While Miss Mei was busy preparing her strawberry cake, the Director's office at Chaldeas was saturated with the aura of another girl.
With her silky chestnut hair and magnificent pink eyes, the girl was sprawled across the desk, her slender, pale hands gripping its edge. The perfect curves of her breasts were pressed against the wood, constantly shifting into alluring shapes.
A deep blush of passion colored her lovely face. With every forward and backward movement from the man behind her, she let out muffled yet captivating sounds.
Within this zone of slowed time, even the briefest moment could be stretched long enough to see the entire act through to its conclusion. A silencing barrier ensured that no sound from within would escape. In this sanctuary, which was impossible to disturb short of a direct spatial transfer, the violated girl cried out in abandon, her knuckles white as she clung to the desk.
With the young man's final, powerful thrust, her body went rigid, trembling violently. Then, as if every ounce of strength had been stolen from her, she collapsed bonelessly onto the desk.
He scooped her up, the man who had been holding her waist, and seated her on his lap once more.
A tell-tale stain of their passion began to spread across her skirt and his trousers.
The girl, having just reached her climax, gasped for air, using the slowed time to recover from the intense pleasure that had nearly short-circuited her brain.
Then, the young man's voice fell upon her ears.
"Ana, should we switch positions?"
"The Director is a super pervert," the girl managed to say, squirming as she felt the heat beginning to gather beneath her once more. Her face flushed a deep crimson as she added, "A super lecher!"
"And do you hate me for being such a pervert and a lecher?" he teased. Having already unloaded several times in the office, he allowed the flow of time within the space to return to normal, a smile playing on his lips.
Miss Ana, the afterglow of their passion still coloring her cheeks, turned and shot him a glare, looking for all the world like a kitten trying to bare its claws. Her pink eyes were wide, not the least bit frightening, and only served to make one want to bully her a little more.
"I hate you!"
"Since you hate me so much, then I'll just have to make you hate me even more."
Clearly not finished playing, an amused smirk touched the young man's lips. He reached out again, his hands finding their way to her sacred mounds, toying with them.
"N-no." Her voice was frantic. She was already at her limit; any more and the pleasure might turn to pain.
"…Fine, then."
The young man sighed, clearly unsatisfied. He mimicked the Authority of the Herrscher of Wind, swapping the air within the room with the fresh air from outside.
What a buzzkill, not being able to finish properly in one go.
Besides straight-up sex, what other kinds of kinky games could one play in an office?
If the Scum Doctor from Rhodes Island were here, his answer would undoubtedly be: have Ptilopsis hide under the desk and start biting.
With that thought, he leaned forward, his tongue tracing the delicate shell of her ear.
"D-Director, if you keep this up, I'm really going to get angry!" The girl, feeling the wet warmth on her earlobe, lashed out, pinching the inside of his thigh viciously. "Go do some actual work!" she complained, pulling out a handkerchief to clean away the aftermath. The image of her lover as the superhero she first met was becoming more and more distant.
"Feeding my lover is actual work," he replied with a cheerful lack of seriousness, as was his custom.
The statement earned him a furious glare.
"Hmph. All you ever do is bully me."
"That's only because you're so cute, Ana. You make me want to bully you." Li Zihan chuckled softly, helping the girl, who had just managed to stand, straighten her clothes.
The pouting girl continued her tirade. "Director, you never do any real work. You're becoming more and more incompetent. You'll be fired sooner or later."
If I get fired, I'll just toss the Jewel翁 into another dimension and take over as the Magic Marshal myself, thought the young man, who had been tossed around by Zelretch more than enough times in the past. Going back to the Campione! world to rule as king, or taking over World Serpent as its Lord… those sound pretty good, too.
"I might look like a hands-off boss, but I'm actually very dedicated," said the man who had basically never managed Chaldeas, pinching his lover's adorable cheek.
"In this world oppressed by the Honkai, there are two short and effective paths to ensuring civilization's survival."
"One is to send the flame of civilization to another world. The other is to develop this world's combat strength until its peak power far surpasses its own civilizational level, thereby suppressing the Honkai's trials."
"The path corresponding to the former is the Ark Project, newly established based on my abilities."
"And the one corresponding to the latter is the Artificial Herrscher Project, right?" the girl, herself a member of that project, interjected, puffing out her chest with pride. The fact that she had been chosen as a guardian of humanity—an Artificial Herrscher—was a great source of honor for her.
No, that was just something I slapped together on a whim. The initial purpose of the project, as the young man recalled, was simply to help Miss Mei suppress her Herrscher of Thunder persona.
"More or less," he said aloud. "But now, I've grasped a far more effective power for dealing with the Honkai's tests." He was referring to the Noble Phantasm he had swiped from Goetia, a weapon that generated heat far greater than that produced by incinerating the Earth.
Goetia, the being who had completed the Incineration of the Human Order, was an incredibly high-tier entity. He had even been evaluated by Sessyoin Kiara as being "far stronger than my own ultimate form."
The Honkai's trials were calculated based on a civilization's consumption of physical energy. For every unit of physical energy consumed, a corresponding amount of Honkai energy was generated in Imaginary Space. Goetia, finding the heat from burning Earth's matter insufficient for his time travel, had simply incinerated the Human Order itself.
Clearly, the heat produced by that ring of light far surpassed the physical energy consumed by humanity—and thus, the Honkai energy in Imaginary Space. As long as it wasn't specifically countered, that great ring of light could one-shot any Herrscher.
When he really thought about it, it was terrifying. In a resource-poor world like the moon of the Nasuverse, its denizens could still create star-destroying weapons, presenting a situation where their high-end combat power completely crushed the Honkai world. And now, those very beings had received a universal energy source—the Honkai…
The future of the moon was starting to look a little frightening.
So thought the young man who had pilfered the ultimate weapon from the miserly Goetia, who was always reluctant to use it.
"What is it?" the girl asked, her expression a little lost, not quite understanding what this "more effective power" was.
She was met with the young man's sly grin.
"Play with me a little longer, and I'll tell you."
"No!" Having been bullied for so long, the girl's refusal was crisp and final.
"It's just a little cosplay," the young man chuckled. "I won't bully you like I just did."
"You mean you'll bully me in a different way?" she retorted, twisting the flesh at his waist. She knew damn well the bastard just wanted to torment her.
"We'll just be cosplaying getting caught in the act," the young man laughed. "Think of it as a drill. After all, until I've completely persuaded Mei, our relationship has to remain a secret."
"Bastard."
Those words, so utterly scummy, made Miss Ana ball up her fist in anger and slam it into the bastard's stomach.
"It's for the sake of everyone's happiness," the young man said, a pained look on his face.
Ana, who had long known that this bastard intended to take responsibility for all the artificial Herrschers, fell silent for a moment before reluctantly getting to her feet.
Raiden Mei, with her command over lightning, was indeed one of the girls who needed to be "taken responsibility for." The Director had chosen marriage as his breakthrough, a way to make her fall completely in love with him.
I should have done that myself from the start, Miss Ana thought. Her tendency to give in so quickly was definitive proof of her Schariac lineage. If she had, she would likely have been the first one to get married.
She felt that it would take the Director a very long time to convince Miss Mei to accept a harem, and she couldn't bear the thought of not being intimate with him for that long. The girl stared at the bastard with her pink eyes.
"…Fine. Just one drill."
"Okay."
The smile that spread across the young man's face at his successful ploy was that of a fox who had just stolen a chicken.
"What are the specifics?" Ana asked.
"Nothing much. It's just practice finding a blind spot in the shortest amount of time, so you don't get discovered." Li Zihan pointed to the space behind the door, and then to the cavity beneath his desk. There seemed to be just enough space there to hide a person.
---o---
At that very same moment, back at St. Freya Academy.
A girl with beautiful white hair stood beside another who was sitting at her vanity, yawning.
"Are you done yet?" Sirin sighed, having been waiting on Miss Mei for a while.
Why on earth did one need to put on makeup just to deliver a cake?
"Just a little longer."
The girl, who clearly wanted to look her absolute best when she saw her lover, carefully examined her reflection. Then, she turned her head and asked Sirin with a hint of nervousness, "What do you think? How does my makeup look?"
Is there a difference? wondered Miss Sirin, whose aesthetic taste was extremely masculine. She looked at the light makeup on Mei's face, then tried to recall what she had looked like before.
It was understandable to want to show your most charming side to the person you love. But would a guy like Ah Li really care about such things? He'd probably just think it would get in the way of licking her cheeks and make it harder to flirt.
Despite her thoughts, Miss Sirin put on an expression of someone who was thoroughly impressed.
"It looks really beautiful."
The girl named Mei let out a sigh of relief. If even Sirin with her straight-guy aesthetics thought it was fine, then Li Zihan shouldn't have a problem with it either.
Then, she picked up the cake that was sitting on the edge of the vanity.
"I'll be counting on you."