Just the Two of Us (1)
When Layla opened her eyes, she was struck by a strange sense of wrongness.
It was the feeling of something that ought to be there simply… missing. Hard to put into words. If she had to force a comparison, it was a little like stepping outside completely naked — except that wasn't quite right either. Back then there had been a thrill of liberation and taboo; now there was only a stifling, helpless emptiness.
She was still sitting there, slightly dazed, trying to pin down the source of that unease, when she felt something watching her.
The moment she realized it was Hex's gaze, the unease snapped into full-blown alarm.
She bolted upright and scanned her surroundings. The scenery was unfamiliar, and aside from Hex and herself, there was nothing — and no one — else.
"You're awake?"
Hex's expression was stiff, locked down hard. Without thinking, Layla tried to cast a defensive spell. The wariness she'd been carrying since she woke had already pushed her guard sky-high.
The magic didn't fire.
"Wh…?"
Only then did she understand what she'd been feeling.
I can't sense any mana?
The current of mana that had wrapped her body day and night, as natural as breathing from the moment she'd first possessed a self, was simply gone. Being unable to wield it left a hollow, staggering sense of loss.
Hex seemed to catch on to why she was panicking. His face twisted as he spoke.
"Looks like mana's nullified in this place."
He held up a torn magic scroll for her to see. A magic scroll was, at the end of the day, just a medium — a magic circle and materials charged with mana. If even stored mana couldn't be used, then every emergency magic tool she carried was dead weight too.
…
Only then did Layla understand why the mere sight of Hex's face had filled her with dread.
Here, there was nothing that could protect her. Not her near-omnipotent mana. Not Kyle, whom she could lean on in a crisis. Not Mela either.
Her eyes fell on Hex's body. Those broad shoulders and wide chest. Arms several times thicker than her own. Large hands, thick fingers. Under ordinary circumstances they would have been the raw, primal markers of a man's appeal. Right now they were nothing but objects of fear.
In this place, he was the absolute symbol of violence. If Hex decided to force himself on her, her slender arms would never stand a chance. The moment that truth settled in, Layla felt fear of him for the first time.
Memories of every hostile exchange they'd ever had came flooding back, and meeting his eyes suddenly terrified her. She refused to let him see it. So instead she looked straight at him — a hard, defiant stare that said she would not bow no matter what he did.
"Tch."
That resolve evaporated the instant Hex clicked his tongue in irritation. Layla was so thoroughly rattled she almost couldn't believe she was this much of a coward.
Hex rose to his feet and spoke to her.
"What are you doing? Get up. We're not staying here."
He turned and started walking as if the only thing on his mind was getting out. Layla watched his back for a moment, then carefully fell in behind him.
For all the fear she'd just been drowning in, Hex made no move to harm her.
"Ah — watch your step here."
If anything, he was looking out for her. Being protected wasn't new, but feeling watched over while she was this powerless — that was a first. And somehow, that fact made her heart beat faster.
After the transfer into the hideout, I confirmed that the person who'd come with me was Layla and let out a breath of relief. With her overwhelming mana, she could protect me no matter what happened.
That didn't mean I had nothing to worry about.
She's not going to start chewing me out for having no eye for danger, is she?
Layla already treated me like an eyesore on a good day. If she decided I was a threat, I had nothing to fight back with. Right now I was an empty shell with next to no combat ability.
Still — no regrets.
I'd had two choices. Give up on getting stronger to protect my pure-love values… or accept Hex's personality so I could become a proper member of the hero party that saves the world.
The answer had been decided from the start.
Was I insane? Give up pure love? I'd already abandoned the fast route home and chosen the slow path for pure love's sake. Accepting Hex's personality was out of the question. There were plenty of other ways to get stronger — no reason to agonize over it.
Being dead weight until then was the only real problem.
By consistently acting the opposite of Hex's personality, my Synchronization Rate had dropped back to zero.
By repeatedly acting against the body's personality, the intermingled soul and flesh have been completely separated.
The power latent within the body rejects you.
[Synchronization Rate fixed at 0%.]
[Understanding of Hex (1) can be performed again.]
Just like that, I couldn't use any skills again. There was an upside, though. Those inexplicable surges of violent emotion that used to flare up out of nowhere were completely gone. No more random outbursts, which made dealing with other people a lot less stressful.
So I'd been glad Layla was the one who'd transferred with me — until a little later, when I had no choice but to get nervous. Before she woke up, I'd checked the dungeon's gimmick. The result was bad. Out of all the randomly applied mechanics, we'd drawn the worst possible penalty for our situation: magic sealed.
To secure any real safety, I needed to wake Layla and link up with Kyle or Mela as fast as possible. This was no time to be leisurely ogling anyone's chest.
…
A little later, regrettably, Layla came to. The moment her eyes opened she scrambled upright with a panicked look — clearly rattled by the absence of mana.
"You're awake?"
Before she could waste charges testing whether her magic tools still worked, I showed her the nullified magic scroll. Her tools were high-grade; burning uses for nothing in a place like this would have been a waste.
She stared at me with complicated eyes, rattled that every means of defense had been stripped away. I'd expected the reaction, but it still stung.
To show her she could trust me, I took the lead.
"What are you doing? Get up. We're not staying here."
We needed out of here yesterday. I was too on edge to sit still. With Layla powerless too, who was going to protect me if something went wrong? Kyle and Mela, obviously. I needed to hurry to the junction where the branching paths reconverged and get under their reliable protection.
We hadn't taken more than a few steps when something suddenly dropped from above — an attack from the rock face.
A mechanical golem!
Its outer shell was camouflaged with stone and sand; I hadn't noticed it at all.
"Ah…!"
Layla stared blankly at the attack flying toward her. She'd instinctively tried to cast a defensive spell, and that half-beat of delay cost her.
I threw myself forward and intercepted the strike meant for her. It was pure desperation — no proper guard, just my head taking the hit.
Clang.
A clear, ringing metallic note, almost refreshing. I hit the ground still holding her and rolled several times.
Layla came to her senses and frantically checked me over.
"A-Are you all right!?"
I'd never seen her this shaken. More to the point — look at me. After a hit that hard, there was no way I was fine…
Except I was?
I stood up without a scratch, and Layla's eyes went round. I muttered without thinking.
"Why am I okay?"
Not so much as a nick. The impact and pain barely registered; what stuck with me more was the feel of Layla's chest pressed against me.
I glanced at the golem. Its weapon was dented. Being a machine, it didn't care and swung again — but once I knew it wasn't a real threat, it stopped being frightening.
As expected of a Golden Sun!
As the hero party's tank, Hex's body had absurd physical resistance. With every skill active, physical damage reduction hit seventy percent — that said it all. Even with zero skills available, base physical defense and raw stat differences meant I barely felt the hits.
Clang. Clang.
I blocked and smashed back, over and over. If the golem had been running on a magic stone, even this superhuman body might not have held. But in a mana-null zone, its power source was nothing more than a dwarven mechanical heart. That put it at roughly the level of an ordinary knight — nothing I couldn't handle.
Screeech. Thud.
A few crushed components later, the golem toppled backward and stopped moving. I clicked my tongue looking at it.
What a waste.
Mela, with her clever hands, might have managed it — but I couldn't extract the power core clean from this finely built mechanical golem. I could rip it out, sure, but then it'd just be a broken mechanical heart, scrap-metal prices only.
I'll bring Mela back later and grab it then.
Decision made, I glanced back at Layla.
She's not thinking my fighting looks clumsy, is she?
I'd been worried that fighting with pure physical force for the first time would look awkward, but thankfully I didn't sense any disdain. If anything, her dazed expression suggested she still hadn't fully accepted a world without magic.
Looking at her, a thought slipped out unbidden.
She's pretty.
Something about how unlike her usual self she looked made her seem… cute. I startled at my own thought and shook my head hard.
Get a grip. Remember what she's normally like.
I called up the usual Layla. The way she'd look at me with open disapproval, then smile the second she saw Mela. The way her chest bounced when she walked and she never seemed to notice or care. That perpetually confident face when she talked.
…
All I could remember were the attractive parts. And the gap between that usual self and the way she looked now only made her more appealing.
But I was already involved with Mela in that way. As a devotee of pure love, I had no business harboring special feelings for another woman before Mela made her choice.
I steeled myself and turned.
"Let's go."
I started walking — and heard no footsteps behind me. Frowning, I looked back. Layla was standing there, somehow restless and fidgety.
She looked at me and said,
"Go on ahead for a bit."
"What are you talking about? Who knows what else might show up?"
I hadn't sensed the mechanical golem at all until it attacked. No living presence meant no way to track an enemy's position. Leaving Layla alone with zero means of self-defense was absolutely out of the question. She had to know that, so I stared at her, puzzled.
"What's going on?"
"Just go first. I'll catch up right away…"
Her voice was oddly strained, nothing like her usual composure. I looked at her face.
"Give me a reason I can accept, and I will."
Layla hesitated — then suddenly flinched, her whole body tensing. Her face went scarlet as she forced the words out.
"I-I need to use the bathroom…!"
…
God of pure love, please preserve my sanity.