“Urgh?”
When I turned over where I lay, still partially asleep, I felt the corner of a spellbook poke me in the shoulder.
Odd. I was pretty sure I’d just been reading the spellbook Practical Combat Magic for Devil Dialogues…but apparently, I’d dozed off at some point.
I’d been fighting a Sasha-and-Lulua combo team in my dream.
In it, Cyril, Myfila, and I were pushed to the verge of losing, but then I’d remembered a new kind of spell I learned in Torrenoxion a long time ago and decided to revive my Pandora summon from the dead.
When I cracked open my eyes, I saw my familiar room tinted in an orange hue. A candle lantern hanging off the ceiling on a string provided the light. The worn lantern was lit with a heatless flame I’d cast. It would’ve lasted two hours at most, based on the amount of magic I’d imbued in it.
It was the little free time I had after working into the night and taking a bath.
If the flame was still lit, I couldn’t have been asleep for very long. Maybe a couple dozen minutes at most. Since I hadn’t gotten a proper rest, I felt real tired.
“Dammit…wasted my precious time…”
I was in my own room, which didn’t have any bookshelves. Not even a bed or desk or chairs.
The most I had that amounted to furniture and bedding was a straw-filled mattress and a blanket. I also had a few dozen thick magical tomes piled directly on the ground.
And then there were the huge number of notes that blanketed both the ground and the mattress.
Whenever I read from a tome, I’d write down any ideas or sentences that piqued my interest at random. I had some scraps where I’d written the same sentence over and over again to memorize it, and others where I’d just written out a patchwork of ideas—like about the potential of magic that could absorb the water element, practical applications for defense spells, or slapdash summoning circles.
I didn’t have the time to clean up my notes, so they stayed as they were written at the time I made them.
And then there was something that caught my eye…
“That’s why I always tell ya to watch where you step in my room.”
A girl had fallen flat to the floor after getting tripped up by my notes. She was splayed on the ground, her small arms and bare feet outstretched. She was wearing a men’s collarless short-sleeve shirt, which had turned up, exposing her white thighs. Luckily, she just barely escaped showing off her underwear.
The sound of her biting it had probably woken me up.
I sighed as I sat up and talked to the girl’s conspicuous cowlick on the top of her head.
“You never come by. Why’re ya here in the middle of the night, Myfila?”
Right then, she slapped her arm against the floor. Her entire body was giving off an unsettling vibe as she slowly, gingerly got to her feet.
Her long bangs were haphazardly pinned up by a large barrette, showing off the glint in her gold eyes, which were normally hidden.
When Myfila abruptly started to walk, each time she thrust out a leg, the edge of the shirt would flutter and show glimpses of her thighs. They were curvy in a way one wouldn’t have guessed from her small form.
Eventually, she stepped onto the mattress.
“…Let’s hug, without clothes.”
She thrust her chubby thighs in front of my eyes. Shadows from the flame of the lantern faintly wavered over her baby-smooth skin.
I looked up at her while still sitting down. “…”
Her gorgeous golden eyes stared down at me. Her charming face had a way of arousing the protective instinct in men and women of all ages, kind of like a kitten.
“You…look stunning as ever.”
Her large golden eyes sparkled. The bridge of her nose was beautifully sloped. Her lips were moist and plump. She even blushed an amorous pink.
And that wasn’t just me being biased as one of her friends. Myfila was talented enough for bards to sing about her being a goddess, much in the same way as Sasha Shidoh Zultania—when Myfila’s bangs were pulled up.
“C’mon, Feil, let’s hug without clothes.”
When she said that, she licked her lips and smiled suggestively. She placed her hands on the shoulders of the Academy robes I was wearing as my pajamas in fall and winter, then moved her hands to my neck, then to my chin, then worked her fingertips up to my face.
It was almost like she was actually trying to seduce me.
“I didn’t know you went into heat, Myfila. I’ve gotta warn Cyril about this.”
I tried to brush aside her ticklish hands, but she ended grabbing mine instead. She tangled her fingers into mine like a couple having a tryst for the first time in weeks.
“That’s not allowed. What happens secretly at night is supposed to be left in the dark.”
She smiled with just her mouth as she knelt and placed her face against my hand. Then she said, “And it’s against the rules to remember anything that happened once the sun rises,” then she chomped down on my thumb.
Somehow, she bit just light enough that it was tolerable until she spat it out. She was surprisingly gentle as she carefully licked the impressions her teeth had made.
“…You’re okay with that, right, Feil?”
After she slobbered all over my thumb, she started to act openly demanding. She pushed me down onto the mattress and tried to stick her hand into an opening in my clothes.
But Myfila was going too far. I grabbed her wispy wrist to stop her.
“No way is that okay. I’m actually going to bed now. For real.”
I grabbed the hem of Myfila’s shirt, where her thighs had been peeking in and out of view, and tugged down hard enough that I’d probably stretched the fabric out of shape.
“If you want a hug, it’ll be with clothes on. Otherwise, get back to your own room and sleep.”
“Aww.”
“Why’re you playin’ at sneaking into my room at night? What am I supposed to think?”
I tsked quietly and wrapped my arms around her back, giving her a firm hug.
“Well…I guess this works, too…” She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me back.
We stayed like that for nearly two minutes. I could smell her hair as she sniffed my chest.
It got hot enough that I felt like I was starting to sweat.
“Myfila…are you feelin’ feverish?”
“No, I’m fine,” Myfila said and shook her head.
“Sheesh…you’ve been wearing nothin’ but that this entire time? Cyril’s gonna be upset with you.” I focused on the hand I’d placed on her forehead. “You might actually have a slight fever.”
After concluding that, I got up from the mattress, picked up a pitcher off the floor, and filled a pretty wooden cup I had for guests to the brim before handing it to Myfila. She took it in both her hands and didn’t even hesitate to bring it to her lips. Then she drank from it, her neck bobbing cutely.
“Fwah!” she exclaimed when she was done.
“So? Why’d ya come all the way here when you have a fever?”
“I was tired, so I came here to get human contact. Today, I felt like visiting you,” she said.
“Uh-huh. But don’t strip just ’cause it’s more efficient.”
I picked up the book I’d been reading earlier and sat down cross-legged on my mattress. When she sat on my lap, I didn’t try to stop her this time.
In the end, I hugged her soft body from behind.
I put my chin on her cowlick and opened up the spellbook, almost like I was going to read a picture book to a kid.
“Aren’t you going to praise me for working so hard at my invention, Feil?”
“It’s great a genius like you is making somethin’, but if you’re going to work yourself sick, that’s not gonna make me or Cyril happy.”
“Hmph!”
“Don’t get upset, c’mon. You finished the Temporal Lizard Incubator last month, right? I was surprised when you managed to control a temporal lizard’s space-time teleportation…”
“I think this next one will be really impressive.”
“Will it? Now that’s got me curious. What kind of thing are you makin’ this time?”
“It’s a secret. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“Don’t leave me hangin’. Actually, it must’ve been a tough fight choosin’ between coming to me or Cyril.”
I turned a page of the spellbook as I smiled, and Myfila pushed me as though getting back at me.
She wriggled around—not too heavy or bony, and slightly warm—until she found a good position. She buried her face into the upper arm of my robe and didn’t move for a while. I just let her do what she wanted and kept reading silently even as she tickled me by sniffing my clothes.
“…Feil, you’re reading a book about devils?”
“Was thinkin’ it might be nice to have one devil summon.”
“Their verses are pretty long, you know.”
“That’s generally the issue. A famous grand devil’s out of the question, and if they haven’t been alive for at least a millennium, a dragon’ll beat ’em out with their fire. So the issue is whether it’s worthwhile to fill up the pages I’ve got left for verses.”
“I think adaptable bugs and slimes are a lot more to your taste, Feil.”
“Well, I’ve seen a couple devils in the ranking matches, so can’t hurt to have some countermeasures against ’em.”
“If only you could use Pandora…”
“Yeah, if I could, we’d stand a chance against Sasha’s team.”
After that, I concentrated on reading the book in my hands, and Myfila clung to my robes until twenty minutes had passed before we knew it. Apparently, Myfila had gotten enough scent immersion and physical contact with a friend and suddenly murmured, “I feel better now. That was great.” Then she stood up from my lap.
“Want me to walk you to your room?” I looked up at Myfila.
“That’s okay. My fever’s gone down.” She shook her head.
“Make sure ya keep yourself warm when you sleep once you get back to your room.”
“Hmph. You sound like Cyril.”
“That’s ’cause I don’t want you to get sick.”
Right as soon as I said that, she slid her hands over both sides of my face, then gave me a good-bye kiss on the forehead.
“Thanks.”
She tottered out of the room, this time without slipping on the notes all over the ground. She opened the unlocked door and quickly slipped out.
“…”
After being left alone in the room, I lightly touched the spot on my forehead where Myfila had placed her lips.
“Guess it’s time to hit the hay…”
I snapped my fingers.
In that moment, the light in the lantern flickered out.