"Aaah! Aaaahn! Yes! Keep going!"
In a quick motion, Noah pressed the power button on his phone. It was a reflex he had developed from accidentally falling asleep while watching videos of a rather... questionable nature. With a sudden movement, he got up, scanning his room for any potential witnesses to his nocturnal activities, but... there was no one.
In fact, there wasn't just no one. His phone wasn't in his hand, yet the strange moaning hadn't stopped.
"Ouch..."
A pain seized his stomach, forcing him to curl up in bed.
That's when he understood—or rather, remembered: he was still in that damned video game world.
Had he finally been caught by the guards of Vasilisa's estate? What a disappointment, he thought he had shaken them off.
His room was no longer the same. Smaller, but filled with various trinkets. Dresses, beauty products, letters overflowing on the desk—the entire room was neatly arranged but gave the impression of a storage hangar. Yet, the smell and presence of a girl lingered strongly in the room, and not just because of the moans behind the wall.
"Yes! Yes! I'm coming! I'm coming!" shouted an unknown voice.
"Please don't come," Noah thought, squinting his eyes.
Doing such things right behind the wall his bed was leaned against… Was this a new form of torture devised by Vasilisa's mother? Maybe a trick of Cécile's?
No, that would have been twisted even for them. And then how could they imagine such psychological torture without knowing he was actually a boy inside?
Indeed, Noah felt that a certain… member between his legs had awakened. But he knew it was impossible—there was nothing there. And even if there was something all of a sudden, why would his body react like that when he was writhing in pain?
The moans and groans behind the wall eventually ceased, but Noah was still assailed by two very different kinds of pain.
"..."
As he stared blankly at the yellow wall of the room, he made a decision: he had to check if it was there or not. His mental health depended on it.
Ignoring the pain as best he could, he pulled off the sheet covering his legs, lifted his skirt, and…
"Ah~! That was a good even…ing?"
A very beautiful young woman with generous curves suddenly entered the room, casually drying her curly blonde hair with a towel. Her eyes moved from Noah's face to his hands, and then from his hands back to his face.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
She then turned around and pulled the door closed behind her. "Enjoy yourself!" she added with an amused smile.
"..."
Noah remained still for a moment, paralyzed by the encounter.
Inspection result: no mushrooms detected.
———————
A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. It was the same young woman from earlier, entering without even waiting for him to respond—clearly, she had only knocked to let him know she was coming in and that he should stop any suspicious activity, to which Noah responded with a furrowed brow.
"I brought you some food!" she said, holding a tray.
The young woman had changed and was now wearing a more conservative white dress. Seeing her, the first thing Noah thought of was those porcelain dolls he had only seen on TV or the internet.
"Are you feeling better? You know you had me really worried? You were unconscious for three days straight! You should have seen your injuries, truly horrible! What happened to you? Oh, I'm sorry, I interrupted you earlier when you were relieving your stress. Should I leave if it bothers you? Oh, and I already brought up your meal. Hey, how about you wait a moment to eat a little? Maybe you should wash your hands, right? Wait, I'll bring you a towel and a basin!"
Without even giving him time to answer her barrage of questions, the doll-like girl set the tray on the bed and hurried out again.
"Well…"
He had never seen her among the manor's servants before. Had she just been hired, or what? She approached him without fear and bombarded him with questions.
"Ah, maybe she just ran away?" he concluded.
He figured she talked way too much and way too fast. She probably didn't want to give him a chance to open his mouth—this whole curse thing, surely. She likely hadn't gone to fetch a towel—it was just an excuse to escape.
"Sigh…"
Yeah. He was definitely back at the manor or at least a place controlled by it. It seemed he was assigned a smaller room and a less comfortable mattress as punishment.
"Well, at least they treated me and served me food," he thought, before casting his eyes on the contents of the tray.
"Urgh…"
It was… a paste? Yes, a brownish paste. A soft mound of brownish paste and a piece of bread.
"This… This can't be… shit, can it?"
With bread, yes, but still shit.
"They can't be serious."
There was no way he was eating that. What did they think? That he would obediently eat excrement to beg for forgiveness? Bullshit. Any shred of humanity he thought Vasilisa or Cécile had was now completely gone in his mind.
Somewhere, he regretted his mother in his previous world. Since he became an adult, she expressed her anger and disappointment towards him only through insults and demeaning comments. The rest of his family did the same, making him feel unwelcome even at home, as if he were a failure, a mistake that couldn't be corrected without someone ending up in jail.
But this…
Forcing a child to eat this… thing. It was worse than the worst insults he had ever received. What the hell had Vasilisa done to these people? And more importantly, why the hell do child protection services never exist in this damned fantasy universe?
"I really need to get out of here."
His resolve hardened. At first, he was just angry, but now, he was truly starting to fear what they might do to him in this house.
"I'm sorry for the wait! I know you must be hungry, but I had a little chat with pa… uh, my father. I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long?"
The doll-like girl had returned, and to Noah's great surprise, she really had brought a basin of water.
"Alright, alright, alright. Let's get to it."
Without hesitation, she took Noah's left hand and began wiping it with a towel. Or at least she tried to, but he immediately pulled his hand away, giving her a dark look.
"What's wrong?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.
"What's wrong?!" Noah repeated internally.
Was she mocking him? Playing innocent, grabbing his hand while she was tasked with making him eat that thing. What kind of bribe had made her do this? Did these people's depravity know no bounds?
The girl looked at him curiously before snapping her fingers, as if she had just had a brilliant idea. "Ah, I know! We haven't introduced ourselves yet!"
She put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest proudly.
"People here call me Doll. Why? Well, see for yourself!" she said with a big smile.
"Doll?" he thought, squinting. "Well, they're not trying too hard anymore, are they?"
Perhaps not noticing his skepticism, the blonde girl extended a friendly hand to him. "And you, what's your name?"
So she was no longer trying to drown his questions under others? What, did she think he wouldn't dare answer her? Fine, this whole so-called curse thing was seriously getting on his nerves. If she was so eager to be cursed, then fine, he'd tell her his damn name.
"V-Va… er… Va… Va… Vasi…"
As usual, he struggled to get the words out, but this time, it didn't matter—it worked to his advantage.
"Go on, get scared! Get scared and run away like the others! I know you want to! Do it!"
Indeed, an initial apprehension appeared on the face of the so-called Doll, but she listened calmly until he pronounced the final syllable.
"… Li… huh… Sa…"
"…"
Doll didn't react at first, her face grave as if attending a funeral. For Noah, it was only a matter of time before she ran away like the others.
"I hope your paycheck was worth it, 'Doll,'" he thought, smirking.
To his great surprise, however, Doll raised her hand as a student would to speak. "Hm, it's Vasilisa, right? No other syllables?"
"E-Eh?"
What was she talking about? Had she not understood? Maybe she thought he was just nervous?
"I… er… I… I am… um… I am… a… a… Mud… Argh…"
With each word spoken—or half-spoken—he hoped to see a hint of the disgust and horror he had seen on the faces of all those servants in the past.
But nothing. She just looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to finish his sentence.
"M-Muddy… I am a… I AM A—"
"Huh, excuse me for interrupting and… huh… I know it's not very polite, but… I had noticed, you know? About your tongue."
"…"
Noah stared at her, eyes wide as if he'd seen a monster. Yet she had nothing of the image he had of such creatures—she was quite the opposite.
But if that were the case, why was she listening so calmly? Why was she talking to him normally?
He didn't understand.
"Ah! A six-letter name? More? You're a noble, aren't you? Your dress also looked valuable. Hm… Ah! That must be it!"
Doll took a spoonful of the pile of excrement on her plate and brought it to her mouth.
"W-Wha?!" Noah exclaimed.
How could she eat that? He had his confirmation now—this girl was crazy, and that's why she hadn't run away!
Doll took another spoonful of the disgusting paste and held it up to Noah's face. "See? It's not poisoned! I always heard that nobles had tasters or something, but I didn't expect them to eat nothing unless it was pre-tasted! Here, if it were poisoned, at least I'd die with you! Your spirit wouldn't have to come back to haunt me then, right?"
"…"
Once again, she was talking too fast and too much. Poison? Did she really think that was the problem?
"Come on! Come on! Just take one bite!"
The girl insisted, demanding more and more loudly that he give in, but he held firm. What did she think? He wasn't going to put just anything in his mouth just because some crazy girl—
"Ha! Hahaha! Ow!"
An uncontrollable laugh escaped Noah's lips. Whether in his past life or this one, he had always had a fatal weakness: tickling. This girl had just run her hand over his belly to tickle him.
"An opening!"
Taking advantage of the fact that his mouth was open, she shoved the spoon in before he could stop her.
"Hm! HMMMMMMMMM!!!"
Noah first tried to spit out the bite, but Doll pushed him onto the bed and held his jaw shut. For some reason, her strength was disproportionate to the impression she gave—she held him down on the bed so easily that he thought she might be a gorilla or something.
"Surely another stats thing!" he thought, though it wasn't the time for jokes. He had to spit this thing out! If he didn't, he'd surely succumb to the urge to impale himself on the nearest knife!
"HMMMMMMMMM!!! HMMMMMMMMM!!! HMMM…Hm?"
The crap—the thing in his mouth—tasted… good?
"Heh heh heh!"
Doll was now straddling him, a satisfied smile on her face.
"So, it's good, huh? Peanut paste recipe passed down for generations in the Mouque family! I hope you enjoy it; there's not much left!"