Chapter 16

“Come with me for a minute. I need you for something.”

“What? I’m in the middle of a conversation.”

In a small lounge inside the West Sea Legion’s central headquarters, Yu Pado looked up lazily from his seat where he’d been chatting with a coworker.

He clearly wasn’t pleased by Morae’s sudden order. After giving her a brief glance, he simply turned back to the person he had been talking to.

Morae slapped the table and shoved herself right into his line of sight.

“It’s not that important anyway. Come on.”

“Who made you the judge of that? We’re talking.”

“I brought snacks too. Come on.”

“I’m talking.”

“The madeleines are really good.”

The conversation wasn’t connecting at all.

Pado’s eyebrow twitched upward.

The researcher sitting across from him, Yu Jimin, smiled and stood up.

“It’s fine. Go ahead, Pado. If Morae wants to talk, I can step aside.”

“Thanks, Auntie.”

Morae accepted Jimin’s kindness without the slightest hesitation.

From Morae’s perspective, it was only natural.

Yu Jimin had been one of the adults who looked after and played with her since she was little. She was now well into her forties. Considering both the age gap and their personalities, there was no way she and Pado had been discussing anything important.

How serious could a conversation between people from completely different generations really be? Besides, Jimin was intelligent enough to serve as Eun Jisung’s research assistant, while Pado specialized in combat. They wouldn’t have been discussing work.

It had obviously just been idle small talk—nothing that couldn’t be interrupted.

In fact, Jimin didn’t seem bothered at all about giving up her seat.

The only one visibly unhappy was Pado.

“Aren’t you too easygoing, ma’am? Morae tells you to move, and you actually do it?”

“Our Morae wants to talk to you. Of course I’d step aside. Besides, you have more fun hanging out with Morae anyway.”

“I don’t. You’re just using this as an excuse to dump me because I’m boring, aren’t you?”

Jimin burst into hearty laughter at Pado’s grumbling joke.

After laughing for a while, she adjusted her glasses and waved him away.

It was clearly her way of telling him to go.

Now that even Yu Jimin had said so, Pado couldn’t exactly refuse.

He slowly got to his feet and followed behind Morae.

While operating her tablet, Morae slipped into a nearby room.

As soon as Pado entered after her, the door closed automatically.

The intercom beside it displayed:

[DO NOT DISTURB]

Pado guessed Morae had already obtained permission to use the room.

Realizing she’d rushed over specifically to drag him away and clear everyone else out made him feel uneasy.

The room she’d borrowed resembled a modest hotel room.

It had a small bathroom, a bed large enough for three people, a compact desk, and a full-length mirror.

“…Don’t tell me…”

A bad thought crossed his mind.

Had she caught some disease during their last outing that required quarantine?

Hunters were naturally immune to the abnormalities found in contaminated areas around Gates, but plenty of unexplained phenomena still existed in those zones.

“…Don’t tell me.”

Morae echoed him as she noticed the worry in his eyes.

She set the basket of snacks on the table and clasped her hands together.

So it really was something that required isolation.

That explained the snack basket.

Pado let out a long sigh and flopped down onto the bed.

He silently prayed the quarantine wouldn’t last too long.

He had no idea how long it would be, but he already felt exhausted just thinking about it.

Just as he sighed over how troublesome the situation had become, his expression suddenly stiffened.

Morae sat directly on top of his lap.

Facing him.

He silently asked, What?

Oddly enough, Morae looked… shy.

“Um…”

Like an innocent young girl, she couldn’t quite meet his eyes and hesitated.

“Why are you acting like a bride on her wedding night?”

“Don’t make weird comparisons. You don’t even know what a bride on her wedding night is supposed to act like.”

Still blushing, Morae immediately shot back.

Even while flustered, she never missed a chance to retaliate.

Pado crossed one leg over the other.

The shift made Morae squirm slightly in discomfort.

Without warning, he slipped a hand beneath her.

“How would I not know? You’ve got the same expression you made when you lost your virginity. Want me to do it again?”

Pado casually grabbed Morae’s backside while she sat on his lap.

Part of it was simple desire.

More than that, though, he wanted to put the cheeky Morae in her place.

If she was going to climb onto someone else’s lap, she ought to be prepared for a little payback.

What he hadn’t expected…

…was her reaction.

Held firmly by the hips, Morae bit her lip for a moment.

Then she nodded.

“…You want me to?”

Her head moved up and down.

Heat exploded through his lower abdomen.

His erection immediately stiffened, twitching upward.

Feeling it press against the inside of her thigh, Morae gave a tiny shiver before placing both hands on Pado’s shoulders.

She leaned forward and pushed.

Pado fell backward onto the bed with surprising ease.

Morae ended up lying on top of him, her long hair spilling down around them.

“What if sleeping together makes us stronger? Let’s test it.”

She rested her hands against his chest.

Supporting herself with both arms, she slowly lowered her body.

A faint excitement sparkled in her eyes.

“Your ability suddenly improved by a huge amount. You felt it at the waterfall, didn’t you? You were way stronger than usual.”

“Was I?”

“You were! I know you were. It happened in just one week. Maybe sleeping together increased your abilities. Maybe we’re especially compatible, or maybe one of us has some unique power… There are stories about Hunters whose abilities skyrocketed after getting married. Maybe it’s something like that.”

As Morae chatted away, she slowly rubbed her hips against him.

Their bodies brushed gently together.

It was a slow, innocent sort of foreplay that gradually stirred warmth deep inside.

After quietly watching her teasing movements for a while, Pado suddenly rolled her over.

Releasing the grip on her hips, he climbed on top of her.

Without hesitation, he lifted the hem of her skirt.

As it flipped upward, her dark blue underwear came fully into view.

Startled, Morae hurriedly covered the area between her thighs with one hand.

The gesture was practically meaningless.

Pado immediately caught both of her wrists and pinned them above her head.

Holding them there, he let out a quiet snort.

It wasn’t a mocking laugh.

It sounded more amused than anything else.

“You really are terrible at lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“There’s no way. If an ability that convenient really existed… If you’re going to lie, at least come up with something believable. I’ll let it slide because you’re cute.”

Pado’s right hand slowly traced circles over her groin through her panties.

His left hand easily held both of Morae’s wrists while his right wandered over her underwear. After tapping lightly against the fabric, his hand slowly slipped beneath the waistband.

Only then did Morae snap back to her senses.

“So you’re saying I came here because I wanted to sleep with you?”

“Something like that.”

The corner of Pado’s mouth curled upward as his hand slipped inside her panties.

He wasn’t trying to tease her on purpose.

From his point of view, everything Morae had said sounded like nothing more than bashful excuses.

She’d suddenly dragged him into a private room, shyly suggested they do it, then come up with the flimsy excuse that sleeping with him made people stronger…

No matter how he looked at it, it seemed like she wanted to sleep with him again but was too proud to admit it, so she’d grabbed the first excuse she could think of.

To him, it was the classic, “It’s not like I came because I wanted to see you. I just had something to do,” kind of tsundere-style denial.

But Morae’s reaction was dramatic.

The shy, anxious look vanished from her face in an instant, replaced by a sharp glare.

She immediately slapped Pado’s hand away from inside her panties.

“Don’t flatter yourself. Where do you get off acting so full of yourself? Just because I’ve been nice to you, you’ve gotten cocky. The thing I think highly of is your ability—not your technique.”

Morae coldly brushed his hand aside and scooted backward across the bed until there was some distance between them.

Leaning against the headboard, she straightened her skirt and glared at him.

Her wounded pride was written plainly across her fierce expression.

By that point, Pado’s expression had hardened as well.

From his perspective, this was unfair.

She’d dragged him away in the middle of a conversation, pulled him into a secluded room, pushed him onto a bed…

…and now she was insulting him out of nowhere.

It wasn’t as though he’d begged her to sleep with him.

He didn’t deserve this.

Humiliated, Pado retreated to the edge of the bed and shot back,

“You were crying all night.”

“Because you wouldn’t stop!”

Struck where it hurt most, Morae flushed bright red and shouted.

“I was exhausted because you just kept going! Do you seriously think lasting forever automatically means you’re good?”

That jab struck Pado squarely in the chest.

Not willing to lose, he sharpened his own reply.

“Oh yeah? Before blaming someone else, maybe you should take a look at yourself. If it had really felt that good, I probably would’ve finished a lot sooner.”

“You did finish quickly once!”

“Those other four—”

Pado stopped himself.

He had been about to say that the other four times had lasted much longer.

But claiming it was because Morae wasn’t sensitive enough sounded pathetic.

Long sex wasn’t necessarily proof of poor technique.

Still, he couldn’t think of a convincing comeback.

Whatever the case, after doing it five times, one thing was obvious—

Pado had certainly been the more enthusiastic one.

Suppressing the frustration boiling inside him, he got off the bed.

Careful not to look ridiculous, Pado adjusted the bulge straining against the front of his pants.

When shifting his trousers didn’t help at all, he took off his jacket and covered the front of his pants with it.

“Fine. Sorry I wasn’t good enough.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving.”

“Who told you to leave?”

Morae caught him just as he was about to walk out.

Pado stopped and looked back over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow.

The excitement from moments ago had completely disappeared, leaving only irritation on his face.

He didn’t even ask, Why?

His expression plainly said, If you’ve got something to say, then say it.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Morae crooked a finger at him.

“After you slept with me, your abilities improved dramatically.”

“You’re still sticking with that lie?”

“It’s not a lie. My dad analyzed it. At the waterfall, you wiped out the Justice Enforcement Division with far more power than you normally have. You’d been stuck at the same level for ages.”

“…”

“Compared to your stats before we slept together, they jumped. And the only thing that happened in between… was sleeping with me. It’s possible that doing it with me increased both the power and precision of your abilities.”

Standing there with a skeptical expression, Pado listened in silence.

Meanwhile, Morae’s face gradually lit up with excitement as she enthusiastically explained her theory.

“So I came to test whether it’s really true—and to see how much stronger you’d get if we tried one more time.”

“…Do you really think I’m a joke?”

Unlike Morae, whose eyes sparkled with hope, Pado’s expression turned ice-cold.

The words he spat out landed like a slap across Morae’s face.