The moment I heard those words, my mind went completely blank. Feeling my face heat up for no good reason, I picked up a book that happened to be nearby as though avoiding his gaze. Then I sat down in the armchair, pretended I had heard nothing, and opened it.
Of course, I could not read a single word.
I mechanically turned the pages while trying to think about something else.
Something much more practical and important.
For example, how to rescue the twin demons….
Actually, there was not much I needed to think about. I had already succeeded at this quest in the game before. I just had to proceed exactly as I had when I played it back then.
I accessed the shop and checked the items required to complete the quest. When I added up their prices, I needed exactly one thousand points.
The points I currently had were 200p.
Nowhere near enough.
The first method that came to mind was offering souls, but I was not particularly eager to do that. Every soul I offered brought the Demon King’s resurrection that much closer.
It was an option I wanted to avoid whenever possible.
Wait a second.
I lowered the book slightly and glanced at Theo.
The easiest and fastest way to earn points was already right in front of me.
Until only a few hours ago, I had been indignant that I was not some breadwinner supporting the household through OnlyFans….
Apparently, I was going to have to do something similar.
No, something even worse.
The first time was the hard part. Once you crossed the line, everything afterward became easier.
I had already slept with Theo, so I could simply keep the momentum going, maintain a steady physical relationship with him, and accumulate Evil Points.
After all, this experience had already proven beyond doubt that Theo found Shane’s body attractive.
I closed the book and was about to call Theo over.
But before I could, Theo stood up first.
Then he suddenly wrapped his arms tightly around me where I sat in the chair.
His gentle voice tickled my ear.
“Thank you for agreeing even though I asked something so unreasonable.”
The tone of his words changed.
“And… I’m sorry I hurt you, Rihen.”
Huh?
“Since you said you won’t sell your body anymore, I won’t touch you like that again either. I promise.”
Theo continued speaking softly with both arms wrapped around me.
W-What?
What is this?
Why are you acting like this all of a sudden after even stealing kisses from me in secret?
I could understand it.
Theo was fundamentally aligned with the good faction.
At first, he had been so shocked by the fact that I supposedly sold my body that he had rather forcefully demanded a relationship with me, but now that he had regained his senses, it seemed he had returned to being the Theo he normally was.
Being good was great.
It was like Theo.
Like a hero.
But I had to save the world.
I needed to collect points and buy items.
Still, in this situation, I could hardly shamelessly insist that I wanted to keep having that kind of relationship with him.
Even if circumstances had half-forced me into playing the role of a slut, there were still lines I ought to maintain.
For now, I gently pushed Theo away.
“Right. Go wash up.”
Theo keenly studied my expression before obediently going into the bathroom.
The sound of running water came from beyond the door.
Only then did I release the breath I had been holding and clutch my head.
The situation was tangled, I was running out of time, and I still had to clear the quest.
I had no idea how long I sat there racking my brain before a strange solution suddenly came to me.
Putting that solution into practice might hurt Theo emotionally.
It might even instill some twisted values in him.
But from where I stood now, it seemed like the best option available.
After finishing his bath, Theo announced that this time, he would make breakfast.
He confidently said he had learned some simple cooking while working at the tavern, but I did not trust him at all.
What if he cut himself while chopping vegetables?
The thought alone made me anxious.
“It’s fine. I’ll do it.”
“No. You’re tired, Rihen. I’ll do it, so just rest.”
Theo clearly had no intention of listening to me.
He rolled me tightly in the blanket like a wrap, laid me down on the bed, and went off to cook.
The sound of a kitchen knife striking the cutting board, boiling water, and dishes clattering filled the kitchen.
Before long, a rich savory smell tickled my nose, and a steaming chicken stew appeared on the table.
“Thanks to the Goddess of Abundance for providing our daily bread.”
We clasped our hands together, offered a brief prayer before the meal, and began eating.
The broth was rich, and the meat was tender.
It tasted far better than I had expected, so I praised Theo several times.
After cleaning up, we started practicing swordsmanship to help digest the meal.
It was an astonishingly ordinary daily routine considering the little incident that had happened last night.
There was almost nothing left for me to teach Theo.
His skill had already surpassed mine.
He still had not manifested sword aura and therefore had not yet reached the level of a Sword Master, but in pure swordsmanship, Theo was superior.
If I used demonic abilities like Flame or Stealth, I could still overwhelm him for now, but that was another matter.
So lately, I had been adding handicaps to our matches.
Today, we decided to spar with wooden swords while Theo wore a blindfold.
At first, Theo was pushed back.
Having lost his sight, it took him some time to track my presence.
I deliberately scattered my footsteps, suppressed my breathing, and circled around him.
But soon, the flow of the match changed.
Theo did not rely on sound alone.
He pinpointed my position through the sensation of air brushing past him, vibrations through the ground, and his uniquely sharp instincts.
Our wooden swords collided several times with dull cracks.
Theo blocked my sword precisely, and whenever I retreated, he immediately closed the distance.
I tried to evade his sword, but my foot caught on a stone and I lost my balance.
My body tilted backward as I stumbled, and at the same time, Theo lost his balance while trying to catch me.
Theo and I fell together.
His body practically came down on top of mine.
Now that he was twenty, I had no idea when he had grown this much.
His shoulders had become broader than mine, and his thick chest pressed down on me.
As our breaths tangled and our body heat overlapped, something difficult to describe passed between us.
Through our touching chests, I could feel every beat of his heart.
Neither of us moved.
We both held our breath as though by agreement.
It felt as if time itself had stopped with us.
Theo suddenly snapped back to his senses and pulled off the blindfold covering his eyes.
He quickly moved away from me.
“Rihen, are you okay?”
He rolled up the hem of my trousers and examined my ankle.
To check whether I had sprained it, he carefully held my ankle and pressed it here and there.
A faint aching pain spread wherever his hands touched.
“Hngh.”
A soft groan escaped through my teeth.
Apparently imagining something inappropriate again, Theo’s face turned even redder.
After applying medicinal herbs and wrapping the ankle in a bandage, it healed completely in less than an hour.
Theo said the muscles might still have been startled by the fall, so he diligently massaged my entire leg.
The hands kneading my calf ultimately never managed to move above my knee.
“You should massage here too.”
I grabbed his wrist and casually placed his hand on my thigh.
Theo visibly flinched.
His fingertips went stiff, and his gaze wavered awkwardly.
Seriously, what was he planning to do?
A dry laugh escaped me before I realized it.
He liked me this much, yet he was saying we would never sleep together again.
Give me a break.
I kept the thought to myself and looked away as though nothing had happened.
In any case, aside from little problems like this, the relationship between Theo and me seemed astonishingly unchanged.
But peel back just one layer, and the situation was entirely different.
That peace was like walking through a room filled with oil while holding a lit match.
The moment I let go, the match would fall to the floor.
And everything would become different from before.
Three days from now, I planned to personally set this relationship on fire.
For this world I loved.
And for the hero, Theo.
***
Theo looked at Rihen as he emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel.
Drops of water still clung to his lean, firm body.
Inevitably, the scenes from last night came back to him.
Rihen pinned beneath him, panting.
His unexpectedly delicate and sensitive skin, his quickened breaths, his high-pitched cries.
The raw redness around his eyes and the parted lips that seemed desperate for breath remained vivid in Theo’s memory.
A dangerous impulse stirred deep within him.
The thought of devouring him.
The desire to pry apart his body and soul and learn every last thing about him.
The persistent urge to fill his insides with his cum.
Rihen’s naked body surely had not been something allowed only to him.
Even if Theo had been his first from behind, there had certainly been customers who had held Rihen before him.
That fact nurtured an anxiety he could not explain.
An unreasonable thought passed through his mind.
He wanted to leave hickeys everywhere that clothing could not cover.
He wanted to mark Rihen’s white neck with bite marks and leave kiss marks on his wrists and ankles as well.
So everyone would know that Rihen belonged to him.
Then no one would dare approach him carelessly.
If some lunatic got bold and swept his gaze over Rihen with lust in his eyes….
Theo would blind him.
He would make sure the bastard could never look at what belonged to Theo again.
And for Rihen, Theo would prepare a very large, cozy room.
He would lay him down on a wide, soft bed and make sure he could not take even a single step outside it.
He would spend all day tangled up with him, carving a path inside his belly in the shape of his cock.
He would melt Rihen’s soul into a helpless mess with pleasure until his mind was filled with nothing but Theo.
Until Rihen spent the rest of his life looking only at him and calling only his name.
The fantasy was so violent that even Theo himself was startled by it.
But he could not.
He could not do something so horrible.
Theo realized that his desires were growing beyond his control.
He was supposed to repay Rihen for everything he had done for him, yet his heart kept trying to cross the line.
At this rate, he would eventually hurt Rihen.
He approached Rihen, who was quietly reading a book, and carefully embraced him.
It was to restrain himself.
“Since you said you won’t sell your body anymore, I won’t touch you like that again either. I promise.”
Those words had not truly been meant for Rihen.
It was a promise Theo had made to himself.
Could saying it aloud really suppress his lust?
That fundamental doubt suddenly arose.
Even now, merely smelling Rihen’s scent was enough to send blood rushing downward….
But this was not something he had the luxury of choosing.
He had to suppress his lust.
If he touched Rihen one more time, he might cross a line that a human being should never cross.
So what happened last night had to remain nothing more than a one-time fantasy.
For Rihen’s sake.
And for the sake of the peaceful ‘family’ relationship between himself and Rihen.