87. 67 Missions
87. 67 Missions
Athena Guild
1st Floor Anne's Desk
"Yes, you said you're from the NTR Academy, right? A one-month intern, name...."
"....Hey, just asking on the off chance,"
I asked the employee in front of me.
"You're the one I saw back at Ant Cave....?"
"Ah....Aaaah...!!"
We pointed fingers at each other in a peculiar scene.
The employee immediately shot up from her seat and stepped back.
"Don't tell me... you came all the way here because of 'that promise'.....?"
".............?"
A promise?
What promise?
The employee hugged her body with both arms and stared at me with trembling eyes.
"No, of course I had no intention of breaking the promise, you know? I mean, I got busy with various things, transferred jobs, and since the work went well and everything just fell into place I got a bonus, and between meetings and arranged dates my time kept getting taken up───"
"......???"
What was she really on about?
I stared at the employee with the attitude of just letting her talk it out, and soon she whispered toward me as if she'd made up her mind.
"Are you... going to ravish me? Like in those lewd videos...?"
"................"
Why though?
***************
Ant Cave
The promise I'd made toward the employee during the lowest floor boss raid.
Come to think of it, I did say that back then....
When I'd struggled to catch it while using precious skill points, I'd half-shouted and made one promise.
'It was a promise that I'd get one round in exchange for catching the Queen.'
But it was something I'd half-blurted out like nonsense, and since I'd said it without any real intention, I'd completely forgotten about it.
"Then... shall we just forget the promise ever happened?"
"Eii, that's a bit much, isn't it."
"..........."
But now that the promise came back to mind, I had no intention of backing out.
"Do you have some time right now?"
"I just clocked in for work though...?"
"You can just say you're taking a quick break and step out."
"Unauthorized absence from your post is a penalty offense though...?"
"Oh, you wanna do it inside the company? You're way more aggressive than I thought?"
"....That's a joke, right?"
Huh?
"Does it look like a joke to you?"
"..............."
Her face went pale white.
I smiled broadly and answered.
"Of course it's a joke."
".....Ah, aha! Ahahaha!"
Of course it was!
Eii, you nearly gave me a heart attack!
The employee let out a loud laugh with an awkward smile, smoothing over her fluster.
'Though back then it probably wasn't a joke...'
I was already a taken man.
I no longer had any intention of straying elsewhere.
["Oracle" has arrived]
[Main God─Hera: Do not forget about my child]
".......Hrm"
I'd leave that part to the original Protagonist to do his best.
And since I already had an owner, if I started eyeing elsewhere everyone would obviously be disappointed, no?
["Oracle" has arrived]
[Main God─Ur: Doesn't matter. A hero is amorous. Don't forget. You got this!]
[Main God─Ares: A born male naturally leads many females!]
".......???"
Was this right?
Why was everyone pushing me toward a harem like this?
I'm in the pure love faction.
I'm the pure love faction that likes pure love.
It just somehow ended up like two-timing, well honestly it did become two-timing, but I had no intention of evolving into an octopus-leg situation from here.
I shook my head from side to side and finished up the conversation with the employee.
"Mm... still, it feels a bit off to just completely erase the promise, so how about I treat you to a meal later?"
"That's fine too, but by the way, could you help me out with the intern work?"
"Of course that's possible! Mm, let's see. Should I pick out some tips for the work, things you're curious about, or... even easy tasks?"
"No. Rather than that──"
I pointed at the quest board stuck to the wall and asked.
"Requests, how many can I take?"
"Huh.....?"
...
..
.
Internship through the guild.
It was called an internship, but strictly speaking, it was more of an extension of the exams.
The way work was handled was the same as at the Academy.
Take jobs from the board on the wall, resolve them, and earn guild points.
Then, if you gathered more than a certain amount of guild points over a fixed period, you'd get corresponding rewards—a very typical quest structure.
'But the number of quests you can take is fixed, right?'
Because of that, going back and forth all the time meant the maximum guild points you could earn was capped, and Ultimately, to get the best reward, the conclusion naturally emerged that a heroine had to be NTR'd.
Huh?
What's this sudden talk about heroine NTR?
Well, the logic was extremely simple.
The more you went outside to do missions, the more gaps appeared for the heroines.
The more you went out, the more gaps the heroines had, so NTR events inevitably increased.
To prevent this, if you reduced the number of missions, the rewards you could receive decreased accordingly—it was an exam demanding that mannerism──but
"You're going to... take all of these at once....?"
"Yes. Is it possible?"
"Well... it's not like I can't but....."
What if there was no upper limit to accepting missions?
What if there was no upper limit to the guild points you could earn at once?
Furthermore, what if you were already thoroughly sick of grinding and had the method to easily earn points engraved in your head?
"Adding this and that all together, the total number of requests──is 67... you're not saying you'll do all this in a week, right?"
"That's right."
".............."
"If I work a bit hard, I can probably do it in five days."
If I cut down travel time and various other miscellaneous time sinks, it'd be possible within four days.
But no matter what, you couldn't eliminate variables in human activity, so I generously set it at a week.
'That way the points should match perfectly up to the top reward, right?'
On top of that, it'd be enough points to trigger the heroine-exclusive awakening event.
I roughly calculated the things I needed to do in my head and waited for the approval to come through.
"No, no matter how you slice it, this amount... but if it actually gets processed, the bonus would be that big... still, no matter how you look at it, it's not a humanly possible amount..."
"....Are we almost done?"
"..............."
For the third time, she alternated between looking at me and the documents.
The employee quietly stared at me and spoke.
"Chrono Cadet... no, Intern. You are well aware that if you fail the requests or exceed the deadline, there will be penalties accordingly, correct?"
"Yes. I'm well aware."
"Also the fact that even the most elite teams out there usually don't take more than seven..."
"I know that very well."
"And the fact that normally interns are granted mission authority in stages..."
"You can do it for me, right?"
"..........Ha"
The employee quietly sighed.
Soon she tapped the keyboard a few times and stamped the documents.
"Chrono Cadet... Intern, I owe my life to you after all. But, this will be just this once."
"Once is enough."
Because I had no intention of ever doing it again.
I gathered the request forms into my arms and got up from my seat.
"Ah, the request forms are all linked to the cadet account, so you can check them on the 'bracelet' on your wrist."
"....Seriously?"
"It should link the same way at the Academy, did you not know?"
"............"
If I had known that, I wouldn't have been carrying request forms in my arms constantly during missions, right?
Anyway, thanks to that, it seemed I could leave behind the forms that uselessly took up space.
I handed the request forms in my arms right back to the employee and was about to head out to prepare for the missions immediately.
"Chrono?"
"Minerva?"
Just as I was about to leave the guild, I bumped into Minerva at the main entrance.
Unlike usual, Minerva was wearing her Athena Guild uniform instead of the Academy uniform, and she immediately asked me.
"Right now, what are you going out to do?"
"To buy supplies needed for the missions?"
"....By any chance, how many missions did you accept...?"
Aha.
The number of missions I accepted?
"67."
".............Huh?"
"67."
"..............."
Minerva's gaze went blank.
"Then your party members are..."
"None?"
"...The mission period is..."
"A week."
"At least the conscience is... come to think of it, it seems about the same as before..."
The calculation meant I had to finish about 8 to 9 per day on average.
It was roughly similar to the number of requests I'd handled during the midterms.
"...Do you know something, Chrono?"
Minerva approached me and spoke.
"Among the people I can call 'comrades'... Chrono, you are the only one who came to our guild as an intern."
"What? The others.... Ah, aaah...!"
It was an unexpected statement, but when I thought about it, it couldn't be helped.
Right now, the original Protagonist went to the Ares Guild for his internship.
Merk and Yuno naturally followed the Protagonist to the Ares Guild, and Mars, since it was her guild, would have gone to the Ares Guild as well.
Ultimately, the reality was that I was the only one who came to the Athena Guild where Minerva was.
Minerva took one more step toward me and spoke.
"When everyone else followed after Mars, I cannot simply stand by and watch the one 'comrade' who came to find me."
"....Hm?"
The bracelet on my wrist vibrated with a whirr.
Wondering what it was, I checked and it said a [Party Invitation] had come in.
"Let us go together, Chrono. I do not wish to be a lacking person who merely watches a comrade's crisis from afar."
"...It's not exactly a crisis though..?"
"From my perspective, it is sufficiently a crisis."
"......Mm mm..."
Missions.
If you try to power through them, isn't taking on and clearing about 67 a light matter?
'It'd certainly be convenient if I had a party, but...'
Still, I don't like burdening others with my own work.
In the first place, if I'd known someone like you would come along, I would've reduced the mission count a bit.
Or if not that, I would have picked some decent dungeons.
"It's fine. In the first place, the missions I took on to do alone──"
"──'Accept', yes. It is done."
"......Hey?"
As I tried to press the decline button, she outright moved my hand and pressed the confirm button herself.
Ultimately, Minerva and I formed a party, and the missions were shared in real-time.
"The missions are... relatively normal. Gathering, subjugation, and this one is...."
"....Ugh."
I slowly covered my eyes with one hand.
'I'm screwed.'
Why did you go and make that choice?
I just had to wait until Minerva finished reading them all.
"Chrono, unless there is something wrong with my eyes..."
".....Yeah."
Uncharacteristically for Minerva, a slightly trembling voice.
To that, I answered obediently.
"That 'Lustful Clown Mushroom Gathering' mission in the list—you didn't misread it."
"................"
Lustful Clown Mushroom.
What the strategy site called the [Aphrodisiac Mushroom], this thing was...
"...Is this, an ingredient for love potions?"
"Yep."
An ingredient for love potions,
and also,
"If you get hit by the spores during collection, your sensitivity increases tenfold and you fall into a lust state..."
"That's right."
One of the H CG events.
"...According to the reported information, there are also many wild beasts in that area."
"Exactly."
A thing you can see easily in eroge events.
"If you're not careful, you get done in, right."
".....Why did I do this..."
It was the quest for what was commonly called the 'bestiality event'.