After comforting himself like this, Sajyou Manaka's mood improved quite a bit.
Lan Ze watched this scene and nodded inwardly with great relief.
As expected, a big loli around the house was truly wonderful—generous and cute.
Yet this was probably also because his usual behavior had earned Sajyou Manaka's trust. After all, someone as pure and unlustful as him was hard to find these days.
At that moment, Lan Ze suddenly heard a soft humming voice from Tiamat beside his ear:
"Aaaa? (Do you need to replenish mana?)"
Lan Ze froze for a second, seemingly failing to react in time.
By the time he snapped out of it, he saw Tiamat lowering her head and gently untying the buttons at her chest, just like before.
Lan Ze's gaze locked for a moment, his heart hammering wildly. He hurriedly grabbed Tiamat's wrist and whispered, "Aaaa."
If Manaka saw him doing this right now, he wouldn't be able to wash himself clean even if he jumped into the Yellow River...
Even though he purely wanted to replenish mana and had no other thoughts, Sajyou Manaka might not believe he merely wanted to replenish mana...
"Do you need to replenish mana?"
Yet at that moment, Sajyou Manaka's puzzled voice suddenly came from behind him.
Holy shit... can she understand what we're saying?
Lan Ze felt his heart stop for a fraction of a second.
Yet after a long moment, he realized Sajyou Manaka showed no signs of anger. He couldn't help turning his head to look at the girl lying behind him and asked, "You can understand what Mother is saying?"
Sajyou Manaka curled her lips: "Call me a beast for all I care; even if I don't know how to speak it, I can at least understand it."
Pausing for a moment, she continued: "If you need to replenish mana, I can help you too."
"Oh?"
Hearing this, Lan Ze instinctively glanced at Sajyou Manaka's chest.
Could... could this... help with mana replenishment too?
Observing Manaka's confident look, Lan Ze could only shake his head: "Forget it, let's just go to sleep first."
"I really can help you replenish mana." Sajyou Manaka, thinking Lan Ze didn't believe her, said with displeasure, "I know a Divine Era Magic that can transfer one's own mana into another person's body, and the speed of mana replenishment is very fast."
"Um... really, no need." After a reserved refusal, Lan Ze slid back under the covers to prepare for sleep.
Yet the moment he lay down, his mouth was suddenly blocked by something.
His body's mana was replenished accordingly. Amidst a brief moment of daze, Lan Ze snapped to his senses, his body instantly tensing up.
Lan Ze raised his gaze to look at Tiamat's gentle little face. His mana was recovering rapidly, but his heart was beating so fiercely it felt as though it might leap right out of his chest.
Tiamat evidently didn't realize there was any issue with replenishing her cub's mana. Noticing Lan Ze's expression looked somewhat tense, she asked with naive confusion, "Aaa?"
The instant that humming sound rang out, Lan Ze immediately raised a hand to cover Tiamat's little mouth.
Tiamat blinked her eyes, looking down in incomprehension at Lan Ze in her arms.
Yet Lan Ze's blocking motion was still a split second too late. The moment Tiamat's humming voice fell, Sajyou Manaka's puzzled voice immediately came from behind:
"Strange... why is your mana suddenly recovering so fast?"
"Why is your mana suddenly recovering so fast?"
Sajyou Manaka asked with suspicion, her eyes tinged with perplexity.
Clearly, just a moment ago she had sensed that the mana in Lan Ze's body was nearly exhausted, but now she distinctly felt his mana recovering at an absurdly exaggerated pace.
Even Sajyou Manaka herself could only achieve this kind of recovery speed when using Divine Era Magic, yet Lan Ze was now achieving such an exaggerated rate of mana recovery entirely on his own?
Lan Ze didn't speak—or rather, he couldn't speak.
His mouth was blocked by Tiamat. This gentle woman was holding the back of Lan Ze's head tightly; unless someone sat up to look, it was completely impossible to tell anything was wrong.
It simply looked as though Lan Ze were peacefully asleep right in Tiamat's arms.
Except that if the quilt were to be peeled back, what one would see was an entirely different spectacle.
Sajyou Manaka clearly didn't realize she was being cheated on once again. At that moment, the genius magic prodigy rested her chin on her hand, analyzing the reason for the sudden surge in Lan Ze's mana recovery speed.
Then she poked Lan Ze's back and spoke again: "Why did you suddenly stop talking?"
Seeing that the situation was turning bad, Lan Ze gently poked Tiamat's lower abdomen, wanting to tickle her and make her loosen her grip a bit.
Yet what he poked instead were cold, hard scales.
These scales wouldn't completely disappear until tomorrow.
He had no choice but to change tactics, touching Tiamat's thigh and scratching it slightly.
This woman was clearly also a little sensitive, and she instinctively loosened her grip.
Lan Ze finally found an opening and broke free from Tiamat's warm, soft embrace.
"Lan Ze-kun?"
When Sajyou Manaka's voice rang out once more, Lan Ze asked in a 'sleepy and dazed' manner: "I'm a little tired, and I seemed to have fallen asleep just now. What did you say?"
"You fell asleep just now...?" Sajyou Manaka rested her chin on her hand: "Why would your mana recovery speed get faster while you're sleeping?"
"I have heard of things like nightmares messing with people's dreams. Could it be that after you fell asleep just now, you replenished your mana with the help of a nightmare?" Sajyou Manaka guessed in a logical manner.
"Mm... perhaps so." Lan Ze went along with Sajyou Manaka's words: "It was probably Merlin."
"That nightmare making trouble?" Sajyou Manaka muttered to herself, seeming to find the possibility plausible.
In truth, Sajyou Manaka's reaction speed wasn't to be blamed. She naturally knew that replenishing mana could be done through liquid transfer methods like drinking blood, but who could have imagined that Lan Ze's method of replenishing mana would transcend human imagination to this degree?
Seeing that Sajyou Manaka stopped questioning further, Lan Ze quietly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.
He raised his hand to press against his lips, making a "shh" gesture at Tiamat to indicate his hope that she wouldn't make him use that method to replenish mana again tonight.
Tiamat let out an "Aaa", her eyes filled with bewilderment, unable to understand why Lan Ze suddenly didn't want to replenish mana when he used to rush over to her with great enthusiasm the moment his mana was depleted even slightly.
Yet since her cub had said so, Tiamat naturally wouldn't force Lan Ze. She simply wrapped both arms around Lan Ze's head, pulled him into her embrace, and softly hummed a lullaby.
Gradually, her eyelids began to droop, and she let out a tiny yawn, tears welling up and spinning in her eye sockets.
She leaned close to Lan Ze's ear and whispered, "Thank you."
"Don't thank me," Lan Ze replied.
He knew why Tiamat was saying thank you... it was probably because of him rushing into the Sea of Life today.
Yet in truth, there was no need for Tiamat to thank him at all...
After all, he was a total pervert; how could a total pervert ever abandon such a cute Mother of All?
He could give up his Spiritron, but he could never give up the Mother of All.
"Even if there's a next time, I'll still do it." Lan Ze added earnestly.
Tiamat seemed somewhat shy, let out a soft "Aaa", and then hugged one of Lan Ze's arms, resting her head on his sleeve as she happily drifted off to sleep.
Lan Ze: "..."
He felt a wave of numbness wash over his arm the instant Tiamat rested the back of her head on it... While being relied upon so heavily by Tiamat felt quite nice, she didn't seem to have considered her own weight.
...Especially since Tiamat had a pair of horns on her head. With such a heavy head resting directly on his arm, Lan Ze felt the circulation of blood in his arm slow down significantly.
Yet looking at Tiamat's sleeping, peaceful face, Lan Ze ultimately couldn't bring himself to wake her up, and could only sigh inwardly:
Forget it... I'll just barely make do with it.
Listening to Tiamat's light snoring, Lan Ze unconsciously began to feel a wave of drowsiness as well. His eyelids slowly closed as he drifted toward sleep.
Right at that moment, an eerie voice suddenly drifted into his ear:
"I'm starting to consider whether I should destroy the world now, Lan Ze-kun."
As Sajyou Manaka's soft voice arrived, Lan Ze felt his brain snap much more awake. He turned his head slightly to see the girl with smooth, light-gold short hair beside him staring at him with a gloomy gaze, her eyes tinged with dark undertones.
Lan Ze reached out his other, free hand and gently grasped Sajyou Manaka's soft, slightly cool little hand.
"Don't worry, if you run into trouble, I'll help you too."
Even though he said that... in the vast majority of circumstances, probably no one could possibly harm Manaka, right?
Sajyou Manaka let out a low hum: "I won't run into any trouble, and it's impossible for anyone to harm me."
"...No, if we really have to talk about it, there is someone who can do it."
"Who?" Lan Ze asked instinctively.
"You," Sajyou Manaka stared resentfully at Lan Ze.
"I was super sad today! To think you'd cheat on me when you have such a cute girlfriend—it's simply too much!"
Lan Ze opened his mouth several times, but didn't know what to say.
He genuinely hadn't known that Sajyou Manaka coveted his body earlier, which was why he had been able to joke around with Manaka so recklessly back then.
Yet looking at it now... this girl seemed to be dead serious.
That left him feeling somewhat helpless.
Compared to lolis, he actually preferred older women—oh wait, to be precise, he meant beautiful older sisters.
However, there was no way he could just bluntly say to Manaka right now: "I'm not a loli-con, we're not a good match..."
He felt that if he said those words, his life would probably be forfeit on the spot.
"...We aren't even lovers yet, are we?" Lan Ze said dryly.
"That's what you say, but we're already considered de facto lovers!" The more Sajyou Manaka spoke, the angrier she became. Emotionally stirred, she said loudly, "I was clearly the first one here!"
Lan Ze pressed a hand to his lips and went "Shh": "Keep it down, she's asleep."
Sajyou Manaka: "..."
"You perverted big-boob lover!" A moment later, she bit her lip and said with utter displeasure.
"That's still better than a flat-chested loli lover... that's a one-way ticket to prison," Lan Ze muttered in return.
Sajyou Manaka: "..."
She was rendered completely speechless for a moment.
This girl who could face Beasts and divine spirits with an expressionless face felt rather helpless at this very second.
No matter how powerful she was, there was no way she could fake her age... and to be honest, if she really had to grow a figure on the scale of Tiamat's, she honestly didn't have much confidence in her ability to do so.
"Let's just sleep for now. We can go home tomorrow, and we'll talk about anything else back home," Lan Ze said again suddenly.
"Mmh." This time, Sajyou Manaka finally nodded.
She was right; no matter what, Tiamat was a resident of this place and couldn't possibly follow them back to Tokyo. Lan Ze would still belong to her in the end.
It didn't hurt to humor her a little bit for now.
Thinking of this, the girl's mood immediately brightened up again. Looking at Tiamat's sleeping face, she even felt a trace of sympathy.
What use was it no matter how much Tiamat attracted their prospective lover? They were leaving tomorrow anyway, and Tiamat would still be left behind here.
With these thoughts, Sajyou Manaka gazed at Lan Ze's cheek, slowly closed her eyes, and let her field of vision plunge into darkness.
At that moment, all three people in the room had already fallen into deep slumber, yet Lan Ze felt as though he were having a dream.
He dreamed that he was suffering from sleep paralysis.
He had to admit that sleep paralysis was truly a terribly uncomfortable thing. He felt unable to move his body, and although he knew he was dreaming, he simply couldn't wake up no matter how he lay, feeling awkward in every position.
Moreover, while his brain remained hazy and muddled, he vaguely seemed to catch the scent of a familiar fragrance.
A fragrance that did not belong to Sajyou Manaka, nor to Tiamat.
It seemed to be the scent of someone else...
Who on earth was it?
Lan Ze opened his eyes in a daze, wanting to see just which "ghost" was pressing down on top of him.
Before you continue