I probably should have been able to guess, but apparently, giant sea monsters powerful enough to give me a challenge were not common. Especially not near a populated city and established trade route. I found a few sea serpents and krakens and the like, but none above level 50. I was able to level up [Dive], so it wasn’t all for naught, but it wasn’t the most productive use of my time either.
I returned to land an hour or two before sunrise to give myself time to meditate and recover my mana before heading back to the church to prepare for the raid on the Dragon’s Lair. It was just barely after sunrise when I re-entered the plain stone building, but the paladins were already awake, armored, and praying at a statue of Themis in the main sanctuary. If they noticed me entering, they didn’t react, and merely continued their prayers, so I sat down on a bench in the second row and quietly waited for them to finish.
A few minutes later, Otto stood up and turned around, with the other two following just after. Otto was noticeably more alert than the others, who were still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, but Ingrid still beamed when she saw me.
“Lucy,” he said with a smile. “You’re here. Perfect. We still need to wake the others for breakfast, but we’ll be leaving in an hour, if you don’t mind waiting.”
“Not a problem,” I said.
“Lucy!” said Chastity happily. “I’m so glad to see you again! Can I talk with you for a bit?”
I had already been regretting my choice to arrive so early when I noticed that most of the group wasn’t even awake yet, but now with no valid excuses to get out of a conversation with Chastity, I found myself lamenting that I could not go back in time to ten minutes earlier when this bearded ball of energy wasn’t trying to talk to me about my romantic history.
“Yeah, I guess,” I sighed.
“Yay!” she said.
I still wasn’t used to the jarring difference between her voice and her appearance, especially when she said things like that. If I didn’t know better, and saw her out on the street, I would have assumed she was a man. Not only was her beard larger and fuller than any I had ever seen, but she was stout, and with her armor on, there were no outward signs that she was anything but male. And yet, her voice sounded just like any other young woman’s.
“Follow me! We can go to mine and Ji-Soo’s room! She’s already awake too, so there won’t be a problem,” said Chastity, walking quickly towards the sanctuary’s side door, which would lead us to a staircase to the group’s rooms.
“I'll go see what the breakfast situation is. I expect it should be ready soon though. Don't get too distracted,” called Otto after us.
“Yes, sir!” said Ingrid.
The dwarf woman leapt up the stairs two at a time, her short legs not seeming to bother her at all, and led me to a room at the end of the hall. The room was plain and undecorated, with only a few pieces of furniture including two desks, two dressers, and two beds. Ji-Soo sat on one of the beds in a lotus position, meditating, with a dense field of aura swirling around her in a constantly shifting pattern that I couldn’t make out.
“Ji-Soo!” said Ingrid as we entered. “She’s here!”
Ji-Soo slowly opened her eyes while her aura field settled down, and was absorbed back inside her. She nodded slightly when she saw me, and slid over to the edge of the bed so that her feet were on the floor. I hadn’t noticed at the meeting, but she was actually taller than me, and by quite a few inches. She might have been more than six feet.
“Here, you can sit on my bed,” said the dwarf, patting the bed opposite Ji-Soo’s. “I’ll just use one of the desk chairs.”
I accepted her invitation, and sat on the bed, facing Ji-Soo, who was staring intently at the floor, while Ingrid dragged one of the desk chairs over to sit in between the beds facing us both.
“So, I bet you’re wondering why I wanted to talk to you so badly,” she said to me.
“Is it because when you use your body count skill, my number shows 0?” I asked.
“Yes! How’d you know?!”
“I guessed,” I said, shrugging.
“Wow, you’re really smart!” she said. “You’re exactly right! Ji-Soo is a 0 too!” Ji-Soo’s face started to turn pink. “And, obviously I am too, but I have to be, so that doesn’t really count. But you too… I can’t believe that two of the strongest women in the world are both 0s! This is amazing!”
“Why is that so amazing?” I asked.
“Because women need to value their bodies more!” she declared, clenching her fist in front of her. “Too many women in this world treat intercourse as a casual thing. As something to be done with whoever they take a passing fancy to. Some of them even treat it as a commodity, and use it to earn money, or favors.” She shivered. “But that’s because this unholy society has brainwashed them into lowering their self worth!
“Our bodies are worth more than that! Our bodies are gifts from the gods! Holy temples that should be treated with the utmost respect! And intercourse is a holy ceremony that should only be performed between two people who plan on spending the rest of their lives together. Doing it with anyone else is like- it’s like letting an unrepentant criminal give a sermon! It’s blasphemous!
“But you two understand your own worth! You are both beautiful, strong women! You could have any man you want!” Ji-Soo’s blush deepened. “But you don’t! You’ve remained pure! You don’t just give yourselves away to anyone whenever you feel like it! You’re saving yourselves for the one who’s truly worth it! You are perfect models of Chastity!”
Ingrid finally stopped talking, now breathing a little heavier than she had been as she glanced between the two of us.
“Thanks?” I said.
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to all that. I didn’t completely agree with her, but I didn’t entirely disagree with her either. The enthusiasm with which she said it though made me cringe, and made it difficult for me to reciprocate her energy. Ji-Soo was still silent, and staring at her feet, but the blush remained on her feet.
“So, Lucy, is there anyone you’re saving yourself for?” asked Ingrid.
“No,” I said.
“No one?” she said.
“No one,” I affirmed.
“Not even someone you have a little crush on? Someone you think would just make the perfect spouse.”
“No,” I said firmly.
“Awww,” said Ingrid with disappointment. “Well, that’s okay. You’ll find someone eventually. Ji-Soo’s already-”
The rest of her sentence was cut short by Ji-Soo, who had sprung out of her bed, and moved so fast I almost couldn’t see her to clamp her hand down on the dwarf’s bearded mouth. The redness that had been slowly spreading across her cheeks now reached all the way to her ears, as she held her hand in place while Ingrid shook with laughter.
“Aw, come on, Ji-Soo,” said Ingrid, prying the other woman’s hand away. “I wasn’t gonna say who.”
“Don’t say anything,” said Ji-Soo quietly.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Is it Otto?” I guessed.
“Haha, that wet blanket? No way!” said Ingrid. “It’s someone way more-”
Once again, Ji-Soo’s hand found its way to the dwarf paladin’s mouth, this time aided by a healthy coating of aura. This time, it was my turn to laugh while the two had a small contest of aura when Ingrid tried to pull Ji-Soo’s hand off her mouth. Before the match could be settled though, a knock on the door made us all freeze
“Yes?” said Ingrid, her hands still fighting Ji-Soo’s a few inches away from her face.
“It’s me,” came Sylvester’s voice from the other side of the door. “Otto’s making breakfast. I just woke everyone else, and I’m going down to help him. You should probably come too.”
“Awww,” said Ingrid. “Alright I’ll be right down!” She turned to us. “Sorry, I have to go. Otto is a terrible cook, and Sylvester is worse. I need to go stop them from ruining breakfast. We’ll talk more later, ‘kay?”
Without waiting for a response, she jumped down from her chair, and made her way to the door.
“Come down in 15 minutes,” she said as she walked out the door.
Once she was gone, Ji-Soo and I remained in our positions, an awkward silence between us. It lasted nearly a minute before I decided to break it.
“She’s… really something, isn’t she.”
“...yeah,” agreed Ji-Soo, not making eye contact.
“So,” I said. “That thing you were doing with your aura when we came in. Was that an aura meditation technique?”
I had heard of aura meditation techniques before, back when I was reading up about aura, but I had mostly abandoned training my aura to focus on magic. They were essentially just patterns that you could force your aura through to improve your aura control, and with advanced techniques, it was even possible to increase your amount of aura, independent of the [Willpower] and [Vitality] stats. It was rumored that there were aura meditation techniques in existence that could as much as triple a person’s aura capacity, though it was difficult to confirm that.
I had been interested in aura meditation back when I started training with Natalya, but I had quickly given up on it to focus all my efforts on magic. Now that I had reached [Archmage] though, it was probably a good time to start working on my aura again.
“Yes,” said Ji-Soo softly.
“That’s awesome. I’m actually pretty interested in aura meditation techniques. Is there any way you can show me how to do that too, or is that technique a secret?”
“It is my clan’s secret skill,” she said, still looking away. “I cannot teach it to outsiders.”
“Ah, that’s too bad,” I replied.
“B-but, I know a simpler technique that I could show you,” she added turning to me for the first time. “It is not as effective, but it is still better than nothing.”
“That would be great!” I said. “So, do I just start circulating my aura, and you’ll help guide it?”
“Yes,” she said. “Please turn around and cross your legs and begin circulating your aura.”
I did as she bid, facing my back to her, and started to move my aura around within my body for the first time in a while. While I circulated it, she put her hand on my back gently, and I felt a small tendril of her own aura reach inside me, and join the flow. For a minute, her aura just followed my own as it moved throughout my body along the lines of my veins and arteries, and then she spoke.
“You have very good control,” she said. “The flow is very efficient.”
“Thank you. I have very high [Willpower].”
“That helps, but to have this level of efficiency, you must also have talent, and anatomical knowledge,” she said. “You would make an excellent martial artist. It is a shame that you spent all your lower levels on magic.”
“I can still be a martial artist too,” I protested. “I can do both.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But you will never be as powerful as you could have been if you started with aura.”
“I suppose…”
She did have a point. I had already reached 75, and at this point, each level took a very long time to earn. Even if I switched to a martial arts based class now, my [Vitality] would never reach the level it could have if I focused on aura instead of magic from the start. Unless I decided to switch to the [Demon King of Pride] class and dump all my stats into it… It was dangerous, but at this point, who would be able to stop me, even if I were to be discovered? I would need to think more about it at a later time though, as by that point, Ji-Soo had started injecting more of her own aura into my system and was manipulating the flow.
I relaxed my control over my aura, letting her take control of its direction, and slowly, the my aura made its way from inside my body to outside of it, and formed into a spherical shell. Once it was in that form, Ji-Soo started to condense it into a single ring, which she then detached into a single rope-like aura construct and began weaving it around me. A minute later, I was surrounded by an interconnected net of aura, still heavily guided by Ji-Soo.
“I will now start relaxing my support,” she said. “Please try to maintain this structure on your own until you receive the skill.”
I did as she commanded, focusing all my mental effort on maintaining the aura web around me. A few minutes later, I finally heard the familiar ding of the System, and a blue window appeared in front of me.
You have unlocked the skill [Basic Aura Meditation]
“Good job,” Ji-Soo said, pulling her hand away from me. “You learn fast. I was worried we would not finish in time for breakfast.”
“Thank you,” I said, canceling the skill and turning back around. “Seriously. This was a big help.”
“It was nothing,” said Ji-Soo, looking down at the floor as her cheeks began to pinken.
“Well, we should probably head down for breakfast now, right?” I said.
“Yeah,” agreed the dark-haired girl, turning toward the door.
I got up to follow her, but as she put her hand on the door handle, she suddenly stopped and turned around and walked back to her bed. She grabbed the spear that was leaning against the wall next to it, and a small spatial pouch from the dresser, and then went back to the door.
Breakfast for the living turned out to be a massive pile of scrambled eggs with bacon, mushrooms and peppers cooked in. The dragon hunting party (excluding Humility who was supposedly eating on his own in his room) all helped themselves to large plates of the steaming pile of it while I snuck a few ounces of blood from my inventory into my mouth. It didn’t take long for everyone to finish, and, as Otto promised, we were all out the door about an hour after the paladins had finished praying.
The ‘lair’ that we were raiding that morning turned out to be not much like a lair as I imagined it, and more like a secret basement. The location, which had apparently been leaked by one of Maxine’s victims, was a mansion on the edge of town owned by a mysterious businessman who no one in the town had ever actually seen. In fact, no one there could recall seeing anyone enter or leave the mansion, though a few did say that they had seen lights on inside late at night.
The interior of the mansion was noticeably under-decorated compared to the impressive exterior, and though everything within was clean, nothing looked like it had ever been used. Everything was pristine, and perfectly arranged.
The ‘lair’ part was the secret basement, whose entrance could only be accessed through a secret passageway underneath one of the couches in the sitting room. Liliane went down first, to scout the lair out, and just as we had expected…
“It looks empty,” she said when she returned. “And like it hasn’t been used in forever. But…”
“Yes?” asked Otto patiently.
“The floor is kind of weird. I can’t sense anything underneath it. Not even dirt.”
“Interesting…” sait Otto. “Well, we should go investigate then. Sylvester, take the lead. Don’t drop your guard just because the place seems empty.”
“Yes, sir,” said the paladin, holding his tower shield in front of him as he walked slowly down the staircase.
We went down into the hidden basement in a single file line, with Otto bringing up the rear, and soon found ourselves in the mysterious basement. There were wards all around the mansion limiting the range of my senses, but once I got into the basement, I understood what Liliane had been saying. My senses extended all around, and I could feel the first floor of the mansion above us, and the earthen walls all around, but below the floor, there was just, nothing.
“Curious,” said Otto, stroking his chin in contemplation. “I’ve never seen an anti-peek ward this powerful and effective. Mages, can you find its source?”
I spread my mana about the room, letting it seep into wherever it fit, and I could feel the other two mages doing the same. However, I couldn’t find anything of note, and my mana couldn’t make it more than a few inches into the floor. I focused more on the floor, pushing my mana further down, trying to get a sense of what might be below. However, once it got a foot deep, I felt a tug, and suddenly all my mana started flowing out of me and into the ground.
“It’s sucking up my mana!” I shouted, looking around. Judging by the panicked expressions of Hermina and Barnabas, it was doing the same for them.
“Can you stop it?” asked Otto.
“I’m trying, but it won’t let go!” I said, trying futilely to cut off my mana flow. I checked my HUD. “I’ll be out of [MP] in a minute at this rate.”
Before Otto could say anything else, Ji-Soo gathered a large amount of aura into the tip of her spear and stabbed it down into the floor.
“No!” Hermina shouted, but it was too late.
A moment later, the ten of us were plummeting down into a black pit and even with [Night Vision] and [Enhanced Senses], I couldn’t see the bottom of it.