I felt tense.
It was a kind of tenseness that I didn’t face for a while, finding myself facing a mystery that I didn’t expect.
I didn’t let that distract me, at least not for more than a moment. After all, it didn’t come as a complete surprise. I already knew that I was yet to understand the depth of their trickery, so facing something surprising wasn’t an unexpected occurrence.
Naturally, I didn’t expect both characters to look at me with the exact same emotional intensity, making it very difficult to identify who was the real not-Delia, and who was copying the other’s expression to look like she had a personal problem with me.
There was something refreshing about the situation.
I smirked. It had been a while since I failed to use my sharp perception to discern a situation I found myself in. In a way, it was a fun challenge, especially since I still felt there was no risk of sudden violence — and was confident enough to defend myself if facing such a problem.
After all, if they wanted to take me down, with everything I had revealed them, they would surely prefer challenging me physically — only to learn I wasn’t as physically deficient as the abilities I revealed first implied.
I decided to push them. “It’s good that you know what’s good for you, and decided to follow my orders obediently,” I said as I looked at the warrior, determined to watch her expression to identify which one was one I had been working together with for a while.
The expression of the warrior flickered into a more intense form of anger at my mention — one that she managed to erase almost immediately — but that didn’t help me to catch their true identity, the same expression appeared on the face of her diplomat version as well, lingering for the exact same time before getting erased.
My little trick failed, but luckily, I didn’t have only one arrow in my quiver of trickery. I turned my back on them as I walked toward the table, showing my supreme confidence as I grabbed one of the pastries and took a bite — only to get the subtle presence of even more aphrodisiac, triggering my arousal even more.
Alone, it wouldn’t be more than quickening my heartbeat, but combined with the airborne version, the impact got much stronger, enough to trigger a flame.
A flame that turned into an inferno thanks to the seductive sight in front of me as they walked toward me. I looked at the warrior, and patted my lap. “Since you decided to be my slave for the day to earn your penance, why don’t you start feeding me,” I suggested as I patted my lap.
Meanwhile, the figure that was currently disguised as Delia walked behind me, only stopping near one of the pillows to pull a little crystal bottle. “You deserve to relax, after all the trouble she had given you,” she whispered, her voice beautifully seductive, albeit completely artificial.
On the contrary, the warrior had a more honest expression as she stood in front of me, stiffening reflexively as I put my hand on her beautiful ass, caressing softly.
She was unable to keep herself from turning toward me, barely able to contain her annoyance. I smirked in satisfaction.
Annoying her was fun, but my little move had other benefits than just annoying her.
[+1000 Experience]
The rewards toward a new level were certainly welcome, especially since it gave me a chance to gain even more experience, which would improve my Tantric.
And under the circumstances, improving Tantric certainly had extreme importance, making that improvement as important as other requirements.
Yet, the real benefit of the casual touches was giving me an excuse to inject some mana. Not knowing their levels and their exact skill distribution, I didn’t dare to inject mana rashly.
Instead, I let some gather underneath my fingers, a subtle layer that could be easily mistaken for a reflexive reaction.
That amount of mana was too little to use as a probe even with my control, but I opened my mouth to take a bite of the pastry that the warrior brought to my lips, enjoying its crunchy taste, not worrying about that part.
Meanwhile, I felt Delia’s hands on my neck, her fingers, covered with massage oil, working on my neck skillfully.
It wasn’t like I was in a hurry to leave.
For a while, I maintained my passive state, just enjoying the combined attention my two temporary servants were lavishing on me, each second another second of pleasure.
As they lavished their — reluctant attention — on me, I could feel my shaft growing. Though the sight of their incredible bodies, enhanced by their Charisma, had a big part in that achievement as well.
“Let me make you more comfortable,” Delia murmured as she grabbed my shirt as pulled it up, leaving me half naked, which was a more appropriate state under the circumstances. Yet, when she started massaging me once more, it wasn’t just her hands that pressed against my skin.
It was hard to mistake the certain round softness for anything else, especially when they were covered with massage oil as well.
It was a daring move, one that couldn’t help but make me feel suspicious about her identity. Just yesterday, she was much more reluctant about physical contact, making me doubt that she was the one I had previously interacted with.
Yet, as far as I could see, her emotions were not fake.
[+1500 Experience]
However, the steady flow of experience I enjoyed thanks to their double treatment was certainly a sufficient reason for me to suffer the mystery of unanswered questions for a few minutes.
“Well, you have a good point, but it’s not fair to do things halfway, right?” I said, slapping the warrior’s ass loud enough to echo. “Remove my pants.”
At our level, that much pain barely registered without some magical tricks to enhance its impact, but that didn’t prevent the warrior from avoiding my gaze in a failed attempt to hide her flicker of anger, no doubt not appreciating the indignity.
It was a nice opportunity to push for a bit more. “Do you have a problem with that,” I said even as I grabbed the chain that was connected to her collar, and flooded it with my mana, tightening the collar around her throat.
It was an impressive display of magic, but since I was selling myself as a crafting expert from the beginning, it wasn’t surprising enough to display. Interesting, as she caught my gaze, I felt plenty of anger, yet no fear, not even the reflexive kind.
Which was weird enough to make me struggle to keep a suspicious frown away from my face. Yes, the system provided significant protection thanks to HP, but there were limits to it.
And, a mage that was holding a magical item connected to their throat, an item that was already designed to restrict the target, was enough to bypass that.
Especially with the said item already wrapped around the throat. No matter how much one trusted the one on the opposite side, an instinctual fear rose from one’s heart.
Even Helga felt that flicker whenever we experimented on the rougher side of the bedroom fun, and she trusted me enough to open her whole being to me — that instinctual fear was the only reason bondage was any fun.
Yet, the warrior in front of me just felt anger and annoyance, and lacked that instinctual fear, like it was impossible for me to hurt her.
It would be a lie that I wasn’t tempted to tighten the collar and actually follow that implied threat, to see how she would react. Pity doing so would ruin everything I had spent days setting up, so I held myself back.
And the fact that she followed her flare of uncaring anger by unbuttoning my pants and pulling them down, freeing my shaft from the building pressure certainly helped.
Then, Delia leaned against my back even harder, her breasts deliciously soft against my muscles, tempting me to forget my anger even without a word. Then, she started whispering. “Please forgive her, she’s a bit wild, but she has good intentions,” she whispered seductively.
“Well, whether I forgive her disrespect would depend on her performance, and your willingness to cover for your friend, maybe even all the way,” I whispered, yet didn’t receive the expected sudden tensing from her as well.
Things were getting more interesting.
While the warrior didn’t care much about the immediate threat to her life, she reacted to the sight of my throbbing shaft much more viscerally. Her eyes widened in shock even as she put her hands on my legs, clearly enjoying the sight despite the tenseness of the moment.
Distracted by her new view, she missed one important detail. My earlier threat with her collar was just not a show, but also an excuse to inject a great amount of mana into her body, finally allowing me to explore her soul space.
I was quick to send the first spike, which was not strong enough to break through the fake nature of her soul space. It just gave me a breakdown of her skills and level, which was more interesting than I had expected.
The lack of a martial skill didn’t surprise me, other than confirming my earlier guess about them not trying to turn that into an ambush halfway in. Instead, more than half of her skills were there to increase her allure, some extremely specific such as dancing and massaging, while others were mostly magical, geared for detection.
A more passive distribution, one that was designed to keep me happy while making sure I didn’t pull any trickery.
Smart, but destined to fail due to their assumption that I was an arrogant mage that flaunted his abilities, rather than one that hid most of his tricks.
The next stab of mana was bigger, one that was formed with the assistance of Tantric to allow me to pass through the false facade much more easily to see her real identity. I wondered whether I would find not-Delia under that, or someone else.
[+1 Tantric]
The indirect conclusions were rather inaccurate.
Yet, when I let that bypass the fake soul-space, I froze for a moment.
There was no one underneath!
[Level: 34 Experience: 594670 / 595000
Strength: 46 Charisma: 63
Precision: 40 Perception: 42
Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45
Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49
Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51
HP: 6936 / 6936 Mana: 7826 / 8500 ]
SKILLS
Grandmaster Tantric [113/120]
Master Melee [100/100]
Master Biomancy [100/100]
Master Elemental [100/100]
Master Arcana [100/100]
Master Subterfuge [100/100]
Master Craft [85/100]
Expert Speech [75/75]
PERKS
Mana Regeneration
Skill Share
Empowerment (0/1)
Teleportation
COMPANIONS
[Titania - Level 35/38]
[Cornelia - Level 22/26]
[Helga - Level 22/26]
[Marianne - Level 21/29]
