Weakness, soreness, exhaustion...
All kinds of physical sensations reached Kuroka Toujou's newly awakened mind, making her draw in a sharp breath the moment she opened her eyes.
"Isn't the man supposed to be the one who gets exhausted after something like this? Why does it feel like my whole body is about to fall apart? Ow... Delta really didn't hold back!"
Rubbing the huge bump Delta had left on her head after knocking her out last night, Kuroka Toujou felt her limp, battered body as though it had been completely wrecked. She tentatively sat up, and the quilt over her slipped down, exposing a large stretch of bare skin.
"You're awake!"
The familiar yet unfamiliar male voice came from the doorway, and Kuroka Toujou's entire body froze.
She turned her head stiffly. Just as Kuroka Toujou expected, the man leaning against the doorframe with a cold expression was Cid.
Normally, seeing her boss would have made Kuroka Toujou feel incredibly secure. After all, with such an unrivaled powerhouse as her boss, nothing would happen to her no matter how recklessly she acted.
But now... she was done for!
She still remembered what she and Delta had done last night, and that was exactly why she felt so guilty.
Yes, she did not mind having that kind of relationship with Cid. In fact, she could not have asked for more. A child of the strongest person in the world was already far beyond her expectations.
The problem was... she might not mind, but whether her new boss would wake up the next day and slap her to death with a backhand was another matter entirely.
This sort of thing was supposed to be consensual, of course... if she were strong enough, that would be a different story.
As for what she and Delta had done last night... even setting aside whether it counted as forcing themselves on him, simply taking advantage of Cid while he could not move was already enough to be called insubordination. She would not be surprised in the slightest if he slapped her to death... Wait, where was Delta? Had she already been slapped to death?
"Shadow-sama, I had my rea..."
"Stop."
Kuroka Toujou's attempted explanation was cut off when Cid raised a hand to silence her. She could only watch helplessly as Cid slowly sat down on the stool, laced his fingers together over his lap, and rested his chin on them.
"I remember... Kuroka, you said the reason you joined Delta was because of her unbelievably stupid plan to rule the world by giving birth to the strongest child, right?"
"...Yes, Shadow-sama, but I am absolutely loyal to you. What happened last night was something I had no choice in. You have to believe me..."
Watching Kuroka Toujou's exaggerated performance, Cid fell silent for a moment, then raised a hand to stop her.
"I don't care about your reasons. I just want to ask you one thing. Do you still want to continue?"
"Huh?"
The excuses jammed in her throat. Kuroka Toujou stared blankly at Cid, who had just said something outrageous with a perfectly calm face, and her mind completely... stalled.
"Um... Shadow-sama, when you say continue, do you mean what I think you mean?"
"Yes. Exactly what you're thinking."
Seeing straight through Kuroka Toujou's thoughts, Cid gave a slight nod.
"...May I ask why? Shadow-sama, weren't you very against this before?"
Yes, why?
Cid asked himself that inwardly. His gaze shifted slightly upward from Kuroka Toujou's head. When he saw that the number, which had still been in the double digits yesterday, had now dropped to a single digit, his eyes drifted to the right of their own accord, and his thoughts went back to yesterday.
...
Snow filled the sky. On the polar ice, Cid watched as the girl in the great crater raised her hand and chanted the name of his signature skill.
By chance, Cid vaguely saw the beautiful pink-haired girl's lips move without making the slightest sound. Even so, he could still read what she was saying from the shape of her mouth.
I curse you, Shadow!
Cid chose to ignore the howl of a defeated dog, offering her at most a contemptuous look to show his disdain.
Perhaps sensing what Cid was thinking, the girl gave him a meaningful smile in the final moments of her life.
"I will give you a condition you cannot refuse."
In the final instant before the bluish-purple light swallowed her body, Cid heard those words, so faint they were barely audible, yet filled with absolute love that surpassed ten billionfold sensitivity.
In truth, Cid was curious about what condition she claimed he would be unable to refuse. But since his signature skill had already fallen, and he was in a hurry to repair the world, he did not think much of it. He simply took it as the stubborn bravado of someone on the verge of death.
And now... feeling his body, which had undergone at least dozens of renewals, and looking at the number above Kuroka Toujou's head that had gone from zero when he woke up that morning to one now, Cid felt as though he finally understood what that irresistible price had been.
Simply put, in a twenty-four-hour day, if he kept the onefold Magic Power Training Method running all day, his entire body would probably renew itself several times.
Under normal circumstances, he would run it at onefold during the day to avoid affecting his daily life, then switch to threefold at night when he was home alone and sleeping. Calculated that way, his entire body usually renewed itself a dozen or so times a day, occasionally reaching more than twenty depending on how much free time he had after returning home at night.
But last night, after being hit with that hundred-billionfold sensitivity, there was naturally no way he could keep torturing himself with the Magic Power Training Method.
Thinking back on it now, aside from those painful yet pleasurable sensations, the Qi in his body seemed to have flowed into Delta and Kuroka Toujou, circled through their bodies, and returned, forming some kind of cycle.
In other words, in just a few hours last night, he had achieved training results that would normally take him at least three days.
It might not even have been a few hours. After all, from start to finish, it only took a dozen minutes or so for him to unleash "Ineedmorepower," and before that, he had already drained Delta and Kuroka Toujou dry.
In other words, this efficiency was not merely ten times higher. If he could keep the numbers up, it would be at least several hundred times higher.
...No, wait. Although I was close to losing consciousness last night, I remember draining Delta faster than I drained Kuroka Toujou, yet Kuroka Toujou's number was about the same as Delta's, only around ten points apart.
Hmm... Kuroka Toujou and Delta's numbers are different colors, and the radiance they give off is different too.
Does that mean there are differences between individuals as well?
Tsk... there are too few cases. I can't get any useful data from this at all.
"How should I put it? Delta is a little... too simple and cute, so I've always treated what she says as something that goes in one ear and out the other."
Besides, screwing an idiot is against the law.
"But in your case, Kuroka... if you can guarantee it won't affect me, then I don't really mind... In other words, you'd be my mistress. So what's your answer?"
Cid raised an eyebrow as he looked at Kuroka Toujou. He had always been indifferent toward this sort of thing. If it could make him stronger, he was perfectly willing to do it, as long as it did not interfere with his normal life.
In a certain sense, Delta and Kuroka Toujou's logic, ignoring emotions and reproducing purely for the sake of reproduction, suited his tastes best.
Yeah, I really am heartless and a complete scumbag.
Silently mocking his own awful values, Cid quietly waited for Kuroka Toujou's reply.
"Of course I'm willing, Shadow-sama. After all, this is an order from you. Then it's settled. Before I get pregnant and after I give birth, I'll be Shadow-sama's exclusive mistress, ready whenever you call!"
Kuroka Toujou had never expected to stumble into such a huge opportunity. She nodded eagerly, afraid that if she missed this chance, there would never be another.
As for being only a mistress with no official status?
That did not matter. Her goal was truly simple. She only wanted a high-quality child.
"Cid-sama, since you've already agreed, shall we do it right now?
Thanks to that brainless idiot Delta, I still don't even have a chance of becoming a mother..."
Kuroka Toujou spoke sorrowfully, putting on a pitiful look as she moved closer to Cid. At the same time, she very naturally shifted the quilt off her body. A trace of allure showed in her eyes, and the cat tail behind her swayed unconsciously.
"No. Your number... your body hasn't recovered yet, so I won't force it. Drink more hot water."
Cid moved his gaze away from the number above Kuroka Toujou's head, which was only one, and spoke in as gentle a tone as he could.
"Huh? Ah! Ow, ow, ow!"
Only after Cid said that did Kuroka Toujou calm down enough to realize it. Her exhausted body had pulled too many muscles during that sudden large movement, and her sore, numb body dropped straight onto the floor as she let out a low groan.
Seeing Kuroka Toujou in such a miserable state, Cid simply stood up slowly, tucked the blanket back around Kuroka Toujou as she opened her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut while making strange noises, then took two cards from his pocket and placed them by the bed.
"These are for you. If you don't have enough money, just swipe them. Call me if anything happens."
Cid did not really understand love, but that did not matter. He did not need love either. He also hoped Kuroka Toujou could remain true to her original intentions, just like him. The best way for the two of them to treat each other was still as friends, with a mutually beneficial relationship where each took what they needed.
Love was really troublesome.
Thinking that, Cid gave a soft snort, glanced at Kuroka Toujou, and turned to walk out of the room with a faint smile still on his lips.
It really was funny. In just a dozen minutes, she had been drained dry, and her number had even hit zero. If he were to... force it to continue, what would happen?
Cid stopped in his tracks as a terrifying thought suddenly appeared in his mind. Holding onto that thought, he turned back to look at the number above Kuroka Toujou's head as she lay on the bed.
He stared fixedly, maintaining that thought. Amid a ripple, the number changed back into two... then three digits!
Damn it!
Cid's expression changed at once. What kind of heretical dual cultivation ability from a fantasy world was this? Did that not mean that one careless mistake could make him drain someone to death?
"Cid-sama, may I ask where Delta-sama is now?"
While he was stunned, Kuroka Toujou seemed to have recovered a little as well. As if something had just occurred to her, she suddenly asked Cid that question.
"Delta... went home."
Recalling the scene that morning, when he had picked up Delta, who was like a puddle of mud, and Eta, who was sleeping on the floor, then handed them over to Beta when she came looking for them, Cid felt genuinely embarrassed from the bottom of his heart.
"Is that so? That's great. She managed to keep her life..."
Cid had no time to pay attention to what Kuroka Toujou was thinking. He strode outside. He had to figure out the new ability his body had evolved in the shortest time possible, or something terrible really would happen...
...
"Hey, Claire, what is wrong with you? You've been kneeling on the bed since morning and haven't moved."
Floating in the air as she circled the bed, the mysterious Witch, her face flushed, looked at Claire, who had been kneeling there since she woke up that morning, her entire body seemingly rendered in a black-and-white gloom, and asked.
"Yeah, what is wrong with me? I'd like to know the answer to that question myself.
Aurora, can you answer it for me?"
Hearing Aurora's voice, Claire asked back with a dazed, lost expression. She looked as if she had suffered a crushing blow, her voice weaker than it had ever been, and it even startled Aurora, who had been watching the fun.
"...Act normal. If you're going to ask me a question, you at least need to tell me what problem you've run into first."
Claire glanced at the purple-haired Witch in the air. After hesitating for a moment, she sighed helplessly, changed position, and lay down on the bed, staring hollowly at the ceiling.
"It's not a big problem. I just suddenly realized that the correct thing I've always been holding on to may not be what I thought it was. It may even be something that shouldn't exist at all.
But to me, what that thing actually is doesn't matter, because even if it shouldn't exist, I still can't possibly give it up.
And yet that thing really is something that shouldn't exist, so what am I supposed to do?"
"I recommend suicide, dear!"
The moment she said those outrageous words with a smile, a longsword appeared in front of the Witch in the air, passed through her like she was a ghost, and then embedded itself heavily in the wall.
"Do you want to fight?"
"Aren't you the one who wants to fight? You said all that, and none of it was useful. Can't you just say what you want to know?"
"Hah? Those are the prerequisites, the prerequisites!
Do you even know what a prerequisite is? If you don't even understand that much, then don't act like some caring sister!"
Claire spoke mockingly, making Aurora clench her fists. But constrained by reality, she could not attack and could only swallow her anger.
"Do you want my help or not? If you don't, then goodbye."
"I..."
Realizing Aurora was serious, Claire hesitated for a moment before finally speaking.
"I don't know how to treat that thing anymore. I don't want to care, but whenever I think of him, I can't help wanting to get close to him. What am I supposed to do?"
"...I don't know."
"?"
Aurora vanished before Claire could even finish, and Claire instantly grew angry. She had been toyed with!
"When it comes to feelings... they only get messier and messier."
And when it comes to speaking in riddles, the two of you really are siblings.
Hidden inside her own space, Aurora let out a heartfelt sigh.