Chapter 131: Not All Smiles Are Friendly (R-18)

"Just a second..." Max continued working for another moment. Then, suddenly, every rune he’d written in the air lit up at once, forming a glowing circle that remained suspended for barely a second before disappearing completely.

"Ahh... there it is."

Yennefer blinked.

Before she could ask what he’d found, Max reached down between the seat and the backrest and pulled out a tiny, button-like device.

Yennefer stared at it.

"What is that?"

Max casually held it up between his fingers.

"You tell me."

He tossed it out through the open window before adding with a wide smirk,

"I’m guessing it’s a hidden listening device."

His eyes shifted toward Yennefer.

"Your friend put it here?"

"That bitch... and I even stayed out late to help her..." Yennefer said angrily.

Max, meanwhile, shifted from the back seat toward the front, looking thoroughly amused.

He briefly considered pointing out the obvious—that by helping Grace, Yennefer was essentially helping arrange for someone else to take her place.

But then again...

He’d be the bad guy either way.

So Max wisely decided to keep that particular thought to himself.

"Well, she is very much fuckable..." he said casually, completely unfazed by Yennefer’s anger.

He paused before adding with a grin,

"But I don’t know if I’d still be alive after I fucked her."

Yennefer had assumed Max wouldn’t find out that Grace was a dangerous woman.

Hell, even Yennefer herself hadn’t realized just how cautious Grace was—or that she’d gone as far as planting a hidden listening device in her car.

But that raised another question.

How had Max even noticed it?

"How do you know she put one in here?" Yennefer asked, her irritation giving way to genuine curiosity. "And how did you find it?"

"Just a hunch..." Max said with a smirk.

As Yennefer continued driving, he casually rested his hands on her thighs and gave them a playful squeeze.

If she asked him to explain how he’d known, though, the real answer was a little more complicated.

He’d read enough novels in his previous life to recognize the kinds of characters that usually appeared in stories like the one his life had become. A transmigrated protagonist probably wasn’t going to spend his entire life surrounded by harmless shopkeepers and ordinary people.

There were bound to be dangerous characters eventually.

And Grace might simply be the first one.

"As for how I found it..." Max continued, "I used a few rune arrays to detect even the smallest electromagnetic disturbances. And there it was."

Yennefer’s eyebrows rose.

"You can already use rune arrays that complex?"

She sounded genuinely impressed.

She hadn’t even known there were rune arrays capable of detecting electromagnetic forces in the first place.

"I guess I can," Max replied with a casual shrug. Then his expression turned curious. "But how do you know her?"

He paused before adding,

"And what does she do?"

Yennefer sighed.

"She came into my shop once, bought some herbs and a few other things, and eventually became a regular customer. I don’t actually know much about her."

She glanced at him briefly before returning her attention to the road.

"But her surname tells you more than I could. Haven’t you ever heard of the Melmarc name?"

Max shook his head, doing his best to look like he was simply trying to keep up with the knowledge the previous owner of this body should’ve known.

There was still plenty about this world he didn’t know, after all.

And since he was barely an adult, Yennefer didn’t find his lack of knowledge particularly strange. Not many people knew much about the Melmarc family anyway.

"In simple terms, the Melmarcs are basically a mafia family," she explained. "They deal in illegal herb trades and all sorts of other things."

She frowned slightly.

"The potions you’re selling them might end up being traded through those channels too. Though I don’t understand why she’s making such a fuss over a few healing potions."

Yennefer sighed.

"Sure, they’re difficult to get. The army buys up most of them before they even reach the market. But a family like theirs should have at least one potion maker working for them. They should be able to produce some themselves..."

Her expression remained puzzled.

"So I don’t really understand why she needs to go through all this trouble just to get a few."

Max didn’t know either, but he was sure as hell going to find a way to use the situation to his advantage.

Still, solving the mystery wasn’t his priority right now.

His immediate concern was figuring out some way to get Grace into bed with him.

And that was going to be a considerably bigger challenge than dealing with Yennefer and Zerena.

Grace was in her late thirties, which made her noticeably younger than the other two women. Not that Yennefer and Zerena weren’t attractive—they’d clearly benefited from years of exposure to potions, herbs, and everything else that came with their lifestyles.

But Grace was still young enough to make Max feel like he was dealing with an entirely different kind of challenge.

And she was married too.

Her husband was still alive, which meant Max could be fairly certain she was already getting some action at home. *’Not better than what I’ll give her.’*

If he wanted to get her into bed, he’d have to come up with a really good plan.

It also meant he’d be trying to make her cheat on her husband, which could be considerably harder. Though, in some cases, that wasn’t necessarily true.

Max could only hope Grace turned out to be one of those cases.

Seeing him lost in thought, Yennefer glanced at him and asked,

"So, do you find her *’fuckable’?" she asked, deliberately making quotation marks with her fingers.

"Of course. Why wouldn’t I?"

Max answered without hesitation, casually squeezing her thighs as he spoke.

She glared at him, her expression tightening as her eyes dropped toward his hands.

"Then take your hands away before I break them."

Max chuckled and finally pulled them back.

"I said she’s fuckable, but I didn’t get to fuck her..."

"Our deal was for you to find a big-boobed milf," Yennefer replied sternly. "I did that and introduced you to her. There was never any agreement that you’d also get to fuck her."

Max shook his head.

"I never said anything about you merely introducing them to me," he replied. "The exact words I used, if I remember correctly, were, ’You’re going to help me fuck them.’"

Yennefer’s expression immediately darkened.

The memory came rushing back—the day she’d made that deal with Max, which had somehow become one of the darkest days of her life.

And the worst part?

It hadn’t even been that long ago.

"’And when I’m not busy fucking them, you’ll be my personal cum dump...’" Max continued, casually quoting his own words as his hands returned to squeezing her thighs.

Yennefer’s eye twitched.

She was beginning to regret ever agreeing to that damn deal.

Realizing she probably wasn’t getting away from his hands anytime soon, Yennefer glared at him, her irritation written all over her face.

Max simply ignored it with an amused smirk.

"Oh, did you pick up the herbs I asked you for?"

"No. We’d already left the store by then," she replied, still glaring at him. She clearly wasn’t in the mood to talk.

At this rate, it seemed her future involved constantly dealing with Max’s ridiculous demands—and, judging by how things had been going lately, far more of his taste than she ever wanted to think about.

Then another realization struck her.

It finally explained why Max hadn’t seemed remotely worried about all her threats to stop helping him.

She’d thought introducing him to a milf would be enough to satisfy their agreement. But now she understood.

As long as Max still had those notes—the same notes she’d been using to teach her grandson potion making—he had no reason to let her walk away.

No matter how many times she threatened to stop cooperating, Max could simply remind her of what she stood to lose.

Yennefer’s expression darkened.

But she couldn’t help thinking about what she’d just witnessed.

The speed at which Max had constructed that rune array—without ink, paper, or even a proper casting medium, using nothing but his finger and mana—had left a strong impression on her.

Whatever else she might think of him, his talent was undeniable.

And if enduring Max’s demands was the price she had to pay to secure that knowledge for her family...

She would endure far worse than simply sucking a penis.

With a tired sigh, Yennefer finally said, "Since you’re not going to stop stuffing your dick down my throat, can you at least choose to do it in the evening or around noon?"

"I’ll try, if it fits my schedule," Max replied casually. "Now, about those herbs. Can we get them now?"

Yennefer reluctantly nodded.

"Fine. But you’re paying for them, right?"

"Of course I am..." Max said with a smile.

Yennefer’s mood seemed to improve slightly at the answer.

She kept the conversation going, curiosity slowly replacing some of her earlier irritation.

"And how are you planning to fuck her? I’m assuming you can’t just force her into it with potions or something like that."

Max nodded.

"Yeah. She’s too dangerous to try something like that with. I’ll have to use a more mixed approach this time."