CH 38

Ayra stared at Janus’ skin. His hands were itching to find out why such a ridiculous number was displayed in the mercenary’s stat window. He wanted to conduct various experiments on the other immediately. Unfortunately, this person was far from an ordinary slave in the Labyrinth.

As sensitive as he was, Janus must have found the young lord’s gaze quite suspcious. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Mm, so, I’m curious…You defeated the herd of Occampanias earlier very easily. How strong are you by mercenary standards?” Since he couldn’t experiment, Ayra could only ask questions.

Perhaps Janus felt miffed that the young lord had rubbed his cold body all over him, and thus gave an insincere reply, “I’m pretty strong.”

“What does ‘pretty strong’ mean?  How would you compare to me?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll probably struggle if you use your magic. But in terms of pure physical strength, well, you’re about this small…” Janus pinched his fingers together, leaving only a tiny gap, and met Ayra’s stare. The young lord’s eyes were shining brilliantly, having momentarily forgotten the fatigue and exhaustion that had set upon his slender body.

The mercenary–a man who was supposedly a very generous and forgiving lover–opened his arms wide and said, “Come, hit me.”

“Are you sure? Then, I’ll hit you seriously.” Ayra readily accepted Janus’ offer. Afraid of a decrease in affection value, the young lord first slapped his companion lightly on the thigh.

Janus smirked as if he found the young lord a bit ridiculous, “Are you joking around?”

‘Fine. So this means I can hit hard, right?’ A little excited, Ayra punched Janus’ thigh with all his might. It was as if the mercenary had been punched by an infant’s curled ‘fern-bracken-like’ fist–the man didn’t budge one inch. 1

“Very ticklish.” Just as he stated, the stat window did not show any change in Janus’ HP.

Ayra wondered if it would be alright for him to hit even harder. After dithering for a second, gauging the other’s mood, he asked, “Would you mind if I used more force?”

“Feel free to hit me as hard as you want–it doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m going to hit you incredibly hard. You can’t get angry with me, alright?”

​​”I really won’t get angry, so go ahead.”

Now that he received permission, Ayra, eyes sparkling, took something out of his interdimensional pocket. It was a fist-sized iron ball that thudded to the ground due to the young lord’s lack of strength. The ball was usually used for strength-based experiments. As Janus stood stunned,  Ayra lifted the iron ball into the air with magic and smiled bashfully. “This is smaller than an Occampania’s tusk, right? Right now, I’m lacking in mana, so this won’t be that powerful.”

Actually, Ayra still held a small grudge against the mercenary for waking the Occampania herd and initiating that debacle to escape the herd’s path…

Janus was smiling nonchalantly until Ayra had taken out the iron ball. Then, the corners of the mercenary’s lips froze as the ball began rotating in the air. Soon, the iron ball began to spin violently–powered by propulsive forces coming from various directions–in Ayra’s hand. It looked as if the ball would shoot forward in any second, smashing through everything in its path with great impact and damage.

‘Let’s see… As for rotational speed…30 rotations per second should be enough.’

That speed was a little stronger than what a fan would experience after a strong wind blew through it. That alone caused mana to slowly drain out of the young lord. After finishing his preparations, Ayra looked at Janus with the last dregs of his conscience in mind. He silently asked, ‘Is this really alright?’ with his expression.

Janus scratched his cheek, smiled, and tapped his stomach with his hand. “Fine. Let’s do it properly if we’re going to do this. Send it here.”

‘Is it really alright to send something like this at a human being? Straight at a vital point?’

‘However, if the other is confident that things will be alright… Besides, he really does seem to have outstanding physical stats…’

Ayra hesitated for a moment. Curiosity and common sense battled, circling around each other at furious speeds, in the mage’s troubled gray eyes. After a moment’s consideration, the ‘mad-scientist’ within him stood victorious. Much of the common sense he had in his previous life had already been replaced with the strange mentality of Labyrinth denizens. He wanted to understand the scale of that ridiculous number.

He decided to believe in that HP value: 9,999,999.

The violently spinning iron ball shot forward, accompanied by the sound of air ripping, and slammed right into the pit of the mercenary’s stomach. Janus, who had not moved in the slightest before, bent over for the first time. Ayra frowned and watched his companion nervously, worried that he had seriously injured the other.

“Oh, I could definitely feel this one.” Then, Janus rubbed his stomach a couple of times, and that was that–he was perfectly fine.

When Ayra summoned the stat window and checked on his HP, the value had dropped slightly to 9,999,134. If one considered that an average person’s HP was around 1,000, that sort of blow could lead to serious injury or death.

Though Janus was the one that had been hit, Ayra crumpled to the ground, out of energy after a full day’s work saving the citizens. His eyelids grew heavier with drowsiness. Nevertheless, he was happy to receive significant experimental results. His options for future experimentation had greatly widened now that he was able to check the HP’s numerical value.

Grinning like a drunken man, Ayra approached the subject of his experiments. He rolled up the mercenary’s thin shirt to check if there was any damage to his ideal guinea pig–no, Janus’ stomach. The area where the iron ball had hit was slightly reddish, but there was no bruising nor any swelling of the abdomen due to internal bleeding.

Ayra carefully pressed with expert fingers; he could feel the hard muscles under the smooth skin. There were no bumps and everything seemed normal, but he asked to be sure, “Are you okay?”

“I’m not okay.”

Surprised at that answer, Ayra looked up; Janus took the hand that had been groping his abdomen and then dragged it all the way down between his legs. “It hurts here.”

Startled, Ayra breathed in sharply. If he could quantify *that part* and assign it a numerical value, then *that* would be 9,999,999 as well. The moment the young lord’s hand touched it, the other’s burdensome weapon turned bigger and firmer. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Ayra stuttered, “W-Why are you suddenly so excited.”

“I always get a little excited when I get beaten up.” Janus’ red eyes shone as he blatantly pressed and rubbed his member against the mage’s rigid hands. Ayra’s face paled. Though, strangely enough, the more he got to know the mercenary, the harder it was to resist him…

“Aren’t you the type to get excited while hitting others? You even used tools.”

“No!” Ayra, having been painted as a pervert by his companion, felt wronged.Someone who would get sexually excited by slamming others with steel projectiles would be the biggest pervert in the world.

“Or is it the other way around? Well, it’s alright. I get aroused when I hit others too.”

Ayra, freaking out, fell forward as he scrambled to get his hand away from the mercenary’s member. He was already exhausted–when his head slammed into a firm body, the young lord was momentarily stunned. “I don’t get aroused when being beaten! Nor do I get aroused from beating others!”

“Yeah, anything’s fine, so let’s do it once. You look like you’re done with your work.” It seemed that Janus hadn’t yet given up on his hope of having sex with Ayra. A large hand touched the young lord’s cheek and another dragged Ayra’s half-kneeling and half-stumbling body into a hard embrace. In the short time it took to move their bodies to the bed, Janus kissed the young lord rather hastily.

To be honest, Ayra didn’t hate it. Disregarding the matter of sadomasochism, he didn’t really mind sleeping with this guy at least once. It occured to him that, considering the skillful performance in the igloo earlier, perhaps having sex with such a huge member wouldn’t be a terrible experience.

The problem, though, was that the young lord’s fatigue was at its climax. As he lay on a soft bed, caressed by hot hands, he felt as if he had lain upon a heavy electric heated mattress and couldn’t muster up much arousal despite the licks and sucks at his tongue.

The heftier the caress, the heavier his eyelids felt; the hand holding onto Janus slowly began to lose strength. His companion also paused as if he had just noticed that the young lord was rapidly falling asleep.

Janus asked in a bewildered tone, “What–are you kidding me? You’re sleeping right now?”

“Mmm, later, later… We need to depart early tomorrow…” Ayra, almost asleep, mumbled off-handedly. He could hear an irritated sigh in the distance. Though he felt goosebumps creeping up his back, Ayra could care less because of his drowsiness.

“Next time, I won’t let things pass even if you faint.”

‘I think I just heard something terrifying…’

Soon, Janus’ weight, which had been pressing against his body, vanished. The other gave the young lord a hot, stinging gaze. As his consciousness drifted away, Ayra suddenly wondered: If that cheat-key-like value–the 9,999,999–wasn’t a bug or a glitch… If that was truly real…

‘Could this guy even be considered a human being?’

TL: Ayra…you may not be a sexual deviant, but you’re definitely a pervert for science…