- Athas -
"Oh by the way Elaine and Bina are coming here tomorrow. You will be leaving for the capital the day after tomorrow right?" Veena asked as she sat down to eat.
"Hmm. It's almost been a week. Arnold is also ready and I can't make him wait much longer." I replied.
Elaine was going to arrive tomorrow to take over things here as we had to go to the capital. Originally she was the only one but Veena actually called Bina at the last moment. Was it because of Kurumi? Who knows?
Kurumi herself was slightly nervous but didn't complain either so it wasn't my place to poke my nose where it didn't belong.
"How is your training for Battle Aura going?"
"That… not so easy. Sir Ralph said it depends on the individual to learn the skill. To be honest, it's similar to how we learn a skill without using the game's assistance… and learning Battle Aura without anyone's help is… hard. It's raw manipulation of mana. I guess it's a form of magic based reinforcement instead of Life Essence based reinforcement. It's more similar to Haki than Touki and yet different from both. I guess I will have to wait and see how long it takes me to learn this skill." I replied, feeling slightly frustrated at my slow speed of learning.
NPC characters could teach them some rare magic or skills but the condition was that the player should meet the requirements of a teacher but it also depended on how much time and talent a student has.
One could learn the skill very easily or not learn the skill at all.
As for Non NPC characters teaching others… that wasn't something I had seen yet.
"I… I know some things about Magic Based Reinforcement too. I can help you out but I am not sure how much that would help." Rose offered.
"Oh, thank you. Any help will be great."
"Hmm. That's great. You can assist him when you go with him to the Capital." Veena said, clapping her hands.
I looked at her questioningly at this. "Will you not be coming?"
"No. I will be needed here to complete the trade agreement. Rose could have taken my place but…"
Yes. Due to the Slave Seal on her, she wasn't allowed to sign such agreements and any such agreements had to be signed by her master… aka me.
Man… finding a way to get her and others to Tier 7 was becoming more urgent.
"Don't worry. Bina can go with you to help you out with anything you need." Veena added, getting my attention and a slight twitch from Kurumi.
"Assist me?"
"Yes dear. Bina is someone who served my son, the ruler of the Underworld and the devil race. She is more than enough to handle such matters and she takes her duty very seriously. She will help you in any way needed."
…
I pretended to ignore the innuendo in her last words.
Rose however didn't react, perhaps not understanding but there was an odd look on Kurumi's face.
"Oh by the way, Rose, can you give the two of us some alone time tomorrow? You will be having him all to yourself for the next few days so I want him all to myself tonight. You don't mind, do you?"
These words however caused different reactions from both the girls.
Rose stuttered, red in her ears. "I… I… no. I don't mind."
Kurumi however dropped her spoon and looked at us in shock. Her eyes went from me to Veena and then back to me again as she tried to process the information.
Veena however had a mischievous smile on her face.
…Yeah. She did that on purpose. There is no way that was accidental.
We finished our dinner in that same awkward mood while Veena had fun. After dinner, I left the inn to escort Kurumi back to the Inner City Gates, while Veena and Rose prepared for the night.
As soon as the house was out of our sight, Kurumi turned towards me and questioned incredulously. "You are banging Venelana Gremory?"
…
"I am going out with her, yes." I replied as calmly as I could.
"...you… you do know who she is right?"
"Yes. She did tell me all about her before we started this relationship."
"And you are still banging her?"
"We do what every couple does."
She just looked at me with her mouth open wide.
"Then Rose?"
"We decided to see each other too. Veena was the one who matched us actually. We tried it out and I am coming to enjoy Rose's company more with each passing day." I replied, earnestly.
"And that woman, Bina? She is Grayfia Lucifuge, right? At least that's what Rose told me about. The strongest queen of the Underworld, the silver haired queen of annihilation… her too?"
…seriously who thinks of those titles?
Do they have a PR team?
They sound chunni but awesome at the same time.
But then again, knowing what I did from the novels, I was pretty sure they did have some kind of PR team.
"No. That was just Veena messing with you. She has a very… unique sense of humour." Although, I am pretty sure that she was quite truthful about that suggestion of Bina doing whatever I tell her to.
That woman… she is hardcore about this whole maid thing.
And while I won't deny that the stoic maid fantasy didn't tickle some of my fantasies, Veena having no small part behind that, I still didn't want to do something that would make her uncomfortable. She had that… look, where she could be perfectly respectful and still make you feel guilty just by quietly looking at you.
If this wasn't a game and any kind of manipulating spells on others was not banned in Towns and Cities, I would have thought it was some kind of skill or magic.
"Damn boss. I won't lie but I previously thought that the strongest player that you had was just for show but who would have thought that it was so apt? To be banging the mother of the strongest devil alive… that has got to be some kind of achievement?"
"... alright. Enough of that. No need to broadcast my relationships to the whole world. That is not going to do anything about your own worries."
She paused. "What worries?"
"Did you really think none of us noticed the hesitant looks from you since Bina was mentioned?" I said, making her lips twitch imperceptibly. "You don't have to worry about her. She won't do anything to you. Veena has already talked to her and one thing that you can absolutely believe about Bina is that… she will follow orders from her superiors no matter what. If she has been ordered to not say anything, she won't." This wasn't a joke.
Bina was exactly this kind of a person.
Seeing her quiet, I added. "Veena probably realised your worries and was making these jokes to reassure you. She is very good at that."
Kurumi didn't say anything and we just walked towards the gate in silence for a while before she broke the silence. "You actually like her, don't you?"
"I do. She has a very great personality and has been with me through some pretty depressing times. People have come together for much less."
"And she's hot." She added.
"Yes. That too." I nodded, not lying. That part helped a lot.
She looked at me oddly at this and I just shrugged my shoulders. "I never claimed to be a saint or anything, have I? She is hot. I know that and I like it."
"I am not blaming you or anything. She is definitely hot. If I were swinging that way, I would definitely hit on her too." She replied casually. "No wonder you were able to shrug off my advances so easily. You had experience.
"To be honest, your techniques were… quite amateurish." I joked.
"Ouch." She held her heart in mock hurt but I realised that her mood had improved a lot compared to before.
We reached the gate and I left her there and returned back to our home.
________________________________x__________________________________
I woke up the next morning with two naked ladies wrapped around me.
My biological clock… or whatever worked inside this game had gotten used to waking up early in the morning for my runs by now.
The problem was not waking up. It was what came after that… getting out from the arms of these two supernaturally pretty ladies and going out for a run.
Still, the Grind doesn't wait for anyone so I forced myself with herculean effort to pry their arms off without waking them up and got dressed. A cold bath before the run did help calm things down but I had stopped taking baths in the house since two days ago, preferring to use the Knight's Academy instead.
This was due to a very interesting mechanism of the game which I had discovered.
In this world, Towns and Villages were Safe Zones. In these places, players cannot be hurt, not even if they tried hurting themselves. I found this out when I was trying to decrease my health to try out my new Incomplete Hogyoku Skill. I found out that I couldn't even hurt myself, let alone bring my health to the red zone.
Suddenly I remembered the thing about Veena keeping poison pouches under her pillow back when we had started sleeping together.
Did she know that?
There were however some exceptions, like if someone gets poisoned outside and came inside a town or a village, they would still suffer damage until their Poisoned Status effect is cured. This is true for more than one Status Effect and not just poisoned Status Effect. This was verified by Kurumi who had gotten poisoned and Gasper had gone out to bring the antidote for her. In her case however, the poisoned Status Effect had gone after a period of time.
I had used this method once and poisoned myself till my HP went into the red and then used my Reversed Curse Technique to heal. It was easy to pass this off as me training my Skills to a higher level as it made sense to do so in a safer environment.
But then I found another glitch.
The safe zone rule had one exception… the sparring zones.
There were some zones where players could fight with each other as well as npcs of this game. It was also the place where I had fought that spar with Dwain. The losing condition was for the HP to go into the red.
This meant that I could easily trigger my skill during a spar as long as my health went into red… which was quite easy when fighting against Grand Knights like Sir Ralph and Arnold. I have to say that the sweet increase of the Spirit Stat was great.
Due to this, things got a bit bloody and I took most of my baths in the Knight's Academy now.
I followed my usual routine and then returned back to see two new figures and an unusual tension in the room.