Cursed Heroine

Chapter 50: Lily’s embarrassment

We arrived at the capital before dinner on Darkday and I’m really not looking forward to classes tomorrow morning. Sofy picked out foreign relations, professional dance, advanced apothecary and advanced enchanting. She easily tested into the advanced classes and skipped intermediate for those last two.

Technically, she did keep her promise to not get more than one etiquette or politics class since the dance class falls under the entertainment category in the lesson catalogue. I’m also thankful that she arranged to take those two classes in the morning which will allow me to miss half of the lessons for them.

Foreign relations class made me miserable. The instructor for the class was a stuck-up old-timer that insisted that everyone present would pay attention to his lecture, including me. He had some sort of skill or instinct that let him know whenever I’d try to cultivate instead of listening to him.

The dancing class is a female-only lesson and the instructor gave a demonstration first thing after her introduction. Her dancing involved a lot of delicate movements, fluid motions, flirty gestures and sexy gyration, all while wearing a provocative costume. It was like she had combined the moves of a ballerina, hindu dancing and modern earth grinding. She performed well and the dance was arousing, but I can’t help feeling that it gives a similar appeal as a strip club. It’s a performance that had the feel of something you’d expect to see in some perverted king’s inner court.

A point of interest however is that the instructor is actually an elf/fairy hybrid. She has the longer ears of an elf, but the distinct wings of a fairy appear when you look past her glamour. I’ve already told Sofy about her true appearance.

For this class, I was once again forced to participate, this time by Sofy. I ended up making more mistakes than the rest of the class combined thanks to my moody gravity cuffs. It’s really embarrassing, especially since Sofy is enjoying it a little too much.

“Hahahaha! Watching you try to dance was hilarious! Even the teacher couldn’t help but smother her laughter.”~Sofy

“If it weren’t for these annoying things, I’d definitely be able to perform well! Mistress, why not remove them just for dancing class? Pretty please?”~me

“No way. You may not have noticed, but your physical control went up by one whole percent during the short time we were in class. If you don’t want to be embarrassed, you’ll just have to improve your control.”~Sofy

“Ugh, fine! I’ll put up with it for now, but if she doesn’t stop harping about how my movements aren’t floaty enough, I’m definitely ousting her for cheating!”~me

“Cheating?”~Sofy

“She was literally flying around the dance floor with her wings. You might not have noticed it with only sense mana, since a fairy’s wings only use mana internally to allow flight, but my dragon’s perception clearly noticed it. It’s utter bull that she wouldn’t let us cast a lightweight spell to make things easier!”~me

“Ah! So that’s how she made it seem so effortless when she was performing. Since that’s the case, I’ll allow it. Just don’t oust her as a half-fairy in front of the whole class. Only inform her that you can sense her using mana while ‘floating’.”~Sofy

“Thankfully, I can skip class twice a week.”~me

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve already fixed that.”~Sofy

“What exactly do you mean by that?!”~me

“You’ll find out tomorrow. It’s not like you were really doing anything important for the research department anymore, anyways. From what nana told me, you’ve mostly been just reading books and serving as a living repository of knowledge. You’ve recently been spending the vast majority of your time in the library while only occasionally helping your fellow researchers find the references they might need.”~Sofy

“The project was finished! It’s not my fault that our department has yet to give me a new one!”~me

“Excuses, excuses! You can’t fool me so easily. I’m certain that you could propose any number of ideas for possible research projects. You’re just being lazy!”~Sofy

She is, of course, correct about my laziness. We finished the project quite some time ago and I’ve only been using the time to delve into the research department’s vast library.

I found out the next day exactly what she meant by already fixing it. My work schedule has changed to be four days a week, but only during the time of her first lesson on politics. Which doesn’t really help much since I’m subjected to the dreary old man’s lessons via our link’s shared senses anyways. I’d be off in plenty of time to attend dance lessons with her.

When I called out the teacher in our dance lesson for cheating, she just shrugged it off and claimed that it only increases her distance and air-time since she’s already reached the peak of what can be done without magic.

Before I could argue further, she demonstrated her floating again without the cheating. Even I had to admit that she truly is as skilled as she claimed. My actions of calling her out ended up earning me special attention from the teacher thereafter. She nitpicked my dancing more than others and eventually noticed the strangeness of my unbalanced movement.

Sofy informed her about my cursed items which caused her to immediately proclaim them as the best possible physical training aids. This also lead her to increase the intensity of my lessons to a whole new level without neglecting the others of course.

After our second day of classes, Kat once again pulled me into her divine realm.

“Hehe, I suppose you can guess why I’ve called you here tonight?”~Kat

Maybe if I just don’t play along and say it, she’ll forget about it?

“No chance! It’s time to receive your punishment for teasing me.”~Kat

“Oh? Perhaps I can propose a few ‘punishments’? Like this one pose…”~me

“Shameless!!! Stop with the dirty thoughts. I’ve already decided before calling you, anyways.”~Kat

Ahh, she turned bright red again. I’ll need to add this expression to my sketchbook when I wake up. Is teasing really so bad when it makes her have such cute reactions? This is absolutely not a crime and I should not be punished!

“WHAT SKETCHBOOK!? BURN IT!!!”~Kat

“Never! I won’t give up my treasures!”~me

“Uhg, fine. Just don’t show it to anyone. Anyways, the punishment Sofy helped me come up with is a curse specially designed...Just. For. You. I’ve very simply named it, Kat’s Revenge and the effect is...well, I think you’ll quickly figure it out.”~Kat

“It’s somehow going to cause me embarrassment, isn’t it?”~me

“Oh, most definitely! How’d you guess?”~Kat

“Easy. Revenge for me embarrassing you, would be for you to embarrass me back.”~me

“Ah, so the title kind of gives it away. It still doesn’t tell you how, which should be fun to watch you finding out.”~Kat

“Hmph. I’ll have you know, I’m not one easily embarrassed.”~me

“We’ll see. By-the-way, how are things going?”~Kat

“Flora is a real bundle-of-joy. It’s kind of scary how quickly she accepted things. Alice and Mary asked me to tell you that they are very thankful for the potions. Trying to dance while being encumbered is really annoying. Oh, that reminds me. Can you perhaps have the dungeons spawn items?”~me

“Hahaha. That seems interesting. Although your reason of wanting to ‘share your pain’ isn’t exactly honorable, it seems like it would be quite fun to spawn some cursed items in the dungeons. I’ll make most items on the first three floors to be more like gimmicks or training tools like you bracelets. The next three floors will have more useful stuff and I’ll put the more intense items even deeper.”~Kat

“I can think of a few good items if you need any ideas.”~me

“Oh, you most certainly just did. That will be all for tonight, good night.”~Kat

“Good night.”~me

‘Ding’

[Curse acquired: Kat’s Revenge]

The next morning, I once again woke up to the most annoying sound that has ever existed. Immediately, I got up and checked for any obvious changes that could cause me embarrassment. I found none. Thereafter, I discovered that Sofy had already woken up and is just laying there on her side, while watching me inspect myself, with a big grin on her face. She definitely already knows exactly what the curse effect does and is just enjoying the show. However, there’s likely zero chance that she will tell me without getting in a few good laughs first.

I figured the curse out before even half the day was over. Sofy confirmed it during our lunch break, but only after she laughed until her sides hurt while listening to how my day was going. The curse just makes it so I will conveniently find myself in the midst of embarrassing situations. Like this morning when I went to grab some sheets from the linen closet and mistakenly opened the door of Camille’s room instead. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t been in the middle of a morning ‘massage’. The good thing is that Sofy’s mother is hot, so there’s no mental scarring.

Another incident happened in the library during Melony’s teatime. While distracted, she accidentally stoked my tail a little too close to the base where it is especially sensitive. This caused me to let out a fairly loud moan in the otherwise silent library. She apologized profusely afterwards. I also ended up walking in on our dance instructor while she was changing for class. That was more to her embarrassment than mine though since I just continued to enjoy the show.