Chapter 43 – Who Is Your Partner?
“What are you doing. Keep saying what you said.”
“Now, wait a minute… Didn’t you just hear a strange noise somewhere?”
“What are you talking about? Ceres. Are you going to keep saying something like this?”
“Oh, no… Just clear…”
Netoru acted as if he hadn’t heard anything.
If you admit that voice, you will find out about Karen’s existence.
However, Ceres seemed to be quite concerned about the sound from earlier. The eyes keep going to the closet.
For now, it is necessary to return Ceres’ consciousness. For that, it would be another way to stimulate it a little more like this, but if you do that, you really cross the line.
‘… Is it impossible to go beyond this anyway?’
Netoru slowly began to let go of the hem of Ceres’ clothes. Of course, he had no intention of attacking Ceres from the bottom of his heart.
Karen is watching now.
So, if you continue to press Ceres here, you will only end up messing things up later.
Anyway, Karen must have heard the story now, so she must have a rough idea of the situation. What Ceres was just about to do.
So, excuses are good enough.
So, Toru deliberately broke the recorder she was holding as if to steal her attention.
─Quad deuk.
“… Ah.”
Ceres, who glanced at her closet at the action, became surprised and blinked her eyes with an exclamation. Anyway, even if she doesn’t have to wear anything like this, dealing with Ceres isn’t too difficult.
“Ceres.”
A whisper calls her name.
At that moment, a cool shadow settled on Netoru’s sharp features, and her cold eyes became terrifying like those of a bird of prey.
“… “
Ceres beneath her trembled faintly in fear. Eyes, lips, breathing, none of them are intact. It was a time when even Ceres’ complexion had turned pale.
A chilling chill flowed from Netoru’s voice.
“This is my first and last warning.
It was like a sharpened blade of ice, a resonant that the current Ceres could not resist.
“Answer?”
“… All right.”
Ceres, who was trembling and avoiding her gaze, answered in a voice the size of her voice. Seeing that, Netoru inadvertently bit her tongue, released her wrists that were restraining her, and pulled her body back.
Then Ceres stared blankly at her ceiling for a while, then slowly got up and started tidying up the messy clothes first.
So, only the sound of Ceres fixing her clothes quietly filled her room.
How long did the heavy silence last?
Ceres spoke in a trembling voice from the corner of the bed.
“… Netoru. I sincerely apologize for what happened just now. But don’t get me wrong. I don’t know anything else, but it’s true that I don’t want to do a one-sided coupling like today. I don’t want to fight like that.”
A one-sided coupling would mean a coupling that does not yield any initiative to Ceres.
Ceres is speaking earnestly now
When coupling, he asked to fit a little to himself.
Did he hate being deprived of the initiative like that? Although he roughed Ceres during the battle to test his abilities, he never thought of using this method.
No, actually, I was expecting it to some extent.
It wasn’t hard to tell from her first coupling that this woman was weaker and more fragile than she thought.
She doesn’t know in detail what kind of trauma she provoked Ceres at the time, but considering that she cried in the cockpit, she was never a mentally strong woman.
She really was and still is.
“Netoru. Trust me.”
There was no acting, Ceres’ honest plea. Before she knew it, she really had become a plucked lily.
“I have no intention of raising my ego here. I know now that I am incapable of doing anything to you.”
When Ceres said that, her eyes were filled with resignation, as if she had given up on everything.
Seeing Ceres like that, Netoru was suspicious.
If this is the case, why did she accept swapping?
I couldn’t have bent my pride like this and refused to come in during the interview.
Could it be because of the military situation?
Is that why she is altering her own self-esteem like this?
“You mean you’re going to keep coupling with me even though you’re being so nasty?”
“Yes.”
Ceres lowered her eyes and nodded her head.
In the face of her lack of self-esteem, she opened her mouth as if she wanted to say this very clearly.
“I don’t want to feel guilty about Karen anymore. And she doesn’t know that he’s suffering like me before… I hate it.”
“… “
… Just like me before
After all, does that mean the days of the Knights?
“… I’ll admit it honestly. In the cockpit, as you said at the beginning, I am a selfish woman.”
Ceres trembled as she placed her hand over her own chest. She then lowered her head, she said.
“Because I hate you… I kept insisting on Takuya, who wasn’t a good match for the coupling, and she left you to a child who wasn’t even an adult yet. Anyone can see that this is really ugly.”
─How about admitting it honestly? You are a selfish woman Even if you pretend to take care of the kids on the outside, it’s ugly on the inside.
Inside the cockpit, Ceres repeated what Netoru had criticized with a self-deprecating expression.
To be honest, it wasn’t a very pleasant look.
What Netoru wanted was a gentle and trustworthy woman, as her unit members knew on the outside.
She is not, at least in this way, a woman willing to fall on her own terms.
But why did she suddenly break down like this?
Is it simply because of irresistible initiative issues?
Or because of what she just said about her guilt about Karen?
As if answering that question, Ceres muttered in a weeping voice.
“That child… She seems to be struggling with overheating today as well. On that subject, he is hiding his pain from me and other members of the unit…”
Ceres bit her lip in agony. Suddenly, the corners of her eyes were turning red.
“If Karen continues to deal with you, she will surely ruin her body one day. Her magical nervous system may be broken, or in the worst case, she may become disabled.”
“Ceres. Do you think you’ll be okay?”
“No. I won’t be okay either. To be honest, I don’t have the confidence to handle you either. But…”
Ceres’ gaze falls on the floor again. Eventually, her eyes landed on her closet where Karen was hiding.
It must have been a coincidence that my gaze landed there,
She said quietly as Ceres stared at her hiding Karen.
“I can’t keep watching Karen overdo it. Even I, a female knight, have a hard time dealing with you, and how difficult it must have been for her.”
It feels like the back of my neck is getting sore.
Karen must be listening to this story right now.
“… If you want to repent, go and tell Karen directly. Please don’t cry for regretting me like this.”
“… Sorry. The tears won’t stop.”
“No… Ha.”
It’s a mess. Netoru sighed.
She is a woman who came with a tape recorder to find out one weakness. But she’s not in the mood to get angry about it anymore. Because if it did, she would really be ruined.
Ceres had already surrendered meekly, revealing all her weaknesses. In fact, at this point, it is no different than begging for everything she has.
Netoru just watched Ceres like that.
‘… That’s not good.’
Her outstanding qualities as a female knight are good, but Netoru didn’t want a woman who was mentally weak.
No matter how good a weapon is, it is meaningless if it breaks easily.
She can somehow heal a strong girl like Karen, but she can’t help a mentally weak one like Ceres.
Moreover, Netoru is well aware of cases like Ceres.
What is broken cannot be undone.
Trouble. Netoru squeezed his temples.
What this woman needs now is not a whip.
“Ceres.”
“… Yes.”
When her name is called, Ceres slowly raises her head. There is no color in Ceres’ eyes. Only her resignation remains. She has not the slightest rebellion.
I wish it was just acting, though.
In a way, this must be the real Ceres.
393 units. Everything Ceres has built here is a pretense and a lie. Full of fakes that are just a shell.
The self-esteem she had built up until now, dealing only with young boys, had just been shattered.
And even now everything else is about to break. But it shouldn’t be like that. Then it would be really ruined.
So someone needs to forcibly cut this flow here.
“It would be better to continue today’s story later.”
“… Yes?”
Ceres tilts her head at the words whose meaning is unknown. Netoru closed the distance between her and her and forcibly held her in her arms.
“… !?”
Ceres trembled as if surprised by the sudden action. But there is no resistance. Rather, I relaxed and accepted it. I could clearly feel Ceres’ body limp in her arms.
In that state, Netoru pulled her chin and made her look up.
“… Ah.”
As if he had instinctively noticed the meaning of that action, it was time for Ceres to close his eyes tightly.
Netoru kissed her on the lips,
Immediately, with her magic pass connected, she forcibly cut her consciousness as it was.
─Puff
Then Ceres’ body fell helplessly onto the bed.
It’s practically the same as fainting… What,
In this case, it was best to force it to sleep.
After a good night’s sleep like this, you should be able to regain some calm by tomorrow morning.
At least it will be better than now.
But the problem is that Karen was watching all of this…
Netoru turned her back and looked at her closet.
2.
Better not to know about this.
To that extent, Ceres’ actions and story were shocking.
How did this happen? Karen buried her head in her arms as she cradled her knees.
“… “
I was feeling depressed.
When you overhear an unexpected story from someone you’ve trusted for a long time.
And on the other hand, I was worried.
Because I found out that virtually everything Ceres said in the locker room was a lie.
-But I’m fine. Even if the control is violent, it’s not as good as the partner I dealt with in the Order of the Knights. Rather, Netoru is better. Knights are worse than Netoru.
─Even though I was kicked out of there, I can handle a man like Netoru without difficulty. And actually, the first coupling today ended without any problems, right?
Were those confidences and stories all fake?
… Really. If this is the case, why did you swap?
Even seeing Ceres crying in a way she had never shown before made her even more depressed.
It just happened with the first coupling,
What will happen next?
At this point, Netoru, who first proposed swapping with Ceres, was resentful.
How did it really happen?
It was a time when Karen was asking herself such questions and all sorts of distracting thoughts invaded Karen’s head.
─Kiik
In a dark and cramped space.
The door opened and light began to seep in. Looking up at the glare, I saw Netoru’s face.
The two didn’t say anything for a while.
But the silence didn’t last long.
As they were hugging her knees in her closet, Karen looked at Netoru and said,
“… You. Don’t swap with Ceres.”
Was it a sudden request?
Netoru narrowed his brows.
“Then?”
“Just keep coupling with me.”
“… “
Another brief silence.
However, this silence did not last long.
To Karen’s bold request, Netoru responded with her shameless face, as usual.
“Nope.”
Nope 🗿