Chapter 142
At Johann’s low, menacing glare, the other prisoner who had spoken up quickly shook his head.
“Allow me to correct myself—it is clearly an adorable baby street cat of noble pedigree. And given the skull pattern on its back, it’s obviously a powerful familiar.”
“That’s right. From now on, pay your respects whenever you see it.”
With that cat-obsessed lunatic as its butler, Furball would be safe from now on.
Viviana and Enoch, sitting at a distance, watched me carefully with sour expressions, but since that day they had neither picked a fight with me nor tried any underhanded tricks.
It was undoubtedly the probing gaze of people searching for my weaknesses and openings.
Enrique, who had been waiting in the dining hall ahead of us, greeted me with a sweet, eye-crinkling smile.
“You’re eating with us? Perfect timing. I gathered plenty of potatoes.”
Seeing the pristine potatoes that lower-ranked prisoners had painstakingly selected and offered as tribute, my chest tightened with gratitude.
No more scrounging dirty looks and food scraps, the staple diet of the lowest-ranked prisoners.
“Did I do well?”
Enrique’s wide-eyed smile made him look like an innocent boy. I answered with the clearest, most graceful smile I could muster.
“You did well.”
“That’s it?”
“You did remarkably well.”
Apparently that still wasn’t enough. He ducked his head and took my hand, placing it on top of his head.
Was he asking me to pet him?
“My lady, you don’t have much experience giving praise, do you?”
“This is a method of praise I never could have imagined…”
Johann, seated to my left, raised one eyebrow.
“Are you a child? You’re satisfied with that kind of praise? You should be asking for a reward like ‘sleeping together at night.'”
“That just makes you sound like a kid who can’t sleep alone.”
The two men bickered briefly before apparently reaching an amicable agreement as they suddenly shook hands.
Then Johann delivered the verdict to me.
“We’ve decided to take turns using your arm as a pillow every other night. Tonight’s my turn.”
Why were they deciding that between themselves?
And what crime had my arm committed?
I stared at the two men in disbelief.
Enrique added an explanation.
“It may be weak, but purification is still purification. The longer we stay in contact, the more the effects compound.”
“Yes… that is the nature of our arrangement, after all.”
I purified them with my speck-of-dust-level purification ability, and in return, they served as my allies and loyal subordinates.
Down the line, once I harvested a complete purification ability, I’d become their powerful, dedicated charger.
By then, they’d surely become my faithful servants and place the leash willingly in my hands, right?
I could only pray that the reverse wouldn’t happen, them collaring me instead.
“How far can you go?”
Johann’s voice, dropping slightly lower, disrupted my dangerous little fantasy.
How far with what?
My brain, thoroughly corrupted by impure thoughts, kept outputting dangerous results like: ‘Oho, so they’re absolute studs, are they? Should I seize this chance to claim the R-rated protagonist seat? Preserve the original work.’
“What do you mean?”
I asked innocently, as though I’d never in my life encountered such a concept.
Johann swept his jet-black hair back, and a faint crease formed between his brows.
“Asking for permission one thing at a time is a pain, so let me get blanket consent all at once. But if you prefer being asked each time, we can do it that way.”
Wasn’t he supposed to be the coercive mastermind who had zero concept of consent, refusal, or manners in the original work?
How did such a naive man end up falling to darkness like in the original story?
My gaze drifted, as if bewitched, tracing the slight upturn of his lips and the scar beside them before I snapped to my senses and asked:
“…So what exactly are you asking permission for?”
Please let him not be speaking without an object.
There was no way I could answer, ‘Oh, xx? Let’s draw the line at xx and xx,’ with any specificity.
He stared at me like I was a complete greenhorn and sighed.
“The effects might differ depending on where you’re touched, right?”
That was fair. The intensity of physical contact could make a difference. Since this was about saving lives, I could manage a Western-style hug and a light peck on the cheek.
I nodded, my eyes fixed on Johann’s chest.
“That makes sense. The effect might scale with the area of contact.”
Johann, catching the blatant direction of my gaze, straightened his clothes and fixed me with a pointed stare.
Enrique traced lazy circles on the back of my hand with his finger, his lips curling.
“At the very least, we ought to verify, don’t you think?”
“Verify?”
Like a performance check?
His slender fingers drifted from my hair to my cheek.
Enrique whispered, breath rough and uneven.
“Don’t worry. I’ll only go as far as you allow.”
His boyish smile shifted in an instant to the sensuality of a grown man.
The moment I met that gaze that was decadent enough to feel dangerous, my neck prickled.
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