Chapter 39: The Goddess’s reward
We set out early in the morning for the dungeon. The first ten floors were easy enough to finish in the first day, though I had to deal with a number of pests. It wasn’t as bad as the human infested dungeons. Just some average horny boys who saw pretty girls. Most were accepting when we told them nicely to b***** off. Only a few willful individuals tried to get physical and were blasted into the walls by myself or one of the girls. As there weren’t any with truly malicious intents, there were no fatalities. Well, maybe one or two that I circled back to finish off when I discovered them following us. We had two people I didn’t kill who had been tracking us for days, ever since we entered the dungeon.
“Mistress, we’re being followed.”~me
“Oh, is it one of the boys from earlier?”~Sofy
“Nah, it’s Irene and James. Seems that just escorting us to Namiir wasn’t all they were tasked to do.”~me
“Should we try to lose them or perhaps confront them?”~Sofy
“So long as they don’t interfere with our training, I think it best to just let them be. Don’t bother the others about it. It would only cause Jill to get mad at her brother and Irene is probably just following orders from Tiff’s father.”~me
We settled down for the night with a two person guard rotation. Amy with Sofy, Brit with Tiff and Jill with me. Our two primary fighters with the two primary mages and Jill with me who is good at both. Having the last watch, I went to bed quickly after the meal and awoke somewhere I did not expect.
“So you finally made it to the dungeon with your adorable party?”~Kat
I know she means well, but my mind is screaming, ‘dun dun dun dun, she’s back!’.
*giggles* “You do remember that I can read your mind, right?”~Kat
“Yep. Obviously, you can read the intent as well or you would have been offended instead of laughing. So, what’s up?”~me
“Oh, I just wanted to let you know that the new crystals have just been deployed. Yes, I purposely waited for you to enter your next dungeon to deploy them.”~Kat
“Thanks. Those will help a lot during our exploration. Would you be opposed if I took money from other people to charge the new crystals?”~me
“No problem. In fact, why don’t you ordain a few more priestesses for me? The world’s power balance might be broken if mostly only humans have the ability to charge them. You could even ask your friends if they’re interested.”~Kat
“Well, perhaps Amy, Brit and Jill would be interested.”~me
Of course, she also heard what I was trying really REALLY hard not to think about.
“Hmph, you can’t fool me! Tiff sounds like a bundle of fun! You definitely have to ask her. Don’t even imagine that you can leave her out without me knowing. And stop your worrying about my gift. It’s a genuine blessing this time and I really think you’ll enjoy it. I also refined your curse again as a bonus. Just one of the major flaws I found is that you never took into account the possibility that you might end up serving an immortal or a mortal who would later achieve immortality.”~Kat
“Wow, yeah. I totally didn’t see that possibility. From the start, I had only intended to find a human mistress to serve long enough to be capable of supporting myself and not take another mistress after her.”~me
“That won’t do! It wouldn’t be nearly as fun to watch you if you use such a convenient loophole. Don’t worry, I’ll fix things up for you in no time. Now, off to bed. You have watch soon.”~Kat
As usual, she once again left me with no room to object as she ended the conversation with some ominous last words and me blacking out.
I was shaken awake by Tiff when it was time for my watch. What really got me awake however, was the two ‘ding’ sounds I had heard. I settled down with Jill near the border of our camp before checking out the messages.
[Gained blessing: Assisted Body Contortion]
[Changes occurred: Destined to Serve]
Firstly, she was right to say that I would enjoy this blessing and I almost want to leave the dungeon right now to try it out. Not only does it allow me to bend my own body into absurd positions, I can also assist others to do so as well. A little drool escapes my lips as I’m thinking of all the new poses I can try with Sofy’s body. Hm, let’s hide this for now so I can get the first benefits from it. Yes, I’m being a naughty servant by not telling her right away and this has every possibility to blow back in my face. I’ll let her know after I’ve had some fun, okay? Next are the changes to my curse:
[Destined to Serve(Mistress: Sophia)]
The servant must dedicate oneself entirely to the mistress, even in bed. {Orders} must be followed, {Punishments} received, and {Link} established to share the mistress’s burden. The mistress is responsible to ensure the servant wears appropriate {Attire}. Roles will be reversed if the treatment of the servant is abusive, resetting the curse after a ten day unrestricted reprisal period. Limitations may apply.
The curse is now officially restricted to selecting a mistress only. Link lost the empathic part and expanded to include the sharing of the mistress’s senses with the servant with the pain sense unable to be turned off. Being able to share her pleasure seems like an excellent means of finding any previously unknown sensitive spots and figuring out which ones are the most sensitive. Though, I’m pretty sure I’ve already got that down. She fixed the loophole that would allow me to rid myself of the curse for good if I was abused. Thankfully the reset doesn’t include that weakness bit that I initially had, she got rid of that. During the ten days I can do anything with my former mistress, ever order her to suicide. Not that I would do that to Sofy of course. The extended description of ‘limitations’ contains a list of conditions that would cause the current selected mistress to become invalid. Length of service exceeding one hundred years is one of them. The others are currently grayed out because they currently don’t apply. It also states that a temporary mistress will be set between mistresses to ensure I’m never without. Well, there goes loophole number two. I’ll just hide the limits part with status manager. There’s nothing to be gained by revealing it to others. Sofy might become sad, thinking that I will one day leave her. No such limit was imposed that would disallow me from choosing the same mistress multiple times. A few hours later, the others wake up and we prepare to resume our training.
“Mistress, I met with Kat last night.”~me
“Really, anything you need to share?”~Sofy
“Mm, the divine crystals that I told you about before will likely appear while we are exploring. She said that she had waited for us to enter our next dungeon to deploy them.”~me
“That’s nice! Those will be really helpful. Did you also get the reward she promised?”~Sofy
“She gave me a new blessing that I’ll show you once we leave. It won’t impact my battle potential, but should be able to give you a pleasant surprise later. My curse also received some changes.”~me
“Okay, I won’t pry. The curse changes are…EH?! You’ll feel my pain huh, about time. Let’s turn on the others as well.”~Sofy
“Off off, please turn them off! Thank you. You could probably leave taste and smell turned on, but the others are somewhat disorienting since I’m not used to them.”~me
“Ah, I suppose suddenly having multiple new senses would indeed do that. Alright then, just taste and smell for now. We’ll turn the others on whenever we settle down for the night so you can start to get used to them. I know just how much you like to collect these extra sensory abilities.”~Sofy
“Thank you very much!”~me
During our battles, I mostly just use a few blessings on the other girls and use ice needles to strike enemies that almost get in good hits. Compared to the others, it looks like I’m out for a casual stroll, but I’m paying careful attention that none of them get hurt too badly. I want them to experience some pain at least so they can grow. Except Sofy! That new pain sense link is freakin amplified! She got clipped by a goblin’s arrow and the pain I felt from that was many times worse than what she should have felt. Thankfully, that seems like the only one that’s been amplified. It takes us another three days to get to floor twenty-two. The girls’ teamwork is much better now than it was at the start and Sofy can now allow me to share her sight all the time. It wasn’t too difficult to get a feel for it by just keeping my focus on my second sight since it shows me basically everything she’s seeing anyways. It just seems as though certain areas that are normally a blur are now clearer since her vision extends further out than my perfect vision range. I still can’t cope with the extra hearing sense yet, it throws off my battlefield awareness.
