Chapter 37: So… About That 'Sexual Act'…. Just How Far Does It Have to Go?

"So... about that ’sexual act’ — just how far does it have to go?"

Sexual acts covered a rather wide range, so Kazui asked because he was curious.

"That’s something Kazu will have to verify for himself from now on. It might be possible with just a kiss, or it might not work unless you go all the way to sex."

"I see..."

Kazui muttered with a disappointed look.

"Leaving further narrowing down of the activation conditions aside for now, I think I can do something about the Appraisal Interference."

"Really?"

Ivory nodded at the delighted Kazui’s question.

"When you become a Grand Mage of Ivory’s level, you can dispel something like Appraisal Interference. It does require a considerable amount of mana, though."

Ebony’s words were taken up by Ivory.

"Yesterday I used too much mana on the treatment, so I decided to leave the dispelling of the Appraisal Interference for the next opportunity."

"Could it be that the reason you told me to come show my face was..."

Yuri’s words were answered by Ivory.

"It was also so that I could dispel the Appraisal Interference placed on Kazu’s skill."

Shifting her gaze from Yuri to Kazui, Ivory asked:

"That’s how it is, so I’m going to dispel it now... is that okay?"

"I’m more than okay with it — I’d be grateful — but is it really all right for you, Ivory-san? You’re going to use a lot of mana, right?"

"I’ve rested properly, and unlike yesterday I have plenty of mana to spare, so don’t worry about it."

Saying that, Ivory stood up and moved about five meters away from the deck chairs to a clear spot with nothing placed on it.

"Stand in front of me and hold your left hand out in front... with the Orb facing upward."

Kazui stood up, moved, and faced Ivory at a distance of a little over one meter.

Then he stretched his left arm forward and turned the back of his hand upward.

"All right, I’ll begin."

Saying that, Ivory began chanting a magic spell.

A white-glowing magic circle with a radius of about five meters appeared.

As the chant progressed, the words Ivory spoke turned into glowing characters and were added to the magic circle.

"You’re chanting... really fast."

Looking at the magic circle filling at a rapid pace, Yuri muttered with a surprised expression, and Ebony replied:

"Because she can use High-Speed Chanting and Abbreviated Chanting, Ivory can chant spells considerably faster than ordinary mages."

High-Speed Chanting was the technique of increasing the speed at which a spell was chanted, while Abbreviated Chanting was the technique of replacing certain phrases within a spell with shorter phrases and omitting them.

High-level mages acquired such techniques for mages and shortened the time required for chanting spells.

Having chanted a vast amount of the spell in a short time, Ivory closed the magic spell by speaking the magic name.

"Quod Vermest!"

When Ivory finished the chant, the magic called Quod Vermest began to activate.

The magic circle rapidly shrank while moving toward Ivory’s right hand.

The magic circle, now the size of a bean and emitting a dazzling white light, stuck to the index finger of Ivory’s right hand like a sticker.

"It might hurt a little."

Speaking words like those of a female doctor before giving a child an injection, Ivory brought the index finger of her right hand close to the back of Kazui’s left hand.

(Even if you say that now...)

Kazui muttered in his heart while feeling a little frightened, but he left himself entirely in Ivory’s hands.

He could not leave the skill he had copied from Vice in an unidentified state, so he intended to endure a certain amount of pain.

Ivory’s index finger touched Kazui’s Orb.

Then the tiny glowing magic circle was sucked into Kazui’s Orb and disappeared.

Immediately afterward, a shock and intense pain as if he had been struck by lightning raced through Kazui’s entire body.

Sparks ran through his whole body; he arched backward and his legs buckled... he almost collapsed.

However, because Ivory caught and supported him, Kazui did not fall.

Still supported by Ivory, he was moved and made to sit in a deck chair.

By the time he returned to the deck chair, the sparks and intense pain had subsided.

After regulating his breathing, Kazui complained to Ivory with a bitter expression.

"That wasn’t the kind of pain you can call ’a little’!"

"Sorry. I thought if I said it would hurt quite a bit, you might refuse the dispelling..."

Sitting in the deck chair, Ivory continued with a smile that looked a bit like she was covering something up.

"But with this, the Appraisal Interference should have been dispelled, so you should be able to tell what kind of skill it is. Try doing a status check."

Following Ivory’s instructions, Kazui touched the Orb with his right hand and began a status check.

Then, in the fourth position of the skill list that until a moment ago had only displayed meaningless characters, a skill name written in characters Kazui could read was now displayed.

Moreover, it was a skill name that even Kazui knew.

"Sexual Appraisal?"

In his excessive surprise, Kazui ended up saying the skill’s name out loud.

"Sexual Appraisal is a skill exclusive to succubi, so this confirms that Kazu copied the skill from yesterday’s succubus."

At some point Ivory’s eyes had begun glowing as she confirmed Kazui’s status.

She had been appraising in order to check whether the Appraisal Interference had been successfully dispelled.

"It’s really become readable."

Ebony also made both eyes glow, appraised Kazui’s skills, and muttered with a surprised expression.