Partran Festival (4)
It wasn't hard to guess why that number had gone up.
What else could that damn perverted pedophile of a Chief God possibly want?
He wants to manufacture more of my shameful past, watch me squirm in mortification — and, of course, sneak a look at me in a dress while he's at it.
"Oh, but surely the Chief God has some profound design in mind," you say?
Profound? Really?!
Lol, as if a guy who pulls this kind of garbage has anything resembling a deep thought in his head!
Ugh. So annoying.
It's not like I just phoned that quest in, you know.
I walked into an auction house wearing that humiliating costume and bought the Bracelet of Play on top of it.
And I hadn't even cleared the quest with that. I'd only managed to knock out four of the quest conditions so far.
The rest I was still grinding through, relying on my recovering body and my luck!
And now he's bumping up the numbers just because it looked like I'd clear the quest without any trouble?! Hey, you lousy Chief God bastard! Do you even have a conscience?!
You're supposed to be the Chief God — hide your sleazy little agenda and act dignified for once!
Why are you trying to steal away the tiny sliver of faith that still lives in my heart?!
Did you actually want to be cursed out like this?!
Wait. Don't tell me that's part of the plan too? Were you trying to knock out all three objectives at once?! You dirty, dirty gamer!
Haaaaah.
Calm down. Cursing out the lousy Chief God doesn't change anything anyway.
That bastard enjoys being insulted. Rather than indulging the warped desires of a pathetic Chief God, I'm better off thinking about what comes next.
After letting out one long internal sigh, I turned my gaze back to the quest window.
The number wasn't the only thing that had changed. There was something different beneath it, too.
🎁 Reward: A massive increase in reputation, ???
⚠ On Failure: Attend the party wearing Lucy's past outfit, ???
The first thing that jumped out was that the word massive had been tacked onto the reputation boost.
I had no idea how exactly that would manifest, but the reward had clearly gotten bigger than before.
And then there were the question marks attached to both the reward and the punishment.
Going by everything I'd experienced so far, those meant something extra tacked on top.
In other words, along with the quest becoming harder to clear, both the prize and the penalty had been upgraded as well.
The penalty.
The penalty, huh.
What on earth could that question mark be?
It probably wouldn't be anything as extreme as a game over, at least.
Anything that serious, he'd show me outright.
As I mulled it over, a quest from the past suddenly came to mind.
Something humiliating I'd been shown back when I went to meet the Face-Connoisseur Fox.
If that had been offered as a penalty, it meant the quest could actually force my actions as a punishment.
The moment that thought landed, a thousand scenarios came rushing through my head.
The party being held at this Partran Festival was a big one.
A party thrown by the Ducal House to celebrate the festival. Practically every influential noble in the kingdom would be in attendance. Even without the First Prince, who'd been staying holed up in the capital, showing his face, it would have been an enormous affair.
And if I caused some kind of scene in the middle of all that? The rumors would spread across the entire continent in the blink of an eye.
Awful rumors circulating, my reputation tanking, my shameful past getting preserved in amber for eternity and—
...
No. Stop imagining things like that.
Think positive thoughts only.
In the end, if I clear the quest, the reward just gets bigger, right?
The lousy Chief God may be a pervert with a cracked sense of values, but he always pays out properly.
There was definitely something in that question mark that would be useful to me right now.
Which meant that, in the end, my job hadn't changed at all.
Clear the quest.
Claim the best seat at this festival.
And crush the lousy Chief God's little scheme.
No idea why it's the Chief God pulling dirty tricks instead of an Evil God, but whatever.
Let's do the math.
I'd won at five stalls so far, which meant I needed nine more victories.
Counting things up, there were twelve stalls I hadn't attempted yet — so I had exactly three chances to fail.
Even assuming I could pass the pure-luck games off with the Bracelet of Play, and lean on Grandpa for anything involving memory or knowledge, the physical challenges were mine and mine alone to handle.
With my body in the absolute trash state it was in right now.
The one silver lining was that I'd already knocked out the challenges I felt least confident about.
What remained were the ones I'd been comparatively sure of.
The kind I could have managed no problem, if only my body had been in normal condition.
All right. Don't think about what comes after.
What's right in front of me is what matters.
Unless I can force that question mark of the lousy Chief God's into the open, failure simply isn't an option.
I'll worry about later when later gets here.
With my mind made up, I sprang to my feet.
"Lady Lucy Aln?"
"Lady Aln?"
I'll head on ahead.
"The food here is a bit too lousy for my tastes. I'll be going on ahead."
"Huh?"
"Milady?!"
Leaving their stunned faces behind me, I stepped outside and went looking for one particular person.
Someone who'd been invited to the Partran Festival, and who had no other engagements for the rest of the break — someone who was without a doubt lingering somewhere around here.
Finding her wasn't difficult.
She was the kind of person who drew every eye in the room, though for very different reasons than me.
Follow the currents where the crowds pooled thickest, and her figure appeared naturally at their center.
Pushing through the packed masses by sheer presence alone, before long I spotted Phoebe and the Church delegation in the middle of the crowd, exchanging warm smiles with those around them.
The path parted as I stepped forward, and Phoebe noticed me.
The instant our eyes met — that was all it took — her expression shifted dramatically.
Her eyes widening faintly, she quickly settled into a bright, innocent smile.
That smile was beautiful enough to make anyone who laid eyes on her believe, just for a heartbeat, that it was meant for them alone,
and devastating enough that, the moment they realized it wasn't, they couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of jealousy and disappointment.
"Please wait just a moment."
As I moved to follow Phoebe's smile, a knight stepped forward and blocked my path.
Stubborn loyalty to his lady, no doubt — even with bewilderment plain on his stiff face.
"Sir Knight. It's all right."
"But, Holy Maiden—"
"Lady Aln is a friend of mine from the Academy."
But even that loyalty proved powerless before the smile of the one he was sworn to protect.
As Phoebe gently pushed his shoulder aside, the wall called 'knight' crumbled away.
"It's been a while, Lady Aln."
It has. Phoebe.
"Yeah. Good to see you, lousy Saintess."
At the words lousy Saintess, shock washed over the faces of the clergy around Phoebe — and the onlookers who'd gathered just to catch a glimpse of her.
It was only because Phoebe didn't react at all that no storm of condemnation came pouring in from behind me.
Even now, I could see people mouthing the things they clearly wanted to say.
"So you came early to enjoy the festival. If I'd known, I would have arrived sooner myself."
Maybe because it had been so long since we'd last met.
Phoebe looked like she had a mountain of things she wanted to talk about.
Under normal circumstances I'd have been happy to chat with her, but not today.
I had something far more urgent on my plate.
Raising the ring Alsatin had given me before to muffle the noise around us, I spoke up.
Phoebe. I need a favor.
"Lousy Saintess. Even a sloppy mess like you can manage one thing, right?"
It was a rather unreasonable demand, but Phoebe didn't question it for a second.
"What would you have me do?"
Give me buffs.
"Give me buffs."
What do you do when your physical capabilities fall short?
Simple. You fill in the gap.
To the point where it rivaled a body in perfect condition — or maybe even surpassed it.
"What kind would you like?"
Well...
"To start with..."
There were two reasons I'd come looking for Phoebe even though I could cast divine magic myself. Her holy magic was simply more potent — but the bigger reason was that Phoebe could use practically every kind of buff in existence.
My body, still deep in recovery, was a wreck.
Even doping with a cocktail of potions was more than this body could currently stomach.
So the plan was this: use Phoebe's buffs to lay down a foundation, then stack doping on top to drag my specs up to the absolute ceiling of what was currently possible.
With specs like that, clearing the stalls would be easier than the game ever was.
In the game, it had been a pure contest of skill — but now I could use every skill I actually possessed.
"Lady Aln. Too many buffs turn to poison. In the end, it's your body that has to bear them all."
As she listened to my request, Phoebe tried to talk me down with a worried look.
She wasn't wrong.
Excessive buffs invite penalties down the line.
Just look at the wreck my body became after working that miracle.
It would feel wonderful to have outstanding specs right now — but the aftereffects waiting when the buffs ran out would be exactly as crushing as the buffs were powerful.
It wasn't as if I didn't know. Those penalties existed plain as day in the game, too.
Knowing all that, I was still going to dope.
No telling how many days I might spend bedridden afterward — but this was to settle what was right in front of me.
To smash the lousy Chief God's scheme to pieces.
And for the sake of my dignity!
I have to do this.
"Spare me the useless lecture and hand over the buffs, lousy Saintess. I have to do this."
Phoebe deliberated for a moment after hearing me out — then clasped her hands together and began to pray.
The buff that began with her prayer wrapped itself around me, and the heaviness in my body grew light.
"Don't push yourself too hard."
I'll try.
"Who's worrying about who here? I'm nowhere near sloppy enough to need worry from someone lousy like you."
"And if you're in pain later, please call for me. Healing is my specialty, after all."
Now that's a little tempting.
I'll consider it if I ever feel like becoming a frail, sickly mesugaki girl. See you around, Phoebe.
Saying our goodbyes with a promise to meet again, I left Phoebe behind and immediately opened my Inventory.
Between the stock I'd been hoarding since long ago and what Karia had wrung out of the House of Georck, the variety of potions inside was enormous — but only a handful of them were ones I needed now.
Physical enhancement. Vitality boost. Awakening effects. And a few more to shave the penalties down as far as they'd go.
"You handle the mixing like a seasoned hand. You've done this a great deal, haven't you."
A great deal. Do you have any idea how I suffered researching maximum efficiency?
Though in the end, someone else's published research turned out to be more efficient, and I had to throw everything of mine away.
"Still, you'll be bedridden for days after this."
Grandpa clicked his tongue as he watched me drink the potions down.
Mmm. Yeah, I figured. I did my best to soften the penalties, but there's only so much you can do.
"Is this festival truly worth going this far for?"
Orders from upstairs.
"...What in the world does the Chief God want from you?"
Having finished my doping regimen, I made for the stall I'd already marked as my starting point.
The theme here was strength.
All I had to do was smash a board — one treated through both physical and magical processes — with a wooden mace nearly as tall as I was.
The stall owner handed me the mace, and I took a deep breath before hoisting it overhead.
A murmur rippled through the crowd at the sight.
"Oh. She lifted it."
"How is a body that small producing that kind of strength?"
"Well, she is an Aln."
"No chance. Even Magar couldn't break that thing. No way some little girl can."
"Her stance is decent, but those skinny arms won't manage it."
I ignored every word of it.
Because there was a voice inside me I trusted more than any of theirs.
"Go on, then."
Over the break, I had practiced — and practiced, and practiced — the handling of divinity, hundreds upon thousands of times.
What I was about to do now was nothing more than adding a single entry to that endless count.
There was no such thing as a mistake left in me.
As the divinity-laden mace came down, the board split clean in two, blasting the murmur into silence.
Yes.
In this body, in this state, I can do this.
I can clear the quest.
Just you wait, lousy Chief God.
I'm coming to find out exactly how incredible the reward you've got waiting for me really is.