## Chapter 82 – Twisted Emotions
“Haa….”
Number 25 looked at the ceiling and sighed deeply.
It almost felt as if the chandelier reflected in his empty gaze was swaying in response to his sigh.
He shifted his gaze back to the white liquid, strands of which stuck together like spiderwebs with every small movement of his hand.
He had finished by masturbating, but he didn’t feel satisfied.
He hadn’t been able to release everything, and like the sticky semen still inside him, lingering feelings and pleasure had formed a lump in his heart.
The ambiguous stimulation and unsatisfying finish were worse than not touching himself at all.
The sound of him swallowing and his heartbeat were so clear you could hear them, and following the heavy silence, a detached emotion filled his heart.
His cock, accustomed to the affectionate caresses and sex of the women, hadn’t had a single satisfying climax in the two years since.
There were clear limits to dealing with his sexual desires alone, and the more he did it, the more time he had to reflect on himself.
Number 25, what he truly yearned for wasn’t some common lust or the bodies of women who seduced him.
It was the word “I love you,” filled with genuine sincerity, which he could no longer hear, that he desperately wanted from the bottom of his heart.
“Are you asleep?”
As if she had been waiting for him to finish, Lowe’s voice flowed in from beyond the door, and Number 25’s body sprang up from the bed.
A sudden surge of annoyance welled up at Lowe’s voice, which intruded on his precious and happy memories with the women.
He wanted to pretend to be asleep and ignore her, but she wasn’t someone who would fall for such a trick.
She probably already knew he wasn’t asleep, which was why she was asking.
Number 25 hastily pulled up the pants he had pulled down to his knees and curtly replied to Lowe, who was waiting for an answer outside.
“No.”
As soon as she heard Number 25’s reply, Lowe immediately opened the door and strode inside.
With Lowe’s steps, her breasts, with their smooth lines and soft curves, bounced elastically up and down, and her nipples, slightly protruding through the thin fabric, were visible as she wasn’t wearing a bra.
However, the fleshy mass, which was all fat, wasn’t properly imprinted in Number 25’s memory.
He had just finished masturbating and had somewhat relieved his sexual desire, and in the first place, the breasts of someone he didn’t love didn’t arouse any particular emotion.
Lowe approached Number 25 and opened her mouth in a languid tone.
“I received something….”
As she said that, Lowe held a plate with two pieces of small strawberry cake that looked delicious.
She shifted her gaze from the cake to Number 25’s face and asked.
“Would you like to eat it together…?”
He had just eaten, so he wasn’t hungry, but he didn’t want to ignore her goodwill.
“Sure. Let’s eat together.”
At his words, Lowe placed the plate on the table in the center of the room, pulled out a chair, sat down, and crossed her legs.
After confirming that Number 25 was sitting across from her, Lowe slid the cake plate toward him and put down a fork.
“Well, I don’t know if it will suit your taste.”
He had only looked at it, but his mouth was already watering reflexively.
Strawberries densely covering the white whipped cream that resembled a snowfield.
The sweet scent that stimulated his appetite made Number 25 swallow audibly without realizing it.
He wanted to eat it right away, but he hadn’t thrown away his manners. Number 25 glanced up at Lowe’s face.
Seeing him looking like a puppy that had been told to “wait,” Lowe smiled faintly and opened her mouth.
“Don’t worry about me and eat as much as you like.”
As soon as Lowe gave her permission, Number 25 cut off a small piece of the cake with his fork and put it in his mouth.
Strawberry pieces were packed between the soft sponge and cream.
The fresh strawberry pulp, the sponge that melted softly in his mouth, and the not-too-sweet whipped cream.
With the excellent combination of flavors, Number 25 forgot to speak and began to eat the dessert like a beggar who had been starving for days.
The cake was starting to run out, but the silence continued.
He didn’t particularly want to talk to her, but it was even harder to maintain such an awkward silence.
He had received a delicious treat, and although he didn’t feel like it, Number 25 contributed to breaking the silence by asking her a suitable question.
“Do you eat snacks too, Lowe?”
He had never seen her eat anything other than coffee or tea.
“It’s not that I can’t taste it, it’s that I don’t need to eat….”
As she said that and put the cake in her mouth, Lowe’s eyes curved slightly downward, showing a rather happy smile.
As soon as she swallowed the cake she had been chewing, Lowe, who had been smiling, asked a casual question.
“How’s the hunting going these days?”
Number 25’s hand, which had been about to stab a strawberry with his fork, stopped.
The pure white whipped cream and red strawberries overlapped with the winter when the cold wind blew, the corpses of the monsters on the snowfield, and the blood and entrails they had shed at the end. He didn’t think it was a question to ask while eating a snack. Naturally, Number 25’s voice changed to a prickly tone.
“You saw it earlier, didn’t you?”
Thanks to the periodic battles with strong monsters and the guidance that Lowe gave whenever she had time, the power that Number 25 possessed grew in the blink of an eye to the point where it was not strange to compare it to upper-level monsters.
That power was truly worthy of the name Dragon, and it was so great that the monsters living in this area were no match for him.
But even he didn’t handle things smoothly from the start.
On his first day in District 2, Lowe told him to deal with the monsters in the forest without warning.
Now, no monster was a match for Number 25, but at first, he had been in mortal danger several times.
The first hunt. The scar on his cheek, which had been etched after days of fighting without sleeping, throbbed in sync with his memory.
Number 25 unknowingly touched the scar with his hand.
Seeing the subtle change in Number 25’s expression, Lowe swallowed the cake and asked in an indifferent tone.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not really… I don’t even feel it anymore.”
Number 25, who had been touching the scar, picked up the fork again and grumbled, poking at the innocent strawberry.
“How long do I have to keep killing monsters?”
Taking lives was not in his nature.
Even if they were monsters.
But Lowe was not someone who could understand the pain of others.
That was one of the reasons why Number 25 disliked Lowe, even though they had spent two years together.
A person who was ignorant of the pain of others could hurt others at any time without realizing it.
As a defense mechanism against that, Number 25 was unconsciously pushing Lowe away whenever she tried to approach him.
“As long as you’re in this district.”
As expected, an indifferent answer came back. He regretted asking in the first place. It was a mistake to talk to her. The cake that entered Number 25’s mouth didn’t taste as sweet as it had before.
Ignoring Number 25’s feelings, Lowe, who was drinking tea as she pleased, added.
“But thanks to you, it’s a little easier. Before you came, I used to take care of it myself….”
It wasn’t a compliment that made him happy at all. Rather, he only felt sympathy for the monsters who had been crushed by Lowe’s overwhelming power and turned into something terrible.
Lowe put down her teacup and pulled her chair back, getting up from her seat.
As soon as she got up, the empty teacup and plate floated into the air and flew toward the kitchen.
The sweetness in his mouth hadn’t completely disappeared, but Lowe got up and tried to leave the room, as if considerate of Number 25.
Number 25, thinking that the uncomfortable person was finally leaving, asked in a brighter voice.
“Are you leaving now?”
“Yeah…. I still have some research left. I just stopped by for a bit….”
Lowe finished speaking slowly, but unlike saying she was about to leave, she only put her hand on the doorknob and stayed in front of the door for a while.
Number 25 asked her back, looking at her back with a puzzled expression.
“What’s wrong?”
It was a tone that contained a hint of urging her to leave his room quickly.
Lowe turned slowly in place with lingering movements and looked straight at Number 25’s face again.
Her purple gaze, as if containing jewels, was directed at Number 25’s lower body, and the gaze that started from below lingered on his crotch for a moment before gradually rising. Number 25 felt an unknown anxiety at the gaze that seemed to scan him.
Maintaining silence and staring intently at Number 25’s face, she finally opened her mouth.
“I forgot to say something…. From tomorrow, I’ll be collecting semen too, so be prepared after washing your body clean. Don’t take care of it alone like you did earlier… that’s such a waste….”
After finishing speaking, Lowe turned the doorknob and went outside without waiting for an answer.
Number 25 could only freeze in place and stare blankly as Lowe left the room.
That posture was maintained even after Lowe left the room.
The words Lowe had uttered at the end lingered in his ears and were fixed in his mind like a nail.
Don’t take care of it alone?
The moment he realized what those words meant, his face turned red in an instant.
His heart started beating faster and faster at the thought that his weakness had been exposed, and an unknown emotion swirled.
Then, unbearable shame took over his body.
Number 25 threw himself onto the bed and buried his face in the pillow.
He screamed with his face buried in the pillow. The scream he let out was blocked by the pillow and disappeared without any particular meaning.
After finishing that series of actions, Number 25 turned over, and this time he pulled the blanket over his head.
It wasn’t an action to go to sleep. He just needed something to cover his body right now.
His body was tingling. He couldn’t keep his body still for even a moment. If he did, he would end up being swallowed by his own weakness. Number 25 kicked the blanket covering his body and fell into regret, or rather, a lack of regret.
Lowe probably didn’t have any malice.
It wasn’t with the intention of mocking him, nor was it a contemptuous tone.
Ignorance can sometimes be poison to the other person.
But the twisted emotions that had built up over two years arbitrarily interpreted her purity as malice.
‘I really hate it…!’
