Dungeon Practicum (4)
I wrapped an blindfold around my eyes, sealing my sight.
With vision blocked, darkness swallowed my field of view whole. Eva had insisted it was a special blindfold of her own making, woven from her magic—absolutely not to be removed until she gave the word, and constructed so that not a single ray of light could seep through. Not a sliver of anything would leak in, she'd declared with total confidence.
Just as she said, I couldn't gauge even an inch ahead, so I sharpened my other senses to a razor's edge and projected the world beyond the darkness through them.
"Haaaah…!"
A sweet, melting moan tickled the edge of my ear.
A tone so shameless—so outright scandalous—that it grabbed the thread of my reason and yanked it back and forth.
"Warm water is the best…"
A languid splash of water drifted through the air. Eva's voice, brimming with satisfaction, shimmered at my ear.
From sound alone, the scene before me painted itself in vivid clarity. A fully dimensional image: Eva, not a thread of clothing on her, sinking her body into the lake.
"Th-thank you for helping me. I feel alive again… thanks to you."
"It's nothing."
Brushing off her gratitude, I funneled mana into the tips of my fingers submerged in the lake.
Glub glub!
The sound of water boiling in a kettle. The fiery energy spreading out from my hand rode the ripples of the lake, diffusing outward until the whole water was steeped in cozy warmth.
"You said you wanted a bath in warm water, so I'm heating it up for you. Something like this should be well within your ability, shouldn't it?"
Fire magic wasn't Eva's specialty, but she was the bloodline of a grand sorceress who made the impossible reality. For a mage of her caliber, warming up a chilly lake ought to be about as simple as breathing.
"W-well, my magic barely has any effect on me…. Haha, it's not that heating the lake is hard—it's more that I can't fully feel the warmth, I suppose."
"Ah, right. Magic does have that problem."
The more accomplished the mage, the higher their magic resistance climbed in proportion to their skill. A mage who reached a certain level couldn't feel any stimulus whatsoever from their own casting.
It was the same principle as not being ticklish when you touched your own body.
But what I sent out wasn't magic—it was mana itself. Because the water had been warmed directly by mana bearing the inherent property of heat, it slipped clean past her fortress-like magic resistance and let her feel the warmth in its entirety.
"A-and also… it's scary when monsters show up…"
"We're in the middle of a dungeon, so it wouldn't be strange for monsters to pop out at any moment. I understand."
In the end, I was the only person who satisfied every condition at once—someone she knew, someone with mana capable of heating water, and someone who could cut down monsters in a single stroke—which was exactly why I'd dragged her out here.
"Wash up and take your time. I'll wait here until you're done."
"Th-thank you."
"For warming up some water? Anyone who knows you well enough would have done at least this much."
"N-not just this—everything…"
"Everything?"
"Y-you came into the dungeon with me. And all this consideration, too…"
"Ah, that."
She meant back at the café, when we were deciding who'd accompany whom into the dungeon. I'd nearly fallen over backwards from shock that day. Naturally, I'd assumed that, per the original story, Eva would pair up with Chloe. Instead, out of nowhere, she'd pointed at me.
The fact that Eva—of all people—had chosen me, a man, landed on me as a shock I couldn't share with anyone.
"That surprised me. Why pick me over Chloe?"
"B-because it's a dungeon. Crawling with terrifying monsters…. So I thought it would be best to go with someone strong…"
"If we're talking strong, Marin would be even higher on the list, no?"
"That girl… she doesn't really register in other people's awareness, I think…"
Huh. Sharp, aren't you?
So Eva had caught on. Just as she said, Marin was a being that existed outside other people's perception. The vast majority of people simply could not recognize her presence. Even those who could faintly sense she was there would turn around and forget that such a person had ever existed—a power of that caliber.
In the web novel, too, all that ever surfaced was vague foreshadowing about a ghost living in Purity Academy, until Part Two, at the start of second year, announced Marin's official appearance.
"So what you're saying is, there was no alternative but me."
"Y-yes, but we've also spent time together. And even if you act like a pervert, I know you're not a bad person."
"Ahem—a pervert, is it? I'd like that corrected, if you don't mind. You should be calling me a gentleman."
"A-a gentleman wouldn't press his… his thing… against someone's back. A-and a gentleman would never just stand by and let you touch another girl's… in a public place… I think…"
Hmm. Nothing she said was actually wrong, so I couldn't argue.
"A-and there's one more thing I want to ask…"
"Ask away? Anything you like."
At my breezy answer, Eva hesitated for a long while before mumbling something in a small voice.
"Po…pularity…"
"What? Come again? I can't hear you."
"Tell me the secret to becoming popular!"
She'd always lacked confidence, but the voice that spat out that one question carried real force behind it.
Popularity, huh. Why that, all of a sudden?
"P-popular to the point that even your own sex perceives you as the opposite one. If it's you, Mr. Solis, I thought you might know the secret…"
"Do I look like the kind of person who gives out answers like that?"
She was dead serious. Her usual timidity had vanished somewhere, and her voice rang out across the lakeside.
"W-well, honestly, I'm not interested in men, so I couldn't tell you about my own sex. But how to win popularity across ages and genders? That much I do know."
"Th-that's plenty! Please, please teach me, Master!"
Eva bowed her head, frantic with eagerness, begging for my tutelage. Her desperate sincerity was more than enough to move a man's heart, so doling out a few pointers was no trouble at all.
"Fine. I'll teach you."
How to capture a person's heart. The secret of popularity no one could refute. And that secret is—
"Simple. If your face is cute or handsome, you've already won."
"Uuu… y-you… con artist."
At my answer, Eva's disappointment was plain as day.
"I said nothing untrue. Just as humans loathe cockroaches but dote on cats, people are absolutely helpless against anything cute and pretty."
Lookism. I hated to admit it, but the world turned on the axis of looks, capital, and status. Somewhere along the way, everyone comes to that brutal realization at least once in their life.
Anyway, the real point of my words lay elsewhere.
"More importantly, why are you moping about it? You're one of the people who meets those conditions."
"M-me? I consider myself just… ordinary-looking, the kind you'd find anywhere…"
Yikes. Every genuinely ordinary person in the world just bit their tongue and died.
"I'll state this as fact: there is no one in this world prettier than you. And even if such a person existed, if they could stand in comparison with you, then past that point it's a matter of taste."
"I'm… I'm pretty…?"
Eva still wore a half-doubting expression, as if she couldn't quite believe it. But soon, having finished her thinking, she looked back at me with eyes steeped in firm resolve.
"O-okay. I'll accept that I'm pretty…. What's next?"
"Next is courage. Whether you succeed or fail, you put yourself out there."
You gather your nerve and confess. The person who holds out their phone to get a number gains at least a sliver of a chance, but the person who never even tries converges on a probability of zero.
"Confess to the person you carry in your heart. Just slam it out there."
"B-but what if I get rejected…"
"You're going to confess to Chloe, aren't you? If you deliver your feelings to her, she'll definitely accept them."
"…S-so you knew. Th-that I love her."
Any reader of Academy Yuri Princess would know that much. Deep down I wanted to scream No, that road is forbidden! and slap her hand away on the spot—but the fact that she was opening up about this worry to me meant her heart had already tipped toward Chloe.
Here, I'd play the stepping stone connecting the two of them and rack up points. I suppose I'll sit back and watch for a while?
Of course, I had not the slightest intention of letting it end there. By any and every means necessary, I would drive the two of them apart.
We're only in first year—more than two years left until graduation. I just need to settle this before then.
If Eva and Chloe started dating, the two of them would become lovers and enjoy a blissful academy life together. The only difference from the original story would be that things moved faster on my side. Let's put that to use, then. The higher you climb, the more unspeakable the despair when you fall.
"Th-thank you. I'll be sure to… bring you good news."
Eva's face brightened like never before.
Her speech kept flip-flopping between formal and casual, which was a bit dizzying, but it was more than enough to get her meaning across, so I let that slide.
"Sure, sure."
Thank me for what, exactly? If anything, I'm the one who should be grateful.
Stealthily, I tilted my head in the direction I could sense Eva's presence.
What should have been reflected in these eyes was pitch-black darkness. Under normal circumstances, seeing anything would have been impossible.
And yet, right now, I was drinking in every last detail of Eva's expressions and movements.
There was magic on the blindfold, so how?
Simple. Because I possess the Usurper—an ability that goes beyond nullifying magic and can steal its authority outright.
The spell woven into Eva's special blindfold had fallen under my control a long while ago.
When I eased the blindfold down, my vision opened up.
I can see. I can see her.
Beneath the moonlight, her naked body, slick with water, stood revealed without a shred of concealment. Her full, generous breasts looked like more than even my large hands could hold, tipped with pale-pink buds. Past the supple curve of her waist, her white skin gleamed in the moonlight—her body was a work of art that deserved to be hailed as the rebirth of Venus, carved by a master sculptor.
Is this heaven?
Voyeurism with zero risk of getting caught—feasting my eyes on her again and again. Could anything possibly be more thrilling, more deliciously depraved?
I was greedily drinking in every inch of her body when—
"Ah… aah!"
Suddenly, Eva's reaction turned strange. Her face flushed beet-red, she raised eyes brimming with shame and hastily covered herself with her arms.
It was as if she'd somehow sensed that I was watching. Did she catch me?
No way. I'd only stolen ownership of the spell through the Usurper—it was still functioning perfectly. There was no way she could have noticed.
Ah!
As I studied her reaction, I suddenly noticed where her gaze had come to rest.
The blindfold was still on, so my eyes hadn't given me away. But I couldn't hide my body's honest reaction too.
Stirred by the visual stimulus, it had swollen up like a raging beast, standing at full attention and flaunting a presence that no pair of trousers could hope to conceal.
For one fleeting moment, I found myself cursing the size of the very endowment I'd always been so proud of.
"Hii… hng…"
And so, that night, one woman's sobs sent faint ripples across the still waters of the dungeon lake.