Merchant Escort Quest #5
Merchant Escort Quest #5
I've lived a full twenty-one years as a gold-tanned blonde.
The type that creative works always cast as the boss of a pack of delinquents — the Gold Sun archetype.
A Gold Sun reigns supreme over women.
In the world of doujins where every breed of villain crawls, if the buzz-cut baseball-jacket thug is the rising rookie, then the Gold Sun is the ancient progenitor who has ruled the pages since time immemorial.
I, Luke, am the rightful heir who inherited the blood of that progenitor.
'Maybe I've got a talent for it — the talent to break women with blackmail?'
Twenty-one years of living, and I'd never once tested that talent.
Up until now, thanks to my peculiar self-restraint, even when I stumbled across a woman's weakness, I let it slide. Never once did it cross my mind to leverage a weakness to demand her body or shake her down for money.
'If I do have the talent, does that mean I can make that blonde nun submit?'
For the first time in my life, I grew curious about my own aptitude.
It was because my long-smoldering fury toward heal-sluts had awakened my instincts.
Those bitches who lord it over every dealer with their noses in the air!
Those freeloader pieces of shit who stroll along in the back and still get paid!
"That woman... she kept chanting some weird prayer while spraying water all over me."
Even three days later, I still couldn't forget my first encounter with the blonde nun. The sensation of the Holy Water she'd splashed still seemed to cling to my cheek. Some of the Holy Water she'd been spraying around had actually caught me square in the face.
'...The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. Why am I even this angry? Did I take critical damage from Holy Water because I'm an incubus? If I'd been an actual demon, that could've flat-out killed me.'
The blonde nun had committed an offense against me.
And yet, she never offered so much as a word of apology. For the entire duration of the escort quest, the nun treated me like I was invisible.
Meaning she ignored me so thoroughly it was as though she saw me without seeing me.
Fucking heal-slut.
Does she think she's something special?
Should I give it a shot? Test my talent?
I paced in circles inside the wagon, lost in thought.
It wasn't that I particularly wanted to do anything with the blonde nun's voluptuous, sex-drenched body.
I mean, if she offered, I'd bow my head and accept gratefully.
But no — what I wanted was to break the blonde nun's towering arrogance.
The attitude that took it for granted that people would grovel at her feet as if she were nobility.
The fake, businesslike smile she flashed while accepting gifts.
I wanted to wreck all of that and gift-wrap her a heap of humiliation.
- I-I'm sorryyy! I've committed a sin worthy of death! Please forgive me, Mr. Incubus!! *sob sob*...!!
I imagined the nun trembling and begging on her knees before me.
That was definitely a sight worth risking a challenge for. If it were any other woman, I'd have let the fantasy stay a fantasy, but she was a heal-slut.
A heal-slut — the object of my unbroken hatred ever since I started life as an adventurer.
I like it.
Let's go for it.
A sadistic flame kindled inside me.
It was the Gold Sun instinct that had lain dormant for twenty years.
Now that I'd made up my mind, there was nothing left to hesitate over.
I filled a jar with water and, for the first time in a while, stepped out of the wagon.
"Huh? Luke, why are you coming out?"
"Felt like taking a walk. My body's gotten stiff from being cooped up in that wagon."
"Want to exercise with me?"
"Nah, not today."
I turned down Rebecca's offer and slowly scanned my surroundings.
The blonde nun was walking at the very front of the column. Every step she took made the cross dangling from the end of her necklace swing — hard to miss.
Maybe I was being paranoid, but it was possible she was walking in the lead specifically to put distance between herself and the cargo wagon I was riding in.
Let's start with observation.
I shoved my hair into my pocket and crept up behind the blonde nun.
I moved while killing the sound of my footsteps so she wouldn't notice me closing the gap.
My plan was simple.
Approach the blonde nun, and right before her eyes, discreetly pull out a strand of hair.
The idea was to rattle her by mentioning that the hair had been found in the wagon.
Before that, I'd already done my due diligence, quietly gathering information from the other adventurers.
Meticulous planning — that is the hallmark of a true Gold Sun.
"Hey, old-timer. Mind if I ask you something?"
"The incubus who uses magic. Thanks to you, the quest was saved from failure. Ask away, if you've got something on your mind."
"About the blonde nun walking up ahead. Did she happen to loiter around the wagon on the first day? The cargo wagon I was riding in."
"The wagon that was giving off cold air? Now that you mention it, I did spot that Sister near the wagon quite often. Hardly seemed to leave its side. Well, even if the motive was transparent, no one could really say anything about it. She's a nun, after all."
"I see. Interesting."
I chatted with a few of the adventurers who were at least somewhat civil toward me. From those conversations, I learned that the blonde nun had been practically glued to the cargo wagon.
I had secured solid testimony that the nun had been coveting the wagon's cold draft.
"Heh-heh-heh."
Getting the testimony was easier than I'd expected, which put me in a good mood.
With those statements in hand, rattling the nun would be far simpler. I finished the observation phase and decided to approach the nun directly.
But that was exactly where my plan began to go wrong.
"Hm?"
The moment I approached the blonde nun from behind. As though she had eyes in the back of her head, the blonde nun slipped off sideways. Her steps were incredibly quick and nimble.
'She's running.'
I worked hard to close the distance. But the harder I tried, the more desperately the nun strained to keep the gap wide open. Not that she went sprinting out ahead, of course. Even a nun can't break formation from the column on her own whim.
Instead, the blonde nun began circling around the cargo wagon.
I wound up following her around the wagon several times.
No matter how I looked at it, she was dodging me.
Because the faster my steps got, the faster hers got.
'Ganggangsullae.'
Before I knew it, the blonde nun and I were doing Ganggangsullae together.
I was enjoying Korea's traditional folk circle dance with a Western woman in a far-flung otherworld.
Who would've thought Korean culture had spread to the Midgard Continent.
K-Culture is amazing.
Just then, the middle-aged merchant sitting in the driver's seat spoke up.
Apparently, the sight of the nun going round and round in circles had gotten on his nerves.
"Sister Kate? Is something the matter? Why do you keep circling the wagon?"
The blonde nun's reply was a sight to behold.
"...Do not be alarmed. This wagon is, in truth, possessed by an evil spirit."
"Excuse me?"
"A lecherous, lustful lesser wraith has latched itself onto the wagon. I am presently tracing an exorcism circle with my footsteps to drive it out. So please, rest easy and return to your duties. Hallelujah!"
"Ah, I see!"
The blonde nun's voice flowed out smoothly.
It was a voice that inspired trust in the listener — exactly what you'd expect from a nun.
With a voice like that, she'd probably fleeced countless people out of their donations over the years.
The moment I imagined her raking in free money, the nun became even more infuriating.
I deliberately raised my voice and started talking.
"Aagh, this hair!"
I brandished the golden strand pinched between my fingers, making a blatant show of it.
If I went this far, the blonde nun would have no choice but to show some interest.
"This hair I picked up in the wagon — I'm so damn curious who it belongs to!!"
"Who could've been skulking around the wagon at night and shed it, I wonder...!!"
But, shockingly, the blonde nun easily sidestepped my wide-area aggro. Even as everyone else around stared at me like I'd gone crazy, the nun alone refused to so much as glance my way.
'She's outright ignoring me? I didn't plan for that.'
No matter how much I waved the hair around, if she wouldn't look back, it was meaningless. The blonde nun deflected my blackmail attempt with unyielding tenacity.
How could she give zero reaction whatsoever?
Does the concept of curiosity just not exist for her?
The blonde nun was the living incarnation of the "don't feed the trolls" mantra.
I felt in my bones that she was no easy target.
"Wow..."
I tried approaching the blonde nun several more times after that, but every attempt fell flat.
I couldn't even get near her until evening fell that day.
Living as a Gold Sun was unexpectedly grueling.
*
At this rate, it looked like I might not get to exchange a single word with the nun before the caravan trip ended.
The Gold Sun instinct was whispering to me to grab her weakness and shake it, but the chance to do any shaking never came in the first place.
I wanted to somehow create an opportunity for a one-on-one conversation.
'How the hell do I pull aggro?'
The nun had thrown up an iron wall, but that only made the passion inside me burn hotter. I wanted so badly to see the moment that pretty-faced nun submitted to me.
Driven by that single determination, I kept trying to approach her.
In my imagination, the original Gold Suns sent me their encouragement.
- Hah, bro. That horned Gold Sun bastard's got some moves, don't he?
- A promising little delinquent sapling, he is.
- Fine work. The will to dominate a woman — that's what matters. You're doing well, young Gold Sun. Go ahead and annihilate this otherworld's concept of chastity with your own two hands.
An OG Gold Sun with ear piercings cheered me on from inside my mind. Hearing that voice finally gave me the courage to act.
No more chasing after the nun's ass like some loser.
Even though the truth was, that ass wrapped in nun's habit was goddamn obscene — still, the objective came first.
I decided to wage a simple psychological gambit against the blonde nun.
While circling the cargo wagon constantly, there were moments when a blind spot appeared in her line of sight.
Namely, the instant she rounded the corner of the wagon's cargo bed. The cargo bed was covered by a large tarp, which made it hard to maintain a clear field of vision. I resolved to use this corner to put an end to our long Ganggangsullae.
'I'll lie in wait at the side of the cargo bed and ambush her when she comes around. That bitch probably thinks I'm a moron who only knows how to chase her in one direction. I've been doing exactly that for hours, after all.'
But if my footsteps stopped, the sharp-eyed nun might catch on. So I decided to employ a technique for walking backwards while still moving. I'd walk in reverse using Moonwalking.
Moonwalking.
'Michael Jackson's beautiful legacy.'
I resolved to use it in true Gold Sun fashion — to chase a woman.
Tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap-tap!
When the right timing came, I worked my feet quickly and walked in reverse. The nun must have noticed my accelerating footsteps, because her footsteps sped up as well.
But that dumb, big-titted blonde bitch knew one thing and not the other.
She had no idea I was performing a Moonwalk with the intention of hooking her.
"Hhk."
The instant I halted just in front of the corner.
The blonde nun's voice rang out.
I craned my neck back like Sadako and registered the fact that the nun was right in front of me.
Close enough to feel each other's breath.
She was short, so she was looking up at me from slightly below — her face was stained with terror.
My horns cast a shadow across her face like a giant phallus.
"Finally caught you, you fucking bitch."
"...Almighty Baldur! Protect me with your eternal light! Protect me with your eternal light! Protect me with your eternal light!"
"Don't bother with that crap. There's no god here."
"Eek."
At last, the tediously long pursuit was over.
Now it was time to blackmail the blonde nun and extract my compensation.
The reward I absolutely wanted to wring out of this was the sight of her face stained with humiliation.
It would be a nice bonus to squeeze out some cash or valuables on the side.
I pulled the golden strand of hair from my pocket.
"I found this inside the wagon... You're the culprit who damaged the Artifact, aren't you?"
I had managed to successfully fire off the first shot of my blackmail script.
But, regrettably, I couldn't proceed straight into the negotiations.
Because at that exact moment, the middle-aged merchant's voice rang out from the distance.
"Owlbear! We've encountered an Owlbear!!"
"All adventurers, assemble and deal with the monster!! Anyone who disobeys is in breach of contract!!"