Next Morning

The next morning, I woke up seeing Olivia bundled up in her sleeping bag clearly she hadn’t gotten much sleep during the night.

Giving her atleast that much sympathy I avoided waking her up. I knew she had gotten herself into this on her own fault, but I felt guilty not having warned her in advance.

Going out the hero was already out and about, he woke up early and slept like a log. Being a heavy sleeper, you could fuck a girl in-front of him and he still wouldn’t wake up.

“Good morning, how did you sleep?” I asked.

“Great, as always. Sleeping in nature is something else, don’t you agree?” he said enthusiastically.

“Y-yeah,” I replied. He was probably the only one who preferred sleeping outdoors.

“What about you? You seem to have a light sleep, last time I came to wake you up for your shift you were already awake before I even made it into the tent.”

“Yeah, I am quite sensitive and easily wake up, but no I slept well enough even though I do miss my soft bed back in the monastery,” I admitted.

“I see. What about Olivia? Is she up yet? She’s been acting strange around me for the past few days,” he asked.

“Ah don’t mind her she seems pretty exhausted they must have done a-lot of training while we were off buying supplies,” I replied quickly.

“I see. Then I must redouble my efforts as well, can’t be the only one slacking off,” he said as he continued with his morning exercise even more motivated than before.

Well she certainly did a-lot of training through it was probably not the kind you imagine. Sorry, hero, but it seems more accurate to say she was being trained and not the other way around from what I saw yesterday.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I felt guilty for deceiving the hero. Given their close friendship, I should honestly tell him about Olivia’s situation, but I didn’t know the consequences. I didn’t want to break his heart. I wasn’t sure how deep his feelings for Olivia ran, and I had to admit I was a coward not having the guts to tell him.

This guilt was eating away at me, little by little. I wondered if the original saintess felt the same way and how she managed to endure it. Despite going through more than any other character, she held true to her ideals for quite some time. You had to **** her into a lot of unfavourable situations before she started to break, and even then, it took a while for her to give in completely.

Feeling awed at how strong her will must have been I wasn’t sure I could do the same. Especially If I considered even half the scenes I **** her into I would likely have already broken.

“What about Beck and Max?” I asked, trying to distract myself.

“They were still snoring when I woke up. Beck always sleeps in, but it’s surprising for Max. He always seems to be the more organised and mature of the two, but I guess they are brothers after all sharing common things,” the hero said.

Yeah they definitely shared things as it wasn’t hard to guess why they were still asleep. Just how long did they do it after I went to sleep?

The next to wake up was the magician. She still looked sleepy, but that was actually just her normal morning face.

Saying hi she didn’t behave any different from yesterday as if she hadn’t asked me anything last night and everything was completely normal.

I suppose that’s better then if she started acting awkwardly as well. The hero was dense but there was a limit to how dense a person can be. Though I didn’t know if that held true in an eroge.

By this game’s logic he wouldn’t find it strange at all even if all the heroines started wearing reverse bunnysuits.

There would come a comment similar to “oh nice a bunnysuit where did you find it” but that’s about it.

Well I can’t be sure if that still holds true. He did seem to get suspicious sometimes but it always seems that he led it go shortly after.

Taking up cooking duty I made something with the freshly bought produce we brought yesterday. While we could gather meat, berries and mushrooms here produce wasn’t something you could find in the forest that easily so we bought some in the city.

They wouldn’t hold for long without proper storage so using them right away was the way to go.

I made a simple stew out of potatoes and meat with some carrots and onions mixed in.

Kitchen duty was my least favourite chore but it did taught me how to make something nice out of simple ingredients. It wasn’t anything special but it tasted far better than just grilling meat for the upteenth time. Don’t get me wrong I love meat but without salt or pepper and just halfheartedly grilled over a fire it really didn’t taste that good.

As for nuns not eating meat besides fish there thankfully wasn’t any such regulation the main reason we ate little meat back in the monastery was because meat was expensive and we had plenty of produce.

With the help of my purify we could eat most monster meat but there was clearly a reason people preferred cattle over eating wolfs or foxes even back on earth. Predators had tough meat and if it weren’t for purify being applied by someone with near endless divine resources at least compared to normal priests the meat would be unpalatable. I wasn’t sure if it would be uneatable as adventures would inevitably gain tough stomaches over their lifetime but alteast for normal people untreated monster meat wasn’t recommended.

It wasn’t true for all as there were some monsters that are hunted for their meat but a large number needed to be soaked overnight in herbs to be palatable.

Anyway just as the strew was ready Max and Beck finally made their appearance. Beck especially seemed to be in a good mood.

“Finally something decent, I built up quite the appetite tonight.” He hinted at his brother who was nonplussed by his innuendo but played along for his brothers sake.

“It’s good to have you back honestly non of us can cook besides you.” Max said completely honest.

“What you made last time wasn’t half bad either,” I remarked absentmindedly trying to ignore Beck who looked around searching for someone.

“That was only because of the seasoning I got from an inkeeper we helped some time ago, I basically put it on everything to make it palatable problem is it’s nearly out by now.” Max admitted.

“ I see what about the magician couldn’t you have asked her to cook?”

Both max and Beck looked at each other aghast.

“I forgot you weren’t there when she had her first and last cook duty.” Max muttered.

Becks face seem to go green just remembering it.

“ That bad?” I whispered not wanting to hurt her feelings in case she overheard.

“Bad isn’t even the right word I am still not sure what she brewed back then but it was definitely not something a sane men could eat.”

“Yeah remember how we found a dead rabbit near the spot we threw away our portions? It was literally green and it was definitely not some monster but a normal rabbit before.” Beck elaborated.

“I am pretty sure Olivia didn’t even go near her portion avoiding it like the plague saying she wasn’t hungry making the poor hero eat two portions instead.” Max said.

“That country bumbkin ate the stuff saying it wasn’t as bad as it looked only to fall over an hour later and having a stomach ache for the next two days.” Beck said.

“Yeah from that day on she is excused from cooking duty indefinitely. If we aren't taking care of by the monsters it will definitely be by her cooking instead.”

“That sounds kinda harsh, but not having seen it myself I can’t really judge.” I admitted.

“Think yourself lucky.”

“By the way where is Olivia?” Max asked nonchalantly.

“Ah she is still asleep must have been quite exhausting yesterday.” I tried to feign ignorance.

“She tried a few new techniques and even duelled both of us at the same time.” Beck said with a grin clearly all to happy to elaborate further.

“I see.” Knowing but not wanting to think about the implications.

“Max here especially should have really been a bit more forthcoming giving the poor girl barely a moment to catch her breath.” Beck said hinting at Max.

“Well you insisted I should take a look at her technique and I simply made sure she knew where she was still lacking, she seemed to learn best through practical experience after all.” Max said.

“Then spar with me as well, I can show you my technique right now I think I improved since last time.”The hero asked enthusiastically completely oblivious to the true meaning of their words.

There is some good in being ignorant after all. Even if the image of Olivia being spitroasted between the two wouldn’t leave my mind making me feel a strange sensation I couldn’t quite put into words.

Thankfully Olivia arrived just in time. Hopefully the boys would leave their boasting for when I wasn’t around next time.

“Here comes the hero of the hour how did you sleep.” Beck said with a grin clearly hinting at something.

Olivia not sure what was going on answered uncharacteristically meekly.

“Good” before taking herself a bowl and sitting down next to me.

Normally she would have joined the chat right away but the guys must have done a number on her for her to react that way.

“So what are your plans after this? We stayed in the Rubico forrest long enough that you guys can easily take care of the monsters here by yourself and won’t gain much anymore.”

Seeing as Olivia stayed quiet I took the lead. She had done most of the decisions for the hero until now helping him grow stronger and the main reason we hired the brothers had been to travel to more dangerous hunting grounds to begin with.

( Originally they hired the brothers as guides to the Rubico Forrest and picked me up on the way. We had now stayed here for nearly two weeks levelling and training.)

“Yeah I thought that would happen and picked a few possible destinations for us.” I said having already thought about a few different routes. Right now we weren’t strong enough to go dungeon diving yet but there was one dungeon that might be possible already.

“Those are the locations we could go to in order to get stronger and gain more experience but I would recommend the slime forest in particular as I read about a dungeon that was discovered and later had its location lost.”

“Dungeons are dangerous and while you all got stronger even my brother and I have never done a dungeon before.” Max said.

I was a bit surprised but dungeons can be unpredictable if you didn’t know their mechanism, it made sense for Max to avoid them and keep Beck out of them.

“Based on the records it was a peculiar dungeon with many puzzles and few enemies so maybe we could give it a shot. After all we can’t even be sure that we find it but I do have quite the good intuition as you know.”

“Well it ain't for us to decide you are the client after all.” Well technically it was the hero party but I decided to extend their contract and now I was responsible for their salary from now on. So saying I was the client was technically correct.

The leader should be the hero but he was still too inexperienced to take on that role and especially when it came to money he was prone to be swindled due to being too naive.

The church provided us with an allowance every month while better than nothing it was pretty tight budget wise. If we didn’t sell the monster byproducts which the brothers took a percentage off we would be in the negative. This way we are in the plus slowly building up an emergency fund which we will definitely need later on when the churches support dries up for several months before we can take care of the problem.

There was someone stealing our funds but sadly without proof we cannot simply go there and accuse him. I already knew who it was but we will need to survive without the churches allowance for some time which is why staying in the positive was vital.

Otherwise I would be **** into situations like back at the prison far more often.

I don’t wanna prostitute myself for some coin ever again if I can help it.

After some back and forth with Olivia being far more reticent during this times discussion it was easy to persuade the hero and the magician didn’t care as long as she got to gather new materials to experiment with. If it was her choice she would travel nonstop just to gather us much as possible and then return to her laboratory as-sap. It was only due to her master telling her she should use this opportunity to try out new things that she tagged along.

Olivia tagged along due to the hero, while I tagged along because the church told me to and as part of my pilgrimage I suppose. The brothers were hired to babysit those two for a while until they got strong enough or their contract ran out. Or I couldn’t pay them which opened up opportunities for alternative payment which I didn’t wanna think about for now.

Olivia was already doing her part to keep Beck here so maybe I should negotiate to lower the rate but that would expose the fact that I knew all about their…

Anyway we planned to leave the area two days from now and stay over night in the City of Bronze.

It would do us good to all get a goodnights sleep in a soft bed for once and potentially upgrade/ look after some of our equipment. I should receive my next allowance soon so I should be able to pick it up there.

Three days later we arrived in Bronze. The city had a reputation for good blacksmith’s as there was a large mine supporting the cities economy. With plenty of metal at an affordable price blacksmiths settled here directly and offered their services. Most of the militaries equipment was also done here.

There was therefore alot of mass produced equipment and weapons here making it cheaper. While there were higher quality weapons made here as well we couldn’t afford those yet and would have more luck finding something decent in the dungeon.

As for the best weapons you could buy with money those were generally sold on auction in large cities like the capital.

(My previous route depended on utilising the heroines alot meaning prostituting them whenever possible to gain money and lending them out to gain favours or discounts.)

Yeah I was a scumbag, but it was an eroge game at that time and it was perfectly normal doing that. It was basically the shortcut to endless grinding. Many eroge can actually be beaten cleanly but they always have an easier route, as long as the heroine was willing to swallow her pride she could make a bunch of money.

I sighed my own determination wavering as we would soon leave the starter area and the true journey would begin. Whether or not all the plans and preparations I made would be of any help I would soon find out, thinking of the first day I woke up in this world it felt like an eternity ago despite not even half a year having passed.