I Need the True Ending to Graduate - Chapter 15

‘Did he really leave me like this? With that… standing so hard? Without even holding me once?’

I stood frozen in place, dumbfounded and at a loss, still clutching tightly the handkerchief he had given me.

…No matter how I thought about it, something was off.

Evan Bell’s words and actions made no sense to me.

‘If this is how it was going to be, then why did he even call me here?’

It couldn’t be that he had paid all that money and summoned me just to torment me so that only I could enjoy myself.

And yet, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been aroused by my vulgar state, nor as if the torment hadn’t been enough to stir his desire. His arousal had been evident.

‘He’s not impotent, and he has every right to use me as he pleases in bed, so why didn’t he go all the way?’

I gathered my clothes from the corner of the office, sat down on the reception sofa, and began wiping away the wetness between my legs with the handkerchief Evan Bell had pressed into my hand.

It was ridiculous, but in about thirty minutes a servant would arrive, and I couldn’t walk around outside without underwear.

Even as I wiped, the feeling was strange—it wasn’t just any towel, but Evan Bell’s personal handkerchief, something he had carried with him.

To use such an item to clean myself there, it was bizarre.

‘And the man who gave it to me never even touched my thighs, let alone down here.’

As I put on the underwear I had taken off and pulled on my stockings, my thoughts remained on Evan Bell.

He had been the same the first time we met—his attitude was never consistent.

Did he want to relieve stress by tormenting me?

Did he want to lecture me on the seriousness of spreading my legs and selling my body to a strange man?

Did he want to mock me and scorn me for moaning and writhing lewdly on a dildo-mounted chair?

Did he want to exercise the right he had purchased—to use me as he pleased—or not?

Had he proposed this arrangement because he wanted to embrace me?

Was he worried about me, or angry with me?

Did he want to treat me preciously, or did he want to degrade me?

All of it was an unsolvable puzzle, one question after another.

Never in my life had I met a man so inconsistent, so complicated.

The only thing certain was that his inconsistency was the only thing consistent about him.

Had he simply denounced me as vulgar and then taken out his swollen erection and used me without restraint, I wouldn’t have been so confused.

He had prepared to torment me in such a lustful, satisfying way, only to skip the most important part and leave.

And his affection had even risen.

‘I really don’t know what the problem is.’

Still, this method had its own pleasures, and discovering that affection increased just by arousing him, even without penetration, meant I had lost nothing.

‘But I have a feeling he’ll keep acting like this from now on…’

I let out a quiet sigh, my expression grave.

As much as everyone dreams of easy work for great pay, it would be troublesome if I had to keep dealing with someone whose intentions I could never fathom.

‘To think I’ll have to put up with a man whose attitude flips like a pancake for an entire year.’

No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t feel right.

And yet, I was certain there had to be a reason for Evan Bell’s erratic behavior.

‘Now that I think about it, Professor Jeran Ennessy was odd as well.’

His attitude toward me—an academy student and his pupil—was overly polite, almost too considerate.

Of course, it was better for him to be considerate than not, but his kindness had felt slightly out of place.

It was the same with how he had apologized over the matter of Karl Evenhart.

As a fellow professor, it would have been enough to express regret or sympathy. A formal apology felt a little excessive.

‘He even apologized once by letter, then again when we met in person…’

But the most suspicious point was something else entirely.

“As I recall, Miss Even, your previous research wasn’t on dimensional transfer magic. It was on security and barrier magic, the kind that the Calypse Empire is currently supporting heavily at the national level. Isn’t that right?”

“……”

“Is there a reason you suddenly changed your research topic right before graduation?”

Jeran Ennessy had already known what I had studied before, and that I had changed my research topic.

And yet, it wasn’t as though we were acquaintances. If we had been close, I could have asked him directly to be my advisor from the start, instead of writing to five professors all at once.

With the information I had, I couldn’t deduce more, but there was clearly a chance he had known about me somehow.

The same applied to Evan Bell.

Thinking back to when he had first approached me and offered me secret employment, that suspicion seemed even more convincing.

I had doubted his intentions so much at the time, and Evan Bell had said this:

“Do I really inspire so little trust in you?”

“How can there be trust between two people meeting for the first time?”

“Meeting for the first time…”

“That’s right. We’ve never met before. …Yes.”

Back then, I had brushed it off, hungry and desperate for money. But now, it felt more meaningful.

The moment I insisted we were strangers, Evan Bell had looked distinctly displeased. Which meant, at the very least, that we were not strangers.

My reasoning up to this point was fairly solid.

But there was a problem.

‘If we weren’t strangers, if Evan Bell had known me, then would he really propose a paid sexual arrangement to someone he knew?’

That was strange.

It was one thing to make such a proposal to a stranger, but to someone familiar? I doubted the game would set up a capture target who was insane enough to do that.

‘There’s just too little information.’

About both Jeran Ennessy and Evan Bell. I hadn’t known them long, and it was still early in the game. There was nothing concrete to go on.

The design was probably such that, as the game progressed and affection increased, more information would be revealed.

‘In the end, I just need to keep playing the game diligently.’

For the first time today, I had managed to raise a capture target’s affection. Regardless of Evan Bell, I had enjoyed myself in my own way.

‘Next time he calls me, I want to go all the way…’

I wanted to test whether the amount of affection gained would differ depending on penetration.

And I recalled something Evan Bell had muttered before.

“Next time, I’ll have to get something so large you won’t even dare to put it in, so you’ll cry and beg for me instead.”

Unless my ears had deceived me, that was exactly what he had said.

So, it seemed Evan Bell wanted to see me cry and beg for him.

‘But since I was having such fun with the dildo, that must have displeased him.’

Thinking about it that way, his behavior wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.

…Of course, not everything was clear.

Still, if his goal was to see me plead with him, to see me desperate, then that much I could oblige.

‘That would be… quite an enjoyable play as well…’

I closed my eyes and nodded slightly to myself.

And remembering the thickness I had faintly felt through the fabric earlier, I was even more satisfied.

Knock, knock, knock.

While I was sitting alone on the office sofa, smiling in satisfaction, someone suddenly knocked at the door.

“……!”

Lost in thought, I jolted and opened my eyes wide. It must have been the servant Evan Bell had sent.

“I was sent by Mr. Evan Bell. I was instructed to escort Miss Lucia outside. Are you inside?”

“Yes, just a moment. I’ll be right out.”

I hastily stuffed the damp handkerchief into my pocket and shut the window I had left open to air out the lewd scent Evan Bell had scolded me for.

Then, as if nothing had happened, I left the office.

***

The day of the new term had dawned.

The semester had begun, but nothing had changed. I wasn’t a fresh new student entering the academy, just someone on the verge of graduating.

So things like entrance ceremonies were irrelevant to me. Only time had rushed by, and the semester had started.

After raising Evan Bell’s affection by 5% in his office, I had done nothing else.

It wasn’t that I had nothing to do, or that my plans had gone awry.

Based on the research proposal I had written, I needed to read the papers and studies listed within it, in order to gain the minimum knowledge needed to write my thesis.

But the library—the treasure trove of knowledge—was only open during the semester. There was nothing I could do but wait.

Well, once the semester began, I would be busy in many ways. Preserving my strength during this time wasn’t a bad idea.

So I spent my days holed up in the dormitory.

That didn’t mean everything passed peacefully.

Around a week before tuition was due, a letter arrived from Jeran Ennessy.