A Man and Woman Who Gain Magic Power from Lewd Acts #4

Before we formed our fixed party and parted ways for the night, we laid down a few ground rules.

Rules we'd need to follow while tackling quests together.

The first rule was a ban on ditching the fixed party on a whim. We set a firm one-month term, meaning the party couldn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be arbitrarily dissolved during that period. Unless there was some special reason, we'd agreed to stick together for the month.

The second rule concerned mana training. Namely, whether it was acceptable to request lewd favors from your partner to build up mana over the course of a month. I made sure to settle this one crystal clear.

"Forcibly jumping the other person is off-limits. We only do lewd stuff after mutual consent."

"Now that's a healthy rule. I like it."

After that, we hammered out the final rule.

"Earlier, I told you to ask me anything if you were curious, right?"

"Yeah, since I've only been an adventurer for a short while. I'll probably end up leaning on you quite a bit going forward."

"At first, I'd just planned to answer straight-up, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I'd be getting the short end of the stick. I mean, I'm not your parent—teaching you every little nitpicky detail would be a pain, right? So I figure I should get a little something in return."

"In return...?"

"Let's do this. For every ten questions you ask me about adventurer work, you grant me one favor. It'll just be a light favor, so no need to get too wound up about it."

I scratched the back of my head as I spoke.

Honestly, just feeding her info for free out of the goodness of my heart would've left me feeling pretty shafted. I might not look it, but all the adventuring know-how I've got was picked up by running myself ragged doing every kind of grunt work imaginable. I pounded the pavement for it, and sometimes even shelled out hard-earned coin to acquire that knowledge. It might seem a little stingy, but I can't just give away knowledge for free. I've gotta receive some small 'compensation' for passing on information.

"Well, nothing in the world is free. You've gotta pay tuition if you want to learn something. Still, I do have a question about this 'favor' you mentioned."

"What's that?"

"You aren't planning to make me do something weird, are you?"

Rebecca crossed her arms and fixed me with a wary look. I just shrugged.

"And what if I am?"

"If it's too weird, I'm not doing it."

"You don't need to get so tense. I said it'd be a 'simple favor,' no matter what—didn't I? I won't ask for anything that crosses the line. Besides, if you really don't want to grant a favor, there's a way out."

I bent my thumb and forefinger into the shape of a coin.

"Just cough up five copper. If you don't want to do the favor, you just give me five copper instead. We'll use that money as a public fund for our fixed party. It'll go toward things that benefit both you and me."

"Hmm."

Rebecca hesitated a moment, then nodded as if convinced. Five copper wasn't a crippling sum of money—not something she couldn't pay. And since it would go into a public fund rather than straight into my own pocket, from Rebecca's perspective, the deal wasn't a total loss.

"Fine. Five copper's nothing."

Rebecca accepted my proposal without batting an eye.

"So the rules are all set, then? Anything else we should add?"

"We can tack on more rules whenever we need to during the month we spend together. Let's look forward to getting along, Rebecca."

I grinned and extended my hand toward Rebecca. Rebecca wore a slightly awkward expression as she shook it.

That was the moment—right in front of the library—a Bronze Tiered duo party came into being. Calling it a 'Bronze party' makes it sound weak as fuck, but who gives a shit? What matters is that two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠people who get along have formed a combo.

'So how's this party going to look in a month, I wonder...'

I was already starting to get curious about the future a month from now.

After spending a whole month together with me, would Rebecca still stick around? You can't force someone who's not into it to stay, after all. If she ever wants to leave, I'll have to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠let her go.

'Guess I've gotta watch my behavior over the next month.'

Turning over all kinds of thoughts, I headed back to the inn.

Rebecca was staying at a different inn, so the two of us naturally split off in separate directions.

*

It happened when I got back to my room at the inn and flopped down onto the bed.

I'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already had dinner, so the plan was to knock out for a long nap. Sleep deep until the dead of night, wake up to pound some jerky as a midnight snack, then lie back down and set sail for dreamland. Even I thought it was a flawless plan, but even after pulling the blanket over me and closing my eyes, sleep didn't come easy.

It felt like I'd forgotten something. That nagging feeling you get when you've let something important slip your mind.

'What the hell am I forgetting?'

I stroked the horns on my head and sank into thought.

After mulling it over a good long while, I finally dredged up what I'd forgotten.

"Ah, magic training!"

I flung the blanket aside in an instant and shot up out of bed. I'd nearly skipped the single most important part of my daily routine. Sure, I'd done magic training that morning, but there was no way I could blow off the evening session.

"Sex."

Muttering the word 'sex' for no particular reason, I stepped outside. Come to think of it, magic training really isn't all that different from sex. If it's something you enjoy and find fun from the doer's standpoint, isn't that basically sex? That's how much I'd come to genuinely relish my magic training time lately.

My training spot was the same as always: an alleyway. The western street in Yoen-su City. A place where abandoned, derelict buildings clustered together. Supposedly, the lord had launched a massive construction project on this street a long time ago, but the whole plan got scrapped midway for some reason. Thanks to that, the western street gave off the vibe of a ghost town, packed with cast-off husks of buildings.

Which, in other words, meant there was nobody around to stop me even if I practiced Magic Missile until I'd fired it ten thousand times.

I stood a chunk of wood upright on the ground and began weaving hand seals.

"Magic Missile."

Once again today, a shining sphere of mana sliced through the empty air with vigor. I vented my stress by blasting Magic Missile after Magic Missile. Naturally, almost none of the mana spheres actually struck the chunk of wood. Most just flew off hopelessly wide and smacked into the ground.

After running through firing drills for quite a long while, I got worn out and decided to take a brief breather. I walked over to where the chunk of wood sat, plopped my ass down on the bare ground, and sat there. It was just when my spinning head had cleared up a bit.

I'd been gazing absently in the direction of the wood when I spotted a peculiar set of marks. Holes—cratered into the ground by the impact of Magic Missiles.

"Huh?"

The holes, each dented in about the size of a coin, were all clustered together in a circular ring around the chunk of wood. Last time I trained, the spots where holes appeared had been completely erratic. But the holes made today followed a distinct pattern.

In my past life, I'd been an active-duty soldier who finished his full term. Over twenty-six months of military service, I'd gone through my fair share of marksmanship training. Thanks to that, I quickly grasped what those holes pitting the ground meant.

'A shot group has formed.'

Shot group. It refers to the consistent shape the impact points form around a target. The tighter the shot group, the higher the accuracy; the more spread out, the lower the accuracy. In my current situation, something you could definitely call a shot group had formed on the ground around the chunk of wood.

"Oooh...!"

I stared down at the ground, my voice brimming with delight. Didn't a shot group forming mean my accuracy had increased compared to the last session? Only now did I feel the payoff for dragging myself to this alley every single day and firing spheres till I was half dead.

So how exactly was I supposed to actually hit the target? I can't exactly adjust the clicker on this thing like a rifle, now can I?

My joy was short-lived. I gazed at the chunk of wood and sank into thought. Maybe if I pondered this a bit more, I could find a way to skyrocket my accuracy. I got to my feet and started circling the chunk of wood I'd planted on the ground. Pacing around in a circle on the spot was a habit I'd often had in my past life whenever I was deep in thought.

'Shift the firing point a little to the side? Feels like that'd just make my shots fly even wider.'

'What if I brace the arm I fire the sphere from somehow? Should I try steadying the spell-casting hand with my free hand?'

One method came to mind, and I decided to test it on the spot.

I set up another chunk of wood under the same conditions as before and put some distance between myself and the target. Before I knew it, a mana sphere was floating above my palm after I'd formed the hand seals.

Let's think about this calmly. Every time I discharged a mana sphere, there was always recoil against my palm. The moment I fired the sphere, force was applied in the opposite direction. It only made sense that this recoil ruined accuracy, so I needed a method to mitigate it. That's why I used my other hand to grip the wrist of my firing arm.

"Huuuh..."

Let's think of this like firing a gun. I imagined the gap between my middle and index fingers was a sight post. I held my breath as much as possible and lined up the chunk of wood, far off in the distance, between my fingers.

The very instant I imagined a virtual aiming point hovering on the surface of the wood...

BANG—!!

I launched the mana sphere.

And then, something astonishing happened. The mana sphere—which until now had been completely impotent and always veered off-course—struck the dead center of the chunk of wood with pinpoint precision. The shock delivered in a single blow shattered the wood into splinters on the spot.

'That's it!'

Of course, I couldn't be satisfied just because I'd hit it once. It could've just been a lucky fluke.

I repeated the firing drill without letting my guard down. I practiced hitting chunks of wood I set on the ground with mana spheres.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Not every single mana sphere hit the wood. But my accuracy had definitely gone way up. Out of ten shots fired, barely one or two went astray. A ninety-percent hit rate is more than enough to call a passing grade. Even when I'm playing an RPG, if the enhancement chance is ninety percent, you bet I'm mashing that button without breathing.

"Heheh... heheheheheheheh."

I started cackling like a man possessed in the middle of the night. That's how happy I was that my magic skills had improved. From today onward, I'm no longer a Forking Mage. I've evolved into a far more useful bead-spitter.

'Coach Cltem, I'm no longer your successor.'

It looked like I'd be able to sleep like a log tonight.

The next day, I met Rebecca in front of the Adventurer's Guild. Since we'd set a meeting time so we could go do a request together. Rebecca had been waiting outside the guild building for me since early. Maybe she wasn't fully awake yet—her red hair was a bit disheveled.

"You're here, Luke. Now we just go in and take a request, right? Since we're a fixed party, we'll be moving together."

"Hold up a sec. There's something I wanna show you before we go inside the guild."

"Just show me quick. Ugh, I'm dead tired."

Meeting early in the morning, Rebecca was running on low blood pressure. She probably isn't the type who wakes up easily.

Still, I had a surefire plan to blow away the sluggish mood in an instant. It was the Magic Missile whose accuracy I'd dramatically improved just yesterday.

"Watch closely. I'm gonna fire a Magic Missile."

"Isn't that the magic where you shoot a bead from your palm? Why demonstrate that here?"

"Because my Magic Missile's become something completely different from the one you saw before. You could call it Magic Missile 2.0 now. You can look forward to it."

"Haah—?"

Rebecca made a dumbfounded expression.

"You see that bit of stone sticking out over there? I'm gonna try to hit it with a mana sphere."

I pointed with my finger toward a jagged stone spur jutting up from the steps at the lower part of the building. It was a stone spur that people coming in and out of the Adventurer's Guild frequently tripped over.

An obnoxiously large spur of rock that nobody ever bothered to remove, so accidents kept happening over and over again. Truly, a perfect example of the self-centered rat race that defines the Midgard Continent.

"Magic Missile."

I fired a mana sphere at the stone spur. Since I'd aimed with delicate precision, there was no chance it would miss. Crack! The stone spur, hit squarely by the mana sphere, shattered cleanly into smithereens.

"Wow, you actually nailed a tiny target like that. Back when we fought the kelpie at the lakeside, you couldn't land a single hit."

"I figured out the trick for landing my spheres. Pretty impressive, right?"

I put a little extra swagger into my shoulders and puffed up with pride. Then, I discreetly lifted my head to gauge Rebecca's reaction.

Had I overdone it? I was a little worried she might scoff at me. All I'd wanted to do was show her my skills had improved.

But Rebecca didn't mock me.

"That's great. Congratulations, Luke!"

Rebecca clapped me on the shoulder and beamed brightly. A pure smile, with no trace of any negative undertone mixed in at all. The moment I saw Rebecca's smile, I felt a little twinge of genuine emotion.

I never thought the day would come when someone would congratulate me in this cold-hearted otherworld. It was something I couldn't even have dreamed of back when I wandered around as a solo adventurer.

Is this what they call the heartwarming spirit of a fixed party—?