—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Zaped
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The rain poured down just like yesterday.
Camilla lathered a bar of soap with a towel, handing one to me and keeping the other.
“Could you scrub my back?”
Of course, it didn’t end with the back.
We awkwardly washed each other’s hair with shampoo.
We still felt too shy to wash each other’s more intimate areas, so we took care of those ourselves.
But we still had to be vigilant.
We washed each other’s backs, facing away from each other, while the rain poured down.
You never knew if a voyeuristic zombie might show up.
It was a strange feeling.
In a world on the brink of collapse, clutching my sore groin, showering naked with a beautiful, toned woman in the pouring rain at dawn.
“…But come to think of it, I didn’t enjoy it.”
Camilla complained. I hadn’t particularly enjoyed it either.
“Well, we can work on that.”
“Pervert.”
“Hey, who’s calling who a pervert?”
Before I could finish, Camilla hugged me from behind, covered in soap.
Her soft laughter tickled my ear. Her fumbling hands were slippery.
“Which means I have to tease you more. Shh. Shh. Be good, okay? If you make a loud noise, the zombies will get you.”
I felt like I’d already been “gotten.”
The more I struggled, the more of our bodies pressed together.
The slipperiness didn’t help. Camilla, seemingly oblivious to the state of my lower body, whispered in my ear,
“You know, I took ‘that’ from the resort.”
“What’s ‘that’?”
“Your body’s answering for you.”
“Ah, ugh…”
“If you work out hard and get stronger than me, we can open it together. Somewhere nicer than here. What do you think?”
“I’m not going to let you get away with this. Just you wait.”
I reached behind me and squeezed Camilla’s buttocks, just like she’d done to me.
But my fingers wouldn’t sink in.
It felt like I was touching a rock.
Camilla nibbled my earlobe.
“Nice try. But this is how you do it.”
A few days later.
I was trapped in burpee hell. Or rather, burpee prison. The “You can’t leave until you finish 10 sets of burpees” room.
“One, two, three. One. One, two, three. Two.”
“Gasp… pant… huff… huff…”
“One, two, three. Three!”
I couldn’t live like this.
“W, wait, I’m going to die…”
This was torture.
The floor was soaked with sweat, making my hands slip.
I didn’t know sweat could make a floor this slippery.
“Wait? What did I say would happen if you said ‘wait’ one more time?”
Oh no.
Camilla’s face hardened.
“…One more set.”
“Let’s do it then.”
She got into position.
I couldn’t even get mad at her.
We were doing the same exercises at the same intensity.
If one of us made a mistake, we’d add another set.
“Sorry. I’m making a lot of mistakes since it’s been a while. Let’s do another set.”
Camilla made all sorts of strange mistakes.
Adding an extra count, skipping a movement.
I should have seen the malice beneath that fake apology.
“Ah. Ugh…”
I was the first to run out of steam.
And Camilla showed no mercy.
“One more set.”
“You, you’re doing this on purpose…”
“You get better with practice. Let’s go.”
Even after all the… activities during the rainy days, we were still shy about seeing each other naked.
It was only natural. But during exercise, we could look at each other directly without stealing glances.
Camilla corrected my form, and I mimicked hers.
It wasn’t that I didn’t feel any attraction. But…
“It’s okay. You can do it again. I saw you doing it like this, but like I said, you need to extend your legs further…”
I’d made a mistake.
I’d forgotten that she was a former athlete.
A promising one, even aiming for medals.
She was a seasoned professional when it came to exercise.
And synchronized swimming required precise movements in the water.
A sport that demanded immense strength, endurance, and even breath control.
Camilla had undergone systematic training, and I could follow most of it without difficulty.
Personalized PT with no complicated or impossible movements.
She didn’t even get angry.
Her philosophy was that “getting angry while teaching is something only incompetent amateurs do.”
Instead, she would silently press down on me, “firmly, deeply,” to “correct” my form.
Softness overcomes hardness?
Wrong.
Overpowering force made softness irrelevant.
“Wrong again. You’ll get hurt like that.”
“S, sorry… gasp… gasp…”
Camilla offered words of encouragement to me, panting like a dog.
“It’s okay. It’s supposed to be hard. These exercises use muscles you don’t normally use, so even athletes find them incredibly difficult.”
“Oh, really?”
Thinking about it again, it wasn’t very comforting.
Why was she making me train muscles I didn’t normally use?
“Oh, that? For balance. Your physique is quite good, Johan, but your posture is awkward. You move like someone who’s been sitting at a desk for too long. Think about it. You’re only using half of your body, so the parts you use are overloaded, and the parts you don’t use become weak. It’s a matter of habit.”
It made sense.
My physical strength had increased dramatically since coming to this world.
I’d gained muscle despite not exercising much before.
But while my stats had been “corrected,” my habits hadn’t.
My body still remembered the days of a slight belly, slumped shoulders, and forward head posture.
“So let’s do another set.”
Up to this point, I was grateful to Camilla.
For cheerfully repeating these exercises without a hint of boredom.
…But the “repeating” never ended.
Even seeing her tank top clinging to her sweat-soaked chest, her dolphin shorts plastered to her skin, hearing her panting gasps, even though I just wanted to collapse and sleep, it was always “one more set.”
“H, how much… longer…?”
“Keep going.”
“B, but when… when…?”
“Get into position.”
Of course, my form crumbled.
My arms, legs, and back were in revolt.
Camilla looked down at me like a tyrannical queen.
“See? A mess. You have to keep doing it until your body automatically gets into position. Until you can maintain the correct form without thinking. It’s okay. Just one more set.”
“Please.”
“Hmm.”
Camilla pulled down her tank top and leaned towards me.
I inadvertently looked down her cleavage.
Well, she probably wasn’t wearing a bra during exercise.
I gulped unconsciously.
“You know, Johan. When you’re really exhausted, you can’t even smell anything.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“When I trained, I used to put sliced lemons at the end of the pool. Whenever I felt tired, I’d smell the lemons. And if I couldn’t smell them, I’d take a bite. When I could no longer taste the sourness or smell the lemons, that’s when I knew I’d truly pushed myself to the limit. You’re drooling right now. One more set.”
I somehow managed to finish.
I stood up, my body trembling, and Camilla brought me a towel, a water bottle, and a chocolate bar.
“Chew the chocolate slowly, and leave half the water.”
“…Why?”
“You’ll throw up if you drink it all. You have to do 300 more PT exercises. All your muscles are shocked and contracted right now, so you need to relax them. So let’s do them together. What? Don’t tell me you’re giving up now?”
“…No. I’ll do it. I can do it.”
I couldn’t bear this humiliation.
I would do it, no matter what. But instead of getting into position, Camilla hugged me.
Now her muscles felt hard and painful against me.
“Johan. This is just exercise. Training is different.”
“…What?”
“One of the programs I went through involved fighting in a state of complete exhaustion. Sounds impossible, right? But you can do it. What? Don’t they train this hard in Minsk’s Western Branch? Judging by your performance, I thought you’d undergone high-intensity training.”
“I told you, that’s not it.”
“Oh, you didn’t? That’s too bad. No wonder.”
I couldn’t stand that look in her eyes.
That condescending look.
“…Just wait. I’ll surpass you. I’ll do it.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
Camilla smiled shyly and leaned against me again.
“I took ‘that’ from the resort, you know?”
“What’s ‘that’?”
“The thing in the drawer. The thing couples ‘open’ when they… you know. I’ve never actually used it myself.”
She was talking about the
I remembered. I was too tired to care anymore.
I couldn’t see Camilla’s breasts, only the stairway to heaven.
“So what about it?”
“I told you, I didn’t enjoy it last time. Let’s train hard, and when you’re stronger than me, we can open it together as a celebration. It’s my first time too, so I want to do it somewhere nicer, and… with a more impressive you.”
“…You’re… really…”
“And you’re doing really well, you know? Let’s just keep working hard.”
I shouldn’t be feeling this way, but I couldn’t help but smile.
No, this was gaslighting, my mind screamed, but my body was filled with a joyful energy.
Camilla pressed her chest against mine and pulled my arms open.
“Now, hold this position… 400 PT exercises.”
“Wasn’t it 300 before?”
Camilla placed her hand on my lower abdomen, circling my navel with her palm.
“Sorry. It was 500.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A few days later.
The rain continued to come and go.
The radio talked about “rainy fronts” and “stationary fronts,” which basically meant it would rain all week.
But we couldn’t just sit around doing nothing.
We couldn’t go far in the pouring rain, but we still took the truck out to scout the surrounding area.
“Johan.”
Camilla whispered over the radio.
She was at a clothing store, and I was at a grocery store, stocking up on soda cans.
“Yeah.”
What’s your favorite color?
“Suddenly? Hmm… I don’t really have a favorite.”
“Then pick one.”
“Red? It’s the first color of the rainbow.”
“…Uh. I like red too, but… yeah. If you say so.”
She sounded strangely hesitant.
I figured it was just another one of her quirks and brushed it off.
I wiped a phone with an antiseptic wipe and held it up to my ear.
Dead again.
No dial tone.
I was checking phones to contact a broker.
We needed a working phone to do that.
The problem was that most of Camilla’s contacts had gone dark.
The 8th National Guard had attacked the Central Liberation Corps’ base and hideouts, but their commander, Hans, had destroyed all information and disappeared.
Of course, not all brokers were affiliated with the Liberation Corps.
They all ultimately followed the money.
But some believed in Elza’s liberation and prioritized helping those who shared that belief.
I went to the next store.
A zombie in a fast-food uniform was still standing behind the counter.
It stood there as if waiting to take an order, then, as if remembering it hadn’t clocked out, slumped over the counter.
I was about to put it out of its misery, but I noticed the phone on the counter.
I led it outside and gave it its final “break.”
It didn’t even groan, as if ready for a long-awaited rest.
I wiped the phone with an antiseptic wipe and lifted it to my ear.
A clear dial tone.
“Camilla. I found one. At the burger joint.”
Camilla, carrying a waterproof sports bag and a bloodstained axe, entered the store.
She punched in some numbers and waved when she got through to someone.
It was a signal to keep watch; it seemed like it would be a long call.
“They want us to meet by the highway this Friday. They’ll give us more details on Thursday. I’ll try contacting a couple more, just in case.”
She said it was impossible to break into the protected human zone, especially around the city.
The wall surrounding the city was a problem, but the soldiers stationed there also shot any approaching zombies.
It was common sense that the smell of corpses and gunshots attracted more zombies.
So even the most daring wouldn’t try to breach the city’s perimeter.
But as with anything humans did, there were always loopholes.
There were several ways to enter the city, and each broker had their specialty.
Fortunately, we managed to contact two more. One was available next week, and the other the week after.
“Let’s try for this week. Security tends to be lax in the rain, and if anything goes wrong, we can always go next week.”
“Okay. Then we have to train hard.”
I took a step back, a sense of dread washing over me.
Camilla smiled and opened her bag, rummaging through it before pulling out something red.
Lingerie.
Well, it was labeled as lingerie, but it wasn’t clothing.
If that was clothing, then a necklace was a raincoat.
And why was something like that even in this rural town?
“…I’m going to wear this to bed tonight.”
“That’s why you asked about my favorite color…”
“I brought all the colors, just in case you were disappointed. I want to wear this one today. I’ll pick another color tomorrow.”
I was afraid.
I knew what was coming next.
“…So let’s add 10 more burpees. At this rate, we’ll be in perfect shape by Friday. Exercising with you is so much fun. It’s driving me crazy.”
I had awakened a beast.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
This man, in fact, couldn’t be any more bottom.