Chapter 50
We decided to set out immediately to handle the quest we'd accepted.
We'd rested enough by now, so there was no reason not to leave right away.
The Adventurers' Guild branch repeatedly warned us that going any farther would be dangerous, emphasizing that they wanted us to do no more than scout.
Even so, we must have been able to accept this quest because the Hero had been recognized as a C-rank adventurer. I thought we'd gather the essentials and set out right away, but the Hero said there was somewhere he needed to go and led us there.
“Where are we going?”
“This is.. the Magic Engineering Branch?”
The Labyrinth City of Hermes wasn't called a city with complicated roads for no reason. As a result, it was divided into separate districts, and the place we were heading now was none other than the Magic Engineering Branch.
In other words, we'd come to a branch that was developing by combining magic and science. Its urban landscape looked completely different from those of the other districts.
In other words.. should I say it felt like a mix of steampunk and cyberpunk..? I suppose fantasy punk would work too..?
Calling it magical cyberpunk would probably be most accurate. After all, the role filled by mercenaries in cyberpunk was filled by adventurers here. Apparently, it was a place visited mostly by adventurers who used magical engineering technology.
Why had we come here?
None of us used magical engineering in particular, so there was no reason for us to come here.
Cecilia and Ruril seemed to think the same, and asked the Hero why he'd come here.
“There's something I want to commission.”
The Hero said that and looked in my direction.
If all he said was that he wanted to commission something, there was no way we'd understand. I tilted my head at the Hero, thinking that, but Cecilia and Ruril didn't seem to see it that way.
They were making the same expression they'd worn while looking at the Hero and me at the same time.
Normally, they were such pretty girls..
Why were they making faces like that? I still didn't understand, but Cecilia and Ruril seemed to, since they approached the Hero, patted him on the shoulder, and told him to hang in there. After hearing the Hero's explanation, Ruril chimed in, saying it was a really good idea.
They were excluding me again..
Since I was in no position to hear what they were saying, it was terribly sad that I couldn't react at all or even ask about it.
Anyway, we'd headed to a smithy. It was called a smithy, but the blacksmiths here could essentially be considered engineers.
The Hero looked around, then walked to one of the smithies without the slightest hesitation. Ever since he'd told all of us that he was a regressor, he'd stopped hesitating in anything he did.
That was nice to see.
Since he told us to wait outside for a moment, I sat quietly in a chair and waited. Apparently, he'd commissioned the work, handed over the paper he'd brought to explain what he wanted, made his requests, and come right back out.
It was good that it was over quickly, at least.
I scratched my head.
Then all that remained was to go buy the things we needed before setting out to complete the quest.
There was nothing to think about.
We were heading to a poisonous marshland, so first we needed to buy protective gear to keep from being poisoned and stock up on antidotes.
The reason we'd kept calling it a dangerous place was simple: it was a region filled with poison.
Of course, it wasn't the sort of poison that would melt our bodies just by touching it.. but it was still sufficiently dangerous if ingested or if it entered the body.
The poison covering the swamp would also be quite dangerous if it touched bare skin, so wearing the high-heeled footwear used for adventuring was essential. If our shoes had low heels and the poison got inside them, it would be disastrous.
For the same reason, we had to keep as little bare skin exposed as possible.
To explain the second reason it was dangerous, I think I'd mentioned before that the place we were heading to was the most dangerous place of all.
What would you think if I said it was the most dangerous place in an erotic game?
I believe you could understand perfectly well even without my explaining. Anyway, there was dangerous poison in its own right, but I heard there was also poison even more potent than the aphrodisiac that had tormented the Hero and me so much.. I even knew it could melt ordinary clothes on contact.
As befitted a 19+ game, there was a scene where the heroines' clothes slowly melted when they came into contact with the poison.
The clothes even slowly melted in the actual game models.
Well, if it was that potent, it qualified as poison..
And what about the aphrodisiac's effects?
We hadn't even ingested it; we'd merely smelled it, and yet it had that much of an effect. And this was an aphrodisiac with effects even stronger than that—potent enough to be called a poison?
No wonder this was an erotic game.
It wasn't for nothing that I'd called it an extremely dangerous place. Just yesterday, I'd masturbated while imagining the Hero merely because I'd smelled the aphrodisiac, and I'd lain on the bed and masturbated while sniffing it because it smelled like the Hero.
Since I'd done things I would never normally do, my wariness of the aphrodisiac couldn't possibly ease. I didn't even want to imagine what might happen if we went there and I ended up poisoned by it.
Of course, we had a Saint who could instantly cure any status ailment, but I was still anxious. If Cecilia were poisoned, it would be like the person who could detoxify us had simply disappeared..
We'd have to be as careful as possible.
I'd heard that an aphrodisiac as potent as a narcotic could even be addictive, so I wondered whether we'd be okay.
The Saint's purification could cleanse even addiction away without leaving a trace.. In the game, whenever we suffered a status ailment, the Saint's purification made it disappear completely without leaving behind any debuffs.
For now, we'd be careful not to get poisoned, but you never knew what might happen.. Come to think of it, we'd also have to find and deal with the Demon King's army while scouting, so this would be a much harder quest than ordinary reconnaissance.
At first, I'd gotten angry and insisted on going along because I was annoyed that the Hero was trying to go alone, but now that I thought about it, I understood why he'd wanted to go alone.
I wondered how this quest had played out in the game.
Anyone who knew what kind of poisons were there naturally wouldn't want to take their companions there, so what the Hero had said earlier wasn't strange at all.
I should be careful not to touch the poison as much as possible..
Still, if it looked as though poison might splash onto Cecilia, I planned to take the hit for her instead.
It wasn't the kind of poison that would melt our bodies just from hitting us; it would only intensify the aphrodisiac's effects and melt our clothes, so I should be able to endure that much.
Probably..
More importantly, if I were the one who got poisoned, Cecilia could heal me, but if Cecilia were poisoned, the party would simply fall apart.
Of course, that was why we were buying antidotes to prepare for such an incident.. but the purification Cecilia cast was far more effective than an antidote.
It would be ideal if I were the one who got hit.
Sometimes I wondered whether Ruril shouldn't take the hit instead of me, but I couldn't force someone else to take it for me..
I swallowed hard.
“You used to get really tired after walking for a long time..”
Cecilia looked at me in wonder as she spoke. I'd used to pant after walking only a little, yet now I wasn't showing any sign of fatigue.
Of course, I couldn't hear Cecilia, so I simply kept walking, but the Hero heard her question and answered for me.
“It seems like she cast magic on her body.”
“Is there magic that increases stamina?”
“I don't know much about magic since I'm not a mage.. but I don't think there's magic like that. It seems like she just made her body lighter.”
Though he claimed not to know anything about magic, the fact that he'd accurately identified the spell I'd used showed that the Hero's experience was nothing to scoff at.
Cecilia seemed to think about something for a moment, then approached me as if she'd made up her mind. Even though I couldn't hear, I could at least sense someone's presence, so I turned my head to look at Cecilia.
What was she planning to do..?
As I stayed on guard, wondering what she was planning, Cecilia reached out to me. Soon, as I felt myself slowly become weightless, I made a flustered face.
She'd picked me up.
Cecilia, of all people.
“Wow, you're really light?!”
It was only natural.
I had a lightening spell on my body.
I never imagined Cecilia would pick me up the moment she approached, so I flailed while she held me aloft.
However, Cecilia didn't seem to have any intention of putting me down; giggling, she began repeatedly lifting me up and lowering me again.
No.
This was insane.
I knew what this was.
This was the up-up game, wasn't it..?!
“Pfft..”
“C-Cecilia..?! What are you going to do if Lumia gets angry?!”
“Ehehe!”
Even at the Hero's flustered protest, Cecilia merely let out an incomprehensible laugh, while the arm holding me never stopped moving.
...
It wasn't entirely unpleasant.
It was comfortable, too.
“...”
“Cute..”
The Hero was looking at me with a complicated expression, while Ruril gazed at me adoringly.
Are you jealous..?
...
This won't do; I'd better get out of here soon.
I abruptly brought wind magic crashing down onto Cecilia's head.
A cry of pain rang out from Cecilia, and my body was freed.
“Hng..”
I won't go easy on you just because you're crying.