Ch.801Anyway, It Doesn’t Seem to Be My Responsibility, Right?

Silence sometimes becomes a stronger message than any words.

When I remained silent for a long time, dumbfounded by the absurd excuse that her Karma of Murder had gone beyond her control, Hersella realized her nonsense had been immediately seen through and became even more flustered, offering all sorts of excuses.

For example,

“A-Actually… you see, I was having a good—no, not good—bad dream and unconsciously summoned power while sleep-talking! That must be it!”

‘….’

What kind of sleep-talking is that?

Flailing limbs in your sleep is one thing, but awakening dormant power within the soul, drawing it out, giving it both firmness and flexibility, and controlling each movement?

How could that possibly happen while sleeping?

If such a thing were possible, mages would burn down their houses every time they had nightmares.

“Oh, not that? Then… perhaps… residue from the potion I was covered in when slaying monsters! Some of it must have remained!”

‘….’

The holy storm from the sacred sword completely erased that. If any residue remained after being hit by that, Invidius’s arm would have to grow back.

“Well… actually… I was trying to train myself to endure in case I face similar attacks in battle… that’s it!”

‘….’

Training, she says.

That’s called development, woman. You’re making an already vulnerable area even more of a weakness.

Why wouldn’t I have indulged in self-comfort since possessing this body?

I’ve been avoiding it because if that area gets developed, I might not be able to withstand attacks targeting that attribute, which I can barely endure now by gritting my teeth.

Once you know, there’s no going back. Once you remember, you crave more. That’s the essence of pleasure.

“Haah…”

I couldn’t help but sigh.

Here I am, barely managing to suppress my building frustration through sadistic combat to avoid female corruption. Meanwhile, the original owner of this body is flooring the accelerator toward corruption.

‘Is that what you call an excuse? If you’re a warrior, act like one—don’t try to get away with clumsy lies. Just confess honestly.’

“Kugh…! How dare you say such things! Fine, I’ll tell you! What’s wrong with wanting to… to touch my own body! I have nothing to be ashamed of! At times like this, shouldn’t you have the decency to give me privacy!”

…Well, that wasn’t quite the level of honesty I meant.

Her logic was technically correct.

After all, I, merely an uninvited guest, had no right to stop the barbarian princess from exploring her late-blooming sexuality and comforting herself.

Normally, the mature response would be to pretend not to notice, turn away, and quietly give her space.

The problem was… that was impossible for me.

‘…How am I supposed to give you privacy? When you touch this body, I feel exactly the same sensations.’

“Oh.”

While Hersella could disconnect her consciousness from her body’s sensations, allowing her to step back and observe whatever happened to her body as if it were happening to someone else…

That was a skill I couldn’t even begin to imitate, being more firmly bound to the flesh than Hersella herself.

Of course, even Hersella seemed unable to disconnect when under aphrodisiac attacks, becoming too overwhelmed by bodily sensations to even think of breaking the connection. That’s why she succumbed this time.

…Anyway, as long as I couldn’t block bodily sensations like she could, what had just happened might have been self-pleasure for Hersella, but for me, it was like someone else fondling my body.

“W-Well… yes, I suppose that’s true.”

Hersella seemed to accept my response.

“I thought I’d grown accustomed to this, but to think such issues would arise…”

Two souls sharing one body, where self-pleasure becomes tantamount to violating the other person.

Truly the tragedy of the commons.

—-

Once her passion had subsided, shame that had been pushed aside by embarrassment seemed to flood in all at once, and Hersella maintained a stubborn silence afterward.

‘So, the problem is…’

Since she didn’t seem to have fled completely into her unconscious, I explained to the silent Hersella why we shouldn’t do such things.

The truly rational and crucial reason that the more we stimulate those sensations, the more developed and sensitive they become.

“……”

I couldn’t tell if Hersella accepted this, but… at least she seemed to understand my warning, as I wasn’t awakened again that night.

And the next morning.

Demian and I, looking much fresher, set out for the mansion where Lena and Frider were waiting.

======[ Leopold ]======

Millia and her party returned to the Imperial Island with the dragon’s remains and received tremendous acclaim.

The Holy Maiden who had vanquished the monster that devastated the island. Had the island not been in ruins, they would have laid out red carpets from the city gates to the imperial palace and mobilized every citizen for a victory parade—and even that would have been insufficient for their achievement.

Of course, the person they wanted to praise and welcome hadn’t even returned to the island.

“…So, Baron Median remained in the Celestial Mountains? To find his family heirloom?”

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”

At a private audience with Emperor Leopold the Radiant for debriefing,

Nigel, representing the party, knelt on one knee and bowed his head respectfully before explaining what had happened when Leopold asked why she had come instead of Haschal.

The ambush by elves, the battle against Dragonborn and the True Dragon with the dark faction joining in, the victory report of defeating them with help from the Holy Corps, and the crash of the airship “Tears of the Tower.”

And finally, the news that Haschal had sent them back to the island while he remained in the north to search for his family heirloom.

“I see…”

Leopold was grateful, for the first time in his life, that he didn’t have a single hair left on his head. At least he wouldn’t lose any more. The result was shocking enough to make him grateful for such things.

“I did tell him to repel elves and Dragonborn by force if necessary… but to completely annihilate them.”

“They attacked us first, so we had no choice but to retaliate.”

“Ah, I’m not blaming you.”

Leopold reassured Nigel, who was sweating profusely, clearly uncomfortable with this unprecedented private audience with the Emperor, while contemplating the meaning and repercussions of Haschal’s actions.

‘So… the claim of revenge for the World Tree was definitely false.’

The fact that they ambushed Haschal’s party immediately upon seeing them, without any interest in the True Dragon, meant Alvheim’s target was never Nidhogg but rather the Empire’s First Sword who would be sent to subjugate it.

In other words, Alvheim had begun to bare its fangs openly against the Empire.

‘They must have wanted to eliminate the Empire’s most crucial military strength before starting a full-scale war.’

But they failed. Despite deploying six Guardians and dozens of Patrollers.

Leopold couldn’t know exactly how much military power Alvheim was still hiding, but he suspected this level of damage must be quite severe for them.

In human terms, six heroes and dozens of masters had died—comparable to the total number of heroes and masters the Empire possessed.

If Alvheim’s hidden power was strong enough to suffer such losses without any impact, the continent would have belonged to the elves long ago.

Therefore, Leopold judged that they would likely lie low for a while, focusing on recovering their lost strength.

‘What a shame. If the Empire were in a stable condition, we could have made a move against Alvheim at this opportunity.’

Of course, it wasn’t just Alvheim whose national power had been shattered by war—the Empire was in the same situation, if not worse.

While Haschal and her subordinates had gained tremendous power through recent turmoil, the Empire’s national strength had been nearly depleted through successive wars.

No matter how strong Haschal, the Empire’s trump card, might be, she and her few subordinates couldn’t fight a war alone. To push back Alvheim’s great forest, they needed to somehow restore the Empire’s military power first.

‘And… the airship crashed, did it? Of all places, at Castle Faelrun.’

The airship crash made even Leopold sigh. The crash itself wasn’t the issue. If it crashed due to some defect, they could pressure the Magic Tower to identify and fix the problem.

The problem was that the airship had crashed specifically at Castle Faelrun.

Though miraculously there were no casualties, the castle walls were destroyed, which would result in substantial financial losses.

Grand Duke Valdemar, who was already pouring massive funds into rebuilding the northern wall, wouldn’t simply laugh off such damage.

‘He’ll certainly demand full compensation for the wall repairs.’

If one were to determine responsibility, the person who should pay for repairs would be Haschal, who sent the airship there and caused the crash… but Leopold knew her character well.

If Grand Duke Valdemar were to meet Haschal and demand payment for the wall, Haschal would probably—

‘Either clash with the Grand Duke or try to shift responsibility to us.’

Leopold thought the latter was more likely. As far as he knew, Haschal was the only friend of Valdemar’s daughter, Frider van Faelrun.

No matter how aggressive Haschal became as she grew stronger, surely she wouldn’t send her friend’s father to heaven.

‘Considering she sent her own father to heaven, I can’t say the possibility is zero… but surely even she wouldn’t go that far.’

So, the cost of repairing Faelrun Castle would ultimately become the Empire’s responsibility.

‘Repair costs…’

To the imperial treasury already groaning under the costs of island restoration, imperial army reorganization, and handling various incidents.

‘…I’ll have to place the responsibility on the Magic Tower.’

Since they packaged a defective product as complete and caused an accident, the Magic Tower should bear the compensation responsibility.

‘I apologize in advance, Floheta.’

Like attracts like.

Just as one becomes stained black when close to ink, Leopold’s thinking was gradually being influenced by Haschal, becoming more like her.