A Pure Knight's Natural Enemy [Konosuba]

"Kazuma! Kazuma!" my overly enthusiastic girlfriend—okay, for clarity's sake, let's say that's Darkness, as that will be a far more informative statement than going into detail about in which of plentiful ways any of my given girlfriends can be disturbingly overenthusiastic about things.

Yes, I know, having issues regarding how to distinguish one of your party members who are also 'party members' from one another once hair color, breast size, and level of relative insanity have ceased being useful approaches is far from an everyday issue and what some uncharitable people would call 'first world problems' (I would like to know what first world country they come from) but, in my defense, it's not like having an isekai battle harem is a common enough circumstance for there to be established protocols or maybe a support group or two, and even if there were, those places would be filled with Kirito clones and their girlfriends, and, honestly, who would want to spend even a single second in a place filled with Kirito clones? Nobody, that's who.

Other than the Kirito clone girlfriends, of course.

But, really, who would want to spend even a single second in a place filled with Kirito clone girlfriends? Nobody, that's who.

Other than fans of the NTR tag—

"Kazuma, Kazuma!" Darkness insists, tugging on my jersey's sleeve in a way that's cute enough to bring me back from the brink of the dark spiral I was about to dive into.

"What?" I ask, courteously brief and to the point and not, you know, curt and annoyed at her acting like a hyperactive five-year-old, because that's definitely not my fetish.

"I've found it!" she says, her smile so bright that, for a moment, I forget that we are marching through underground caverns only lit by dangling clusters of blue moss and whatever erotic mood-lighting enchantment that Yunyun's been whispering over the past hour.

"Girl, you look better with the lights off, better with the lights off, ooh-ooh…" a blushing archmage struggling not to stammer again says while the shifting, colorful, dimmed light cascading from her open hand keeps finding its way right on Megumin's shortstack proportioned behind whenever the explosion-maniac finds something interesting to inspect on the dungeon floor.

Which seems to be whenever Megumin feels like delaying our whole exploration for a few seconds as a suspiciously pleased grin finds its way to her lips, much like Yunyun's errant lights and fixed stare do Megumin's swaying behind.

Along with my own eyes.

You understand, this is because I'm both irritated and concerned with the undue delays and distractions and not because her crimson robes look even shorter and certainly tighter on her new proportions, to the point that mature, lacy, satin black peeks beneath the swaying hem of her attire more often than not as she shifts her weight from one foot to another and the entirety of my more Sapphic-minded 'party members' stare in solidary silence.

That means you, Chris. Or, well, mostly you, seeing as Aqua and Wiz are also taking a peek or two, but really, out of the two archmages, one lich, one crusader, one adventurer, one archpriest, and one rogue, it's the last one that stands out in her blushing, fixed stares. And I get it; you feel that your build is redundant due to how your talents are already covered by my own skillset and how Aqua had already claimed your racial template before you joined the party, but if you're aiming to get some distinguishing character traits, adding the Useless Lesbian template on top of everything is not the way you want to go about things to stand out among your current companions.

Seriously. Megumin hasn't even proposed yet. It's getting infuriating at this point. At the rate they're going, the next Crimson Magic Clan leader will have to be a half-orc.

"Kazuma," Darkness says, using her official 'I am an annoyed girlfriend, and you should pay attention to me and the inane things coming out of my mouth if you want anything of yours to ever go back into the aforementioned mouth.'

So, of course, I spread my Orcish fingers and slap her own rotund behind so that, after strenuous training and long practice, I engulf her whole right cheek fully, my fingertips perfectly aligning with the edges of the nigh-platonic shape before I roughly squeeze her until her yelp turns into a long, throaty moan that soon devolves into breathy blabbering about how, "This is not the time, Kazuma…" A proclamation that would be far more believable if she wasn't blushing, tucking her chin in, and covering her face with her own spread fingers in a way I'm going to ignore is pure, textbook yandere.

This, of course, is only made possible due to Darkness' punishment of the day: exploring a dungeon while going bottomless.

I said I am a caring and attentive boyfriend, didn't I?

"Finally! My genius intellect has solved the devilish riddle set by the founder of this dungeon! I know where the target of our reckoning waits!" Megumin says as she looks at us over her shoulder, not even bothering to straighten her back as Yunyun keeps polishing her lighting talents to cinema-worthy levels. Or, at least, levels worthy of one kind of cinema.

"Good job, Megumin. It's good to know that someone remembers why we're here," I say, still not letting go of my stress-relief buttocks.

"Wha—I had found it already! That's what I was trying to tell you—hnnnn!"

"Shut up, Darkness. It's not nice to lie about your accomplishments. I will have to ask Megumin to help with your punishment later."

"But I—"

"Something about teaching you not to lie? Hmmm… Maybe we'll gag you, tie you to that x-shaped thing Chris likes so much, and tickle your naked body, watching you writhe in forced silence as you're wracked by laughter that won't make it past the thick, drool-drenched rag stuffed in your mouth…"

"I wasn't lyin—I mean, I'm so ashamed of my terrible conduct, Master. Please, correct me, make me learn my lesson, show my debased self how far I've fallen, how below you am I when you step on my belly until my mouth opens in a pained gasp that Megumin will silence by sitting on my face—"

"All right, we don't have all day, people! Let's get moving!" I interrupt with a forceful clap of my hands, and not at all because I'm still mildly freaked out by the things Darkness can come up with on the fly, but because I would rather get this dungeon crawl over with before the day's over.

Not to mention…

"Hn! How dare you disregard me like I'm mere trash on the side of the road, walking past me without even a second glance as I clench my thighs together to keep my shameful, liquid arousal from dripping down my bare legs!"

That. Yeah, that.

I absentmindedly pat Darkness' head, pretend to ignore her cute, frustrated moue at me not patting something else, and join Megumin at the head of our marching order.

Because that's clearly where a caster belongs. Of course. And this is a tactically valid decision that has nothing to do with how enamored she is by the way some party members react to her still-new curves.

"So. What are we looking at?" I say, kneeling by her side and then leaning forward a lot so that I'm level with her face.

"Prepare to be dazzled by the magnificent intellect of she who will lead the next generation of the Crimson Magic Clan—"

"You'll birth the next generation of the Crimson Magic Clan. I don't know whether it will be through one of the many spells we still don't know are in Yunyun's repertoire or if love will just find a way after nearly two decades of pure, unadulterated, focused obsession that only lacks a kitchen knife to get a legion of supporters on online forums, but let's not pretend that a Sapphic pregnancy is not in your near future—"

"—as I was saying," Megumin tries to regain her momentum and does a poor job of it as Yunyun's currently frantic shifting mood lighting magnificently highlights a blush that matches the color of the shortstack's robes, "there's a pattern of yellow pebbles on the road we've been following that, when matched with the location of the moss above us, becomes a numbered cipher. The average length of a step matches—"

"It's right ahead. We just need to take the next left turn," Darkness says, kinda sulking.

"… That's what I was going to say," Megumin says.

"Darkness! How dare you disrespect the efforts of your fellow adventurer just to get some petty claim at personal recognition! Just because of that, you'll have to watch how I fuck Megumin silly, and Eris help you if I catch you touching yourself before I give you permission!"

"Does that mean—" a hopeful, silver-haired rogue starts asking as her blonde best friend goes into ecstatic paroxysms and a shallow puddle forms between her bare feet.

"No," I tell the redundant goddess.

"Oh…"

With that settled, I make Megumin stop giving Yunyun a Pokémon-worthy seizure by helping her stand straight so that the other Useless Lesbian can focus on lighting the path ahead rather than her hopes, dreams, and impregnation target.

Then we manage to march through the cave in silence for about three minutes, which is a goddamn miracle that I won't be attributing to any of the divine beings I'm personally acquainted with.

"Is that…?" the redundant one asks.

"I really should've guessed it," Aqua answers.

"Care to share for those of us who can't recognize on sight… this?" I say, waving my hand at…

Well. Our target.

'There aren't that many profitable missions I could send you on,' a blonde Guild receptionist said.

Then I arched an eyebrow, grabbed her hips, and stopped her from moving under me and along my cock until her frustrated glare made it very hard for me to keep doing so.

'… Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you,' she said.

Then I proceeded to keep fucking her in the backroom of the Guild until her break ended, and a flustered, disheveled Luna granted me a mission while forcefully ignoring the inquiring gazes of her coworkers as she struggled to keep her trembling knees together.

Heh.

… All right, maybe I should've asked more about the details, but, in my defense, I had just poured about half my mental resources between Luna's legs, so…

Yeah.

I don't know what this is.

And by 'this,' I mean the golden shrine set in a recessed alcove of rock that looks… naturally shaped. As if erosion and the flow of centuries had crafted the perfect place to set this cabinet in without the touch of a mortal hand ever intervening in the process, and, really, seeing that this is a shrine and how this setting works, it's perfectly plausible that I'm in front of a literal miracle.

I don't trust miracles. Not after meeting more than one god.

"It's Ishtar—" Aqua starts.

Huh.

Who knew that the only thing it would take for her to shut up would be the sound of gilded wood turning into a cloud of splinters around an orc's fist. Good to know. I should make a note of this.

"Kazuma? This… May not have been the smartest thing to do," Chris says in a tone that very much matches how she's taking a few steps back.

"It's Ishtar," I say. "I don't care for whatever that cum-addled, nymphomaniac, Goddess of Meddling in Pure Romance With Crappy Porn Conventions has to say. Let's just tell Luna that the mission was a dud and—"

"I see you have accepted my generous offer!" an echoing, booming, fucking recording says. "Thank you for pressing the button that will get you and your loved ones out of the depressing pit of dull monotony, unimaginative sex, and faked orgasms that long relationships always fall into—"

"No one here has faked an orgasm ever! They sometimes try to fake they haven't orgasmed just to spur me on, but that's only the masochists between them, which are not as limited to Darkness as one may think—I mean, I haven't pressed a single damn button, you crazy bitch!" I explain calmly and measuredly.

Yunyun pats my shoulder to call my attention, smiles a sympathetic yet crooked smile at me, and then points at where my fist is smashing an enormous red button set in the wall behind the demolished shrine.

I… wet my dry lips. Swallow. Notice that my rant made me miss the end of Ishtar's deranged recorded message.

And the world turns into a golden swirl.

… At least I got to be comforted by Yunyun one last time like I always thought she would. Even if she isn't cradling my cheek and holding the kitchen she always wielded when I imagined my final moments.

***

There are no orcs in Xianxia land.

This is the only reassuring thought that runs through my mind as I contemplate the viridian skin of my rough, wide, thuggish hands, the way my robes have split open at my surging musculature that would make any body cultivator sign up for extra shifts at the gym, and…

…

There are no hentai orcs in Xianxia land. No matter what the thing brushing the top of my knee wants me to believe.

"Brother Kazuma! I—I am so sorry!" a tearful, pale, torn-robes-clutching excuse for a senior alchemist says as her trembling, chestnut eyes try to drive me into the forbidden realm of necrophiliac dual cultivation—I mean, Senior Sister Wiz says while her wet eyes try to beg for forgiveness like a good girl who's oh so sorry and will do anything to earn her—

… There are no hentai orcs in Xianxia land. No matter what my stupidly overcharged libido wants me to think.

"Senior Sister?" I ask the demonic cultivator in hiding with a voice that seems more suited to growling than curious inquiries, "What, precisely, are you sorry for?"

"You… You… The Demon Tribe was supposed to be extinct! They were hunted down to the last one!"

… There are no hentai orcs in Xianxia land. It is possible that the reason for such a state of events is that they were genocided.

My lower left eyelid is starting to twitch. I sympathize.

"Why was the demon tribe hunted down, Senior Sister?" I calmly ask as I gently grab her shoulders and lift her up to eye level. Which is a very reassuring display of closeness and not, you know, implicit aggression.

Huh. I have tusks. And she's staring at them and going a tad paler than usual. What an interesting fact that I'm entirely divorced from.

"They… Uh… Senior cultivators may… have wanted a boost to their virility?" she says, fidgeting as much as she can while limply dangling from my reassuring, comforting grasp.

I close my eyes for a single moment, which clearly has nothing to do with the raging storm of panicked voices yelling all at once inside my head, because there's no such thing. I'm a calm, reasonable person who isn't about to lose his temper at a cultivator centuries my senior, no matter how fucking incompetent the goddamn corpse can be—

"Wiz," I ask, and not just because I need to get out of my head before I get another heart demon or something even worse than fucking Vanir, "are you trying to tell me that, when you sold me that cultivation boosting pill that would make me 'a man amongst millions,' you were, in fact, talking about sexual prowess and unwittingly gave me what some old pervert once distilled from a fucking orc's balls?!"

"It's not just the testes? The shaft and glans are important ingredients—" she starts in her clueless lecturer voice.

Not wanting to embarrass her any further by pointing out this is not the time, I, instead, reassuringly throw her through the window.

The window of her dilapidated shop built on the very edge of the sacred peak the Axel Sect stands on.

… It's a good thing she stores her soul somewhere safe.

"Brother Kazuma, whyyyyyy—" her fading voice asks in a haunting cry that will herald her return as an offended senior accusing me of courting death, or that would be the case if she had any backbone at all, other than what her fall down the mountain is likely to bruise as much as a veteran demonic cultivator can be bruised.

I don't even know how that works. In my experience, it's only cultivator egos that get bruised.

Particularly when it comes to Darkness.

***

I can do this.

I can get home.

Sure, I have become, apparently, the last member of a race that was hunted down to extinction because senior cultivators are about as horny as they are amoral, so any junior cultivator would salivate or excrete their preferred fluids at the mere chance to catch me and gain favor with the kind of pervy alchemist Wiz wishes she could be, but this is the Axel Sect. The whole place is full of the kind of morons and third-rate talents that other sects would deny even the chance to have their cultivation base crippled, seeing as, from their point of view, we are all already crippled.

This means that my rudimentary stealth technique should be more than enough to avoid any wannabe monster hunters, get home, hole up, and find some kind of cure before this whole thing explodes in my face like—

"Kazuma?" the self-proclaimed Mistress of the Crimson Blaze asks from right behind me.

"I'm twice my height, bald, and green; how the Hell—"

"You're wearing your robes. Your very ripped robes," she says with…

None of the smugness I would expect.

In fact, there's a certain note of… admiration.

Repressing the full-body shudder that mere notion inspires in me, I slowly turn around to face the diminutive cultivator in this alley framed by low, white walls that seem utterly unpractical in a setting where even toddlers can jump higher than that.

She's… beaming.

As in, there are colorful sparks reminiscent of fireworks going off around her as she clutches both hands under her chin, her yukata-style, black and crimson robes swishing around her stocking-clad thighs as she wiggles in a way that I would appreciate much better if she turned around—I mean, that don't bode well for anybody in close range of any of her qi leaks.

Right. Qi leaks.

Qi leaks that get exponentially more destructive the more excited she gets.

… I am about to die, aren't I?

"Megumin, I know anything to do with demonic this or that is like catnip to your poisoned imagination, but I need you to take a deep breath, remember the Blue Sky Serenity technique, and—"

"You've become a member of the demon race! Finally! You've shed your vile human guise and embraced the true darkness lying at the depths of your heart, becoming the herald of an age of dusk that will engulf the entire land! Soon, all the arrogant women who ever spurned your disgusting advances will beg for a chance at your corrupting touch as you cloud their minds with eternal miasma and—"

"Megumin, I really need you to calm down—"

"—and I shall stand by your side! A cruel and terrible queen! My magnificence will bring despair to any who dared mock me before my ascension! All shall bow! None shall stand at my passage as we bring down this wretched sect and make the prophets of my people reveal the wicked truth of the world—uh? Kazuma? Why are you grabbing me?" she says, her lone, visible, crimson eye blinking in puzzlement at me as the bandage filled with nonsensical, mystical-seeming scribbling covering the other eye shifts in perfect synch.

There are a lot of things I could say to a confused, blushing, rapidly breathing Megumin who has become prisoner of my now giant hands, and plenty of them have to do with just how short her yukata is and how her black stockings topped with a lacy band of black roses leave just enough pale skin visible above them to made a part of me roar at the careless display of absolute territory even before my libido got hypercharged by yet another stupid cultivation thing that should have to do with personal enlightenment and self-discipline rather than with ground cocks.

Yup. Plenty of things.

Instead, I'll be forced to tell her what I've already told her plenty of times before:

"Stop exploding everywhere, you crazy maniac!"

"I can't help it; it's a condition—I mean, it's the cursed demonic technique cultivated in my clan through generations, and all shall prostrate themselves before the fiery might of the Crimson Blaze!" she says as the colorful sparkles around her get increasingly bigger and brighter.

So, as sensible and capable of on-the-fly planning as ever, I find the most optimal course of action and immediately follow it.

"Kazumaaaaaa! You bastaaaaaaaa—" she says as she takes a flawlessly parabolic route over the nearest wall right before a blinding explosion rocks the alley I'm in.

And that's before the actual shockwave hits.

The excruciatingly painful shockwave, I may add.

I try to blink away the afterimages burned into my retina as I stumble to my feet from the orc-shaped indentation in the wall behind me. There are pieces of rubble raining down around my currently tall self, and a singed, single, hand-bound tome falls edge-first on the bridge of my nose.

Out of sheer reflex, I catch the offending projectile and scan the title in search of possible cheat-like techniques.

'Forbidden Love in the Demonic Cultivator's Den.'

… What the Hell—

"Kazuma Satou! I know it's you, you wretch! You'll pay for destroying this Imperial Inquisitor's home!" a shrieking voice calls out from somewhere beneath the caved-in roof in front of me.

…

Stealth techniques, stealth techniques, stealth techniques—!

There's a crash as a burning wooden beam cracks in two, and all the teal ceramic tiles cascade around the proudly standing Imperial Inquisitor. Who would look far prouder if I wasn't holding her tome of smut and her open, navy blue, abbreviated hanfu that wouldn't look out of place in a visual novel featuring a kitsune onee-sama smoking a kiseru wasn't a clear indicator of what she'd been doing right before I Megumined her home.

"Where are you?! Show yourself, and my wrath shall be contained! I'll only cripple your cultivation base, cut off your manhood, and curse your family down to the seventh generation!"

"Isn't that last one redundant if you cut off my manhood?" I can't help but ask.

Which, obviously, is enough of a distraction to break my stealth technique and get the amethyst eyes of the vengeful office worker Christmas cake to laser in on me fast enough to leave glowing afterimages of her glowing irises.

… Which is kinda cool, if I'm being honest.

"What?" she asks as her expression shifts into a confused frown.

That… may have something to do with me being another species.

…

This is great! I have an alibi! Kazuma Satou wasn't anywhere near the terrorist attack caused by a green, hulking orc and the young mistress of explosions that he always ends up taking responsibility for! I'm free! Free of blame, of undue accusation, and of the goddamned responsibility that seems to hound me down like Darkness going after a dubious double cultivation text—

"Kazuma? When did you become a member of the demon race?" she asks, tilting her head until the already askew coronet that symbolizes her office falls off her straight hair and clatters across the rubble-strewn meditation garden.

"… How?" I ask.

"Yes, the 'how' is also a pertinent question, but I just asked about the 'when,' and you shall not evade my inquiries any longer, you scoundrel—"

"No. No. How. How the heck did you even know it was me, Kazuma, who—"

"You have the same despicably lustful aura," she says with a shrug that dislodges the left shoulder of her open hanfu and bares a magnificently perky breast that could have only stayed this firm after untold ages of singlehood due to the careful application of cultivation techniques geared not at advancement but preservation.

Not that I'm complaining.

Sena, though, quirks her eyebrow and follows my gaze to a pink nipple incriminatingly standing at attention, at which point she shrieks yet again, her arms closing around her lustful body, blue gauze regrettably covering up once again the literal peak of her womanly charms, and…

"You beast! You lustful wretch! You dog in heat!"

"Look who's talking."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she asks with righteous, blushing fury as she forces herself to look at me once again.

Just in time for a thrown smut book to slap her face like she's a Young Master courting death.

There's a brief moment of silence as the handbound tome slips down her fiery (in both temper and color) features.

Her eyes meet mine once again.

"… I shall murder you to ensure your silence," she promises.

And I, wisely as ever, reapply my stealth technique and run away.

***

It only took three laps around the mountain to lose Sena.

This, rather than being due to the effectiveness of my stealth technique or swiftness of my foot techniques, may have something to do with how she reacted once she noticed that her singed, torn, revealing hanfu was being obviously appreciated by people she'd rather not give a peep show to.

… I owe Dust a beer. Or, well, a glass of spirit liquor or whatever the heck we're supposed to be drinking to go along with the current theme of 'Every single drug in this setting is something we'll pretend is useful and not life-destroying in any way whatsoever.'

Drugs. Honestly, as a stalwart man proud of my Japanese upbringing, their mere existence disgusts me, and their sheer prevalence incenses me. It's baffling how these people so carelessly foul their bodies with the damn things, and this opinion is one that I uphold due to my standing as a fine member of society rather than because the damn things are too expensive for me to afford.

Particularly with crippling debt.

Because, you see, in Xianxia land? Money is power. The ultimate cheat item. Wealth can be converted into personal strength at a ratio with no loss whatsoever, and the whales of the world are often enough up to their eyebrows in whatever drug they prefer to base their journey of enlightenment with. Here, being rich is a virtue, and being poor is—

"Kazuma?" a very unvirtuous, blue-haired person asks.

I, without even bothering to inquire how she, of all people, has recognized me, grab her waist and throw her over my shoulder.

"Kazuma! You bastard! There's a spirit dog here! There's a guardian spirit dog here, and you just threw me right at his little doggy house! He's pissed off at me, Kazuma! Help! Help me, Kazuma!" she says.

And I, a man who will punish wickedness wherever I may find it, ignore the frantic pleas of the person most lacking in virtue I've ever met and finally step through the gates leading me to safety, or, at the very least, my house.

My house.

…

All right, for a former NEET like me, I admit that the notion of owning any kind of home is… somewhat baffling. Maybe even overwhelming. It's just not something I ever expected to happen without both my parents being isekaied in the traditional manner, but… here I am.

Just past the gates to my manor, in the middle of the path that crosses the austere garden and goes toward the house proper, a luxurious, two-story home with bleached walls and a red, curved rooftop that has proud, roaring, golden dragons decorating the flying eaves at each corner.

You may wonder, given how the housing market is going (that is to say: that real-state speculators inspired Frieza as a rather unsubtle commentary on a house's affordability), how can I own a manor and still consider myself poor.

Well… Let's just say that the value of something is kind of determined by how much someone else is willing to pay for it.

So…

I sigh, then take a deep breath and…

One step to the left gets me out of the way of the first trap Darkness found when we acquired this house—and by 'finding,' I mean 'thoroughly enjoyed being tightly bound by mildly electrified ropes'—then I roll forward so that the bladed disk shot at me from the wall to my left buzzes over me rather than through me, which signals it's the right time to jump over the nearly-invisible, whistling wire trying to shear off my legs at the ankles before I push off the squat pine to my left as hard as I can and—

And underestimate my current strength, overshoot the safe spot in the middle of the path from the house to the gate, and end up faceplanting into the other squat pine framing the path.

I whimper.

Then, pine needles ominously gleam with a metallic sheen, and I do worse than whimper.

***

"Kazuma?" Darkness asks as I enter the former home of Hell Trapmaster Kazuto, AKA, the goddamn moron that Aqua brought here ages ago after giving him an inventing talent cheat.

"Yes, it's me, Kazuma, and not a wereporcupine hybrid," I tiredly answer as I try to pluck a particularly stubborn pine needle out of my goddamn butt.

"… Kazuma?" she asks once again.

"Yes? It's me, Kazuma? And not a—Darkness? Are you all right?" I ask my usually saner and occasionally most unhinged teammate rather than brighten her day with my sharp wit and how I am definitely Kazuma and not a… a…

… Look, I was going to come up with another quip, and it was going to be amazing. It's not my fault that I'm now concerned about the hyperventilating blonde.

The hyperventilating blonde whose sharp breaths are making her breasts quake inside her black silk qipao with shimmering brocade highlighting curves that don't need any help in that department, but I'm definitely not complaining about how the gold threads catch errant sunlight on the cusp of her chest, nor about how swirls of protective talisman script are getting increasingly raised by twin nipples, and I'm certainly not unappreciative of the high slits on her usual battle dress reaching all the way past her hipline and almost to her waist, baring creamy, meaty thighs that seem to ripple about as much as her bosom does as her jaw falls open and a long, mournful whine that doesn't seem to be incited by steel pine needles comes out of her pink lips.

Pink lips that remain open in an 'O' shape that—

There's a tearing sound.

Darkness' eyes go down.

…

"This is just a physiological phenomenon and can in no way whatsoever be construed as sexual harassment," I say as my enhanced manhood quivers through the gap in my ripped pants and between the lapels of my robe in a way entirely different yet definitely related to Darkness' breasts and thighs.

"Kazuma…"

"And yes, I know, this world of yours has no concept of sexual harassment other than calling someone a toad lusting after swan flesh, but, honestly, that particular saying never made much sense to me, seeing as toads are not particularly threatening predators. Maybe if it were a fox lusting after swan flesh? Like, I can conceive of the swan being in some kind of danger under those circumstances, but that's without taking into account that swans are not particularly agreeable creatures. By which I mean that if I was a fox under those circumstances, I would take the route of discreet valor and slowly back away before the murderous beast could—"

"Kazuma!" Darkness says with a broad smile, hundreds of pounds of musclebound body cultivator surging toward me, and I'm only able to avoid her charge at the last second due to my fox-like precaution in already having taken a few steps back so that, when I dodge her, she slams face first against the doorjamb.

"What the Hell is wrong with you now?!" I say, taking another step back and not being fooled for a single second that she may have taken lasting damage from cracking the crimson wood in two with her forehead.

"You're a demon tribe member, Kazuma!" she says, pulling her face out of the indentation right as the formations inscribed in the house's walls start repairing the splintered wood.

"Actually, the proper terminology is 'orc,' particularly of the 'hentai' variety, and I'm not sure how your world managed to get wrong something so elementary—"

"A demon tribe member! A lustful beast who will capture female cultivators and use them as pill cauldrons, messing them up with their hard shafts until they renounce even their loyalty to their clans and ancestors! A despicable monster that only lives to sate his base cravings on jade beauties, defiling them until the most undignified, sloven of grins is etched forever in their once noble visages! A creature made out of pure desire that only gains strength by bringing women down to sows addicted to green, hard cock—"

"Darkness, you're kinda scaring me. More than usual, I mean."

"No, no, no! You're supposed to scare me!" she says, immediately contradicting herself as she gives me the mother of all jumpscares when she uses all her body cultivator prowess to leap up right in front of my face and get me to see just how widely she's opening her worryingly fixed eyes. "You're supposed to take me," she says as she grabs the lapels of my torn robe in a way that highlights just how lethal she could be if she resigned herself to her fate as a barroom grappler rather than the distinguished, jian-wielding, chivalrous swordswoman she wants to portray herself as. "You're supposed to manhandle me, maul my flesh with your claws, reshape me into a tool for your pleasure, make me come on your cock until I swear my loyalty to you."

"I… Uh… That's a very vivid image you're painting—"

"Fuck me! Rough me up! Shatter my golden core! Break my cultivation base! Turn me into a useless—"

"You're already kinda useless, you know? Not as much as Aqua, of course, but that's a low bar to clear—"

"Shut up and ruin me!"

"Honestly, those two statements are somewhat contradictory, given how I usually can get you to tremble in sheer, despondent, tearful frustration just by calling you Lalati—" I desperately try to say.

But I don't get to finish my ultimate combo, my last line of defense, my definitive attack to ward off all things Darkness and the madness she sometimes—often gets carried away with.

Mostly? Because there's a tongue in my mouth.

… Okay, to be more accurate, there are two tongues in my mouth. There, happy?

Because I kinda am.

…

I can't believe I just thought that.

Okay, just… To be fair, this is my first kiss, and Darkness, other than her whole Darknesshood, is… a very attractive woman. Like, even before taking into account how cultivators tend to be in superb shape, her body is… well, there's not a single gravure idol hidden in the forbidden corner of my former bedroom back on Earth (that I dearly hope has been lost in a housefire) that Darkness doesn't put to shame. It's not just about the sheer volume of the statuesque woman pressing herself against me or about how perfectly shaped she is. It's not even about how both her breasts and behind have just enough elasticity to bounce and keep bouncing whenever she so much as starts practicing one of her family's body-tempering exercises, and I try not to drool at the sight of silk rippling over jiggling flesh. It isn't even about exotically golden hair that shimmers like sunlight when it streams behind her, reaching down her back with just the right length to perennially point at her swaying derriere.

Or, well, it is about all those things, but…

She pulls away.

Slightly. Almost still touching me.

Pink, flushed lines along her cheekbones highlight her wet, shy gaze up at me before she averts her eyes as her fingers open and close over my chest in a way that straddles the line between caress and tickle.

… This.

It's about this.

"That was…" she starts, taking half a step back as her ears redden.

"Oh?" I say, dropping my tone just a few octaves for reasons I'm not entirely aware of.

"I… Just… Just forget about it!" she says, turning around and burying her face in her cupped hands.

"I don't think I will," I say, right into her ear as I lean over her and… hold her waist with both hands.

My robes are torn, half-open, and black silk caresses the gap between them, the highlight of the brocade script across her back a somewhat rougher contrast that does nothing to disguise the softness of the firm body beneath.

She gasps.

I pull her closer to me.

"Ka… Kazuma?" she asks without turning around, her hands coming slightly away from her flushed face.

"Yes, it's me. Kazuma," I say.

I don't even know why.

I… should be panicking, honestly. At least as much as I did when I learned that what I thought to be yet another heart-demon-induced daydream was very much real, and I had all but forced her to…

I bite my lip, trying both to focus on the moment and not to give myself a set of matching piercings with my prominent tusks, and Darkness…

Whimpers. But she doesn't step away.

… This better be another heart demon, you hear me, Vanir?

"Kazuma?" she asks with a shy, tiny voice.

"Yes?"

"What… are you doing?"

"You know."

"I… I don't. I really, really don't," she says, ending with an almost inaudible murmur as I…

Keep pulling her to me.

Her back is flush against my chest, my shaft rests between welcoming, fleshy pillows, and my hands roam from the side of her waist to her toned belly.

And I…

"I won't forget about it, Darkness," I say.

"What are you—"

"It was my first kiss, after all."

She goes still.

So do I.

The upper side of my right thumb rests against a fold of silk filled with the pulsing warmth of the flesh above it, the softness of her body daring me to roam up, to explore, to take what she so often carelessly offers just to shyly retreat whenever she gets even an ounce of sense back or the mood gets unbearably serious.

Whenever we're about to cross a line that goes beyond wild fantasies and promises made by a woman about to be married off to a corrupt noble of the empire.

But I… I am not saying anything stupid. I'm not doing anything outrageous. I'm not calling her 'Lalatina' or throwing my voice to convince the houseguards of her father that she's a chronic masturbator in the middle of her usual business.

I don't do anything to make her pull away.

And so, unbelievably, she…

Stays.

"Mine," she murmurs.

"What?" I ask, trying to keep the steady, dark undercurrent of… whatever it is I'm trying to channel rather than outrageous claims or over-the-top jokes and—

"Mine. As well. My first kiss."

I take a deep breath.

Then, I turn her around, and her blue eyes find mine despite downturned lids and a chin tucked into her silk-clad bosom.

"Darkness?" I ask.

"Y—yes?"

I, once again, lick my dry lips, betraying my attempted façade of actual confidence.

"How do you dual cultivate?" I manage to ask.

Then her face lights up, body-tempering-grade hands clutch my forearms, and it's all I can do not to wilt in front of the once again over-enthusiastic girl.

***

"Incense, incense… I know I had an entire box of the epimedium incense…" she mutters as she frantically rummages through the tiny drawers of the herb cabinet in her room.

I, meanwhile…

Remain seated. In the lotus position. Which, honestly, it's quite an accomplishment because when I first arrived here I actually called it the torture from Hell position, and I was sure these people had had their joints replaced with silly string as a joke while they were babies, but, well, more than a year of strenuous training, herbal baths, stolen scriptures, a talisman or two, and having someone who can bring me back from the dead when I really mess up with my training have allowed me to…

Sit with my ankles on top of my knees.

…

You know, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound like such an achievement…

"Here!" she triumphantly claims, pulling out a bundle of hentai-pink sticks with all the triumphant enthusiasm of a kleptomaniac, green-clad elf. "We can start!"

I hold my tongue about any of the many, many things running through my head that are sure to be at least half heart demon as I watch her put the final touches on her preparations, something that she carelessly does on all fours as she crawls around the circle of brocade that I'm sitting in the middle of, lighting up each of the five sticks on top of the symbol for the five elements that Chinese use instead of the traditional earth, fire, water, wind, and lighting, and… giving me a magnificent show of black-clad Darkness butt in the process.

Then she stands up, turns around, smiling widely and proudly, and…

And the smile wilts as she finds me naked, waiting for her, with an erection that won't go down.

"I… Ah… We can start?" she says, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"I… don't really know how?" I say, of course talking about dual cultivation and not at all about having sex because I'm not that clueless. I have played enough visual novels to understand how the process is supposed to go, thank you very much, and my only doubts about it are whether or not you're allowed to stop before the girl gets hearts in her eyes and claims to be addicted to your cock.

My sources were unclear on that particular point.

"Right," she says, her voice quivering on the single syllable. "I… I can help. Guide you. Through it."

She's wringing her hands just below where the indentation of her navel shows on her qipao, and it takes me a moment to realize that she's nervous rather than doing something complicated and abstruse with her lower dan tien.

"Please, do," I tell her.

She nods, offering me a nervous grin before she kneels in front of me and closes her eyes, steadying her breath like I wish Megumin would do when I ask her to. The cloying scent of the incense swirls around us in lazy plumes of smoke that are suddenly that much thicker, filling up my lungs with something electrifying that is not qi but makes mine react to it, my poorly formed lower cauldron overflowing and spilling carefully gathered vitality across my abdomen, the warmth pooling and seeping through my flesh, going to my still erect member, and…

"Is this… an aphrodisiac?" I ask.

"Well, yes?" Darkness says, opening a single curious eye.

"… Darkness, I am a hentai orc. I'm pretty sure any aphrodisiac is overdoing it," I tell her as I struggle to keep my hands still where they are resting palm up on my open thighs.

"I don't know what a hentai orc is, but if we're doing this, we're doing it by the book," she says, some of the stern trainer coming through in both her tone and expression before her open eye goes down to my cock and the mask shatters into flustered blushing and two eyes forcefully closed to the point her brow wrinkles.

Heh.

"By what kind of book, precisely?" I can't help but tease her.

"The manuals," she says.

"Oh, that's what we're calling it now?"

"I don't know what you're implying, but… can you please shut up? And let me focus?"

I am tempted to tell her that no, I'm not going to let her focus on anything but my cock and the things I'm going to do to her with it, but…

But she's nervous, vulnerable, and…

Damn it.

Stupid heart demons.

"Thank you," she says with a small smile that makes things all that much harder. And yes, my penis is 'things.'

"You're welcome," I lie. Because she definitely isn't.

She's not welcome to sit in front of me as aphrodisiac smoke fills the room and the candles set in the cardinal directions dim until there are only half-formed shadows to hint at anything that isn't Darkness, kneeling in stark contrast to the whole world in front of me as she keeps gathering ambient qi and her brow dews with pearls of sweat almost as dazzling as Megumin's sparkles.

She breathes. In and out. Her breasts rise and fall, the silk wrinkles and straightens, golden threads mirror errant candleflame, and I can only hold still and watch.

"All right," she whispers. "Now… Please, don't say anything."

She stands, slowly, the front flap of the qipao murmuring in a cascade of rippling shadow as it falls down her thighs. Then… then she lifts her hand and works the knotted fasteners on the side of her neck, turning the upright collar into something suggestively vulnerable as it opens and reveals the pale, trembling neck within it.

Then, another fastener, and…

The top of her right breast comes into view, pale and beautiful in the play of light and shadow cast over her skin, an errant plume of smoke trailing the line between fabric and body, blurring it, making me see her as fully naked, her skin made of shimmering night tattooed with gold.

She gasps, her eyes still closed, and she undoes the next fastener, more of her breast offered to me by the falling silk, the very edge of her pink areola peeking above the new fold.

Her fingers tremble, and I just… I want to stand up, take her hand, and steady it like she gently tugged my own fingers in place when I got wrong the proper gesture for the technique she was teaching me.

Her family technique.

A family technique that, as it turns out, I'm entirely unsuited for, and the whole exercise ended up with something that made Megumin very happy and our overseer very cross, but, really, isn't the thought that matters?

"Kazuma?"

"Yes, it's me, Kazuma, and not a very creative stalker using a body transformation technique."

"… Don't' even joke about that," she says, possibly remembering her former husband.

'Sorry,' I don't say. Because, as it turns out, a whole year of meditation, training, and life-or-death battles don't allow for that much personal growth.

Something I should've already predicted, seeing as, well, Wiz. Honestly, if that bundle of insecurities and cluelessness can be a successful demonic cultivator, it's clear that strength of character is not a part of the equation.

"Don't laugh," she says.

Another fastener comes undone.

And Darkness slowly pulls up her dress.

Black silk whispers along her slowly uncovered legs, her well-shaped calves tensing as her arms rise, and then her thighs come into my view, the thin gap between them filling with a curl of grey smoke that seems to chase the hem of her qipao as she pulls higher and higher, her face entirely hidden behind black silk, her hands pulling at the dress in turns, making the flap of silk sway from side to side, entirely too sensual to be the accident I know the spectacle to be as…

"You… weren't wearing underwear?" I ask despite my dry throat.

"It's… I…"

"I'm not complaining."

"No! I—I was going to take a bath, and…"

"And you took your underwear off before going to the bathroom?"

"Shut up," she whimpers.

But her hands remain where they are, and so does her dress, which means…

That I'm face-to-carefully-trimmed-pubic-hair with Darkness.

The… The scent reaches me over the incense, neither of the two aromas overpowering the other, rather complimenting themselves, as if mingling in a dance that highlights the best of both, and… and there's a single, glimmering droplet of something on the edge of the barely visible, pink fold peeking out past her outer labia snugly nestled in the plush gap at the peak of her thighs.

So I… shut up.

But only because she asked me to, you understand. It's not at all because I'm entranced by Darkness offering her half-naked self to me.

"Say something!"

"Wha—you just told me to shut up!"

"Well, don't! It's making me nervous!"

"I've seen you crack an ogre's head in two with your bare hands! You can't be nervous!"

"It's my first time!"

"You're a divorcee! You can't be a virgin!"

"Wha—don't call me a divorcee!"

"You told me to say something!"

"Yes, but not that, you inconsiderate—you—you—"

"Me? Kazuma?"

"Stop it with that stupid joke!" she says, throwing her qipao off all the way in a single, fluid movement that has the black and gold dress fly across the room and out of our circle as Darkness bounces in front of me.

"Make me," I dare her.

Blue eyes narrow down at me.

And, suddenly, there's a tongue in my mouth.

Well, there are two, but—okay, you get the drill.

Much like Darkness seems intent on getting.

"You're impossible," she says, her lidded gaze heated, her arms around my neck, her thighs around my waist, and her ass conveniently resting on my upturned hands.

"And you're very, very hot."

"What? No, my yin body constitution—"

"That means you're maddeningly attractive, Darkness."

"Ah."

There's an uncomfortable silence as none of us knows what to say, or, at least, what to say that won't be a stupid joke or a fight starter, and, well, I'm also now finally realizing that, yes, Darkness' butt is on my hands. Darkness' bare butt.

Because she's naked.

Because I've got a naked Darkness on top of me.

"This…" I start.

"It's… cultivation," she says. "Training. It's training. Right?"

I… don't answer.

Rather, I lean forward and, for the first time, take her lips.

They are soft. Softer than I realized the two times that she aggressively launched herself against me, and our position makes it so that her breasts also press against my chest, hard nipples standing out from the marshmallow-like flesh, sending twin tingles of excitement through my body as I realize that, yes, Darkness may be as turned out as I am.

… Which is a sentence I never thought I would think in the sense that Darkness could be less turned on than I am.

But, well, I'm hopped up on a physique-transforming cultivator Viagra, inhaling aphrodisiac incense, and groping a naked body cultivator.

So, yeah.

I am turned on.

Even more than Darkness' baseline.

"It's… Kazuma?" she asks, her eyes wide open, her soft palm on my cheek.

I don't answer. Not at all.

Other than by smiling and rising one hand along her spine, feeling the familiar thrum of her qi perennially coalescing into vitality-enhancing jing down her governing vessel rather than the other way around like so many of us struggle to do, turning our physical power into something more ethereal. Subtler.

But Darkness is far from subtle.

"Guide me," I finally say.

She takes a moment to close her eyes and breathe, swirls of incense flowing inside of her through flared nostrils until she quivers, the soft flesh on my grasp and my chest trembling against me and communicating something that words may not be entirely adequate for.

Then, she slowly opens her eyes and nods with resolution I've only seen in her when being outmatched, outnumbered, and trying to do something far too important for her to get carried away by her deranged fantasies.

… Only you, Darkness. Only you could make me realize that your noble self-sacrifice was also sexual in nature in retrospect. I'm actually ashamed it's taken me this long to understand it.

"Stop… thinking," she warns me.

"You know perfectly well that's not how I work—"

"Focus only on my body."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"… I feel like I should hit you."

"Well, I feel like I should breed you until you're a blabbering, ahegaoed mess with my seed dripping down your twitching taint, but we're cultivators striving through the path toward immortality rather than base animals driven by instinct, so, unless you're insinuating I should—"

"Focus on my body. Feel… feel my breathing. Match it."

I take a moment to look into her eyes and…

I match her.

In. Out. Her scent and the incense mingle once again inside of me, bringing about the electrifying feeling from before, the warm pool of spilled qi that wakes up at the exercise, that seeps further into my flesh until it reaches my skin and spreads across it like a drop of oil on water, covering me almost instantly.

Except where I'm touching Darkness.

There… There is something else that happens there. Something that matches the electric sensation, that turns the dull warmth of qi into something vibrant. Something that… mingles.

"There. You're… You're doing very well," she says, her voice catching for a second as she tries to hold herself still, her thighs clenching harder around me.

"Thanks. I've got an inspired teacher," I say, half cocky, half sincere, which is a ratio of sincerity I'm not accustomed to.

She, once again, smiles at me before she closes her eyes and lets out a soft humming noise that resonates deep in my chest.

"Do you… you feel it, don't you? Where we touch? Good. That's… that's good. Let it… let it spread. Let the sensation of us mixing cover your whole body. That's just… hn… it's… it feels nice, doesn't it?"

I, stupidly, nod, even if she can't see me—

No. No, she can.

Her eyes are still closed, but her smile widens when I nod, and I get a… a pulse of soft warmth. Something gentler than my own qi. Something uplifting.

I… try to answer it. Just a beat of my own energy. Something that carries as much intent as any technique needs to be correctly executed. A thread of yi guiding my qi past my body and to Darkness', using our spread touch as the medium so that—she shudders.

"That… That felt… My whole body…" she says, on the verge of babbling, her breathing going faster, the warm air coming from her lips teasing my own.

I can't take it.

I pull her tight against me, and she slides down my lap until the underside of my hard shaft presses between her folds and up her belly, Darkness immediately gasping and clutching the back of my neck at the sensation.

"I want you," I growl.

"I… Kazuma, if you… there's a technique we have to—"

"No. You. I want you."

She whimpers.

I dive forward and suck on the side of her neck, the blush seeming to spread from my kiss in a wave that ripples across her face and down to the top of her breasts.

Her breasts.

I stop clutching her back and hold one of them, one of the marvelously round orbs I've been obsessed with since she took pity on Megumin, Aqua, and me after some outrageous rumors that weren't that outrageous compared to some of the things we all ended up involved in.

Megumin's mother is… something.

But so is Darkness, isn't she?

She moans as I close my fingers tighter around her soft flesh, both above and below, and her torso undulates against me, a full wave of motion that presses up along my cock and the hand on her breast as she remains with her eyes closed, her head thrown back, a single, bent finger half-covering her lips as she nibbles on the joint and I… take the chance to kiss her breasts.

A shudder has wet warmth press tight against my shaft, and I take that as an encouragement to keep alternating kisses between the two round, yielding shapes in front of me. She leans farther back, hanging from the hand gripping my nape, offering herself fully, and I finally get to watch her pink nipples once again, as mesmerizing as I remember them being in a time that I can be forgiven for believing was a dream because nobody should look... like this.

Vulnerable. Open. Beautiful.

Darkness.

My mouth hangs open over the nipple not covered by my green hand, something thick and misty coming out of it that looks lighter than the swirling incense clouds, and she shivers as I…

Don't say anything.

Don't tell her anything stupid, rushed, and…

"Kazuma…" she moans, her hips moving up and down in soft, gentle, teasing lines of tingling pleasure along the vein of my cock.

My lips close, I suck her captive nipple in, and she gasps.

"That's… That's my…" she struggles to say, turning her head side to side as if to deny me or something inside of her. "That's… a forbidden point. Stomach meridian. Too… too intense to use for treatment. Too intense, Kazuma," she insists, her blue eyes finally opening and looking at me through curls of incense that do nothing to stop the glimmering candlelight reflected in her gaze from mesmerizing me worse than any mental attack I've encountered.

Her hand slowly falls away from her plush, half-open lips, and the bent finger straightens as it travels down her chin, the underside of her jaw, and the front of her neck until her hand rests on top of her bust like she sometimes does when acting dignified for all of the three seconds it takes Aqua and me to drag her down to our level.

"Too… too intense. Too sensitive to use," she insists.

I finally take the hint.

Qi rushes up the meridian along my spine, cycling through the top of my head and down the front of my face until it reaches the point behind my teeth where I would usually rest the tip of my tongue to close the circle of the Small Heavenly Circulation.

So I suck harder, until Darkness moans and her nipple gets dragged farther into my mouth.

And then I gently lick up her areola so that the tip of my tongue is not on a trivially easy to find point in my mouth but on the underside of round, hardened flesh that I push up.

Right against said point.

My qi flares up, more intense than it's ever been during the exercise I'm bastardizing, and Darkness' mouth and eyes fall wide open in a silent scream as my energy travels through her flesh before cascading through my tongue and down the front of my body in a pure, raging torrent that feels like a thunderclap in my mind as it reaches my cock.

Because of course I would forget that's part of the Small Heavenly Circulation cycle.

My own mouth falls open, and Darkness' breast bounces down from my lips, trailing a glimmering line of saliva even as the current of energy lingers, and my cock heats up with qi swirling around it that I'm too distracted by the naked girl in my arms to properly address. So I don't guide my energy back to the channel it's meant to go down as more and more warmth turns into heat, and both my hands reflexively clutch dangerously enticing flesh. I saw myself along her crevice, her wetness lubricating both of us even as dollops of transparent fluid drip down my tip until my cock and her belly glisten and her own hips sway in a rhythm contrary yet complimenting my own, the fingers franticly clutching the back of my head doing nothing at all to deter me from not-so-dry-humping her like the dog in heat I've so often been accused of being by the three girls living with me and the gallant, silver-haired thief that still hasn't managed to retrieve her underwear.

In my defense, Chris really should not use that as a hiding spot for stolen treasures if she doesn't want me to do a thorough body search.

"Kazuma! I—I can't—"

I lunge forward, shove my tongue into her mouth, and watch as her panicked eyes lid right before she enthusiastically answers my kiss with a swirl of her pink, inhumanly strong tongue that has her gain ground on me, pushing me back until we're both upright even as she keeps forcefully swaying up and down my shaft, the pleasure mingling with the uncontrolled surge of yang making me lightheaded and prone to rash, stupid decisions—

"Darkness, I—"

One of her hands flies from my nape to shut me up as forcefully as she ever does anything.

"Don't you dare. Not now, of all times," she says with genuine fury, as if I was about to tell her something she asked me to say when she was being forced into an arranged marriage to a senior cultivator that I still hadn't known how to ruin via byzantine political maneuvering.

What I refused to tell her. Because it felt like admitting defeat.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I was only going to tell you to get ready to be speared open on my rock-hard cock. Which is a perfectly sensible statement."

She blinks, blushes, and her blue eyes swirl in about a quarter of Full Delusion Mode Darkness. Which should be all the answer I need, but then she opens her mouth, and the dreaded rant comes out:

"Ah, Kazuma! How dare a lowborn like you lust for my noble flesh! How dare you plan to take me, disgrace me, get me swollen with your child as you keep using me through my entire pregnancy, preying on my cultivation base, lowering my status with each and every thrust of your cock, bringing me down to a servant whose only value is the child growing in her belly!"

"You know, on second thought, pulling out is a very risky method of contraception, so maybe we should stick to frottage and not—"

There's wet warmth resting on my tip. On my very tip.

And Darkness Delusion seems to have given way to Darkness Panic, which, really, is usually par for the course, but there's something about a blonde, stacked woman looking utterly terrified of going down my cock that, somehow, bears slightly more impact than her usual blabbering.

"I… This… I just…" she starts. Then I squeeze my hand on her ass and mercifully cut her off by forcing a moan out of pink, glossy lips that make curls of incense part at the passage of her proferred pleasure.

"We… don't have to," I say despite the heated haze of yang I can't move away from my shaft.

She licks her lips in something that looks more anxious than enticing, and her eyes travel down my body, past the gap between her spread breasts to where she quivers above me as I can't help but let out more of my precum right against her opening.

"Kazuma… we can't," she says, not moving away from me and giving me very mixed signals.

Still, the girl has said what she's said, and, unless there's a safeword in place, pushing her down and ramming my cock deep inside her until her pupils turn into pink eyes and 'no' turns into screaming, wordless pleasure is maybe something I shouldn't be contemplating half as seriously as I currently am because damn me and my tendency to go for overly descriptive phrasing—

"Kazuma?"

"I am a perfect gentleman, and I'm going to respect your withdrawal of consent, Darkness, but I swear that if you don't stop grinding your twitching, wet meat on my cock, I am going to take that as implicit consent and stuff you full of little Kazumas until there's a somewhat bigger Kazuma growing inside of you, which is a horrific enough image that it should be bringing my libido down, but that, somehow, is not working, so, really, can you please stop teasing me before I go over the edge and actually ruin you, turning you into the debased sow you always dreamed of becoming so that you'll beg for more of my cock with what little remains of your brains after I'm done reaming all of your holes—"

Yet again, an inhumanly strong hand clamps my mouth.

This time, there's a panting, blushing, grinning blonde on the other side of it.

"You really, really shouldn't have said all of that," she tells me, for once being perfectly factual and finding me in wholehearted agreement.

Then she… pushes down, the pressure against the tip of my cock growing unbearable as more and more wet warmth surrounds my glans, the tight opening inside of her pressing against mine so that the next dollop of my thick precum spurts out between us like water out of a finger-sealed hose.

She bites the corner of her lip, none of the fiery enthusiasm draining from her crazed eyes, and the pressure grows.

Then… Then, her opening twitches against me, around my very tip, and—

My cock slips out in a rush, Darkness' hips hit the pillow I'm sitting on, and we both groan.

My shaft quivers against her spread folds, my tip splattering the top of her belly with both of our wetness, and her arms twitch around my neck as she clenches her teeth and a low, guttural, drawn-out moan trembles in her throat.

I am very, very confused.

"We… can't…" she repeats despite her prolonged, tit-shaking gasping.

"I definitely can," I say as I grab her hips with both hands and pull her against me, against the beating heat in my cock, and drag her up the pulsing vein, painting the underside of my cock in fiery wetness.

"No! We… You can't get inside me, Kazuma! You'll explode!"

"That's the idea, yes, though I would've expected that phrasing from Megumin—"

"Wha—don't bring up Megumin now, you tactless knave!"

"I mean, I'm definitely not bringing up Aqua—"

"You foolish—if you get inside me, your cock will explode!"

"And, again, that's the idea—"

"Literally explode. You need to drain your excess yang away."

My cock is pressing against Darkness' twitching opening. She's flushed all the way down to the top of her breasts, and her angered expression is doing things to me.

Things that make the risk of penile explosion maybe worth it.

Like… that's what Aqua is for, right? I could just drag the Upper Realm healer down to her knees in front of me and make her lick any and all—aaaaaahhhhh!

"I'm thinking stupid things! Darkness, make me stop thinking stupid things!"

"Do you think I wouldn't already have if I could?!"

"… I'm feeling offended enough to cool down. Thank you very much. Now, can you please solve the urgent issue of my rampant erection being on the verge of exploding due to the technique you have half-assedly performed?"

"I haven't half-assed anything! It was you who just decided to start sucking on my breasts like you wanted to check if you'd gotten me pregnant enough to give milk!"

"And it was you who decided to tell me about a too-sensitive point, so, really, this is all your fault, and since when do you have a pregnancy kink? Because you keep talking about—"

"I don't have a pregnancy kink, but you just threw us out of balance, and now my yin is going crazy thinking about babies, cute, little, precociously cynical babies that you'll keep pumping inside of me as soon as my womb is empty and what are you making me say!"

"Apparently, the last thing I needed to hear, because I really, really want to ram my cock inside of you, explosions be damned—"

"Oh, for—fine!" she says.

And, once again moving faster than I can follow, her hands stop gripping my nape, her thighs no longer surround my waist, and her pussy doesn't drip pure anticipation down my shaft.

This would usually be a very sad state of affairs, but the previous status quo is replaced by her elbows resting on the pillow beneath me, pushing my thighs open as her hands clutch the sides of mammoth mammaries and a very pissed-off Darkness glares up at me, with the quirked line of her tightly closed mouth being half-hidden by the green tip of my cock protruding from the softest thing I've ever wrapped around it, youthful culinary experiments be damned.

"Really?" I ask her with a single raised eyebrow that, somehow, makes her blush more furiously.

"Shut up and enjoy it," she grumbles before she, very incongruously, leans over her tightly pressed cleavage to lie a single kiss on the twitching tip of my cock.

"I mean, I think I would enjoy it a lot more without shutting up," I say, doing my best not to groan at the sensation of her pleasantly cool lips on my searing flesh. "For instance, I could be running commentary on how you're doing from a martial arts point of view: Here we are, ladies and gentlemen, with Darkness facing her most fearsome opponent so far. Will the stacked blonde manage to subdue the rising pillar of flesh making her go cross-eyed, or will she succumb to the lewd aroma she keeps frantically sniffing with flaring nostrils? What tactics are brewing inside her mind that don't end up with her slovenly face convulsing in tremors of pleasure as she's forced to cum again and again, fear of pregnancy be damned—"

"Shut. Up!"

"Make. Me."

Her glare renews in a way that makes me go impossibly harder, and a malicious glint flashes across her eyes.

Then I have to clench my teeth and hiss through them as Darkness does her damn best to suck my soul out of my cock.

Possibly literally, cultivators being what they are.

"Okay, that's… that's a tactic. And, certainly, we can all see how Darkness is putting her everything on the line for—fuck!" I say, finishing the sentence not entirely inaccurately.

There's a gleam of mischievous triumph in her eyes, and her tongue repeats the maddening swirl that just made me shut up despite my best efforts, a legendary feat she's sure to brag about in the Contribution Hall, or, well, maybe not, given the mechanics involved, but nothing will take away the warmth of this rare moment of triumph from the body cultivator most suited for Iron Shirt training I'll ever meet.

Not even the load of semen brewing at the base of my cock.

I think.

"Don't… don't cum… yet…" she says, her forehead as flushed as the rest of her face as she looks up at me with something that seems literally feverish, her mouth immediately opening to shoot her tongue out and catch the next dollop of transparent precum falling out of my tip, swallowing it reflexively and moaning at the sensation in a way that makes her breasts vibrate around me in a way I doubt even modern technology could ever aspire to, no matter how much onaholes have advanced in the past few decades.

I wouldn't know. It's not like I had a credit card of my own to discover how accurate the comparison may be, and, at this very moment, this particular regret of past Kazuma doesn't seem as poignant as it used to be.

Not when Darkness shifts side to side on her knees, her naked derriere (with a slightly reddish hand imprint on where I may have grabbed her harder than I realized) rising briefly above her head before her legs stretch behind her until she's lying on her belly between my legs, the curve of her back highlighted by the spread tresses of her golden ponytail as she keeps her shoulders up on her elbows and pushes her breasts harder against my belly, my cock nestling deeper in her cleavage until I finally take the hint and allow myself to fall back to her plush carpet where I find myself looking up at where her pillow keeps my pelvis higher than my head.

So. Darkness is looking down at me, past the sizable portion of my member that pushes out of her cleavage, still flushed, her brow still dewed with droplets of sweat that glitter with candlelight, other fluids lending much the same effect to the top of her now rosy breasts, and her half-open mouth breathes something both cooling and maddening over my glans that may have something to do with the curls of incense gathered between us and cascading down my inclined body.

"I… Just… Hold on a bit longer," she says before she leans her head to the side and her lips close around the underside of my glans, the tip of her tongue lovingly tracing up and down my frenulum as her eyes lid in sheer bliss.

"You're… not making this easy. At all."

She hums, the corners of her lips quirking in amusement, and the suction on my cock redoubles as she twists her head around it, kissing the side of it from the point where it emerges from her soft flesh to the very tip, where she once again closes her lips just around my opening and sucks.

"Darkness! That's really not what you should be doing if you want me to last long enough for whatever particular kink you're playing into right now."

She pulls back, her eyelids fluttering as she sucks on the dangling thread of my excitement until all of it is past her lips, and she shudders.

Then, her fingers spread wider over her breasts before sinking into shadowy indentations, and the pressure around me grows that much tighter, forceful enough that I could close my eyes and fool myself into believing I'm thrusting between her legs, making her go cross-eyed, making her beg for more of me inside her, making her…

Look at me like she's looking at me right now.

"Not. A kink," she says, her words syncopated as she pushes back and forth, sliding her breasts over my belly until all of my cock disappears between them, only to reemerge with a wet sound that is indelibly memorable, much like the stains we're likely to leave on her sitting meditation cushion.

I hiss rather than answer, just… just feeling the drag of her flesh on mine. The pull and push. The way her shape undulates around me, as if coaxing everything I have out of me, something dull and throbbing traveling up my shaft as I do my best to hold back from letting go and plastering her smile with something that she will delight in licking off.

She doesn't stop, going faster, the susurrus of her body slithering over her carpet turning into a wet mess as everything becomes matted in our shared sweat.

And… there's something going up my cock. Pure heat, yes, but also…

Her smiling lips once again close around my opening, just the very tip, a soft kiss that rapidly turns into frantic suction, and she stops moving her whole body as her hands shake her quaking breasts up and down, an impossibly symmetrical ripple traveling across both of them whenever they slap down against my green belly.

The… the thing. The heat.

It leaves me.

My mind clears just enough to realize that Darkness is draining my yang away in a way far more pleasant than what Aqua and her damn needles manage whenever I mess up my qi gathering exercises, and… and I'm still throbbing, harder than I've ever been, surrounded by her marvelously soft breasts, sucked on by lips I never knew would be this plush.

I'm still in the middle of having Darkness both titfuck me and suck me off.

So it's no wonder that I tear through her pillow when I clench my fists around it in desperation as I try not to cum before she's done with her treatment.

Yeah. That's what we're going to call it. Treatment. If hentai with nurses has taught me anything, it's that the word can never be stretched to the breaking point.

Unlike hentai nurses.

"That's…" I try to come up with something as her eyes go from my cock to my own eyes, and… "That feels very… nice."

It's lame. Stupid. Extremely inappropriate.

She still lights up in sheer joy.

So I let go of her torn pillow, and… and trail my open hands up her arms, her shoulders, until I'm cradling her cheeks and her eyes widen in panic as I keep looking at her. A panic that I may fully understand because I'm definitely not ready for any words that aren't lame, stupid, and inappropriate.

So…

"I always knew you'd be a great cocksucker," I say with a crooked grin that fools no one.

She still grows redder than before, eluding my gaze before diving down to take as much of me as she can into her mouth before slowly and laboriously pulling back up.

"You're terrible," she whispers, maybe talking to my cock.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am," I say.

And… she looks back at me, her face still in my hands, my cock still in her breasts, and something unsaid once again goes between us.

Something about me sneaking into her father's mansion to rescue her.

The stupid, noble moron refusing to leave.

And…

A request.

A single request for us to share a night she didn't want her future husband to take.

"Next time," I promise. Like I wasn't able to promise her back then.

She… doesn't answer. Not with words.

Just… a soft smile. A nod that has the bangs framing her heart-shaped face caress the back of my green hands.

Then she's once again sucking on my tip, without any rush or frantic need, just…

Just that soft smile, those tender eyes, that unsaid promise.

And I let go.

I hit the carpet with the back of my head as the whole world goes a bright white much more blinding than any plume of incense, and her lips pull back until, once again, only my very opening is between them.

Fire that has far more yang than it should races up my shaft, both impossibly fast and crawlingly slow, marking every inch of my cock with a blaze of agonizing pleasure that makes me writhe on the floor as I close my legs around Darkness' back and pull her harder against me, her warm breasts feeling soothingly cool by contrast to my inner burning, her every touch both inciting and calming the madness.

My heart thunders, my breath fills with her scent and incense, and my hands…

My hands fill with the traces of her caring smile on her soft cheeks.

Then… Then it finally shoots past me, a jet of pure lust that she swallows in something that turns rushed and frantic as soon as my cum goes past her lips and her tongue moves wildly around me, coaxing more of my orgasm out, all but begging me to fill her up, to allow the strong woman on top of me to milk my energy out of my body.

I grunt as I try not to roar, and there's another jet of pure, mind-blanking pleasure, but I can open my eyes now and see her as her cheeks balloon outward and her eyes widen comically, a dribble of my cum sprouting out of the corner of her lips before my next orgasmic convulsion turns that dribble into twin sprays that splatter the top of her breasts and Darkness hurries to swallow as much as she can while I keep feeding her more and more of my everything.

She pulls away, a bridge of cum going from my jerking cock to her open mouth, and her eyes roll back when I shoot more of it to splatter all over her beautiful face, ruining her for anyone other than me, turning her into something disgusting and unwanted except for the one degrading and marking her, showering her with as much as she can take and more as she wantonly moans and her hands squeeze her breasts harder against me in a full-body spasm that only ends when she falls forward, her chin buried in her cleavage, her nose pressed against the underside of my cock as I keep cumming and marring her golden hair with rope after rope of white cum even as her eyes roll back and her limp tongue falls out of her mouth and around my shaft.

Then… Then I hiss as I convulse one last time, and only dribbles of semen come out, rolling down my glans and hanging down from its crown before loudly splattering on the bridge of her nose.

I allow myself to fall back, lazy plumes of incense traveling above me, clouding her ceiling, and the spasms of my cock trying to deflate between her breasts lull me to sleep.

***

There are no orcs in Xianxia land.

Not even me.

"That's… not what I expected," she says, still not meeting my eyes as we sit against the wooden wall of her bedroom, and she looks at…

Our joined hands.

"Neither did I," I say, still not meeting her eyes and…

Looking as well at our joined hands. Both of which are human-colored.

There… There may be a lot of things to say right now. Possibly too many things to say, especially without any kind of drugs to blame for me saying them, but…

But we don't.

We just… sit in silence.

We have an excuse, sure. We're meant to consolidate any gains we got out of our rushed, ill-advised, incredibly dangerous dual cultivation. That's why I'm holding her hand, of course, to make sure our energies are properly balanced, that my yang comes back to me and her yin to her as our new levels of qi settle into our cores, becoming more ours with every shared breath.

Yes.

We have an excuse.

And, an hour later, we still have that excuse.

It gets harder to justify when night falls, our cultivation is already over, and I'm still holding her impossibly soft fingers without a trace of calluses despite the harsh training she never skips on.

I don't even try to excuse it when our grip shifts and her fingers interlace between mine, a pulse of something that isn't qi passing between our slightly sweaty palms.

"You owe me a cushion," she mumbles.

And I laugh.

***

There are a lot of things I miss about life in Japan. Sure, there's that particular cliché about how people who get dragged into isekai situations find a life filled with enough adventure that they stop yearning for their escapist hobbies, but if anybody stuck for more than a year in Xianxialand doesn't crave escapism, it's likely because they were sociopaths to begin with.

Which would explain how some of those isekais play out, but, well, that's not what I'm worrying about right now.

See, one of the things I really miss? My bed. My Western-style bed that isn't just a thin mattress laid on the floor. A bed with proper springs that you can bounce on, even if not for lewd purposes.

I liked my bed.

It's about the one thing in my bedroom I hope didn't burn to ashes.

You know what I liked the most about my bed?

Knowing that I would wake up on it with the same form I fell asleep in.

"Kazuma?" Darkness asks as I step into the dining room, her eyes widening in the kind of surprise that will clue our roommates about what went on last night.

"Oh, you didn't know, Darkness?" Megumin says, looking up from her rice bowl with affected disinterest. "Kazuma has undergone a forbidden ritual to become a suitable heir to my demonic lineage—"

Never mind.

"Kazuma! Stop throttling me!" a chuuni moron says as I realize that the masochist is the other girl sitting at the table, but I should be forgiven for making such an easy mistake this early in the morning.

"Yes, it's me, Kazuma, and I'm not going to entertain any deranged fantasies about the demon race—"

"Of course not. He's a hentai orc, after all," Aqua says with sadistic glee as she dramatically leans on the arc leading to the entrance hallway with her arms crossed.

A pose that may look more cool and dignified if her blue robes weren't torn to pieces and marred with what I believe to be doggy drool.

"Shut up and solve this, you useless immortal!"

"Is that how you ask for a favor from a senior? My, my, how impudent of you, Kazuma. I may have to withhold my healing powers until you learn to be humble enough to—"

"I will burn down all your spirit wine."

"Don't you dare! There are collectible bottles in that stash! Those are masterworks only seen once in a generation, you blasphemous philistine!"

"Then heal me!"

"Fine! But stop choking Megumin before I have to resurrect her," she says, grumpily crossing the distance toward the dining table, and… huh. Megumin does look kinda crimson. Maybe I should apologize.

… You know what? She's always going on about the Crimson Blaze. I'm sure she'll understand this was all for the best.

I, almost gently, rest the unconscious Megumin on the table by the side of her unfinished bowl, and proceed to stuff my face with what remains of it, seeing as I haven't had breakfast and it would be a pity to waste perfectly good food, no matter how accusingly Darkness is looking at me. While I'm still taking my meal, Aqua rests her hand on my belly and starts chanting something vaguely Chinese-like, the familiar warmth of her healing enchantments working through me and…

And nothing happens.

Not as I slow down the pace of my chopsticks, and not after I finish Megumin's bowl and set it back down on our lacquered table. Not even after far more time than Aqua should be able to focus for passes, and she cycles through all the incantations I can recognize and a few I don't, distorted characters dancing over my skin in blazes of blue light that fade as soon as she closes her lips and looks up at me with what may be legitimate worry.

"I… Kazuma, there's… There's no cure for this. It's mingled with your cultivation base."

"What?" I ask as something cold settles in my belly.

Her frown deepens, and she opens my robes to spread both her hands on my belly.

"It's… It's perfectly rooted. I can only tear it off by shattering your dan tien. It would set you back… decades," she says, leaving unsaid that those are decades we can't afford, not with the Demonic Sect gathering their forces en masse and the stupid prophecy that made her throw isekaied people into this realm left and right to begin with.

"But… There must be a way to… I don't know. Maybe a body transformation? Something?"

"I… don't see how. The excess of yang energy of whatever you took will keep shifting you toward this form. So long as that imbalance remains—what?" she asks, her frown going from worried to suspicious as Darkness and I share a frozen look.

"There may be… a family technique?" Darkness says, and my eyes shoot wide open.

"A family technique?" Aqua parrots like she often does when she wants to come across as intelligent.

"Well, we are body cultivators. We know… things."

"Things?"

"Treatments," Darkness answers, blushing like a novice hentai nurse.

"Treatments that can deal with something I can't?" Aqua says, her eyes narrowing about as dangerously as… Aqua trying to be helpful.

"I could give it a try," I say, miraculously getting the words past my dry throat. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?"

Aqua shifts her suspicions from Darkness to me, and my mind races as I try to come up with a version of events that doesn't involve telling the former immortal that I'm about to cum my orcishness out as many times as it takes.

This thought, for reasons entirely beyond my control, makes it so that my currently enhanced libido flares up, my pajama pants tear, and my Demon-rending Spear bounces up in front of Aqua's eyes, slapping her wrist in the process.

The sound of yelled curses wakes Megumin up.

Megumin. Who was lying on the table I'm sitting on and whose wide-open, visible eye is about level with my cock.

"Explosion!" she, for once, understandably yells as bright sparks gather all around her.

Then, right as her qi flares up and Aqua, Darkness, and I dive for cover, the doors of the entrance hallway slam open against the walls, and in walks a disheveled Imperial Inquisitor with her torn hanfu bristling with metallic pine needles.

"Kazuma Satou! Is Kazuma Satou—" she starts to yell.

Megumin, though, manages to get the last word.

=========================

This was supposed to be something silly and light-hearted for me to get some breathing room. Maybe four or five thousand words. Fun and relaxed.

I, apparently, hate myself. With a passion.

Anyway, here you go, the definitive proof of why I shouldn't indulge my chuuni past self and all his martial arts nerdom. The Aqua chapter is still the next one, and I'll make it public as soon as I write its follow-up. Hopefully, you'll enjoy this to tide over your wait.

As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true): Adad64, aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Vergil1989 Crossover King, and Xanah. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!