Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Spilling the Tea on the Party's Collapse
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"Water."
"Yes, Master."
When I said I was thirsty, Kakchi uncapped the canteen and respectfully poured water into my mouth with both hands.
As you can probably tell, a full day had passed since Kakchi became my slave.
The moment I gripped the collar Kakchi handed me, a change appeared in my status window.
Densi was listed as my currently bound slave. It was a sign that Kakchi was now bound to me.
I had no idea what principle made it work, but...
The fact that it showed up in the status window made it seem far more reliable than some flimsy verbal agreement between explorers built on shaky trust.
Kakchi had started out as little more than a savage barbarian desperate to jump my bones, but now I'd tamed that lust-filled womb of hers, making her realize her place. She had become my faithful servant.
Etiquette training (physical) had clearly worked wonders. I was pleased.
"Clock."
"Current time is 23:11."
"Sleep."
"Your pillow is right here."
Kakchi knelt and patted her thigh invitingly.
Scratch that. Her head was still crammed full of filthy thoughts and perversion.
"Cut the dog tricks, you bitch. I'm going to sleep, so you stand watch."
"Aw, come on. Just once for your slave's job satisfaction? It's soft and comfy."
"Hah. Since when do slaves have jobs?"
"That's some seriously slave-insensitive talk right there."
"Did you talk to Deluna like that too?"
"She's already dead, isn't she? A little disrespect can't hurt."
"That's not what I... Ugh, whatever."
"Heh heh."
Watching Kakchi snicker weaselly made my head throb. Maybe I shouldn't have humored her.
...No. Thinking ahead, this is the right call.
I'd learned the hard way that in this labyrinth city, there was no one I could trust.
After taking Kakchi on as a slave yesterday, I'd gotten the gist of her backstory.
Orphan, slave, that sort of thing.
I needed to know what had happened to her before I could decide whether to trust her or not.
Her expression had been dead serious when she spoke, so it didn't seem like a lie.
— Big Brother, if you trust her, I'll follow your lead... but she was part of a slave-hunter crew. We should be careful...
— Kakchi. Hand.
— Yes.
— ...You okay? Did she hit your head too hard or something?
Even after hearing the rough details, Jermi had stayed wary. But when Kakchi dropped to her knees and offered her hand at my command like a dog, he started worrying about her instead.
At least I'd earned the bare minimum trust as a party member.
— Deluna, my former owner, was a mage leading a party in the Blaz outlaw clan. Her main gigs were slave hunting and breaking in newbies...
Then I heard about all the atrocities Deluna had committed.
A laundry list of crimes: pillaging, murder, slave hunting.
Which made one thing even harder to understand.
Deluna was sitting bold as brass in the Explorer's Union.
Fuck. Those Explorer's Union bastards.
From taking twenty silver coins for a single ID check and not even doing it properly, I'd known they were shady.
— The Explorer's Union building has special wards that bar entry to the 'branded' ones, so don't worry too much.
Was that her way of saying they tolerated criminals as long as they weren't branded?
Are things so dire they're teaming up with crooks, or are they just incompetent...?
I couldn't say for sure yet. As a newbie explorer, I hoped it was the latter.
If it was just incompetence this once, fine. But if the Union's a criminal den, we're screwed...
Assuming the worst, I realized how lucky we'd been that the party implosion was all that happened.
Having a criminal like Deluna in the mix could've dragged us into something even worse.
I'd nodded along blindly when they said they'd match me with party members, but I'd never do that again.
I need reliable comrades I can count on for the long haul.
You can never be too careful with a backstab. One slip, and you're done. Backstabs are that deadly.
That's why they say to backstab the backstabbers' backstabbers, and so on.
How do you prevent backstabs?
The most fundamental way: recruit trustworthy party members.
But it's also the hardest.
"...Why are you staring like that all of a sudden? Something wrong? Wanna smack me? Feeling pissed and need to vent? I'm ready anytime."
In that sense, Kakchi (slave) was a highly efficient tool.
Just give her orders, and no knife in the back.
She got cheeky sometimes, but I didn't feel the need to clamp down too hard.
In this rigid labyrinth, her vibe was a positive for mental health.
And above all...
"...!"
This one was definitely useful.
Kakchi, who had subtly thrust her lower belly toward my fist, suddenly perked up her ears. She peeked her head past the goblin wall.
"...Ugh. Goblins, seven—no, eight...? Coming from behind."
About twenty seconds after Kakchi spoke, goblins entered my perception range through the Great Helm.
Exactly eight. Spot-on accuracy.
Twenty seconds in a labyrinth was an eternity.
Knowing the enemy's numbers and position with that much prep time? No need to spell out how much advantage that gives.
She built that goblin wall like it was nothing from the start. Her ears made it possible, huh?
Thinking back, even when she nearly raped me, it was behind a goblin wall.
I gripped my axe, reminiscing briefly on the past.
We had ample firepower and ample preparation.
We handled the eight goblins without a single injury.
"Die! Die, you fucking mutts!"
Puuk! Puk!
Jermi, eyes rolled back at the sight of goblins, hacked at their corpses.
"...That guy's a bit off in the head."
"You'll get along fine. Seems like a match."
"Why say something so creepy...!"
Kakchi and I watched while harvesting goblin ears and stuffing them into our packs.
Maybe because we'd come from the first floor depths without settling in one spot, but we'd racked up a decent haul of ears.
"......"
I spotted a human ear amid the goblin ones.
I quietly tugged it free, revealing what had once been a person's head.
Good news: Status windows worked on corpses too.
Bad news: That curse on her had some seriously ominous wording. Fuck. Ninety thousand? What the hell?
Marionette...
Back at the orphanage, I'd sometimes catch puppet shows.
Performers for hire would tie strings to their fingers and puppets, making them dance and act with a flick of the wrist. It had fascinated me.
— Do you know who's above me? Huh?! No?!
Deluna's dying spasms came back to me.
Was it just my imagination, or did her head suddenly look like a mannequin—or a puppet's?
"Kakchi. How big is the Blaz clan?"
"Dirty work, not huge size. At best, they scrap with mid-tier clans...?"
98,261st. No mid-tier clan spits out a number like that.
"Then this guy's cur—"
I started to ask since she was the ex-owner, maybe she knew about the curse, but clamped my mouth shut.
Only I have a status window.
Normally, the only way to check blessings or curses was through temple powers.
Gifted or veteran explorers might intuit theirs, but that's limited to the talented few.
Most average explorers hit the temple after every labyrinth run, paying to check what they'd gotten.
Your whole future could flip on one blessing or curse.
Point is, aside from the temple, no one can see others' blessings or curses.
If they asked, 'How'd you know that?!' I'd have nothing.
...Keep the status window secret.
No need to brag about a killer ability. Perfect for exploitation.
Use it sparingly. Only when I need it.
"Huh? What was that?"
"Nothing."
I swallowed the unease and stuffed Deluna's head back in the pack.
"Es-ESCAPE PORTAL!!!"
Ragged-looking Jermi cheered at the white light in the distance.
After two more days pushing past the slave hunters' skirmish, we'd made it to the escape portal unscathed.
The original plan was to camp here and hunt goblins.
The implosion shifted priorities to survival, but with Jermi leveling up and Kakchi joining, our party's strength was back on track.
Part of me wanted to hunt as planned before leaving.
"Anya's rotting faster than I thought."
But Jermi's prized goblin-slayer girlfriend head was on the verge of putrefying, so we bailed on the labyrinth.
"Next run, we could try the second floor?"
Smooth sailing despite two major fuckups.
"Look forward to it. Second floor's my turf. Traps start showing up, so I'll be way more useful."
Kakchi straight-up touted her value.
I let it slide. True, labyrinth clears had sped up since she joined.
"Yeah. Good work."
"......"
A casual pat on the back, and Kakchi froze silent behind me.
Snap—!
I yanked the collar, and her body jolted.
"Hurry up. Let's go."
"......Y-Yes..."
Leading her sticky-voiced, sluggish steps to the portal, a question hit me.
"Does holding the collar count us as a party?"
"Probably. Parties drag slaves in sometimes..."
"Why?"
"Simple lust relief... bait... pretty common."
Come to think, that beastkin party last time had a slave in tow. For that, huh.
"Just hold hands."
"......"
"Yes, Big Brother."
Kakchi and Jermi took my hands.
Every labyrinth trip in and out brings weird revelations.
Ones hammering home how shitty this world is.
Monsters are bad, explorers worse.
No helping it. I'm the weak one.
Just get strong enough to shrug off the bullshit.
Not a bad haul, though.
Slave hunters' loot and gear, maybe criminal bounties, goblin bounties, and most importantly...
Two party members.
One guy, one girl.
One's a girlfriend-head-collecting goblin slayer, the other's a sensitive-eared dog-perv masochist slave ranger, but...
At least I'd found comrades with baseline trust.
Wooong—
We crossed the portal out of the labyrinth.
Shitty time together, see you next week, labyrinth.
A gross floating sensation swept over me.
I cracked my eyes. The familiar-yet-unwelcome labyrinth cityscape greeted me.
Body check: no injuries.
No weird feelings. Status window: no new blessings or curses.
A bit disappointing. A good blessing could've sped up growth.
But no curse was a win. I sighed in relief and checked my party—
"...Huh...?"
Kakchi's stunned voice. Her blessing count hit two.
She'd gained one this run.
But her gaze wasn't on herself. Her shocked eyes fixed on my right.
Jermi was on my right.
A creepy dread washed over me.
Some curses turn you into monsters or drive you insane.
Tales of fresh-out explorers cursed mad, going on rampages—bar gossip staples.
I gripped Jermi's hand tight.
Human hand. Not monster. He felt human in form.
The insanity type, then?
But mental breaks don't show right away... Why's Kakchi so shocked?
Unease rising, axe hand ready, I looked right.
And blankly dropped the hand of Jermi... or what used to be Jermi.
"...? W-Why're you all staring? Big Brother, something wrong with me...?"
"W-Who are you."
"Huh? It's me, Big Brother! No way you forgot me already?!"
He—she—pointed at herself, shocked.
Voice thin and high. Not deep before, but now near-womanly.
It made sense.
A woman's throat makes a woman's voice.
Her body was female now, after all.
"...Huh?"
Jermi (♀) finally sensed something off and looked down.
Probably couldn't see the floor. Boobs in the way.
".........Ah."
She—short gasp, eyes rolled back, fainted. Mental shock overload.
I stared at Jermi, who would live on as a female, and thought:
This is... a blessing? Not a curse?
Two party members.
One guy and one girl.
Now two girls.