Toward the Forgotten Temple
"U-umm, excuse me... d-did you, uh, find something?"
"Yeah, I just found something really interesting. Heheh, for a bookworm, you sure go at it pretty hard when you're getting yourself off. Is your clit okay? You were squeezing it like you were trying to tear it right off."
"Yeees, I'm fine. Having a big, sturdy clit that's easy to play with is one of my few redeeming qualities. ...That aside, this is just mortifying. Uuuu..."
"Oh my, why? What's so weird about a pussy-girl jerking off a little? If anything, it's something we should be encouraging, right?"
"Well, that's true, but... I was the one who said we should take this seriously, so doing this just makes me look ridiculous."
I did my best, in my own way, to soothe Camille as she started to wilt.
"Aw, that much is fine. We're a bunch of dimwitted pussy-girls anyway, right? The men don't exactly have high expectations for our diligence."
"Y-you think so? Still..."
"It's fine! As long as we properly reflect and keep walking in a direction that serves the men somehow, that's all that matters. It's not like we committed the actual unfaithfulness of defying a man's orders or anything."
Pussy-girls are dimwitted — and that also means nobody expects much from us. No matter what kind of idiotic stunt we pull, the men will just laugh it off. Pussy-girls, am I right? If anything, providing that kind of comic relief could be considered part of a pussy-girl's role.
My consolation seemed to help, at least a little. A faint smile returned to Camille's face.
"That's true. I suppose I was being too hard on myself, considering I'm a dimwitted pussy-girl at my core."
"That's the spirit. You've got to acknowledge and accept the limits of a pussy before you can see anything beyond them."
"Yes! Ah, but I didn't just sit here masturbating and do nothing, you know? I actually found some material that should be useful!"
Now that was music to my ears. If you're going to jerk off, at least get everything else done first. Who could possibly complain?
"What did you find? Show me."
"Well, it's this."
What Camille pulled out was a dungeon exploration record left behind by some adventurer.
"A dungeon? What does a dungeon have to do with any of this?"
"When you hear the word 'dungeon,' what image comes to mind?"
"A dangerous place."
Camille nodded in agreement at my spare answer.
"Yes, that's a perfectly accurate answer. The places we casually call dungeons are basically anything dangerous enough to earn the name. In a narrower sense, it also means a nest of monsters."
In other words, as long as a place met the criterion of being a monster nest, it would be recognized as a dungeon regardless of its origins.
"Some dungeons are nothing more than places where monsters happen to live, but plenty of them have a special history and origin. A mage's laboratory, or the gathering hall of some heretical cult. And it seems there's a place like that near this village, too."
"In a tiny little countryside village like this?"
"Yes. The author seemed quite surprised by it as well. Here's how they described it."
The dungeon appeared to have originated as a sanctuary of vicious heretics. Hideous ghosts with vacant eyes prowled the underground, broadcasting waves of lust that inflamed the desires of women, and ritual implements believed to have been used by the heretics lay scattered throughout the dungeon's depths.
Camille added her own take with what seemed like genuine excitement.
"The dungeon this author described is almost certainly a proper religious facility from the past — one that's been erased by the Common Sense Alteration. Don't you think so?"
"...Actually, I found something too. I'll share it with you."
I handed Camille the records of the brutal abuse that lurked behind this village's history. She examined the book with serious eyes, then sighed and nodded.
"To think a book that so proudly whitewashes such a cruel past still exists. How dreadful. ...And the Manager's insight was right after all. It's impossible to erase every existing record. Distortion like this was the best they could do."
"It would have worked on people swallowed up by the Common Sense Alteration."
But for people like us, whose eyes have been opened, it naturally doesn't work at all. If anything, it only makes righteous fury boil up inside us.
"...There's actually a passage like this in the book as well."
Fearing that wicked parties would unearth these ruins and revive the heretical cult, we have sealed them away.
"Doesn't that mean there might be some method in the ruins that could revive the old customs that have been lost?"
"That makes sense. I'll admit it's intriguing. I am curious what kind of splendid customs they might have had in the old days... But you said it was sealed. Think we can find it?"
Camille flicked her glasses up with a sharp little snap and declared with certainty,
"Don't worry. I'm the type who has a knack for this sort of thing. The author marked the dungeon's location in a cipher used among priests of the Light Church. I can decode it in no time."
"Ohh, now that's reliable!"
Intelligence isn't exactly a critical stat for a Female Slave, but it's still a nice thing to have. Becoming a useful tool for men isn't something a pussy can accomplish on its own, after all.
"As for how to break the seal, we can think about that after we reach the dungeon entrance and examine it. ...More importantly, Astera, do you have any combat ability?"
"Nope. None at all."
I do, actually. I just don't.
I'd rather spend that time packing in other skills that let me serve men with my pussy — even a little — than waste it stuffing myself with some useless combat ability.
"I see. That might be the proper attitude for a Female Slave, but that means it would be dangerous for just the two of us to enter a dungeon."
"You don't have combat ability either, Camille?"
Camille sparked a little electricity across her fingertips.
"I can use a bit of lightning magic. But I'd be nervous relying on it for a proper dungeon expedition. Besides, this isn't even for combat — it's for electric torture."
"Got it. Then I'll figure out how we explore the dungeon. Camille, you handle locating it."
"A timely division of labor, then. Understood."
Calling it a division of labor made it sound impressive, but the truth was I didn't actually have anything particular to do. If I don't know how to do something myself, I might as well lean on my connections, right?
"Thank you so much for being willing to help us like this, Elesa. We're getting a lot of help thanks to you."
"No. If anything, I should be the one thanking you. If there's a dungeon around here I don't know about, I'd pay a premium just to learn of it. Thank you for asking me along, Astera."
The finest dungeon exploration specialist I knew. That was, without question, Elesa. She wanted to explore as many dungeons as possible in her search for her mother, so our interests aligned perfectly. Having Elesa with us — who'd performed so brilliantly in the combat sections of the original game — was reassuring.
...Combat sections?
Wait. This world has combat sections...?
Ah, right. The original game was from a trainer's perspective, not a Female Slave's, so of course it would have things like combat sections. Yeah.
I keep blanking on that.
"Still, I never imagined a dungeon would be submerged beneath a lake this close to the village. Talk about not seeing what's right under your nose."
The place Camille had pinpointed after decoding the cipher was a lake not far from the church-owned land that Priest Veronica administered.
"It's this close to the village, and yet nobody noticed."
"Dungeons basically don't reveal themselves unless they start having a direct effect on their surroundings. Deliberately poking at one is like sticking your hand in a hornet's nest. Under a lake like this, ordinary people would never even notice — which makes it perfect."
The dungeon we were heading for had originally been a proper religious facility of some kind. That a place like that now sat submerged beneath a lake strongly suggested someone had used magical means to erode the ground and then artificially converted the site into a lake.
Just how badly had they wanted to bury it?
Of course, all of this assumed there really was a dungeon under this lake, just as Camille had said.
"It's a good thing Priest Veronica happens to be out on patrol, isn't it? If she'd caught us here, she would have found it suspicious."
That woman was probably out there right now with fire in her eyes, patrolling to protect this village's so-called "fine customs and public morals." Trampling men's rightful privileges and women's happiness underfoot while she was at it — and she couldn't even be bothered to look after the places she was actually supposed to manage. How ridiculous could you get? What an idiot.
"Pwah!"
Just then, Camille's dripping-wet face burst up through the surface of the lake. She was pretty with her glasses on, of course, but her bare face was adorable too. ...Something about her expression, though, was off.
"What's wrong, Camille? Is there nothing down there?"
Had she misread the cipher and sent us on a wild goose chase? I asked with concern at the gravity of her face, but the answer that came back was the opposite of what I'd expected.
"Someone got here before us and broke the seal."
"What?"
The fact that we no longer needed the countermeasures we'd prepared for the seal might have looked like a positive on the surface, but it wasn't. The problem was the intention of whoever had broken it.
What if someone had decided a mere seal was too half-hearted, and was trying to erase the dungeon itself by some other means?
"...Let's go check it out. Now!"
We dove into the lake at once.