Chapter 84: Deception

[Edited by: Bunny, deathbricks, Arthur300000, and ArchmageNaoki]

“Hey, what are we going to do if monsters attack? Aren’t we practically defenseless!?” Cocoa complained, two octaves higher than normal. Well, her favorite mithril short sword and her … gambeson was also rejected by that Gilbert guy.

“That won’t be a problem. This is a tourist attraction. The island was scoured of monsters decades ago and it’s frequently patrolled by the island guard.” The Gilbert guy argued. I kept a tap on their ‘conversation’, but my main focus had already shifted to the cutest girl in the group. Correction, she was the cutest girl I’ve ever seen. Although she had platinum hair and red eyes, which wasn’t supposed to be pretty, but combined with her features and silky smooth skin, I would give her a top rating, saved my avatar, Kuro, of course.

[Is she a vampire?] I asked Skynet. Well, some novels described them as such.

[I don’t know, mistress. Her data wasn’t inside my well-known celebrity database. I’ll try to search for her, but this place’s internet connection is too slow. All I can say for now is that she has some albino traits.] I hoped that girl and I would be on the same team this game. That way we would have a long time to get to know each other.

She escaped from a bunch of guys who tried to approach her by going into the changing room, so I grabbed Cocoa and ran after her, leaving Gilbert guy in the middle of explaining something about- ‘Whether or not the item was magical was not what mattered, it was more important to look non-magical because this is a tv show.’

“Don’t mind that, Cocoa.” I tried to console her. “Even though I only brought along package of sanitary pads, if a monster comes, I can defeat it with tampons.” Actually, I was also worried about our safety, but right now I wanted to use this opportunity to peek at that girl changing her clothes.

And as I was expecting, this shabby hotel didn’t have private changing rooms. It was a public one, so we could see other people changing. I tried to suppress my glee and received a set of linen clothes from a female staff.

The clothes looked a bit shabby and easy to tear. And my design seemed to be a bit too emphasized on my cleavage. As I saw this, my evaluation of that Gilbert guy dropped a notch further. On the bright side, all the other girls’ clothes were also somewhat revealing.

I enjoyed the scene for a bit then I looked at the platinum hair girl. However, she didn’t change her clothes yet. She also looked left and right, flustered and tried to cover her face. Was she a sheltered girl who never changed her clothes with other people before?

Then our eyes met.

We looked at each other.

We continued to stare at each other, both refusing to move.

Feeling awkward, I began to undress. Well, I already lived as a girl for a month, especially after living with my family, I had no qualms about showing my ‘assets’ to other women anymore. However, after she stared at my bare bountiful chest for a short while, her face went tomato red and she ran to hide in a corner.

Well, her reaction was understandable though, her chest was on the flat side. I glanced victoriously at Cocoa, but she seemed to have already finished changing into a cute linen attire. Its design was like a martial arts uniform though.

However, as I looked back at the platinum hair girl, I saw her twirl her finger a couple of times. Then with a whoosh, her clothes were morphed into an exact copy of the same design as the one the staff gave her. Whoa, was she an expert magician or something? Well, I had to admit, it seemed to be a bit better looking than ours.

“Oi! Doesn’t that go against the rules?” I whispered to Cocoa as I made my final adjustments to my attire.

“Who cares about the dumb rules!” Cocoa scoffed, then she grabbed my hand and led me out of the changing room.

We met with with Ms. Nyatalee who just finished her task, so I asked her to look over Skynet and the rest of Cocoa’s and my stuff.

“No problem, nya. I’ll watch over them like a mother cat.” Ms. Nyatalee reassured us. That wasn’t quite reassuring though. Weren’t cats always related to thievery? Ah, I might be thinking too much here. At least I told Skynet that lethal force was allowed if someone tried to steal my things. So, it should be alright.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

After that, we rode a cable car downward. I noticed that there was no engine in the vehicle. It was just an empty shell, pulled by a couple of slings that were attached to the engine which was situated on the platform. Maybe it was because magic was useless down there they designed the transportation this way.

“How are they going to film us without magic? Wouldn’t their cameras also malfunction down there?” I wondered out loud as I watched the view of unknown palm trees, suspicious forests of bananas, and a beautiful beach slowly zooming in.

“Ah, that, they can shield their devices with magic insulator like a two-millimeter thick layer adamantium, and it’ll work fine. But-” Cocoa explained but she was interrupted by a high pitched scream.

I looked at the source of the commotion, and there, I found a naked platinum blonde girl squatting down. Woohoo, finally I got to see your naked bod - cough - I mean the theory that her conjured clothes would be dissolved under the anti-magic influence of this island was proven.

I saw her a bit late, completely missing the scene of her clothes mysteriously disappearing, but from the looks of it, she was definitely a girl. Another point was proven- Not all flat chested girls are traps. My half-elf cousin and Cocoa was the only exception, hooray! I enjoyed the view and nodded sagely, basking in the glory of nature.

A female staff member who carried a large backpack came over and spoiled the scene by covering her with a blanket a few seconds later. She also asked her why she didn’t change into the clothes she was given.

“I didn’t know how.” The girl answered bluntly, her ears were still a bit red though. Was she a sheltered girl who had a servant change clothes for her?

The platinum hair girl was helped with dressing in her legitimate linen clothes on afterward. I wanted to volunteer to help her dress, but as I tried to construct the sentence to advertise my one month experience as a girl to say some thing like ‘I’m an expert at wearing bras and panties.’, the job was already taken over by her friends and the staff. And because men also rode on the same car with us, they blocked the rest of us from the show.

“Ah, sorry I shouldn’t have left you alone.” I heard one of her friends apologize. If I remembered correctly, I think I saw both of them at the registration counter behind Ms. Nyatalee at that time. So, some people here didn’t have an exclusive manager like I have, huh?

After we disembarked from the cable car, fully refreshed, the program organizer asked us to form three teams of five. So, I quickly pulled Cocoa to the cutest platinum hair girl’s group of three. I noticed some dude tried to cut us in, but with my lightning fast reaction, they got no chance.

Because my team consisted entirely of girls, they also assigned three female staff members to us, two was a camera persons, and another one was like a guard or something. Well, I don’t know, she did carry some rudimentary weapons, like a baton, but she looked too dandy to give me any reassurance though. Oh, I could take her weapon if something bad were to happen, right?

“Alright adventurers, enjoy your stay on this paradise island.” The host announced the beginning of the game.

The rules of this game was like this: Each team had to walk about half an hour from this starting point in different directions. Then they will try to live their one night as comfortably as they can. There would be a task, trap, and reward for us along the way. And the winner will be judged by a panel of experts and popularity vote.

“My name is Kuro. What is your name?” As we walked to our camping spot, I try to get close to the platinum hair girl.

“... Valarie” She taciturnly answered.

“Please don’t mind her, she’s just very shy. I’m Lilith, nice to meet you.” One of her friends cut in. She had bubblegum pink hair, so she looked like a delinquent girl.

“I’m Cocoa.” My nine-tail foxkin maid introduced herself. “Uhm, is your hair, naturally that color?” She asked.

“Ah, yes. And Mickie too. Her green hair is also her natural color” She introduced her green haired friend.

We chatted a lot as we walk. I learned that Mickie was a quarter dryad, and Lilith’s grandpa was suspicious that his mom was a succubus.

“You see, back then people didn’t differentiate between magical creatures and monsters. So, it was monster hunts and burning non-human people alive everywhere. That caused my grandpa’s mom to hide her identity. From what I heard she kept dying her hair blonde, with that she had an excuse about her abnormally high libido.” Lilith, the chatter box of our group, said with a laugh. I tried to imagine the scene of a cute elf or sexy succubus that was tied to a stake and surrounded by angry people with pitchforks and torches. Yup, I would help them, the elf and succubus, I mean.

Then my curious gaze was landed on Valerie. Then I asked. “Is she also non-human?”

“No, she is 100% human. But-” Lilith stopped herself mid-sentence then she looked at Valerie.

“I don’t mind.” Valerie answered.

“She is an outsider.” Lilith continued. “You see, Outsider Management Institute’s staff came to ask my parents to take care of her yesterday. Imagine how shocked I was when I came back from school and found this cutie pie lying on my bed!” She animatedly told the story.

I also traded the story about how I met Cocoa with them to get more information about Valerie. It seemed that the OMI was worried a bit about this girl. Her albino traits were also considered exotic among this world’s inhabitants, but it was more pronounced in nocturnal magical creatures. So, they used the ‘Hide a tree in a forest.’ tactic. They placed her with an out of place family to make her feel less uncomfortable.

Because Cocoa and I had a tacit understanding about not disclosing the fact about me being an outsider, I felt kind of wrong about not telling them a bit. But I considered it a crucial tactical advantage though. If no one knows what I’m capable of, the less likely it was that they could handle me. Because I had only one life, there is no such thing as being too careful.

I apologized to them in my mind and continued to chat about inconsequential matters with them.

“Say, why did you seem to be flustered when we were changing together? Isn’t it fine since we are all girls?” I asked Valera about what had bothered me since then and tried to coax her to be less shy at the same time.

“I’m a man!” She forcefully answered… Huh!? B-But I already checked!