“Ah. That. I kept it between my thighs so it wouldn’t get cold…”
“…”
Julia responded as if it were nothing and turned back toward the fireplace.
I froze in place.
This pen… This pen had been between Julia’s thighs…?
Even I haven’t been between Julia’s thighs yet.
And yet, a mere pen got to enjoy such luxury?
‘Julia’s thighs…’
The faint warmth emanating from the pen made my thoughts start to drift into forbidden territory.
From deep within my chest, a creeping desire began to stir.
This was a pen that had touched Julia’s thighs.
A pen that had been pressed against her bare skin beneath her skirt.
Just holding it in my hand made me feel as though I were committing some kind of crime.
If I did anything more…
Like sniffing it, for example…?
Just imagining it made me feel like my brain would short-circuit.
‘No. Control yourself. I am a rational and civilized being. A human with dignity…’
But if I gave in, I’d cross a river I could never return from.
No matter how little I cared for things like pride or appearances, I couldn’t abandon my last shred of dignity.
This was a matter of basic human decency, my final line as an adult.
It wasn’t about trying to look serious or noble.
It was about maintaining my integrity in front of Charlotte, Julia, and Yuri.
Even if no one was watching, Kali was always keeping an eye on me.
Remembering that fact helped me suppress my turmoil and regain my composure.
Whew…
Well done, me.
“Hmm, hmmm. Why no reaction, I wonder···.”
“…?”
“I thought Aslan would be really shocked if he heard I had kept it between my thighs…”
“…What exactly do you take me for? Do I seem like such a lowly person to you?”
“Hrmm… Actually, I just warmed it up a bit by the fireplace. The part about my thighs was a lie.”
“…”
At that moment, I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a long sigh of relief.
Good job, me.
I almost ended up sniffing or even licking the pen…
If I had done that, I would’ve lost my dignity as a human being for absolutely nothing.
By holding back a fleeting temptation, I managed to keep both my dignity and Julia’s trust.
“Th-That aside… I have this coupon Charlotte gave me before… I kind of want to use it now…”
“…”
Julia took out a crumpled coupon from her pocket and waved it at me.
And just like that, the composure I had worked so hard to regain was once again shaken to its core.
I was going to lose my mind.
I had only just reached my moment of enlightenment…
“Right now…?”
“So it’s not possible now? Then, I guess later…”
“It’s not impossible. Get on the desk.”
“Eh? Weren’t you busy…?”
“Not particularly.”
I immediately pushed the pile of documents to the side and stood up from my chair.
There were still some accounting tasks left to deal with, but if needed, I could just dump them on Sylvia.
With the desk now clear, Julia crawled up onto it.
Maybe because she was used to sleeping there before, she didn’t seem to feel any hesitation as she climbed up.
“W-What? Why are you staring at me like that?.”
“You seem to have grown a bit.”
“What!? Are you saying I got fat…!?”
“No. I meant your height and build—everything has grown overall.”
Has it already been nine months since I met Julia?
Almost a year.
For children, a year is an incredible amount of time.
They grow noticeably from one day to the next.
But noticing small changes day by day isn’t easy.
Only on days like this, when I take a closer look, do I truly realize just how much she’s grown all at once.
“When we first met, you were a bit chubby, but now you’ve actually slimmed down and look more slender.”
“H-Hmm. I see…”
[The Evil God ‘Kali’ is demanding that you feed our necromancer properly, claiming that there’s nothing left of her but bones!]
Back when Charlotte and Julia first arrived at the Vermont estate from the orphanage, they had been quite thin.
But strangely enough, Julia looks even more slender now.
Maybe because she’s been eating and sleeping well over the past nine months, she had a growth spurt, lost her baby fat, and her limbs became longer.
Ignoring Kali’s continued nagging to feed Julia more, I gathered her soft hair and tied it back with a hairband.
As her smooth nape became exposed, I unconsciously swallowed.
“You’ve gotten really good at tying hair.”
“Isn’t it because you kept pestering me to do it every day?”
“Hmm. I can’t help but give you a passing grade now. It doesn’t pull or hurt, and it looks nicely done…”
A small chuckle escaped me.
If she asked any of the maids, they would tie her hair up carefully without hesitation.
But Julia always ran straight to me, pestering me to do it, so I had naturally improved over time.
And of all things, she specifically disliked ponytails, so I had to come up with a different style every day.
I figured it was probably because Charlotte always wore her hair in a ponytail, and Julia didn’t want to match.
“Ugh, ugh… You’re too strong…”
As soon as I started the massage, Julia winced, frowning from just a light press.
I had absentmindedly applied the same amount of pressure I usually used on Charlotte and Sylvia, but it seemed too much for Julia.
Only after significantly reducing the strength did she let out a relaxed hum.
‘She really is completely different from Charlotte.’
I had thought Charlotte’s body was soft enough already.
But the moment I touched Julia’s arm, I realized that compared to her, Charlotte was actually quite firm.
Charlotte might have a slender frame, but her body was packed with muscle.
Meanwhile, Julia’s arm was so devastatingly soft that I could barely feel any muscle at all.
It was like kneading fluffy dough—an addictive sensation that was hard to describe.
I absentmindedly kept massaging her arm for a while, until Julia turned to look at me with suspicion in her eyes.
“I feel like you have some impure motives…”
“It’s just your imagination. Turn your head back around.”
“Mmm…”
“But really, there’s no point in massaging you. There’s no muscle to even get tense in the first place.”
“N-No muscle!?”
Julia flared up at my remark and clenched her teeth, trying to flex her arm.
But all that happened was her soft arm trembling like pudding—there wasn’t even a hint of muscle definition.
This is bad…
“I think you’re seriously lacking exercise…”
“T-That’s not true! My legs actually have a decent amount of muscle!”
“Let’s see—”
“Hyah!?”
Since she sounded so confident, I immediately slipped my hand under her skirt and pressed her thigh, making her let out a startled shriek.
Well, she wasn’t entirely wrong.
Julia’s thick thighs were just as soft and plush as her arms, with my fingers easily sinking in.
But unlike her arms, I could feel solid muscle underneath.
It seemed the morning runs I made her do had been effective after all.
If I hadn’t insisted on them, she would have spent her entire day sitting still.
Looks like I made the right call.
“At least there’s some muscle here. Makes massaging worth it.”
“H-Hnnng… Is this what it feels like when tense muscles loosen…?”
“No. You do have muscle, but it’s not tense at all. For it to actually get stiff, you’d have to be running yourself ragged.”
“…”
Of course, since she only ran in the mornings and remained idle for the rest of the day, there was no reason for her leg muscles to get tense.
Her arms had practically no muscle, and while her legs had some, they weren’t under enough strain to stiffen.
At this point, I started wondering if there was even a point to massaging her.
But then I thought—when else would I get to touch Julia’s body like this?
That alone made it worthwhile.
Come to think of it, not too long ago, I was nearly driven mad by jealousy over a pen just because it had been between Julia’s thighs.
And now, here I was, touching those very thighs myself.
A rapid rise in status, so to speak.
“Hah… I won’t nag you to exercise more, but you should at least stretch regularly. You can do that even while sitting, so don’t neglect it.”
“Hmm. I don’t know about exercising, but I actually stretch a lot. I’m probably even better at it than Charlotte.”
“Oh…?”
Julia puffed out her chest and declared this proudly.
To think she was diligently stretching without me even knowing.
That was unexpected.
…Or so I thought.
“GYAAA! ASLAN! IT HURTS! ···you!”
“I barely pulled at all…”
“But it still hurts! How is a person’s arm supposed to bend that far!?”
“Charlotte’s can bend much further.”
“L-Lies…”
I had forgotten.
Julia…
Her flexibility was on par with a log.
