“So, what are you saying? That was made from a whole unicorn horn?”
“Yes.”
“So when I brought it to my arm, it glowed?”
“Wow! Maiden!”
“…Jonah, you’re pretty much carrying it around too, right?!”
“Wow! Virgin!”
“I shouldn’t have spoken…”
Benny sighed, clutching her purple hair, after briefly hearing the situation.
“Oh, but Benny, that’s not the important part right now.”
“Is there any important talk to begin with?”
Mid-fight, Benny, who was getting all flustered about her maiden emotions, spat out her words filled with thorns, but… glancing slyly between me and the dagger, it seemed my virginity was more important than her maidenhood.
Well, with the world flipped upside down, surprisingly, women have come to prefer men’s purity.
Thanks to the influence of the Goddess of Love, there’s no reproach for polygamy or polyandry… but it seems the special significance placed on the first time hasn’t changed.
In that sense, it’s really hard to determine a man’s purity.
Women have their blood but, for men, nothing shows, right? So it’s understandable that a clear and easy way to determine it is stressing.
I shook my head while gently swinging the dagger and putting it in the Subspace Ring.
“Do you really think I’m always just joking around? You just saw it, Benny. The Corrupted Earth Spirit crumbling.”
“…Ah. If it broke the magic stone, it would’ve vanished, not crumbled.”
“Exactly. I was so surprised that I didn’t take it with me, but there’s probably a magic stone somewhere over there.”
I pointed with my thumb. There was a Shadow swallowing a pile of raw stones and spitting out only the good ones.
Among the things it spat out, there should be a magic stone.
“By the way, Shadows are really capable. It’s hard to tell what’s inside raw stones if you’re not an expert, right? So I was thinking of collecting the ones that looked special and getting them appraised at the Guild.”
“Well, I’ve been to the Second Floor before. I made Shadow memorize how the raw stones look back then. Of course, I still remember it.”
Up to the Second Floor is classified as the upper levels of the labyrinth, and maps, along with all sorts of information, are perfectly organized and distributed for free or at a low price.
The classification of raw stones guarded by the Corrupted Earth Spirit is also among them.
Benny nodded, having understood something after a moment of thought.
“Okay. I get what you’re trying to say. It’s strange that the Corrupted Earth Spirit reacted to the unicorn’s horn, right?”
“Yeah. I’m just asking, but can spirits engage in sexual relations? Oh, what I mean is, can even low-ranking spirits like this one, not just high-ranking ones with clear forms, do it?”
Hybrids with spirits are very rare but do exist.
The torn remains of the God of Life affected spirits too.
However, the fact that they can reproduce with other races is entirely different from the idea that they enjoy it.
They are not a naturally occurring race; they don’t have typical instincts.
Most likely, that hybrid would only happen as a result of yielding to the partner’s desires. Or perhaps it was a wish to see their offspring.
It can’t be because of sexual desire, can it…?
If so, then why did the Earth Spirit receive the special effects properly and die just now?
“Is it possible that some madman is sticking it into the ground?! Or maybe they’re mixing the soil with themselves?! Isn’t it terrifying to think there’s a crazy chain rapist that gets turned on by dirt?!”
“…Ugh. What should I do with this pervert.”
Benny sighed heavily. Then she struck a pose with her flat chest sticking out, like she was confidently trying to mimic a teacher.
She looks more like she’s cosplaying a teacher than anything else, and Benny opened her mouth.
“Surely the Unicorn Dagger has the power to violate non-virgins and non-innocents. But it has other powers too, right?”
“Poison? Don’t tell me it was poisonous soil…”
“Not that! I mean purification! Purification! Have you been spouting that all along without realizing what it means?! What ‘Corrupted’ Earth Spirit implies!”
“Huh? But strictly speaking, monsters are just mad and stronger life forms, right?”
“Usually. For ordinary monsters, it would just mean regular plants and animals becoming stronger. But spirits are different.”
According to Benny’s explanation, spirits were basically embodiments of nature or messengers of the gods.
They aren’t created from the blood and flesh of other beings; they’re simply a species born from power.
This means they’re pure in both good and bad senses.
“But that kind of spirit has been tainted by madness.”
“Has its purity been corrupted?”
“Correct. And what we call the pollution of nature is what we refer to as contamination.”
“Aha.”
The unicorn horn is not merely a weapon for mopping up! It also boosts natural healing abilities and has purification effects, among others.
I’ve never experienced it myself, but I doubt any regular poison would work on me.
“Wait a minute. So does that mean the madness has been cured?”
“Not at all. The power of purification in the body clashed with the corruption stemming from madness, leading to its collapse. Ah, in the very end, it might have regained sanity for a brief moment. It wouldn’t mean much, though.”
“…”
That’s when the last words it left me started to weigh on my mind.
It kept repeating “do,” right? Until now, I thought it meant we were being labeled as thieves… but perhaps it held a different meaning.
Perhaps it was saying to run away or to help.
“…Benny. How do you know all this? Oh, it’s not that I think you’re just guessing; it’s amazing how detailed you know it all. Is this common for mages?”
“Hmm. I don’t think so.”
Benny shook her head. Then she gently pet Shadow, who had just finished devouring decent raw stones and magic stones after sorting everything out.
“I’ve experienced the experiments related to madness directly. That’s why I know it well. They conducted experiments on monsters too, not just humans.”
“Ah.”
So it was merely a personal experience.
As I scratched my head awkwardly, Benny consciously raised the corners of her mouth.
“Alright! Now that we’ve rested, shall we move on? After all, we’ve got a weapon that works well against the Corrupted Spirits, right? That means we can hunt safely and easily!”
“When you put it that way, it makes even our break feel like a waste of time!”
“You’ll really regret it! After all, from now on, you’ll have to come with Lydia. I can’t have Shadow doing the job of a pack mule, so while the fighting will be easy, we’ll have to hurry back for the loot.”
“…!”
Thinking about it, Benny was right.
She had only come with me today as a substitute for Lydia, and she never said she would always come to the labyrinth with me in the future.
I have to make the most of Shadow while I can…!
“Thanks for today!”
-Kruh?
I lightly tapped Shadow’s enormous eye and quickly pressed my ears to the floor.
Faintly, I could hear a rhythmic heartbeat. Following the heart left by the Earth God, I recalculated the optimal route.
“Looks like we should go this way! Don’t fall behind!”
“Do you really think I’ll get lost in just the Second Floor? Jonah, you better watch out!”
With a dumbfounded Benny in tow, I started to move ahead.
I swiftly navigated through the maze-like interior, converting every monster I encountered into magic stones.
The kobolds could not detect my stealth; they were simple. The Corrupted Earth Spirit noticed as soon as I drew my weapon, but even if it retaliated, it fell just from a glancing blow, so there was nothing tough about it.
There’s a saying that the easiest tier in the labyrinth is the Second Floor.
The First Floor is tough due to no experience, and the Third Floor is purely difficult because of the strong monsters and dangerous gimmicks.
The Second Floor, however, has relatively average monsters and lacks serious traps, plus since I’ve gained some experience, it’s easy.
That saying started to make sense bit by bit. I thought I had scraped by on the First Floor, but the Second Floor is even easier.
Of course, it would be a different story when facing different monsters.
The Spider Queen, for instance, is a monster that carries dozens of baby spiders.
I’m confident in dealing with a couple of them better than anyone, but fighting multiple enemies still makes me uneasy.
Stealth would likely fail after the first few slashes, and my stamina is still weak compared to the average Second Floor adventurer.
But since I’m not planning to advance that far just yet, it’s not a risk I need to worry about right now. What I need to focus on now is…
“Die!”
“Kugh…!”
I slammed the back of a kobold, who was mindlessly digging the ground.
“Your treasure is now mine!”
“Ado, do, do…!”
Focusing on robbing the treasury of the Corrupted Earth Spirit.
How long did I continue to stack loot while moving without rest?
“…Shadow says it’s full.”
“Eh.”
After endlessly devouring, Shadow finally declared a strike.
Thinking about it, I have fed it quite a bit. I bet today’s haul equals what I earned in the past week.
“I guess we have no choice. Should we head back now?”
“Yeah. By now, the sun has probably set on the surface, so we should hurry if we want to avoid hearing anything from Ellie.”
“…I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but both Lydia and Benny like Ellie but are also scared of her. Did something happen?”
“Well, there’s a world of women that men wouldn’t understand.”
“???”
What does that even mean?
Benny wouldn’t disclose any details no matter how much I pried. I kept trying to nudge her for information as we searched for a path back to the nearest Safe Zone. Then…
“Something seems off.”
“Is it the path we came from?”
Even with the Pathfinding Skill, I had lost my way.
Something was wrong.
