Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 9.1 - Chapter 5

The tale that follows is not from the timeline we know—but it might have been, had the dice fallen differently...

One Full Henderson ver0.9

1.0 Hendersons

A derailment significant enough to prevent the party from reaching the intended ending.

No matter where you might find yourself in the world, there were always people eager to build elaborate private metrics for the objects of their fascinations. In a country to the far east, they took inspiration from the martial arts that made up part of their divine acts, and bestowed ranks to every delight under the sun—from which side dish would best suit their staple food of white rice, or who was the best looker in the town—and they found great joy in this pastime.

Rhine was no exception. People loved to discuss which food items paired best with their beloved black bread or oatmeal. The people of the Empire didn’t limit this to just food either. Adventuring was a trade based around one’s appearance, and so people enjoyed placing their favorites in their own personal beauty pageants.

“Well, look who it is,” said one of the scribes posted by the job billboards at the Adventurer’s Association in Marsheim, whose eyes had been on the door. Through it came a zentaur with a number of others in tow. She was a healthy, sun-kissed adventurer, and despite her missing left ear, her overflowing confidence sold the spitting image of a beautiful warrior.

“Whoa, quite the lineup today...” he went on.

Behind the zentaur was a group of women: a sharp-featured beauty in an evening dress and with a charming lily of the valley tattoo on her cheek, who glared about the room, probing every corner for danger; a kaggen, at once prim, poised, and plainly deadly; a hlessi, who, while not strictly “beautiful” by the standards of ordinary mensch, was undeniably precious; a huntsman arachne with a veiled face and clothes that accentuated her sumptuous figure; and a dusky-skinned, bright-eyed vierman.

Trailing behind them, as if he were their ward, was a young blond-haired man with a fancy cloak slung over one shoulder. Upon his bare right shoulder, perched like a knapsack, was a smaller arachne with a youthful yet mature aura about her.

Perhaps it was somewhat unfair that over half of the unofficial top ten most beautiful lady adventurers of Marsheim all belonged to the same clan, but no one paid it much mind. After all, the adventurer standing in the midst of his parade was a sapphire-blue veteran. Not only was he the highest-ranked adventurer in all of Marsheim, he was a veritable hero, with many a great feat to his name.

His name was Erich of Konigstuhl. He had used his physical prowess to crush the conspirators behind the Marsheim Troubles, bested a true dragon despite the odds, and assembled the largest adventuring force in the Empire—over five hundred eager Fellows.

These days, the epithet he’d won for the lovely locks that had made noble daughters writhe with envy had fallen to the wayside. Other titles had taken its place. With all eyes upon him, he smiled awkwardly.

“Have we caused a bit too much of an issue, coming in such a large group?” Erich said.

With his fame for having the most beautiful party in all of Marsheim—two of whom were occupied today with other business—Erich’s two epithets seemed more appropriate than ever in this moment. No one knew who had been the first to come up with them, but they had stuck: he was known as Philandering Erich, or in company more inclined toward polite euphemism, “Erich the Wolf.”

When these names had first started going around, he had fallen into a rage at their uncouthness and sought out the one at fault in hopes of dispensing his trademark vigilante justice. However, he had since accepted it; now he put on a cool expression that invited anyone to call him anything they wished. As his group approached the line for the reception desk, the crowd parted for him without a word.

“Pay me no mind,” Erich said. “There is no hierarchy in adventuring. A higher rank shouldn’t demand beneficial treatment.”

Erich gestured to his junior coworkers, but none dared to return to their original place in the line. Could anyone blame them? With seven jaw-dropping women—and one man who could easily pass as one with a little makeup—before them, everyone froze in place out of fear.

“Erich! It’s because you’re ganging up on the poor dears that they’re quaking in their boots!” Eve yelled from behind the reception desk. “Just come here and let’s get everything sorted in a jiffy. I don’t want work to pile up because you caused a commotion!”

“What a conundrum...” Erich muttered. “I hate pushing in line more than I hate the sort of folk who hawk their phlegm at the side of the road...”

Eve had been working at the Association for many years now, and so Erich decided that instead of drawing further ire from her, he would acquiesce to her demand. He walked up to the reception desk and drew a number of tokens from his pocket.

“From right to left we have the delivery of valuable goods for Mistilteinn trading, an etiquette tutor for Viscount Flein, routing of brigands from the pleasure district, settling bills with various chicken food stalls...”

The experienced receptionist deftly wrote down the numbers on Erich’s tokens before he had even finished talking and passed them on to her new colleague. Eve then set about filling in various other forms to get Erich’s payments sorted. Whereas tokens that proved that a job was successfully completed were usually made of cheap ceramic for lower-level jobs, some of the ones that Erich had drawn out were made of an arcane alloy—designed to prevent attempts at forgery. From the sums, it was highly likely that he wouldn’t be paid in cash, but in remunerative forms approved by the merchants’ artisan union.

“The Fellowship of the Blade sure have widened the breadth of their activities,” Eve said. “What have you been up to today?”

“Giving some personal training to Sir Eberstadt’s son,” Erich replied. “He’s still a bit on the lean side, but if he eats enough and gets some meat on his bones, he’ll make for a decent knight.”

“Diversification is all well and good, but I think people are forgetting what being a ‘fellow’ of the blade means, Erich.”

“It hurts a little to have that so smartly pointed out...” the legendary debaucher said as he scratched awkwardly at his scalp.

The Fellowship of the Blade had grown in scope since its initial founding, and it had invited swathes of people who seemed at odds with the clan’s name. With scouts, practitioners of magic and miracles, skilled professionals of all manner of crafts—ranging from those with an eye for antiques to those blessed with a broad historical knowledge—it seemed safe to throw any and all specialized requests at the Fellowship and their broad repertory.

This could be seen today with the stack of tokens that Erich had brought to the Association today on behalf of his clan. Less than half were more typical adventurer fare, such as protecting caravans or dealing with bandits, whereas the others were like Erich’s own personal job, which involved giving some private lessons to the eldest son of a knight’s family. This wasn’t the strangest of the bunch—one of the Fellowship with quite the literary background had been asked to help write some love letters.

Perhaps due to the fact that they had a team of talented people able to catch even the most difficult pitches, they inspired clients to directly come to them with heads bowed, begging them not to turn them down. With their immaculate track record, they had built up a reputation that had earned them the sort of jobs that warranted their multifarious expertise.

Of course, they still took on jobs that tested their prowess in battle, but the Fellowship of the Blade had since shed its reputation as a squadron of elite sword fighters and had taken on a position as an adventuring household that could take on all comers. In turn, true-blue adventuring jobs found their way to other clans.

One such example of this was just last season, where a drake had—gods knew why—swum down from the sea into one of Rhine’s biggest rivers; Clan Laurentius, not the Fellowship, had been tasked to dispose of it. Rumor had it that Erich was still bitter about it. In the apologetic words of the intermediary client, “I thought you were too busy with your own specialized endeavors,” but Erich—slightly younger and less patient—had apparently grabbed them by the lapels and said, “That’s the kind of job I want you to give me!”

That wasn’t to say that the Fellowship didn’t receive its fair share of requests. Given the sheer number of women in their roster, as well as the prevalence of training in formal etiquette and palatial speech within the ranks, requests from nobles asking to escort their fairer folk came thick and fast. With the Fellowship taking on many of these jobs, many clients simply felt that it didn’t really make sense to them to ask the Fellowship to help cantons struggling with demibeasts or the ichor mazes that kept cropping up.

“Very good, all completed,” said Eve. “Your clients are all pretty satisfied too. Right, take this and trot along now. We can’t have the rookies shaking in their breeches all day.”

“Got it. There is something that’s been bugging me... I’ve always wanted to work out who it was who first started saying, ‘Hide away your party’s womenfolk, or Goldilocks will get ’em.’”

Erich tutted, but he only got a laugh from Eve in response. Some of the rookies who couldn’t stand her unwavering gaze knew the reason for her silence. Despite her sweet-looking appearance, Eve knew most of the rumors that went around adventurer circles, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine what would happen next if she spilled the beans. Of course, Erich wouldn’t do anything violent to whoever started the rumor, but no one dared risk another of his sermonizing struggle sessions over round after round of top-shelf booze.

Erich was starving for the kind of easy camaraderie he got from other guys his age, apparently. His comrade of many years, Siegfried, was busy with clan duties and new familial responsibilities, and so it was difficult to find a spare moment to relax and hang out. Erich took any excuse to grab Siegfried and treat him to a stiff drink yapping on all the while.

And so Eve played it cool, that she might protect the gaggle of newbie adventurers, and simply handed Erich a heavy bag of coins.

“Hey, Erich?” the zentaur said, coming up to Erich’s side. “Mind handing over today’s earnings? I’m feeling pretty parched, if you get me!” She opened up her wallet, which was completely empty.

Dietrich had arrived one day out of the blue when the Fellowship of the Blade was becoming more well-known. Upon arriving in Marsheim, she had boldly announced that she wished to show Erich the fruits of her training before dragging him back home. Apparently she was an old friend of Erich’s, but her bold request was crushed in an instant, and now she found herself a proper member of the Fellowship. No amount of teaching had managed to impart any amount of palatial speech or proper decorum, but she proved her fortitude as a living cannonball on the battlefield. Despite her years in the Fellowship, Dietrich evidently still had no qualms about begging her boss for money.

“Hey! You got paid by the caravan head yesterday. Remember? The one you helped guard?”

“Yeah, but I used it to pay off some debts... I got banned from the Snowy Silverwolf...”

The Fellowship of the Blade’s strict policy laid out that their members were to be paid once every seven days. This was to help the newcomers learn proper money management before they spent every last coin in the tavern or pleasure district. It was meant to stop the Fellows from getting into debt, but some people were incapable of learning their lesson, apparently.

Each initiated member was assigned a minimum living wage, further gussied up proportional to the individual jobs they’d completed. As an aside, all records were viewable by everyone in the clan to encourage fairness. The result was that keen adventurers who managed to complete difficult, well-paying gigs got paid in kind.

Yet at copper-green rank, Dietrich was far from a rookie. Her constant debt was criminal.

Her last payday had only been four days ago. Dietrich had just returned from out of town on a long-term bodyguard mission, and so a hefty four drachmae pay slip was waiting for her, so how had she managed to eat through what amounted to a farming family’s entire disposable income so quickly?

“C’mon, Chief! I’ll work it off, okay?”

Dietrich had put a hefty arm around Erich and was about to peel the coins from him when a hand put an end to the charade.

“Yeow!”

Just as her arm had made contact with Erich, her shapely nose was struck. It must have been quite the shock; tears sprung to her eyes and she began to flush red. Zentaurs were known for their short tempers, but Dietrich’s expression changed as she saw what was held in the hand that had struck her. It was a large silver piece. It had made an ominous sound as its high-quality metal scraped along its fellows in the bag.

It was the sharp-featured woman who had put Dietrich in her place after attempting to use her womanly charms to have her way with Erich.

“Do not trouble him too much, Dietrich,” Beatrix said. “It isn’t wise to act so illogically toward your own leader. Use this to sate your cravings.”

“Seriously...?”

Dietrich was disappointed, but grabbed the coin nonetheless. After a moment of thought, she examined both sides closely.

“Fine, fine... Guess I’ll make do with this today, then...”

All Dietrich got in return was the stern stare of the Emperor of the Eastern Conquest. The silver quality was good, so it was probably worth thirty librae, but it seemed that Dietrich was disappointed by something other than the amount. She let out a deep sigh before walking off into the night.

“Beatrix, don’t be too soft on her,” Erich said. “With that much, she’ll buy decent booze and before you know it she’ll have wandered back tomorrow morning with more debt.”

Despite Erich’s firm stare, Beatrix took it coolly. She leaned upon her leader’s shoulder—Erich still hadn’t grown, despite reaching adulthood, and stood a full head lower thanks to Beatrix’s high-heeled boots—and slipped in close with all the ease in the world.

“I could see the trouble lining your face. It’s a cheap price to pay for her to quietly enjoy a few drinks out of the way, no?”

“I would hesitate to call a newbie’s monthly wage cheap,” Margit chimed in with an exasperated expression. Just as the former assassin had interrupted Dietrich’s ploys, so, too, was she interrupted. Margit, still perched atop Erich’s shoulder, had grabbed Beatrix’s headdress—she thought Beatrix was too old to wear such a gaudy thing—and yanked her head toward her.

“Ngh, please, leave my hair, Margit!” Beatrix said. “I was merely lending a hand to my leader, to whom I owe an incredible debt.”

“It seemed to me like you were lending more than just a hand.”

Despite Margit’s steely gaze, Beatrix didn’t blanch. With an agility that seemed impossible for the thick boots she wore, she drew back, pulled something from her pocket and tossed it at Margit. It was a black die.

“Hey! Thak’s mine!”

This gambler’s friend, imbued with freedom from fate itself, was carved from buffalo horn. It was smooth, possibly from much use, and a beloved possession of Primanne’s. She often tossed it about in her small, three-fingered hands. Who could say when Beatrix had got ahold of it.

“Sisker, thak’s nok nice!” Primanne said.

“This is merely a display of your immaturity,” Beatrix said, pointedly. “Have your wits been dulled since you glued yourself to Erich’s side?”

In the face of Beatrix’s grin, Primanne could only gnash her jaws in rage. The kaggen was physically tough, and so she often accompanied Erich on jobs to keep him safe. She wasn’t just a good bodyguard; she was a skilled scout too. To top it off, she could fly short distances, which earned her some missions only she could manage. As a result, her combat skills had suffered somewhat.

“We’re going to use this to decide things. We’re a bigger group than usual. How long has it been since we were all together?”

The dice rattled with a charming sound and were divvied out to everyone in the group but Erich.

With more leadership roles on par with clan heads, the Fellowship was a lot busier than before. They had a reputation for taking on a whole range of gigs and were running thin on the ground to get everything done. It had been more than a whole season since the officers were last gathered together.

“B-Bea... I’m ’ine...”

“Yes, I also. Sheikh, one half a year since you last came to Marsheim, no?”

“What’s with that expression? Ahh, I see. With your jobs in Marsheim, you’ve been enjoying yourselves more than enough. I see, I see...”

The hlessi and the vierman turned down the die, but it came out of respect for their leader, with whom they had shared a cup with and had vowed to share in their destinies. Beatrix had taken on very particular jobs, and so she had been working solo far from Marsheim. It had been two seasons since she had last seen Erich. Neither of them wished to butt in on this long-awaited reunion.

“I understand, but we’ve got to follow protocol. Otherwise it isn’t fair. Am I right?” Beatrix said.

“Very well,” Margit said to Beatrix’s teasing statement. Margit sighed, but the smile playing on her lips indicated that she didn’t mind too much. After all, if things went well, the responsibilities of the night to come could be shared.

“Um... Do I have a say in this?” Erich said, raising his hand. Such behavior in public did nothing to quash the rumors about his less-than-savory epithets. Of course, none of them had said anything direct, so he had no leg to stand on when it came to airing his grievances, but it wasn’t rare for complaints to come from the manager herself. Though they never came in person—only in formal, wax-sealed letters.

“Main’s afraid not, Erich. Tum should know that once ham’s leader is like this, there’s no talking vah out of it. Main thinks playing along is to tum’s benefit,” Main said.

Erich’s whispered complaint was shot down by the largest and youngest member of the group. Main gelled well with Beatrix on the battlefield and understood too well how her mind worked. She knew that Beatrix enjoyed seeing men squirm.

“Very good,” Beatrix said. “We shall all cast our dice at the same time. Erich, your hands. Yes, like that. Whoever has the most pips shall win.”

“Fine, fine,” Erich said. “Just get it over with.”

Realizing nothing would come of refusing them, Erich opened his hands to receive the six dice that came clattering his way. However, the man famed for his wolfish appetites couldn’t help but widen his eyes at the three pairs of red snake eyes looking back at him.

[Tips] Erich the Wolf or Philandering Erich came into his epithets around the time that the Fellowship of the Blade attained a sudden substantial boost in public recognition, as well as five gorgeous new members. The names continued to stick as the public coveted his ever-youthful looks despite the passage of years.

Many in Marsheim have received complaints from his comrade Siegfried, who often commented, “That guy’s room is filled to the rafters with perfumes! I swear, it’s like a cathouse in there...”

The creaking of a bed; endless, high-pitched moans; the sticky sound of bodies intertwined. Until just a moment ago, the musk of sweat and body fluids had filled the room, compelling those within to revert back to their basest drives.

As I basked in the afterglow of it all, I took a drag on my pipe.

“Wh-Whew...”

Even as I expelled the smoke, the sweet mix of herbs couldn’t overpower the sweet memories of six hours of lovemaking.

“Mm... Erich...”

As I placed my hand upon the hand that clasped at my waist, Margit shot me a bewitching smile.

Despite being close to thirty now, her looks hadn’t changed in the slightest. With large rose- and cobweb-style tattoos on her back and a dancing butterfly tattoo on her waist, she had gotten even more enchanting.

Her pale skin was still flushed pink. The faint outlines of her veins activated neural clusters buried deep in my lizard brain. Her body still quivered, as if she still craved more pleasure. I couldn’t help but smile at her. I drew her up onto my lap.

“You sure did work hard,” she said.

“I guess,” I replied. “But I’ve gotten older. I’m a bit spent, if I’m honest.”

No matter how old I got, I loved this part—not the chase after higher heights, but basking in the lingering heat of all that passion. It lasted longer than the joy of the sex itself.

“Well, that’s not surprising anyone. You had six women to please, after all.”

But when Margit said something like that, I struggled to find the right way to reply. I let out a noncommittal sound and looked away. Sadly, I’d find no respite looking elsewhere. What waited for me there was a sight almost too grand for mortal eyes: skin in the colors of deep honey and fresh snow; sleek brown fur; gleaming green chitin. Here lay a collection of beauties, still entwined in their exhausted slumber.

The past six hours had left me so dazed that I found myself needing to stop and remind myself what had put me here. It was probably...when I decided that I wanted to help save the One Cup Clan.

I had questioned them and unraveled their reasons for straying from the path of an upright adventurer. I was moved; I couldn’t sit idly by. Yes, they’d willfully trapped themselves in a death spiral of vengeance without end, but their motives were sound. They stood as a living example of how one could do nothing wrong and still face grievous failure.

I didn’t intend to put on a front and say that I knew revenge was a hopelessly fickle master, or to lecture them about the endless cycle of violence. I simply hadn’t yet come to know their brand of despair; I had never lost anyone quite so dear to me.

Even if I couldn’t empathize with their situation, I could sympathize well enough. They had formed close bonds, lost those allies, sought revenge, made new bonds, lost those allies again, and on it went. Some might slander this process as an utterly pointless venture, but I could see the gruesome logic behind it. If I had lost Margit, Siegfried, and Kaya back in the cursed cedar expedition, I might have found myself in exactly the same position.

Despair made profits and logic lose all meaning. It mired you, stuck with you despite everything you tried, and could only be sublimated by cutting it off at the source.

Even if you just lived a normal life, you would continue to lose and to gain. That was just the volatile nature of life’s great drama. Debts came and went without end. Any fool could look back and churn out endless regrets or curse the script they were made to work with.

Beatrix hadn’t been begging for her life; her words had simply poured out from the smallest of holes in her armor. For once, she’d been on the losing side of a life-and-death struggle. Unable to bear the weight any longer, she had asked me, “Where had I gone wrong?” with all the airs of a partner at the end of an ehrengarde match.

Any other day, I would have left her question unanswered. But there she was, at the end of her rope, and all I could think was How much difference is there between her and me, really?

So when Nakeisha asked if I’d mind taking care of the One Cup Clan, it only took the faintest of pressures to say yes. If not for that, nothing else would have played out the way it had. Back then, although I had acknowledged their original motives, I couldn’t fully accept all that they had done, and so I’d construed the new position I gave them as some kind of penance—as long as they were on board with it, of course. They had reason for their actions, but their revenge had legitimately pushed them off the right path. I couldn’t just let them go free, but I thought that they could help handle Marsheim’s future struggles. That had been the last little bit of motivation I needed to play along with Donnersmarck and bring them into the fold.

It had been like pushing a cart with four square wheels, but looking back now, I’d made the right decision—or at least hadn’t made the wrong one.

Our manpower had shot up, and that went extra for intel and reconnaissance work. We’d nipped countless plots against Ende Erde that fell outside of Margrave Marsheim’s jurisdiction in the bud, rescuing many a canton from fiery ends. Without these successes, I think that Mister Fidelio—who had been incandescent about me recruiting major players in the Kykeon plot—wouldn’t have forgiven me.

Yes, my motives had been a bit sentimental, but my decision served a pragmatic purpose too. Marquis Donnersmarck had eyes on Ende Erde and had been eager to refresh his power base by recruiting the One Cup Clan, but I didn’t think they had a good future with him. I figured things would work out best if they spent their energies setting matters right in Marsheim. Of course, they’d never fully pay their penance, but I was certain that this was their best way forward.

I knew I was going to get chewed out for it, but when I went to report my decision to Mister Fidelio I thought I was going to die.

“You’re deciding...to save these villains...purely out of your own softhearted inclinations?”

Each word came through gritted teeth. I swear staring down the throat of a dragon while it was winding up to use its breath weapon would have been less terrifying. I had used every gift of gab I had to squeeze a tiny nail, no, a wooden skewer between the rope and my neck just to keep myself from suffocating.

I had been banned from returning to the Snoozing Kitten for a while. I didn’t get to see Mister Fidelio’s child—though I was totally to blame for that—and my relationship with Siegfried suffered somewhat. My comrade was an honest lad. He was willing to see the gray side of things, but in the grand selection of tough pills to swallow, I’d presented him with one wrapped in barbed wire and washed down with sewage; I couldn’t blame him for hesitating.

Most surprising of all had been Schnee—the one of us who had been closest to death. She just sort of rolled with it. She didn’t break her impenetrable smile and mingled with the One Cup Clan before walking off, apparently satisfied. She still supplied me with decent intel, and it seemed like she was on good terms with Beatrix. I supposed that Schnee was the sort of character who would use any measure if it were to Marsheim’s benefit.

And so we were led to today.

Marsheim had seen a tumultuous revolt that had cost scores of lives. Any explanation would seem over-the-top. Of the easy dozen plots we had crushed thus far, some had been so wide-reaching that not even Ende Erde, not even the whole Empire, but even our satellite states would have perished.

In hindsight they truly were bloody battlefields. The struggle had driven me past my limits to greater strength, but I had enough head-spinning memories from countless sessions to fill my record sheet enough to do it all again. I’d lost count of how many times I’d found myself at death’s door. Thanks to modern healing magic I’d lost more limbs than most people have had in their whole lives.

A lot of things might have turned out better if I hadn’t taken on the One Cup Clan, but here I was, alive and well in my late twenties and still adventuring...well, maybe not the perfect definition of adventuring, but better to be alive and able to complain than not.

Unfortunately, despite all our hard work and everywhere it had taken us, we’d still failed to follow the thread to the end of this conflict. But frankly, given that the whole stupid situation had put me in bed with these six women day after day, maybe I’m fine with that.

To set the record straight, I wasn’t the one who made the first moves, and I was fully aware that doing so would be wrong. It had been Beatrix who had first approached me—as one of the few people I trusted as implicitly as Margit. The tipping point for the whole mess came when I was nineteen.

It remains the busiest year of my life thus far. My brain was absolute mush trying to keep up with everything that was going down and staying on top of the ongoing geopolitical boondoggle. I still don’t think I’ve finished processing it, but I can say with some confidence that it was the second-worst moment of my life. An old friend had dropped back into my life, conspiracies had been coming to a head left right and center, and I hadn’t quite been nostalgic for my workload from my days as Lady Agrippina’s steward, but it was close.

There’d been a ten-day stretch where I nearly died on seven separate occasions, and all that compounded lingering fight-or-flight had kinda worn Margit out. You know how it is; nothing puts you in the mood quite like finding out you’re still in one piece when you expected otherwise, if for no other reason than to satisfy the old hard-coded Darwinian imperatives. So yeah—I ended up sleeping with someone besides Margit for the first time about then. Three guesses who, and the first two don’t count.

“You’re thinking of another woman while I’m sitting right here on your lap, aren’t you?” Margit said.

It seemed like my partner had realized my thoughts had been drifting to the woman with a skeletal saint on her back, still trembling in her sleep with the lingering waves of our lovemaking. She grabbed my chin and lifted my head to leave a kiss upon my neck.

“Sorry, Margit,” I said. “It wasn’t anything lascivious. More...retracing my steps. Trying to remember how I got here.”

“Well, you are an incorrigible skirt chaser, aren’t you?”

“Lies. Lies and slander, and I’d say so every time if I could.”

I felt a soft and gentle kiss, more a peck really, once our pillow talk trailed off. The brush of her tongue upon my lips felt nice, but I was shook by the reaffirmation that she knew all of my weak points.

Margit drew me back into the huge bed—a monstrous piece of furniture, built to endure the lot of us pushing ourselves to our physical limits—and I felt something soft enfold my head. With it, my pleasant exhaustion blossomed into a desire for deeper slumber.

I felt all the elaborate inner workings of my mind slow and sputter, all thoughts of my troubled past pushed aside as this pleasant feeling dragged my consciousness under the surface.

I could tell I’d gotten close to something important for a moment, but the realization was no match for my fatigue. If I were in any danger, I could survive on catnaps for days without complaint, forcing myself to think and act like a human-slaughtering machine.

But here, wrapped in the softness of women’s flesh and the easy breathing of valiant warriors, there was no hope of resistance. I was ready to go out like a light.

Margit chuckled. “Sleepy, are you? Well, tomorrow is a day off, so sleep as long as you wish.”

“Right... Yeah... Tomorrow’s...day off...”

Arachne ran cooler than us mensch on average, but it was still pleasant to feel her body heat around my head. Drawn in by her warmth, I felt my eyelids droop. Every time I breathed in, I took in her body odor and her perfume, eroding my last vestiges of caution.

Ahh, this isn’t good, I thought, this will slow me down...if anything happens...

All the situational awareness that had saved my bacon all this time was worthless here and now. It was dangerous to fall into deep, defenseless, childlike sleep, but my partner was here, so maybe I could just accept her kindness and drift off...

[Tips] The Fellowship of the Blade’s glories are widely known, but since the unrest in Marsheim, perhaps due to their diversification, many have stopped regarding them as a clan of adventurers.

After her partner’s breathing drifted into the soundless rhythm of sleep, Margit finally stopped her gentle caressing of Erich’s head. She carefully got up, so as not to even rustle the sheets, and was about to head off from the bed to clean herself of the greedy passions of hours past when a hand emerged in the corner of her vision.

“Is he asleep?” Beatrix asked.

The arm was a magical prosthetic, drawing its motive power from a magic gem fitted within. It had been Beatrix’s companion for nearly a decade since losing her right hand for good. It had cost her none of her grace; she handed over a cloth to the arachne with all the ease in the world.

The other four were still too deep in their abyss of pleasure to move, but Beatrix was merely relaxed and alert. It was all out of concern for the huntress, who was currently wiping Goldilocks’s brow.