Senior, I've Come to Visit - Chapter 61

“Seven years old isn’t a baby….”

“You were a baby. You’re still this small now, so imagine how tiny you must’ve been back then.”

I wasn’t a baby, but I had been very young.

“You were only seven years old then. You didn’t do a single thing wrong. Not even one.”

Iella had said something similar. Did other people really think that way? That doing something like that was understandable simply because I’d been young.

“Your sister is alright now, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. I checked on her that same day, and she was fine. I also visited once recently, and she was fine then too. Maybe because I asked the queen for time to think, she hasn’t touched her for now. But… the queen summoned me again, so I have to go to the queen’s palace in three days.”

Thinking about it made my heart sink again.

I’d already decided to lie and pretend I’d make poison, and I’d prepared for it, but I didn’t want to go. I’d rather go on a hundred subjugations.

“You don’t have to go.”

“I do. If I don’t, my family will be in danger….”

“I can stop the queen.”

“How?”

Startled, I pulled back from his arms to meet his eyes.

“If I just tell the queen that we’re dating, that alone will be enough. The queen can’t touch me or anyone I’m with. If you give me permission, I’ll tell her about us.”

Ah….

Was it because of the power of the ducal family?

Seeing how the queen never touched noble wizards and only targeted me, a commoner, it made sense. Dating Nardi wouldn’t suddenly make me a noble, but it would put me in a position too closely linked to nobility for the queen to openly threaten.

Even in the Magic Tower, nobles usually dated nobles, and commoners dated commoners, so the queen would’ve never guessed something like this. As someone aristocratic to her bones, the idea of a noble and a commoner dating probably wouldn’t even occur to her. And not just any noble, but the Gracian ducal house.

“If we hadn’t kept our relationship a secret from the start, she wouldn’t have even made a request like that.”

“…Maybe so.”

It didn’t feel real yet.

After shaking me for so long, making me anxious and unstable… Nardi was speaking of a solution so casually. Even if it felt absurdly simple, I still instinctively wondered if there would be any problems.

“…It might be a good opportunity to make it public.”

Nardi seemed more interested in this than the queen matter. He sounded like his worries about the queen were already gone. Or maybe he never worried to begin with.

“But… we’re still dating now, right?”

“What do you mean? I told you I was taking back everything I said that night.”

“Oh. Right.”

Even though I’d blurted out that we should break up, Nardi seemed unmoved and still wanted us to continue. He quickly hugged me, as if worried my words meant something else, and nodded.

“I don’t mind if it’s not a secret. I don’t mind if other people know.”

“…Really?”

Nardi really could be simple at times.

“Yeah.”

The solution was so simple it felt ridiculous, but it seemed there truly wouldn’t be any problems.

Except… one thing nagged at me.

“If we don’t hide our relationship and the queen naturally finds out, would that be enough to resolve everything without you having to meet her yourself?”

“You don’t want me to meet the queen?”

“Yeah. She’s dangerous.”

Nardi might be someone who could speak to the queen from an equal or nearly equal position, but even so, I didn’t want him meeting her one-on-one. The uneasiness and fear I felt toward the queen hadn’t gone away.

“Oh, baby….”

“?”

He made a sympathetic sound, as if worried about me, then hugged me tightly. His bare upper body was hot, warm, and his large hand patted my back. The heat spreading across my whole back made my heart settle.

“As you know, I’m not afraid of that woman.”

“I didn’t know that, but… I’m glad.”

“Haha, don’t worry about anything regarding the queen. I’ll take care of it.”

“…Okay.”

Reassuring….

“If you’d told me from the beginning, it would’ve been better.”

“…Yeah.”

I felt the same, and I regretted it deeply. A terrifying situation with no solution at all had suddenly found an answer once I talked to Nardi, and it didn’t even feel like such a big problem anymore.

He released the hug, held both my hands in his, and met my eyes.

“You know you were wrong, right?”

“Yeah, I was wrong.”

“It’s alright, just don’t do that again. Don’t keep everything to yourself and worry alone.”

“I won’t.”

Like an obedient lamb, I nodded. I really needed to fix these bad habits. Worrying about things alone, and saying things I didn’t truly mean just because of a momentary emotion.

“I didn’t think straight back then, but I’ll do better from now on. And the things I said that day… I didn’t mean any of them.”

“…That’s a relief. I’ve been anxious this whole time. Honestly, since I was the one who pushed and sucked your breasts first, I thought maybe you only said we should sleep together because you acted impulsively too….”

“There’s a little truth in that, but….”

Seeing Nardi’s expression stiffen, I quickly shook my head. He looked so startled I almost couldn’t speak.

“From the beginning, if any other man came to visit me because I was sick and said he’d suck my breast, I would’ve rejected him instantly. There’s nobody who could do that except you, and I accepted it because it was you.”

Honestly, imagining another man doing that made me feel disgusted enough to reject him on the spot.

“…Really?”

“Yeah, and at first, I honestly didn’t know how long we’d be seeing each other, but the more we dated, the more I liked you, so later I thought we’d be together for a long time. I…!”

Before I could finish, he suddenly grabbed me and hugged me tightly. He kissed my face again and again, everywhere—cheeks, forehead, the corner of my eye. It had been so long since I felt this sensation that it made me smile.

“Do you like me?”

“Yeah.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressed my lips to his cheek, and kissed him too. Soft.

In an instant, my whole body was lifted and moved aside, and the next moment, I was lying on the bed. I looked up at Nardi spreading his arms and legs like a giant four-legged beast looming over me.

“I can’t hold back anymore.”

Reflexively, I glanced at his pants.

“That’s what it looks like….”

It was unbelievable the fabric was managing to hold together. Maybe he’d cast some kind of reinforcement spell on it.

“I thought I’d go crazy not being able to do it for so long.”

As if following a natural rule, he reached to undress me, but I gently caught his hand.

“You’re hurt.”

I should’ve used more healing magic earlier, but he stopped me, so the red wound was still vivid.

“My soul is perfectly healed.”

“No, your body. Let me use healing magic one more time. We can do it after you’re healed.”

I reached toward the still bothersome wound.

“No, Eloise, if you use any more strength, it’ll be a problem. You already have low stamina.”

Wait… so that was why he didn’t want me using healing magic earlier? I had misunderstood and felt hurt for nothing.

Even so, I stubbornly tried to focus and cast healing magic, but it was impossible. In an instant, he unbuttoned my clothes and stripped them off, and my hand, which was reaching for his chest, touched only the skin of his torso before falling away. The connected upper and lower garment slid down, exposing my breasts.

“Ah, really….”

I needed to heal him first.

“You’re really pretty.”

He answered me while lowering his body. His gaze and hand reached my softly rounded, milk white breasts and the tender pink nipples.

“Ah….”

The way he stared so intently and touched me so gently suddenly made me embarrassed.

The embarrassment that countless rounds of sex had dulled came back all at once now that it had been a while. Maybe because it had been some time for Nardi too, he braced his elbows on the sheets, caging me between his arms, staring down at me with unusual focus. He used his hand to gather the flesh of my breast, making the mound protrude even more as he looked at it closely. The embarrassment surged unbearably, so I pressed my fingers together to cover only the nipple.

“? Hahaha.”

Nardi, who had blinked in confusion for a moment, let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Are you seriously getting shy right now?”