If you get a new weapon, it’s only human nature to want to test it out.
But today is a rest day. Lydia, if anything, is strict about this kind of condition management, so even if I suggest just a quick trip to the labyrinth, she would definitely refuse.
For that reason, I thought about luring Lemon and Apple to take a light stroll around the entrance of the first floor, but…
“Eh. No need to go that far.”
I’m dying of curiosity, but there’s no way I’m breaking my promise with Lydia that I have to enter the labyrinth with her for a while.
After all, I’ll be going in tomorrow, so I just have to hold on a little longer.
So, I decided to do something just as intriguing as testing my new weapon. Gacha, of course…!
I don’t know what I was thinking, but I stood up from my seat with a swish, feeling all pumped up from Eve.
“Lemon! Apple! Let’s go do some work together for a bit.”
“Eh. Isn’t Jonah not going into the labyrinth?”
“We already went today. We’re tired.”
“No, it’s not that. Just follow me for now. Oh, Eve, thank you for today. I have things to do, so I’ll get up first!”
“Ye? Uh… O-Okay?”
I lightly bowed at the flustered Eve, grabbed the wrists of Lemon and Apple, and pulled them outside the shop.
Bang!
I heard a sound from behind as if someone slammed their forehead onto a desk, but it must have just been the door closing.
*
Lemon and Apple gave a quick glance at Eve but followed me without saying anything.
Even now, quite a distance from the shop.
“Lemon. Apple. Aren’t you going to ask where I’m taking you?”
“No need to know that.”
“The important thing is that Jonah is still holding onto our wrists.”
I was just holding their wrists, not their hands, but they kept following me like fools, smiling.
“Sigh. Maiden…”
“…Aren’t you also still a virgin, Jonah?”
“If you suddenly throw in a deal, it hurts my feelings.”
“It’s okay. Even if it hurts, I can heal again with the Unicorn Dagger. And do virginity and maidenhood hold the same value?”
“This world is messed up!”
“We’re both pure, but why is only the maiden laughed at?”
Having memories from my past life, I couldn’t help but empathize with Lemon and Apple’s sulking.
Just as I was chuckling at their antics, their voices suddenly dropped in tone.
“When we got healed earlier, it felt nice but also kind of… off.”
“Doesn’t it prove we’re still virgins? The wounds on our bodies heal, but the wounds in our hearts don’t.”
“If you say that, what about me? Isn’t it like I’m walking around broadcasting the fact that I’m a virgin in real-time?”
“Oh.”
“It’s not the time to say ‘Oh!’ What if one day Jonah’s dagger breaks black as night?”
Apple gave a playful jab to the side of the clueless one lost in admiration. After a pause, Lemon, after much contemplation, finally spoke in a serious tone.
“I guess I’ll have to kneel and beg for one.”
“Are you for real that crazy?”
Smack!
Eventually, Lemon got full swing whacked on the back of her head by Apple and made a sad face.
I chuckled at their dim-witted back-and-forth, then spoke up softly.
“Well, it’s not now, but later. Once I become an adult and achieve my goals, if by then both of you are still virgins, then I’ll take your first experiences.”
“…Are you serious about that?”
“For us elves, 10 or 20 years is nothing. You have to be careful with your words.”
“Of course I’m serious. Ah, but there’s a sequence to this, so I might have to wait.”
“Accepting Eve as the first is understood.”
“To be honest… No, I understand you’ve been lonely for a long time.”
“…?”
I was talking about Ellie and Lydia, so why is Eve coming up? I mean, I didn’t even charm her separately!
Except for when she leaned in a bit while I was explaining the Unicorn Dagger, there was nothing else.
…Maybe it’s just my preference. With my currently wacky inner translator, I decided to lower Eve’s evaluation a notch in my mind.
Looks dangerous but ‘still’ a good person (O)
Looks deceitful but ‘still’ a good person (X)
“Mhm.”
As I nodded internally, Lemon and Apple hesitantly opened their mouths.
“By the way, can we ask now?”
“We’re starting to get curious.”
“About what?”
“Where you are taking us.”
“This direction is a bit sketchy, isn’t it?”
“Ah, I’m not taking you to a brothel or a cheap lodge nearby, so don’t worry.”
“Oh, what a letdown…”
“I feel like I’ve been disappointed after expecting something…”
These girls are so honest about their desires.
I let out a big sigh and squeezed their wrists even tighter, expressing my intent to not let them escape.
“Before we get there, there’s a little alley ahead, towards the industrial district.”
“…Isn’t that where Jonah met us for the first time?”
“Please don’t tell me you’re planning to bury us to settle our bad history….”
Lemon and Apple started shaking. Now that I think about it, that was indeed where I first ‘woke up’ after possessing this body.
It’s also where Lemon and Apple had shaken me down in the past.
“What do you take me for? We already agreed to cover what I owed last time. I’m not doing something like that now.”
“Just asking, if the grudge still stands, what would happen?”
“Would we just shake you down and call it a day?”
Lemon and Apple asked cautiously. I turned to look at them and grinned.
“Elves really have a lot of uses.”
“Human trafficking…!”
“Kidnapping…!”
Seeing them trembling, a sense of satisfaction rose deep within me.
Why is it so fun to mess with Lemon and Apple like this? Could it be because Ellie reacts in a different way?
I lowered my arm just a bit, holding their hands instead of their wrists, and added.
“Just kidding. I’d probably make you both feel scared like I did, and then use you as errand girls.”
Even though I got shaken down, it wasn’t like I got beaten up or anything. It was just that they created a slightly scary atmosphere and rummaged through my pockets to steal the money I begged for that day. So I could forgive them with money.
“Anyway, the reason I’m going this time isn’t to bury you. It’s to do what we did last time.”
“What’d we do last time…?”
“Unifying the back alleys, right?”
“Similar but slightly different. Last time, we were forced to disband because we got reported, right? So I thought about it and realized that we just shouldn’t have tried to unify. If we had grown too big, the guards would have focused on us even more.”
The feel of a thug crew and a thug organization is entirely different, you know.
“So let’s just shake people down and let them go. There’s already a lot piled up in this neighborhood.”
“What if they chase after us even if we drop them like last time?”
“I already said I didn’t plan to unify back then.”
“Why overthink it? Just knock them all out and it will be fine.”
Unlike Lemon and Apple, I haven’t received any compensation from the thugs in this neighborhood yet. They likely don’t know just how miserable I was when living as a beggar.
“I’ll take exactly ten times back from them.”
I’ll test the power of the Unicorn Dagger at the same time.
No matter how you slice it, I shouldn’t stab a person… but anything else is okay, right?
The outcome was successful.
*
Swish-!
Returning to Fairy and Silver Coin, I dumped today’s earnings on the desk.
“Let’s see… how much do I have in total?”
I calculated the money I had earned by farming only Iron Wolf leather, and now I was about to tally all the money I had wrung out from familiar faces after a long time.
“1 gold, 26 silver, and 92 copper.”
I had earned over 1 gold from Iron Wolf leather alone.
As I realized that, I understood why somewhat strong adventurers don’t indulge in thug behavior.
“Just one or two trips to the labyrinth yield more than what a whole neighborhood of thugs has, doesn’t it?”
It makes sense not to do something unprofitable and risk catching attention from the guards.
Unless you’re like me and have some grudges.
“So now it’s twice that, huh? Just four more trips needed.”
Ah, the performance of the Unicorn Dagger I used for the first time was astonishingly good.
Of course, I hadn’t cut a person, so I couldn’t tell if there was some special ‘anti-virgin’ effect… but I did manage to slice through a weapon or thick padded armor.
It easily cut through stiff wooden clubs, and even the Gambeson, commonly used as cheap armor, was sliced like paper.
I haven’t checked yet, but with this, I should be able to cut down the Iron Wolf leather without a problem.
If I can deal damage directly, the nature of combat will change drastically.
Just in time, my armor made of Iron Wolf leather will be completed tomorrow, meaning my overall equipment will drastically upgrade.
With this, I could challenge a Giant Mantis… maybe even the Hobgoblin tribe.
But right now, that’s not what’s important.
“You said you were feeling lucky…?”
I placed the symbol of the Goddess of Love that I received from Karen on the desk and laid the Unicorn Dagger over it.
Am I threatening the goddess by saying that if she messes with me, she’ll die? Nope, that’s not the plan.
I just lack the finesse to place the symbol instead of the real thing, and since it apparently has a luck-boosting effect, I merely set the dagger before it.
Lastly, I firmly grasped the Lucky Strike that I always hang around my neck with both hands and opened the gacha system.
Ding!
“Going for 120 pulls…!”
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