Chapter 42: Guild Quest
Chapter 42: Guild Quest
“Hmm hmm hmm. Hmm hmm.”
Diana looked to be in a very good mood after her shower.
According to her, it was because her level had risen enough to make her research easier.
In the end, Guwon had only come once yesterday, but perhaps because of their original level difference and the fact that he'd held back for so long with Climax Restraint, Diana's level had risen significantly.
But no matter how I think about it, it seems like her good mood started right after she realized I'd been putting on a show.
And sure enough, as soon as her shower was over, she was walking around perfectly fine on her own two feet.
If this becomes a habit, am I going to have to carry her on my back all day long later?
With a sense of unease, Guwon left the room.
Click.
“G-Guwon?”
The moment he opened the door, he came face-to-face with Sara, who was right there in the hallway.
Sara's eyes went wide as she stared at Guwon.
Then her gaze shifted to Guwon's room, then back to Guwon.
Her eyes darted back and forth between Guwon and his room a few more times before an expression of realization dawned on her face. She shot him a glare as cold as the tundra.
“Hmph. Is that so? Is that how it is? So that's what happened. I was so clueless yesterday, wasn't I?”
Damn it. I'm screwed.
Your lies always catch up to you.
I should have just been honest from the start, even if it meant getting an earful.
“Uh… Sara? It's not like that…”
“Indeed. Unlike you youngsters, I simply spent the night with him for purely academic purposes. Don't you worry.”
Diana suddenly popped out from behind Guwon, flashing a pleasant smile and speaking to Sara in a cheerful tone.
I get that you're happy about leveling up, but this isn't the time to be smiling and talking like that! You look smug, like you're trying to provoke her, so stop it.
“Th-That's not it! I'm only doing it to level up, too!”
“Then there's no problem, is there? You look to be more than a high enough level to handle the dungeon's entrance.”
“W-Well, that's true, but!”
Having run out of things to say to Diana, Sara glared at Guwon instead.
Yes. The problem is that I lied. I know. I'm sorry.
Sara glared at Guwon for a long moment before turning on her heel and storming into her room without another word.
“Hmm. You're in big trouble.”
“You say that like you had nothing to do with it!”
Guwon ignored the serenely smiling Diana and hurriedly followed Sara into her room.
Thankfully, she hadn't locked the door; it was still open.
Sara was sitting on the bed, hugging her knees.
“Sara. I'm really sorry. The truth is, Diana joined our party to research my skills.”
“I don't think that's a good reason to lie to me.”
She had a point.
“Well… I thought you'd hate it if you knew.”
“…Why did you think that?”
As she asked, her eyes seemed to hold a certain longing.
Right. Why did I think that?
The truth was, this sort of thing was common among adventurers.
Since male adventurers were so rare, it was pretty much a given that all the women in a party with a man slept with him.
Sara had lived a life completely separate from adventurers before suddenly becoming one, so even if she wasn't used to that way of thinking, it was strange for me to assume she'd hate it.
After all, Sara and I weren't even dating, let alone in love.
It was nothing more than my own selfishness.
“…Are you just going to stand there and say nothing?”
This definitely felt like one of those things women say when they're expecting a specific answer.
But Guwon, who had never dated a woman before, had no way of deciphering it.
“If I'd known this was going to happen, I should have just seduced some other man last night.”
“Wait! You can't!”
“Why not? I suppose you can sleep with any woman you want, but I can't?”
She was absolutely right.
Guwon had no grounds to stop Sara.
“…Still, I don't want you sleeping with another man.”
Even knowing it was nothing but his own selfishness, Guwon couldn't help but say it.
Sara was silent for a while, processing his words.
“Are you really only sleeping with Diana to research your skills?”
“And to level up, too.”
Guwon couldn't be sure about himself, but Diana's objective was definitely just that.
“…Then it's my turn today, right?”
Sara asked, her expression one of resolve.
“O-Of course. If you're okay with it.”
“…Okay.”
I didn't know which of my words had been the key to her sudden change of heart, but thankfully, it seemed Sara wasn't planning on being angry anymore.
Alright. Tonight, I'll use every skill I have to serve Sara.
A strange tension flowed between Sara and Diana throughout breakfast.
Do popular guys live in this kind of atmosphere every day? I guess everyone has their own struggles.
Not that this atmosphere was because they liked me, though.
In any case, Guwon's party headed for the dungeon again today.
Today's objective was already set.
First, confirm if the goblin penis was really the key to the hidden path.
And if the goblin penis was indeed the key, then search for a path that used the wolfdog penis as a key.
So, the party first headed back to the place they'd been yesterday.
“Kirreuk!”
As soon as they entered the area where goblins roamed, a group of them suddenly ambushed the party.
Hmph. Foolish creatures.
I'm even stronger today.
They were no match for me yesterday.
There's no way they can stand up to Saint's Touch now that its only weakness is gone.
Guwon activated Saint's Touch.
“Here I go!”
Kwaang!
Just then, a spear made of mana flew from behind Guwon and pierced through a goblin.
“Hmm, hmm. Excellent. Very good.”
When I looked back, Diana was smiling contentedly, pleased with her magic.
“Just how much did you two do…”
“Hm? He only came once. And yet my level rose this much. It seems this body of mine was quite to his liking.”
Diana said to Sara with a smile.
“…Hmph.”
Sara's cold gaze stabbed into Guwon.
Lady Diana. Could you please stop talking in a way that provokes Sara?
Feeling Sara's icy stare on his back, he resumed exploring the dungeon, and it wasn't long before they encountered another group of goblins.
Good. I can finally test the power of Climax Restraint.
“I'll take these guys! There's something I want to test!”
This time for sure, Guwon cast Climax Restraint on the goblin at the very front, activated Saint's Touch, and landed a solid punch.
The goblin froze on the spot, but as expected, it couldn't cum and was just trembling violently.
“Haha. Awesome! Did you see that? Did you see? I'm invincible now!”
Overjoyed at being freed from the monster cum-dodging game, Guwon roared with laughter and delivered the finishing blow to the goblin.
“Kweeek!”
“Gwoooahkkssheppwip!”
Completely off guard, Guwon let out a bizarre shriek as the goblin shot out a white stream as it fell.
Phew. Barely dodged that.
Why did it suddenly cum?
“Pfft. It seems your skill wears off when they die.”
What?! You son of a bitch!
“You! Did you know and not tell me?!”
“This is the first time I've seen it myself, how could I have known? I merely made an educated guess.”
She definitely didn't tell me on purpose.
She's definitely holding a grudge about last night.
Pretending to forgive me and then getting revenge like this. That terrifying old hag.
And so, in the end, Guwon had to continue playing the monster cum-dodging game.
Still, as long as I don't forget to cast Climax Restraint, I only have to be careful at the moment of death, so I guess I should consider it a huge improvement.
Besides, Sara and Diana finished off the goblins before Guwon could even get close, so he didn't even need to fight here.
The party quickly slaughtered the goblins and finally arrived at the thorny bush with the hole in it.
I'm pretty sure, but I'm still nervous.
Guwon took the goblin penis out of his inventory and, with a trembling hand, shoved it into the thorny bush.
At that, the thorny bush began to part to either side like the Red Sea, with the inserted penis at its center.
Far at the end of the passage, the huts of the goblin settlement were clearly visible.
“Hmm. So your prediction was correct after all.”
“See! What did I tell you!”
“But in the end, this passage is meaningless now.”
That was true.
We couldn't report it to the guild, and now we had no business in the goblin settlement.
I'll just have to be content with confirming a method for traversing the dungeon's hidden paths.
“Then let's try to find the wolfdog passage, which might actually be useful.”
Searching for a secret passage that could be opened with a wolfdog penis was an incredibly tedious task.
The party fought off wolfdogs and goblins that were no longer a match for them as they scoured every corner of the wolfdog territory.
It was a task that required considerable patience, as they had to check not only places they'd never been but also re-examine places they'd already passed through. But eventually, the party found a suspicious spot.
The location was deep within the wolfdog territory, quite close to the direction of the goblin settlement.
There was a round hole in a giant tree.
The last secret passage, the goblin one, connected to the goblin settlement.
But this is already the wolfdog territory.
It's hard to imagine it being a path to a settlement, like in the goblin's case.
As Guwon nervously shoved the wolfdog penis into the tree, dust suddenly kicked up from the dirt at the tree's roots, and a hole began to open in the ground.
The ground? Does that mean this path leads down?
“Hmm. If it leads down, we'd best prepare ourselves before we go.”
She was right.
The party was already too strong to be wandering around here, but they still had to be careful.
If it was a path that went down one or two sub-layers, the party was more than skilled enough, but if it was a path that moved between main layers, things could get tricky.
“Alright. I'll take the lead. Follow me at a distance.”
The path in the hole was a steep slope, probably close to a 60-degree angle, making it quite difficult to traverse.
To make matters worse, the path wasn't even straight, which made moving twice as hard.
The only comfort was that no monsters appeared.
After walking for a long time, the party finally reached a wide, open area.
As soon as everyone had stepped into the clearing, the passage they had come through was sealed off by a wall of dirt and dust.
The surroundings were still a forest, bright as day.
Does that mean we haven't changed layers yet…?
Where in the world are we?
Even when I zoomed in on the map and looked around, I couldn't see any newly revealed areas nearby.
Which means we're definitely on a lower level than the goblin settlement.
After carefully surveying their surroundings and advancing a short distance, the party encountered a monster.
“Grrrrrr.”
“A wolfdog? No, a wolf?”
It looked similar, but it had a wildness to it that was clearly different from a dog.
To go through a wolfdog's secret passage only to meet a wolf.
How anticlimactic.
And there's only one. Don't wolves usually travel in packs?
“No. It's a Werewolf! Be careful!”
Before Diana's warning had even finished, the wolf that had been charging at Guwon suddenly rose up on its hind legs and swung its sharp claws.
“Ugh!”
I hurriedly raised my arm to block, but the damage was pretty significant.
“Guwon!”
An arrow from Sara flew from the side, aimed at its heart, but the Werewolf twisted its body at the last second and took it in the shoulder instead.
The creature's aggro seemed to shift to Sara as it tried to turn toward her, but Guwon wasn't about to let that happen.
“Where do you think you're going!”
Guwon quickly cast Climax Restraint on the Werewolf and slammed a fist infused with Saint's Touch into it.
The Werewolf's lower body swelled and it flinched, but it didn't seem to have taken any serious damage from the punch itself.
But as it stood defenseless, Diana's now-fully-charged fire magic exploded on its back.
The attack, reminiscent of a flamethrower, set the Werewolf's entire body on fire. It rolled on the ground in agony before finally breathing its last.
“Whoa. What was that? It's just a 1st Floor monster, but it's incredibly tough.”
“Don't be fooled. It's the strongest monster on this layer. There's a reason it travels alone. It's even stronger than the monsters at the entrance of the next layer.”
“Does that mean this is the very end of the 1st Floor?”
“Mm. We've discovered quite an amazing secret passage. To think we could reach a place that normally takes two days in such a short time. If word of this got out, it would cause an uproar.”
For once, Diana seemed genuinely interested in the dungeon exploration itself.
Well, it made sense she'd be interested, since we'd covered a two-day journey in just over an hour.
This gives me even more reason to keep it a complete secret.
I'll have to be careful not only about the secret of the passage, but also about our actions in the dungeon.
If a rumor started spreading that our party was appearing here, there, and everywhere, it wouldn't be strange for someone to start tailing us. That's how important this information is.
But for now, rather than worrying about that, I should just be happy that we hit the jackpot, right?