Chapter 31
High-end restaurants aren't really places you go just to eat a course meal.
Starting with appetizers, the dishes arrive one by one; you talk with your companion and enjoy the atmosphere.
Fundamentally, it's no different from spending hours shooting the breeze with a friend while snacking on chips. The only difference is that you have luxurious food instead of chips.
In other words, this was a great opportunity for Maron and Lucy, who'd come to the restaurant together, to spend a few hours bonding.
“Ha... It's really nice to be able to spend some quality time with a junior who's devoted to magic.”
Translation: If it weren't for you, I'd be alone with Gilliam.
“Me too. I'm so glad you came along after all, Senior Lucy.”
Translation: You bitch, that's what I should be saying. I found this place for that womanizer!
“Exactly. It's so nice having dinner together. The three of us.”
Translation: So what, you bitch? Evenings are my time.
Beaming.
Smiling brightly.
Seeing the two people he'd come with smiling made Gilliam smile, too.
“I'm glad you two are getting along.”
“Hahaha, yes, me too.”
“Hahaha, that's right.”
Anyway, the three of them were having a lovely time, full of laughter.
Beside them, someone gave a dry cough.
Unlike the busty bunny girls around them, a woman in a suit stood there.
“Are you the young master of House Everchess?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I'm Yuru Lapin, the owner and manager of this restaurant.”
With white hair and red eyes, she was reminiscent of a rabbit.
And she had small breasts.
Objectively speaking, they were on the small side, but next to the bunny girls around them—and Lucy and Maron, whose breasts were large even by this world's standards—they seemed smaller still.
“It seems our first-time guests are enjoying the restaurant, so I came to greet you. And...”
Yuru Lapin's eyes sparkled.
“I'm well aware of your reputation, Lord Gilliam Everchess.”
“...My reputation?”
Strange.
I don't have any good reputation.
〈Next Compliment Suggestion (LV.2)〉
【Automatically identifies target→Yuru Lapin】
Recommendation - Compliment her by saying she has a lewd body that stirs up desire
Not recommended - Don't call her cute
Is this right?
I've trusted the system up until now and never been wrong, but is this really right?
“Thank you. You look pretty lewd yourself.”
“!!”
Yuru Lapin hugged her meager chest.
“A-as expected, you're a lecherous fiend just like your reputation...!”
【The target experiences tremendous pleasure】
<Praise Points: +200(2900→3100)>
This many points without even a multiplier?
And she felt tremendous pleasure, too. Just how starved was she for someone to see her as lewd?
‘If I just keep her here, I can reach my goal before we even leave the restaurant.’
The original event was now only a day away.
The first combat exercise against the Void Entity.
Of course, things were going to happen that would exceed the academy's original plans again, which was why I'd spent two weeks preparing so hard.
For the final preparations, I had to buy one high-grade skill by the end of today.
I needed a whopping 6,000 points.
“Actually, I heard a little while ago that your companion over there was interested in our uniforms.”
“!”
Lucy flushed with embarrassment.
“Lord Everchess.”
Lapin leaned toward me to meet my eye level.
“I'd like to lend your girlfriend one of our uniforms, on one condition.”
“Oh, she's not my girlfriend.”
“Wow, you're an even crazier delinquent than the rumors said.”
“What did you just say?”
“I said you were a handsome man, just like the rumors say.”
“Liam is handsome, though.”
“Huh? Did I really hear wrong? Is something wrong with my ears?”
“Anyway, the condition is...”
Yuru whispered.
“I'd like to see your woman, Lord Gilliam, wearing the uniform.”
She wasn't going to take money and sell photographs of her, was she?
In subculture games, it's fairly common for cameras to exist in-world to make screenshots part of the game's setting.
“Please let me see her, too.”
“...That's the condition?”
“Yes!”
Yuru spread both arms toward the bunny girls in the restaurant.
“This establishment exists to bring my ideal to life! And that lady is absolutely the perfect bunny girl—the very sort of person I've dreamed of ever since I designed this outfit!!”
Between her and that pastry chef from before, was it impossible to work in the food industry in this world unless you were a little crazy?
“What about her makes her bunny-girl material?”
“Her brea... curves.”
Lucy was pretty big, though.
“I-I mean, if that's what you want, boy... but only somewhere no one else can see.”
“Then I'll show you to the changing room in the back. Or I can lend you an outfit and come along with you...”
“W-wait! Why are you only asking her!? I'm not exactly lacking in the brea... curves, either!”
“Hmm... You'd be fine too, but... well, there's such a thing as comparison—”
“Hey, manager, what's that supposed to mean? Are these young ladies going to wear those bunny outfits, too?”
A drunk middle-aged man staggered over.
Yuru Lapin arranged her face into a polished, expressionless mask.
“Sir, I think you've had too much to drink.”
“I'm asking if these two are going to wear those vulgar outfits!”
Among the restaurant's guests, murmurs full of contempt began.
‘What a guy...’
‘Hm... No class at all...’
‘It's almost funny to hear someone like that call something vulgar...’
But this middle-aged man seemed to be some clueless nouveau riche. He had a gold ring on every finger.
“Heh heh, what appetizing-looking women!”
The man raked his eyes over Maron and Lucy's bodies.
The two women showed their disgust and covered their chests with their hands.
“Put them in those uniforms and bring them to me!”
“Security!”
Perhaps this wasn't the first time she'd dealt with something like this, because Lapin called for security.
But.
“Huh!? Are you kicking out a valued customer like me!?!?”
The drunk shouted and snapped his fingers into alignment.
The separate gold rings fused together into a single set of golden knuckles.
“You little-breasted bitch!!”
The golden knuckles came flying at Yuru Lapin's face.
“—!!”
Security came running.
But it was such a sudden sneak attack that Lapin had no way to dodge the knuckles.
‘Ah.’
In that brief moment, despair flashed through Lapin's mind.
The customer who'd punched her in the face would be arrested immediately.
But if she got hit by that, she couldn't avoid a facial fracture.
Even with healing magic, it'd be a serious injury that would take days to heal, all while enduring the pain.
She'd be lucky if only her nose and jaw were broken. Those bones could be set again.
If the blow hit her eye, it could literally burst. Then she'd have to endure treatment dozens of times more difficult.
Or she might even die.
Here.
In the middle of the restaurant she'd finally managed to open after devoting her whole life to it.
Just after she'd finally achieved her dream.
Without even getting to enjoy it.
‘No.’
I don't want to die.
Save me.
Please, someone save me.
Lapin squeezed her eyes shut.
The next moment.
The agonizing pain of having her face crushed never came.
Instead.
There was a sharp smack as a hand caught the brass-knuckled fist.
‘Huh?’
When Lapin opened her eyes in surprise, she saw Gilliam Everchess holding the customer's fist, brass knuckles and all.
‘H-how?’
Gilliam Everchess was famous for being incompetent, too.
How could someone like him possibly...!?
“Huh!? Who the hell are you!”
“...I know who you are.”
I hadn't expected to see him here, but this man was also a character from the original.
Big Knuckle Orum.
The boss of the criminal organization that controlled the back alleys of the city where the academy was located.
Things were already as bad as they could be, but Orum still had room to fall further.
One day, after accidentally beating a woman to death with his knuckles, Orum would develop a taste for smashing women's heads in and become a serial killer.
“Liam—!!”
“I'm fine.”
I stopped Maron and Lucy as they hurried to get involved.
‘I can take him on by myself at this level.’
When I first possessed this body, my status window looked like this.
〈Stats〉
Strength: F
Stamina: F
Agility: F
Mana: F
Accuracy: F
Resistance: F
All F.
Utterly pathetic.
But things were different now.
The effects of all the effort I'd put into honing my body... were, to be honest, minimal.
I'd earned points by showering countless women with compliments, then carefully invested some of them in my stats.
〈Stats〉
Strength: C
Stamina: C-
Agility: C
Mana: D
Accuracy: C
Resistance: B
I still had a long way to go. The power creep was so extreme that top-tier stats could reach S and beyond.
But it was still much better than back when all six of my stats were F.
The same went for my physical strength.
Right after possessing this body, I would've lost to an ordinary woman in a one-on-one fight.
But now...
Even against an opponent wearing some strange knuckle item...
“Take this!!”
C-rank agility let me dodge Big Knuckle Orum's fist.
“Hup!!”
A fist backed by C-rank strength and accuracy drove up into his chin from below.
A clean uppercut.
I felt my fist make Orum's lower and upper jaws smack together.
Orum's massive body lifted briefly into the air...
Then crashed straight down, headfirst.
Thud!!!
Orum convulsed, the whites of his eyes rolled back.
Blood flowed from his nose, mouth, and ears.
But I couldn't let my guard down.
He looked like this, but he was still a man who ruled the underworld.
If I let my guard down, thinking one uppercut had knocked him out, I'd be the one to die.
“Get up.”
I put my foot on Orum's rib cage.
“There's no point pretending to be unconscious. Come on.”
Silence.
“...Hey?”
Silence continued.
Something felt off, and soon I realized what it was.
If a person is breathing, their chest should rise and fall.
But Orum's chest, with my foot on it, wasn't moving at all.
A trickle.
A transparent liquid, not blood, seeped from Orum's nose and ears.
“...”
I slowly lifted my foot.