Chapter 967: How to Spend the Year-End and New Year Holidays 36
After carefully confirming the agreement, Fiona lets her go.
“A bruise like that will disappear completely if you soak in the sacred spring for just an hour”
Corti says and while she’s absolutely right, I deliberately let her go.
“It’s better to save this kind of fun for later”
“Eh—”
“If I just wrap this up on the spot in the heat of the moment, there’s no room for the story to develop. I need to make sure she fully comes to terms with it and keeps her promise of her own accord”
“……That’s in poor taste”
“Huhuhu”
I flash a smug grin that’s every bit the petty villain. I mean, just getting to see Fiona’s breasts isn’t exactly a rare occurrence. What’s important is the flow where she shows them to me of her own free will. Do you understand, ma’am? Since she brought up a knight’s honor and made that promise, she has no choice but to keep it. She has to come show them to me of her own accord. That’s what matters. Being teased into it, being forced to look……there’s a certain charm to it that you can’t experience when it’s done in a way where you don’t know whose will is driving it. ……Just as I was breathing heavily while imagining Fiona’s expression, Leyla gently asked me a question.
“Of course, you’ll make love to her after that, right?”
“?”
I tilt my head.
“Why?”
“Eh?”
You don’t have to look so bewildered. I mean, I only promised to look at her boobs.
“……Are you really going to stop at just that?”
“Eh? Looking at boobs and having sex are totally different things. If showing your boobs meant you had to have sex, then all those female slaves who barge into the men’s bathhouse would end up being treated like communal meat toilets”
……No, wait, it’s not like Laila, Dianne or Sharon are secretly having orgies with Polka’s guys behind my back……right? That’s a scary thought.
“That’s a whole different story, so to speak……”
“Do you really just want to see boobs? Or are you hoping to pull me…over to your side?”
Corti also looks completely exasperated. No, no, no. Wait?
“So you were looking at them thinking everyone was there for that……?”
“What exactly were you planning to do, then? After taking a good, long look at a woman who came here fully prepared to show her boobs, are you just going to do nothing and say, 『Okay, I’m satisfied, dismissed』? Don’t you get the vibe of that?”
“Well……isn’t that fine……?”
“Well, that might be fine if it were a promise between kids or something, but”
Corti lets out a deep, drawn-out sigh. Since the whole thing felt kind of gross, I give her slightly small breasts a good, hard squeeze, but she doesn’t seem to care at all. She just keeps glaring at me with those narrow eyes.
“You’re always parading around with dozens of women who’ll do anything sexual on demand, switching them out one after another. No one’s going to think you’ll get away with just that. That thin thing she’s wearing is those girls’ last line of defense, you know? You’re going to rip that off?”
“But, you know. As for Fiona and me, unless one of us is seriously thinking, I want to have sex, it’s not that kind of relationship”
“You’re so careless about whacking your dick around with whores and cat beasts, yet you’re strangely principled when it comes to this……”
“No, I get it, given her position, if the princess doesn’t sleep with me, it’d cause all sorts of problems. Plus, she seems like she’s always been interested in sex, and she’s at that age, too. But she’s not that kind of girl, is she?”
“Then why are you so obsessed with her boobs……? It’s not like you need to look at hers, my sister and Laila have bigger ones, don’t they?”
“It’s not like there’s some Polka Kid out there with such a simplistic mindset, thinking, I just want the biggest boobs in a size comparison……!”
“Stop brushing everything off with that Polka Kid concept, will you!?”
Yes. Sorry. ……Leyla looks really troubled, too.
“I didn’t expect you to say you have absolutely no intention of sleeping with her……”
“Wait……so, on the contrary, did you really think I was some kind of indiscriminate stud who’d sleep with anyone and everyone……?”
“That’s what anyone would think, given the number and variety of girls in your harem”
That’s unfair. I actually do choose my partners carefully. Sort of. I’ve never just gone through the motions without any real feeling on either side. ……Ah, Naris? Well, Naris is Naris. That aside, I do want to see some nice boobs. There’s no contradiction there.
“……I’m suddenly starting to feel kind of sorry for that girl, Fiona. I wonder what she’s going through”
Corti says this with a look that says she’s genuinely sympathizing. Cheeky, I mutter, while groping her breasts relentlessly, but it’s still irresistible. Well, she is a dragon, after all. No matter how much they’re squeezed by human grip, they probably don’t actually take any damage. ……As for Shario, who got so into it with a straight face after being groped relentlessly, well, yeah. She’s actually pretty conscientious, so she probably had herself in the mood for sex from the start.
“……We might need to check in with her”
“I’m sure that princess has gotten the wrong idea, too……”
Eh?
——————
Trot doesn’t really have the custom of lamenting the passing year. It might be a thing in some regions, but I’m not familiar with it. The only time you could say that’s happening here at the Polka is during the annual tradition of having a drink on the Master’s tab.
“Well then, thanks for all your hard work this year. Here’s to everyone’s health and good fortune in the coming year, and to the success of the New Year’s Festival……cheers!”
Led by the Master, who I feel like said exactly the same thing last year, the men in the tavern raise their glasses. Everyone loves free drinks. If there’s even just one free drink to be had, they’ll gather without a moment’s hesitation.
“Hey, Andy. What do people do in the city at the end of the year?”
As we were drinking and making a racket, Keel brought up the topic, as usual.
“Nothing in particular, really……the number of people at the workshop drops during the year-end break, but that’s about it”
Even in the capital, it’s the New Year that’s celebrated. People get a little extra spending money to mark the start of the new year, and there are New Year’s parties and food stalls all over the place. The end of the year is just a time for preparations, it’s nothing more than the eve of the festival.
“In Celesta, the New Year’s celebrations are actually pretty low-key”
Keiron added.
“Why’s that?”
“Because we have the Spirit Festival at the end of the year. Everyone’s already satisfied with that, so the New Year’s celebrations are pretty laid-back”
“Huh……so the Spirit Festival is that big of a deal?”
“It depends on the region since spirit beliefs vary, but there really aren’t many places where the New Year’s celebrations are bigger than the Spirit Festival”
Keiron knows more about Celesta’s customs than I do. Well, I’ve been able to travel to various places since I started riding dragons, but when it comes to actually understanding each region’s customs……I’ve only really been to Basson and, at most, Talc.
“Well, even a New Year’s celebration as low-key as that is probably still way more extravagant than Polka’s New Year’s festival, though”
Johnny gave a wry smile. Well, yeah. It’s just the kids’ plays and songs, plus a dance party, every year. It’s far too modest to really call it a festival. But there’s a reason for it here. There’s no need to put it down.
“No matter how extravagant we try to make it, there just aren’t enough people……Polka. I wish the numbers would just keep growing”
“For aKeel, you’re sure talking big”
Keiron teased. He’s already got the look of a full-fledged local, doesn’t he?
“Well, since we’ve been able to build relationships with the elves……and it seems the Baron’s been working on all sorts of other things too, so by next year or the year after, the crowd might just double”
When Johnny said that, Keel tilted his head again with a puzzled look.
“……I can’t even imagine that. If the population suddenly skyrockets, what are we going to do about the New Year’s Festival……? If the number of kids singing and performing in plays doubles, they won’t all fit on the temple stage, and the dance party……”
“Well, we’ll figure it out somehow. Andy will”
“To be precise, it’ll be 100-man Commander Dianne behind Smithson, or little Irina-chan, and the others”
Johnny and Keiron didn’t seem to have the slightest intention of continuing their idle chatter; they cheerfully downed their drinks in one gulp. ……But, yeah. It definitely wouldn’t be strange if the population suddenly surged……would it? I wonder what will happen next year or the year after that.