Rut Fever - Chapter 4

“Here, there is a research subject in front of me that can prove it, so I can produce more detailed results. If you don’t cooperate, you may never be able to escape from this place.”

His gaze slowly lowered, passing my chin, collarbone, chest, and stopping at my lower abdomen. A surge of heat flared within me. The savory taste of the meat sauce I had just enjoyed was completely forgotten as my body heated up in the face of such a sensual atmosphere, and my breathing became ragged.

Asha’s lips quirked up on one side, as if satisfied with my reaction.

“Do you understand now? What I’m waiting for.”

Asha’s crooked smile looked gleeful. Goosebumps rose on my skin, and cold sweat trickled down.

Somehow, I felt like I was caught in a trap I couldn’t escape on my own.

I lifted the notebook again, covering my face first. He seemed to be enjoying my reaction in a strange way.

Then, I carefully reread the records about the heat cycle in the notebook. Seriously, I could understand the high fever and abdominal pain, but I couldn’t believe that it could only be relieved by sex.

Moreover, what Asha was waiting for was information about this heat cycle. That meant he was going to experiment on me to see what symptoms I showed and what happened to me when I suffered from it.

‘Sh-Should I run away? No, even if this is true, isn’t it a problem?’

Did all Navi women suffer from the heat cycle, or could there be exceptions? If I were an exception, I wouldn’t even be worth experimenting on, so he might kill me without a trace.

My head was about to explode. A flood of information suddenly burst forth, ultimately leaving me in a blank state.

I couldn’t think straight, my eyes unfocused, when someone snatched the notebook from my hand, belatedly bringing me back to my senses. I looked up to see Asha, who had been sitting across from me, now standing beside me. He handed the stolen notebook back to the priest and suddenly reached out towards me.

Why?

His palm touched my forehead, which had frozen up again with tension. I held my breath again and froze.

“…Judging by the lack of even a slight fever, it seems you’ve never experienced the heat cycle before.”

Asha, looking disappointed, took his hand off my forehead and then! Again! Wiped his hand with the napkin on the table. Thanks to that, my heartbeat, which had been running wild in many ways until just now, returned to normal in an instant.

I washed so thoroughly before coming here. This is a disease. Mysophobia. A very serious one at that.

I snorted, put the last piece of meat in my mouth, swallowed it, finished with a sip of water, and got up from my seat.

“Well then, I’ve finished my meal, so I’ll be going back now. Don’t try to stop me. I desperately need some rest right now.”

I needed some alone time to properly rebuild my crumbling mental state. Knowing it was impolite, I fled the dining hall. If Asha had tried to stop me from leaving, I probably would have turned into a cat and escaped the dining hall anyway.

Fortunately, Asha kindly let me go without saying anything. He seemed like a good person, but also not. Confusing.

Without looking back, I returned to my room and immediately crouched down in a corner of the spacious room, drawing my knees up to my chest and burying my face in them. My mind was complicated by the unexpected information, but since I hadn’t experienced it yet, it didn’t feel real.

Why didn’t Robel tell me about this first? This is more important information than the origin story of the Navi.

“Heat cycle… high fever and abdominal pain. No, if it hurts, it hurts, but what’s with being able to relieve it with mating, seriously? It doesn’t make sense! And what’s mating! Am I an animal! Well, I’m not human, but still.”

That information might be wrong. Asha said he wasn’t sure either. So, he’s going to study the Navi through me. I trust that he won’t deliberately make me sick under the guise of research. If that were the case, Robel wouldn’t have brought me here.

I prayed and prayed that at least the heat cycle wasn’t true. I didn’t like the name itself.

“…I’m sleepy. Is it because I’m full?”

My personality isn’t proactive enough to pour energy into a situation I haven’t experienced and won’t experience right away. I’ll know when the time comes. It’s not like I can become a normal human by worrying about it now.

‘Should I take a nap?’

I haven’t slept properly in almost half a year, fighting the cold every night. I don’t know how long my life here will be, or what will happen to me in the future, so I came to the conclusion that I should enjoy the comfort here until then.

So, I threw myself onto the soft bed and slipped under the covers, settling in. When it was cold, I would turn into a cat and cover myself with a blanket from head to toe, but I didn’t think I needed to do that here, so I lay on my back and closed my eyes.

Perhaps thanks to the cozy bed, happiness outweighed fear, and my anxious heart melted away. The thought of Robel coming back soon made the corners of my lips turn up involuntarily, and I was able to fall into a deep sleep before long.

【Heat Cycle】

“Ugh… It’s hot…”

What woke me from my deep sleep was a heat like the scorching sun in midsummer. Sweat poured down like rain, soaking the bed sheets. I struggled to lift my heavy eyelids, wondering if someone had lit a fire next to me.

The sun had already set, and the room was dark. The fireplace that warmed the room was burning brightly, as if someone had added more firewood.

The problem was that this heat wasn’t coming from the fireplace. It was impossible for that much heat to be transmitted from that distance.

Then why was it so hot? Was this the cold symptoms I had only heard about?

I had never been this sick in my life, or at least in the two years I remembered living in the forest. Even while enduring the freezing cold of winter, I had never even caught a common cold.

Now that my body and mind were at ease, did the cold feel like it could finally come out?

I didn’t have the strength to move, so I groaned and sat up. My arms trembled, and when I used my strength, it felt like someone was sucking my energy away. My throat was dry and stinging from the heat.

I looked for water first, but there was no drinking water or a cup in this large room. So, I barely crawled across the bed and pulled the cord by my head with all my might. Even that was too much for me, and I missed it once.

“Are you awake? Asha told me not to wake you up by force…”

A clear chime sounded faintly from beyond the door, and soon Jay opened the door and came in. As soon as she saw me, her eyes widened, and she quickly walked over and examined me.

“Lua. Why are you sweating so much? Are you hot?”

“I don’t know…”

Jay touched my forehead, startled, and immediately took her hand away, her expression turning serious.

“You have a fever… Please wait a moment.”

Jay’s retreating figure, as if she was going to get some medicine, swayed for a moment. I was so dizzy that I couldn’t even sit up straight.

I didn’t have the strength to sit up, so I collapsed to the side. The cool feeling of the blanket against my cheek felt a little better. It was cool.

I melted like steel in a furnace, without resistance. The blanket was a little cooler, but the spots where my body heat had soaked in became hotter. As I crawled around like a larva, trying to cool down somehow, the closed door quietly opened.

“Priest… Please save me…”

I knew that people usually took antipyretics when they had a fever. I naturally expected Jay to bring me medicine, so I barely managed to ask for help…

“A sudden high fever, it’s almost like a commendable act of responding to my anticipation.”

Asha’s voice, not Jay’s, made my eyes snap open. I felt like I could jump up if I wanted to, but my body wouldn’t move as I wanted, so I just barely lifted my head and looked towards the door.

Asha, smiling contentedly as if I hadn’t misheard, approached slowly with his arms crossed. A monster crawling out of a boiling lava pit wouldn’t be as scary.

As soon as I confirmed his face, the contents of the heat cycle I had read in the notebook earlier came to mind.

Abdominal pain accompanied by high fever.

“Ah…!”

As soon as I realized it, I suddenly felt an enormous pain in my stomach, as if my intestines were being torn apart. I don’t think it hurt this much even when an arrowhead was stuck in my shoulder. Was my memory distorted, or was it oblivion?

I curled up and hugged my stomach tightly with my arms, trying to endure it. My whole body was trembling. I was in so much pain, but I heard Asha’s laughter in my ear, and I suddenly felt annoyed.

“Let’s see. If this is just a normal high fever and pain, I can relieve it with divine power, but if it’s the heat cycle, it’s said to be impossible? Shall we see if that’s true?”

Please, let it be relieved by divine power.

Asha’s hand touched my head, which was sincerely hoping for it. The moment his fingers touched my scalp, my back trembled at the unfamiliar sensation.

What is this…?

The pain of my intestines being squeezed lessened a little, and a strange stimulation traveled down my spine to my buttocks. Robel often stroked my head, but I had never felt this way before.

“…It’s definitely not a normal fever. This is the first time I’ve seen divine power not work. Is it really the power of the magic stone powder?”

“M-Medicine, medicine…”

Even the words to ask for medicine if divine power didn’t work wouldn’t come out properly. But Asha didn’t even pretend to listen and suddenly grabbed my hair, yanking it back. My head, which had been dragged back powerlessly, tilted back, and Asha, looking very excited, smiled mischievously.

“How do you feel? Does it really feel like you’re in heat? Is your pussy throbbing, do you want to be fucked, do you feel like that?”