The End of the Beginning, Part 1

The Underworld Border. It was the living world nearest to the Underworld, and the Underworld nearest to the living world.

It was this remote frontier land, belonging nowhere in this world, that she had nicknamed the "Underworld Border".

"Now, let's see."

A barren, flawless waste where not a single blade of grass or tree could be glimpsed.

On a plain far removed from the Witch Queen's hut, she stood alone, a vermilion spear raised in one hand.

What she gazed up at in the distance was like a mountain.

A humanoid figure like a towering wall drew closer to the girl moment by moment.

"… Are we really going to take that thing on, Master?"

"Mm. For you as you are now, it should pose no problem at all."

She—Sherah—chuckled deep in her throat, smiling back over her shoulder.

There stood a man. Tall, with a weary expression, yet still young.

He looked to be in his twenties at most. He wore a rumpled shirt and faded gray slacks, a black coat draped over his shoulders.

He—Yoal Yaotl—turned a somewhat exasperated, azure gaze toward Sherah.

"… Just how big is that thing?"

"I measured it once, actually."

"You measured it?"

"Well, at most it comes to about three thousand of me. Hardly anything to speak of, no?"

"Are you an idiot?"

Yoal said in a voice devoid of emotion.

It was hardly the way to address someone he called Master, but Sherah didn't particularly mind.

"Don't go calling your master an idiot. Now then, shall we begin?"

"… Understood."

Yoal nodded reluctantly as he looked at Sherah.

A black-haired girl who looked for all the world like a young child. Her slitted crimson eyes were provocative, impudent, and irresistibly bewitching.

Her unevenly cut bangs were pinned back, and her hair was gathered up into a single tie behind. Her small body was draped in black gossamer silk like an angel's robe, her light brown skin wrapped in a tight, thin undergarment.

Her appearance hardly suited being called anyone's Master.

But Yoal knew. That she was a witch who had lived on for several centuries—the legendary "Witch Queen" Sherah.

"Listen well. That thing is just right for testing your strength."

So saying, Sherah pointed the tip of her vermilion spear toward the object of her gaze.

There it was—yes, an aberration one might mistake for a mountain. A humanoid monster far too colossal in size, drawing nearer to the two of them moment by moment.

If left alone as it was, that aberration would soon reduce even their dwelling to nothing, without a trace.

"… Will my power even work? On that thing?"

"Of course it will. Your power has, in theory, no limit, after all."

"… I suppose that's true."

Twenty years.

For twenty years alongside her, Yoal had endured the brutal training of the "Underworld Border".

It had been suffering beyond imagination. He might have found more peace simply falling into the Underworld.

But Yoal had endured it. To live and accomplish his purpose.

"Listen. That thing has a core to its existence. Sense it, take aim, and blast through it in a single strike. That's all—so, go on and try."

"Same hands-off approach as always!!"

"Once you can do that, even the Demon King is no match for you. No, not even the whole of demonkind would be your equal. There would be no one left in the living world who could stand against you."

Sherah gave a soft chuckle and closed the distance to the aberration, drawing her vermilion spear back lightly to her hip.

"Well, let me at least show you a little demonstration. I can hardly make my disciple do what the master herself cannot, after all."

"… I'll be watching."

The distance between them and it was still far. It only seemed close because the monster was so overwhelmingly huge.

Even at a full sprint, it would take several minutes to reach it. That was the sort of distance.

—And yet.

"—Strike!!"

A rending battle cry burst forth.

Sherah wound up the vermilion spear in her hand and hurled it with all her strength.

A crimson meteor raced across the sky. Tracing a sharp zigzag trajectory, the vermilion spear closed in on the giant in the blink of an eye.

—BOOM!!!!

An impact that resembled a bombing strike. A blast of wind and a flash of light erupted far in the distance.

The giant's shoulder was blown away in a single blow, fragments of its armor scattering all around.

It resembled a huge mass of rock and sand. Rather than a giant, it might better be called a colossus.

"… Hasn't a good chunk of it already been blown off?"

"No, the core remains. Had I driven that strike into the core, it would have gone down, mind you."

So saying, Sherah drew the vermilion spear that had been fastened behind her waist.

The spear tip pointed toward that aberration. Though its shoulder was gone in splendid fashion, the colossus did not halt its advance.

The throw of a magic spear that, on a direct hit, could scatter whole mountains. Even that, it seemed, had been the witch Sherah's killing blow delivered with restraint.

"Seeking out the core is your job. When it comes to sheer power, you surpass me, after all… Am I wrong?"

"… Got it."

Yoal nodded and turned to face the direction of the colossus.

In that instant, a jet-black spear forged from mana manifested in his hand.

Its surface was engraved with cursed sigils shaped after Yoal Yaotl's unique spell.

Sherah stepped back three paces from where she stood, watching Yoal's back with delight.

As though to witness his growth for herself.

"Feast your eyes."

Yoal spat the words out curtly and drew a breath.

In an instant, his figure blurred without a sound and vanished in the blink of an eye.

"—"

A world without sound.

No; within a time faster than sound, faster than even light, Yoal reduced his distance to the colossus to zero.

In zero time he leapt across the colossus's toes, its knees, its hips.

The dark purple that colored the colossus's surface. Sensing the flow of mana circulating like blood beneath it, Yoal sought out the core.

That was to say, the single point where the mana flow ultimately converged—the mana furnace the colossus possessed.

"—Hah."

Faster than his own voice could reach his ears, Yoal thrust out the magic spear in his hand.

The unleashed flash gouged into the colossus's chest, boring a gaping hole clean through a mass exceeding tens of thousands of su in thickness.

—BOOM!!!!!!

It was a magic spear that pierced through, in a single strike, a super-massive body greater than a mountain range.

The one thrust of absolute, unfailing penetration, inherited from the mightiest and most terrible spear-wielder of all—the "Witch Queen".

"—A"

At that moment, the colossus let out a sound that could scarcely be called a voice and went still.

A gale like a storm gushed from the gaping hole.

"Ngh…"

In that instant, Yoal activated the spell once more.

It was the unique spell only he could wield—the Subjective Time Acceleration spell.

By employing the Physical Enhancement and Sensory Enhancement spells at once, it multiplied his momentum per unit of time by hundreds, by thousands. Its limit was, in practical terms—just as Sherah had said moments ago—without limit.

Accelerated thousands—no, tens of thousands of times over, Yoal raced through time and returned once more to Sherah's side.

And when he released the spell, the colossus soon began to crumble away with a rumble, far off in his vision.

"AAAAA—"

Sounding out something like a death cry, the colossus collapsed piece after piece.

The sludge scattered all around was exposed to the wind and turned to sand the moment it crumbled. As if it had been weathered by the wind for hundreds of years.

"… What in the world was that?"

"Rock is a symbol of eternity, of the unchanging. For such a thing to go out of its way to move is quite telling, hmm? All the more so when it comes creeping toward me, idling here in the "Underworld Border"."

"Is it because you live in a place like this?"

"Don't go calling me 'you.'"

Sherah puffed out her cheeks and rapped the butt of her spear against the ground again and again.

But she soon recovered her gleeful smile, curling her plump red lips into a crescent.

"In any case, yes, it went just as I foresaw. I'd say the result even exceeded my expectations. As your master, I have quite the discerning eye, don't I."

"Thanks, I'm sure… Or rather, you could actually see it?"

Yoal responded flatly, as ever.

The thing was, his unique spell had been acquired almost entirely by chance. It had required a trigger to awaken, true, but it was not something he had won for himself.

Even so, Yoal didn't mind in the least—so long as he could obtain the power. The power to save her, even if it meant turning the whole world into his enemy.

"Of course I could see it. Nothing escapes my clairvoyance. Now, come closer."

"What is it?"

"I'll give you a little reward smooch💕"

"No thanks."

Yoal thrust out his palm and kept his distance—a firm refusal.

"My, what an unenthusiastic fellow. With this, you're fully certified in matters of combat, you know? Aren't you pleased?"

"… I've only just reached the starting line. It's nothing to celebrate."

That's right. The present was nothing more than a period of preparation for the journey to bring Almaeira back.

It was far too soon to bask in any sense of accomplishment.

"What a damned earnest fellow… Well, that's part of your charm too, I suppose."

"… I'd rather you didn't take such a liking to me."

"Oh, rest easy. It simply means you're well worth toying with."

"There's nothing good about that…"

Yoal watched the colossus crumble to the very last, then dispelled the magic spear he'd manifested.

At any rate, he'd received her seal of approval regarding his combat ability. Apparently, not even the Demon King was his match now—assuming this ill-natured witch wasn't pulling his leg.

"Now then, Yoal. That leaves the things I have to impart to you at… just one more, hmm?"

"… Yeah."

Yoal nodded with a sour look on his face.

Sherah, by contrast, looked thoroughly delighted. A lewd smile spread across her innocent little face as she softly nestled up beside Yoal.

Her gestures were like those of a skilled prostitute currying favor with a client. With fingerwork utterly unbefitting her appearance, she smoothly stroked and fondled Yoal's stomach.

"How truly lonely this makes me… To think that just when you'd been kind enough to soothe my nightly boredom… once I've finished imparting this, we'll have to part ways, hmm?"

"… I've never done this because I wanted to, from the start."

To make Almaeira his own.

For that sole purpose, Yoal had studied four things under Sherah.

One: combat. The power to beat down any enemy regardless of the situation.

One: strategy. The power to turn any situation to one's advantage.

One: magic. Not merely knowledge and practice, but the power to counter every manner of curse-craft.

In these three, he had already earned Sherah's full certification.

But Yoal had one final item left that he had yet to master.

"Big words💕 When you've already spilled your thick seed deep into my womb dozens, hundreds of times over…💕 If I weren't already past my childbearing years, I'd have long since been carrying your child, you know…?"

"Stop it. I'm seriously starting to want to die."

"… Tease you too much and you really do look ready to die, don't you."

"Hopeless boy," Sherah said with a laugh as she took Yoal's hand and pulled it.

His palm was placed against Sherah's belly, resting on her gently sloping lower abdomen.

"… But listen, Yoal. A man who can't satisfy a woman truly won't do, you understand? Kingdoms have fallen over such a thing, you know?"

"I know. You've told me thousands of times already."

"Then… kukuku. Make sure you put your heart into holding me, until you satisfy me so thoroughly that I weep and beg for mercy, understand? Got it?"

Sherah's lips curled into a lecherous grin. She let her thick tongue flick out from the corner of her mouth. She made no attempt to hide that she was a lewd woman to the core.

Yoal scratched roughly at his head and let out a deep sigh. Still, this too was without a doubt an indispensable power.

The human heart is fickle, and to fill the heart—one must fill the body as well.

The final thing Yoal was to learn under Sherah—the arts of the bedchamber.

The power to captivate a partner in bed.

   

A tiny flesh-pot clenching tight around a sturdy meat-spear.

Straddling Yoal, Sherah gazed down at him in rapture, the corners of her eyes melting with pleasure.

"… Kukuku. Yoaaal～…💕 Your cock's already swelling up, isn't it…? And here I've only cum five times so far… are you going to shoot your first load already…?"

"… Ngh, guh…!"

—What an outrageous thing to ask.

Grinding his teeth, Yoal glared up at Sherah astride his belly.

But she only moistened her crimson eyes in rapture, working his shaft slowly upward with skillful movements of her hips.

"Come now, come on…💕 At this rate it's nowhere near enough, you know…? Like this, you're a long way from satisfying me, hmm…?"

Sherah had stripped off her undergarment entirely, wearing nothing but the thin black gossamer robe draped over her shoulders.

Each time her diminutive body bounced atop his hips, the soft, chafing flesh coiled slickly around his shaft. As she twisted her slender waist, swaying as if in dance, the melting, wet flesh sucked thickly at the membrane of his glans.

"… Guh, ngh…!!"

No matter how many times he tasted this pleasure, he could never grow used to it.

The sensation of being squeezed tight within that narrow flesh-cavern, then subjected to the thick, clinging undulation of her ripened vaginal walls.

It was as if the seed were being sucked straight out of his scrotum. Yoal bit down hard on his lip, holding back the surging urge to climax.

Still, Yoal wasn't the only one being toyed with.

Just as she herself had said, Sherah had already reached climax several times.

Her light brown skin was flushed with the lingering traces of orgasm, a damp sheen of sweat covering her whole body. Her small frame radiated a cozy warmth, pleasant as a hot water bottle at the merest touch. With each climax she piled on, the writhing of her inner flesh grew more supple and more intense—as if begging for the male's seed.

"If… if you've cum that many times, that's plenty, isn't it…! You lecherous old hag…!!"

"Oh yes, lecherous old hag suits me just fine…💕 That prick of yours really is irresistible…💕 The size, the thickness, the shape, the hardness… every bit of it is simply exquisite…💕"

Sherah gazed down at Yoal with moist eyes. Working her hips as if to savor him slowly, she kneaded and worked his stiff shaft with her soft vaginal flesh.

The instant she dropped her hips down deep, her soft, springy cervix pressed snugly against the mouth of Yoal's urethra—the two of them grinding together, mingling their male and female organs in intimacy.

"Nnh… haaah～…💕 Look at how that thick, welt-veined shaft is twitching and throbbing so pitifully…💕 Come now, Yoal…💕 You can't hold it back any longer, can you…? Go on, discharge your semen right into my tiny little womb-pot with a nice thick spurt💕… It'll feel wonderful, won't it…?"

Sherah seduced the man with a gaze brimming with coquetry.

In the intimacy of the bedchamber, she was truly like a succubus.

With a lasciviousness and lust ill-suited to her tiny body, she provoked Yoal, enticed him, drove him toward carnal pleasure. Her lewd technique was supremely accomplished, every last turn of phrase calculated to perfection.

And worse still, Sherah's stamina had no bottom—and as for her lust, it was like a spring that would never run dry.

"… Sh-shit."

Yoal cursed and reached out for Sherah's tightly narrowed waist.

Her fragility was plain to feel at the merest touch. So much so that he found himself wondering how such a tiny body could possibly swallow up a man's member.

Gnashing his teeth, he thrust his hips up hard with a heavy jolt. His swollen, bulging glans pressed against her squishy cervix, grinding it round and round in circles.

"Ahgooh…💕 Nnh, fuu…💕 Th-the deep spot… really gets to me, ohh…"

Sherah writhed, her light brown lower belly bulging slightly with a little pop.

Her sensitive depths battered persistently with heavy thrusts, she let slip sweet, nasal moans of pleasure. Wetting her plump lips with saliva, she licked them as if savoring the pleasure coursing through her whole body.

Drooling even from the corner of her mouth, Sherah gave herself over to the pleasure of copulation. Without restraining herself or holding back for the man's sake at all.

"This is your weak spot, isn't it…!"

"Aaahhh…💕 … Nn, mm…💕 There, right there…💕 That's the spot, it feels so good…💕"

A sweet voice besotted with lust. Baring both her shameless cravings and her lewd true nature, Sherah writhed her hips.

Yoal had long since known every one of Sherah's erogenous zones—and precisely because of that, she lowered her hips deep as if offering up her own weak point. Pressing the mouth of his urethra and her cervix together so tightly they could scarcely part, the two mingled in intimacy.

"Ahn, ah…💕 Yes, that's the spot…💕 Right there, so good…💕 More, thrust into me more…💕"

Sherah twisted her hips, scattering healthy droplets of sweat, mewling sweetly as she enticed the man.

Yoal, for his part, assailed her vaginal hole with single-minded focus. He churned persistently from her sensitive vaginal ceiling to her depths, thrusting insistently up against her soft cervix.

Sherah was being steadily driven toward climax, but that solved nothing whatsoever.

No matter how many hip-melting orgasms he made her taste, she would simply bounce right back. And craving still more pleasure, she would try to wring the essence from Yoal with the ever-heightening undulations of her inner flesh.

Even so, Yoal's gouging away at her sensitive love-flesh was, to put it plainly, nothing more than a means of getting by for the moment.

To keep Sherah from moving as she pleased. To give her the carnal pleasure she craved, and keep the starving lust-beast from running free.

Nuchun, guchu, nuju, guchun.

His thick, brawny shaft scraped up against her melting inner flesh, digging out the sticky love-juices. Each time, Sherah's eyes softened at the corners, her breath quickening as she climbed toward sweet climax.

"A-ahn, I'm cumming…💕 I'm cumming, I'm gonna cum again…💕 Yoaaal…💕 Cumming, cumming, cummiiing…💕"

"… Guh, shit, the way you clamp down… Just hurry up and cum already, hag…!!"

Sherah cried out in blatantly sweet moans, wailing in ecstasy. Her fragile body writhed and squirmed, a damp sweat of lust seeping from her skin. As if to announce that her climax was near, she layered a sultry sheen over her cries, her hips trembling and quivering.

In that instant, Yoal slammed his hips hard, as if to plow through the violently churning honey-pot. He thrust up so heavily that wet, sloppy sounds rang out, driving with a thud against her cervix. As if to deal the finishing blow to the small body he was pushing to climax.

Sharp upward thrusts amid his cursing, and hips that worked in circles. With the steep ridge of his glans he scraped and gouged at her vaginal ceiling, prying at her depths with his fully swollen head.

The instant his shaft, swollen to bursting, skewered her honey-pot through, Sherah drew her slender body taut, arching it like a drawn bow.

"A—ah, ahn💕 Ngh💕 I-I'm cumming, cumming💕 Yoaaal💕 Cummiing💕 Cumming, cumming cumming cumming cummiiing…💕💕"

A cloyingly sweet orgasmic cry that seeped slowly into the depths of his mind.

Sherah arched her whole body back, convulsing and shuddering as she gave herself over to the sweet climax. A womb-orgasm in which she indulged in pleasure without a shred of reserve, savoring the joys of the flesh from the very bottom of her heart. A slack, sodden smile even rose to her lips as she expressed her bliss with every part of her body.

Her already tiny flesh-pot clenched tighter and tighter with needy squeezes, swallowing the shaft as if it would never let go. Her utterly melted love-flesh coiled around him slick and obscene, undulating violently as though to wring out the male's essence. From her depths oozed a thick, viscous flood of genuine love-juice, wrapping the tip of his shaft in a clinging warmth.

"Guh… nn, ohh…!!"

Yoal bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, then let out just the barest bit of his restraint.

In that instant, his ominously engorged shaft throbbed with a heavy pulse—an especially thick first spurt burst forth, splashing a single stream of seed against Sherah's cervix.

"Ahha…💕 Aaahn…💕 This, yes, this is it…💕 What an unbearable thickness…💕 The fresh, young seed of a virile man…💕"

Haaah, Sherah sighed, brimming with rapture. She drooled again, her lower belly twitching and jerking—her fragile hips rippling in waves.

In that moment, Sherah's narrow vaginal passage loosened its grip just faintly. The undulation of her inner flesh turned gentle and soft, sucking thickly at his shaft as if to soothe it.

"… Hah… Thanks, I'm sure…"

Yoal drew a breath, still gazing up at her. His shaft remained ferociously erect all the while.

The essence he'd just let out wasn't from losing control. It was only to pour that first drop into Sherah's womb and calm the undulations within her.

It was the fruit of a bitter lesson: forcibly trying to hold back his ejaculation had once gotten it wrung out of him by force. Yet if he came too easily, his body wouldn't last.

As a compromise between the two, Yoal had deliberately let himself climax lightly. Repeat this a few times, and his body wouldn't break down midway.

—But, Yoal turned the thought over in his mind, this alone was nowhere near enough to make Sherah submit.

Fundamentally, in a contest of stamina, the advantage was hers. Fudging it with petty tricks would only lead him to a slow, losing decline.

To put it in extreme terms, Sherah was such a sexual monster that she could revel in debauchery seven days and seven nights straight and still be perfectly spry.

He needed some other stratagem. Not a head-on approach, but something that would make Sherah weep and beg for mercy.

"Hah… ah, ahn…💕 Ahh, that's good, so good…💕 That just now has set the depths of my womb alight…💕"

Sherah steeped her whole body in the sweet, rapturous afterglow. She swayed her waistless hips slowly back and forth.

With each motion her melted inner flesh coiled thickly around his shaft. As if craving still more of the male's seed, she pressed her wet, pink membranes to him, suckling.

"… We're only just getting started, you know…? Again and again, and again… I'll wring you dry until those balls of yours run bone-dry…💕"

She gazed down at Yoal with rapturously moist eyes. Flicking her tongue out from her mouth, she licked her lips—curling the tip of her tongue slickly around her supple fingertips.

Bewitching gestures like those of a lewd woman who'd set her sights on a young lover. Utterly unbefitting her innocent looks, which only made the immoral allure she gave off all the stronger. From her flushed body wafted the sweet-sour scent of sweat, and her fragile hips twitched and convulsed with the lingering echoes of sweet numbness.

In that instant, Yoal seized Sherah's hips firmly on impulse and swapped their positions in a flash.

He pinned her small body down onto the soft sheets, holding her fast—at the same time looming over her, gazing down.

"Sorry, but I don't intend to just keep taking it."

"… Oh my, what a fearsome look in your eyes💕 And what are you going to do with me…?"

A body small enough to fit snugly within his arms. A flat chest. Narrow shoulders. Limbs so slender they looked as if they might snap with ease.

Her diminutive frame pinned beneath a grown man, and still Sherah smiled seductively. Her vaginal hole contracted with needy little squeezes, and her slender shoulders shivered and trembled with delight.

Sherah was rather sadistic, but she was not without masochistic tastes either. Which was precisely why she offered not the slightest resistance to Yoal's rough handling. As if there were no need for it at all.

"Kufufu…💕 So the beastly lust a young man can't contain is going to be unleashed on me, is it…💕 My pussy stuffed full of your thick cock, thrust into with all your might…💕 Is my tiny little hole going to be broken to pieces…💕"

Sherah stared at Yoal with something like lewd anticipation. Her rambling was as if she'd put her shameless fantasies straight into words. Her sweet breath ran ragged, huffing and panting, and a damp sheen of sweat rose even on her face.

Pinned down by a young man of powerful build—there was no doubt she was aroused by the situation.

"Yahn, yaahn…💕 Don't stare at me so… even I'll get embarrassed…💕"

"… The embarrassing thing is your mouth. Act your age, you old hag."

"Ahn…💕 Honestly, what a sharp-tongued disciple you are…💕 Let me indulge in feeling like a woman once in a while, won't you…?"

Sherah pleaded, the corners of her eyes flushed red. Unfazed by Yoal's abuse, she fidgeted and twisted her hips.

Yoal wrapped his arm around her slender back. He held her tiny body firmly so she couldn't escape, letting her feel a man's heat. Sherah's thoroughly flushed warmth was, despite himself, pleasant to the touch.

"Come now, Yoal…💕 Move already…💕 Don't keep a woman waiting too—💕 Nnh💕 Yah💕 Hiihn"

Even held in the man's strong, thick arms, Sherah did not cease her seduction of him. Her slender hips twisted skillfully in circles, endlessly demanding pleasure.

Yoal spread both her thighs wide open and, without warning, began slamming his hips. Hard enough that lewd slaps of flesh rang out—pan, pan. His raging shaft churned away as if to level that finest of flesh-holes, scooping out the sticky love-nectar.

By degrees her voice grew sweeter, high-pitched moans of pleasure ringing out. And still Yoal, flat and impassive as ever, went on violating his female master's flushed, melting womanflesh with the force of a pile driver.