So.

The party system.

Party management, sidequests, companion events, random skits… there are a lot of things that make the party system shine, and we’ve touched upon plenty of those subjects already.

But they are not the party system in itself.

Because, at its core? RPGs are, as the acronym cleverly disguises, games. Of the murder simulator family, to be more precise. You can have a lot of things in an RPG taken out without people complaining more than Internet dwellers are already prone to, but you take away the combat aspect, and there are going to be words.

Words likely cut off from magazines and anonymously sent to the game developer with a picture of their home, but let’s not dwell on heartwarming childhood memories.

So, back to games, murder simulation, and parties—and no, this isn’t a flashback to my last birthday. The idea is that a turn-based RPG has the player consider the capabilities of each of the constituents of their group and then select among the available actions for them to attempt.

‘Attempt’ is the keyword here.

See, if three characters are each trying to do something, and one of them fails because they are interrupted, blocked, stunned, or turned into a friggin’ frog (worst status effect ever by far, particularly seeing as Tifa didn’t cure you in the traditional way), then the other character actions are still there to work part of your plan (ideally; mass frog supremacy could still be an issue). You, as the player, have a spread of choices that play out in unplanned ways, but your decisions are still impactful.

And that’s just a layer of the whole cake (not a Christmas one, sadly enough for royal prosecutors). Consumable items allow every single one of your characters to take the role of a healer in an emergency, having multiple characters means that the damage is spread out rather than critically concentrated, diverse specialized roles give flavor to the party’s composition, and some synergy can be gleaned if the game designer wasn’t criminally lazy or even more antagonistic than usual, and, other than these, a long list of etceteras also add up to the list regarding why it’s so important to get a proper, functional party rather than rely on a single character to bear the brunt of an unbalanced system.

And there lies my current issue.

Because a poorly unbalanced RPG? That’s basically the clarion call of hentai RPGs everywhere, seeing as the game developers tend to be short-staffed amateur studios or lone individuals that have higher priorities in mind than crunching numbers or, Heavens forbid, be even slightly original.

Or know enough about coding to force RPG Maker into something other than a poor clone of obsolete FF mechanics. That too.

But, see, those game devs? Those poor, heroic, valiant souls willing to brave society’s scorn to bring a solitary young man the illusion of companionship? They, more often than not, in prioritizing either questionably aimed artistic skills or writing skills unambiguously absent, craft a story revolving around a single character rather than a party.

And, being so competent at the ‘game’ part of game development… Yeah. They clearly decide that, if the story is just about a single character, then the party should consist only of that particular character.

Which means that everything we’ve talked about gets thrown out of the window. The fights are a constant slog, picking a single action and waiting for the group of enemies to take their turn at beating up on the poor, loner character like he was a player insert going through his high school days. It means that there are very few things to do, that every failed action is disproportionately devastating, and that the optimal choices are readily apparent, and thus no choices at all. It means that the despondent protagonist goes off on his own, wandering the streets and back alleys, only having fleeting connections with those who’ll never join his party.

It may mean, to some uncharitable eyes, that he’s sulking.

“Kazuma?” a very uncharitable and equally stacked blonde asks.

“Yes, it’s me, Kazuma,” I clarify, seeing as I’m currently transformed into an orc, and there’s no reasonable way for people to guess my true identity.

“I know who you are; I was greeting you,” somebody who may have the detective class says through gritted teeth that are a pretty good defense against my particular orc-class exclusive silence-dealing status effect attack.

“Ah,” I answer.

And then I just stand dumbly in the middle of this unfamiliar back alley, by the side of a pile of wooden crates that will be turned into a cloud of splinters if a dramatic chase ensues, in front of Luna, who’s… not wearing her guild uniform, but a rather striking combination of a purple long coat, tight leather maroon pants with knee-high boots, and a frilly white blouse that makes me think about Rule 63 pirates in plenty of games with somewhat heterodox approaches to world history class that a charitable teacher should’ve regarded more kindly in their evaluation process, no matter how embittered he was by the many years of soul-crushing dealings with teenagers he had been forced to endure, isn’t that right, Mister Saotome?

“What are you doing here?” she finally says, presumably fed up with waiting for me to elaborate.

“Walking,” I answer.

“You’ve been glaring at those crates for minutes,” she counters.

“… Have you been watching me glare at crates for minutes?” I reasonably counter-counter.

“Wha—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she counter-counter-counters, crossing her arms under her bust in what can only be a deliberate tactic to distract me from the subject.

It almost works. It's a pity that the blouse is buttoned up far higher than what her usual guild uniform shows.

Though she does have quite a striking, long, delicate neck that her updo does a wonderful job of showing off—

“And there it is…” she grumbles, staring down at where my royal toga is now straining away from my torso.

“It’s a natural reaction,” I automatically protest, lamenting the lack of pockets to shove my hands in and briefly wondering how many political meetings were ruined in ancient Rome by undisguised boners.

“To wooden crates?” she asks with an arched eyebrow that lights up the fire of competition in my heart.

“To blondes who go weak-kneed at the first orgasm,” I answer with a readily defiant eyebrow.

That is, apparently, something that the Kazuma in Luna’s head wouldn’t have said, going by her rapid blinking and small yet daring blush symmetrically tinging the outline of marvelously defined cheekbones.

Aaaand now I’m throbbing.

… Not the time, orcish ancestors. Not the time.

“That was crass,” she mutters.

“Oh, excuse me, I thought an assassin would be up for some risky banter. Forgive my mistake,” I tell her, crossing my arms over my chest more for effect than to try and dignifiedly disguise how my toga is slowly falling away from my shoulder.

She blinks at my pectoral display of forcible masculinity, up my arms, slowly pausing over the part of my toga sliding down a perfectly rounded, smooth deltoid that offers very little friction, and into my eyes.

Then she, again, raises a damnable eyebrow, this time filled with skepticism.

“All right, I’ll bite; what’s the matter?” she says, taking a couple of steps toward me to close the distance from ‘cowboys about to gunfight’ to ‘people actually talking.’

“Nothing at all,” I say.

“Don’t be stubborn. I’m offering to listen, aren’t I?” she says, her tone not quite as confrontational, and…

I look at the stacked blonde of dubious classes, then at the stacked crates of dubious origins, and…

Well, I sigh.

I see no reason to restrain myself, so my breathing causes a mild breeze to go across this alley between windowless houses, scattering a few dust motes and making Luna’s coat swirl open before I turn around and adopt a Thinker’s pose upon the crate that seems less likely to collapse under my orcish might, the sitting angle doing a pretty good job at disguising my not-quite deflated erection that I shield from Luna’s accusatory gaze by leaning farther forward when I rest my chin on top of the back of my right hand.

That is, of course, when the toga comes undone and slips down, pooling around my waist.

…

“This is a sculpture-worthy pose. Baring my muscular torso is just for added effect and, of course, an entirely intentional and dramatic reveal on my part,” I state for the sake of the less cultured among my audience of one woman.

“I wouldn’t say muscular…” the Philistine says.

“My biceps is thicker than your tits,” I say.

“Isn’t the usual comparison a thigh—”

“I know what I said.”

“Ah.”

Then she rolls her eyes, shrugs, and walks to sit by my side on a neighboring crate that may not have been able to withstand my full orcish might, but is definitely up to supporting an assassin-worthy derriere.

“So,” she says.

“So,” I answer.

She nudges me with her elbow, just in a way that makes me wonder if she just triggered Backstab like Chris did earlier, and now I’m thinking again about things that I very much don’t want to think about, and, really, would it be so hard for Luna to just kneel down in cock worship like we both know she will by the end of this scene without first forcing me to talk about onahole-goddess-darned feelings?

“Spill,” she says.

“I’ve got a girlfriend,” I say.

She blinks at me in very offensive confusion.

“You do?” she asks after an infuriatingly enduring silence.

“No,” I say, her ensuing smile making my left eye twitch. “I’ve got… a whole mess. Among which is a girlfriend, who just also got her own girlfriend—that’s Darkness and Chris, respectively. Then I’ve got a thing with Yunyun and Megumin, who I don’t know if they are official between one another, but are living together, sharing a bed, and making eyes at each other while a handfed breakfast ensues, so I assume any label other than ‘legally wedded by the power of being the Crimson Magic Clan heiress’ would be an understatement. There’s also that part where Aqua and I just passionately admitted that we love one another, but that was right before she reminded me just how mind-numbingly dumb she can be, and I’m taking a minute to try and reconcile my undeniable affection for her with how very little I respect her as a person. Oh, and I also fucked Wiz, who just moved in with us.”

For some bizarre, utterly nonsensical reason, Luna is gaping at me.

“Also, I may or not have fucked a Guild employee into being addicted to orc dick,” I add, just because I’m feeling petty enough.

“Who was it?” she asks with a somewhat dangerous glint in her eye that… uh…

I stare at her. She stares back. I raise an eyebrow who’s reached a new plateau of skill and pure physical might.

And she punches my jaw.

“I’m not addicted to your cock!”

“You’re talking to me! Unprompted! Out of working hours!”

“I can be nice! I was trying to be nice!”

“Well, why don’t you nicely suck my dick and conveniently make me forget about the whole mess waiting for me back home?!”

“Why—you—why the Hell are you so stabbable?!”

“It’s both a blessing and a curse,” Vanir-chan comments.

From my left side.

That is, the side of my body that my dick is less shielded in.

“Aaaaaaaahhhh!” I say as I tightly hug Luna to me and shove her on my lap so that she’ll fulfill the assassin class role as disposable fodder that the Fate series has taught me they all are.

“What the Hell are you doing?!” she says, protesting too much.

“Reacting in panic to a friendly greeting in a way that I would find most amusing if it wasn’t so offensive,” Vanir-chan dutifully explains for me.

“That! I’m doing that!”

“Wha—who’s this girl, and why are you terrified of her?” Luna, poor, sweet, innocent Luna, asks.

I nervously lick my lips as Vanir-chan’s smirk grows under her half-mask into something about as sharp as Aqua’s wit isn’t.

“Please allow me to introduce myself—”

“She’s Vanir! Or he’s Vanir-chan! Or, or—look, it’s complicated, and it all stems from very cultured pieces of literature that you’re unlikely to ever have heard of—”

“Are you calling me dumb?”

“No! Not at all! That’s a word reserved solely for Aqua, and I wouldn’t dare cheat on her, other than for all the girls I’m constantly having sex with that are not Aqua, but, really, she’s Aqua, so can you blame me?”

Two women look at me.

“Yes,” one of them says while turning around on my lap to shoot me a look of disgust over her shoulder that could be very expensive under other circumstances.

“Without a shred of doubt, Kazuma Satou. Your irredeemable status as utter scum is one of your most endearing traits,” the other girl says before jumping up to sit on top of the crate I’m occupying, her plush yet petite thigh pushing against my leg in a way that’s perfectly noticeable even through my toga and her perfectly pressed pants.

“What the—are you flirting with Kazuma?” Luna says.

“Not at all. I, like you, my dearest Luna, am merely a supportive friend come to listen to Kazuma Satou’s woes in his time of need with no underhanded intentions whatsoever. Just. Like. You,” she answers with a placid smile that would make a shark’s balls retreat into their body.

… Do sharks have external genitalia? Vanir-chan, if you know, give me a hint.

No hints? At all? Other than your enduring smiling assault against Luna? Darn it, this is going to bug me all day. Sometimes, I really miss having a smartphone.

“What is even happening?” Luna whispers, succinctly vocalizing my entire thought process of the past few days.

“That is certainly a good question,” Vanir-chan answers, pointing at Luna with a finger gun that I hope is not a prelude to a Vanir Beam. “Indeed, that is the very same question plaguing our very own virile viridian Vanir-boytoy—”

“I’m not a boytoy. I’m either a fuckboy or a manwhore, but I’m no woman’s toy,” I state with firm aplomb.

“You’re getting laid with six girls who live with you, and I still could easily manipulate you by flashing some cleavage,” Luna drily states.

“To be fair, you’ve got spectacular cleavage,” I wisely comment.

She, rather than take my generous compliment in good spirits, jumps up and down in just the right way for her equally spectacular ass to mash my balls against the inside of my thigh.

“—” I point out.

“Oh, dear. Would you like me to kiss it and make it better?” Vanir-chan innocently proposes.

“—” I answer.

“… I think you may have broken him,” Vanir-chan points out.

Luna slides out of my limp arms and, her own arms crossed under something that I’m no longer interested in checking out, directs a look of scorn between my legs.

“Still hard,” she says.

“—” I defend myself.

“I mean, he’s an orc,” Vanir-chan assists me in said defense. “It’s a wonder you weren’t bent over one of these crates when I came in.”

“I—I wouldn’t just get railed in a dirty alley!”

“Really.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Luna asks, the crossed arms minutely raising up in bust-emphasizing indignation.

“That she can read your mind,” I weakly explain.

“Ah,” Luna says.

Then starts running.

“Let me go!” she protests when I stop her in her tracks by grabbing the back of her coat’s collar.

“No fucking way. You just bounced on my balls, woman. Now it’s your turn to suffer.”

“Kazuma Satou, yet again, you magnificently display why this new body of mine desperately wants your seed stuffed in every available orifice.”

“Gah! What is she—is she even serious?! Why would—”

“Why would I say that out loud, Luna? Truly, it’s just a matter of courtesy for one such as I, seeing as all your inner secrets and desires are laid bare to me. Why would I then withhold any of the thoughts birthed from my magnificent self?”

“To avoid inflicting trauma on me!” Luna fiercely refutes, still struggling against my hold on a piece of clothing that, come to think of it, she could easily shrug out of if she had any focus on the Evasion stat at all.

“You really don’t know Vanir-chan, do you?” I mumble in not-quite sympathy, seeing as she deserves absolutely everything that’s about to happen to her, except maybe the plentiful orgasms.

“She didn’t exist until—when did you even start existing?”

“One could say that, like a statue hidden in the purest marble, I’ve always been here.”

“Couple of days ago. When she decided it would be funny to mess around with whatever the heck you’d call a harem in which everyone has a loving partner except for me,” I explain.

Luna stops trying to run in place and turns around to look at me with a somewhat confused gaze.

“You just told me that Darkness is your official girlfriend and that Aqua passionately confessed her love to you,” she points out.

“She did what?!” Vanir-chan angrily sputters.

Which immediately makes it so two people focus on the stacked yet short tomboy sitting by my side.

“Vanir-chan?” I ask.

“Yes?” she nervously mutters.

“What number am I thinking of?”

“… Sixty-nine?”

“No. It’s 177013,” I state for no particular reason.

“Ah,” she says.

Nervously.

“Okay, what the Hell is going on now?” I ask as Luna takes a curious and criminally stupid step toward us, forcing me to bend my arms so as to accommodate the new distance.

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about?” Vanir-chan says while shyly fidgeting.

“What is even happening?” Luna understandably restates her confusion as I mutely gape at a cute—at Vanir-chan fretting.

“Nothing! Nothing at all! I most definitely haven’t temporarily sealed my mind-reading so as to better understand a regular person’s perspective on how communication works because I wanted to better bond with Kazuma Satou!”

“You did what?” I ask.

“Nothing! At all. I just explained so with plenty of extraneous and utterly misguiding words, so you could ignore any part of my statement other than the first premise upon it is predicated that nothing is happening and, thus, I have done nothing at all, Kazuma Sa—what the Hell is even happening?!” she asks, being the one caught off guard for once in her existence.

Which is somewhat understandable, seeing as I just pulled her on top of the lap previously occupied by Luna, mashed her against my bare chest, and rubbed my face on top of surprisingly soft, short hair that feels like a very expensive brush caressing my cheek.

… Not that I would know how that feels like.

“Thank you,” I mumble.

“Wha—what for?” she asks with a tone that rises and falls quite a lot for how short the line is.

“For… For caring. For being a friend,” I say.

And she slowly turns her head up and blinks at me through the eyeholes in her mask before shily reaching up to kiss the side of my chin.

“You’re welcome, Kazuma Satou,” she says before nuzzling my chest with a contented sound.

The moment is, rather than spoiled, somewhat enhanced when Luna lies a single, hesitant hand on my biceps.

… It may not be bigger than her tits.

***

“So. Your life is a mess,” the woman responsible for handing out my multi-million debts says, yet again sitting by my side, yet on a separate crate.

“Life always is messy. It’s why you don’t get tired of it,” a smug girl cuddling on top of my lap says before yet again rubbing her cheek on my torso to, presumably, mark me with her scent.

“Please don’t try to sound like you make sense while… wearing that body,” Luna, still not used to the results of my own weirdness-enhancing field, says.

“Jealous?” Vanir-chan asks, ratcheting up the smug just a bit, but only because it was already near its max setting.

I hope.

… See? The fact that she hasn’t made a joke about such a tempting thought is what assures me that she’s been perfectly sincere so far regarding her sealed mind-reading. No matter how intricate her plotting, she wouldn’t have missed the chance to say something along the lines of, ‘You think you’ve witnessed the sheer intensity that this Vanir-chan is capable of, Kazuma Satou? You fool! I’ll have you learn the true depths of the ecstasy that awaits you at the hands of an existence that surpasses the quintessential smug anime girl!’

Aaaaany minute now.

“You’re a shortie,” Luna says, trying to sound dismissive. “With nice curves, yes, but, really, compared to this?” she comments with a very eloquent gesture that encompasses two of her most spectacular assets. “May as well be Megumin before she drank that potion.”

“Did you forget to deny your attraction to Kazuma Satou just to try and rub my perceived inadequacies in?” Vanir-chan asks, demonstrating that she definitely needs to get used to human communication without telepathy.

“I was just stating why it’s so ridiculous that I’d be jealous of you. You have nothing I don’t have in spades.”

“Brains, for a start.”

“Is that a blonde joke? Because I can dye my hair, but wearing heels has limits.”

“I thought this was about helping me navigate the perilous depths of my relationship woes rather than to show me a catfight that, so far, has both of you still clothed and is, thus, sadly lacking for my current standards,” I sagely point out.

Yet again, this results in two girls glaring at me. It’s a novel experience only in that Vanir-chan is one of them.

“You left me a well-fucked, cum-covered wreck in the middle of my workplace. My sympathy for your excess of sexual partners is somewhat limited,” Luna says.

“Is that why you just came out of the Succubus Café?” Vanir asks.

“I have not. And you can’t read my mind to say otherwise.”

“I’ve read your mind plenty of times to ascertain patterns. Patterns such as that of a lonely career woman with no time for romance whose urges have been recently rekindled after a fiery encounter that reminded her of how it feels not to wake up alone in the middle of a cold night—that can’t have made you harder,” Vanir-chan states, futilely denying factual reality.

“I may, or not, be a sucker for emotional vulnerability. I blame Yunyun.”

“You are a sap, Kazuma Satou.”

“Well, yes, but in my defense, Yunyun.”

“She just makes you want to hug her until all the bad thoughts go away, doesn’t she?” Luna comments with a sigh that emphasizes her advantages over Vanir-chan’s preferred manifestation.

“I’m feeling irked for reasons beyond my understanding. I demand cuddling,” the girl sitting on my lap and, thus, on my sempiternal erection says with a pout as she raises her arms toward me.

“… Didn’t we agree to be friends for a while before even considering moving forward?” I ask while resisting the urge to squee like an overweight otaku rolling around on his bed.

“It is Platonic cuddling. And, seeing as I’m currently female, the word Platonic should not engender any kind of misunderstandings regarding hypothetical homosexual leanings.”

“I don’t know what the Hell you’re talking about,” I say, yet again stating the obvious.

“Just shut up and cuddle me. The mysteries of the female mind are not for you to decipher, just to enjoy.”

“I mean… she’s not wrong,” Luna comments with shoulder-dropping resignation.

“You’re all terrible at this whole ‘gender equality’ thing…” I say.

And then I envelop Vanir-chan in a hug that, given our respective sizes, is quite more literally enveloping than the gesture usually would be.

… It’s nice.

As in… there’s this warmth in my chest, where she presses her head against me, right near the spot Aqua usually kisses when given the chance to be deliriously affectionate, but now it’s just soft hair brushing against me and smooth skin lending me her own warmth. It’s… her arms, not quite reaching around me but still clinging to me, and her breathing turned into something irregular yet rhythmic, as if she was humming an inaudible lullaby.

It’s soothing.

And, finally, for some reason, my erection lowers.

“I should feel offended,” Vanir-chan says with a smile on her tone.

“Don’t,” I answer. “Just… Thank you.”

I don’t lean back, because behind me there’s just a wall of bare stone that radiates a cold I can feel on my skin, but also… also because I’d rather lean forward and over her. Keeping her inside of my reach as thoroughly as I am able, feeling the trapped heat of her body rising up my chest and neck as tension I wasn’t quite aware of slowly drains away, my muscles softening and my own breathing deepening after every slow heartbeat that seems to mingle with the tune she hums over my chest.

“Fine,” Luna grumbles.

And… And she turns sideway and reaches for me with her own hug, her bust pressed against my arm, her face resting over a biceps that would feel slightly more competitive in other circumstances.

“You’re a good kid, Kazuma,” she mumbles.

“He’s scum. My scum,” Vanir-chan says.

And… And I could come up with some quip. Something to add to the exchange that would make me feel smart or, at least, smarter than the people around me. I could open my mouth and…

And mess things up.

There’s a brief flaring of anxiety at the realization. At just… Just knowing precisely what it is that I so often do to women I’ve fought by the side of.

Trusting them with my life.

With pulling me back after I die.

How… How can I trust them so much and still…

“Thanks,” I repeat, unable to come up with anything better. “Just… thank you. Both of you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Luna says, and not even in a way that would imply threatening me with bodily harm if I started a rumor about her consoling me in a dark alley.

“What are friends for?” Vanir-chan asks.

And, before I can answer, the world fades away.

“What the Hell?” I understandably ask when I open my eyes to find a crimson canopy of draped silk above me with matching sheets covering my chest.

“Mister Kazuma! I was so worried!” a fretting Yunyun says from my right before a slender arm goes under the blanket and over my chest as a soft body presses against my side.

I blink a couple of times before I turn to see that, yes, a very naked Yunyun (she still has her shirt’s collar and tie on) is latched to me and all but tearing up in clear distress.

“What is going on? How did I get here? Why’re we both naked—scratch that last one; I’m pretty sure I can figure it out.”

“Ah… It’s the only communication spell I have…”

“A communication spell?” I ask with clear skepticism when I notice a set of incense sticks burning on the bedside table closest to her and the spread of red candles all around the room.

“It’s… It’s called Pillowtalk,” she explains.

“Pillowtalk.”

“The chant is a bit… Uh…”

“The chant?”

“A place that is so pure, so dirty and raw. In the bed all day, bed all day, bed all day. Fucking in and fighting on—” she recites, her cheeks reddening enough to match the décor.

“Okay! Okay! I get the idea!”

“It’s—it’s supposed to connect lovers who are apart, and, well, I always thought that if I ever… I just… I wanted a—a way to make sure I could always be there for somebody I fell in love with, and… And you ran off in the middle of breakfast, then a lot of things happened, and before I could talk to you, you’d stormed out of the mansion, and nobody knows where you are, so… So I cast the one spell I have to make sure I can always be with the people I love!”

I blink at her.

There’s something stuck in my throat that I’m starting to believe may be an allergic reaction to Yunyun being adorable. Or, well, just Yunyun.

So I… I lean down and kiss her over her hairline, where her diadem-like braid gives way to her fringe, which prompts her to redden further before sliding her right arm under my back so that she can cling harder against my side.

“Thanks,” I mutter, as uncharacteristically grateful as I’ve been over the past hour.

“Don’t. It’s my fault that you were hurt,” she says, rubbing her face side to side on my arm.

“It really isn’t, I just… I was kind of… I mean…”

She looks up at me with wet, crimson eyes that glimmer unfairly with the surrounding candlelight, and I can’t help but sigh, even if not harder than it takes for her fringe to flare up and bare her forehead as she furrows her closed eyes like a miffed kitten.

“There’s nothing wrong with you and Megumin being affectionate,” I finally settle on. “It’s just that, after yesterday… I kind of… I felt brushed aside, as if you were with the one you really care for, and—and what the Hell are you doing?!”

“Sorry! Sorry, it’s just how the spell works!”

“The spell works by grabbing my dick?!”

“It’s from the sexual spells tree! If there’s no physical intimacy, it ends!”

“I’m having a serious talk! A heart-to-heart! I’m baring my innermost vulnerabilities and inadequacies, and you’re telling me I have to do that while you give me a handjob?!”

“I—of course not…” she says.

And, before I can ask her to elaborate, she gets under the sheets and shows me quite eloquently that, no, a handjob is not what she had in mind.

I blink stupidly at a round lump moving over my waist and under shimmering crimson sheets that is more or less synchronized with the shy movements of a small, pointed tongue tracing along the main vein of my dick.

And I facepalm.

“Yunyun, I don’t see how I can have a serious conversation while you suck me off,” I mutter.

“You… It’s… It wouldn’t be the first time?” she says before kissing my very tip with three soft, slow pecks.

“What—”

“In the dungeon? We… It’s… It wasn’t… If it hadn’t been for your words, I wouldn’t…” she trails off into something completely unintelligible before she slides up my body, and her breasts engulf my shaft right as her lips go yet again for my cock’s head.

“My… My words?” I say, trying very hard not to look at the inside of my cranium.

“Your feelings,” she mumbles, her hot breath washing over every part of me wet with her saliva.

Ah.

Feelings.

Of course.

“That’s… that was a very charged situation, and that’s precisely why we should have a slow talk and—”

“If I don’t keep going, the spell will end, and I want—need to hear what you have to say,” she says, some of the fiery girl that comes out in these moments starting to show both in her tone and the determined way in which she slides her breasts along my shaft while the sheets cling in very defined curves to her swaying behind.

“I can’t even look at you—” I say, reaching down to throw the blanket off.

And a surprisingly strong hand reaches up from under that very same blanket to grab my wrist.

“Then don’t. Don’t look at me. Please. I… I want to listen to you, and… and I feel so safe right now…” she drifts off before giving a maddeningly amorous kiss to my now dripping tip.

“S—safe?” I ask.

“Hmm,” she happily mumbles. “It’s… the soft light going through the sheet, your smell, your warmth… I just… I just want to stay like this. Can’t… Can’t I?” she asks with a voice that brings to mind wide, bright, vulnerable eyes.

Of course, that means that my cock throbs hard enough to splatter a visible stain that is now darkening the sheet right above the lump that marks the position of Yunyun’s head over me.

She giggles.

… That just makes things worse.

“So. You want me to talk. About feelings. While you suck me off,” I state rather than ask.

“Hmmm,” she happily replies with her lips nibbling and humming around my frenulum.

“You’re impossible,” I say as I drop my head on a pillow that, going by the name of the spell, should be the focus of this whole scene rather than what’s happening at around the height of my waist.

“Please?” she says right before her lips slowly spread around and down my glans, her tongue lapping up the precum pouring out of my opening in a way that very much feels like a French kiss.

Goddamn Frenchmen. Who told you to spread your vicious teachings to this already utterly unfair girl?

“You’re not giving me much of a choice,” I mumble.

She, rather than answer, corkscrews her lips around my cock as she presses her breasts tighter against my shaft.

Which, come to think of it, is a pretty eloquent answer, no matter how non-verbal in its expressiveness.

“Okay, fine,” I mumble before an intense suckling makes me hiss and clench my fists around now torn bedcovers.

Then she pauses, as if… as if waiting for me to elaborate.

With my cock still in her mouth and between plush breasts, her dangling tie brushing over my pelvis.

… Yunyun OP. PLZ, nerf. At least down to the level of Vanir-chan, if I’m to keep what little tattered remains of my sanity I have still clung to.

“I…” I resignedly start talking, if only so I won’t cum down her throat straight away. “I just feel like… like all of you? Like it’s not real. Like… the me of just a few days ago wouldn’t have managed to get a single date with any of you, never mind what we’ve already done—”

There’s a very audible suction noise that is accompanied by tactile feedback that makes my eyes roll back, and then I manage to come back to staring up at a crimson canopy as plush lips hover right in brushing distance of my glans.

“Date,” she says with the kind of intensity I would associate with Megumin pondering how many kittens she can bring herself to sacrifice for extra chuuni points.

“What?” I ask with the kind of disorientation that I would associate with Aqua’s everything.

“You’re taking me on a date,” she clarifies before her tongue swirls around my head as her breasts tighten once more around me, and a toe-curling moan goes from her vibrating lips to the base of my spine.

“I… am?” I hiss out.

“Yes. Date. Me. Date. Want,” she… clarifies.

In a rather intimidating way.

Particularly when she nods down to swallow me deep enough for her lips to meet her cleavage before slowly trailing up as her tongue moves side to side along my shaft, her hands abandoning her breasts to press down on my lower abdomen as she pushes herself up, the middle line of her body rubbing all along my cock as she arches up and forward, the crimson sheet steadily rising until first her glistening breasts are revealed, and then…

Then the sheet slides over soft, black hair, and falls down her back, framing in slow, glimmering crimson waves the beauty of Yunyun straddling my body and looking at me in a very un-Yunyun way.

Specifically, like she’s about to devour me. Which makes it somewhat of a relief that my cock’s no longer in her mouth.

“Yun… yun?” I ask of the more succubus-like being I’ve encountered in this plane of existence.

“Date. With flowers. And a suit. And a restaurant. And I’ll wear a dress. And you’ll tell me how beautiful I look, and I’ll shyly deny it and blush as butterflies swirl in my stomach before you offer me your arm to walk me to our table, and the waiter will say that we look like a lovely couple, and I won’t know what to say, so you’ll laugh off my embarrassment and say that you knew just as soon as you first saw me, and it will be a lie, because of course it will be, but it won’t matter. Not to me. It will just matter that… that we are there, on a date, together, and that you’ll look at me like I really am beautiful enough to fall in love with, even if Megumin and Darkness and Aqua were there first, even if I’m just the afterthought, it won’t matter because you’ll still accept me, and you won’t be embarrassed at all by being in public with me, or by… by… by kissing my hand. By walking by my side under the moonlight as I don’t know what to say and end up just looking into your eyes until you ask me what I’m thinking, and I just don’t have any answer because I’m not thinking, just feeling. Feeling so… so… much…”

I should be scared.

Scratch that; I should be terrified.

But I’m yet again living proof of how constantly resurrecting can mess up with your survival instincts, because my hands are wrapped around the waist of a girl who clearly enjoys nice boats, and I’m staring straight into crimson eyes as I drag her up my cock, her lower lips spreading against the underside of my shaft, coating me with a wetness entirely unlike that of her saliva as she just keeps staring at me, not even looking down at where I’m about to go inside of her for a single moment as her hands find my wrists and pull my own hands tighter against her body.

“Yunyun?” I ask despite my dry lips.

“Yes… dear?” she answers in a way that makes my heart roar.

“Can you get pregnant through this spell?”

“I… I haven’t purchased that upgrade.”

“Okay.” I nod, slightly pensive. “I’m still going to try.”

She lets out a cute ‘eep.’

And I push her down my cock.

Her heat and tightness surround me, as if pulling at me to go ever deeper, not meeting any kind of resistance until more than half of my shaft is inside of her.

She’s still staring into my eyes.

I pull harder.

Her lips tremble for a single moment before she bites the lower left corner hard enough that the pink flesh pales, and her eyelids flutter without ever closing entirely as she forces herself to keep staring at me.

And she raises her legs, resting her calves along my forearms.

“Use me,” she says in a voice that makes my eyelids flutter. “Use me to make yourself feel good.”

“No,” I say. “I’ll feel good seeing you become ecstatic.”

I pull my hips back, the bed groaning under us, and then I rise, pushing deeper than a moment ago.

Then I do it again.

And again.

And, soon enough, I’m no longer trying to get deeper inside of her but bouncing her on me, her fringe and pink tie flying up every time I pull her down, her cute gasps accompanying every bounce as if my cock could forcefully empty her lungs.

Her eyes on me.

I take it as a challenge.

The bed slams against the wall behind me when I up my speed, my hips bouncing as fast as I can move Yunyun up and down like a very devoted sextoy, and soon her moans and cries come out, her fingers digging deeper into my forearms, a hint of her nails telling me how close she is to losing control every time her calves tighten and her feet kick past my elbow and at my biceps with not enough strength to do anything other than flatter my ego.

And she tightens around me, deliberately, telling me yet again of a girl who trained herself to be a worthy lover like a worthless NEET trying to keep from cumming until the sex scene in his shamefully romantic visual novel reached the climax.

Like a moron reading up on sex and erogenous zones, wondering just how much of what he found was bullshit and how much would make a girl happy enough to stay.

I also stare into her eyes. I also don’t look away. I also try not to even blink.

I guess both of us can be pretty scary.

“Tell me,” she pleads.

“What?”

“All the… All the things you need to say. The things you want to say. Tell me—hn! Please!”

“Yunyun—”

“Kazuma!”

“Fine! I’m an insecure wreck! I use being godly at sex to avoid feeling like all of you will realize just how much better you could do! I will fuck you into a blissful stupor every day of your life just so you won’t have the brainpower to leave me!”

“Yes!”

“That—is that you cumming, agreeing with my plan, or—”

“Tell me more! More!”

“I—I don’t even—I’ve been a failure all my life!”

“Yes!”

“Alone!”

“More!”

“Cast aside! Mocked! My own death was a joke to my parents!”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“I didn’t even think somebody could love me!”

“Please don’t stop! Keep going!”

“And I still can’t believe a girl like you could—”

“I love you!” she says.

And she… shivers, her hips slammed down on top of me hard enough that her meat quivers, her breasts bouncing wildly long after I stop moving as she thrashes on top of me, contorting in a mesmerizing way, heroically straining not to look away from my disbelieving eyes as she moans, trying to form words despite her body seizing up in something that has her spine go ramrod straight for a single moment before she falls forward, bending over my grip and between her open legs until her face meets my abdomen and she kisses my sweaty skin deliriously, as if she was using her lips to try and crawl up my torso, to help her limp neck bend up until she can once again look at me.

“Use me,” she begs.

“Wha—you just came—”

“Use me. Fill me. Feel good with me. Make me feel like I give you something that you want. Like you need me,” she rants before abruptly stopping to keep kissing my skin as her nostrils flare, taking in my scent as I notice just how much of hers is overpowering the burning incense on each side of the bed.

So my fingers tighten yet again around her waist, and I pull her slowly up, stopping when she hisses, only for her to look at me in reproach.

And I…

I jerk myself off with Yunyun.

As slowly as I can get away with to avoid her suspicious glares, feeling her spasming sex around me as her body keeps shuddering hard enough for the tips of her nipples to graze over my skin except when she leans farther down, flattening the round, soft orbs against me just so she can kiss higher than she had reached before she pulls herself back down with her curved back and straining legs.

“Harder,” she demands. “I want you to feel it.”

“Yunyun… I’m already feeling it. It’s… You’re unbelievably good.”

“No. Better. Feel better than ever. Feel as good with me as you want me to feel with you.”

I stare into crimson eyes.

And I flip us over.

She cries out in a delighted eep that turns into a slow moan when I sink into her body, pushing her down into the mattress until her pale skin is engulfed by dark crimson satin, until she can’t move at all as I reposition her legs so her ankles rest on my shoulders and I proceed to do what every orcish ancestor of mine has been screaming at me to do since I first laid eyes on the fertile heiress of a magic clan:

A mating press.

Truly, my heritage has finally been fulfilled.

Yunyun, at least, seems to think so when I bottom out once again, and her eyes finally roll back, losing that particular battle in a way that makes me more fulfilled than any victory before, my balls slapping against her ass soon turning into the sounds of triumph.

… Which is when I get a terrible, terrible idea.

So I, trusting both that Yunyun is delirious enough not to question it and that there are no witnesses around…

“Tata tataaa ta tantan tatan,” I whisper, punctuating every note with a downward thrust into the receptive girl below me, sinking her farther into the mattress to a triumphant, victorious…

Fanfare.

And, at last, when Yunyun spasms around me yet again, only the whites of her eyes showing as she keeps trying to say something that sounds vaguely like my name, I cum.

And each and every single rope of semen goes out of me in a roaring blaze of ecstasy that is made all the sweeter when I manage to nail the ending of the Final Fantasy Victory Fanfare.

Oh, and Yunyun, as well.

So I slump forward, falling on top of her soft body with my arms just holding me far enough above her that I don’t asphyxiate her, even if she looks like she’s quickly fading away nonetheless, her eyes peacefully closing as a warm, tiny smile blooms on her lips.

And then the room does fade away.

The logical, calm, rational part of my brain realizes that the room itself was no more than a shared mental construct made up of Yunyun’s magic, and that, with Yunyun unconscious, Pillowtalk has no way of sustaining itself, so it’s perfectly natural for me to suddenly be back in the alley I had been in before our chat started.

The not-so-rational part of me is somewhat concerned by Vanir-chan’s unconscious body slumped against me, held up by my arms, and splattered all over with my cum.

Also, by Luna’s awed stare.

…

On second thought, there may be reasons for a hentai protagonist to go solo rather than gather a party.

 

 

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Hey, everyone, thank you for your patience in waiting for this to get done. I’m afraid that I got caught up in both too many things I should stop juggling and in a bit of a writer’s block that resulted in me not doing a full monthly nanowrimo for the first time in years. I hope this was worth the wait.

As usual, the next chapter is already posted on my Patreon—it is about as insane as I think this ending warrants, and that’s part of what took me so long, as I had to keep discarding my plans along the way until it ended up being the chaotic mess it currently is. If any of you feels like taking a look at it, I would be extremely grateful. I could do with the support.

As always, I’d like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on Amazon. Thank you for reading!