Chapter 231: Crying Out Love in the Center of the Lord's Castle
Chapter 231: Crying Out Love in the Center of the Lord's Castle
In the end, we began to investigate the room with Diana on my back and Sara and Leia clinging to each of my arms.
Truthfully, the investigation was simple enough that we could afford to do so.
The room was littered with fragments of a broken egg, but there was no hidden treasure to be found.
There was, however, one thing worthy of note.
Where the giant magic stone was embedded, there had initially been a gap on either side of the wall, each wide enough for about two people to enter side-by-side. Through them, we could get to the other side of the wall.
But beyond the wall wasn't a wide, open space.
It was just a passage, still only wide enough for two people, that connected one gap to the other.
And right in the middle of that connecting passage was a path leading down.
“This must be the way down to the 3rd floor, right?”
So that Queen Ant was something like a Layer Boss after all.
According to Diana, she was much stronger than the 2nd floor boss known to the Adventurer’s Guild, but in any case, she had been guarding the path to the 3rd floor.
Why do I always seem to take a secret route whenever I move to the next floor?
“Looks like it. What do you want to do? Should we head down and check it out?”
Is Sara completely fearless?
Even after the close call we had yesterday, she didn't seem the least bit scared of moving to the next floor, which would be teeming with monsters stronger than the ants we fought.
Then again, even on the 3rd floor, the common monsters would probably only be a little stronger than the soldier ants. It’s not like the place would be crawling with Queen Ant-level enemies.
But one thing bothered me about just heading down.
“Of course I want to say yes, but… is it okay to just go?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“We had a hard time when we came to the 2nd floor because of the sudden heat, remember? You think the 3rd floor won’t have something like that?”
“Why wouldn’t it? The 3rd floor is a cold place, completely covered in snow. But don’t you worry. With me here, there will be no problem.”
Diana’s confident voice came from right behind me.
I couldn’t see her face since she was on my back, but I could tell just from her voice. Diana seemed inwardly pleased that she finally had a chance to shine.
I suppose that was even more true after she lost face during the fight with the Queen Ant.
“As expected of our great Archmage. So reliable.”
“Heeik!”
I gave Diana’s bottom a light pat, and a bizarrely erotic yelp was immediately followed by a thump on my head.
Maybe because I hit 250 Durability while fighting yesterday, it seemed to hurt even less than usual.
“Hey, go easy. You’ll hurt your hand.”
“Y-You! You’re just stupidly tough! Are you proud of your thick skull?!”
Hahaha. I am. You jealous?
“Hey, a thick skull? I’m not just hard-headed, my whole body is hard. Of course, the hardest part is the one hanging down below…” “Are you saying I can attack that part, then?”
“I’m sorry.”
No matter how weak Diana’s attacks were, it’s a man’s instinct to not want to get hit there.
Joking around like that, we made our way down the path.
Perhaps because the ant nest was already located slightly below the 2nd floor, the passage felt a little shorter than the one from the 1st to the 2nd floor. We soon reached the end.
It was a dead end, though.
The end of the passage was blocked by a pure white wall, with no path forward.
“It’s a dead end.”
Leia must have been curious why we, who were ahead of her, had stopped.
Since the passage wasn’t very wide, she stood on her tiptoes behind me, peeking her head out as she spoke.
Damn it! If I wasn’t carrying Diana, her chest would have been pressing against my back!
Wait, she’s wearing leather armor, so I wouldn’t have felt the texture anyway.
A man should learn to be satisfied with what he has. I’ll just keep enjoying the feeling of Diana’s soft thighs that I’m holding right now.
Ah, I’m definitely not saying Diana’s thighs are inferior to Leia’s breasts.
I’m just saying that if I could enjoy both, I would want to enjoy both.
“Ah, it’s cold!”
Sara, who was walking ahead of me, lightly touched the wall and quickly pulled her hand back.
It seemed the white wall was made of snow.
Come to think of it, the ambient temperature felt like it had dropped quite a bit.
Maybe we had already reached the 3rd floor, and the snow was just blocking the cold.
“What should we do? It looks like we can’t go any further.”
“What are you talking about, Sara? Step aside for a moment.”
As she spoke, Diana reached her hand out over my shoulder.
Without chanting a spell or drawing a magic circle in the air, a fireball the size of a human head formed in front of her palm.
Ooh. So she can use magic of this level without an incantation now.
With her hand still extended over my shoulder, Diana began to control the fireball.
As the fireball approached the wall of snow, the nearby snow began to melt in an instant.
“How’s that? Now we can get through.”
“That’s our Diana. Well done.”
“Hmph. Well, of course.”
Despite her words, Diana looked quite pleased.
Someone of her stature must have heard such praise countless times. Does it still feel good? Or is it because I was the one who said it?
If I had my way, I would have patted her butt again, but I decided to hold back this time.
Even I know how to read the time and place. I couldn’t interrupt her while she was using magic. …Who knows, that fireball might come flying at me.
We began to advance, melting the snow with Diana’s fireball, but being completely surrounded by snow—front, back, left, right, above, and below—was naturally unsettling.
I had no desire to be buried alive if the snow suddenly collapsed.
Diana seemed to know this too, as she didn’t just punch a hole straight ahead but melted a path diagonally upwards.
After about five minutes of carving our way through the snow, we could finally feel the outside air.
“It’s cold!”
The moment we broke through the snow, the cold air of the 3rd floor, which had been blocked until now, rushed in all at once.
The chill seemed to pierce through my leather armor and strike me to the bone.
Still, Sara and I were the lucky ones.
It must be hell for Diana and Leia, who were wearing cloth.
Leia’s priestess robe, in particular, which had been heavily modified at my request to be form-fitting and revealing, would offer no help against this cold.
Leia folded her triangular ears flat against her head and her tail trembled.
Yet she didn’t utter a single complaint, ever the angel.
Clack, clack, clack, clack.
And there was one person having an even worse time than our angel.
I turned my gaze toward the sound and saw Silvia, completely frozen, her teeth the only thing moving as they chattered.
Her magnificent plate armor seemed to be a curse in this situation; the frost covering it looked pathetic. It was expensive-looking armor, but it clearly wasn't designed for this kind of situation.
Come to think of it, I think I remember from my common sense lessons with the High Priestess that this country has a mild climate all year round. So there would have been no need to add cold-weather protection to armor.
If I were in her shoes, I would have turned right around and gone back the way we came.
Does she want to be with me even in a situation like this? Or is she just frozen solid and unable to move?
“Diana! The cold protection?!”
“It’s done.”
As I shouted to Diana, my own teeth chattering, she answered immediately.
And with her answer, a wave of warm heat spread out from her body.
“Oh, ooh!”
I quickly moved Diana from my back to my front and hugged her tightly.
What a cute little living heater.
As I held Diana, Leia immediately latched onto her from the front as well.
Even though she had been enduring it stoically, she must have been freezing.
“Ugh! C-Can’t breathe! H-Hey! Get those… get off me! I made it so you won’t be cold even if you don’t cling to me!”
Why are you so hostile towards Leia’s chest? You’ll have a pair just like that in about a thousand years.
Even though she herself was destined to be busty in the future, Diana had developed a strange hostility towards large breasts ever since Leia joined the party.
At this rate, when she gets bigger later, is she going to decide she hates big breasts and reincarnate again?
If that happens, I’ll have to stop her, no matter what it takes.
“But it’s warmer like this. I’ll make you warm too, Diana.”
But Leia didn’t back down an inch, hugging Diana tightly.
She even wrapped her tail around Diana’s body, holding her even closer.
Normally, with Leia’s personality, she would have backed off immediately seeing Diana so uncomfortable, but the recent cold must have been truly awful for her.
Thanks to that, Leia’s chest was squashed against Diana’s face, changing shape this way and that.
I’m so jealous. If I could trade places with her, I would.
“U-Ugh! Y-You, do something!”
Diana pleaded with me, her face on the verge of tears.
Hmph. If you ask me with a face like that, I can’t refuse.
“Leia, that’s enough. If you want to press your chest against someone that badly, you can do it to me…” “Guwon?”
I was just teasing a little, but Sara immediately shot me a glare as cold as the 3rd floor’s climate.
She really can’t take a joke. Though that jealous side of her is one of Sara’s charms.
“Look at Silvia. She was frozen just a moment ago, but now she’s thawing out. It should be fine even if you let go of Diana.”
“…Okay.”
Leia let go of Diana with a slightly disappointed look on her face.
With the situation settled, I finally had a moment to look around.
We were standing on top of a large hill.
That meant the passage to the 2nd floor was buried somewhere beneath this snowy hill.
No wonder this secret passage hadn’t been discovered yet.
On the 2nd floor, the passage led to the middle of an Orc encampment, and on the 3rd floor, it’s under the snow.
The locations of these non-standard routes are all so perverted.
No, wait, if I say that, what does it make me for finding them? How much of a pervert am I?
In any case, at least this time we weren’t in the middle of a monster encampment like on the 2nd floor, so I guess I can consider this an improvement.
Although the thought of having to go back down there to return already makes me feel sick.
“Are you okay too, Silvia?”
Though it couldn’t be helped, I had ended up having sex with Silvia again yesterday. I felt awkward about it, so I hadn’t really spoken to her all day.
But I couldn’t just say nothing in a situation like this.
“Yes. Thank you for your concern.”
Silvia, who had been frozen just moments before, immediately broke into a happy expression and nodded vigorously when I spoke to her.
Her reaction is so endearing that now I feel guilty for not talking to her all day.
I quickly averted my gaze to hide my guilt.
“Diana. What do you think? Do you know where we… never mind.”
“What’s with that reaction? Are you underestimating me? On the 2nd floor, didn’t we find the town by following the direction I pointed out?!”
“Oh, right. As expected, our Archmage has a great memory. So, do you know where we are now?”
“I have no idea!”
What am I supposed to do with that?
Don’t puff out your chest so proudly. Compared to Leia’s, it’s barely even noticeable.
No, comparing her to Leia is just cruel.
Alright, I’ll be generous. From now on, I’ll call you busty—when compared to Silvia.
Of course, I’ll only call her that in my head. If I said something like that out loud, I’d be buried here without a trace.
Having reached my own conclusion, I scanned our surroundings.
The terrain was uneven, with the occasional tree showing its bare branches.
Compared to the wide-open plains of the 2nd floor, it seemed easier to distinguish locations, but that was only in comparison. Since everything was covered in white, figuring out our position on the 3rd floor also looked to be a difficult task.
“Well then, shall we wander around a bit? If we figure out what kind of monsters appear nearby, we should be able to pinpoint our general location.”
Diana wasn’t a mapper, so she couldn’t distinguish places just by looking at the scenery, but her memory itself was incredible. If she saw the monsters, she’d probably be able to figure out our approximate location right away.