Chapter 89

At some point, while being patted with his penis still buried inside her, Erabelle gradually drifted off. She slept deeply and did not wake until the following day.

Of course she had slept deeply. Far too much had happened to both her front and back for it to be otherwise. It had been unavoidable.

“You’re sleepy?”

Dezeb stared incredulously as Erabelle fumbled her way upright amid the writhing mass of black serpents and wiped the drool from her mouth with the back of her hand. Even so, he could not suppress the corners of his mouth from rising. Eventually, he began chuckling.

Do I really look that ridiculous...?

Erabelle briefly worried about her appearance.

But worrying would not solve anything, so she soon stopped. The real problem was that Dezeb had wiped the amusement from his face and was now staring at her far too intently.

Staring. Constantly staring.

Erabelle felt immense pressure. After silently watching her for a long while, he finally asked,

“Isn’t there anything you want to ask me?”

“Do you need a regeneration kit?”

“Hmm?”

Dezeb blinked, apparently trying to understand what he had just heard.

“I also have fast-acting painkillers and ointments.”

“Ah.”

At last seeming to understand, he frowned.

“Why? Do I look like I’m in pain again?”

Even wrapped in black tentacles, he was beautiful. Erabelle had always found that more frightening than the writhing nest of serpents. Perhaps he would have been less frightening if he looked as though he were in pain....

No. That would be chilling in its own way.

Erabelle subtly changed the subject.

“How about coffee? I have several brands. I also have a selection of beer and cigarettes.”

“I see.”

After that brief reply, he clutched his stomach and doubled over. His firm, muscular body began to shake.

“Or perhaps a boxed meal? I have one with smoked sausage and meatballs added....”

He made a strangled sound, then began laughing, his shoulders shaking. Erabelle regarded Dezeb somewhat sourly as he laughed too hard to breathe.

What is it? Does he find smoked sausage funny?

A sudden memory chilled her—the time she had been abandoned in the middle of some ruins after going through a similar process.

Surely he isn’t going to abandon me again....

“Ah, this is driving me insane.”

Dezeb slowly raised his bowed head at an angle. Not a trace of laughter remained on his upturned face. Surrounded by the writhing black serpents, he quietly asked,

“Is there truly nothing else you want to know?”

“Are you perhaps going to abandon me again...?”

“The good old days when I could do that are long gone.”

Dezeb gave a faint laugh and rose.

“You should give up on that dream.”

The tens of thousands of tentacles lying around him were instantly drawn back into his body. His storage capacity was downright unfathomable. Erabelle was slightly impressed.

Was it something like Doramon’s pocket?*

“There you go again, thinking something pointless.”

The dazzling beauty, as though carved from plaster, narrowed his eyes and lifted her into his arms. Erabelle quickly lowered her gaze, then moaned.

“Don’t try to seduce me unless you plan to let me fuck you again.”

Dezeb taunted her despite knowing perfectly well that the semen still inside her was sending aftershocks through her body. It had been bearable while she remained still, but being lifted and moved made it difficult to endure.

“And not here.”

Carrying Erabelle, he walked through the half-destroyed Vermilion ship in search of a bathroom.

“It’s to the r-right....”

“Hmm? The left?”

“Ah....”

Dezeb hummed as he stroked Erabelle’s trembling back.

After tormenting her several more times, he finally found the bathroom. Some debris lay scattered around, but it was largely intact. It appeared to belong to a cabin for ordinary crew members.

“Close your eyes.”

He seated her in the bathtub, pulled over the hose, and poured warm water over her head. Erabelle obediently kept her eyes closed. She flinched at the sudden softness against her lips, but after one light bite to her lower lip, he began washing her hair.

The shampoo smelled needlessly sweet.

“This is nice. It smells good too. We should buy this one for ourselves, shouldn’t we? Instead of dog shampoo.”

How long does he intend to keep bringing up that dog shampoo...?

“You do look like a puppy.”

He played with her curly brown hair, now covered in foam, then cupped her cheek and kissed her again with a soft smack.

“Erabelle.”

“...Yes?”

“Let’s do it just once more after all.”

“Please spare me!”

“All right. Hold on to the bathtub and turn around.”

He made her brace herself against the tub anyway and positioned his penis against her. Thick veins stood ominously along its length, which gleamed with precum. It spread the slick opening still coated with the semen she had not managed to expel and pushed inside.

“Ahhh...!”

With one hand, he supported her lower abdomen as it swelled with the penetration. Feeling as though his weight were pressing down on her even more, Erabelle sobbed, braced herself on his arm, and raised her upper body.

He rested the back of her head against his shoulder and repeatedly stroked her slick lower abdomen.

Erabelle shuddered and sobbed at the sensation of her insides sucking Dezeb’s penis.

He caught her chin in one hand and turned her head. His lips brushed lightly against hers. Then, seeming to pity her, he kissed her tearful eyelids.

His kisses were tender, but the hand pressing steadily against her lower abdomen made her feel his penis even more vividly. As he penetrated her in that position, Erabelle repeatedly murmured for him to spare her.

“I said I would.”

But even those words soon faded when his lips covered hers once more.

Utterly exhausted again, Erabelle went limp.

“This is what always happens when you bathe with your lover. Wouldn’t it be stranger if we innocently did nothing but wash?”

Lover... He uses that word so casually now.

“...I don’t think people usually do it with shampoo foam still piled on their heads.”

“You looked cute, so it’s fine.”

Thinking that it was not fine at all, Erabelle briefly dozed off. When she opened her eyes again, she was lying beneath familiar bedding.

This is my blanket....

Why was something that should have been inside Miro here?

Confused, Erabelle looked toward Miro’s gaping mouth.

“Why are you out here...? Are you crying?”

Miro rolled an eye as tall as a person, shedding enormous tears. Dezeb calmly emerged through the mouth of the weeping whale.

“You’re awake?”

“...Yes.”

“I summoned him. You were exhausted.”

“...Yes.”

As a transport-type Great Spirit, Miro never carried any living being other than his contractor. He did not even physically manifest without his contractor’s consent.

Yet Dezeb had calmly opened Miro, retrieved the casual clothes stored inside him, and was now handing them to her. He appeared to have taken out her blanket and covered her with it as well.

It was incomprehensible, but Erabelle was prepared to accept anything involving him as part of the natural order.

“I’ll change.”

“Take your time and come out when you’re ready.”

Saying that he had something to attend to, Dezeb left first. Erabelle remained in the cabin alone with the weeping Miro.

“Don’t cry. Some things in this world simply can’t be helped.”

As she patted Miro to comfort him and sent him back, enormous tears still falling from his eye, Erabelle suddenly remembered that something similar had happened before.

It had been several years ago. Before her reassignment to a conflict zone, in Camillia’s infirmary, Miro had definitely cried like this then too.

.......

Apparently, this was not his first time.

Well, that was entirely possible. There was nothing in this world Dezeb was not allowed to do.

After changing quickly and leaving the cabin, Erabelle found the Dogs waiting outside.

“Tow it to the main ship and repair it first. Once the work is finished, tow it back to House Avganis.”

Dezeb was instructing the Dogs on salvaging the ship.

“Call the cleanup team and have them clean this place up as well.”

“Yes, understood.”

For some reason, Virgo, their team leader, was slumped dejectedly in a distant corner, far from the Dogs receiving their orders. His head had apparently gone missing again, leaving dozens of serpentine tentacles hanging limply from his neck.

What happened to him this time...?

But that was beside the point.

Erabelle quietly approached him and spoke.

“Chief, you clearly promised yesterday that you would give me 10,000 cp if I came here.”

Virgo flinched. For some reason, everyone around them fell silent as well. Erabelle stiffened and glanced around at all the attention suddenly focused on her.

Dezeb was among those staring, and his gaze was particularly chilling.

“Erabelle.”

“Y-yes?”

The way Dezeb glared at her sent a chill down her spine. Tensing reflexively, Erabelle straightened her back. Even the fine hairs on her body stood on end.

“How can you tell that’s Virgo?”

“His name tag is here.”

Erabelle quickly pointed at the letters attached to the chest of Virgo’s uniform.

“...I see.”

For some reason, Dezeb sighed again. He even pressed firmly against his forehead as though developing a headache.

“It seems you were promised money for coming to me yesterday?”

“I said nothing. Captain Hag was the one who offered me the money first.”

Erabelle quickly established where responsibility lay.

Beside her came the faint rattling of Virgo Hag’s serpentine scales, but she pretended not to hear it. She had to save herself first.

“And here I thought you came because you were worried about me.”

“I was worried.”

“I got excited all by myself, never realizing it was entirely about the money.”

“No. I would have come even without the money.”

“Of course. To you, I’m always nothing more than another job.”

“No. You are not a job.”

“Then what am I?”

Exactly... What was he?