A Pure Knight’s Natural Enemy – Chapter 12 – Repost

Companion systems, party management, XP and loot sharing, perma-death,… There are many ways to have the mechanics of an RPG impress on a player that the secondary characters he’s fighting by the side of, courting, trying to get himself rid of, or a combination of all of the above, are, in fact, individual existences with a narrative weight beyond that of their bust—by which I, of course, mean the often gorgeously drawn busts of the characters that are used during dialogues and cutscenes and are, in absolutely no way whatsoever, a constant reminder that the gamedevs have likely cleared more visual novels than they have talked to actual women. It would be crass and wrong of me to reduce a companion’s appeal to their actual bust.

Lolis have rights as well.

Even if I prefer shortstacks.

But setting aside the slight matter of fantasy races without any kind of mammalian ancestry still proudly displaying their latest advancements in ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Lingerie’ technology, the above list tackles the issue of personhood from the mechanics’ angle when, in truth, that will always be a secondary concern at best. It’s through the story’s development that we get to know these characters, that we grow to care for them, that we get teary-eyed at a single Lara moment, and that we develop a retroactively innate (yet entirely rational) hatred of gambling kittens.

Yes, I’ve already talked, at length, about the companion sidequests, but do you know what’s more effective than a single character being in the spotlight?

The entire party except you being in the spotlight.

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the hero, for one reason or another, is incapacitated. Maybe he tested one too many times the cooking system while letting the tsundere character have any part in the results; maybe he met the antagonist in yet another one of their ‘I still have two discs to go through, so there’s no way this is for real’ duels, or maybe the party finally realized that, while the dating mechanics are not opposed to polyamory, the characters themselves may very well violently be.

The conclusion is that, for one reason or another, the hero is no longer available to do hero things.

And the party has to pick up the slack.

Usually, their whole quest will have to do with getting you back in working order, either with a journey through the mind of a very delusional Soldier candidate, through complicated time travel shenanigans, or through whatever it is that would happen in a third game that doesn’t come to mind right now.

Maybe Grandia II? I don’t remember if that went past a single cutscene.

God, I miss the Internet.

Not enough to get a smartphone as a cheat item, though. What’s this, you say? I’m being sent to a world with viable combat magic and, therefore, laws of physics that are most likely not even remotely close to those of the world I come from? Sure, I will take access to Wikipedia as a very reasonable route to victory.

Isekai protagonists can be so damn dumb. It’s only common sense to get the divine being offering you ultimate power to experience firsthand the wonderful, delightful adventures that await you due to their generous intervention.

Gender equality is an ideal to aspire to, yes, but metaphysical equality is also quite nice.

Anyway, the issue is that… Uh, what was I talking about?

“I can eat by myself,” in front of me, Megumin pretends to protest while blushing and doing absolutely nothing at all to eat by herself.

…

Right.

Incapacitated party leaders.

See, that’s the thing, isn’t it? You, as the player, are perfectly aware of every single step you took while your usual avatar wasn’t in working order. You know what steps the party took, what further developments occurred in the plot, just precisely how many irreplaceable consumable itemswere wasted, and what, if any, changes there were in the interpersonal relationships that had a chance to shine while out of the hero’s overpoweringly bright spotlight.

But the said hero? The main character?

Me?

“I just… I just wanted to try it?” Yunyun says before cutely biting her lower lip and looking up at Megumin through dangling, black bangs as she keeps holding up a piece of toast with jam so crimson that I wonder just how far the chuunis could go in their most esoterically thematic culinary pursuits.

And I, the party leader, the one person who should be perfectly aware of how and why all of this is happening, can only blink as the former loli and current shortstack blushes up to her ear tips before leaning forward to take a small nibble of jam and toast that stains her lips and the corner of her mouth before shooting a nervous smile Yunyun’s way, which the taller girl seems to take as her cue to lean forward, over her still offered, remaining toast, to lick Megumin’s mouth clean of crimson jam until one of my available archmages overheats to the point of needing a recovery item.

This is all very confusing.

“Kazumaaaa!” Aqua, sitting to my left, whines as she violently waves a rather larger piece of buttered toast in front of me.

That is not confusing, though. Merely alarming.

“I can eat by myself,” I grumble while a sane part of my mind (that is: most of it, despite environmental hazards doing their best to change such a valuable state of affairs) wonders precisely in which way Aqua could screw up this most straightforward otaku fantasy of having a beautiful, skimpily dressed maid hand-feed the righteous, courageous, brave, not a paying customer, and definitely not oblivious harem master, who most certainly isn’t completely disoriented by the change in relationship status being displayed right in front of his eyes.

My always helpful brain offers up some hypothetical scenarios regarding Aqua’s prowess in maidly service.

I try not to blanch.

Let’s just say that already being green is somewhat helpful in that regard.

“Kazumaaaa…” Darkness interjects from my other side, my first official girlfriend among the group gathered around the breakfast table (that so far consists of girlfriend Darkness, cumrag Aqua, quickshot Megumin, Yunyun Yunyun, and uncategorized Wiz) waving her own piece of buttered toast in silent offering.

My somewhat distracted brain displays a prodigious ability for multitasking and swiftly calculates the most likely ways for Darkness’ own offering to also turn into something mind-scarring, and, even if the odds aren’t significantly better than those posited by Aqua’s never-to-be-underestimated threat level, most of the possibilities involve Darkness messing up in such a way as to have her subsequently beg for my orcish, anatomically unlikely correction of the blonde porn maid.

Note to self: make sure to reward Aqua for her maid harem idea in a deniable way at some point.

“Kazuma…” Darkness insists with a devastating pout and blue eyes peering at me past golden bangs that shine brightly enough to warrant their own sound effect.

Right.

What my brain has, due to no fault of its own, failed to account for in its risk calculus is that I woke up not that long ago with my cock stuffed inside of Darkness.

Right before she left in a hurry.

Toward the toilet.

And, given that’s one of the very few tags I prefer remain unexplored (said the boy who read the entirety of Death Panda out of the kind of sheer horrified fascination the likes of which makes therapists salivate), I let Darkness go.

Then it was time for breakfast.

My first breakfast with Yunyun after going through the stupid gimmicky dungeon of the Goddess of Thirst and Braindead Bimbos.

And so I headed to the breakfast table while wearing an improvised toga made out of Darkness’ (and now mine) white sheets. Because as much as my barbarian orcish blood roars for the righteousness of kilts, those are a piece of clothing that usually consist of far less fabric than a bedsheet is made of, and I’m kinda reticent to keep destroying so much clothing given our lacking finances.

Also, and this is in no way a secondary concern, because I feel like bringing the light of civilization back to my proudly savage orcish ancestors. Yes, yes, imperialism is bad, but as a former Japanese man, I can tell you that the horrors of adopting Western civilization somewhat pale in comparison to the horrors of unchecked feudalism and the lack of public sanitation.

Yes, after having spent quite some time in a fantasy world, I’m convinced that the main reason to institute the Meiji restoration was not due to the economic elite’s desire to open up to global markets, but to someone learning what a toilet was and being willing to lay their lives on the line to make sure such a wonder would spread across all of Japan.

How enthusiastically we have not only adopted but also innovated upon the concept is further proof of my brilliant, peerless reasoning that only somebody with a higher number in their character card Int score could ever begin to dare refute.

Shut up, Megumin. You are a clear example of segregation between story and game mechanics.

Also, you’re apparently out of breath, so talking may not be an option.

“Kazuma!” Darkness insists, pushing the now crumbling toast against one of my magnificently orcish tusks, making me all too aware of her generous cleavage being pressed against my bare arm to the point of engulfing it in softness that is just a tad greater than that offered by a naked, purring Yunyun.

And bringing me to a tipping point.

On one of the pans of the scale lays the absolute certainty that this will not go according to plan.

On the second rest my orcish needs, still unsatiated after spending the whole night inside of Darkness without having come even once.

On a third (yes, I know how scales work, this is just a very special scale) waits my clear need to not process Yunyun and Megumin being lovey-dovey in a way that they, to my knowledge, have never been without my cock(s) between them.

And on yet a fourth one, there is the fact that Darkness only came up with the idea of our current sleeping arrangements because I made it up on the spot while roleplaying an orc sexually tormenting a masochistic knight through a fictional scenario that stretched my imagination as far as it can go, given the wildly outrageous premise.

That distant, fourth pan malignantly posits that my current strained position, with my steel-hard cock being trapped under my thighs as my balls all but beg for the swift release of death—or any other kind of swift release—is, therefore, my fault.

That means this is clearly a defective scale, and I should do precisely the opposite of what it tells me.

In this case, turn to my right, open my mouth, and allow Darkness to perform her worst, possibly nightmare-inducing, attempt at playing the coy, pure, doting girlfriend.

Which she does.

By shyly smiling up at me with tremulous lips as she slowly brings the small piece of toast into my open mouth, leaving it there with barely a parting, lingering touch on my lower lip, pushing my jaw closed with two gentle yet inhumanly strong fingers, and following all that with a chaste, pure, brief kiss on my lips before retreating with a now wider, brighter smile of pure joy and triumph.

…

“Wha—Kazuma!” a voice from somewhere behind my right shoulder yelps.

Oh, that’s Darkness’ voice. How curious. Oi, Darkness, what are you doing behind me? Are you trying to add Chris’ skillset as a rogue or Luna’s ass-swinging assassin ways to your repertoire? It won’t work, Darkness, your heavy armor clanging around would warn off any enemy you tried to backstab, and, even if it didn’t, you’d still miss any attempted attacks, thus making the extra damage dice and or multiplier (it depends on the edition) of the sneak attack completely redundant.

Go fix your basic technique first before learning the fancy stuff. That is the true way an adventurer approaches their character build and not by, you know, investing skill points in whatever random bullshit the surrounding NPCs sometimes offer him to add to his crappy Luck-based class.

… Ouch.

“Kazuma—”

“Yes, it’s me, Kazuma—”

“Kazuma, put me down!” Darkness finally finishes, still talking from behind my shoulder.

Which may have something to do with me standing up, the warm, toned belly lying across said shoulder due to the bare midriff of her brief maid uniform, and the waving, wiggling, rotund behind that peeks out of a not-too-short-at-all-thank-you-very-much black miniskirt.

That is, with me having picked Darkness up by sheer reflex.

Aqua is staring at Darkness with what seems to be a mix of awe and jealousy that I will do my utmost not to think about while my hands are occupied with another woman because I’m a perfect gentleman and doing otherwise would be rude, Megumin and Yunyun have somehow managed to stop looking at one another to blink at me in surprise, and Wiz’s cheeks have just turned purple, an eventuality that surely has nothing at all to do with my erect orcish pride pushing up my toga right in front of her nose as a wet spot starts spreading from my finally liberated erection raging against the stifling confines of civilization.

Stupid Westerners and their complicated ways of folding bedsheets.

And, yes, this should have been my very own breakfast scene after Yunyun did her very best to mindbreak and kill me via dehydration.

The peaceful tableau waiting for the hero to go back to his party members in joyful celebration at his narrow escape from the gates of Hades itself, the heartwarming cutscene in which all of his companions express their appreciation and how much they care about his safety, wellbeing, and thoughtful management of consumable items.

What it was not supposed to be was a maid duel between Aqua and Darkness, a scene in which Wiz’s voice actress takes a break while the art director pretends she’s still there somewhere, and the scene in which after repeated, passionate, reciprocal, sincere love confessions, Yunyun all but ignores me because she’s too busy paying attention to the yuri alternate route shortstack who recently decided that denying she ever told me she loved me was not an obnoxiously cute tsundere trait, but foreshadowing as to where her true priorities laid.

This was supposed to be the time for me to recover in peace. To reaffirm my companions’ bonds.

And I have only eaten a single bite of buttered toast!

I’m hungry, thirsty, vaguely frustrated, emotionally confused, and horny.

But I can easily solve at least one of these things.

And it’s not the fucking feelings.

“Wait! I haven’t eaten! I am hungry, Kazuuumaaaaa!” Darkness protests as I, without further utterances, being the broody, silent, solemn character that I am, start marching toward our bedroom.

“Shut up, meatslave,” I grumble.

“Hn!” she answers as the black lacy panties by the side of my head become two shades darker and just a tad glossier.

“Kazuma, where are you—” Aqua asks from behind me, but lower than shoulder height.

“Where no man has gone before. Only orcs,” I say, already leaving behind the busy table.

“Does that mean—”

“Yes, I’m going to rail Darkness,” I cut off the goddess of braindead misconceptions by pretending she would’ve anticipated the right answer.

“But… but I have a present for—”

“Later!”

“I—Kazuma!” Darkness protests while cutely hammering my lower back with petite fists (or, at least, petite enough now that she’s no longer taller than I am). “Kazuma, I’m hungry!”

“And I’m going to make sure that you get fed as much of my cum as you can stomach,” I calmly explain as if to a small child, but not at all like I’d ever talk to a small child, Mister Officer, promise.

“Mi… Mister Kazuma? Is everything—“ the current source of a bit of my emotional turmoil starts to ask.

“Yes! Everything’s fine! I’m just going to use my official girlfriend for sexual relief rather than have a civilized conversation with all the other girls I’m also having superhumanly good sex with! Except for Luna! Who’s not here! And so I can’t have any kind of complicated feelings over her having sex and emotional intimacy in my absence unless she’s decided to make Dust a very happy man, in which case I’ll only wish them the best, happiest life they can lead together as they explore their same-sex romance—”

“Dust is a guy,” Aqua helpfully points out.

“That’s what makes their same-sex romance so special!” I say.

And run away.

I mean, retreat tactically, courageously, and decisively.

Toward Darkness’ bedroom. Which is a very valuable position from a tactical standpoint, and in which I plan to put Darkness in plenty of positions.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhh!” Darkness somewhat complains as I pick up speed and make her bounce up and down on top of me at a slightly more sedate pace than she usually prefers.

So I, being the concerned, caring, attentive boyfriend that I am, spank her ass.

“Hn!” she says yet again, the abrupt outburst of overwhelming sensation turning into a lingering, fading moan as I shake off the excessive wetness off my hand.

Note to self: study whether a hentai orc’s natural propensity for excessive fluid discharge is somewhat contagious. It would only make sense for breedable adventurers to develop some extra lubrication capabilities.

That, or this is just Darkness.

It would also make sense for this to just be Darkness.

“Kazuma! What is going on?!” a not sufficiently stimulated Darkness asks.

So I spank her yet again.

This time, she arches her whole back in that way she does when she’s just on the verge of a body-shaking orgasm, and it’s not at all hard for me to imagine how she looks as she opens her mouth in something silent and almost agonizing as her eyes try to focus on anything not behind quivering lids.

And now I’m harder.

So, my still-toga-covered orcish spear signals forward, pointing the way toward the stairs and the room that is my destination in a way that is not a metaphor at all, seeing as it’s perfectly literal.

Yes, I’m following my cock.

I’m moving toward where my cock points, not away from anything.

Really.

So I make sure to keep Darkness happy about her current circumstances as I energetically take the stairs, bouncing her on each step and lightly spanking alternate, generous, equally bouncing cheeks to the tune of her jumping miniskirt.

By the time we make it to the second floor, there’s a line of drool dripping down my back and a line of something else flowing down my chest.

“Ka… Kazuma… please…” my girlfriend begs.

And who am I to deny her anything while not engaging in orgasm denial or neglect play?

“Aaaaaahhhh!” she yells as I turn my head to bite on the succulent flesh pouring out from the side of the elastic panties digging deep lines into obscenely soft meat as I shove a single, yet sufficiently thick, orcish finger into a warm, wet, pulsing hole that is suddenly all that much wetter right before Darkness slumps down, breathing harsh puffs of warm air over a back slickened with her own saliva.

Aaaaannnd now I’m harder.

Damn it, I didn’t think that was possible.

So, well, I just have to take a few more steps to get to her room, and I can turn my current problem into an asset through the application of my tactical genius and Darkness being Darkness.

Aren’t you happy, dear? I’m including you in one of my plans, and for once, it’s not just as bait for a monster to unleash all of its strength on the only party member who can take it.

Oh, wait, that’s precisely your part in the plan. Never mind, then.

So, here I am, at the end of my perilous journey, bringing a captive adventurer back to my quarters, about to defile her as my proud orcish ancestors established long ago, their traditions passed down for generations until they reached this unworthy vessel, and I—

“Fuck!” I yell while turning as fast as I can to catch a limp, falling Darkness who just pushed herself off my shoulder.

I barely manage it, dropping to one knee with my arms extended below her, holding her up, my heart thundering as I look into her tired eyes to see if she’s been hurt at all—

And she kisses me.

Arms still stronger than mine wrap around my neck, bringing me down until only golden hair and piercing blue eyes fill my whole world, her soft lips meeting mine in something demanding yet yielding, her own tongue languid when she slips it past my lower tusks to caress mine as sweet sounds escape her between the slight separation she sometimes allows between our mouths.

Then… Then, when only Darkness fills my head, when she’s all I can think of, when my whole world revolves around a soft woman draped over my arms…

She pulls back.

Her left hand is behind my head, holding me in place even as her fingertips massage soft circles into my bare scalp while her right hand trails down to cup my cheek, to keep me trapped in a way that’s far less effective than her own eyes looking at me with doubt, hesitation, and achingly obvious caring.

“Kazuma…” she trails off, gently surprised when this time I don’t interrupt her. “Talk to me.”

So I bite my lower lip.

And sit down.

My back rests against the dark oak wainscoting that lines up the corridor along which the doors to our bedrooms are set, and my crossed legs are half on a bunched cotton sheet and half on the luxurious rug covering the wooden floor.

And Darkness is still in my arms, her own holding her up, hanging from my neck with a weight I only notice because of how reassuring it is.

Also, her ass may, or not, be directly resting on top of my still erect cock.

Because the Luck stat is a lie.

“Sorry,” I finally say, nervously licking lips that should be dry if she hadn’t done her best to soften them mere moments ago.

“Why?” she asks, doing that gender equality bullshit and demanding I explain things rather than assume she’s a mind reader.

I open my mouth to answer. Close it. Open it back. Do that weird thing people do to wet their lips, with them rubbing past one another as they alternatively enter and exit the mouth.

She goes from looking at me with tender caring and worry to leveling a flat stare at me.

…

Damn it.

“I just… I don’t even know. I like them being together. I encourage it. I am happy for them,” I say.

“Yunyun and Megumin?” she asks with just a brief pause to guess that, no, I’m not talking about Aqua and Wiz and never will.

… Hopefully.

“Yes, they. It’s just… what I saw the first time we three were together—”

“You despicable philanderer—”

“Yes, yes, that time. Anyway, I just… I understand Yunyun. I know what it’s like to feel rejected and shunned. Unwanted. And the way she lit up when Megumin finally showed her open affection? It was… healing, in a way. To just see somebody who’s been so hurt still be so bright, so sincerely joyous? She’s… she’s so strong…”

I trail off and, guiltily, allow my eyes to drift up from Darkness’ own to the corridor’s wall in front of me, half-shadowed by the low angle of the morning Sun coming in from the bright, stained glass window to my left, throwing colorful shafts of light across the wall divided between understated green paint and rich, dark wood.

“You love her,” Darkness whispers, the hand cupping my cheek moving in a slow, circular caress.

I nod.

“And Megumin,” she adds.

Again, I nod.

“And Aqua, and me, and—”

“Don’t get carried away. As broad as my orcish chest is, I have not that much love to give.”

“Really,” she states rather than ask, her tone about as flat as Megumin used to be.

“I…” I close my eyes and take a deep, slow breath.

Then I look back down.

At Darkness, with her golden ponytail pooled in shimmering locks by my side, the white maid tiara almost hidden in the fulgor of the Sun playing over her bangs.

She’s… She’s wearing a risqué yet cute ensemble, a black satin top with puffed sleeves that only go just past her shoulders, the lower hem of the blouse tucked right under her breasts, her generous cleavage displayed by a square, tight window of strained fabric that she could easily bounce out of with her often energetic, exaggerated displays of emotion.

All of it is, of course, trimmed with white lace that barely contrasts with the shade of her own aristocratically pale skin.

Aqua does great work.

She must never know.

“Kazuma, talk to me,” she repeats, earnest as only the masochistic crusader and a shy archmage have ever been with me.

“I… I don’t know. Everyone used to be repulsed by me. I’ve been hit, insulted, badmouthed. Female adventurers look at me in disgust before crossing to the other side of the street—”

“I think that’s mostly because of the panty stealing—”

“—and I am suddenly in the middle of this. Of… I’ve fucked almost every attractive woman I’ve met since I came to this world, received heartfelt confessions from some of them, Vanir is now an attractive girl trying to get into my pants, I am living with all of you, and I… I don’t know how to process it, Darkness. I…”

She shifts on top of me, lifting her body up to sit rather than lie, her side now resting against me, her palm still on my cheek even as her own cheek mesmerizes me with its softness as she presses it into my chest until her soft hair tickles me right under my clavicle.

She’s still on top of my cock.

Because of course she is.

So I wrap my arms around her waist, thin in proportions if not in actual girth. Because Darkness has always been an intimidatingly tall, fit, powerful woman that I now dwarf to the point I can rest my chin on top of her head as I tighten my embrace.

As I envelop her fully.

As I hold onto her.

“I love you,” she mutters.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

And she punches my chest.

I have to look down to see the wonderfully frustrated pout she directs at me, her protruding lower lip as tempting as it ever was when I called her something unflattering but not in the way she wanted.

When I teased her about why a pack of monsters looking for the hardest, toughest substance around would stampede right at her and I clearly told her that it was not because of her armor.

When I plainly stated why I was entirely unsurprised by her deciding to stand in the way of an indestructible fortress and that her courage was not among the parameters I took into account for my masterful deductions.

When I…

Didn’t tell her I loved her.

Damn it, I’m pulling a Megumin, aren’t I?

“Darkness… I love you,” I tell her, my right arm unwrapping from around her to hold her by her chin, keeping her head tilted back so I can stare straight into blue, mesmerizing eyes that…

Is she crying?

“Sorry! Sorry! I don’t love you! In fact, I despise you like the meat slave that you are, only worthy of being used as a loose cockwarmer—”

For some mysterious reason, she punches my jaw.

This time, Mysterious Reason is not my cock.

I think.

“You jerk,” she says, bumping her forehead against my chest.

“I apologized!” I defend my innocence, trusting in the ancestral teachings not of my orcish lineage but of my father’s manly cowering in the face of feminine wrath.

“That’s what I’m angry about! I was crying happy tears, and you had to ruin it!”

“Wha—happy tears?! What kind of shoujo manga cliché are you trying to pull? Did you mistake the library shelf when looking for the more messed up josei stuff? Did you get confused by the magical girls in BDSM gear?”

“The what?”

“You uncultured swine—”

“It’s not being uncultured if it’s from another world! And don’t call me swine—”

“You’re right, a breeding sow like you—”

“Hn!”

“See? That’s what you like! What you enjoy! Why are you even angry that I—”

“Because this is the first time you’ve told me you love me!”

Her fist hits my chest yet again.

Weakly.

And then her arm slowly falls, dragging her open hand down my body as I…

As I get lost in blue eyes that are not like the sky, or the sea, or sapphire.

Blue eyes that are Darkness.

That are more beautiful than all those things.

“Kazuma?” she asks, weakly, her voice tremulous, as I hold her chin once more.

“I love you,” I say, forcing the words past a rough throat that wants me to be silent.

That doesn’t want to push past this.

That fears… many things.

But Darkness smiles, and her eyes shine with wet droplets once more gathered in their corners.

Crying stupidly cliched happy tears.

And so I kiss her.

We move slowly, deliberately, as she shifts on top of me until her legs surround me and my cock rises past the meeting of her thighs, and then, still cradling my cheek, she uses her other hand to pull her own borrowed bedsheet aside to free me, to have my shaft be near enough to her panties that I feel the wet heat radiating from them.

I hook a single finger under the side elastic, brushing past curly, golden, wet locks as I glide down until I briefly caress her clitoris with the back of my finger, and she lets out a single whimper into my mouth that I readily swallow.

Then I pull the panties aside and trace the slit between her lower lips as my tongue pushes past the upper ones.

We are still going slow. Her hips sway back and forth against the side of my finger, minute movements that only show me how wet she is. How ready.

How wanting.

And so I take away the single finger to a mournful, plaintive moan that gets cut off when I grab her from under her brief skirt, my fingers digging into the soft, yielding meat of her right cheek before slowly pulling her toward me.

The tip of my cock presses against wet lips.

And she pulls away.

Her eyes are lidded with a desire I’ve come to know, but there’s no hint of rushed desperation this time around.

No, she’s deliberate.

“I love you,” she says.

And then she shimmies forward and up, her hips rising with every side-to-side motion until she’s dancing to unheard music on top of the tip of my shaft, so close that I groan.

“Darkness…” I start, not knowing what I will say after her name as my thoughts get lost in the feeling of round muscle shifting under my grip and a single drop of moisture landing on my cockhead.

“I love you,” she insists, “and I… I like that you love other women. I like that you are…” blue, Darkness eyes swim over mine until the deliberately sultry expression melts into a shy, slight smile. “I lovethat you are like this. That you can… that so many others see what I see, or something else I still have missed. That you can understand their feelings and return them.”

She leans forward to lay a single peck on my brow.

I stare.

She giggles.

“I love you, Kazuma. And I am so happy that you love me as well, that you… that you can… that you can see me and still hold me close. That you…”

She drifts off.

Because, apparently, I’m not the only one who can get their speeches ruined by the intense, attentive gaze of a lover being hungry for what words may come next.

And I can’t. I can’t speak and tell her what she deserves to hear. I can’t look at Darkness, this Darkness, and pull one of my stupid stunts. I can’t mouth off while we exchange rapid-fire insults. I can’t berate her in all the ways she doesn’t enjoy. I can’t be anything other than the Kazuma she wants to see, and that I don’t think really exists.

I can’t tell her all the words I should.

So I show her.

Slowly, I pull her down, toward me, toward the tip of my cock.

Her wet lips press down on it.

And I stop.

I don’t violently thrust up. I don’t force her down my shaft with a single stroke of prolonged moans.

I stop.

Torturing myself.

“You are beautiful. And brave. And noble in the ways you want to be. You are the most courageous woman I’ve ever met. You deserve everything you ever wished for,” I tell her, the touch of her hand still on my cheek feeling like a lazy flame burning through my thoughts.

And, impossibly, it seems like…

Like I said what needed to be said.

Because she’s flushed, smiling in that silly way that has her open her trembling lips before she has to force them closed, only to start all over again.

Because she’s leaning toward me.

Because…

“I did. I did finally get everything I ever prayed for,” she murmurs, her words searing gusts of wet warmth over my lips.

Then Darkness slowly kisses me, forcing me to feel every twist and turn of her head, of soft lips pressed against mine, already drowning my thoughts in a thick haze before she even involves her tongue.

And, equally slowly, deliberately, Darkness pushes down.

It’s… I’ve never savored the moment quite like this. The steady way in which her lips part as her opening finds me, and then how she stretches around me with barely any pressure, her mouth kissing mine into delirious softness, making the lips below feel even more delicate by comparison.

Her barely covered breasts brush over my chest.

Her right cheek is still warm and soft on my hand.

Her legs are over mine, pale, meaty thighs exposed except for a single, black garter she uselessly wears on her left leg.

And her scent fills me.

Her taste is as sweet as it ever is, that mild saliva that mingles with mine as our mouths open and our tongues entangle, but that’s just something to add even more intensity to the slight scent of metal oil that never quite abandons the often-armor-clad woman even if that is only a slight accent over… over something that always smells sun-warmed. Like cut grass, but gentler, without the sharp overtone.

Like…

Like a place where only light can dwell.

Like summer, and home, and sheets warmed after a restful night’s sleep.

Like lemon peel. Like…

Like Darkness.

She’s lower now, almost half my tip inside of her, and she doesn’t clench, or twitch, or mutter.

She just kisses me, holds me, and loves me.

It’s… It’s stupid of me. Greedy. To feel this much, to have already shared this much with her and the others. To get this much love and still want more. Still feel disoriented when it’s directed away from me, even if only to share it in the way I hoped and wanted to see.

“Darkness…” I murmur, our lips barely parted so that I can still caress her just by talking, “I am sorry. I shouldn’t… It’s stupid that I—”

She shushes me, her hand finally leaving my cheek just to press a single finger against my lip.

And she still smiles.

“It’s what I wanted to tell you,” she says. “That it’s not stupid. That it’s not wrong to feel. That… That what is wrong is what you do or not do. But we are all new to this, and we need to learn. Figure it out.

“And I will.

“I will do it, Kazuma.

“I will learn and discover what I need. I will see just how much I enjoy sharing you, or being away from you while you are with another, or taking you away from them for a moment just for the two of us.

“And… And I’ll tell you when I like things.

“But also when I’ll hate them.

“So, please, please, Kazuma, when you do, when you like or dislike something, when you don’t know if we are understanding one another…

“Talk to me.”

Her eyes blaze blue, the gathered tears sparkling in a way that makes the dazzling sunbeams colored by stained glass mundane by comparison.

Dull.

Irrelevant.

My throat is dry.

My heart is racing.

My eyes itch.

And I nod.

Her smile immediately brightens, making her eyes crinkle until a single tear drips down her left cheek.

I lick it.

My tongue is long, and I draw it slowly up her face as she shudders with only half my tip inside of her while I taste yet another thing that only Darkness can offer me.

I could let her keep going, showing me just how she planned to deliberately seduce me with slow, tender lovemaking.

But my hands grasp her flesh tightly, and I stand.

The white sheet falls to the floor as her legs wrap around my waist, her feet hooking over the small of my back in a way that Megumin desperately tried to without managing, and her hands are once more behind my nape, holding me with far less intensity than her eyes.

I kiss up the wet trail my tongue just left over her face, the traces of salt only there as a memory of the first happy tear I’ve drank.

And I slowly turn toward the door to our now shared bedroom until I gently push her back against it, deliberately keeping as much of me inside of her as there was while we both sat on the floor.

The wood is dark and reddish, and the black of her maid uniform almost fades into the glossy varnish, the effect only broken by the shimmering rays of light brushing past the raised relief of patterned wood.

Her pale skin and the white lace, her golden hair… They stand out.

They always stand out.

“Do it,” she whispers. “Show me what you feel for me.”

I smile at her and try very, very hard not to say: ‘Utter frustration.’

And then I push just a bit more of me inside of her.

Her lips are parted as she takes deep breaths, and her arms tensing around my neck only manage to have her bust pressed tighter past the square cleavage window Aqua crafted for her.

A little more, and she moans.

But she just told me to tell her. To tell her when I like or dislike something.

So I also moan.

It comes out as a grunt, a rumbling of my chest as my eyes squeeze shut when she finally goes past the crown of my head, when the tight ring of muscle squeezes right behind my glans just before sliding down until it reaches the swelling around the middle of my length.

Slowly, biting my lower lip, with my head tilted forward, I manage to open my eyes just a bit. Just a narrow slit that lets me see the beautiful woman I’m inside of.

She shivers.

And I try not to lose it.

To ram her against solid wood until we shatter it, until I stand surrounded by the pieces of an oak door while Darkness bounces up and down along the path my cock will set for her to follow.

It’s… hard.

Yes, the cock as well, but that kinda goes without saying.

“It’s… I… I just spent the whole night with it inside of me, and it still…”

She stops, her eyes begging me to understand, to know what it means for her that I’m now halfway inside of her, and it still feels more intense than being stretched around me for hours of troubled sleep.

I…

I don’t.

Don’t understand, don’t know.

Because she’s a woman and I am a man. Because she’s human and I am an orc. Because she’s Darkness, a crusader who devoted her life to helping others, and I am Kazuma Satou, a former NEET who devoted his life to blaming others for his own life.

So, I don’t know. I can’t know.

Except I do.

Because I feel the shared heat between our bodies, the warmth wafting up the deep pink blooming over Darkness’ breasts and the darker green over my own chest, the ragged breathing, the eyes widely open and staring at one another.

So, I don’t know what it feels like for Darkness to be speared open by my cock.

But I do know what making love feels like.

I push her a bit forward, the door rattling without opening, just shaking the minute amount that the imperfect fit against the frame allows it to, and then she finally goes past the middle of my cock.

So I retreat.

She whines in sheer frustration, her adorable pout accusing me of terrible things until I decide to go back in and give her everything I just took away.

And more.

Her open mouth turns into a silent ‘O’ that only relaxes when I pull back out, but I don’t give her time to recover. Each time I go back in it’s just a bit deeper, just enough to surprise her and get thrilled by her surprise.

I love it.

Her.

I love making her react to what I do to her, seeing it on her always too-honest face, feeling it on her always wildly expressive body.

It’s no wonder that Vanir possessed her out of all of us.

…

All right, I’m going to quarantine this thought until I’m alone, behind closed doors, and, hopefully, in possession of some kind of anti-telepathy countermeasure that doesn’t involve my tag-related trauma.

For now?

I’ll just kiss my girlfriend.

She returns it enthusiastically, pulling herself up against me, the slow, deliberate tension of the moment broken through mere eagerness and yearning.

I don’t regret it.

Not when I push myself fully inside her, and her whole body goes taut around me, her muscles locked in tension as a low whine is offered for me to swallow.

And definitely not when our lovemaking turns more… active.

I pull back to thrust inside, and she immediately drops down to chase me, her ass delightfully pushing against me with a clapping noise that I am ready to bet sends a shiver of pleasant shame up Darkness’ spine.

But a shiver is not enough.

“Ah! Kazuma, yes!” she says, the door still rattling behind her as I press fully inside of her, each of my hands on one of her lower cheeks, keeping her as still as her strong legs around me let me when she keeps doing her best to move up and down, to chase me when I’m out of her, to squeeze me closer so I don’t leave.

“You’re amazing,” I growl as I grind against her hard enough to make her climb up the door.

She, rather than answer me, grabs my head and buries me face-first in her cleavage.

Sadly, before I get the chance to properly motorboat her, the struggling square cleavage finally gives up, and Darkness proudly offered breasts leap toward freedom or, at the very least, my mouth.

Okay, my mouth and freedom may not be precisely synonymous concepts, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Darkness so far is that she likes her occasional confinement.

Apparently, so do her nipples.

Because as soon as I suck both stiff tips in and start tracing something very similar to the infinity symbol around them with my tongue, Darkness’ hold on the back of my head grows strong enough that I have a brief burst of panic about finally dying in one of the few ways I one time listed as acceptable feats to write down on my grave.

So, with only mere survival in mind and absolutely nothing else, I proceed to fuck Darkness far harder than I have until now.

Her gasps become a syncopated litany as her whole body hammers against the door behind her, her fluttering miniskirt flying up with each of my thrusts, her breasts trying to break free from my lips with their customarily unrestrained bouncing, her legs all but begging me not to leave each time I pull back only to immediately return to a far more heartwarming welcome than the one I got at the breakfast table.

No, I am not bitter. Just disappointed.

Except, at this very moment, I’m about to cum inside of Darkness after spending the whole night inside of her, so I admit to not being thatdisappointed.

“Love you,” she whispers in the brief instant in which she manages to keep eye contact with me.

…

Fine, I’m not disappointed at all. I am the opposite of disappointed. I’m actually satisfied, elated, and even fulfilled. Happy now, hypothetically judgmental Inner Kazuma?

“I am going to—” she says.

And, yes, Inner Kazuma is now happy.

I let go of her breasts, the now glistening, respectively fifth and sixth Wonders of Axel, free to bounce wildly in the brief moment it takes me to press forward with my whole body, feeling as much of Darkness as I can against me, our sweaty skin gliding past one another, her barely-there uniform now reduced to a band under her chest and another over her pussy.

I try to kiss her, but I can’t. Not while pressing myself against her like this, leaving no space at all between us.

But, under my eyes, with hers completely open, Darkness stares at me as she kisses a single spot near the middle of my chest with amorous fervor, her lips sending a shock of sensation so intense past my breastbone that I have to clench my fingers into her yielding ass.

Then she licks me.

And I lose it.

I throw my head back as I roar in both defeat and triumph, boiling heat shooting past my shaft and into the also screaming woman, her higher-pitched voice joining mine in something that is both bestial and musical.

I keep shooting more and more white-hot, and hopefully white, fluid bursts out of the tight seal of Darkness’ sex around my own as I lose count of every single spasm of mind-numbing pleasure and just…

Just fall forward.

I open my eyes when my forehead rests on her, Darkness-blue eyes waiting for me as we both pant and gasp, both of us ready for more, yet…

Yet not.

Because… this wasn’t, in the end, about busting a nut after a night of torture.

It was about Darkness.

About me and her.

About my girlfriend.

“I… Thank you,” I say with a voice small enough that, for a moment, I wonder if I’ve finally gone back to being Kazuma Satou, the thin, out-of-shape boy that was barely starting to get some muscle definition before being offered a potion by Wiz that was both too good to be true and, for a Wiz item, much better than I dreamed.

“What for?” she asks, her voice still ragged after our earlier howling competition that would get me labeled as a furry in a less charitable world.

She’s also asking me to explain myself rather than assume she’s a mind reader, so, yet again, that whole gender equality nuisance is being turned against me.

“For telling me. About you. What you feel. I… I am not good at these things, but, Darkness, if you’ll be patient with me, I…” I drift away, not entirely sure of what I’m going to promise, but still unwilling not to offer her something after what she just gave me.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just… Just keep being with me?”

My forehead is still resting on hers.

Her legs are still wrapped around my waist.

And, between the two of us, we’re drawing a circle from our connected hips to our touching heads, with Darkness only resting her neck and shoulders on the door behind her as her blue eyes keep me frozen in place after a single request.

I don’t have to say anything.

Just stay with her.

So I wet my lips, close my eyes to gather my courage, and look back down into the blue irises of a gold-framed woman who shouldn’t look this beautiful and radiant after getting fucked in, yet again, the carry position.

I feel I should innovate more. Or, at least, I should do so when I’m not being afflicted by literal magic to become a tentacle monster the likes of which would likely be banned from the Japanese railway network.

At the very least, during school rush hours.

“I am not good at these things,” I finally tell her, “but if you’ll have me… I will be.”

She blinks at me in astonishment.

And then, yet again, that bright smile of hers comes out, and she jumps up, pulling her whole weight up by her arms behind my neck to crash a fervent kiss on my lips.

This, predictably, makes me lose my balance.

And, just to rub it in that the Luck stat is a lie, I stumble forward, Darkness’ kiss punctuated by a panicked yelp when we once again crash against the door.

Except, this time around, the door’s bolt snaps, the door swings open, and I fall on the hard floor of Darkness’ bedroom with only a now screaming crusader to cushion my fall with plush thighs and bouncing breasts.

All in all, quite a comfortable fall. Ten out of ten. Would make my girlfriend orgasm via surprise mating press again.

Except for one tiny, single detail.

That is: Chris standing in the middle of a pile of my underwear, her cheeks a rather alarming maroon shade as the quasi-loli thief stares straight at me until a fluttering, drifting boxer lands on her face.

“This is not what it looks like!” three rather alarmed adventurers simultaneously proclaim.

And so, to Megumin’s eternal regret, the Int stat also proves to be a lie.