Chapter 1

First off, a recap of the story so far!

I’m Karina—formerly male, currently female! The Goddess sent me to this world and gave me her power and a body in her likeness in order to settle a personal grudge, and then once my role was over and she didn’t need me anymore, she told me I could do whatever I wanted here from now on! Set loose in this world with an incredibly OP ability called spatial magic, I decided I’d try my hand at being an adventurer in the town closest to me, which turned out to be Solasidore. A lot happened after that, including me purchasing the half-dwarf slave girl, Aishia, and heading to the port town Verald and tussling with some pirates to befriend the cross-dressing elf boy, Dia!

Huh? Dia isn’t actually a cross-dresser, since it was something I forced him to do against his will, you say? Wh-What are you talking about? I don’t recall doing anything like that. If you’re just gonna criticize my actions, get outta here! Shoo! I just wanted to spice things up a little, that’s all! Is that a crime?!

And so, we became a party of three, but more party members means higher living expenses, so I decided to make earning money my next goal. You can’t run a harem when you’re broke, after all! I’ve gotta find some way around here to get rich quick, so that I can add “sugar mommy” to my growing list of careers!

“I’m back, dear Solasidore! Did you miss me?”

At long last, we’d made it back to Solasidore. That said, the return trip itself hadn’t taken long at all. In fact, I could have warped us to the gate in an instant with my teleportation ability, but the time stamps would have looked too suspicious, so we’d padded out the time by hanging out in our spatial magic base for a while.

Upon reaching the gate checkpoint while pulling a dummy merchant’s cart behind me, I showed the guards my Trader’s Guild license. Aishia was a slave and thus my “property,” so she was exempt from inspection. Dia had his own ID, apparently, so I had him use that for now. Once we got into town, the plan was to sign him up as an adventurer and get him a guild license to match mine.

“’Sup, guards! It’s your favorite merchant, Karina Shounin!”

“Thanks for all your hard work,” Dia added.

“Let’s see, a merchant from the Trader’s Guild...and this girl’s your slave? Hmm? But who’s this other girl with you? I need to see her ID too.”

“Er...here.”

“Huh?! I-I’m terribly sorry, miss! You all may pass!” Seeing the pendant Dia produced from his breast, the guard treated Dia quite differently than he had me. It must have been a symbol of his noble status or something, because he didn’t even bother to inspect my cargo. Of course, it wouldn’t have been a problem if he had...but since lube and vibrators were my only inventory at the moment, it would have been a little embarrassing, so it was probably for the best.

“Man...I really want to get a normal ID soon,” Dia mumbled dejectedly as we walked into the town.

Aishia opened her mouth to say something—most likely something along the lines of “so that ID is abnormal, then?” but decided against it. Well, judging from the guard’s reaction, that much was probably obvious to her already.

“Yeah, if we keep using that ID every time, we’re really gonna stand out. Let’s head to the Adventurer’s Guild right away and get you a new one.”

“Thanks, big sis!”

There was no need to hurry and deliver the lube right away, so we headed to the Adventurer’s Guild first.

＊ ＊ ＊

The Adventurer’s Guild was bustling, as usual. And the moment I entered, the other adventurers’ gazes immediately went straight to my boobs. Like I’ve been saying, you guys really need to work on your subtlety...wait, no, a few of them are looking at Dia instead. Well, he is a cute elf cross-dresser, so I can’t blame them.

Meanwhile, Dia’s head was on a swivel as he gawked around at the guild in wonder. Aishia stood behind him to his left with a smug grin, clearly enjoying his reaction.

“Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever been inside an adventurer’s guild! So this is what it looks like!”

“The guild in Verald looks a lot like this too, by the way. Oh, I spy a Blade! Sup, Blade?”

My eyes fell on Blade and his colleagues, hard at work drinking at the bar. Ever since the incident with the orc king, they were now known as the heroes who’d saved the town, so I was glad to see they’d been able to continue their adventurer work like normal despite their newfound fame.

“Yo, Karina! Back from Verald already, huh? I had no doubt you’d return safe, of course, but it’s good to see you all the same. Wait...who’s that elf next to you? A secret love child, perhaps?”

“Yeah, this is my adorable daughter—come on, Blade, you know better than that. Do I really look old enough to have a kid this big?”

“Yeah, I guess not. But she doesn’t look like a slave like the other one, so I assume there are some extenuating circumstances I’m not privy to? Something outrageous, no doubt?”

“Heh heh, well spotted. Dia is...well, as you can see, unbelievably, amazingly cute! But apart from being an oasis for the eyes, she’s also a genius! She’s just so awesome that I had to have her in my party!” I grabbed Dia by the shoulders and pushed him forward as I introduced him to Blade and the others.

“O-Oh, I see,” the veteran adventurer said, his smile strained. “Yeah, she’s cute, all right. The name’s Blade, little girl. Well met.”

“Ah, m-my name’s Dia. It’s nice to meet you.” He gave a polite, formal bow to Blade and his colleagues.

“All right, buddy, let’s get you registered so we can become an adventuring party too!”

“Hey, Karina, did you just call that girl ‘buddy’? Don’t tell me...”

“Oh, that’s because I’m actually a guy,” Dia said.

“I...see. I wouldn’t have guessed...but I suspect that’s probably Karina’s handiwork, so if you ever want an out, just let me know. I can shelter you from her if need be.”

Blade immediately picked up on what was going on just from Dia’s words. But come on, do you really need to treat me like I’m the root of all evil here?

Then Aishia’s face twisted in shock. “Huh?! You’re actually a boy, Dia?!”

“Y-Yeah... Wait, did you not know?! I thought I mentioned it!”

Come to think of it, Aishia had never been present for any of the scenes where Dia had announced he was a guy, had she? So wait, she’d never known? All this time?!

“U-Unbelievable! Even though you’re that cute?!”

Yeah. Even though he’s that cute.

“Even though you’re that cute?!”

“D-Did you really need to say it twice, Aishia?”

“Well, let’s just say Dia’s gender is Dia and leave it at that,” I suggested. “After all, no guy could possibly be that cute. Case in point, look at Blade over there. That’s what a man looks like. And this is what a Dia looks like. Agreed?”

“I-Indeed, something so cute couldn’t possibly identify as a man. Dia is a Dia. Phew.” She let out a sigh of clear relief.

“I-I’m not so sure I agree with that logic...”

“Well, er, you know... Good luck.” Blade said, patting Dia sympathetically on the shoulder.

Yeah, now that they were right next to each other, it was even more obvious how ridiculously cute Dia was, and it made me doubt his real gender even more. Sometimes it even made me want to check for myself. Not that I would.

Dia’s registration was completed in no time. He already had an ID, for one, and unlike with me at first, we had the money to register him this time. He was immediately given the starting rank, Rank F. While I was at it, I decided to ask the receptionist to register the both of us as a party.

“And what will your party name be?”

“Uh... Whoops, I hadn’t really thought that far. Dia, any ideas?”

“Huh? You’re asking me? W-Well, let’s see. Since our main job is mercantile work, and you duplicate stuff, how about ‘The Fakers’?”

“Hey, that’s not bad. Then we’ll go with that.”

“Very well. Then I’ll get the paperwork ready.”

As the receptionist turned away, Dia whispered in my ear. “A ‘faker’ is also someone pretending to be who they aren’t, so I thought that’d be perfect for you, since you’re trying to hide your identity and all.”

“No kidding? You really gave it that much consideration in a split second? You really are a genius!”

“Actually... Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve been thinking about a name for the party for quite a while now...” he mumbled sheepishly.

“Really?! You were looking forward to being in a party with me that much?! Aww... You’re just so adorable!”

Of course, our party was approved. Thus, “The Fakers” were born.

Next, it was time to strike it rich—at least enough to raise Dia’s rank from F to E. I supposed I could do some more logging... Oh, right, I turned in so many before that it caused the market value of lumber to plummet by about half. I’ve already caused a lot of trouble for the lumberjacks of the world, so let’s go with something else this time. Let’s see... Ideally, something simple yet lucrative. Something that would be easy for me, but hard for everyone else. Hmm, what’s this here? “Wild boar extermination?”

Come to think of it, I had hunted some boars back when I was constructing the bath for my secret base. And hadn’t it been somewhere around the area specified on this request? I still had their materials in spatial storage—might as well turn them in. Let’s see here, they want boar fangs, and if possible, some of their pelts as proof of their defeat. Let me just rummage around in here and see what I have...

“Excuse me, miss. I think I might have already hunted the boars detailed in this request, and I have the materials with me. Would you mind taking a look?” I handed over the boar pelts and fangs to the receptionist.

“Not at all, certainly... Ah, yes. These are definitely the wild boars in question. The way these pelts were removed was awfully amateur, and there’s still quite a bit of meat clinging to them, but the pelts themselves look intact at a glance. And they’re still fresh, as though the boars were hunted recently... All right, how does one large silver per party member sound?”

“Oh, does that perhaps mean...” If I recalled correctly, to reach Rank E you needed to make at least a silver’s worth in a month’s time.

“Yes, that’s right. Dia here can technically rank up now. Would you like to proceed with it? I will warn you, leveling up rank as fast as you can doesn’t feel quite as rewarding as taking your time and starting slow, and it can instill dangerous, misplaced confidence besides, so I don’t recommend it.”

Leveling up as fast as you could—power leveling, in other words. I had heard nobles looking to gain influence and recognition sometimes resorted to it, but it was generally frowned upon because those who raised their rank quickly tended to neglect raising their ability to match. And in truth, Dia was something resembling nobility, and I was the one who’d taken down that boar, not him. Yeah, even if I did go through with it, he wouldn’t be gaining anything besides a boost in rank, huh?

“Well, since we’re in a party together, I’d at least like him to get to where his rank matches mine, and merely going from F to E shouldn’t cause any problems anyway. That okay with you, Dia?”

“I’m only going to be adventuring when I’m with you anyway, so I don’t foresee any trouble. Go ahead, miss.”

“Very well. Congratulations on reaching Rank E!”

By the way, you might be wondering, like me, if this was a world record for the fastest jump from Rank F to E. When I asked, the receptionist said that while this was the fastest she’d seen, the occasional adventurer would power level and reach Rank E similarly quickly, so Dia’s rank-up here wasn’t particularly worthy of special mention. Damn.

Anyway, now that Dia’s rank was E, I asked Blade and the others to look after him and Aishia for a while and train them in the art of adventuring.

“Dia, I’m going to go take care of some business, so in the meantime, I want you to listen to Blade and the others while they show you and Aishia the ropes. The drunker they get, the more they’ll show you. Trust me, I know from experience.”

“Hold up, Karina, are you asking us to babysit?”

“Yo, bartender! Give my buddies here another round of drinks and snacks, on me! Oh, and give them credit equal to the cost of a meal for two people as well.”

“Leave it to us, Karina! We’ll turn these two into the best adventurers you’ve ever seen!”

Quick on the uptake as always, eh, Blade? That’s what I like about you.

“Guess you’ll be in my care, Dia,” he said.

“Y-Yes, Mr. Blade! I’ll do my best!”

“Aishia, I want you to watch and make sure Blade and his guys don’t take advantage of him.”

“It shall be done, master.”

“Hey now, we ain’t gonna lay a hand on someone else’s girl—er, guy. A-Anyway, you don’t have to worry about that with us.”

If you say so, Blade. I left them to it and headed outside. Where was I going, you might ask? Where else? To deliver the lube to Harumikazuchi at Shunrai! Sorry, Dia, but having you accompany me to Harumikazuchi’s place would be bad for your upbringing—after all, this was an establishment for adults only! And just on the off chance I ended up spending the night there, Blade and the others were looking after him, so now I didn’t have to worry!

With that reassurance, I was in such high spirits I practically skipped over to Shunrai. The sun was still high in the sky, so the store had yet to open, but I wasn’t visiting as a customer. I was here as a delivery girl. Heading to the rear entrance, I knocked on the door. “Excuse me! Anyone here?”

“Well, if it isn’t Karina! Made it back from Verald with no problem, then?”

“Hey, Harumikazuchi! Yeah, I just got back, and I’ve got your lube, just like you wanted!”

“Oh, you do? In that case, come on in! I can’t offer any drinks right now since it’s off-hours, but I can at least brew some tea.”

Heh heh, she was just as much of a looker as always. And her personality was great to boot. Not to mention the shape of her breasts, her thighs, and that bewitching lady-of-the-night musk she exuded... Oh man, it was driving me crazy! As I followed her into the building, her lustrous tail waving back and forth as she walked in front of me looked far too inviting. I wanna stroke it! I wanna sniff it! But she’d probably kill me if I did, so I’ve gotta hold back!

She led me over to a table. We sat down, then began talking business. “Now then, let’s see the goods,” she said. “You didn’t bring me any of the cheap stuff, I hope?”

“Nope! Here you go!” I took out thirty-three pouches of lube. They covered every square inch of the table.

“Er... I know I told you to get some for me, but I wasn’t expecting you to buy all this,” she said a little hesitantly.

“Well, I figured more is always better, right?”

“True, and that’s probably on me for not telling you exactly how many to get. Now, as for the quality...hmm.” She wet her finger with a little saliva, dabbed it in the powder, then licked it off. She nodded to herself, as though she’d come to a conclusion. Honestly, waiting for her verdict was pretty nerve-racking.

“The quality’s outstanding... If you bought these for a silver per pouch, I can’t imagine you’d profit.”

“W-Well, it’s true I did buy them at market price, but through some haggling, I was able to get some extra stuff as well. So in that sense, I felt like I came out on top.” She wasn’t wrong, though—if I’d needed to pay transportation expenses or labor costs on top of what I’d bought, I would have been way in the red.

“Are you sure you’re really cut out to be a merchant?” she asked, sounding doubtful. “I fully expected you to just come back with two or three pouches out of whatever money you could spare. In fact, if a merchant ever came to me with this much stock, I’d immediately suspect they were trying to fleece me by mixing a bunch of fakes in with the genuine article.”

“Well, you know, it was a request from you, so I just wanted to do the best I could for my favorite fox lady!”

“Honestly, you really are hopeless,” she said with a shrug and the slightest hint of a smile. “Well, if I’m buying this much, I’m sure you won’t mind if I offer you a little less for a package deal. Four silvers for every three pouches, for a total of forty-four silvers.” She hesitated for a moment. “And since they’re in such good condition, I’ll give you a bonus silver, making it forty-five.”

“Huh? Are you sure? Wow, Harumikazuchi, you’re the best! You’re so big-boned... I-I mean, big-hearted!”

“Excuse me?! Did you just call this lean, toned figure of mine ‘big-boned’?!”

“I-I’m sorry, I misspoke!” I got down on the floor and kowtowed before her, apologizing with all my heart. I gotta be more careful! Even if it was an accident, calling women fat is the one thing you absolutely never do! “B-But are you sure it’s really okay to pay me that much?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Forty-five silvers is nothing. I’ll make that much back and more just by selling these to other local establishments.”

“Oh, so that’s your plan. I see!”

“Now hurry up and get your card out before I change my mind.”

Using our Trader’s Guild licenses, we made the transaction, and the deal was sealed. Cha-ching!

“Oh right, Harumikazuchi, I almost forgot. I also made this. Take a look.”

“Hmm? What the heck is this? Some sort of polelike object with a sphere on the end?”

I showed her the massager Dia and I had collaborated on. This was the wholesome version—naturally, since Dia had made it. It was made with absolutely nothing erotic in mind whatsoever—and yet, somehow, I was convinced Harumikazuchi would take a liking to it.

“It’s called the Electro-Massager. So basically, there’s a switch here, and when you press it, the sphere on the end vibrates, like so...”

“I...see? So it’s a vibrating magical item. The Electro-Massager, you said? Indeed, I can see how something like this would be good for my shoulders. With my boobs being so big, it tends to get awful stiff around there.”

“By the way, there are other places besides your shoulders you can use it too. Like, for instance...”

“Oh? OH! W-Wait, you don’t mean...? B-But wouldn’t that...hurt?”

“Wanna see for yourself? If you think this one’s too big, I’ve got smaller ones here with me too. That said, they’re all still prototypes, but I think you’ll understand when you try it!”

“Hyaaa! Hnnn... K-Karina! Wh-What do you think you’re... Ooohhh... Mmm! Oh, yeah, that’s the spot right there...”

In the end, after getting a rousing approval from Miss Harumikazuchi, I sold a set of prototypes to her for an additional five silvers. Hell yeah! Now I knew they worked, and that they’d sell if I made more of them. Anyway, our business talk lasted quite a while longer after that, and before I knew it, it was already evening.

“Whew, I was enjoying myself so much I lost track of time...but at least I got to see my favorite gorgeous fox girl in all sorts of cute positions.”

Hey now, don’t get the wrong idea. It really was just business, promise! We just moved upstairs to a room where she could try the products out in private before buying them, that’s all. Still, her lips were so soft when I kissed her... Oh no, I’m blushing just thinking about it. I don’t have any memory of the first time, so getting another chance to experience it truly was lovely. Plus, I got to test the Electro-Massager out in all sorts of ways!

Oh, by the way, the products I’d sold her today weren’t copies—we’d actually spent material to make them, using a combination of stuff I’d looted from the pirates and things I’d gathered from the mountains. And now that a beauty like Harumikazuchi had tried them out, I could truly call the work complete. There was no greater height to strive for than satisfying a hot fox lady, after all. Heh heh heh.

While we were at it, Harumikazuchi gave me some advice from an experienced merchant’s perspective as well. She’d suggested I make as many of them and sell them as quickly as I could before other people started jumping on the bandwagon and creating their own versions, especially since they were so simple to make. She’s so kind... I love you, Harumikazuchi! But to be honest, I wouldn’t really mind if that happened. If someone ended up making a vibrator better than mine, I certainly wouldn’t complain!

In fact, at this point I’d just about decided to limit my magecraft to a hobby rather than a full-on profession. I could still make a little money on the side while doing it, and my main job was supposed to be buying and selling goods to begin with, not making them. Karina Shounin was supposed to be a merchant first and foremost!

Oops, I almost forgot. I’d better go pick up Dia and Aishia before it gets too late. Let’s see... Spatial magic, search for those two! Looks like they’re still in the guild with Blade and the others. All right, I’ll teleport there right away!

“Dia, Aishia, I’m back! Sorry for making you wait so long!”

“Oh, big sis! Welcome back! I guess your business talk went well?”

Dia and Aishia both ran over to me with big grins on their faces. Guh! Sorry, you two. If Harumikazuchi hadn’t kicked me out so she could open her store, I probably would have stayed until morning without a second thought! Your pure smiles are blinding me! Rather, I feel like I’m being purified too!

“Yeah, it went off without a hitch!” I replied. “In fact, I was able to sell those massagers you made in a set for five silvers!”

“Wow, you got that much for those?! I’m so happy to hear that!”

“So now we’re going to use that yield as capital to buy even more materials, increase our output, and sell even more! That said, they’ll be a much harder sell once other people start making copies and counterfeits, but I’ll give you a cut of the profit until then!”

Dia would do the developing, and I’d be in charge of increasing the inventory. Aishia was good with her hands too, so maybe I’d have her pitch in as well. I couldn’t exactly copy any materials I planned to sell, but I could definitely use spatial magic to streamline the manufacturing process.

“Hey now, Karina, you sure did take your time out there. You’re not even going to say hi to us?”

“Oh yeah, thanks a bunch, Blade. Bartender, some glasses of water and dinner for these three, please. Actually, make that six—Dia, Aishia, and I will join in!”

“What, no booze?” Blade said with a pout.

“I mean, you guys have probably been drinking all day, right? It’s time to hydrate already.”

“Well, you’re not wrong there. I guess you can be pretty considerate after all, huh?”

We all shared a laugh at that. Thanks to my time with Harumikazuchi, I was in high spirits and feeling especially generous. I didn’t mind treating Blade and the boys at all.

“Wow, this sandwich is so good!” Dia exclaimed. “The vegetables are so crunchy, and the smell of this butter is just divine!”

“Hey, Dia, elves are vegetarians, right?” Blade asked. “Just so you know, that sandwich does have ham in it.”

“Oh, Blade, that’s just a myth. We elves eat meat just like anyone else. In fact, we even farm livestock back in my hometown.”

“Dia’s birthplace... That would be the elf kingdom?” Aishia asked. “I’ve always wanted to go there at least once.”

It sounded like Dia and Aishia were really getting along with Blade and the others...and leaving me out of the conversation! It was like having two little sisters who adored me but were getting along with my friends instead!

“Shildon, Sekko, how did Dia and Aishia do with you three?”

“They were both absolute angels. Blade’s ‘You’ll be a great adventurer someday, I know it’ count even reached twenty!”

“Hey, Karina,” Sekko ventured, “is that Dia kid really a boy? He sure does act pretty girly. Like the way he tilts his head when you ask him a question, or how he always sits with his legs closed like he’s worried about you looking up his skirt.”

Oho ho, that would be the result of my special “conditioning.” It looked like staring directly at his crotch every time he sat with his legs open had paid off.

“Incidentally, you guys know of any jobs I can do that pay well?”

“Why, when you can just do some more logging and... Oh, yeah, I guess we don’t want to upset the lumberjacks any more than they already are.” Blade groaned as he mulled it over. “Oh, but what about going into a dungeon? I was just telling Dia about it before you came in, in fact.”

A dungeon, huh? Wait, a dungeon?! Awesome!

“Tell me more!”

“So there’s a town nearby, Carcassa, that has a dungeon inside. It’s always teeming with monsters, meaning there’s plenty of resources and materials for the taking. It’d be a great place to rack up money, but our party’s more suited to gathering quests than actual combat, so it’s not an option for us. It oughta be a breeze for you, though.”

“Wait, you guys are mainly gatherers?”

“That’s right. That’s why we had to become heroes by coincidentally finding a magical item that powered us up, you see?” he said with a hint of irritation.

Right, that was the story they’d used, wasn’t it? Thanks for cleaning up my mess with a reasonable explanation, and sorry!

“Still, a dungeon, huh?” I mused. “Now that’s my idea of adventuring!”

“I know, right?! I’m glad you understand, Karina! You’re right, when it comes to adventuring, there’s nothing like exploring a dungeon!”

“But we’re not actually going, right, Blade?” Sekko said, a hint of pressure in his voice. Apparently he didn’t find the idea of heading to a claustrophobic, dangerous place appealing at all.

“The tribe’s spoken, so I guess not,” he said with a shrug. “You just go and enjoy in my place, Karina.”

“Can do!”

And so, our next destination was set—Carcassa. A town full of adventure and moneymaking—it sounded perfect to me!

“Master, do you have a moment?”

“Hmm? What’s up, Aishia?”

“I heard through the grapevine that apparently, the slave vendor here is getting reopened under new management. What’s more, they’ve got a lot of stock incoming. This might be another good opportunity to turn a profit.”

“Oh, you don’t say? Now that’s my Aishia! Always putting that minstrel’s ear of yours to good use!”

“Eh heh heh... You can pet my head too if you want, you know.”

According to Aishia, the slaves were all coming from the Kingdom of Alchemy. In order to make ends meet, the refugees there had needed to either sell themselves into slavery, get sold off by their families, or sell the slaves they’d already owned. And since Solasidore was the closest town to the kingdom’s borders, the slave trading post here was being overrun with them all. By the way, thanks to this influx of refugees, news of the kingdom’s downfall had finally reached the general public.

“Aw, man. I really wanted to visit the Kingdom of Alchemy someday too, and now I can’t ’cause it’s gone,” Dia lamented. Because he’d gotten so into alchemy recently, he’d wanted to see what was considered the hallowed ground of alchemy for himself and was extremely disappointed to learn that the kingdom was no more. Like becoming a fan of a band after hearing one of their songs, only to learn that the band had long since called it quits.

Yeah... If he went there now, all he’d see would be ruins, so there’d be no point. And sorry, Dia, but that was all thanks to the Goddess I follow. Although, if only that geezer hadn’t called himself the God of Destruction, she wouldn’t have had to act! But then again, if the Goddess hadn’t plotted to destroy the kingdom, I wouldn’t have been summoned to this world, and I wouldn’t have been able to come to Dia’s rescue. So it all balanced out...right? Yeah, let’s go with that!

＊ ＊ ＊

We said our farewells to Blade and the others and returned to base. But before heading to Carcassa, I decided I’d come up with a plan to make money off the newly reinstated slave trading post. After all, those guys seriously made bank. I should know.

“What if we sell healing magic to the new slave trader?” Dia exclaimed.

“Oh, good idea.”

Slave traders had strong ties to the government. Even for a criminal, getting bought as a slave was the last safety net they had, and with fewer of them on the streets, the towns would be safer overall—such was the intent behind the government acknowledging and supporting the slave trade.

However, it also meant the slave traders weren’t allowed to refuse to purchase a slave. That meant they’d have to buy severely injured or otherwise disabled slaves that no one would normally have given a second glance. To turn a profit on those slaves, they would need to be healed, and of course, it would be far more profitable for the trader to get them sold off rather than letting them perish. That was where my business opportunity presented itself.

Well, I’m talking like I came up with the idea, but let’s give credit where credit is due—this was all Dia. He’s so smart! Also, he suggested something else: a way to separate my two personas as a merchant and as a mage from each other! It went something like this:

〜・〜・〜・〜・〜・〜・〜・〜

“My name is Dummina Fakerton (the name is a work in progress)! I have the ability to heal your sick daughter! All I ask is that you pay me five gold in return! Oh, and a pair of your daughter’s socks!”

“F-Five gold?! That’s a ridiculous sum! And why do you want my daughter’s socks, you lech?! Though if it’s for my daughter... Fine, you win! I’ll pay!”

“That’s what I wanted to hear! Now, random merchant that just happens to be passing by, I’ll need to buy some items from you for the treatment! Oh, and make the receipt out to Dummina Fakerton (name a work in progress)!”

“Sure thing! Thanks for your business!” (Karina the merchant heals the girl in secret).

“Now then, let the healing ritual begin! Abracadabra... Presto! (The girl’s already healed now, so this part is just an act). Phew. All right, it’s done! I’ll be taking my payment and pair of socks now. Next time you need healing, remember the name Dummina Fakerton (name a work in progress)! Got it? Dummina Fakerton (name a work in progress)!”

“Guh! It’s true, you really did save my daughter! But five gold... That’s highway robbery! Curse you, Dummina Fakerton! And how perverted are you to ask for my daughter’s socks on top of that?! Damn you, vile Dummina! Damn you to helllll!”

〜・〜・〜・〜・〜・〜・〜・〜

Something like that, probably. In other words, using body doubles to make my mage persona look like a swindler and a sock-loving pervert, then having the merchant Karina happen to walk by and covertly do the healing under the guise of selling the requisite goods to my mage persona! Thus creating a good cop, bad cop situation that allows Karina Shounin to maintain her reputation as a pure, righteous, wholesome girl!

Maria had seen through my eye mask disguise plan right away, but if two of me existed at the same time and in the same place, I couldn’t possibly be found out! So I asked Aishia for her assistance. “Let’s try it out, Aishia! Can I use you as a model?”

“With pleasure!”

First I used the spare masts from the pirates’ hideout to create a cloth robe as part of the disguise. Then I used spatial magic to lift the top of the robe up slightly, so that it would look like the wearer had a hunchback. This gimmick would serve to camouflage Aishia’s actual height. Then I used spatial magic combined with a mask to conceal her face. While I was at it, I added some wrinkles and creases to her hands, making her skin look less firm. As a finishing touch, I gave her a cane.

“Now to disguise your voice. I’ll change it back later, so don’t worry. Now give me an ‘aah.’”

“Yes, gladly! Aaaahhh... Ahh, ahh, ahh!” As she vocalized, I changed her clear, youthful voice to a withered croak befitting an old hag.

“Wow, big sis! You turned her into a shady-looking crone in no time!” Dia looked visibly impressed, his mouth open in astonishment.

“Well, now that I’ve got your approval, Dia, I can consider my work fully complete! Now to give her a name... Obviously not Dummina Fakerton. Let’s see... Eville Darktarou? Or maybe Ima Pervert?”

“She’s supposed to be a healer, so how about just ‘Hira’?”

“I see! Yeah, that sounds more natural.” All that effort thinking up those names, and Dia just comes up with the perfect one immediately... Well, whatever. It’s fine.

“Still, I’m surprised you can use your magic to transform someone like that!”

“Cool, right? By the way, I can also do stuff like this.” I used my spatial magic on my breasts, and in the blink of an eye, my chest became completely flat. I puffed out my new washboard chest with pride and grinned at Dia smugly.

Dia immediately noticed what was different. “Y-Your chest disappeared?!”

“Heh heh, I just used spatial magic to teleport it to another room. Normally concealing one’s boobs would require you to eliminate something that should be there, which I can’t really do too easily with this magic. So isn’t this impressive?”

After all, it was easy to add space to pad chests, but taking body parts off required amputation. It wasn’t impossible, but it’d be a pain and take a lot of time. Anyway, was it just me, or was there a draft in here?

“Honestly, I’m shocked... I never knew you were capable of that,” Dia said.

“Actually, you want to borrow ’em instead?” I said. I snapped my fingers, and my boobs moved over to Dia’s flat chest. This was my secret spatial technique, “Lend-A-Chest!”

“Ooh, nice! A big-titted loli elf! Not bad, not bad! They look normal on me, but because you’re so small, they look gigantic on you!”

And what’s more, I didn’t feel that draft now! My boobs weren’t cold when they were on Dia! So if I ever needed to hide them, I could just leave them with him!

“H-Huh?! I-I’ve got boobs?! I-I can’t see anything below them!”

“Hwah?! W-Wait, Dia, don’t—”

Dia used his hands to lift my breasts up, as though supporting them from below. But since they were my boobs and still connected to my body... Mgh! O-Oh no, he’s squeezing them as though checking their softness! Nnn... I’m gonna go nuts!

“Wh-Whoa, they’re so soft...and warm...incredible.”

“Hold on, Dia! Let me cop a feel too!” Aishia interjected. “I’ve gotta check this for myself. Wow, they really do feel real.”

Et tu, Aishia?! And she was going at it with even more gusto! N-No, not the nipples!

“H-Hey, Dia? Aishia? C-Can I speak with you two a moment?”

“Yes, what is it, big sis?” he said, continuing to grope.

“Hwaaah?! U-Um, th-those are my boobs still, actually. They look like they’re on you, but they’re still attached to me, technically... Nnn.”

“Huh?! O-Oh! I-I’m so sorry, big sis! Forgive me!”

“I-I’m sorry, master!” Dia and Aishia let go of my chest right away. Phew, that was close. Any longer, and I might’ve awakened to some new, strange fetish. Damn, I forgot a guy’s first instinct upon getting boobs was always gonna be to grope them! Just like when I first got them! And, er, like I’d done immediately after waking up every morning since.

Come to think of it, couldn’t I also use this method to separate Dia from his manhood, making him even more feminine? Maybe I should try it sometime.

We rested in the base for the remainder of the day, then the next morning we headed out to the slave trading post. Aishia was with me in her Hira disguise. When we got there, the place was absolutely packed—far more people than the last time I was here.

As far as I could tell, most of them were slaves waiting to be sold. Perhaps because the place was so crowded, it looked like they were just waiting outside, still clothed in the outfits they’d been wearing upon getting sold, which made them look almost indistinguishable from normal citizens—and that made sense, considering they were refugees from the now-defunct Kingdom of Alchemy. They were a little grimier than regular townsfolk, but that was the only difference. And most likely, the crowd was the result of all of those refugees getting bought by the Solasidore slave trader. The ones that didn’t sell here would no doubt be shipped to other towns later down the line.

Aishia and I entered the building. The inside was much cleaner than before, which was nice to see.

“Excuse me!”

“Yes, welcome. Are you buying, selling, or trading? If an untrained slave is good enough for you, we’re running a discount right now. After all, there are more slaves out there than I know what to do with at the moment. How many would you like?”

A man came out from the back, proceeding forward using a cane. This was probably the establishment’s new owner.

“Oh, no, I just came to make a small offer. Actually, if you can spare the time, I’d like to have a business discussion. I made a deal with the former owner here, you see... Did you hear anything about how the slaves were medically treated before, by chance?”

It wasn’t a lie—I did sell the former owner some perfume, which counted as a deal. However, I deliberately blurred the line between that topic and this one in order to make myself seem more reputable to do business with.

“Oh! You weren’t the one who supplied that legendary ambrosia potion by any chance, were you?!”

“Huh? No, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But...I do think you’ll be satisfied with what I am offering.”

“Oh, I see.” He looked a little disappointed. “Well, what kind of medical care for the slaves do you have in mind?”

“Yes, well, you see, this lady here is named Hira, and she can use magic to restore a slave’s missing limbs and such. If you ever have any slaves who are in critical condition, she can heal them right up. That’s the service I came here to offer.”

“Huh?” He instantly looked wary. Well, after having some random stranger come up and claim to be some quack-sounding doctor, I couldn’t blame him. I probably would have reacted the same way if I were in his shoes.

“I know it sounds dubious, so how about we give you a demonstration first? For just this one time only, we’ll heal one slave for free. Feel free to pick the one in the worst condition too. Then, if you’re satisfied, we’ll offer our services to you for a nominal...monthly fee...”

As the trader’s gaze became more intense, my voice became weaker, until I finally lost my nerve and it trailed off. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all...

“Oh, is that so?” he finally said. “In that case, try healing this leg of mine.” He popped his left leg off—apparently, it was a prosthetic. “A long time ago, it got crushed by a wagon. Think you can bring it back to normal?”

“Oh, we sure can! Come, Hira, let’s make the preparations and start right away!”

Hell yeah, now’s my chance! And I’m not gonna let it go to waste!

#Side: Slave Trader

The previous owner of this establishment was found to have sold slaves through illegal means and was arrested. Apparently he escaped after that, and his whereabouts were now unknown, but my guess was that he ended up as monster food since the stampede was going on around the same time.

At any rate, I became Solasidore’s slave trader in his place. That meant, unfortunately, that it fell to me to wipe his ass and clean up the mess he’d left. My predecessor turning to crime had tarnished the reputation of this establishment, and people were already looking at me with rebuking gazes. Thanks to him, I’d have to stay on the up-and-up at least for the next few years—or so I thought, until I learned that the neighboring kingdom had fallen to ruin.

This was, of course, a major development, and it was no less seismic for the slave trade as well. In fact, that was the trade most affected, since the influx of refugees from a fallen kingdom meant an influx of goods. And unlike my predecessor, I planned to handle their buying and selling through legal and honest means—which was why right now, I had an overabundance of stock.

“Excuse me!”

“Yes, welcome. Are you buying, selling, or trading?”

Hearing someone come in and call for assistance, I poked my head out and saw quite the curious pair—a petite girl and a fishy-looking old crone. As for why she looked so fishy, she was clad head to toe in robes, she was using a cane to walk, and she was wearing a mask. It was clear as day that for whatever reason, she didn’t want anyone to recognize her by her original appearance.

That said, if they were looking to buy, I’d welcome their money all the same, but apparently that wasn’t the reason they were here.

“Oh, no, I just came to make a small offer,” the girl said. “Actually, if you can spare the time, I’d like to have a business discussion. I made a deal with the former owner here, you see... Did you hear anything about how the slaves were medically treated before, by chance?”

The first thing that came to mind was the legendary medicine ambrosia the former slave trader had possessed, which was said to be capable of increasing one’s lifespan. “Oh! You weren’t the one who supplied that legendary ambrosia potion by any chance, were you?!”

“Huh? No, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But...I do think you’ll be satisfied with what I am offering.”

“Oh, I see.” Alas, I’d apparently been mistaken. Ambrosia was so rare that it wasn’t the sort of thing you could obtain simply by amassing enough money, and the government had confiscated the ambrosia my predecessor had acquired, sold it, and distributed the proceeds to his victims and their families. In fact, the main reason I’d bought my way in as the next slave trader of Solasidore was that I’d wanted some sort of connection to acquiring this incredible potion for myself. “Well, what kind of medical care for the slaves do you have in mind?” I ventured, humoring her.

“Yes, well, you see, this lady here is named Hira, and she can use magic to restore a slave’s missing limbs and such. If you ever have any slaves who are in critical condition, she can heal them right up. That’s the service I came here to offer.”

“Huh?” I couldn’t help but grunt in suspicion. If that old woman really had the power to restore missing limbs, she would have already gotten in good with the government or church and be living on easy street. In other words, she’d have no business in a place like this; therefore, the girl was almost certainly embellishing the crone’s ability. The old woman might have been able to close up wounds with her magic—although that would have been pretty impressive in itself—but that was most likely the limit of what her healing could do.

“I know it sounds dubious, so how about we give you a demonstration first? For just this one time only, we’ll heal one slave for free. Feel free to pick the one in the worst condition too. Then, if you’re satisfied, we’ll offer our services to you for a nominal...monthly fee...”

The swindler faltered as my glare became more intense, I noticed. With a sigh, I gave my answer. “Oh, is that so? In that case, try healing this leg of mine.” As I spoke, I popped off my prosthetic left leg. Ten years ago, I’d lost it in an accident while traveling. The wound still throbbed on rainy days.

Even if she were telling the truth about the crone’s ability, I seriously doubted she’d be able to do anything about this wound. By the time I’d made a church superior’s acquaintance, too much time had already passed for him to heal it, and even priestesses who were said to restore severed limbs had told me there was nothing they could do.

“A long time ago, it got crushed by a wagon. Think you can bring it back to normal?” Fully expecting the swindler to give up here and turn tail, there was a hint of a smirk on my face as I asked.

But to my surprise, the girl beamed and agreed immediately. “Oh, we sure can! Come, Hira, let’s make the preparations and start right away!”

The crone nodded. “Yes, Miss Shounin. Let us set up the ritual.” The voice was withered and deep like an old man’s.

“Let’s see, we’ll need this, and this...” the girl mumbled, busying herself. “All right, sir, just lie down right here, if you please.”

They had me lie down on a couch. I’d made sure to station armed guards around the room, so it wasn’t like I was defenseless here, but I couldn’t help but feel anxious all the same.

“Relax, I’m just getting things ready,” the girl insisted. “Don’t mind me, I’m just an average, run-of-the-mill helper, that’s all.” As she spoke, she set several small items around the couch I was lying on, positioning them as the elderly healer indicated. She also wrapped the stump of my left leg in cloth after wiping it with a brush, which felt itchy and uncomfortable.

“No need to be so tense, really! Just relax!” the girl said. “Oh, all this stuff? It’s just perfume. It makes the room smell good, doesn’t it?”

At that moment, a sweet smell did indeed tickle my nostrils.

“All right, doc, everything’s ready! Do your stuff!” the girl exclaimed.

“Very well, we’ll begin the ritual at once. Sir, please focus on the ceiling while the procedure is underway. That’s right, just like that. Do not look away. Now then, ahem... Jugemu jugemu, goko-no, surikire...”

The old woman recited an incantation I’d never heard before. And perhaps it was just my imagination, but as she spoke, the stump of my left leg almost seemed to stir on its own with restlessness. How long is this itchiness going to go on, anyway? Whoa, what are you putting on my face?!

“Kuunerutokoro-ni sumutokoro, yaburakoji-no burakoji...”

“Relax, relax. Sorry about this,” the girl said, and she placed a cloth over my face, obscuring my vision. I couldn’t see anything, but the old woman kept chanting. What exactly were they planning to do now that they’d blinded me?! Damn swindlers!

“Ponpokopi-no ponpokona-no, chokyumei no chousuke!”

The sharp sound of a clap rang out, then the room fell silent. Was... Was the ritual over?

“It’s done. See for yourself.”

“Okay... Huh?! Wait, what?!” Once the cloths on my face and leg were removed, I sat up and glanced at my leg, which, admittedly, no longer itched. And there it was, my original leg, just as it had been ten years ago. As though it had always been there.

“M-My leg... It’s back!”

“Indeed,” the crone named Hira said with a sagacious nod. I could wiggle my toes just like before! It really was my leg! It wasn’t a hallucination or product of some bizarre hypnosis—it was the real deal!

“So, how about it? Want to make a contract?” the swindler girl—no, she and her healer companion really were genuine after all—asked.

I immediately bowed to Lady Hira in shame. “I’m so sorry for doubting you, ma’am! Please, what can I do for you to show my gratitude?!”

“Just entering into a contract with us is all I need,” the girl said. “Normally, we charge five gold per heal.”

“F-Five gold?!” That was all? They were performing miracles that only the divine could pull off and charging only five gold?! Normally it cost around ten gold just to get a severed limb reattached, let alone completely heal a ten-year-old wound and restore a missing leg!

“Wh-What’s the catch?” I asked.

“No catch. Five gold per heal is all we’re asking,” the girl serving as Hira’s intermediary said. “So? Want to make a contract?”

“Ngggh...” Now even the intermediary was telling me I didn’t need to pay them any more money! But if they were already talented enough to carry out such a divine miracle, there was no way they didn’t know the market for healing services. And even if she were young, the healer had brought someone with her who knew how to draw up a contract. There had to be some ulterior motive here!

“We’ll come here once a month,” she said. “Each time we show up, we’ll heal five of your slaves, for five gold each. Sound good?”

“All right. Five gold per heal, then, just like you said. I have no problem with that.” I nodded in agreement at the incredible proposal—the deal was extremely in my favor. Capable slaves whom I’d paid less than a gold coin for because they were disabled would be worth ten times as much once their limbs were restored. It was almost too good to be true.

“Oh, right, I almost forgot. I know you said it’d be free this time, but can I at least pay you an intermediary fee for introducing me to this healer?”

“Oh, right, you would typically pay a fee to someone like me, wouldn’t you? Let’s see... Then can I ask for the same as the cost of treatment, five gold?”

“Yes, no problem! Here you go!” I gladly handed over the five gold pieces. Honestly, I wouldn’t have hesitated to pay a hundred gold for what they’d accomplished here.

“Very well, with that all settled, we’ll be back next month! We look forward to working with you!”

“See you later,” Hira said.

“Yes, I’ll be warmly expecting your next visit, Lady Hira!” Elated that someone so capable would perform their services for my business, I bowed my head in gratitude once again.

#Side: END

And so, not only did I make a profit, I secured a continuous source of income! I’d been a little worried that five gold might be an overcharge for a mere intermediary fee, but the man agreed to it, so it must have sounded reasonable after all. Healing is quite the lucrative profession, I guess!

“Heh heh, exactly the maximum amount I could have asked for,” I said, looking smug and acting like I’d planned it all along.

“Yes, it worked just like you said it would, master!” Aishia exclaimed. “I’m sure the slaves will all be grateful to you as well!”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be Hira right now, not my slave, remember? You can’t just agree with everything I say; it’d look too unnatural.”

“O-Oh, you’re right, my apologies! I’ll be more careful!”

Guh... I’d gotten so used to her yes-man routine that I almost hadn’t caught it! She wasn’t a beastperson, and yet when I looked at her I couldn’t help but imagine her with floppy dog ears and a tail... Maybe I ought to fashion a dog-ear hairband and detachable tail for her in the near future. It’d suit her for sure.

When I got home and bragged to Dia about the five gold pieces I’d earned, his eyes glittered with admiration as well. “Oh, what a great plan! I’m a little disappointed I didn’t come up with it myself, but I’d expect nothing less from you, big sis!” Heh heh heh... I’m a genius, I know.

“Wait, what am I doing?! I’ve got to go compose a song lauding master’s efforts right away!” Aishia gasped, as though something vitally important had slipped her mind.

“Oh, er... Well, that’s okay, Aishia. You don’t need to go that far. If you’re composing a song, just, uh, make it about Hira’s efforts instead!”

“Oh, I see! Write it as though you’re Hira—why didn’t I think of that? It’s brilliant!”

With that, Aishia dashed back to her room. Well, at least I could use the money from Hira’s efforts to improve the quality of life for everyone here! Goodbye ratty, poorly made futon and secondhand beds I took from the pirates, and hello luxurious new sleeping quarters!

＊ ＊ ＊

Now that I had a reliable source of income set up, it was time to check out that dungeon in Carcassa that Blade had mentioned! Dungeon diving—what better way to stimulate the sense of adventure? I love things like this!

That said, Carcassa was so far away that it would take over a month to get there on foot, and even if I teleported, having to kill all that time doing nothing before going in would be a pain, and boring besides. I could buy a horse and buggy to make the trip a little faster, I supposed... Wait, why buy it when I can just make some wheels myself? With a car, I could make the monthlong journey in about three days, probably! Come to think of it, if there are already golems in this world, why hasn’t anyone made vehicles yet? Maybe they don’t have fuel here? Well, I’ve got spatial magic, so I don’t need that! Plus, now that I’ve got “Hira,” I can use her to explain away anything that’d normally be tricky! She made it, not me—I’m just borrowing her inventions for free, that’s all! She designated me to be her tester!

“All right! Now that that’s decided, Dia, let’s make ourselves a vehicle! Aishia, you help out too!”

“Huh? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“I don’t really understand, but if it’s a request from you, master, I’ll gladly oblige!”

Oh, maybe I should explain to them what a vehicle is first. You see, it’s this, that, and such and such... There, explanation over!

Now, time to move onto the manufacturing stage. For the main material, I’ll just harvest some lumber from the mountain in the Kingdom of Alchemy, since it’s free. I can’t use unseasoned wood until it’s dried out, but that too can be done in an instant with spatial magic. And even if it cracks from drying too quickly, I can just repair it with that magic in no time as well!

In less than an hour, I had all the lumber I needed. Now to construct the vehicle’s frame.

“Behold, you two! A brand-new magical device called a vehicle!” I proudly gestured over to the creation I was calling a magical device—a wooden wagon with three wheels. Appearance-wise, it looked like one of those old-fashioned three-wheeled lorries, but the steering mechanism turned the front wheel like a bike handle, allowing for easy handling and turning. At the moment, there was no brake system yet.

“Big sis, you said this was a magical device, right?” Dia said. “But there’s no horse golem to pull it forward, and I don’t see any magic circles either.”

Oh, so they also use golems to pull carriages in this world? Interesting.

“Actually, if rideable golems already exist, then it wouldn’t be too strange for ones shaped like vehicles to exist either. I don’t know if they do or not, though. Do they?” If a Japanese person here had already created a bathhouse, I would have thought they would have made a magically powered engine or something by now as well. But then again, there was no such thing as an electric massager before I showed up, so who knew.

“They probably do, but the technology used for steering, as well as compatibility issues, likely keep them from being widespread. It’s easier to just use coachmen, and if you were going to use golems, the horse variety is faster anyway.”

Dia went on to remind me that magic stones were more expensive than real horses. Well, for most people that was probably true, but I had spatial magic, so I wouldn’t have to pay a dime!

“Whoa, it’s running! Er... It is running, right, big sis?”

I used my magic to lift the vehicle frame three millimeters off the ground, then drove it forward. I accelerated to top speed and made a U-turn, testing its drifting capability. Then I made jagged, sharp turns in the shape of a lightning bolt. Hmm... Yeah, anyone who rode this at top speed would get reduced to mincemeat. I’d need to put some rider safety measures inside later using my magic.

“W-Wow, talk about fast...!” Aishia looked impressed. “But something seems off about it, master.”

“Well, that’s because I’m only moving it around,” I explained. “Just like pushing a box back and forth with your hands, basically.”

More accurately, it was like using your hands to move a toy car back and forth. Remember, all I needed this thing for was to lessen the amount of time I needed to kill between destinations—it didn’t need to actually function as a vehicle. It was just a prototype! It’s an energy hog with no regard for profit and therefore not suited for the market just yet! I can just say I made it to my destination so quickly because I used this thing. With this, I can explain away my fast travel ability! Oh, but the magic fuel I’d normally be using at that speed would put me in the red, you say? That’s a good point...which is where my sponsor Hira comes in! She’s the one who’s paying for it! That way it has nothing to do with Karina Shounin!

“Hmm... Come to think of it, maybe I should at least change the design to where it looks like a magic device? Like just around the center here, for example.”

“If you’re just wanting it to look like a magic device, I can handle that,” Dia volunteered. “I’ve got the parts, and I know what magic circles are supposed to look like too. That’s all you need, right?”

“Right. It doesn’t necessarily need to move like the real thing, so don’t worry about piston engines or anything like that.”

“Piston engines?! What are those?!” Dia immediately jumped at the chance to learn more. Well, naturally he would like pistons, since he was a boy. I’m a big fan of them too!

“Well, before I explain that, first you gotta know about combustion engines. Like cranks or heat sinks, for example...” I gave him a brief rundown of how piston engines worked. Brief mainly because I didn’t really know the details that well either.

I also had Aishia brainstorm some ideas for how we could bluff the design to look more like a magic device. I told them both that it needed to look impressive at a glance, then I handed them pens and some paper. It was for design purposes, not financial gain, so I could copy as many sheets of paper as they needed. Let your imaginations run wild!

“All right, I’m gonna go investigate what goods I ought to bring to Carcassa as a peddler. In the meantime, I’ll also stock up on supplies for the journey.”

“Okay. Have fun, big sis.”

“Don’t worry, master! I’ll hold down the fort!”

This base was made with my spatial magic, so you don’t really need to hold down anything, though. It’s not like anyone’s going to come here anyway. Oh, while I’m at it, I should buy the material for more Electro-Massagers and other vibrators too! Yeehaw!

After making good use of my sex appeal to ask around Solasidore’s Trader’s Guild, I learned that medicinal herbs and sweets would be my best bet for peddling in Carcassa. To begin with, Solasidore’s main unique export was honey wine (the very same kind I’d bought from Li’l Satie, in fact). I didn’t have a license to sell alcohol; however, there was nothing stopping me from selling the honey! No matter the place, sweets were always going to be popular. As for the medicinal herbs, that made sense, considering Carcassa was a dungeon town where adventurers would be battling monsters.

The merchants also advised me that honey was heavy, so I’d be better off carrying more medicinal herbs if I didn’t have a wagon. Thanks for your concern, but I have spatial magic, so I can carry as much honey as I want! Thus, I headed to the beekeeper they’d informed me of in order to procure some honey.

Rather than the normal idea of beekeeping, this turned out to be a fantasy version where bee monsters were tamed to yield their honey. Arriving at a much larger farm than I’d expected, I saw bee monsters were swarming fields of flowers. If these bees were all tamed and knew what their purpose here was, yeah, I can easily see how a place like this could be extremely profitable. Also, it looks like these flowers are all medicinal plants! Two birds with one stone...nice!

A small container of honey was one silver, a medium-sized container cost five silvers, and the large variety ran ten. You could also get them in unglazed ceramic jars, which cost extra. I bought four large jars, coming out to forty-four silvers in total—in other words, nearly all of my profit from Harumikazuchi’s lube. I bought a container of beeswax for another silver as well, just to spend all forty-five silvers, and I ended up getting a bundle of dehydrated medicinal herbs as a bonus! If I hadn’t mended my bag, the weight of all this would have ripped right through the bottom. No wonder they recommended I focus on herbs instead. Well, the bag’s just a disguise anyway—I’ve got spatial magic, so it doesn’t matter.

At any rate, now that I had my honey, it was time to go home—on second thought, maybe I should sample some wares first. Mmm... Whoa, it’s super sweet! Outside of the divine sweets from the Goddess, fruits were the only sugary thing I’d had since coming here, and the sweetness of this honey was on another level from any of those! Ahhh, sugar really is wonderful!

“Man, now I’m craving pancakes...” Homemade pancakes from Aishia, topped with butter and honey... My mouth is watering just imagining it. And some whipped cream on top, if possible. I wonder if there’s anywhere I can get pancake mix. If not, I guess I’ll have to make it myself! The baking powder is just baking soda, right? And isn’t baking soda just made from rocks? Wait, does that mean pancakes are actually minerals? Nah, I guess I don’t know anything about it after all.

Just then, my eyes fell on the Goddess’s catalog, which was poking out from my backpack for some reason. Huh? Why was this here? Didn’t I put it in my storage space already? When I opened it up, I saw pancake mix listed there, 10 SP per box. And right now, I had 1,010 SP. It was clear as day that the Goddess was trying to get me to use my points. You’re a shrewd businesswoman, Goddess...but I’ll hold back. Karina is a woman who knows restraint. Then again, when I thought of Dia’s and Aishia’s smiling faces as they enjoyed the taste of pancakes for the first time, perhaps 10 SP was a small price to pay after all. Not to mention, I needed to check how the catalog worked outside of directly ordering something from the Goddess at some point anyway. So maybe this was a necessary expense! Besides, it’s also important to treat yourself every once in a while. Right? Right!

I firmly pressed my finger into the “buy” button on the paper catalog, and a box of pancake mix was sent to my storage space immediately. More accurately, it went into a separate compartment specifically for deliveries that appeared on its own. The process was so fast that it would even put a certain rainforest-named express delivery service to shame. And perhaps just as a show of gratitude for my service, it also came with some eggs and milk! I’m kind of pleasantly surprised. Thank you, Goddess!

I now had a gift to bring back home, but then I remembered I also ought to pick up some materials for the massagers before heading back. So I made my way to the shopping district and used the five silvers from the vibrators I’d sold to buy some ink and varnish. Three silvers for one pot of ink as big as my fist, and two silvers for a sake-sized bottle of varnish. With this, Karina Shounin’s earnings are no more! And I don’t need to buy any magic stones or base materials, because I already have plenty of those on hand, so that’s the end of this shopping session!

Still, I guess my savings as a merchant are gone just like that, huh... Good thing I set up that continuous payment using Hira, I guess. It’d be okay to use that on food expenses and sock-buying too, right? Let’s say yes! Guess it’s true what they say: It really does feel more reassuring to have a source of income on the side! Huh? You say if I’m making more with my side job, wouldn’t that actually be my regular job? Details, details! Don’t worry about it!

And so, with gift in hand, I returned home. I’m back, you two!

“Look at this, big sis!”

“Look, master! We’re proud of this design!”

Immediately upon coming back, I was shown a blueprint for a piston engine, with five pistons in a star shape surrounding a central shaft. Whoa... I only explained the basics, and they came up with this?! Amazing! It looks just like the radial engines they used in propeller planes back in my world!

“I wasn’t really sure where it was supposed to start rotating from using just one piston, so I thought using multiple to deliberately disrupt the balance might solve the problem,” Dia explained.

“And then I suggested that we put them in a star shape!” Aishia added.

Just looking at the blueprint, I could tell it’d work. Normally, a schematic like this would be too rough to work off of and lead to inaccurate manufacturing, but I could mitigate that problem with my magic. In other words, this couldn’t be more perfect! Oh, and what was this? The piston movements were basic so in theory, it could move with only one magic stone from a goblin? Talk about a technological revolution, especially when as it stood, a rotating magical device required a bunch of energy just to build enough torque!

After showing me their blueprint, Dia and Aishia looked at me expectantly. Anticipation was written on their faces.

“Let me guess, you want me to try building it right away?”

“Yes, big sis! Please, I can’t wait!”

Sure, why not? What could I say—I was weak to the requests of cute little kids. Let’s make a dummy model right away! And...spatial magic, go! All right, frame complete! Circuits for magic circle, printed!

“Wow, you work so quickly, big sis!”

“All right, now let’s set the goblin magic stone inside and see what happens! Will it move, I wonder?”

All five pistons were connected to a single magic device, in which I placed a magic stone the size of a pinky toe. So small, in fact, that they were usually considered useless “junk stones,” but regardless, the shaft started to rotate!

“Look! It’s really moving! It’s a success!”

“Way to go, Dia! Thanks to you, this is our victory!” I wasn’t really sure what we were fighting against, but it seemed like the proper thing to say. Dia and Aishia gave each other high fives, elated. Hey, can your big sis join in too? There, high five!

Next, I tried grabbing the rotating shaft, just to test it. Wow, it’s spinning with more force than I thought. In fact, I wonder if wood’s too unstable to use for the shaft; I should probably use metal for the real thing. Really, though, I can’t believe junk stones would be the key to a technological breakthrough!

“If I hadn’t been careful, the force would have torn the skin off my hand. Talk about powerful!”

“You said it, big sis! I think we can call this a major success!”

What was more, that was only with five pistons! Just how much more power could we generate by adding even more? Like double or triple-layering the star formation, for instance! And if we added some gears in too, we could gain some serious speed. Wait, this was only supposed to be a trial model! How did we get into developing this thing into a real engine so quickly, anyway?! Less than half a day has passed, and we’re already done! Guh... I have to bow my head to Dia’s natural talent and genius once more. And cuteness too, don’t forget that! I really ought to reward these two for all their hard work.

“All right you guys, as thanks for your efforts, I’ve prepared a gift—sweets! Today, we’re gonna have a pancake party!”

“Wow, big sis! You’re gonna make us sweets?! I can’t wait!”

“Sounds lovely. Thank you so much, master!”

I took the dummy model for the star engine and tweaked it a little to turn it into a mixer. That should really help with stirring the pancake mix!

＊ ＊ ＊

In the end, we’d finished the vehicle by the end of the day. However, I still had yet to add brakes or any safety devices, so it was really more like a large minivan with an engine at the moment. It could propel itself forward, but that was all.

However—I repeat—it could propel itself forward! Thus, I wanted to try riding it!

And so, I used my guild license to head outside town, claiming I was headed to Carcassa to do some peddling. In truth I stopped just outside of the town’s border and boarded my new magical device, the vehicle I’d dubbed “Star Buddy Version 2.” (Version 1 was the dummy model that ended up becoming a mixer, and Version 0 was the original wooden model before I’d started using metal, which I currently had displayed in my room for posterity.)

“All right, we’re all set. Let’s test this thing out! We’re going to speed our way toward Carcassa!”

“Woo!” Aishia yelled. I liked her enthusiasm. Dia, on the other hand, looked anxious, to say the least.

“D-Do you really think we ought to be riding this thing?”

“I’ve always got my magic even if there’s an emergency, so we’ll be fine.”

“Why don’t we just stop this before there’s an emergency?!” he wailed.

“Come to think of it, maybe it’d be better to put a protective barrier on all of us before we set off.”

“Why don’t we just stop before we get hurt?!”

It must have been urgent to him, because he said it twice. Heh heh... Never fear, Dia. Your big sis has this all planned out. First off, rather than using a goblin magic stone for the power source, we’re going to set a stone from an orc general inside this time! There...and now, switch on!

We immediately took off like a rocket. Oh shit! The vehicle accelerated so quickly that it gave me whiplash. In fact, if I hadn’t put I Am The Star on all of us...it probably wouldn’t have turned out great, let’s just say.

“Hyaaaggghhh! M-Master, the v-vehicle’s r-rattling like crazy!”

“Don’t talk, Aishia, you might bite your ton—ow! A-Anyway, looks like I’ll need to put some sort of suspension on next time, or it’ll be dangerous.”

“B-Big sis, we’re coming up on a curve in the path! Can this thing actually turn?!”

Hmm...almost definitely not. I hadn’t added any steering mechanism yet, after all. And even if I had, we were going so fast that we’d just end up sliding. The wheels were still wooden, so I’d need to add some sort of traction to them or they wouldn’t hold up. Even now, they were leaving splinters in their wake and rattling so loudly that they were probably gonna come off at any time.

“All right, I’m turning it off.”

Dia tried to say something, but it came out a garbled mess. I flicked the switch to turn the device off, and in accordance with the law of inertia, we continued to hurtle forward off the curved path and into the bumpy grass until we rattled to a stop at last.

“I-Is the engine still intact?” Dia asked.

“Lemme do a quick spatial scan and check. Hmm... Looks like several of the pistons are cracked. A few of the gears broke off too, it seems. I guess maybe that magic stone was a little too powerful?”

All I’d done was propel the thing forward, and the engine was already a mess. That was probably because it hadn’t been able to handle accelerating to top speed so quickly, and that was even after I’d switched to using metal parts! Rather, there was no way it’d even be able to go up a slope as it was. I needed to add a gas pedal or something to control its speed. Now how did those things work again?

In the end, though, I made it move without even having to use spatial magic, and with all of us on board. Therefore, it was a win. Aishia poked her head out of the vehicle and turned around behind us. Our starting point was nowhere to be seen.

“Wow, we really did cover a lot of ground in a short span of time, master!”

“We sure did. With some tweaking, I really think this’ll work! What about you, Dia?”

“W-Well, there are certainly a mountain of issues that need improvement. Thanks to your barrier I couldn’t feel the wind, but normally that would have been overwhelming.”

“That’s a good point. We’ll need to add a windshield, in addition to some kind of suspension.”

“At the same time, I feel like it’s got potential! We’ve got something truly incredible here!” he exclaimed, his face brimming with the excitement you’d expect from a boy his age.

Wait...a boy his age?

“Hold up, Dia, that’s all wrong! You’ve got to have a more feminine reaction!”

“H-Huh?! What are you talking about all of a sudden?!”

“Did you forget you’re currently dressed like a cute girl? You need to act more timid or shy or embarrassed!”

“I-I mean, I don’t know what to tell you... To be honest, I’ve been in this getup for so long now that I’m kinda used to it at this point. I think it might be too late to get all embarrassed about...”

“Ngh!” Used to it?! Now that’s a real problem! The more comfortable he feels dressing as a girl, the less of that “spice of shame” I’ll be able to harvest for the Goddess! Not good...not good at all! This is an emergency! I need to find some other way to embarrass him, pronto!

“Oh! Come to think of it, Dia, when was the last time you took a bath?”

“Huh? W-Well, now that you mention it, I guess I haven’t really taken one recently...”

Indeed. I already knew the answer, because I’d been right there with him pulling all-nighters and brainstorming new magical devices. He hadn’t used the bath I’d constructed even once! I pulled him closer into my embrace and sniffed. Even if it was just pretend, the act itself was important. Huh? He smells good and sweet, like a flower?! D-Do elves just not stink or something? Do they not need to bathe? Interesting...but unfortunately, I had to play the villain here.

“You, uh, stink a little, Dia.”

“H-Huh?! I-I do?!”

Oh, there we go. When I leaned away from him and took another look, I saw that his face had gone beet red. Yep, that’s the right reaction! Anyone would be embarrassed to have their crush tell them they reek! Now, just one more push!

“Yeah...to be perfectly honest, you’d probably need to scrub thoroughly to get that kind of stink off. Let’s all bathe together today, just the three of us! Aishia, prepare the bath!”

“Right away, master!”

“Huh?! N-No, I can bathe by myself!”

Excellent, excellent! He’s red up to the tips of his ears! I knew he’d be so shy he’d turn me down! Heh heh heh. Well, even if he did agree, it’s not like I’d mind bathing with him. I used to be a guy, so I’m used to seeing equipment like that anyway.

“Oh? Are you sure you can get behind those ears of yours all by yourself? I’ll soap ’em up for you if you want!”

“I-I can do it, really!”

Oh, but if I keep forcing embarrassing scenarios like this, he’ll probably get used to those eventually too, huh? That’d be a problem as well. I’ve got to come up with something to make sure his embarrassment stays fresh...but if I use a method that’s too radical, it might escalate out of control. Ah, what to do?

“Oh, you’re not entering the bath after all, Dia? In that case, master and I will go in, just the two of us!”

“Uh...what?”

And so, I ultimately ended up bathing with Aishia, scrubbing down every inch of each other’s bodies. She was also willing to be a test subject for my massager afterward, so honestly, all’s well that ends well.

＊ ＊ ＊

My name’s Karina, and I’m a poor lost lamb! Now that I have some time to kill before I’m supposed to reach Carcassa, I’m heading to Solasidore’s church for guidance! Surely talking to the devoted sister will help ease my concerns!

Just like always, the pink-haired succubus Siesta was there, working hard at her nunly duties. I approached her for advice.

“Hey, uh, Siesta? I wanted to make a boy cross-dress, but he’s gotten too used to the outfits, and he’s not getting as embarrassed anymore. What should I do?”

“Couldn’t you just erase the portion of his memory that makes him used to it?”

Really? Can succubi do that?

“But if you’re not careful, you could end up erasing his whole memory and turning him into a vegetable.”

“Uh, yeah, that sounds a little too dangerous for me.”

“I’m just joking,” she said with a smile.

Well, I’m glad we’re at least at a point in our relationship where we can joke around, I guess. “If possible, I’d like to keep embarrassing him in a more genuine way, you know?” I told her. “I mean, taking the sock delivery into consideration and all.”

“I see, so it’s for the socks. In that case, allow one who’s served many a sock to our beloved Goddess to impart upon you some expert wisdom.”

Oh, do tell. This sounds important.

“Humans are creatures who adapt easily to their circumstances. Therefore, embarrass him only on occasion.”

“I see. And what if he’s already used to it? Embarrass him even more by having him walk around naked all the time?”

“In this world, there are situations far more embarrassing than simply being naked. Remember that well.”

Excuse...me?

“Right now he’s just dressing like a girl, right? Then, every now and then, you’ll need to put him in an even more embarrassing position. Of course, he’s still got to wear socks.”

“An even more embarrassing position?! Like what, exactly?!” Hold up, Siesta! Just what are you getting at?!

“Try this, for instance. For one week...no, one day every month, the day right before you make your offering to the Goddess, be sure to really embarrass him. If you just make it a special occasion, he won’t get used to it.”

“I see... I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And if you humiliate him in a physical way on top of that, it’ll be perfect. In fact, shall I help you?”

“No, I’d really rather you not devour Dia. Sexually or otherwise.” He’s mine, after all! Hands off!

“Or, you could also take the opposite approach,” she suggested. “Just have him dress like a boy most of the time.”

“In other words, stop him from cross-dressing.”

I didn’t make my tone any different, but as expected, Siesta picked up on the nuance and nodded with a smile. “It might be a regressive step, but it’ll increase his embarrassment level in the end.”

“A regression, huh? I kinda wanted him to be in girls’ clothing all the time, though... He’s so cute, it’d be a waste otherwise.”

“Then let him dress as a boy for half of the week and a girl for the other half. And when you’re dressing him as a girl, make sure to dote on him with plenty of kinship.”

Oh, actually, that could work?

“However, I must ask. If your goal is to get him to cross-dress, then wouldn’t him being embarrassed to wear girls’ clothing be counterintuitive anyway?”

“Huh? Now that you mention it, I guess so.”

“It seems like you’ve lost sight of the forest for the trees, so to speak. There are ways to humiliate boys, and there are different ways to humiliate femboys. Understand?”

“Oh! Of course! Why didn’t I see it before?! Thank you, Sister Siesta, for showing me the light!”

That said, he was already used to wearing girls’ clothing at present, so I ought to go with the half-and-half weekly plan first.

“You’re quite welcome. After all, the habituation of shame is our church’s natural enemy.”

“An enemy that even my all-powerful spatial magic can’t beat?! I’d better watch out, then! Thanks a bunch, Siesta!”

“Good luck, my colleague!”

Still, was it just me, or was Siesta acting even nicer than before?

“Well, that’s only natural. The Goddess told me all about your activities thus far. It was all very good for future reference.”

“Meaning?”

“Whenever I deliver socks of shame, I usually just have the wearer experience some embarrassingly lewd dream, but when I tried giving adults a dream where they were asked to wear little girls’ clothing and walk down the street in public, the Goddess was very pleased! She said the socks tasted like ginger tempura, if I recall.”

The humiliating feeling of wanting to take off the clothing but wanting to stay decent in public! I see! Indeed, if a big burly man or middle-aged woman were suddenly forced to walk down the street in a goth loli outfit, for instance, they’d die of embarrassment. I get it!

“Tee hee, and thanks to you, my colleague, the results of my research are flourishing. Humiliating them with embarrassing clothing...what a concept! Thanks to you, I was able to purchase more otherworldly sweets than ever the other day!”

“Oh, so that’s why you’re treating me so nicely.”

“Indeed! I look forward to your continued efforts to devote yourself to our Goddess, my colleague!”

So said Siesta, the ever-devout follower of the Goddess. Now then, where was I going to get boys’ clothes? Oh, right, there were some in that luggage I got from Cumin, weren’t there? I decided to head back and field the suggestion to Dia right away!

“Huh? You want me to wear boys’ clothes now?”

“Er, yeah. I mean, you probably don’t like wearing girls’ clothes all the time anyway, right? So I decided I’ll just make you put up with my selfishness for half of the week instead. Sorry, Dia, for not realizing I was forcing you sooner!”

“N-No, it’s not like I hate wearing them or anything, and besides, if it’s something you want me to do, I don’t really mind... I just want you to be happy...”

Well, that was a pretty cute thing to say, I had to admit. But if it eventually led to him being comfortable with cross-dressing, it wouldn’t be what I wanted at all. “Also, thinking about your future, it’s probably not a good idea for you to get used to girls’ clothes anyway. Yeah.”

“Oh... I suppose you’re right. Okay, I understand.”

And so, Dia agreed to wear boys’ clothes for half of the week. He looked like a girl to me no matter what he wore anyway, so I didn’t particularly mind. Also, per a suggestion of Siesta’s, I decided to let him choose which gender of clothes he wanted to wear on the last day of every week! As expected of the sister succubus! Making him choose will make him even more confused and embarrassed! It would also give me a measure of how comfortable he was with girls’ clothes as the weeks went by. Then, once he was fully acclimated to cross-dressing, my other plan for stimulating his shame would be waiting in the wings...called “Operation: Premeditated Crime!”

Chapter 2

#Side: Carcassa Gatekeeper

Carcassa was a town in the middle of the desert. And I was one of its gatekeepers.

Carcassa was known as a “dungeon town.” However, originally there wasn’t anything here except the dungeon. It’d be more accurate to say the town developed around the dungeon as time went on. At first, it was just a few peddlers setting up stalls, but as more people showed up, inns and stores did as well until the area had developed into a full-fledged town.

In part because the town’s origins were in commerce, many traveling salesmen showed up at these gates daily. Among them were also ruffians and swindlers looking to make a profit illegally. Therefore, the inspection process at the town gate was quite rigorous.

Especially so today, since it happened to be a public transport day. Routinely, a public transport system would carry groups of passengers from town to town. Since only one bodyguard per group was needed, it was a much cheaper option than hiring a bodyguard on one’s own.

“Next, please.”

“Sure thing!” A group of three walked up: a merchant girl with a rather large chest, accompanied by an E Rank elf child who looked far too anxious to be her bodyguard (or an adventurer, for that matter) and a young slave. The elf was a boy, but you’d never be able to tell without looking at his ID.

Now, let’s check the girl’s license from the Trader’s Guild... Hmm? Something was strange about these dates. It said here she came from Solasidore, but there was no record of her visiting any other town along the way. And she made it here to Carcassa in only five days?! Even if she’d used public transport, it should have taken her at least a month to get here from Solasidore, and it’d be impossible to do so without entering any other town. In other words, these three didn’t use public transport, and they’d headed all the way here to Carcassa without stopping?! Was it really possible for two women and a child to get here so quickly without resupplying at any town and while carrying such a heavy load of cargo?

Absolutely not. Even if they’d made camp every night and replenished their resources from other traveling merchants they’d met along the way, it’d still be impossible. They’d have to be in such incredible shape that they could travel for that long without needing a break, plus they couldn’t get into any battles with monsters along the way. And even then, five days would be dubious at best. Perhaps most telling, however, was that they looked way too clean to have just come via a five-day-long forced march!

At any rate, they were incredibly suspicious. “Er, this—” I began.

“I know it looks weird, but we used a special means of transportation to get here really fast!” the girl explained. “So fast that we passed right by all the towns we normally would have had to stop at!”

She’d anticipated my question and answered it before I could speak, so she must have at least been aware of how suspicious the three of them looked. “A special means of transportation? Like what? It doesn’t look like you came here by wagon...”

“It’d probably be easier for us to just show you. Want to see?”

“Er... Sure, why not. Go ahead.” Surely they couldn’t have ridden here on a dragon or something, right? I asked the other guards to watch my post and followed the trio.

“So where’s this means of transportation?” I asked.

“Right here!” the girl exclaimed. She turned to face an empty space and yelled, “Wake up!”

It must have been some sort of incantation, because at that moment, the toy the girl had been carrying in her hand became a giant wagon. Or wait, was it a wagon? It resembled one, but the design was a little...off. If I had to describe it, it looked like a barrel, but with doors that had been put on sideways. There was also a window at the barrel’s front, and one of its wheels jutted out farther than the others.

“It’s a test model for a new magical device. I borrowed it from a really powerful mage calling herself Hira. As you just saw, its size can be changed freely, making it easy to carry around.”

“How does it move?” I asked. “I don’t see a horse anywhere. You’re not about to tell me the three of you take turns pulling it, are you?”

“It’s a magical device, like I said, so it runs on its own...though that makes it a little more dangerous than your average horse and buggy, I’ll admit. I guess you could think of it like a golem.”

“Oh, a golem. I see now.” Now that she mentioned it, golems could also be used for transport, since humans could get inside them. If it worked similar to a golem, that would actually check out. And it’d be convenient too. After all, it’d be like riding in a moving cabin. Since you could rest whenever you wanted inside, you wouldn’t need to pitch a tent and make camp every night. And if it could run on its own, then that would also explain why the girls were all clean. They’d just stayed inside it the entire time.

That left only one doubt in my mind: the number of days traveled. “And you used this thing to make it from Solasidore to Carcassa in five days? Is it really that fast?”

“Yeah, definitely. That said, it does use a great deal of magic stones like golems do, so I can’t say it’s very cost-effective.”

“Er...and you call yourself a merchant? Why use it if it’s just going to put you in the red?”

“Well, the Hira woman I borrowed this from asked me to test out its ease of use and gave me a bunch of magic stones for free. She also told me to give back any of the ones I don’t use. To be honest, I wasn’t the one footing the bill, so I didn’t see a reason to refuse.”

I see. Indeed, if it wasn’t money out of her pocket, it wouldn’t put her in the red after all. Rather, if she had to give back the stones that were left over anyway, it would be more to her benefit to use up every single one. “Can you show me what it looks like in action?”

“I sure can, but it’s pretty finicky because it’s a test model, so I don’t recommend you ride it for your own safety. I’ll get in just to show you. Uh... You’re going to want to back up a little. I’ll be heading to that boulder over there, then coming back here.” As she got in the magical device, she pointed over to a boulder roughly several hundred meters away. I complied and got out of the way.

“All righty, let’s fire this baby up!”

“O—”

Before I could even say “okay,” the magical device rocketed forward faster than a master sorcerer’s Fire Lance spell. It reached the boulder, made a large U-turn, then zoomed back to its starting position, all without losing any of its incredible speed—wait, was it not gonna stop?!

Just as I braced myself, however, the device braked immediately. Like a horse that had been abruptly forced to stop running, its wheels left marks on the ground. Whew... It stopped. Thank goodness.

“That’s how it works,” the merchant girl declared. “And if you run it at top speed, it can go even faster.”

“All right, I understand now. You could easily make it here from Solasidore in five days if you used this thing.”

“Yep, you got it. That’s exactly right, Mr. Gatekeeper, sir.”

The vehicle had made it that far in the time it took me to utter one syllable. Traveling at such a speed, it would only stand to reason they hadn’t encountered any monsters along the way. In fact, they could probably take shortcuts slightly off the main road as well. But still, five days, huh...

“You know, if you can travel that fast with this device, you could probably sell it to the kingdom for its messengers to use in times of emergency.”

“Oh, n-no, that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. If you crash this thing, you’re dead. In fact, I’ve had several close calls already, so it’s definitely not ready for market yet.”

“Er... Glad you’re still in one piece, then.”

“That said, the more you get used to it, the faster you can go.”

Indeed, if she’d hit that boulder at the speed she’d been going, she would have been in trouble. Guess the kingdom’s messaging system ought to just stick to tamers and their birds for now.

“Shut down!” the girl shouted, and the magic device shrunk just like that. Then she picked it up and put it in a pocket in her backpack. Well, it was dangerous, to be sure, but it was convenient. Probably more dangerous than convenient, though.

“So? Any other questions?”

“No, no more problems there. Let me just check the rest of your cargo, and then you can pass.”

“That’s fine. It’s all mostly just honey, though.”

“Er... These jars look awfully fragile. How are they still intact?”

“Huh?! O-Oh, I just had them reinforced with magic, that’s all! That Hira woman I mentioned did it! By the way, she also put protection magic on us, otherwise we would have already been killed three times over by now.”

This Hira woman sure did sound like an incredible mage. Then again, if she weren’t capable of that much, she probably would have lost her own life in the middle of developing such a device. It made sense.

And so, that day I got to see a very unusual means of transportation. All of their other cargo checked out, so I gave them permission to pass. Another day of guarding the gate came to an end without incident.

#Side: END

Holy shit, that was close!

When he’d questioned the fact that the honey jars were intact, I almost panicked, but we made it into Carcassa at last thanks to my quick wit. And of course, thank you to Hira as well! It’s all thanks to Hira, really! That’s her purpose, after all!

That’s right, the car with the magic engine, Star Buddy Mk. 2, can change size at will because Hira enchanted it with some sort of mysterious magic—or at least, that’s the story I’m going with! Man, Hira, you really are convenient! I’d gotten Dia to put some convincing-looking magic circles on there so my story would hold up, but these were just for decoration and didn’t actually work. To be honest, all I’d really done was switch Mk. 2 out for my dummy model—I didn’t actually have enough magic knowledge to produce the desired phenomenon on my own. I really want a new textbook soon...

Anyway, let’s offer one last thank-you to Hira! Thank you, Hira!

“Er, big sis, aren’t you actually just singing your own praises when you do that?”

“Master is the greatest anyway, so how is that a problem?”

A-Anyway, we made it to Carcassa! Yay!

Carcassa was smack-dab in the middle of the desert wastes. There was an inner wall and outer wall surrounding it, and the inner wall separated the town from the dungeon. The houses, stores, and the like were sandwiched between the two walls, making the town resemble a donut. The stone-and-brick houses, constructed with earth magic, were all lined up in rows. There were a few cultivated fields, but most of their vegetables were imported from other towns. And their meals were mainly meat-based, using monsters in the dungeon for ingredients.

“All right, first off, let’s try and secure some lodgings... Oh? Wait, come to think of it...” Going over everything that had happened since I’d come here...I had yet to actually stay at an inn?! Even though I’d been in this world for over a month now?! Of course, that was because spatial magic was so ridiculously convenient, which I was grateful for, but still... I realized I had absolutely no idea how to procure a room at an inn in this world. Therefore, I decided to leave it to the much more experienced Aishia.

“Hey, Aishia, can you get us a single room that’s fairly nice? And around how many decimal places are we talking?”

“One silver ought to be enough for that. Oh, but master, would it be better to have separate rooms given that there’s three of us?”

“Nah, we can all stay in the same room. I’ve got my storage space, after all, so I can always plunk down a door leading to there if we need more room.”

“Oh, right. Your magic sure is convenient, isn’t it?”

I know, right? When it comes to convenience, spatial magic has no equal! Heh heh heh... I’m gonna have fun turning our single inn room into a base of operations complete with living room, dining room, kitchen, shower, and bathroom!

“Then since there’ll only be one bed, I’ll sleep on the floor, and you and Dia can share the bed. If that arrangement’s okay, I’ll go reserve a single room for us.”

Fine by me! Appreciate it! “Oh, and as for food, I wanted to sample some of the local delicacies here. Would you happen to know what kind of fare Carcassa’s famous for?”

“Food exclusive to Carcassa, you ask? Well, unless things have changed from the last time I was here, which was a long time ago, there’s nothing I’d particularly recommend. Well, I guess the crawler kabob is kind of famous in a sense, but...”

Crawler? I looked the term up in my Tome of General Knowledge and got a hit. Let’s see... A caterpillarlike monster that’s often found in dungeons. Wait, you can eat those? Seriously? Ew...

“Wh-What do they taste like?”

“They’re not inedible, but...a delicacy, let’s say. They’re dried before serving, like that cut of kraken we sampled. As for the taste, um...maybe kind of like cheese with no saltiness? Also, if they’re not prepared carefully enough, they can still contain poison, which gives it this tingly aftertaste. It won’t give you a stomachache or anything, but it does have a bit of a numbing effect.”

She also went on to say that some people liked the sensation so much they’d ask for the poison to be left in. Hmm... The creature honestly looks terrifying. I might try a bite, but that’d be enough for me.

“Frankly, master, I’d rather eat orc meat.”

“I appreciate your honesty. As a reward, I’ll prepare an orc steak for you later. Now then, I’m off to the Trader’s Guild to ask about a good place to sell off all these honey jars, so you look for a room for us in the meantime. Dia, go with her and help.”

“Sure thing, big sis! We’re prioritizing safety when looking for a room, correct?”

“Yeah, I guess we should. At a glance we just look like three defenseless girls, after all.” Today was a boy day for Dia, so he was wearing boys’ clothes, but with his hair in a ponytail, he still looked like a girl cross-dressing as a boy to me. He’s just too cute! I love it.

“I already have you both tracked, so if something happens, just call for me. I’ll come running!”

“Okay. You stay safe too, big sis!”

“See you later, master.”

Oh, now that I think of it, I also have a few delivery requests from the Adventurer’s Guild to turn in. I should get those knocked out while I’m here as well!

And so, I off-loaded the honey onto a shop the Carcassa Trader’s Guild recommended, getting twenty silvers for each large jar. I had four of those, which netted me eighty silvers. Since the jars themselves were included in the price, I was able to charge nine silvers over, earning me a profit of thirty-six silvers in the end! But since bee monsters could already be found all over the dungeon, they didn’t buy the beeswax, which was a shame. (Apparently their honey was a rare drop, and it was in high demand on the market because it was easier to buy it than to try and get it from the monsters themselves.)

Whew, looks like I did some good business! I’m starting to feel like I’m a real merchant now! I could have earned that money through delivery quests to the guild, of course, but in the end, it just felt better to have a bunch of goods on hand to sell! Maybe it was because it felt like I’d actually done the work this way? Like I’d actually earned my pay? I mean, when I used spatial magic to kill monsters and deliver their materials, it felt like my magic was carrying me. If I didn’t have that magic, I’d be powerless. Sometimes it felt more like my spatial magic was using me, to be honest. And yet when I made business deals like this, it felt like it was actually me doing the work. I didn’t need magic to haggle. Even if I used it to get me out of a tight spot, it’d feel like I was the one using it, not the other way around.

In other words, I’d gotten complacent because of this power that had just been handed to me, which made merchant work feel a little more fulfilling. Still, it was just a small difference, and there was no getting around the fact that spatial magic was ridiculously convenient, so I wasn’t going to stop using it or anything.

“While I’m here, though, I wonder if there’s something else here that’d be smart to buy so I can sell it somewhere else?”

When I asked the salesman I’d sold the honey to, this was his response:

“Ha ha ha, well, that’d be anything from the dungeon, of course! Crawler meat, for instance, can be sold for a lot anywhere else!”

Well, that made sense. The only unique thing about Carcassa was its dungeon, so it only stood to reason that any commodity from Carcassa would be found there. My merchant’s instinct wanted to buy those goods up right away so I could sell them at a markup in other towns...but that just didn’t feel right! I mean, like I said before, I could easily use spatial magic to obtain monster materials myself, so wouldn’t going out of my way to buy them just to resell them elsewhere just be...awfully philanthropic? I mean, if I was buying them off some orphan kid it’d be a different story, but charity work wasn’t my style to begin with. That was a job better left to someone else!

“Are there any, like, processed goods exclusive to this town?” I asked.

“Well, we do have medicine, like painkillers and such. The meds use monster poison as an ingredient, though, so you’ll need a special license to buy and sell them in bulk. But if you just buy two or three for your own use, you probably won’t be carded.”

An anesthesia, I take it? Well, if it’s not toxic, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have at least one bottle on hand. Apparently it was made by brewing medicinal herbs together with the poison extracted from crawler meat. You don’t say...

“Oh, speaking of medicine, we also make aphrodisiacs.”

“Oh? Wait, are they safe to use? They’re not gonna, like, make me three thousand times as horny and explode my brain, are they?”

“If it did, why would we be selling it?” the man said gruffly. “And three thousand? Where’d that number come from?”

Well, if not, that’s all that matters. Wait, huh? Twenty silvers a bottle? Damn, that’s expensive! Then again, I bet I could find some nobles who’d shell out fifty silvers for something like this. What was that, sir? I could probably get thirty if I brought it to the Trader’s Guild in Verald? That’s interesting.

Hmm... The question was, were they too expensive to buy one for Harumikazuchi as a gift? Nah, screw it, I’ll worry about the details later! I used my honey-selling proceeds to buy one for selling and one for my favorite fox lady!

“Since I’m buying two, can’t you cut me a deal? I’ll give you thirty silvers for both.”

“C’mon now, if I sold them that cheap, I’d be in the red. I’ll do thirty-eight.”

“Thirty-five!”

“Buy some more from me, and you can have ’em for thirty-six.”

Whoa, he saw right through where I was going with that. And here I was thinking I’d concede once I was even the least bit in the black. “All right, fine. Then I’ll take whatever processed good you think could be sold for a decent price somewhere else and pay you forty.”

“Deal! As for processed goods, I’d have to recommend dried crawler meat. Crawlers show up a lot on the dungeon’s first floor, so we get a bunch from there. By the way, it stays good for around half a year if you make it a jerky.”

“Sounds good to me. That’s the kind of commodity I’m after.”

In the end, Karina Shounin’s budget of eighty silvers broke down as follows:

Aphrodisiacs (2): 36 silvers

Mythril knife: 13 silvers

Painkillers (2): 2 silvers (1 silver each)

Crawler jerky: 5 silvers’ worth (six sets of twenty)

Bowstring: 5 silvers’ worth (comes out to roughly five strings)

Silk spider cloth: 15 silvers’ worth (enough to make two shirts)

Total: 76 silvers (4 silvers remaining)

Really, though—crawlers, silk spiders, it sounds like there are a lot of insect-type monsters in that dungeon. And apparently you can find mythril in there as well? Interesting.

“Great doing business with you,” the man said. “If you ever have any more sweets like honey, come on back! I’ll gladly buy ’em off ya!”

“You bet! After you worked with me on the price and gave me an extra set of dried meat as a bonus, I’ll definitely be back. The guild wasn’t wrong to send me your way!”

“Naturally. If I was too stingy or shrewd, the guild wouldn’t recommend me, and it’d be bad for business. So that’s why I try to be as fair as possible...but of course, we’re all merchants here, so I gotta make my customers work for it first.”

I get it. As long as he had the inventory to sell them, the more merchants that bought from him, the better. Rather than being out to make a quick buck, he was playing the long game and looking ahead at his business’s future. That was honestly impressive!

“Hiya! Got a brand-new batch of liquor to sell!”

At that moment, another merchant came through the door. She had a petite build and wore a backpack that was larger than she was tall. Wait...I knew that face!

“Hmm? Oh, hey, Karikari, you’re here too? It’s been forever!”

“L-Li’l Satie!”

Indeed, it was Satie, the red-haired, tan-skinned loli—my bad, dwarf—merchant I’d met back in Solasidore!

“So what brings ya here, Karikari? Oh, actually, lemme get these sold real quick first, then we can talk.” As she spoke, she took her alcoholic inventory out from her backpack, including more bottles of the honey wine she’d sold me. Then, like a pro, she brandished her guild license, worked out a deal, and made the transaction with the guild owner all in no time. Finally, she put more alcohol in her now-empty backpack to fill it up again.

“Wanna buy a bottle too, Karikari? Try this one—it’s crawler sake. Got quite a kick to it—real dry and tingly on the tongue.”

“Well, why not. I’ll take a bottle, sure.”

“Actually, why stop at just one? I’ll let ya have two for just fifty coppers! That’s the friends and family discount, ya know.”

And so, Karina Shounin’s remaining budget was further reduced to three silvers and fifty coppers. I said I was only going to buy one, and I ended up with two in the end anyway! You’re a shrewd one, Li’l Satie! But I love that about you!

“Hey now, Satie, this girl’s still a newbie,” the store owner said. “You can afford to go a little easier on her.”

“Look, I pride myself on the quality of my liquor, y’hear? I’m not about to just give it away. And she doesn’t have a liquor license, so twenty-five a pop is the best I can do without taking a loss.”

With a license, I would have been able to buy in bulk, and according to Satie, the bulk price was twenty coppers per bottle. At that price, she’d make a profit of ten coppers per bottle while off-loading her whole stock... Wow, now that’s what I call a smart businesswoman! And she’s cute to boot!

“I mean, Karikari here’s clearly happy with the deal, so there’s no problem, right?”

“Yeah, I guess not.” The shopkeeper looked at me. “Here, little girl, another bonus from me. Take it.”

Two more pieces of dried crawler meat, huh? Yay...thanks. I’ll, uh, snack on this on the way back.

＊ ＊ ＊

I left the shop behind and headed to the Adventurer’s Guild with Satie to cash in our deliveries. I just had one bag’s worth of receipts, but Satie had a whole bundle of them. I suppose that was the difference in the amount of trust each of us had built up with the guild.

Satie had a small wagon, so I hopped in with her. As she steered her horsebird—which were gigantic birds with the size and pulling power of horses, by the way—I sat next to her.

“So, Karikari, what brings ya here, anyway? And did ya find a buyer for the liquor I sold ya?”

“Oh, yeah, that went off without a hitch! I sold it all to the Trader’s Guild in Verald and made a tidy profit!”

“Oh yeah? And how’d you manage that?”

On our way to the Adventurer’s Guild, I regaled Satie with tales of my exploits. Well, not all of them. I left out everything I’d accomplished as a “great mage.”

“And so I got into it with a group of pirates! Oh, and then I beat them at a drinking contest.”

“A drinking contest? If I recall, though, you weren’t exactly great at holding your liquor. How’d you win?”

“I, uh, cheated.”

“What?! That ain’t right! When you’re facin’ someone in a drinking contest, ya gotta drink! Don’t ya have any pride?!”

“Uuu... I-I’m sorry.” Apparently for dwarves, cheating in a drinking contest must have been a cardinal sin. I’m sorry, Satie. I’ll reflect on my actions.

“Oh, but wait. Were your opponents those Marinebell Pirates, by any chance? Then never mind, it’s fine. They were gettin’ a bit too big for their britches anyway, I hear.”

“Wait, it’s fine? Are you sure?”

“To be honest, it’s still not really fine, but you were up against pirates. And since it’s you besides, I can give ya a pass.”

“Thank you so much, Satie!” I sobbed. “You’re so kind!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m on the job right now, so if you’re gonna throw your arms around me, at least save it for later.”

Heh heh, heard loud and clear. You’re so cute, Li’l Satie, though you do kinda smell like sweat a little. And booze.

As we were chatting it up, we arrived at the guild. We left the wagon behind and headed to the receptionist’s desk to turn in our delivery receipts. I got my pocket change reward, and Satie got several silvers for turning in hers.

“Oh, by the way, any news yet? I see. All right, thanks for continuing to look into it,” I heard Satie say to the receptionist before laying about half of her reward back on the counter.

“Something you’re looking for?” I asked.

“Hmm? Oh, just on the hunt for juicy info about tasty booze, as usual. Apparently nothin’ came in this time, so that’s pretty disappointing, y’know?”

She was clearly lying. Well, if she didn’t want to tell me, that was fine.

“Speaking of tasty booze,” I said, “I had some wine in Verald. It was actually during the drinking contest I was telling you about.”

“Wine, huh? That’s one of the Vertex Kingdom’s specialties. I think they make it from grapes, if I recall? True, I haven’t been over that way to search, but you need permission to enter the elf kingdom, so...”

“Wait, you can’t enter the elf kingdom without permission?”

“That’s right. Apparently adventurers Rank B and higher are automatically cleared to enter, but merchants need quite a bit of pull before they’re granted access. And it’d be even harder for me, on account of bein’ a dwarf and all.” She gave a deep sigh. Aw man, now I feel bad! I wanna help her out!

“Hey, Li’l Satie, listen to this! This is a secret, so don’t go telling anyone, but I actually have some pull with the elves.”

“Wait, no foolin’?”

Nope, no foolin’ here. Despite how he looks, my Dia (most likely) belongs to a family of elf nobles! Surely he can pull some strings to let one or two visitors in!

“The truth is, I actually formed a party of my own, and one of my members is an elf.”

“Huh, you don’t say. Think you could introduce me?”

“Heh heh, well now, that depends on you...”

“All right, all right, I get it. You can have my socks, so introduce me.”

“Deal! All right then, shall we be off? The rest of my party’s probably busy getting us a room right now!”

But wait. Now that I think of it, Satie’s socks are just going to be a repeat of the ones I’d offered before, so I can’t give them to the Goddess... Oh, well, whatever! When a beauty’s in need, helping ’em out’s my creed!

“But ya know, Karikari, I left Solasidore for this town the day we met and drank together. How’d ya manage to go to Verald and meet up with an elf in such a short span of time?”

“Oh, er... I got a really fast means of transport that lets me get from Solasidore to Carcassa in only five days.”

“The hell? That’s, like, more than twice as fast as traveling by wagon! If I had somethin’ like that, I could go all around sampling all the booze in the world whenever I wanted!”

“To be fair, it’s so fast that it’s actually dangerous, and it’s not really a viable method of transport at all. And for fuel, it consumes huge magic stones like crazy, so if you don’t have anyone backing you financially, it’d be highly cost-inefficient. Oh, and it shakes a lot when you’re riding it.”

“Oh... I see. Sounds like a rough ride, then.”

By the way, I’d said it consumed huge magic stones like crazy, but that was just part of the elaborate ruse. In truth, a stone from an orc was enough to get that kind of speed out of the radial engine. Technological revolutions really are astounding! Right now I was in the middle of researching adjusting the speed using a gas pedal and gear shift, and I had plenty of orc stones left over from the monster stampede.

Come to think of it, if I had a surplus of such powerful stones already, then couldn’t I use those for... Sorry, never mind. I was just thinking out loud, nothing to see here!

“Actually, Satie, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask. Do dwarves and elves really get along that badly with each other?”

“You can hear stories of fights breaking out between them every now and then, yeah. And as for the reason... Probably ’cause dwarven women look like children?”

“Yeah, but that makes you really cute, you know?”

“Just FYI, I’ve got a kid of my own.”

H-Huh?! Y-You’re a mother?!

“Y-You mean you’re a married woman?! No way! That makes you even hotter! A MILF!”

“Huh, first time someone’s ever had that reaction. Well, that was a lie anyway. But I am at an age where it wouldn’t be strange if I did have a kid.”

“Huh? You lied to me? Well, that in itself’s pretty hot too.”

“Ha ha. Love you too, Karikari. Anyway, because we dwarven women are all petite, other races tend to look down on the men as lolicons. And especially elves. From their perspective, a same-age dwarven couple looks like an old man laying his hands on a little girl. That’s in part because elves never grow facial hair no matter how old they get.”

Oh, I see.

“And well, if an elf accused a dwarf of that to his face, he’d probably shoot back with ‘the way I see it, you elven women are the ones laying your hands on little boys.’ Since that’s how it looks to us.”

“The elf women are shotacons?!”

“Huh, never heard that reaction before either. Well, this is just what I overheard at the bar, but elves don’t really take jokes or teasing well. That’s partly why they have so many enemies.”

Now that she mentioned it, Dia was also the serious type, wasn’t he? Not that it was a problem, since it just added to his cute factor!

“Never fear, the elf in my party doesn’t mind a joke or two! And he’s cute!”

“If he’s one of your party members, I’m sure he’s a good guy. I’m lookin’ forward to meeting him!”

We engaged in such small talk, and the horsebird-drawn carriage rattled as it made its way to our destination: Carcassa’s inn district. I checked my spatial magic tracker, and Dia and Aishia were... Oh, looks like Dia is over in that inn, and Aishia appears to be somewhere else. Maybe investigating something?

“Huh, this inn doesn’t look too terrible,” Satie said.

“All right, wait here, and I’ll bring Dia out.”

“Oh, actually, if you’re staying here, I think I’ll get a room too. I’m gonna go park.”

“All right. I’ll go on ahead and meet you inside.” I got down from Satie’s wagon and entered the inn. Dia spotted!

“Oh, hey, big sis. For the time being, I booked us here for a week, since I didn’t know how long we’d be staying.”

“Oh, nice job, Dia! Thanks a ton! Here’s your cut of the delivery quest reward, by the way. Since you and I are in a party together now, I’ve gotta share the spoils! Where’s Aishia?”

“She went to check out the local eateries around here. She said she was going to work hard to find you some good recommendations.”

“Knowing her, I’m sure she’ll pick some delicious fare. I can’t wait!”

At that moment, however, I remembered that Aishia was a half dwarf. Would Li’l Satie really be all right with me having a half dwarf for a slave? Then I realized I didn’t know how she actually felt about half dwarves to begin with. In Japan, at least, there had been a few tales where dwarves were prejudiced against their half-breed brethren, but Satie wasn’t that kind of girl, was she? Please, Satie, don’t bully my Aishia! Well, Aishia was technically my property, so Satie probably wouldn’t do that, but what if she looked down on me with contempt for having a half-dwarf slave? That was far more likely. Well, anyway, it was too late to think about that now, and worrying wouldn’t do any good, so I’d just save that worry for later.

“Dia, I have a dwarf acquaintance who’s interested in visiting the elf kingdom. Do you mind if I introduce you to her? I was wondering if maybe you could pull some strings and let her in the kingdom, if possible.”

“If it’s someone you know, I don’t mind meeting her, but I won’t know if I can give her permission until I see her for myself.”

“Oh, okay. By the way, keep my spatial magic a secret. I’ll go get her right— Oh, she’s already coming this way.”

Almost immediately after Dia and I finished talking, Satie entered the inn, spotted us, and gave us a wave as she ran over. “Is this kid the elf you know, Karikari?”

“Yeah. His name’s Dia. Dia, this is Li’l Satie. She’s a liquor merchant I befriended.”

“Nice to meet you...er, Li’l Satie? I’m Dia.”

“Just ‘Satie’ is fine,” she said quickly. “Nice to meet you!” She gave him a polite bow.

“Huh?! What happened, Satie?! Are you sick?! Did you eat something you shouldn’t?! That was a shockingly normal greeting!”

“Hey now, even I know when I oughta be polite,” she said with a pout. “I requested this meeting, so I can’t very well be rude, now can I?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Dia said with a smile. “If you’re a friend of big sis’s, then there’s no need to be so formal.”

But Satie’s “serious mode” didn’t disengage. She knows when to be serious and when to goof off... So mature! I love that about her!

“Well, no need to stand here and talk. Shall we head to the room and relax?”

“Certainly. Oh, before that, let me book a room here as well. There, it’s done. Now, shall we be off?”

“Do you require an escort, Miss Satie?” Dia said.

“No, I’ll be fine, thank you. But I do appreciate your consideration.”

Huh?! Is it just me, or did Dia get serious too? Am I getting left out? W-Wait for me, you guys!

Our room at the inn was small, with a single bed.

“Well, I didn’t want to stand around and talk, but it looks like the bed’s the only place to sit in here.”

“Yeah, I wish there were at least a chair or two.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize...” Satie said, glancing at the two pillows positioned on the bed. Perhaps those were supposed to be for me and Dia? Hmm? Wait, does that mean Satie thinks Dia and I are sleeping together?!

“No, Satie, you’ve got it all wrong! Dia is for display only! I like women more, honest!”

“Huh? O-Oh, no, I already figured out that much...”

“Hold on, I’ll go borrow chairs from somewhere. There, borrowed!”

“W-Wow, that was fast.”

Of course, I only went out in the hallway, retrieved some chairs from my space of holding, and brought them back in. Then we sat down to talk anew.

“So what business do you have with the elf kingdom?” Dia asked.

“Yes, well, to be honest, I’m looking for my older sister.”

“Huh? Older sister?” I said. “You mean you weren’t on the hunt for booze all around the world?!”

“Well, I am, but y’see, I’m mostly searching for my missing sister. If you think I’m lyin’, just ask the receptionist at the Adventurer’s Guild. I put in a request over there askin’ for ’em to gather intel for me.”

No way! So then that portion of money she passed back to the receptionist lady was her retaining fee?

“Seriously?! You shoulda told me! Keeping it a secret made you look really suspicious back there! I mean, if it’s your older sister we’re talking about, I’ll gladly do all I can to help you!”

“Mmm, I appreciate that, Karikari. By the way, even though she’s my older sister, our races are technically different. She’s a half dwarf.”

“Hmm, a half dwarf. I see, I see.”

“And she was a minstrel for a while, until about three years ago, when she mysteriously lost her voice all of a sudden.”

“Oh, a minstrel? That’s...interesting.”

“Her name’s Aldisula, but most everyone just calls her Aishia.”

Man, what a coincidence, huh? I just happen to have a half-dwarf slave in my party who used to be a minstrel and calls herself Aishia!

“To be honest, she’s probably kicked the bucket by now. But I don’t wanna admit it, so I just wanted some last thread of hope to cling to. I thought maybe she was alive and in the elf kingdom, so I wanted to go there.”

“O-Oh, I see, so it’s for your older sister...” Dia mumbled.

“Mr. Dia. Can you please grant me entry to the elf kingdom so that I can look for my sister?” She bowed to him, her expression serious.

“U-Um, big sis...”

“I gotcha. Wait right here; I’ll go check.”

“Okay.”

I left the room. Most of these inns had small altar shrines, so there should have been one here as well... Oh, yep, there it is. Now, let’s pray!

“Goddess? Oh, Goddess? Would this be your idea of ‘divine guidance,’ perhaps?”

“Nope. This was one hundred percent pure happenstance.”

“You damn liar!”

“No, honestly, it was! I had nothing to do with it.”

“You’re not just trying to fool me?” I said out loud.

“I’m not, seriously! I mean, in the first place, Satie’s lying to you. She isn’t searching for her sister at all. If she were, she would have already found her in Solasidore. Right?”

Wait, huh? Uh-oh, she has a point. Aishia had been sold to Solasidore last month, so she should have still been with the slave trader on the day Satie and I drank the night away. Had she been looking for Aishia then, her near miss would have been a cruel prank of fate indeed.

“Most likely, she’s just using the excuse of finding her sister because a sob story will get her permission to the elf kingdom faster than admitting she just wants to go there for the booze.”

“Oh. Yeah, knowing her, that’s entirely possible.”

“And yet, that level of cunning is... Go on, Karina, finish it for me...”

“Adorable in itself!”

The Goddess and I air-high-fived each other.

“At any rate, if Aishia agrees to meet her little sister, why not just let them meet?” she said.

“Oh, so they really are sisters, then?”

“They are. Also, I have something very important to impart, so heed my words carefully.”

Hmm? What could that be? I braced myself for anything.

“The socks that Satie’s wearing right now are the copies you made, so do not offer me those! But there’s nothing saying you can’t take those socks for your own use... That’s all from me! End message! Over and out!”

That’s your important message? Important to you, maybe! She really does have a one-track mind. And what was that last thing she said there at the end? “For my own use”? What the hell would I need a pair of smelly socks for... Huh? Oh no. Somehow, just imagining the stench coming off Satie’s socks is making my heart beat faster. Right, the Goddess did say she implanted her propensities into me on an instinctual level. In other words, the socks that the Goddess had awarded a perfect score to felt like the greatest delicacy to me! And I’m thinking that isn’t such a bad thing too... Goddammit!

As I was feeling a little dejected from that realization, Aishia came into the room. “Oh, hello, master! Good to see you again!”

“Oh, hey, Aishia, good to see you too. Welcome back.” Aishia had gone around to all the restaurants in the area to check them out for me! She’s such a good girl! I patted her head. So she was Satie’s big sis, huh? Honestly, they had completely different personalities. If Satie ever behaved as innocently as Aishia, I’d immediately suspect it was an act. Well, I suppose that’s to be expected, even from siblings. They’re certainly both extremely cute, at least.

“By the way, your little sister’s here,” I told her.

“Huh? Which one? Pastel? Ghana? Satie?”

“It’s Satie, but who were those other two? You have other little sisters besides her?”

“Three little sisters, two younger brothers, four older sisters, and three older brothers.”

Damn, their dwarven parents must have been getting busy!

“We dwarves consider everyone in our tribe family,” she explained.

“Oh, that’s what you mean?”

“After all, when everyone gets drunk together, it can be hard to keep tabs of who made love to whom and such. My mom says she thinks my dad was also a traveling minstrel, but she’s not entirely sure.”

Damn, all the dwarves must’ve been getting busy! Talk about an uninhibited bunch! Yeah, if no one knows who sired who, it makes sense they just collectively called everyone their children!

“W-Well, anyway, would you like to see her?”

“Yes, master, very much so! But if she’s your enemy, I won’t hold back on her, even if she is family.”

“Don’t worry, she’s my friend! And according to her, she was looking for you, apparently?”

“Oh, that’s definitely a lie. Satie only ever has alcohol on her mind, after all.”

Whoa, Satie, exposed by your own sibling right off the bat!

Thus, I brought Aishia into the room. Now, commence the tearful reunion, you two!

“I’m back, Li’l Satie! And look, I brought your sister!”

“Welcome back, Karikari... Huh?!” When Satie turned to look in my direction, her eyes went wide.

“Hey, Satie! It’s been forever, huh?”

“A-Ai?! Why the hell’re you here— Er, I mean, oh, Big Sis Ai, I missed you ever so much!” Satie bawled as she embraced Aishia. But I could tell—there wasn’t a single tear in her eye!

“Wait, Karikari, what gives?” she continued. “I mean, this is definitely really her! No one ever told me she was still alive! And why is she here, anyway?”

“No idea. Complete coincidence, I guess.”

“Liar.”

I tried imitating my goddess, but I guess they saw right through it, huh? Yeah, of course they would. I had the same reaction, after all.

“So, Li’l Satie,” I said, “you wanted to try the booze they have in the elf kingdom so badly that you used your missing sister as an excuse. Do I have that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Forgive me, Mr. Dia,” she admitted, turning toward Dia and bowing her head all the way down to the floor.

By the way, the silver she’d paid the receptionist at the guild really was to put in a request for information on good liquor, just as she’d claimed back then. She’d deliberately looked shifty at the time because she’d known I was watching her and wanted to use that to set up her ploy here, apparently. What’s that, Satie? When you told me you put in a request to gather info just now, you never said “my sister’s info”? True enough, you clever girl! You had me completely fooled... I’m falling for you all over again! After all, if Aishia hadn’t shown up here, you probably would have fooled Dia too and gotten him to vouch for you. And most of all, you immediately fessed up and apologized the moment you were found out, rather than dig your heels in and persist! I love that!

“Dia, I need to apologize to you on her behalf as well,” Aishia said. “This girl, you see, just wants to drink all the time. It’s all she ever thinks about, and it’s the only reason she became a merchant.”

“In that case, I’ll apologize as well, since I introduced her to you,” I said. “Sorry, Dia.”

“For real, Karikari, I really am sorry. I took advantage of your goodwill and smeared it in dirt... Sorry these are so smelly, but here ya go.”

“No problem! You’re forgiven!” I accepted her damp, sweaty, glowingly warm socks, then stored them in my cleavage. Oh no, the lingering stench on my fingers is stimulating my appetite. Guh... My tummy just rumbled! What a terrifying propensity! Damn you, Goddess! And I realized too late—if I’m not offering these up to her, then there was never any need to shame their wearer anyway!

Anyway, it looked like Satie had gifted me back the socks I’d given her. And I didn’t have a reason to refuse, so I figured I might as well take ’em. “By the way, Dia, if she’d just been honest about wanting to go there for the booze, would she have been able to enter?”

“Probably, yeah. But she used her missing sister as a pretext, and I can’t forgive that.”

Ah, right, Dia dotes on his own older sister. “Well, she apologized and admitted she was at fault, so give her another chance.”

“That’s right, I’ve reflected on my actions! I’ll use my dead mother as an excuse next time—that way I can’t possibly get found out!”

“There you go! That’s my Li’l Satie! Great idea!”

“No, not a great idea!” Dia shouted. “You didn’t reflect at all!”

“Ugh, I forgot elves can’t tell when someone’s joking around...” Well, to be fair, it probably wasn’t an appropriate time for it.

“Still, I really am glad that you’re safe and sound, Ai. And you were in Solasidore the whole time? Honestly, I guess I musta failed to see the forest for the big tits.”

Uh... You mean “forest for the trees”? Maybe the expression was different for dwarves with chests as flat as boards, though.

“I wouldn’t say ‘sound,’ exactly,” Aishia corrected. “I lost both my arms, and my face and throat were hopelessly crushed.”

“Whoa. That’s, like, the full set of everything a minstrel uses, huh? But wait, then how...?”

I explained to Satie that Hira had brought Aishia back to her old self, good as new, so her recovery hadn’t been cheap.

“Holy shit, no kiddin’? Then...I really am sorry, Ai. I had no idea you were sufferin’ in a state like that for the last several years.”

“Oh, don’t worry, all’s well that ends well. And it looks like the Kingdom of Alchemy fell to ruin while I was languishing in there! My resentment must have gotten through to the gods!”

“Ha ha, for your resentment alone to crush an entire kingdom, you sure are somethin’ else.”

Well aware that the kingdom’s downfall had nothing to do with Aishia’s resentment, I looked away slightly. Sorry for stealing your thunder there, Aishia!

“But still, if that’s the case, I can’t buy you back anyway,” Satie said, “so good luck continuing the slave life! If Karikari’s your master, I’m sure she’ll treat you well.”

“Hmm? Well, yeah, I wouldn’t give her up regardless,” I said. To be honest, I’d half expected her to try and negotiate with me to release Aishia from her servitude, so it was a little anticlimactic, but whatever. Oh, I bet it’s because she thinks she’d have to pay me extra for healing her. That’d be five gold pieces or so she wouldn’t get to spend on booze, huh.

In the end, however, I did loan Aishia to her for the day. As siblings, they surely had a lot to catch up on. But of course, there was an ulterior motive I’d kept close to my chest.

“Really, though, I can’t believe Satie and Aishia were sisters all along! Pretty surprising development, huh, Dia?”

“Yeah, you said it. And, um, that’s the first time I’ve heard about how dwarven families behave too.”

Elves were fundamentally monogamous, so he was probably having a hard time wrapping his head around the polygamy of dwarves. That said, polygamy was awfully convenient, sure, but I could see how it became pretty messy if you wanted to leave a bloodline behind.

Now then. Aishia was going to be staying with Satie in her room tonight, and in front of Dia and me was a single bed with two pillows. That was because we’d initially agreed upon the two of us taking the bed and Aishia sleeping on the floor.

“So what do you want to do now, Dia? Want to sleep together on the bed, or would you rather head back to base?”

“Hmm... Since we don’t know when Satie might be back, we should probably just use the bed tonight, I think.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. It might be a little cramped with the two of us, but you’ll just have to bear with it for the night. Sorry.” And tomorrow Satie would probably join me, at which point I’d have him stay back at base anyway. So we agreed to share the bed for the night. Naturally, I had Dia wear girl pajamas! A lovely sight indeed!

Thinking about it more, though, perhaps sleeping with both dwarf sisters could be a good option! Sandwiched between two legal lolis, an arm around each... That sounds great! And then if I got Dia to sit on the bedspread, my loli harem would be complete! Wait, no. Dia’s just for display only! Right, display only. I can’t forget that.

Still, when I awoke the next day, I found that something had happened. I had Dia’s long, er, protuberance in my mouth. Our bed was so small, after all... I must have rolled over and gnawed on it in my sleep. By it, of course you already know what I mean. His elf ear, obviously!

And so, because of that, it was pretty hard to meet each other’s gaze that morning. I’m so sorry, Dia! I’ll make it up to you, I promise... Huh? You’re only avoiding my gaze because you’re embarrassed? And it doesn’t have anything to do with the ear thing? Oh...right. Come to think of it, my thighs were touching his thing as I used him as a hug pillow, so that tracks. But you know, morning wood’s a natural phenomenon, Dia. No need to be embarrassed. Rather, it’s the sign of a healthy boy. It doesn’t necessarily mean you were thinking anything naughty, so don’t worry about it!

We had sandwiches for breakfast that day—mushrooms and some sort of meat that seemed almost crablike between two slices of bread. Satie joined us too, and as we ate, we all discussed our plans from here.

“So how much longer are you gonna stay in Carcassa, Li’l Satie?” I asked her.

“Well, I wanna hang out with Ai a little more, plus I’m gonna hitch a ride with the other merchants when they head out. So two more days, I think.”

Apparently merchants often pooled their money to travel in groups because it was cheaper to hire bodyguards that way. It was always safer to travel to other towns in groups rather than going it alone. Not that it mattered for me, though.

“What about you, Karikari?”

“I was thinking I’d check out the dungeon here, actually. We’ve got the inn room for a whole week, so I was gonna do some adventuring for a change.”

“Oh, in that case, can you pick up some crawlers for me along the way? Those’re, like, my favorite snacks. I’d go get ’em myself, but I wanna focus on my business right now.”

Come to think of it, Li’l Satie was also an adventurer just like me, wasn’t she? And she sounded confident about holding her own in that dungeon, so she’s probably pretty strong.

“Just so you know, master, Satie’s called the ‘Drunken Ogre’ back in our hometown,” Aishia said. “She’s something of a celebrity there.”

“Whoa, seriously?! Famous for her drinking even among alcoholics like dwarves?!”

“Hey now, Ai, don’t bring that up, it’s embarrassing. Don’t listen to her, it’s not like I’m a bad drunk or anything. It’s just, that’s kinda how my skill works.”

Satie apparently had a skill called “Drunken Fist” that made her stronger the drunker she got. Consuming alcohol fortified her body and increased her speed. Drinking was like fueling up for her, essentially. She fought by swinging iron sake bottles around like maces and nunchucks. Damn...that’s cool. I kinda wanna see her do it now.

“By the way, this crablike meat in here is really good. And it pairs really well with the sour sauce on this sandwich. What is this?”

“It’s boiled silk spider leg, master,” Aishia declared. “And the sauce is apparently a mixture of acid and mothers’ milk extracted from an armor ant! The mushrooms, incidentally, are from creatures called myconids, harvested locally from this very dungeon.”

“Spiders, ants, and walking mushrooms, huh? Well...it’s delicious.” Aishia had no doubt done her very best to try and find the most delectable sandwich in Carcassa. And to tell the truth, she’d done a great job, because this was fantastic. I’ll have to praise her later for her efforts.

“Ew... You’re actually eating that?” Satie said, scowling. “Gross. Hold off on kissing me for a while, okay?”

“Hold up, Li’l Satie. What part of this is a no-go for you? The spider leg? You just said crawlers were a favorite of yours.”

“It’s the armor ant acid I can’t deal with,” she said. “That stuff melts steel, you know? What if it melts my teeth too?”

The armor ant was an insect with an exterior like steel armor and had a diet of primarily iron ore, which it melted down using its acid. Its armor was often used to forge shields and armor pieces, so they were popular prey for adventurers.

“I know what you’re thinking, master, but don’t worry. I made sure these were properly prepared. The acid has been diluted.”

“Well, that’s good. Still, I think we should probably all brush our teeth afterward.” I could heal a little decay, of course, but protecting against cavities was important. In the worst case, I could make an implant with spatial magic, but I’d rather not have to if I could help it.

“Whoa, hold up!” I said. “Does that mean you’re fine with me kissing you after a while?”

“Huh? I mean, yeah, it’d be pretty silly of me not to be after all we did.”

“Wait just a minute, Satie. Exactly what kind of relationship do you have with master?”

“Er... Occasional lovers, I guess? Right, Karikari?”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right!” Wow, to think that after a lifetime of not having a lover, I’ve finally graduated at last! I’ve got a girlfriend now! I’m so moved. Even if she’s just an occasional girlfriend.

“H-Huh?! Y-You mean you and Satie are going out, big sis?”

“Yeah, I guess so!” I said. “Heh heh, look at how cute my girlfriend is!”

“Nah, Dia, I’m just kidding. Man, I guess it’s true what they say about elves not understanding jokes, huh? H-Hey, I said don’t get close, Karikari! At least not for the rest of today!”

When I grabbed her shoulders and tried to pull her closer to me, she used her tiny hand to push my face away. Ah, how forceful! I love it!

“Well, they do say heroes are the most susceptible to female charms, I suppose,” I heard Dia mutter. He sounded dejected.

“Whoa, hey now, don’t worry!” I said. “I have more than enough love to go around! I love you and Aishia as well, of course! In fact, lemme nibble on those ears again!”

“H-Huh?! That’s... W-Well, all right, if you want to...” His face went beet red as he nodded. Wait, are you serious, Dia? I really will if you’re not careful... Wait, but he’s for display only! Wouldn’t nibbling on his ear ruin his collector’s value?! Well, whatever! I’ve already done it once before, even if it was in my sleep, so the damage is already done!

Chapter 3

It was time to go dungeon diving at last!

Located in Carcassa’s center was a rocky mountain, surrounded by the town’s inner walls. A cave mouth led inside, and the dungeon within was like the inside of a cave as well, except it was teeming with fantastic monsters instead of regular creatures. I showed my Adventurer’s Guild license to the receptionist at the gate in order to enter.

“Hey, are you girls gonna be all right in there with such low-level gear?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, sir, we’ll be fine,” I answered. “I heard the monsters in this dungeon are easier to run from than defend against anyway.”

“Well, as long as you’re aware, I guess. It’s one copper per person to enter.”

“Here ya go!”

Aishia was my slave and thus technically considered part of my equipment, so she was able to get in for free. By the way, she was currently wearing my backpack and was going to be my porter while we were in the dungeon. Everything I put in the backpack would just be transported to my space of holding, though, so it was all just for show.

When we entered the dungeon, it was indeed identical to a cavern of exposed rock. However, it was vast enough that anyone could swing their sword in here without worrying about striking the walls. The ground below was solid and also surprisingly flat, but a long spear still probably wouldn’t be a good choice here. Also, for a cave, it was unusually well lit. You could probably get by without bringing a light, but you couldn’t see very far ahead, only what was around you. It was honestly pretty bizarre.

As we proceeded through the dungeon, I sensed a lingering humidity in the air. It was the kind of sensation that made you think a bunch of monsters were going to leap out and attack the moment you rounded the next corner. When we did, we saw mushrooms growing off to the side. These must have been the ones that grew to become myconids that walk around on their own. Come to think of it, what do these guys feed on, anyway? Mana, maybe?

“By the way, Dia, I know it might be a bit late to ask, but do you know how to fight?”

“That really is a bit late to ask,” he chuckled. “But yeah, I know all about magic theory, so I can technically use it. Since we’re in a dungeon, I wonder if fire would be most appropriate?” As he spoke, he took out a wooden wand around fifty centimeters long, roughly the size of a police baton. There was an orb attached to the tip. Where’d you even get that thing, Dia? Oh, your sister Cumin entrusted it to you? So mages in this world use wands like these. I had no idea...

“Magic wands are ridiculously expensive, master,” Aishia cut in. “They’re catalysts for turning mana into powerful spells, basically, so that only stands to reason.”

“Really? Like how much are we talking?”

“Er, let’s see. In terms of gold, probably one, two, three... Well, a lot!”

Oh, right, to regular folk like her, anything beyond three is just “a lot.” Satie’s a merchant who can do math in her head no problem, so I guess I just naturally assumed her sister Aishia could do the same... Guess that’s what happens when compulsory education isn’t a thing.

“This wand’s probably worth around seven gold,” Dia answered. “It almost halves the mana requirements of spells, so you can perform doubly powerful spells than normal.”

“Whoa, seven gold? That’s pretty expensive, Dia.”

“Not at all. Compared to most wands, this one’s actually cheap.”

In other words, they were so expensive that basically only the wealthy could use them. Certainly expensive for a commoner like me.

“By the way, master, what will our respective roles be in the party?” Aishia asked.

“Right, big sis is obviously gonna handle the fighting, and she can heal as well... What are we supposed to do?”

“Heh heh, that’s right. Just leave the vanguard, the rear guard, and the center all to me! I’m also especially good at scouting and carrying equipment!”

“But that’s basically everything, isn’t it?”

Oh, right, I can do pretty much everything on my own with my spatial magic. “Well, we’re just looking around the dungeon and seeing the sights today anyway. In the meantime, I’ll protect you both, so just discuss it and decide what roles you each want to take.”

“Okay! If you’re protecting us, big sis, then we don’t need to worry!”

That’s right, Dia. I’ll protect you both, so you’ll be completely safe! And I won’t let anything ambush us either!

“Let’s see... One crawler spotted over thataway. I’ll try and hunt it, then give it to Satie as a gift.”

Since I was armed with my spatial magic, scouting the dungeon came to me as naturally as breathing. Therefore, I immediately spotted our first monster... Oh, that thing’s bigger than I thought. About as large as a medium-sized dog, maybe? It was busy scarfing down a bunch of mushrooms on the ground. According to my earlier research, it was an omnivore and also attacked adventurers by paralyzing them.

“Now, how to kill it? Cut it in slices? Crush its head? Or just sever its nervous system and leave its exterior unharmed?”

“Try cutting it into slices, I guess?”

“All right.” I snapped my fingers, and the crawler was cut into neat, evenly round slices. Fluid poured from the severed ends of its body, including what I assumed was the poison that paralyzed its enemies.

“Well done, master! Incredible! You even cut the skin’s hard parts cleanly!”

“I thought I understood how powerful your magic was, but it even works perfectly against monsters, huh?”

“More like it’s the perfect tool for torturing living things... No, never mind, forget what I said. I just had a good teacher, that’s all.”

Yeah... Thanks to the Goddess’s tutorial, I had the combat aspect of my power down pat.

“How about you try taking the next one, Dia? I want to see your attack magic in action. And what are you gonna do, Aishia? Did you decide?”

“Oh, I can’t fight, so I’ll just focus on being your pack mule. And using my minstrel skill set, I can probably do a little scouting for you as well, though it’d pale in comparison to your ability.”

“Oh, I see. Do you use, like, echolocation or something? Sounds good—in that case, I’ll let you handle the scouting from now on. Let’s see what you’ve got!”

“Are you sure, master? I really think using yours would keep us safer.”

“I can perform any role in the party already, so I’d rather take care of the things that you two can’t cover. Or would you rather just make everything boring for me by having me handle everything?”

“N-No, perish the thought! V-Very well, I’ll perform the scouting!”

That’s what I thought. Good girl!

“Reduce my enemies to ash! Fireball!”

Immediately after Dia chanted, a flaming sphere the size of a basketball flew straight forward from the tip of his wand to strike a grasshopper-like creature about the size of a cucumber. The grasshopper was engulfed in flames, and it let out a distorted cry before burning to death.

“So it’s powerful enough to eliminate smaller monsters in one hit, at least,” I mused.

“Obviously it’s nowhere near as powerful as your magic, big sis, but I am an elf, so of course I can manage this much.” He thrust out his chest, looking proud of himself. By the way, this dungeon’s monsters were mostly insect types, so many of them were vulnerable to fire. And perhaps because the wand was so expensive, it was apparently capable of firing a thousand more of those fireballs.

“Master, Dia, I hear something moaning over there. Many moans, actually.”

“Uh-oh, are they planning to ambush us in a group? Dia, can you take care of them with that fireball of yours?”

“Depends on how many there are, and how big...but I might be able to use a firewall instead!”

Well, as long as you’ve got something that’ll work. In the next instant, four fist-sized hornets made a beeline for us. Yellow hornets, I think they’re called? And their poison needle attacks are supposed to be especially dangerous.

“Prevent my enemies from approaching! Firewall!”

Dia used his magic to incinerate the hornets. One tried to circle around the wall of flame to get to us, but I used my own magic to slice it in half.

“Guess that’s that. When you said ‘many,’ I was expecting a horde, but there were only four of ’em. I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. All right, Aishia, I’m going to start teaching you arithmetic when we get back.”

“Huh? V-Very well, if you say so, master.”

Rather, how did she manage her money back when she was traveling as a minstrel?

“Oh no!” Dia exclaimed. “I accidentally burned the needles we were supposed to take back to the guild to prove we defeated them!”

“Yeah, I guess that is a weakness of fire magic... Let’s see.” I inspected them. “They’re only a little scorched, so I think they should still be usable?”

“Go right ahead and put them in the backpack, master!” Aishia turned around so that the backpack on her back was facing me. I stuffed the needles inside. Of course, I actually put them in my space of holding, but this act was important to maintain in case any other adventurers were watching.

“Come to think of it,” I said, “don’t those hornet monsters also produce beeswax from their abdomens?”

“Oh, that’s right! Er, but that beeswax gets layered on their bodies as armor, so my fire magic burned that up as well... Sorry, big sis.”

In fact, it had formed a melted puddle on the ground. I could still scoop it up with my magic, of course, but it wasn’t so valuable that I needed to go that far.

“I guess maybe exploiting a monster’s weakness isn’t always the best choice after all. Well, don’t beat yourself up over it, Dia.”

“Maybe I could try just targeting their heads next time?”

By the way, these hornets were also emitting a shrimplike odor. Are they edible too, I wonder? Oh, only if you prepare them properly before cooking them? I see... Interesting.

Anyway, as we continued further into the dungeon, another question entered my mind. “Hey, there’s something else I’ve been wondering, you guys. This dungeon’s home to a lot of monsters, right? But if we hunt too many of them, will the monster population just dry up? Where do they spawn from, anyway?”

“Huh?” Dia said. “I’ve never really thought about it, I guess. I just know dungeons are full of monsters. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

“What?! You mean neither you nor master are aware?!” Then let me enlighten you! Minstrel Aishia seemed to want to say as she began to tell the tale with pride. “Dungeons are the birthplace of all magic and thus the home to which all mana returns. Mana fills the dungeon and condenses into droplets, and it is from these droplets that monsters are reborn—so they say.”

I see. So the more mana that gathers in dungeons, the more likely monsters are to respawn. In other words, if we cull too many, they won’t come back for a while, but they gradually will as more mana gathers in the dungeon over time.

“No kidding? That’s pretty cool, actually. So do materials like ore and such behave the same way?”

“Considering the armor ants here continue to feed off that ore for sustenance and to fortify their armor, it seems reasonable to think so.”

An unlimited supply of resources, huh? Wow, dungeons are pretty impressive!

We continued on for a while longer until we abruptly came across a large door with reliefs etched into it. The door was embedded directly into the cave rock. It looked like a door to a boss room; however, it wasn’t the final boss of the dungeon. Trouncing the boss beyond would allow us to travel deeper into the dungeon—in other words, it was more like a mid-boss.

“Who put this door here, anyway?” I asked. “Aishia, do you know?”

“Yes, I do! This is a magical device that prevents the boss from leaving its lair, and the Adventurer’s Guild put it here. While hanging around in the guild’s bars, I heard they commission the most elite adventurers to enter unexplored dungeons and install those doors.”

“Oh, so they really were put here by people, then.” Conversely, it meant that any dungeon with doors like this had already been explored. It also meant that even after a party of adventurers wiped the floor with this boss, it’d never be able to respawn anywhere but this room. Convenient!

“So, master, what do you want to do? Shall we take on the boss?”

“Sure, why not? I mean, we’ve managed everything else with ease thus far, so this thing probably won’t be any big deal either. What do you think, Dia? Feeling up for it?”

“Well...normally I’d say we shouldn’t take any unnecessary risks, but I don’t mind if you’re feeling confident you can handle it. I do think we ought to go in there with a plan, though. Like this, for instance...” He proceeded to detail the strategy he had in mind. “First off, the boss here is a red hornet, apparently, and it spawns yellow hornets as you fight it. Yellow hornets are vulnerable to fire magic, so I’ll take care of those. If we’re ignoring gathering the materials they drop, that much should be a breeze.”

Dia proposed we forgo gathering the hornet needles and use Firewall to eliminate all the yellow hornet adds, then I’d confront the red hornet afterward. It was a reasonable delegation of roles.

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “It certainly sounds like less of a hassle than finishing the battle as cleanly as possible to get those drop items.”

“Efficient and to the point! Just what I’d expect from you, Dia!” Aishia exclaimed.

By the way, the red hornet was apparently often seen down in the lower levels as well, but as a mob enemy there. And apparently the queen bee, the Mother Hornet, was lurking on the dungeon’s lowest level. Really, I had to tip my hat to Dia’s and Aishia’s information-gathering skills.

“Now then, master. If you’ll permit me, your Aishia will do the honors of opening this door!” She placed her hands on the double doors and pushed them open with all her might.

I immediately spotted five yellow hornets and one red hornet on the other side of the room. Yep, it’s certainly red. And pretty big for a bug—probably about the size of a puppy. Honestly, it looked pretty freaky. My natural instincts were telling me to keep my distance.

“O wall of flame, prevent my enemies from approaching! Firewall!” Immediately after Dia finished chanting, a barrier of fire engulfed the yellow hornets, burning their dropped items to a crisp. What a shame.

“All right, big sis, you’re up! Take care of the boss!”

“Yessir! Now what approach should I take...?” First, I decided to circle around the red hornet, grab its flimsy wings, and tear them off. Nice, now it can’t fly anymore.

“B-Big sis, wh-what did you just do?!”

“What do you mean? I just stretched my legs a little, that’s all,” I said, trying to sound cool. I’d always wanted to say something like that! In reality, it’d been a little more complicated: I’d used my spatial magic to teleport myself behind the enemy, then fixed the red hornet in place where it couldn’t turn around. Look, it was my first time fighting a boss, so I just wanted to show off a little!

“You really are amazing...but if you can do that, you might as well pluck its head off too.”

“Heh heh... Sure thing.” I tore the red hornet’s head from its body, concluding our first boss fight.

I stuffed the drop items from the red hornet into Aishia’s backpack. Because I’d torn the insect apart by hand, the materials were still intact. The beeswax it produced was also of a higher quality than the yellow hornets’, apparently, meaning it’d sell for more. Hell yeah!

“To be honest, big sis, I think you’re more suited for adventuring than mercantile work.”

“Huh? You think? Did I really look that cool to you? Heh heh heh, well, if you’re going to praise me, then maybe I ought to work at the adventuring thing a little more seriously!”

“Just make sure you don’t reveal your identity in the process.”

But adventuring is also a part of my identity... Well, whatever.

After we returned to ground level, taking a few more monsters out along the way, we left the dungeon behind and headed back into town. From all the drop items we turned in and after subtracting the dungeon’s entry fee, we earned a total of thirty-three silvers, making eleven silvers for each of us. Furthermore, the drop items from the mid-boss, the red hornet, were judged to be in perfect condition. At first I wondered if that would cause a commotion, but they were accepted and we received our pay without incident. A little disappointing, if I was being honest. Probably because they were just mob monsters down on the lower levels.

Still, if our first venture into the dungeon went this well, I was more eager than ever to see what was on the lower floors and how much more we could earn there. I was looking forward to my next dive already!

When we returned to the inn and regaled Satie with tales of our exploits, she seemed taken aback. “Thirty-three silvers?! How’d you make that much on the upper floors? Was it because you had a porter?”

“I-Is it really that impressive? I mean, all we did was defeat every monster we came across, really.”

“Yeah, and most adventurers just leave behind the materials they can’t carry.”

Huh, really? What a waste. Give them to me instead, then!

“That said, some lower-ranked adventurers do scrounge around picking ’em up off the ground to eke out a living. Like adventurer orphans, for instance.”

“Adventurer orphans?”

Apparently there were some out there whose parents were adventurers who’d died while on a quest or dungeon dive and became orphans as a result. And sometimes the adventurer parents were just pieces of shit and left their kids behind for no good reason. (This was what I learned by looking the term up in the Tome of General Knowledge.) What’s more, if a party didn’t have a person who clearly looked like a porter—like Aishia with her large backpack, for instance—these orphans tended to come up to them and ask to be hired as porters or follow parties around without permission.

“Huh. Sounds like it could lead to a dangerous scenario.”

“Sure can. And in most cases, it does, either for the party or the orphan, or sometimes both. I’ve witnessed it myself a few times—I mean, I look like a child, so folks usually look down on me or straight up attack me when I work solo. They always come to regret it in the end, of course.”

“You’re so tough, Satie! I’m falling for you all over again!”

Really, though, I suppose the dungeon’s a scarier place than I initially took it for.

＊ ＊ ＊

When I awoke the next day, the dwarf sisters (one technically a half dwarf) were on either side of me, accompanying me in the bed. All three of us were immodestly clad in our undergarments. Hmm... At least Dia wasn’t with us. Dodged a bullet there.

As for how things ended up like this... Well, that was simple. Immediately after I’d returned from the dungeon, Satie had asked to get in bed with me and suggested we all drink together to celebrate my trouncing of the dungeon’s mid-boss. And of course, I’d responded with “Thought you’d never ask!” As for Dia—now I remember. I’d said “In that case, we’ll make it a girls’ party!” and Dia had said, “Oh, but I’m a boy, so I’ll pass,” and left us be. Really, I just don’t get him sometimes. Then Satie had said, “Oh, so he really is a boy, then.” Had she really been unsure all that time?!

Ugh...my head. What did we do last night, anyway? Oh no—I’d drank so much that I didn’t remember it! Goddammit, not again! I tried really hard to avoid it, I did! But when I’d used my spatial magic to pretend like I was drinking, Satie had caught on! She’d glared at me and said, “What are you trying to pull? You’re not planning to pilfer my booze, are you?” so I had no choice but to drink it all for real! And when I asked her how she got that idea, she said, “Just looking at your face, I can tell!” Honestly...you know me too well, Satie! You love me way too much! But I love you more!

Thus, Li’l Satie, Aishia, and I began our serious drinking session... Come to think of it, that crawler jerky had a taste that was surprisingly addictive, and I might’ve eaten too much of that as well. Toss ten or so pieces into a container of water, and their original flavor comes right back... You crawlers really are something else! Perhaps your true purpose in life all along was to become preserved food for humans.

Hmm, and what happened after that? I couldn’t really remember... Well, anyway, here we were now, sleeping side by side, a sister on each arm. I stroked the two angels beside me on the head affectionately. It really was neat that they both had the same red hair. Made ’em really feel like siblings! Man...this was heaven. My only grievance was that I couldn’t remember what I’d done with them.

“Yaaawn... Oh, you’re up already, Karikari? Mornin’.”

“Yep, up and at ’em. I love you, Li’l Satie!”

“Love you too... Mmm.” She buried her face into my chest and nuzzled it. Ha ha, that tickled! But it felt great!

“Master... I adore you so...”

“Hmm? Oh, looks like Aishia’s still sleeping. Whoa! H-Hey, don’t kiss under my arm like that... Tee hee!”

“Oh, this looks like it’ll be fun,” Satie said, and she began tickling the side of my abdomen. One assaulting my flank and the other my armpit... Oh no, you’ve found my weak spots! Tee hee hee... Wake up, Aishia, before I’m a goner!

“Yaaawn... Whew. I had a dream where I was eating master’s pickle... I can still taste the acidity in my mouth!”

“O-Oh, really? W-Well, anyway, good morning...” My pickle? What, did I make her a pickle by hand? Or was that a code word for something else? I at least hoped she wasn’t talking about brining and eating me... That’d be a little too freaky.

“Good morning, master. Last night was, well, the first time in a while I’ve received your favor, so I’m just so incredibly happy right now!”

“Wow, Ai, you actually look like a girl in love. Never thought I’d see ya make that face.”

“Sh-Shut up, Satie! You think you’re so special just because you got seduced by master before she even met me... Oh, but considering how much you wanted to suck on our feet last night, I’m guessing you find both Satie’s and mine rather delicious?”

Oh, uh. Well. I’d already guessed as much from our positions here, but I supposed I really had enjoyed both these sisters carnally. Dammit... Now if I could just remember any of it! That’s it, alcohol is the root of all evil! I’m off the stuff for good!

“Karikari, you weren’t, by chance, just thinking that alcohol’s evil, were you?”

“Huh?! Of course not! Wh-Whatever gave you that idea?!” Damn, her eyes were scary! She’d seen right through me! But I loved that about her!

“Satie, master may not mind if you get too full of yourself, but I won’t allow it. Never glare at her like that again.”

“Oh, and what are you gonna do to me? You’re Karikari’s slave, and you’re threatening me, her lover? Interesting... How are you gonna punish me, I wonder?”

“For starters, I’ll reveal your childhood secrets, one by one. Master, would you like to know just how old Satie was when she finally stopped wetting the bed?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again.”

Ha ha, it did my heart good to see siblings who got along so well! And be sandwiched between them, of course. This was the life.

Now that I’d cooled off from the morning’s excitement and made myself presentable, it was time to meet back up with Dia.

“Got anything planned today, big sis?” he asked.

“Let’s see... While we’re here in Carcassa, how about we do some sightseeing? Wanna come with, Li’l Satie?”

“Oh—sorry, Karikari, but I gotta get going. The merchant convoy sets off today.” Apparently she was too busy with mercantile work to fool around. “You sure are carefree, though. The next convoy after this one isn’t till half a month from now... Oh, right, you don’t use those, do you? I’m a little jealous.”

“Well, I’ve decided to take it easy and not live my life beholden to a schedule.”

“Sure, but you still gotta make money, right? I mean, if you sold everything you had wholesale to a store right now, you still probably wouldn’t make that much... Oh, but you also make money adventuring. I almost forgot.”

True, I did make more money as an adventurer than as a merchant. Like when I went logging, for instance. By the way, according to Satie, the mercantile market was wide open, so it was common for merchants to make more money off people unaffiliated with the guild. Seriously? I had no idea!

“You know that honey you sold earlier? Look at what the storefronts are selling it for. At the very least, there’ll be a double markup, sometimes even triple. You’re selling ’em way too cheap.”

“Huh, no kidding? Wouldn’t that be overcharging, though?”

“Not at all. In fact, most merchants can’t eke out a living if they don’t sell ’em for that much. That’s just basic business. Wait, Karikari, don’t tell me you didn’t even know that?”

Now that she mentioned it, traveling on foot for a month straight in order to sell your wares, risking monster and bandit attacks along the way, only to come up short in profit would normally be pretty inexcusable, huh? To be honest, I hadn’t even procured enough wares yet to fill my backpack full without using spatial magic, so normally it would have been too early for me to head to Carcassa to sell. I’d be making far too little of a profit.

“It’s just like I thought. You’re way more suited to be an adventurer than a merchant.”

“Guh! Right in the heart! I-I can be a merchant, honest! I’m just taking my time, that’s all!”

She laughed. “Then why don’tcha shoot for getting a license already? You’ll make a lot more money that way.”

By the way, because Satie owned her own wagon and had a license to sell alcohol, she received grants from the guild, which saved her the time and trouble of having to search for buyers. By selling wholesale to buyers the guild designated for her instead, she was able to make a tidy profit relatively quickly. Wait, you can do that? It isn’t just her haggling skills that keep her afloat? Man, I didn’t know any of that! Did they tell me at the Trader’s Guild and I just forgot?

“It’s not something they explain to you at the guild,” she said. “It’s more like a ‘vested interests’ type thing. But the kingdom cooked up the grant system itself.”

Oh, I see. In other words, it was in the sellers’ best interest to keep quiet about it if they wanted to keep the privileges and profit margins they were earning, or perhaps if they wanted to have a successful business to pass onto their offspring. Wait, but wasn’t that illegal? Oh, it was, according to Satie. I see. Good to know.

“It’s typical for merchants to learn their trade from someone more experienced, like a parent or mentor. That’s why this is all common knowledge for a lot of them. But...”

“Yeah, and I don’t have anyone like that. Did you, Satie?”

“Of course I did, though I ended up beating them in a drinking contest and took their liquor license and magic backpack,” she said, throwing her flat chest out with pride. She went on to explain that there were a fixed number of vested interests agreed upon, and the magic backpack held more than it appeared to, but it only worked for alcohol. It also had a blessing on it that preserved the alcohol inside in its optimal condition, and made it so that the bottles couldn’t break as well. Hold on, that sounded a lot like one of the Goddess’s sacred treasures... Well, I’ll let this one slide. I can’t imagine anyone more suited for this particular item than Satie, so it’s in the right hands, at least. Besides, I’d seen adventurers out logging with magic bags and such before, so maybe it wasn’t that special after all.

“Anyway, I got a load of goods in my wagon just waitin’ to be turned into money outside of the guild’s grants, so this is goodbye for now, Karikari.”

“Aw... That’s a shame. I wanted to spend a little more time talking about how much we love each other.”

“I’d like to as well, believe me, but duty calls. Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll keep that massager you sold me last night a secret until you put it out on the market.”

Oh, so I guess I sold her one, huh? Knowing me, I bet I gave her a demonstration to show her what it could do, and she became a fan. “I’ll be sure to treasure your socks too!”

“I still don’t understand that at all, but you do you, I guess.”

It was because of this damn fetish the Goddess put in me! It’s not like I wanted your...used socks...either... Uh-oh, just getting a whiff was enough to make me go nuts. The pungent odor, like having blocks of cheese crammed up both nostrils, was sending pleasure signals through my brain to where I couldn’t get enough! If I were the Goddess, I’d definitely give these 100 SP! Oh dear, this disposition she gave me really was terrifying.

At that moment, Dia stepped between us, holding a letter in his hand. “Oh, before you go, here, Satie. This is a letter of recommendation for you to enter the elf kingdom.”

“Wait, no kiddin’? You’re seriously gonna let me in?!”

“Sure, I don’t mind. But I wrote that you’ll definitely take the inspection seriously, so I wouldn’t lie to them if I were you.”

“I won’t, don’t worry! Thanks a bunch, Dia! As thanks, I’ll let you have Karikari tonight! Sexually, of course!”

“Damn, sold by my own lover! You’re just tossing me out, Satie?! After all that consummating of our love we did last night that I regrettably can’t remember?!”

“Sorry, but that’s business! We’re just occasional lovers anyway!”

“Ngh... So you were never serious about me! You just used me and led me along! And yet, I love you even more now!”

Dia just sighed and shrugged at our impromptu dramatic act. “Just for the record, I wouldn’t make jokes like that when you’re in the elf kingdom. Elves are more fond of people who are honest and serious about their love.”

“Got it, sorry. I love you, Karikari, forever and always. That said, I’m always gonna love alcohol more.”

“Love you too! Wait, but I love you even more than alcohol! No fair!”

Dis looked a little embarrassed as he watched us goof around a little longer for good measure. Wait, did he know what Satie was talking about? So you know more about adult stuff than you let on, Dia! How cute!

“Phew... I drank so much last night that I’m still a little hungover. I’m gonna have to reschedule some appointments. Anyway, later, Karikari! Take good care of Ai for me!”

With a final smile and a wave, she was gone. Till next time, Satie! Until then, keep those socks of yours warm for me!

Carcassa was a dungeon town. Therefore, most of the sightseeing opportunities here had to do with the dungeon, but going in there to see the sights would be no different from adventuring. So I decided to go around and visit all the unique dungeon-related facilities in the town instead. First I needed to ask about what those facilities were, though, so I headed to Carcassa’s church to pray and consult Siesta about the local sights while I was at it.

Not that I actually prayed. The Goddess and I were already always connected, after all! No, seriously. She was always listening to my prayers and everything else with those home shrines of hers, anyway. I didn’t have any socks to give her right now either.

Passing through the wide-open church doors, I immediately spotted my favorite pink-haired nun. That’s right, it was Siesta, my ever-present colleague with shared memories across every town I visited! After all, I didn’t know anyone else who’d be as familiar with the sightseeing spots here!

“Yo, Siesta! Can you tell me where I can go here to see the sights— Whoa!”

“Oh, hello, colleague. You’re smelling awfully lovely today.”

But the pink-haired nun in the church looked much more mature than normal. Her figure was voluptuous and erotic. Rather, her boobs were so massive that they looked like they were about to burst out from her habit. And was it just me, or was there a loud boinging sound effect whenever she walked?! How lewd! Ahem... This was obviously a crime! A walking incarnation of unforgivable sin! This could seriously affect the moral development of a young man!

“Er... You are Siesta, right?”

“Yes, I am. Though since you’re used to the Siesta in Solasidore, I could be called her ‘aunt version,’ probably.”

“Oh, an aunt! I see, so that’s the setting you were given!” To think this version of Siesta existed as well! A kind, gentle, older woman, but still a succubus. What are you, perfect or something?!

“In dungeon towns, this sort of supple, ripened form tends to be more popular.”

“I see. Can I cop a feel?”

“It’ll be one silver per squeeze.”

So if I paid up, it’d be fine?! Not that I was going to—thanks to Satie and Aishia, I was satisfied in that department for now. But if I hadn’t been, you better believe I would have reached for my wallet!

“It’s like a blessing fee,” she explained. “Everyone around here swears up and down that groping them brings good luck.”

“I see, so your breasts are good-luck charms.”

“Yes. And the ones for whom it doesn’t work don’t return home, so no one’s accused me of fraud.”

Huh... Well then, no wonder it’s so well reviewed.

“I’m just kidding, colleague.”

“Uh...which part were you kidding about, exactly?”

She just gave me a smile in response. Damn you, succubus! I’m falling prey to your allure! All right, let’s get a hold of ourselves. Deep breaths, now...

“Anyway, back to the original topic. Do you know of any good sightseeing spots around here unique to this town? Like anything to do with the dungeon, for instance. Except for what’s in the dungeon itself, since I already went there yesterday.”

“Hmm... This isn’t really a good town for that sort of thing to begin with, though. The dungeon’s really all I can think of.”

“Well, I guess that does it for that idea, then.” She did proceed to tell me about a nearby bread mill and a nice restaurant serving delicious soba, but that wasn’t really what I was looking for.

“Oh, then what about dungeon-related shops?” she asked. “Like a blacksmith’s forge, or a weapon and armor shop? Demand for those things is high because of the dungeon, and there’s no shortage of materials from monsters either.”

Hmm. A blacksmith’s forge, huh? Sure, that worked! I nodded. “Good enough! Thanks, Siesta! I’ll go check out the forge!”

“Glad I could help. Now, as for the consultation fee...”

“Th-That’s another one of your jokes, right?”

“No, this time I’m serious. If you’re satisfied with my service, at least part with an offering.”

Guh... The fee for guiding lost lambs, was it?! Guess there was nothing for it! “All right, name your price.”

“One of those pancakes of yours will do. I did hear all about it from our Goddess, you know?”

“My pancakes? But I couldn’t copy the Goddess’s mix with my spatial magic, so I’d have to... All right, fine. You really did help, so I’ll make an extra pancake just for you. With extra honey.”

“Ooh, now that sounds delightful! May the Goddess’s blessing be upon you, colleague!” She made the holy sign with her arms—which was just drawing the shape of a yen coin in the air—then bowed her head in prayer. Wait... Was she drawing a coin just now, or a pancake?

Thanks to Siesta’s guidance (in exchange for promising her a pancake topped with extra honey), I now had a destination. So I gathered the others and we all headed over to the blacksmith’s forge. Hearing the word “forge,” I imagined the place was going to be filled with the ringing of hammer against metal, where new weapons and armor were crafted daily, but since this was another world, I couldn’t be certain.

“Hey Aishia, you’re a dwarf, so do you know anything about these forges?”

“There are basically two types,” she answered. “One is mostly the same as you’ve described: You put material into a furnace to make it more malleable, hammer and knead it out, then shape it into the form you want. More or less the same as making bread.”

Wait, did you just put blacksmithing in the same category as bread baking?

“I mean, you’re kneading materials into a certain shape, and using a furnace, so isn’t it the same?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right! What a novel insight, Aishia!”

“Heh heh, my yeast rises every now and then!”

One involved melting metal down, and the other was baking dough to make it firmer, but they were pretty similar, it was true.

Meanwhile, Dia was cocking his head, looking curious. “Hmm... Is the blacksmithing process, like, a trade secret? Or do you think they’d let me see how it worked?”

“I doubt they’d let you sit in on the making of weapons, but the other type of blacksmithing, ‘casting,’ would probably be fine to watch. You know that alcohol you bought from Satie? If the blacksmith’s a dwarf, I bet he’d let you in exchange for a bottle of that stuff.”

“I see. Yeah, it tracks that dwarves could be bribed with booze,” I said.

“Also, in a town like this, there are bound to be one or two dwarf-owned forges.”

“Makes sense! I mean, when you think forges, you think dwarves!” What flawless logic! My Aishia really was brilliant! “By the way, if forges make you think of bread baking, what would you liken the process of casting to?”

“Hmm... Cookie baking, maybe? For one you pour the material into a mold and the other you’re cutting the material in the shape of a mold, but with both you’re making a bunch of the same-shaped stuff, so it’s pretty similar.”

“Oh, I see. That’s good to hear, then. I love matcha cookies!”

First, we went and visited the weapon shop. The plan was to look around and see what it was like, maybe buy a few things, and during the course of conversation with the owner, ask about any dwarf-owned forges in the area. I also wanted to get Aishia a weapon. I’d equipped her with a mythril knife back in the dungeon just in case, but she hadn’t really ended up using it.

“I probably should have asked you this before we went into the dungeon, but what kind of weapon are you good with?”

“Me? Er... An instrument, I suppose?”

What, so you beat your enemies over the head with a guitar or something? That’s pretty rock and roll.

“Like keeping monsters away from us by making sounds that repel them, perhaps? I’m a minstrel, not really a fighter to begin with.”

“Oh—yeah, I guess not.”

“But a weapon shop like this won’t have instruments in stock, and I only really know how to use a knife. So for now, just a small shield and utility knife will suffice.”

Hmm, then maybe it’d be better to just make her an instrument with my woodworking skill later.

“But Aishia,” Dia said, “ as a minstrel, would it really be a good idea to use a shield to defend yourself? Your arms are your moneymakers, and it’d be a shame to lose them again after big sis restored them, don’t you think?”

“Oh, come on, isn’t it obvious?” she said. “If that happens, master will just fix them again, so there’s no problem. Right, master?”

“O-Oh, uh, yeah, I can fix ’em.” I got the feeling her nuance of “fix” just now was a little off, though... Well, whatever.

“I’d like a secondary weapon as well, big sis. Like a light, easy-to-use backup weapon in case my magic runs out.”

“Oh, okay. Well, if you find one you like in here, I’ll buy it for you. I can consider it a daily living expense, so we’ve got a budget of around four gold.”

“In that case, we should stock up on more mythril knives too,” he suggested.

At any rate, we had plenty of money to spend on gear here, though we probably still wouldn’t be able to afford full body armor or anything like that. “Oh, come to think of it, you two...we’ll absolutely need to get something to protect your feet!”

“Then let’s buy some of these sturdy boots,” Aishia suggested.

Yeah, that’d be good. After all, resilient boots with no airflow would create more sweat, which would be to the Goddess’s liking. I could also just put I Am The Star on both their feet to make sure they stayed intact. Anyway, we made our purchases and asked the shop owner about where a dwarf forge might be located. Once we had that information, our next destination was decided! To the forge!

As it turned out, the forge created much more than just weapons and armor. Other metallic products like kitchen knives, scissors, pans, ladles, and nails were all made in forges. They were all handmade with expertise, so they were a little expensive, but the armor ants in the dungeon were so abundant that steel-based goods were slightly cheaper than the others. In fact, the steel boots I’d bought at the shop in order to get info on this forge had been on sale at a considerable discount. (It was still twenty-five silvers per pair, though.)

As we headed into the forge, Aishia called out, “Excuse me, is anyone here?”

“Hmm? What, you need somethin’ order-made?” A stout, gruff-looking man with a red beard emerged. Was this the dwarf owner of this business? His eyes immediately gravitated to the liquor in Aishia’s hand. Well, he was definitely a dwarf, at least.

“I was wondering if I could sit in on the process here and see how your products are made,” I said. “Can you call over the person in charge?”

“Oh, is that all? Hey, dad, these customers here wanna watch you work!”

Huh. Apparently this dwarf wasn’t the boss after all; he just worked here. “I’d thought he was the one in charge,” I commented to Dia.

“Actually, I did too,” Dia said.

“Huh?” Aishia looked confused. “But this kid’s even younger than you, Dia.”

Seriously?! “H-Hold on, how young is that dwarf, Aishia?!”

“Probably around fifteen? Most likely he’s just an apprentice blacksmith.”

“In that case, that would make him younger.” Dia nodded. “I’m thirty, after all.”

What?! You’re joking, right?! No way... So Dia was legal all this time?!

“Elves live longer than other races, remember, master?” said Aishia. “In human years, he’d probably be around eleven.”

“Y-You don’t say? A-And what about dwarf lifespans?”

“Not much different from humans, though dwarven women tend to look younger than they are,” she said, throwing out her chest with pride. Yep, she was a legal loli too. That meant my party was made up of only legal lolis... Wait, Dia was more like a loophole in the system. A legal loophole loli.

“Still, I get your surprise. Just based on his appearance, you wouldn’t be able to tell how young he is.”

“And I never would’ve guessed he was younger than you or Li’l Satie. You, on the other hand, could tell right away. Must be dwarf’s intuition.”

Apparently Dia had also been thrown off by the kid’s prominent beard. No wonder the dwarven males were so often accused of laying their hands on their children when they were really just with their significant others.

Another dwarf emerged, this time one whose hair and beard was white. I could already feel a difference in the level of dignified aura with this one.

“You say you wanna watch me work?” he said. “What are ya, nuts?”

“Nice to meet you, sir. We come bearing gifts.” I brandished the liquor bottle.

“Oh! Well, now, ya might not be so bad after all! All right, as long as ya don’t get in my way, I don’t mind if ya watch! You other girls can look too, if ya want!”

It looked like the negotiation (bribe) had gone off without a hitch! That was quick!

“Way to go, master! Looks like we’ll be able to see the forge in action after all!”

“Yeah... That went so well that I’m honestly shocked.”

“It’s because Satie’s liquor is just that good. The moment he laid eyes on it, it was a done deal!” She chuckled with pride, as though Satie’s accomplishments were also her own.

Meanwhile, Dia frowned in puzzlement. “Both of these dwarves have equally impressive beards... I wouldn’t have been able to tell who the owner was at all without asking. But you knew, big sis.”

“Oh, I see. I guess elves like you can’t detect a difference in how dignified these two dwarves are. Take another look. You see how the texture of their beards, prominence of their wrinkles, and wisdom in their eyes are completely different?”

“Now that you mention it, I do kinda see a difference...though I think I’d be able to tell more by touching them and sensing how refined their mana is.”

“See, I don’t know anything about any of that. Right now I just see a young man who’s only just come of age and a skilled-looking old man. To me, it’s clear at a glance who’s more experienced.”

Interesting, though... Even though the three of us were seeing the same two dwarves, perhaps we were each perceiving them completely differently. Well, at least we’re a diverse party, I guess. But I couldn’t help but wonder, how did the other two perceive me, then? Keep this between us, but it did concern me a little.

Anyway, now that we had permission to observe, we headed farther in. We saw black coal and rods with metal ingots on the end behind shoved into a large stone furnace, where they ignited a searing red. The ingots turned from red to white, then he took them out and hammered them repeatedly. Yep, this definitely felt like a forge! But I didn’t understand anything else that was going on here! It all seemed way more complicated than I’d thought! I’d been thinking maybe I could snag some blacksmithing skills here if I was lucky, but it’d probably just be easier to stick to my spatial magic for duplication and the like.

By the way, they were making kitchen knives right now, and the maker was the younger, allegedly fifteen-year-old dwarf who’d first shown up. Apparently he was indeed an apprentice blacksmith looking to inherit his father’s business. Of course he wasn’t going to show the old man’s tricks of the trade to people so easily.

“Still, to think you’d actually find this kinda work interesting enough to watch,” the young dwarf mused. “I guess there are odd ducks among all races, not just dwarves.”

“No, it really is interesting,” I said. “I mean, the way you’re turning one material into something else, it’s pretty amazing. Kinda like magic, you know?”

“Oh, so you do get it, miss!” he said with a grin. “You’re exactly right—seein’ a buncha stones on the ground gettin’ transformed into swords really is amazing! There’s nothin’ like it!” He was in high spirits all of a sudden. I think I can get along with this guy. By the way, he wasn’t calling me “miss” just to be polite to his customer—I was actually older than him. From a dwarf perspective, anyway.

“Actually, might as well ask: Have you ever tried making a musical instrument with this forge?”

“An instrument? That’d be more suited to woodworking, I expect. I could make some metal parts for one, I suppose, but then again, if you can make an entire instrument out of wood, I guess you could make one out of metal as well. That’d be more of a craftsman’s project at that point, though, ha ha!”

“Well, where I’m from, there are some instruments that have metallic variations. Like a flute could be made of metal, for instance.”

“Oh, metal instruments?” the dwarf said. “I’ve heard of those!”

Huh, so they did exist here too? Well, maybe he was talking more like trumpets and bugles.

“Master, minstrels don’t really use flutes.”

“Oh, right, you did say you wanted an instrument more suited to minstrel work. Then maybe a metal...percussion instrument? Like a glockenspiel? You line up a bunch of small metal panels with different pitches, and you hit them to make notes. The size of the panel depends on the pitch, creating a scale.”

“Metal panels, you say? Why, I wouldn’t even need the forge to make those. Somethin’ like this?” He used his bare hand to slice the ingot in two. Whoa, impressive. It wasn’t to a mirror finish, of course, but it was a pretty clean slice. A little bit like my spatial magic, to be honest.

“Was that a blacksmithing skill you used just now?”

“Yeah. I can only do it with ingots I’ve made myself, but my dad can do it with much bigger slabs of metal. Still, this is good enough for what you need now, right?” He lined the cut panels on the floor like slices of sashimi. Now I guess the rest is up to me? I took some wood I had stored in my space of holding, cut it, poked some holes in it, and used some thread to connect them like a bridge, which formed the base for the glockenspiel. Then I attached the metal panels on top.

That did it for the instrument itself. Then I took a small wooden sphere and stabbed it onto a rod to make the mallet. I hit a random panel with the mallet, and it made a clean ringing sound!

“Whoa, you really made an instrument, little lady!” the dwarf said. “It sounds great!”

“M-Master! Can I play it? Can I?!”

“Yeah, be my guest! I’ve still gotta adjust the tuning to make it a real scale, but I don’t know much about that.”

“According to what you said before, you just gotta change the size of the panels, right? Leave it to me!” the dwarf said.

“Oh, okay. And while you’re at it, if you could open a hole in those panels just large enough to fit a thread through, they’ll stay attached better.”

“A small hole, huh? Lemme try it... Yeah, I can do it! Let’s get this done!”

Everyone was getting into it now. Aishia and the dwarf went to work on tuning the instrument. All they had to do was adjust the length of the panels, so the process was simple enough they could handle it without my help. And since Aishia’s ear was good enough to hear the difference in pitch, they didn’t need a tuner either. Huh, so this world also had the do-re-mi scale? Interesting... I wonder if it was also imported from Japan, like the bath?

I walked over to Dia, who’d been more or less left out of this whole thing. “Phew, I guess I got us all carried away. Sorry for leaving you behind.”

“It’s fine, big sis. As long as you’re having fun, that’s all that really matters.” He gave me a big smile.

Oh, you’re so cute. I wanna nibble on your ear just looking at you.

“You can play an instrument too, huh?” he continued. “You really can do anything.”

“Oh, that? All I did was hit a panel and make a noise. Anyone could do that. Hit different panels, and you make different noises. The hard part’s tuning them correctly. It’s not like an alarm clock where the pitch of the sound doesn’t matter.”

Hit stuff and make noise. That was all you needed to do to play an instrument. But of course you also needed to figure out how to make the sound. Honestly, it was a lot like making a toy.

“Could I combine some rotating magical devices to make an instrument, you think?”

“Oh, like a music box? Nice idea. I love those things. I’ll share what I know about them with you.”

Dia seemed to be coming up with his own interesting ideas, so I told him all about music boxes. The paper-based ones were probably his best bet. How did those work again? You fed them through a hole or something, right? How did the paper keep from ripping? Curious.

“Come to think of it, some of them used something like punch cards as well, if I remember correctly,” I said. “Like the behavior changed depending on where the hole was punched.”

“Oh, now that’s interesting! Tell me more, big sis!”

Uh-oh. I might have told him something he wasn’t supposed to know... Well, whatever! I’m sure whatever he comes up with, it’ll be interesting!

“Look, master! The instrument’s complete!”

“Oh, you finished it? Nice! Wait, huh?! Why’s the mallet moving on its own?!”

When Aishia called me over to look at the finished glockenspiel, I noticed the mallet was floating in midair, striking the panels arbitrarily like pin, pon, pan, pon. Wait, no, it wasn’t arbitrary. It was repeatedly hitting them in the same order Aishia had when she’d tried it out!

“Don’t tell me you can set it to auto-play?! What is that, a minstrel skill?!”

“Huh? Well, yes, of course. If we didn’t have this, we wouldn’t be able to sing along with the music.”

Huh? So much for the laws of physics, I guess...but this world does have magic, so I guess they don’t always apply.

“Can’t you, uh, just play and sing at the same time?”

“Play and sing? Oh, yes, you can automate both if you want.”

Apparently as long as it wasn’t an impromptu performance, most minstrel shows in this world were prerecorded. Hmm... Maybe that meant there wouldn’t be much demand for a music box here after all. Wait, now that I thought about it, Aishia did mention a while back that it was strange to not be able to sing and play the flute at the same time. If the flute was similarly put on auto-play, then like the glockenspiel mallet, it too would be floating in the air playing right along with Aishia. It was a bit late, but I finally realized what she’d meant.

“Oh? But does that mean you can’t really do anything with your hands while you’re making it play?”

“Technically I can play without the minstrel skill, but I’m not very good at it. I definitely can’t sing and play at the same time.”

So Aishia’s skill with an instrument depended entirely on that minstrel skill of hers. In other words, she could only assign one skill per arm, meaning she couldn’t be a one-woman orchestra. Then maybe there was room for the music box after all?

“Man, that was a fun time! Thanks a lot, lass, I learned a bunch! Oh, but if you’re taking this instrument home with you, I’ll have to charge you for the work I did on it. Just the value of the ingots I used is fine. Five silvers.”

“No prob. Here you go. Thank you for all your help!” Aishia now had her instrument! Good for you, Aishia! Now you could continue the path of the minstrel. “And so, Aishia, I present to you this glockenspiel as a gift.”

“Really?! Thank you so much, master! I’ll make sure to enrich every day of your life using this instrument!”

“N-No, you don’t have to go that far.” I was more the type of person who preferred peace and quiet over anything else.

“Come to think of it, you guys need any kitchen knives?” the dwarf asked.

“Kitchen knives, huh? I’d like some, yeah, but aren’t they expensive?”

“Not the steel ones. My dad’s go for around fifty silvers, sure, but I’m still just gettin’ my feet wet in the blacksmithing world. I’ll let mine go for ten.” He went on to admit that because he was just an apprentice, he wasn’t allowed to sell any sharp blades beyond kitchen knives.

“If it’s okay to sell kitchen knives, why not combat ones?” I asked.

“No, I could never. Those are weapons, and dad says I’m not good enough to sell people weapons yet. Adventurers entrust their lives with the quality of their weapons, y’see.”

Yeah, I got it. Kitchen knives weren’t meant to be used in desperate, life-or-death situations. Apparently the dwarf was also required to warn people of that before they bought his kitchen knives.

“But couldn’t one of these dwarven kitchen knives cut right through a regular combat knife?”

“That’s exactly why. Most people come to our forge for combat tools, so they’d probably automatically assume my kitchen knife was just as good of a weapon as any of our others. Hence the disclaimer.”

Yeah, the more one expected of you, the higher your hurdles became. And people would expect no less than the best from dwarven-made gear. No doubt reflecting on the burden of those expectations, the dwarf sighed.

“By the way, just how good are dwarven combat knives expected to be?”

“To cut through the average sword made of the same material, at least.”

“No kidding? That’s a tough act to follow, buddy.”

“You ain’t kidding. I’m glad you understand. That’s why it’d really help me out if you bought at least one of these kitchen knives so I can practice.”

I see. So I order a knife, and you get to practice making it. Not bad salesmanship! Sure, I’ll buy. I don’t mind investing in the development of a young ’un. But I won’t use my merchant earnings. Because as a merchant, I’m still a fledgling too!

We’d spent nearly the whole day sightseeing at the forge. And since we’d already parted with Satie, I placed a door in our inn room leading to our spatial base. Even if any intruders barged in, the door would look invisible, so we’d be safe! Heh heh... How was that for home security?

Anyway, a letter had arrived in our mailbox. Actually, I’d completely forgotten to check it—Dia had been the one to notice.

“Big sis, I just checked the mailbox, and you got a letter.”

“Wait, seriously? Thanks, Dia, I wouldn’t have realized. Oh, it’s from my old pal Maria! Let’s see what it says.”

I opened the envelope and began to read. Hmm, I see. Yes, yes, very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

“Dia, come read this for me!”

“What?! But you already know how to read, right?”

“I do, but I don’t understand what I’m reading! It’s like it’s written in secret code!”

“Oh, these are just expressions and special greetings that nobility use. Huh, looks like there are two letters, actually. This one’s written in more colloquial terms.”

“Wait, really? Whoa, you’re right!” When I took a closer look myself, it was indeed a set of two letters. I picked up the second one. Let’s see here...

The first letter has a bunch of noble speak you probably won’t be able to read, Miss Kari, so I included this version that you’ll be able to understand.

Oh, so you saw right through me, eh, Maria? Well, that’s a big help, but why didn’t you just send this one instead of sending both? Oh, so I become familiar with noble speak? Nah, I’ll just leave all that to Dia.

As for the contents of the actual letter: She’d heard we were in Carcassa and wanted to let me know that according to her sources, there was a sacred treasure in the deepest depths of the dungeon here called a “dungeon core.” Wait, really? A dungeon core? Those existed?

“But since the dungeon can’t function without its core, it’s outside the criteria of sacred treasures I’m looking for. If it’s being used for good and to uphold the world’s stability, I don’t want to take it.”

“I agree,” Dia said. “There would be a lot of people in trouble if the dungeon disappeared.”

Yeah, like the dwarves we’d met this afternoon, for instance. “But, I guess I might as well go down there and take a look at the core, just in case.”

“Huh? So you’re going to conquer the dungeon?”

“Yeah, but I won’t take the core. I just want to see it, that’s all. So I’ll be out for a bit.”

“Wait, you’re going now?!”

“Going by myself will make it a lot faster, and I’ll get back quicker. Plus, this is Karina the great mage’s time to shine!” Perhaps you’ve forgotten, Dia, but I’m the strongest there is. I’ll be fine. “Well, I could wait until tomorrow, but I’m afraid I’ll forget about it if I don’t go now.”

“I see. Well, have a good time, then, big sis. Safe travels.”

“Yep! I’m off!” I used spatial magic to open up an entrance straight to the dungeon. It’s technically illegal to enter like this, so keep it a secret!

Chapter 4

I emerged in the corridor just ahead of the boss room where our party had defeated the mid-boss. Peeking into the room behind me, I noticed the boss had respawned, so since I was already here, I killed it again real quick and collected its materials. Maybe I could keep them as potion-brewing ingredients instead of selling them right away?

With that done, I proceeded further in, heading down the stairs. At the bottom, I encountered three ants that were larger than the average human, strutting around like they owned the place—armor ants. The surfaces of their bodies were black and made of steel, and apparently they could be melted down to use like ingots as they were. What marvelous creatures—or monsters, rather. Was there even really a difference?

When the armor ants saw me, they clicked loudly and angrily. So larger ants could make noise, huh? Guess you learn something new every day. One of them dexterously arched its body backward like a shrimp and pointed the tip of its tail in my direction. This motion... It was just like the motion I’d seen so many times in a certain game where you were part of a force defending the earth!

“It’s acid! Aciiiiiid!”

Sorry, I couldn’t help it. I’d always wanted to say that. But the ant really did end up spewing acid. Like, a big splash of it. I blocked it with my spatial magic, so it didn’t have any effect on me. Still, it was just like the game, huh?

“All right, now that I’ve gotten that quote out of my system, it’s time to say goodbye.” I severed the ants’ joints with spatial magic, then pocketed their corpses. Now I had some material to practice blacksmithing with! If I haven’t forgotten about it by the time I get back, I ought to try it.

From those first three armor ants, I continued deeper in, feeling much like I was in a dungeon RPG. Ooh, it looked like we had some giant spiders now. Like the ants, they were larger than humans. I wonder...will they try and trap me in their silk?! Will I get to say that quote too?!

“Aw, man, they’re just attacking me like normal. Damn spiders...making me get my hopes up.” There was some silk thread around their forelegs, which they probably used to capture their foes by having them stick to their bodies, but that was all. C’mon, at least shoot a web or something! Like that shoe-wearing spider friend from that one game about monkeys! Huh? If the spider’s thread is coming from its tail, it’s impossible for it to form a web in the first place, you say? Silence, you! They’re monsters that can use magic, so anything is possible! Nah, I guess it’s too much to ask. It’d be even less plausible than spitting chewing gum out into a web formation.

Anyway, I sliced them apart and popped them in storage for safekeeping as well. Whoa, I sensed another adventurer nearby. Someone else was spelunking here this late at night? But the dungeon was unnaturally bright even at nighttime, so maybe the time of day didn’t matter.

I decided to avoid them and look for another path forward. Running into them would just be a pain right now. By using my spatial magic, I more or less had a detailed 3D map in my head of the route I’d taken, so I could even go back the way I came if I wanted. I could just ignore the sacred treasure in the dungeon and head back to base. But that’d be anticlimactic, so I pressed on, taking care to keep my distance from the human presence.

Oh look, it was another crawler. You know, you guys are surprisingly pretty tasty— Huh, it’s being attacked by one of those yellow hornets. Even the other dungeon monsters see you as food, huh? That’s pretty sad, but I guess that’s the reality of the food chain. Oh, I know! I’ll camouflage myself and tail the yellow hornet without it noticing. If I’m lucky, maybe it’ll lead me to its mother or queen or whatever at the very end of the dungeon!

I waited for the yellow hornet to feast on its prey, then skewer the leftovers with its proboscis like it was eating a dango. All right, it’s leaving. Time to follow. Huh? Wait, hold on there, red praying mantis-like monster. That hornet’s my prey! No coming in from the side and stealing!

Whew, that was close—I almost lost my lead. Good thing I put I Am the Star on the hornet just in time. While I was at it, I sliced up the red mantis and stored its parts as well. You might have thought you were just passing by to get a midnight snack, but your luck ran out when you ran into me.

While continuing to protect the hornet from a distance, I followed it in secret, eventually arriving at a room with stairs leading down in the back. It looked like another boss room, but there was no boss and no door closing the room off. Could this be uncharted territory, then? Did that mean the boss was just roaming around right now doing whatever it pleased? Well, whatever. Let’s go down the stairs.

I followed the hornet for a while longer until we arrived at a gigantic wasp’s nest shaped like a cumulonimbus cloud. It was so large that it filled the entire three-story room, and a massive swarm of hornets were buzzing all around it.

Whoa! Just looking at it was enough to make my hair stand on end. It wasn’t a good feeling. It was like I was naturally predisposed to cringe at the sight in front of me. Perhaps this is what they mean when they say the human race has an instinctive aversion to bees. At this rate, I’m gonna develop trypophobia!

Some of the insects were red, some yellow, and some in the middle, like an orangish color. Ew. Gross. Hey, can’t someone put a mosaic over these things?! They’re not fit for human eyesight! I don’t wanna see ’em!

Anyway, having come this far, I no longer had any use for Mr. Yellow Hornet, so I disengaged Star Mode and watched the insect with the crawler dango in its mouth head back home into his hive. Thanks for guiding me, buddy!

“Hmm, what to do now? Is this hive really something I ought to destroy? Will it come back to bite me later? I dunno...” For the time being, I confirmed the layout of the room with spatial magic. However, the moment I released the magic like a sonar, all of the hornets in the room headed in my direction at once! I considered saying “No, don’t look this way! Stop!” but before I could open my mouth, they were already upon me.

“GYAAAHHH GET ’EM GOFF GET ’EM OFF GET ’EM OFF! SPARE MEEE!” Stop, please! Just hear me out for a bit—wait, they can’t do that! They’re insects! Silly me!

Naturally, with such a commotion outside, the hornets inside the hive also flew out to see what was going on and dive-bombed me along with the others. Yipe! You guys are seriously scary! And ugly! And gross! You’re not hurting me even a little bit, of course, but just the sight of you oversized bugs makes me wanna hurl! Bleh!

Before I’d even realized it, I’d slaughtered every single hornet in the room without sparing a single one. Er... Well, no use crying over spilled milk, I guess! But I’m probably gonna have some trauma from those things afterward...

While I was at it, I picked up what remained of the large hornet nest and put the pieces in storage, preserving them just as they were. Maybe I could use these as material for something someday too. I decided to grab some hornet parts as well, just in case... Huh, what kind of honey was this, anyway? And where did they harvest it from? Did flowers even bloom in this dungeon? Oh no, don’t tell me this isn’t honey, but some horrific substance instead? Or perhaps some strange magic force beyond my understanding?

By the way, there’d been a queen hornet of sorts in the hive, but...she’d apparently gone down just as easily as the others. Well, again, what was done was done. And if she was a boss, she would surely respawn again before long. No harm done. Probably.

At any rate, with the nest cleared, I could now easily spot the path forward into the dungeon’s depths. And once I descended those stairs, I found myself in a forest.

The forest’s canopy was so dense that I could barely see the bright blue sky above. This must have been where those hornets were harvesting that honey from. I mean, look, there are flowers growing right over there.

“This is bizarre, though. I’m supposed to be in a cave right now, right? And I’ve been going down all this time...so why is the sky here?” When I turned around behind me, the cave was still there, leading up. But when I circled around to the side of that path, there was just a stone wall behind the entrance I’d just come out of. Like a connecting path made of spatial magic, or perhaps like a door that led to anywhere you wanted, the entrance looked like it had just appeared out of nowhere.

“D-Did its coordinates in space get messed up or something? Hey, laws of physics, we’ve got a problem here! Not that I have any room to talk, but really, how did it get like this? Again, I know I’m the pot calling the kettle black right now.” In fact, it looked exactly like the doors I used to enter my spatial base. Wait, was this spatial magic?! The dungeon itself was a spatial magic user?! The more I thought about it, the less strange it seemed—if monsters could use magic, why couldn’t dungeons use spatial magic? It was probably a living organism too, after all.

“In other words, the dungeon’s just like that, and I don’t need to think about it any further. Works for me!” Instead, I thought about something that had just occurred to me. If I could use spatial magic like this dungeon could, then I could create the same kind of places. I could put a forest in the middle of a dungeon too. No, would it be more accurate to say that my space of holding itself was a dungeon? Well, not that it mattered. I wasn’t a scholar by any means, and pursuing that train of thought any further would just be a waste of time.

“Still, the sky here looks just as it does outside... Huh? Wait, what time is it right now, actually? How long have I been in here?” At the very least, it couldn’t have been the middle of the day like this sky suggested. Let’s see... Tailing that yellow hornet and destroying the beehive had taken a significant amount of time. I made a small window of space just to check the real sky outside. Uh-oh, it was morning. It looked like I’d accidentally pulled an all-nighter! The moment I realized it, I started to get sleepy. A yawn naturally escaped my mouth. Yeah... I should probably just call it for the day and go home. I made a record of the place I was at, then opened a path back to my base. It’s bye for now, dungeon, but I’ll be back!

When I got home, Dia was in the living room, drawing up a bunch of blueprints. Oh, wow, pedals and steering wheels, huh? He must have been hard at work improving our magic vehicle. And they looked good!

“Oh, welcome back, big sis. How was the dungeon?”

“Well, even I couldn’t clear it in a single day. I got tired, so I came back. I’ll go at it again tomorrow. You be sure to get some sleep too, all right?”

“I will. Once I reach a good stopping point for this pedal blueprint, I promise.”

He was still gonna be up when I woke up, wasn’t he? Oh, it looked like there were some other blueprints that fell on the floor. Oho, what was this? Designs to implement the music box and punch card combination I told him about earlier? And plans to use the Electro-Massager as a base?! Oh, you were planning on using the music box concept to make the massager vibrate faster and more rhythmically? And this one detailed a plan to make specific vibration patterns using the punch card concept? I-Impressive, Dia...

“Hey, Dia, what made you want to give the massager those functions, anyway?”

“Oh, I just thought, ‘why not?’ more or less.”

Phew, that was a relief. For a minute there, I thought he’d caught on to the device’s hidden purpose. But if he was doing all that, now I wanted to make a prototype! For personal use! I-I mean, to test how well the product works!

In the end, Dia and I worked diligently on the device, and before I knew it, Aishia had woken up and prepared breakfast for us both, but not before giving us an earful about how staying up all night wasn’t good for us. Hey, I meant to go to sleep; I just got distracted! Yeah, yeah, I was going to bed—after I tried this thing out at least once! Ah... Kidding, kidding, I really was going to sleep now! Don’t get upset, Aishia!

＊ ＊ ＊

Now that I was even more convinced the Electro-Massager would sell like hotcakes, I returned to the forest in the dungeon the next day. As I made my way through, occasionally reaching open, sunny spots among the dense collection of thick trees, an insect monster attacked me. Another one? Since this was a forest area, I would’ve thought monsters other than insects would show up, like plant or animal types. No monkeys, even?

Blazing a trail by cutting down every tree in my way would have been a pain, so I used Star Mode to plow through everything in my path. When I looked behind me, I could see the trail I’d cleared, as well as the remains I’d left in my wake. The path I’d traveled was behind me, and the forest was in front of me—there was probably a profound comment in there somewhere.

“Huh? I thought I was walking in a straight line, but I went way off course! Or...maybe I didn’t after all?” No, the trail I’d left behind me was definitely straight. It was that a tree had moved to conceal my path! I approached the tree and smacked it a few times. Hey, you. You can move, can’t you? I can see right through your act. You’re a treant, aren’t you?! That means I can get myself some treant materials here!

“Which means it’s time for logger Karina to make her long-awaited reappearance! Ha ha ha! Time to cut you down!” I sliced the tree right through the middle with my spatial magic. When I did, some other trees around me shuddered, as though afraid. Oh? So you’re treants too, are you?! Quite a lot of you, I see. When I gave them a daring grin, they rustled, trying to back away from me. Hey now, rude! Aren’t you guys supposed to be attacking those that intrude here? Why so yellow-bellied? Not that trees have bellies. Or maybe treants do, I dunno.

“If you backed away, you’re a rookie treant. And if you didn’t move, I bet you’re just a really experienced treant! In other words, you’re all going down!” I started cutting down every tree in my path, starting from the one closest to me. Oh, there was a swarm of red hornets heading this way. If they were just regular enemies now, did that mean I really was in the depths? And there was another red mantis. I’d seen this one yesterday—not that it was the same mantis. Whoa, a giant centipede! First time I’d seen that one. Let’s slice it up! While taking out the treants, I also cut all the tough-looking monsters approaching me to ribbons, and since I just popped their parts in my space of holding once they were dead, they didn’t litter the trail I was making either.

Before I knew it, I was standing in the middle of a vast plain of dirt. Wow, this place was wider than I thought. And with no more trees in the area, I could see the sky clearly now. Hmm, maybe it’d be fun to build a log cabin out of these treants... Nah, let’s not. From the treants’ perspective, it’d be like I was toying with the corpses of their dead comrades, and that would be inhumane.

“Come to think of it, I wonder how trees feel when they see log cabins in the forest?” As I muttered to myself, I plopped down on the stump of a dead treant. Ah, the sky really was beautiful today. But why the hell was there a sky here? Was it really a real sky?

Curious, I decided to investigate, and I sent myself up into the air for a closer look. But I’d only traveled a few meters before I suddenly sensed danger and stopped in my tracks. Huh? What was this, a ceiling? And it was invisible? How bizarre. I rapped on the transparent ceiling a couple of times. Yep, that was definitely what it was, and it was as hard as a rock. Good thing I’d stopped. If I’d kept going up into the air, I would have cracked my head on it, and it would’ve hurt.

I could just put on Star Mode and smash through it, of course. But it’d be the same as smashing through a wall or ceiling in the dungeon, and if an adventurer on the floor above fell down here, it’d be a problem. So I refrained. Still, that meant that this area was a fixed space, which meant the sky here was something like a VR reproduction? Hmm, so you could use spatial magic to make things like this too! I’d already considered reproducing minor things like a window taking in sunlight, but I’d never thought to go as far as reproducing an entire environment to this degree. Good to know! In that case, maybe I would try recreating a swimming area in my base so we could do some sunbathing! And I’d be able to enjoy looking at Dia in a swimsuit! He’d probably look good in a bikini too, but a one-piece was probably the way to go for him—it would give that schoolgirl feel! And just to hide that bulge in his crotch area, I’d probably make him wear a frilly paleo or something.

At that moment, I felt a presence approach the clearing I was in. It wasn’t a monster, so it had to be another adventurer. Not good... If someone discovered I’d been clearing this dungeon solo, it was gonna be a hassle in all sorts of ways. I’d better skedaddle.

“Now then, which way is the way forward again?” Suspended in midair and camouflaged from sight, I searched for the path leading deeper into the dungeon. The forest space here wasn’t especially tall, but it was rather wide. Most likely, this space had been augmented with spatial magic. I supposed that really did mean the dungeon could use spatial magic just like I could.

People were predisposed to learn from nature around them. We learned about gravity by seeing an apple fall from a tree, and the toroken fighting style by studying praying mantises. So why couldn’t I learn more about how to use my spatial magic by observing the dungeon?

Actually, I’d noticed this a while back, but being in this place—a space created with magic other than my own—was making me a little, er, queasy. How can I put it... It was like even though my body understood the nature of the original space, my brain was perceiving it differently, and the discrepancy was making me dizzy... Blegh.

“It’s like I’m seasick...or maybe VR-sick?” I managed to keep myself from throwing up, just barely, but I knew it’d only be a matter of time before the contents of my stomach would go in reverse. Curse you, dungeon...laying a trap for me like this! And since I’d pulled an all-nighter the previous day and was pretty sleep-deprived, it was even worse!

At this point, I had no other choice. I headed back to the base to take a breather. “Phew, talk about rough. I’m back, you guys... Huh? Dia and Aishia aren’t here?”

The sun was still high in the sky, and there was a note on the living room table. “We’re going out to do some shopping!” it said. Hmm, okay. Guess I’ll just lie down and take a nap, then. I don’t want to look sick and uncool in front of them, after all! Oh, but first, I’m gonna test this prototype while they’re out. Heh heh.

＊ ＊ ＊

And so, I ended up sleeping soundly until the next day. When I woke up, I felt refreshed and in peak condition. Therefore, it was easy for me to think up a countermeasure for the VR sickness this time—I’d just clear the dungeon with my eyes closed! You thought you had me? I’ll teach you not to underestimate me, dastardly dungeon! With my spatial magic alone, I could get a complete grasp of the layout of the area without needing to see, and if I put on Star Mode on top of that, I’d be safe from any enemies that tried to attack me. Now I’m serious, dungeon! Prepare yourself!

I closed my eyes, then switched over to spatial magic perception. Cool, I could still see the area around me, like a colorless three-dimensional radar. With this, I could definitely mitigate the spatial magic sickness. When I looked around, I could see the section of forest ahead, as well as some figures moving here and there. Those were probably monsters, since their outlines were insectlike. They hadn’t noticed me—rather, they looked like they were focused on something else. Oh, they were fighting something. Someone? An adventurer! The adventurer was fighting a human-sized praying mantis. The natural touroken user. Was it the same red mantis I’d seen yesterday?

Whoa! The adventurer was getting cornered! They were in serious trouble! You can do it, adventurer! Don’t let yourself lose to this thing! Fight on! Fight on... Oh, yeah, they’re a goner, it looks like.

“Ngh! I can’t let it end here!”

The adventurer raised her voice. She sounded female. All right, let’s save her! I’ll swoop in and rescue her like a knight in shining armor, and then, if I’m lucky... Heh heh heh! Nah, just kidding. I really do wanna help her.

“Hey, you over there! Want some help?” I asked.

“Huh?! G-Get the hell outta here! Run while you still can! It’s coming for you now!”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. As far as I’m concerned, this thing’s a small fry! Now come and get me, you mantis bastard!”

At that taunt, the mantis lifted off and flew right at me. Huh, I didn’t know they had wings. It used both of its scythe-like hands to make big swings toward me. But I had Star Mode, so that wasn’t gonna work... Wait, I couldn’t do that. Not with that adventurer here. So I had to dodge instead. But that was okay, since my spatial magic would tell me where I could dodge and still be safe!

Ow, my head! Wait, why did it hit me?! I dodged it, didn’t I? Don’t tell me increasing its opponent’s hitbox was one of its skills or something?! Dammit, talk about an oversight on my part!

“The hell?! You made the black mantis’s scythe break off?! Just how hardheaded are you, anyway?!”

Shit, it looked like the mantis’s scythe couldn’t endure striking me. Wait, did she say “black” mantis? It wasn’t the red one after all? Well, anyway, it attacked me first, so I had no other choice now. Time to finish this thing off.

“Man, I screwed up... Oh well. Air Cutter!”

Before the praying mantis could screech, I lopped its head off. But I couldn’t let my guard down. Insect monsters were known to keep moving even after death... Ew, now there was a hair worm coming toward me! Gross! Get away!

“Air Cutter! Air Cutter!”

“N-No way! You sliced that mythril devil up like it was nothing!”

Mythril...what now? Wait, you mean that thing was made of mythril?! All right, then I forgive it for attacking me! Even though it was my fault to begin with.

“Hey, you all right?” I asked the adventurer.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Who the hell’re you? I’ve never seen your face around these parts before.”

Of course I’d look silly with my eyes still closed, so I opened them to greet her. Wh-Whoa!

“A-A beast girl! And a fluffy-wuffy one at that! Wow, you’re cute!”

“Huh? Hey now, I may be a beast, but don’t... Wait, d-did you just call me cute?”

There, before my eyes, was a woman with silver fur, wolf ears, and a tail. She even had a snout resembling a dog’s! A furry, fluffy wolf lady, with silver fur that looked distinguished and charming. She was also about a head taller than I was. To be honest, before realizing it was fur, I’d thought she was wearing furry silver armor. I’d seen beast types before, like Harumikazuchi, but she was only a fox lady in that she had the ears and tail. This lady, on the other hand, had actual fur all over her body! Amazing!

“Oh, sorry, I guess it’d be rude not to introduce myself. I’m Karina, just your everyday, dime-a-dozen mage.”

“I’m Mashiro. I guess I’m somewhat well-known in this town—perhaps you’ve heard people talk about ‘Mashiro the Silver’? Well, that’s me...but wait, why did you save me? You’re not planning anything nefarious, right? Well, whatever the reason, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Oh, and don’t mention it to anyone else either, while you’re at it.”

“All right. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything, and I won’t ask. You saved my life; it’s the least I can do to repay you.”

Mashiro then turned to look at the black mantis. Yep, it really was black after all. Then she looked at the hair worm, lying motionless on the ground in pieces. A mythril worm, apparently. If its whole body was mythril, I could forge an entire sword out of it, I bet. I wonder how much mythril its body contained?

“Still, I can’t believe it even after seeing it. You finished that black mantis and mythril devil off just like that.”

“W-Was that a problem? Did I do something bad?”

“Bad? No, I wouldn’t say that, but as far as I know, no one’s ever defeated either of those monsters.”

They were that strong, huh? Even though they were basically just recolors? “Are you hurt anywhere, by the way? Since you’re such a pretty lady, I’ll heal you for no charge.”

“Oh, I’m fine, but my equipment got a little banged up. I’m almost out of darts too.”

“Okay, no problem! Leave those to me!” I gave her equipment a quick scan. Yeah, it looked like her sword was broken, and the blade was all chipped as well. She also had only one of these projectiles that must have been her darts left. Her leather armor and boots were worn down too. This time I was the one who caused her trouble, so I didn’t mind using my magic to compensate her for it.

“How many darts do you want?”

“Huh? You’re gonna buy more for me? In that case, around fifty would be good—”

“There ya go.” I set fifty dart copies on the ground in a pile. I also fixed her sword and smoothed out its edges while I was at it. All right, that oughta do it. I might not have been able to create new ones from scratch, but repairing her gear was certainly easier than, say, fixing up a human.

“Wait, what? Hold up, where did you get those from?”

“Let’s see here, as for your armor... Oh, yeah, it is damaged here. I’ll patch that right up for you.”

“Huh? Oh, no, that got damaged a long time ago— Huh? It’s gone?! You fixed it?!” She stroked the place on her armor that I’d touched to fill in the hole there, looking shocked. Hey, her reactions were making this pretty fun! Now if she’d just let me hug that fluffy fur of hers, I’d consider us even!

“Oh, now that I look closer, you’ve got a wound here on your chest too! Lemme just touch real quick!”

“H-Hey, that’s a really old wound— Huh?! N-No way, that’s gone as well?! And my fur there’s back too?! But how?!”

“Heh heh, as long as you’re satisfied, that’s all that matters.”

“J-Just so you know, I’m broke! If it’s money you’re after, I have none to give! You really did just heal me for free!”

“Yep yep, that’s fine. I don’t need your money. But if you’d let me collapse into that fluffy-wuffy fur of yours, that’s a different story! Oh, you’ve got a cavity on your tooth there as well. One sec!”

“H-Huh?! Seriously?! What did I do to deserve this?! There’s gotta be some catch here, right?!”

Oh man, this is way fun! I guess charity work’s more rewarding than I thought! Spatial magic really is unparalleled!

#Side: Mashiro, Rank A Adventurer

“Huh?! Some idiot’s in there carrying treant wood around?!”

“That’s right, Mashiro. Apparently there was a large-scale logging, and they said they wanted to strike while the iron was hot.”

“I didn’t hear about any scheduled logging! The hell’s going on?!”

When I arrived at the door to the boss room leading to the dungeon’s depths, the guard there called out to me and informed me of this news. The lower layer of Carcassa’s dungeon was a forest area, and in that forest, there were many treants mixed in with the regular trees. Still, they didn’t usually attack adventurers. The most they’d ever do was move around to block their paths and confuse them.

However, if an adventurer ever tried to hunt a treant, the demon known as the black mantis would appear. This was a berserker-type monster, meaning it indiscriminately slaughtered humans and other monsters alike. The only exceptions were the tree mimics known as treants. Furthermore, once a black mantis appeared, it stuck around for a whole week, rampaging and killing everything in its path. Until its life ran out a week later and its corpse was confirmed to be on the ground, the lower levels of the dungeon would remain sealed off. It also meant that once a year, we were able to stage a large-scale logging operation in the forest to lure the black mantis out so it would clear away all of the forest area monsters for us in one go, but...

“It’s way too early for that, right? Are you sure it isn’t just a baseless rumor?”

“I thought that as well, but we’ve at least confirmed that someone’s gone in there and started hunting treants.”

“Meaning the black mantis could show up any time. What morons!” Now we’d have to spend the next three days monitoring the area, and if we spotted the black mantis, the lower levels would be off-limits for a week. Honestly, how idiotic! Did they not understand why there were guards stationed in front of this door? Or why anytime someone passed through here, they were specifically warned not to attack the treants? The fools who did this would surely have their adventuring licenses revoked and most likely be forced to pay damages as well.

“Sorry to spring this on you at such short notice, but could you go in there and let them know they need to stop? There are four parties in there right now, and one of them is the culprit party. We can’t pay you much, but we’ll register it as an emergency request given specifically to the Silver.”

“Fine, fine. And here I thought I was just gonna have a leisurely day hunting spiders.”

“It’s that nose of yours we’re especially gonna need. We’re counting on you.”

“Guess I’ve got no choice, then. Just treat me to a drink when I get back and we’ll call it even.” I begrudgingly took the job. After all, leaving other local adventurers to die would put a bad taste in my mouth.

I found the first two parties immediately and told them what they needed to know. As for the third, they were unfortunately already under attack by the black mantis by the time I got there.

“Damn, it’s already shown up?! That was way too quick! Get back, guys! It’s too dangerous!” I immediately ran in front of them before it could finish slashing with the black scythe on its arm. Ngh... If I didn’t have a dwarven-forged sword, that attack would have sliced right through me!

I parried the scythe and sent a dart right at its red, glowing compound eyes. But it perceived the dart’s trajectory and dodged it with ease. Shit... This is why I hate fighting you mantises!

“Huh?! Th-The Silver?! What are you doing here?!”

“Save it! Get the hell out of here, right now! Run as fast as you can! And tell the guard at the door that the demon has appeared and that this area needs to be sealed off right away!”

“W-We’re on it! We’re sorry!”

They seemed to be Rank C adventurers. At that rank, they wouldn’t even be able to stand up to the black mantis, let alone win. If I’d just let them be, they would have been killed in seconds, and then I would have been next. Even though I’d put myself in danger by interfering and buying them time to escape, I would have been in peril either way, and more survivors made it more likely that the guard would learn of the black mantis’s emergence.

Now I just had to make sure I survived...but that was probably going to be the toughest part of all. Maybe if I lured a horde of spiders over, I could get the mantis to target them instead, and then I could flee! But as though to remind me that I shouldn’t have been thinking about other things except the battle in front of me, at that moment I heard an ominous crack. My sword was dangerously close to breaking. At this rate, I’d lose my weapon! I immediately rolled out of the way before any more pressure from the enemy cracked my sword in half.

“Tch! At this rate, I’m gonna have to use my ace in the hole!”

Truth was, I had a skill that allowed me to sacrifice the durability of my weapon for one powerful, final attack. I had a spare sword as well, but I’d at least get all the use I could out of this one first!

“Void Sword!” I aimed my attack right at the base of the black mantis’s scythe. But the scythe’s blade took the hit with a clang! It chipped a little, but that was all! The attack didn’t work like I’d hoped, and now my sword would be done for—wait, it already was! It was broken! And before I could even switch to my spare sword, the mantis had me cornered.

“Ngh! I can’t let it end here!”

At that moment...

“Hey, you over there! Want some help?”

“Huh?!”

It was a female voice with a leisurely tone wholly unsuited to the situation. What do you mean, “want some help?” More like if you can help me, do it already! When I looked in the direction of the voice, she had her eyes squeezed shut, of all things! Blind as a bat, she walked toward me, noisily rustling leaves and branches underfoot. What the hell are you doing at a time like this?!

“G-Get the hell outta here! Run while you still can! It’s coming for you now!”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. As far as I’m concerned, this thing’s a small fry! Now come and get me, you mantis bastard!”

The black mantis twitched and headed in her direction. Perhaps it had decided to get the weakest of its prey out of the way first, because it leaped toward her so fast that I couldn’t do anything to stop it from happening. Shit, she’s a goner! I thought—but in the next instant, something unbelievable happened. The same scythe that had broken my dwarven-forged blade smashed into pieces upon striking her head!

“The hell?! You made the black mantis’s scythe break off?! Just how hardheaded are you, anyway?!”

“Man, I screwed up... Oh well. Air Cutter!”

And in the very next instant, the black mantis’s head was severed. Huh? What just happened? As though failing to realize its head was missing, the creature continued to swing its scythe haphazardly. It was an impressive display of vitality, but of course, its attacks didn’t connect with either of us, and all it managed to sever were the branches of several trees in the area. The mantis’s movements gradually grew more sluggish—then a long, narrow, mythril-colored tentacle burst from its body to attack the woman.

This new creature was known as a mythril devil. It was once confirmed to have leaped out of a black mantis right before death and was thought to be the mantis’s true form.

“Air Cutter! Air Cutter!”

“N-No way! You sliced that mythril devil up like it was nothing!”

The mythril devil was not only extremely fast, it was so tough that even a dwarven sword could only barely scratch its surface. There were no records of it ever being defeated. And yet this girl had sliced it into pieces with no trouble at all with her magic! Unbelievable... She was extremely strong. I felt myself gulp. I’d made it all the way to Rank A as a solo adventurer, but her rank had to be even higher.

“Hey, you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Who the hell’re you? I’ve never seen your face around these parts before.”

At this point, the girl opened her eyes. When she did, she cried out loudly.

“A-A beast girl! And a fluffy-wuffy one at that! Wow, you’re cute!”

“Huh? Hey now, I may be a beast, but don’t... Wait, d-did you just call me cute?” Hearing her say “beast girl,” I thought for a moment she was calling me a barbarian like so many others and immediately bristled. But the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice were extremely affectionate. Th-The hell was wrong with her? No one had called me cute since I was a small child! Most people took one look at me and trembled in fear or thought I was going to eat them. Then again, to someone as strong as her, even a dragon would probably look cute and harmless.

After that, we introduced ourselves. The girl said her name was Karina. I wasn’t sure whether it was her real name, but I’d certainly never heard it before. I found it hard to believe someone that strong would be just some no-name, but I decided not to pry.

“Are you hurt anywhere, by the way? Since you’re such a pretty lady, I’ll heal you for no charge.”

“Oh, I’m fine, but my equipment got a little banged up. I’m almost out of darts too.”

“Okay, no problem! Leave those to me! How many darts do you want?”

“Huh? You’re gonna buy more for me? In that case, around fifty would be good—”

“There ya go.” Before my eyes, Karina produced fifty darts on the ground, all in a pile.

“Wait, what? Hold up, where did you get those from?” Those darts were custom-made for me, and just one of them cost one silver. Why did she have fifty of them just ready to go?! Even I only had five to begin with!

“Let’s see here, as for your armor... Oh, yeah, it is damaged here. I’ll patch that right up for you.”

“Huh? Oh, no, that got damaged a long time ago— Huh? It’s gone?! You fixed it?!”

Just when I thought Karina was getting a little too handsy for someone I’d just met, the scar on my armor vanished without a trace! What the—?! I’d thought for sure I’d need to buy a replacement set, and now it was as good as new!

“Oh, now that I look closer, you’ve got a wound here on your chest too! Lemme just touch real quick!”

“H-Hey, that’s a really old wound— Huh?! N-No way, that’s gone as well?! And my fur there’s back too?! But how?!” She even got rid of the old scar on my chest?! What kind of high-level healing magic did she have, anyway?! What was she, a priest?!

“Heh heh, as long as you’re satisfied, that’s all that matters.”

“J-Just so you know, I’m broke! If it’s money you’re after, I have none to give! You really did just heal me for free!”

“Yep yep, that’s fine. I don’t need your money. But if you’d let me collapse into that fluffy-wuffy fur of yours, that’s a different story! Oh, you’ve got a cavity on your tooth there as well. One sec!”

“H-Huh?! Seriously?! What did I do to deserve this?! There’s gotta be some catch here, right?!” The hell’s going on?! I have no clue anymore! Just what do you want from me, being this generous for no reason?! And what the hell does “fluffy-wuffy” mean, anyway?!

#Side: END

Yeah, all right. I might have gotten a little carried away. Sorry about that!

It was really cute the way that Mashiro kept running around, tearing her hair out and shouting, “I have no idea what’s going on here!” so I enjoyed watching her for a while, but apparently she got tired, because after a while she collapsed panting on the ground. The noise she’d made drew a bunch more monsters over, but they’d all recoiled and fled when they saw the black mantis’s corpse. Talk about some effective insect repellent!

“Hah... Phew. All right, what’s your game? What are you after? Spill it.”

“Huh? I just passed by, saw you were in trouble, and wanted to help, that’s all.”

“Bullshit! There’s no way anyone would be that nice to me without expecting something else in return! Now seriously, out with it! What do you want me to do?!”

“Then I’d like to sample your fluffy-wuffiness, and also ask just one other teeny-tiny request as a bonus.”

“Dammit! I knew it, you were after something after all! What’s your request?! Name it!”

“I just want your socks, that’s all... Er, if you’re wearing any, that is.”

“S-Socks? Y-You mean, like the ones you put on your feet, right? Of course I’m not. I’ve never worn anything like that.”

“Yeah, I should’ve known. Of course you wouldn’t have.” She was a fluffy-wuffy silver wolf girl that would make any furry go nuts, but perhaps because of her wild nature, she had on sandals rather than socks and shoes. Her fur was also probably already so thick that socks would be pointless.

Hmm? Wait a minute. No, let’s look at it from the opposite angle. “A beast girl’s first time wearing socks... Wouldn’t that actually make them worth more?!”

“Worth more?! Compared to what?! By what metric?! I dunno what the hell you’re talking about!”

“Yeah, to be honest, I don’t really get it either.” It was all the Goddess’s fault for having such a bizarre fetish.

“So what else do you want?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Well, I’m not wearing socks like you want, so I’m sure you want something else from me instead, right?!” She sounded absolutely furious. What was that all about? Was she actually afraid of me or something, since she’d seen me kill that black mantis so quickly? Somehow, I got that feeling. I know it’s pretty rude to say, but she honestly reminds me of a cornered puppy, which makes her look even cuter in my eyes.

“Hmm... Well, how would you feel about me cutting the fur on your feet to make a sock?”

“The hell?! That’s creepy! And weird! Why are you so fixated on socks, anyway?!”

“Good question, I wish I knew. My superior really likes ’em for some reason.”

“Superior? What are you, in the service of the court? Really, I never have any clue what the nobility’s thinking.”

Hmm? Well, I’m in the service of someone, so I guess that’s not too far off? I mean, “court” also referred to “shrine” in the olden days, so it’s actually not wrong either. Anyway, perhaps because she finally came to understand my position, Mashiro’s attitude toward me quickly softened. Perhaps this was also thanks to the Goddess’s divine providence?

“If there’s any other part of you that you want healed, just say the word. Oh, how about I make your eyes rounder?”

“N-No, that’s enough! No more healing! And why would I want my eyes to be rounder, anyway?!”

What a humble wolf woman you are! Honestly, can you get any cuter?

“All right, fine, guess I’ve got no choice,” she said. “I know someone who wears socks; I’ll talk to them and retrieve theirs for you. Fair?”

“Oh, in that case, I’ll hand you this new pair. And if you wouldn’t mind, I’ll just take some of the fur off the bottom of your feet. Not anything ridiculous, just a little off the top. I’d like the part I take to at least have a pretty pungent odor, though.”

“You’re insane, you know that? Well, whatever, I don’t mind. But what are you gonna use it for?”

“I’m gonna try and make an offering out of it. Most likely, it’ll be brewed as a tea or something.”

“Ew, are you serious? That’s disgusting... Well, I’ll let you, but only just this once.” Mashiro removed her sandals, took out a brush, and used it on the bottoms of her feet, collecting the fur on the brush. She also picked out a number of hairs from between her paw pads.

“Whoa, paw pads... Talk about lewd.”

“Huh? My paw pads are? How?”

Oops, I didn’t mean to say that out loud. But I mean, they’re so well shaped and large, you know? We’re talking about the kind of rare paw pad only bears, tigers, or lions had back in my old world!

“You know,” Mashiro said, “I’m starting to think your superior isn’t the only one who’s weird.”

Uh-oh, looks like she’s giving me the side-eye a little. Me, weird? Never! Isn’t wanting to pet fluffy animals and poke their paw pads one of the most basic human desires? That’s right, other than food and sleep, the last of the big three human desires is of the flesh! And it happens to use the same kanji for “flesh” that’s used in “paw pads!” Therefore carnal desires also apply to paw pads, and— Okay, I’m done. I’m sorry, I took this joke too far. I’m just kidding! Honest!

“Actually, all your requests so far have been on your superior’s behalf. Isn’t there something you want me to do for you?”

“Huh? Me?”

“Look, you’re the one who rescued me, and you did save my life, so I just want to show my gratitude for that. That’s all. Er, rather, I just feel like you gave me too much and I need to give you something in return to offset that feeling. So just ask.” Mashiro looked into my eyes. Oh, man, she looked so cool right now!

“Er, then, um, can I hug you, like really tight? Diving into your fur would probably feel really good...”

“Oh, that’s what you meant by fluffy-wuffy. Are you sure that’s all you want? All right, fine.” Mashiro undid her breastplate. Wait, what? Why was she stripping? “It’s a little sweaty under there, I’m sure, but this part would probably feel the best, right? I did take a shower yesterday, but if it’s not to your liking, pick whichever other part you want. I don’t care.”

Huh? Wait, she was going out of her way to strip for my sake?! Wow, what a gracious lady! I could fall for you!

“O-Okay, then here I go... Wow! A-Amazing! It’s so fluffy! This is paradise!” I buried myself right in her chest. Her chest fur was light, and the fur on her arms had a graceful sheen to it. When I wrapped my arms around her, the fur on her back was slick, a different texture entirely! It was like hugging a giant dog! While I had my fill of her surprisingly large, pillowy breasts, I took a big whiff. Mmm...the smell of an oily woman! That hint of ruggedness was just the best.

“Oh, man, I think I’ve died and gone to heaven. Marry me!”

“That was quick. You seriously don’t feel any aversion whatsoever toward beastkin? Oh, and don’t nuzzle me on the face too much like that. It feels like you’re marking your scent on me, and that’s kinda embarrassing. To begin with, despite how I look, I’m a woman, you know?!”

“Yeah, I can tell that much just by looking. Sorry, I’m the kind of girl who’d gladly offer my heart to a beast girl as cute as you.”

The moment I said that, I heard Mashiro’s heart throb loudly. “O-Oh, you don’t say? W-Well, I guess if you’re strong enough to kill a black mantis in an instant, Karina, I probably look like a cute, harmless puppy to you, don’t I? I mean, the last time someone called me cute, I was still a kid!”

“I wouldn’t say puppy. I’d say you’re cute in more like, say, a wild girl sense.”

“H-Hey, don’t get too cocky now, little girl. I’ll eat you up if you’re not careful. Like, roar! And stuff.”

Oh, Mashiro... You’re so cool!

After I had my fill of Mashiro’s fur, the beast woman reattached her leather armor. Since she was going to retrieve her acquaintance’s socks for me once we got back to the surface, I handed her a pair they could wear in exchange.

“These socks are brand-new,” I said. “I’ve prepared one of each size, just in case, but if this still isn’t enough, just let me know and I’ll give you more. Also, this pair’s for you, Mashiro. Put them on, and I’ll retrieve ’em next time we meet. Okay?”

“O-Okay... You even carry around pairs of socks for people to change into? You’re way too serious about this.”

“Socks are serious business for my superior, apparently. No helping it.”

I already had the fur I’d harvested from her, but I still thought it wouldn’t hurt to have her wear a pair until we met again. Hmm? They rub your fur the wrong way and it’s uncomfortable? Sorry about that. I don’t know anything about a comfortable way for beastkin to wear human socks—I’m not that familiar with beastkin to begin with. But my superior or my colleague might.

“By the way, once I get the socks, how the hell am I supposed to deliver them to you? And when?”

“Oh, right, that’s kinda important, huh?” Right, we needed to exchange contact info. We could do it using our guild licenses, but since I’d killed a black mantis in the blink of an eye, it’d look fishy to use the license of a Rank E adventurer or a fledgling merchant here. Thus, I decided to use my magic to make a communicator of my own. I picked up a random rock on the ground, then fashioned it into the shape of a magatama. After making a hole in it, I threaded a string of leather through the hole. Finally, I applied some spatial magic here and there, and the communication pendant was complete!

“Here, put this on. This stone is gonna function as a communicator, so when you speak into it, I’ll be able to hear you no matter where I am.”

“Communi...cator?” She looked confused. Wait, I gotta explain from there?

“Look, you know how you can use wind magic to carry someone’s voice over a distance? It’s basically the same thing. You speak into that device, and your voice will fly all the way over to me. Here, try saying something into it. And at a low volume at first, if you please, since I’ll probably need to adjust it.”

“All right, sure.” She spoke softly into the magatama. “Hello? Karina?”

“Whoa!” Her soft whisper burst into my eardrums! What is this, ASMR?! My ears are tingling—it feels so good! You damn wolf, why is your voice so charmingly husky?! I’m gonna fall for you if you’re not careful!

“H-Hey, what was that for?” she asked. “Why’d you cry out all of a sudden?”

“J-Just an adjustment error on my end, that’s all. Anyway, that should do it. Now try wearing it.”

“Gotcha. Like this?” She hung my homemade pendant around her neck. The stone magatama wedged right in her cleavage. I could hear the thump, thump, thump of her heart. Hmm... This kind of ASMR isn’t bad either. Maybe that means I’ll also hear her chewing whenever she eats... Nah, that’d be bad. For her privacy, anyway.

“Er, at this rate, I’ll probably end up hearing a lot of other sounds you make besides your voice. And you probably don’t want that, so I’ll make it to where it won’t transmit anything until you tap it twice quickly.”

“All right. Well, I plan to get those socks to you soon, so I can’t imagine you’d overhear much before then anyway.”

“The sooner the better! Oh, and you can also call me if that black mantis shows up again.”

“Oh, right... Come to think of it, that’s actually possible. This is the first time we’ve ever seen it finished off so quickly before the week ends, so another could very well appear before it’s over.”

It was also the first time anyone had killed a mythril devil, apparently, so that made the future even more uncertain. Man, does that mean I’m not gonna be able to leave this dungeon for a week either? Wait, no, of course not. I can just zip back and forth whenever I want with teleportation. That means I can just be on call, prepared to come back at a moment’s notice.

Speaking of the black mantis, I let Mashiro have its head and put the rest of it in my backpack (space of holding). Same for the mythril devil—I gave her one section of the creature and pocketed the rest. I left it to her to report back to the guild. “Just tell them I was some no-name, incredibly powerful mage who happened to be passing by,” I instructed. “If you ask the lady over at the estate of Verald’s lord, she’ll be able to corroborate that.”

“I-I see. And is that lord your superior?”

Uh-oh, at this rate, Miss Maria’s gonna get called a sock-loving pervert! Forgive me, my friend!

“Still, though, I wonder who the hell was stupid enough to try and hunt a treant in the first place?” she continued. “There’s a big clearing over there where they’ve been cut down, apparently...”

“Huh? Treant? Oh, that was probably me, then.”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes opened wide in shock as she stared at me. Then she grabbed me by the collar and yanked me up close to her. “It was you all along?! What in the hell were you thinking?! What made you think it was a good idea to attack these treants?!”

“H-Huh? W-Well, er, I mean...” She was baring her fangs and growling as she glared at me angrily. Why was she so upset all of a sudden?!

“Don’t give me some bullshit like saying you didn’t know! The guards at the entrance are constantly saying it—don’t attack treants! If you do, the black mantis will appear! So why’d you really do it, huh?!”

“I-I really didn’t know, though, honest! And a guard at the entrance?! What do you mean?! I didn’t see any guards when I came in!”

I could feel my heartbeat getting faster. Her undisguised rage was terrifying! No, maybe it wasn’t rage, but bloodlust! Maybe she was going to kill me! She’s seriously scary...even though she was so nice and easy to get along with just moments ago!

“Quit acting like you didn’t see it! There’s a door you have to pass to get in here, and the guild’s got a guard stationed there right before you get to the entrance!”

“There wasn’t anything like that!” I protested. “There was a hornet hive blocking the way, but I didn’t see anyone else! Really!”

“A hornet hive...? It doesn’t sound like you’re lying, but... Hold up, are you saying you came through an undiscovered route?!”

“I-I’m sorry!” I wailed. “Y-Yeah, come to think of it, I might have. That hive did look like it’d been there for a while.”

She let go of me. “All right, then, I’ll hear you out, so you’d better tell me everything. Don’t you dare leave anything out, or you’ll regret it.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am...”

And so, I told her everything, just as she requested. Even the part about me breaking and entering using spatial magic.

“...And that brings us to now. Oh, and if you ask Miss Maria in Verald, she’ll tell you even more about me. And, er, what else? Oh, yeah—”

“Save it. You already told me that, and I’ve heard enough anyway. All right, Karina, let me get this straight. You came to the dungeon more or less to sightsee and play around, but you’re so ridiculously powerful that you ended up bulldozing your way through a new route no one knows about, meaning you didn’t hear the guard’s explanation and you didn’t know any better when you saw the treants and decided to hunt them. Does that about cover it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded curtly. Mashiro gave a heavy sigh.

“Well, at least you didn’t do it out of malice. And even though you trespassed, you used a new route, so you couldn’t really help it, I guess. All right, all right, I’m sorry for blowing up on you like that.” She patted my head. H-How kind! My heart’s starting to pound all over again. Could this be...love?! The more I looked at Mashiro as she patted my head, the more rugged and cool she looked! Yeah, I think I really do love her!

After that, I asked Mashiro to tell me more about the dungeon. Apparently there was normally a guild soldier guarding the (original) entrance to this area to make sure people didn’t hunt treants. There were also signs all around the entrance saying the same thing.

“That’s just one rule, though,” she said. “If you go to different dungeons, they’ll have other rules, but when you’re here, the treant rule is absolute, got it? Well, I guess it’s already too late for that, in more ways than one.”

“Yeah, I understand now. And what was the other one you mentioned? You can defeat all the bosses you want, but don’t touch the core?”

“More like you can’t touch it, since there’s a barrier blocking it off, but yeah.”

If I hadn’t met Mashiro and learned I wasn’t supposed to do it, I would’ve probably slipped right through the barrier with spatial magic and touched it. That was a close one.

“All right, since we’re already this far in, I’ll take you to see the core.”

“Wait, are you sure? Isn’t the dungeon boss, like, really tough, though?”

“The black mantis was ten times tougher. Now c’mon, Karina. This way.” She walked ahead, expecting me to follow. Wow, talk about forceful... My heart was racing again!

“I-If it’s weaker than the mantis, I can handle it on my own, you know?”

“Shut up. Like hell I’m gonna let you go off on your own after what you pulled here. I gotta watch you to make sure you stay in line.”

In other words...you’ll be watching me forever and always?! Then I gotta make sure I give you a good show!

And so, Mashiro and I challenged the dungeon’s final boss. With her watching me, I certainly couldn’t hold back, so the moment the enormous ant—most likely the queen—appeared, I sliced it into pieces just like that.

“Well, I was more or less prepared for that, but I still can’t believe you killed the dungeon’s boss in the blink of an eye,” Mashiro grumbled, idly fiddling with the darts she’d been getting ready to throw. “It would have taken me most of the day to win if I was by myself.”

Sorry, I just wanted to show off, that was all! Next time I gotta remember to give her a chance to show me what she can do too!

“Oh, hey, that’s the dungeon core over there, right?” I said. “And is that the barrier in front of it?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. C’mon, let’s get a closer look.”

When we proceeded to the back of the boss room, there was a corridor blocked off by a green barrier. At the end of the corridor was a pedestal with a black orb on top. So that’s the dungeon core, huh? It was at the deepest part of the dungeon—the core, in other words—and it looked like you’d expect the core of something to look, so yeah, I could see how it got the name. As for copying it...probably impossible, I decided. It was a sacred treasure, after all. What a shame. But at least I was able to confirm that for myself, so that was good enough.

“That core’s integral to a bunch of people’s livelihoods, so I guess I can’t just take it, huh...”

“Hey, Karina, the hell are you doin’ just standing there? We’ve seen what we came to see, so let’s get outta here. As for the trespassing, normally we’d have to charge you a fine...but since you resupplied my darts for me, I’ll pay it for you just this once.”

“Oh, okay! I’m coming!” Mashiro’s so nice! I followed her out of the dungeon, and we returned to the surface.

Oh, by the way, I decided to make the discovery of the new route and the defeat of the black mantis Hira’s achievements. It’d probably make more sense for a mysterious mage to do them than a no-name Rank E adventurer.

＊ ＊ ＊

Now that I’d calmed down and was able to think a little more rationally, perhaps I’d fallen victim to the suspension bridge effect—such was my first thought as I awoke the next morning in Mashiro’s bed. You know, the thing where you’re nervous during an interrogation and you mistake the pounding in your heart for feelings of love...or wait, was that Stockholm syndrome? Anyway, we were ready to celebrate after leaving the dungeon, Mashiro told me there was some drink I absolutely had to try, and now here I was, in bed with her in my arms the next morning.

“Ugh... I can’t remember anything...and neither of us are wearing anything... Well, whatever! Fluffy-wuffy time!”

We were in a simple hut with mud walls—Mashiro’s home and base of operations on the outskirts of Carcassa. Atop the slightly dusty bed, I buried myself into her fur, snuggling her. Oh, it felt so good!

But apparently my snuggling woke her up, because she bolted right up in bed. “Gah! Hah... Oh, it’s just you, Karina. Sleep well?” She gave a big yawn. “Guess we ended up doing it last night after all, huh?”

“Oh, Mashiro...” I giggled, and I embraced her again. In response, she stroked my head lovingly. Oh, wow, I really like that... It’s like my body knows what it wants better than I do! I can feel the oxytocin flowing through me!

“With adventurers, this sort of thing happens a lot,” she explained.

“Huh? It does?”

“Yeah. I mean, if we slept with guys, we might get pregnant, and in our profession that’d be a problem. So we blow off steam with other girls instead.”

Wait, really? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.

“And well, because I look the way I do and all, I was pretty popular with the girls back in my hometown. Not so much here, though.”

“Oh, I can see that. You kinda look like a hunk, after all.”

“Well, anyway, now that you’ve slept with me, you’re my woman. If you ever find yourself in trouble, just give me a call. I’ll come running.”

I’m Mashiro’s...woman?! When I heard that, my heart involuntarily skipped a beat.

“That said, if a situation ever gave you trouble, I’m not sure how much help I’d end up being,” she said with a big grin. My heart throbbed again. Whoa, looks like I really have become Mashiro’s woman. My heart’s already acknowledged it.

“So now that you’ve made that new route and such Hira’s handiwork, what’s next?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you conquered the dungeon like you wanted, right? So does that mean you’re gonna leave Carcassa now? If you don’t mind sticking around a little longer, why not go ahead and put one of those doors to your base or whatever here in my house? Better than paying for a room at the inn, right?”

“What a great idea! I’ll take you up on that, then!” I immediately created a door in Mashiro’s house, in the corner of the room away from the window so that no one could look in and see it. Wait a minute... Was this all a scheme so that I’d come right to Mashiro’s side in seconds whenever she called for me?! Ngh... She really got me good (most likely in a carnal sense too!). But I don’t dislike it!

“So that’s the door to your base?” she asked.

“Yeah! Oh, now that you’re my girlfriend, I should introduce you to everyone! Let’s go!” I took her by the hand and led her through the door, into my base.

#Side: Dia

It was the next day, and Karina hadn’t come back home yesterday like she’d said she would. Dia was worried. She had mentioned she might end up staying overnight in the dungeon, but when he thought of all the ruffians all over Carcassa and Karina being all by herself, he couldn’t help but be concerned. Especially because if she really took longer than a day to clear it, she could have just gone back to her base whenever she wanted to rest. Since she hadn’t, perhaps she’d run into trouble she hadn’t foreseen.

“Please relax, Dia,” Aishia told him. “Master will be fine.”

“Are you not worried about her, Aishia? Someone could’ve ambushed her and taken her away!”

“If someone tried, they’d just end up dead. The only thing I’m concerned about is her chastity in case she ends up plastered again, but master is an adult, and she can make her own decisions.”

Upon hearing that, Dia automatically imagined Karina in a state of undress and went beet red up to his ears.

“If that’s your reaction, why not just offer yourself up to her instead? From my observations, it’s clear you’re interested in her, and even though she likes women, I’m sure she’d save a space for you too.”

“M-Me?! A-Ah, well, er, um, that is... I-It’s far too early for that! At least until she starts seeing me as a man...”

“You elves might think you have all the time in the world, but humans wither and die much sooner than you think, you know? The jury’s still out on whether master’s actually human, though.”

Karina claimed to be human, at least, but it was doubtful whether even her own perception of herself was accurate. At the very least, it wouldn’t be surprising for someone with such power to be immortal.

“Ngh... Then at least give me a little more time. If it’d mean potentially ruining the relationship we have now, I’d rather things stay as they are.”

“Are you sure? I think sometimes some things are worth being direct, even if other things end up breaking. If you’re not careful, a wolf might end up stealing your prey from under your nose, you know?” She sipped her tea, smiling suggestively. She was already prepared, Dia realized. She wasn’t going to leave her master anyway, so even if she ended up being Karina’s slave for the rest of her life, she welcomed that outcome.

At that moment, they heard the door out in the entryway open. Karina was back. No one else could have opened that door, so there was no doubt.

Dia came running in to greet her. “Oh, welcome back, big sis... Huh?”

What he saw, however, was Karina pulling a beastkin adventurer behind her. If the beastkin was coming into the base, Karina must have granted permission to enter.

“I’m home, Dia! And Aishia, thanks for holding down the fort while I was gone!”

“Wh-Who is this, big sis?”

“Oh, right, I should introduce you. This is my l-lover, Mashiro!”

“Yep, the name’s Mashiro. Well met, little elf girl.” He extended a furry paw over to Dia’s head to pet him.

“Huh?! Lover?! S-Since when?!” he exclaimed.

“Since yesterday, I guess. We had a passionate encounter in the dungeon and, well, one thing led to another...” Karina blushed, looking genuinely bashful as she hugged Mashiro’s arm. Unlike when she’d joked around with Satie, it looked like she was serious this time. She had the look of a woman in love. She was also clinging tightly to Mashiro. She was holding the beastkin, not the other way around.

“Oh, by the way, Mashiro, wanna try out our bath? I made a really big one!”

“Whoa, seriously?! You’ve got a bath here?! Hell yeah, I’ll try it!”

And they were already intimate enough to bathe together?! Dia’s vision began to grow dim from utter shock.

“I-I’m gonna go back to my room for a bit,” he announced.

“Oh, okay. Take care,” Karina said.

A wild, confident-looking beastman had seduced Karina. A weak, feminine-looking elf boy couldn’t ever hope to compete. Unable to endure seeing the adoration in Karina’s eyes as she stared at Mashiro, he excused himself and fled to his room.

When he got to his bed, he wailed. “B-But I liked her first! It’s not fair!”

He knew Karina had already been with several women at this point and even preferred them. But when it came to men, he’d always thought he was Karina’s favorite. If he’d known this was going to happen, he would have taken action sooner! At the very least, he would have confessed! Then maybe she wouldn’t have gotten snatched up by some random adventurer out of the blue!

But it was already too late. Regretting it now wouldn’t change anything. He’d let the lovely gem of a woman within his reach all along slip through his fingers. With that sobering realization, Dia huddled up in his blanket and sobbed.

It wasn’t until the next day that Dia heard from Aishia, “Hey, Dia, Mashiro’s a woman, you know? So there’s still room for you to be her male lover.”

Dia’s response, “Huh? No way! There are actually women who look that furry and burly?!” only emphasized to Aishia just how ignorant of the ways of the world Dia was, but she kept that thought to herself.

#Side: END

Chapter 5

After that, I spent more time exploring Carcassa’s dungeon and making money on the side, making out with Mashiro, spending my dungeon earnings on material to make more massagers with Dia, and bathing with Mashiro at my base. Basically, just living it up in peace. And having Dia help make all those massagers felt somewhat, how should I say, naughty! I had to secretly add the rod-shaped attachments on the end afterward so he wouldn’t realize... A-Anyway, these Electro-Massagers are gonna sell like crazy, I know it! And once they’ve all sold, I’ll use the proceeds to treat everyone to a nice steak dinner!

Hmm? However well the Electro-Massagers might sell, I could make way more just with my Hira persona, you say? Using my healing magic (spatial magic version), I could make twenty-five gold just by healing five people a day for five gold each? Well... I can’t really argue with that! When it comes to earning money, Hira’s just too OP! She charges in gold, after all!

In that case, since she makes way more than the bare minimum to live on, we don’t have to work hard and just have her work at a leisurely pace. Then I can spend the money at Shunrai... No, bad Karina! That’s supposed to go toward our living expenses! I can’t dip into that for personal pleasure! Whatever money I spend at Shunrai I gotta earn myself, as a merchant! So I need to get these Electro-Massagers made and sold when I can!

For a while, it really was a pleasant, laid-back life. Everything was so peaceful.

Then something happened, completely out of the blue.

There was a new moon in the dark sky the night when a tremor ran through the town of Carcassa. It wasn’t an earthquake. It was a shock wave produced by magic. When I first felt it lying in bed with Mashiro that night, I didn’t think much of it, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep.

But Mashiro, who had been sleeping soundly beside me, jolted out of bed immediately. “Oh, shit! Hey, sleepyhead, wake up!”

“Huh? What’s up, Mashiro?” I said groggily. “You wanna fool around again?”

“Idiot, I’m not gonna do that with you every single night!” she hissed. “No, I’ve just got a bad feeling. I think something might’ve happened in the dungeon, so could you check for me?”

“Well, fine, but only because it’s you asking...” To be honest, I thought she was just being a worrywart, but I wanted to put her mind at ease, so I rubbed my drowsy eyes and opened a pocket of space leading to the dungeon. Through the spatial window, I saw something truly unbelievable.

“Wait, huh?”

“What’s wrong? See something odd?” Mashiro asked.

“Yeah, you could say that. The dungeon entrance’s caved in! Actually, I can barely feel the dungeon’s presence at all anymore!”

“The dungeon’s collapsing?! Oh shit, that’s really bad! That means Carcassa’s gonna collapse too!”

“Seriously? That does sound really bad!”

“If the dungeon collapses, everything on top’s gonna sink underground with it!”

Right... Carcassa was built on top of the dungeon, so if the dungeon fell to ruin, it only stood to reason everything above it would follow suit. And that was what was happening as we spoke.

“Karina, the dungeon core! Something must have happened to it!”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Hold on a sec, I’m gonna try and keep the dungeon supported... Nhggghhh!” Without much of a better plan, I decided to hold up all I could grab with my spatial magic and stretched out my magic to its maximum range. The dungeon’s walls had fissured, but I managed to keep them intact...but damn, they were heavy! Why the hell were they this heavy?! It was like the full weight of a sumo wrestler was bearing down on me! I can’t keep this up forever!

“Karina? Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

“Ngh... L-Like I said, I’m using my magic to keep the dungeon from collapsing! As long as I’m supporting it, it ought to stay intact!”

“Seriously? Wow, that’s my Karina! Way to go! That should buy us some time!” She rubbed my head affectionately. Eh heh heh... I’ll do my best for you, Mashiro. Still, supporting a dungeon with an entire town on top of it all by myself was a tall order, even for me. If we didn’t do something about the actual problem soon, we’d be in trouble.

“So if something happened to the dungeon core... Well, rather than speculating, it’d probably be faster just to check for ourselves. Ready, Mashiro?”

“Hold your horses, I gotta get dressed first. And I doubt you wanna go to the dungeon’s depths in your birthday suit either.”

Oops, she’s got a point. Once our adventuring preparations were complete, Mashiro and I warped to the end of the dungeon.

As soon as we reached the dungeon’s deepest depths, we spotted the abnormality. Beyond the green barrier protecting the core at the end of the hallway, the dungeon core had a large crack in it.

“The core’s...broken?!”

“No, it looks like it’s still active right now, but it’s probably only a matter of time before it breaks. Hey, Karina, disguise yourself real quick. Someone’s coming.”

“A-All right.” While continuing to hold the dungeon up, I transformed myself into Hira. The moment I did, a severely scarred man ran up to us, out of breath. He had red hair and a full, red beard like a lion’s mane.

“Hah... Hah... Wh-Who goes there?! Wait—Silver?! What are you doing here?!”

“Oh, it’s just you, guild master. Don’t scare me like that,” Mashiro said.

Apparently the man was the guild master of the Adventurer’s Guild Branch here in Carcassa. And he wasn’t a lion beastkin or anything; he was human. He just had a really magnificent beard.

“Look over there,” Mashiro instructed, pointing. “That’s the cause of the abnormality here.”

“H-Huh?! The dungeon core’s cracked?! N-N-No way, you gotta be kidding! Wait, it wasn’t you two who did this, was it?!”

“Hell no! Even if we’d wanted to, how could we have gotten through this barrier?!” She rapped it with her fist. “I just hurried here as soon as I sensed the tremors, that’s all. I happened to be camping out nearby, and I knew that if there was an abnormality, this would be the first place to check.”

Oh, I see what she’s doing. The truth was we were actually in bed at her house at the time and I’d just teleported her here lickety-split along with me, but in this case, the fact that adventurers commonly stayed overnight in the dungeon during expeditions so they wouldn’t have to pay the admission fee every day had covered for us pretty well.

“I see... Then who’s this fishy-looking geezer over here?”

“Oh, this is Hira. I already told you about the mage who took out the black mantis in one hit, didn’t I? I’m traveling with her right now.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, we did hear about someone like that when we checked with the wife of the former lord of Verald. I think their name was—”

“Yes. That would be me, Hira,” I said, my voice disguised. “Sorry for going after those treants the other day, but I’m sure you can forgive me.” I took a high-handed attitude, like an arrogant, all-powerful mage probably would.

“Well, considering what you’ve done for us, I can look the other way for you entering the dungeon even though you’re not an adventurer.”

“Huh? Wait, Hira, you’re not an adventurer?”

“Hmm, come to think of it, I suppose I never registered myself, did I? I completely forgot.”

Yeah, of course Hira wouldn’t be registered, since I’d made her up. Man, and this would have been a good chance to use my all-powerful hypnosis license from the Goddess... It’s been so long that I completely forgot about it!

“Just to confirm, this wasn’t either of your handiwork, right?”

“Yeah, this wasn’t us. Hira’s been here with me the entire time. I can vouch for her.”

“Even so, I’m going to have you use the lie detector device when we get back. This matter is grave enough—you understand I can’t just take your word for it.”

“Of course, that’s A-okay. But how are we gonna fix this?” She turned to the cracked black orb at the end of the hallway.

Then the guild master looked like he’d realized something. “Wait, what’s that I see? Are those fragments of something?”

“Hmm?” Indeed, when I took a closer look, there were several pieces on the ground that didn’t look like they were from the dungeon core or the pedestal it was sitting on. They looked almost like they were from a pipe—like the pipe had exploded from the inside.

“Huh? Did someone set a time bomb here or something?”

“A time bomb? What are you...” The guild master looked puzzled for a moment, then understanding dawned on him. “Oh! I have heard of those before! The empire uses them, I think. So wait, does that mean this is the work of the empire?!” The empire—officially known as the Gidorahga Empire—was one of the neighboring nations of the kingdom of Pavelkant.

The guild master went into more detail. “The empire believes that the dungeons all over the world are sucking up the planet’s energy, and they’ve vowed to eliminate them all. So it would make sense if this was their doing.”

Well, the dungeon cores were sacred treasures, and the sacred treasures were consuming the world’s energy, so the empire wasn’t wrong. “Their argument isn’t entirely unfounded,” I said.

“That’s just what they say, Hira,” Mashiro said, sounding exasperated. “They’re not laying their hands on any of their own dungeons, so this is clearly just a pretext for them to invade.”

“That’s right,” the guild master agreed. “In the end, they’re just aiming to weaken the nations around them and making excuses for it. Exactly what I’d expect from the empire.”

Hmm. Well, I couldn’t say I was a fan of that kind of approach either.

“Hey, Hira, do you think you could possibly repair the dungeon core, like you did with my sword and armor?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, I can’t. My magic wouldn’t work on it.” My healing-slash-repair magic was just making a copy of the intact material and forcibly attaching it over top of the broken part. And since I couldn’t copy any part of the orb, I couldn’t repair the dungeon core.

“More importantly... I’ve been using my magic to keep the dungeon from collapsing for a while now, but I doubt I can hold out much longer.”

The guild master looked alarmed. “Oh, so that’s why the dungeon isn’t crumbling anymore right now! You were keeping it from collapsing! You have my thanks, truly. By the way, just how much longer do you think you can hold out, exactly?”

“I should be good for at least a little while—wait, no, hold on.” I appreciated the guild master’s gratitude, but now that I thought about it, how much longer could I keep this up? It felt a lot like raising your hand up in the air for an extended period of time. If one hand got tired I could just switch to the other, so I’d probably be fine while I was conscious, but I wasn’t sure what would happen if I got sleepy.

“Hmm... Probably around half a day,” I answered. “A full day at the longest.”

“So there’s no time to waste, then. All right, I understand the situation now. First we’ll head back to town and start evacuating everyone. It pains me to say it, but if the dungeon’s already on the verge of collapsing, we’ll have to abandon Carcassa.”

The guild master immediately reached his decision. Abandon Carcassa—in other words, forsake Mashiro’s house as well?! Abandon our love nest because of the machinations of some empire?! Like hell I’m gonna let that happen!

“Ngggh... There’s gotta be something I can do,” I muttered under my breath.

Perhaps because I’d said that, at that moment my spatial magic activated on its own, and the SP catalog appeared and landed on the ground. Coincidentally, the page it opened to as it landed had the following item listed: “Dungeon Core Repair Glue: 1,000 SP.”

Yeah... This was absolutely not a coincidence. It was the first time I’d ever seen such an item in the book. Oh, Goddess?

Goodess evening! It’s your lovely Goddess here, ready to answer your every question!

“Goodess evening?” The hell kind of greeting was that?

Don’t worry your little head about the details. Now then, you wanted to ask about the dungeon core repair glue? It’s 1,000 SP. However! Just for you, just this once, you can have it for free!

Free, huh? I wanted to agree immediately on reflex, but I already knew how this Goddess worked—she was a crafty one! No doubt there was some kind of catch! Now go ahead, fess up!

Of course there’s a catch. In exchange, I want you to retrieve a core from a different dungeon for me. It happens to be right nearby, so I’ll guide you there. Oh, and time’s stopped right now, so you can just speak out loud if you want.

“Oh, okay.” Wow, time really was stopped. That means I can stop holding up the dungeon for a while and rest. Phew, what a relief. “And would there happen to be anyone living around or nearby this dungeon?”

No, no, nothing like that. I’m recommending this dungeon to you after having considered the damage removing the core might cause, don’t worry. You could say I’ve even given it a godlike amount of consideration. Since I’m a god, after all! Get it?

“Please stop.”

Aw, you’re no fun. Well, anyway, this is the place! A set of coordinates appeared in my head without warning. It was the entrance to the dungeon. The Goddess must have been sending her wisdom directly into my head.

A dungeon that wouldn’t be a problem if it got destroyed, huh? You don’t say... “Then I guess I’ll head there right now with my magic—”

Oh, before you do, I should probably warn you. You won’t be able to use spatial magic in there, so watch out! You can still use it to come and go, though, and you can keep this dungeon held up with no problem while you’re in there.

“Wait, what?!” Hey, what gives?! Take my spatial magic away from me, and I’ll only have my extraordinary beauty left!

Truth is, this dungeon’s a cocky one. As a rule, spatial magic is forbidden while inside.

“In other words, you’re upset that it’s mocking you, and you want me to go in there and knock that dungeon down a peg. Would that be the real reason?”

More or less!

Well, it did sound like something she’d do. Now it all made sense.

If you try to use spatial magic inside, it won’t work—or more accurately, it’ll just be so weak it’s utterly useless. In other words, this dungeon’s clearly trying to pick a fight with me. Oh, but just so you know, I could rip that entire thing out of existence in one go if I really wanted to.

Then just do that! If I can still support this dungeon with no problem while I’m in there, then why can’t you use your magic outside the dungeon freely?! “Honestly, though, I seriously doubt I’ll be able to conquer the dungeon without my magic.”

You should still be able to scout and see the path forward, to a degree, so just have that puppy girl you’re into go with you for backup.

Who, Mashiro? Yeah, she was a Rank A adventurer, so she’d probably be a big help.

Also, you’ll be limited on accessing your storage space. I can help you bring it out if you need it, but you won’t be able to enter it.

“Hmm, well, at least that means I can still travel light.” Otherwise, I’d have to lug around all my potions and things on my back along with me. “Oh, but couldn’t I just fix the dungeon core here first and then take my time going through the dungeon and delivering the core to you?”

Nope, no can do! The dungeon core repair glue’s made from a different dungeon core, after all.

In other words, “I’m gonna make you pay 1,000 SP regardless.” And sacred treasures like the dungeon core were worth 500 SP. It didn’t seem like the Goddess had any plans to create more stock, so she was essentially telling me I could do whatever I wanted as long as I paid 500 SP.

By the way, that dungeon I recommended you is located in the empire, so that’s why I said it’s perfect timing. It aligns right with where you’re headed, no?

“Oh, no kidding?! Great! Then if I conquer this dungeon in the empire, it’ll solve all my problems in one go! How convenient!” I love it when things just work out! Thanks a bunch, Goddess!

“Hey, what do you mean, conquering a dungeon in the empire? And why is the guild master frozen like a statue?”

“Whoa!” Hearing a voice other than mine out loud all of a sudden, I jumped in surprise. “Huh? M-Mashiro? You can move?”

“What? What are you talking about? Wait, did you freeze the guild master like this?!”

Hold up, Goddess, didn’t you say that no one was going to hear us while time was stopped?!

Yeah, about that... Since she’s a dog, I guess she was able to resist my time freeze! Tee hee... Oopsie!

“No, Goddess, that makes no sense whatsoever! To begin with, Mashiro’s a wolf, not a dog!”

In the eyes of the Goddess, there’s no difference. They’re both cute, after all... As a matter of fact, hurry up and get me some socks from that puppy, pronto!

“I-I’m working on that. Once we finish clearing this dungeon, you’ll get your offering.” Ugh... Come to think of it, I’ve been so busy fooling around with Mashiro that I completely forgot about that. Even though she kept her promise and was continuing to walk around wearing socks just like she said!

“Hey, is it just me, or are you talking to yourself?” she asked, prodding my shoulder.

Er, well, it should be okay to tell her. She’s already been to my base, after all. “Nah, I’m talking with the Goddess right now. Just give me a sec, I should be off here shortly.”

“Goddess? Wait, hold the phone. You mean your superior’s a goddess? And that means you’re gonna be delivering my socks to the gods?! What the hell?!”

Aw, look how bewildered she is! How cute! Whew, man, I wanna inhale the fumes of that girl’s feet more than ever now! “It’s, er, a preference of hers!” I explained briefly.

That didn’t seem to enlighten Mashiro any further, because she still wore a puzzled frown. Still, for her to immediately deduce who I was offering her socks to—she’s pretty smart! I love you, Mashiro!

All righty, then, if that’s all, then I leave it all in your capable hands, Karina! Once you break that dungeon core, you’ll be able to use your magic again, so getting out of there will be easy. And you don’t have to worry about holding back, since I don’t care if you destroy the whole dungeon!

“Yeah, yeah. Later.” I hung up on the Goddess, and time started to move once again, including the dungeon I was supporting. Whoa! Because it moved so abruptly, it looked like it had crumbled a little more. Damn.

“Huh?! S-Silver, where’d you go?! Oh, you’re over there. When did you move away from me?” The guild master also unfroze.

“What? Oh, well, er... Hey, Hira, it looks like we have a plan of action now, right?”

Since Mashiro addressed me as Hira, I responded in kind. “Yeah, apparently there’s some sort of glue that might repair this dungeon core.”

“The heck?!” the guild master exclaimed. “Talk about a convenient substance! Well, do you have any? If so, what are we waiting for?!”

Yeah, I thought it was pretty convenient too. “We’re going to have to go and get the material for it. In the meantime, my magic will continue to prevent this dungeon from collapsing. Evacuate as many as you can. If you don’t act fast enough, they might not all make it out.”

“O-Oh, okay. I understand.”

Having given the guild master his orders, I turned to Mashiro next. “And I want you to come along and help. We’re headed to a dungeon in the empire.”

“H-Huh?! O-Okay, if you say so!”

I didn’t know how long clearing this dungeon was going to take. The Goddess probably wouldn’t have recommended this dungeon if she thought we couldn’t conquer it in time, but we still couldn’t dawdle. With Mashiro in tow, I headed to the dungeon that the Goddess had specified.

＊ ＊ ＊

We found ourselves deep in a forest with a moonless, inky black sky above us. There, before our eyes, awaited a shadowy labyrinth. When Mashiro raised her lantern and illuminated the large stone arch at the entrance, we saw runes inscribed on its surface. Apparently they had the power to neutralize my spatial magic. I couldn’t read what they said, but I could instinctively tell.

“All right, ready, Karina?” Mashiro asked me. “With your power, this is gonna be a breeze. Let’s get this over with.”

“Er, about that...” I explained the situation to her—more specifically, the fact that I couldn’t use spatial magic in here. “So I’m gonna have to depend on you to get me through this! I’m sorry, but I really need your help!”

“Got it. No problem, consider it done. Let’s go.” As casually as if she’d announced she was heading to the convenience store, Mashiro strode toward the dungeon’s entrance.

“W-Wait, are you sure you understood what I just said?! I’m telling you that in this dungeon, I’ll be no more help than an ordinary girl with no combat experience!”

“Ah, well, maybe so. But you’re my woman, and you said you needed to lean on me, right? Then go right ahead, starting now. Actually, since it’s my town that’s in peril, it’s more like you’re the one helping me out by bringing me here.”

Holy crap, she was cool! And so manly sounding, even though she was a woman!

“In fact, it might be safer for you to just stay put. I’ll take it from here—I should be able to handle this by myself.”

“Oh, er, but...this labyrinth looks like it might be pretty hard to navigate, and I can use my scouting and mapping abilities, barely, so let me come along for support.”

“Oh, for real? Yeah, that’d be a big help. In that case, lead the way!”

Come to think of it, I should probably let Dia and Aishia know what’s going on first. Or more like, I’m the only spatial magic user in the group, so if I died in this dungeon and the entrance to our base disappeared, they’d be trapped inside for all eternity. I should take some sort of measure to make sure they can get out in case of an emergency.

“They’re probably asleep right now, but I’ll at least leave them a letter before leaving.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Here’s hoping it’s not my farewell letter, I thought to myself as I returned to the base.

When I entered, Dia was there in the living room. Today he was wearing a simple dress with no frills or decorations. As always, he was cute as a button, and he seemed to be hard at work planning out magic circuits to use in our devices.

“Oh, you’re still awake?” I asked him.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “Didn’t you say you were going to spend the night at Mashiro’s?”

“I was, until the town of Carcassa started collapsing. Now I gotta go stop it.”

“Huh?! Isn’t that, like, a serious incident?!”

Yep, super serious. Which is why... I created a door out of thin air. This door led to a room in Miss Maria’s mansion back in Verald. While I was at it, I dropped a letter from me in there that explained the situation.

“If I don’t come back, assume that something’s happened to me and use this emergency exit to get out,” I told Dia.

“Wait, big sis,” he said, standing up and looking serious. “I’m coming with you.”

“Huh? N-No, that’s probably not a good idea. To be honest, I can’t use spatial magic in this dungeon. You’d just be putting yourself in danger.”

“But doesn’t that mean you’ll be basically defenseless?! Then I absolutely need to go! With my magic, I can definitely help you!”

Before I could even protest, Dia ran off to his room and changed into adventuring gear. “Oh, right,” he said when he came back, “do you think we could use that golem and the weapons we used when we took down those pirates?”

“Nope. I used spatial magic to operate those, so they’d be useless where we’re going.”

“Then I guess I just gotta work that much harder to protect you,” he said.

Guh, his smile’s so adorable! All right, you’ve convinced me! With Dia now in tow, I returned to the dungeon in the empire.

“No way, absolutely not. We are not taking a kid in here with us. It’s way too dangerous.”

Yeah, I should have expected Mashiro would be opposed. However, Dia didn’t back down.

“I can fight too!”

“Look, there’s only one of me. I can’t be in two places at once, so it’d be impossible for me to protect you both. Get it?”

“I-I’ll be fine, really! Despite how I look, I’m a guy! I can take care of myself!”

“Huh? O-Oh, you’re a guy? I see. In that case, just be sure to keep up with me! But if you can’t handle it, you’ll get left behind. I’ll come back around to pick you up on the way out, so just hide somewhere and wait until I show up.”

“Okay, got it!”

Now that Dia had managed to convince Mashiro he could hold his own, the three of us headed to the dungeon. But before we reached the entrance, Mashiro pulled me aside for a secret talk.

“Karina,” she hissed in my ear, “Dia’s a man?! Then why is he dressed like a woman?!”

“Oh, er, that’s ’cause it’s my personal preference.”

“Grr... You...! Because of you, I ended up unconsciously agreeing!”

How was that my fault? More importantly, she thought he was a girl too, huh? No wonder she’d felt comfortable just lounging around my base after a bath without bothering to put her clothes back on.

Anyway, it was time for yet another dungeon adventure. The moment I passed through the gate, I felt my spatial magic get restricted. Ugh... I was having second thoughts about this already.

“What do you think, Karina? Is your scouting and mapping gonna work?” Mashiro asked.

“Oh, er, let’s see... Yeah, I can scout in about a fifty-meter radius. We should be good.” Normally I’d have been able to map out the entire dungeon, including its depths, but fifty meters was the best I could do right now.

“Fifty meters?! Man, that’s almost cheating! Talk about impressive!”

“Well, it is big sis, after all.” Dia nodded sagely.

Yeah, but using Star Mode in here wouldn’t do anything but boost my physical ability slightly, so right now, I was kinda scared shitless!

“Whoa, we’ve got company! Five enemies spotted dead ahead! They look like wolves—really dark wolves!”

“Shadow wolves, eh?” Mashiro growled. “Leave ’em to me! Hyaaah!” Holding her sword in position, she rushed right past the five wolves. A flash of steel appeared on each of them, and their torsos were sliced in half, their guts spilling out onto the ground. In addition, she must’ve cut them in a way that sent them flying to the side, because the path ahead was clean and clear.

“All right, so far, so good. Weaklings like that are no problem. And since we don’t need to collect their materials this time, we have even less to worry about. As long as they don’t get any tougher than that, this’ll be a breeze.” She returned her sword—which didn’t have a drop of blood on it—to its sheath, then walked back over to us.

“Whoa, Mashiro, that was incredible! You were really that strong all along?!”

“Ha! Never underestimate a Rank A adventurer! Stuff like that is child’s play for us.” She bared her teeth in a vicious snarl, but I could tell from the way her cheeks were turned up that it was just her version of a smug grin.

“Yeah, if you can do that much, I suppose you are qualified to protect big sis after all,” Dia said.

“Oh? In that case, why don’t you just run along home and watch the base for her, little Dia? You should go now, while we’re not too far from the entrance.”

“No. I came here to protect her, and that’s just what I intend to do. And I already told myself I wouldn’t run, no matter what happens.” He looked positively brimming with resolve. The gallant look on his normally cute face was a fresh sight for me indeed, one I certainly didn’t dislike.

So we pressed onward. “If we want to go deeper into the dungeon, we need to head that way,” I pointed out. “This way’s a dead end.”

“Roger that. You know, if you weren’t here, Karina, it’d be impossible to clear this dungeon in half a day.”

Indeed. It was no wonder the Goddess recommended we conquer it together.

“Wait, why the hell’re you going the dead-end direction, then?!”

“Hmm? But isn’t the most exciting part of dungeon exploration heading off the main path and finding treasure chests in dead ends? And since my spatial magic’s not powerful enough to see what’s inside the chests right now, I’m even more curious!”

“You really think now’s the time for that?! Whatever’s in there, it’ll just be more baggage to slow us down, so leave ’em be! We gotta hurry!”

“Oh, right, good point. Sorry, sorry.” I hurried after Mashiro—in the proper direction this time—until I heard a k-chak and felt something under my feet give way slightly.

“Big sis, watch out!” Dia shouted.

“Whoa!” As he tackled me to the ground, an arrow whizzed over my head right where it’d been a moment ago. Mashiro snatched it out of the air and tossed it onto the ground.

“Thanks a bunch, Dia. You’re a lifesaver, literally.”

“N-No, don’t mention it. Rather, maybe I shouldn’t have just tackled you like that?”

“No, you did the right thing,” Mashiro said. “Not bad, runt!” She rubbed his head affectionately. “Keep that up, and we’ll be golden. That way I can focus on fighting rather than defense.”

“I-I won’t lose to you!” Dia’s face went beet red as he put on a brave front for Mashiro. Hey, wait, could this be the birth of a teacher-disciple relationship between them?! And why did his face get red all of a sudden?! Don’t tell me...Dia has feelings for Mashiro now?! It’s not impossible, I guess—they’re allies both working for the same goal of protecting me, so it’s technically group work! And relationships crop up in groups all the time!

After that, Dia and Mashiro continued trying to one-up each other as they protected me, making my heart flutter in all sorts of ways—but the more I observed, the more convinced I was that Dia had become conscious of Mashiro as a woman!

“Hey, runt, come over here. I’m gonna teach you how to swing a sword. And just for you, I’ll do it for free.”

“I-I don’t need your help!”

“Seriously? Most people would pay in gold to get a sword lesson from a Rank A adventurer, you know? If you want any hope of getting stronger, you better at least learn how to conduct yourself in battle. Got it?”

“A-All right, fine, I’ll watch. But that doesn’t mean I’m admitting defeat, got it?!”

She snickered. “All right, if you say so.”

On the other hand, Mashiro was taking Dia under her wing! The two of them were getting along all by themselves, leaving me hanging! Could this be what they call mutual love?! Had love bloomed on the battlefield after all?! Between my lover, Mashiro, and Dia, whose first love I was?!

“Ngh... I’m so confused! I don’t know how to feel about this at all!”

“Hey, what are you doing just standing there, Karina? On to the next one.”

“R-Right.”

My mixed feelings didn’t clear up any as we made our way through the dungeon without stopping to take a break even once. More wolves showed up, but none of them were a match for Mashiro. Even when they concealed themselves in their own shadows to try and ambush us, her keen sense of smell exposed them every time.

Dia also joined in with offensive magic every now and then. I’d tried to choose routes where we’d encounter the least amount of monsters, but the wolves’ noses were so good that we couldn’t avoid confronting them even with my ability to see fifty meters ahead of us. And after walking for so long, I was seriously starting to tire out. If I hadn’t strengthened myself with spatial magic the best I could beforehand, I would have probably already passed out. Let’s see... Mashiro goes without saying, but Dia doesn’t look tired at all either. Or so I thought, but then I noticed him pull out his wand and point it at himself.

“Light Heal.”

Oh, I see. He’d been using recovery magic to wipe away his fatigue. And now that I was paying attention, I could also see Mashiro was chugging a potion! No fair, both of you!

“Hmm? What’s wrong, Karina? You all right?” Perhaps noticing my displeasure, Mashiro immediately called out to me.

“Of course I’m not all right! The two of you have been recovering from your fatigue in secret, without telling me!”

“Huh? Secret? Wait, big sis, you haven’t been healing yourself too?! Oh, right, of course you wouldn’t be, since you can’t use spatial magic right now! I’m so sorry, I didn’t even realize! Light Heal!”

“Seriously, Karina? You didn’t bring anything to recover with? That’s like adventuring 101! In fact, I can’t believe you’ve made it this far without it!”

Not again! Don’t tell me this is another “I don’t have any common knowledge of this world since I’m new to it” deal? Anyway, Dia healed me. Aah, I could feel my fatigue melting away... Much better. It was like soaking in a relaxing bath! It felt so comfortable I ended up yawning out loud.

“Ahhh... Thanks a bunch, Dia, that feels a lot better. Almost too good... In fact, I’m seriously starting to get sleepy...”

“Should we take a rest, then?” Mashiro suggested. “We can take turns napping and being on lookout duty.” Then she gasped as though something had just occurred to her. “Wait, Karina, wouldn’t it be bad if you went to sleep now?!”

Oh...right. Outside, I was still holding up Carcassa’s dungeon to keep it from collapsing. And if I took a nap, I’d probably end up letting go—in other words, the dungeon would sink, and Carcassa would be finished.

“Yeah... I can’t go to sleep. If I do, Carcassa will fall to ruin.” In fact, just letting out that yawn a while ago had loosened my grip to where I’d allowed a small portion of the dungeon to crumble.

“Okay, that settles it. We’re not letting you go to sleep. Wake the hell up!” She slapped my cheeks a couple of times.

“Aah... Mashiro’s paw pads... They feel so good on my face...” Feeling their softness on my cheeks, I felt my consciousness slip away even further! Whoa! Not good—that was close! Now wasn’t the time to be soothed!

“Hey, runt, listen up. I’m gonna carry Karina piggyback from here on. If she starts to nod off, I want you to smack her ass as hard as you can.”

“Huh?! S-Smack her... I can’t possibly do something so shameless!” His face went as red as a tomato again as he shook his head.

But Mashiro just shook her head as well, looking stern. “Now see here. If she goes to sleep, that’s the end of Carcassa. This isn’t a joke—a bunch of lives are on the line. Now, countless lives or her ass—which are you gonna choose?”

“W-Well, if you put it that way... Sorry about this in advance, big sis.”

“N-No problem, Dia. My ass is in your capable hands...”

From then on, my fight began against something much more formidable than any monster in this dungeon—my own drowsiness.

“Yaaawn...”

“Sorry, big sis!”

“Hyaaan! Th-Thanks, Dia. I’m wide awake now, I think.” As promised, Dia slapped me across the rear every time I yawned.

“Yaaawww... Yowch!”

“The hell you think you’re doin’ going to sleep on us, you moron?! Wake up, dammit!”

“Ow ow ow! My nipples! You’re gonna tear ’em off! Let go of my breasts! Not while Dia’s watching!”

Mashiro had grabbed my tits and twisted them! Then...

“Mmm... Nnn... Ngyaaah!”

She grabbed my tongue and pulled it. “What did I just tell you?! Don’t go to sleep! Now do you feel a little more awake?!”

“Ha ha hee hee ho. Yaw...”

“Dia, do it.”

“I’m sorry, big sis! Please wake up! Petit Fire!”

“OWWW! Wh-What did you just do to me, Dia?!” Dia had scorched my rear with a fire spell! Damn, that was hot!

“Seems like no matter what I do, Dia’s method is always gonna be more effective,” Mashiro concluded. “All right, runt, next time she starts nodding off, give her a big kiss. I’ll allow it.”

“What?!” Dia and I exclaimed in unison at Mashiro’s out-of-the-blue declaration.

“Oh, you snapped awake just hearing that, did you? That basically guarantees it’s gonna work!”

Sleeping Beauty awoke with a kiss, sure, but Dia was just eye candy! I never wanted to lay a hand on him! If we kissed, I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep for a whole week!

“Fortunately, looks we’re already almost done here.” Before I knew it, we were standing in front of a big door leading to the dungeon’s final boss. The other boss doors I’d seen so far were all plain-looking, and even though we were away from civilization, the ornate design of the door made it clear that the empire managed this dungeon. Mashiro checked the seal on the door—apparently the boss’s information was inscribed on it, and as a high-ranking adventurer, she knew how to read it.

“Yep, this is the final boss. Looks like it’s another wolf type. Just one more push, Karina! Let’s do this!”

“A-All right! I’ll do my best not to pass out!” I clenched my fist tightly, determined not to fall asleep again. After all, if I did, Dia and I would have to...! Wait, what was this? With my head all fuzzy and desiring sleep, I found myself not too opposed to the idea?! B-But I was a guy at heart, so stealing Dia’s innocent, glossy, trembling lips would be really bad! I had to stay awake at all costs! I’ll protect your lips, Dia! I swear it!

“Ready, everyone? Then let’s go.” Taking the lead, Mashiro opened the boss door.

Once inside the boss room, we immediately spotted a wolf-shaped, pitch-black shadow. Of course, it was the boss. You could tell because it was at least three times as large as the regular shadow wolves—despite being on all fours, it still towered over all three of us. If we were back in Japan and we had the boss here and a minivan slam into each other, this guy would definitely win.

“It’s called a void wolf, apparently.” Mashiro clicked her tongue. “Be careful—it’s so dark that it might be tough to gauge how close or far away it is. Also, watch out for its reinforcements. When it howls, it summons more wolves from the shadows.”

All that info was written on that boss door? Anyway, she must have judged we wouldn’t get anywhere by just staring it down, because she raised her sword and leaped into action.

It was no wonder she was an A Rank adventurer. Her attacks struck the wolf with perfect precision—two swings came at the creature from above and below in quick succession. The wolf feinted to the left and right, dodging them both, then tried to howl—but before it could, the dart that Mashiro had sneakily thrown up into the air beforehand came down. The wolf interrupted its howl to dodge the dart, and the add summon was canceled.

“Damn. If this battle goes on too long, Karina will fall asleep again...so I gotta finish this as soon as I can!” Mashiro was clearly outmatched as she continued fighting the boss solo.

“Yeah, I don’t wanna defile Dia’s lips either! You can do it, Mashiro! Finish this guy off!”

“Let me support you! Light Wall!” Dia manifested several barriers of light, and the room lit up immediately. The void wolf’s adds came from the shadows—therefore, if there were no shadows, it’d be awfully hard for him to summon his backup!

“Nice idea, Dia! Since I don’t have spatial magic right now, I can’t do anything but cheer you on, but let’s go, Dia! You can do it!”

“Focus... I need to focus!”

Oops, it looked like Dia was concentrating really hard. I shouldn’t distract him. Anyway, now that the room was all lit up, the void wolf’s true figure was now visible. What the hell? Its fur was constantly spiraling, like a mosquito coil. I’d never seen anything like it...

“No, Karina, don’t look!” Mashiro yelled.

“Huh?!”

“Don’t look at its fur! You’ll be in trouble!”

No sooner than she’d said so, the void wolf’s entire body glowed brightly—and Dia rushed in front of me, shielding me with his own body. In the next instant, he collapsed to the ground. The walls of light he’d generated disappeared, causing the room to fill with shadow once more. The wolf’s body also became pitch-black again.

“Dia!” I shouted.

“Tch! So if you try to erase the shadows with light, it’ll trap you with hypnosis! A hypno-type mutant?! Dammit... The inscription on the door didn’t say anything about that! Quick, Karina, smack the runt awake!”

“O-On it! Hey, Dia, rise and shine! Time to get up!” I shook his shoulders, rattling him until his eyes finally snapped open. “Are you awake?!”

“Big sis... Oh, big sis, big sis...” His eyes looked all glazed over. Something was off about his behavior. “Big sis... Please don’t walk around the living room barely dressed after your bath anymore!”

“What?! Is now really the time for that?!”

“And if you could also just keep the skinship between us to a minimum from now on...”

Th-This is... It can’t be! A type of hypnosis that makes people utter their grievances to each other, inviting internal discord?! His cheeks flushing red, Dia continued mumbling complaints in an almost apologetic tone. “Also, whenever you use your own spoon to feed me at the dinner table, I find it kind of...”

“U-Unpleasant?! You don’t like it?! I-I’m sorry, Dia, I never knew!”

“No, not really unpleasant, more like I’m not really sure how to feel. Like it’s hard for me to hold myself back as a man...”

“Er, come again?”

Right, I kept forgetting. Dia might have been a femboy, but he was a guy all the same! Maybe I got too into it and teased him a little too much...

“Also, if I’m being honest, I don’t really want you to go over to Mashiro’s place anymore. Every time you come back, her scent is all over you, and it’s like she’s corrupting you.”

“Er...”

His expression and tone were becoming firmer by the second. “If anyone’s going to defile you, I want it to be me. No, it should only be me! And yet... I know you only have eyes for women, big sis. I know that as long as I’m a man, we can’t be together. That’s why I have to be a woman!”

“D-Dia?!”

“The truth is, big sis—no, Karina! I love you more than anyone else ever could! No one else could possibly compare! So I want you to look at me! Me, and no one else! If it’ll make you happy, I’ll search tirelessly for magic that’ll turn me into a woman so that I can be yours! I’ll wear socks for you every day until they’re all worn out and full of holes! If you want your ass smacked, I’ll smack it until you’re satisfied! I can tell you enjoyed it when I did it just now!”

“Dia?! Earth to Dia?!” I’d thought I was grabbing Dia by the shoulders, but at some point he’d grabbed mine. He was tomato red up to the tips of his ears, and his emerald eyes looked desperate, brimming with tears. From that alone, it was clear he’d been hypnotized against his will.

Then, without warning, he grabbed my head. “If I kiss you, you’ll wake up, right? All I have to do is kiss you?”

“Huh? W-Wait, Dia...”

“If you get sleepy, I’m supposed to kiss you. Mashiro said so, right? And you’re probably already sleepy right now, aren’t you?”

“Dia?!”

He brought his feminine face close to mine. S-Stop, Dia! You’re too beautiful for me to resist!

“Hey, the hell you two think you’re doin’ over there?! You’re gettin’ hot and heavy while I’m over here fighting this boss all by myself?!” With a clang, Mashiro’s sword struck the boss’s fang, sending a shower of sparks into the air. “Hurry up and smack the sense back into that runt!”

“W-Well, I would, but he’s being unexpectedly forceful!” Dia was using all his strength to pull my face over to him. I couldn’t free myself from his grasp! Why did I have to experience a kiss with a boy now of all times?! Was it because I was a weakling without my spatial magic?! Was that the consequence of not having it?!

“I-It’s my first time, so I’m a little nervous...but here I go.” He was really gonna do it?! Kiss me?! His quivering lips were getting closer...and I wasn’t opposed to it?! N-No, that can’t be! Dia’s just eye candy! I can’t do this with him!

“W-Wait, Dia! I’m already taken! Mashiro’s my lover, remember?!”

“I don’t care what you do with other people, just save it for after this fight, dammit! Hiyaaahhh!”

Oh no! Mashiro gave me the go sign! With a mighty yell, she pierced the boss with her sword. Meanwhile, I held up a hand to block Dia’s kiss. Oh man, his lips were so soft! My hand was in the throes of pleasure!

“Big sis...am I really not good enough for you?”

Uh-oh! He looked all dejected, and he was back to calling me big sis!

“N-No, that’s not it at all! It’s just we’re in the middle of a boss fight right now, and things like this ought to be saved for when we’re more relaxed, and the mood is right! Right?!”

“Mood? The mood, you say?” Oh, he stopped! It looked like he was thinking about it! I guess my last-ditch effort at convincing him worked after all? Or so I thought, until a big grin spread across his face as he looked at me. “You know, whenever we work on magical devices together, I’m on cloud nine. It’s so much fun. Whenever something you make works, your smile’s so pure, and it makes my heart race just looking at it. Before I know it, I’m smiling too. So would that be the kind of mood you’re talking about? Would that be the right time to kiss you? Whenever you’re eating a meal you find especially delicious and grin happily, my heart races. What about then? Whenever you see me wearing girls’ clothes and you grin ear to ear, the only thing I want to do is hold you in my arms and kiss you.”

“Er... Ah...”

“Oh? What was that? Did your heart skip a beat just now?”

“I-I mean, after hearing all that, anyone would have the same reaction!” To think that Dia, of all people, would be the mood-maker! Making something out of nothing?! That was supposed to be my department, damn it! “Th-Though I have to say, I never guessed you liked me that much. What about Mashiro?”

“Who, that nuisance? Well... If she disappeared, you’d probably be sad, so I guess she’s fine. I also enjoy watching you smile when you’re with her, after all.”

Nuisance, huh? “N-No, that’s not what I mean. You don’t have any feelings for her or anything?”

“No way. You’re always gonna be the only one for me. I love you, big sis. I love when you grin like a little kid. I love when you go overboard teasing me and you get embarrassed as well. I love whenever you laugh so hard your sides end up hurting and you need to go lie down.”

Not the “try denying my feelings once, and I’ll tell you three times over how wrong you are” pattern! Give me a break over here, Dia—I’m already at 0 HP!

“In fact, I’m confident I’ll love you no matter what.”

Wait, no matter what? “Y-You don’t say? But Dia, you don’t know everything about me. Truth is, there’s something I’ve been keeping secret from you. I’m not the type of person you want to fall in love with, believe me. In fact...if you kiss me, you’ll just end up regretting it.”

“I don’t mind mysteries. In fact, your mysterious nature just makes you even more attractive in my eyes. What kind of secret could possibly deter me from you, when I even love the unpleasant way you smile whenever you dress me in girls’ clothing?”

Unpleasant?! Are you sure you didn’t mean some other, more flattering adjective?! What the hell have my facial muscles been doing without my knowledge?!

“Er... But what if I was actually a guy? Could you still say that?”

“Yes, I could. After wearing girls’ clothes for some time now, I’ve come to realize that gender isn’t actually all that important. I like you because you’re you, not because you’re a guy or a girl. I won’t deny I find your body attractive, though.”

An immediate response?! You’ve gotta be kidding me! At this rate, I’m actually gonna fall for him too! “Oh, but I need to become a girl first for you to even look at me, don’t I? Then I’ll work hard to find magic that’ll let me.”

“N-No, it’s not like I really want you to become a biological girl... You don’t need to go that far.” After all, Dia’s charm lay in his potential as a cross-dresser! If he became an actual girl, it would change the meaning entirely! Then again, a girl version of Dia would probably be cute enough to transcend the boundaries of time and space, and I couldn’t say I wouldn’t want to see it!

“Th-Then...can I still be with you even though I’m a man?”

“I-I’m not kidding, you know? I really used to be a guy, and I’ve still got a guy’s mind. And yet, I feel like I’m wavering...”

“That’s fine, I don’t care! I love you regardless! Please be mine!”

Th-That’s not fair, Dia! But in that case, what’s really holding me back? Hmm... What to do? He’d accepted my secret without a second thought. And right now, we really were biologically of the opposite sex...

“Just so we’re clear, I’ll say it again,” he continued. “I love you, Karina. No matter who you really are, I’ll cherish you forever and always. That’ll never change. So please, will you marry me?”

“M-Marry?!” Come to think of it, Dia was actually at a marriageable age, technically! I-I could actually picture it! Our married life together! Me, having Dia’s child in my belly! Or perhaps me using my magic to move my belly over to Dia’s stomach for that pregnant loli elf feel! Oh no. Accepting his proposal might seriously lead me to true happiness.

“I don’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch anymore! I don’t want to regret not taking action! So I’ll say it again, loud and proud! I love you, Karina! I want you to be my wife!”

He looked serious. I couldn’t just leave him hanging—I had to give him an answer! L-Let’s see...

“A-At least put a ring on it first!”

Huh?! What was I saying, all of a sudden?! Why did that just come out of my mouth?!

“Nothing would make me happier! Then that settles it... I’ll get you a ring, and we’ll be engaged!” Dia brought his face closer to mine. My first instinct was to resist...but he accepted me even though I was really a guy, so I didn’t have any more reason to refuse! A wall inside my mind was beginning to crumble... Rather, I’d already told him yes, so there was no going back now!

“Hey, moron! Snap out of it!”

“Ow! W-Wait, huh? B-Big sis? Miss Mashiro?”

Mashiro had thrown pebbles at our heads. Dia blinked in confusion while Mashiro continued to do battle against the void wolf.

“That’s why I told you to smack him awake, Karina! The hypnosis is just temporary and dissipates with a smack to the head! What, did you get hypnotized too?! Don’t hesitate on me now—smack him!”

“Huh? When you said ‘smack him awake,’ you actually meant it literally?!” Was this also common knowledge for adventurers I was unaware of?! Damn, I really need to study up on adventuring etiquette! Still, my head did feel a lot clearer now. I guess I really was hypnotized... Wait, did I just accept Dia’s proposal to marry me?! But he seemed pretty bewildered, now that I’d gotten a good look at him. Maybe he didn’t mean it.

At that moment, he let go of my head in embarrassment. “I-I’m so sorry, big sis! I didn’t say anything weird to you, did I?”

“Huh?! No...except that you told me not to run around the house barely clothed after bathing...”

“What?! I can’t believe I said that! What the heck am I doing?!”

“I-I-It’s fine, I wasn’t offended, and you couldn’t help it! It was just an accident! An accident!” Whew...what a relief. It looked like Dia’s hypnosis had been even stronger than mine. He didn’t remember anything he said when he was hypnotized. So, it didn’t count! His proposal to me didn’t count. Wait...why was I slightly disappointed by that?!

“You idiots, none of that matters right now! Get over here and help me! I’m about at my limit!” With a clang, Mashiro’s sword hit the wolf’s fang again. The dull sound echoed throughout the room. That’s right...we were in the middle of a boss battle, weren’t we?

“M-My bad, Mashiro! Er, Dia, can you attack it with your magic?”

“Sorry, it’s moving so fast that I’m not confident I could hit it.”

Yeah, probably not. In the time it took for my conversation with Dia to finish, Mashiro and the wolf had already clashed three times, dodged each other’s bite attacks, swapped positions on the field, and swiped at each other with their tails. Wait, swiped at each other? Wasn’t that supposed to be a mating ritual for wolves? Don’t you dare show that to my Mashiro, you damn cur! That does it, I’m gonna crush you! But first I had to find a way to do it.

“Let’s see, with my magic, I can take things out of my space of holding and put them in, but that’s all.” Normally that wouldn’t have been allowed either, but thanks to the Goddess’s help, I could manage that much. And while my magic was “restricted,” what it really meant was that it was weakened to where it couldn’t possibly be of any use. I could still use it, technically.

I took out an Electro-Massager just as a test, then held it aloft. There I was, in the middle of the battlefield, holding a vibrator up above my head. Bzzz... Yeah, I don’t think I could create a more pathetic scene even if I tried. Welp, that was stupid. Why the hell didn’t I take out something that was actually useful?!

“Oh, look, big sis. The magic device is working!”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, of course it would be. It’s not spatial magic, after all.” Not that I could turn spatial magic into a magical device to begin with. I could take out all the magical devices I wanted in here without any issue. Since I had no better ideas, and the vibrator would just get in the way while we were fighting, I tossed it at the boss. Naturally, the wolf dodged it. The head part of the Electro-Massager vibrated and bounced around on the ground, making a loud clattering noise. Well, at least it distracted the wolf, so it was a success after all, in a sense? And since the wolf was on all fours and its head was close to the ground, it probably found the noise even more irritating, though Mashiro looked equally perturbed.

“What about the vehicle we made? Can we use that somehow?” Dia suggested.

“I can take it out, at least. Yeah, if we made it slam into the wolf, it could do some serious damage. But without my magic, it’ll just take off in a straight line and the wolf will end up dodging it... Oh, wait, I’ve got it!” I recalled that Dia remodeled the vehicle to include a steering wheel and gas pedal. Maybe it would work after all? I could take the wheel and steer to maneuver the vehicle into the wolf. It would use up a ton of mana since I didn’t have my magic, and I could only make minute turns, but it was better than nothing.

“I think we can do this. But we’re going to need to restrict the wolf’s movements somehow, or it’ll just leap away.”

“We don’t need to hit it, actually. Look.” Dia pointed over to where Mashiro and the wolf were fighting. They were keeping their distance from the massager, which was still being awfully noisy. Yeah... Sorry about that, guys.

“What are you trying to show me?”

“Well, we can get on board the vehicle, then toss a bunch of Electro-Massagers out onto the field!”

Once they landed on the ground, they buzzed and rattled like annoying alarm clocks. Indeed, if we scattered them, we could keep the wolf from moving out of range! Nice, Dia! “I see, so that’s your plan! It’s genius!”

“Good thing we made a bunch, huh?”

Yeah, Dia and I had made them in bulk, in hopes that we could one day put them on the market. I couldn’t duplicate them with magic right now, but that didn’t matter, because we definitely had at least enough stock to fill this room. In fact, it’d probably be so cacophonous in here that the battle would be the least of our worries. “All right, let’s try it!”

To think we could literally support Mashiro in this fight just by making noise! I told her our plan. “Mashiro! We’re going to make it even more noisy in here! You’ll have less room to move around in!”

“Huh?! What the hell’re you saying?! I can’t even hear for all this racket! Turn these damn things off!” She looked angry, but that just proved it was going to work.

“We’re going to make more noise! To limit! The enemy’s! Movements!” I mouthed to her.

“Oh! Yeah, I understand now! All right, go for it!”

Communication successful! Of course, if the wolf could understand human language, then we just gave our plan away, but I doubted it’d even heard me. And even if it had, it didn’t change what we were going to do. Oh, I should probably duplicate some Electro-Massagers later on to replace the ones that end up breaking; that way I won’t need to make more. That should be okay, right? Right.

Anyway, I took the vehicle out, then stuffed my entire inventory of Electro-Massagers inside. I took the wheel, and Dia would turn the massagers on and fling them out the window.

“To be honest, though, I don’t feel good about having you ride in such an unsafe vehicle.”

“And I don’t want you to have to drive in one either.”

“Then I guess we feel the same way. All right, we’ll just try to play this as safe as possible!” I pressed the pedal down slowly, and the vehicle lurched forward like the crack of a whip. That got me a little worried, but we took off just as planned! We stayed around the outer edges of the room, driving around and around in a spiral formation while Dia chucked the massagers out the window.

“Big sis, you can go faster if you want!”

“Whoa, whoa, any faster than this, and this steering wheel won’t be doing much steering anymore!” Though Dia had remodeled and repaired the car to the best of his ability, he was still, for all intents and purposes, a novice when it came to automobiles. If we gained any more speed beyond this, we’d fail to turn and crash right into the wall. Right now, increasing the area of noise was our top priority!

Perhaps because she knew she couldn’t hear anything anyway, Mashiro plugged her ears with earplugs and continued fighting. But the boss wolf couldn’t do that, so he had no choice but to take the noise head-on. And since destroying the massagers would leave him open, the only thing he could do to protect himself was run from the noise. Wow, this became way more effective support than I’d expected!

“The wolf can’t concentrate on casting its magic! And it can’t summon its backup either!”

“Asking anyone to focus during this kind of racket would be a tall order, Dia!” Like countless ringing alarm clocks, the ground had become an incomprehensible deluge of rattling noise. At this rate, our victory was assured!

Or so I thought, because right then, the wolf leaped in our direction. It was a gigantic leap, as a matter of fact.

“Whoa! What’s happening?!”

“Big sis, floor it!”

The vehicle’s engine spun madly, and we took off like a rocket. The wolf touched down where we’d been just moments ago with a mighty crash, causing the ground below to cave in. What the hell? Could it manipulate gravity or something?!

“I-It’s chasing after us!”

“Shit! Are we really that annoying?! Curse you, you damn wolf and your stupid ears! O-Oh, but not you, Mashiro! I’m not talking about beastkin, I mean actual wolves!”

“Big sis, I don’t think you need to make excuses! She can’t hear you right now anyway! Fireball!” Dia sent out a spell to intercept the rapidly approaching wolf.

“I-I taste terrible, you know! Dammit, we’ve gotta rendezvous with Mashiro!” I stepped on it again and turned the steering wheel in her direction, but we were in a boss room—much too small a space to drive a car around in. If I went too fast while trying to turn, we’d just end up circling the perimeter.

“Hey, Karina!” Mashiro called. “Keep luring it around and around, just like that! I’m gonna use my ace in the hole!”

“Huh?! What are you gonna— Oh, that! All right, roger!”

Having communicated her plan, Mashiro prepared to deliver the finisher. Meanwhile, I drove around, making the wolf run in circles, while Dia hit it with his magic whenever he could. It didn’t look like it was doing much damage, but it was definitely pissing the boss off. Good, that meant it’d keep following us. What’s more, because I was using what little spatial magic available to me to help turn the wheel, I’d gotten used to controlling it under the restriction. Heh heh, now it was time to send this wolf packing!

“Dia, brace for impact! I’m gonna use my magic, so hold on to me tight! I’ve got a plan!”

“Huh?! A-All right!” Dia clung to me tightly. Ooh, he’s so huggably soft—I-I mean, spatial magic, go! My special technique: Abrupt Halt!

In that very instant, the vehicle stopped on a dime with absolutely no recoil. As aforementioned, the wolf was chasing right behind us. So if our speed was suddenly reduced to zero MPH, you can probably imagine what happened to the wolf. Yeah, he smashed into the vehicle. This time we did feel an impact, and the contents of the vehicle got all jumbled around like we were on tumble dry. As Dia clung to me for dear life, I used the magic I had to cast a weak barrier over him. It was so weak I had to reapply it every second.

Meanwhile, the vehicle toppled end over end as it bounced along the ground, together with the wolf. Our destination was, as luck would have it, right in front of Mashiro. The boss collapsed on the ground right before her, its soft belly exposed and vulnerable.

“Perfect positioning, Karina! Hiyaaahhh! Eat this—All-Destroying Void Sword!”

At the cost of her own weapon, Mashiro delivered a powerful final stab right through the wolf’s stomach, opening a giant hole. Now that she knew I could just duplicate her weapon afterward, she probably didn’t feel too bad about sacrificing it.

The wolf didn’t even have time to cry out before dying. Mashiro prodded with her spare weapon just to make sure it was dead. “Phew. We did it, somehow. Resupply me once we get back, Karina.”

“Yeah, I got you.” Whew, I was beat. And there was also a really nice smell and softness coming from somewhere... Oh, it was Dia, still hugging me tightly. He’s so cute... This is bliss!

“Hey Dia, you can let go of me now, you know. It’s over.”

“Wha?! Oh. I-I’m sorry, big sis! Forgive me!”

He pushed me away... Aw, man. Still, why did he smell so good? I knew it...you really are a girl, aren’t you?!

“All right,” said Mashiro, “now that that’s done, let’s smash this dungeon core so you can deliver it or whatever!”

“Right! I almost forgot! We should hurry while I’m still wide awake!”

“You’ve got the runt to thank for that. When you both got hypnotized, I wasn’t sure how things were gonna turn out, but he did well. I gotta give credit where it’s due.” She patted his head again.

“Er...thanks,” he said, blushing. Er... Are you sure you don’t have a crush on Mashiro, Dia? I mean, you do goggle at her whenever she walks around the living room naked. You know, she may have fur and all, but her private parts are human, so she could at least cover those with a towel. But I guess she won’t do that anymore, now that she knows Dia’s actually a guy... Kind of a shame. Well, at least I’ll still get to see her naked when we’re in bed... Tee hee.

And so, now that I was wide awake, I snatched the dungeon core. As the empire’s dungeon fell to ruin, I used my now-reinstated spatial magic to teleport us outta there lickety-split. Then I had the Goddess make me the dungeon repair glue we needed, applied it to the core of Carcassa’s dungeon, and the dungeon core was fixed just like that. Carcassa’s collapse had been prevented.

Huh? That last paragraph moved awfully fast? Well, that’s cause I wanted to finish before I end up falling asl—zzzzzz...

Epilogue

After a quick nap, I returned to Carcassa, only to find the place in a wild uproar. Apparently, nearly dozing off back in the dungeon had caused a part of the town to collapse. Er... Sorry about that, guys.

I made my way to the Adventurer’s Guild. The guild master I’d mistaken for a lion beastkin was standing on top of the receptionist’s desk, shouting out orders. How unmannerly.

“S-Silver! You’re back!” he exclaimed upon seeing Mashiro. “Is everything taken care of?!”

“Yeah,” she said. “Everything should be fine now. The dungeon core’s been fixed, and the town won’t collapse any further.”

A raucous round of applause arose from all of the adventurers in the building, as well as whoops and cheers. Since the rumbling had stopped before I’d even laid down for my nap, he’d probably already sent some adventurers into the dungeon to confirm, but we’d shown up before he could receive a report.

“Oh, that’s wonderful news! In that case, the dungeon should have already started repairing itself, meaning we can relax now.” He let out a sigh of relief, then praised Mashiro for her heroism once more.

Although, in order to save Carcassa’s dungeon, we had to sacrifice one of the empire’s dungeons in exchange. But it had been the empire’s scheme to begin with, so they’d just gotten what was coming to them, that was all! And no one from the empire even had to get hurt, so I’d say I let them off pretty easy!

“Well, we could’ve gotten back sooner if Hira here hadn’t dozed off right in front of the core,” Mashiro commented, “but I can’t really complain too much, because I couldn’t have done it without her. She may look shady, but she’s reliable, that’s for sure.” She shoved me playfully—naturally, I was currently disguised as Hira. Aw man, I wanted to stay out of the spotlight...but then again, since I was in disguise, why shouldn’t I take all the credit? That’s right, it’s your hero Hira, the leading actor! Now shower me with praise!

“Really? But why would someone so dubious-looking help us all of a sudden? What’s she really planning?”

“Could it be that she’s the real culprit?”

“What if she merely fooled Silver into thinking she was on the level?!”

Hey, you whisperers over there, I’ve logged your faces in my memory! I’ll see you all on the roof later on for a compulsory skydiving session! Just to make it interesting, we’ll even have a race to see who can reach the ground first!

“Guild master, any idea who was behind the sabotage?” Mashiro asked.

“Well, by process of elimination, the Shining Swords adventuring party would be the most likely candidate. Just before everything fell into chaos, they paid off the soldiers at the gate so that they could leave town as fast as their legs could carry them, apparently.” He went on to speculate that the party had probably been working undercover for the empire all along, and that even though the party leader was supposedly from the Divine Country—another nearby nation, apparently—that too had likely just been a cover.

“So we can’t arrest ’em?” Mashiro asked.

“They might come back to Carcassa once they learn the town didn’t collapse, but even if we did apprehend them then, the empire would probably just send more spies later on. Dammit! Isn’t there something we can do to kick these guys’ asses?!” Perhaps because there was no longer any immediate threat to the town, his anxiety had given way to raw fury. He clearly wanted to get revenge. That belligerent nature of his made him seem even more lionlike.

“Well, we needed to destroy a dungeon in the empire to make the glue we used to repair the core, so if it’s revenge you want, why don’t we place a fragment of their bomb in front of the ruined dungeon?” I asked.

“Wh-What?!” He looked taken aback by my suggestion. “How in the world did you... No, I probably shouldn’t ask. Well, I would have preferred to sock the perpetrator in the face myself, in all honesty, but I like your idea too. All right, consider it a job request from me—go back to the dungeon and set the bomb. I’ll pay you for the trouble.”

“Consider it done,” I said. “Oh, but how do you plan to pay me when I don’t have a guild card?”

“Then I’ll issue you a Rank B guild license. I’m the only one authorized to hand out ranks that high anyway.”

Wait, is that really okay? Well, if the guild master says it’s fine, I guess it is. “Sure, if you’re willing to give it to me.”

“Of course. You saved Carcassa from danger, so you deserve that much. Mind if I make you her guarantor, Silver?”

“Nah, go ahead.” Then she turned to me and spoke in a low voice. “Now you’d better not use that card for mischief, all right? Keep in mind that if you cause trouble, I’ll be held financially responsible.”

In that case, I guess I have no choice but to lie low. “Mashiro, I solemnly swear to you that I will not misuse this guild card.”

Thus, I—or rather, Hira—became a Rank B adventurer, just like that. At least it was more believable for a mysterious wizard to reach that level than it would be for me.

With the bomb fragments in hand, I immediately teleported to the entrance of the empire’s (collapsed) dungeon, then scattered the pieces on the ground all over. With my spatial magic, I didn’t even have to toss them myself—the job was finished in an instant.

That said, if I really did return to Carcassa only seconds after leaving, the guild master would no doubt suspect I just threw the pieces in the trash outside or something, so I decided to kill some time walking (or rather, flying) around the town. I circled the sky above the town’s perimeter over and over. Maybe I’d even get a glimpse of the perpetrators... Yeah, right, like that’d happen.

“...stayed here long enough... Back to the empire...become a hero already.”

Hmm? Did I just hear the word “empire” from down on the ground? When I looked down, two guys were arguing with each other. Whoa, watch out! One of them was about to get sliced from behind, so I saved him by making him lose his balance. If I hadn’t interfered, his head would have gotten lopped off.

All right, so I ended up saving one of them on impulse, but could these be the culprits we were looking for? Then the murder attempt just now was them trying to destroy the evidence? Like a “we have no more use for you, so die” kinda deal? Even if they weren’t the perpetrators, they were acting awfully shady. That said, considering I was still disguised as Hira, I wasn’t really one to talk—but we should just forget that little detail for now!

“Heh heh... Looks like a way for me to kill time appeared right when I needed it!” No doubt it was thanks to my good-natured character!

#Side: Culprits of the Dungeon Sabotage

I’m Beebay, the leader of the Shining Swords, as well as a mercenary from the Divine Country currently hired by the empire. However, I’m the only mercenary in our party—every other member is an empire-born spy. They’re all pretty strong, but they’re also all extremely loyal to me as their leader. Whenever I order them around, it makes me feel like a hard-boiled agent myself, which is pretty neat! I also ask for a massage from them once a day, which feels even better. If I had to complain about anything, I wish it were women massaging me and not other guys, but oh well.

Anyway, the mission we’d been given was to destroy Carcassa’s dungeon. This operation was apparently necessary to save the world. According to what we were told, dungeons were horrid things that sucked up the world’s energy, bringing the planet closer to destruction. And to protect the world, the dungeons had to go. As a reward for executing this noble deed, I’d be recognized as a hero by the empire and would enjoy all of the perks that went along with the title. In other words, I’d be living it up for the rest of my life! So my party and I infiltrated the kingdom of Pavelkant, enrolled in their Adventurer’s Guild, worked hard to raise our ranks high, and even fraternized with revolting beastkin! All for the purpose of carrying out our main objective: destroying the dungeon and becoming heroes. To think such simple undercover work would require all that setup. Honestly, I should ask for even more of a reward just for going through all that trouble, especially the “having to deal with beastkin” part.

But the other day, we’d finally gotten our chance. I’d taken my party to the dungeon and made it all the way to the end. The core was protected by a barrier, but the two twins on my team, Migo and Chino, took out these weird magical devices, held them up to the barrier, and dissolved it! It must have been a device that temporarily negated barriers.

“Excellent. All right, Joe, now it’s your turn. Set the time bomb, and we’ll be done here.”

“Man, that was way easier than I thought! With this, I’m gonna be a hero too, huh? But why are we even setting it on a timer? Why not just detonate it now?”

“The dungeon’s a living organism, so there are times when it gets under the weather, just like we do. If we don’t wait until then, the dungeon won’t collapse like we want it to. And besides, if it collapsed now, we’d just get buried alive, right?”

“O-Oh, point taken. Guess there’s no helping it, then. Let’s get out of here.”

And so, with our task mostly complete, we fled the dungeon. On the eve of the new moon, and once we felt the magical shock waves that indicated the dungeon was starting to collapse, we headed back toward the empire.

“Hmm, that’s odd. The dungeon should already be dead by now, yet Carcassa hasn’t collapsed,” I commented, observing the town from the top of a hill we’d made camp on. This was the last part of our job—confirming the demise of the dungeon and town on top of it. But for some reason, Carcassa was still stubbornly intact.

“Wait, don’t tell me we failed to destroy the core after all?!” I exclaimed. “If it didn’t work, I’m gonna be in deep shit as the leader of this operation!”

“Maybe there’s a part of the town walls that’s particularly sturdy, and it’s holding the whole thing up,” someone suggested. “Regardless, we just gotta be patient. It’ll probably collapse before long.”

We agreed to keep watch for one more day, just in case. We put a barrier around us to conceal our presence from monsters and any pursuers. It wouldn’t hide us from aerial creatures, but there were no large flying monsters in this area anyway, so we didn’t need to worry about that for now. With nothing else to do, we went to sleep.

When we awoke, Carcassa was still standing. Talk about resilient! What’s more, the residents who’d evacuated the town out of worry had all returned. Er... But even so, I’d still get recognized as a hero for this, right? I mean, I did the job I was asked to do. It was Joe and the others’ fault for screwing up and not bringing a powerful enough bomb. I hadn’t done anything wrong!

“C’mon, we’ve stayed here long enough. Let’s get on back to the empire so I can become a hero already.”

Joe sighed. “Fine. I dunno what happened, but I guess we should just cut our losses on this one. Let’s clean up.”

“Glad you agree! Then let’s get the hell outta here— Whoa!” Perhaps because I was still a little groggy from sleep, I ended up tripping on myself. When I did, though, I felt something whiz by just over my head. I heard a mad cackle from behind me, and when I turned to look, Joe and the others were all standing there, brandishing their weapons. Furthermore, Joe had already swung his. What had he been aiming for? Surely not my neck, right? Wait... Did that mean if I hadn’t coincidentally tripped just then, I’d be dead right now?!

“Wh-What the hell?! Hey, you guys, Joe’s not acting right! I think something’s wrong with him! Er... Chino? Migo? Cargo? Anyone?”

“Surround him.”

When Joe gave that order, my party members all formed a circle around me so I couldn’t escape.

“H-Hey, what gives?! W-We’re supposed to be a party of heroes, right?!”

“You’re still going on about that childish nonsense? Must be nice living in your world. You were never anything but window dressing from the start.”

No way... That’s not really you, right, Cargo?! I made you a promise! That when I became a hero, I’d put in a good word for you!

“After all, as long as we had a leader from the Divine Country, we’d look a lot less fishy in case someone suspected us.”

“Thanks to that, we were able to make it outside without getting stopped at the gates. And because you’re so stupid, you were easy to manipulate, dear leader.”

Ch-Chino... Migo... B-But you two massaged my feet and everything!

Right when it looked like there was no way out for me, though, a man appeared from the sky. At least, he sounded like a man. He was covered in a robe, so I couldn’t see what he looked like.

“Greetings, terrorists!” he said. “I happened to overhear your conversation just now.”

Joe and the others gulped. I used that instant to make a run for it—w-wait, my legs wouldn’t move?!

“So you guys are the ones behind all this commotion, are you? Rest assured, I’m not going to take my anger out on you or anything. I’m just going to give you what you rightfully deserve!” He chuckled ominously, then snapped his fingers. In the next instant, we found ourselves in some sort of bizarre, white room.

Huh? What was going on? I tried to look around, but only my head would move. My body stayed frozen.

“Now then, what should I do to you all? What would suffice as revenge—no, perhaps torture would be the proper word? Yes, torture—though I don’t want to spend too long here either.”

T-Torture?! He was going to torture me?! “I-I’m not sure what you want, but I don’t know anything! Ask these other four for information, but leave me out of it!”

“That’s right, it would follow for you not to know anything. You’re stupid, after all. You just went right along with this without even giving it a thought. Your teammates almost just disposed of you, after all.”

Guh... I couldn’t argue. Joe and the others had completely deceived me. “B-But that just proves I’m innocent! I was tricked, so it wasn’t my fault! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“No, it was your fault too. For being an idiot, that is. Don’t worry, you won’t be alone. You’ll be tortured right alongside your former comrades.” I couldn’t see the man’s expression, but I could tell he was grinning maliciously.

“N-No, stop! I’ll talk, I’ll talk! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know! I know, I can tell you about the kind of treatment I was promised once I became a hero!”

“Fool, haven’t you realized that was all a lie? They were about to kill you! That sort of information is useless to me,” the man said with a snort.

Oh...right. Wait, but if I didn’t have any info he wanted, then why did he even need to torture me?! I had nothing to hide!

“No, I’m going to treat you all equally, although I might get an earful later if I do anything too terrible.”

“I-I don’t wanna get hurt! I don’t like pain! Is there nothing I can say that’ll make you stop?!”

“My, er, superior already told me everything I need to know, so no. Now then, let the torture begin!”

And so, our hell commenced. Pointless torture, all to satisfy this one mysterious old dude! S-Stop, I said I didn’t like pain!

“Relax, it won’t hurt. I’m not a big fan of seeing blood flying everywhere either.” The enigmatic man took out something small from his robe. Huh? Was that...a pacifier? It was—just the same kind infants suck on! Wh-What are you gonna do with that?

“Just a little dress-up, that’s all! Heh heh heh!”

“Mmmph?!” The man thrust the pacifier into my mouth, then proceeded to do the same with my four ex-colleagues. Wh-What?! M-My mouth felt weird... It was sucking the pacifier on its own!

“Bababa. Babubu?!” I tried to speak, but all that came out was incomprehensible babble! My words were automatically being erased! By my own body! “Bababu, bababu!” My jaw, tongue, and cheeks weren’t listening to me! What the hell was going on?!

“Oh, nice, it worked! I just came up with it on a whim, but even I’d probably consider this torture if it was done to me. Not that I’m going to stop—because of you bastards, things are all awkward between me and Dia now!”

Dee-a? Who the hell was that? But no sooner than that thought crossed my mind, the man snapped his fingers again, and my clothes went flying off. Even my underwear! Only my socks stayed on. The man then used wind magic to bring some sort of cloth over... Wait, that’s not—?! No, not that! Anything but that! It’s...a diaper, isn’t it?!

All five of us were subsequently dressed like babies. You gotta be kidding me... How cruel! How humiliating! And I couldn’t speak out, because the pacifier in my mouth—clearly some sort of magic device—was keeping me from making proper speech! And it must also have been the reason my arms, legs, and body were all moving against my will! I couldn’t even bend my elbows or knees, and before I knew it, I was sitting there in baby clothes, assuming a pose like an infant. It was as though the man had actually turned me into a baby—but wait, what about my former comrades? When I turned to look, they too had been dressed in diapers—fully grown adults on all fours like toddlers.

S-Still, if this was the worst it was going to get, I could handle it. I could endure! The moment I thought that, the man who’d put us in this state spoke again.

“All right, phase one complete! Now for a little decoration!”

All the while, the man had been working on building something, and now it was finally finished. It was a palanquin—that’s right, the thing multiple people lifted and carried as someone else rode in it. But this particular palanquin had five chairs, positioned back-to-back in a flower petal formation—and it looked like the circle of chairs revolved as the palanquin moved! So this was the decoration? Decoration for what?

“Now then, the grand reveal! Take a look at these!”

Grand reveal? What did he mean? As we crawled on all fours, puzzled, the hooded man hung wooden signs shaped like bibs over our necks. I looked at my own sign: It read Beebay, the Divine Country’s happy-go-lucky moron mercenary! The other four’s wooden signs also introduced them in a similarly cruel fashion: Joe, the imperial spy who shamelessly saved himself! Cargo, the imperial spy too cowardly to finish biting off his tongue! Chino, the imperial spy too weak-kneed to drink poison! Migo, the imperial spy who pissed himself from fear!

“Bubababuba?!”

“Maa, maa! Maa, maa! Abububu!”

“Daaah! Daah! Daaaah!”

Naturally, the other four raised cries of protest. I couldn’t understand them since the pacifiers in their mouths transformed their words into babble, but no doubt they were tossing all sorts of abusive language at the robed man. B-But wait—if that was the grand reveal, then...

“Now then, don’t be shy! Take your seats!”

“G-Gaaahhh!” We were lifted up into the air and onto the palanquin’s seats with wind magic. Then, once all five seats were occupied, two golems came over. Both wore signs that said: Presenting the “Shining Swords,” the culprits who plotted to destroy the dungeon!

“Ha ha ha! It sure was a good thing your names and party were written on your guild cards! And by the way, it doesn’t matter whether those are your real names. Everyone will still know your faces!”

My body automatically assumed another infantlike pose. Then a rattle appeared in my hand. Of course, I couldn’t let go of it no matter how hard I tried. W-Wait, don’t tell me—you’re going to parade us around town looking like this?!

“Ba, babu! Babubabu! (I-I’ll talk, I swear! I’ll tell you anything you want to know, just spare me!)”

“Hmm? What did you say? Sorry, I can’t understand your baby talk! Now, time to depart!”

Nooo! I couldn’t form any meaningful words! Actually, this guy clearly never intended to hear us out from the start!

“Heave-ho! Heave-ho!”

“Babu, gyahhh?!”

The palanquin began to move. Somehow, the moment we left the white room, we immediately found ourselves in the familiar townscape of Carcassa. I noticed a few of the buildings had crumbled, but strangely enough, none of the townsfolk looked anxious. Almost as though they knew the threat of the dungeon’s demise had already passed.

“Oh, right, I forgot to tell you, but I’ve already stopped the dungeon’s collapse. I had to sacrifice a dungeon in the empire to do it, though.” The man spoke casually, as though what he’d claimed to have done was no big deal for him. I saw my four former comrades’ faces instantly go pale—but that too only lasted a short time. After all, we had something much more pressing to worry about right now.

All eyes were gathering on the golems and the palanquin they were pulling behind them.

“Huh? Are those...golems? What does that sign say... Huh?! The Shining Swords?!”

“Whoa, what happened to them? Why are they dressed like babies?! Gross! Creepy!”

“GAAAHHH!” I wailed. Don’t look at me! Don’t look! But the more I shouted, the more baby babble came out of my mouth, drawing even more people’s attention. And when I tried to use my arms to hide my face, my hand shook the rattle even louder instead.

“Mwa ha ha! The golems are awfully energetic today! I think we can keep going for a while! Heave-ho, heave-ho!”

“GYAAAHHH! WAAAHHH!” Stop, stooop! This was all wrong! I was supposed to be a hero, so why was I being subjected to this?!

The golems heaved up and down as they walked, causing the palanquin to shake with every step and making the rattles in our hands even louder. Even more people gathered around to watch. Th-They were all looking at me! Even the townspeople I knew! This wasn’t what it looked like! I wasn’t dressed like this because I wanted to be, honest!

“No way. These guys had such a disgusting fetish all along?”

“Ew, they’re even cooing like babies... Talk about the worst.”

“Ba, bu?! Gyahhh, wah, wah!” N-No, it wasn’t like that at all! This magical device in our mouths was preventing us from talking! Someone, please, help us!

“Hmm? Look there, they’ve all got signs around their necks too. What do they say?”

“A mercenary from the Divine Country? Imperial spies?! So you’re the reason the town nearly collapsed?!”

“Bastards! Thanks to you, I nearly lost my home! This isn’t some game—you’d better be ready to pay for the damages!”

But of course, since we were the ones trying to destroy the town, no one here was going to help us. Instead, we had boos and jeers heaped upon us. We had glares of hatred thrown our way. Why?! I should have been lauded as a hero, so why was I here, being renounced as a villain instead?! Oh, b-but at least we’d be at the Adventurer’s Guild once we turned this corner. Then this nightmare would be over—

“WAAAHHH?!” W-Wait, we were turning left instead?! Why?! Hey, the guild was that way! We were headed in the wrong direction!

“Oh no, you’re not getting off that easily. I want to make sure every single person in town is aware of what you all did. After all, you tried to destroy Carcassa. Emphasis on tried.”

“Gyaaa...ooogh?!”

“You know, maybe you ought to change your name to the Bedwetting Toddlers! That would suit you much more!”

He’s a demon. A genuine demon. Tears wouldn’t stop flowing from my eyes. The other four were bawling as well. Oh, it looked like Migo really did wet himself.

The palanquin continued to make the rounds all over Carcassa, traversing every single road as it took the most roundabout route possible to the guild. No doubt every person in town saw us dressed as infants. Oh, the humiliation! At this point I almost wished I really was a baby...then I wouldn’t realize what was going on! Goo goo ga ga...

#Side: END

Thus, after coincidentally spotting the culprits who blew up the dungeon core and subjecting them to humiliation by turning them into babies and parading them around town, I handed them over to the guild. Of course, I also made sure to nab their socks right beforehand. They’d be good for at least a little SP.

“Splendid work, Hira!” the guild master exclaimed. “Truly splendid...but why are the culprits only speaking in baby talk?”

“Oh? But they’re not under the influence of those cursed devices anymore. Er, maybe I went a little overboard?”

It wasn’t really a curse, of course. I’d used spatial magic to manipulate their mouths and throats so that anything they tried to say would come out as nonsensical babble. It was just a spur-of-the-moment idea I’d had, but since I’d had to control each of them manually, it had been a lot more work than I’d expected.

“Considering I resolved everything so simply, you ought to be thanking me instead of complaining,” I said.

“Simply? In what way would you consider this simple? Well, I did get to slug them all across the face a couple of times each, so I’m satisfied there, at least.”

Of course, if those losers had harmed even a single hair on my Mashiro, I would have taken my time keeping them confined and humiliating them for around half a month. But since this was an impromptu torture session, I’d confined them in that white room space on the fly, created the pacifiers and diapers from material I already owned, then duplicated wood until I had enough to build the palanquin. By the time I’d handed the perps over to the guild, it was all soiled and disgusting, so I’d already disposed of it—I had no more use for it, anyway. As for the golems, I’d just controlled them with my spatial magic, so I hadn’t had to waste any magic stones on them.

“Besides, it’s not like you needed any information out of them anyway, right?”

“Well, I suppose not, now that I think about it, but I would have at least liked to get their confession,” the guild master said, frowning in thought.

“Well, that’s not a problem, because I heard them confess,” I said. “They admitted it, and you can take that as my witness testimony. That should suffice, right?”

“Hmm. Well, possibly... What’s your opinion on it, Silver?”

“They’re just gonna end up publicly executed anyway, so who cares? You want my opinion? I think you oughta hurry up and pay us so we can go home and pass out. We’re exhausted.”

With that, Mashiro brought an end to the discussion. Still, publicly executed, huh? Yeesh. Well, they did try to destroy the dungeon, so I guess they deserve it.

“Yeah, I can imagine.” The guild master nodded. “Thanks for all your help. I’ll have your rewards brought out now.” On his orders, a guild employee came in carrying a small bag. When I took it in my hands, it was a lot heavier than it looked. When I peeked inside, there were twenty gold coins contained within. Wow! In Japan, that’d be around twenty million yen (by my own calculations!). And Mashiro got the same amount! We were really rolling in the dough here!

“Ahem... The amount seems to be in order,” I said nonchalantly, concealing my surprise and elation. I was supposed to be Hira right now, after all. It was a good thing my hood was covering my face.

“Hey guild master, what gives? If you’re gonna pay out in big coins, at least pay in medium silvers. Gold’s harder for me to use.”

“You’re just going to deposit it all in the bank anyway, aren’t you? If you want to exchange for silvers, you can do it right here at the desk.”

“Yeah, I guess. What about you, Hira? Satisfied?”

“Oh, uh,” I mumbled, not expecting her to address me all of a sudden, “In that case, I’ll deposit half of mine as well. And as for the other half, I’d like it in large gold instead.”

“Large gold, huh? All right, if you say so.” The guild master nodded.

After all, I’d never gotten to see what a large gold piece looked like before! Now that I had the opportunity, how could I possibly pass it up?! Mashiro and I passed our bags of money back over, and I received one large gold coin in exchange, which as one might expect, was about two sizes larger than a regular gold coin. The size really did make me feel like I was holding twenty million yen in my hand.

“Oh, I almost forgot. For apprehending the perpetrators, Hira, I’m awarding you another ten gold. Would you like that payment as is, or some other way?”

“Let’s see... Make that a large gold coin as well.” Great, now I had something to pay Dia for his efforts! He would surely be thrilled...right?

“All right, Hira, let’s go. Later, guild master.”

“The rest is in your capable hands,” I added.

“Yeah, I can take it from here. Really, I can’t thank you two enough for your help. If you ever need anything else from me, just ask.”

Mashiro pulled my arm toward the exit, and we left the guild behind. Good luck handling everything else now, guys! We’re out! Now that that was over, it was time to spend a few more days engaging in debauchery with Mashiro...

This is your Goddess speaking. Last night, you headed home right after you repaired the dungeon core and left me on tenterhooks waiting for my offering! I can’t wait any longer!

Y-Yes, ma’am! Delivery’s on its way right now, I promise!

＊ ＊ ＊

I headed to the church to deliver the goods, making sure to press my hands together in reverence toward the gorgeous, plump Siesta (madame ver.) before entering the chapel. Goddess, your offering’s here!

“O Karina, how I’ve waited for you! Now gimme! Make with the offerings! All of them! Please, I’m dying here! I can’t wait any longer!”

“G-Gotcha. All right, here you go.”

“YAAAY!” Ever the glutton, the Goddess watched me ravenously as I lined the pairs of socks up in a row. This time I had eight to deliver in total: one from Mashiro’s first time wearing socks, five pilfered from the criminals who’d blown up the dungeon core, one pair from Dia, and another from Aishia. Each of them had been stored in my space right before they’d lost their warmth, so they were all still fresh. (It absolutely, positively was not the case that I’d forgotten to preserve them until right before it was too late. I promise.)

“Seriously, though, how long did you plan on leaving me hanging?” she asked.

“Sorry about that. I was just so tired after last night that I had to get some sleep first.”

“Well, it does say in my commandments that preventing someone else from sleeping is a cardinal sin, so in that case, I forgive you.”

“Thank you, Goddess! You’re too kind!” I said with a reverent bow. So that’s one of her commandments, huh? Interesting... I wonder why?

Minus the points I’d spent on the pancake mix the other day, I currently had exactly 1,000 SP. Now, how much more will I get from these offerings, I wonder?

The Goddess picked the socks she wanted to appraise first. “Let’s save the best for last, shall we? First off, the criminal set!”

Naturally, she was referring to the five pairs from the Shining Swords. I had absolutely no use for used men’s socks myself, but the Goddess must have felt differently, because she grabbed the first pair and popped them in her mouth without hesitation. “Mmm,” she said as she chewed. “This level of dishonor! This degree of humiliation! The embarrassment contained within these socks is quite the delicacy indeed!”

“Ew... I can’t believe you ate those.”

“I’m not so picky that I’ll only eat socks from beautiful women, you know? To maintain a balanced diet, it takes all sorts. Besides, for a deity like me, the concept of human gender isn’t that important anyway. When you’re eating pork, does it especially matter to you whether the pig is male or female? Same difference. If you were eating the meat of other humans, though, I could understand why you might care.”

Huh... Come to think of it, the gender of the pig was so unimportant that they didn’t even list it on the label at the supermarket. The Goddess had said women were easier to embarrass and therefore their socks were more delicious, but I supposed that really was the only reason she preferred women’s socks.

“I can’t see why you’d worry about a balanced diet when all you eat are socks, though,” I remarked.

“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. I eat regular food too, just like you humans. Socks are just a luxury item! Like, you know how dogs can’t eat onions, but humans can eat them just fine? Well, humans can’t eat socks, but I can. That’s all it is. Did I not explain that to you before?”

Sorry. You might have, but I probably just tuned it out because honestly, I couldn’t care less.

“Now for your point evaluation... Hmm. Like I said, this level of shame is definitely a rarity. Going back to pigs, it’d probably be equivalent to enjoying a pig’s ear or pig’s feet, as opposed to the more common cuts. All right, I’m awarding you 200 SP for the set of five!”

In other words, 40 SP per pair. Considering the max was 100, it was more than I’d expected. Out of gratitude, I suppose I ought to pray that those five find peace in their next life.

The Goddess reached for Aishia’s socks next. “Considering how her socks let me down so much last time, this pair better be good. Hmm. More than shame, I can definitely taste her loyalty to you. But also a little anger at being left behind to watch the house when the rest of you went to the dungeon. Oh, and here comes a new flavor: the resignation and acceptance that she wouldn’t have been much help to you there anyway.”

Oh dear. That sounded like something I’d have to follow up on once I was back home.

“35 SP. Nah, as a bonus I’ll round it up to 40, considering they’ll probably be even better enjoyed as a set with her sister Satie’s perfect-score-earning pair.”

Considering Aishia’s pair hadn’t even had a lot of time to ripen, that wasn’t a bad score either. All right, that worked for me.

“Some divine advice: Next time, you might want to try a more humiliating angle befitting of her slave status, like tossing her out in a busy street in town while she’s wearing nothing but her socks, for instance.”

“That’s some brazen exhibitionism right there...”

“That said, it’s a scenario Siesta often uses in the dreams she gives people, meaning I’m pretty used to it. So using that exact example won’t earn you much. Maybe an extra 10 SP, if you’re lucky.”

10, huh... Then I wonder if there’s some more unique, safer way I can satisfy the Goddess’s apparent exhibitionist fetish? Like what if I put camouflage on her without telling her?

“Now for Dia’s socks... Mmm, this is...delish. Really delicious! The shyness here is subtle, but—wait, what’s this?! The complicated feelings of a boy’s heart as Mashiro appears out of the blue as his rival in love, not to mention the whirlwind of feelings he had while in the dungeon with you! It’s like a sweet-and-sour seafood yakisoba with lemon drizzled on top! I honestly wasn’t expecting such an improvement so quickly... I’ve got no choice but to rate this highly!”

Whoa! For some reason, Dia’s socks got a high appraisal this time?!

“The more I chew, the more the flavors keep coming. Like this feeling of guilt for pretending like he didn’t remember what happened in the dungeon, when in reality he remembers exactly what he said. And this bewilderment at how you keep approaching him normally like nothing happened despite what you both said to each other there! And of course, the shame of having his socks stripped from him by his first love! How is it even possible for socks to be this good?! Dia, you’re dangerous!”

“Wait, what did you say?! He remembers after all?!”

“Oopsie, looks like I got carried away and revealed another one of poor Dia’s secrets!” She stuck her tongue out and giggled without a hint of remorse.

“Th-Then that means...when I responded to his proposal...”

“Tee hee, congratulations on your engagement! If you end up having a cute kid, be sure to get their socks for me!”

“I’m not having anything! Marriage, engagement, that’s all null and void! It didn’t count!” Dia was supposed to be just eye candy! Eye candy and nothing more!

“Aw, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. What’s wrong with settling down with a man? The only thing I find problematic is that I can’t sample the embarrassment in your socks right now, since I created you and all.”

“A-All right, that’s enough! Get back to the appraisal!” I said before she could speak on that topic any further.

“Right, I almost forgot! For these socks, I’ll award you 80 SP!”

“Wow, now that’s a high score!” As I thought, Dia really was the best! Er...but not in that way... Hmm, I guess I can’t really joke around like that anymore, since things are complicated between us right now. I mean, now that I know he remembers proposing to me and my response, will I even be able to look him in the eye when I get back home?

“Man...if only you weren’t my homemade creation, you’d have probably gotten around 80 SP for your own socks right now. What a shame, truly.”

“H-Huh?! A-Am I really that bashful right now?”

“No doubt about it. I mean, your face is as red as a tomato. I hope your marriage works out soon!” she said with a giggle, then she stored Dia’s socks away.

I-I said I’m not getting married! Even if it’s Dia, he’s still a guy, so it doesn’t count!

Anyway, with this, my total so far was now up to 1,320 SP. Now there was only one pair left. How many points will Mashiro’s socks fetch, I wonder?

“180 SP.”

“Huh?! Over the maximum?!” But she’d stated the point value so matter-of-factly that there was no room for doubt. Mashiro’s socks had gone beyond the threshold.

“The shame level is so-so. However, this fur... It’s just divine.”

“Oh, so it’s the fur!” The fur I’d had her remove from her feet! That had made all the difference!

“Fur, the natural version of socks... Truly wonderful! Oh, by the way, her first pair of socks gets 90 SP, and the fur gets 90 SP. That’s why it’s 180.”

Oh, so that was how it broke down. In other words, she was counting them separately. That made more sense. Still, I never would have guessed she liked fur that much.

“Well, you might not understand this, Karina, but fur is just on another level. Especially the fur near the paw pads. Those are on the soles of the feet even longer than socks, right? So it’s like wearing socks for months at a time without taking them off!”

“You don’t...say.” Well, at least I knew where I needed to aim for if I ever made another beast person’s acquaintance.

“Even though there’s not a lot here,” she continued while chewing, “the flavor is incredibly rich! Not to mention Mashiro’s slight bewilderment at why you’d even ask her for such a thing! It’s like eating a particularly viscous avocado!”

“In that case, maybe you’d want some mayonnaise to go along with it.”

“Don’t you get it, Karina? That’s where the spice of shame comes in!” Clearly satisfied, she put the socks away.

That brought my total up to 1,500 SP. So I guess we’re done here now?

“Well done, Karina! I’d say you more than made up for your last offering.”

“’Preciate it!” Then apparently there were no complaints this time! Yay!

“You know, you should actually use those points you’ve earned. You gave me a good selection this time, so I won’t harp on you about it, but it’s this Goddess’s earnest wish that you really do keep spending and earning those points to get everything you want.”

“Sorry about that. I’ve always had a tendency to tighten my purse strings when I’m running low on cash.” I’d probably be good spending at least 500 SP now without worrying too much, though.

“Aww. And here your Goddess had hoped you’d spend recklessly, become dependent on my rewards, and get to a point where you had to keep buying them or you couldn’t go on. Why don’t you try one of my delicious desserts? It’s how I reeled Siesta in, after all.”

“So Siesta’s doing all that work just for your sweets?” Well, they were divine desserts, after all, so perhaps that was unavoidable.

“Therefore, here’s what we’re going to do! You’re going to spend 500 SP right here, right now.”

“Come again?”

“I won’t let you leave this space until you do.”

No way! Last time she’d punished me, it was because I’d delivered her socks that’d had her own flavor on them, and now she was just confining me here for no reason?! “Seriously? You really won’t let me go home?”

“Need more time to decide what you want to buy? No problem! I’ll keep you here for ten or even a hundred years! For the Goddess of Time and Space, that much is child’s play!”

Hold up! Deities like you perceive time way differently than us!

“Relax, relax. Just humor me and at least look at the catalog, okay? Now, isn’t it fun looking at all the things you can purchase?” She produced the catalog out of nowhere, and it automatically flipped to a certain page. On that page was a delectable-looking dessert item: “Pudding à la Mode.”

“I recommend one of the sweets on this page. They’re so good that once you start eating, they’re gone before you know it!”

“You’re really not hiding your intent to trap me, huh? True, the last dessert I bought from you was incredibly delicious, but considering the running cost and taking cost-effectiveness into account, I should probably spend my points on skills instead.”

“The boring, snoozefest, rational approach, huh? Fine. It’d be a lot easier for me if you’d get addicted to a specific item like Siesta, though.”

You’ve got an awful lot of opinions about how to spend my points, Goddess. I suppose that’s better than her confiscating them ’cause I said something to upset her, though.

“In that case, how about this potion that’ll give you a ten percent increase in max MP for 100 SP?”

“Ten percent’s a pretty big boost, but it’s not like I’m particularly hurting for MP as it is.”

“Damn it! My creation’s too perfect! Then again, I wouldn’t have been able to torture that piece of trash impostor so thoroughly if you weren’t at least that high performance, so no helping that.” She flipped through the catalog some more. “Oh, then how about one of these collections of used socks I’ve duplicated? I can guarantee their quality personally! 200 SP each.”

“You might think they’re worth it, but I can’t say I have any use for socks of people I don’t even know.” The faces of the wearers were also depicted next to the pictures of their socks, which honestly just felt unsettling.

“Mrrrgh... You’re a tough customer,” she murmured, flipping through more pages. How many pages did this thing have, anyway? Then it finally hit me: This isn’t the same catalog as the one I was given, is it?

After all, I’d already flipped through all the pages of my own catalog, just to see what kind of stuff it had in it. But I didn’t remember any collections of socks ever being listed in there, and that’d definitely be something I’d remember, because I’d be amused by how Goddess-like that inclusion was. Yep, no doubt about it: The Goddess’s catalog definitely had more pages than mine. Which meant...what if it also had new skills I hadn’t seen before?

“Oh, would you prefer something like technique skills, then?” she said. “Like something to improve your physicality?”

I knew it! Her book did have skills I hadn’t seen before! “Hmm? Well, I suppose I might be interested.”

“Then how about this massage skill? If you buy the level 5 version, I’m sure you’ll find it quite useful! It’s awfully rare too—come to think of it, I don’t think this skill’s in your catalog—”

“Then I’ll go with that! Wait, no—shit!” The moment I agreed, she gave a big grin. Dammit... The level 5 massage skill was priced at 500 SP...just the value she’d wanted to get out of me! She got me again!

“Goddess, don’t tell me...”

“Wonderful, truly wonderful! You fell for it, just like I expected you to! Bravo!”

“Er... I suppose it’s too late to cancel my purchase?”

“Oh, there are no refunds at this establishment. Did I forget to mention that? Anyway, congratulations on your new skill!” As she applauded, I felt a new skill taking form within me.

“Now go, young Karina! Go use that massage skill to get involved with all sorts of girls and embarrass them so I can feast on their delicious socks! Delicious socks... Delicious socks...”

The Goddess’s self-made echo ringing in my ears, I returned to reality.

In the end, the Goddess was only loyal to her own desires! Man, if I’d known it’d turn out like this, I would’ve picked an actually useful skill like alchemy or something. Why’d I go for some stupid massage skill instead?! Well, I did have some points left, so I could buy alchemy if I wanted to. Yeah, that was right! While I regretted buying the massage skill instead, I still had other options, and I couldn’t refund anything anyway. Actually, since this had been unavoidable from the start, I might as well go ahead and buy some more skills like alchemy or sword fighting while I was at it...

Gah! In other words, I’d be playing right into her hands again! Curse you, Goddess! It’s so unfair—no human can possibly win against you!

“Still, I wonder if that massage skill really is as rare as she claimed. If it’s only in her catalog, it must be, right?” When I get back, I guess I’ll try it out on Dia and the others. Might as well.

“Come to think of it... I’ve pretty much accomplished my goal now, haven’t I?” Sure, I’d been hiding my identity, but I’d ended up making a killing—more than enough to live comfortably on for several years, at least. I’d had to resolve a major incident to do it, but to think I made that much money in such a short amount of time... Spatial magic really was ridiculously OP. Not to mention the monthly payment of twenty-five gold coins (or 2.5 large gold coins, however you prefer) Hira would be getting from the slave trader.

To be honest, there wasn’t much use for Karina the merchant or Karina the adventurer anymore. Maybe it was time to hang up my hat and spend the rest of my days fooling around with Dia and Mashiro, letting Aishia serve me at my beck and call and heading out to visit Harumikazuchi and Li’l Satie whenever I wanted. With spatial magic, it was certainly possible. In fact, why couldn’t I charge Mashiro rent to live with me in the base? Or go around to other slave traders in other towns as Hira and extort monthly income from them as well? There really were no limits! Well, I still had the obligation of delivering socks to the Goddess, of course, but I could just think of that as having a bit of direction in life!

“All right, I’ve decided! I’m going to retire as an adventurer and spend the rest of my time here doing whatever I want!” Fired? Unemployed? Who cares! I’m not gonna work ever again! I’ve got plenty of money saved up, and I have a plan for getting more if I need it! Wait, wouldn’t that plan involve a bit of work too? Well, whatever! Details, details!

Therefore, this is the end of the story! Rather, since the last boss already got defeated back at the very start, this has all technically been an epilogue...but the point is, I’m gonna live my life in happiness and tranquility from now on, meaning there’s nothing more to talk about!

Or so I thought. But when I returned to base...

“Wow, big sis, way to go! You saved the town! I’d expect nothing less from you!”

“Heh heh, nah, I didn’t do anything that special.”

“So where are you gonna go next? Now that you’ve saved a town, surely you’ll want to aim even higher and save an entire nation next time, right? I wonder if there are any countries or kingdoms in turmoil right now?”

Dammit... I-I couldn’t say it! I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that the world was basically gonna be fine as long as I kept giving the Goddess socks, so I was just going to forget everyone else’s problems and focus only on myself! After all, he already knew I was a guy inside now. He was probably fine with me at present because he thought of me as a gorgeous young lady, but if he started thinking I was some hopeless degenerate, his love for me would grow cold and he’d say, “Yeah, never mind. I’m headed back to the elf kingdom!” That’d just be too lonely! I wanted Dia to be with me!

Thus, so as not to shatter Dia’s hopes and dreams, I had to live up to his expectations! I had to save the world, or at least put some effort into saving it! But since there was nothing I needed to do right this minute, I could at least rest for a little while, right? I did just save a town and all! Let me take a monthlong breather first, at least! What was that? I already goofed around in Carcassa enough? W-Well, when you put it that way... Yeah, I guess I’d better sound a little more motivated.

“E-Even if there aren’t any towns that need my help, I’d at least like to go around searching for sacred treasures. For the sake of the world.” By process of elimination, it was the only other angle I could think of.

“Oh, I almost forgot about that. Yeah, that’s definitely something we could do. Heard any good info lately, Aishia?” Dia asked.

“No turmoil, at least as far as I know, but there’s actually a sacred treasure in my home country, the Land of Dwarves. I only just remembered it the other day, though. We could head there.” According to her, it was some legendary hammer. Interesting, so there was a sacred treasure there all along?

“Hmm. If it’s being used to keep the peace, though, I wouldn’t want to take it away, you know?”

“It was used for that a long time ago, but now it’s just a museum exhibit. No one would care if you took it, I bet. In fact, they’d probably beg you to take it off their hands.”

Well, if taking it wouldn’t destroy a town or kill anyone, I supposed I might as well. It was at least unimportant enough that Aishia had completely forgotten about it.

“Oh, but that’d mean leaving Pavelkant, right? I still haven’t seen everything I want to see here.”

“It’s no big deal to cross over,” she said. “As long as you have an adventurer’s or merchant’s license, they’ll let anyone in. Actually, it’d be faster to make it there from Carcassa than Solasidore, so it’d be even easier to fit into our schedule.”

So you could even use guild cards as passports to enter other countries. They really were awfully convenient, huh? I guess that means it’ll pay off to stay with the guild too, rather than retire like I wanted to. That means I’ve gotta keep doing jobs so as not to get kicked out... Wait, is it just me, or did my schedule suddenly become a whole lot busier? Gimme a break!

“The land of the dwarves, huh? Sounds interesting! Let’s go, big sis! A brand-new adventure is just waiting for us!”

“Huh? O-Oh, right! Adventure, sure!”

And so, our next destination was set in stone. Aw man, I wanted to loaf around a little more first, though...but I wanted to live up to Dia’s expectations, so this was fine too! It looked like my story wasn’t over yet after all. Or maybe, unbeknownst to all of us, it had yet to even begin...?

Extra Story: Emergency Project! Confirm What Dia’s Packing!

The name’s Karina! And recently, Dia’s been so cute that I’ve seriously begun to suspect whether he’s actually a boy! If I don’t set this straight, I might actually start to see him in a romantic light! Like maybe wedding bells are in my future after all!

I couldn’t let that happen. Dia was just eye candy! Display only! And genuinely a male! I used to be a guy too, and I’d like to avoid a boys’ love situation if I could help it. If I was gonna maintain the stance that the only way I’d sleep with a guy is to remove their junk and give them a fresh start as a girl, then I couldn’t make an exception just for Dia! Hmm... I wonder if he really does have one down there? If he doesn’t, I’m safe, right? I’ll have the green light?

Thus, in my distraught state, I really did start to worry about it and finally decided I’d check once and for all. If I could at least confirm a bulge in his underwear, I’d definitely be able to relax. Therefore, for the sole purpose of checking what was underneath that skirt of his, it was time for a journey.

At the end of this long journey (ten steps or so), I arrived in our base’s workshop, the place where Dia and I spent time goofing around and making all sorts of magical trinkets. Dia was already there. Today he was wearing overalls that cut off above the knee—his work outfit. Dang... If he wasn’t wearing a skirt, I suddenly felt a lot less motivated. Still, I really couldn’t see him as anything but a girl. His thighs were silky smooth!

Now then, how to proceed? How to go about checking his crotch? I could use spatial magic to scan him, of course, but it’d feel invasive, and I’d gain more data about his body than I’d ever need to know. It’d be like licking him all over, except a lot more informative. And if I was going to do that, I might as well just push him down onto the bed right now, without even waiting until we were married.

Which I definitely wasn’t going to do. Therefore, I had to use my own eyes to confirm! Confirm by touch? Sure, if I wanted to make Dia let out a cute scream. Not to mention I’d have to wash my hands vigorously for at least three hours afterward. Anyway, I wouldn’t be able to confirm anything if he wasn’t wearing a skirt. So first off, I had to make him change clothes!

“H-Hey, Dia?”

“Hey, big sis! You wanna make some more stuff today?”

Guh! That radiant smile! It was blinding me! It was cleansing my filthy heart! “Y-Yeah. Er, are you not wearing a skirt today?”

“Nah, when I’m in the workshop, this is easier to move around in.”

“I...see.” All right, Karina! Do it! Tell him he needs to wear a skirt instead! “S-Skirt...”

“Hmm? What was that?”

“N-Nothing! Nothing at all!” Like hell I could tell him to change into a skirt because I wanted to peek! That’d be way too shady! Dia was supposed to think I was a kind woman, and I didn’t want that image of his to crumble! I didn’t want him to hate me!

“Big sis, do you want me to put on a skirt instead?”

“C-Could you?! Please?!”

“Well, yeah, of course. I know you like skirts more, so I don’t mind.”

What was he, an angel?! Maybe instead of checking what he was packing down there, I ought to be checking his back for traces of extendable wings! Oh, but I guess “angels” in this world are actually succubi, if Siesta is anything to go by.

Dia took a skirt down from one of the shelves. Wait, there was a skirt here in the workshop all this time? Then he placed his hands on his overalls and— Whoa, whoa, whoa! You’re stripping now?! Here?!

“I-I just remembered something I need to do, so just let me know when you’re finished!”

“Huh? O-Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I just wasn’t thinking! I’ll...be done in a minute.”

I left the workshop in a hurry. Whew, that was close.

“Master, what are you doing?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s you, Aishia. I’m just waiting for Dia to finish changing. I want to confirm for myself whether he’s actually a guy, so I’m having him put a skirt on right now.”

Aishia looked puzzled. “In that case, why didn’t you just stay in there and watch him change?”

“Er...” Come to think of it, she was right! “Th-Then I should peep on him while he’s changing! But, well, I dunno...”

“Sorry for intruding, Dia,” Aishia said, striding into the workshop all of a sudden.

“Whoa! O-Oh, it’s just you, Aishia. What do you— Gyaaah!”

“Hmm. Yes, I see.” She returned to me. “He’s a boy.”

R-Really?! So he really was a boy after all. He was telling the truth all along. “Wait a minute, Aishia, what’d you just do to him?!”

“I just pulled his pants down so there wouldn’t be any doubts, that’s all.” Apparently seeing guys naked didn’t bother her at all, since she’d often bathed with her little brothers back in her homeland.

Still... He was a boy, huh. Good to know, I guess. But since I never got to check for myself, there was still a part of my mind that wanted to deny it. I supposed I really would have to confirm it with my own eyes eventually...sooner or later!

Afterword

Oh, time for the afterword already? Greetings again! It feels like just yesterday that volume 2 came out, doesn’t it? No, of course it wouldn’t, with how long I made you all wait! In fact, I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard, “Seriously? Volume 3’s not out yet?” Well, here it is! Now you can all stop complaining!

In all seriousness, I’d actually wanted volume 3 to release alongside volume 1 of the manga for some good old mixed media marketing synergy, but I forgot the manga was supposed to be a monthly publication, and so we had to wait almost an entire year. Kanmuri-sensei’s sketches and manuscripts were done so quickly that I naively thought they’d publish it all at once! I goofed! Forgive me! Rather, time really does pass by in a flash when you’re an adult!

As for the novel version contained in this book...you’ll have to look forward to the continuation of the manga for the rest. Which works for me, because that means I get to take a leisurely backseat as supervisor! Incidentally, it’s not uncommon for the manga version of a series to continue beyond the light novel, so please wait patiently for the manga to catch up! If you’ve ever looked at the lively and popular version of Karina in the manga, then read the novel and thought, “man, I can’t wait to see this part in the manga,” then by all means, keep following it! The panel layouts, the characters’ facial expressions, the attention to detail—it’s all top-notch! Hurry up and appear, Dia. I wanna see you as a girl already! And I can’t wait for people to react angrily to the contents of volume 2 either, once they’re in manga form!

Therefore, be sure to support the manga so that it gets to that point. I’m always reading your fan letters and comments! And of course, if anyone has any anime offers, bring it on! As the author of the original work, I’ll humbly accept them all. But act fast! The early bird gets the worm, you know!

Now then, onto the behind-the-scenes of this particular book—volume 3. If you’re one of those that reads the afterword first, take note that this contains spoilers. I highly recommend you read the book first. All right, you’ve been warned!

First off, the original stock of web novel chapters for this volume exceeded the page limit for a single book. So of course, I had to take some scissors to the manuscript. Gone is the scenario where Satie joins Karina’s party in the dungeon...even though Ixy-sensei made a design for her sake nunchuck weapon and everything! By the way, it really does have real alcohol in the bottles, so she can drink while she fights.

Quite a few things here are different from the web novel as well, like whether Karina was able to stop the dungeon core from getting blown up. In a way, you could say this is the route where instead of preventing the incident, she was too infatuated with Mashiro to notice it was even happening. The “Horny Karina” route, I guess you could call it. I’m glad I got to write it. By the way, it normally wouldn’t have mattered to the Goddess whether a dungeon core got destroyed or not, since it’d just amount to one less sacred treasure in the world, but some towns—like Carcassa—were also important sock producers, so she decided to help out. This was actually entirely due to Siesta’s efforts making socks. “The socks from Carcassa are especially delicious, so it’d be a shame to lose that town. Guess I’d better help!” Something like that. The Goddess is only out for herself, but when it comes to protecting her own interests, she’ll save people sometimes as well! Isn’t this world just so kind and forgiving?!

Then, of course, we have the empire’s dungeon that ended up receiving the backsplash. The dungeon restricts spatial magic, as you may recall. That’s because the Goddess’s lover, the God of Destruction (the real one) created it as a shelter to take refuge in back when he was trapped in this world. The monsters there are all wolves as a countermeasure against the Goddess’s time stop magic—if you remember, even the Goddess is powerless against dogs. That’s because one of her companions (that’s not her lover) is also a dog. There’s probably no other reason beyond that.

Oh? Why did the God of Destruction prepare countermeasures and shelters against the Goddess if they’re supposed to be lovers, you ask? Well, they’re lovers, but as the ruler of time and space, the Goddess tends to show her affection in extreme ways, you see. Like a hug from her would essentially become confinement. Her love is suffocating—she’s a bit of a yandere, really. So in order to talk with her rationally, he needed to prepare shelters and the like to protect himself until she calmed down. And to make sure he wouldn’t be found, he took refuge in numerous dungeons all over, bringing the sacred treasures he made in with him.

For that reason, there are dungeons designed to counteract Karina’s so-called “OP” spatial magic scattered all over the world, the majority of which contain the God of Destruction’s own sacred treasures. If you’re thinking “wait a minute, but wouldn’t all those treasures put the world in even more of an energy crisis...?” Well, you’d be right.

Anyway, I’m about to run out of pages. Thank you all sincerely for sticking with me this long, and I hope we meet again someday, if fate wills it. As for me, I’m tired after all that writing, so I’m gonna take a nap. Good night!

Onikage Supana