NOVEL SIMPLE Volume 1 Chapter 15
In what felt like a complete disregard for our own safety, our embrace continued for a long, quiet while. Me hugging the girl I know I didn’t deserve and her crying into the arms of the man that originally meant to use her. Neither of us said a word and just held each other, right up until Yua’s ears finally twitched, bringing a quick end to this moment of mourning. That twitch was the same sort I’d become accustomed to seeing when she heard an enemy milling about somewhere nearby, so it was no longer safe to stay here.
With a small sniffle, she withdrew from my chest and quickly wiped away the last lingering dregs of her tears. However, instead of heading off for the fight, she looked at me with determination so strong in her eyes, that those glossy emeralds looked to have caught fire all on their own.
“My family hasn’t seen me since. They probably think that I became weak after living in the city for so long and died in the dungeons because of it. So, Master, please make me stronger!”
Yua bowed so deeply and so fast that, had her legs not held firm, she might have drove her forehead through the stone flooring of the dungeon. It was as endearing as it was cute, especially the way her tail held its upward curve and pointed towards me, as if it too was awaiting my response. Seeing her slender back look so strangely sturdy as she made this plea so soon after crying her eyes out, I felt just a little bit of pride at being the one she asked for help.
“You got it. If we keep going at this rate, I’ll help you get stronger than you ever imagined. And in return, I hope that you will help me get stronger, too.”
“Yes, Master!” she said, jumping back into a standing position. Her smile all but completely hiding the fact that she had been crying just seconds ago.
How it was that she managed to do this was beyond me. Just remembering the worst moments of my life filled me with nothing but pain and regrets so strong that using them to improve myself seemed like a pipe dream. Yet, here she was, doing just that, and after I bought her like an object. It was almost like her resolve to do better was overpowering mine, even though they were on the same track.
If I didn’t deserve her, then I could at least help her reach her goals and protect her the best I could along the way.
Taking her story as the unedited truth after pairing it with our time in the dungeon so far, I came to the quick conclusion that Yua did indeed have a slight cockiness problem. It seems, for the most part, what happened to her three years ago did put a stop to it, but not completely. Now that she had me boosting her further and faster than the normal limitations of this world typically allowed, we’d needed to be careful going forwards.
And again, I was aware that I had the same problem. Thinking I could get the upper hand in trade has repeatedly screwed me over, so I probably needed to take things a little more slowly as well. Unfortunately, now wasn’t really the time for slow.
Seeing her smiling at me, I smiled back on reflex despite my growing negative thoughts.
“For now, I want you to take the next fight. What’s the other monsters are on this floor?”
Again, we should have discussed these details sooner, but the discussion regarding abilities and the battle with the trent took center stage. But it wasn’t too late to fill in the gaps now. Besides, I’m sure she’s in need of a good fight.
“The only other monsters on this floor are Goblins. They use short spears or swords, but I can handle them no problem!”
“Good. Find one and take it down.”
“Yes!”
It was nice that she was able to recover so fast, but I still felt like shit for giving into my curiosity and worries and bringing up her past in the first place. But if what she wants is to become stronger, then that is something that fits both of our goals. Thanks to my ability to boost the experienced she gained from fighting with me, I had no doubt my promise will be upheld. As long as we stuck together.
Her energy restored, Yua stormed down the dungeon halls straight for her next unawares target. Without waiting for me to give her the go ahead, Yua took off running towards the first goblin she found and laid into it with a heavy kick that it barely had time to see coming. It slammed into the wall hard enough to make even me cringe a little, though the feeling of getting to strike something did wonders for Yua’s smile. It looked dazed and immensely confused by the sudden assault, but it managed to use the short, crude spear it held as a cane to stand itself back up onto its now wobbling legs.
The goblin, a dark brown creature about the size of a child, but with a thin, gangly body, along with the slimes from the first floor, were supposed to be among the weakest monsters one could fight in any given RPG. Although its existence on the second floor and the fact that it managed to survive an attack from Yua of all people suggested it was a fair bit stronger than I originally gave it credit for.
Due in part to its hunched back, it was only about as tall as her hip-line. Because of this and its spear keeping her at a distance, she likely figured her legs were the better weapon in her admittedly limited arsenal when dealing with them, even though she so far generally preferred her fists. She must not have been able to put her all into that kick, but even after being paired up against the first of the dungeon monsters to use a real weapon, she jumped into the fight the best way she could.
As for the goblin, the spear it used truly was short. Standing on its end, it looked to be barely taller than the goblin itself. Its length made it look like it would have been the perfect fit for a human to use one-handed along with a heavy shield to hide behind, but the goblin held it in both of its tiny, wart-covered hands.
Glaring madly at her, as if she’d slaughtered its entire family with that one kick, it thrust the spear at her the same way a human would with one of a normal size, but with a skill so obviously lacking that even I knew it to be untrained. It didn’t put its body weight behind it. Its strike held no precision. And probably thanks to her kick, its legs were unsteady. It looked more like the goblin was attempting to poke an inanimate object, not a living person.
I suspected that the goblin’s lack of range compared to the trent was perfect for Yua, since the it clearly didn’t have the skill to keep her away. She, however, kept smart and didn’t recklessly charge at it. She let the creature jab at her again and again, searching for its weaknesses. It was almost as if she were taking the time to see if its attack patterns changed at all since the last time she was here. It surely thought that it was keeping her both at bay, but within a perfect striking distance as she nimbly dodged its attacks, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t trying to gain the upper hand.
Yua’s first kick had taken half of its health, but it almost seemed to ignore the pain as it howled unintelligible words and thrust at her again. It aimed for her leg to both immobilize her and to take away the weapon she assaulted it with, but having tested it well enough to get the hang of its attacks, Yua slapped the spear away by striking the wooden shaft just below the blade and jabbed another kick straight into its gut. Her foot lifted it off the ground and pinned it against the wall, where it let out a large, wheezing gasp as its lungs collapsed. It burst into light before its head could even fall limp.
“How was that, Master?”
“As long as you don’t kick me like that, I think you did fantastic.”
“Hehehe.”
Glad to see that I was right in assuming a good fight would perk her up, I let myself smile for the positive mood change. When I stooped to pick up the goblin’s dropped item, I decided to let her take the next few fights on her own so that she could put the rest of that conversation behind her.
The Steel Goblin Spear it dropped looked like it was too small for anyone but a child to use effectively, which was probably why it was only priced at 2 silvers when appraised. Its only real value must come from its steel being smelted down and reforged into something else. The only person in the city that would be willing to take it would have to be a blacksmith and that meant we’d have yet another stop to make when we were done. But still, I had no complaints as long as we met our goal.
We continued on like this for a while until we found our fifth goblin. This one ran at Yua with a short sword when she approached to fight as if it were waiting for her all day. She readied herself to meet the goblin head on and dodged its first three swings, making no effort to close the already minimal gap between them.
I watched on, content with the sight of watching her in her element as she practically embarrassed the goblin. Assuming the monsters here were even capable of such emotions, of course.
Personally, I couldn’t see how fighting could ever be so enjoyable, but after hearing her past, I felt comfortable in accepting the person before me now as her true self. The way she grinned so broadly as she side-stepped a hastily-made slash of a sword that left the goblin staggering forward a step when it didn’t land, was so perfect, that it might as well have erased the snarky girl I bought and the thief waiting in the shadows that I assumed her to be.
This was her. The real Yua. The one I’ve been wanting this whole time to see. Standing right there in front of me, or rather jumping in front of me to dodge yet another poorly timed attack, was the same girl whose presence I should have noticed this morning. It almost felt like I’d wasted this day so far for not taking notice of her.
The goblin’s third strike hit the wall as she dodged and it sent a metallic clang rocketing throughout the dungeon and sent its wrist wringing with the pain of the vibration. A sensation I was deeply familiar enough with to feel it in my own hand thanks to the last boss. It was almost like she had decided to toy with it.
However, after she’d had her fun, she lowered her stance to give the goblin her first and probably last punch of the fight. Right as she drew back her fist, her ears twitched and her eyes shot open.
“Master, there’s something coming from…!”
Just before she could finish, something heavy struck my arm and sent me hurtling through the air. Yua’s gasp almost escaped notice as my field of view suddenly and violently became horizontal.
Before I could get my bearings mid-flight and attempt to correct myself the way Yua did against the last boss, my back hit the wall. Where I should have come to an abrupt stop once the pain violated my body and stole my breath, I crashed right on through the wall itself. As if it were only as thick as a single row of bricks that had been lazily stacked together without the necessary mortar to glue them together, the wall crumbled easily against the same force that sent me flying.
Even after I skidded to a stop, the bricks surrounding the hole I made in the wall continued to fall like rain once their structural support was gone. Pain lit up every inch of my body with a severity I’d never felt before, in this world or my last. It was the closest I’d ever wanted to come to saying that I now fully understood what the phrase “hurt like hell” truly meant.
Was this what my last moments on Earth felt like when I got hit by that truck? No, I suppose not. The Goddess was happy to report that I felt no pain back then. Remembering this ridiculously pointless fact, I could only grumble to myself and wish I could say the same now.
Apparently, getting shoved through a wall wasn’t something you could just shrug off like in the movies. Who knew…?
I grabbed hold of my injured arm and grunted at the sharp increase to the pain that my attempt to comfort myself caused. I tried to make sense of what had happened, but my everything was hurting so much that I could barely think straight enough to check my status menu.
Apparently, that single blow combined with my crashing through the wall was enough to knock out a whole third of my health bar. Instead of being in awe at how I took such a blow and managed not to die, something I was sure I couldn’t have done with the body I had back on Earth, I immediately decided that I never wanted to experience the sort of pain a nearly fatal blow might cause me.
Finally remembering that I had stopped breathing after hitting the wall when my lungs started to hurt on top of everything else, I was suddenly breathing very heavily. Sucking up buckets of dust with each and every breath I dared to take, every inhalation caused ripples of pain to shoot up and down my spine, bashing tiny spiked hammers against each and every vertebrae for each attempt it made to try and rob me of my consciousness as I laid atop the pile of broken bricks.
A droplet of blood ran down my forehead, sticking to the side of my face as it ran south. I took this to mean both that I had hit my head at some point and that the damage it caused me wasn’t enough to make me go dumb. Though, I could probably stand to have it make me forget a few of these broken abilities and traits that were forced upon me.
However, when it suddenly became almost overwhelmingly difficult to keep my eyes open, I forced the pain back and force myself to sit up in the pile of rubble that became my temporary bed and looked for my attacker. But not for my sake.
I had foolishly been standing in the middle hall that split off in three directions to watch Yua’s fight. When I managed to refocus my vision, I found a single trent was approaching us from the path opposite the goblin. I couldn’t tell if Yua’s ears had missed it or not, but she hadn’t said anything about there being a second monster nearby until it was already mid-swing with its attack.
No, she only just heard it in the middle of her own fight. She was too busy focusing on the goblin to have noticed it any sooner. Or maybe this one was acting more like an actual tree and wasn’t moving. Just hiding in a corner somewhere out of sight. She must have never heard it until the sounds of fighting drew its attention. In letting Yua take on every goblin we could find, we hadn’t bothered to hunt down another trent just yet, so I didn’t have a good idea on how they acted outside of battle, but this made a modicum of sense to me. I mean, trees weren’t supposed to move to begin with.
It didn’t matter. Yua was caught in an impromptu pincer attack and I couldn’t help. I could barely move. I tried to raise my arm to launch a Fire Ball at the trent, but the pain kept it from happening. Upon trying my other, less injured hand, I was forced to fall backwards onto the bricks again to avoid the trent’s second strike. This time it aimed for my head but missing and striking the wall again. I didn’t know if it was trying to keep me out of the fight on purpose or if it was just mindlessly attacking whoever met its fancy, but I couldn’t just sit there and let it do as it pleased.
It drew near to striking distance of Yua, but she was locked in the middle of dodging more of the goblin’s sword strikes after the presence of its friend apparently caused it to become a little surer of itself. She missed her chance to end the one on one. The attack on me must have distracted her enough to make her forget the easy advantage she had over it.
I had to do whatever I could to help. I could only imagine how much pain she suffered when she received that giant gash to her arm yesterday, but if it was anything like this, I didn’t want to let her get hit again.
Brainstorming as fast as I could, I came up with something that might just work. But I needed Yua to regain her focus, so I had to make myself known so that she knew I was alright.
“Yua!”
“Master! Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, just try using your Iron Fist on the goblin as soon as you can! I’ll deal with the trent!”
“Got it!”
With those as my orders, I bit back the pain the best I could and forced myself to my feet once again. My vision swam and the ground beneath me suddenly felt very unsteady, but I moved my feet anyways. I fought off the urge to shake my head, as I feared aggravating the potential brain injury I received would only worsen the situation. I leaned out of the hole in the wall, both to let it act as my support and as my shield.
As expected, the trent whipped its branch-like arms straight towards my face and without letting myself fall this time, I pushed myself back. Its whip crashed against the wall again, this time causing a miniature explosion of stone and rubble as it destroyed the shoddy brickwork. I hid behind what was left of it and primed a silent Fire Ball as its branch receded. The moment the ball of fire appeared in my palm, I leaned out again and immediately launched it at the trent the second I caught sight of it.
The spell crashed straight into it and, like the last one, the trent’s wood body began to burn and smolder as the flames encasing it slowly chipped away its health. As if it felt nothing of pain nor cared for the danger of its own situation, the trent snapped its arm towards me again before I could send another Fire Ball its way. I tried to fall back again, but my legs wobbled and I fell to my knees. Thankfully, the wall took the hit for me again, but the pain that erupted from my knee when it hit the ground surprised me enough to almost wish I’d been hit instead and knocked out. I, however, fought off the urge to cry out so I didn’t further distract Yua.
After I collected myself as much as I could, I peered out from behind the safety of the wall as I tried to stand again and found Yua as she continued dodging the goblin’s attacks until it finally made a mistake. Likely out of sheer aggravation for being entirely unable to hit Yua this even after the surprise attack, the creature started to grumble and shout more incoherent words and noises that likely meant nothing to anything on this planet but itself. Its tiny eyes burning with hatred, it pulled back its sword to wind up for a more powerful slash.
It let loose with all of its strength, but Yua easily dodged it yet again, showing that she wasn’t even remotely tired yet by using the goblin’s failed assault and its forward momentum to jump freely over its head. She landed directly behind it and prepared herself, as if she was waiting for this exact moment. I felt the faintest smirk creep across my lips when I remembered what followed when she did this to the last boss.
“Iron Fist!”
As ordered, her fist began to emit that beautiful silvery glow as she unleashed her ability. The goblin, unable to recover from its missed swing to defend itself properly, quickly spun around and lifted its short sword up to block the blow headed straight for it, but in its haste, it turned the blade’s edge towards her, instead of using its flat to protect itself. As if she didn’t notice and without pulling her punch, Yua’s glowing fist struck the edge of the blade.
However, instead of hearing her cries of pain where the blade should have buried itself into the flesh of her knuckles, all I heard was a metallic clang just as loud as when the goblin struck the wall with its sword earlier in the fight.
I may still be a bit dizzy, but I think Yua had been using the Iron Fist ability incorrectly this entire time. While every time she used it, she did unleash a powerful blow upon her opponent, that was just her natural strength, not the ability itself. And I think this proved it. Her chanting the name of Iron Fist up until now must have been nothing more than the placebo effect making her think the strength was coming from the ability, but now that I had switched her main class to Monk, the ability’s true power made itself known.
Because of this, the silvery glow was much more vibrant than before and her fist seemed to have actually become as solid as the ability’s namesake. I knew this because, when her punch struck the goblin’s sword, instead of cutting into her, the blade bounced off of her fist from the force and gouged itself into the goblin’s face, only for the follow through of her punch to then launch the goblin itself through the air and back down the hall towards the burning trent.
Seeing this as my chance, I quickly leaned out one more time and launched another Fire Ball at the both of them. The trent tried to whip me again, but thanks to a bit of luck rather than timing, all it hit was the goblin’s flying body, both finishing it off and allowing the Fire Ball to strike home in the trent’s torso, where it exploded in a small burst of flame, embers and crumbling bark.
I held my hand up, ready to fire again, until I saw both monsters disappear in a burst of wondrously familiar light, leaving behind just a couple measly item drops for our troubles.
My knees wobbled and, once I was sure the fight was done, I let myself collapse again. Momentarily unsure of which injury to comfort, I tried to comfort the one that hurt the most and grabbed hold of it. Grabbing my arm like that caused another flare up of agony, but the slight warmth of my hand soothed it just a little.
“Master!”
Yua ran up to me, looking to be nearly in tears. Given her personality, at least what I’ve seen of her true self so far today, I guessed that she was already blaming herself for what happened. So, I stopped her after she leaned into me to support my injured body.
“Master, I’m so sor…”
“I’m fine, Yua. It’s not your fault. That damn tree just snuck up on us. I should have been keeping an eye out for sneak attacks instead of just forcing you to handle everything while you were fighting.”
I’d gotten so used to having her ears both guide and protect us that I didn’t even consider that what she was doing was too distracting to her. I should have guessed this might happen from when she mentioned how she was able to drain out all the white noise of city life by focusing on other things or outright ignoring the sensations her ears picked up, so the sound wasn’t a constant bother to her.
“But… But because I didn’t hear it, Master got hurt.”
“I’m fine. This… is nothing.”
I lied just about as unconvincingly as I could, given the blood still trickling down my face, and only made it worse when I tried to stand again to relieve her worries. My knees immediately gave way and I collapsed right into Yua’s arms. While she caught me easily enough and I happily accepted the soft embrace of her bosom against the back of my head, now wasn’t the time to sit there and enjoy it.
For reasons I couldn’t fully understand in the moment, I wasn’t constantly losing health from the bleeding like she had against the last boss. But at this rate, I wouldn’t be able to keep fighting even if I forced myself. My only option was to use a health potion whose price still felt too high considering our debt. But I needed to heal up so we could continue. The day was still young and we still had plenty of dungeon to burn through.
Geez. I only got hit once and it nearly killed me. And I’m at least ten levels higher than the monsters on this floor already. What the hell is the true value of the health bar if it doesn’t actually reflect your true health?
I raised a hand while Yua held me to open my item box to retrieve the potion, but as my hand disappeared into the miasma, I got another notification.
[Slave Yua’s Monk class reached level 5. New ability obtained: Healing Punch.]
“What the hell?”
“Did you forget the potion at the inn, Master? I can carry you back to…”
“No, that’s not it. Yua, it looks like you got that Healing Punch ability you were talking about.”
“Eh? Really? Already?!”
I held out my hand to her and without hesitation this time, she placed hers on top of it. I let her see her status page again and sure enough, just as the notification said, she gained the ability.
She had been fighting on the second floor this entire time after I switched her main class to Monk. Which meant all the experience she gained went directly to that class. And because it started off so low, that experience allowed her to level up pretty quickly. We were just lucky that getting to level five was the requirement to unlock the skill.
Yua looked more dumfounded than excited like she did the last time I told her about how she’d developed in fighting beside me and it wasn’t exactly hard to see why. But I guess her earlier determination to get stronger paid off sooner than she was expecting, even after learning of how my trait affected her.
“To obtain this ability already… Master, is this real?”
“Haha… Why don’t you try it out? Seems like… the perfect chance right now. Do you know how to do it?”
“Well, I think so. I’ve seen it done to heal injuries after my people’s sparring matches got out of hand. And it’s been explained to me, but…”
“That’s fine,” I said, forcing a smile despite the pain. “Just… imagine what you want to happen while you use it. Do that and I am sure it will work out just fine.”
I gave the same advice the goddess gave me on how to use my own abilities and, while I had no idea if it actually worked the same for the people originally born to this world, it sure as hell didn’t hurt to try. And if it didn’t, then we could at least learn what not to do next time. All we really needed to do was hope that she didn’t need some sort of training to make it work and that she actually learned the ability as instantaneously as I did with my magic.
That’s not too much to hope for, right?
“Don’t worry, Yua. I’m sure you can do it.”
She bit her lip. Still looking worried over a potential failure, she forced herself to reach for my injured arm anyway. I moved my hand so that she could touch the spot where the trent’s branch hit directly. I didn’t know if it mattered, but I didn’t want my getting in the way to wind up making her think she failed. When I saw the bruising and truly concerning discoloration that was starting to spread there, I was glad she picked that spot first instead of multitude of other options.
Even with hands as soft as hers, her touch still hurt like a bitch. Thankfully, the slave spell binding her to me didn’t kick in and reflect the pain back onto her. She was trying to help me, not hurt me, after all. It brought back into question that whole point Alphonse made about it still working upon the slave accidentally injuring their master and them still feeling the rebound effect, but it really didn’t matter now. I decided on my own to chalk up the fact that Yua didn’t seem to be in any pain as being because I asked her to do this.
Yua closed her eyes for a moment, propping me up into a sitting position, drew in a breath to steel herself the same way she did before throwing out the real Iron Fist skill. Then she opened her eyes and like magic, her worry was gone. The look she gave was just as sharp and was filled with just as much determination as her earlier promise to get stronger. Seeing this, I let a bit more weakness take my body and sank a little more into her chest.
“Healing Punch.”
Be it from her renewed determination or just the effect of the skill, a pleasant warmth spread throughout my entire arm as soon as her hands emitted a bright green glow. Before my eyes could adjust to the light, the pain slowly started to fade. While she focused her efforts entirely on my arm, I soon began to feel my fingertips again. And I hadn’t even realized that they’d gone numb until the sensation of the stones my hand rested on returned to me.
It took a few minutes before the effect really took hold and the pain in my arm faded completely. When she finished, she dropped her hand and fell forwards, shifting my body a bit painfully in the process. She managed to catch herself by pressing her hands on my thigh, but I could see a flood of sweat dripping from her forehead. When I was able to curl my fingers into a fist without the slightest hint of pain, I let out a sigh strong enough for the breeze my breath created to make her cat ears flick against it. Even with our best medicines, receiving an injury like that back on Earth would have taken months to heal properly. If it ever did.
I was just starting to feel a bit giddy at the thought of her mentioning how this ability would save us on potions, then I froze almost solid. Not because her breasts had shifted from the back of my head to resting their full weight on my shoulder, but because I suddenly remembered her mentioning that the cost of using that ability was supposedly her “life force.”
Hurrying to make sure I hadn’t accidently, and stupidly, ask her to trade her life for mine after getting hit hard enough in the head to think that could ever be a good idea, I willed her status window open to check and make sure she hadn’t drained away her own health to fix my broken body.
When I read that she hadn’t even taken any damage during the fight or while using her ability, I let my head relax, and completely against my intentions, once more fell straight into her bosom when she shifted herself. She didn’t even take damage when her iron fist hit the goblin’s sword. Thankfully, the only part of her that had taken any damage at all was her stamina bar.
I could hear her heart racing just a bit because of the strain and felt her every breath push her softness into my cheek, now that almost three-quarters of her total stamina had been consumed in one go. The sweat on her forehead dripped onto my pants as she tried to catch her breath.
“Did… Did it work, Master?”
“Yes, it did,” I said, raising my arm back up and flexing my bicep for her. “I don’t feel any more pain in my arm at all.”
“Thank the gods…”
I tried to stand up to test the rest of my body, but in my excitement, I had nearly forgotten the pain in my back. The pain was quick to remind me of its presence, though, as it rushed up my spine, forcing my back to twist, causing further pain, until I collapsed once more with a heavy grunt. This time onto my stomach.
“Fuck…”
“Master, I thought…”
“It’s fine…. My arm is fine. But my back still hurts from where I hit the wall.”
Wiping away the sweat on her brow with her forearm, Yua sat up again and drew a heavy breath.
“Then… I’ll just… heal you again.”
Without my prompting her to, Yua stepped over me and straddled my legs. As much as I wanted to enjoy the wonderful pressure of a girl’s weight as she mounted me for the first time, the pain in my back was just too much to find any sort of pleasure in what she was doing. Not to mention the fact that I was on my stomach and couldn’t even see her. I pointed to where it hurt and she put both her hands there, as if all she was doing was leaning on me.
“Yua, take this Stamina Potion first,” I said, pulling a bottle from my item box. “From what I can see, using Healing Punch looks like it only uses your stamina as its cost. That’s why you feel so tired right now.”
“Eh… Really?”
I explained to her what I saw in the menu and she took the potion without complaint. I had meant to use them as a sort of fantasy-style improvement on energy drinks to allow us the energy needed to keep fighting for as long as we could, but if she could convert the extra stamina into health, then that was a worthy sacrifice. In her hands, each and every stamina potion we bought was effectively a backup health potion.
“If all it takes is a bit of energy, no wonder why my people never hesitated to use Healing Punch on minor injuries. Why didn’t anyone tell me how it really worked before I left the village?”
“Maybe it’s because they weren’t expecting you to learn it so quickly?”
“Mmm… Healing Punch!”
Once more, a green light encompassed the room and the pain began to recede. I listened to Yua’s breathing become more and more ragged, as if trading away the very air she breathed for the pain in my body. I could feel her sweat dripping onto and soaking into my shirt as she worked, but she refused to give up. She just continued to work without complaint.
As if she somehow knew when the pain had completely left me and when my life bar maxed out again, Yua’s strength finally gave out and she collapsed, falling face forward onto my back. Even after all of this, I still found it incredibly surprising to feel how light she really was after everything.
Now thankfully and completely free from injury, I carefully turned my body beneath hers to keep her from falling onto the hard bricks scattered across the room and gently laid her down. I let her use my lap as a temporary pillow to spite the bricks I had been suffering. Again, another first I wished I had time to enjoy, but seeing her in that exhausted state was not pleasurable in the least.
Her skin had gone a pale grey and was covered in a thick layer of sweat. I never knew the effects of running out of stamina, at least in this way, would be so severe. In just about every game I have played, all you had to do to recover your stamina was to stand still for a minute or two, but she looked like she might actually die if left like this for much longer. She didn’t exactly tell me how I looked when I was going through mana exhaustion, but I surely didn’t look this rough.
I uncorked another Stamina Potion and lifted her head up so she would have an easier time drinking it. Placing it against her lips, I slowly tilted the bottle so she wouldn’t drink too fast and spill it. I watched her gulp down the liquid almost greedily anyways and watched as the vibrance of life returned to her skin. By the time the bottle was half empty, Yua was able to reach up and put her hand over mine to tilt the bottle a little more.
Once the potion was emptied, I put it back into my item box for later use and Yua started breathing much more steadily. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and helped her to sit up straight. Her status page showed that her stamina had been mostly restored, but she still looked tired. I guessed we were already reaching the point where the small potions weren’t enough for us to recover completely. I suppose leveling up so fast has its drawbacks.
“You okay, Yua?”
She let out a small laugh as she leaned into my chest.
“I should be the one asking you, Master.”
“I’m doing just fine thanks to you. That Healing Punch of yours really did the trick. I don’t feel any pain at all!”
“I’m so glad.”
I let Yua rest a while longer until she felt strong enough again. She hefted herself back onto her feet completely unaided and stretched her arms over her head as if she’d just woken from a long nap. I hurried to follow her example, so she didn’t feel the need to help me up. Vertical once again, I admired her handywork by turning my hands over and leaning to check on my legs as I truly felt no more pain.
Yua swept her sweat-drenched hair out of her face while I moved to examine the portion of wall I had crashed through. I realized only then how utterly thin it was. By my estimate, only about an inch and a half thick. No wonder it collapsed when I was thrown into it.
Out of curiosity, I walked across the hall and took a chunk of stone out of the wall opposite us using Material Destruction and saw that the wall there was several times thicker. I did the same to a different wall and got the same result. So, I dug a little deeper and saw the walls there were as thick as the entire space between the separate hallways, meaning that there was continuous stone filling the gaps. Unlike them, the thin wall I was thrown through lead only to a single empty room that looked otherwise pointless.
Something wasn’t adding up. Scanning my memories for possibilities, I came up with something after remembering a series of games I obsessed over a while back.
“Yua, have you heard anything about illusory walls existing in the dungeon? Like, walls that are fake?”
Straightening her disheveled shirt, she shook her head.
“No, Master. I have not. Why?”
“Because look how thin this wall is. None of the other walls were made like this.”
She looked around us and her tail gave a curious flick, as if she had only just noticed that the room we were standing in didn’t exist before our last fight and tilted her head, silently asking me why it mattered.
Instead of answering her, I gave into curiosity and took a closer look at the walls in the small room. I started to search for differences in stone quality compared to the ones in the halls. Weak ones. Cracked ones. Ones that were a different shade of grey than the rest. I walked along the walls of the room, looking close at each and every brick I passed, until I noticed that the wall to the left of the entrance my body made was a slightly darker shade.
“There we go…”
Pressing my hands against the wall only made it feel solid, but a strong tap against it felt a bit different than the rest. Almost like the space behind it was hollow.
I was about to ask that Yua use her Iron Fist ability on it to see if she had become strong enough to break down a wall with her bare hands, but considering how her stamina had yet to fully recover, I thought it would be smarter to just use Material Destruction like someone who wasn’t an idiot. So, I held my hand in front of the wall.
“Master, what are you doing?”
“Just watch.”
I cast my ability and one by one, the stones vanished. Carving out a hole big enough for two people to fit through at the same time, I uncovered another hidden room. A hidden room within a hidden room, how fun.
Yua watched in amazement as a gold-trimmed treasure chest about the size of the stone blocks I removed from the wall came into view. It and the rest of the room was shrouded in a deep blue light just like the before.
“Oh?! Master, how did you know that was there?”
“The stones were a different color. That always means there’s a secret behind them in video games.”
“In video…? Huh?”
Feeling my cheeks flush a bit at the accidental slip of my Earthly knowledge, I pressed forward without clarifying. Being extra cautious, I put up a hand to stop Yua from stepping into the room and cast my Detect Trap ability. Luckily, nothing indicated that the room or the chest was booby-trapped in any way. So, free of worries, we stepped into the room together to examine what we found.
Wanting to skip the fanfare and with my fingers crossed, I popped open the already unlocked chest with ease and felt my jaw drop when I saw what was inside.
A pile of tiny gold coins stacked high enough to almost reach the chest’s rim appeared and our eyes sparkled at the sight. I’d never seen so much gold in one place and I doubted Yua had from the way her tail whipped about so excitedly, so it almost felt like we were suffering from some sort of shared hypnosis, but a quick check of my status page suggested what we saw was true.
The ring we found was expensive, sure, but actually seeing this much gold all together was staggering. Almost too scared to even handle that much wealth at once, I picked a single coin up from the lot just to be sure and further prove the truth of our find, and when I felt the cool metal of the coin against my thumb, I nearly jumped for joy.
Hoping against all odds that this was a gift from the Goddess herself, I set the coin back down and cast Appraisal over the lot.
[Gold Coin x 2,400]
“Yes!”
I shouted and Yua looked at me excitedly, wagging her tail and waiting for the verdict.
“There’s almost enough gold here alone to pay off the difference when the auction house takes their cut!”
“Really?!”
She leapt into my chest and hugged me, her cat ears twitching happily against my chin. When she nuzzled her cheek against my chest, I was dumbfounded, embarrassed and unsure of how to respond to the softness she pressed against me, but I was grateful for her happiness. I wasn’t even sure if that was what I was supposed to feel as I hugged her back, but I did. I quickly stored both the gold and the treasure chest into my item box before it could disappear and prove that this and everything that came after the trent’s attack was some sort of pain-induced hallucination that I was seeing.
With this much gold, there was no way I could say my little belt pouch was carrying it all, so we were definitely going to need the chest when we took Alphonse his payment. Plus, this may be just a guess, but it looked like the excess space in the chest might be large enough to hold whatever we got from the auction once the ring sold. So, we should be able to carry it all straight to him in one go! Hard to believe that I hadn’t even considered how we were actually going to physically present him with that absurd amount of gold until now, only to have the solution slap me across the face.
“With this,” I said, reconfirming the coin’s existence with my menu. “I think we have a really good chance at meeting our goal.”
“Really?!” Yua exclaimed again, looking up from my chest with the happiest smile I had seen on her yet.
“Y-Yes, but we can’t let our guard down just yet. There is still the chance that the ring might not sell. So, we have to keep fighting as long as we can, just in case.”
“Understood, Master. Then let’s go!”
Grabbing my arm and pulling me up to my feet where I had been kneeling, Yua dragged me out of the hidden room and back into the hall and towards the next monster. If judging by nothing more than her enthusiasm, it would have been impossible to tell that she was deathly exhausted only a few minutes ago. Then again, I could say the same about my health.
As we ran, I considered dumping even more points into my Luck stat to keep this train of good fortune running.