Chapter 47: Mary’s journey
Mary’s POV:
Nothing has gone right since I was summoned to this world. First we ended up bound to that fat slob of a king by a magic contract. Except Lilia, I can’t really figure out what that person is thinking or why she’s so strange compared to the rest of us. Alice seems careless and doesn’t appear to be bothered by anything, but at the very least she puts in an effort to be smart. She’s just a happy-go-lucky, silver lining kind of girl.
Then there’s the stupid boys. None of the three boys took our situation seriously. We lost two of them in our first dungeon dive from sheer stupidity on their parts. One got stabbed in the back after pushing too far into the enemies with his shield and another was killed by mobs after injuring himself performing his ‘cross slash’. The idiot wound up chopping off his own hand because he crossed his arms instead of just the swords. I’m pretty sure that’s not even a real technique anyways. The last of the heroes ran off with the prince when the contract situation happened, the two of them shouting about losing their ‘precious’ treasures. He’d long ago became the prince’s lapdog. All it had taken was the prince gifting him a rabbitkin slave girl.
We had been instructed to stay at the inn while the prince went back to check on things. When we saw that our own contracts had suddenly vanished a few days later from the new contract’s burden curse, I led Alice to flee toward the Magic Forest. Screw killing demons. I just want to open up a shop and live vicariously through the tales of others. I was a business school graduate fresh out of university before I ended up here. We had intended to pass straight through Belgra at first, but decided to detour north through Norvac instead when we realized how bad the situation was there. Along the way, we ran into our two new companions…
Flash Back Start
After skirting the border between Belgra and Parnam for days, we had just entered into Norvac and were settling down for the night in a clearing near the road.
“I’ll start cooking dinner and set up our camp. Alice, could you go find enough wood to keep the fire going through the night?”~Mary
“Sure, Mary. Just yell if you need me. I’ll be back in a bit.”~Alice
The camp was set up and dinner was just about ready when I noticed with my sense presence skill, a pair of presences approaching slowly. Thinking that they were just some local animals due to their weak life signs and attracted to the smell, I readied my spells and waited for them to appear. What came out was not what I expected.
“Hand over your food and I’ll let you live!”~cute elven bandit
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a cute bandit before and we’d killed plenty of bandits while traveling so far. She’s a cute little elven girl who’s probably still in her pre-teens by looks. A rusty kitchen knife is in her shaking hands and she’s wearing rags without any shoes. I send my mana out behind me to evaluate the other one. By using my mana and mana sense like a feeler, I can tell that it’s a young female foxkin with similarly poor gear that’s hiding in the bushes behind me.
“Hurry up or I’ll…I’ll stick you!”~absolutely adorable elven bandit
“If I give you all my food, then I’ll be troubled. How about you join me for a meal and then you can be on your way. Final offer.”~Mary
Just as she was trying to figure out what to do now, I noticed that Alice was on her way back. When she got close enough to notice what was happening, her presence suddenly vanished and then reappeared behind the foxkin girl. Her speed at that instance was astonishing. I’d later learn from her that when her excitement level gets high enough due to her pure love of ‘fluffy objects’, she actually gets a temporary blessing called: Mofu Addicts Anonymous. It literally lets her teleport to the source of her affection! Seriously?! Can I face-palm now?
“AHHH!!! Let me go you fiend!! I’d rather die than go back to being a slave!”~captured ‘fluffy object’(formerly foxkin bandit)
Alice easily disarmed the girl and carried her over to the camp. I gave them each a portion of dinner and walked over to the still blanked-out elf girl. Taking the knife from her hand, I led her back over to the fire while she is still dazed, sat her down and put a portion of food in her hands as well. She started eating even in her dazed state. The foxkin girl was the most stubborn one and decided to just glare at us for a while before she eventually gave in to her stomach and ate. Her mood seemed to jump up a few levels when Alice took a comb from her inventory and began to brush her tail.
After some negotiations, we arranged for the girls to travel with us and learned that their names are Lauren(elf) and Brea(foxkin). They would be in charge of daily tasks and we would provide them with food and protection as we traveled to the Magic Forest. We also bought them some proper travel gear at the next town.
It took us a while with a few missteps along the way before we eventually reached the dungeon city of Namiir in the Magic Forest. We were once forced to flee all the way back to town when we ran into our first somewhat large bandit gang along the way. Only then did we learn that it was best to travel with a merchant caravan for safety. We barely earned anything as caravan guards because we had two non-combat helpers accompanying us. And it took many times longer than it would have if we could travel on our own.
Flash Back End
Even now I, a frick’n heroine, had to be saved by someone else like an ordinary damsel in distress. We were ambushed in the dungeon by a group of warriors who had been hired by some lecherous noble brat that had taken a liking to us. I’m a little surprised when recognizing our saviors, Sofy and Lily who are rumored to be dead. Sofy is understandably more powerful than the last time we met, but Lily…what the hell is going on here?! Isn’t she supposed to be really slow at physical cultivation? Yet here she is dancing around these warriors while slicing them into sashimi. Then there’s the change in race to what appears to be catkin. I call hax!
We made our way deeper into the dungeon, away from the bloody battlefield and set up camp. When we started catching up, I was able to learn that her ears and tail are actually disguise equipment that are supplied by her curse. I tell her that we’ll keep the secret, though I’m surprised that they’re not real since Alice’s ‘fluffy shunpo’ had no problem activating when she saw her earlier. Touching her absurdly soft ears, I realized just how high grade an item they really are while feeling their warmth and noticing them slightly twitch. I quickly became entranced with the task of petting her and only snapped out of it a long while later. Holy crap, that’s addictive! With a grinning smile, Alice came over and teasingly congratulated me for my induction into the furry fanclub.
Among the information we exchanged, I learned that four millennia had actually passed on earth before being ‘summoned’ here. Lily, as a priestess had been able to talk to the Goddess of this world and learned that the experience of our deaths was erased because it can cause mental instability and that we have actually been dead for four thousand years before being reincarnated here during the summoning ceremony. It’s actually somewhat of a relief to realize that returning to Earth is meaningless at this point.
Over the next few days, we moved deeper into the dungeon as one group. We made it all the way to the forty-fifth floor before it got too dangerous for Lauren and Brea. After another nine days, we had made our way out of the dungeon. I was shocked to learn that Sofy and Lily were actually only their third day in when they ran into us. My face couldn’t help but to twitch when they told me how they’d done it. Though they had been capable of carrying it out, their method of charging straight through enemies ended up reminding me of a certain shield-toting imbecile.
We separated temporarily so we could head to our own lodgings to get properly cleaned up and then we would meet back up for dinner at a restaurant a few hours later.
