The night outside was so thick it seemed as if someone had splashed a heavy layer of ink across the sky, but inside, the atmosphere was quite different.
The Mana Lamp emitted an ambiguous orange glow, stretching and overlapping the two figures’ shadows against the mottled walls.
Under the rule of the Noble Union, the standard Mana Lamps functioned by burning a Mixed Elements compound of fire and light.
This process generated significant heat, requiring the lamps to be encased in specially treated glass.
However, the temperature near the sofa was even higher than that of the burning elements.
The air was thick and warm, making one feel as if every breath had to be taken with extreme caution to avoid exposing the restless emotions stirring within.
Gray lay face down on the sofa, his shirt removed.
His broad back rose and fell slightly with his breathing, and beads of sweat slid slowly down the grooves of his muscles.
Katy was currently stepping on his back, her feet already planted on that burning skin.
Thin, pure white fabric tightly wrapped the girl’s dainty feet, revealing a faint rosy tint under the light.
Her toes were rounded and cute, curling uneasily within the confinement of the stockings.
The moment her arches tentatively pressed onto his back muscles, a strange sensation like an electric current surged through them both.
The fine, frosted texture of the stockings rubbed against the coarse skin of a man, producing a faint rustling sound.
Katy felt she had never sensed his physical fitness as a Warrior so clearly and directly.
The heat radiating from the muscles beneath her feet seemed capable of penetrating the silk and burning straight into her soles, sending a scorching heat through her blood all the way to the tips of her ears.
‘This… this is way too close. This has to count as zero distance contact, right? Any closer and it would be negative distance—no, no! What am I thinking!’
Her goal was to raise the favorability of the man beneath her feet to suppress Xiao Chunan, but she couldn’t afford to get herself caught up in the process!
“How… how does it feel?”
Katy asked.
Her voice sounded strange even to her, thin as a thread and visibly trembling.
‘It’s fine. It’s just acting. At a time like this, I should act like an innocent girl who’s never been in love and just did something impulsive.’
Though, the truth was she actually had never been in love.
She tentatively shifted her center of gravity downward.
Her arches, wrapped in pure white silk, tensed slightly to form a graceful curve.
Her shell-like toes dug firmly into the muscles near his shoulder blades.
“Mm…”
Gray buried his face in his arms, letting out a muffled groan in response.
The experience on his back was truly strange.
It provided a perfect amount of pressure while carrying the unique, smooth coolness of silk, which frantically teased his rationality through his nerve endings.
‘Calm down, Gray. You can do this. You’re the man who fought against a Great Succubus.’
If he were to get a rise out of this, his life as a Hero would be branded with a title even more shameful than “Weakest Winless”!
He did not want to be called some “Creepy Hero Uncle who likes underage girl popsicles”!
Katy was unaware that Gray was currently being tortured by a battle between reason and desire.
She bit her lower lip and carefully lifted her other foot, beginning to relax his muscles based on her memory.
She was now wobbling as she stood entirely on Gray’s back.
To maintain her balance, her toes had to dig harder into his muscles.
The white stockings were stretched extremely thin by the pressure, becoming almost transparent.
“Is it too heavy? I ate quite a lot in Lothric City… I might have gained some weight…”
Seeing Gray’s body tremble slightly beneath her, the girl panicked and tried to pull back her strength, but her heel accidentally slipped next to his spine.
“No, no. Don’t underestimate an A-rank Warrior. I wouldn’t feel pain even if I were carrying two Miss Katys on my back.”
“Then… then I’m going to start using more force.”
***
A few minutes later.
Sweat had soaked Gray’s back and saturated the soles of Katy’s stockings.
Those snow-colored silk threads had now become semi-transparent, giving her the illusion that the thin barrier didn’t even exist.
Katy felt like she was about to catch fire.
As time passed, the fabric beneath her feet became damp and sticky.
The slippery sensation made her so ashamed she wanted to take out Nocturne and dig a hole to crawl into.
Yet Gray seemed to be enjoying it, leaving her with no choice but to grit her teeth and endure.
‘For the Great Demon Lord’s plan, a Calamity Pillar must persevere!’
She looked down at her feet wandering across his back, moving from his broad shoulders down past his firm latissimus dorsi to his sensitive waist.
Every step she took left a shallow, glistening footprint on the young man’s skin, though they were quickly covered by the surrounding sweat.
“Dammit, you’re getting a real bargain, kid. Even I have never been served like this by a beautiful girl, hmph…”
She muttered in the Demon Language in a tiny voice.
Feeling her skirt was in the way, she used her hands to hike it up, revealing two tight, fair thighs that shone like ivory under the light.
When her toes pressed into the tightest muscle of Gray’s lower back, his body jerked violently, and an uncontrollable moan escaped his throat.
“Cough, Miss Katy… how did you think of this kind of massage?”
Seemingly realizing he had made an embarrassing sound, the young man awkwardly tried to change the subject.
“This is… I saw it in a book! It said using the weight of the feet is more even than using hands, and the effect is better. Also, also… it can nourish… no, I mean, it’s said to make men more energetic…”
She explained incoherently, but her movements didn’t stop.
Her silk-wrapped soles repeatedly ground against his waist, feeling the muscles there contract and twitch beneath her feet.
Just then, the girl’s foot accidentally brushed against an old scar on Gray’s side.
The skin there was slightly raised, and the texture was different from the smoothness around it.
Gray instinctively shrugged his shoulder.
This sudden movement caused Katy to instantly lose her balance.
“Gwah—!”
“Watch out!”
Losing all control, she fell heavily onto Gray’s back.
Her upper body collided with him without any obstruction, and a few stray strands of her hair fell, brushing against the neck of the young man pinned beneath her.
Gray instinctively reached back to catch her.
By sheer coincidence, his palm gripped her waist, his fingertips even touching the delicate, warm silk on the outside of the girl’s thigh.
Time seemed to freeze in that instant.
Their disordered breathing intertwined, and the warm breath of hormones surged from within their bodies, tangling their thoughts into a mess.
With her cheek pressed against the young man’s damp, hot back, Katy could clearly hear his heart thumping violently.
Every beat struck her eardrums like a heavy hammer.
…Or was that actually the sound of her own heartbeat?
“We got lucky this time. If this happens again, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to catch you every time without looking back, Miss Katy.”
Although she couldn’t see Gray’s expression, the teasing tone in his voice made Katy’s hair stand on end, causing her to ignore the fact that the man’s ears were also flushed bright red.
The girl hurriedly propped herself up, her face as red as a ripe tomato.
She glared at him sharply, and after standing back up, she stomped down with vengeful force.
“If you keep talking like that, I won’t do it anymore!”
Gray didn’t speak again.
However, when Katy stepped onto his spine once more, his shoulders shook almost imperceptibly, as if he were deliberately suppressing his reaction.
The orange light of the Mana Lamp seemed to become even more suggestive.
Katy kept her eyes lowered, watching Gray, who was physically beneath her feet.
A sense of shame mixed with a strange excitement coiled around her heart like a snake.
‘Calm down, Kat—no, calm down, Noctiluca! You are a dignified Calamity Pillar. Back when you guarded the Labyrinth, you used to step on this guy and laugh maniacally all the time. This is nothing special! I’m just wearing fewer clothes!’
“Miss Katy.”
While a certain Calamity Pillar was still deceiving herself, Gray suddenly spoke, startling her so much she almost fell over again.
“W-what is it?”
Katy swallowed hard, suddenly worried that this guy might succumb to his beastly nature and progress from a back massage to C⚪B.
“Thank you.”
Two simple words caused Katy’s toes to jerk.
She looked at the skin beneath her feet, which had turned red under the light, and a surge of heat rushed to her head.
This was it.
Even if this raised his favorability, she couldn’t continue, or she really would pass out from overheating.
“—Alright, that’s enough! The team member benefit session ends here!”
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