Chapter 6 – My first time went weird

Almost a year ago.

I'm inside my tent, emptying chests and sacks, looking at the trophies from my victories. I usually throw them away after a week or two unless they have a practical use, but some of them were very special, after all.

A horn, one bracer, a fragment of a shield, and trinkets like these are scattered on the ground. I open another chest, and I already know what is hidden at the bottom the moment I see what is on top. Why did I never throw it away?

My sickness is acting up, my heart pains. No, let's start with the top, maybe I will never get to the bottom anyway.

In this chest are cloth-like trophies, and the top shows a ripped flag. Yeah, I showed that idiot how much he was worth back then. I feel like vomiting, it has to be the stench of decades lingering in this chest.

I close it again, and go through other items. Where did I collect that shield fragment? It's metal, so it was either from a fight against kingdomers or from another barbarian that took it from a kingdomer. No, can't remember, so it's junk.

My head feels heavy and my mind returns to earlier days, when we were rushing through the forests and mountains, breaking forts and people. Though these memories are supposed to feel nostalgic, to make me happy, I just feel empty inside.

Being sick just sucks.

Barbarians don't have healers, as they seldom get sick and their wounds heal faster in adulthood, as most learn [Regeneration]. Each brat that can't survive until then is doomed to begin with, too weak to be a barbarian.

It's just that now it's my time.

Maybe I should tell the whole clan, then some will definitely try to kill me, because they have held a grudge over the years, or because they want to become the new champion. Yes, then I will die fighting like I always imagined, going down as life and blood flow out of my body.

My eyes return to the chest I just closed. Then I open it again.

―○●○―

The present time, in the morning.

Obert is brave! He survived the barbarians, after all! Though even he knows that this was thanks to the Red Ranger.

But because Obert is brave, he wants to properly thank the ranger and for that he was learning how to use a whetstone. He asked Uncle Poal, who takes care of the tools in the farm, and he said Obert may be talented in a smithy, as he's strong but calm with his hands.

Obert knows he can't do much to repay the Red Ranger, but if it's something easy yet important, like sharpening his arrows and weapons, then he would have repaid his debt. Because the weapons Obert sharpened would keep the Red Ranger alive!

So a brave man like Obert just needs to find the Red Ranger, but even considering how busy he was with learning how to use the whetstone, he never saw a glimpse of him.

When Obert asked Mirianne, she broke out in tears and ran away. His parents only knew that the ranger is preparing for a battle, and even Uncle Benjam, who knows about everything, can't say much but that Kyou-nee takes some rations for all of them every morning and evening.

Why is everyone content with not knowing where these heroes are? Obert can't understand, they have to be the most important people around here!

“Argh!”

“Sorry! [Heal]!”

This sounds like Red Ranger and the princess. Obert has to be destined to meet the two of them right now! They're at the woodshed, though Obert doesn't know why.

“Red Ranger!” The boy just enters, as he knows he needs to be quick, before they can disappear again. Rangers seem to be very good at that. He sees the black-haired teen without his armor, the shirt opened as the blonde girl is looking at his chest, tracing a spot under his muscular chest carefully, as if to check if he is hurt.

Why are her nails bloody?

“Ah!” The princess' face becomes red, and she looks at Red Ranger.

That one lets out a “Phew...” and closes his shirt: “You got a message?”

Maybe he thinks Obert is on an errand? Well, most children his age are, but this is important: “My name is Obert! I'm here to get your weapons!”

“Hah!?”

“To sharpen them! I'm very good!”

“Listen turd,” does he use that word because he remembers Obert or does he call everyone that? “I take care of my weapons myself. My life hangs on them, why should I give them to you to mess up!?”

“Because I'm good! Uncle Poal says so.”

“Dear?” The princess says to the ranger, her voice chimes like a bell: “That's the boy you saved.”

“...” He really forgot!

“He wants to repay you, so just accept it.”

“Why should I?” Somehow Obert imagined the ranger to be more... Well, heroic, but thinking back to when Obert was about to die---please-no-please-no-please-no, he starts sweating while trying to blend out whatever he remembers. It was super scary. “Seriously!?” Obert breaking out in tears seems to make him even angrier.

“Aw...” The princess embraces Obert, pressing him against her. She's soft and hard at the same time, almost like his mother. “That was scary, wasn't it?” Obert nods, and she turns her head to Red Ranger: “Please Dear.”

“Phew... most of my weapons are bone, it's not like they can be just sharpened-” He suddenly pauses, then he takes his knife from a sheath from his trouser: “That's steel at least. Alright turd, I'll see it immediately if you fuck it up, so take it, scram, and do it properly.”

Obert takes the knife. This is steel? It looks different from the sharp kitchen knives Oberts family use, which are also supposed to be steel as well. Is that some kind of special steel?

The boy looks at this knife, no, this weapon in awe, as he yells “THANK YOU SO MUCH!” before running towards the smithy.

―○●○―

“So you gave him your knife?” Ken-kun and I are sitting on the reed roof of the house for the workers, which may be the only place to have some privacy within the farmstead. I found this place when I actively avoided Momo. As she's bad at picking up spirits, it is supposed to be safe.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

On the other hand, Ken-kun always knows where I am with [Spouse Location], and he also learned how to climb well, which is why he visited me in my self-imposed exile.

Him asking me for advice does pander my ego, but the topic is rather human. “Yeah. When she looked at me like that, I was a total push-over.”

“Ken-kun, this is normal, as your sexual desire leads you to make decisions to get a female of your species as quickly into a reproductive mood and position as possible.”

His silence tells me that he's now wondering why he was coming to me in the first place, which mirrors my own feeling well. “Phew... Not so sure about that.”

“What do you mean?`”

“...” Instead of answering, he lays back while pulling the hood over his head and face.

“Do you suffer from erectile disorder?”

“Fuck no!” This is better. “Phew... well, almost. You know, she rammed her nails right under my chest muscles today, it bled and hurt like crazy.”

“That's why you better use protection.” Wearing armor during sexual activities with Katarine-san is well-advised.

“I mean, I want to take things slower, but if this continues, then I may actually get conditioned.”

“I would like to remind you that I don't particularly care about your sex-life.”

“Phew, that's also not what I want to ask you, it's just the needed context. You know, facing Rine as a constant danger when being alone made me think a bit about some special cases, and I need your memory and brain-power to solve a puzzle.”

Ken-kun, praising me as a strategy is embarrassingly cheap. “Ahem.” Yet I don't mind some ego-pandering from time to time, and I honestly know that he thinks that I'm more intelligent than him, which is natural considering that he's a human and I'm an alfr. “What kind of puzzle?”

“When exactly does Rine's defensive reflexes kick in and when not.”

“That's too easy. Whenever she's asleep and when she's in immediate danger. Though we could also add 'whenever someone looks at her as a sex object' to the list.”

“...then why does she ram right into my palm when she jumps at me and I lift my hand?”

… It's true, that happens occasionally, Ken-kun named it 'Palm Barrier'. “Because the danger threshold is too low.”

“Before she became a hero, she was almost taken down by a fourbird. Yeah, I provoked it by telling her to keep monsters alive, and then one of the wounded but still living fourbirds slapped her. That's the interesting part, because she usually can react even when surprised.”

This is certainly true, but that's where something like common sense applies: “Did you consider that Katarine-san just improved over time and therefore is much less prone to surprise attacks now?”

“...dammit!” He really wants to get laid.

A random thought of a naked Ken-kun passes my mind. He's humping his hips, and this in return makes me feel hot. I really dislike this part of my altered physiology. To be precise, I hate every part of my altered physiology, especially the new menstruation cycle and process.

Another strange thought enters my mind for a moment, offering Ken-kun to bed me so that he can calm down whenever he tries to initiate intercourse with Katarine-san, but this thought is as quickly banned as it came, as this is certainly part of the mind-alteration of the ring.

Nice try though, curse.

“So the puzzle you have is not what triggers Katarine-san's destructive reflexes, but how to stay below the threshold.” Time to ask the questions that get the best reactions: “How hard does your boner get before she strikes you?”

Instead of blushing or stuttering, he raises his eyebrow slowly, then sighs: “Phew... so you want to say that I need to calm down and try it then?”

“To repeat what a good friend of mine offered as advice before: If it gets too much, just masturbate.”

“...are you talking about me!? That's not what I said!”

“Your words left an impression on me. Since then, I occasionally do the act, as the wetness of my reproductive organs becomes more and more unbearable. And whenever I do it, I think about what you said that time.”

“You know that I could tell Kyou-san about this place? I'm sure she wants to have three talks with you by now.”

“Alright, let's leave it at this, but if you masturbate, think of me for a change.” I notice that what I wanted to say and what left my mouth are similar, but have a different message.

Well done, curse.

Ken-kun doesn't reply, which makes this even more awkward, and there is the little curse-related part of me that is very alleviated by it. There is also the junkie part that wants to kiss his lips once again to feel the sensations of that particular action, which are so much stronger than anything I can experience otherwise.

The curse changed my body, and the right kinds of—mostly sexual—stimulation set me up on a high which may be how humans perceive the world. Stimulation like kissing or ear-plugging. Or masturbation.

No wonder humans are addicted to questionable behaviors.

There is also that strange thing called 'romance', which may or may not be connected to sexual intercourse. It's a human... emotion? Term? Feeling? Experience? Well, I will refer to it as a 'thing' in lack of a better understanding. Alfar don't marry, they seldom have repeating mating partners, and they only have intercourse during mating season.

“What's wrong?” Ken-kun's voice tears me from my thoughts, and I notice that I was staring at him, which in return seemed to have him annoyed from what I can read from his spirit and his voice.

“I’m trying to remember your facial expressions.”

“Why?”

“Because I still can't read them. Would you make a happy face for me?”

“Yeah, sure!” From his spirit and voice I can say that he's most likely making the darkest face possible. It looks funny.

I adjust my sitting position and lay my head on his lap without forewarning. “We haven’t done this for a while.” This is a way to collect WP for us. Since the whole Gottfried-event, we haven’t been able to engage in it daily, though Ken-kun and Katarine-san do their best to make up for it with every moment they're alone together.

“Phew...” He doesn't even raise his body, laying on the roof as before, but I don't need to see his face to know what he feels.

His boner pressing against the back of my head is proof enough. It seems I have my masturbation material for later.

―○●○―

“*Sigh* Kyou, what should I do?” I ask my friend, who rolls her eyes a bit. I know, I'm annoying, but she's the only one I can ask about this.

“Did you consider to be not intimate with him?” Maybe the thought of Dear and me sleeping together is strange for her, as she has known him the longest out of us.

“But it keeps on happening, even if I just cuddle with him. Am I sick?”

“Definitely not. But it's already strange enough that he has let you so close. I mean, you're going out, but Ken hates physical contact.”

“He's very considerate. But if this keeps on happening, he may not want to get close to me again...” The sheer thought of it makes me feel down. “...I'd hate that.”

“*Sigh* Let me think for a minute.” She begins to play with the ring around her finger, while furrowing her forehead. “If those reflexes were trained, can't you untrain them again? Or learn how to not apply them towards any of us?”

“But how? We're already down to cuddling.”

Kyou looks at me as if I just went on a murder spree and called it 'weeding'. “Why do I believe that what you and I refer to as cuddling are two different things by now?”

“Mou!”

“Rine-chan, how about starting with some massaging? Or just careful touching?”

“Ah, this may work! If I caress his below first, maybe some smooching there-”

“Rine-chan?” Kyou looks scary! “Do you intend to crush or bite off something by accident!?”

“No! I won't do it... I hope...” She's right, if things go as before, I may do some irreversible damage. Irreversible? “You could heal it then?”

Oh, her expression became darker! “Would you be happy if I touch him down there?”

I think about it for a moment, and to be honest, Kyou being intimate with Dear doesn't really faze me. She's his wife too, after all, so for me it sounds very natural. I didn't urge Dear to think about accepting Kyou and Ara if they ask out of nowhere. “Don't you want to?”

“No!” Now she's angry. Maybe I should stop that topic for now.

“Then let's—” Something knocks against the window, it's a bird. “Oh?” I open the window, and listen to the chirping. “Kyou? There are several people approaching the farmstead.”

―○●○―

“They did what!?” Harkon listens to the words of Tjim, who went ahead with some warriors, and they're unsettling.

“They bound Ulw on a tree and left a message. Here it is.”

Harkon can barely read, but the message was easy enough: “'If you found this, we already know you're here. We give you one chance to talk and avoid more losses. Just stay at the border of the forest. - Red Ranger'. A ranger? Ah, of course!”

Tjim knows what Harkon is thinking: “A ranger defending a farm. Would be hard to defeat in the forest, especially if the strongest they had was Ulw.”

“Yeah, he's experienced, but that's it. Well, one thing to do: We tear down the forest and attack the farm to avenge our kin.” Barbarians don't know much about rangers, just that they're trained by the elves and nasty opponents while they're in the woods. Following that logic, if there is no wood left, there is little threat, and true warriors like the clansmen of the Northwind Clan won't avoid a fight with a decent opponent. “Let's hope there will be enough for everyone.”