Hazure Skill ‘Mapping’ wo Te ni Shita Ore wa, Saikyou Party to Tomo ni Dungeon ni Idomu

Chapter 15

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Chapter 15
Chapter 15 – ‘Girl Abductor’ vs ‘Crusher’, Round 1

Darkened clouds covered the sky, spreading their gloom everywhere on this day. Erin and I had come to the pub.

The reason was very clear. It was for a meeting. We were about to meet Roslia, the woman that Force wanted to quit the party over. I was to pretend to be fooled by her so that Force could return to his senses.

The meeting time with Roslia approached, and we took our seats while glancing around nervously.

That was when an older lady in a priestess habit—or rather, a woman only a little older than us—entered the pub and made a beeline straight for us. I was taken aback by the unexpected innocence, as-expected beauty, and larger-than-expected chest size.

“Sorry. I’m late,” she said as she lowered her head towards us in regret. Wavy, dark blue hair fell from her shoulder.

Eyes the same deep colour as her hair. Luscious, inviting lips. And a priestess habit tight enough to accent her greatest appeal point.

My sixth sense was warning me. ‘This was the greatest enemy—’.

There was a reason for bringing Erin to this meeting. At a glance, it may have seemed like coming alone would make it easier to pretend to be fooled, but we purposefully chose to avoid that.

Which was also the reason why we called Roslia to this pub.

“What do you think you’re doing, laying your hands on our party member, Force?!”

Erin hit the desk and stood up. Roslia shrunk her shoulders, and the surrounding customers turned their eyes to us.

Yes, we called Roslia out today to talk to her about Force. Anyone would agree that it was the worst possible first move. I was the one who thought of it.

However, I had my reasons. If this is not Binbogami WordPress then it is stolen!

Firstly, it was the quickest way for me to approach Roslia.

There wouldn’t be any opportunity for me to talk to Roslia otherwise, as she was always surrounded by men. Even so, approaching the infamous Roslia myself would only make her wary of me.

Besides, even if Roslia were the one to approach me first, she would soon find out I was a member of the ‘Arrivers’ through my famous nickname ‘Girl Abductor’ that had unfortunately spread through the town.

Roslia had probably already heard that Force was leaving the ‘Arrivers’, which would only make it weird for her not to be suspicious of me approaching her all w.i.l.l.y-nilly.

It was impossible to pretend I wasn’t trying to get between Force and Roslia that way…

So it would make sense for me to just acknowledge the fact I knew about Force and Roslia already and talk that way. Then I could pretend to be fooled from there, as planned.

As a starting point for that, I had to cool Erin’s rage.

“Calm down, Erin. We came to talk it out…”

Erin looked around awkwardly before sitting back down. Exactly as we planned earlier.

We decided to split our roles this time. Erin’s role was to interrogate Roslia, while I had to mediate when Erin got too heated. It was a plan to make me seem like a weak target in comparison to the clear hostility that Erin showed.

That was the true reason why Erin came along.

Erin verbally attacked Roslia exactly as planned, making Roslia respond with feigned innocence, saying, “That wasn’t my intention…” I then called out to Erin to calm her down, rinse and repeat.

If the conversation got too heated, we ran the risk of getting beaten up by summoned lackeys, like in the rumour Jin heard.

They weren’t in my field of vision, but my ‘Enemy Search’ could detect two people observing us. According to my ‘Enemy Search’, they were qu

ite formidable too.

However, they didn’t seem to hold much hostility towards me for the moment, so I kept them in the corner of my mind for now. We intended on halting the plan and fleeing immediately if their hostility rose.

“I’ve had enough!”

In the meantime, Erin suddenly stopped the conversation, suddenly getting to her feet.

…It was the sign that the plan had entered the second stage.

With a parting jeer or two at Roslia and a complaint about my neutral att.i.tude thrown at me, Erin left the store.

Yes. Finally, Roslia and I were alone together.

It took approximately ten minutes to get this far.

After dragging out the plan this far, the battlefield between Roslia and I was finally laid out. A result unequal to the efforts placed.

When I first explained the details of this plan to Erin, Jin, and Neme, they rejected it. There was no need to go that far, they said.

However, they were mistaken. The opponent was a war veteran when it came to men. The strongest master. And my lowly self was challenging that Roslia to battle with nothing but a flattering smile, hiding my emotions.

With that big of a difference in our abilities, it would take this much to simply stand in the same arena together.

This was my fight that the members of the ‘Arrivers’ could never do from their higher position. And it was the only way that my cowardly and useless self could fight.

It was the style I was used to, that started from my days as a stray adventurer that threw away pride to carry luggage, to when I joined the ‘Arrivers’ and trained my arts despite Erin’s dislike for me.

For the sake of my goal, I would use all the hands given to me without worrying about my appearance.

Now, the battle has begun. Roslia.

She probably hadn’t even noticed that the battle had already started. And I had no intention of changing that.

By the time she realised that the fight had started, it would be a one-sided game with a clear victor. This kind of handicap was necessary for a superior opponent like her.

I’d show you, Roslia. How the weak fight.

“There, there. Note didn’t do anything wrong…”

I was being softly patted on the head. My eyes fell shut of their own accord at the velvety sensation of her hand in my hair. Roslia gently picked up my head like that, pulling me towards her.

Following that feeling of comfort, I leaned my head towards that voluptuous chest, leaving my centre of gravity in her—

Wait wait wait.

I instantly slipped out of Roslia’s hands.

I nearly fell for it. I was completely on the brink of death.

If I had let my face sink into that chest and be comforted, my loss would have been decided. There was probably no turning back from there.

I was impressed with myself for stopping myself just in time. And I trembled in fear at the woman called as Roslia, who could launch such a fearsome one-hit KO attack at the slightest chance.

Immediately after Erin had left, Roslia had suggested, “I’m hungry, is it alright if I order food?”

I didn’t want to disband the meeting either, so I agreed with her idea. Then, since this place was also a pub, we naturally started to drink as well. Everything was still normal up to this point, but Roslia’s underhanded tricks were yet to be seen.

First of all, she was exceptionally skilled at getting people to drink.

Because Roslia herself drank to an extent, I had to keep pace on top of her ordering the next drink every time my gla.s.s emptied just a little. Every time she opened a new drink, she would offer, “Shall I order one for you too, Note?”

As a result, despite my intentions to hold back on the alcohol to a certain extent, I got more drunk than I imagined.

I had a little tolerance to alcohol thanks to my binge drinking in the town of Broad, leaving me barely sober enough to be sensible, but if I didn’t have my days as a useless human I would have definitely lost my self-control and probably fall for Roslia.

Furthermore, she was extremely good at listening to people talk.

Roslia was the type to enliven a conversation with her questions and reactions, bringing up topics like what goes on in the ‘Arrivers’ and what I did before that. I knew I had to make the conversation somewhat exciting, so I brought up my go-to story from when I was a stray adventurer—my being dumped by Miya story.

As a result, I was here being comforted by Roslia, having my head patted.

I can’t seem to clearly recall how it ended up like this. It just turned out this way by the time I noticed. Even I don’t understand what happened.

If I had made the wrong choice, I might have been dead. If I had chosen to talk about an episode from when I joined the ‘Arrivers’ instead of about Miya, I believe she would have captured me in her embrace without resistance.

I had felt like something was off inside of me when I decided to talk about Miya.

The reality was that I had not thought of Miya’s name or existence at all in these past few days—no, these few months even. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the old me couldn’t even spend one day without Miya coming to mind. But I was different now.

Perhaps I had finally become able to call an end to one part of my farewell with Miya.

In other words, I had changed. From when I was dragged down by my past and lived a lazy lifestyle. Now I wanted to go forward towards my goal of dungeon clearing.

Perhaps that was why. I didn’t lend an ear to Roslia’s affirmation and acceptances of my past mistakes, to the demoness that whispered sweet words into my heart.

Because wasn’t it so?

The person Roslia was trying to accept was my past self. Not my current self. A so-called different person.

If I had stopped in the pathetic state of my past and didn’t change, I would have lost to her temptations. That was why the fact I hadn’t lost to her was proof of my change, something I was happy about much, much more than her sweet words.

Because of how I had advanced a little, perhaps only just a tiny bit, but a little bit forward from wanting to change myself.

After that, I continued the conversation while avoiding talking about what happened after I joined the ‘Arrivers’ as much as I could. Even I felt susceptible to falling for her if she had acknowledged me after I had changed.

I tried to keep my intentions out of her notice as much as possible, hiding my emotions and chattering on about my old self. Thankfully, I was good at faking my emotions due to my old habits, which allowed me to successfully endure the rest of the drinks without her notice.

“Well then, let’s talk again soon!”

Roslia waved cheerfully at the exit of the pub. It was a very cute gesture.

“Likewise. I had a lot of fun today! I’ll look forward to another opportunity to drink with you!”

I returned with the biggest smile I could make.

Thus, the first round of our battle ended.

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