LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 22: Chapter 22.
I looked at the chessboard in front of me, before looking back to Shitori-san, she seemed to be rather happy to be playing some chess with me. Which was nice to see.
Now, I just had to figure out how to play chess, I'm pretty sure that I knew most of the basics from sheer cultural osmosis, but I didn't really know anything other than that.
"I'll play Black, it goes first right?" I asked earnestly, as I picked up one of the black horses.
"…" Shitori-san's silence was telling, and I could tell that she wanted to say something from the way she was biting her lip as she stared into my eyes, "No, no Ryuuji-kun. White goes first."
"Well alright then, whatever you say Shitori-san." I said with a smile, as she flipped the board around so black was in front of me and white in front of her.
Reading her emotions, I saw a mixture of determination, confidence and a heavy dosage of lust swirling within her.
Then she played the first move, moving one of her… I think they were called pawns, up one space.
Seeing this, I decided to mirror her move, moving my own pawn up one space.
I looked at her reaction, and while she was on the surface unfazed, I felt a slight tinge of annoyance, and an idea occurred to me.
It would be pretty easy to throw her off her game if I distracted her, and my childhood days of watching shonen anime told me exactly what I needed to do!
"How do you like that, Shitori-chan. I have mirrored your own move, meaning your previous moving of the pawn was useless!" I said with a falsely arrogant grin as I leaned over the desk, "Now, how shall you counter this?"
I detected a hint of confusion, before it swiftly changed to surprise, and then… acceptance, with an even greater amount of lust. I had no idea why she was feeling so lustful, perhaps it was the cost of becoming a magical girl? If that was so, I really respected the fact that she didn't turn out a complete degenerate like Tomoko did.
Then I was able to feel a decent amount of humor coming from the student council president as she gave me a small smile.
"Rather simply so." She told me as she moved another pawn up one space, as a malevolent aura manifested around her, I could feel some sort of evil lurking within her at that very moment.
So I quickly used Thought Acceleration and the world stilled while I looked at the chessboard. If I copied the move of the pawn, I would open up my king, and then if I continued to copy her moves, around ten turns down I would eventually lose.
Alright so I can't just copy what she was doing, as doing so would easily lead me into a trap… so with that, I dropped the spell and gave her a smirk.
"I see what you are doing Shitori-chan, attempting to lead me into a trap as long as I continue to copy your moves." I said, causing her to flush lightly as I instead decided to move the horse in an 'L' pattern, "Now with my horse on the field, I am unconquerable! I can feel the terror burgeoning throughout your soul, my dear. With this move, in four turns I shall penetrate your defenses and take you all by myself."
I then felt a spike of lust from the magical girl as she countered with her own move, and I had to quickly use Thought Acceleration to see just what she was intending to do.
With this, the two of us continued to clash in the game of chess, and every time I spoke or made a move… I would feel her lust spike.
Eventually, the game would come to an end as I had lost far too many pawns and other pieces, and were left with just my king.
Meanwhile, Shitori-san had sacrificed most of her pawns, but one had gotten to the end of the board and been promoted to queen- I didn't even know that they could do that. And the one time I had gotten close to her king… she did something called 'castling' and instead I as forced to take her rook.
"It's over, Ryuuji-kun. Just give up now, and leave with your dignity intact." Shitori-san said with a menacing little grin, her lust overshadowing every other emotion as she stared at me hungrily.
"Never! I shall fight until my dying breath. Go my King, charge!" I shouted as I moved the king up one more space, prepared for a valiant final stand.
"Checkmate." She said as her bishop came out of nowhere and took out my king, causing me to slump against the desk.
"Damn! Damn it all!" My fist pounded on the table, causing the chess pieces to shake, before I gave her a smile, "Thank you Shitori-san. That was a wonderful game."
"Y-yes, it was rather pleasant wasn't it?" She said with a shaky grin, her body shivering and her lust practically filling the room around me, "Now, um I think- I think that you should head back to class."
"Uh, are you alright?" I asked, feeling pretty concerned, were her magical girl powers affecting her mind?
"Y-yes!" She nearly squealed as she stared at me, taking long gasping breaths, "Just… just go now. Maybe we could- could have another game some time?"
"Yeah, it was fun." I said with an awkward smile, as I slowly walked out of the student council room and headed off to my next class.
As I was walking through the hallways to the next classroom though, I was suddenly hit with an influx of information, causing me to clutch my head in pain and groan while I pressed my body against the wall.
Blessing of the Spirits - Golden Sky Stories - Source (200 CP)
Separated from all the stress and hardships of urban life, people often consider the rural lifestyle to be one "blessed" by nature. Without a doubt, these folks have their own sets of hardships to face, but sometimes a simpler life is indeed a blessed one. In any case, the rural villagers certainly appear to be more in tune with nature than other folks.
You too, can adopt an aspect of Nature to request a blessing from. Be it the wind, the waters, or the sun or the moon, whatever aspect you adopt will serve as a primary element for you. All elemental magic or skills related to your aspect is enhanced, and you generally perform better when in the presence of your chosen aspect.
Chosen Aspect: SUN.
In an instant, I felt my affinity for the element of the sun itself grow by leaps and bounds, I could feel a sudden sense of power wash over me as the golden energy radiated throughout the world in front of me.
It was- it was a breathtaking sight and yet, it was so damn strange… so I simply sat down, trying to even comprehend what I was seeing.
And then, as I was sitting down I felt yet another influx of knowledge make itself known to me, this one- this one was a lot easier to comprehend.
"Hehe… oh this is- this is really useful." I muttered to myself as I looked at the incredibly thin layer of magical energy over my body, it went just past my skin to cover my clothes.
Magic Resistance A - Fate/Csjete Halloween Trilogy - Benevolence (400 CP)
Functional immunity to magic, only a powerful Servant (or equivalent) can hurt you with magic.
I had just gotten an incredible level of Magic Resistance, after all. From what I could tell, anything High Class and below would be simply nullified if it was used to hurt me.
Healing Spells and stuff like that would still work, but if someone tried to shoot a fireball at me? It would likely just fizzle out as soon as it touched my clothes.
As I leaned against the wall, I heard the sound of what I thought were footsteps coming closer to me, as a girlish voice hummed some sort of familiar tune likely someone was searching for me.
My sudden increase in power wasn't likely to go unnoticed after all. So I tried to walk away before they could find me… only to walk around the corner and literally bump into them!
As I bumped into the person, I heard a girlish squeal and something clattering against the floor, but as I looked around, I didn't see anyone… that is until I looked downward.
There, I saw a rather girlish boy sort of like Astolfo, he had pale skin and was wearing the Kuoh Academy girl's uniform complete with the too small skirt along with a shirt that was just too big on him and a pair of black thigh-high stockings, he had blonde bangs and wide expressive pink eyes… and strangely a pair of pointed elf-like ears.
But what was most noticeable was the way that he'd flipped around in the cardboard box that he was hiding in, it caused his skirt to flip up exposing his bare ass, and his shirt to fall exposing his back.
He stared at me with a mixture of timidness and fear, pausing completely in fright as he looked me up and down for a few moments with tears brimming in his eyes.
"A-ah!" The boy screamed in fright as he looked at me for a moment, and then I noticed a strange red flash overtaking the surrounding area, and I watched as he took a deep, scared breath… before quickly scrambling his way back into the box and flipping it the right side up as he attempted to scurry away.
But I didn't let him do that, since I was pretty curious about the red filter around the world, and how this might just be some sort of enemy attack.
So as the small elven boy tried to run away in his box, I simply pressed my foot in front of where he was trying to go, completely stopping him in place even as he tried to continue going forward.
As I did so, I felt a new influx of knowledge make itself known in my mind, and this one would… allow me to speak with 'speech balloons' of all things? Okay, that was certainly weird.
Speech Balloons - Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Illusion (100 CP)
Like a comic strip, you can "speak" with speech balloons. Whenever you want, you can talk with speech balloons; making no noise and causing a speech balloon to appear above your head with what you would've said in them. They disappear after a while- unless something tries to interact with them, in which case they might react in unexpected, random ways (shattering, stretching to avoid being touched, growing wings and flying away, etc.) With time, you can learn to change what font you use, what color your text is, and even "say" pictures.
Whenever I wanted I would be able to speak with speech balloons, I could use any sort of font or language and even make simple images using them which was interesting.
I had no idea how that was supposed to be magical in any way though, but I couldn't help but smirk as I looked at the boy in his box, remembering how he was humming the Solid Snake theme.
So as he slowly raised the box to take a peek at what was stopping him, I made a small speech balloon over the top of my head with a bright and obnoxious orange exclamation point before making an 'alerted' noise.
"H-hiiieee!" The boy screamed aloud, his eyes widening in a mixture of shock and horror as he tried to back away as I stepped towards him.
He looked so utterly terrified of me, and I wanted to know just why that was. Did he know something that I didn't? Or was he just a naturally scared boy?
Looking over him, I guessed that he must have been a First Year like Koneko was. But I'd never seen him around Kuoh…
Was he a new student or something? And what was he doing in that box?
I looked at the boy, and couldn't help but feel bad for him. He seemed utterly terrified the poor thing.
So, before he could make another attempt to run away I picked him up out of the box, before placing him in my lap- that always calmed Tomoko down when the two of us were younger after all… well, by a certain definition of 'calming down'.
"I- I-" The boy stammered shyly as I wrapped my arms around his waist in a warm hug, while he tried to squirm his way out of my grasp.
"There there, it's alright. Nothing bad is going to happen." I said softly, causing him to slowly settle on my lap.
He looked at me for a moment, his wide pink eyes widening before he gave me a hesitant nod.
"Al- alright…" He whispered after a moment, as I began to gently stroke his head, initially causing him to stiffen in shock before eventually relaxing and pressing his back against my chest.
Looking down at him, I saw that he was using a hand to cover his modesty, but even past his fingers I could see the small bulge he was covering up in those plain white panties, a bulge that was ever so slowly hardening.
I tried to avert my eyes, but accidentally let out a little laugh at the sight, and I then watched as the younger boy slowly turned back to me, letting out a small intake of air, before breathing hotly on my exposed neck, his eyes widening in shock as he looked into my eyes.
"I- I, um…" He stammered as he instinctively tried to get off of my lap, but he was unable to do so with my arm holding him in place, causing him to grind his butt against my crotch.
"It's alright, it's alright…" I said calmly, I wasn't going to judge him for this after all, lord knows that Tomoko's reacted more strangely to far less, "I don't think that I introduced myself yet, how rude of me. I'm Ryuuji Hyoudou. What's your name?"
"Ryuuji? Ah, I'm- I'm sorry, I'm Gasper Vladi! Nice- nice to meet you!" The boy, Gasper gasped lightly as he gave me a small shy smile with a small rosy blush on his pale cheeks.
He looked utterly adorable pressed against my lap, shyly stammering with a flushed face- he looked like an absolutely adorable elf. It was a cuteness that had to be protected, sort of like Asia's innocence or Tomoko's… Tomokoness.
"It's nice to meet you too, Gasper." I said with a little grin, as I continued to stroke his head causing the effeminate elven boy to snuggle further into my embrace, "Hey uh this might be a strange question- but do you know what all of this red stuff around us is?"
The look that he gave me at that moment was filled with such terror that I couldn't help but feel sorry for the boy who started to shiver and shake in my arms.
"Yes- yes, I… I know what it is. It's my uh, it's my Sacred Gear, Forbidden Balor View." Gasper said haltingly after a few moments of silence, "It stops time all around me- but I can't really control when it happens?"
"Oh that sounds amazing!" I told the boy with a grin, causing his blush to intensify as he nuzzled up further into my chest.
"R-really? You're not just uh, saying that?" He asked me after a few seconds, while I continued to gently stroke his head. Honestly his hair was sinfully smooth- the smoothest that I've ever felt at least.
Looking at him, I was almost positive that someone had done something to the poor boy to cause him to be this unconfident in himself… he kind of reminded me of myself in a way, back when I was a NEET holed up in my room.
So of course I wanted to support the cute boy who seemed like he was afraid of damn near everything- at least he was relatively calm now.
"Yeah, this is awesome. Think about it, time stop is a ludicrously broken power. And we've been in here for what, five? Maybe ten minutes already. You can do a lot with that amount of stopped time." I said, causing his eyes to widen in shock.
"…It's been how long?" He asked me, taking a sharp intake of air as he looked around as if the world was going to fall away at any moment.
"Uh yeah, I don't know how long it usually lasts- and I don't exactly have a working clock but it's definitely been over five minutes, why?" I asked.
"My Sacred Gear's supposed to only last for a few- a few seconds." He muttered after a moment's hesitation.
I looked at him curiously, wondering what he was talking about when it hit me. If it only lasted a few seconds usually, then why was it lasting several minutes now?
"Ahn~" Then before I could say anything, he let out a cute yawn and I watched as the red film that was all around the two of us cracked and… shattered with the sound of breaking glass.
Just like that, the world was back to normal and Gasper was softly slumbering against my chest.
Now that I was back in the normal world, I noticed that all of the sound in the time stopped world had come back… it was weird, I didn't notice that the background sound wasn't there until it was suddenly returned.
And now I've found that I now had a sleeping first(?) year elven boy in my lap, in the middle of school… so I slowly stood up, carrying him in my arms in a sort of princess carry as I tried to figure out what to do now.