Episode 145
“Please sit comfortably.”
We sat down on the guest sofa.
She gathered the documents that had been lying on the desk and moved them to the corner, then came over and took the seat of honor.
Everyone seemed strangely tense, and I felt myself stiffening up as well.
“The reason I called you all here today is to show my gratitude for the excellent completion of the emergency mission.”
Ah, so we hadn’t received our reward yet.
We had all been promoted by one level, but the reward Melbrit had prepared was surely more than that.
What I had gone through last night had been so intense that I had completely forgotten about school-related matters.
“Dekal.”
“Yes.”
I responded reflexively when the student council president called my name.
Sia gave me a barely perceptible smile with her eyes, then turned her head as if nothing had happened and called the other candidates’ names one by one.
……Acting like we’re secretly dating. What an alluring goddess.
“……The five of you are Melbrit’s proud hero candidates, having spread far and wide the hero’s creed of saving the innocent.
On behalf of Melbrit, I offer you my thanks.”
We bowed our heads along with Sia.
After finishing the customary remarks, Sia got to the point.
“Soul bottles have been prepared to help you grow. Neris will guide you.”
Karen clenched her fists and rejoiced silently.
Everyone seemed happy in their own way.
No one could dislike hearing that their level was going up.
“However, be careful.”
Sia spoke meaningfully.
“We’ve prepared a large quantity of the highest-quality souls Melbrit possesses.
The resistance won’t be insignificant.”
“……”
The resistance won’t be insignificant?
What on earth did that mean?
Sia left, and Neris stepped forward.
“I’ll guide you. Follow me.”
I sprang to my feet.
I stuck close behind her so I could admire the view from the back.
It was beyond my expectations.
Below her straight back and slender waist, her weighty buttocks jiggled with every step.
They revealed their contours over her skirt, as though proclaiming that such thin fabric could never restrain them.
The boundary where her thighs met her buttocks. Whenever the folded flesh of her buttocks seemed about to come into view, only to disappear beneath her skirt, I felt an involuntary sigh rising in my throat.
……Should I pounce on her now?
The urge to pounce on her was steadily swelling.
“……”
Neris suddenly stopped.
The instant she glanced back, I felt myself freeze.
Her cold gaze pierced into me like a blade.
“Shall I teach your eyeballs some manners?”
“……No.”
I answered stiffly.
“I only just finished slaughtering a whole horde of monsters, so my body is still excited. Be careful.”
“……Yes.”
……I nearly pissed myself.
Was this how the spirit of the generals whose names had been recorded in history felt?
She possessed a natural valor that overwhelmed everyone around her.
That such a woman could also have explosive breasts and a beautiful face was surely nothing less than a blessing from the heavens.
But how did she know I was looking at her butt from behind?
Did she have eyes in the back of her head?
I tried my best not to let my gaze drop, but Neris’s buttocks were trying to pull my eyes toward them like a black hole.
Guh……! What kind of challenge was this?
I desperately redirected my attention elsewhere. For once, Diana—not Karen—was walking right beside me.
“……”
Our eyes met, and she blushed before turning her head away.
Stealing Karen’s place so naturally. This one was quite alluring too.
I took Diana’s hand.
“……”
Diana said nothing and squeezed my hand tightly.
“What do you think the student council president meant by that?”
“The higher the rank of the being whose soul it is, the harder it is to settle it in a soul bottle.
Since such souls want better bodies, the soul bottle’s output and performance increase as well.”
“Diana. You’re smart.”
“……This much is obvious.”
I fidgeted with Diana’s hand.
When I interlaced our fingers, Diana’s walking speed gradually slowed.
“Oppa.”
Karen secretly approached and slipped my opposite arm between her breasts.
Ahh. This softness…….
Gasp. I’m being sucked in…….
“Oppa, it feels good, doesn’t it……”
“Ahh……”
I was melting.
“Using your breasts like that is cheating…!”
Diana protested against Karen’s overwhelming physical affection.
“Cheating? You have breasts too, Diana.”
“Tch…! You can’t compare them to yours.”
“I’m Oppa’s cock sleeve.”
Stia put a finger to her lips and gestured for them to be quiet.
“You three, if you keep talking so loudly……”
It was already too late.
There was no way Neris hadn’t noticed us making such a racket behind her.
Neris stopped and turned around to face us.
“Separate.”
“Y-yes, ma’am…!”
Karen and Diana hurriedly moved apart.
“……”
Neris glared at me and spoke.
“Could you hurry up and reach dragon rank, Dekal? This is the first time I’ve ever felt like disciplining a junior.”
“……Please go easy on me.”
“And you two as well. You seem to lack awareness that you are hero candidates of Melbrit.
If I see you clinging to a man and acting coquettishly in front of me one more time, I’ll call an enforcer.”
“……Yes. We showed an embarrassing side of ourselves.”
Diana spoke with a dejected expression.
“I’m sorry.”
“……It’s just ahead.”
We seemed to have reached our destination already.
The place Neris had guided us to was one of the facilities inside the main building.
It was a spacious area without a single obstacle, similar to the training hall Tilia had taken me to when she suggested that we practice.
The difference was that this place was large enough to be called an auditorium, with at least three doors set into each wall.
The second floor overlooked the area below, and it too had doors in addition to the windows.
What was this? It didn’t seem like they had brought us here to put on a musical.
There really was nothing here. Not even anything resembling a soul bottle.
“I’ll explain the trick to this. Listen carefully.”
Neris turned around and looked at us.
“The experience points you can take from here are proportional to your ‘ability.’”
Proportional to our ability?
I had a bad feeling about this.
“If you become so frightened that you can’t do anything, it ends there.
I’ll go in to rescue you. But if you work together and accomplish everything, you should be able to achieve remarkable results.
This is Melbrit’s ‘Trial Room,’ a defensive training facility designed around the premise of dealing with a horde of monsters in a total of ten waves.”
My bad feeling had been right on the mark.
Couldn’t they make this a little easier? Like tying the soul bottles to the walls or something?
“For reference, among all the candidates who have been assigned the Trial Room as a reward for an emergency mission, only two have ever managed to stop all ten waves.”
“……”
One of them was probably the hero, right?
“When you feel that you can’t go on, shout loudly for help.”
Neris looked at me and crooked the corner of her mouth slightly.
“If you don’t speak loudly enough for me to hear, I might be a little late going in to save you.”
…….
I was already starting to feel anxious.
“…I’ll do my best for as long as I can.”
“Good. Then move to the center.”
We moved to the center.
Karen drew the shortsword strapped to her lower back and stood beside me.
“Oppa. Shall we do it the usual way?”
“That’s how we should do it.”
Aba looked at Karen and gripped her sword as if she had made up her mind.
“I’ll protect Diana.”
“Huh? There’s no need.”
“……”
Oh no. Aba’s condition…!
“Diana, you shouldn’t say it like that.”
“No…. I didn’t mean that I don’t need Aba. I meant that I don’t need an escort……”
“……”
Aba wore an expression as if she might disappear, but barely managed to pull herself together and return to her senses.
“E-even so…… I’ll do my best not to get in the way.”
“Hmm…. All right, then.”
Stia drew her rapier and naturally took her place beside Karen.
It made quite a picture. Perhaps because the two of them had taken the same classes, they looked remarkably well-matched standing together.
As soon as we finished preparing, the doors flew open and soul bottles began pouring out.
At first glance, I knew they were different from the soul bottles we had seen so far.
They were large enough to bring orcs to mind, yet moved as quickly as skeleton warriors.
Whatever souls had been used, their activity level was on an entirely different scale.
“Lightning Square!”
Diana immediately slammed her spell into them.
Four or five of them toppled over at once, and those behind them surged forward as though to take their places.
I began preparing a spell right away.
“Fireball!”
I condensed a fireball wrapped in a curtain of wind to conceal its heat with my focusing bracelet, then blew away the soul bottles pouring out of the doors.
Bang!
(Your level has increased.)
(Your level has……)
Already?
It seemed Melbrit had prepared an extraordinary reward for us.
My motivation rose of its own accord.
“Dekal! Twelve o’clock!”
Diana shouted.
Doors opened in other directions as well, and soul soldiers began pouring out.
“I’ve confirmed it!”
The three people with swords tensed up to protect our bodies, while Diana and I called out the positions of the soul soldiers to each other and unleashed a barrage of magic from afar.
“Fireball!”
The Fireballs condensed by the Focusing Bracelet were extremely effective at stopping the enemies surging toward us.
Thanks to their destructive power, which could completely blow away the surrounding area, I even had enough time to leisurely look around after firing each spell.
Neris looked slightly surprised when she saw my magic.
My fire magic displayed exceptional power thanks to Bella’s blessing.
And I was making no attempt to hide that exceptional power.
“Fireball!”
“Decal. Three o’clock!”
“What? More of them?”
But the soul soldiers were not all coming from a single path.
They surged in from every direction, surrounding us at the center.
Magic alone couldn’t deal with all of them. The enemies were closing in to melee range. That was when the swordsmen of our party stepped forward.
“Hup.”
Stia destroyed the soul soldiers in an instant, her rapier thrusts seeming to burst them apart.
Karen shoved away the soul soldiers clinging to Stia’s flank, and together with Stia, she held back their charge.
Meanwhile, Ava made up for her lack of strength with technique, concentrating her attacks on the soul soldiers’ vulnerable legs and buying Diana time to prepare her magic.
“You’re quite good, Miss Ava!”
“Th-Thank you!”
After receiving Diana’s praise, Ava dashed around breathlessly.
Diana used two spells in combination—Lightning Bolt and Lightning Square—to eliminate the soul soldiers approaching individually as well as those advancing in large groups.
“Fireball!”
I was like a powerful cannon, each shot carrying tremendous force.
Whenever the soul soldiers piled up to an extent the group could no longer handle, I would blow them away in a single blast and return the situation to where it had started.
But I needed time before I could fire the next spell.
In the meantime, Karen made sure that not a single soul soldier could approach me.
As if supporting Karen, whose range of movement had narrowed to protect me, Stia pushed forward and actively reduced the number of soul soldiers.
“Urgh!?”
Then Stia was surrounded and nearly struck by the arm of one of the soul soldiers.
“Lightning Bolt!”
Diana immediately struck down the soul soldiers crowding around Stia.
Stia cleaned them up with swift rapier thrusts.
“Thanks, Diana!”
“Be careful. These things can’t break their nasty habits from life and keep trying to attack people.”
“Got it!”
They’re really coming in droves.
(Your level has increased.)
(Your level has…)
The dry notification voices and messages announcing my level increases repeated frantically.
Soul soldiers made from the highest-grade souls—souls one would normally have difficulty even encountering.
Every time I smashed one of them apart, the experience flowing into me sent strength surging through my entire body.
I was exhilarated. It felt as though my heart were pumping hot blood and heating up my brain.
“Decal! It’s getting difficult to hold them back any further!”
Stia shouted.
“Let one or two through! Even three is fine!”
“Got it…!”
I’ll show them the results of my training with Tillia…!
But what did I learn again? Well, I guess confidence is all I need!
As I prepared my magic, I punched a soul soldier that had latched onto me and knocked it over.
The moment I struck it, the soul soldier’s fake head split open with a sharp crack. Not bad.
The problem was that my fist felt as though it might split open too.
Stia had been smashing them like glass bottles, so I’d thought it would be easy, but it hurt like I’d punched a solid boulder.
I shoved back a charging soul soldier with a front kick.
“Fire Arrow!”
I, too, began combining two different spells like Diana.
At times, I spread a barrier and cast spells while taking the enemies’ attacks head-on.
Their attacks hurt, but they weren’t fatal. The real problem was that there were so many of them that we would be completely surrounded and unable to move.
There were that many soul soldiers.
Fortunately, the first wave was gradually dying down.
After finishing off the last one, I took out the Goddess’s Water Bottle for the first time in a while and drank from it.
“Diana! Drink.”
I tossed the water bottle to Diana.
“It’s water that restores mana.”
Diana caught the bottle and hesitated.
“It’s rather uncouth, but the situation is urgent, so I suppose it can’t be helped.”
The instant Diana put the bottle to her lips, the next wave began.