After Ilya bid us goodnight, leaving us with the knowledge that the green signal had come from the Duchess, and departed, Lydia and I chatted about the underground labyrinth’s structure beneath the Starfall Enclave and how we’d collect the evidence.

That’s when I told her we wouldn’t need to collect evidence at all.

"Hey, can you not do that," Merin whispered urgently.

Her breasts were cushioning my face.

"Bear with it," I whispered back abruptly, my words muffled against her breasts.

Anyway, where was I?

Right. I’d told Lydia we didn’t have to collect evidence because Ilya would be with us, and her word was taken at face value by the Duchess.

That’s when I remembered mine weren’t , and that’s why Ilya was here in the first place.

That stung a little.

But still, I should be worried if they trusted a guy they’d met only a week ago.

Cloak...

The wagon rolled over a bump.

"Ahnn.."

I immediately clamped my hand over Merin’s mouth.

"Difnt I teff yuf nof fo mafe fouds?" My words came out completely muffled against Merin’s chest.

So now I found myself, along with Sera, Lydia, and Merin, laying on our backs in the wagon’s lower compartment, staring upward through small slits in the wooden frame above us. The frame hosted the inner compartment with seats inside the wagon proper.

Only two figures sat in that compartment, across from each other: Ilya and the general.

Yeah. For some reason, the Kloc-whatever guy was accompanying Ilya to the Starfall Estate.

Nonetheless, that didn’t affect our plan, we were supposed to hide in this lower compartment regardless, with or without the Kloc guy.

The only problem was that getting out of the wagon before it stopped at the estate for inspection by the estate guards had become significantly more difficult.

I sensed a subtle rustle from the other side of me.

It was Sera. Her breasts had just shifted against my back.

This lower compartment was extremely cramped. I found myself stuck between these three girls with absolutely no room to maneuver.

The wagon had the same basic structure as any other, an inner compartment with space for luggage and passengers. Except this one was modified. The luggage space was deliberately limited, and the remaining area was left hollow. A hidden slit beneath the wagon acted as entrance and exit to this hollow space.

Of course, no one suspected why the luggage space was comparatively smaller in this particular wagon, because there was no luggage in the first place.

The luggage, along with our weapons, had been placed in the wagon the guards were riding. Their wagon led the convoy, followed by the one carrying the architect and his staff, then ours.

Since this hidden space was only half the size of a regular compartment, the makeshift luggage area occupying the other half, I found myself in this... predicament.

Though calling it a "predicament" felt like betraying what it really is.

Merin’s chest cushioned the jolts created by bumps beneath the wagon quite effectively.

I’d commanded her not to make sounds, but... was the slave collar not functioning properly?

That couldn’t be the case. But I was starting to doubt whether the concealing plaster I’d used to make the collar look like a simple silver chain was somehow altering its function. Then again, Merin wouldn’t be this obedient if that were true.

Dismissing those thoughts, I tried focusing on the conversation between the general and Ilya happening above us.

Just then I sensed my hand getting wet and looked up at Merin.

"Wha..." A small mutter slipped from my mouth.

"What is it?" Sera whispered in my ear from behind me, her breath warm against my skin. It sent tremors down my body.

"It’s nothing. Are you okay?" I murmured back.

"Yeah," she murmured, just as I felt her soft chest press more firmly into my back.

There hadn’t been a bump that time, though...

I looked back at Merin. Her face was... uh... I didn’t know how to describe it. Her eyes had rolled back slightly, her tongue lolled outward, making my hand wet with saliva.

She looked like a bitch she is.

I immediately grimaced, rubbing my hand on her black clothes.

What was wrong with her?

Another bump, and my head was cushioned against her chest again.

"Ahnn..."

Holy shit, Merin!

"Did you say something, Lady Ilya?" The general’s voice came from above us.

"...Uh..? Ah, nothing. I just thought the road was a bit bumpy," Ilya covered smoothly.

I looked at Merin furiously.

But she wasn’t in any condition to understand my anger. Her chest rose and fell as she took ragged breaths, her face flushed.

Wait.

Now that I thought about it... the effects of this slave collar... though more generalized compared to modern, specialized collars that didn’t have the aura tier limitation condition, were strangely familiar to the mechanism of how modern sex

slave collars worked.

To make sure slaves behaved in the customized manner their owners desired, there were many specialized collars on the market. Unlike this original slave collar, modern versions required consent and submission from the target. In return, the condition that the owner had to be two awakened tiers above the slave was lifted.

They said the various customizations were just maximized effects produced by this original slave collar.

In other words, this slave collar Merin was shackled with actually contained all the combined properties of modern specialized collars, albeit at lower effectiveness.

I see.

So Merin was currently being stimulated because the situation was being misunderstood by the collar’s mechanism.

Being pressed against me. The vibrations. The restricted movement.

The collar was interpreting this as... something else entirely.

Fuck.

"Come to think of it, I didn’t know you were friends with the SBV-appointed architect," Ilya’s voice came from above, smooth and conversational.

"Hmm? Oh, we just became friends as I helped him with various tasks... haha..." The general spoke.

Yeah. He wasn’t fooling anybody, especially not Ilya.

"Oh, so you became friends quickly enough for them to continuously ask me to let them use your services in the convoy? In just a few days?" Ilya said, masking her inquiry with an impressed tone.

Feeling she was genuinely impressed at his supposed nature to make friends quickly, the general replied, "Well, I am quite the charismatic one, aren’t I? Haha..."

I didn’t know if the general was oblivious to what Ilya was implying, or if he was acting oblivious to hide something more sinister.

But the more I observed him, the more the feeling that something was going wrong grew in me.

Like a weight settling in my gut.

"I see... that’s a wonderful trait, Sir General," Ilya said, ending her line of questioning.

I’d thought she would push further by beating around the bush more, but she’d decided to stop there.

I noticed Ilya awkwardly shift her legs to the left through the slits above, crossing them at the ankles.

And I saw the general’s eyes darting.

They were darting around Ilya’s legs as she sat across from him in her tight secretary skirt, following the line of her calves, lingering where the fabric hugged her thighs.

This guy was making me sick to my stomach.