Chapter Three Hundred and Forty-Nine: Upgraded Version
Late at night, Karen invited Julius to one of the rooms in the alchemy workshop manor and smiled meaningfully.
“Welcome, Julius. To the ultimate relaxation space, crafted by the hands of Alchemist Karen…”
Julius pressed a hand to his forehead with a deflated expression.
“It seems I’ve lost, for giving you time.”
“Do you really have to look that disappointed?”
“No, no—I’m happy, Karen. I can tell you’ve put a great deal of thought into this for me.”
He said it, looking around the high-end salon-style treatment room Karen had put together, drawing on memories of spas from her past life. It seemed he was being sincere, though there was also a slight sense of disappointment in his words.
Just what had Julius been hoping Karen would do? If the old woman had never come, and Karen had let herself be guided by Julius—would it truly have ended at just a kiss?
“Karen’s Esthétique is going to relax body and mind for you, Julius! Alright, first—take off your jacket. I’ll give you a massage!”
“Body and mind, she says.”
“You’re curious, aren’t you?”
Karen lit the incense and began helping Julius out of his jacket.
“My mind is always at ease when I’m with you.”
“I want your mind to stay at ease in all sorts of situations, all the time. Like when you’re with Brother Helfried too—you can be relaxed then, right? Alright, lie down here. Face down!”
Julius did as Karen directed and lay face-down on the towel-covered bed. Karen climbed on top and began pressing the acupoints along his broad back.
“Hmm. Your muscles are so developed I can’t even tell where the tension is…”
“It feels good… where exactly did you learn this technique?”
Something in his voice had an edge to it, and Karen tilted her head in genuine puzzlement.
“What are you imagining and why are you upset about it? It was my father! And Thor.”
“Then that’s a relief.”
“I also practiced on adventurers to earn pocket money.”
“…I see. Well, I’m not going to blame you for anything you did to survive.”
“Oh, and Lyos too. Ah—is that why you were upset? But he was sick at the time, and I was a child.”
“…”
Julius went silent. Karen kept massaging his back.
She had almost completely forgotten what her father’s back had been like by now, but there were some things she could understand even without remembering it clearly. Without a doubt, Julius’s back was broader and more powerfully built than her father’s by comparison.
Although—now that she thought about it—her father might have had Julius beat in sheer volume in certain areas. Particularly around the midsection. There had been a certain soft roundness right around where Karen was sitting now, a belly that stuck out a little in front—she had been thinking back on her father while working on Julius’s back when Julius moved.
“Oh!”
Before she knew it, Karen had slid off Julius, and Julius had rolled over and was leaning above her. His golden eyes gleamed even in the dim room.
“Inviting me to what amounts to a bedchamber at this hour of the night without a second thought—surely you understood that such behavior might naturally lead to exactly this sort of situation?”
“Of course.”
“…Hm?”
Julius, who had been speaking in something close to a warning tone, suddenly looked confused.
“This woman Karen came fully prepared, naturally.”
Lying on her back on the bed, Karen said it with a resolute expression.
“We’re engaged now, and you said you wanted a reward that was more than a kiss… I never had any intention of disappointing you, not from the start.”
Karen finished speaking despite becoming bashful at the end, and Julius buried his face in his hands.
“Wait, I only wanted you to have some sense of danger.”
“I even wore nice underwear, just in case!”
Julius went still, the expression on his face stunned, and swallowed hard. Then, after a long moment, he managed to get words out.
“—I have no intention of laying a hand on you until we are married.”
“You’re the one who pushed me down!?”
“That’s true… it occurs to me that premarital intimacy is considered normal among commoners.”
“It’s different for nobles, I know. But we’re engaged now. Haven’t we come far enough for it to be alright?”
“…That aside, I still want to eliminate as many factors as possible that could give you a reason to reconsider marrying me.”
“Even if you turned out to be absolutely terrible at it—”
Karen had been about to make another bold declaration, wearing that same determined expression, but Julius silenced her with his lips.
A single long kiss—continued until Karen understood, thoroughly and firsthand, that there was absolutely no chance of her reconsidering the marriage on those grounds.
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