Volume 1 Chapter 36 Flight*
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
I felt bad for Rudy, but I was genuinely happy to be sleeping in a comfortable room.
I turned off the Magic lamp and closed my eyes, hoping for some long-overdue rest.
But maybe because I’d been living in such an abnormal environment, I couldn’t fall into a deep sleep.
In the middle of a light doze, I heard the door click open softly.
Someone was coming in.
I was wide awake instantly, though I didn’t have a weapon.
I held my breath, tracking the intruder by the sound of their footsteps in the dark.
(What’s the play here…?)
The footsteps stopped right beside the bed.
(Are they here to kill me?)
I slipped my hand out from under the blanket and conjured a small Fireball.
The flickering light revealed Marie’s face.
”What are you doing?” I hissed.
”A Night-visit³, obviously,” she whispered.
As soon as she said it, she slid into the bed.
Her face was so close I could feel her breath, and the scent of her-unmistakably a woman’s scent-started to cloud my judgment.
(No, no, no… sleeping with this woman is a one-way ticket to a miserable future.)
But despite my brain’s warnings, my body was already celebrating the long-overdue “event.” It seemed my lower half had decided to live its own life tonight.
Marie pressed her body against mine.
Through the thin fabric of her undergarments, she felt soft and supple; the chill she’d brought in from the hall quickly melted into a radiating, feverish warmth.
My junk-which had been subjected to every conceivable limit of humiliating and shameful abuse by those sadistic women in my past-seemed to have developed total amnesia.
Even though this girl smelled just like the ones who broke me, it was already standing at attention, eager and raging.
(You heartless traitor.)
Still… I wanted to be the one touching.
”So, handle Mana and you can do handy stuff like that, huh?” Marie reached out, her fingertips tracing the bicep of the arm holding the Fireball.
”Could I learn to do that too?”
She propped herself up on her left elbow to bring our faces level.
She was so close my vision blurred, and the sensation of her fingertips moved from my arm to my chest.
”P-probably,” I managed to choke out.
”That’s real nice to hear.”
Her breath alone was enough to finish off the last of my willpower.
Before the sentence was even over, I felt a wet sensation against my lips.
In a heartbeat, I was shoved down and she was straddling me.
The Fireball snuffed out, plunging us into a world of total darkness.
”I like you,” she whispered.
It wasn’t a voice, or even Telepathy³, but her raw consciousness bleeding into mine through the touch.
It was a messy cocktail of “I like Larry,” “I like men,” and “I love s*x.” But mixed in with those was something more alien-a warped kind of greed for “power” and “danger.”
The scent of her skin and the friction of our bodies drove my lust to a boiling point.
As her consciousness shifted from “liking” to “pure sexual craving,” my own mind became stained with that same hunger.
Fine. To hell with it.
Today, I’m losing my real V-card.
The very first time had been a drug-induced blur, and every time after that, the Parasite Host⁴ had been the one in the driver’s seat.
Even if I’d experienced it vicariously through him, I could hardly claim those memories as my own.
This was for me.
”My man,” she murmured.
She held my head in place as she vacuumed my lips.
Her small, firm tongue forced its way past my teeth, invading my mouth with a slick intensity.
I met her with my own tongue, but she wanted more, opening her mouth as wide as possible to greedily devour the sensation as we tangled in a frantic, wet mess.
When I pulled her into an embrace, she felt so fragile.
She was still young, her body not yet fully ripened, but her desires were purely adult.
Her small hips moved with a lewd, practiced rhythm.
I let my hands wander down her back to her soft, yielding cheeks.
I moved from her lips to her shoulder, then to the crook of her neck, licking every inch of her before finally settling on her firm, budding breasts.
”Mmm… yes…” Marie let out a soft moan.
I could feel it through our mental link-she was satisfying her lust, but she was also relishing the act of ensnaring me.
I knew exactly what she was doing, but the part of my brain that should have cared had already gone on vacation.
I didn’t need to regulate my libido with “love” like I did with my sister-in-law.
Right now, this woman was just a vessel for my rawest urges.
That realization only made the fire burn hotter.
I stripped away her undergarments and gave her hardened n**ple a sharp, playful nip.
She was incredibly sensitive; her breath hitched and escaped as a high-pitched squeal.
I flipped her over and took the mount.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I stared down at her.
”What is it?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. I just watched her.
I watched the way her chest heaved and how her n**ples stood out like small, taut peaks.
When I pinched one, she winced and looked up at me.
Her heart was racing with a vague, ballooning expectation-she was comparing me to the man who’d taken her virginity.
I remembered the things the Parasite Host had done to my sister-in-law.
(I’m going to break you,) I thought.
I shed my own clothes and pressed my bare skin against hers.
After one more deep, tongue-tangling kiss, I moved behind her.
Marie was practically vibrating with anticipation.
I slid my hand down between her legs to prep the way, and she reached back, her hand fumbling near her own backside to find me.
My fingers were already coated in her slickness.
I grabbed her wrist and guided her hand directly to my c**k.
(Wait…)
The moment Marie’s fingers wrapped around me, her sense of expectation took a nosedive.
(Is it small? Compared to who? It has to be that Ivan kid, right?)
It might have been a minor dip in her excitement, but for me, it was like a bucket of ice water.
The mood was stone-dead.
Being a telepath really has its downsides.
I knew for a fact this body was significantly bigger than the Parasite Host’s original form, but apparently, I was still losing the “size contest” in her head.
”What’s the matter?” she whispered, noticing I’d gone stiff in the wrong way.
”Nothing… just…” I trailed off.
Marie turned around and tugged the rest of my underwear off.
”Come on, now. Don’t stop. Hurry, hurry!”
Her expectation had soured, but her lust was still burning.
She gripped my now-softening member and started stroking it vigorously.
(Is it really that small?)
It was too pathetic to say out loud, but since we were linked, the thought slipped out via Telepathy.
Marie’s hand stopped.
She leaned in close, her eyes searching mine in the dark.
”You’re a real blockhead, ain’t ya?” She burst out laughing.
It wasn’t a sympathetic laugh.
It was the laugh of a woman who realized she’d just gained the ultimate leverage over me.
(Dammit. I walked right into that one.)
”Forget it. I’m done,” I said, rolling over and turning my back to her.
”Aw, don’t be like that!” She clung to my back, her hand snaking around to grab me again.
”Hey…”
She ran her tongue along the nape of my neck and toyed with my n**ple.
I hate how my body works; despite my wounded ego, the physical stimulation sent a mechanical shiver down my spine, and I started reacting again.
”Let’s just do it,” she whispered seductively into my ear.
My desire, which had been wilting, reared its head once more.
”Fine. Then get down there and use your mouth.”
It was a bit of knowledge I’d picked up from the Parasite Host-apparently, it was called a b**job.
I used to think it was a total perversion, but I’d seen the Host spend plenty of time working my sister-in-law over with his tongue.
”Okay,” she said.
I was stunned.
I thought for sure she’d refuse, but her excitement suddenly spiked.
She shifted positions, bringing her face down to my tip.
She hesitated for a second, looking up at me through her lashes, then returned her gaze to the task at hand.
She gave the head a tentative poke with her tongue, then, as if making up her mind, she took the whole thing in.
Her “moral” bar for s*x was apparently set on the floor.
(Is this how you want it?) her voice echoed in my head.
She was even moving her tongue.
(Does it feel good?)
I brushed her hair back, forcing her to look at me while she was still mid-act.
Seeing her like that satisfied some dark need for conquest.
I was reaching my limit.
”I’m coming in!”
I rolled her over and drove into her wetness in one smooth motion.
Marie’s consciousness flickered for a second.
She locked her long, slender legs around my waist and dug her nails into my back as I fell into a frantic, rhythmic pace.
That night, while staying perfectly conscious, I “graduated” from my V-card status over and over again.
I finished in her mouth once and got a lecture for it, but as an apology, I tried out that “clitoral licking” move the Host used to do.
She seemed to take a real liking to that.
(I feel like I’m forgetting something important, though…)
* * *
The next morning, the seating arrangement at the dinner table had been completely overhauled.
Usually, the Village Head sat at the head of the table, with his eldest son and his wife to the right, me to the left, and the Village Head’s Primary Wife next.
Now, the eldest son and his wife were there, along with the fourth son and third daughter.
Then me. And right next to me, Marie.
On the opposite side sat the Primary Wife, the first concubine, the second concubine with her kid, and the third concubine with her two children.
(What the hell is this?)
If I had to guess, I’d been officially “absorbed” into the family.
Last night, I was a guest.
This morning, I was sitting at the very bottom of the household hierarchy.
Which meant the whole family knew exactly what happened last night.
Nobody said a word about it, which only made it more certain.
I’d been played.
I thought Marie was just acting on a horny whim, but the whole damn clan had set a trap for me.
”You’re workin’ the mountain today,” Marie’s father grunted.
Yesterday, the Village Head would have made that request.
Now, Marie’s dad was giving me orders.
It was a clear sign my status had been downgraded from “honored guest” to “indentured son-in-law.” When I asked about teaching the kids how to use Mana, they just told me to save it for when the snow got too deep to go outside.
I geared up in my winter furs and followed the old man out.
Near the gate, I ran into the other village men and Rudy.
”Yo,” I said, raising a hand.
Rudy completely ignored me.
(Well, that’s fair, I guess.)
We headed out through the back gate-the same one I’d been dragged through when I first arrived.
We followed the river up to the sluice gate, circled the pond, and crossed the valley where I’d hunted that Al-miraj⁵.
There, the group split.
Half went to haul the timber we’d already cut, and the other half went to felling more trees.
Rudy and I were stuck on hauling duty.
Since we were “unskilled labor,” we weren’t even trusted with the logs.
We had to bundle up the stripped branches, strap them to pack-frames twice our height, and spend the day shuttling them back and forth to the woodshed outside the village gate.
At the shed, the elderly and the young boys would chop our bundles into kindling.
”I heard you bagged the Chief’s granddaughter,” Rudy said, finally breaking his silence as we headed back up the trail.
”Yeah. She paid me a Night-visit.”
”Man, every guy in this village had his sights set on her.”
”Well, she definitely wasn’t a virgin,” I countered.
”True. Word is that guy Ivan-the one from before-had a real rough time of it afterward.”
I hadn’t explicitly confirmed anything, but Rudy had already filled in the blanks.
So, Ivan got wrecked, huh? I guess that’s what happens when you touch the local “pure” girl while you’ve already got a fiancée.
Especially if you’re “bigger” than me.
Serves him right.
”So, Larry… you gonna spend the rest of your life in this village?”
”What makes you say that?”
”They’re already talking about a wedding once the new year hits.”
The atmosphere certainly pointed that way.
I’d slept with the girl, and the family had already moved my seat at the table.
It wasn’t a crazy theory.
”What about you, Rudy? What are you gonna do?”
”I’m getting back to my village. One way or another.”
He sounded determined, but I really wanted to ask him how the hell he planned on pulling that off alone.
But there were too many other villagers around, so I kept my mouth shut.
The mountain labor dragged on for several days.
From what I could gather, the local Lord of Opcheri⁶ had drafted almost all the able-bodied men for the war effort, which is why they were so desperate for “prisoners” like us to pick up the slack.
The Chief mentioned the war had hit a lull, but the post-war cleanup was a mess.
Kiridal⁷ had lost, and now Schweilitz⁸ was demanding massive reparations they couldn’t pay.
They were demanding land instead.
With the Schweilitz army currently occupying the country, the town of Opcheri was overflowing with refugees who’d fled the seized territories and had nowhere left to go.
Actually, from the village, I can see several horseless carriages parked in the square outside the walls of Castle Opcheri.
The authorities have been demanding food and manpower from every surrounding village to manage the situation, but word is that a new influx of Refugees is becoming a serious problem.
It’s just a rumor for now, but apparently, people fleeing the thinned-out border with Pannonia are flooding into the country.
Maybe that’s why the number of people heading into the mountains has dropped off lately.
About a week passed, and though it had only just turned December, a massive blizzard struck.
Even huddled inside the house, the sound of snow lashing against the walls is deafening.
Looking out through the cracks in the window, the world is nothing but a blinding, featureless white.
All mountain work has been called off.
”Didn’t you say you’d take a look at the Mana in the Children?”
I was led through the eaves of the clustered houses, past the shed where lumber was drying, and into a workspace.
Even with the cover of the eaves, the blizzard was so fierce they didn’t do a damn thing.
As I stepped inside and brushed the snow off my gear, the rank stench of dead fish hit me.
Inside the shed, rows of woven wooden cages were lined up, each housing one of those black Man-Eating Spiders.
Since they’re baited with dead fish, the source of the smell was instantly clear.
There were no adult men here-just women and Children working away in the dim room.
”Hey! Whoever’s got a free hand, get over here!” the Village Head barked.
Several Children approached.
Their hands were slick with fish scales and sticky white spider silk; I didn’t exactly feel like shaking them.
”These kids are young, so just touch the napes of their necks,” the Village Head said.
”If you have to, do some Kumite (Sparring).”
”Yeah, that’ll work,” I replied.
Perhaps because he’d seen me Sparring with his granddaughter, the Village Head was fine with me getting hands-on with the kids.
In the end, there were over forty Children there, but I only felt Mana in two of them: a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl.
Both were weak, though.
I guess they’re just waiting on a growth spurt.
”Is there potential?” he asked.
”Hard to say. At this point, they’re a hell of a lot weaker than Marie,” I answered.
He looked crushed.
It made me think of my Sister-in-law.
She had the aptitude for a Mage, and they’d even hired a tutor for her.
If that tutor had ignored everything else and just focused on increasing the Mana she could handle, would she have become a real Mage? Even if she had, I only know the Sparring and Fireball tricks she taught me.
I wouldn’t be able to help these kids grow anyway.
There was no point in dwelling on it, so I left the shed.
”You’re harvesting silk from the Man-Eating Spiders in there, right?” I asked.
”That’s the way of it,” the Village Head boasted.
”You jam your finger in the spider’s vent, hook the silk, and pull it out about two arm-spans before cutting it. Then you do it again. You can get about ten pulls off a single spider. Dry it out until it shrinks down, and you’ve got a product people will actually pay for.”
He went on about the different grades of silk, bragging that almost everything from this village was top-tier.
Later, I learned that only the black Man-Eating Spiders produce the good stuff, and you need the small, nimble fingers of Children to draw the silk out properly.
”Well, even if you know the trick, keeping those spiders is a nightmare. Other villages tried to copy us and failed miserably. Now, it’s our village specialty,” he said.
Between this and the waterwheel, the Village Head clearly had plenty to be proud of.
Despite everything, Marie still comes to my room every night.
She always insists on Sparring.
Apparently, the flow of Mana feels incredible to her-especially when it clears out stagnant pools.
She says it feels as good as s*x.
(I don’t remember it feeling that good when I was on the receiving end…) Still, I can’t say I mind when she looks at me with those pleading eyes.
Marie is still Marie, though; she tries to take the “mount” position over the smallest things.
If I leave my clothes in a heap, she lectures me like a nagging parent, telling me the fabric won’t last if I don’t treat it right.
I wait for her to pick them up, but she just sits there with a smug grin and makes me do it myself.
Then comes the “nightly duty.” She demands it every day.
I don’t go as many rounds as I did that first night, and while I’m young enough that my stamina holds up, I think I’m actually starting to catch feelings for her.
Besides, using the Mana-manipulation techniques from the Parasite Host’s memories during the act has definitely changed her.
She says she doesn’t like it, but since I can read her heart, I know she’s lying.
The Parasite Host calls it “training.” Whatever it is, it’s why she keeps coming back every night.
A few days later, once the blizzard broke, they had me peeling logs and helping with the sawmilling instead of heading back to the mountain.
Next to us, the men were working on the waterwheel.
They wouldn’t let me touch that, but since the whole concept came from the Parasite Host’s knowledge, I could pretty much figure out how they were putting it together.
After two days of clear skies, we finally headed back into the mountains.
The surface of the new snow had hardened, but trekking through it was still a total slog.
That day, I was stuck on transport duty while Rudy was sent to the logging crew.
With the fresh snow covering everything, an amateur wouldn’t even know where the cut trees were.
I had to collect branches and tips, lash them to a frame, and haul them back.
It was inefficient and the walk back to the village was brutal.
I was on my second trip, digging around for branches under the snow, when I heard it.
”He bolted! He’s running!”
The shout came from the distance, and I knew instantly what had happened.
Rudy had made his break.
But there wasn’t a damn thing I could do.
My legs were shot from trekking back and forth on the snow, and trying to sprint through knee-deep drifts seemed like a death wish.
”No way in hell an outsider’s gonna get away out here,” a man hauling logs grunted loud enough for me to hear.
He wasn’t wrong.
The fresh snow was deep; any runner would leave a massive trail and tire out in minutes.
Rudy was being reckless, but I wondered if something had finally snapped.
When I’d been back at the village workshop, he’d been missing.
I figured he was just in the woodshed.
Eventually, they dragged a captured Rudy back to the workshop.
He’d been worked over hard-both eyes were swollen shut and his lip was split wide open.
”You absolute piece of work!” a man barked, striking Rudy again.
Rudy didn’t even have the strength left to flinch.
”That’s enough! Knock it off!” I shouted, reflexively shoving the man back.
”The hell you think you’re doing, outsider?!”
Someone grabbed me by the collar from behind, swung me around, and slammed me into the dirt.
When I tried to get up, I caught a boot to the ribs.
After that, they literally stomped and kicked me until the world went black.
I woke up a while later to someone prodding my head.
”Get up,” a voice growled.
My hands were bound tight.
When I struggled to my feet, I saw Rudy had been tied up and dumped next to me.
The Village Head showed up, exchanged a few words with the guard, and then disappeared back toward the main house.
Rudy and I were tossed into a cell.
My entire body was screaming in pain, and they’d left us tied up on the freezing stone floor.
”Why the hell did you do something so stupid?” I asked, rolling across the cold slabs toward Rudy.
”I heard there was a plain on the other side of that forest hill,” Rudy said, managing to stagger to his feet with surprising coordination.
”Did you think you could reach the first village we raided? Did you think you wouldn’t just get lost in the woods again?”
”The sun was out,” Rudy muttered.
He pressed his bound wrists against a hinge on the cell door and started sawing the rope against the metal, moving his whole body up and down.
”Did something happen during the blizzard?” I asked.
”Yeah. They cut us back to one meal a day. Said there’s no bread for people who don’t work in this godforsaken cold.”
”So you ran while you were starving?”
”Yeah. Figured I was dead either way if I stayed here,” he said, not stopping his work for a second.
He was right.
Starving in this cold is a death sentence.
”Sorry for dragging you into this, man.”
”No kidding,” I said, though I could only mock myself for being an idiot.
”So, what’s the move?”
”Depends on what they do next,” I said.
”Besides, there’s a hell of a woman here,” Rudy added, like that mattered right now.
”I’m not staying here to die of hunger and cold. I’m going back to Heberich Village. Help me.”
(Give me a break… don’t drag me into your mess.) I wanted to scream at him for being so impulsive, but then I heard it-the snap of the rope.
”Larry, if you were gonna bolt, how would you do it?” Rudy asked, starting to work on my bindings.
”I’d head for the city of Opcheri,” I said.
”Why? That’s the wrong way.”
”Because it’s a mess of Refugees,” I explained.
”They’ll have soup kitchens or something. We blend in, get some food in our bellies, and then head west through the mountains near the border. We’ll hit the road we used to enter Kiridal, then we can make for Linto. It’s a military base.”
”Heh. You’re actually pretty sharp, aren’t you?”
”You’re just figuring that out now, you moron?”
”Shut up. So, when do we go?”
”Tomorrow morning. Before dawn.”
Rudy looked stunned by the speed of it.
”They’ll probably skip our dinner tonight,” I said.
”And since they think I’m tied up and can’t use magic, they’ll be lazy. No guards. In fact, is there anyone out there right now?”
We looked at each other and shared a jagged grin.
His face was a wreck-swollen eyes, blue bruises everywhere.
Mine probably looked just as bad.
Whatever.
It’s time to go.
—
Summary:
Larry is visited late at night by Marie, the Village Head’s granddaughter. Despite his reservations, he engages in a night of intimacy only to find he’s being compared unfavorably to a previous lover. The next morning, he realizes the ‘Night-visit’ was a social trap to force him into the family and village life as a laborer.
A winter blizzard halts labor, forcing Larry to assess local children’s Mana while witnessing the village’s grim spider-silk industry. Rudy attempts a desperate escape but is caught and beaten, leading to Larry being imprisoned alongside him. The chapter ends with Larry revealing a calculated plan to flee toward Opcheri, utilizing the chaos of the refugee crisis.
—
Trivia:
- The Parasite Host had previously controlled Larry’s body to have s*x with his sister-in-law.
- Marie is not a virgin and previously had a relationship with a man named Ivan.
- Village seating arrangements are a strict indicator of social standing and family inclusion.
- The war between Kiridal and Schweilitz is causing a refugee crisis and labor shortages.
- Larry possesses high-level magic like Fireball and Telepathy, which are rare enough to be commented on.
- The spider silk industry requires the nimble fingers of children to harvest.
- Man-Eating Spiders are baited specifically with dead fish, explaining the odor.
- Larry has only learned two techniques (Sparring and Fireball) from his sister-in-law.
- Refugees from Pannonia are becoming a major political and logistical issue in the region.
- Mana circulation is compared directly to sexual pleasure by Marie
—
Character Insight:
Larry struggles with his self-image, particularly regarding his masculinity and his past as a ‘loser’. His reliance on the Parasite Host’s ‘skills’ highlights his lack of experience and confidence. Marie is revealed to be more cunning and assertive than initially shown, using her sexuality for village leverage.
Larry demonstrates a mix of growing attachment to Marie and cold survival instinct. His plan for escape shows he is much more observant and strategic than his peers, likely due to the ‘Parasite Host’ knowledge.
—
Lore And Worldbuilding Context:
The ‘Night-visit’ custom (Yobai) is a real historical Japanese tradition, here adapted to highlight the ‘broken’ or different moral standards of this fantasy world.
The author focuses heavily on the gritty reality of production (spider silk) and the visceral consequences of failure (Rudy’s beating).
—
Glossary:
Notes:
• Rudy – Fourteen-year-old black-haired militia member from Heberlich Village, formerly of Garao, fled with the protagonist and now shares wood-hauling duty with Larry as his devoted companion and self-proclaimed brother-in-arms; grandson of a hunter, he possesses deep knowledge of forest creatures, excels at math, and battles severe war anxiety despite mocking Larry’s condition—visiting him daily. Capable of code-switching between heavy dialect and standard speech to negotiate with locals, he struggles with armor upkeep and horse handling, holds elitist views toward Strock Village, and maintains a sharp, protective bond with Larry amid captivity.
• Marie – Granddaughter of the Village Head; age 15. The Village Head’s granddaughter who initiates a night-visit to Larry. The Village Head’s granddaughter. Feigned being harassed to cover up a secret relationship with a man named Iva.
• Larry – 14‑year‑old third son of the Strock headman, reddish‑white skin, bronze eyes, curly bronze hair, hosts a Parasite Host with a 40‑yr‑old Sage’s memories. Militia member of Unit 303, simple‑type mage with fire magic, can read hearts/mana by touch, syncs golems, battles PTSD and mana inflammation, admires his sister‑in‑law, trains to be Village Head, knows the Sky Heroes legend, and bears the guilt of a killing.
• Village Head – The elderly leader of Balsheni Village who previously sold furs in Obernbach. The elderly leader of the village and grandfather to Marie. The leader of the village who orchestrates Larry’s integration into the family.
• Al – Alberto, a massive red‑haired man recently married to Mary, just finished his village wedding. He is a companion of Hans, helping intimidate and gather elders as a villager and leader working alongside him.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply