Chapter 91: Second Floor

Chapter 91: Second Floor

Benny spoke with a serious face.

“First, can you take your clothes off?”

“...?”

You said you wouldn’t make me do anything lewd.

Could it be that being naked isn’t considered lewd by Benny?

At this point, it doesn’t matter if this is a reversed world or not, isn’t this just a person with shattered moral values?

But now I’m really curious. If being naked isn’t enough, then what does it take for Benny to feel it’s lewd?

“Naked dogeza...?”

The phrase slipped out of my mouth. Ellie, who had been tilting her head and eavesdropping on our conversation, immediately stormed out from behind the counter.

“Benny. Over here.”

“Wait, wait! That was a misunderstanding, Ellie! It wasn’t even something I said in the first place!”

“Enough, to the Room of Truth.”

“Kyahhh!”

Benny was dragged to the warehouse by Ellie gripping her ear. As she flailed her arms towards me, seemingly asking for help, I waved back at her.

“Bye-bye....”

“Help me, you jerk!”

The warehouse door slammed shut with a single scream. As I took over Ellie’s spot at the counter, it wasn’t long before a tattered Benny emerged, clutching her head.

Her purple eyes, adorned with heart patterns, flickered with intense emotion as our gazes met.

“Hey!”

Of course, she shriveled up again under Ellie’s silent watch from behind.

“I wasn’t asking you to strip naked, just to give me something you usually carry around....”

“Why didn’t you say so from the start? Both Ellie and I misunderstood for no reason.”

I shrugged and tossed my socks over to her.

“Is this enough?”

“Yeah.”

Benny, carefully picking up my sock with her index finger and thumb, turned around and dropped it into her own shadow.

Strangely, instead of falling to the floor, the sock slowly sank into the shadow as if it were being swallowed by a swamp.

It must have gone to where that shadow monster resides.

After glaring at her shadow for a moment, Benny let out a sigh of relief.

“Phew. This should be fine for a while.”

“What did you do?”

“I threw it a toy so it wouldn’t come out and bother us. It seemed to like you, so it might interrupt. Without something like this, it would pop out all the time.”

“...Is it that bad?”

“There’s a reason why, out of all the good nicknames, I ended up with the name ‘Creepy Witch’.”

Benny, who spoke in a calm voice, looked a bit lonely.

“Alright, then let’s go to my workshop. I’ll briefly explain what you need to do there. I’ll also show you some magic as a bonus.”

“Now? It’s the middle of the night though...”

“...Oops.”

Benny, realizing her mistake, gaped blankly. The sharp teeth glistening between her lips were quite impressive.

After hesitating for a while, Benny scratched the floor with one foot and asked.

“Could you take off just a little more?”

“You mean the socks? Just a moment.”

When the other sock was taken off, she accepted it and put it into a small box.

“Seems like we should, right? We haven’t bought any lanterns.”

“I have one. It’s this year’s new release from the Magic Tower. It’s a Mana Stone rechargeable type, but it can also be charged directly with mana. It has ten output settings. It comes with a stealth detection feature using visual distortion. The design was handled by the Artisan Guild.”

“...How much is it?”

“Just 5 gold. It was originally 6 gold, but I got a VIP discount. Ahem, ahem.”

Lydia, with hands on her hips, boasted. She was blatantly demanding praise for her great achievement...

“Equipment freak.”

“...!”

“Do we really need such an expensive lantern when we have Benny, a mage, in our party?”

“But, but we might get separated from Benny.”

“Even so, this level of lantern is unnecessary. Wouldn’t it be better to buy a reasonable lantern and use the remaining money to prepare emergency food or survival kits?”

“I already bought all of that.”

“...?”

“Heheh. I bought top-notch everything and used the remaining money to buy a good lantern.”

“......”

This time, it was my turn to be at a loss for words.

Both are minor consumables, but they’re famous for getting more expensive as the grade goes up.

Like bread that fills you up with just one piece, a portable Safe Zone, long-distance communication magic tools, potions, etc.

It must have cost a fortune, but you bought everything top-notch? And you still had money left to buy an expensive lantern that’s less important?

How many gacha pulls would that money get me...

“Ha!”

At the point where the first thing I want to do with what could be dozens, maybe hundreds of gold is gacha, I’m not much different from Lydia.

With a much more lenient heart, I patted Lydia’s shoulder.

“Please cut me a little piece from the emergency rations later if we need to eat them. I’m curious about the taste.”

“That is, if Jonah is with us at that time.”

Lydia and I exchanged small promises in a warm atmosphere. Once again, Benny interrupted us.

“Wait a minute! Didn’t you say you’ve been teaching under Ellie’s request for the past month? And you’re planning to take him around as a porter during my break?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“But on the second floor? At that age? With only a month’s experience as an adventurer?”

“It’s true.”

Ellie quietly looked at me after giving a short answer. Judging by the atmosphere, it seemed she hadn’t disclosed the details to Benny.

I nodded slightly to show my gratitude to Lydia for giving me the choice and then opened my mouth to speak.

“I took down the Floor Guardian of the first floor.”

“What?!”

“Is this a secret?”

As I said that, bringing my index finger to my lips, Benny’s expression turned into a frown.

“Don’t lie! It’s hard to believe that there’s a Floor Guardian on the first floor, let alone that you defeated it!”

“Then how about we make a bet? The loser has to be the porter for the day.”

For your information, I only make bets I can win.

The moment we arrived on the second floor through the stone monument, Benny collapsed to the ground.

“...Be honest. You’re actually much older, and just young looking like me aren’t you?”

“Goo goo ga ga. I’m baby Jonah. I’m an orphan, so I don’t know my real age.”

“.......”

Without a word, Benny took over the bag I was carrying.