Chapter 874
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 874
The four of us, together again after a long time, launched into a lively conversation, as if we were determined to unpack every single story from our time apart, right here and now.
Of course, all I’d done while we were apart was experience hell in the Dungeon, and I’d already spilled all the details about that as soon as I got back. So, I was mostly in the position of listening.
Apparently, while I was gone, both Sara and Leia had primarily focused on their self-training.
That’s not to say the two of them, with their completely different combat roles, trained together.
Sara trained with Silvia at the training grounds in the garden, while Leia went to the Temple with Cardinal Matilda and apparently participated in the Holy Knight training Matilda was conducting.
For Sara, it wasn’t particularly strange, as she often trained alone if she had nothing else to do. But Leia putting so much effort into training was a bit unexpected.
“Well… Guwon-ssi, didn’t you say you’d make me a Saintess? A Saintess is a job that can do everything, capable of becoming both a High Priestess and a Holy Knight. Cardinal Matilda said it would be helpful to learn Holy Knight combat methods beforehand.”
As if she’d read the meaning in my gaze, Leia gave that answer with a slightly shy smile.
That was certainly true. I had discussed that with Matilda beforehand.
However, I had a slight doubt whether that was truly the only reason Leia had put so much effort into self-training, especially since she’d even reduced her volunteer work in the slums.
And speaking of doubts, it was the same for Sara.
Of course, Sara, as expected of a Hero, often trained in her spare time, so it wasn’t as strange as Leia. But that was only when compared to Leia.
Sara also felt a little different from usual.
Not only had she practiced archery, but she’d even learned basic swordsmanship from Silvia in preparation for any unforeseen crisis.
Normally, she’d go shopping with the other girls, but this time, there was no mention of anything like that.
“You guys didn’t, by any chance, think something silly like, ‘If I were stronger, I wouldn’t have had to send Guwon to the Dungeon alone,’ did you?”
“……”
“Th-that’s…”
When I realized that and squinted my eyes, pressing them, Sara quickly turned her head away, while Leia, who couldn’t lie, offered an ambiguous smile as if admitting the truth.
“You guys, seriously… And yet you told me not to overdo it alone.”
“…It’s not really like that. I just want to be stronger than I am now.”
Don’t pull that act, you.
Where are you spouting such unbelievable nonsense?
“Do you like me that much?”
“…Not as much as Guwon, who even thought about going down to the lowest level alone.”
Ah, so you’re not denying that you like me.
Acting cute with that prim expression.
I rubbed my cheek against Sara’s, who had turned her head the other way, and smiled broadly. Sara, however, only made a slightly annoyed expression and didn’t try to avoid my nuzzle.
Oh, so that’s the face you’re making, huh?
“Well, I guess I do like you more.”
“Hmph! No, I don’t?!”
When I hit the weak point of what Sara had said, she turned her head with an indignant expression and glared at me.
Hey. Even if you make that face, it’s not scary at all when you’re getting angry about liking me more.
“You just said it yourself.”
“That’s just a figure of speech! I like you more—!”
“…You two. Stop your public display of affection with me in the middle.”
And it was Diana who stopped the argument between Sara and me, a squabble that would only give goosebumps to anyone else watching.
Indeed, for Diana, stuck in the middle, it must have been agonizing.
Though, to be precise, she wasn’t completely stuck in the middle, as she was sitting on my lap.
Anyway, Diana, looking utterly fed up, stopped our foolish argument, seemingly annoyed enough to quell whatever had been about to ‘activate’ earlier.
“P-public display of affection…!”
“Isn’t it a public display of affection? Just assume I like my husband more and stop it.”
Ah, she didn’t intervene to stop it, but to join the fight.
“I like him more, you know?!”
Of course, Sara wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.
The two immediately started bickering in front of and beside me.
And watching the two of them, Leia let out a soft chuckle from my other side, a sound that tickled my ear.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you two bicker like this. Both of you seem to lose your energy when Guwon-ssi isn’t around, so you don’t show this side.”
Angel. I know you’re doing this so they don’t hear, but if you whisper so close to my ear like that, I feel like I’ll melt.
“And Leia, you weren’t like that?”
“I also… had no energy. So please… fill me with energy like this.”
Leia blushed softly at my question, then tightened the arm hugging mine, burying my arm deeply between her large breasts.
Angel. I think I’m the one receiving energy, actually.
Especially my specific part is feeling particularly… healthy.
And the first one to catch on to my specific part becoming healthy was, as expected, Diana, who was sitting on my lap.
Diana, who had been about to say something proudly while bickering with Sara, suddenly jumped up from her spot, then hastily turned her head, looking around.
First, she glanced down at her own bottom to confirm if my ‘thing’ had really gotten bigger, then looked up at me with teary eyes.
Hey. No. It’s not. It’s not like that. So you can’t get triggered here, okay? If you get triggered, there’ll be no dealing with the aftermath.
When I desperately sent a gaze full of that meaning towards Leia’s chest, Diana also shifted her gaze there accordingly.
And seeing Leia’s enormous breasts, which had buried my thick arm almost out of sight, Diana’s teary eyes instantly blazed with jealousy.
“You, you man! You man! Even though I was diligently trying to win your love!”
“No. What ‘winning’… I love you anyway, even without that.”
“That’s not the problem!”
I tried to soothe Diana for now, but her anger, far from subsiding, exploded even more, and she lightly patted my head with the palm side of her fisted hand.
Hey. Don’t get angry at me for no reason. Do you think you’ll grow breasts that way?
“Leia is unfair too!”
Moreover, Sara also seemed to feel wronged; she, who had been bickering with Diana just moments ago, now agreed with Diana and criticized our angel.
“Hey, Sara. No matter who you are, I can’t tolerate you insulting my angel.”
“What are you going to do if you can’t tolerate it?”
“……”
I hadn’t thought that far. I just suddenly felt like acting cool and said it. Sorry.
“Ah, anyway! Diana, you were out and about? What did you do outside? From the way you’re talking, it seems like you did something important.”
“……”
Hey, Diana. Stop glaring at our angel’s chest and talk to me, will you?
Alright. Alright. I’ll take it out, then. I’ll take it out.
When I subtly pulled my arm out from between Leia’s breasts, Diana then cleared her throat and answered my question.
“Ahem. Well. It’s nothing else but the Dungeon’s mana. Thanks to Alicia, didn’t we learn that a priest’s divine power and the Dungeon’s mana are incompatible?”
“Ah, right.”
“That’s what I thought about. That there might be a way for Matilda to traverse the Dungeon as if it were a normal place—no, a way to completely eliminate the threats within the Dungeon.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Do you remember when you went to install the teleportation magic circle on the 1st Floor a while ago?”
“Ah, right.”
Of course, I couldn’t forget it.
Thanks to that, we still have money to spare.
No, Diana probably has more money than she knows what to do with anyway, so to be precise, it should be ‘I’ rather than ‘we’.
It’s a welcome source of funds that ensures I don’t have to become a kept man, even if I don’t venture into the Dungeon.
“Then you’d also remember taking a large machine with you, in addition to the teleportation magic circle, back then.”
That’s right. As I later learned, that was the machine that stabilized the mana around the teleportation magic circle.
I know that much. Does she think I’m still a rookie who just arrived in this world with no common sense or anything?
“Actually, the reason we’ve installed the mana conversion device along with it until now is because if we didn’t, too many monsters would flock to the area.”
Apparently, since the Dungeon’s mana wasn’t incapable of operating magic tools anyway, they originally just installed the teleportation magic circle alone.
But then, the moment the teleportation magic circle was activated, monsters surged in like a raging wave.
Even more so than back when I earned my infamous nickname on the 2nd Floor.
Diana attributed the cause to the phenomenon of mana concentrating when the teleportation magic circle operated.
After all, activating such a magic circle consumes an enormous amount of mana.
So, they created a magic tool that, when placed outside the village, prevented the mana flow inside the village from being easily felt. Thanks to that, the phenomenon of monsters surging in every time the teleportation magic circle activated disappeared.
But there was an unforeseen variable here for Diana: the machine created outside the Dungeon stabilized the surrounding mana and changed the Dungeon’s mana properties to be similar to the mana outside.
Of course, since there was no problem, Diana hadn’t thought much of it. But that characteristic came to be noticed again.
After they learned that priests struggled with the Dungeon’s mana.
Because that machine changed the mana’s properties, Matilda could remain perfectly fine inside the village even if she went down into the Dungeon.
And another thing Diana noticed was that just as high-ranking priests struggled to endure the Dungeon’s mana, stronger monsters might also struggle to endure the mana from above—that is, mana imbued with the Goddess’s characteristics.
As could be seen from the fact that large-scale monster attacks on the village had only occurred from the 2nd Floor so far, the further down they went, the fewer large-scale monster attacks on the village there were.
Until now, the reason couldn’t be clearly known, but if Diana’s hypothesis was correct, all those reasons would be explained.
Because of the mana imbued with the Goddess’s characteristics surrounding the village, higher-level monsters actually didn’t approach.
Of course, there were still monsters that occasionally invaded the village, and when that happened, they seemed to go even crazier and rampage.
And the reason why monsters, when hit by my Saint skill, target only me and attack as if to kill, might also lie here.
My mana has a somewhat unique characteristic: once affected by a Saint skill, it remains in their body until they reach climax directly from me.
For monsters that feel repulsion towards the Goddess’s mana, there would be no greater disaster than this.
After hearing that, things I hadn’t paid much attention to until now also came into view.
Come to think of it, on the 1st Floor, there were monsters that would start masturbating if they were hit by my skill, but the further down we went, those kinds of monsters disappeared.
Were the weaker monsters on the upper floors less repulsed by the Goddess’s mana, while the stronger ones were too strongly repulsed?
And if I put together everything that had been said so far, this conclusion emerged.
“If we just make a mana property conversion device small enough to carry around, high-ranking priests like Matilda could go into the Dungeon as much as they want, and the stronger the monster, the lower the chance of encountering them!”
“……”
When I shouted in an overjoyed voice, Diana, who had been proudly explaining until now, subtly avoided my gaze.
“Can’t you make it?”
“I-if I had just a little more time…!”
“How much?”
“……A hundred… t-ten… f-five… o-one year?”
Hey. It won’t work even if you look up at me acting cute, okay? Although you are cute.
One year, you say. And you’re greatly reducing that number, aren’t you? You were going to say a hundred years at first, weren’t you?
Well, a hundred years might just be a little more compared to the time you’ve lived, though.