Chapter 109 Skill level 9
In the white room, we were immersed in happiness that everyone had remained safe in our victory.
Arisu and Tamaki embraced Lucia, who was still limping.
Mia took the opportunity to grab Lucia"s ears even as I was pulling her away.
"Hey, stop that! When you did that to the Demi-human girl, didn"t she hate it?"
"Physical contact is important."
That might be correct, but maybe it was best to get the other person"s consent before doing it. Lucia was already one of our valued companions.
"I don"t mind, Mia. Please touch my ears as much as you wish."
Lucia seemed to have recovered her consciousness. Sitting on the floor, she was smiling naturally. In that case, we weren"t going to go easy on her–Mia and I both started rubbing her left and right ears.
Wow, they were so soft.
"Um…sir, why are you feeling them as well?"
"Uh, I…I"m just a little curious about the biological composition of your ears."
I made up an excuse to get by. Arisu made a strange noise and glared at me.
"Senpai, you"re touching them so crudely."
"I think that"s just your imagination."
"Ugh, you speak like that only when you"re lying."
You know me too well, Miss Arisu. I raised my hands in surrender.
Sighing, Arisu raised her head and looked at me. Her face looked slightly red.
"Um, well…could you please also…touch my ears?"
"Er, why?"
"Because you don"t do it a lot."
Really?
Perhaps that was true. After all, I don"t have an ear fetish.
Following her instructions, I gently stroked her earlobes.
Closing her eyes, Arisu made a s.e.xy sound. Um, could she please not?
Glancing to the side, I saw that Tamaki, Lucia, and Mia all looked quite displeased.
"Kaya senpai, you pervert–"
"I don"t deny that I"m perverted, but this is different."
"If this is a cultural incident, then I am willing to accept it without question."
"Please don"t misunderstand, Lucia."
"Yeah! Kaya, you can touch them, but there"s the question of time and place–"
"You don"t have any right to say that!"
We argued for a while.
After that, everyone sat on the ground, including Lucia who could finally think straight again. We sat in a circle.
We needed to take this opportunity to reflect on what we might have improved on in this battle, plus plan for the future. More specifically, what we were planning on doing with Lucia.
"What do you want to do after this battle ends, Lu Lu?"
Mia asked.
"If it"s not too much trouble, I would like to continue fighting alongside you."
"Well, we weren"t planning on continuing to fight. If possible, we wanted to escape the battlefield and go back to our original world…if that"s impossible, then we"ll look for a safe place to stay here."
"That…unfortunately is impossible. This world, after all, is just like Lin described: facing the danger of extinction."
Yeah, I knew that.
Now that we were so involved, we couldn"t be too forgiving in certain arenas…
"But if we get past tomorrow"s crisis, we can do it eventually."
Lucia shook her head slowly.
"No. I"ll make this clearer for you. There are only two outcomes to this battle-one is that humans become extinct, while the other is that we defeat the king of the monsters-the Monster King. There is no in-between. If you want to live a safe life, you must defeat the Monster King. This is what aligns with our goal as well."
"What if we found a way back to our original world?"
"In that case I wouldn"t be able to stop you. Until before you return to your original world, I will follow you. No matter what you want to do, as long as we"re together, my level will rise."
Hm. She was right.
If we wanted to go back to our original world we had to fight the armies of monsters. On the path ahead, battle awaited. We needed information, and all we could provide Miss Lin with was firepower.
"Lu Lu, just that isn"t enough."
"Does that mean I must use my body as payment?"
Moving her face closer to Mia, Lucia brought one of her ears near her. Mia nodded dramatically and began to play with her ears.
Mia squinted contentedly. Seeing her like this, Lucia smiled a bit as well.
These two were already familiar with one another.
No, maybe not. Perhaps she was trying to become as close to us as possible.
"Mr. Kaya, do you want to touch my ears as well? Or do you want to touch some other body part?"
"Oh, that"s fine, no need. Arisu and Tamaki are glaring at me."
"N-no, I wasn"t glaring! I just…I…I don"t have ears as long and pretty as Miss Lucia."
How compet.i.tive was this girl going to get?
From my perspective, it would of course be best if they could compare breast sizes. Of course I couldn"t say something like that.
Even so, Arisu and Tamaki stared up at me.
"Um, hey, senpai. Is it true that guys like long, slender ears?"
"Hold on a sec there. There"s so much wrong with that statement I don"t even know where to start."
I looked helplessly up at the ceiling.
We started talking about ourselves.
Things like our original world, school, and battles since coming to this world.
Lucia told us many facts about the world, like the state of the land, certain species and where they lived, various countries and their affairs. All in all, it was general knowledge about this world.
We started to get to know each other better and better.
When we started to tire, I used my "Banquet summon" to call up a rich variety of food so that everyone could fill their stomachs with food and wine.
Arisu and Tamaki both laughed out loud in their drunkenness; Lucia finished a whole bottle with a calm expression; Mia surprisingly didn"t touch a drop.
"I thought you"d drink a lot because you were curious."
"You have to remain sober if you want to see other people making fools of themselves."
"You"re always acting as if you"re completely drunk."
"To a real otaku, producing a slight bit of internal sedation doesn"t mean anything."
Wow. How impressive.
Now sober, Arisu and Tamaki pretended to sleep with red faces. Mia began to tease them.
I began to ask Lucia about specialized contracts for familiars. Originally I thought she wouldn"t know about them, but just thought that if she knew by any chance I"d be in luck.
"I"ve heard of it."
Lucia"s response was surprising.
"But I don"t know how it works exactly. It"s not really my expertise…"
"Of course. Information isn"t that easy to come by."
"Perhaps Lin knows something. The citizens of light often collect ancient knowledge."
The citizens of light were termed inferior by humans, but they seemed quite knowledgeable.
No matter what, this was good news. We"d ask when we got back.
"Ah, I have another question. The red or blue stones that appear when we defeat the monsters…those are the mana stones you"re talking about? What use do they have other than creating monsters?"
"The original usage of mana stones are in a.s.sisting in rituals. To cast impossible, high-cla.s.s spells, most magicians will use them as energy sources. Lin"s familiar seems to be a mana stone transformed into a servant."
Ah, all right.
Hm, a pity. I was going to say that if they didn"t need them, we could take them all for ourselves.
That way we"d make it to 3000 points quickly enough. If mana stones were supplied in plentiful amounts…there were a lot of things I wanted to buy.
There was nothing to do about it but collect them with hard work like we"ve been doing.
Or maybe we could talk with Miss Lin and get a little bit of communication going…
After sufficient rest, it was time to increase our skills.
After this level-up, Tamaki had nine skill points and could finally raise her swordsmanship to level 9.
Mia"s skill points increased to 8, and she increased her wind magic level to 8.
"I"m finally at level 9–wow, what a touching moment," Tamaki laughed.
Of course, I was also touched. The kind of person who used to wet their pants was already grown so much within a mere day.
"Ah, Kaya senpai"s thinking something rude!"
"That"s just what you think."
"Are you thinking about something like me wetting my pants?"
Tamaki extended a finger to waggle at me.
"That"s just what you think."
"That"s fine. It"s the truth, anyways. Now, facing you guys, getting embarra.s.sed isn"t really…"
Tamaki"s eyes wandered around, finally landing on Lucia.
"I don"t know the exact process, but I"ve heard that many soldiers on the battlefield for the first time lose control of their bowels."
"I don"t need that kind of concern from you!"
Her face red, Tamaki ran to the back.
Ah, she escaped. Well, the room was only as big as a cla.s.sroom, so she hadn"t really escaped…squatting in the corner, Tamaki"s hands were around her knees.
What are you doing?
"It"s fine, I"m just a kid who pees my pants…"
"Um, um, I"ll go and apologize to her."
"Don"t mind her. She"s just bashing herself. That"s how Tamaki"s personality is, she"ll forget it right away, within ten minutes."
"Don"t say something like that where I can hear it!"
Tamaki turned her head around and said this with tears shimmering in her eyes.
"Ah–sorry…then, um, Lucia."
"Ah, yes."
"You"re on the battlefield for the first time as well. Does that mean you peed yourself as well?"
Her head crooked to the side, Lucia had a confused expression on her face.
Hm, I didn"t really know what I was saying either.
"Excuse me…is peeing yourself a good thing in this situation?"
"Oh, yes. If this princess wet herself that would excite me," Mia said, panting hard.
You can shut up already…
"I don"t have that kind of fetish, you don"t have to mind…all right, Tamaki, we"re about to go back."
"Uuh–"
"It"s pretty adorable when Tamaki gets mad like this, but we have more to do in a bit. I want to talk about cooperating and our timing."
"What we must do? What is that?"
"Ahh–I mean saving people along the way."
I explained this to Tamaki as she stood there, dumbfounded for a bit.
Tamaki smiled and put her thumb up. "That"s awesome!" Seems like her mood had gone back to normal.
Arisu: Personal level 23 Spear level 7/Healing Magic 5 Skill points 3
Tamaki: Personal level 23 Swordsmanship level 8->9/Physical 1 Skill points 9->1
Mia: Personal level 23 Earth magic 4/Wind magic 7->8 Skill points 8->0
Lucia: Personal 15 Fire magic 7 Skill points 2
After our detailed discussion ended, we returned to where we were originally.
After returning to the battlefield, Arisu immediately ran to the dying man.
It was the man who had attacked the legendary Arachne without preparation, but forced it into a moment of vulnerability.
"Maintain."
Arisu touched his chest with her hands.
"Maintain", a level 5 healing spell, could maintain someone who had suffered a lethal wound for a short period of time, preventing them from dying immediately, to fight for time to cast healing magic.
After "Maintain" and several other healing spells, the man who was about to take his final breath quickly saw his body became clean again, without even a scratch.
Only his armor was still in tatters, and the blood was still visible on his body.
I offered my hand to the confused man, pulling him to his feet.
"I…I…why am I still alive?"
"Well, let me think about it. I just thought that you got to say all you wanted to say, then died a heroic death…that felt really unfair."
My reasons made him even more exasperated.
"Whatever, no matter. Thanks to you, we were able to defeat the legendary Arachne. Thank you."
"D-don"t say idiotic things like that! I just hate the monsters, but I don"t have the power to defeat them! That"s all I can accomplish!"
"But because the time you bought for us, Arisu and Tamaki made it."
I didn"t really hate him that much. I just thought that all these people intent on vengeance got to die happy deaths…that was an annoying feeling.
"Plus, it"s not cute when guys are tsunderes."
"Tsundere?"
The soldier stared blankly. Ah, I couldn"t really translate a word like that.
He smiled bitterly and shook his head.
"You saved me, I should thank you. I shouldn"t have scolded you like that…I"m sorry. It was my fault. You"re a brave warrior."
After that, he lowered his head and sighed.
"But even if I"m still alive…"
Ah-I made a sound of realization.
He had said that he was avenging his wife and daughter.
He"s already lost what matters most to him. Even if he avenged them, they wouldn"t come back. Perhaps it was better to have died then…that wasn"t a strange thought to him.
"It"s not like that."
I shook my head.
"My companions…I"m not talking about the people here now, but our companions earlier this morning in the mountain, many of them had the same fate that you do. One of them said that if she could kill many of these monsters, it didn"t matter if she died. But I wanted her to live on. Not just me, everyone else thought so too. But…we don"t know how to let her know that we think that."
"So you took me as an experiment?"
"Is that not allowed?"
The man laughed.
"You"ve already done so much for me. I"m not so terrible that I"d be ungrateful. I"m a member of the proud Haza clan."
Looking more closely, I saw that after the defeat of the legendary Arachne, all the Arachne were fleeing.
They were immediately attacked by the bears and wolves and other woodland creatures, as well as the groups of tree people. The elimination was beginning.
"Hey, aren"t you fighting for yourself?"
"Of course, for myself. And…"
I glanced at Arisu and the others, and turned my eyes back to the man.
"Also for my companions."
I announced clearly.
Only now I could say it without holding back.
"After weighing a path where I live on alone, and one where I live on with my companions on a scale…I chose my companions."
Saying that, I smiled at him.