Thud.
A faint impact transmitted through my back. My view, which had been filled with Friede’s face, now turns towards the ceiling of the old abandoned house.
“Ah…”
I let out a short groan and reflexively lowered my gaze.
Friede appeared again. Straddling me with her knees spread, embracing my sides, she leaned down to look at my face.
Golden eyes shining brightly with longing. Black hair falling like a veil, tickling my cheeks.
The face of the girl that had been cute and adorable was now flushed red with anticipation and excitement, giving off a strange sensuality.
“F-Friede…?”
I called her name in bewilderment, trying to squirm my body laid out on the floor. Or rather, I tried to squirm.
“Miss Brunhilde…”
“Wait, Friede, this…”
I couldn’t raise my body.
Was it because I was exhausted from fleeing all day? No, that wasn’t it.
Friede was just as tired from the long chase. It wasn’t a matter of stamina, but the pure difference in strength was weighing down on my body like shackles.
Come to think of it, Friede, being a greatsword warrior, despite her small stature, probably had greater strength than me…?
If I activated ‘Iron Arm’ I could surpass her, but in normal strength, she had a slight advantage. At least that’s what I thought.
‘I can’t raise my body…!’
…Experiencing it firsthand, it wasn’t just a slight advantage, but to the extent that I couldn’t shake her off at all without using Iron Arm.
“Miss Brunhilde… you know my feelings, don’t you?”
Friede looked down at me like that and smiled broadly.
It wasn’t a girlish smile. Far from that cute feeling… how should I put it, it was more like the smile of a woman in her prime flirting with someone she’s attracted to.
Well, I suppose that’s natural. Though she looks young, if she really is Friet, then the story about her being twenty years old must be true as well.
“I like you. I like you, Miss Brunhilde. Whenever I look at you, my heart, it pounds so hard I can barely stand it.”
Friede grabbed my wrist, pulled it towards her chest, and pressed it firmly while whispering in a dreamy tone.
“Ngh… look. It’s pounding this hard. From before. Always. Even now.”
The slightly soft sensation hidden under the armor gently enveloped my trembling fingertips.
“Can you feel it…?”
The sound of her fiercely pulsing heart was clear. It was such an intense beating that I wondered if it might burst.
“Love. Yes, this is love.”
Friede rubbed my hand against her chest, confessing her feelings again in a dreamy tone as if in a dream.
“I love you.”
The weight contained in those words was such that I couldn’t even breathe properly, let alone refuse.
“Just as you loved me before. Just as you loved me. I love you too, Miss Brunhilde. I’m in love with you.”
“…”
I couldn’t refuse from the start anyway.
* * *
Crushed by a disaster I brought upon myself. In the country where I lived, there was a song lyric like that.
…I didn’t know then. That I would end up in exactly that situation.
“So, now… it’s okay, right? It’s alright…?”
Friede looked down at me with a face that seemed to say it’s okay since we like each other. The lies had become so tangled that there was no way to explain anymore.
How could I reveal it now?
The fact that what I had said before, the story about liking my old comrade – Friet, was all a lie.
Honestly, I couldn’t even imagine how Friede would react when she heard that.
This girl who had managed to find me hiding in Hervor, perfectly concealing her identity and spending months as my party member.
Now that I think about it, her feelings for me – for Brunhilde – were almost at the level of obsession.
To confess to such a Friede that the passionate love story from before was all a lie to avoid the situation?
No matter how much I thought about it, it didn’t seem like it would lead to a good result.
No, forget a good result, it might even cause the worst outcome. From her perspective, it would be an unforgivable deception, wouldn’t it?
It wouldn’t be strange if she couldn’t accept the shocking truth and became violent like the protagonist of a violent game.
‘What should I do? How on earth should I explain this…?’
I don’t know why – no, I don’t want to know the reason, but a scene from a nightmare where I was naked and declaring myself a bitch flashed through my mind for a moment.
Along with an ominous premonition that it might turn from a nightmare into a prophetic dream if I wasn’t careful.
‘I have nothing to say, nothing at all…!’
I felt like letting out a sigh.
I had just blurted out that excuse thinking I would never meet Friet in my life… but the situation had become terribly tangled.
The lie that I had praised as a brilliant and perfect excuse at the time turned out to be, literally, a blunder no different from self-destruction.
The words I had uttered only managed to avoid that one moment, but in the end, it was like giving Friede a free pass to Brunhilde.
Really, how could things get tangled up like this?
Since it was 100% my own words, I couldn’t blame anyone else… but honestly, I felt wronged.
How could I have known?
That the person I was making that excuse to, Friede, was actually Friet himself.
Would I have done that if I had known?
If I had known, I wouldn’t have said such nonsense. I could have clearly foreseen that it would end up like this.
But no one can change the past. Regret, like the police in a countryside village with poor security, always comes one step too late.
There was nothing I could undo, and the karma of the words I had thoughtlessly uttered had already come back to weigh heavily on me.
Squeeze.
In a very physical way.
“Friede… wait, wait, listen to me. So, that, what I said then… I mean, it’s not that I dislike you, but no matter what, this way…”
I rambled on, breaking out in a cold sweat. I couldn’t think of what to say to avoid this situation, my mind couldn’t come up with an answer.
“Before, I was weak, so I lost you. That’s why you left. But now, I won’t do that. I don’t have to do that anymore. Not now.”
Friede whispered, cupping my cheeks with both hands.
So close that our noses almost touched. Her large golden eyes, wet with moisture, shone with a manic light. It was such an intense gaze that I felt overwhelmed for a moment.
“I won’t let go anymore. I won’t lose you. I won’t let you be taken away. So don’t worry. I’ll protect you, Miss Brunhilde. We don’t have to part anymore. You can be honest now. Both me and you, Miss Brunhilde.”
What do you mean be honest? Honestly, I want to beg to be protected from you…!
I kept rolling my eyes and flinching. My heart was pounding and my hands and feet were trembling. I had a feeling that something irreversible had begun.
A foreboding, fearful and hopeless feeling… like being swept away by an unavoidable, unstoppable tsunami and sinking into the deep sea.
“No, I understand what… you’re saying! But, this situation…! Anyway, please calm down…!”
Even my final resistance, uttered with the desperate mindset of someone struggling to reach the surface after falling into a swamp―
“…I can’t. Not anymore… I can’t hold back any longer.”
Came to a futile end.
Blocked by Friede’s lips as she lowered her head.
“Mmph…?!”
I widened my eyes in shock and trembled.
The touching lips were hot like a branding iron.
* * *
Despite running all day through the frigid land, her lips were still unbelievably soft, far from rough.
Friede’s half-closed eyes pressed her lips against mine, rubbing and parting them.
And then.
A smooth flesh slipped in between my lips that had parted in urgency and shock.
“Uh, uuumph…!”
I barely suppressed my teeth that were reflexively trying to close and shuddered at the heat. It was hot. So hot it felt like it would burn.
Friede’s tongue that had burrowed between my lips and enveloped my tongue. The sensation of the first kiss was similar to having burning jelly in my mouth.
Friede, with her tongue inserted in my mouth, tightly squeezed my sides with her knees and firmly held down my arms and head.
Like a spider that had caught its prey. Thoroughly, so that I couldn’t escape or resist.
Then, she persistently entangled and rubbed my tongue, pushing in our mixed saliva that had flowed out.
A flavor so rich it was dizzying, and so sweet it made me tremble. The hot fluid flowed down my throat, filling me with her scent.
“Uh, huuh…!”
I twitched my back and flailed my legs.
Where had all my usual strength gone? It was such weak struggling that I couldn’t even break the wooden floor.
‘My tongue, ungh, wait. Aah, stop…! It tingles, it’s tingling and hot, my body, my strength…!’
My body wouldn’t move. Every time I tried to forcibly move, Friede’s tongue licked my tongue, sending a stimulation mixed with lightning and fire.
Brunhilde’s body was sensitive beyond my imagination.
No, perhaps this wasn’t due to Brunhilde’s sensitivity… maybe I was unexpectedly weak to these sensations.
It was my first experience in both my past and current life, so I couldn’t tell which it was.
There was only one thing I could do.
Enchanted by Friede’s breath and touch, I could only helplessly twitch my body weakly, like an electrocuted mollusk.
* * *
Smooch. Smooch.
Wet sounds echoed in my ears. It had been about five minutes since we started kissing, mixing our tongues and swallowing each other’s saliva.
At the end of that long time that felt like an eternity, I found myself reflexively embracing Friede’s head.
I swear it wasn’t my intention.
Should I say my body moved instinctively like that?
The reason I embraced Friede’s head and mixed tongues with her was, well…
Yes, in the hazy consciousness as I was suffocating, it was close to my arms reflexively embracing the other person due to excessive stimulation.
But to Friede, it seems that was taken as silent permission.
“Huaah…”
Friede, who had only separated her lips while keeping our tongues entwined, looked down at me with ecstatic eyes and was slowly slipping her hand inside my top.
The breastplate that should have blocked this had long since been removed without my noticing.
That night, I lost my first time.
I’m not sure if such an expression can be used for a relationship between women, but.