[Romani Oyama]
There is a specific kind of shame that only happens when you look at the situation you've gotten yourself into and realize, with absolute clarity, that the fault is entirely your own.
I was living that kind of shame right now.
In the bathroom, under the warm steam of the running shower, a Dark Magician Girl was washing my body.
I may or may not have specifically summoned her for that function, but you have no proof.
Now...
The problem was that Dark Magician Girl was apparently a girl gifted with an unrestricted curiosity, and that curiosity, at this exact moment, was directed squarely at my body.
She was crouching in front of me, head tilted to the side like a puppy encountering something utterly new and intriguing, her large, bright eyes fixed on the Great Oyama while the hot water trickled down the smooth contour of her face and along my body.
"Mnh~!"
She made the sound of someone attempting to solve a quantum physics problem.
Now, what happens when a pretty girl positions her face directly in front of the relevant component of male anatomy, at an angle that has the tip of her nose nearly grazing said component?
The inevitable result of that equation, my dear Watson, was that the aforementioned object began to demonstrate a logical reaction, rising with the imposing majesty and catastrophic timing that only human biology is capable of delivering without a single shred of decency.
My heart lurched in panic while... well, let's say that certain parts of my body decided to blatantly ignore the despair exploding in my brain.
Dark Magician Girl, with her innocent and equally unsettling curiosity, remained crouched, studying my penis as though it were a magical artifact.
Her delicate little nose, slightly upturned, was dangerously close. As I felt the warmth of her breath against my member, the Treacherous One, Oyama Junior, began to react to her proximity. He started to swell and grow as though stretching to greet the intruder, inch by humiliating inch.
I tried thinking about thoroughly neutral things. Mathematics. Tax returns. The relative humidity index in Spain.
But biology does not care even slightly about my despair.
My great friend simply grew, rising with that silent, inevitable majesty until... thwp.
The tip of it bumped her nose, like an accidental and profoundly embarrassing slap. It wasn't hard, but it was more than enough to catch her completely off guard. Her eyes went wide with shock, her cheeks flushing a visibly darker shade, and she lurched back with a sharp movement, landing seated on the wet bathroom floor with a damp thud.
"Eek!"
She blinked rapidly, raising her hand to her nose and scratching it on instinct, as though trying to process what had just happened using every available cognitive resource. The spot where the collision occurred turned faintly red, a delicate, rosy little mark contrasting with her pale skin.
She furrowed her brow and tilted her head to the side again, but now she was staring with even greater curiosity and a small sting of irritation.
Sorry. I swear it wasn't intentional. Human biology is merciless garbage.
But instead of getting angry, her eyes lit up with an even greater curiosity.
She crouched down with her hands on the floor, crawling on all fours toward me. The generous neckline of her blouse hung forward, revealing a privileged view of her full breasts, which swayed gently with each step, offering me a hypnotic view of her curves. The strangest part was that her eyes seemed utterly glazed over, fixed on me as though I were some kind of hero to her.
"..."
Well, before this spiraled entirely out of control, out of consideration for everyone involved, and while I could still maintain a shred of rationality, I simply cancelled Dark Magician Girl's Summoning.
"Hmm!"
Watching her own body dissolve into cascades of golden light, she sat down on the floor, crossed her arms over her chest, made a genuinely indignant, adorable pout, and cast one last long, analytical gaze at my member, which was still in all its imposing and utterly shameless glory, making her cheeks grow even redder before her body disappeared completely into the light.
Giving a dry, faintly sluggish smile, my eyes fell on my friend, who was still in his glory.
I sincerely hope I don't die of blue balls. The worst part of all was that I suspected my ⟨Pleasurable Constitution⟩ bore some of the responsibility for this.
But I don't want to take advantage of Dark Magician Girl's innocence, which, I must admit, is proving to be a considerably more difficult task than I ever imagined.
At some point, we all know, with complete certainty, that something is going to happen, don't we?
Trying to steer my thoughts toward subjects as far as possible from anything remotely sexual, I managed to convince my friend to return to a state of rest, and soon after stepped out of the bathroom, drying my body with a towel.
Yawning, I put on the Kuoh Academy uniform with mechanical movements and headed downstairs.
Only for every single one of my thoughts to be abruptly cut off by the unmistakable and disloyal sound of my stomach growling loudly and without any ceremony whatsoever.
Something tells me that's a sign.
With a dry smile forming on my lips, I raised my hand and scratched the back of my neck awkwardly.
"I'd better eat something before heading to Kuoh."
I walked toward the kitchen, the only thought passing through my head being deciding what to put in my stomach.
Hmm...
Well, why not make cookies? I think I can manage decent cookies, right?
With the idea of cookies taking shape in my head, factoring in that they wouldn't take all that long to be ready, I walked over to the fridge.
Opening it, the interior light illuminated my face as I grabbed cold butter, a fresh egg, a small carton of milk, and a chocolate bar, setting everything carefully on the marble table.
Immediately after, I retrieved from the pantry the vanilla extract, refined sugar, wheat flour, and salt.
Let's get started.
Without waiting another single second, I began beating the softened butter with the sugar, working the mixture until it reached a fluffy, creamy, and slightly airy texture.
With a satisfied smile, I cracked the egg against the edge of the bowl and let it fall inside, adding a few aromatic drops of vanilla that immediately perfumed the air. Gradually, I sifted the flour with a generous pinch of salt, stirring calmly with slow movements until a soft, smooth, buttery dough formed.
I wrapped the dough in clear plastic wrap and left it to rest in the fridge to firm up properly.
In that interval, I chopped the chocolate into irregular pieces and heated the heavy cream over low heat, patiently. As soon as the hot liquid had melted all the dark, fragrant pieces entirely, I stirred with a spatula until everything became a shiny, silky ganache.
Once the dough had firmed up enough, I rolled it out with a pin over the floured counter and cut out small, perfect circles, lining them up carefully on the greased baking sheet. The oven was already waiting, heated to the ideal temperature, and soon the unmistakable smell of browning butter began to spread through every corner of the house like a silent, irresistible wave.
Just from the aroma alone, I think I managed to make something genuinely decent this time.
After a few minutes, I took the cookies out of the oven using heat gloves, observing the golden and even surface of each one with a disproportionate and entirely justified pride. With a satisfied smile, I picked one up.
Warm...
I felt the familiar warmth tingling at my fingertips and, in that exact moment, a thought came out of nowhere.
Wait. Now that I think about it — does my cooking count as alchemy? The ⟨Alchemy⟩ ability clearly improved my performance in food preparation, but my doubt was a different one: did the dishes I made actually gain some kind of bonus because of it?
Well... the only way to find out would be to eat, right? Wrong. There was something I hadn't tested yet.
An alchemist always knows the effects of his own creation.
There is a technique called ⟨Identification⟩, purely alchemical in its nature. To use it, I only needed to inject a small amount of energy into one of my creations to read its properties with precision.
Now that I could manipulate my demonic power with some fluency, it only took injecting a minimal amount of energy into the cookie I was holding...
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
Butter Cookie
A small star-shaped piece of dough, with a delicately sweet and buttery flavor. When consumed, it may cause a mild and pleasant sensation of pleasure.
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
"..."
What in the world kind of strange effect is that?
I tilted my head to the side in genuine confusion, staring at the innocent cookie in the palm of my hand.
Am I making aphrodisiac food now? Seriously?
Well, at least now I have confirmation that ⟨Identification⟩ worked perfectly. Putting the cookies back on the tray, I grabbed one of my potions from my bag and applied the same technique to it.
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
Minor Healing Potion (I)
A small healing vial that, when ingested, spreads a warm sensation through the body while working to close superficial cuts, restore bruising, and return damaged tissue to what would naturally take hours to recover on its own.
〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
Looking at that solitary (I) in the name of the Minor Healing Potion, I really had quite a lot of work ahead of me to improve my healing potions. That was becoming increasingly evident.
With a sluggish smile, I put the vial away and bit into the cookie.
So good...
Feeling a warm, faintly suspicious tingling spreading through my body, I realized with total clarity that I was a walking hazard to society.
After breakfast, I arranged the remaining cookies in a bento box with some care and left the kitchen behind.
I was running a little late for school. I had no choice but to run. Running was becoming an ironic and disturbing constant in my daily life.
✧°✦°✧===✧°✦°✧===✧°✦°✧
Making it through the school gate in time, a long, faintly victorious sigh escaped my lips.
There were still a few students filing in through the main entrance, while others cast lustful glances at the girls' short skirts, desperately and with no attempt at subtlety trying to get a perverted look at their underwear.
Guys, our collective reputation is already not exactly the finest possible. You could at least try, minimally, not to be chronic and pathological perverts in a public space.
Simply ignoring them, I continued walking toward the main entrance.
Suddenly, my eyes naturally drifted toward an impressive figure standing just in front of the entrance.
There was no way not to be instantly surprised.
It was undeniable that the girl was of an uncommon beauty. Her violet eyes, the deep shade of an amethyst, stood out against the white, flawless skin of her small face, bringing sharp definition to every feature: the soft cheeks, the small nose with fine lines, the full, rosy lips. Her hair, black as ebony, cut in a precise bob, fell straight and lustrous around her face with a symmetry that suggested considerable dedication in front of a mirror, the tips ending at exactly the height of her well-defined jaw.
The feminine uniform of Kuoh Academy sat on her with perfect naturalness: a white long-sleeved shirt with silver buttons and subtle vertical stripes, a black ribbon at the collar, a dark cape over the shoulders, a matching corset with refined finish, and, completing the ensemble, a magenta skirt with white detailing that stopped above the knees.
Her bust was modest, but the rest of her figure more than made up for it: well-shaped legs and a round, firm backside, lifted in a curve that the skirt, to be honest, had absolutely no talent for concealing.
Before she could notice I was staring, my eyes moved away from her long white legs and settled on her beautiful, serene, controlled face, while her name surfaced naturally in my thoughts.
Sona Shitori.
Student Council President of Kuoh Academy, and just like Rias, one of the school's three beauties.
And, honestly, I was fairly sure she was a devil.
I had no way to prove it. I could simply ask Rias, but the whole appeal was precisely in not knowing whether the student council president was a devil or not.
Because...
Doubt has its own charm; it's what makes the discovery so exciting.
In any case, setting my strangeness aside, it was a little embarrassing to admit, but between her and Rias, purely by personal and thoroughly subjective preference, I thought the Student Council President was more beautiful.
Maybe it's my unconditional favoritism for girls in glasses.
Speaking of girls in glasses, my eyes shifted to the figure at her side.
Tsubaki Shinra.
Vice President of the Council, and even without belonging to the school's official group of three beauties, she still carried the well-established reputation of the fourth most beautiful girl at Kuoh Academy.
Tsubaki, on her own merits, was no less impressive. Her black hair cascaded down her back in a dense waterfall to knee-length, too voluminous to look natural and too elegant to be a nuisance. Behind her glasses, an unusual detail caught the eye: heterochromatic eyes, the left one in a deep violet and the right one in a light amber that recalled honey against the morning light. Her figure was generous where it needed to be, with an expressive bust that tested the patience of her white school blouse's fabric, and long, well-defined thighs that the pleated wine-red skirt barely bothered to cover.
At this point, I was already beginning to suspect there was something in the water at Kuoh. The average beauty level at that school was reaching statistically questionable proportions.
As I approached, the gazes of both women fell on me at the same time.
I noticed that Sona raised one eyebrow slightly, appearing genuinely surprised to see me, as though my presence broke some pattern she had already mentally catalogued.
"Good morning, Oyama-san. Running late today?"
She raised her delicate fingers in a graceful, economical movement, carefully adjusting her glasses on her nose with the precision of someone who repeats that gesture dozens of times a day and never loses their elegance.
The moment I drew closer to her, several bitter stares were directed my way from different points of the courtyard.
Envy is a horrible thing, guys.
Hiding the lazy smile that was attempting to form on my lips, I raised my hand to the president in a brief, polite greeting, calmly ignoring the weak collective attempt at silent intimidation. "Good morning, Sona-kaichou. Sorry, I woke up a little late today."
"I see. Be more careful next time." Her violet eyes, framed precisely by her glasses, held me with a neutral expression that gave absolutely nothing away.
"I'll do my best, Sona-kaichou." Giving her a light and genuine smile, I moved away and continued on, but for some reason I could clearly feel Sona's gaze resting on my back as I walked away.
It must just be my imagination. I see no real reason for Sona Shitori to show any particular interest in me, unless she is, in fact, a devil.
As these thoughts circulated calmly through my head, without quite realizing it, I had naturally arrived in front of my classroom.
Well, I suppose that's that.
With a resigned smile, I simply walked in.
Author's Note: Sona Shitori has finally made her proper appearance. As a devoted supporter of girls with glasses, I am legally obligated to admit that writing her scenes is a matter of national importance.