No Easy Mode in My Romance Fantasy #3
"Would you cut it out already… Do you really hate seeing me eat well and live well that much?"
The instant I thought I'd cracked a bug route, they slapped a time limit on me. And the penalty was death. I'd have believed it if the admin of this world had dropped a targeted hotfix aimed straight at my skull. This was spite with a sniper scope.
It's working as intended~ Mad about it? Then uninstall.
If this world had a god, that bastard's personality was seriously warped.
"What's wrong… Brother? Are you okay?"
Ariella was looking at me, all worry. I didn't have the presence of mind to tell her I was fine.
A new moon? And the deadline's tight, too.
The new moon—the hour when shadow completely covers the moon. In This Life I Shall Become a Villainess, the heavens of this romance-fantasy world moved exactly as Earth's did, and the calendar was a straight copy of the Gregorian. Which meant I had roughly thirty days to clear a single floor.
When was the last new moon? I'm sure…
The night I first dreamed of Sheol. Right. It had been unusually dark; I'd stumbled more than once on the way back. The day I first entered Sheol was March 5th.
Then… thirty days later is April 4th. Tonight is March 17th, so… oh, for crying out loud. About seventeen days left?
If I dreamed once every three days, that meant I could come back maybe five or six more times. The problem was I had no idea how many rooms there were.
"Ariella? Do you happen to know how many rooms there are here?"
"Dunno? There probably aren't that many."
Not the most reassuring answer. If I'd known it would come to this, I wouldn't have wasted time cheesing the clock. I should've just cleared it properly.
"I'm so screwed…"
I spent a good while with my head in pieces, but as the minutes passed I pulled myself together.
…Whatever. All I can do is think optimistic.
There was no answer right now anyway. Pray the rooms were few, or pray I dropped into Sheol more often. I couldn't just sit here and die, could I?
"Right. Let's go optimistic. Optimistic… whew."
"What's optimistic?"
"Mm… it's believing everything's going to work out from here on, even if you've got no reason to."
"No reason? Nuh-uh, Brother. You do so have a reason! You've got Ariella, don't you?"
She thumped her chest, all proud of herself. Watching that little gesture, I felt a bit better. That was right. I'd already come this far through a mountain of spite. From here on I just had to… survive, somehow.
And then I would build a harem. I deserved a reward. Damn right.
Yeah. If I just stayed alive.
"Ariella… do you think I can do it?"
"Of course! Brother can do it!"
"…Thanks. That actually helps."
"Ahem, don't mention it!"
So what did I need to do first? Get ready to move forward, whatever was waiting out there.
Oh, right. Come to think of it…
The silver coin I'd picked up in 1-A surfaced in my memory. I asked Ariella on the spot, just to be sure.
"Ariella. I found this silver coin. Do you know what it is?"
"Huh? That's a silver coin. Brother, that's what I was talking about! If you bring me these, I can give you stuff like last time."
Just as I'd figured. So the coin was currency for Ariella's shop. I let a little hopium bloom—maybe I could snag even one more item while I was here—but—
"Something to give you? Nope. I told you last time. I didn't think you'd show up so soon…"
"But it's been days?"
"I've been with you the whole time, haven't I? If I want to give you something, we have to meet in a different room."
So she said. Apparently the shop restocked only when I advanced to the next room. I didn't really understand how Sheol was put together, or how Ariella even found these items—and asking her probably wouldn't help. As a rule, she never gave a proper answer about Sheol's layout. Maybe there was a rule that she couldn't speak of it.
Anyway, no trading. Then other ways to prepare…
The person who leapt to mind was Cordelia. And then the argument started in my chest.
Ah, damn it… I told Talia I wouldn't see her. Why'd I have to say that? Meet her in secret?
…No. I didn't think I could. I didn't want to see Cordelia. Even setting Talia aside, just remembering how she'd kept ramming a sword into my chest that day still made me shudder. That woman was not normal. Her chest was, admittedly, extremely compelling—but even so, I did not want my life threatened.
If I had to meet her, it would be after I'd gotten stronger. After I beat her down with force, and she said something like, You've really gotten strong… do as you please, I would bury my face in that chest to my heart's content and thirst after her enormous maternal instinct… hnnngh….
"…Brother, your face looks weird."
"Sorry."
Mm. Setting the filthy daydream aside—thinking about it, hadn't I gotten a rough feel for the training last time? I knew how to practice now, so if I just kept repeating aura absorption, I ought to be able to fight well enough in Sheol. Right? And if I really needed help, I could always borrow Talia's power.
While I'm at it, let's try training. I've never practiced in Sheol before.
First I drew the Demon Crystal Sword. Something I'd learned: items obtained in Sheol could be stored and withdrawn just by imagining it, like an inventory. No explanation. It simply worked.
Okay. Aura not outward, but inward…
I reached for the sensation from before. Instead of straining to vent aura, I gathered it inside. Then power would naturally spill in through the palm, and—
"…!"
The sword's mana and my aura connected. Wait. That was way too easy.
I understood why soon enough. When I circulated aura in the real world, I had a reflexive habit of dumping it outside my body. The training was hard because I kept trying to release the very aura I was supposed to take in. But here, where I couldn't release aura in the first place, all I had to do was focus on receiving. On top of that, unlike a rod with a modest charge of mana, the Demon Crystal Sword was packed full of it. So just cracking the aura channel a little let the mana surge in like a flood…
"…Huh?"
Like a flood, mana poured in from the sword. Something felt off. I hadn't gotten this with the rod. That rod had held a moderate amount of mana, so the circulation of aura and mana had settled quickly into a stable loop. But this sword held more mana than I could fully take in, and that mana started pouring through without even giving me a chance to circulate it.
"…B-Brother?"
"Hold on, I think this is fu—"
I dragged Cordelia's teaching back up. I had to take in the incoming mana and circulate my aura. But how? I could barely even receive it, let alone circulate it. No. Impossible. I couldn't control this with my will.
"…Khack!"
I coughed, and blood came up. At the same time my vision tinted red. Blood tears? I felt sticky blood leaking from my ears as well. I knew this phenomenon. This was that. That.
"Brother, are you okay? Brother!!"
Bleeding from the seven orifices. The classic symptom of qi deviation.
Talia. That's not what you said!!
You said aura didn't have things like qi deviation!! You said you didn't get your aura tangled up while training!!
In that instant, another thing Talia had said came back to me.
Ah. So she had told me. My fault for letting it go in one ear and out the other. The GOAT who never said anything but the truth… I miss you, Talia the Great!!!
…Okay, not really the time for jokes.
At this rate I was actually going to die.
"B-Brother. Stay with me! Hurry!!"
In that moment Ariella threw her arms around me from behind, and through the press of her small body, mana surged in.
"…!"
And then I could breathe.
"…Khack! A…riella?"
"Brother, stay awake! If you die, hic, you can't, you just can't. Euhk, waaah…!"
Ariella clung around my waist, sobbing. An unbelievable torrent of mana poured out of that tiny body. The single flood I couldn't control had now become two. At a glance it looked worse, but—
It's actually easier to control!
The mana flooding in through my hands from the Demon Crystal Sword and the mana rising from around my waist from Ariella began to antagonize each other. The quantity had increased, but the forces canceled out. Now I just had to sink this power into my dantian.
Wait. Is the dantian down below? That's confusing. In wuxia terms, roughly the middle dantian—so I just had to push it into the source of my aura, seated around the heart.
Hot. It's fucking hot!
The aura I took in was wrung out through my heart and bloomed again as my own. Then I sent that aura through my whole body and circulated it. And the final step: if I folded this aura I'd made my own back into the flow of mana coming from the sword, and took even that incoming mana as part of my own aura—
"Cough, kh, krrrgh…!!"
At last it ended. This was the state in which the sword and I had become one. Unity of Body and Sword.
"Hah, ugh, haa, haa…"
Of course I hadn't reached some enlightened wuxia realm. I'd just connected the sword and my aura the way Cordelia had taught me. Anyway—I'd succeeded in controlling it. The blood flowing from every orifice of my body slowly stopped.
"B-Brother…? Are you okay now?"
Ariella asked, worried. I finally had the strength to answer.
"Yeah… Ariella. Thank you. Haa, you saved me again…"
"Uuu, Brother…"
She cried into my chest. It was hard, but I rested a hand on her head and stroked her hair.
"Ariella. Haa, I'm fi—"
Then a status window appeared, and announced my success.
Unity of Soul and Flesh
🎁 Reward: The sinner's aura manipulation ability is enhanced.