“So, you thought you could sneak into my lair? Fools! I have long sense prepared for your infiltration. I’m will not easily be violated by my sisters!”

“D-don’t say it like that!” Hina twisted, her cheeks flushing red.

“What do you have me in, Bastard? I’ll beat the shit out of you if you don’t free us.”

“Hahaha!” I threw my head back and laughed, stroking the cat in my lap. “If I never free you, how will you even touch a hair on my head? Meanwhile, I can touch both of you all I want.”

“Brother, we talked about this, wording!” Hina cried.

“You better not do anything perverted!” Kio panted.

“Hmph, as it so happens, it’s been about a month since our last session. I can further give your treatments.”

Hina’s eyes flashed. “Y-you mean, like before?”

“Th-that! Y-you pervert…”

That’s right, it had been about a month. Several weeks had gone by since the homecoming dance, and I had managed to collect a few paychecks, buy more supplies, and slowly build my new lair. I had completely adapted to this new world, and now I moved through it seamlessly, like a spider. Speaking of spiders, I had naturally needed to protect my new laid, so I had installed traps. This was a spider web shot. It was a solution that emulated spider webs, and when someone entered my abode incorrectly, they were struck by it.

When I returned after going inside to get something from my room, I discovered my trap triggered and two girls stuck to my wall. Seeing how well it worked, I couldn’t help but sit back and gloat for a while. Hey, I never said I was heroic. As much as I could remove myself from the original owner of this body, the better. I was Aiko now, and Aiko had two sisters, Hina and Kio, who still felt like they could act up.

Kio kept thinking she could bully me, and while Hina’s actions were more subtle, she also had her wants and desires that didn’t necessarily align with my own. Thus, I had to remain vigilant and wary in case they did something… well, something like this.

“You snuck into my lair. There is no use denying it.”

“It’s the toolshed in the backyard!” Hina cried out. “Mom said your room was starting to smell and you needed to take your chemistry garbage outside or she’d throw it out herself.”

“Ahem.” I coughed. “That as it may, I have claimed this place as my own. You’re not welcome here without my invitation.”

Unfortunately, Hina’s words were all too correct. After buying more ingredients, some of the extracts gave off distinctly pungent aromas. They started to fill the house until Mom kicked me out to the toolshed in our backyard. However, it had been so overgrown that the door could barely be opened. I had cleaned out the shed, creating a laboratory space for myself, right next to the lawnmower. It was cramped, but it still surprisingly had more room than my small bedroom. The airflow was better and the shelves were great for storing ingredients. Overall, I considered this an upgrade.

“I was just looking for a hammer!” Hina declared, but her voice revealed her deception.

I was good at listening to voices, and it was easy enough to listen for the inflections that showed Hina was lying.

“I suspect you were aiming for this,” I responded coldly, opening a drawer and putting down a small jar.

Both girl’s eyes brightened when they saw the jar. Hina quickly looked away, blushing slightly.

“I need another bottle.” Hina declared, looking at me defiantly.

“This would be your fifth bottle in a month,” I responded.

“S-so? I have lots of… acne…” Even she wasn’t able to make that lie believable.

“You’re selling it.”

“Geh!”

“I know people too,” I responded. “Did you not think I would hear about your get-rich scheme?”

“All the girls at school want to know where we found such good acne cream!” Kio spoke up. “I’ve had several offers to buy.”

I scratched my chin with one hand and scratched the cat with the other.

“S-sister… why is brother petting a raccoon?” Hina whispered to Kio.

“I-I don’t know. It’s a raccoon though, right?” Even Kio looked at me oddly.

I coughed, taking the animal of unknown lineage I found when cleaning out the shed and releasing it. “I’m willing to work with you to make a profit.”

Hina’s expression lightened. “Really? You’ll give us more?”

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“I’ll sell it to you,” I responded. “$6 a bottle.”

“$6 is what I said I’d sell it to them for!” Hina protested.

“Then you were underselling it.” I scoffed. “I’d been to the local markets and evaluated the price of other acne products. You could sell it for $10 and it’d still be cheap since my product works. The cost of production is about $3, so selling it to you only profits me $3. Whatever you choose to upsell it as you’ll keep the profits, so it’s up to you to decide how much to buy from me and how much to sell it for.”

“That…” Hina looked slightly defeated. “Fine! I’ll pay for it. You can let me go now.”

“That was just discussing business. I already explained the cost of letting you go.”

“You mean… th-that…”

I nodded. “You must become my test subject once again.”

I had already used flesh magic on both of my sisters once, but there were limitations to how much I could do. I was more familiar with the mechanics of this world now, as well as how to use the limited amount of mana I could squeeze out of it. I wanted to finish them up. They were like half-completed works of art, and when I saw their flaws, I couldn’t help but be annoyed. It wasn’t because they were necessarily unattractive. Since their looks changed, they went from below-average looks to above-average. However, I knew I could do better, giving them model good looks, and my pride as a flesh mage dictated I should finish the job.

“Fine! I agree.”

“Put your lips to this.” I lifted a piece of paper.

“K-kiss.” Her eyes widened, and then she turned her head away. “What are you making me do?”

“It’s just a binding contract. I release you, and you agree to be my test subject. That’s all.”

She still looked at me suspiciously, although I couldn’t figure out why. She did finally press her lips to the page. With the wave of my hand, the webbing came undone. She looked around in confusion, wondering how I had done it, but after a few moments, she blushed and ran away. Kio then narrowed her eyes, looking at me.

“I suppose you want the same deal with me? You wish to turn your sister into an experiment?” She asked.

“Hmph… foolish girl. Did you think you could leave as easily as Hina?”

“What? You won’t release me?” Her expression darkened. “I warn you, you’ll regret making an enemy of me.”

“Is that so…” I approached Kio, my face next to hers as I wrapped my arms around her. “Do you think I wouldn’t notice your feelings?”

Her eyes widened. “Wh-wh-what are you doing?”

“I could sense the change in how you viewed me ever since the homecoming.” My hand went into her pants.

“N-no… please, not like this.” She gasped.

With a jerk, I pulled a knife out from behind her back. “Your hatred is palpable. If you wish to succeed in killing me, you’ll need to try harder.”

“Th-that!” Her eyes widened, and then her innocent expression turned into a ridiculing sneer. “I should have known the great Aiko would figure it out.”

I sniffed the knife and glanced at Kio. “Poison?”

“Hehe… I wasn’t expecting Hina to already be sneaking into your shed. I joined her, but I was hoping to use her to get to you. I never expected you to set up traps. I always thought you liked to face things head on… owie!”

I hit her on the top of the head with my fist. “Stupid sister, you used poison!”

“Why did you hit me!” She cried.

“You’re supposed to use venom!”

“Eh?”

“This is a type of ingestible poison. Unless you eat the blade, it won’t do anything. You need to apply a venom if you want the strike to be deadly!”

“Ah? Ah!!!” Her eyes brightened. “That means… if I licked it before stabbing you, I’d be the one to die!”

“Exactly!” I responded, crossing my arms and nodding. “If you’re going to murder me, you can at least do it properly.”

“I see…” She smiled but then jerked. “You’re not angry I tried to kill you?”

“Hm?” I glanced at her. “You’re my family. Why wouldn’t you try to kill me? I was starting to think such things were abnormal given Mother and Hina’s temperament, but for some reason, after you went to homecoming you started giving off a murderous intent.”

“You say that like it’s normal!”

“Most of my family tried to kill me at one point or another. To many of them, it was the only way they could express they cared. If sister didn’t care about me at all, then she wouldn’t waste so much time plotting against me, right?”

“Wh-what? No! Who cares about you? I don’t…”

“Hehe… your poison knife says different.” I waged it at her before putting it away in a locked drawer. “Well, I’d prefer that you want to kill me or steal my things than…the other thing. I had family who… felt the other way…”

I shivered as I recalled that demoness who had grown obsessed with me. She scared me more than the countless brothers I had who frequently plotted to kill me. Although I was well-loved by the demons, they were still demons after all, so they tried to kill me often. When I looked back, I could see Kio’s face had turned pink, and she was shifting uncomfortably, trying to get out of her webbing.

“Why are you like this?” She asked.

“Hmm?”

“You are… Aiko, aren’t you?” She looked at me while biting her lip.

I nodded. “I’m the only Aiko there is in this world.”

Her expression soured. “Of course… we can never be friends.”

“I’ll never be your friend.” I agreed. “However, I am your family, and that will never change.”

She looked up, her expression slightly confused. After a few awkward moments, she shook her head.

“Free me. I’ll sign your stupid contract.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be necessary.” I pulled the gloves out from my side table and put them on with a small snap.

“H-hey… what is that? What are you doing?” She asked, starting to look nervous.

“I had Hina sign the contract, but I think you’d be more likely to try to break it. You might even go to dangerous lengths to prevent it. Since it’s Friday night and we don’t have school tomorrow, I have some free time.”

“Free for what? For what?” She started to desperately try to fight her webs.

My second glove snapped, and a dark evil grin formed on my lips. “Naturally, experimentation.”

“Don’t you touch me! Don’t touch me! Only my love is allowed to touch me! If I’m defiled by you, I can never face him!” She cried desperately.

“I’ll have to apologize then, but I can’t trust you later so I’ll need to take my pound of flesh now. I promise to be gentle.” My hands reached out for my sister’s chest, which was where I planned to start with my flesh magic.

“No! No! Nooooo!”

Thankfully, I had erected a sound barrier over the shed, or Kio’s many screams and pleas definitely would have caused neighbors to be alerted and police to be called. As was, no one heard a thing, and when I was finally done modifying her flesh, I sighed, feeling satisfied. I was a flesh mage after all, and getting to practice flesh magic was a great joy for me. It was like an artist getting to sit down with fresh paint after a long hiatus, or a sculpture given a lump of clay after a long absence.

Her clothing torn to pieces, Kio stumbled to her feet finally free of the webbing, her eyes tearful and her mouth twisted hatefully. “I’ll kill you for this.”

I pulled off the gloves with a snap. “You can try.”

She fled my lair without another word. I was adapting to my new life in the hero’s body splendidly.