Chapter 26
I'd walked straight into a checkmate.
I broke into a cold sweat.
Of course, I couldn't hear the innkeeper's conversation, only the Hero's words, so reacting right away would be awkward. All I could do was sit still, desperately hoping I wouldn't hear any more of it and that the Hero would reject the offer.
Lumia's character was built around efficiency, and although I hadn't meant to, I'd already taken advantage of that setting once. At the time, I'd genuinely wondered why we needed to use separate rooms, but later, I remembered that Lumia was a heroine who valued efficiency.
In other words, even though I hadn't intended to, I had actually made good use of Lumia's character setting.
That meant it would be strange for me to hear that we could use a couples' room more cheaply and then say no.
Rather, I should have been happy about it.
Before, I'd said it because I wanted to save money, but I'd never imagined it would come back to bite me like this. If I refused to share a room with the Hero now, Cecilia would naturally end up sharing one with him instead.
If that happened, there would be only one possible outcome..
Two people would go into the room, and somehow the number would become three.
That absolutely couldn't happen.
I had to go in and put up as impenetrable a barrier as possible to prevent anything from happening. I wanted to step forward right away and say that I would share a room with him, but Lumia was supposed to be unable to hear the innkeeper, so I couldn't step in..
If so, would I have no choice but to stop them when they went upstairs to share a room?
As I kept agonizing over what to do, Cecilia approached me. When I saw her shadow fall over me, I lifted my head and looked up at Cecilia, pretending to check who was approaching.
She began writing something on the paper with an expression that suggested she was having a great deal of fun.
I wondered what she was writing, only to find that she was explaining what had been discussed earlier between the Hero and the innkeeper. Had she deliberately gone in ahead of us to talk so that she could share a room with the Hero first while keeping the information to herself?
What is this..?
Why was she telling me this?
I didn't understand Cecilia's behavior, but it was still an opportunity that had been handed to me.
Given what had happened today, the best option would actually be for Cecilia and me to share a room while the Hero slept alone.. But since I'd already walked into a checkmate, the second-best option was for me to share a room with the Hero.
“Still, sharing a room is a little..”
The Hero seemed quite uncomfortable, probably because of what had happened earlier between us.
If you asked whether I was uncomfortable too, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. If we'd simply made eye contact then, it might have created a much better atmosphere, but that idiot had to react at exactly that moment.
It couldn't be helped.
Hadn't I decided to act as Lumia as much as possible?
Let's share a room.
I grabbed the Hero's sleeve.
“Lumia..?”
Instead of answering, I tugged on the Hero.
Naturally, I was utterly weak compared to the Hero's size and strength, so tugging on him didn't make him come along with me.
“What are you doing? Why aren't you going?”
At Cecilia's question, the Hero became extremely flustered and followed along as I pulled on him.
Come to think of it, unlike my expectation that the innkeeper would personally show us around, Cecilia was guiding us herself, proving that this really was an inn she knew well. As soon as we reached the room, Cecilia took out a room key and handed it to me.
Why was she giving this to me..?
“Then I'll use a separate room~”
Cecilia said that and moved into the room right next door.
“..?”
What was this?
Why was she giving this to me?
Unlike what I'd expected—that Cecilia would hand me the single-room key and then enter the same room as the Hero—she gave me the key with a smile in her eyes and simply disappeared.
Could I have been mistaken all this time..?
I turned toward the Hero.
“Well.. shall we go in for now?”
He probably wanted to rest by now.
I nodded and opened the door.
Unlike the inns we'd stayed at so far, this one was extremely well-equipped.
The only problem was..
“Uh..”
“...”
The bed itself looked a little..
It really was a couples' room; it even had all sorts of odds and ends meant to help men and women have sex. The washing facilities were also far too well-appointed for a fantasy setting, to the point that I felt as though I was suffering from cognitive dissonance.
No wonder this was an adult game.
I should have realized it when, even in the game, Cecilia said that love between men and women and conceiving a new life were beautiful things.
The Holy Kingdom seemed completely different from the Holy Kingdoms in the other games and novels I knew.
It was a “sex” kingdom.
For a while, neither of us could even look at the other as we unpacked.
The day's walking had left us both pretty dirty, and it was about time I washed up, but..
The Hero had gone in first last time, so this time he told me to go in first.
There was no particular reason to refuse, so I went straight into the bathroom.
I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom and stared at myself for a while.
Certainly.. I was small and cute overall, but I wasn't so completely childlike that even viewing me sexually would itself be a sin. Of course, since this was an adult game, there were heroines like that, but at least Lumia wasn't at that level.
In fact, Lumia was the small and cute heroine; Ruril was more the alluring heroine with a pretty, explosively curvy figure; and Cecilia seemed to have been designed to balance things out between them.
It was too late to think about this now, though..
‘I want to go home..’
Of course, spending time with the Hero and Cecilia wasn't unpleasant, but the fact that I had to fall in love with the Hero in order to survive kept getting in the way.
What was even more maddening was that, perhaps as a side effect of trying to think like Lumia—or perhaps because I was in Lumia's body—I kept thinking like Lumia. It felt completely natural, as though I were the one thinking that way.
The person I used to be would never have climbed onto the Hero's lap just to eat a piece of pie..
“...”
This was truly dangerous.
I sighed and undressed.
I had to wash, after all.
.
.
.
After that, surprisingly, nothing happened.
I'd thought the Hero would lose his reason and pounce on me, but that never happened.
True to his reputation as a gentle-hearted eunuch, he was holding back remarkably well, even though an ordinary man would have found it difficult to endure.
The only thing was..
Something felt off.
“...”
Why did my body feel so itchy..?
My lower abdomen in particular was incredibly itchy.
On top of that, I felt strangely hot—or should I say, overheated?
The atmosphere felt strange.
The scent in the room was strange, too.
It wasn't an unpleasant scent at all; in fact, it was rather nice..
‘What is this..?’
This hadn't happened the previous times we'd stayed at an inn, had it..?
The Hero went into the bathroom and, once again, didn't come out for a long while. When he finally emerged with an extremely tired expression, I wondered if I should ask him about it, but aside from looking tired, he didn't seem to be experiencing anything in particular, so I swallowed the question.
Yeah.. What could go wrong?
Cecilia had said that she knew the person who ran this place, and there was absolutely no way she would betray us or do anything to harm us, not when she had never done anything like that in the game.
We had to leave the city early tomorrow morning, which meant we needed to go to bed early tonight, so it would be better to put these pointless worries aside.
“Good night, Lumia.”
I nodded at the Hero's words.
Again, I drew a line so he couldn't cross over like last time.
Well, shall I go to sleep now?
I closed my eyes.
...
...
...
I couldn't fall asleep.
No matter how much time passed, sleep wouldn't come.
Instead, my body seemed even hotter than before, and especially down below, where the itching kept getting worse until it became difficult to endure.
‘What is this.. It's really strange.. Ngh..’
I used superhuman patience to keep my hand from slipping inside the undershorts I was wearing, then sprang up from the bed.
There was definitely something going on.
“Ngh.. Lumia.. You're feeling it too..?”
The Hero, who had gotten up without me noticing, turned on the room's light and asked.
His face was bright red, and he was panting heavily.
And I was no different.
“Are you okay, Lumia..? Your face.. Hah.. Even your breathing.. Hah..”
“...”
More importantly, I needed to figure out what this was in the first place..
“Something's wrong.. The scent has gotten stronger than before..”
Wait a second.
Scent?
Only then did I realize what this was.
‘That insane innkeeper..!’
I frantically started searching the drawers around the enormous bed for whatever was giving off the scent.
And I found a clump of herbs that was emitting an incredibly strong fragrance.
I know what this is.
This is Bewitching Grass.
It was the scent-based version of the aphrodisiacs commonly found in adult games, the stuff they called love potions.
Despite the name, it couldn't actually do anything beyond setting the mood, but I still hated that something like this existed.
No wonder this was a couples' room—they'd even stuffed this crap in here!
Aaaah!
I screamed inwardly.