Chapter 147: Who For Art These Leopard-Print Panties
Im sorry. These were something I somehow happened to receive, so please find it in your heart to forgive me
Id thought up plenty of excuses, but in the end, decided to honestly apologize. I mean, Mei-chan just wasnt like Souma Sakura or the totem-pole trio who I could play word games on. I trusted her beyond anything, so I didnt want to lie.
No need to apologize, Kotarou-kun. I really wouldnt mind it no matter how you got this
Thank you, Mei-chan
No, really, Im infinitely grateful she could accept my honest feelings.
That aside, whose are they?
TCHH! And here I thought the difficult conversation was over!
Wh-what now? If I confessed honestly, I kind of have the feeling that Id be putting Randou-sans life in grave danger. Like, Mei-chans serious face super scary. That, ladies and gents, was her berserker face.
I didnt want to lie to her, but that being said, giving her the whole and complete truth wouldnt be beneficial for either of us, is the sort of convenient excuse I was considering.
Like, oi oi oi, what am I supposed to do here I could choose my right to keep silent, but there was a limit to that too. I wanted to be honest to Mei-chan, as much as I could. But can I really just tell her basically everything? About how Randou-sans leopard-print panties were simply marvelous, that I used them every night, and couldnt bear to live without this wonderful, 5 star treasure anymore! Could I actually tell her that?
No way in hell, its basically a masochistic form of sexual harrassment. I wouldnt be surprised if she just silently brought down the halberd on me after that.
At this point, though I didnt know if it was cold sweat or nervous sweat, my face was nonetheless dripping in some kind of bad sweat as I stayed silent.
I bet, these belong to Randou-san
!? I, think I managed to avoid showing turbulence on my face after she made that pin point guess. I dont think Ive ever been this close to certain death!
I, I wont fall for leading questions
Randou-san is the only girl in our class whod wear panties this size
Sh-shitshit, shed deciphered it by size!
Randou-san was known as the girl with the biggest tits in class, but it wasnt just her chest that was on the up end. Her ass too was large.
It should be mentioned that of the girls in class 2-7, whether it be the hotties group including Souma Sakura, or the average to bleh like Nishiyama-san, they were all of normal size and build. The only one you could say was clearly plus sized would be Mei-chan.
And if you discounted Mei-chan, who was an exception in quite a few ways, the girl who could boast supremacy in the hip department would be Randou-san. Bust, hip, she truly had the combo spice to KO anyone.
She isnt as big as me, but shes pretty big. I cant imagine other girls having this sort of imported lingerie
Wait, this was imported lingerie!?
And this is pretty famous brand too. Its very much like Randou-san
These leopard-print panties, their value rating was off the charts!?
It was a shocking truth, a guy like me wouldve likely never found out. The next time I use these, Ill be sure to appreciate their splendor to the fullest There wasnt going to be a next time, was there
OH, oh, I, see, thats great
At this stage, I had no hope of covering for Randou-san, and just kept nodding my head like a bobble-head. Im so sorry Randou-san, I had no idea about the intricacies of high school girl panty culture, and their owner was easily unveiled by Mei-chan.
Well, I was regretful, but that didnt mean I wanted to learn more about panties now.
Um, Kotarou-kun, dont tell me Youre the type that prefers a girls underwear more than her body?
No maam, I am 100% more into the body
I cant lie to Mei-chan. Yup, truth it is.
I see
Thats right, believe me, I did no such thing as forcing Randou-san to hand over her panties you see. This is what happened, when I got separated from them, Rem was about to go after me, when shed apparently given this as a parting gift, and well, yeah, Randou-sans the type whod pull this sort of dirty prank right?
I see, thats good
Good? Really? Hey Mei-chan, are you really thinking that? Is this sort of explanation, that sounds more like an excuse than anything, really ok with you? That kinda makes me worried.
But it was a fact that I hadnt told one lie there. Honestly speaking, I had no idea what Randou-san had in mind when she entrusted Rem with her panties. If I had to guess, she was used to hanging around guys, and thought that someone like me, who positively oozed his virgin status, would be happy being given such an article.
Alright, so, can I have them?
Eh?
Well you see, having just one pair is a bit
Mei-chan said, a slight shyness to her tone. Seeing that started making me embarrassed too.
Also, I think this size will fit me pretty well as I am now
Oh, of course! Please, go ahead and use it Mei-chan!
This was the crucial bit! I gave in to her suggestion as fast as I could.
Thanks, Kotarou-kun
No no, you should thank Randou-san if anyone
Today was a sad day. I had lost my important partner for the night, oh sweet leopard-print panties.
And yet, these foreign luxury panties had now found another master to call their own, it was a happy day too.
Mei-chan in leopard-print. Mm, not bad at all. Normal girls our age simply wouldnt fill out underwear of this size, but her, she could wear it snug and tight.
Haah, glad that didnt turn into a mess
I was genuinely anxious whether Mei-chan would lose all faith in me after that one. I may have been her life savior, but even I couldnt be surprised if she simply left after thinking I was literally stealing underwear in a harsh dungeon survival situation.
It was an insignificant argument that made me feel numb inside, but wed resolved it. I felt like I had escaped another face off with death, and gotten stronger as a result. I didnt want to try this again.
With the incident of Mei-chan discovering the leopard-print panties over with, we did in fact leave that fairy square. We encountered some skeleton troopers, been a long time since Id seen those guys, and quickly took care of them. I used the bones as parts for remaking Rem. Rem came back, expectedly, in a black skeleton form.
For the time, I handed over her equipment, the sword and spear, as is.
The dark gas dissipated, and out came something large and human shaped.
Yup, pretty big She was, really big!?
Wah~, Rem-chan, you got taller
GAR, GURH, GORGARRR
The new Rem was tall enough to easily surpass me, closer in height to Mei-chan. She was definitely taller than 170 centimeters.
But that wasnt even the surprising bit.
Ooh, youve got muscles
Rem, whod had been a skeleton by default all this time, now had something akin to muscles on her. But these muscles were not the squishy type youd find in anatomical models, but a metallic gray that when touched Were quite hard. It felt not at all like living, breathing flesh, but like cold steel. Thin strings of metal had been bundled up in place of muscle fibres.
As for how these metallic strands were functioning as muscles Perhaps the contraction and relaxation was all being managed by mana? I didnt quite get it.
Rems steel flesh covered practically all of her body, being especially dense on the arms and legs. Her silhouette looked currently far closer to human than skeleton.
As far as vestigial elements go, she still had a skull as a head, but that now had two horns growing out same as the goliath.
The current Rem, with her full body steel skin, a skull head with horns like an oni, and with the much taller height, actually looked scary. In all honesty, I think shes the strongest one yet. Also, she looked more or less like a cyborg, which was super cool I might add. I wonder, was Rem not actually aiming for golem but robot?
Rem, you look great Im proud of you
GURRR, GAGAGA!
The fact that she now had a shinier new body shouldnt fully be attributed to the goliath parts. Just like Mei-chan, Rem had also grown a lot.
Its nice, looking at them grow up right in front of your eyes.
From here on, we could hunt as many goliath tier monsters as we want thanks to Mei-chan. And with stronger parts, I could always further improve Rem.
Alright, time to go
Sure
I got into the teleport circle holding the core when, Mei-chan suddenly attacked, no, hugged me from behind.
Eh, wha-what is it?
Like this, youll be safe in case anything happens
Ahh, I get it. Starting with the thing with Asuna, I had a tendency to incur massive problems right after beating a boss. Like meeting Higuchi first thing after a transfer, like getting kidnapped by an arachnee, like Souma Yuuto suddenly popping in I needed to be extremely careful about the time right after a big fight.
I couldnt let my guard down just because there wasnt anyone else here now. There was no telling when and where a new enemy might pop out from.
Thanks. I feel much safer
Mm, I wont let you go
Really, thanks so much, for the soft fun-bags all around the back of my head. I, cant I just stay like this I thought, tasting a little bit of heaven, as the familiar light whisked us away.
We arrived at the fairy square safely and without incident. The fact that there being no one from class waiting took a load off my shoulders might mean that I was getting pretty anthrophobic these days. Well, considering all my experiences, I suppose Id have to.
Those experiences tought me that rather than finding reliable friends in arms, I was more likely to chance upon useless burdens, and people who want to straight up kill me.
I trusted Mei-chan above anything, she was my only true ally. And I pretty much didnt feel like Id find someone as trustworthy. I didnt at all feel like wed get a third member. The level of trust I had with her was, practically speaking, miraculous.
Mei-chan had a gentle and trusting heart, and on top of that, Id saved her life, helped her in becoming able to fight, and survived a ton of ordeals together. And making through all that and more together, wed developed a powerful bond. To look at it another way, if any of that mindset and experience was at all lacking, we wouldnt be trusting each other very deeply.
In contrast, losing that trust, getting disillusioned, being reluctant to cooperate and finally, hating each other, all of those could come exceptionally fast. Just one mistake could send all the trust down the drain.
If girls find out your masturbating habits youre suddenly a prisoner on death row, if multiple girls like the same guy, they start burning with jealousy, sabotaging each other and what not. People generally tend to focus on the negatives. Doubting was much easier to do than having some trust.
Anxiety, fear, jealousy. It could be said that mankind had survived since ancient times only because they possess these cowardly instincts.
Whatever, what mattered now was that there werent any others from class here.
And if there were, whether they turn out to be friends or foe, I wanted to be prepared for anything. If they became enemies along the way, we just needed to be stronger. On the flipside, if they wanted to join as allies, Id need certain chains to compel them against betrayal.
Those Chains as they were, would of course depend on the person. But with my Witchs Cauldron, I could make good food and hot baths, plus, I could provide decent spiderweave bedding too. Those little things together would make for a hard to ignore modicum of luxury in their daily lives. And I already had proof of their effect. They were so good that even that lazy ass Reina had to think hard before wanting to let go. Us kids from well off households would loathe to live without them.
And lets not forget, I now had Mei-chan to employ the fear factor. I dont think itd work for people on Tendou-kuns level, but if its someone only as strong as Higuchi, we could easily handle them. Yup, violence was the best assurance after all.
Ok, its fine and all preparing for people, but right now we needed to focus on the dungeon. We should first check out whats going on in this new zone.
That last boss battle was a piece of cake, so we only took a short break before heading out.
Woah, this is some place
Wah, its, like a town? I think Ive seen a movie like this
Like, one of those where human civilization had fallen, and they were fighting zombies and stuff?
Yeah yeah, just like that
Basically, we were looking at a post-apocalyptic cityscape.
The ceiling was way up there, and the city itself looked to be quite large. It was like one of those space colonies you see in mecha anime, or actually, it wasnt in space but underground, so I guess geofront was a better descriptor.
Most of the architecture on this place were stone constructs, not unlike the stuff youd see in medieval Europe. But then, there were also these tall, box shaped buildings that reminded me of office buildings or apartment complexes back in modern Japan.
At a glance, I could see high rise buildings taller than 20 floors, while 10 story buildings were the median. Magnitude-wise the fallen city wasnt so different from back home.
I didnt know how advanced of a civilization the Astria kingdom was, as they were the only people we knew of in this world. What I did realize was that the people who built this city must have had tech rivaling that of 21st century Earth. No, we didnt have huge geofronts like this either, so theyd be ranked higher. Well, having a dungeon on this massive scale already spoke for itself.
Alright, so this underground dungeon city, that obviously once had people living in it, now looked completely deserted.
Buildings were crumbling, roads unmaintained, it also lacked any light of the sun, with vegetation, like the stuff Id seen in the jungle zone, overgrown all over. The city looked as if it was transitioning from a state where the people had gone extinct to one where it was once again being swallowed up by mother nature.
At this point, I had no doubt that this zone too was teeming with dungeon monsters.
Still, having this sort of vast uninhabited city laid out in front of you really pulls on that adventuring spirit. It got me excited.
So without a moments delay, lets find out just what lay waiting for us inside.