Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, I’m weak and yearn for the sun so much--Although the labyrinth is fine if it’s in a game--fighting insects, frogs, and snakes in a dark cave is getting tiring--”

We have passed six rooms since the girls leveled up, but we haven’t encountered anymore living Humans--we have come across several corpses though--

“Master, I have finished recovering the Magic Core.” Liza spoke with a slightly proud tone as she turned and showed me the tennis ball sized red core, which one one of the larger ones.

“Alright, let’s take a break.”

At my words, the Beastkin girls and I sit down, and they pass around the water bottle, after only having a single mouthful each.

Suddenly Liza fumbles, dropping the water bottle, causing water to spill onto the stone floor.

“I-I’m very sorry! Master!!” Liza desperately picks up the water bottle, her hands seem to be unsteady.

Come to think of it, Pochi and Tama’s accuracy was lower than usual during the battle earlier--

“Are you tired?”

“I’m very sorry! I wasted the important water--please punish me.” Liza speaks seriously, looking very upset, tears gathering in her red eyes. She seems to think she committed some unpardonable sin or something.

I have never understood why people would ask to be punished?

Maybe their punishments would be less if they ask for it, instead of waiting for the other person’s anger to build and resulting in results much crueler.

“Liza, it’s okay--we can just obtain more water. Rather than that, is your body okay?”

“I’m sorry--” Liza looks down, refusing to meet my gaze, though she seems to have calmed down, “I have been feeling heavy since earlier--just now I tried to move my limbs, but they won’t budge.”

Pochi and Tama drink the water, more carefully than before, only moving their hands--they are laying on the ground and look like corpses.

Quickly checking their information, I can’t see any abnormalities--they’re probably just tired.

“Hmm, the break is canceled, let’s take a full rest instead.” I carefully lift Tama and Pochi up, before taking sweet potato fries from storage and give them to the girls. They all look very sleepy, but maybe because they’re hungry, they have enough energy to eat.

“After you finish eating, feel free to sleep.”

When the girls finish eating, Tama and Pochi approach me.

“Master, pillow?” Tama asks.

At first I think she is asking for a pillow, but seeing my confusion, Liza explains that the girls like being close to others when they sleep--when I nodded to the patiently waiting Beastkin girls, Tama made a pleased noise and lay down, using my right thigh as a pillow; Pochi followed her example and laid her head on my left.

Liza looked between me and the girls, before shyly curling up in a ball a small distance away.

While they sleep, I observe their information.

The values of their Stats are increasing by around one every ten minutes; after about two hours, according to the clock, the grayed out skills turn white.

Speaking of the skills, if the three level up even more, then their skills should increase right?

They don’t seem to get skills just by doing an action.

***

After the girls woke up, we broke through even more rooms.

The limit before we need to rest seems to be around three levels, based on what happened earlier, so we should rest after breaking through around two more rooms--

“Stop!” Tama suddenly speaks out.

While I don’t know why she said to stop, since I can’t see any enemies in front of us, either on the map or the radar--we all stop.

“What’s wrong?”

“The ground is--strange?” She answers with a question and tilted head, her ears pointing forwards.

Hmm?

It seems that there is something wrong with the floor in front of us, but she doesn’t know what it is--only to not step on it.

I look closer at the ground, carefully inspecting every rock and dip, looking for something, anything. Suddenly I notice that the texture looks just very slightly different for the patch in front of us when compared to the ground at our feet.

Before I can figure out what it is that makes it look strange, a message suddenly appears: ‘Trap: Life Drain’.

That’s right, this is a labyrinth, so there should be traps--since this is the first I have seen, I forgot about them until now.

“Well done, Tama. There’s a trap there.”

“Aye!” Tama looks pleased at my words.

I can’t help it, I stroke Tama’s hair, much to her pleasure. Then I do something that I have wanted to try since I saw her and Pochi, I gently grab one of her fluffy ears and stroke it, from base to tip and back again--the hair around the base of the ear, and on the ear itself is more of a silvery, fluffy, fur.

Tama twitches slightly, then begins to make a noise that sounds a lot like purring, her cheeks going a little red as her smile gets bigger and she closes her eyes, losing herself in the sensation.

Pochi is watching, a small amount of envy in her eyes--and a little drool coming from her slightly parted pink lips--almost like she is hungry.

Seeing the strange reactions, I quickly stop.

Clearing my throat, I bend down and pick up a lose rock, throwing it at the trap--but nothing happens; judging from the name of the trap, it probably only reacts to living things.

Since I don’t know the range of the trap, I can’t be sure if we can safely walk through the edge of the passage either--there is no way I would even consider making the Beastkin girls walk through it, even if it is accidentally.

There are rat Monsters in the room a short distance down the passage, so I decided to try to lure them here by attracting their attention with the sound of thrown stones.

Bending over again, I get three random stones and then throw them one after another.

“Rats are coming!” Pochi reports excitedly.

In response to Pochi’s report, I make a gesture for the three girls to fall back. The rats here are only level ten and fairly week, but they act in groups; since I can’t be sure if they can break through the trap or not, let’s take some distance.

As the rats cross over the trap, there is a black spark that leaps up and hits them; another three or four sparks fly at the same time, it seems that there are multiple traps scattered around and they go off in a chain reaction.

 

>>Skill: Disarm Trap Acquired.

>>Skill: Trap Usage Acquired.

>>Skill: Discover Trap Acquired.

 

Oh, that last skill is something that would be vital for anyone visiting places like Japan or Taiwan on Earth--

Since the trap on the floor might be the type that can be reactivate, I decided to leave the Magic Cores behind--and immediately allocate skill points to the Trap Discovery, and Disarm skills, activating the discovery skills.

***

Liza stabs at the giant frog’s mouth with all her might, Pochi and Tama each jump to opposite sides to deliver the finishing strike to the frog’s head with their daggers--with a thud, the huge body falls to the ground, resulting in a fleshy-sounding ‘thud’.

“Alright! You all did very well!” I praise the girls for the first Monster kill that they did by themselves, since the Monster was a simple level ten with only Tongue Restraint as a special skill, I decided to let them do it--and they did very well.

It seems that a Beastkin’s fighting power is greater than that of a Human their level.

“Thank you, Master!” Liza sounded pleased.

“Aye!”

“Thanks!”

Looking away from the three excited girls, I turn back to the room.

The room is around three times wider than the one before it, there is the possibility of more enemies hiding somewhere in this much space, but I can’t find any signs on my Map or radar. There’s a house on the edge of the cavern, the roof is cut cleanly in two--it was probably swallowed up when the labyrinth was created.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of Humans on the radar either--

Liza is dismantling the frog while Pochi and Tama keep guard at the entrance and exit. It seems that it’s Liza’s turn to dismantle huh. Since a skill can be learned, I assigned the duty on rotation, hoping that all three girls can get it.

“Pochi, Tama, let’s check out that house, follow me.”

When the two girls join me, we head towards the house.

There aren’t any corpses in the house, but quite a bit of other stuff instead--apparently, it was the house of a wealthy person. Two ornamental shortswords, with surprisingly decent attack power, rest crossed over the mantle; in a cliched fashion, there is a safe hidden behind a wall painting.

I quickly blow the lock open with my Magic Gun, checking inside.

In addition to a bag of gold and jewels is a Magic material called Dragon Powder, half filling a small vial--was the previous owner an Alchemist?

We collect the small things like the gold and jewels, but leave the bigger items such as statues or other works of art, behind. Among the work of arts, there are a couple of stuffed animals resting on pedestals. Though I don’t particularly care, I feel a little curiousity as to why they are here.

 

>>Skill: Excavation Acquired.

>>Skill: Discover Treasure Acquired.

>>Skill: Unlock Acquired.

 

There’s an ignition Magic Tool, called a Tinder Rod, sitting in the kitchen. It is the only Magic Tool here, but we place a frying pan, pot, and tableware for four people in the bag that Pochi is still holding.

The bag is starting to get very packed, especially with the chain--I have no idea why I haven’t asked to get rid of it before.

“Pochi--please drop the chain?”

“Yes!” Pochi smiles and takes the chain from the bag, unhesitatingly dropping it on the ground with a loud clanking noise, her ears flattening against her head showing that the noise caused her pain.

Tama made a strange noise of surprise and jumped, turned around with her dagger in her hand, she quickly relaxed when Pochi pointed at the chain on the ground.

“Here, cheeses and dried meat!” Pochi pointed to one of the counters, on which sat some bread, three lumps of cheese and smoked meat, she almost sung her words as she stared intently at the food, drool beginning to gather in her mouth, causing her to swallow hard.

After quickly checking their information, I make sure that they aren’t rotten, I slice off some pieces for Pochi, Tama and Liza; quickly taking out another bag from under my robe and placing the food in it for them.

 

“Let’s eat these when we get back to Liza.”

“Aye!”

“Yes! Delicious--”

 

I give the bag with the food into it to Tama, and Pochi still carries her bag, which now also contain the gold, jewels, and the shortswords; I am holding the water jug and tub that we had found.

Since we are done looti--gathering, we leave the house and head back to where Liza is.

When we get back to the corpse, Liza has finished the removal of the Magic Core.

“Master, I have a request--Is it alright for me to light fire?”

“Fire underground? Why?”

Liza pauses, looking down at the ground, “U-um, well, I want to eat the frog’s meat--I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, but is it safe to eat?”

Liza nods happily at my words, her face relaxing and raising her eyes to meet mine, “Yes, it’s fine. I’ve dismantled and eaten frog from the same family a long time ago. There is some poison in the internal organs, but if we avoid it, it’s alright. But if it is cooked, there is no danger of poisoning--”

Well, even if we are currently underground, there seems to be an active airflow, and we have climbed quite far up, so there should be no need to worry about a lack of oxygen.

“Alright, feel free to cook it.” I smiled at Liza, and though her face was rather calm as usual, the tip of her tail began to sway a little--which seems to indicate that she is pleased.

Liza begins to act, she instructs Pochi and Tama to cut the frog’s legs off, while she begins to take out bits and pieces of wood from the bag I had given her--she had asked for a bag, and if she could collect any wood she could find, including from the remains of houses we passed very occasionally; one break, she had borrowed the dagger from Tama and chopped the wood into differing sizes including chips.

So this was why she had been doing it.

Just as she is about to try to light the fire using some rocks from the ground, I stop her and use the new Tinder Rod to light it.

I gave the cookware, and tableware, which we found in the house to Liza.

 

“Meat--”

“Meat--”

 

They look even happier than when we found the smoked meat earlier.

Liza quickly cuts the meat into pieces, and then pieces the cooked meat with wooden skewers that she had also prepared in advanced--she presents it to me with an expression that is a mixture of pride and nervousness.

--Do I have to eat it?

 

“Thank you, Liza.”

I subtly tense myself and take a bite from the skewer--it tastes a bit like chicken, nowhere near as bad as I expected--I find myself starting to smile.

The three girls are watching me eat, Liza’s face breaks out in a grin when she sees my reaction.

Oh right, they’re waiting for permission.

“Stop watching and eat.” I speak with a light-hearted tone.

After getting permission, Pochi and Tama start eating the meat directly from the frying pan, at first skewering pieces with their daggers, before Liza sighs and gives them both wooden skewers.

Liza isn’t only cooking, she eats as well.

Because of my high Stats, I was basically full after one skewer, but I let the girls eat as much as they needed--they only stopped after about thirty minutes.

Following Liza’s suggestion, I wrap a large lump of meat in some cloth, and she places it into her bag with a pleased look--the tip of her tail speeding up it’s swaying.

The girls should be getting tired again in two to three battles, so we will use this time to rest and prepare.

I placed the tub down on the floor and took my Hell Water Bottle from storage and fill the tub with water, placing a few smoldering logs under it to warm the water--I can only do this because the tub is metallic--I wouldn’t do this if it was wood.

While I had been hiding my inventory, I had decided to trust the girls--I had the suspicion that they wouldn’t deliberately leak my secret, but Tama may do it accidentally.

I found some clothes that looked like they would fit the girls, purely common clothing--since the clothes came from Lizardmen, they already had tail holes cut in them.

The girls looked a little surprised, but Liza whispered, “As expected of Master.” The other two nodded.

“Alright, take turns with bathing, and then get dressed in these.” As I spoke and handed the clothes to Liza, Tama and Pochi had already stripped and were dipping their fingers into the now warm water.

“Yes Master,” Liza seemed to find the idea of a bath to be pleasant, she was smiling wider than I had seem before, as she walked over to the tub and began to remove her clothing--I looked away a little late, and saw her thighs and well-shaped butt, before I turned away--I felt a little guilty, and a little disappointed that she was facing away from me.

I quickly faced the opposite wall and began counting prime numbers for a few seconds until blood returned to the proper head, and I extracted and started reading one of my Alchemy books.

When the girls were done, and dressed again, I laid out a blanket for them to sleep on; though they would soon get dirty from battle, I feel that it is better to sleep in clean clothes.