Gluttony Demon King with the Swampman ~A Man with No Magic Power Who Dreamed of Magic, Wielding Knowledge from His Past Life Through Steady Research and Hard Work to Become the Most Vicious Final Boss~ - Chapter 21: The Duke’s Daughters Sleep Without Clothes

Chapter 21: The Duke’s Daughters Sleep Without Clothes

It was a bath that felt like my whole body was being kneaded and washed.

Soap was dropped straight into the tub and melted into the water, and both of their palms slid over my arms and legs.

Sometimes they intertwined their fingers with mine as if we were lovers, sometimes they coiled their thighs around mine with a slick slide.

There was no way I could stay sane.

Pathetic breaths escaped me over and over, and Zaria and Noiche just grinned down at me, saying “You look like you feel good,” never once stopping their hands.

“All these sigils covering your body… looking at them again, they’re insanely complicated. Even I can’t read them.”

“For real, they’re packed in tight. This must’ve hurt like hell.”

The two of them were completely relaxed.

They were calm enough to start casual chit-chat while staring at the inked tattoos carved into my skin.

Do these girls even have a sense of shame?

“Hey Haro, what does this magic circle do?”

“Th-that one… syncs the tattooed ink with the ink outside…”

“Sync? Oh, so it sends your thoughts to the ink that’s far away!”

“Right, the spell won’t activate if your thoughts don’t reach it. What about this circle over here?”

“It suppresses the ink’s aggression… so it doesn’t… attack everything around it on its own…”

“I see, yeah, that makes sense.”

Zaria and Noiche traced my skin, calmly confirming the meaning of each magic sigil one by one.

While I was in no state to answer properly, the sisters were utterly fascinated by the sigils themselves.

“Huh, nothing drawn on your back?”

Zaria suddenly wondered, pressing herself against me from behind.

She was right; every inch of my body was covered in adjustment formulas for the ink, except my back was left blank. Part of it was because it’s hard to reach alone, but more than that—

“Th-the surface area of skin is limited…”

“Ah, got it. Yeah, that makes sense.”

I wanted to leave room for corrections or expansions later, since redrawing these magic sigils takes an enormous amount of work. That was the whole reason.

Right then, Zaria and Noiche suddenly pressed harder.

The unexpected stimulation made a high-pitched “Hin!” squeak out of my throat, and the two of them giggled with ticklish smiles.

“…So pathetic. You’re so cool when you’re teaching us magic.”

“Don’t bully him, Noiche. Though I do wanna see more of Sensei’s cute side.”

As I thought—they really were predators.

Like a frog stared down by a snake, I couldn’t twitch a muscle, couldn’t even think of running away.

I just kept letting out weak, pitiful noises while my body was toyed with however they wanted for a good while longer.

*

I don’t remember how I escaped.

Maybe I stayed in the hot water too long and passed out from the heat, or maybe exhaustion and pleasure knocked me unconscious—

When I came to, I was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room.

“Whoa, these sheets are way too luxurious.”

Fluffy, silky-smooth. It’s a cliché description, but this was the nicest bedding I’d slept in since my previous life.

I tried to roll over comfortably, only to realize warm bodies were hugging me tight from both sides.

“…”

Zaria and Noiche were sound asleep.

I carefully untangled their limbs and slowly sat up.

The blanket had slipped a little, exposing the naked bodies of the two sleeping girls.

“Well, it’s your house, so I won’t complain…”

So they’re the type that sleeps without clothes.

I pulled the blanket back over them and tiptoed out of the bedroom so I wouldn’t wake them.

There were no real rules for living in the mansion.

We’d each handle some chores, eat together when we were all there—that was about the extent of it.

A while later the two of them woke up, and while we munched on some random bread, I made plans for the day.

“I think I’ll stop by the guild.”

“Oh, sounds good!”

The room that would become my laboratory was still being set up.

I planned to take my time gathering the tools and samples I needed, so for now it wouldn’t hurt to do whatever caught my interest.

The sisters said they’d support my living expenses, but I still wanted to earn my own spending money as much as possible—and places with knowledgeable people like the guild branch master or the appraiser Egiy were always worth visiting.

“Have a good day!”

“Don’t get lost~!”

Seen off by the sisters, I left the mansion.

I walked through the unfamiliar noble district and followed yesterday’s route to the adventurer guild.

The entrance was as noisy as ever.

Even though it was still early morning, the place was fairly crowded. I pushed through the creeping discomfort and headed toward the counter.

“Hey, that kid…”

“The white-haired shorty, the rumored dragon slayer?”

“I heard he’s a mage. If that’s true, size doesn’t mean anything.”

…The adventurers were saying whatever they wanted. They were staring. I was the center of attention.

It had only been one day, and the rumors had already spread this far. News travels fast in this community.

“Ah, Haro-san! Good morning!”

The receptionist from yesterday waved me over, so I went to the counter. The woman first handed me a familiar-looking card.

My guild card.

I finally had an ID.

“As we discussed yesterday, Haro-san will start at C-rank.”

Got it, I nodded.

The adventurers eavesdropping on our conversation at the counter started murmuring, “Straight to C-rank!?” Zaria had been shocked yesterday too, so it really was a very favorable starting point.

“For C-rank, the quota is either five requests of your own rank per year, or twenty requests of D-rank or lower.”

“…What happens if I don’t meet it?”

“Unfortunately you’ll be removed from the guild. Though you can reapply.”

I see, that’s the quota.

But twenty requests a year didn’t sound that bad. If I do same-rank requests, only five are needed… and the benefits of having a guild card far outweigh that.

“Finally, please check the card details one more time. We can correct anything wrong.”

I nodded and looked at my card.

It was simple—just a name and rank.

Haro Swampman…

The fake name I applied with was correctly written there.

“…”

I had thrown away my family.

From today on, this was fine.

“U-um… is everything okay?”

“Yeah, looks good. Can I check the request board?”

“Of course!”

The receptionist looked a bit confused but gave a cheerful reply.

I immediately started looking for something I could take.

“Escort for a blacksmith group… the pay is pretty good.”

One new-looking request caught my eye: an expedition for ore mining and bodyguard duty.

It was D-rank with better pay than most, but it would take a long time and the date was a ways off, so I passed for now.

“Herb gathering—this one looks doable.”

An E-rank request to gather medicinal herbs in the forest north of town. Two ranks lower, but perfect for warming up. They were herbs I was already familiar with, so identifying them would be easy.

There were also permanent requests.

These were monster subjugation jobs always posted on the board—no need to formally accept them.

You just had to kill the specified monsters like goblins or wolves and you’d get paid per head. Basically “pocket money you can earn on the side.” I wasn’t sure if they counted toward the yearly quota.

Lately goblins had multiplied too much, so their bounty had been raised.

“Proof of kill is the magic stone…”

The gem called a “magic stone” that we got from the ice dragon was the organ every monster used to conduct magic power.

In this world, the definition of a monster was “has a magic stone or not.” Creatures without one were just animals.

Ink was no exception, but in her case the magic stone had been transplanted inside my body, so it wasn’t visible from the outside.

“I’d like to accept this request, please.”

“Yes, leave it to me!”

I accepted the request and left the guild.

The herb gathering spot was in the forest spreading north of Dura—a place I had wanted to visit for a while.

I had read in a book that there were some decent-sized ancient ruins there, and research on the stone tablets and wall paintings was ongoing. This was a perfect chance to go see them.