Her fingertips seemed to carry an electric current. Every inch they slid across Kazuma sent a tingling shiver through his whole body. Eyes closed, Kazuma basked in that heavenly sensation, a dopey grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
He thought he was about to welcome the sweetest moment of his life.
He had no idea it was not sweetness waiting for him, but horror.
Sylvia's smile grew even more bewitching, a cruel glint flickering in her eyes.
"Hehe, young man, didn't you say you wanted to take it all? Then go on. Feel my secret for yourself."
Her hand finally reached its destination. It was no longer a gentle caress. With a trace of teasing forcefulness, she made Kazuma personally experience something that should never have existed on the body of a peerless beauty.
In that instant, Kazuma's pupils shrank. All color drained from his face, and his expression twisted from infatuated bliss into sheer terror and despair.
It was as if he had been struck by Petrification Magic. His entire body went rigid, his mouth hanging open, yet no sound came out.
After a brief, deathly silence, a miserable howl burst from deep in Kazuma's throat, piercing the sky, packed with shattered dreams, a collapsing worldview, and the shriek of his very soul.
"AAAAAH!"
Along with that earth-shaking scream, loud enough to seem like it might crack the entire Barrier of Crimson Demon Village, Kōichi nearly rolled out of the bushes.
He clamped a hand over his mouth, his body shaking violently as he fought back laughter, tears almost spurting from his eyes.
Out in the clearing, Kazuma had gone completely blank.
His eyes had lost focus, his mouth hung half-open, and he looked as though he were silently accusing the world of its cruelty.
Sylvia, meanwhile, gracefully withdrew her hand, a satisfied, delighted smile on her face.
"Hehe, it seems you understand now, young man." Sylvia chuckled softly and tapped Kazuma's forehead with her fingertip. "So, tell me. Was the secret of this perfect body of mine even more eye-opening than you imagined?"
Kazuma gave no response. He simply fell straight backward, his empty eyes staring up at the sky, as though his soul had already left his body and only a mindless shell remained.
"I-Is this the legendary mental shock?! Kazuma's really finished this time, isn't he?!"
Kōichi screamed inwardly from the bushes. He tried desperately to hold back his laughter, but his shoulders kept shaking. This live performance was a hundred times better than any comedian's routine.
Sylvia looked down at Kazuma, who lay motionless on the ground, and seemed not quite satisfied yet. Her alluring eyes shone with the excitement of a hunter.
She slowly crouched, her slender fingers gently stroking Kazuma's deathly pale cheek.
"Hehe, young man, you may be fragile, but your reaction is quite amusing." She chuckled, her voice like a devil's seductive whisper. "But this isn't up to you. Since you've already accepted all of my secret, I don't plan to let you go."
She leaned down slightly, her full curves nearly pressing against Kazuma's body. One hand pinned his shoulder while the other began undoing the fasteners of her tight leather armor.
At the faint sound of fabric shifting, Kōichi's pupils suddenly contracted.
"W-wait! Hasn't this development gone way too far off script?! I mean, I do want to see Kazuma's face after he gets completely purified, but if that really happens, he won't just be a useless bum anymore. He'll be a broken man!"
Kōichi was torn.
Reason told him that he absolutely could not miss a scene this huge. This was the kind of material he could laugh about for the rest of his life.
But the last scrap of conscience he had as a bad friend told him that leaving Kazuma with permanent psychological trauma might be a little too much.
Just as Sylvia's fingertips were about to touch the buttons of Kazuma's shirt, Kōichi finally could not take it anymore and sprang out of the bushes.
"Stop right there, you witch!" Kōichi shouted with righteous fury. His voice trembled a little, but he managed to hold his ground. "Let go of that boy! W-what you're doing is illegal!"
Sylvia stopped moving. She slowly raised her head, her teasing eyes sweeping over Kōichi as an amused smile curved her lips.
"Oh? So there was another little mouse hiding here." She giggled, her voice growing even more seductive. "What's wrong? Did watching him have so much fun make you want to join in? I don't mind, you know. After all, playing with three people might be even livelier~"
"Pfft! Cough, cough, cough!" Kōichi's mouth twitched hard, and he nearly choked on his own spit.
Forcing down the urge to retort, he pointed at Sylvia with a trembling hand. "Y-you woman! You're absolutely... absolutely shameless! Kazuma! Wake up! We're leaving!"
He rushed forward, grabbed Kazuma's limp arm, and tried to drag him up from the ground.
However, Kazuma was somehow limp as if he had lost all weight, yet heavy as a boulder, and he did not budge at all.
"Trying to leave? I'm afraid not." Sylvia's voice rang out again, carrying an unquestionable note of command.
She rose gracefully and blocked the only way out in front of Kōichi and Kazuma.
Her figure was still as alluring as ever, but now there was a hint of aggression in her eyes.
"Do you think this is somewhere you can come and go as you please? You two saw my secret, and now you still want to run away... That isn't what a good boy should do, you know."
Sylvia's voice was gentle, but Kōichi heard the heavy threat beneath it.
"We're... in serious trouble now!"
Just as Kōichi was sweating buckets and desperately trying to drag Kazuma, that human boulder, away from the scene, Kazuma, who had been lying there like a corpse, suddenly jolted and snapped his eyes open.
At first, his gaze was blank. Then it landed on Sylvia's face, beautiful, smiling, and far too close for comfort, and his eyes instantly filled with raw terror.
"Eek! D-don't touch me! That... that feeling is coming back! Help! My innocence! My values! My dreams for the future! They've all been smashed to pieces!!"
Kazuma let out a shrill scream and scrambled backward on all fours, moving so fast he looked like a startled arthropod.
He ducked behind Kōichi, clutching the hem of his clothes with both hands. In the quiet forest, the sound of his teeth chattering was painfully clear.
Sylvia watched him avoid her like his life depended on it. Her alluring smile slowly stiffened, then finally twisted into a cold, gloomy expression.
As one of the Demon King's Army's top beauties, self-proclaimed, when had she ever been treated like some kind of plague?
"Heh heh. Young man, that attitude of wanting nothing to do with me is enough to hurt a girl's feelings, you know."
Sylvia straightened. Beneath her tight leather armor, magic began to stir restlessly, and the air around them seemed to freeze.
"I was only trying to love you both so gently, yet one of you keeps trying to run, and the other treats me like a monster... How very rude."
"Who cares about being rude?! Your secret isn't the kind of thing manners can fix!" Kazuma shouted hysterically from behind Kōichi, peeking out with half his face. "Kōichi! Use that invincible brain of yours and think of something! This woman... this woman is the real Abyss!"
Sylvia's patience finally seemed to run out.
She gave a cold snort and snapped her slender fingers wide. A dark red whirlwind of ominous magic burst outward from her, instantly grinding the fallen leaves around them into dust.
"Since you refuse to appreciate my kindness, there's no need for me to keep up this boring little tour guide act."
Sylvia's voice became grand and imposing, carrying a crushing pressure. "Listen well, lowly humans! Standing before you is one of the Eight Demon King Generals, the great being who governs synthesis and evolution, the Chimera Sylvia!"
Her long, silky hair whipped wildly in the magical gale, and her entire body radiated the suffocating aura of an overwhelmingly powerful foe.
Faced with Sylvia's terrifying magical pressure, so intense it felt like it might set the very air ablaze, Kōichi felt his own legs begin to tremble.
He glanced sideways at Kazuma Satou behind him, who was on the verge of tearing his clothes apart while sobbing with tears and snot streaming down his face. Kōichi's mind raced, and an extremely rotten...
No, an extremely constructive plan took shape in an instant.
Kōichi tilted his head slightly and forced the words through his teeth in a voice only the two of them could hear.
"Hey, Kazuma, get a grip! Look at this situation. Even together, we wouldn't be enough to get stuck between her teeth. She's a Demon King's General! The kind of monster who could turn us into pixelated blurs with one flick of her finger!"
Kazuma sniffled, his voice shaking like a plucked cotton string.
"Th-then what do we do? I haven't built my harem in the Fantasy World yet! I haven't lived the shut-in life of my dreams! I don't want to die here! Especially not at the hands of... of this Abyss!"
Kōichi took a deep breath, his tone turning deadly serious.
"Listen, Kazuma. You saw it too. This big sister... no, this General seems to have a thing for you. Since fighting her head-on means certain death, why not put those Devilish Kazuma skills of yours to use? Make a tiny sacrifice and try seducing her. As long as you can make her happy, she might just let the two of us go like a fart."