Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Rain in the Forest

(Part 2) 

I KNEW THERE WAS something fishy about this from the start. 

Master Fitz had been acting strangely ever since he hired me, and then events had taken a really odd turn. Those rainclouds had gathered unnaturally fast. Sudden downpours in the winter were very, very rare up here. There was a good chance someone created that storm using magic. But what would the point of that be? Why just… make it rain on us? Did they want to make it harder for us to complete our goal? Who would do that? The noble Princess Ariel was arguing with, maybe? To what end? Well, to keep Fitz from getting the flower, presumably. 

But if that was the goal, why just harass us with some lousy weather? You could always make it rain arrows instead. 

Had Master Fitz picked up on any of this? There was a tense look on his face, which suggested the answer was yes. But he also seemed oddly calm, considering. Maybe he’d been expecting something like this to happen. 

If that was the case, though, I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t warned me upfront. Could he be planning to assassinate me? That didn’t make much sense either. He could have killed me quite a few times by now, if she wanted to. 

What the hell was going on here? 

My thoughts were troubled as I worked on setting up a fire we could use to dry our wet clothing. Fortunately, I’d brought along some pre-cut firewood just in case something like this happened. It was possible to keep a fire going using nothing but magic, of course, but it would be immediately extinguished if I had to turn my attention to some passing monster. That could be dangerous, since it would deprive us of our main source of light, and I’d have to get a new one going afterward. It was smarter to just carry the basics with you. 

“…Okay, I’m going to get the fire going.” 

Once the wood was all laid out, I set it alight. As soon as I was sure it was burning steadily, I took off my outer coat. The thing was absolutely soaked through; the outside was coated in a thin layer of frost. I’d been wearing my old grey robe underneath, but it was sopping wet as well. From the feel of things, I was drenched to my underwear. At least I’d brought a spare set of those so I could prioritize drying out my other clothes. Using a mixture of Wind and Water magic, I carefully evaporated the excess moisture in them. I couldn’t force the water out completely, though. It would severely damage the fabric if I tried. 

Once I’d done what I could, I made a simple drying rack using Earth magic and hung up everything except my underwear to dry. 

I turned to the fire and moved in close, but it was still freezing in the cave. I used magic to seal the cave’s entrance. Of course, completely closing us in here would be a good way to die of carbon monoxide poisoning, so I opened a ventilation hole in the ceiling to let the smoke escape. 

I’d made things slightly more comfortable, at least. Now the question was what to do about my underwear. It might be a little awkward to strip totally naked right in front of Fitz. 

I shot a glance over at him—and found him hugging his shoulders, trembling like a leaf, and whimpering softly. He’d taken off his outer coat, but was still wearing his cloak and everything underneath it. The guy was going to give himself hypothermia at this rate. 

“Shouldn’t, uh…” 

Shouldn’t you take those off to dry? was the sentence I had in mind, but I cut myself short. Fitz might claim to be a young man, but I suspected he was actually a girl who was hiding her real identity. Stripping in front of me might not be an option. But this was a genuinely dangerous situation. 

What now? Hmm… “Master Fitz.” 

“Wha… What is it, Rudeus?!” he answered me a little too loudly. Clearly, he’d also realized the dilemma he was in. This was not good at all. I needed to give him some way out. 

“You know, a girl I know told me that elves have a rule against letting people from a different race see them naked. Why don’t I turn around and cover my eyes? You just take those clothes off, dry them with magic, and tell me when you’re done.” 

“Huh?!” Fitz sounded more than a little surprised. That made sense, given that I’d made up the whole thing on the spot. If there really was a taboo like that, then it was one that Elinalise violated every single day of her life. However, the misinformation I was choosing to “believe” here should be very convenient for Fitz, as long as he just played along. 

I slowly turned around, closed my eyes…and began to listen carefully. No reason not to enjoy the sounds of him stripping down, at least. My imagination would do the rest. 

“………” 

“…” 

For some reason, I wasn’t hearing anything. His clothes were wet, yeah, but even so… taking them off and drying them out with a spell should have produced at least some faint hint of a sound. This was really odd. Did he have some way of changing his clothes without making any noise at all? 

Come to think of it, there had been a girl at my elementary school who could change into her swimsuit without taking her clothes off first. That was a pretty cool trick. That school wasn’t equipped with actual changing rooms, so the boys and girls were forced to change clothes together in the classrooms. Those were good times, in retrospect. Later, once the internet got popular, I stumbled across an explanation of that stealthy clothes-changing method. I’d developed a certain interest in tricks of that sort. My interest in this matter was purely academic, of course. It definitely wasn’t a sexual thing. Probably. 

If Fitz hadn’t taken off his clothes, he’d probably be freezing right about now. With that excuse in mind, I slowly turned around. 

My eyes met Master Fitz’s at once. He still had his sunglasses on, but I could tell he was looking at my face. I didn’t look away this time. Mainly because his face was alarmingly pale. “Master Fitz!” 

He was still clutching his shoulders with both arms, trembling more fiercely than before. There was no color in his face at all. It was obvious that he was chilled to the bone. 

In winter, temperatures in the Northern Territories were constantly well below freezing. Just walking along outside robbed your body of its heat very quickly. Hell, I was still pretty cold myself. The temperature in the cave was slowly rising, but with those wet clothes on, Fitz was basically giving himself an ice bath. 

This was incredibly dangerous. 

“Please, you’ve got to change out of those clothes. Do you want me to make you a little stall or something? Or maybe I could just leave the cave? Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll get out right—” 

“Wait.” 

As I turned toward the entrance, Master Fitz called out to me. He stared at me for a moment, still trembling. And then, standing up on quivering legs, he slowly walked over and looked at my face. 

“……” 

“…” 

He was just…looking at me. Like there was something he wanted to say. But what was it? What was he trying to tell me? “You’re, uh… you’re going to catch cold, Master Fitz…” 

“Y-Yeah,” he replied, his voice shaking. “Y-You’re right.” 

I was beyond flustered at this point. I couldn’t begin to understand what he was thinking. “You’ve… got to get those clothes off. It’s dangerous. Getting too cold can kill you…” 

“Yeah… I guess I’m going to die, at this rate…” Fitz nodded, but showed no sign of taking off his clothes. Uh, not that I was hoping he’d strip naked while I watched, of course. 

I know nothing! Master Fitz is a boy! Definitely not female! That’s my official stance on the matter, damn it! I really needed to close my eyes now, right? 

“I can’t take these off myself. You do it for me.” 

What the hell was he talking about? 

“…Well, if you can’t get them off, I guess I’ll have to do it.” 

What the hell was I talking about? 

Crap. My hands were already moving forward. I touched his shoulders first. They were cold…and slender, and soft. His body felt very delicate in my hands. 

“U-Uhm, Master Fitz…to be honest, I’m aware of the fact that you’re a woman.” 

“Okay. But if you don’t take my clothes off, I might die, right?” 

“R-Right…” 

Confirmation of my suspicions aside, this did not compute. I couldn’t figure out her thought process here. She was obviously plotting something , though. Could this be some sort of blackmail scam? Like, I’d take off her clothes, and then some scary guy would pop into the cave, tell me that I’d learned too much, and carry me off to an Asuran laboratory to be dissected? Not that I’d have any room to complain, given that I was about to “experiment” on Fitz myself… 

My hands, which had acquired a mind of their own at some point, slipped Fitz’s thick front-button cloak off. This revealed the drenched white shirt beneath. 

Not to repeat myself, but this was a white shirt. As you may know, shirts of that color are prone to becoming transparent when wet. This meant that I could see Fitz’s underwear—specifically, something that looked like a sports bra. The contents appeared…modest. But with the wet bra clinging tightly to her skin, there was no denying they were there. Fitz had natural padding of the kind that tends to captivate the masculine mind. 

“Master Fitz…” 

“What’s the matter, Rudy?” 

When I heard that familiar nickname, I felt an old memory rising slowly toward the surface of my mind. I’d experienced something similar to this before. Something very similar to this. “Uh… pardon me, then…” 

“Go ahead.” 

Fitz’s face was bright red all the way to the tips of her ears. Somehow, even that felt weirdly familiar. I peeled off her white shirt, exposing the pale skin underneath. For a moment, I just stared at her delicate shoulders and her slender neck. She was thinner than I’d expected. 

Seeing her up close…and touching her directly…was having an effect on me. Some invisible knight was lifting my “sword” steadily upward as part of some holy ceremony. 

What was it about Fitz? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about her got me so… excited. I had to fight down a sudden urge to push her to the ground right then and there. Ignoring my desires as best I could, I reached down to Fitz’s belt. After a few clumsy, clattering seconds, I managed to undo it. I reached out to grab her pants by the waist… and then an image from the past flashed into my mind. 

I’d done something like this before, years ago. I was five or maybe six years old, but I hadn’t forgotten. 

When I pulled down Fitz’s pants, I exposed a pair of white panties. Unlike the first time around, I hadn’t pulled her underwear down as well. That said…the panties were so drenched with rainwater that they were bordering on see-through. Was I seeing things, or was that a smooth curve down there…? I swallowed loudly. 

Fitz silently pulled her legs up out of her pants, then sat down in front of me with her legs splayed out to either side. I sat down on my knees right in front of her. The floor of the cave was rugged and rough, so my shins started hurting immediately. 

I reached out to her once again. She still had those drenched white gloves on her hands. “Let me… get those too…” 

As I stripped the gloves off, I found that one of her hands was marked by an old scar. I recognized this hand. 

How had that happened, again? Right, right. She’d stuck her hand into a stove once and burned herself. I remembered wondering if that accident had anything to do with her struggle to learn Fire magic. 

“Rudy…” 

Fitz wasn’t looking me in the eye anymore. Her gaze was turned slightly downward, at a different part of my body. The tent I’d pitched a few minutes earlier was still going strong. Fitz really was a miracle worker. 

“There’s still one thing left.” 

I knew she wasn’t talking about her bra or panties. By now, I’d finally caught on. I reached up for her sunglasses and took them off. 

Beneath, I found a familiar face—one I’d expected to see. 

Back in the day, I’d thought my friend would grow up to be a real lady-killer. That was how pretty Sylphiette had been, even when I still thought he was a boy, even when she was a kid. And now… she had grown even more beautiful than I’d imagined. 

Her features still had a hint of childishness about them, maybe. But beautiful was the only description that applied. Her eyes were sharp and clear. Her nose was a little long, and her lips were slightly thin. I thought I saw a resemblance to her fellow elf, Elinalise…but somehow, her face was more approachable and endearing. Maybe she’d inherited that from her human ancestors. 

“Uh, Master Fitz…” 

“Yes, Rudy?” 

The way she tilted her head to listen, even as she blushed, hadn’t changed at all. Why the hell had it taken me so long to figure this out? Her hair? Yeah. Her hair color was different. She’d had green hair before, but now it was pure white. But of course, peoples’ hair changed color all the time. You could just bleach it if you wanted to, for one thing. 

“Is your real name… Sylphiette, by any chance?” 

“…Yes.” 

Fitz—or rather, Sylphie—smiled shyly and nodded. 

“Yes… it is. I’m Sylphiette. Sylphiette… from Buena Village…” 

After only a few seconds, she was overcome with emotion, and her smile crumpled and disappeared. Before she broke down completely, she managed to lean forward and throw her arms around me. 

“I finally…said it…” 

Her body was very, very cold. 

We stayed like that for a few long minutes. 

I was still shocked, to say the least. But at the same time, I was starting to feel like everything finally made sense. 

Sylphie was sobbing and sniffling quietly while squeezing me tightly in her arms. It was pretty similar to how this had played out last time, actually. It looked like she was still a crybaby. 

Her body was still soft, too. She was so slender you’d think there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her, but when you hugged her, it felt like you had your arms around a cloud. Did she use fabric softener on herself in the bath, or what? 

“I waited… I waited for you all that time, Rudy. I stayed in Buena Village, and I worked really hard…” 

I knew that much was true. Paul had already told me all about how Sylphie had spent her time once I went off to tutor Eris. Saying nothing for the moment, I just stroked her head. She reacted by squeezing me even more tightly. 

After a moment, she raised her face to look at me. Her tears and runny nose had left it something of a mess. I wasn’t sure what to say to her. 

“I’ve always…” 

Sylphie knew what she wanted to say, though. She looked me right in the eyes and said her piece. “I’ve always loved you.” 

All I could do was stare down at her in stupid, blank surprise. 

“I loved you so much back then, Rudy. And now I love you even more. Don’t leave me again… please? I want to stay with you forever…” 

My mind short-circuited. I was quite literally stunned. 

Of course, Sylphie had been really attached to me back in the old days. You might say I’d arranged it that way, really. But things were different now. I’d spent a year learning to trust and respect “Master Fitz” as my friend and equal. She was her own person, standing on her own two feet. I had real respect for her. Were her feelings for me just some lingering trace of my attempts to win her over as a kid? It seemed possible. 

Still… I’d come to genuinely trust and rely on Fitz. She was a smart, knowledgeable person who listened to my problems and helped me think them through. I wasn’t the only one who held her in high regard, either. Princess Ariel placed great trust in her as well. 

And she was telling me that she loved me. 

A warm, pleasant feeling swelled inside my chest. It was still hard to wrap my head around the fact that Sylphie and Fitz were the same person…but I was still so happy that I felt like dancing. 

For a moment, I found myself thinking about Eris. Had I ever actually told her that I loved her? We’d talked about becoming a family at one point, but she’d been the one to bring that up. I couldn’t remember what I’d said. 

What about Sara? No, things had never gone that far with her. I wasn’t sure if I really had loved Sara, honestly. I definitely liked her, and I’d tried to get her into bed… but I felt like “love” wasn’t quite the right word for what I’d felt. 

Okay then. How about Fitz… or Sylphie, rather? What did I think of her ? 

To be honest, I wanted to take some time to think it over carefully. I wanted to double-check my own thoughts, and work out a clear, precise answer. But unless I gave her an answer right now… she would probably disappear on me, like Eris had. 

I found myself taking Sylphie by the shoulders and setting her an arm’s length away. She tried to resist, but it was a pretty feeble effort. 

“I love you too,” I said. 

Sylphie’s face was a total mess at the moment, but that was all right. I stroked her gently on the head, then brought my face to hers. 

Her lips were very soft. Also slightly slimy from all the snot, though that didn’t matter right now. By the time kiss was over, Sylphie had finally stopped crying. She just looked up at me in a daze, her face still flushed bright red. 

I’d lost the ability to speak myself. Words weren’t really necessary at this point, fortunately. 

Now that we’d confirmed our feelings for each other, the next step was obvious. When you’re in love, you’re supposed to make love, right? Not to be crass or anything, but my little buddy had gone two years without any form of release, and he was about ready to explode. 

Sylphie didn’t object when I made my move. She let me lay her down gently on her back on the camping blanket I’d brought along. It felt like she’d been prepared for this to happen from the start, honestly. Maybe she’d organized this whole “mission” just so she could tell me the truth in total privacy. 

But this wasn’t the time to be thinking about any of that. Right now, I just had to make sure I didn’t screw everything up again. “…Is this your first time, Sylphie?” 

“Huh? Uhm, yeah. It is. Is that a problem…?” 

“Of course not.” 

Still…that did mean I had to be careful with her. If I messed this up, things might turn out just like last time. I didn’t want to feel that way ever again. It was bad enough getting dumped by Eris…and Sara, for that matter. I couldn’t screw this up. I just couldn’t. 

Slowly, carefully, I reached down to touch Sylphie… 

“…Uhm, Rudy?” 

And realized that my tent had collapsed. 

An hour passed before we finally gave up. 

The rain had stopped by now. Thanks to all the time we’d spent pressed up against each other, our bodies had warmed significantly. Our clothes were very nearly dried out, as well. 

At the moment, though, I mostly felt like crying. I was painfully depressed by my inability to perform at such a crucial moment. How many times had I felt this particular variety of agony, anyway? It never seemed to get any less awful. And this time around, I wasn’t dealing with some girl from a brothel or an adventurer I’d hit it off with in an inn. It was someone I actually loved. Someone who I had a special connection with. 

I was terrified Sylphie might turn to look at me with disappointment on her face, heave a long sigh, and then walk right out of my life. And so, I just lay there, trembling slightly as I held her hand. 

Sylphie didn’t go anywhere, though. She seemed shocked by this turn of events as well, if not quite as devastated as me. There was an awkward little half-smile on her face. 

“It’s not your fault, Rudy. My breasts are pretty small, aren’t they? I know I’m not really sexy or anything…” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sylphie. You’re beautiful. The thing is… it’s been like this with me for three years now, actually.” 

“R-Rudy…” 

I told her the story. The whole long, humiliating story, starting with the day three years ago when I’d slept with someone for the first time. I even admitted that I’d come to the University of Magic in hopes of finding a cure for my condition, and that I’d had no luck so far. 

“Embarrassing you was the last thing I wanted to do, Sylphie. Please accept my sincerest apologies.” 

There was nothing at all wrong with her body, of course. Just looking at her was exciting. Her breasts were on the small side, yes, but she was beautifully proportioned. She was the definition of a petite beauty—and I was a big fan of petite beauties. I mean, she was the only girl who’d even gotten me ready to go in the last three years. Of course this wasn’t her fault. I was just a useless coward. 

“Don’t talk like that, Rudy! I’m not embarrassed, okay? Come on, go back to normal.” 

Sylphie’s voice was pleading and a little sad. That just made me feel even more pathetic. “I’d love to go back to normal, of course. But there seems to be nothing I can do about this, I’m afraid.” 

“No, no…” she said, a tear trickling down her face. “I just meant you can stop apologizing to me so formally…” 

“Oh, uh… right, right. My bad. I just got kind of flustered.” 

God, I just can’t stop screwing this up. I’d been bowing and scraping by default for a while now. I tended to slip back into that mode automatically when I wasn’t thinking straight. 

“…Still, is it that weird for me to be a little formal with you? I mean, I’ve been calling you Master Fitz for months now.” 

“Yeah, I guess… but when you talk like that, it kind of feels like you’re keeping people at a distance.” 

Really? This was the first I’d heard of it. Had Eris and Ruijerd felt the same way? What about Zanoba? Well, I tended to boss him around more than anything… 

“From now on, I want you to be more casual with me.” 

“As you wish.” 

“…Okay, that’s not casual.” 

“Come on! You can’t cut me a break on one little as you wish ?” 

“Hehehe… well, maybe I’ll make an exception.” 

This conversation seemed to be improving the mood slightly, at least. Still, it was a while since I’d consciously been casual with anyone. After coming to this world, I’d mostly gone with “polite to a fault.” I did spend a few years of bantering with Soldat and company, but then I’d landed at this school and gone right back to the bowing and the scraping. 

…Come to think of it, though, there was one other exception. Back in Buena Village, I’d been pretty relaxed around my cute little friend Sylphie. In that case, maybe casual was just the norm for us. 

For a while we just sat cuddled up against each other in our underwear, saying nothing in particular, listening to the crackling of the fire. When I turned my neck just a little, I could look right down at Sylphie’s collarbone. Her bra was slightly loose, so when I glanced down from that angle, I sometimes caught a glimpse of a pretty little pink something-or-other. 

After a little while, though, I broke the pleasant silence. “So anyway… can I ask why you were crossdressing all this time, Sylphie? What happened to you after the Displacement Incident?” 

I wanted to know why she was Princess Ariel’s bodyguard, why she’d dyed her hair white, and why she was hiding her identity. I didn’t know if it was okay for me to ask those questions, but it seemed worthwhile to try. 

“Oh, right. Uhm… where do I even start…?” 

Slowly, Sylphie began to walk me through her story. 

She began with her training at Buena Village, and her attempts to find out where I was from Zenith and Lilia. They’d ended up thoroughly training her in Healing magic and etiquette, respectively. She also mentioned making me the pendant I still wore to this day. 

“So you made this yourself, huh?” 

“Why do you even have that, Rudy?” 

I’d been hiding the pendant in question inside my clothes for years now. Sylphie had obviously noticed it when I took my clothes off earlier. “Lilia gave it to me when I found her. But she didn’t say anything about you making it for me, Sylphie.” 

“Well, she probably thought I might be dead.” 

“Ah, I see.” Some people might be okay with carrying around a memento of a dead friend, but others might just be sad and uncomfortable. 

“Uhm, mind if I continue my story?” 

“Sorry about that. Go right ahead.” 

After the Displacement Incident, Sylphie’s life had taken a sharp turn for the stormy and dramatic. She was ejected above a garden in the royal palace with a dangerous monster right below her. After saving Princess Ariel’s life by sheer coincidence, she was granted her present role as her Guardian Mage as a reward. 

Somehow, her hair had lost its original color when she was teleported. And the people of the royal capital were so different from what she was used to in their outlook and ambitions that every day left her with a stomachache. She’d been forced to fend off assassins sent to kill Ariel, as the members of the royal family and their supporters struggled for power. 

Eventually, they’d been driven from the capital and set off on a journey none of them were ready for. There had been betrayals, deceptions, and moments of desperate danger. But eventually, they’d reached the Ranoa University of Magic, where they began to plot their comeback… at which point I showed up. 

“I know it’s not your fault, Rudy…but when you introduced yourself to me like a stranger, it was kind of a shock.” 

“I’m sorry about that. But you know, if you’d just told me who you were a little earlier, this wouldn’t have taken nearly so long.” 

“Yeah… y-you’re right, I guess. Sorry. It’s my fault for not saying anything, huh…? I’m really…sorry about that…” 

Suddenly, tears were rolling down Sylphie’s face. She’d been in anguish over this for some time now, from the looks of things. It wasn’t like she’d withheld the truth just to mess with me or anything. I hadn’t meant to criticize her. “Hey, I’m sorry too. I had a whole year to figure it out, and I didn’t even realize.” 

Based on Sylphie’s story, she’d been hiding her identity for a reason, and seemed to think I’d forgotten her entirely. And if I had forgotten her, there was a risk I’d tell someone the truth about her if she opened up to me. I did have connections to the Boreas family, after all. There was a possibility I might even turn out to be an enemy. Keeping quiet was probably the smart call. 

Also, I hadn’t really given any indication that I was looking for Sylphie at any point in the last year. If she thought I wasn’t even worried about her, you really couldn’t blame her for hesitating, right? Yeah, you couldn’t. All sorts of circumstances had gotten in the way. And in the end, she’d opened up to me. That was what really counted. 

I wrapped my arms around Sylphie’s shoulders and she leaned her head against me. Her body was still a little chilly. I decided to keep her pressed up against me until that improved. 

“I just couldn’t work up the courage, Rudy. And I guess there was a part of me that kind of liked things the way they were.” 

“Yeah. It wasn’t half-bad being friends with Master Fitz, I’ve got to say.” 

However, she’d apparently started to get worried. There were a few pretty girls in my life these days, and she thought one of them was going to snatch me away unless she acted fast. Thanks to my condition, that scenario felt kind of unlikely…but you never know. Say Nanahoshi had found me some magical cure or something. I would have been very grateful to her, right? Maybe our relationship would have evolved in some unexpected ways. 

In any case, Sylphie had decided to risk everything on one major operation. I’d proven to be oblivious, and routinely sabotaged her plans by trying to be thoughtful. For her part, she tended to chicken out at the last moment, anyway. But this time, she was going to back herself into a corner…and then slap me in the face with the truth until I finally figured it out. 

“You really are oblivious, Rudy.” 

“Yeah, guilty as charged.” 

I’d once sworn a silent oath to act like a clueless protagonist, but after this, I couldn’t make fun of those guys anymore. Sometimes, when there’s lot of complicating factors involved, it really can be hard to realize someone’s into you. 

If I’d been a little hornier from the start, maybe I would have read the signals coming from her more clearly. Did all those dumbass harem protagonists just need a Viagra prescription too? That would explain a lot, actually. 

“So I guess I ended walking right into your trap, huh?” 

“Uhm, yeah. Sorry. I feel a little bad about tricking you like that.” 

“It’s fine. I don’t think it would have worked unless you took things that far.” 

At the rate things were going, I would have kept on pretending Fitz was a man indefinitely, assuming I was doing her a favor. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure how well I’d remembered my old friend Sylphie before she gave me that helpful reminder. 

“By the way… does Princess Ariel know you’re doing this?” 

“Oh, absolutely. She planned the whole thing.” 

“Did she really?” 

“Yeah.” 

That was a relief, then. If Sylphie had acted on her own, it might have been safer to continue pretending that I didn’t know the truth…although the “Fitz” character wasn’t going to go away in either case. 

“She was kind of worried about this whole thing, though. She could never figure out what your objectives were, or what you were thinking. I don’t think she had any idea you came here because of your, uh, problem.” 

There were rumors about my condition going around, but from the sound of things, she’d probably dismissed them out of hand. Truth can be stranger than fiction sometimes. “Hmm. In that case, maybe I should join her team after all?” Honestly, I still wanted to avoid getting mixed up in dangerous power struggles. But if it would help Sylphie, I’d offer them whatever support I could. 

“Princess Ariel’s done a lot for me, so personally I’d be happy to have you on her side… but you don’t want to get mixed up in Asuran politics, right? Don’t force yourself, Rudy.” 

Sylphie smiled shyly at me once again. Her cuteness really was amplified by a hundred when she didn’t have those giant sunglasses on. For the second time today, I felt a surge of heat down in my groin. Unable to restrain myself, I leaned over and licked her ear. 

“Aah?!” 

“Whoops. Pardon me.” Sylphie’s shriek of surprise scared my rowdy little friend back into hibernation. I really couldn’t seem to control my own libido lately. Still, it was a relief to get any movement at all down there. It seemed like I was on the road to recovery. 

All thanks to Sylphie, of course. 

“Thank you, Sylphie.” 

“Huh? For what…?” Sylphie tilted her head at me in confusion. 

We hadn’t made it all the way yet, but this was good enough for now. Rome wasn’t built in a day, right?