when controlling the character myself, yet I had no choice but to entrust Elena to them.
The Elena I had seen in the original game was raped into a broken mess at the drop of a hat.
Since I'd only ever seen her like that, I honestly hadn't trusted her.
Elena, who had been raped by wolves and given birth to wolf cubs. Elena, who had been captured by a toad and forced to lay frog eggs.
She had been attacked and gang-raped by orcs, then stripped and bound by trolls, impaled on a rod, and made to watch as she reached endless climaxes.
She had even been captured by ogres and turned into a human fleshlight.
Honestly, taking the normal ending route would've been easier on both my body and mind.
'That's why I didn't take it too seriously at first.'
Since I'd entered the true-ending route anyway, maybe I could aim for it.
If I failed, I could simply turn toward the normal ending.
That was the extent of my mindset.
Either way, I was saving the world.
Then why had I insisted on the true ending when aiming for the more comfortable normal ending would have been easier? Because it simply offered a more worry-free future.
A world that wasn't an adult game.
A world without monsters that raped women.
A world that was an ordinary fantasy world.
The true ending would open the way to that world.
I knew how to make it happen,
and I could develop the power to do it.
When I considered it my only chance, I couldn't bring myself not to aim for it.
It had been a plan I was pursuing only as an extra, but
"You did well, Elena."
"Heehee. You smell nice, Uncle."
Elena had done far better than I ever imagined.
I supported the drunken Elena by holding her arm so she wouldn't fall.
'Seriously, she was capable of doing this all along.'
In the original game, she was constantly deceived, constantly getting drunk, and constantly raped.
The sex scenes were nice, but she was raped so frequently that it grew tiresome.
'If this is the Elena of now...'
She could aim for the true ending.
No, she had to aim for it.
We would change the world with the true ending.
'Elena.'
Under the streetlamps, I saw adventurers running toward the walls.
It seemed the remaining stragglers from the Monster Wave were clawing at the walls somewhere.
Among those silhouettes were probably people who would have died long ago in the original game.
I wasn't a savior, but I realized I was the kind of person who could feel proud after saving someone.
"Thank you for working so hard."
"Mmm... um... Unc-le..."
Elena clung limply to my arm. I picked her up before she could fall and carried her to her lodgings.
***
The next morning.
Around midday, I returned to the lord's castle.
After passing through the castle, which still showed signs of yesterday's banquet, I was escorted directly to Lisette's office.
It was different from the treatment I had received when I was escorted to the reception room last time.
Instead of yesterday's splendid dress, Lisette was dressed for business, and from behind her desk, she presented me with a new contract.
Lisette raised her eyes and accepted the contract, scanning its contents.
An unexpected expression appeared on her face.
"You're saying you're giving me ninety percent of the dungeon rights?"
Lisette's red lips curved into a smooth, delighted smile she could barely contain.
The contract that had split the rights fifty-fifty had now been readjusted to ten percent for me and ninety percent for Lisette.
"In return, I would like you to guarantee full support within the scope of what you can help with, my lady. I would also like priority access to the professional personnel, technology, and facilities belonging to the lord's castle. Please promise me immunity for minor offenses and mediation in the event of a dispute with a noble. And..."
Lisette took her eyes off the parchment and glared at me.
"Priority claim to special resources excavated from the dungeon. Are you asking for exclusive rights?"
"I want to claim ownership of natural magic tools or relics. I'm not interested in ore veins. Isn't that enough in exchange for ninety percent of the rights?"
Lisette began reading through the contract carefully once more.
"...Are you serious?"
If I left them alone, they were things that would be snatched right from under my nose anyway. It was only right to sell them when they were at their most valuable.
Her gaze quickly swept down the contract again.
She even flipped it over to inspect the back, apparently worried I might have played some trick on her.
After falling deep into thought, she raised a hand and held up her index finger.
"First, I will provide you with full support, refuse none of your requests, and make available the professional personnel, technology, and facilities belonging to the lord's castle."
She raised her middle finger.
"Second, I will grant you immunity for minor offenses below a certain threshold and mediate whenever a problem arises with a noble."
Her ring finger.
"Third, you will have priority acquisition rights to special resources discovered in the dungeon. If you accept these conditions, ninety percent of the dungeon rights will belong to me."
Lisette's expression grew stiff.
She fretted, unable to discern my intentions.
She glanced at the maids beside her.
"Clever."
"Is that so?"
"Well, all right. If that is what you intend, I will give you my full support."
Lisette spread the contract open, pressed a pen to it, and signed.
She added my signature as well, completing the new contract.
***
"Well then. Everyone, could you leave us for a moment?"
Lisette dismissed the maids.
As though they had discussed it beforehand, the maids left the office without complaint, leaving only Lisette and me inside.
In the quiet office, I knelt before Lisette.
I slipped a hand into my clothes.
"I am returning the gift of favor I mentioned at the banquet, my lady."
I took out the neatly folded piece of white cloth.
I held the gift of favor out to her respectfully in both hands.
Lisette's gaze rested on my hands.
"Yes. It is the gift of favor I gave you. The item I personally gave you when I acknowledged you as a loyal subject. I never expected to get it back so soon."
"I apologize."
"No. It was my fault for giving it to you so hastily and causing the kind of mishap that happened yesterday. It is unfortunate, but I will take the gift of favor back."
Lisette sighed and perched herself on the desk.
She elegantly raised her legs and tugged up her skirt slightly, revealing her pale bare legs.
"Now, put it on me."
...?
Lisette looked down at me intently, and when our eyes met, a question mark appeared in her gaze.
Why are you just standing there instead of putting it on me?
Her eyes conveyed as much.
Kneeling at her feet, I let out a short breath, unfolded the gift of favor, and slipped my toe into one of the leg openings.
I inserted my other foot as well and drew it past my calves and knees.
Both my hands rose beneath her skirt and vanished from view, brushing over the soft flesh of her thighs as I pulled the gift of favor up to the noble young lady's most intimate area.
"Pull it up more."
...I pulled it all the way up and fitted it snugly against her.
"Excuse me."
I withdrew both hands from beneath her skirt and stepped back.
"Hmm."
Lisette shifted her hips from side to side.
"I can feel your body heat."
Soon, a satisfied smile appeared around her lips.
"Is this warmth the touch of the loyal subject who devoted himself to me? Not bad. I'm glad I wasn't wearing anything underneath when I came to take back the gift of favor."
"...I am nearly overwhelmed by your consideration for me."
I gave up trying to understand.
"You may go, Eck."
Lisette sat in her chair and picked up her teacup.
She left me with one final remark as I headed out of her office.
"The next time you distinguish yourself, I will give you an even more valuable gift of favor. You may look forward to it."
"I will... live up to your expectations."
I bowed deeply and left Lisette's office.
***
After leaving the office, I felt considerably lighter.
The young lady's scent still lingered on my fingertips, muddling my thoughts.
The pale legs I had seen while lifting Lisette's skirt, and the contours of her thighs and buttocks conveyed by the sensation beneath my fingertips, were drawn in white beyond the skirt.
- ....
I endured with indomitable will when the scent of the woman trapped beneath the skirt stung my nose.
- ....
It was so incomprehensible that I even wondered whether she had known exactly what she was doing all along.
- ....
'If you have something to say, then say it.'
I could sense Beatrice's presence.
Beatrice's long black hair flowed into view from outside my field of vision, streaming from left to right like water.
Holding both legs, she rolled blankly away into the distance beyond my sight.
- Eck, perhaps the world is larger than I thought. I want to grab that maid and bite and suck her, but what if she actually belongs to someone as their toilet? She looks like a woman, but she could actually be a man, couldn't she? I'm starting to become afraid of the world.
Beatrice drifted blankly out of sight.
She crossed over beyond my will just like that.
- A young lady who gives a pair of panties to a complete stranger and asks him to put them on her, a female knight who loses her mind intoxicated by her master's scent, and even a mage born with a lewd body who has male genitalia. Is this world a blessing or a curse? I think I need to think about it a little longer.
Her thoughts faded into the distance like an echo.
I had nothing to say to her.
If you lived normally, this world was surprisingly ordinary.
Unfortunately, I was caught in the middle of the vast vortex of fate belonging to an adult game.
With a maid guiding me, I walked through the castle corridors toward the training grounds in the rear courtyard.
Familiar faces caught my eye in the open training grounds.
In a secluded corner of the training grounds, where apprentice knights were each swinging wooden swords, Elena was receiving instruction from Varie.