## Chapter 376 – Reapers of the Machine (3)
“Booooooo……”
“I’m sorry, Carla… I really am…”
“Booooooooooooooooo……”
“Something unavoidable came up…
That’s why I couldn’t come back…”
“You disappeared without a word again…
For weeks… That’s too much…!!”
Yui gazed at Carla with a sorry look, who had puffed out her cheeks and was making a sulky face.
Yui herself was a victim of the dungeon mana instability, spending weeks trapped inside, busy caring for the injured.
Even when the gate was reactivated and she could go back to the outside world.
More concerned with the lives before her than the joy of liberation, she set up a temporary clinic in front of the gate to the outside world, caring for the remaining injured.
Like Aurora, Yui had diligently attended her classes, so she skipped the entire day and could only return to the dormitory in the late afternoon, almost evening.
She finally let out a blissful groan as she soaked her tired body in the bathtub, washing away the grime and dust, and finally seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
“Carla? Huh? Calm down…
I missed you so much, Carla…”
But just as she was about to catch some sleep, she ran into Carla, who had returned to the dormitory after finishing her academy duties.
“Let go… Yui has changed…!!
Yui is always like that!!
How could you do this to me?”
“Carla…!! I’m serious, you know?
I left for a while because of research, and then I got isolated at the site…”
“Eh… Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”
Still, Carla was Carla, after all.
Even in a fit of pique, she immediately clung to Yui and asked if she was okay, showing her true colors.
Yui, as if adoring a small animal, hugged the cute Carla tightly and began to chat with her about recent events as Carla began to unpack.
“Carla, you’re not still eating and sleeping in the workshop, are you?”
“Ehehe…… I’ve been a bit busy lately?
Oh, now that you’re back today…
You wouldn’t have heard the announcements from the faculty, would you?”
“Announcements?”
“Yeah!! Sometime next month, right?
An investigation team is coming from Barmhausen!!”
“From Barmhausen… Carla’s hometown people?”
They were saying that Barmhausen would send an investigation team to conduct a joint investigation with Groden regarding the recent dungeon incident.
But Yui didn’t seem to understand why Barmhausen, a country of steel and industry, would send an investigation team to investigate a dungeon, a crystal of magical power.
“Why is Barmhausen investigating the dungeon?”
“Ah~ There are tons of dungeons on the front lines of Barmhausen, you know?
But those dungeons are dangerous, so it’s hard to investigate them!!
Here, the dungeon is being maintained stably inside the royal capital, right?
They’re saying they’re in a frenzy to go investigate right away, you know?”
Due to Barmhausen’s national characteristics, they originally didn’t pay much attention to dungeons.
A country of steel and industry.
That was a name that suggested they could sufficiently defend against monsters on the front lines without magic or inherent human power.
Unlike Groden, which boasted excellent and proud swordsmen and mages who could wield magic with both gentleness and lethality, Barmhausen had elite engineers and alchemists, and the mechanized wave they created.
A steel curtain and wave of armor protecting humanity from monsters.
Barmhausen, in particular, had many dungeon gates, so the number of monsters coming out of them was quite high.
That’s not to say that other countries were comfortable, but it was certainly true that Barmhausen’s monsters were overwhelming in terms of quantity.
It was inefficient to defeat the countless monsters that never seemed to end with human hands.
There were more monsters than people fighting, and no matter how many they killed, the situation didn’t change at all.
From securing the first human settlement area to expanding its territory to this day.
Humanity has shown its inherent adaptability in many directions, and it was probably no coincidence that the ancestors of Barmhausen chose this path, advancing into rugged mountain ranges, rich ore veins, and suitable plains.
Their industrial technology, which initially started with strong armor that could withstand being beaten by a troll’s club,
Soon, it led to the automated production of high-quality armor, the enhancement of armor functions, and even drone technology that could fight on its own according to the input protocol.
Unlike Groden, who built their lives based on magic, they built their own lives by developing their own technology, not by developing magic.
Especially since there were so many monster resources, it was natural that monster processing, which used monster resources in conjunction with industrial technology, developed.
Anyway, since there are several dungeon gates on the front lines of Barmhausen where monsters come out, dungeon investigation was somewhat related to their security.
Especially since there was a dungeon that could be investigated safely like this, it was natural in a way that Barmhausen wanted to investigate it.
“My brother told me, but outwardly, it’s just like a delegation, you know?
So, according to the schedule, they’re planning to visit the academy once!!
They’re going to demonstrate things like the curriculum and achievements in our engineering department.
I guess they’ll probably demonstrate something in the medical department too?”
Carla’s brother was Antonio von Sterben, the nobleman of the engineering department.
Hearing that, Yui, whose trust in the information had increased, nodded lightly, then widened her eyes as if she had remembered something and began to look at Carla.
“Ah? Is that so?
Then… Carla is?”
“Yeah!! I’ve been chosen to give the representative demonstration of liquid metal processing technology this time!!
The license has been transferred to the academy now, but it’s still my research, right?
Barmhausen was turned upside down after it was announced in academia, I heard?”
“Wow!! Carla!!
You’re a successful alchemist now!?”
“Hehe… It’s just a discovery that can utilize surplus resources, you know?
It would definitely make money, but I wouldn’t say it’s that great of a discovery…”
As Carla muttered shyly, Yui rejoiced at her friend’s success and hugged Carla tightly, rubbing her cheek against hers as if she was proud.
“Uwooo!! Good job, Carla!!”
“Uhing…!! Yui, you’re like a dad!!
Poo… Pooh-choo!! My hair is tickling!!”
If she ever became a great doctor, Carla would surely be just as happy for her.
Although they first met as roommates in the women’s dormitory, they had now become inseparable best friends.
Between them, at least in the eyes of others, there was an indescribable affection that flowed, to the point where they felt like real sisters.
But that affection was only for a moment.
“Then YuiYui!! Where did you go and what did you do!?
Did anything fun happen there!?”
As a difficult story to answer came out, the corners of Yui’s smiling lips began to tremble.
How could she tell Carla, of all people, that she had gone into an unapproved dungeon to treat people, and then an anomaly occurred and she was trapped inside?
No, rather, she could trust Carla and tell her the story, but Yui was afraid of the aftermath.
‘Noooo!! Yuie-mon!!
I want to go with you toooooo!!’
Yui, feeling a chill down her spine with a feeling that she had already done this once before, maintained a forced smile and tried to joke around.
“Hehe… Where do you think? Want to guess?
Then while Carla’s thinking, I’m going to go to the bathroom?”
“Yeah!! Want to go together?”
“That’s okay!!”
As soon as she entered the bathroom, Yui locked the door, turned on the water, and splashed it on her face, which was covered in cold sweat, and stared at her face in the mirror.
Her body was cursed by Enic.
She had lived for over 10 years without any change, with this face, this body.
Unless extreme aging occurred, she would probably live with this face even 30 years from now.
Some might say that this body has the perfection of a woman, but at least when she looked in the mirror, she was reminded of her sister who died inside Enic.
Her, who smiled wearily and told her to hide, and who told her what kind of being Enic was with that body.
Suddenly feeling a chill at the tip of her nose, she sniffled, and was surprised to see her eyes, which had become slightly bloodshot, and splashed water on her face again.
Was it because she had to lie to Carla again that she felt so uneasy?
“Sniff…”
So maybe she couldn’t even understand her own feelings right now.
It might have been easier to just tell her everything.
Carla, who trusted her, might really listen to her.
But the problem was that she had begun to feel favorably towards Enic, who was hiding in the flower bed of this academy, but Carla might think differently.
To be exact, she was afraid of getting hurt herself as much as she was worried about Carla’s feelings.
A monster is just a monster, and that fact doesn’t change.
What would Carla think of her, who mixed her body with such a monster?
Her tentacles were shoved into her vagina, pushed all the way to her cervix, and then poked and prodded at her cervix as if tickling it, and then finally, after opening her cervix, she gave birth to another monster inside.
How would Carla think of her, who had already given birth to Enic’s swarm members several times in that way, who had given birth to a monster with a human body?
‘If Carla starts to hate me…
Will I be able to endure it then?’
Unlike herself, who was just a resident doctor gaining experience, Carla was a friend with a bright future, already starting to make a name for herself in academia.
She didn’t want to make her a sacrifice for Enic, who could do anything at any time.
No matter what the cause and effect, dragging Carla into this situation would eventually link Carla to Enic, directly or indirectly.
‘It’s contradictory…’
Embraced by those slimy yet firm tentacles, feeling that warmth, and unknowingly feeling relieved deep down in her heart.
Her intuition told her that he was a warm being, but she had to constantly doubt him.
In her case, frankly speaking, the future was obvious.
Having been born as a woman and experienced Enic, having experienced that ecstatic experience was no different from being collared with a leash from which she could not escape.
It wasn’t just a one-time thing, but she had experienced it so many times that it was safe to say she was soaked in that slime.
It was like being addicted to drugs.
‘I just… can’t give up…’
The ultimate happiness as a woman, which she would never be able to feel with an ordinary man in the future.
Even now, when she thought of the sensation of those tentacles, her groin tingled and her lower abdomen automatically got wet.
Unless she was convinced that her life was at stake, her feet would automatically head to the lair in search of that pleasure.
So now that she trusted him, she was unknowingly turning her steps and finding the lair more and more often.
Perhaps she herself would never find someone to love and start a new life, and would live her whole life without leaving this royal capital, the area around the academy.
Because she already knew that the happiness that someone could give her would be insufficient compared to the happiness that Enic could give her.
She might even be able to give Carla to Enic if it was the current her.
Because she was someone who trusted her words implicitly, she could seduce Carla in the easiest way and bring her to Enic.
Then she and Carla would share even deeper secrets in many ways, and there would be no need to draw lines between each other, distinguishing between what to say and what not to say, like now.
She sometimes had such thoughts.
The depths of the lair, the place where she was embraced by him every time she was invited by Enic to relieve her feelings.
In that place, not only herself but also Carla was entangled in tentacles, panting with ecstatic breaths.
Sometimes, just like Vivian and Lanié did to each other, Carla would smile at her next to her, and offer her lips, soaked in the heat of excitement.
The moment their lips met, she would bite and suck on her tongue, and the sight of her eyes glistening with happy tears.
There might be nothing we couldn’t do if we were so infatuated with each other.
As much as we were precious to each other, if Carla couldn’t help her flushed body, she might be able to teach Carla the scissoring technique she learned from Lanié.
If she thought about Carla’s appearance, panting lovingly and clinging to her, she could put aside any embarrassment.
But would she really want such a sight of each other?
If she said she wanted to be together like this, would Carla be able to understand her?
Knowing that this was her personal greed.
And because she was worried about Carla’s future.
Yui had no choice but to lie to her, knowing that Carla might be hurt.
‘Carla… Carla wouldn’t want that…’
No matter how smart and resourceful, a great alchemist she was, Carla was just an ordinary girl who became a fool when she fell in love.
She could guess that she was in a good mood with a male student in the same department from what she usually said.
If she ruined Carla’s life, who was living her life like that, her future?
‘I… can’t do that to Carla…
So I have to hide it more thoroughly… properly…’
Wasn’t she someone who had already been caught once?
Like Hyeryeong, who subdued her, who didn’t know anything about fighting, and observed the Nemea tattoo engraved on her back, above her buttocks.
If she wasn’t more thorough someday, Carla would also find out her secret.
‘Hyeryeong… why are you still staying still…’
Yui, unknowingly placing her hand on the back of her waist where the Nemea tattoo was engraved, was glaring at herself in the mirror.
At the same time, her eyes, thinking of excuses, were becoming filled with a slight sadness.
Like that, time was passing.
