He clammed up and just looked at me.
I felt like I should say something, but I really didn’t understand what he was talking about, so I couldn’t. I couldn’t even put on a polite smile, so I just stared back, blankly.
Then I had the feeling he smiled just a tiny bit.
“Next time, you come to me.”
Is that a proposition?
But without even telling me his address, he turned his back to me.
“I have no intention of being done yet. If you come, I won’t screw around. You better keep improving. As you are now, you’ll never reach me.”
He seemed to melt into the rain, and his back vanished.
Ultimately, I saw him off without understanding what he meant or my own feelings.
I had the feeling I’d been rejected.
But I also kind of felt like I’d practically been proposed to.
I was so dazed I wondered if I was okay.
Maybe it would be scary to learn any more about him. Maybe the closer I got to him, the less he’d like me. I had the feeling I’d clashed with some intense solitude.
But, I really do like him.
He was the only one of all the guys I’ve slept with who didn’t give me any experience or skills.
I have no idea why he was the only one like that, but it felt sort of nice, and I thought it would be cool if it ended up being a “miracle of love” or something.
That would make me so happy, I prayed to the rain.
As soon as he was gone, the rain stopped.
“Haru, what are you doing? You’re getting soaked!”
“What’s with that bright-red handkerchief? Are you that magician from Ibaraki or something?”
“I’m the magician from Chiba! Err, I’m not even a magician! And I wasn’t born in Chiba, either! I was born in Tokyo and raised in another world—”
“Haru, you can use this.”
“Thanks.”
Lupe handed me a fluffy towel, and I dried my hair.
Phew, I was cold. And Chiba was so lame.
“...Did something happen?”
Lupe looked worried, but I told her it was nothing.
What else could I say? I had no idea what would happen.
And it was a prostitute’s love.
“All riiiight! I’m warmed up!”
Don’t fret, me. Let’s get this night started!
“I am really in the mood to do it tonight! First guy gets freebies that will send you to Heaven! Who’s it gonna be?”
Did I just hear a pin drop? The whole place fell silent. Just as I thought I had screwed up again, everybody burst out laughing and guy after guy put his hand up.
I go for 100 rubers.
But the bidding started, and in the blink of an eye, the price broke 200. The losers got a toast and a hug to thank them for their hard fighting. Then everyone watched even more closely until finally there were only two left.
“I-I’ll pay 300 rubers!”
“Fine! Then I’ll pay 305!”
“310!”
“Nrrrgh...315!”
It was Sumo and Chiba. What can I say? I guess these are the guys who will always be around, but the competition was pretty lacking in novelty.
But like, somebody teach Chiba how to bid. His turns were really anti-climactic.
Well, at this rate Sumo will win for sure.
That’s fine, I’ll make him want me so bad. I’ll force his sea of meat right out of the ring—hakkeyoi! ...is what I was thinking when a voice that was mature and quiet, but still carried, rang out.
“1,000 rubers!”
Outside the hubbub, a man was sitting at a table.
Who knew when he had showed up, but this grandpa with white hair and a white beard held up the announced money and narrowed his eyes in a challenge to Chiba and Sumo.
“...Hm? What’s wrong?”
More than the money, everyone was caught off guard by, I guess, his presence, so no one said anything. A beat-up ten-gallon hat, yet his leather jacket seemed well-made. Rugged boots. And he wore a sword on each hip, which was rare. I’d seen a lot of people, but he was the first dual-wielder.
A bit of a punkish old man? Nope, more like the confidence of a full-on active delinquent. The edges of his lips curled up.
“So, did I win, girlie?”
Sumo looked into his wallet and shook his head. Chiba was hilariously pale and trembling.
I opened my arms and welcomed the old man.
“Sold for 1,000 rubers! Thank you for your purchase!”
＊
The first thing the grandpa did when he entered my room was sit on the bed.
There aren’t any chairs, so sitting there is a matter of course, but he must have been pretty used to women if he could act like that going into someone’s room for the first time.
“There’s nothing in here.”
The way he didn’t take off his swords even when he took his hat off made it seem like he was used to all sorts of things.
He glanced around the room, then fixed his eyes on me and asked, “Been in this business long?”
“Mm, hasn’t been quite a year yet.”
I undid the buttons on my back and loosened my dress.
His gaze seemed to go right through my skin, but his eyes weren’t taking stock of a woman; it was more like a stabbing, they were so sharp. He was a little like my guy.
“So, girlie, do you know what a succubus is?”
“I’ve ridden the Catbus, but...?”
Ignoring my excellent pun, the grandpa man put a finger to his temple and narrowed his eyes. “A succubus is, well, it’s a legendary monster. To put it simply, they eat men. Starting down there. They suck out their vitality ’till they’re bone-dry and take ownership of them. Awful, really, wouldn’t you say?”
I took off the wrap-thing that went around my breasts.
I’ve gotten pretty confident in my bust these days. It’s bigger now.
He ignored it, but anyhow.
“I don’t know if it’s that or not, but there’s a monster in this town.”
I folded up the wrap and set it on my dress. Finally I reached for my final weapon, my panties.
“The army hasn’t even done a proper investigation, yet they’re assuming it’s one of the demon lord’s henchmen. They heard the rumors, but you know, it was that hectosquad commander’s unit. If you go to the scene, though, you can tell right away. They weren’t up against a demon. And it wasn’t the army who killed the demon horde. It was a monster. There’s a single monster who did that all on its own.”
I’m so proud of my beautiful ass, but when I showed it to him, he didn’t so much as flinch.
Did you come to the wrong shop? This isn’t a nursing home!
Grandpa was still absorbed in his own story, and explained it to me as if I was a kid, gesturing with his pointer fingers.
“If you count the corpse of the hectosquad commander, which disappeared, there were a hundred humans. There were also a hundred demons. The damn thing counted! Which side is this monster on? Humans or monsters? It had no sympathy for either and made an impartial ruling. It’s saying that both sides are shitty.”
He had his two fingers fight, but made the sole survivor neither of them and put up a pinky finger.
“The culprit is a kid. It’s a monster, but inside, it’s a child. It’s drunk on power and acting like God—a damned brat with its pubescent nonsense hanging out.”
He looked not at my naked body, but at my face as he spoke.
“The rain had mainly wiped them out, but I found a woman’s footprints. She went on a horse and returned on a horse. To the barracks. But from there she returned to the city on foot.”
There were people who had seen sex workers entering the barracks a few days prior, he explained, his eyes sharpening even more—he was practically glaring at me, like he was tying me up, even though I was totally naked and unarmed.
“The thought of a monster brat living in my town like it owns the place makes me so mad I’m losin’ sleep. And it must have killed them all for some stupid reason. If I find it, I’ll have to chop it apart on behalf of the great human race.”
When I took a closer look at his swords, I saw they were tied with a weird string.
If I deactivated Level Bind and tried to steal them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to. It was probably designed so that only he can draw them.
I heard about something like that from a customer once.
That the really strong guys were cautious.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything, would ya, girlie? If you have any ideas, please tell me.”
Echoes of the dumb hubbub downstairs reached my room, but the air between us was frozen stiff.
If he was going to call that night “stupid,” then I was the one who couldn’t forgive him.
But even I could tell he was trying to get a rise out of me, that it was a trap.
A brothel at night is the scene of arguments, fights, weird business deals—I’ve seen so much.
I’d slept with this degree of danger lots of times.
A sex worker uses their whole body to fight, not just their biceps.