The silver-maned brute monkey couldn’t grow a magic core like the legendary Dreamfeast Spider, but it fit Adelaide’s craft like frost lining a blade. Its brain ranked high among common sacrificial materials, and it carried a strange gift.

Its victims were easy to spot—intact skins left like emptied sacks on the ground. Press a little, and viscous fluid, streaked with meat pulp, oozed from their mouths like spoiled broth. It had no spider-like digestive venom. The horror came from a spatial talent—within a set range, its strikes ignored armor and stone alike, forcing power straight into an undefended body, churning organs and bones into paste.

In short, it could hit you without touching your skin, like a fist passing through walls to crush a heart.

Irony stung like winter wind. Before the hunt, the silver-maned brute had butchered over a dozen villagers with that trick. The Northerners hated it to the marrow. Nothing could repay the families it broke. Yet now Adelaide used its piercing gift to hammer the sand-buried ground, find a spring, and save a hundred lives in the convoy.

She watched the magic sigils fade off her hands, a brief ache like the last ember’s glow. She turned—and caught Mira’s odd look.

“What?”

“...” Mira hesitated half a beat, then glanced away. “Nothing.”

Adelaide tilted her head, curiosity rippling in her eyes like lake light. Mira turned farther, dodging the gaze.

She couldn’t tell Adelaide she’d remembered that food merchant’s “easy to handle at a glance.”

Yeah. The “easy-to-handle weak girl” had just punched a hole into the earth like a comet.

If Adelaide had planted that punch on the shameless man’s face, the convoy could’ve saved a ration or two.

Mira groused in silence, then rose from the water. She breathed out magic, electrolyzing and steaming her clothes, heat shimmering like mirage.

“Up. Soaking will give you a chill.”

“Eh... I want a soak. It’s rare to get the chance~”

“And then? You want the convoy drinking your bathwater for a month?”

Adelaide bounded from the pool, a spry leap too nimble for someone in a wheelchair. Water scattered like silver fish.

“Come on, Mira, you always kill the mood!”

She glared on the bank. Mira, stone-faced as ever, followed up and tapped Adelaide’s sleeve.

“Bzzt—waaah!”

The tingle spread head to toe like a field of grass catching frost. It wasn’t strong, but it made Adelaide tighten her legs and let out a strange breath.

“M-M-Mira, y-your finger... s-so good...”

Dazed in the shock, she blurted it.

The current ceased.

“Eh? My clothes aren’t dry yet.”

“Wait till we’re out. The sun will finish the job.”

Huh? What happened to catching a cold?

Adelaide looked at Mira, puzzled. Sunlight slanted in from the cave mouth. A cloud draped it like gauze. In the shadow, Mira’s turned profile went unreadable, hiding the blush burning along her neck and ears.

If Adelaide saw that crimson, the pieces would click like beads on a string.

But the cloud shifted, and the light missed her by a sliver. It warmed something behind her instead.

Adelaide’s eyes widened. Every other thought went still.

Not far behind Mira, a plant like a pineapple sat on the bank. Gray, blade-sharp leaves fanned outward. At the top, a tulip-like pink bud stood straight, ten times larger than any tulip, rigid like a statue refusing to bow.

“Ailinnoru Flower...?”

She named it, shock melting into delight like ice yielding to spring. She took two steps. Mira reached to stop her. Adelaide brushed the hand aside, gentle as silk.

“It’s fine. Plant-type monsters can’t sense us actively. Don’t touch it, and we’re safe.” She skirted the root-ropes, explaining as she walked. “Its sap’s a strong anesthetic. A little keeps someone sleeping for a long time. Great material.”

“The stuff you wafted into my room—was it this?” Mira’s eyes narrowed with realization. “Then it works very well.”

“Uh...”

Mira’s earnest nod made Adelaide flush, heat like a peach blush.

(I didn’t know if you’d refuse to come with me back then...)

She muttered under breath, then put on her big-sister mask. “A-anyway, this is handy on the road. I’ll collect some.”

“Can’t we cut it down first, then harvest?”

Adelaide shook her head, hair glinting like wet silk. “Kill it, and the sap goes dull. You have to draw while it lives.”

She neared the Ailinnoru’s body, pulled a clear bag and a small knife. She reached for the bark, careful as moonlight on water. Plant monsters were primitive and low-tier, no real threat. Better to keep the material intact.

Speaking of monsters, her magic scan had brushed a vast surge of life—a feeling like standing before a storm-swollen sea. A powerful creature. Yet in this underground oasis, aside from insects and small animals, nothing moved. Had it left?

The idea pricked with regret. If she found it, her offering stockpile would swell like granaries after harvest. She never complained about too much stock. Maybe she’d cast another detection soon. There was that scent as a guide. Follow the fragrance, and it would be easy.

Back to that scent... so unique. Like whiskey soaked in sugared mandarins, half a glass of sugar poured in. Sweet and heady. Milky on the nose, yet burning on the tongue. A dizzying lure. She wanted another breath. She wanted it... so much...

(Adelaide!)

A muffled call seemed to reach her, far as thunder beyond hills. She lifted her head slowly. Something was wrong. The bud that stood straight—why was it open? And why was it facing her...

Ah... so fragrant...

So good... just a bit closer...

**

When the sweet reek hit, dread rose first in Mira, cold and sudden like a blade in rain.

Vertigo surged, tipping her like reeds in a gust. She almost stumbled. She moved fast. Her hand found her unsheathed saber at her hip. She sliced her own fingertip. Sharp pain cut the fog. She held her breath, clarity snapping tight as a bowstring.

She looked up. The monster’s top bud had opened. Pink luminescent motes drifted from its center like pale pollen at dawn. At the same time, the roots hugging the earth reared up. Dry, woody skin sloughed off. Beneath, flesh-like tendrils writhed.

“Adelaide!”

The shout came too late. Adelaide, closest to the Ailinnoru, stared, vacant, at the blossoming flare. In the next heartbeat, slick tendrils bound her limbs and hoisted her like a puppet on strings.

Damn it. Plant-type, my ass. An animal wearing leaves.

Mira drew her blade. Her vision still sloshed like water in a bowl. The gas muddied her head. She aimed to cleave the core. The instant lightning wrapped her saber, the monster showed cunning far above its name. It swung Adelaide into the line, a trembling shield between them.

With Adelaide taken hostage, Mira aimed at the tendrils instead. But her hands shook. The coils writhed like snakes, leaving ghost trails in her sight. The only stable ones were those gripping Adelaide. They had already slid under her clothes. Mira had no faith, in this woozy state, to cut them without cutting Adelaide.

In those few seconds, Adelaide’s clothes tore in several places, seams popping like brittle twigs. The tendrils kept intruding. Mira watched, helpless, as those flesh-colored coils pushed toward more dangerous ground. Worse, Adelaide didn’t resist. Her eyes were unfocused. Her head tilted. Slick tendrils pressed against her white thigh-highs, then slipped up along the crease of her thigh.

Damn. If I could use the Time Domain now—wait. She has that!

A spark of plan lit. Mira snatched a palm-sized bottle from her side pouch. She tossed it. One cut split it. Deep red powder burst in the air like a blood-tinged mist.

Closest to it, she was first to tear up. Heat pricked her eyes red. The Ailinnoru reacted at once. As the powder dusted its tendrils, the plant shrieked, a piercing, uncanny note like glass scraping bone. The open bud snapped shut. The tendrils withdrew, stopping a hair’s breadth from breaching the last strip of cloth.

Mira lunged, catching Adelaide as she dropped. A pure-white arc flashed through the cavern, clean and searing as noon sun. It cleaved the bud from the stalk in one stroke, then swept on. It slammed into the wall and detonated with a thunderous blast.

“Cough... cough...”

Mira finally had to breathe. One sip of air made her cough hard. The cause was the powder she’d thrown—chili powder.

Yes, chili powder. Something so humble it stung the Ailinnoru blind and handed her the opening.

She blinked through tears, steadied her breath, relief spreading warm as dawn. Lucky she’d cooked before the sand-tsunami. She hadn’t put the chili back in her wagon before rushing out to find water. A small oversight, now a lifesaver.

Without that bottle, Adelaide might have...

Mira refused the thought. Guilt crept in like cold water. She forced through the sting, turned, and checked Adelaide.

Instead, something soft and warm crashed into her arms. It knocked her off balance. They toppled into the shallows with a splash like broken glass.

“Wh-what are you—”

Adelaide straddled her. Their clothes, just dried, were wet again. It barely mattered. Adelaide’s outfit had been shredded by tendrils. Now, the last strip on her shoulder slid away with the current.

Good news: the tendrils had yanked off Adelaide’s wig. Wet white hair spilled down, barely veiling the most sensitive curves. Bad news: that water-born lotus look didn’t dull the spell. Half-hidden beauty made it worse, a vision Mira couldn’t face head-on.

Worse yet, Mira saw faint, curving lines on Adelaide’s smooth, pale stomach. Not only water beaded there. Those lines glowed with dusky light, like buried embers waking. Alarm rang hard. Before she could see clearly, Adelaide pushed her down again.

"Mira... I'm burning up..."

"Wait... wait—" she gasped, a thin rope tossed against a flood.

Panic first, thought later, like thunder before rain. Questions fluttered like startled sparrows—was it that flower, whose sap should numb, not blaze like this—what is happening?

Chaos washed through Mira’s skull like surf; she wriggled under Adelaide, but it was useless, like struggling in silk.

Pink hearts seemed to bloom in Adelaide’s eyes, candy-bright.

She pressed herself flush against Mira, four soft mounds crushed together, reshaping like warm dough under the tide of her hips.

The more Mira struggled, the tighter Adelaide fused to her. Breath from lips that usually wore a demure smile streamed like warm silk over Mira’s neck and ear, and her heartbeat shattered into erratic drums.

"Calm down, calm down, sister!" she pleaded, like cold rain on hot stone.

By now, Mira didn’t know if she was talking to Adelaide or to herself; either way, it was a mistake, like throwing oil on a flame. Especially the last two words—sister; that long-lost title struck tinder, and Adelaide’s pupils flushed pink.

"Mira... Mira..." Adelaide breathed, her voice honey-thick and warm as mist.

She licked the corner of her mouth, flashed her little fangs, and leaned for Mira’s neck like a hunting cat.

Mira let decorum fall like a dropped veil. She reached to push Adelaide’s face away, but the moment skin met skin, Adelaide snapped a hand around her wrist, like a trap springing.

Then Adelaide took Mira’s long fingers into her mouth, heat and wet like silk-wrapped fire.

Watching Adelaide, lost and ravenous, tonguing her index finger, Mira’s head buzzed like a struck hive and nearly stalled like a jammed gear. For a heartbeat, she thought Adelaide had grasped what fingers meant to their kind, a private code, like a taboo sigil.

But she soon found the finger wasn’t the point; that serpent-soft tongue kept rubbing the pad—right where Mira had cut herself with her sword—like heat finding a wound.

With each slow suck, with each flick of her tongue, Adelaide let out muffled, bliss-drunk murmurs, like waves lapping a hidden cove.

She trapped Mira’s foot; her soaked white stockings rasped along Mira’s thigh in time with those murmurs, her breath catching like a bow on strings.

When the heat and wet on her thigh, so different from the surrounding water, sank in, Mira’s face froze into a mask of ice.

Shame and desire clashed like thunder; resolve rose like a blade. No, no—this can’t go on; I have to end it now, like cutting a knot.

She clenched her jaw as if to crack her molars, using that gum-deep pain to dam the flood—the filthy urge to reach back and answer her.

Then she yanked her collar open, baring her long neck to Adelaide like a swan offered at an altar.