Earth's SSS Pornstar to SSS Combat God in Another World-Chapter 37: The Voluptuous Lady of the Swamp

The meal did not last long. Potatoes disappeared fast when the air was wet and the road had tried to eat them twice in one day.

The elder capybara watched the pouch of gold Joji had set down, then gave a pleased little hum and began clapping his hands.

It was not applause. It was a signal. From between the huts, a capybara man rose from his work and ambled over, calm as if he had been waiting for this exact sound.

He bowed, palm to chest, then pointed down a dim path where reeds parted like a curtain.

Joji caught the meaning. Proper pay. Proper guide. Proper silence.

He had half a dozen thoughts about employing capybara folk later, and goblins, and kobolds too, once his own plans grew.

He shelved all of it. For now, his mind kept turning toward the mansion the elder had mentioned.

They followed the guide into the marsh.

The first thing Joji noticed was the smell. Pleasant. Light. Relaxing. It drifted through the rot and mud stink like someone had opened a window in a sickroom.

Even Walter’s shoulders dropped a fraction, and that alone told Joji the scent was not only in his head.

They reached a large pond.

The water was clear, a far cry from the bubbly green bogs they had slogged through earlier.

Huge lotus leaves floated on the pond like broad plates. Above them rose lotus flowers large enough to live in, petals folded into walls, with windows cut into the bloom and doors set where the stem should never have held weight.

The flowers gave off a soft purple glow, gentle as dusk. Even the small blossoms drifting near the shore shone with the same light, little embers riding the water.

Joji was not a sweet man. Not in his old life, not in this one.

Still, the temptation to pluck a lotus flower and press it into Daisy’s hands stirred in him.

He killed the urge before it made his fingers stupid.

Private property. Unknown witch. Swamp rules.

He kept his hands to himself.

The guide stopped there and bowed once more, then backed away without a word, leaving them with the smell of clean water and something faintly sweet that sat on the tongue.

The door opened a crack.

A woman peeked out as if she had been watching the whole time and wanted them to know it.

Her skin was pale enough to look bloodless. Her eyes were light, wide, almost childlike in their openness. White hair swept to one side.

Then she stepped fully into view. Even in a black dress, her body made the fabric look like it was fighting for its life.

Curves were all statement. Hips wide, waist narrow, chest heavy enough that it seemed unfair she could stand so straight.

Every step made her move with a slow bounce that was not subtle.

She smiled at him like she knew.

"Welcome," she said.

Joji almost answered out of habit, then caught himself. He had learned that trouble often wore a smile and waited for you to speak first.

The Lady of the Swamp did not wait.

She came close and looped her arm through his, pulling herself into his space with easy familiarity.

Softness pressed against his forearm through fabric. Heat. Perfume. The sort of closeness that made a man forget where his hands were.

Joji’s hand moved on reflex.

For a heartbeat, his fingers settled on the swell of her chest as if he were checking weight on a market scale.

He felt the shape give and hold, warm and real, and his mind went blank from the sheer stupidity of it.

He remembered he was not a man on the adult film set anymore.

He remembered he was standing in front of a witch in a world where men got their hands cut off for less.

His mind spun fast. He should pull back. He should apologize. He should do something that did not end with a curse eating his tongue.

Instead, he kept his face straight and leaned into the only shield he could raise in time.

He looked at her chest the way a craftsman looked at work.

"Is this real?" Joji said, dead serious.

The Lady’s smile twitched. Anger flashed quick. Then confusion followed it.

"Have you seen breasts faked before?" she asked, curiosity snagging her words.

"I am a doctor," Joji said. "I have seen strange things. Soft objects called silicone. It seemed these are not silicone. If so, then you really take good care of your body, from what I can tell."

His hand, still there, tested firmness like he was assessing injury or swelling, not indulging.

The Lady of the Swamp went still.

A witch that old had unfathomable hexes.

She could taste lust like blood in water. She could smell deceit. She could read the way a man’s gaze lingered, the way his breath shifted.

She found none of what she expected.

Joji had fear, yes. A flicker of it. He had calculation. He had a strange, clinical focus that made no sense in a greeting, yet it was real.

He was not pawing. He was checking.

That was new to her.

Slowly, she smiled again, smaller this time. She reached down and gently pried his hand away.

"Don’t worry, warrior," she said. "I see you did not do it with lust. I will overlook it. Thank you for checking my health."

Behind Joji, Alaric stood with his mouth slightly open.

Walter looked worse. He stared at the Lady of the Swamp. His eyes kept drifting, then snapping away, then drifting again like he was fighting his own neck.

The Lady’s gaze slid to him. Walter froze. His face went hot. He tried to look at her eyes and failed.

’Oh no,’ he thought. ’She can read my mind.’

The Lady lifted one finger and pointed at him, not at his face, not at his hand. Lower. Something hard between his pants.

"I don’t need to read it," she said.

Walter yelped and turn the other way in shame.

Joji cleared his throat, because if he did not, he might laugh.

"We came for a guide through Lost Boy’s Marsh," Joji said, forcing the matter back onto rails. "And we heard your mansion is open."

The Lady of the Swamp’s smile widened again, pleased at the shift, pleased at the attention.

"Then come in," she said. "If you have coin, if you have courage, and if you have manners. We can do business."

The Lady of the Swamp did not spare the others more than a glance.

Her attention stayed on Joji like a hook set in flesh, but the door opened wider all the same and her mansion took them in.

Warm air rolled over them, carrying that same soft scent from the pond, clean water and crushed lotus and something sweeter underneath.

The floorboards did not creak. The shadows did not pool where they should have.

Walter kept his hands close to his sides as if the walls might bite.

The Lady turned, black dress whispering around her legs, and looked back at Joji with a careful sort of expectation.

"Do you mind listening to this old lady’s story?" she asked.

Joji nodded. He kept his eyes on her eyes. He did not look down again.

"Go on," he said.

For a moment she seemed pleased by the restraint.

"I had a slimmer figure before," she said. "Four hundred and seventy two years ago, my master told me to find myself a man."

Her mouth tightened at the memory.

"I told her I did not need a man in my life," she went on. "I told her she was blind. I cursed her husband into a frog to open her eyes. I set it so only she could undo it with a kiss."

She let out a long breath, then sighed at the end like the sigh had been waiting for centuries.

"But."

Joji coughed lightly, because the pause started to feel like a trap.

"But what?"

"It took her twenty years to find him," the Lady said. "Twenty years. She was already middle aged by then."

"She had spent two decades kissing frogs and hoping one would turn into the right man."

Alaric made a small noise that might have been a choke, but he stopped himself fast.

Walter stared at the floor, as if the lotus petal floor might explain how to survive this conversation.

The Lady’s eyes sharpened.

"In her anger, she cursed me."

Joji felt the word anger land heavier than it should have. Witches did not forget. Witches did not forgive.

"She cursed me to gain more size in my chest and bottom until I found true pleasure in a man," the Lady said.

She spread her hands as if presenting evidence.

"Now look at me. This is what happened."

Joji kept his face level. Inside, his mind ran in tight circles.

A curse that escalated over centuries was not a joke.

He cleared his throat again, softer this time.

"What have you done so far to break it? To find that pleasure?"

"Nothing," the Lady said at once, too quick, and the admission carried a flash of fear.

"Because the curse has another line?"

She leaned closer like she was about to share a secret, though everyone in the room could hear it.

"It says if I do not feel genuine pleasure, then I might as well become a willow," she said. Her lips curled.

"A willow. An ugly tree. Because I am a dense motherfucker, that is what she called me. I am scared. Who wants to be a tree?"

’How many frogs did your master have to kiss?’ Joji thought, and felt the question press at his teeth like it wanted out.

He kept it in. Some questions were funny. Some questions got men turned into willows too.