More shroomlike creatures came swarming out of the depths of the dark tunnels. Maeve didn't hesitate—her first reaction was to assail the incoming horde of horrors with a spell of [Magic Missiles]. Long blue beams of light fled her grimoire and slammed into the shroom men, blasting them into bits and pieces. Some got splattered against the wall.
Rennia was caught between two smaller ones. They were cornering her, and she struggled to parry their attacks. Slash, then parry, block and then deflect. And then repeat—the dirty dance—but it was putting her on the edge. These two smaller ones had red caps, probably denoting rank—they were faster too. Stronger and more efficient, if she had to be honest.
She backed herself into a corner as she weaved and darted from their attacks, fungal claws and tendrils flashing in her face.
A horrible shriek caught her attention. Another appeared from the side of the passage, flanking Maeve, who was short of channeling her next spell. It threw Maeve to the ground, its fleshy claws threatening to carve into her.
Rennia panicked, adrenaline kicked in, and she did something very risky. She shouted the only spell she knew without the comfort of ritualized words: [Quicken]. She felt her feet scuttle and struggle as she blitzed past the mooks that attempted to corner her and sliced the head off one of the red caps. Magic surged in her body, but she could feel her stamina deplete—it didn't matter. She just needed to keep Maeve from being torn apart.
Intercepting the third-party ambusher, she brought her long sword down and smashed it in the head. Its mushroom head split open, and fluid sputtered out. A mass of follicles, flower vines, and weird organs fell out.
The smell of it worked its way up Rennia's nostril. Maeve looked like she wanted to puke. Small spores started to grow in the room. Rennia grabbed a coughing Maeve and threw themselves into another corner as more seemed to pile in.
Standing toward the narrow passage, the sheer number of them was starting to wear at Rennia. She could handle five more, but what then? Would another five show up? She needed a definite answer to their advance, a show of force. But her stamina was waning, and she doubted she had enough mana left to do another quicken spell. Unlike haste, which as she understood would make her stronger as well, quicken was much weaker, especially with her levels.
Lewd thoughts. That was her way out—she knew it was a bad thing to rely upon, but if she could activate sexual discipline, she'd make short work of the enemy forces. But how, in this situation? She stood with her blade pointed at her foes. If she did die here, she'd become a laughingstock if word ever returned to Kibblestadt. But she couldn't just beg Maeve to flash her tits—she wasn't Ishmere. And Rennia was certainly not a pervert, just assailed with a perverted curse—
But she could slightly picture it, if only slightly. Her thighs already squeezed together, making her stance awkward before she could discipline herself. Her cock was already throbbing.
"[Fireball]!" Maeve shouted and blasted the group head-on center. The ball collapsed in on itself and prematurely burst, the heat sending sparks across Rennia's body.
"Just what the hell are you looking at? Shouldn't you be slashing at them like a bloody mad woman? Get in there, you dolt!"
Rennia didn't turn her head, just stared at Maeve. Maeve, whose lips parted and started sputtering half-constructed words. Her expression knotted into distress. But she didn't say anything, just scrutinized Rennia, whose guard was let down. Rennia dodged a fungal fist that came from the shroomman, then kicked the bastard back in retaliation.
It was now or never.
Rennia's eyes never left Maeve. She could feel her class working its way into her head. She saw her—Maeve—in an imaginary environment. Strung up by the vines of this mushroom colony, filled with creatures with long arms and legs, pulling at the seams of her robes. She saw fabric slipping, enough for a nipple to peek through, swelling and stiffening as she struggled to break out of it. Breasts bare and torn free, helplessly exposed and vulnerable.
Her fantasy darkened. But the image shifted. It wasn't the vine that screwed into her mouth anymore, but Rennia. She could feel her cock, swollen and aching, buried between Maeve's dark lips. She wanted Maeve to choke and then glare at her angrily as she sucked her, and she wanted her tongue to move as she yapped. Then she imagined her hips jerking forward and backward. She wanted to thrust right inside her little spoiled mouth.
[Sexual Discipline] Did its magic. Rennia however was still unfocused.
"Rennia, behind you! For fuck's sake, I never took you for a quitter!" Maeve's shout snapped her back.
The pathfinder's chest heaved. She felt her muscles surge, lungs filling until it almost hurt. The dirty skill was working. Shame licked at her, but so did power. She gripped her blade in both hands and swung, the strike splitting the shroom-thing clean in two. Another came, then another—she tore through them in a haze, the phantom taste of imagination still coating her thoughts, driving her on.
She thrashed through them before they could lay another hand on either of them. Spore-like flesh filled the ground as she cleaved through them, but it was a waning skill—she couldn't keep it up forever.
Maeve stretched out her hand and cast a spell: "Polar Ray." A beam of ejecting ice manifested out of the tense atmosphere and instantly froze what was left of the scourge attacking them. As the last of the shroommen fell, Maeve let go of her book, huffing tensely, and Rennia, still under the effects of sex-fueled adrenaline rush, dropped her sword to the ground and curled up on her knees.
She stared at her partner in adventuring and cracked a smile. They had destroyed this wave and would probably have a while before they encountered any more.
"Wipe that smirk off your face, will you! What the hell was that?" Maeve shouted, outraged at Rennia's seemingly nonchalant behavior.
Rennia didn't know what the hell she was talking about. "Um, what?"
Maeve stared in wanton disbelief, then pointed her finger and gave her a bewildering stare. "That thing you did in the middle of the battle—you zoned out, didn't you? And then all of a sudden you went wild. I could feel the magic surging through you. What the hell was that?"
Rennia scratched her head. Well, she'd come this far—she couldn't expose her secret this early. How to play this off? A skill, but keeping the contents of the skill quiet. The guild said they'd shut their mouths, but Maeve might just tell all the nobles she knew about the peasant with the "sexual discipline" skill. There was definitely some lord or lady out there deranged enough to kidnap her for her peculiar traits.
Rennia feigned a cough into her hand and looked sideways. "It's simply a skill, but I need serious motivation, so I was thinking—"
"In the midst of battle? And why stare at me in particular? Why not at the enemy?"
"I—I..." She didn't have a good explanation at hand. It would be better to explain later. "I used a skill, but that's not important..." She threw herself up from the ground and dusted herself off, staring at the monster corpses that lay around them with a frown. A lot of commotion for some mana crystals—best to get it over with.
"Come on," she offered her hand to Maeve, who protested despite taking it.
"Don't take my hand without cause or reason."
Rennia let it go and snorted. "Whatever, princess."
The pair made their peace, caught their breaths, and after a long-awaited rest, pressed on. Small little monster cores lay beneath and entrenched inside the bodies of the shroommen. Rennia paid it no mind—it probably wasn't worth their time, nor was it what they had come for.
As they descended past another floor, they came to a sudden dead end. A mishmash of vines blocked the way. Maeve prepared her grimoire and was about to torch through the entanglement of vines. Rennia held her hands up, stopping the girl, then stuck her fingers through. The vines gave way, and Maeve gave her a confused look.
"It's the portal effect—"
"Meaning?"
"It's a signifier, a marker. These vines aren't blocking our way—it's the dungeon's way of saying things are going to get harder ahead."
Maeve frowned but said nothing, nodded, and took a step forward. "Well, we came here for a common mineral. What are we waiting for? It certainly can't be worse than a horde of more shroommen."
Oh, it certainly can.
Rennia affirmed, then led the way. The vines swiftly retreated into the crevices of the dungeon, and the path led deeper. It was odd that they hadn't found something as simple as those crystals on the first floor. Hopefully they'd get them soon. However, if it gets even harder, it might be best to retreat—at least with another party member. When Mara had said this was a simple dungeon, she'd expected slimes or something. Shroommen were at least two steps ahead—best to finish it quickly.
As they went deeper in, the environment changed slightly, and the air itself shifted considerably. Maeve's mood immediately shifted—she became quiet, too quiet, with no complaints, and she stepped slowly. Rennia could hear her breathing hard. But she steeled her resolve and focused on moving forward.
The room they entered was much larger than the ones behind them. However, it was much more uncomfortable, to say the least. The immediate difference was the blue pieces of rock stuffed into the sediment of the wall—or rather, the ground.
Maeve pointed. "Is that the crystals we're supposed to find?"
Rennia nodded. "I think so. However, they're much smaller and dispersed. We need a whole bag of them, so I'm guessing we go deeper, or we'll be chipping at the walls all day."
Maeve sighed. Rennia decided now might be as good a time as ever to rest. She threw her backpack down, and Maeve followed suit, breathing a sigh of relief. They said not a word to one another, and Rennia's face turned stiff as she fell deep in thought. She wondered what Ishmere was doing at the moment—her antics were worrying, to say the least.
She closed her eyes. She had leveled back there, briefly tuning it out so she didn't get distracted by the battle. Things had changed inside her fundamentally, and she knew she would never be the same again. This path she had been thrust upon was permanent. The living system affirmed that:
[Quicken Level 2] > [Quicken Level 3]
[Sixth Thread Level 3] > [Sixth Thread Level 4]
[Pathfinder Level 2] > [Pathfinder Level 3]
[Attribute Bonus] > [Dexterity +1]
[Sexual Discipline (Passive) Lv. 4] > [Sexual Discipline (Passive) Lv. 5]
Before Rennia could sit down and unstrap her boots—because goddess knows her feet were sore—she spotted a glint of light in the corner of the room near one of the crystalline formations. She stood up on instinct and walked forward, drawn toward it.
"Rennia," Maeve called out in concern.
Rennia didn't hear her and kept on walking. There was something strange about the light, as if it was calling to her.
Rennia slipped.
Her foot caught a strange rock and she tumbled over. The angle was awkward, very weird, and she lost whatever stability she had, knocking her head on a larger rock.
The world blurred, and then she was out of it again. And then the darkness took her.