After Luna was done dealing with the bodies, we continued heading to the waterfall. But now, since we were both caked in blood, we also had to wash ourselves and our clothes.

Of course, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass by me. Luna had always kept her clothes on while she washed me and Toba, and since she also locked herself in the tower when it was her turn, it was previously impossible to spy on her.

Now, however, I had only my shame to restrain my actions.

“Listen up you sissies! This is our first operation since arriving in this new world, failure will NOT BE TOLERATED! AM I CLEAR?”

“YES”

“YES SIR”

“UNDERSTOOD”

“We are currently underprepared and underequipped, it is no secret to any of you that our division is still in development, HOWEVER, it is precisely because of that that we managed to get so many great opportunities until now”

“Our enemies know of our weakness, but they don’t yet know of our intentions! If this covert operation fails and we are discovered, we could lose the privileges we have enjoyed until now.”

“Remember that our objective here is to merely GATHER the information we need, we are dealing with someone extremely skilled, so I repeat: USAGE OF THE RESOURCES GATHERED IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN”

“If I catch any of you three doing something I’ll personally cut you off, our mission here is to acquire the intel and make use of it later, in a secure location... AM. I. CLEAR?”

“SIR, YES SIR”

“Good… Let the operation begin, our primary targets are the twin peaks we have grown accustomed to, burn the image in your minds and keep every detail in. GO”

“Cona… You know I can see you, right?”

Shit, she saw me! I didn’t even manage to see anything because she had her towel covering her…

But even so… What’s up with those curves? Those wizard robes hide her pretty well…

“Uhh… I was just gathering some mushrooms, I’ll go get them somewhere else!”

“Sigh… Just don’t go too far away, ok?” She said in a helpless face, obviously my lie was even worse than my stealth… At least she didn’t seem angry.

Mission failed, I guess.

…

As we finished gathering everything, we laid down the buckets of water and sat down by the shadow of a tree to relax a little.

There was an awkward silence, and one could easily mistake it as a product of my spying attempt, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

We had just unintentionally exposed ourselves to each other. Me, by dropping down my child act in a moment of carelessness, and Luna, by showing me a side of her no one would expect judging by her looks.

Of course, I didn’t care that Luna was apparently a badass killing machine. I was actually looking forward to learning her techniques, but a normal child should be scared by that, I guess.

Should I pretend to be afraid of her? I don’t think she is that stupid, and I don’t think my acting skills are that good.

I wouldn’t have ended up in fights with my teachers in my past life if I was able to pretend smiling and agreeing with everything.

After a few minutes passed, she finally broke the silence that was plaguing the cozy little waterfall.

“Cona… About what happened earlier…”

Luna blushed slightly as she stared at the ground for a bit after finally speaking, it was a beautiful sight to behold.

“You know… I guess you are curious and all and that’s fine, but you’re too young to be thinking about that… So, don’t do it again ok? Wait for big sister to finish bathing before you come looking for me.” She said as her blushed evolved to a completely red face and she turned her head away from me.

Wait, what?

So the awkward silence was about that after all? And what’s with all that blushing? I’m just a child lady!

Although I DO possess some less than noble intentions in my heart…

She had kept her face away from me in a cute display of shame, so she didn’t notice my look of complete shock.

“Uhm… Big sister Luna, I won’t do it again ok? I’m sorry…”

If she’s not going to touch on the matter then I’m not going to either, back to innocent kid mode

“It’s ok, it’s just that I have some things I can’t show, but… Yeah, it’s fine now.” She finished her sentence with a charming smile, still featuring some remnants of her earlier aggressive blush.

“But Cona, I can’t help but feel that you’re growing up way too fast. And I can’t understand some of the things you and Toba do either. You said before that you don’t remember much about who taught you all that, but why do you keep doing it? Eating all that food, the weird training…”

Oh crap, I thought she would let me off the hook but she’s still suspicious.

Since she was now asking about my motives though, I guess I could be a little honest with her.

“It’s to make my muscles bigger” I said nonchalantly

“But… why?”

Why? That question caught me off guard, aren’t big, strong muscles important for an adventurer?

“Well, to get stronger. I managed to stop the bad guy’s sword only because I was strong right?”

“Yes, you could say it helped, but isn’t it better to just practice combat normally to get stronger?”

“Is it?” I genuinely didn’t know, it’s no secret to me that muscle mass doesn’t translate 1:1 to strength in combat, but I was just getting started, I didn’t have excess mass by any means... Do people in this world refrain from strength training completely?

“Hmm… Here, let me show you” She got down on her stomach and placed her elbow on the ground while keeping her hand open and extended to me.

At least they have arm wrestling…

I copied her movements as she gestured with her hand for me to grab it, once we were locked in, she smiled and said:

“Now, see how my arm is skinny and kind of soft?” Luna said while pulling up her sleeve with a smile that hid a hint of mischief.

“Try moving my hand to your left using all your strength”

This woman… To think she would make fun of me… I can’t let her get away with it, I know she’s probably stronger just by virtue of being an adult, but I was getting pretty strong myself, even that bandit underestimated me.

I don’t need to win; I just need to prove to her that my training isn’t a waste of time.

I put on a serious expression and clenched my hand tight as I prepared myself to use all my strength, I even caved my knee on the ground a little so I would have a stronger base.

As I closed my eyes to focus completely, I started contracting all my muscles as strong as I could.

I used to do this all the time as a kid, this brings back memories…

I didn’t spare even an ounce of strength, normally I wouldn’t go all out from the start, but my goal this time wasn’t victory, so I couldn’t afford to hold back.

“Eh?”

I opened my eyes since I felt something was off, and there was Luna, with the same carefree expression from before and seemingly completely unaffected, her arm hadn’t moved even an inch and she wasn’t showing any signs of effort.

I was sweating profusely, and my head was beet red from using so much strength, but she didn’t even flinch.

What is this woman taking? I want some right now!

“Ok… huff… huff… I get it.” I said as I laid down on the ground, trying to stop my heavy breathing.

“See? It’s not that big muscles don’t help… But they’re not necessary to get stronger.”

“I guess that’s true, but…”

“Hm?” She tilted her head, apparently taken by surprise that I didn’t give up on the idea just yet.

“Don’t they look cool?” I got up and smiled as I did my double biceps pose.

Now that I think about it, that’s the last thing I did before I died, isn’t it?

“I guess so, hehehe” Her cute chuckle widened my smile a bit more.

I was learning about this world and the differences human bodies had from the ones of earth little by little. While it is true that I intend to make full use of that knowledge to get as strong as possible, it’s not like I have to give up on what I like either.

I don’t know why I ended up in this place, or what is my purpose here, but at the very least I want to enjoy it.

I ended my past life with too many regrets, I was always angry and the few times I felt alive was when I joked around with my small group of friends.

I didn’t want to end up like that all over again, focused on only one thing and driving away everyone in the process, getting more and more closed off from everyone until I eventually found myself lonely and resentful.

Of course, I couldn’t change completely, but I had decided to make my best effort in enjoying this new world and all it had to offer.

I’ll train because I like it, and I’ll be an adventurer because it sounds like fun. If I focus only on what’s optimal for getting stronger and stronger, I have the feeling I’ll end up lonely all over again.

All that to say, I’ll keep bodybuilding, necessary or not. Besides, even if there are other ways to get stronger, it isn’t like my training didn’t pay off at all. Sure, Luna is on a completely different level even though her arms are tiny, but I AM getting stronger, that much is certain.

Still, where does her power come from?

Without warning, I got close to her and grabbed one of her arms.

“Hm? You want to go back?”

I just shook my head and proceeded to fondle her arm a bit. I knew strength had something to do with muscles, unless there was magic involved, so if it wasn’t about size…

“So hard!”

I squeezed her arm a little harder, and after my fingers finished digging through the softness of her fat and skin, what I was met with was an incredibly hard muscle. It felt like I was touching metal cables weaved together instead of flesh.

“Kya! Cona don’t do that all the sudden!” She retracted her arm and looked at me while pouting.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to tell a woman that? Hmpf!”

“I’m sorry Big sister, I didn’t know…”

“Eh? Oh… I guess no one taught you…”

I tried to contain my laughter as I looked at her embarrassed expression, being a kid is truly wonderful.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Is it dangerous that I’m joking around with an incredibly strong killing machine like her? I should be more careful, but somehow, I know in my heart that she will never do me harm.

“But… why are Luna’s muscles so hard? Is that why you’re so strong?”

“You… Sigh.” She had a helpless look on her face, but she quickly shook it off and decided to explain it to me.

“The more you train and fight, the stronger you get. As you get stronger and stronger your muscles get denser and harder, even without increasing in size.”

“Hm” I nodded for her to continue.

“It’s not just physical strength they affect, either. Denser muscles act like a natural defense, and even reduce aging. In fact, some adventurers are so strong that wearing armor is a hindrance to them, so they use only their muscles for defense, and it’s said that the most powerful warriors from the War era are still alive to this day, even after hundreds of years have passed.”

“War era?” I did hear something about there being a lot of wars in the past, but I didn’t know it was whole separate era.

“If you stopped refusing to learn history and geography you would know…”

“Ugh… Sorry”

She got me on that one, but in my defense, I needed to focus on learning how to read and write, and I’m lazy so learning all at once isn’t possible.

“Sight, the War era was 500 years ago, when dungeons didn’t exist, and the demons hadn’t yet been banished to hell.”

I had a feeling I would be here all day if I started asking about demons and dungeons, so it was best to focus on muscles for now.

“Anyway, as I was saying, a denser and stronger body affects a lot, not just strength. I’m sure if you keep training with that sword of yours, you’ll eventually get much stronger than me, you have great potential after all.” Luna opened up a smile again as she said those final words, she really couldn’t stay mad for too long.

“Hehe, I’ll grow up to slay all kinds of monsters, just you wait!”

“I’m sure you will!” She said with a chuckle, but soon her face grew a little serious again.

“But Cona, be careful when fighting humans… If you were a bit quicker, you could have killed that man… That’s not something a child should experience.”

She looked at the ground with a gaze filled with complex feelings, and after a couple of seconds she completed:

“I don’t want you to end up like me…”

I didn’t know what to say. At this point it was obvious that she was no ordinary adventurer, but until now I thought she was just a really skilled one.

From her words, however, I could feel that there was something else.

I still had no contact with the world outside this forest, so it was hard for me to judge what was normal and what was not. And so, when I witnessed her mercilessly killing those bandits, I hadn’t really thought anything of it.

To me it was just a self-defense situation, and with the fact that this was a medieval world, and that even back on earth I was the kind of guy who concealed carried everywhere I went, I didn’t properly grasp the weight of her actions.

“Luna, I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

“Eh!? Wha-“ I brought her out of her daze, it seemed she really wasn’t expecting this response.

“And If being like you means being strong and brave enough to protect who I love, then I want to be just like you! I won’t hesitate again!”

Damn, I’m smooth as fuck.

“Cona… Uhhhhhhh…” She started to cry again… Now I’m feeling kinda bad…

She grabbed me with incredible speed and shoved my face in her bosom as she hugged me tighter than ever before. It seemed I had hit a delicate but important spot, and now I was being properly rewarded for choosing the right dialogue option.

Feeling bad? When did I say that again? I never once felt bad in my life!

…

After a little more sobbing, Luna finally calmed down.

At this point I’m practically this woman’s therapist.

“I guess we left Toba waiting a little too long, hehe. Let’s go back with the water.”

I was about to agree and start moving when I remembered a little promise she made me. Even I had forgotten about it so I wouldn’t blame her, but a promise was a promise.

“Luna, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Hm? Oh right! We should carry the swords and equipment that survived the battle, I left them in a pile over there.”

Before she started moving towards our battle spoils, I interrupted her.

“Not that! You said after collecting water you would take me to hunt a beast!”

“Eh? That’s… You still want to do it?”

“Of course! And now that I know how strong Big sister Luna is, there’s a lot more things I want to learn from you.”

“…” She paused for a while, and it was clear that she was deeply conflicted about this, she was moving her eyes frantically while occasionally muttering something to herself.

“Luna… You promised…” I wasn’t going to let go of this opportunity, so I was already prepared to use every card up my sleeve. Thank God it wasn’t needed, however, because I was absolutely sick of all this crying.

“Ok… Sigh. Let’s quickly find a wild boar or something then, did you cast firebolt this week already?”

“I haven’t! Will you let me test it out?”

“Yes, it will be safer to protect myself and the forest from the firebolt than protecting you from the beast at melee range. I’ll keep the creature occupied and you cast it as accurately as possible, no need to worry about me.”

“All right!” I said with a smile.

When did I start to smile this much?

This was a huge opportunity, not only I would get more combat experience, I would even test my spell against a real target!

I didn’t expect this at all, I thought Luna would just let me finish off a wounded animal or something, but this was far better.

Combat and spell experience aside, this is awesome! It’s like being able to fire a rocket launcher at a cow, but less morally questionable because the beast is aggressive. I hope PETA is watching.

It was impossible to brush away my edgy thoughts, I had really hit the jackpot this time.

…

After a little less than half an hour of skulking around, we finally found a target.

I was prepared for it to take way longer than that, I had no experience in hunting, but I knew it was difficult. Luna, however, seemed to have experience tracking down targets, and in no time, she found tracks to follow.

Our target was a kind of wild boar with slightly orange fur and reddish tusks. It was also at least double the size of a normal boar.

I was expecting a normal animal, since the only big predators I had seen so far looked just like their counterparts on earth, but it seemed this was a special one.

Also, judging by Luna’s reaction, not all boars in this world were like this.

“Cona, listen up.” She whispered next to my ear, making me tremble a bit.

I don’t know which is more embarrassing, for her to think I’m scared of the boar, or aroused by her whispering.

“That boar is special, but that’s good for us.” Her mouth curved up slightly while she looked at the exotic beast.

“How come?”

“That fur color means he’s resistant to fire, so he probably won’t blow up completely with your firebolt.”

“That’s… Good?”

Wouldn’t that mean it would be harder to kill it? I guess she could always finish it off, but I really wanted to land the killing blow…

“Yes, we’ll be able to salvage it for meat and leather. Animals like these are rare around these parts, and they have higher intellect so it’s harder to track them down without being noticed. To sum it up, they’re worth a lot.”

With what she just said one would have thought she was just being greedy, but the drool dripping from her mischievous smile revealed what her real interest in the creature was.

“Wait, if he’s really that good, how come he didn’t notice me?” I was trying to be stealthy, but I had absolutely no training whatsoever in that department, that’s why my earlier operation failed so miserably.

“I cast a spell on you, don’t worry. That boar may have sharp senses but at the end of the day it’s just that, senses. It can’t find you through other means so with a basic [Serpo] spell we can easily bypass his natural detection”

Wait, spell? When did she cast a spell on me? I’m sure I didn’t hear anything, and I didn’t see her opening her book either. Actually, now that I think about it, I also didn’t hear her casting the spells she used in our combat with the bandits, is she cheating?

Noticing my confused expression, she said:

“Don’t worry, I whispered the spell, I’ll tell you about it later.”

Whispered the spell huh? This woman is full of surprises, it was absolutely worth it coming here.

“What do I do now?” I asked while trying to hide my excitement.

“Take this firebolt scroll and when I give you the signal just do as we practiced at home. I’ll try to steer the boar in a way that you can aim for his head. Like I said, no need to worry about me.”

Luna was a completely different person when she got serious like this, it like she flips a switch somewhere and changes up her entire personality.

I guess it’s to be expected though, serious situations can only lead to death if handled carelessly. I wonder just how many life-or-death confrontations she has been to.

I was nervous of course, and somehow, I got a slight bad feeling about this whole situation, but this was a far more controlled battle then the one with the bandits, so there was not so much to worry about.

“Stay here and prepare to cast the spell.” She said in an eerily uncharacteristic tone, while the boar cluelessly looked at his surroundings and occasionally let out small flames from his nostrils.

“Ok.”

Luna started to move slowly while looking straight at the boar and drawing her dagger, he quickly noticed her and seemed afraid but somehow, he didn’t run away instantly.

Now closer, they started circling each other and the boar seemed hesitant to run away, his movements seemed almost unnatural, as if he was fighting with himself.

Soon, however, his inner battle ended, and he started to charge straight towards Luna.

As soon as it got into her range, she parried one of his tusks with her dagger and twisted her body while grabbing the other one, her movements seemed even more precise than the ones in the battle against the bandits.

Digging her feet in the ground, she waited the boar’s momentum to dissipate, and then forced him to turn his head towards me.

Luna’s resolute eyes met mine and she seemed about to shout something.

It’s now! Any moment now and she’ll give the signal to cast it!

I already had my hand touched against the rough special paper of the scroll and was just about to start moving my hands like I practiced so many times, but in a fraction of a second her serious expression turned into one of shock and she screamed something a little weird to be considered a signal.

“CONA, IN YOUR LEFT!”

Eh? Wasn’t she supposed to yell ‘Go!’ or something like that?

By reflex, I turned to my left and my eyes widened as I saw a huge tiger running in my direction with incredible speed.

His eyes met mine, and seeing that he was discovered, he let out a terrifying roar.

I knew that tiger, of course. How could I forget him? It was him that almost killed me and Toba back when we were trying to get to civilization. And it was him that kept Toba so scared he refused to leave the tower.

Time passed very slowly from this point onwards, and a lot happened in just a couple of seconds.

As the tiger charged and got closer and closer, I could already see the boar lying dead on the ground from the corner of my eye, he had a wound in his left eye and blood was flowing out profusely.

Obviously, Luna was coming to save me. The problem was, she wouldn’t arrive in time, since at this point the tiger had already jumped high in the air to get me.

There was not much to do, I didn’t have my sword ready, and I couldn’t even compete with a regular bandit, let alone an apex predator.

But I had one last resort. I took advantage of the fact that my left hand was still touching the magic circle and brought my right hand towards my face making a fist.

My muscle memory kicked in, and aided by the absurd amount of adrenaline that suddenly flooded my body, I yelled as I pointed my finger forward at the end of my memorized set of movements.

[IGNIS!]

Luna got terrified by this, and it was not difficult to figure out why.

Firebolt was a beginner spell according to her, but even so, it had incredible destructive power. To put it simply, at the distance the tiger was at, if I hit him directly, I would die so hard there wouldn’t be much left to burry.

Thankfully, however, it wasn’t my first near death experience.

The firebolt exploded from my finger and the flash of fire occupied the beast’s pupils as he began to come down from the air to claw me to pieces.

To everyone’s surprise but me, the little fireball didn’t hit him, instead it passed right below him and hit the ground close to his tail.

The explosion was fierce, I had never cast this spell this close for obvious reasons, so I didn’t know what to expect.

The hot air reached and burned my face as the fire expanded from the point of impact, and the shockwave hit me like Mike Tyson’s left hook.

The last things I saw were the tiger flying over my head with half of his body charred, glaring at me, and Luna quickly taking a small ruby out of the pouch in her belt.

So, it didn’t die, huh?

***

Hungry… Cona and Luna still not come back.

Tired of training sword, tired of training speak… Want sleep but too hungry.

Should eat more after got sick, Cona said.

He right, always, but stomach weird after bad fruit, don’t want to eat after.

Now hungry but no food…

“Toba! We’re back.”

Hear sound but not see Luna yet, invisible wall not let sight go through.

Toba doesn’t understand… But Luna here now.

“Cona sleeping?”

“… Yeah, he’s a little tired so I’ll lay him to rest, ok?”

Luna look sad, not know why, but now all together again.

***

“Hmm… Where am I?”

Goddamn… I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Something smells nice though.

“Woke up just in time, eh? Food is almost ready.” Luna said as she looked down at me, her pink hair dropping down her face.

Not a bad sight to see after just waking up, her charm never fails to captivate me.

I was inside the tower again, probably carried by Luna after what happened. I was lying down in one of the makeshift beds we had set out in a corner, and my head was resting on Luna’s lap.

Now that I think about it, this place is getting really cramped up. Luna is extremely skilled in a lot of stuff but apparently carpentry wasn’t one of them. We really should build some more rooms around this tower if we want to continue living here.

I hadn’t noticed it until now because I was born under unusual circumstances, so this was already luxury for me, but we should improve our condition a bit.

“You must be tired, I used a healing spell, but they take a little getting used to…” Luna was wearing a smile that hid a lot of bitterness underneath as she looked away from me like she was ashamed.

Suddenly, I remembered it all, I was attacked by that tiger and just about managed to cast firebolt in time, but it seems it wasn’t far enough for me to come out unharmed from it.

“Why the sad face, you saved me like you said you would.” I said while still resting my head on her lap.

Although I had no reason to feel angry at her, I could imagine what she was feeling. Luna probably had her back against the wall there, it all happened way too fast.

I’m sure if she had detected the tiger a little sooner, she would be able to prepare a spell or get into melee range in time, but the way things were, there was not much she could do. Especially since she had her hands occupied with the boar.

The least I could do was try to ease her feelings of guilt.

“No… This time you saved yourself Cona. If you hadn’t fired that spell with such precision…”

“Wasn’t it great? Even I didn’t know I could do that, but it’s thanks to all our training together.”

I couldn’t let her dwell too much on that, so I tried my best to change the subject.

At this point though… Shouldn’t she be crying?

Her face hadn’t changed even a bit, based on past experiences she should be bawling her eyes out any moment now… But it didn’t happen.

It seemed things were serious this time, I had to change my strategy.

“Cona… You-“

“Luna, can I ask you something?” I said in a more serious voice as I got up so I could talk facing her.

“Wha-“

“If you hadn’t found us, what do you think would have happened?”

At this point I had dropped the child act completely, but since I had just been through a lot in terms of experience, and since she considered me some sort of genius or prodigy, I should be fine.

“If I hadn’t found you…”

“Sure, we could get by with the dead birds from the barrier and water from the rain, but what next?”

“Would we just sit by as the years passed? Without learning how to read or write, and without ever leaving?”

Luna was deep in thought; my words were reaching her.

“Naturally, I wouldn’t have stayed there even a year. And when we tried to leave… Well, you could imagine what would happen to us in the forest.”

She was now looking at me with an understanding face, time for the final blow.

“The only reason we even have a chance to survive is because Luna oneesan took care of us, and the only reason I managed to survive against that tiger was because you trained me and let me experience real combat against the bandits.”

“Cona…” She reached out her arms and pulled me towards her as she hugged me tight like she always did. Somehow though, this hugged seemed a little different, it felt important.

“I don’t know what I did to get so lucky as to find you two. You’re certainly special Cona, any other kid would be crying while scared for his life, but I can see it in your face that you want to go right back to training.” Her voice was extremely soft and gentle as she spoke to me while caressing my hair.

“Even those kids back at the mountain weren’t so resolute…”

Kids in mountains? Is this woman part of a barbarian tribe? If she’s Mongolian, I want to learn archery…

“Well, I don’t know about them, but I would be crazy to not want to learn everything I can from someone as strong as Luna!”

I did mean it, although I haven’t met anyone else besides her and Toba, just based on those bandits I could tell that she wasn’t ordinary by any means. It would be extremely foolish to not make use of her knowledge and experience.

“But Cona…” She said in a confused tone.

“Yes?”

“What is oneesan?”

SHIT.

Cona Stats:

KDR 0/0/2

Toba Stats:

Diarrhea