Imperial Palace life, day seven.
Life in the palace was better than I'd feared.
My biggest daily dilemma?
What to eat today?
But they prepared delicious-looking meals right on time, so I didn't even have to worry about that.
And they weren't just appetizing to look at.
The taste was exquisite too.
Truly, good-looking bread tastes the best.
Beyond that, the room I'd been assigned was splendid.
The bed was plush and soft.
The carpet was thick and cozy.
When I woke in the morning, warm sunlight greeted me, and at night, I could gaze at the starry sky and the moon.
That was it.
Everything else was the worst.
I'd been cleared of the accusation of trying to assassinate the princess, which was a relief, but afterward, I'd received the emperor's orders to research a way to lift the curse on her.
Since I needed to lift it myself anyway, having the emperor's full support for my research was a boon.
The problem was that it required keeping the princess by my side every single day.
Of course, the princess wasn't helping with the research in the slightest.
If I said that out loud, a sword would probably come flying at me...
But it was the truth.
The princess might be a master swordsman, but when it came to magic, she was at the level of a novice mage.
Still, the reason she had to stay by my side every day was for the daily health check.
Once a week should have been enough...
But the princess insisted.
Once a day, she said.
"If this is really due to the curse, we don't know when or how it might mutate next."
It was a valid point.
"I-In that case, my body alone should be sufficient..."
"We need to compare. Having a control subject makes it more accurate for gauging the curse's effects, don't you think?"
"Now that you mention it, yeah."
That was how the conversation flowed, forcing me into daily private sessions with the princess.
"Ahhh..."
I let out a heavy sigh as I slipped on my robe.
If it ended with just the health check, that would be fine, but it didn't.
The princess guarded my side like some kind of escort knight, sword at her hip.
Except when I had official duties, she was always there—reading a book or polishing her blade.
And every so often, she'd toss some embarrassing comment at me under the guise of a joke.
Mostly sexual harassment aimed at me.
I figured I'd have some resistance since she wasn't a woman and wasn't pointing out female body parts, but just listening to her made my face burn with embarrassment.
In the process, I learned something new.
Contrary to the rumors of her being taciturn, the princess was full of mischief and a total pervert who loved lewd things.
"Sir Withbel, I think there's something wrong with my body."
"Pardon...?"
Morning health check time.
As the princess filled out the questionnaire I'd made, she dropped a bombshell.
Something was wrong with the princess's body.
If I couldn't fix it?
The emperor would rage.
Execution.
Bad end.
In that split second, I envisioned my beheading.
"Wh-Wh-Wh-What's wrong?!"
I flung aside the grimoire I was studying and rushed to the princess's side.
"Well..."
The princess rested her chin on her hand, setting a serious atmosphere.
I perked up my ears, ready to listen intently.
She stared off into the distance as if it were hard to say, then her golden eyes turned to me.
"I get erections every morning."
"...Huh?"
"My dick gets so hard it hurts. It's troublesome."
I blinked, then sighed in relief.
"I thought it was something serious..."
You scared me.
"That's a sign of good health."
"Do all healthy men get morning erections?"
"U-Usually, yes."
Come to think of it, she probably knew as little about men as I did about women.
It was natural for her to find morning wood weird.
Tch.
If I'd known, I could've teased her a bit.
I regretted it too late, but even if she'd set it up for teasing, I couldn't have done it.
How could I joke around with the princess of the realm?
The princess was a flame burning silently.
She might look stoic, but who knew where that fire would lash out?
It was famous—the incident where a noble lady who pointed out the princess's acne at a New Year's event during puberty went missing.
The princess had reportedly reacted calmly at the time.
But who knew what she really felt?
She might have been smirking inwardly, plotting how to punish her.
The long investigation concluded it was a runaway case, but everyone believed the princess was behind the disappearance.
"Does your dick get hard every morning too, Sir Withbel?"
"Wha?!"
"Were you unhealthy?"
"I-It was... healthy, yeah..."
"So it must have stood up like a beast's every morning. Like a beast."
"It's a natural physiological response!"
"When did I say it wasn't? I was just saying that's how it was."
I worried for nothing.
I thought something was really wrong.
"Guess yours won't stand anymore, huh, Sir Withbel?"
"Wh-What...!"
"No, wait—you don't even have anything to stand up anymore."
The princess stretched out her leg.
"Eek?!"
Her long leg slipped between mine, pressing right against my crotch.
"So smooth like this. Doesn't it feel empty?"
She lifted her leg higher.
With just her leg strength, she slightly lifted my body.
The pressure grinding into my groin made me rise onto my tiptoes.
"D-Don't do this...!"
I pressed down on her leg desperately.
I couldn't push it away with my strength.
The gap in basic power was too vast.
It filled me with helplessness.
Not from class differences, but raw, primal physical disparity.
I flailed without any real resistance.
It was agonizing.
Unpleasant.
And strangely intriguing at the same time.
A hard-to-describe emotion pooled heavily in my lower abdomen.
Unpleasant, but not entirely so.
What was this feeling...?
I'd never felt it before.
"Since you don't know about women, Sir Withbel, I'll teach you what it means to be one, bit by bit."
"N-No thank you... ugh... no thank you...!"
"In exchange, you teach me about men."
"Are you even listening to me...?!"
"To understand the curse, we need to grasp its outcomes first and foremost."
The princess completely ignored me.
At the same time, she indifferently pressed her shin into my groin.
A faint smile played on her lips, as if she were enjoying my reactions.
"S-Stop...! Pull it awayyy...!"
I pounded her shin with soft punches like cotton swabs.
Daring to hit the princess's body?
It could cause a scandal, but I was getting desperate as the sensation grew weirder.
"Fine."
The princess pulled back her knee, withdrawing her leg.
In the process, my crotch rubbed against her shin.
More precisely, my soft, fleshy pussy ground against it.
"Eek...!"
The tingling stimulation drew a scream from me before I knew it.
It sounded lewd even to my own ears, so I hurriedly clamped my hands over my mouth.
Not that it would swallow the sound back up.
"Such a cute whimper."
The princess propped her chin, flashing a sadistic smile.
"Makes me want to hear more."
"Ugh... If you're going to disrupt the research... get out...!"
I straightened my disheveled robe and snapped at her.
Insane.
Yelling at the princess?
It was an emotional outburst, not rational thought.
"Disrupt? That's harsh. I'm helping you in my own way, Sir Withbel."
"How is this helping?"
I scowled.
I furrowed my brows as hard as I could to show my anger.
One thing I'd learned spending days with her: the princess was surprisingly lenient.
She'd let something like this slide.
"I'm teaching you what it means to be a woman."
"I can read a book for that."
"Books aren't everything."
"And what good would learning that do?"
"Disappointing."
"Huh?"
Her word made my eyebrow twitch.
"What's disappointing...?"
"Wasn't the curse's effect turning you into a woman?"
"We haven't confirmed it's a curse yet, but if it is, then yes."
I still hadn't pinpointed the exact cause.
But since only a curse could do this, I was half-convinced it was gender transformation via curse.
"A curse is just cause and effect. You infer the result from the cause, or vice versa. When you don't know the cause, like now, shouldn't you focus on the results?"
"Th-That's..."
"I thought the next master of the Green Magic Tower would know that."
She was right.
The princess exceeded my expectations.
I'd thought she was clueless about magic.
But she had more knowledge than I'd imagined.
"You just thought 'surprising,' didn't you?"
"N-No, of course not..."
"Anyway, what we need to do now is study the curse's outcomes intensely."
The curse's outcomes.
Me, turned into a woman.
You, turned into a man.
"But I haven't found any traces of magic."
"Curses don't always stem from magic. In ancient times, they used curses as rituals, not spells, right? Rituals vary, and some leave no traces."
Impressive.
The princess was more of a scholar than I'd thought.
Not some mindless killer.
"Th-There's... a possibility."
I conceded the point.
"Maybe there's some ritual mark somewhere on our bodies. It might not show now, but could manifest in certain conditions."
"Exactly."
I nodded in agreement.
"So, I'll teach you all sorts of things from now on."
Even so, I still thought that part was unnecessary.
"Today's lesson number one."
The princess stood up.
She was so tall I had to tilt my chin up to meet her eyes.
"Press a woman's pussy, and she can't do a thing."
"Pu-Pus...?!"
"See? It really worked, didn't it?"
Heat flooded my face.
"I don't need lessons like thaaat!!"
I shrieked and chased the princess out of the room.
She laughed heartily, as if it were the funniest thing.