“Daiichi-kun? Daiichi-kun!”

I woke up to the not-unpleasant sight of Pine standing over me, bent down with her hands resting on her knees, her leotard providing so little support that those oversized breasts of hers were pointing straight down like a pair of cow udders.

Mmm… cow’s milk.

I reached out to grab one of those round udders and squeeze, but my arm only twitched. I must be more tired than I thought. Not surprising considering the day I had yesterday. And that dream. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken up so groggy and cold. Back home, I’d slept under a pile of quality silk sheets with only my feet sticking out, but here, there was just cold hard ground, wet grass, and an open sky.

…wait, what?

“Daiichi-kun! Are you okay?” Hold on. That wasn’t nervous arousal on Pine’s face. That was honest concern for me. “What are you doing outside?”

“Hells if I know,” is what I tried to say. But it instead came out as a garbled “Uuhuno...”

I braced my hands on the wet grass and forced myself to sit up, ignoring the protests of my body to keep still. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, only to find there weren't any crusts…but why did my face feel sticky? This early, it was mostly only Pine and I. The academy had three dorms next to each other in a rough C-shape, and the interior was a grassy quad I’d found myself in, the only noise was the annoying warbling and chirps of some bird in the trees.

“Can you stand? I think you should see the healer. Ahh… but maybe we shouldn’t move you? But… I can’t leave you alone either, right? Ahh!!!” Pine was panicking, wringing her hands and twisting her body side-to-side, some light breast clapping joining the chorus of birdsong. “Daiichi-kun, don’t die…!”

“Mnngh… I’m fine.” I tried to stand up, then decided it wasn’t worth the immediate effort when I was so dizzy.

“But… but…!” Pine protested.

Was Alice responsible for this? Aurora? Had my magic gone off in the night, teleporting me subconsciously? Or…

My eyes wandered up the side of the Freshmen dorm building, trailing up to the fourth floor where my room was. I’d only gone inside it once, but it was super easy to spot.

It was the one with a missing wall, with my large four-poster bed tipped over the side, one of those bedposts snagged on the ceiling keeping it in a precarious position, ready to fall on top of us at any second.

Pine followed my gaze, her mouth dropping open, “Daiichi-kun, why is your wall… your bed…? Ahh! Look out!”

Titties aside, Pine was tiny, every bit as fun-sized as Litchi, with a body made of slender softness like a doll. Appearances were deceiving then, because she had no problem grabbing me under the arms and yanking me up into the air, leaping backwards and sliding back onto the wet grass, that extra soft body cushioning my fall the same time the bed crashed down where I’d been landing, wood splintering and snapping like the thing was exploding.

“Dnngh-hn!” Came a muffled cry from the girl pinned under me. Lucky for her, my body might be two and a half times her weight, but it was even softer. I rolled off and looked at the flattened Pine, who continued, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. No. Maybe? Just confused, dunno what the hells…”

“Lightning Cannon!” I could hear the shout of a familiar voice a split-second before the thunder, an eerily straight bolt of lightning racing out of my destroyed wall and vanishing across the horizon.

“Suzuki-sensei?” Pine and I said in perfect sync.

The one who emerged from the wall wasn’t my hopeless teacher slave though. It was my other slave, Hikari, the ojou-sama maid devoted to my pleasure and well-being, a broomstick clutched between her legs as she flew out, ignoring gravity as she spiraled higher and higher.

“Hoo ho ho!” Hikari cackled, “Your aim is as pathetic as your mana capacity, Suzuki-san! You’ve no chance against the proud heir of the noble Luxia family. Because in three… two… one!”

An explosion more deafening than the thunder earlier as the dorm shook, a fireball detonating inside my room and spewing enough bright orange flame I could feel the heat on my face from the ground. Before I even had time to worry over Suzuki though, she was soaring out of those flames, standing tall astride a raven with a wingspan that must have been at least fifteen-feet wide. “I see! So thy noble Luxia heir fights through deceit and trickery, fleeing from the princess of the twilight! But you’ve gone too far this early morning, craven knave! We now ride upon the currents of the leylines, and it’s time to show you my full power! Chains of the Midnight Parade!”

“Oh, would you just shut up!?” Hikari pivoted on the flying broomstick, then cast her own spell. “Bladestorm!”

From Suzuki, there was a web of chains, each twisting around like a monster’s tentacle, constantly rushing out longer and longer, while Hikari had summoned a portal that was spewing a seemingly endless… well, storm of blades, jagged strips of metal with no handle. The two spells crashed into each other, the chains spinning so fast that they blurred like the wings of a hummingbird while Hikari seemed to only be upping the output. Sparks were flying at the point of contact, those spinning chains sending the deadly blades flying in every random direction as the two sorceresses kept at it, circling each other in midair.

“Daiichi-kun, we need to get out of here!” Pine didn’t wait for an answer. She bumped her narrow ass into my thighs, lifted me onto her back, and bolted, sprinting to the corner of the quad while razor-sharp daggers tore up the scenery around us.

Just before we made it around the corner to safety, I heard Hikari and Suzuki speak in perfect unison, their spells still going at full tilt.

“I shall be the one to suck Daiichi-sama’s cock!!!”

We made it around the corner, out of the line of fire, but Pine kept running. “We need to find a teacher! I mean… another one!”

And as she did, I remembered just how this disaster had started.

---

Thirty minutes earlier

The first time I’d woken up that morning, I’d been lying in my bed, covered in sweat. I’d just sealed a Pact with two of the goddesses of the Seven, the Infernal Alice and the Divine Aurora. The experience had left me crushed under the weight of an ocean and broiled alive in the sun, but thankfully not in the physical world.

I’d tried opening a portal to visit Erome again, only for pain to flare up in my head. The only other magic I knew was to retroactively warp reality and bend minds, but as I laid in bed, my intuition was telling me that trying would be a bad idea. I needed to recharge.

I needed food.

The dorm room I’d been given was larger than most. It was a single room, but the vaulted ceiling was easily twenty-feet high, with floor-to-ceiling windows giving me a view of the quad below. One corner had a large oak desk with writing supplies, while the other had two bookshelves against the walls, though the armchair the room came with was too narrow for my tastes. Remarkably, both had their own standing lamp, lit by an evershining flame stone that was covered when not in use. I’d lived in a manor with a staff of four, but the only evershining lamp had been a small one perched on my father’s desk in his study.

The center of the room had identical black sofas, each curved so they could form a circle with a low table in the middle, and the third corner was taken up by my wardrobe and other personal belongings.

But most importantly of all, there was the small kitchen and pantry.

Day-old bread and dried meat was hardly a breakfast fit for a Warlock, but it’d at least tide me over until I could make my way to the academy’s cafeteria.

As I pulled myself out of bed to go and rummage, there was a knock at the door, followed by a perpetually petulant voice, “Daiichi-sama? Are you there? Are you awake? Your devoted slave maid Hikari is here!”

And here I was about to do the work for myself. Like a fool! I flopped back onto the bed, lacing my hands behind my head as I stared up at the red canopy.

“Come on in, Hikari.”

“Yes, Master. Thank you, Master. It is an honor for this lowly and pathetic maid to be able to enter your private chambers!”

My nostrils flared and my cock twitched. Was this going to be what every morning was like from now on? Hah! No, things were going to get even better! After all, I already had one goddess obsessed with me and another was going to be put under my thumb just as soon as my magic recovered. Not to mention my teachers, Ushi and Suzu—

“Master!”

Speak of the she-devil, and she did appear, a large round portal opening up overhead to reveal my teacher-turned-familiar. She looked just as sexy as ever, this morning’s leotard even skimpier than yesterdays, a diamond-shaped cutout from neck to crotch that showed off all her inner cleavage, the edge of her pink nipples, and the colorful pink womb tattoo below her navel. Disorientingly, even though I was looking up at the portal, I could see into her own room as though I was standing right next to her. But more importantly, she had a tray with pancakes, topped with butter and smothered in syrup, along with a stack of bacon too big to fit into my mouth.

“Your humble familiar labored through the night to prepare a revitalizing meal to break your fast. Imbued with powerful potions, crafted from rare reagents, and conjured up on this, the thirteenth sunrise of the thirteenth month of the Outsider’s calendar, such sustenance shall awaken the dark power slumbering within you, open Master’s third eye, and with his terrible gaze—!”

“Ah, Master? I believe the door is locked. Forgive me! Your stupid, worthless maid doesn’t mean to disobey, but—”

Both girls were talking at once, and both came to a stop at the same time as they noticed the other.

“Master isn’t alone?”

“You’ve a visitor, Master?”

That’s when things went downhill.

First, a fiery explosion that knocked the door off its hinges and all the way to the sofa circle, breaking the low table and tearing the cushioning of the far sofa. “Master’s time is important! All visitors should first go through me!”

“An attacker?! Daiichi!” Suzuki rushed through the portal she’d created. But that meant she went from standing in her own kitchen to falling right on top of me. Curvy and soft, that would have just knocked the wind out of me. But that tall stack of pancakes hit me square on the face.

“Assassin!” Hikari cried as she came in to see me being smothered under syrupy pancakes, brandishing her wand.

“Bold of you to identify yourself! You’ll not lay a hair on Daiichi-sama’s head!” Suzuki rolled off the bed and had her own wand out, the air starting to crackle with energy as the women stared at each other, looking ready to hurl spells at each other in a battle to the death, seeming to not care who’d be caught in the crossfire.

“Wait, wait, WAIIIT!!!” It was too early for screaming, but these two bimbos had already made enough of a mess of my room. “You stupid bitches both belong to me, so no fighting!”

Both women jumped and squeaked, with Hikari going so far as to drop her wand and let  it clatter on the ground.

“Yes, Master. Sorry, Master.” Hikari didn’t  even try to pick it up. She played with the hem of her tiny apron and looked straight down, the tips of her ears tinged pink. “I just didn’t want anything to happen to you…”

“Are we sure this is the real Hikari, Master? Perhaps the harlot has been consorting with devils, and through a Pact, has gained possession of her body?” Suzuki still had her wand out, the tip buzzing as purple sparks leaked out.

Maybe I should learn some more about Pacts and devils. But if I did, I’d do that research without Suzuki. Familiar or no, it was impossible to sift fact from fiction with the woman, and even she didn’t believe this nonsense.

“Devil or not, both of you, I’ve only got one sofa left, and I want you both bent over it. Now!” I could feel the heat on my face.

“Yes, Master. Sorry, Master!” Hikari was still at the doorway when she responded, but she still managed to beat Suzuki to the couch, legs straight with her knees touching it, her body bent over completely to present that heart-shaped ass of hers for punishment.

“Oh! Right.” Suzuki followed suit a second or two later, hip to hip with Hikari, giving me an excellent view of the puffy cameltoe of her leotard, plus her even wider hips. “I mean, yes, Master. Your loyal familiar hears and obeys.”

Seeing them like that, I could feel the tenting in my lounge pants. But no. Rewarding bad behavior with sex for sluts like these would only encourage it in the future. And besides, there were more varieties of pleasure than just sex.

SMACK!!

I brought my left and right hand down at the same time, striking their delicious asses at the same time, then squeezing them tight.

“Hoh… HIkari, you’ve nicely toned this ass, haven’t you? You don’t seem the athletic type though.”

She clenched that tight ass, letting me feel the muscles under the fat flex. “Y-yes! Luxia women are trained to squat. Two hundred times in the morning and three hundred before bed. It would be unseemly for a maid slave to follow around their Master with bruised knees!”

I gave Suzuki’s ass another squeeze, appreciating just how much more of it there was to grab. “I like that. Suzuki, you should start that too.”

“What? But… five hundred…! That’s… ahhh, such hellish training! The student has become the sensei! I understand, Daiichi-sama. You’ve sensed it too, haven’t you? That hidden power slumbering deep with the black depths of my heart. And only by enduring such impossible training can I hone my mind and body, to release it!”

Smack! Another satisfying clap filling the room.

“No, dummy, I just want you to be doing everything you can to have a sexier ass.”

“O-oh…”

Smack! Whack! Thwap!

Such soft asses, both of them jiggling with the impact, and perfect handfuls in-between blows. So perfect, it took me until my hands were stinging to realize that something was wrong.

“...why aren’t either of you crying out?” Up until now, I’d not gotten a single groan, moan, or grunt. Not even a hitch in their breathing. Even their skin was as pale as it was at the start. “This is supposed to be a punishment!”

“Ah! Yes, Master! Sorry, Master!”

“Fufufu. Such little taps could never penetrate my Holy Protection. The mana circulating through my unholy blood wards me from even the blade of man and the claws of monsters, and only the blows of a true master could penetrate!”

“Holy protection?” I was starting to realize just how little there was about magic I actually knew. Maybe I should attend more classes.

“Yes, my Master. Resonating with the leylines and praying under the full moon has imbued—”

I gave Suzuki another useless slap just to shut her up. “Hikari, what’s the deal with this holy protection, and why haven’t the two of you dropped them yet?”

“Yes, Master! Sorry, Master! I would gladly rid myself of this accursed Holy Protection, but since it’s based on a pact with a Goddess of the Seven, it would be easier to make my own heart stop. If you wish me to deplete my aura, I shall gladly do so, but that would require exhausting our bodies of all mana. We could fetch some crystals, if you like?”

“Tch. So the only way I can properly tenderize your asses is by sucking you both so dry you’ll be useless to me for the rest of the day?”

“Well… ah, Master, you could try infusing mana into your hand. If you stimulate the circulation enough in one area, a strong enough concentration is able to cancel out another sorceress's aura, making them vulnerable.”

Focus the mana into my hand? Compared to rewriting history to turn the Luxia family into slutty maids, that should be easy, right? I gave it a go, staring into my palm, imagining the energy circulating and pooling there… and felt like I was sucking on the straw of an empty cup. Damn it. Those bloody goddesses really had done something, hadn’t they?

Still, if I couldn’t do it, then…

“Hikari, stand up. You’re going to spank Suzuki for me.”

“Yes, Master!” It’d been a while since I’d heard such pure sadistic delight in her voice. Hikari stood up straight, then licked her lips as she traced a fingernail down Suzuki’s cheek. “I’d love to put this pathetic lowblood her proper place in the pecking order.”

“Puh-shaw! Do your worst, you bratty noble.” Suzuki was as spirited as ever. If anything, she was getting excited by the challenge. “I’ve tempered my will by meditating under icy waterfalls, wrestling bears in the mountains, and sleeping on a bed of nyahhhh!!! Owww!!! N-not so hard!”

It’d only taken one slap, and it’d not even looked that hard. Hikari cackled with delight, pinching the pink handprint taking shape on Suzuki’s left cheek. “Harder? Okay!”

“Nyooo!!! Daiichi-sama! She’s bullying me!!!” Suzuki cried out in a high-pitched whine, legs kicking as she did her best to stay in place. “Stah-stop it!!”

“Oh ho ho! Perhaps I will… but we need to settle something first.” Hikari squeezed Suzuki’s pinkened ass, eliciting a sharp hiss from the teacher.

“Whuh… huh…?”

“It’s your fault that Master Daiichi-sama had his room destroyed and breakfast ruined. As Daiichi-sama’s number one girl and chief of staff, you should have talked to me first about your role.”

Smack! “Kyah!!”

“I shall be the one to cook Daiichi-sama’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

Smack! “Uwahh!! That hurt!”

“I shall be first to pull open the curtains from his window.”

Smack! Suzuki sniffled, choked out a sob, “Fuh-fine!”

“And Daiichi-sama will awaken each morning to me suckling on his perfect godly cock.”

Smack!

The scene froze as Hikari waited for Suzuki’s capitulation, but Hikari hadn’t even cried out.

Smack! Smack! SMACK! “I said, Daiichi-sama will awaken each morning to—”

I’m not sure what exactly Suzuki did, but by the time she stood up from the couch, Hikari was on the floor staring up the shaft of the teacher’s wand. “I refuse! You might have noble blood, but I am the princess of darkness, and I refuse to allow Daiichi-sama to cross over from the world of dreams into the light of day through your inferior attention!”

“Tch. Shut up! You’re no princess!” Hikari pointed an accusing finger towards Suzuki, and out of nothing came her wand, the two women now pointing them at each other with the tips glowing. “And Daiichi-sama deserves better than a mouth spouting off such nonsense!”

Like trying to herd cats. I swear. Though how fun was it that the thing the two cared most about was who had first dibs on sucking my cock? Easy solution though. Once the two had learned a bit of teamwork double-teaming me, I’m sure all this tension would take care of itself. Mine especially.

“Listen, you two…” I started.

“Dragon’s Breath!”

“Hell Shock!”

Flame spewed out of the wand and blanketed Suzuki while the flash of lightning sent my ears ringing, staggering backwards as spots floated in my vision, but neither girl seemed to be phased; even their leotards hadn’t been singed. “Hey, you, gah, hack hack!” Too much smoke in the room, I went into a coughing fit as I backed away from the action.

“Fiery Cannon!”

“Storm Goddess’s Wrath!”

“Solar Annihilation!”

“Spark of Creation!”

“Just die!”

“I hate you!”

The two were completely lost in their tunnel vision, smashing spells into each other, neither one bothering to dodge, seemingly untouched while the room was catching on fire.

“Idiots! Neither of you is going to—”

“Fireball!” “Lightning Bolt!”

The two spells were cast at the same time, flame and lightning impossibly pushing against each other in a reverse tug-of-war, until the mass of magic exploded, knocking me off my feet… and out the window.

---

We’d made it around the corner. Pine and I were sitting with our backs to the wall, listening to the crash of thunder and boom of explosions.

“How the hell have they not killed each other yet?” I asked myself.

“Well, I dunno about Suzuki-sensei, but killing Hikari would be really difficult. She’s almost at the top of the class when it comes to Mana Potency. But I mean, Suzuki-sensei is a teacher, so it makes sense that she wouldn’t lose to a student,” Pine speculated.

“Potency?”

“Yeah, you know, how magic your bits and uh… the… circuits? Um…” Pine averted her eyes away. “It makes super perfect sense when Satonaka-sensei explains it.”

Satanaka, Satonaka… oh. Laelia Satonaka. The pink-haired teacher that’d saved me from that awful Debbie thug.

“What class does she teach?”

“Abjurations!”

“Ugh… sounds boring. No wonder I skipped.”

“It’s not boring!” Pine pivoted her body to face, grabbing me by the shoulders. “It’s super important! You almost died this morning because you don’t know how to defend against magic!”

“Oh right.” Come to think of it, how had I survived a fall like that? Sure, it’d knocked me out and my head was hurting, but it’d been that way since this morning, and…

Should you find yourself in mortal peril, I will use whatever means at my disposal to keep you safe.

Oh right. The Pact! Hah! I might have jumped on it for the easily exploitable loophole, but I guess being immortal was not a bad side effect.

But re-examining it, she was keeping me safe from “mortal” peril. If I was in her position, I’d either fry my brain or put me into a coma, incapacitate myself in some way that I’d be unable to take advantage of our pact.

One of the Divine Goddesses probably wouldn’t be so underhanded, but the fall made it clear that I was protected from dying, not getting hurt.

Not to mention there was the matter of my magic not responding. I stared at Pine’s already voluptuous chest, willed it to double in size, reaching for the power that’d come so instinctively yesterday.

Nothing.

Satonaka-sensei was good-natured enough to save me, so I’m sure she’d be safe to ask about my problem.

“Let’s find Satonaka-sensei then.” I decided, also deciding I’d take Pine along with me. The girl was exactly my type—well, maybe a bit too nice and humble, but physically, top marks—and my maid and familiar had completely ruined what should have been the best morning sex of my life. “Take a look and see if it’s safe.”

Pine paused, tilting her head. “Come to think of it… when did it get quiet again? Someone must have won.”

“Finally!” I grunted as I worked my way back to two feet. “Going to have the both of them unable to sit down for a month when I—”

As we turned the corner to see what was going on, it was clear that neither of them had won. Both were lying limp on the grass, Suzuki on her knees with her head down in the dirt, while Hikari was splayed out, legs spread wide.

And standing over them was the sexiest unsexy person I’d ever seen.

I’m not sure what it was. Her lips had this weirdly plump shape, while her eyes were glowing pink, and maybe too big and enchanting? Those breasts too… huge and round and soft, almost spilling out of the slutty leotard… but there wasn’t an urge to reach out and maul them.

The hips and ass… yeah, no, even if the rest of her was some sort of void of appeal, her ass was perfect, extra wide on her shortstack frame.

But the rest of her… she wasn’t ugly or anything, but I was getting nothing.

Maybe she had a penis under that leotard?

Apparently though, that only went one way, because those bright pink eyes of her lit up when she saw us coming.

“It’s you! Dah…” She bit her tongue in her excitement, “Daiichi! Ah… Daiichi-san!

She let out a puff of air from her cheeks, mumbled to herself as she stared at the ground, eyes wandering over the still unconscious witches she’d knocked out. “Don’t worry about your harem. I only triggered a Break. Once their HP recovers, they’ll wake up unharmed. For now, I need you to come with me. It’s important.”

Triggered a Break? One more item for my list. I could probably ask this girl, but… she was just so fugly.

“Eh, not interested.” I turned to Pine, “Lead the way to Satonaka-sensei if you would.”

“Um…” Pine’s gaze flitted between me and the winner of the magical brawl, but nodded after making the right call. “Okay, Daiichi-kun. Um… thank you for helping those two calm down.” With a quick bow to the stranger, she stepped back along the path, and I followed, maybe gaze naturally settling on her back. Pine was busty enough I could see the sides of her chest even from behind, and the way the bounced with every step was fun to watch.

“You…” The unsexy sorceress clenched her fists at her side.

That made goosebumps pop out all over my arms.. I’d ignored her because on an island populated only by extremely fuckable girls, she was useless to me, but I was now remembering that even if a woman wasn’t sexy, she could still be dangerous, and this one had just taken out two of the most dangerous women on campus.

“Ah, I don’t think I got your name?” I said, flashing my most harmless, self-serving, smug smile.

It took her a second or two, but she calmed down. “Noel. Just Noel.”

A peasant then! Maybe that was why she was so unappealing?

“Come on. You said you were heading to Lai… Satonaka-sensei’s classroom? I was going there too. But, Daiichi-san. We really should talk soon. In private.”

This was the worst flirting I’d ever experienced. Okay, yeah, maybe I hadn’t gotten a lot of experience up until now, but even I had standards! Her whole body was stiff, her voice was terse, and she was so sedate and serious I doubted she had ever had an orgasm in her life.

“Sure, sure, maybe later.” Definitely not. There was a long line of women cuter than her that deserved my attention ahead of her.

As the three of us made our way across the entirely too big campus, but just as the main building came close, there was an awful grumble from my stomach, low, vibrating, and stretching on for a big handful of seconds that interrupted Pine’s idle chatter.

“Oh, maybe we should stop by the cafeteria for breakfast first?” Pine suggested.

“Here.” With no further explanation than that, Noel handed me a kebab of skewered meat, the meat burnt at the edges, soaked in a glossy sauce, and slightly steaming in the crisp morning air. I could feel the drool pooling in my mouth. “The less time you waste, the sooner you’ll listen to me.”

“Not bad.” I grabbed the offered meat-on-a-stick and bit down, swallowing the first two pieces while barely chewing. Salty, sweet, savory… perfect. “Not bad.”

She repeated the trick twice more, producing another pound of hot meat as well as some chilled apple juice. At first I’d thought she’d been using portals like Suzuki, stealing from the cafeteria, but she didn’t even look at her hand as she drew the items out. They simply appeared.

Magic to make whatever you wanted appear out of thin air? I wondered if it could be used to grab titties…

“Neat trick. Maybe show me how it works later.”

Her face became disgustingly smug. “Happy to give you a private lesson, Daiichi-san.”

Did she have to keep flirting like that?

“Look, just because you fetched me breakfast doesn’t mean I’m gonna fuck you, Noel.”

“...excuse me?” Crap. I’d made her mad.

“I mean… you’re cute and all,” In a weird, unsexy way. Like a puppy. Puppies weren’t sexy at all. “But I’m just not into the whole…” I looked at her body, trying to pick out the most offending features, before giving up. “...deal, alright?”

Noel’s face was slowly flushing, then shaking, and was that a vein bulging on her forehead? Teeth clenched, face scrunched up, she shouted, “Don’t be gross, you fat pig!”

“Haha! Cute.”

Wait, that was weird. She’d just looked at me with pure disgust, called me gross. A fat pig. And the first thing to pop into my head was… cute?

I ought to be seething with resentment right now, promising to make her suffer, and scheming her downfall. But no, what I did instead was pat her head.

“Uh… Daiichi-kun?” Pine asked as she watched.

“Daiichi…” I couldn’t figure Noel out. First she was stoic, then angry, and now the plain girl on the verge of tears.

“Ah, Daiichi-san. Glad to see you’ve shown up early, that’ll give me some time to run you through the basics. And I see you’ve brought Pine-chan and… have we met?”

All three of us turned towards Laila Satanaka.

“I’m only visiting for today,” Noel answered coolly.

“Oh…?” Satonaka seemed to grasp Noel’s situation immediately, but if she did, she kept it to herself. “Well, then hopefully you'll have time to help me educate Daiichi-san in the art of defense.”

“That should… be okay.” Noel answered slowly. “Yes.”

“Excellent.”

The classroom was empty as we headed inside. Really empty. No tables, desks, bookshelves, chests, blackboards… nothing. No corners either, the room was a perfect sphere with the walls, floor, and ceiling all made of what seemed like brick and mortar but had a very slight elasticity to it. Not enough to knock my balance off, but noticeable.

“First of all—and I can’t believe Mona didn’t handle this already—you really should have a Holy Protection already”

“I can’t believe it either.” It was her fault for not telling me to skip a class as boring sounding as ‘Abjurations’.

“Well, we’ll get you sorted out. First, let me explain.”

Satonaka gave me the abridged version, but it was still long enough that I sat on the floor to take some of the weight off my feet.

Apparently, hundreds of years ago, the academy’s warlock forged a Pact with one of the Seven, the Divine Goddess of Magic, Elsa. The Pact bestowed Holy Protection on the mortal using it, and in exchange, a small fraction of their mana was diverted to the goddess.

“Of course, the actual protection doesn’t come from the goddess,” Satonaka continued. “Half of our Magical Potency is used to power the enchantment. The more pure the sorceress—or warlock—the greater the protection.

“Magical Potency?”

And it was another quick lesson. My thinking of magic had been something like a steam engine. Shovel coal in for fuel, and that makes the wheels turn. Instead, it was more like a windmill, and the greater someone’s “potency”, the more wind (ie, magic) they could direct into their spells. The reason for exhaustion was the stress that came out from the waste energy from channeling magic. The greater the potency, the greasier the wheel, the less it had to stop for breaks and repairs.

Or something like that. I stopped paying attention around the time she brought up chalk rays. My mind wandered, thinking about the pact with Aurora, the fact that my magic still wasn’t back, who the fuck Noel was and why the fuck I didn’t want to fuck her. Lots of questions.

The most important question? Why was Satonaka pulling her breasts out of her leotard? Why was she dripping shiny oil onto her chest and rubbing it in? What was she saying again?

“Daiichi-san?” She was calling my name, and it was enough to pull me out of the daydreaming. Once she had my attention, she smiled sweetly. “You know, if it was any other student dozing off during my lecture, I’d do more than just pout at them.”

“My mistake, madam.” I cleared my throat. “I’ve never really been much of a morning person.” Though if she wanted me to pay attention, she should have been oiling up her tits from the start.

“Is that so? Well don’t worry. Just take off your clothes, and you can leave the ritual to us. Right girls?” Satonaka turned her mischievous smile towards Pine and Noel.

“Yeah! It’ll be fun!” Pine was bouncing on her feet, those breasts jiggling up and down making me inclined to agree that this would be fun.

“Guhhh…” Noel on the other hand was looking pale as a ghost. “If… if it must be done…”

It was like the very thought of rubbing her oiled up body against my naked skin made her want to vomit.

…so why the hell did that make me feel nostalgic!?