Chapter 17: Tug-of-War

“All at once, I gained twenty attribute points!”

Phyllis stared at the system interface and couldn’t help sucking in several sharp breaths.

She could guess that there might be bonuses in that kind of environment.

But a four hundred percent bonus—was that even reasonable?

Even when she had been drained by Karola under everyone’s gaze before, Phyllis had felt deeply ashamed.

But right now, all she felt was how good it was.

Shame? What was that? Could you eat it? Could it raise attributes?

As long as letting Karola drink her blood made her stronger… faced with such a simple, crude, and tempting rule, it seemed… it seemed there was nothing she couldn’t accept.

So what if people watched… so what if she was carried bridal-style…

“How do you feel, my little kitten?”

Karola’s voice came from beside her, cutting off Phyllis’s inner calculations of how amazing this was.

Phyllis turned her head and saw Karola lying next to her, propping her head up with one hand. Her white hair spilled across the pillow like a waterfall.

Those red eyes stared unblinking at Phyllis under the lamplight. Within them was not only the satisfaction of feeding, but also an almost overflowing love.

'Yandere types are really terrifying!'

Phyllis glanced toward the window. Outside, it was pitch-black.

It looked like it was already deep into the night.

“Meow… I feel… my head is buzzing… my body… feels a lot lighter.”

Phyllis shook her slightly heavy head, her tail unconsciously curling around Karola’s ankle.

The fluffy sensation from the tail wrapped around her ankle softened Karola’s gaze a little.

“Is that so? Then it probably isn’t your imagination. After feeding in the dungeon, you likely absorbed some energy and got stronger as well.” Karola reached out, her fingers gently stroking Phyllis’s cheek, her fingertips slowly rubbing against her delicate skin.

“Mmm…”

Phyllis grabbed Karola’s hand, stopping her from continuing those little movements.

Karola shifted her target to Phyllis’s short black hair. She lightly lifted a few strands with her mouth, then curled her tongue and drew them in.

Then she leaned her head back slightly, giving Phyllis a faint tugging sensation.

“Meow—ow, ow, ow, meow!”

Phyllis’s blue eyes widened. The sudden pain made her cry out despite herself.

“Hm?”

Karola hummed softly through her nose, a hint of playful interest rippling through her eyes. She leaned forward again, loosening her bite just a little, though she did not fully release Phyllis’s hair.

That was mainly because Phyllis’s hair was simply too short.

If it were Karola’s hair, this problem wouldn’t exist.

Seeing that Karola hadn’t let go of her hair, Phyllis shifted her gaze to Karola’s white hair instead.

“Meow!”

Phyllis stubbornly bit down on Karola’s white hair as well.

'Hmph! Then let’s just have a tug-of-war with our hair! Uh… seems like I’m the one at a disadvantage, though?'

Thinking about her own short black hair, Phyllis felt a bit helpless.

Even after living in this other world for so many years, there were still habits she couldn’t change.

For example, growing her hair long.

Long hair was genuinely a hassle to wash and took too much time.

And there was also all the attention it drew…

Because of that, whenever Phyllis noticed her hair getting long, she would cut it.

She always kept it short and neat.

Who could have imagined that in a situation like this, it would actually put her at a disadvantage?

Phyllis felt a little down. In this unspoken comparison over time, aside from being taller than Karola, there really wasn’t anything else…

She couldn’t beat her at.

Why was that?

“Meow!”

Phyllis started to panic. Unwilling to admit defeat, she bit down harder on the smooth, cool white hair in her mouth and tried to fight back in other ways.

Even her cat tail started working hard!

It shifted from loosely wrapping around Karola’s ankle to rubbing back and forth against her calf, trying to rely on tickling to relieve the main battle’s pressure.

And so, the two of them began a hair tug-of-war on the large bed—one side wielding waist-length, waterfall-like white hair, the other armed with barely ear-length, tidy black hair.

The outcome seemed decided from the very beginning.

“Pfft…” Watching Phyllis’s cheeks puff slightly with effort and those blue eyes filled with stubborn refusal to give in, Karola finally couldn’t help laughing. She released the teeth biting Phyllis’s hair.

“Ah!”

Phyllis, who had been pulling backward with all her strength, suddenly lost her balance. Her head snapped back and sank into the fluffy pillow, a few strands of short black hair sticking up messily.

“You cheated, meow!”

Phyllis quickly scrambled up, kneeling on the bed with her hands on her hips, glaring angrily at Karola.

“You used your tail first…” Karola lay on her side, propping her chin with one hand as she leisurely watched the bristling little catgirl. Her other hand reached out, her fingertip landing precisely on Phyllis’s slightly puffed lips. “Besides, your hair is so short. There’s hardly any sense of achievement biting it.”

“Short—so what if it’s short, meow! It’s refreshing! Convenient! It washes fast! Every time we bathe, I finish before you!” Phyllis slapped Karola’s hand away as she argued. “Not like you, with such long hair. It’s such a hassle to take care of, meow!”

“Isn’t it pretty?”

Karola lifted her long hair and displayed it to Phyllis.

“Not pretty!”

Even though she said that, Phyllis’s gaze still drifted uncontrollably toward Karola’s white hair, gleaming brightly under the light.

She had to admit it really… was beautiful.

Paired with Karola’s exquisite features and red eyes, it gave Phyllis a kind of beauty she hardly dared to look at directly.

Damn it! She had clearly reincarnated into a very pretty catgirl herself, so why did her comparison target have to be this rule-breaking level of beauty—a yandere blood princess?

The little person in Phyllis’s mind was pounding the ground nonstop.

Karola naturally noticed Phyllis’s gaze, which pretended to be disdainful but was actually sneaking glances. A knowing smile curved her lips.

She didn’t expose Phyllis’s lie. Instead, taking advantage of the moment Phyllis had just slapped her hand away, she gently caught the hand that hadn’t had time to retreat.

“Not pretty, huh…” Karola drew out her tone, her fingers pressing firmly into the spaces between Phyllis’s fingers, interlacing them. “Then… why do you keep looking? At my hair, and… at me.”

“W-Who’s looking! I’m thinking about things! Thinking about… yeah, the dungeon! Those prisoners staring at us—it was so annoying, meow!”

Phyllis’s blue eyes flew wide open as she tried to change the subject, tugging at her hand at the same time, but failing.

“Is that so?”

Karola neither confirmed nor denied it. She applied a bit of force, pulling Phyllis closer.

The distance between them shrank until Phyllis could clearly see her own slightly flustered reflection in Karola’s red pupils.

“I think when they were looking at us, you were scared… but you also seemed a little excited?”

Karola pinched Phyllis’s cheek.

“Nonsense, meow!”

Phyllis’s face flushed instantly. This time, it wasn’t a side effect of blood loss, but pure embarrassment at being called out.

When she had been watched by so many people while having her blood taken, there really had been a sense of excitement deep inside her.

“I don’t have that kind of weird hobby! What’s exciting about being stared at by a bunch of vampires while getting your blood sucked! I-I was just…”

Her voice grew smaller and smaller until it turned into muttering, and then she fell silent altogether.

The air was quiet for several seconds, filled only with their soft breathing.

In the end, Karola was the one who moved first.

She slowly closed the distance between them.

Until…

Phyllis tilted her head slightly, causing Karola’s lips to miss and brush past the corner of her mouth instead.