27. Magnate (Easy)

Delfina meticulously groomed herself, smoothing down her frayed hair and adjusting the mostly shredded remains of her garments to cover her body. A brief pang of flustered realization hit me when I spotted traces of blood on the fabric.

I knew precisely what that signified. More accurately… it was an intensely charged, intoxicating situation.

「Hang on a second.」

I triggered my Warp Feather to instantly jump back to my bedroom in the mansion, stripped the sheets straight off my bed, and shouted out to let Miu know.

「Miu! I’m borrowing these sheets!」

Without missing a beat, I used the Warp Feather again to instantly materialize back beside Delfina. The entire round trip took all of ten seconds. When I reappeared, Delfina was frantically looking around the empty meadow in utter bewilderment.

「What on earth was that just now──?」

「Never mind that for a moment. Here.」

I draped the clean bedsheet over Delfina, wrapping her securely so that the stark, post-assault appearance vanished entirely. She clutched the makeshift covering tight against her chest, keeping her back straight despite her lingering embarrassment, and looked up at me.

「Thank you.」

「Don’t mention it. I’m the one who shredded your clothes in the first place, so…」

「No, that’s not what I mean…… You saved my life. I…」

「Eh?」

「My mind…… and quite possibly my physical body as well. That suffocating black haze is completely gone.」

She was, of course, referring to Eleanor’s curse.

「Judging by the circumstances before and after, I can piece together what happened and why we’re out here like this.」

「Yeah. I’d say you’ve got the general picture figured out.」

「I shall make sure to properly thank you in the near future for saving my life.」

「Your life, huh.」

「The legendary magic sword Eleanor… It turns out it really does exist.」

I glanced down at Eleanor resting passively at my waist.

「So it would seem.」

(What do you mean by ‘so it would seem’?) Eleanor protested indignantly inside my mind. I ignored her noisy telepathy and tuned her out.

「For a person to wield that sword and remain completely uncorrupted… it is unheard of. Unprecedented in all of history.」

Though I wasn’t entirely sure if it was truly unprecedented.

「If it is real, then everything Her Highness Princess Helene told me is absolute truth, isn’t it?」

「I’m curious what exactly she told you about me.」

「That you single-handedly annihilated a thousand enemy soldiers, and that you managed to single-handedly suppress a high-tier Orikuto without relying on magic.」

「Ah, that business.」

Though the second half of that rumor was a bit of an exaggeration—it was more like holding your breath and sprinting at full speed so it wouldn’t last long—it was technically true enough.

「Those are incredible achievements in their own right, but they pale entirely when compared to the reality of wielding the cursed sword Eleanor.」

「She’s a handful, that’s for sure.」

(If you think that, you ought to show me a bit more respect!)

I refused to indulge her, especially since I knew what her human avatar looked like as a tiny, helpless kid.

「That being the case, I must fundamentally revise my evaluation of you.」

「Yes?」

「Her Highness Helene personally requested that I extend my full accommodation and backing to you, Yuuki-sama. I will place my entire trading network at your disposal, so do not hesitate to ask if you require anything.」

「That’ll be a huge help.」

「And as I mentioned earlier, I will dispatch a representative to your estate tomorrow…… to serve as your permanent liaison.」

「Got it.」

We were drifting right back into formal, administrative talk. It was as if she had pulled out an executive checklist and was reading straight off the script. All the raw embarrassment she had shown while grooming herself, and all the sharp, confident business aura she’d projected when we first met in the parlor, had completely vanished behind a wall of bureaucratic professionalism.

It felt oddly dull, so I decided to throw a curveball to disrupt her pacing.

「What do I have to do to get you, Delfina?」

「With me?」

「Yeah. I’d rather talk about things other than business matters, if possible.」

「……Yuuki-sama makes the seventh.」 She sighed softly. 「You are the seventh person to tell me you ‘want’ me, or something very close to it.」

I never explicitly used the word want, but that was undeniably what I meant. I had known I wanted Delfina the moment I laid eyes on her, and after sharing our first intimate partnership tonight, that desire had only multiplied.

「I attached a strict price tag to myself to permanently turn suitors away.」

「A price tag?」

「Whoever pays that specific price shall own me body and soul.」

「If I want you, I can just buy you out.」

「Indeed you can.」

「……So, what’s the price?」

「My entire corporate empire and all my liquid assets.」

「Eh?」

Buy out all her assets? Was this some kind of hostile corporate M&A? No, wait. To buy Delfina out, I would need a net worth that completely dwarfed hers—assets equivalent to the treasury of an entire nation. That was going to take a staggering amount of time and capital to accumulate through standard odd jobs and hunting.

How am I supposed to pull that off? I pondered silently.

「I am always open to personal consultations, however.」

「Hmm?」

I blinked, wondering what she was suddenly pivoting to, but Delfina was keeping her gaze locked straight ahead, stubbornly refusing to look at me. Even though Eleanor’s dark corruption had been purged from her mind, her cheeks were flushed bright red all the way to the tips of her ears—the exact same feverish blush she’d had during her state of estrus.

「Would you like to consult with me on how to make enough money to buy me?」

「I am entirely at your service if you wish to discuss business strategies or fund acquisition to purchase me.」

Her face grew even redder as she stammered through the offer. It was the classic reaction of someone who says something immensely bold in the heat of the moment, only to be crushed by a wave of intense second-hand embarrassment afterward. It was the exact expression people make when remembering deep, dark moments from their past.

Delfina was letting her stubborn pride hold her back. A condition she had set years ago was binding her, and her inflexible nature refused to let her retract it now. It was stubborn to a fault—yet that stubbornness made her remarkably endearing.

「I’ve made up my mind, then.」

「About what?」

「You mentioned earlier that you were going to leave a liaison behind at the mansion, didn’t you?」

「Yes.」

「I reject that.」

「Eeeeh?!」

She was completely speechless, struck dumb by the sudden veto. She stared at me like an abandoned puppy.

「I don’t need a liaison. Delfina is going to live right inside my mansion. That way, we can handle our business communications and ‘consultations’ much more closely.」

Hearing that proposal instantly snapped Delfina out of her flustered shock, reverting her back to the sharp, collected businesswoman she usually was.

「That is impossible. Without me physically running the operations—」

「The business won’t collapse just because you’re sleeping under my roof.」

「Yes, but—」

She argued with a calm facade, though her eyes broadcasted deep disappointment. She was pragmatic, grounded, and saw the cold reality of the market. Yet, she clearly wanted to stay.

I knew she was an exceptional woman—stunning, meticulous, and fiercely capable. Which only made me want her in my household all the more.

「If that’s how it is.」

Without warning, I scooped Delfina up and activated my Warp Feather right back to the estate.

「W-Wa—!」

She had witnessed me warp before, but this was her first time experiencing a conscious teleportation carrying her along. Delfina’s breath hitched in sheer shock.

「Where are we?」

「My mansion. Specifically, my bedroom.」

「You… you moved us across the country in an instant?」

「By the way, it’s about an hour’s carriage ride back to where we were standing.」

「Is that…… some form of high-tier magic? No, spatial transference on this scale shouldn’t even be—」

「Don’t worry, I can drop you off and pick you up every day.」

「Eh?」

「I’ll personally warp you to and from your place of business every single day. Problem solved. Now you can live in my mansion without any logistical issues.」

「That’s…… technically true, but—」

「Just stay here with me.」

「……Yes.」

When I pressed her with a firmer tone, Delfina startled, her breath catching in her throat. She looked like she was about to argue ‘but’, so I leaned in and silenced her protests with a deep kiss, lightly nibbling on her lips before pulling back.

「I’m keeping you.」

「Oh, honestly…… you leave me no choice, do you?」

She grumbled a weak complaint, entirely folding under the pressure. She was still stubbornly clinging to her pride, but it was impossible to deny how adorable she looked right now. It made me want to push her down all over again.

And so, I did just that.

「No, wait—don’t…… I haven’t actually been bought out yet!」

「Consider it a trial run, then. That’s fine.」

「W-Well… I suppose under these circumstances, it can’t be helped……」

Her resistance folded with surprising ease. But it was far too cute to pass up, so I thoroughly loved Delfina until the morning sun broke over the horizon.

Thus, the number of permanent residents in the mansion grew by one. Delfina Homer Ramanli—the brilliant magnate whose personal fortune rivaled the treasury of an entire nation—had officially become my woman.