Vol 4 Chapter 43 – At Least I’m Not Being Sexually Assaulted【Vol 4 – Stop Shion’s Fabricated Engagement】

Apparently Shion had been screaming every night about how badly she wanted to see me. At Yuna-san’s recommendation that Shion’s stress might explode at Mach speed at this rate, I ended up infiltrating the room in the royal castle where Shion was staying.

While I’d been sneaking into the castle daily for information gathering, the security level in the important area with guest rooms for state visitors was understandably different. No matter how well I could erase my presence with breathing techniques, I couldn’t make physical confirmation processes nonexistent. So what to do? Simple—this.

“Hya!” (whispered)

“…!!”

Two guards collapsed soundlessly after taking my hand chops from behind. Yes, the answer was violence. Violence truly solves everything. …Though that’s obviously a joke. Besides, if you solve things with violence, it gets complicated later. So it’s better not to rely on violence, but this time there was no other way.

“Nagisa, I’m counting on you.”

“…”

When I called up to the ceiling, the two guards who should’ve been collapsed stood back up. Of course they were both still unconscious. Nagisa was manipulating the two unconscious guards from the attic, making it look like they were continuing their patrol normally. Apparently she used thin strings to control them like puppets. The skills of a super first-class assassin were truly terrifying.

With the surveillance outside the room entrusted to Nagisa, the moment I opened the door and entered, Shion in her dress charged at me full force.

“—Master!!”

“Whoa!?”

“Master, Master, Master, Master—!!”

Shion kept repeating “Master” while hugging me with all her might and grinding her head against my chest. Not that I felt bad about it, but if her charge had hit anyone other than me, they would’ve been run over, you know?

“Hold on, Shion, stay. Calm down.”

“Sniff sniff, sniff sniff.“

“…What are you doing?”

“I’m absorbing Master essence. This is a disciple’s natural right and duty.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! Also, Yuna-san, say something here.”

I sought help from Yuna-san, who was smiling wryly behind Shion, but she easily shook her head.

“Well, give up. After all, my senior disciple has been seriously going off the rails lately because she’s the only one who couldn’t see Master.”

“Seriously…?”

“You should be grateful you’re not being sexually assaulted.”

“What does that mean!?”

“The succubus race is just that affectionate. Me included, of course.”

Yuna-san spoke with a smug expression like she’d said something profound, but wasn’t she just saying succubi have strong sex drives? A thought occurred to me. Could this be exactly why succubi get treated as sluts by society?

Once Shion finally calmed down, we sat down on the sofa. The guest room sofa was naturally top quality, sinking to embrace me when I sat. I found myself calculating how many decades of a commoner’s annual income this one sofa was worth.

“…So Shion, why are you sitting on my lap?”

“Because we’re master and disciple.”

“Don’t think that answer works for everything!”

“It’s fine, isn’t it? Not seeing Master for so long made me remember the time before Master returned from subspace, and you even appeared in my dreams.”

When she put it that way, I was weak to it. With a sigh, I gave up on removing Shion from my lap and turned to Yuna-san for confirmation.

“What about the eavesdropping magic in this room?”

“Three magical devices were planted in the room. Disabling them would reveal that we noticed, so normally I leave them as is. Right now I’ve killed their functions, so don’t worry.”

“That helps.”

And so information exchange time began. Though neither Shion nor I had anything resembling progress. Well, we’d been exchanging information through Yuna-san all along anyway, so naturally. Then we discussed each other’s recent situations.

“—By the way, I’ve been thinking lately.”

“About what, Master?”

“You said succubi only go into heat for people they like, right? And that it’s top secret.”

“Yes, I did say that.”

“But see, it feels strange that even the royal family of the great neighboring power doesn’t know about it.”

“…Does it?”

“Think about it. There’s a succubus princess in the neighboring small country, right? Throughout history, didn’t anyone try to make her a bride, even by force?”

“Master’s thinking is sound. But just to be safe, I investigated again before leaving the country.”

“Oh?”

“There’s no record of a Succubish United Kingdom princess marrying into the Sebas Empire, even going back a thousand years.”

“Then I really do think it’s unnatural.”

If they’d tried even once to welcome a succubus and the engagement fell through, the reason should have been passed down through generations as royal family information. That’s probably why things had been peaceful until now. So why only this time did they fabricate a marriage pact? What came to mind was that the royal family’s military power was in such a pinch that they had to cling to Shion’s fame as the “Demonbane Princess Knight”…

I was even thinking it might be faster to overthrow the current royal family and have Nagisa return to power than to get them to retract the forged pact, when—Shion, who’d been on my lap, stood up with an absurd shriek.

“—It just hit me, Master!”