And after hearing Hikari's words, Jinno Sumire was indeed extremely satisfied, her smiling lips curving up so much she couldn't press them down at all.
Still, even though she was very happy inside, with her pretty face slightly flushed, she stubbornly said, "Hmph! What a smooth talker. You actually dare to spout nonsense even to an old aunt like me. Who knows what kind of things you say when you're coaxing little Ai."
"And you're always hugging me too. You really can say anything. Do you dare say that right in front of Little Ai…"
Although she was coquettishly scolding and laughing, she didn't refute a single word Hikari said, and her face was full of smiles instead.
At this moment, secretly pleased, Jinno Sumire didn't realize that the interaction between her and Hikari had long since stopped resembling that of an elder and a junior. Instead, it was more like a couple flirting and teasing each other.
It was said to be playing a fake husband, but without realizing it, Jinno Sumire had already developed more reliance on Hikari, and much more closeness.
Even with physical contact and all kinds of overly intimate jokes, she felt not the slightest discomfort, as if they really were as close as an engaged couple.
"All right, all right, it's getting late. Hikari, you should head home first. I still have some things to deal with here," After exchanging a few more ambiguous jokes, Jinno Sumire realized that at some point she had once again been pulled into the young man's arms.
Coming back to her senses, she quickly broke free from Hikari's embrace. Still feeling a bit awkward, with her small face flushed red, she immediately issued an order to see him out.
"Okay, then I'll head back first. But Aunt Sumire, what you just said about today's life-saving favor, that you'd thank me another day, that still counts, right?", Feeling the lingering smooth sensation in his palm, Hikari asked with a smile.
"Of course. When have I, your auntie, ever gone back on my word?", Jinno Sumire nodded as she replied.
"Then how does Auntie plan to thank me?", Hikari asked.
"This… it's a secret!", Jinno Sumire pondered for a moment, then said with a slightly red face.
"All right," Hikari didn't press further and turned to leave the side hall.
Watching Hikari's back, Jinno Sumire felt her face getting redder and redder the more she thought about it.
"Hikari saved my life. I can't not repay him."
"But Hikari seems to not lack money at all, and living in Tokyo, there doesn't seem to be anything the Jinno family can really help with. How should I repay him?"
"How about… another day, like that night, I just directly help him…"
Jinno Sumire's slender fingers pressed hard against her cherry lips, and from the corners of her mouth upward, her entire face couldn't help but grow burning hot.
Just as Jinno Sumire was letting her thoughts run wild, a shrine maiden walked in from outside and respectfully bowed to her.
"What is it? Go ahead," Jinno Sumire quickly pulled her thoughts back and spoke.
"Lady Priestess, the bodies of Yoshizawa Eigen and the others have already been handled. A handheld combination case was found beside Yoshizawa Eigen's body. It seems to contain something important, so I came to ask how you would like it handled," the shrine maiden reported respectfully.
Hearing the shrine maiden's words, Jinno Sumire, who had still been a bit flushed and heated, immediately regained her composure and quickly put on her usual dignified and authoritative demeanor as a priestess.
"A combination case?", Jinno Sumire raised her head and looked at the briefcase the shrine maiden handed over. After thinking for a moment, she said, "Leave it here. I'll handle this myself."
"Yes!", The shrine maiden immediately placed the case on the ground, bowed respectfully to Jinno Sumire, then turned and left the side hall.
Looking at the exquisite, compact case that clearly looked valuable, Jinno Sumire recalled how Yoshizawa Eigen had been carrying it when he snuck in tonight.
Jinno Sumire remembered that Yoshizawa Eigen had been trying to take whatever was inside the case out to deal with her, and he even said something about making her beg to live and beg to die.
She didn't know what exactly was inside, but judging from the confident look on Yoshizawa Eigen's face at the time, it probably wasn't empty boasting.
That made Jinno Sumire a little curious, and she planned to open it up later when she had time to take a look.
Setting the case aside, Jinno Sumire walked back behind her desk.
Just as she was about to lower her head and continue processing documents, the moment she picked one up, Hikari's face suddenly surfaced in her mind.
That handsome smiling face kept flashing through her thoughts, making Jinno Sumire's lips curve upward every time.
"Could it be that I really… fell for Hikari-kun?", Jinno Sumire's heart suddenly skipped a beat.
"No! No! No! Impossible!"
"What just happened… that was only because I've been lonely for too long, so I was just playing around with a young man a bit. I definitely don't… don't have any intention of making the fake act real!"
"Even if I help him, there's a reason. It's to repay him or something."
"A childish boy like that, no matter how handsome he is, he's not my type!"
Even so, Jinno Sumire had already decided that today had brought too many things and too much pressure. She planned to release water magic a few times to ease things, and as for the casting material, it was naturally already chosen as Hikari.
Thinking about casting magic, Jinno Sumire's heart became hard to settle down again. Her skin felt a little hot, and her mind was full of thoughts about releasing magic.
"Forget it. I won't deal with official business today. I'll take a look at what exactly that thing Yoshizawa Eigen left behind is," Unable to calm herself, Jinno Sumire tossed the documents aside and quickly walked over to the combination case.
The case was locked, but it could be opened at any time. After all, Yoshizawa Eigen had already entered the password and was just about to open it when Hikari rushed in and killed him on the spot.
So after Jinno Sumire pressed the latch beside the lock, the lid of the case popped open directly.
"This is… a potion?", Looking at the pink liquid contained in the test tube, Jinno Sumire slightly frowned.
Curious, she reached out with her right thumb and index finger and gently pinched the test tube containing the potion, lifting it up.
"Doesn't feel like something good. I'll have someone study it later. I wonder what it tastes like," Jinno Sumire, quite curious, subconsciously reached out and pulled open the stopper of the test tube.
Pop!
As the stopper was opened, a slightly sweet scent, even carrying a hint of strawberry, suddenly rushed toward her face.
But the moment she smelled that sweet scent, Jinno Sumire's expression changed.
Because the instant she inhaled it, her vision went slightly dark. She froze for a moment, as if her head had been struck by a heavy hammer, stars swimming before her eyes, dizzy and lightheaded.
'I need to seal it back up right away.'
After coming back to her senses, Jinno Sumire quickly stuffed the wooden stopper back into the test tube.
Jinno Sumire's willpower was already considered strong. If it were an ordinary person, they might have become so dizzy the moment they smelled it that they would have loosened their grip and let the test tube shatter on the ground.
But even so, when Jinno Sumire came back to her senses, several seconds had already passed. The potion's volatility was extremely strong, and the air was already filled with that sweet pink scent. Jinno Sumire had unconsciously inhaled several breaths of it.
"I need to put this damn thing back right now!", Jinno Sumire fumbled, stuffing the pink potion back into the case and closing it.
But she discovered that the drug's effects had already begun to affect her.
Because just after closing the case, she suddenly felt her cheeks heating up, and the skin of her body felt as if it were being smoked by thick fumes, burning hot.
Jinno Sumire stood up, only to find that the surface of her skin had begun secreting various fluids nonstop. Her forehead, neck, and armpits all started sweating, and her entire body was rapidly becoming wet and sticky.
"Damn it! What kind of drug did Yoshizawa Eigen make?"
Feeling the various abnormalities in her body, Jinno Sumire quickly understood what effect the potion in the case had.
Thinking back to what he had said before he died, about making her beg to live and beg to die, and beg him for whatever he wanted, it perfectly matched the effect of a certain unspeakable drug.
"That bastard really deserved to die!", Feeling her mouth dry and parched while her entire body was damp and soft, Jinno Sumire couldn't help but curse under her breath.
She hadn't expected Yoshizawa Eigen to cause her so much trouble even after death.
Ordinary drugs like this only worked if injected or ingested, or at the very least required a large amount of inhalation. But the effect of Yoshizawa Eigen's drug was truly terrifying.
Jinno Sumire hadn't even directly touched it. She had only taken a few whiffs, yet the reaction was already so intense. Thinking of this, Jinno Sumire couldn't help but curse Yoshizawa Eigen repeatedly in her heart.
What Jinno Sumire didn't know was that this hallucinogenic drug was the result Yoshizawa Eigen had accidentally produced after years of careful research. It couldn't even be mass-produced yet, and its effect was indeed extremely powerful.
However, the drug's effects differed from person to person.
The reason Jinno Sumire reacted so strongly was also related to her own constitution.
In fact, Jinno Sumire had quite a large demand in a certain regard, and she had been living alone for many years. She wasn't truly made of stone, just that her willpower was strong enough, and since she'd never gotten a release, she had been able to suppress it.
But now, under the guidance of this special hallucinogenic drug, all the thoughts she had accumulated over many years burst out at once.
Even though she didn't know all this, Jinno Sumire could clearly feel just how terrifying the drug's effects were.
At this moment, her entire body was limp. Her internal organs and the surface of her skin felt as if they were being roasted by fire, an unbearable burning sensation, yet the pores of her skin were uncontrollably overflowing.
An extremely unbearable tingling itch spread across most of her body, as if countless ants were gnawing at her.
Jinno Sumire endured the discomfort and stood up, walking back toward her desk. But with every step she took, her whole body couldn't stop trembling.
Just taking those few steps made her feel unbearably itchy all over, with quite a bit of dripping sweat falling onto the floor.
She couldn't even help but let out a soft sound.
Ssah!
Leaning on the desk, Jinno Sumire originally wanted to forcibly endure this hot, damp, tingling sensation. But she found that the more she endured, the itchier it became, and the more she resisted, the harder it was to hold on.
"No… I need to go take a bath right now!"
Feeling her entire body drenched in surging sweat, especially with her robes already completely soaked and soggy.
Jinno Sumire could no longer endure it. She directly quickened her pace and walked toward the courtyard outside the side hall.
This courtyard was where she usually rested, and under normal circumstances, no shrine maidens would come to disturb her.
And after the incident with Yoshizawa Eigen sneaking in, Jinno Sumire had strengthened security. There were several shrine maidens guarding each checkpoint around the courtyard, so no one should be able to break in.
So now, with her whole body burning hot, Jinno Sumire planned to first rinse herself with cold water, washing away the filth and agitation on her body before anything else.
This courtyard connected to the mountain behind the shrine. Many emerald-green bamboo plants grew there. After careful artificial carving, the mountain had been smoothed into a flat surface, and a babbling stream poured down the rock face like a waterfall, gushing endlessly.
Jinno Sumire's current state was just like that constantly surging stream, the heat inside her also pouring out madly.
As soon as she reached the back courtyard, she directly tossed her loose priestess robes onto the ground, then without hesitation rushed straight under the waterfall, letting the icy mountain spring water wash over her burning body.
"Ah!"
The moment the cold waterfall water touched her overheated skin, Jinno Sumire immediately let out a comfortable moan.
Washed by the icy water, the burning sensation was instantly eased a lot, making the previously miserable Jinno Sumire feel much better.
Originally, Jinno Sumire had wanted to use the cold spring water to suppress that unbearable heat inside her.
But what she didn't expect was that even this continuously crashing waterfall was still not enough.
The effect of the drug in Yoshizawa Eigen's case was simply too shocking. After a brief moment of clarity, endless tingling and heat surged back again, impossible to suppress.
And the accompanying tingling sensation was even more unbearable, like tens of thousands of ants crawling all over her body, making Jinno Sumire's body tremble nonstop, desperately wanting to reach out and scratch.
"Endure… I must endure!"
"That's right, I can't let delusions pierce my tough will!"
"I can do it. My will… will win…"
Jinno Sumire's teeth bit tightly into her lower lip. The metallic taste of blood from the torn skin had already filled her mouth.
Under wave after wave of pounding surges, Jinno Sumire's will struggled to hold on, though she had no idea how long it could last.
———
After leaving the side hall where Jinno Sumire worked.
Hikari walked slowly along the path, checking the rewards he had obtained earlier after killing Yoshizawa Eigen.
"Three attribute points. I'll allocate them first."
Hikari skillfully added one point each to the three basic attributes of strength, agility, and constitution, then checked the reward points.
Seeing that he had accumulated quite a lot of points, he casually did several ten-pulls.
Unfortunately, it was once again things like "Master-level Table Tennis" and "Master-level Billiards," skills that weren't very useful.
However, after spending a few hundred points on draws, Hikari suddenly remembered that he had forgotten something.
He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a Clear Mind Amulet.
This was something he had exchanged for not long ago. The reason he had come back to see Jinno Sumire this time was precisely to give this to her.
Although Jinno Sumire held a very high status in Ino Village, and ninety-nine percent of people wouldn't dare harbor any thoughts about her, and she was often surrounded by bodyguards.
But after all, this was the hidden world. Even with such tight security, Yoshizawa Eigen had still managed to sneak in with people.
So even though she was bound to a Pure Love Warning Paper Crane, having an extra Clear Mind Amulet as protection was naturally a good thing.
Moreover, this world didn't just have man-made disasters. There were also plenty of demons and monsters.
Previously, Hikari had sensed an evil presence in the back mountain of the shrine. On his way here, he had even seen shattered demon-suppressing stones and directly encountered the urban legend "Mountain Incident."
In this situation, it was better for Jinno Sumire to carry an amulet as well.
Thinking of this, Hikari turned around and headed back along the original path.
On the way back, Hikari also ran into a shrine maiden walking toward him.
After hearing her greet him, Hikari asked whether Jinno Sumire was still around, so he wouldn't make the trip for nothing.
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