Just the Two of Us (2)
Tears had gathered in Layla's eyes.
Her face was flushed scarlet with shame, and those tear-brimmed eyes were fixed on the rock wall.
But glaring at an innocent wall wasn't going to make the situation any better.
Layla, who had been twisting her legs together, suddenly shuddered.
"Ugh…!"
Right now she was fighting a desperate battle against the need to relieve herself.
Her bladder felt ready to burst at any second, and she urgently needed a bathroom—but there was no such thing as a toilet in a place like this.
That left Layla with only one option.
To urinate right there inside the dungeon.
"Hic…!"
At that realization she couldn't help but sob.
Having to do her business in a place like this, with someone nearby no less, was simply too humiliating.
But there was no other way.
If she delayed any longer, she was certain urine would start leaking from between her legs.
Left with no choice, Layla hiked up the hem of her skirt and pulled down her underwear.
The black lace panties slid down, revealing her tightly closed sex.
With the black underwear still hanging around one thigh, she hugged the gathered skirt to her chest and squatted facing the rock wall.
Her pure white buttocks, a stark contrast against the black skirt, were fully exposed beneath the hiked-up fabric.
Twitch.
At that fact Layla trembled slightly.
Squatting outdoors with everything below completely bare felt… better than she had expected.
She knew this was not a normal desire, yet she had already done things like this several times before.
Moreover, simply knowing that someone was right on the other side of this wall made her heart pound fiercely.
Separate from that excitement, her body—rejoicing at finally being allowed to urinate—began to release the urine.
Shiiiisss—
Had her bladder been so full from holding it in too long?
A yellow stream sprayed out vigorously, soaking the rock wall and the floor.
"Mmm…."
Overwhelmed by the profound sense of relief and pleasure, she let out a moan without realizing it.
In this moment, not a single worry crossed her mind.
Layla trembled for a moment in the afterglow, but soon she couldn't help but feel crushing shame.
Trickle…
As the urine began to pool on the floor, it made a wet sound.
This would definitely reach Hex's ears as well, so Layla's face crumpled into a tearful expression.
But she couldn't stop the urine that had already started flowing.
And so Layla had to endure the humiliation for a little while longer.
The weakened stream became residual urine that trickled down her sex.
"…"
Layla's face was a little flushed.
Somehow… it had felt rather good.
I stood facing the opposite wall.
This was the greatest courtesy I could offer Layla while she was taking care of business on the other side.
But the dungeon was a passageway, and this body's senses were uselessly sharp, so every little sound came through clearly.
Layla's soft moans, for instance. Or the drip-drip of urine hitting the ground.
A little later, when I heard the rustling of clothes being put back on, I turned my head.
Layla was emerging from behind the wall, her face bright red.
"…."
She approached me without a word.
…Somehow there seemed to be a faint smell of urine.
As I was focusing on the scent, Layla glared at me with a face that looked ready to cry, so I silently started walking ahead.
A moment later I heard the sound of her following.
I'm gonna die.
The awkwardness was already choking me.
I'd thought we'd gotten close enough recently to make pointless small talk, but this incident felt like it had reset everything back to square one.
I even bought her clothes…
I was feeling needlessly disappointed when Layla's voice reached me.
"…I heard from Via that Kyle and Emily were, um, kissing in the garden?"
"Yeah, they were."
Conversation had finally started, but it wasn't a particularly welcome topic.
Talking about that sort of thing regarding people we both knew was embarrassing and uncomfortable.
Even so, there must have been a reason she brought it up, because Layla met my eyes and continued.
"I'll apologize for misunderstanding you so many times until now."
"All of a sudden?"
"So this is delicate, but if I'm wrong, I'm sorry…."
She looked straight at me and asked,
"You didn't teach Emily anything weird, did you?"
"No."
What was she talking about?
I answered firmly, as if the idea were absurd, but Layla didn't back down.
"But the two of them started acting strange after the day Emily was alone with you."
"That day?"
"The day after we left Aiden, when you were alone with Emily. Don't tell me you don't remember?"
Of course I remembered.
Wasn't that the very day I'd obtained the romance guidebook that had already done me favors just yesterday?
I'd been careful, but I'd gotten caught after all.
When I made a face that showed I had some idea, Layla pressed as if interrogating me.
"See! After that day, Kyle and Emily were a bit weird! What happened that day?"
"I swear I didn't do anything to Emily. If I did anything at all, it was just teaching her a way to share spiritual communion."
"Spiritual communion?"
"Yeah."
When Layla showed interest, I offered an example.
"For instance—at sunset, sitting side by side on a tree stump, leaning against each other, and silently looking up at the sky."
The sky dyed red.
A gentle breeze.
The quiet regret for a day coming to an end.
And the lover sitting right beside you.
The problem is that in that situation Kyle and Emily would be locked in an embrace, mixing tongues, sunset be damned.
Layla thought for a moment, then spoke with a soft smile.
"…That sounds nice."
"Right?"
I'd felt this before, but Layla also had quite the aptitude for pure love.
"Holding hands and walking through a field of flowers is good too."
"With a packed lunch?"
"You know a thing or two."
Layla and I spent a pleasant little while trading the romantic scenes each of us imagined.
Then she seemed to suddenly recall the original topic and looked at me again.
"So you're saying it wasn't something you did?"
"Yeah."
Honestly, I was surprised too.
Of course Emily, who never turned her back even on Kyle's tiny dick and kept giving him unchanging love, was admirable—but how should I put it?
I'd hoped the two of them would have a somewhat soft relationship.
A relationship where just holding hands and walking was enough to make them happy, where a light kiss left them too embarrassed to meet each other's eyes, where they eventually intertwined their fingers and shared their love—that kind of thing.
Instead it had become a relationship where they just mixed tongues like crazy.
It felt like a carefully raised child had dark-evolved on me.
"Then what on earth…."
"Wait. I think it'd be better to stop this conversation here."
When I pointed somewhere for the puzzled Layla, her gaze followed.
Three women stood there: Emily, Mela, and Via, in that order.
To the three of them wearing subtle expressions, Layla asked with a blank face,
"Did you hear?"
"Um, well…."
Mela, stepping forward as representative, hemmed and hawed as if troubled, then finally answered.
"We heard everything."
"…"
Layla's face crumpled into a tearful expression.
Fortunately it seemed only the talk about romantic situations had been overheard.
Even kind Emily wouldn't have welcomed being discussed on that other topic, so it was a relief.
Still, Layla was getting thoroughly embarrassed as Emily and Via said things like,
"So that's what you like."
"You were a total girl."
I asked Mela, who had come up beside me,
"Nothing special on your end?"
"No."
Saying that, she glanced at me sidelong.
Did she have something she wanted to say?
I was about to speak when someone approached from afar.
"Everyone's safe!"
It was Kyle.
While the rest of us had been caught in the transfer magic, Kyle alone had been fine—and the reason was the Holy Sword.
In the setting, the owner of the Holy Sword was unaffected by movement magic.
That was what gave validity to the hero—humanity's greatest fighting force—not rushing straight to the urgent front lines but leisurely traveling on foot.
Left alone at the entrance, Kyle had apparently run hard looking for us.
Come to think of it, it was like that in the game too.
I remembered searching for the scattered companions one by one back then as well.
But since it was a game, you could choose which companion to prioritize finding, and the options that came up were Emily, Layla, and Mela—three of them.
If you chose a companion you could immediately find and join them, but the problem was that after selecting up to the second, the remaining character would join together with Hex.
I hadn't known then, but now I could guess exactly what would have happened.
How fortunate that I took over this body.
I was grateful once again for dedicating this body to preventing one more NTR.
After Kyle joined us, we began the dungeon conquest.
Mechanical golems and traps blocked our path, but none of it posed any real difficulty.
Before long we stood before the deepest chamber of the dungeon, and without waiting we immediately dashed inside.
And what we saw was—
"Guh! Ugh…. You bastards…!"
—a dungeon boss already on the verge of death.