Chapter 50
“Haa, honestly... Do you know how startled I was back then? You need to make sure you receive your blessings regularly...”
“That wasn’t the problem. Yubel was so close, and I just...”
“Pardon?”
“N-Nothing!”
The next morning, the Hero’s party headed for Baelogia on foot, following an unpaved road surrounded by hills.
Since they were already near Baelogia, they decided to walk and save the cost of a carriage.
“Phew...”
Fortunately, Se-on managed to get out of the situation somehow by blaming what had happened on the curse of desire.
For a while, he was put under a restraining order from Yubel, but considering he’d avoided social death, he got off cheap.
“A-Anyway! I’ll stick right by your side from now on... Um, you don’t find that unpleasant, do you?”
“Huh? Of course not. I’m the one who should be apologizing to you, Prea. The Hero’s become a burden to his companions and all. Anyway, I’ll be counting on you from now on.”
“Aah... I-Is that so?”
Blush, blush.
Prea moved even closer to Se-on’s shoulder as they walked side by side.
Somehow, this scene... didn’t it feel like one of those situations from a romance novel?
But as they walked like that, Prea suddenly felt a chill run down her back.
Hostility? No, there was a hint of bloodlust. This was no ordinary ominous feeling.
Prea’s head turned backward with a creak, creak, like a tin doll.
Behind her, Yubel was glaring at Prea with an utterly venomous expression.
‘Eek!? W-Why is she doing this...!’
Resentment? Anger at her for taking Se-on away?
Since she’d been ordered to stay away, that gaze watching her every move from a distance made Prea feel as though it were carving her to pieces.
Meanwhile, Yubel, who was sending those looks, was extremely wary of the Hero.
‘The Hero definitely said he liked virgins... So that was it...’
After learning that the Hero was an extreme virgin fanatic, Yubel realized why he hadn’t made a move on Riella until now.
It was probably because she wasn’t a virgin anymore.
‘And the reason he started approaching Prea must be because he found a new virgin.’
Yubel clicked her tongue.
She’d finally figured out what criteria the Hero was using to collect heroines.
The first heroine he made his companion was Riella.
Maybe thanks to her low mental age setting, she was a perfect virgin in mind, body, and spirit.
Not anymore, though.
And the next companion he recruited was Prea.
This character was also known in the game as the most innocent one. The community says she’s actually lewd, but that must just be a rumor.
As far as I could tell, she was a virgin in mind, body, and spirit, too.
‘He only sleeps with virgins and then dumps them... What a piece of trash.’
But this was good news for Yubel.
There was nothing more inefficient than targeting only virgins when trying to collect skill points.
So she didn’t particularly object to the Hero.
Still, it wasn’t in Yubel’s nature to turn away when there was a victim right in front of her.
So if the Hero showed even the slightest sign of making a move on Prea, Yubel planned to interfere.
[How dare that Saint covet the position of the rightful wife? How insolent...]
“Right... pretty insolent— Wait, what are you talking about now?”
[Hehe, but I did try to make myself a little more appealing to you last night, so it shouldn’t be a big problem—]
“Yubel, what’s wrong?”
“N-Nothing!”
Ugh.
Whenever I talk to the parasite in my head, I have to worry about what people around me think.
And what does she mean by making herself appealing?
All she does is say weird things.
While Yubel gave Riella an awkward smile,
she noticed Prea glancing back over her shoulder repeatedly.
She seemed restless.
‘Hmm, maybe I should step in a little for Prea.’
True to her sense of justice, Yubel beckoned Prea over.
The gesture meant come here.
Prea approached, her legs trembling like a frightened deer.
‘What’s wrong with her? Did the Hero use a skill on her or something?’
I didn’t know how many of his skills the Hero had unlocked by now, but there were plenty that could invade someone’s mind, so I suspected he was using one of them on Prea.
‘I need to raise my proficiency with mental magic faster.’
To prepare for the Hero’s skills, Yubel had started focusing on mental magic whenever they encountered monsters.
She wanted to raise her proficiency so she could save hypnotized heroines with her own magic.
Thump, thump.
Before long, Prea, who had been walking slowly over, arrived in front of her.
The way she walked made her look like a criminal approaching the execution platform.
Seeing Prea like that, Yubel felt sorry for her.
‘You really are unlucky. I even warned you, but you came along anyway.’
She quietly warned the poor Prea.
Leaning close enough to her ear that Riella couldn’t hear.
“Prea, you need to stay sharp and hold on to your mind... If you let your guard down for even a moment, it could crumble.”
“!!!”
Trembling.
At Yubel’s warning, Prea’s face went pale and she shuddered violently.
Yubel tilted her head at the sight.
‘Huh? Was that really so shocking? I only told her to be careful.’
If you knew your mind was being invaded and stayed alert, you could slow the invasion to some extent.
Just like how you could endure a little better if you knew you were about to be hit.
That was all she’d done—given Prea a heads-up—but it seemed to have shocked the innocent girl quite a bit.
‘Good medicine is bitter, after all. Looks like it worked.’
Meanwhile, Prea heard those words and an alarm bell rang in her head.
‘Th-This is a yandere...! She’s definitely a yandere!’
What was a yandere?
A person who showed pathological obsession and possessiveness toward the one they loved.
And a terrifying type who casually disposed of the people around that person!
Apparently, to this girl who believed the Hero was her whole world, being separated from him had been so infuriating that she’d issued a warning like that.
Prea had merely walked beside the Hero, yet Yubel was this obsessed. If she held his hand, it seemed like Yubel would kill someone.
And then there was that warning about her mind collapsing.
Considering the high-level mental magic Yubel had shown when fighting the goblins, it didn’t sound like an empty threat at all.
Tremble, tremble, tremble!
Prea had resolved to live as she pleased, but the obstacle in her path was threatening her life.
‘I-I’m scared...! I don’t want to give up like this, but I’m so scaaared...!’
Come to think of it, Yubel had threatened to make her a sex slave the very first time they met.
Maybe she’d realized in advance that Prea would fall in love with the Hero, and had been warning her from then on.
Having gotten that far in her thoughts, Prea felt fear toward the girl who was smaller than her.
She realized she’d picked a fight with the wrong person.
And so, none of the women in the Hero’s party were able to stay by the Hero’s side.
Riella was having more fun with Yubel, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time, so it couldn’t be helped.
Thanks to that, Se-on walked alone for a while.
‘I’m lonely...’
***
Whoooosh—!
“Achoo! Brrr... Didn’t it suddenly get way colder?”
“It certainly did... Even with my holy power wrapped around you, it must be around minus twenty degrees, right?”
“Hehe, come here, Yubel! I’ll hug you!”
The closer they got to Baelogia, the more the biting cold descended upon the Hero’s party.
On top of that, the surrounding area was already blanketed in white snow.
Thanks to Prea’s buff, which provided some insulation against the cold, and Riella’s spirit magic, which could control fire, they were able to endure in their light clothing.
For the record, holy power wasn’t a problem unless it entered Yubel’s body.
“Good grief... If you go around throwing yourself at people like that, men will get the wrong idea. I’ll stick close to the Hero, so you can hug Prea.”
Dash.
Yubel hurried over to Se-on, who was walking alone, and linked arms with him.
Se-on blushed for a moment, then cautiously welcomed Yubel.
Prea and Riella gazed at them in dismay.
“O-Oh, okay... Then come here, Prea!”
Dumbfounded.
Prea, who ended up hugging Riella before she knew it, was at a loss for words.
Yubel warned them, even though they were both women, yet she herself was clinging to the Hero and seducing him.
‘No matter how much Lord Se-on says Lady Yubel doesn’t know what she’s doing... isn’t that a bit much?’
Se-on had asked Prea to understand that Yubel hadn’t received proper education when she was young, and might behave in ways that showed she had no sense of personal boundaries.
So Prea did understand that to some extent, but...
‘Where is she putting his arm right now...!? H-How shameless!’
Yubel pressed Se-on’s arm against her chest and wedged it between her thighs.
Prea’s face grew hot at the sight.
And there was another person whose whole body had grown hot.
‘W-Where is my hand right now?!’
That was Se-on, whose arm had been deprived of freedom.
“Haa... You’re kind of warm, so you’re great as a heat pack.”
“Hahaha...”
So they use heat packs between their thighs in this world?
Wait, did they even have heat packs to begin with?
Se-on felt deeply grateful for this world’s unique way of using heat packs.
Meanwhile, Yubel looked at Se-on, who was gazing at the distant mountains, and gave a sinister smile.
‘Heh heh, what an idiot. He doesn’t even know I’ve kept Prea at a distance. And I deliberately trapped his arm so he couldn’t pull anything, yet he’s just sitting there. I guess he’s completely let his guard down around me now.’
Heh heh heh...
Yubel felt pleased.
[You seem to be thinking something ridiculous again.]
“...Why are you always picking a fight with me? You bastard.”
[Heh. I’ll take that as a compliment.]
“Tsk...”
Yubel’s mood soured.
Step, step.
After the Hero’s party had been walking for quite a while along a road buried in snow,
a heavily ruined wall came into view in the distance.
At last, Baelogia had appeared before them.
“...We’re here.”
“Isn’t this Baelogia? After all that fuss, the place you were hiding from me was just the Dwarven Kingdom?”
Baelogia was the destination the Hero had been hiding from me all this time, but there weren’t even any heroines here, so there was no reason he needed to come.
‘There is a pretty Snow Woman, but she’s an enemy, so she’s not someone you can capture... Hmm, what is this really about?’
Yubel couldn’t understand why Se-on had come all this way.
[...Could it be that he came to look for that? What an amusing thing to do.]
Just then, I heard the parasite murmur.
What is it?
Is there some hidden treasure I don’t know about?
Well, whatever. As long as there aren’t any heroines.
Unfortunately, Yubel didn’t know about the holy sword.
In this adult game, where skills were so important, she thought there was nothing more foolish than going around looking for equipment.
Anyway, the Hero’s party made their way toward a rather deserted checkpoint.
Then a figure came running from far away.
A short, muscular dwarf clad head to toe in armor.
He held a two-handed axe as tall as himself in his right hand.
“Huh, you came here dressed like that at a time like this? What business brings you here? ... Hmm.”
The dwarf looked over the members of the Hero’s party one by one, then trailed off as if he’d been hit with a Slow spell.
There was only one reason he’d react like that at a checkpoint.
Someone in the Hero’s party was causing a problem.
Everyone in the Hero’s party simultaneously looked at Riella.
That was because they’d heard elves and dwarves didn’t get along.
Yubel felt a sense of déjà vu.
‘You again? You’re always causing trouble at checkpoints.’
Just as she sighed heavily and furrowed her brow,
Grab!
“Huh? Eek!”
The dwarf grabbed Yubel by the arm.
Then he twisted her arm behind her back, knocked her to the ground, and restrained her!
The Hero’s party froze in shock at the sight.
“What the hell is—!”
Se-on, suddenly furious, objected.
But the dwarf didn’t budge.
And then.
“You wicked witch! How dare you show your face here!”
“W-What are you talking about! Why would I—”
“There’s no point denying it! Shut up and come quietly, witch!”
Huh? Why am I a witch?!
Yubel was indignant, but the dwarf didn’t even listen, forcibly dragging her away right there.
Drag, drag, drag.
Her already tattered dress got even dirtier.
It was a terrible tragedy for Yubel, who had no other clothes left.
‘What the hell is going on!’
Yubel decided she first needed to find out why this dwarf was arresting her like this.
“No, what are you going to do with me if you drag me off like this?! You dense idiot!”
“Hm? Obviously, you have to give birth as many times as you’ve killed.”
“...?”
“...?”
A quiet silence settled over the checkpoint.
...Did I hear that wrong?