#084
“You want me to wake him with a kiss?”
Aside from how absurd it was, honestly, Carlisle and I had gone all the way, so something like a kiss wouldn’t be difficult. It would be a bit awkward if you told me to do it to someone who was wide awake, but since he was asleep anyway, I could just think of it as artificial respiration.
But I had doubts that the method to wake Carlisle would be that easy. Wouldn’t there be some kind of trap? But for now, there was no other way, so even if it seemed unlikely, I had to try it first.
I looked down at Carlisle for a moment, then slowly lowered my face and kissed his lips. I pressed my lips down like stamping a seal, stayed still like that, then pulled my lips away. The cold energy remained on my lips. The cold breath flowing out seemed like a corpse or a ghost, so it should have been scary or chilling, but strangely my mood kept sinking. Rather than scary, how should I put it – frustrating or pitiful… or perhaps stifling.
Anyway, the first attempt was a failure. Carlisle didn’t wake up. Right, it couldn’t be that easy.
After thinking hard, I pressed my lips to his again. This time I licked and moistened his lips more carefully, then pushed between them. The cold air wrapped around my tongue and cold breath flowed into my mouth. I rubbed his stiff tongue and diligently licked the soft inside of his cheeks and hard palate.
I wanted to melt Carlisle’s mouth with the warmth of my tongue, but even while moving my tongue diligently, I couldn’t shake the skeptical feeling about whether this would have any effect. It’s not even an adult game, so there’s no way the system would require something like this.
‘This probably isn’t it.’
I swallowed a sigh internally and tried to pull away from Carlisle. That’s when it happened.
I felt cold energy wrap around my lower back, then my body was flipped over. Before I knew it, I was the one lying on the bed with my back against it.
“Why are you stopping halfway, honey? You have no persistence.”
Carlisle pressed his body over my surprised form. With the lighting behind him, he looked both sacred and, due to the shadows cast on his face, sinister. Somehow my spine felt chillingly cold.
“If you’re going to do it, you should do it properly – you’re not a child.”
He chided me in a gentle tone while smiling. He grabbed my face and immediately pressed his lips to mine. His tongue instantly went deep inside and firmly entangled my tongue.
Shocked by the sudden situation, I had frozen up, but this wasn’t the right situation for this, and I felt a flash of wariness at the sensation of Carlisle’s cold energy transferring to me bit by bit.
‘Too cold!’
It was an ice mansion so being cold was natural, but it was far too cold. It suddenly felt like my heating band had malfunctioned. It wasn’t simply the feeling of being cold from low temperature, but a bone-chilling, spine-tingling coldness that seemed to freeze me from within. Sensing danger, I struggled desperately to escape from him.
“W-wait, wait a minute.”
I barely managed to turn my head and frantically shouted while blocking his lips.
“Move away! This isn’t the time for this!”
I pushed him away with all my strength. Since I almost kicked him away, Carlisle seemed surprised and hesitated for a moment, and in that gap I quickly rolled my body to escape from the bed, worried I might get caught again. While this makes it sound like I nimbly dodged, in reality it was almost like tumbling off the bed.
As I hurriedly got up, my face was briefly reflected in the mirror hanging on the wall. A pale complexion. Lips that had turned purple. It wasn’t just my imagination. My body temperature was really dropping rapidly.
Fortunately, as soon as I got away from him, I could feel my body temperature gradually rising again. The heating band hadn’t malfunctioned after all.
“W-we need to clear the strategy first. We should resolve what the mansion owner entrusted us with first and then… no, that’s not it, this is someone else’s bedroom after all, so doing such things is a bit…”
I rambled incoherently while shivering from the cold. Carlisle slowly got up but didn’t leave the bed. He didn’t say anything to me either, just sat on the bed in a somewhat languid posture and stared at me quietly. Since I couldn’t predict how he would react at all, I tensed up and prepared to run if necessary.
But Carlisle just looked at me for a while with his head tilted, then merely clicked his tongue slightly as if sighing.
“Strategy… what are you planning to do and how?”
When his face was properly revealed in the lighting, I discovered another strange thing.
‘His eye color is… subtly different.’
Carlisle’s pupils were originally gray, but when excited, they would have a reddish tinge. But now they had a dark ashen color with somehow sharp blue light swirling in them.
‘<The Snow Queen>… perhaps.’
I sighed. In the end, it was heading toward the cipher solving of the original event.
I turned my gaze to the bedside table. I had momentarily forgotten due to Carlisle’s sudden appearance, but I had originally come to this room to find Celia’s fairy tale book. A few books placed on the side table. The book I was looking for should be among them.
I went there silently and quickly scanned the book titles. What I was looking for were the two fairy tale books that had been placed beside Celia in the portrait. I remembered the titles. One was <Rose of the Desert> and the other was <Spirit of Snow>.
In the original event, cipher text was hidden on random pages of these two books, and players had to find and solve them to get rewards. I was about to check those pages first, but I encountered difficulties from the start.
‘<Spirit of Snow> is missing.’
One of the two fairy tale books that should have been there was missing. And it was the fairy tale book most likely to contain hints, judging from Carlisle’s condition.
<Rose of the Desert> was a translation of a desert story from a fairy tale book Celia had brought from her hometown, and <Spirit of Snow> was a northern fairy tale with a story similar to Andersen’s <The Snow Queen>. It contained the story of a girl whose heart was frozen because of a snow spirit who held a grudge against humans, so if there were hints about how to restore Celia who had become an ice statue, it would more likely be in <Spirit of Snow> than <Rose of the Desert>. Even Carlisle’s current condition was somewhat similar to Kai in <The Snow Queen>, wasn’t it?
I briefly skimmed through <Rose of the Desert> but couldn’t find any particular hints, so I began examining around the bed.
“What are you looking for?”
Carlisle spoke to me from the bed as I examined above and behind the bed, even getting down on all fours to thoroughly search under the side table and bed. I didn’t want to talk more with someone who no longer seemed to be the real Carlisle, but ignoring him might lead to something dangerous, so I answered vaguely.
“…It seems like a book is missing.”
“Hmm… a book… you mean this one?”
A book suddenly appeared in Carlisle’s hand from somewhere. He gently waved the book like bait. It was natural that my eyes widened. It was the book I had been looking for. A book with a cover illustration of a small spirit in white clothes against a background full of white snow and a girl with a snow crystal-like symbol on her chest.
“Yes, that’s it. Where did it come from?”
I reflexively approached with joy and reached out my hand, then stopped. I had just barely escaped from him moments ago. A subtle smile appeared on Carlisle’s face as he watched my movements intently.
“I was reading it briefly before bed. Come and take it.”
He placed the book down beside him with a thud, then leaned back leisurely with his hands behind him.
“……”
I’m not a three-year-old, and I just went close and look what happened to me… A brief awkward silence flowed between us. I didn’t go closer, but I also didn’t take my eyes off the fairy tale book and him.
“Why aren’t you taking it? Don’t you need it?”
He urged again.
Actually, given the situation, it was disadvantageous for me to let time pass like this. Carlisle wasn’t Carlisle, so he didn’t even care about his own safety. While I hesitated like that, unable to do this or that, Carlisle suddenly got up. I reflexively stepped back a couple of steps, and seeing this, Carlisle made another low chuckling sound.
“My lover is so stubborn that I can’t win. Here, I have no choice, so I’ll give you this.”
He approached and held out the book. While keeping my body pulled back in wariness, I reached out only my hand to receive the book. However.
“……”
This bastard won’t let go of the book. I glanced at his face. The corners of his mouth were raised in a smile. Why are you smiling? It’s scary.
“If you avoid me like that, it makes me sad, honey. You shouldn’t make me sad.”
Carlisle whispered and only then released his grip from his hand. Instead, the hand that reached out caressed my face. Having been told not to avoid him, I couldn’t avoid him again, so I stiffly accepted that touch.
“Don’t forget. Since I found it for you, I’ll receive a reward later.”
His cold fingers traced my face, then pressed my lower lip, went inside to rub my tongue, and only then withdrew. I could guess what kind of reward he wanted.
I’m going through all this trouble to save you, and reward my ass. I was about to curse, but I forced myself to raise the corners of my mouth and smile.
“Ah, of course. Naturally.”
Of course, I should be the one receiving the reward. Though it should be the kind I want.
I pretended otherwise and gradually distanced myself from Carlisle while hurriedly opening the book. I first found and opened the page where the original hint had been, and fortunately, there was something in the same location.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
