Episode 25

As soon as we arrived at the Fairy and Silver Coin, I scurried to the counter and took a seat. Then, propping my chin with one hand, I opened my mouth with a deliberately languid voice.

“Bartender. The usual, please.”

“Ah, Jonah, you’re back. Where on earth did you learn that….”

Chuckling, Ellie filled a cup to the brim with milk. Gulping it down, the rich aroma filled my mouth.

“Ah! A cool drink after a day’s work! It’s not an exaggeration to say that I’ve lived for this moment!”

“That’s an exaggeration no matter how you look at it. You’ll change your mind once you’re older and you try alcohol instead of milk.”

“I’ll have the 30-year-old Platypus, please, Senior Ellie.”

“That drink costs 10 gold a glass! Do you think we sell that kind of thing here?!”

“Just give me a beer then.”

“You should’ve just gone for beer from the start….”

Ellie sighed deeply and passed a glass of cold beer to Lydia. Watching her, a sudden curiosity came to mind, and I vocalized it.

“Speaking of which, Ellie. I’ve tried milk elsewhere too… but the milk here tastes noticeably better. Is there a special way you prepare it?”

“There’s no special way to drink milk. It’s just that we use good milk. It’s not just any cow’s milk, but A+ grade milk from a dairy cow hybrid human.”

I thought I misheard and asked again, but the answer remained the same.

“…? What did you say? Whose milk?”

“A+ grade dairy cow hybrid human. Why, are you surprised? Anyway, in this store, only you, Jonah, drink milk, so I specially prepared the expensive kind.”

Ellie seemed proud, but I couldn’t simply applaud back with appreciation.

“That’s breast milk?!”

“Ow, my ear… Well, yes, it could be considered breast milk. But what’s the big deal?”

“Cow’s milk is milk. The breast milk of a dairy cow hybrid human is no different.”

What’s with this indifferent reaction? Could it be that I’m the weird one? Even in a world where gender roles are reversed, is it really okay to sell breast milk as ‘premium’ milk?

On Earth, it would be akin to men selling semen as premium protein… or maybe not. Since men don’t produce breast milk, it was hard to draw a direct comparison.

It’s already been 2 years since I started surviving on the Pan Continent. But this was a piece of common knowledge I hadn’t come across, so I decided to just ask.

“Is it really normal to drink someone else’s breast milk? How should I put it… Isn’t it a bit embarrassing or feel somewhat lewd?”

“Ah, um… Where should I start explaining from…”

Ellie began to look troubled, like an adult who’d been asked by a child how babies are made. Rolling her yellow eyes back and forth, and after roughly scratching the back of her head, she finally spoke with a cautious tone.

“First of all, hybrids have a periodic mating season. You’re aware of that, right?”

“Yes. I noticed that there was a time when the number of hybrid men at the brothel increased.”

As I nodded, Lydia, who was drinking her beer next to me, started to pat my head with a sympathetic expression.

“…You lack common knowledge but know all the strange things.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure I understand, but I can tell Miss Lydia is treating me like a dummy. I know everything I need to know, okay?”

“Right, right. Focus on what Senior Ellie is saying now.”

Despite feeling slightly rebellious at the pacifying attitude, it was true that I hadn’t known the common knowledge about milk in this world. So, as I kept my mouth firmly shut and looked at Ellie, who had organized her thoughts in the meantime, Ellie refilled my cup with milk and began speaking.

“Since you have a rough idea, I’ll skip the basic explanation. Anyway, the important thing is that the heat of hybrids involves physical changes.”

“Oh… What kind of changes?”

“Female hybrids not only experience an increase in breast size while in heat, but in severe cases, they even produce milk.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

I wondered if this was a result of the reversed gender roles altering common sense, but it turned out to be a characteristic of the different species.

“Usually, it’s just a little that comes out, but imagine what it’s like for dairy cow hybrids who normally produce a small amount of milk. It overflows to the point of becoming troublesome. So, they have to milk it regularly until the end of their heat.”

“So, the milk that’s milked during this period is much tastier than regular cow’s milk and is traded at a higher price… Is that what you’re saying?”

“Precisely. To add a bit more, the current world is somewhat livable now, but in the distant past, without the labyrinth, survival was so difficult that people starved to death, right?”

“Well, they did revive a world that was supposed to have been destroyed, after all.”

“Exactly. Given that era, even if a dairy cow hybrid human had plenty of milk, it would have been too precious to just throw away. They would drink it themselves, their family would drink it, and if there was any left, they would sell it to others. That practice has continued to this day.”

“I see. I understand it perfectly now.”

So it wasn’t for a lewd reason but a more desperate one. Moreover, it wasn’t like humans, where milk is produced only for a few months after childbirth. They would normally produce a little, but it was just that the amount would overflow excessively during the mating season.

To a dairy cow hybrid human, milk wasn’t anything special, and the same went for those who drank it.

You learn something new every day!

My fascination lasted about as long as my sip of milk. Come to think of it, didn’t they just say all hybrids produce some milk during their heat cycle?

“…By any chance, does Ellie also produce milk during the mating season?”

“It’s rude to ask those sorts of questions.”

“Why?! You’ve been explaining it just fine until now. What’s wrong all of a sudden?!”

“Um. It’s like asking a human if they’re on their period today. Or since you’re a man, whether you had a wet dream.”

“It’s a question everyone knows, but it’s awkward to ask directly, right? Thinking about it that way, it was indeed rude.”

But curiosity was another matter entirely.

“Then please excuse my rudeness as I ask. Do you also produce milk during the mating season, Ellie?”

“Jonah, you….”

“For your information, after meeting Ellie, I often masturbated thinking of Ellie, so I don’t have any wet dreams.”

“……”

Ellie’s mouth opened and closed, at a loss for words. With her face turning red, she replied.

“…Of course, I also produce some.”

“Then, may I ask for Ellie’s milk next time?”

“As if! I’m not a dairy cow hybrid. I’m a wolf hybrid! There’s not much, and it probably won’t taste good! Above all, there isn’t any equipment for milking here!”

“I just want to taste it, so it’s okay if there’s not much or if it doesn’t taste good. And for the lack of equipment… I can just directly suck it myself.”

“Th-that’s just blatantly lewd!”

“Exactly! I just want to do lewd things with Ellie! That’s why I prepared this gift, too!”

Seizing the perfect moment, I handed over the sexy lingerie set I had prepared for Ellie, who was utterly shocked.

“Where did you even find something like this?! You want to see me wearing this?!”

“Of course. I think the mismatched underwear Ellie usually wears lacks sex appeal.”

“Why are you finding sex appeal in a woman…”

Despite being dumbfounded, Ellie carefully stowed away the gift. Seeing how she alternated glances between me and the lingerie, perhaps it won’t be too long before I get to see Ellie in that outfit.

I giggled and interlocked my fingers behind my head, leaning back. As I rocked the chair back and forth, Lydia, who had been quietly observing Ellie and me, spoke up.

“By the way, Jonah.”

“Yes?”

“When you first heard that the milk you just drank was from a dairy cow hybrid, and you were flustered thinking it was something erotic, why did you think so?”

“Hey, I’m a man, too, so I get embarrassed sometimes.”

“Of course, but you didn’t get embarrassed just from normal topics.”

“Well… That was because I somehow ended up imagining how the breast milk was produced.”

“?”

Lydia didn’t seem to understand. So, I explained the image that had momentarily come to mind for her.

“I imagined a human farm where the female dairy cow hybrids were gathered, tied up in fixed positions, and forced to repeat pregnancy and childbirth to extract milk in endless abundance, and when they could no longer become pregnant, they were simply disposed of…”

“……”

“……”

Upon hearing my story, Ellie and Lydia began to tremble with astounded expressions.

“So this is what it takes for Jonah to feel embarrassed…”

“I’m surprised. They say the standards of what shocks you are set by what you see growing up. Jonah really is…”

That’s mean. I get genuinely hurt, too, if you react with genuine shock.

To show that I was sulking, I pouted my lips as I stood up from my seat.

“Hmph! I’ll be going now. Lydia can talk about what happened today or whatever.”

Showing a clear sign of being upset, I headed towards the stairs leading to the second floor. Just before going up, I turned my head, my foot on the first step.

Ellie was flustered and stuttering, and Lydia seemed restless at the thought of having made a mistake. After glaring at each of them once, I pulled down the skin under one eye with my index finger and stuck out my tongue.

“Bleh! Just so you know, Ellie, I’m locking my door tonight!”

“Jo, Jonah?!”

Although Ellie looked startled, I didn’t look back and headed up to the second floor. That’s how you keep them on their toes.

…But maybe one exception wouldn’t hurt.

I scurried back down the stairs I had come up and hid behind the wall, only peeking my face out.

“However, I’ll open the door for you if you come wearing only the underwear I bought you.”

I can look forward to tonight, right?