114 — 12 (5)

A day passed quickly alongside the inspection of the city walls. Louis ate dinner, then went to the villa he had received as a gift from a wealthy count not long ago. There had been a residence where House Pontina originally lived, but after he killed his brother and his father died, it felt uncomfortable to stay there anymore. It was not rest—if anything, it felt like stress piled up. The villa was a solid, practical building for a “vacation home,” seven stories tall and even equipped with a separate small party hall. The fact that it did not look particularly flashy suited Louis perfectly. In Pontina territory, everyone and their dog chased gaudiness these days, so there might have been a reason modesty stood out as something unusual. Still, that was only about the building itself—the pond out front was enormous, and the wide hot spring behind it cost a fortune to maintain, so it was a place only the tiniest sliver of the wealthy could afford to use.

Of course, Louis had received it as a gift, so he only had to pay the upkeep. And since the biggest item in that upkeep was taxes—and Louis was the one who set those taxes—what it cost him to maintain the villa was negligible compared to anyone else.

He ended the day with sword training, and with time spent absorbing expensive mana stones. The one still crossing blades with Louis was Boromir. Today, Anok was off duty, so Mihoff stood guard. Their swords rang loudly. As expected, what was expected—since it was not wartime, his swordsmanship stat rose only slightly. The only time he reaped returns exactly proportional to what he invested was when he absorbed mana. Even so, Louis’s skills had improved enough through the war that he could now clash evenly with Boromir. Naturally, Boromir still looked dazed even as he marveled at Louis’s rapid growth.

Clang, clang!

The sword that had been ringing out so roughly let out one last loud shriek, and Boromir’s blade flew into the air. Boromir looked at the sword pointed at him and smiled with joy. Of course—his lord’s skill had surpassed his own, and there was no way that would not make him happy.

“Whew. You improved again in no time. Duke Louis, you truly are of Pontina blood. My lord, at this point I can no longer handle you—what do you say to finding a better sparring partner?”

Louis extended a hand, and Boromir clasped it and sprang to his feet.

“For now, you are enough. Boromir. I appreciate the praise, but I am not making any progress at all.”

“Please do not worry too much. It is only because you have far too many matters to handle right now, Duke Louis. In fact, people like me have been joking that you might be some kind of superhuman.”

“Is that so? Well, ‘superhuman’ is more than I deserve, but it does not sound bad.”

While he spoke with Boromir, a beautiful attendant entered naturally (Boromir stared, admiring her looks) carrying a mana stone about the size of a wrist. What she respectfully set down before Louis was not an ordinary mana stone at all—it was a specially made piece, cool enough to hold a chill in the air. Naturally, it cost far more than any jewel, and it was something that had to be custom-ordered from the Mage Tower.

As if it were his daily routine, Louis began to accept the mana.

Meanwhile, in one corner of the estate, the administrator in charge of managing the place moved about at a frantic pace. In Pontina territory, who was not like that? He, too, was doing everything he could to earn Louis’s favor. One of his duties was managing female slaves. When Louis returned from the capital this time, the number of female slaves given to him as “gifts” from various houses had reached fifty. After filtering out those who were a bit older, not virgins, short, small-breasted, poor dancers, and so on—adding every excuse imaginable—the number that remained, after being culled again and again, was twenty-five.

Of course, Louis had not ordered any of this. It was all happening automatically at the hands of subordinates desperate to curry favor. And it was not only the administrator who worked hard—the female slaves were all equally desperate. Unless one was blind and deaf, it was impossible not to know what value Louis carried. Even if they were not slaves, he was the kind of man most would never meet even once in a lifetime. Some of the slaves even considered it a stroke of luck that they had been offered up as slaves.

Along a long wooden corridor, young women showed off their beauty from the doorway of each room. In walls built stitch by stitch from refined, high-quality clay, candles burned in every gap and recess. In the soft light that webbed outward like a spider’s threads, youthful, dazzlingly lively bodies were displayed without a stitch of clothing. The gaunt man who managed this place—who looked almost fanatically ascetic—darted his small eyes left and right, wearing the expression of someone selecting warriors on the eve of a decisive battle as he chose whom to present to the duke.

Then the lantern in his hand stopped at one place. A blonde virgin, boasting the whitest skin of them all, stood below a slender waist.

“Juna.”

She swallowed once and stepped forward. She did not speak, but on her tense face, a victor’s smile began to bloom. After she took a few more steps, there were other women glaring at Juna with fierce eyes, and women sniffling with ruined expressions. Even so, the administrator, unfazed, selected a woman with a large chest first. Then he also chose a woman right beside her with a small chest. Since he did not know Louis’s preferences, he was choosing as balanced a selection as possible. If anything, he was skipping women with ambiguous builds.

After selecting ten, the administrator casually told the rest that tonight they would assist these ten, so they should keep that in mind. The rest went back into their rooms and put on plain clothes, while the chosen ten went separately to the administrator and were handed provocative outfits that looked as though they were barely wearing anything at all.

They took drinks, fruit, and a few instruments and settled in around the hot spring, and soon Louis—finished with his work—entered. Since Louis had not given any such instructions, he stepped in naked, then grew a little flustered when a scene that looked like something one might see in the free city of Aiwood appeared before him. The administrator had put thought into it, at least.

Louis was human as well, and he broadly knew how nobles in countries richer than the Duchy of Eron lived. So there was no way such measures would be unwelcome. Come to think of it, it had been a long time since he had held a woman. Every one of them had beauty that would catch the eye, and while their figures varied, all of them were at least 166 cm tall. In the hazy steam, he accepted a cup from a naked woman, added a little alcohol, and his mood lifted greatly. Only then did he recognize her face and realize she had been one of the “gifts” from the capital.

Once you accepted gifts from nobles, it was considered proper etiquette to make use of them—leaving them untouched was also not good for building relations with other houses. So for Louis, who carefully managed his stamina, it was not bad—maybe?—but it also meant he had taken on the “duty” of holding each of these women at least once. Louis was of an age, and still unmarried, so the women had been sent accordingly; if he left them alone, bad rumors would spread anyway.

The women around him looked like their hearts might burst out of their chests. They tried to keep their eyes steady, but their gazes inevitably pinned themselves to Louis’s naked body. It was only natural: Louis was the most prominent man in the Duchy of Eron, and the one most popular with women. Women of ordinary status would go so far as to offer simple sacrifices to the gods just to see his face once—so how rare was it to see him like this?

‘Ah…! Where do I look, where do I look—focus. …He is really handsome.’

‘They say he is a peerless swordsman, and seeing his body… it is true.’

‘S-steam! Steam, you brat… get out of my way!’

‘If I do this, my chest will stand out more, right? No one here has a bigger chest than me—he will definitely look at me.’

‘Tonight’s dance is my secret weapon—the hip dance… Tonight… with Duke Louis… I will, no matter what.’

Louis felt a strange chill—maybe?—under the women’s blazing focus, but he assumed it was just the alcohol and dipped his feet into the warm water. The heat seemed to melt away the tension piled up to his head all at once. At the same time, two women who had been kneeling with their heads bowed beside him began to slowly wet Louis’s body with hot-spring water. These women were, of course, virgins. They had skill, but they were seeing a young, well-developed male nude body for the first time. Their faces immediately reddened, and their minds turned hazy.

‘Th-this is a man’s body.’

‘I want to be held by the duke…’

‘I want to touch him more…’

‘Should I risk my life and touch him down there just once?’

Louis noticed that the women’s hands were pressing with more force than he expected as they wet his body, but he only thought briefly, They must be nervous. More than that, while having many women was nice, having to “deal with” every woman in here was also work. The amount of labor Louis handled in a day was far beyond what an ordinary person could even imagine, and exhausting himself would shave time off the next day. Especially during wartime, Louis had a rule: he never held a woman.

‘Ah—come to think of it, if my body goes through bone-forging transformation, will I not have to worry about this either?’

It sounded plausible. The description of Bone-Forging Rebirth—a Tier-5 trait even above the Tier-4 leader trait Mana Addiction—said that even the bones and sinews would be changed into a state suited for mastering martial arts. If one’s very frame changed, then everything else following as a side benefit would be the natural order.

Louis pulled the woman beside him into his right arm. The blonde woman’s smooth, warm breast filled his palm. As he drew her closer, her warmth pressed against his side. His languid mood deepened further. The hunger he had been suppressing seemed to demand something from him all at once.

The woman looked even more excited than Louis. Louis stared into her eyes, then kissed her deeply. She struggled for a moment, then clung to Louis tightly, her body winding around him as if it were being pulled in. Louis, who had been toying with her blonde hair, ended the kiss and stepped into the hot spring. Mm. Without realizing it. He really had been starving.

“Play the music.”

At Louis’s words, gentle music began. Louis summoned that dazed, swaying woman back into the hot spring. Not to be outdone, a beauty whose only flaw was a sprinkling of freckles slipped in first and wrapped herself around Louis. Perhaps, deep down, the sly creature that had been suppressed by Louis’s reason slowly raised its head. The other women waiting began to dance to the music, and Louis watched in admiration, enjoying the dance.