"......!"
Ayra was montarily blinded by the dragon's claws—no, nails. She quickly spread out the finest cloth she had, retrieved a nail clipper from her subspace, and began trimming with crisp little snip snip sounds, answering breathlessly with excitent.
"Right, he’s young and handso. He’s got silver hair and blue eyes. And... he’s tall, muscular, and looks very manly... His HP’s probably around three thousand? He’s got such stamina that he never seems to tire even after working all night."
Afraid Janus might discover her identity, Ayra hurriedly built up an entirely fictional lord. Janus, still holding the clippers, offered his other hand to her while sinking into thought, all the while watching her with eyes full of hunger. Thankfully, this ti there was no drop in favorability.
Even after she carefully wrapped the trimd nails and stored them in her subspace, Janus said nothing. Growing nervous, Ayra snuck glances at him. He blinked a couple tis as he erged from his deep thoughts and looked at his flustered, flushed lover—who promptly clung to his muscular arm as their eyes t.
"Don’t you want to know more about our lord?"
A little later, Ayra, positively giddy, began extracting... dragon blood—no, the blood of her handso, powerful lover. Her fingers trembled slightly as she carefully connected the tube from the blood-drawing device to a glass vial. Janus, anwhile, stared down at her with a disturbingly unreadable look.
"Then does this lord have any unusual traits?"
"Unusual traits...?"
Ayra, eyes glazed over as she watched the vial fill with vivid red blood, still managed to answer obediently. Not once did she utter the word magic.
"Well... he’s good with weapons, uses his body well..."
Vague enough to stay safe. Once the glass vial was full, Ayra carefully sealed the lid. The very next second, Janus abruptly shoved her shoulder.
Startled, Ayra fell backward onto the bed in a helpless position, cradling the glass vial protectively. She stared up at Janus in shock.
He lood over her, exuding a dangerous aura. His red eyes shimred with a reptilian gleam. Worried she’d angered him by harvesting blood without permission, Ayra tensed up. One of his large, heated hands slowly pressed down onto her chest—his fingers landing with unerring precision on her nipple.
"Ayra."
The tension in the air snapped taut like a wire about to break. Ayra, realizing at last what this mood ant, gulped dryly and gripped the {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} vial tighter. It vanished into her subspace as if lting from her palm.
Janus’s mouth curved into a crooked smirk. Ayra, only now realizing he was seated squarely on her pelvis, felt the weight—and the heat.
"You're really turned on. Cute... You’re such a pervert, it’s driving fucking wild..."
Did I hear that right? Ayra blinked. Who the hell was calling who a pervert right now? Who just got excited out of nowhere?
Janus’s fingers traced her flushed cheeks and jaw, slowly, teasingly.
"Why were you panting so lewdly the whole ti you were drawing my blood, hmm?"
"I never... Ah!"
She was about to protest that he was the one who got off watching his blood being drawn—but her cry was cut off when he sank his teeth into her neck. His tongue moved in ti with the pulse along her throbbing vein—firm and slow, as if it were leaving a mark inside her.
"Mm..."
Just the feeling of hot flesh brushing against her neck was enough to send a shiver down her spine. It was mortifying how quickly her body reacted. Goosebumps rippled down her back and the fine hairs on her skin stood on end. It felt... good. But Ayra hesitated, rembering how precious her HP was these days. She started to push Janus away—but then her gaze fell on the favorability notification. It had risen by 1. Current value: 7.
‘...Still, 1 point of favorability is more important than 1 HP.’
With a resigned sigh, she stopped resisting and grabbed Janus’s shoulder. Honestly, today alone she’d harvested quite a bit from him—nails, blood...
Sensing her surrender, Janus wasted no ti. His lips and tongue road her skin, playful yet firm. Each wet squelch, smooch, slurp sound made her shoulders twitch instinctively.
As he caressed her, Janus buried his face in her skin, his prominent nose pressed flat against her flesh. He inhaled slowly. His thick chest expanded with incredible lung capacity—he passed the point where a normal person would exhale, then kept going, compressing and storing breath like so kind of beast.
Inhaling and exhaling deeply, he sniffed with an inhumanly sensitive nose. He picked apart every tiny scent Ayra carried—the scent of her own body, of old books, of sharp reagents—all of it devoured like prey.
He morized each sll, cataloging them. Especially the traces of others Ayra might’ve co into contact with. Like a bloodhound, he clung obsessively to any unfamiliar scent. If he detected any hint of soone else’s touch, he would erase it—licking it off her skin as he thought:
Surely... sowhere in this ss, that so-called lord’s scent must be hiding...
But Ayra t too many people. Even for a dragon with his nose, it was hard to morize every single trace. So Janus focused on a few familiar ones, burning them into mory. His red eyes glinted, filled with a violent spark that soon lted into desire.
❄
Once again, Janus devoured his exhausted lover until not even a scrap of flesh remained. Ayra staggered down the street like a shell of a person, thinking she had traded stamina for favorability. Her back ached and her legs trembled. She couldn’t take a step without sighing, “Ugh...”
‘Still... I feel like his favorability’s been going up more than usual lately.’
Why is that? Normally, the higher favorability gets, the harder it is to raise. So why is this dragon backwards in every possible way? It was good that the number kept increasing, but given who he was, Ayra couldn't help but feel uneasy.
‘When will this workload ease up...? At this rate, I’ll die of overwork.’
She had to get things under control—fast. Who knew when Janus would pull sothing crazy again? The bald-head incident had been amusing at first, but now it just exhausted her.
‘Killing them is a bit extre... but maybe I should just jail all the bald ones? If I broke a leg or two, at least they wouldn’t cause more trouble. With my skills, I could probably pull off a perfect cri...’
But Ayra shook her head. There was no guarantee Janus had targeted actual criminals. The difference between a bald citizen and a bald criminal was like heaven and earth.
Not that she had no way of fixing this situation. She had a hidden card to play—but it could only be used once or twice. She was waiting for the right mont.
As she trudged along, deep in thought, soone called out to her in a casual, drawling voice.
“Yo, hey there.”
A thug? She turned around—only to find Hera approaching, smiling as usual, carrying a basket overflowing with buns. Ayra had no choice but to buy from the bun shop—it was the only decent place in town—but Hera had true devotion, practically wearing out the doorfra with how often she visited.
"Where you headed? If you're not too busy, how about a drink? You look like hell."
She patted Ayra on the shoulder, overly familiar. Ayra gave a weary smile and declined.
"No, I’ve got a lot of work to do."
"Aw, co on. That’s when you need a drink. Sothing hot, sothing fun. You gotta stretch your legs now and then, y’know?"
Like so old geezer wizard from the maze, Hera tried coaxing her again—blocking her path and letting the delicious sll of stead buns waft through the air. Ayra, worn to the bone, gave her a grumpy look. Hera scratched her cheek and slyly asked:
"So, um... you’ve been having a real tough ti with all those bald guys lately, huh, my lady?"
"I an, yeah... but I really am busy right now—"
"Want to help out? Thought we could share our burdens a little, support each other. I know this territory like the back of my hand. You’ve been having a hard ti, haven’t you, my lady?"
Ayra froze. Wait—my lady?
He turned slowly and studied the woman before him.
She was an ordinary-looking middle-aged woman. Brown hair not typical of locals, a sturdy build like a hunter—nothing particularly notable. But her gaze sparkled with peculiar insight.
"I know every back alley in this place."
Ayra suddenly realized—because of all the recent quests, he hadn’t checked the stats of any nearby townspeople in a while. Silently, he summoned Hera’s Stat Window.
HP: 27,343
MP: 2,698
Physical Attack: 10,455
Magic Attack: ???
Favorability: 24♡
[View Details]
That HP was normal for a trained rcenary or hunter.
But the Physical Attack stat—he had never seen a human with numbers that high.
Since he’d only been filtering for male targets lately while scouting soldiers, he hadn’t even glanced at Hera’s stat window after unlocking Physical Attack.
Suddenly, he recalled all the hunting and adventuring stories she’d proudly boasted about. If her stats were that high, maybe they weren’t exaggerated at all. Maybe... she'd made them sound like tall tales on purpose to lower suspicion.
Ayra fell into brief thought—then slowly, a faint smile crept across his lips.
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