"Nnn..."
It was a pleasant morning.
When Furi woke up, Ren was sleeping right beside her. Her body was enveloped by his—or rather, her—warmth. Ren had a habit of hugging something while sleeping. Since she couldn't sleep on her back, a position hugging something must feel stable. On bad mornings, Furi had woken up pinned down and tightly embraced.
Well, she didn't particularly dislike it.
A girl's body is soft, so touching doesn't hurt, and Ren isn't very strong. Furi also loved the faintly sweet, intoxicating scent she carried.
"You're so cute."
While Ren's words were often blunt when awake, she was beautiful and innocent when sleeping. Furi felt she could watch her for hours. Of course, in reality, she couldn't afford to do so. She reluctantly settled for a kiss on Ren's forehead.
"Come on, Ren. Wake up."
"Nnn..."
With a clear, high-pitched moan, Ren woke up after a few seconds.
"Morning, Furi."
It was a common occurrence for Ren to say this in a sleepy voice, then hastily let go of her hands. She was so proactive when it mattered, yet so easily flustered. But Furi found even that trait endearing.
"Morning. Will you help me with breakfast preparations?"
"Yeah."
Furi reluctantly let go of Ren's warmth and got ready. She kept a change of clothes in this room since she used it often. It was convenient to be with Ren, as she could get hot water, not just cold, prepared with magic. Fetching water from the well just to wash her face was a hassle, and the water was freezing cold.
After washing her face, arranging her hair, and getting dressed, she left the room and went to the kitchen. Thanks to magic, the time needed to start a fire was drastically reduced. The heat from the firewood stove also served to warm the room.
Around the time Ren and Furi woke up, Iris usually woke up too (though sometimes the reverse was true, and Ren was with Iris).
"Good morning, Ren-san, Furi-san."
"Morning, Iris."
"Morning. Iris-chan, can you help me prepare the soup?"
"Yes!"
The half-elf girl, Iris, with her golden hair and deep blue eyes, was beautiful today as well. Her Japanese appearance was so striking that she was comparable to Ren, the succubus with violet-blue hair and eyes.
As a fellow woman, Furi sometimes felt envious and defeated, but she was grateful that being with these two meant fewer instances of men trying to pick them up.
The breakfast menu hadn't changed much. Thanks to the money they had from clearing more dungeon floors and the Ice Chamber for food preservation, the soup contained a little bit of meat. However, even a small amount made a huge difference, adding a deep, rich flavor.
"You two are really amazing."
Ren was of no help in the cooking, so her job was over after starting the fire and heating the water. She was welcome to wait until the food was ready, or even go back to sleep, but lately, she seemed interested and often watched Furi and Iris work.
"I can't offer you anything just for praising us, you know?" Furi teased.
But internally, she was ecstatic. She knew her grin was obvious to her comrades. While she didn't believe cooking was exclusively a girl's chore, it was fun to cook for the person she liked. She kept it a secret from Ren that she hoped things would stay this way so she wouldn't lose this privilege by Ren learning to cook.
"Itadakimasu!"
The three daily meals were a crucial factor in dungeon raiding. You can't fight on an empty stomach. Since they run on the nutrients they consume, this was an undeniable fact. Being able to eat delicious food also boosted their morale.
For Ren, the succubus, this "deliciousness" was now the main point.
As Furi glanced at her seated at the head of the table, she saw Ren meticulously savoring the significantly smaller portion compared to the others. Since Energy Drain served as her sustenance, she wasn't hungry after having "eaten" plenty during her sleep.
"By the way, Ren. How's the level-up for your class?"
"It's going up faster than I expected."
Ren had recently acquired her long-desired class: Mana Conductor. This job, which specializes in manipulating magic power, naturally has a different nature from her race, Succubus. They had expected her level-up speed to slow down due to the experience being divided.
"The numbers aren't going up as fast as the succubus level, but it seems like the class's appropriate actions are mixed in somewhere."
"I wonder if the Mana Conductor is a surprisingly lewd class...?" Iris asked, her tone suggesting she didn't quite believe it herself. Although the outfit granted by the job change was unexpectedly sexy, Ren thought that was unlikely. The fact that the experience wasn't perfectly aligned with the succubus level meant that a lot of experience wasn't coming from 'lewd' activities. Well, not that they were doing anything lewd every night, anyway.
"Maybe this is it: Energy Drain might be effective. Because that's technically restoring MP."
"Ah. So it counts as mana manipulation."
It might be perfectly compatible with the succubus race.
"Then, this is it. It would be perfect if you use magic until the very last drop before you go to sleep, right?"
"The garden would be flooded if I did that."
She couldn't exactly fire off offensive spells, so all she could do was probably just dump water into the garden. Magic light? She'd reject that since she wouldn't be able to sleep until it went out.
"For now, I've increased my maximum MP, reduced the MP consumption of magic, and also increased the power of my spells."
"So Ren-san will be able to use a lot more magic."
"The magic attack power won't return to its previous level until the class level goes up a bit more. But I should be able to use it more often."
The class level was still developing. In the long run, this meant a significant power-up. Since there was rarely time to use Energy Drain during combat, having more MP available for boss fights was a plus.
"The eleventh floor feels hard too, so we need to be focused."
Ren and her party had already cleared the eleventh floor of the dungeon. Since the "goblin hell" ended on the tenth floor, the monsters they encountered were new. The new enemy was the Orc, a bipedal, pig-like race. Tall as a human and physically stronger, they were highly durable. The saving grace was that their numbers were reduced, appearing only one or two at a time, but it was taxing to continuously attack a difficult-to-defeat enemy. Even the attack-specialized Takuma might not have been able to one-shot an Orc.
"But we'll still have some fun on the side, won't we?" Furi giggled.
"You sound excited."
"Because it's a date!"
Their plan for today's day off was to go to the bookstore together. It was a date with Ren and also a date with Iris. This meant two treats in one outing. The fact that both Ren and Iris got shy at the word "date" was also a good thing.
What should they wear?
They were gradually adding to their collection of going-out clothes. Although they couldn't buy things as freely as they did in Japan, since they were high school age, they wouldn't grow much taller, so the clothes they bought would last a long time. They intended to mend any minor wear and tear themselves and incorporate that into their outfits. Furi was also happy that Ren had started wearing cuter clothes since completing her succubus transformation.
"Since we're going, maybe I'll buy something too."
When the three of them walked together, people in town often stared. Sometimes people would approach them, and when they did, the girls would smile and respond. Although Ren and Iris generally drew the most attention, Furi was the one who was most often addressed casually.
"Manga again?" Ren asked.
"Yeah. Novels are hard to read lazily while lounging around, aren't they?"
"Ah, that's true."
Ren, focused on cost-effectiveness, seemed to be aiming for books with lots of text. If the goal was to kill time rather than change her mood, that made sense. Ren's only other recent hobby was the sewing she had just picked up.
"I want to buy a history book," Iris said.
"Iris is such a studious person."
"They're really interesting, you know? To find so many stories packed into those short sentences in a textbook."
Iris's knowledge was mainly derived from books her parents had bought. By recreating textbooks from memory, a certain level of education could be provided in this world. For specialized subjects, they could even ask former teachers who had free time. Given that her family produced the raw material for paper, the girl's house was well-stocked with books. When talking to her, it was easy to forget that Iris was an Otherworlder. Still, for this younger girl, the Kamakura Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration were all "stories from an unknown world."
"Maybe we should have studied that hard, too."
"I'm ashamed of my old self for thinking things like, 'What's the use of studying history?'"
"...Please stop praising me so much."
Iris, blushing, was incredibly cute, but since they were in public, Furi resisted the urge to pat her head.
Now, the town of a thousand people wasn't very big, so they arrived at the bookstore quite quickly.
"I wonder if it'll be busy?" Furi asked.
"Bookstores aren't usually that crowded, are they?" Ren replied.
"Oh? There might be a lot of people standing around reading."
After all, standing around reading was free. Furi admitted that after visiting too often during one period of time, the owner had gently scolded her to "please buy something once in a while."
"Ah, look, there are other customers besides us."
The bookstore was a small space packed with bookshelves. The interior was more like an independently run used bookstore than a large station-front store. Besides the owner, there was a figure Furi recognized. A man or woman dressed in a hooded coat. The fact that they were covering their skin, even wearing gloves, made them stand out. Furi thought, "Maybe they have sensitive skin?" but she had never seen their bare face.
He or she briefly glanced at Furi and the others, then immediately returned their gaze to a book. They were standing perfectly still while reading—a very poised stance.
"Welcome. ...A large group today," the middle-aged shopkeeper greeted.
"Hello. These two are definitely going to buy something, so don't worry."
"Aren't you just here to stand and read?" Ren countered.
"...Furi. You haven't been causing trouble for adults everywhere, have you?"
"Ah, ahaha," Furi laughed to brush off the glares from both the shopkeeper and Ren.
"Well, just let me know if you decide to buy something. And please handle the merchandise carefully."
"Understood."
Ren and Iris nodded obediently and walked towards their respective sections. Just as Furi was about to browse the shojo manga, she noticed the shopkeeper sigh softly.
"Iris-chan and the famous Ren-chan. That combination is too much of an eyesore."
"Mister, shouldn't you say 'a sight for sore eyes'?" Furi corrected.
"You mustn't touch them, though, must you? They're more like poison than medicine—a trap, really."
That might be true. Although Furi had free rein to touch both Ren and Iris.
"I wish they'd put a hood on too."
"Speaking of the hood, is that kid allowed to stand and read?" Furi asked, gesturing to the existing customer.
"Ah, that one?" the shopkeeper nodded. "They're fine. They buy something once in a while, and I'm indebted to their parents."
"So they're a kid who was born here?"
Furi was curious about what kind of person they were. Most of the children she knew were friendly, like Iris and her sisters. This one seemed quiet, but what were they like? She wanted to talk to them, but Ren had just cautioned her about causing trouble...
"Excuse me."
A beautiful voice spoke. It was different from Ren's voice, which seemed to slip easily into a person's heart, and different from Iris's bird-like chirping. It was a clear voice, deliberately devoid of any unpleasant undertones.
Furi looked up and saw that the person in question had approached Ren. The pitch of the voice suggested it was a girl.
"Are you Ren-san, the Succubus?"
"Ah, yes, I am...?" Ren replied, looking puzzled.
The mysterious girl then looked directly at Ren and, with a careful movement, removed the hood covering her face.
"...She's beautiful," Furi thought.
The face revealed was even more refined than expected. Her skin was white, her hair silver. Her dark navy eyes had a strangely enigmatic quality. She was likely around the same age as Furi or slightly younger.
Almost at the same moment Furi felt a strange premonition due to the girl's unexpected cuteness, a voice flowed from her well-formed lips again.
"I have a request. Would you please become my Master?"
"Eh?"
"Eh...!?"
"WHAT!?"
The voices weren't just Ren's and Furi's; Iris, who had noticed the conversation and walked over, also shouted.
The shopkeeper frowned slightly at the loud noise, which was inappropriate for a bookstore, but the girl showed no sign of caring and continued to stare only at Ren. Did she have no regard for anyone else?
Furi had no intention of restricting Ren's social life. She felt that even if Ren got another lover, she would have to accept it, but being asked to be called "Master" was unexpected.
As a pang of jealousy scorched her chest, she glared at the mysterious girl.
"...Hmm?"
She noticed a very thin line running across the girl's face, and her anger quickly turned to confusion.
============
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