Chapter 368: Symbiosis Between Wives
"...Esther... I don't want to..." Evelyn says, hanging from a tree. Today Saluvia stayed behind to look after Kali, and I brought Evelyn out for a walk beyond the castle. She's never been outside before.
"Get down from there. Now." She started throwing a tantrum a few hours ago after I used the soul slavery mark on her to force her to tell me a bunch of things I was curious about, things she didn't want to talk about.
"You were mean to me. You promised you wouldn't keep using that thing to force me to talk. This is just cruel! While Eve is putting in the effort to become stronger and Shizuka is out gaining experience, I wanted to help them."
"But you made me spend hours talking about extremely private things you didn't even need to know!!" I stare at her flushed face.
'Where the hell did she get alcohol? I didn't even bring any liquor to the castle...'
"If you don't come down, I will force you down. And how the hell did you get drunk? I didn't give you any alcohol."
"I made it myself!!" she says, her tail keeping her hanging upside down. Her tail is quite strong and manages to hold her perfectly on the thick tree branch.
"Love, come down from there... you're going to hurt yourself." Since she's drunk, I decide to simply trick her.
"You're drunk. You shouldn't be drinking while a war is going on..." For now, things are stable, but considering the size of the armies, it will be months of fighting for the regular soldiers. So we have plenty of time before the stronger ones need to enter combat.
"You d-don't get to decide that! You stole my treasure!! You're a reverse Robin Hood! You steal from everyone to give to yourself! Not only are you managing to hoard wealth, but you're using my money!"
"The public coffers are money for the kingdom. I'm only using it for kingdom matters—"
"Thief!!" I just stare at her up there and I don't know what's worse—the war dragging on too long, or a drunk Evelyn swinging from this tree refusing to obey me.
"If you come down, I'll give you a coin."
"If I come down, you'll steal Kali's milk! You've been stealing so much from me!"
"I'll give you a gold bar."
"..." Evelyn touches her neck, touching the collar she wears.
"I'll come down if you wear a collar." I keep staring at her, but drunk Evelyn is hard to deal with. She's bold, often forgets everything, and is disobedient. There's no point fighting with her, so I sigh and take a collar from my storage ring.
"..." I look her right in the eyes and then put the collar around my neck.
"There. Now get down from there."
"No! Now you're going to hurt me out of revenge! I'm going to live up here! I'll drink my milk and eat fruit to survive!"
"Then I'll devour Kali."
"N-No!! You can't eat our daughter!!!"
"If you're not here, I won't have any food, so I'll obviously eat her. Unless you come down. And I'm already getting hungry."
"...Y-You can eat me..." She starts climbing down from the tree. Her tail releases her, and she spins in the air before landing on the grass. Soon she sits on the ground, leaning against the tree, opening her legs and arms and inviting me.
'She's doing it again...' I don't know if Evelyn realizes it, but with each passing day, her nymph behavior has been increasing. Since Evelyn is a nymph, I've secretly been studying nymphs—their behavior, hunting rituals, among other things.
And I discovered something interesting. Most nymphs learn to hunt on their own as time goes by—meaning a newborn nymph hunts clumsily, wrongly, and simply, and improves over time.
It means a very young nymph would behave the way Evelyn behaves now. However, Evelyn has been changing. Slowly, she has become more manipulative in order to attract me.
'Her face looks so adorable.' The magic around her acts in a way that seduces me—her expression, her "fragility," her gaze. All of it makes my heart race and draws me in.
The very magic surrounding her has now become attractive. And the number one rule everyone who knows about nymphs understands is: never get too close. A nymph will always be a passive hunter, even if she has the power to chase her prey.
'The greatest honey trap in the world...' I take a deep breath. Honestly, it's terrifying to imagine Evelyn in the future—not because she'll become dangerous, but because she'll become so attractive that manipulation will be a basic trait of her personality.
Since I have access to Evelyn's system because she's my slave, I can see what the status says about Evelyn's personality. In the past, her personality was defined as [Personality = Narcissist, Narcissist, Narcissist, Narcissist, Completely Narcissist].
But currently, her personality is defined as [Personality = Manipulative, Narcissist, Narcissist, Narcissist, Completely Narcissist.]
It changed—a change Evelyn obviously hasn't noticed, but one that only intensifies the fact that she's acting more and more like a nymph.
"I want to eat. Would you let me?" I ask her, and she gives a tearful nod. But even her tears are fake. To any observer, it seems terrible—me devouring my wife's body, as if I'm the only one being "fed."
But Evelyn is a nymph. While I feed on her body, she feeds on my emotions, my desires, my obsession. I am the banquet she constantly feeds on.
She devours me more emotionally than I devour her physically, to the point where I can feel the mental weight pressing down on me. And it's heavy, heavier than it seems.
"..." I lick Evelyn's thigh as she shrinks back, panting, luring me in so she herself can feed on me.
My mouth slowly moves up her thigh until I lift her clothes and see her belly. I lick her belly and then take a bite.
She moans and pants as my teeth sink into the flesh, slowly sinking into that sweet, soft meat.
"Nghh..." She lets out a small sound of pain as I pull hard, tearing a piece from her. While I chew the flesh and the blood drips, I feel as if a boulder has fallen on my head, while Evelyn's eyes glow in a translucent, dull purple.
I take another bite in the same spot, reaching her organs. My teeth cut the flesh easily as blood runs down my lips. Evelyn carefully hugs my head, keeping my face close as I feed on her.
Our relationship is more symbiotic than it seems. While I devour her, she devours me. We need each other, and without me, Evelyn would eventually hunt other people to devour their emotions.
I am not just a chain for Evelyn. I am also what keeps her from hunting other people out of hunger.
"I-It hurts..." she says quietly as I lift my head, my face smeared with blood, letting drops fall onto her light, clear skin.
"You're delicious, love. You can cry if you want." Although she says it hurts, her eyes don't show any sign of suffering. In the past, it was noticeable, but now I only see hunger, despite the tears.
"Y-You're so mean." I smile. She always does this—calls me mean when she's just as mean as I am, perhaps even more wicked, since unlike me, who makes my "meanness" clear, she hides hers and manipulates with it.
"You'll never be able to fool me, Evelyn. I know you far too well for that," I say, licking upward, the smell of blood sharpening my senses.
"You're a little monster, a hungry little monster," I say, reaching her chest with my face buried in her clothes. I pull her clothes with my hands, tearing the upper part.
"Y-You're a monster too..."
"Yes, I am too. We're perfect for each other in every way, and I'm very happy about that," I say, caressing the wound on her belly while licking her chest, preparing to bite.
"H-Have you never felt bad a-about it?"
"...In the past, yes. I felt strange and monstrous devouring you." It's the truth. I used to feel bad about having to devour her body because of this hunger.
"But not anymore." I stopped feeling that when I realized Evelyn was also devouring me emotionally every time I devoured her. It stopped being just me attacking her and became this symbiotic relationship where we are both each other's food.
"Ghmmmm!!" She lets out a pained moan when I bite her chest. Milk ends up squirting into my mouth from the pressure while the blood drips. I also like eating her breasts—they're naturally a nutritious part because of the natural fat accumulation.
"..." Evelyn whimpers as I continue eating and chewing, opening a hole all the way to her heart. Evelyn's heart is the only part that isn't as delicious as I'd like. Because of her nymph core, the taste and consistency are a bit strange.
"Y-You know, E-Esther, t-this reminds me of a vampire story... I-I'll tell it while you eat," she says as I continue devouring her slowly, savoring that intense and delicious flavor.
"I-I don't remember it that well anymore, but it was fascinating b-because the vampire in the story showed his love by devouring h-his partner."
"N-Normally, someone devouring their partner sounds b-blasphemous, horrible, unpleasant, and a scene worthy of something from horror."
"B-But w-with you, I kind of understand... it's... special, a-as if only the two of us existed."
"F-For the vampire in the story, it must have been like... t-the most intimate thing of all, l-like becoming one with the loved one... s-sometimes I forget that I'm a d-dragon and you're a Ghoul..."
"E-Esther, I like being devoured by you. I-It makes me feel like it'll be just you and me until the day I die, e-even though I won't die." I stop devouring her for a moment, looking at her face.
"...I like it too." I don't say what I like. I can't say that I like her devouring me, because she hasn't realized herself that she's devouring me. And I want to let her figure it out on her own. I'll keep it to myself so she doesn't feel uncomfortable.
In the end, many parts of love are about sacrificing something. Even though having her devour me adds a considerable mental weight to my mind, I accept it with a smile and I'm happy to give back in some way.
"Haaa..." She pants as I go back to devouring her. I can't waste a single part of my adorable wife.