Abstinence Attack

When Sherry was added to my Party as the second slave and the third Party Member,

it resulted in not only the bolstering of our ranks and our effective battle power, but

also in me obtaining a new Job after the first night where I had a threesome sex with

Roxanne and Sherry one right after the other.

Yes, I am talking about a Sex Maniac Job of course, the Job that is seemingly exclusive

to Humans, who are said to be the race with the highest sex drive out of all the races

that inhabit the world of this game. And I think that now would be a good time for me

to verify that Job and how it and its Skills fares in general combat in the Labyrinths.

But how exactly would I go about verifying it, you ask? The method of verification is

going to be very simple, and essentially the same as with all the other things that I

have been trying out during my many experiments with other Jobs and their Skills so

far.

The first Skill granted to me by the Sex Maniac Job is "Enhanced Vigor", which is

essentially a very fancy and roundabout name for a Skill that increases your sexual

stamina, so in order to see exactly how this work and what are its exact, measured,

benefits, I would have to get freaky with Roxanne and Sherry of course, to the point

where I could actually feel myself getting legitimately tired.

First off, I tried doing it with Roxanne and Sherry at the same time without equipping

Sex Maniac Job and going as hard as I could on them. Then after finishing them off

once in such a manner, I would take a quick break to equip Sex Maniac as my First Job,

and I would go and repeat the process of doing it with them again, but this time under

changed conditions. You might think that I am doing that simply to have an excuse to

have as much sex with them as I want, but I assure you, it is not about that. Yup, not in

the slightest. Definitely, positively that is not my main aim here. Verification, just

verification. In total, I enjoyed four sessions of intense Skill verification while taking

my work extremely seriously, ensuring that there will be no cut corners or shortcuts

on my part.

And what was the result of my extensive testing?

That both Sherry and Roxanne were extremely delicious, and I would not mind

gobbling them up all the time if only I could.

No, I am kidding. That is not the only thing that I was focusing on the entire time,

seriously. In fact when the fourth round of testing was over, I still felt like I could go on

for yet another round, so that definitely means that my "Vigor" must have been

increased even further, but other than that, I cannot really say that I was able to notice

any kind of other significant differences between the time when I had Sex Maniac

equipped and when I did not have it equipped, and as a result of that, I do not know

exactly what the effect of "Enhanced Vigor" is supposed to be outside of increasing my

sexual stamina. Maybe that is really all that it is supposed to be doing, and I am just

the one who is thinking more about it than I should be thinking? Or maybe it is because

that I still have plenty of energy left, so I do not know what my actual limit of it is?

In this case, should this verification be considered a failure? Or maybe I should not be

so fast to label it as such because this is only the first day of testing? Whatever the case

may be, it is more than abundantly clear that the verification process needs to

continue so that I could explore the nuances of Sex Maniac's Skill in even greater detail.

But come to think of it now, I cannot say that I have ever truly reached my limit, be it

with or without Sex Maniac being equipped, so if I want to confirm the exact extent to

which "Enhanced Vigor" is working on me, then maybe I should conduct the testing in

a following manner: challenge myself by going to my utmost limits without Sex Maniac

equipped and then do the same thing but while having Sex Maniac equipped? Yes, I

think that would certainly be better for me right now, but at the current moment

something is telling me that going so far just so that I could verify the effects of a single

Skill… Or rather, I think that if I would try going to my utmost limit, then I would just

end up breaking myself without really intending to.

After everything that we have done today, Roxanne and Sherry have fallen fast asleep

without even talking to one another, but honestly, I cannot say that I really blame them

for it. After all, so much sex in such a short time must have been quite tiresome for

them, since they do not have their sexual stamina enhanced in the way that I do. In

that regard, I have to admit that Sex Maniac is a really useful Job, but this is also

another thing that is going to make it quite difficult to measure the effects of

"Enhanced Vigor" : just because I can go on without stopping or feeling tired for

prolonged periods of time, it definitely does not mean that my partners can actually

do the same.

The next morning, I woke up while hugging onto Roxanne, as per my usual morning

routine. And even though I have fallen asleep with the Sex Maniac Job still equipped

as my First Job, it looks like I did not end up shooting any wasted bullets, if you know

what I mean. Anyway, as usual, seeing Roxanne as the first thing that would be right

before my eyes from the moment that I first opened my eyes in the morning always

sets my heart at ease and makes me feel all warm and bubbly inside. I am well and

truly relieved to have someone like her as my slave.

Man, if only I could, then I definitely would have stared at her beautiful body for hours

without stopping, and the sensation of being embraced by her beautiful limbs and

having her perfect tits pressing against my own body is an experience that I can never

get enough of ever since I have experienced it for the first time, and a mere sight of

this impossibly perfect body of hers is making me feel like I want to drown her in the

entirety of my desire…

Haaa... haaaaa... haaaa…

No, no, no, no, no. What the hell do you think you are doing, Michio? What are you

thinking the first thing in the morning? You cannot allow your perverted desires to

take control over you. You have to demonstrate to everyone else around you, but

mostly to yourself, that you have a will of absolute iron that can withstand such

temptations, no matter how inviting they might seem. And that is because aside from

testing the limitations of "Enhanced Vigor", you are going to have one other, very

important Job to do, and that Job is to test the other Skill Granted to you by the Sex

Maniac Job: "Abstinence Attack".

Just as the name implies, "Abstinence Attack", which is an Active Skill of the Sex Maniac

Job is an offensive Skill that is becoming more and more powerful the more its user

refrains from engaging in any kind of sexual acts. If the abstinence period is ten days

or longer, then supposedly this Skill can become so powerful that it would make it

possible to kill even Floor Bosses with ease, clapping their cheeks with a single attack

or something extremely close to it.

Naturally, there is no way in hell that someone like me, a possessor of two beautiful

female slaves who are ready and willing to do it with me whenever I am going to ask

them to would be able to survive ten whole days without sex. Hell, I think that lasing

only three days without it would have been out of the question for me. But then… what

about if it was not ten or three days, but half a day instead? I wonder how high the

damage of "Abstinence Attack" would have been then.

.

Or what about refraining from all things sexual for an entire day? If I could refrain

from touching Sherry and Roxanne in any sexual way from morning until late night, it

will mean that I was abstinent for around twenty hours or so, which should result in

a bigger boost to my stats than the one guaranteed after only half a day of sexual

abstinence.

So yeah… Even though it might be hard, I guess I should really try to abstain myself

from all kind of sexual behaviors for at least twenty hours, and then try using

"Abstinence Attack" on a monster to how powerful the attack will actually become. If

possible, then maybe I should try to extend the abstinence period not to twenty hours,

but to the morning of the next day? But most importantly, if I really want to do it and

be as serious about it as possible, then I cannot allow myself to be losing my cool and

going out of control like some kinda beast of lust now. And, as unfortunate as that will

sound, doing so means letting go of Roxanne's smooth body so that I would not be

tempted by it. So… Here it goes.

While deeply regretting my decision, I let go of Roxanne's sexy and lustrous body, but

as soon as I let go of her and mustered all of my willpower in order not to touch her

again, she turned to the side in her sleep, causing her bountiful hills and the sweet

cherries at the top of them to touch and rub against my skin without me doing

anything to provoke her to take such an action. How? How can this be?! I specifically

stated that I should not be doing anything sexual today for the purpose of my

experiment, and yet, sexual things keep on happening to me?! Talk about having the

best of luck at the worst possible moment! If I have something as marvelous as

Roxanne's body right in front of me and she is making advances on me without even

realizing it, then how can I possibly defend myself from something so innocently cute?!

As we were laying in bed side by side, Roxanne finally woke up and gave me a good

morning kiss. She went and stuck her tongue into my mouth and began to seductively

move it around all across its walls and the innermost crevases. She sucks on my tongue

as hard as she can. She munches on it with all the power that she can muster, and she

is doing it with such passion and dedication as if it was our very first kiss. So while

being left with no other choice, I inserted my tongue back into her mouth and began

reciprocating her affections, devouring the moist warmth that she has bestowed upon

me.

"Nhh… Nhhh… mmmghhh..."

Ahhh, Roxanne's moaning voice is the best reward for my efforts that I could have ever

asked for. I embraced her body with a powerful, yet gentle hug. I enjoyed the

smoothness and elasticity of her skin with everything else that they could have offered

me, along with the sight of her large fruits being right in front of my face. They are like

the best melons in the world: juicy, sweet, big and rich.

I am so glad that these sweet melons are mine. I am glad that I had the chance to meet

them and make them mine. And now, a certain part of my body is getting hotter and

hotter, to the point where it feels so bad that I cannot take it anymore.

Hot. So unbearably hot.

N-No, that is not how it was supposed to be! That is not what was supposed to happen!

I was supposed to demonstrate that my mind and will are made of steel by becoming

a sexual abstinent for the next day! I was going to be an abstinent, and then conduct

"Abstinence Attack's" power in the Labyrinths, but now everything is going to be

ruined because I was not strong enough to resist Roxanne's seductive advances! I was

greatly disappointed with myself an how weak-willed I have turned out to be, but

nevertheless, I still continued to kiss Roxanne either way. The smoothness and

niceness of her tongue was simply too much for me to resist, and its gentle, flexible

and melty taste worked on me like a worst possible drug. Jesus Christ, if she keeps

doing that to me, then both my reason and resolve to test "Abstinence Attack" are going

to crumble to dust and I will probably never want to test it out again! I have to do

something to distract both her and myself, and I need to do so now or else…!

"G-Good morning… Roxanne..."

I wanted my voice to sound as natural as possible, but I do not know if I managed to

achieve my desired result. But at the very least that brief sentence forced Roxanne to

stop kissing me, which gave me the thing that I needed of so very much right now: a

room to breathe and renew my resolve, but now I know that a mind of steel is not

going to be enough to resist Roxanne's charms. My mind is going to have to be made

out of goddamn Orichalcum in order to properly withstand her.

"… Good morning... master."

Roxanne was also breathing pretty heavily. I guess she also must have gone at it way

harder than what she originally intended today, because that was the first time when

she was so fierce while kissing me, but now when she got off me and moved a little

backwards, my torso has finally been released from the pressure of her chest pressing

against me, which make me breathe a sigh of relief as I rubbed the back of my neck

with my hand while being glad that no more temptations were lying in wait for the

poor old me when my guard was down… And then I remembered that I was not

sleeping with just Roxanne by my side. That is right, Sherry is also at my other side,

and without a shade of a doubt she is going to want to give me a good morning kiss as

well when she wakes up... and speaking of Sherry, she must be awake already,

because I feel a very intent gaze staring daggers into my back... aaand of course that

Sherry is awake, and she is obviously not happy about not being able to give me a good

morning kiss because Roxanne was hogging all of my attention to herself. Damn, looks

like my paper-thin reason and resolve got torn to shreds even more than I thought.

Now, let me see if the same If me and both of my heads will start going through similar

phenomenon as we were going through when Roxanne was kissing me.

"Good morning, Sherry."

"G-Good morning, master."

When I look at Sherry, I do not feel in the same way that I felt with Roxanne just now.

It is as if my will and resolve to not touch her and abstain from doing anything sexual

have turned back from wet paper to the strongest Orichalcum. And the same state held

out even while I was kissing her and she was kissing me. Unlike what I went through

with Roxanne, Sherry's kiss was just your regular good morning kiss, same as all the

other ones she was bestowing upon me every single morning, but that did not change

the fact that when I released her from my embrace, she was still quite out of breath.

Have I gone too far because of what happened just now? Have I gotten overly

enthusiastic, and it made me go all out even with simple kissing?

"I am sorry to the both of you. It looks like I am a little bit more out of control here

than I have initially thought."

"No, you do not have to apologize, master. Actually, you being so enthusiastic about

our good morning kissing… Made me happy."

"I am also happy with how master treated me just now."

Even though I was rougher on them than usual, they were still saying that they felt

happy about it. I feel so moved by their words that I might just pounce on them right

here, right now, even though I was saying that I wanted to stop myself from

committing such acts today for the sake of my experiment. However, even though my

carnal urges are telling me that it would be all right and that neither of them would

have minded that, I have to listen to the voice of reason in my head that was telling me

not to succumb to the worldly desires and proceed with my plan for today exactly like

I was initially planning to.

.

Now, using the force of my will and reason, I got up from the bed whole resisting the

urge to do anything more than I already did to these wonderful girls. Next, I managed

to get myself fully dressed without succumbing to the temptations, and I was even able

to properly wear my leather shoes and leather armor without being distracted. Be still,

my heart. As long as you are going to be still an unmovable, everything is going to be

all right, and I will not allow myself to be swayed from my convictions by the

seductiveness of my female slaves.

After we got ourselves full dressed and ready for our morning round of Labyrinth

exploration, we Warped to the Labyrinth of Quratar where I distributed the armor for

both Roxanne and Sherry from my Item Box.

"Sherry, for today's round of exploration, I would like you to wear the Waterproof

Leather Mittens that you made yesterday."

"Okay, but are you really sure about that, master? I thought that items with Skills in

them were supposed to be reserved for you since you are our Party's leader?"

"Normally that would have been the case, but currently I do not think that I have to

worry about it all that much. As far as we know, the Needlewoods do not fire their

Water Magic Spells in rapid succession, so I should be able to tank one or two shots of

it without any problems, and Roxanne id definitely going to be able to avoid such

attacks if they are going to be targeted her way, therefore these Waterproof Leather

Mittens should be worn by someone who has the lowest probability of being able to

defend against such spells or avoiding them, meaning you, Sherry. It is not a matter of

me believing in your abilities or not, but simply a matter of utilizing the equipment

that we have on hand in the best way possible.

"I understand. Thank you very much, master."

However, that is not the only reason for why I want Sherry to wear the Waterproof

Leather Mittens. It is because right now I had to unequip the Job of an Alchemist,

which I have been using so far to bestow Sherry with "Plating" a Skill that would put

a kind of a protective barrier around anyone it has been targeted to because I needed

to replace it with Sex Maniac for the purpose of testing its Skills in practice, so the

Waterproof Leather Mittens are going to be used as the means of mitigating the

damage that she would have sustained from the Needlewood's Water Magic attack by

at least some amount. Of course, I have to keep all of these information strictly for

myself, which is why I had to dress my intentions in pretty words like that, but as long

as these Waterproof Leather Mittens are going to work exactly as it was intended for

them, then depending on their effectiveness I might as well leave them for Sherry to

continue wearing.

We then proceeded to move through the corridors of the Labyrinth under Roxanne's

careful guidance. This place is a perpetual battlefield where pretty much anything can

happen, so we must be sure that we will never let our guard down for even a single

moment unless we want to find ourselves in a pretty sticky situation from which we

might not be able to recover… But then I was distracted by a thing that was in front of

me, and of which I have become even more conscious than usual: Roxanne's butt. Yes,

her butt, which is currently in front of me because we had her walk in front of us so

that she could sense the monsters ahead with her superior sense of smell. I do not

remember if I have ever mentioned this before, but this butt of hers is a really cute

butt. From my current position behind her I had this beautiful, shapely thing that was

soft yet firm like a bread dough that has yet to be kneaded by the baker, and her tail,

which is located right above her butt swayed from one side to the other...

No, that is not what I want to be focusing on right now! That is most definitely not

what I am interested in at the current moment! I am one hundred percent focused on

our surroundings and surveying them for all possible signs of danger or ambushed,

and Roxanne's shapely posterior just so happened to enter my field of vision by a

complete accident, which caused me to me momentarily caught off guard by it, and

that is why I stared at it so much!

As I said, this place is a Labyrinth! An absolute deathtrap of a place where one moment

of distraction can result in your death before you could even notice what is going on.

So I have to stay alert and pay attention to my surroundings… But how can I do that

when there is so many distractions in here! Roxanne and her wonderful butt in front

on me, and at the back is Sherry with that cute, petite face of hers? God, I want to lick

it so badly!

I do not know what is going to happen here in the Labyrinths, and that is why it is

important for me to be vigilant at all times... but even though Roxanne was wearing

her Leather Jacket, exactly like I have instructed her to do, I could still see her chest

bounce and jiggle whenever she was looking back towards me and Sherry to see if

everything was all right with us. This is nothing short of amazing, a absolute marvel

to behold!

This is a Labyrinth. A perpetual, treacherous battlefield where anything can happen,

and where there is no time at all to relax… so I want to finish the exploration early and

go back home. And once we get back home, I want to take Roxanne and Sherry straight

back to the bed so that I could continue to have my fun with them...

No, that is not it…

This is a Labyrinth. This is a Battlefield.

"Master, Sherry, brace yourselves. The enemies are coming."

Roxanne turned back towards us and informed us about the enemies that were fast

approaching our location. Her voice is so cute, but the one that she uses when she is

moaning in bed whenever I do it with her is better still. I want to go back and here it

again soon. I want to hear her moan right now. I want to hear it over and over again

until my ears fall of from listening to it.

As for the monsters that came and the battle that ensued... both of these things were

so utterly unimportant that I do not even feel the need to be talking about them in any

greater details. All you have to know is that these pesky interlopers came at us and

that I killed them. Burned them all with my magic until there was nothing left but their

Drop Items after they disappeared in clouds of green smoke.

"Here you go, master."

Sherry handed me the branches of the dead Needlewoods that she collected. Her every

motion when she was picking all of those items up was very cute and charming. If we

were not in the Labyrinth, then I probably would have pushed her down and had my

way with her right now without even considering what everyone else who would have

seen us might be thinking.

Yes, this place here is most definitely a Labyrinth. A very dangerous place filled with

hostile enemies who would stop at nothing to see my life come to an untimely end.

And that is why there cannot be anything distracting me. I have to be on the lookout

at all times and literally have eyes all around my head... ah, look, Roxanne's boobies

are jiggling again!

Since this is a Labyrinth, it is perfectly understandable to be nervous at all times. After

all, nervousness and anxiety are pretty much the only thing of which those who are

exploring these treacherous halls can be sure. That is just how it is in this place, which

can be described as nothing else than a battlefield where the combatants may never

know rest. But now that I think about it, pretty much the same can be said about

having fun in bed. Bed is also a type of battlefield, the one in which I always have to be

ready for my male parts to challenge Roxanne's and Sherry's female bits to a battle of

attrition, and it will not be a lie to say that having Sex Maniac as my main Job helps

with that war of attrition immensely.

.

Yes, in that sense, it really can be said that the Labyrinth and a bedroom are immensely

similar to one another.

But… But… Fuck, what the hell am I doing?! This is not the time to be having my head

muddied by erotic thoughts that are more befitting of high school boys who waste

their precious time thinking and fantasizing about sex instead of actually making an

effort to go out there and kiss their V-Cards goodbye. Thankfully, that particular

problem is no longer my concern, and even if it was, then a Labyrinth is no place for

such thoughts.

However, there is still much time until the evening, the best time of the day where I

will be able to have fun with Roxanne and Sherry again, and something is telling me

that today is going to be a long and painful day for me to endure, but if I manage to go

through it without losing my mind, then the reward waiting for me at the end of it is

definitely going to be well worth the wait.

Oh yeah, maybe all three of us should take a bath together again today? That seems

like an especially good idea, even more so since it has already been a few days where

we have gone without it, so having a nice, long soak is probably going to feel incredibly

good and… and maybe I will even be able to convince Roxanne and Sherry to do it with

me in the bath for the first time?

"Fuaaaah...!"

When it was finally evening and we returned home from another bit of Labyrinth

exploration, I immediately proceeded to go about filling the bathtub with water and

then heating it up, and I have to say, the entire day of forcing my body into abstinence

was beginning to weigh on me so heavily that I was beginning to have difficulties with

breathing, but now that I have subjected myself to this long and monotonous bit of

work, I could feel the burden on my body easing up a little bit, most likely because now

that I had focus on the work, I did not have that much time to be daydreaming about

all things sexual.

I managed to fill up a considerable part of the bathtub with water already, but it still

looks like we will have to go to the Labyrinth at least once more so that I could recover

the MP that I lost so that I could finish filling the bathtub up, and here is to hoping that

this next time is also going to be the last one today, because honestly, for some reason,

I was feeling especially fed up with the Labyrinth today, so the less I would have to go

to it now, the better. At this point, I just want to be able to conduct the experiment with

"Abstinence Attack" already so that I would not have to accumulate the lust within me

anymore, because it already feels quite painful and more bothersome than anything

else for me.

Actually, it feels like my entire body, and its nether regions in particular are about to

burst at the seams and explode. If this keeps up, then I do not know if I will be able to

return back some safely and in one piece once we go there. Arghhhh, why does this

have to take so long?! And what is this feeling of me being subjected to the worst kind

of hellish torture possible. Is this hell? Is this how it actually feels to be in hell

experiencing inhumane torture?

At least while we were in the Labyrinth during the day my abstinence was not showing

such painful symptoms, most likely because in the Labyrinth you have to constantly

be on the move and you do not have the time to be thinking about all of these

unnecessary things, so my sexual abstinence is not being as much of a great deal as it

could have been if the circumstances were different.

If I was not here in this Labyrinth and in this new world of mine and I was not an

antisocial loser, then it is entirely possible that I would not have to ever consider

things such as sexual abstinence and the like and I could have just enjoyed your typical

day-to-day life fantasies of high school boys my age.

Fantasies like getting excited after seeing a faint outline of a girl's bra after the first

day of switching back from the winter to summer uniforms, seeing the girls in school

in their swimsuits during the first pool classes when the weather gets warm enough

or having my fantasies run wild after having a cute girl model for the rest of the class

during the practical drawing exercises in art class. Yeah, those are the typical materials

that your average high school boys are using to fuel their sexual fantasies, and if

anything in my life gone differently, I might have been one of them.

In any case, I thought that I am going to have a much harder time keeping the

abstinence up in order to raise the power of Sex Maniac's "Abstinence Attack", but it

look like it is not going to that much of a big deal as I thought it was going to be. Maybe

the constant tension of being in the Labyrinth made it a little easier on me? After all,

since that place is so dangerous, then even with the Sex Maniac Job equipped there is

absolutely no way that anyone would be focusing their mind on perverted things

instead of making sure that they and their Party would be safe from the surprise

attacks by the monsters that can pop up literally from around every corner at any

given time. Honestly, even I was surprised how normally I was able to function. I mean

sure, strange thoughts were making their way into my head here and there from time

to time, but that was pretty much it. If I am to be honest, then I thought that it would

be much, much worse. I wonder if it is always going to be like that whenever I am going

to go to the Labyrinths with Sex Maniac set as my First Job?

"Are you going to go to the Labyrinth now, master?"

When I walked out of the bathroom and proceeded to go upstairs, Roxanne called out

to me from the kitchen. She is so cute. I want to push her down and jam myself inside

of her to hear her sweet moaning voice. However, I have to contain these urges of mine

and wait with doing it for just a little bit more, so I shook my head in order to clear my

thoughts for a little bit.

"Yeah, so if you could come with me, that would really be appreciated."

"Go ahead, Miss Roxanne. I will stay and watch the fire for you."

And so, after leaving Sherry behind to watch the kitchen for us, we went and warped

to the eighth floor of the Labyrinth of Vale, and we proceeded through it while

Roxanne guided me forward.

"They are coming, master."

Roxanne said calmly. And moments after that, the first group of enemies appeared

within our sights. It was a group of four monsters consisting of three Collagen Corals

and one Escape Goat. Oh would you look at that, what a lucky coincidence. It just so

happens that my Durandal seems to be especially bloodthirsty today.

"Roxanne, you take care of the three Collagen Corals to the right, and I will take care

of the Escape Goat to the left."

Aiming my Durandal at the Escape Goat, I immediately run up to it and readied up my

attack. Usually, one swing from Durandal is enough to trigger Escape Goat Lv.8's

escape mechanism, which means that if I want to finish it off for good, I have to do it

with my first strike. Or to put it in other words, now that I have made sure to keep my

abstinence for almost an entire day, we shall see if it was for any good. If the Escape

Goat will not try to immediately run away after my first attack, it will mean that the

offensive power of my normal attack became weakened, and if it starts running, then

the offensive power of my normal attack will be either the same as is always is or

stronger than normally. Yes, now that I have endured as much as I could up to the last

minute, the time has come to conduct the ultimate test of Sex Maniac's "Abstinence

Attack"! That being said, I would definitely prefer this attack to be a success, because

if I will have to abstain from sex throughout the night as well in order to be effective,

that I will not make it.

.

Stopping myself from doing anything remotely sexual has been hard on me

throughout the day, but having a ban on sex during the night would have been too

much of a blow to my mental health. So for my own sake, please let this experiment be

a success!

The Escape Goat has gotten close enough for me to strike at it, so I thought about the

name of "Abstinence Attack" in my mind and then swung down my weapon onto it,

and in the moment when that hit connected, I could definitely feel that it was a pretty

powerful one. Yes, if it was so powerful, then surely that has to mean that the strength

of this attack must have been more powerful than usual, meaning that my period of

abstinence for almost an entire day must have paid off, right? Yeah, it must have paid

off, because that feeling I got from this one strike was vastly different from that first

time when I used it, which could have been likened to a slap with a wet piece of

cardboard. It is definitely different now, but the question is: exactly how different it is

going to be?

The strike of Durandal finally connected with the neck of the Escape Goat, and the

impact of it send it right into the ground, collapsing it on the spot... and then it

turned into a cloud of green smoke and disappeared.

A single blow. That strike of mine managed to obliterate that monster in a single blow!

This can only mean one thing: that the power of the current "Abstinence Attack" must

have been at least twice that of a normal attack with Durandal!

Now that the fourth monster has fallen to the ground, the remaining three Collagen

Coral began to fight even more fiercely. They were no longer just standing around,

waiting to be hit, but they actively tried launching counterattacks against Roxanne's

blows, trying to smack her with their limbs or slam her with their bodies. I was in a

pretty great mood when I realized that a whole day of my abstinence was not for

nothing after all, but since the turbulent battle was still underway, it meant that there

was no time for rest and patting myself on the back just yet, so in order to help

Roxanne deal with them, I rushed into the group of monsters and slashed at them with

Durandal, and each of my hits not only damaged them, but also replenished a little bit

of my lost MP, recovery of which was the main reason for why we came here today. Of

course, I was not able to avoid every single one of the monster attacks and ended up

being smacked by them quite a few times, but even then, the damage that has been

inflicted upon me was nothing that a few good strikes from Durandal could not fix.

I feel pain, but at this point it is actually the pain of a refreshing kind, as if I could finally

remove the little prickly bones that have been stuck in my throat, or as if I was entering

the pool on a particularly hot midsummer evening.

I glanced go the side to see if the same thing was happening to Roxanne… But of

course, she was dodging practically every attack that Collagen Corals were throwing

at her without having as much as a single scratch on her. It was kind of saddening to

see that once again

I was the only one who was receiving damage, but that is basically how it always is

with Roxanne whenever she fights, so I learned that there was no reason for me to

keep on sulking about it.

A few slashes later, all of the Collagen Corals have been swiftly dealt with, collapsing

to the ground and becoming the puffs of green smoke.

"Thank you for your hard work and helping me with these monsters, master."

"Thank you for your hard work as well, Roxanne. Looks like you have not sustained a

single hit in this fight as well, huh?"

"Yes. Dodging them was not a problem."

Even though the attacks of the Collagen Coral here not that damaging, I still sustained

quite a lot of them when I rushed in to Roxanne's help. Exactly how many hits have I

sustained in that short battle alone? Honestly, I do not even want to count it. Good

thing that Durandal has "HP Absorption" Skill on it, because thanks to it my wounds

were healed up pretty fast, but if I did not have it or any other method of healing on

me then I would have been in quite a pickle. Thanks to that, as long as I could land a

successful hit on the enemies without them blocking it, I could have get away from

basically any skirmish without losing too much HP, so if there was ever such an

emergency, then I probably could make a run through the eighth floor on my own, but

the only remaining problem is that even if I can heal most of the wounds that have

been inflicted upon me by the enemy attacks, it does not change the fact that receiving

these attacks still hurts like a living hell, and I absolutely hate pain and everything that

is related to it, so if at all possible, I do not want to get hurt at all.

"All right, should we go back home now?"

"Yes, let us do that."

Thankfully, I no longer have to run through the Labyrinths alone. I can have Roxanne

or Sherry accompany me whenever I need them, and so I do not have to worry about

the possibility of having to trek through the higher floors of the Labyrinths by my

lonesome. If there ever comes a time when such a thing is going to be needed of me,

then that is when I will start worrying about it, but as long as it is not required of me.

After agreeing that it is high time to go back now that the reserves of my MP have all

been replenished, we went back to the starting room of the eighth floor and we

warped back home.

Now that I learn that about half a day of sexual abstinence is enough for "Abstinence

Attack" to one-shot monsters that have Lv.8, I guess you could say that my heart and

mind were finally able to calm down a bit, since there was no longer any need for me

to be nervous about whether this whole experiment of mine was going to work or not.

It also might have something to do with the fact that all of the urges that I have been

accumulating have disappeared, resulting in me feeling as if my mind has been cleared

of the fog that has been obstructing it, bestowing supreme clarity upon me.

There was no more hesitation and that strange feeling that was making me all jumpy

and jittery whenever I was looking at Roxanne as well. I felt as calm and enlightened

as if some kind of switch has been pressed in my mind, resetting its settings to the

ones from before I equipped Sex Maniac as my First Job. I felt... at peace, as if I had

become the surface of a lake, still and undisturbed by even the smallest of ripples

running along its surface. It almost feels as if... as if I have achieved a state of Post

Nut Clarity, a state unique to men who do not feel any kind of sexual thoughts

whatsoever immediately after they reach sexual climax. The way I am currently

feeling, I felt as if I could easily acquire the Job of a Shrine Maiden if only I put my back

into it… Oh, but wait, did Sherry not mention that a Shrine Maiden is a Job that can

only be acquired by females? Yeah, I think she was saying something along those

lines... so, a priest then? Yes, right now, I feel like I could easily acquire the Job of a

Priest. Actually, let me just check if I seriously got this Job real quick... aaand of

course not. I mean, why would I get it in such a scuffed way? If successfully using

"Abstinence Attack" would be everything that would be required to get your hands on

a Priest Job, then I guess all Human males would have the potential to become Priests,

right?

Even after we had dinner and the time came for us to take a bath, I still felt relatively

calm and that nothing could disturb my present state of being. Just like all the other

times, I have made sure to wash every last corner of Roxanne's body, but I remained

calm and collected throughout the entire process, not a single dirty thought in my

mind.

.

It felt kind of strange for me not to have any kind of reaction to it, but I did not think

much of it, thinking that this must simply be how it is after using "Abstinence Attack"

and expending all of the accumulated lust in order to power up the Skill, so I just

continued to do it until Roxanne was squeaky clean. Even though I had her heavy,

elastic fruits in my hands like I always do every other day, I did not do a single

perverted thing to them. I then did the same thing to Sherry, washing every last corner

of her body thoroughly, leaving no place unattended, but just like with Roxanne, it was

just for the purpose of washing her, without any sexual undertones whatsoever.

And after the cleaning part was finished and we were soaking in the hot water with

our bodies rubbing against each other, I was still completely calm and collected. We

even did all of the usual things that we do during bath time: we hugged each other, we

kissed each other and we caressed each other affectionately, but neither of these

actions was sending my mind into a lustful haze, like it was all those times before.

Roxanne and Sherry were nestled at either side of me and they were holding onto my

arms, allowing me to enjoy the elasticity of and smoothness of their chests and were

showering me with kisses, but even despite that, my perfectly calm mind remained

unmoved by the stimulation and the earthly desires. I was still calm. Perfectly calm.

It was the same when we finished bathing and went to bed. I mean, we still ended up

doing it, but this time, instead of going until all three of us would pass out from

exhaustion, we ended up doing only two times in a row, so in comparison to yesterday

when I was testing the limits of the "Enhanced Vigor" Skill, it could be said that I was

still relatively calm, even more so if you consider the fact that I still had Sex Maniac

equipped as my First Job, so "Enhanced Vigor" should still be in effect, granting me an

increased amount of sexual stamina and the drive to continue shaking my hips inside

of Roxanne and Sherry until they would not be able to move anymore for the rest of

the evening.

Can all of that be attributed to the aftereffect of using "Abstinence Attack", which

apparently works like some kind of libido quencher that calms down my sexual urges

even though Sex Maniac is still equipped on me? Anyway, in terms of pure attack

power, I would have to conduct more tests to see how it compares to other offensive

Skills such as Warrior's "Rush".

But for the time being I think it can be concluded that as long as I manage to uphold

sexual abstinence for almost an entire day, then "Abstinence Attack" can definitely be

used as one of my go-to offensive Skills as long as I would need raw power to fight a

Floor Boss or a particularly strong or problematic opponent during the time of the

regular Labyrinth exploration. And the longer I will be able to keep my abstinence up,

then the more powerful that Skill is going to become, meaning that the damage that it

is going to be inflicting is going to be even bigger, which would be great.

If almost one day of abstinence was enough to one-shot a Lv.8 monster from the eighth

floor of the Labyrinth, then I do not even want to imagine how powerful the

"Abstinence Attack" that has been charged for as much as ten days would have been.

And if that Skill was so effective against a normal monster from the eighth floor, then

I wonder how effective it is going to be against the Floor Bosses on the eighth floors.

However… Keeping myself from doing anything even remotely sexual for at least ten

days? Yeah, as much as I would have liked to see what the effect of that would have

been, I am positive that in my case something like that is not happening, because for

me, while keeping the abstinence for almost a day was not all that hard, then doing

the same thing for two days in a row, because if there is a thing that I would never

want to deny myself, it would be the option to have sex with Roxanne and Sherry every

single night.

Starting from the morning of the next day, I have returned to my usual way of fighting

the monsters that does not involve having Sex Maniac as my First Job. Judging by our

current pace, I estimated that we should probably be able to break through the eighth

floor of the Vale's Labyrinth, and I was not mistaken about it, because during our

morning exploration of it, we already managed to arrive at the Floor Boss's Boss Room

after battling through a few groups of Collagen Corals mixed in with other monsters,

and after a short strategic meeting we decided to give the battle with the Floor Boss a

shot, because why the heck not?

We have been able to handle regular enemies on this floor with relative ease, so we all

thought that there is no way that the Floor Boss is going to be any more difficult than

them just as long as we stay calm and continue to work together, and as it turned out,

we were absolutely right, because once we got down to it and challenged it, that guy

turned out to be a total pushover whom we managed to absolutely obliterate in a

matter of few minutes. All it took to secure our victory over it was a few strikes with

Durandal while I reinforced Sherry with "Plating" as a precaution just in case if some

of the Floor Boss's attacks were somehow able to reach her. Overall, for a Floor of such

a relatively high floor, this was one of our easiest victories up to date.

We then advanced to Vale Labyrinth's ninth floor, which seems to be inhabited by Slow

Rabbits, according to the intel gathering that Sherry has performed in the Explorer's

Guild. Thankfully, at this point all of us have encountered them our fair share of times,

mainly across our many treks through the seventh floor of the Labyrinth of Quratar so

we know both their attack patterns and the speed of their movements, which is just

as their name implies: slow, so I do not think that we are going to have any problems

with dealing with them, even though they are going to be Lv.9 monsters. In ither

words, this floor should be pretty relaxing for us, and it should give us another easy

victory.

"To think that there was actually a time where I thought that Slow Rabbits were scary,

tough opponents. Heh, feels like so long ago now."

The first Slow Rabbit Lv.9 that we came across fell and turned into a puff of green

smoke after I unloaded six "Fireball" Spells into it.

Six shots of "Fireball" in order to bring down one opponent, huh? I knew that

something like that would inevitably happen, but it does not mean that I was not

slightly disappointed. If that one Slow Rabbit was any indication, then it would seem

that if I wanted to fight the enemies on the ninth floors of the Labyrinths with my

magic alone, I would have to prepare myself to fire six Spells to defeat a single one of

them, and that number would only increase in battles where there would be more

than one opponent, so this checks itself out with the general rule of dungeon crawling

in this world: as the number of the floor increases, the monsters that we are going to

encounter in the are going to get progressively stronger, and I know that at one point

the battles that I thought were easy will stop being easy and start giving us trouble, so

we have to take advantage of the easy ones whenever we can now.

"I see that the number of times that you have to shoot your Spells to defeat the enemies

has increased again, but it is not all that different in comparison to the number of times

you had to do it on the lower floors, but I can see that this is not making all that big of

a difference to you and that you can still take the enemies out with it with no problems.

As expected of master, even the enemies that are getting progressively stronger are no

match for you."

When the battle was over, Roxanne offered me her words of praise for my

accomplishment of defeating the Slow Rabbit with Fire Magic alone.

.

"Yeah, you are right. The number of shots that I have to fire with my magic to defeat

the monsters does increase, but for the time being it is nothing that I could not

possibly handle, so there is no need for you or Sherry to worry about a thing. You and

Sherry can both focus on doing your own thing while I will continue to shoot magic at

our enemies until they are burned to cinders, okay? Since the enemies are going to be

even harder to beat the higher we go then fighting against them in the vanguard might

be all the more inconvenient for you, but as long as we continue to do exactly what we

were doing until now, we are going to be just fine."

"Yes, exactly like you said, master. As long as I continue to avoid their attacks, there

will be no problems with them for me."

It is exactly like I told to the girls. The more shots of my magic it is going to take to

bring the monsters down, the longer it is going to take for the battles to get resolved,

and the longer the battle, the bigger the probability of us sustaining unnecessary

injuries, especially Sherry, who does not have the godly dodging ability like Roxanne

does.

Out of all of us, she is the one that I can allow myself to be the least worried about,

because she has already showed that no matter how many enemies there are or how

high their levels actually are, as long as she can still dodge all of them, everything is

going to be fine. Unfortunately, Sherry and I do not have such abilities, so we have to

contend ourselves with defeating the enemies through tried and true conventional

means before they will be able to inflict injuries upon us. Well, I guess that if you really

want to get in on the specifics, then I also do not have all that much to be worried

about since I have Durandal with its "HP Absorption" Skill that can heal my wounds

and recover my missing HP as fast if not faster than the damage can be inflicted upon

me…

Which leaves Sherry as the only problem, because she can neither dodge the enemy's

attacks as good as Roxanne, and she does not have any means to constantly keep

herself healed like I do. And that is why…

"How are you doing, Sherry? Are the monsters from the ninth floor not too big of a

problem for you? Because we can always go back to the lower floors if you need a

breather or you find yourself struggling with keeping up, you know?"

After a few more monster encounters, I asked Sherry that question. Over the course

of these last few battles, she was the one who was aggroing the monsters around the

most, and as a result she was the one who has sustained the highest amount of hits

out of all three of us.

"Thank you for worrying, master, but I feel fine. In fact, I do believe that the battles

here are not too different from the ones on the eighth floor, except for the enemies

being somewhat tougher than the ones from the previous floor."

"Okay, that is good to hear, but how do you feel about the increased number of

monsters per encounter and the fact that they do seem to be attacking more

frequently than before now?"

"As long as I will be able to treat myself with the Medicinal Pills that I have received

from master, then there is going to be no problem and everything is going to be okay.

Uhm, master? Maybe I should not be asking this, but am I... am I being a nuisance

because of how frequently I get hit by the monsters? Because if so, then do not worry,

master! I promise that I am going to do my best to get better at dodging until I am

going to get as good at it as Miss Roxanne is!"

"No, no, no Sherry, you are not a hassle in any way, you have my word, so it is perfectly

okay for you to continue being exactly they way you have been up until now. As long

as you do not feel like you are pushing yourself too hard or that the ninth floor is

something way beyond your current capabilities, then everything is fine."

I hurriedly denied Sherry's worries and her implications that I think of her as

bothersome and problematic. She is simply doing her best with the hand that has been

dealt to her, so blaming her for anything at this point would not only be pointless, but

also needlessly cruel. And while I know that she will most likely never be able to match

Roxanne when it comes to her dodging game (honestly, I do not feel like this is

something that any other person in this world could have pulled off), I do know that

if given time, she will be able to develop her own unique way of handling enemies and

mitigating the amount of damage that she is sustaining from their attacks. She is

absolutely not to be blamed here, the monsters from the ninth floor are. I do not think

any of us could have actually suspected how tough these bastards were going to be

when we got here, but now at least we know what we should be improving and what

se should be working on as a team.

We then decided that this would be enough for the first foray into the Labyrinth of

Vale's ninth floor and decided to call it a day there and go back home. And on the

morning of the next day, we made a decision to go check out the ninth floor of the

Quratar's Labyrinth, but in order to do that, we needed to go clear the eighth floor and

its Floor Boss first, which was not all that hard considering that since the monsters on

the eighth floor were Needlewoods, then it would mean that we would be facing

against Udowood as the Floor Boss. We also have a map of the floors of Quratar's

Labyrinth at our disposal, so the road from the safe room at the beginning of the eighth

floor all the way to the Waiting Room in front of the Boss Room was a short one

without all that many encounters along the way thanks to Roxanne's supreme sense

of smell leading us along the shortest path to our destination.

and since the Floor Boss guy here was basically nothing more than a bigger, thicker

Needlewood on steroids, we did not have too many problems with dispatching it and

advancing to the ninth floor.

"So Sherry, any information on what kind of monsters we can expect to encounter

here?"

I asked Sherry for information as soon as we have emerged in the Safe Room on the

ninth floor.

"The monsters here on the ninth floor should be NT Ants. They are quite big insectoids

whose attacks can inflict poison upon those who will be unfortunate enough to suffer

a hit from their mandibles. Water Magic should be their weakness."

Sherry gave me and Roxanne a proper explanation of NT Ants, their strengths and

weaknesses. Attacks that can inflict poison, huh? Well, I can certainly see these

enemies being quite problematic without proper items to counteract the effects of the

poison, so maybe we should go and buy enough of the anti-poison items and medicine

to have it on us just in case? Also, it looks like this ninth floor is not going to be as

straightforward and easy to overcome as I have hoped it would be, which is admittedly

kind of a bummer.

"Thank you for the information, Sherry. So, Water Magic it is then."

"Yes, that is going to be the best way of fighting against NT Ants."

"Right. So I guess this is going to be our first time fighting against monsters that can

inflict poison, right?"

"Uhm, not necessarily, master. While NT Ants have the effect of poison added to their

attacks, we have already encountered other monsters who also could employ that

tactic."

"Oh yeah? Which monsters were that, exactly?"

"Spi Spiders have a low probability of inflicting poison upon their target with their

attacks, and the Floor Boss of the floors where the Green Caterpillars are the main

enemy, White Caterpillar can also launch Skills that hurl balls of condensed poison at

their prey, and it is a tactic that they usually employ after immobilizing their pray with

the Skill that spits forward their sticky threads first."

They have a tactic like that, huh? I was then reminded of how I was hit with a thread

spit Skill of a regular Green Caterpillar.

.

It is a very good thing that normal Green Caterpillars do not have the poison spit Skill

up their repertoire as well, otherwise I would have probably been pretty much boned

back then. And also…

"I never realized that White Caterpillar would have such complex attack patterns."

"A lot of people do not realize that until it is too late as well, but actually, many

monsters have those kinds of combination Skills, and the higher the floor, the stronger

and increasingly more complex they can get."

Oh, is that so? Then I guess that is all the more reason for us to be especially careful

from now on. It would be pretty bad if we were to happen upon the enemies who

would be spamming those types of combination Skills that would result in all of us

getting caught in them without the ability to do anything to counteract them, and for

this particular floor, it would seem that an anti-poison medicine or pills would be the

best thing for us to obtain, since there is a pretty high possibility that we are going to

be seeing the poison-inflicting enemies on a regular basis here. I thought that we will

not be seeing such a status-inflicting monsters until much later, but apparently we are

just out of luck when it comes to that, eh?

Well, no matter. Now that Sherry informed us which enemies have the probability of

inflicting poison, we can come up with the appropriate strategies to work against

them. When it comes to Spi Spiders, I can always have Roxanne deal with them, since

because of her godly dodging abilities, the probability of her being hit not only by the

poison-inflicting attack, but also any attack at all is extremely low, so she can just

proceed with them how she always did up until this point, and when it comes to the

White Caterpillar's Skill attacks, they can always be cancelled with my Durandal.

"It is amazing that you know so much about monsters thar are using poison, Sherry. I

did not notice it at all until this point."

Roxanne praised Sherry for her extensive knowledge. It is a good thing that I told

Sherry to be gathering intel on the monsters whenever she could find a spare moment.

Now the information that she managed to obtain are really going to come in handy.

"There is nothing for you to be worrying about, Miss Roxanne. Out of all the monsters

on the floors that we have been on so far, NT Ant is the most dangerous monster type

that has status inflicting attacks, to the point where they can be said to be the

representatives of such monsters on the lower floors of the Labyrinths. The scariest

thing about them is that they can inflict poison with their regular attacks, and they

also possess Skills that can do the same."

Damn, so that means that they are doubly as dangerous as I initially thought they are

going to be, huh? Couple that with the fact that the higher the level, the more

frequently the monsters are going to be using the Skill that they have on their disposal,

and you are going to have a truly deadly mixture for yourself. And now that we have

arrived on the ninth floor of the Labyrinths, the enemies are sure to be using their

Skills much more frequently than they did back on the eighth floor or the seventh floor,

and as much as I do not like it, then I guess there is genuinely nothing that I can do

about it other than accepting it and learning to roll with it.

"All right, I am pretty sure that I understand what happens when you get poisoned,

but just to give ourselves a refresher, could you tell me what is going to happen to me

if I get inflicted with it, Sherry?"

"When you get poisoned, the toxins from the venom that has been injected into you

are going to gradually be making you weaker and weaker, until you are eventually

going to die from it."

You are going to die if you allow poison to accumulate in your body for too long? Yup,

that sounds like the poison I know and love from all the other RPG games.

"Understood. And can this poison ailment be cured with the Anti-Poison Pills and AntiPoison Medicine?"

"Yes, these medicines are the primary method of removing poison from your body

without using ailment curing magic or visiting a temple so that they could cleanse it

off of you."

"And after you clear the poison off of yourself, are there any lasting aftereffects of it?"

"Not in the way that you might be thinking, master. However, even after you remove

the poison from your system, it does not change the fact that the damage that it has

inflicted upon you still remains, so in order to get yourself back to full health, it is going

to be necessary for you to use wound-curing medicine or Healing Magic on yourself if

you have access to it."

All right, so even if the poison itself seems to be a pretty serious and troublesome

ailment, then at least the methods of removing it are aplenty and it is not going to be

leaving any effects that are going to be permanently unremovable, which is very good

to hear, even more so since it can be removed with Healing Magic, which is even better,

because with that, there is absolutely no way for me to have any sort of problems with

dealing with it.

"Okay, now let me double check…"

I said while summoning my Item Box and rummaging through its contents for a while,

until I found what I was looking for.

"... right. I have some Anti Poison Pills in the Item Box, so if either one of you ever

gets hurt, be sure to come to me for treatment right away."

"Understood!"

"As you wish, master!"

In order to make the eventual process of removing poison quicker, it might even be

good for me to get the Anti Poison Pills out of the Item Box and place them in my

backpack for a much easier access. Right now Sherry also has her own item Box, so I

was thinking whether or not I should give some to her as well, but in the end I decided

against it, because if she ever wanted to take the Anti Poison pills out of her Item Box,

she would have to recite a full chant for the Item Box first, while I can do it without it,

giving me pretty much instantaneous access to my Item Box's contents... but maybe

I should come up with some kind of contingency plan in case that I will be rendered

immobile and will not be able to give Anti Poison Pills to either Sherry, Roxanne or

myself in time? Not for the battles with the mobs in the Labyrinth, because at this

point we pretty much have all of them covered nicely, but the Floor Bosses might be

another thing entirely. So, with that in mind…

"Sherry, open up your Item Box. I am going to give you some of the Anti Poison Pills

just in case. I hope the need for you to use them will never come, but just in case it

does, I want you to use them in an emergency."

I had Sherry open up her Item Box and handed her a part of the Anti Poison Pills that

I had in my own Item Box. The capacity of Sherry's Item Box is essentially the same as

the one possessed by a Lv.10 Explorer, meaning that it held ten times ten spaces where

the items could be placed, so it should be enough if I gave Sherry ten Anti Poison Pills

in total.

We then proceeded to begin the exploration of the ninth floor with Roxanne acting as

our guide, and the first enemy that we happened upon was our very first NT Ant. I do

not know what it was that I have expected when I heard the name NT Ant, but it turned

out to be a large ant. There was nothing distinguishing about it, really. It was just a

huge-ass regular ant. And when I say huge-ass, I do not mean, like, for example, an ant

the size of a small dog. No, when I say that NT Ant was huge-ass, I meant in in a literal

sense of the word. It was HUGE, and absolutely massive, almost strangely so. It was

that kind of big where we did not even need Roxanne to be telling us beforehand with

her sense of smell that this enemy was around, because both Sherry and I could see it

perfectly way from the distance in the corridor.

.

I thought that this was only going to be a matter of a messed-up perspective, but much

to my displeasure, it turned out that this was not the case, and that this thing really

was that friggin' huge, and the closer we were getting to it, the more uncomfortable it

was making me feel. No, not in the sense that it was creepy, because it really was not.

But it was definitely scary and unsettling, and I did not want to look at it longer than

it was absolutely necessary. Yup, for as long as I was thinking about it as little more

than an oversized beetle, looking at it was reasonably manageable. This is not an ant.

This is a beetle. A big, black, shiny beetle, not a bug and not anything in between…

*sigh* yeah, right as I thought, thinking about it like that is not going to cut it.

That's because soon after I started thinking that this was not a bug, but a beetle

instead, it was not long until my mind began screaming at me that there's no way that

this thing could ever be a beetle, because there was just way too many differences

between the two that my mind could not ignore them, no matter how hard I was trying

to force it to...

Uwaaah, this thing is so disturbing from up close, especially those jagged areas on its

legs that continue to squirm around even as it stands still, and those giant beady eyes

at the sides of its head are not making the situation any better, not by a long shot! Yeah,

this is an ant alright! A big, disturbing, disgusting ant...!

Okay Michio, calm down. It might look disturbing, but other than that, it is just an ant.

Sure, it might be way bigger than the ants that I am so used to seeing, but other than

that it is just a regular ant… that can also poison you if you allow it to get too close, so

you know what? Here is what I am going to do: in order not to let that NT Ant to get

too close to me, I immediately thought about "Water Ball" and used and launched it at

the disgusting critter from afar. A ball of water slowly materialized itself over my head

and then was sent forward through the Labyrinth's cave in order to meet the NT Ant's

ugly head head-on. Throughout all that time that it took it to reach the target, NT Ant

did absolutely nothing in order to dodge it or even try to move to the side. It just stood

there and took that hit, probably because it did not see it coming, or at least that is

what I like to believe. Whatever the case with that may be, the fact remains that the

attack connected with the NT Ant properly, splashing all over it, doing a nice bit of

damage.

Phew, I sure am glad that this magic attack of mine actually worked. I was afraid that

this NT Ant is was going to turn out to be more intelligent than the regular ant and

that it would avoid my attack at the last possible moment, but thankfully nothing of

the sort happened, so I gladly took that as an encouragement to press the attack, so I

launched a second "Water Ball" at it, which also ended up hitting its mark without any

issues.

All of that makes me think that these NT Ants are just the same as any other monsters,

and instead of having some semblance of intelligence and capitalizing on it, they move

while being driven by little more than pure instinct. And honestly, what was I

expecting? After all, this is nothing but an oversized ant, and something is telling me

that NT Ants are not like the warrior ants and are more like worker ants, because if it

was like a warrior ant, then it would have moved in to attack me as soon as that first

"Water Ball" hit it, and if it was a warrior ant, then I definitely would have had a harder

time with it, because fighting something that would be jumping at you all aggressively

while every one of its attacks can poison you is not my ideal scenario of a fight with a

monster.

As we got closer to it, I tried to estimate its total length, and it was something around

one meter a worst, I think? That alone made this monster even more disturbing, which

was a thing that I never thought would be possible, and yet, here we are, so I reacted

in the only way possible: by shooting yet another "Water Ball" at it.

It worked flawlessly this time as well. If it is just going to continue standing there and

taking it without any attempts at fighting back, then so much the better for me I say,

and scoring myself a free and easy kill is never going to be something that you are

going to see me complaining about. I then shot yet another "Water Ball" at the NT Ant,

and this time the damage it sustained finally resulted in me defeating it.

Since Water Magic was this monster's supposed weakness, then it would stand to

reason that by continuously using it against it, I will be able to bring it down faster

than it would have taken me if I was not using the Spells that it was weak against. If I

use the attribute that a given monster is weak to against them, does that mean that I

am dealing double the usual damage to them, or perhaps even more? Anyway, the NT

Ant fell over and died, disappearing in a cloud of green smoke. And once it was gone,

a truly terrifying drop item has been left behind by it: it was a poisonous needle.

And yet, even though it was looking all ominous and venomous and all that kind of

stuff, Sherry still walked up to it and picked it up as if that was the most obvious thing

to do in the world, which made me feel slightly confused. Can she really do that? Is she

going to be okay? Is she not going to get poisoned just by holding onto this item? And

wait, is she... is she heading towards me with that thing?!

"Here you go, master, the Drop Item that the monster left."

"T-Thanks, but… Are you certain that this thing can be touched without any kind of

protective measures? Are you not going to get poisoned just by holding onto it?"

"Oh, so you are actually familiar with the Drop Items that are left behind by NT Ants,

master? I understand why you would be concerned, but fear not, it is perfectly safe to

be keeping the Drop Items from NT Ants in your hand without any protective

equipment, because while these Drop Items are indeed poisonous, they are not going

to be posing any threat to both people and animals alike unless they are going to be

directly ingested into your system by eating them."

So according to Sherry, touching the items that came from the poisonous monsters

that are also poisonous with my hands should be fine as long as I do not decide to eat

them, huh? Well, I am certainly not that crazy to be trying something like that, but I

think that I am going to thoroughly wash my hands more than once when we get back

home from this Labyrinth excursion.

I still had my fair share of reservations, but I ultimately accepted the item from

Sherry's hands and took it into my own, and then it was the time to carefully inspect

what that thing actually was. As it turned out, Poison Needle was a black, conical object

that was about five centimeters long. I also wondered if the tip of it was going to be

sharp like a needle, but much to my surprise, it was not.

"So you are saying that if I wanted to get poisoned by it, I would have to ingest it orally

first? In that case this is the opposite of how it is with snakes and their venom."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, it is."

I heard that even though the venom that snakes use to poison the prey that they sink

their fangs into is usually deadly, it is actually made out of a certain type of protein

that can be properly digested if consumed, and that info would check itself out because

of how snakes hunt. They are doing so by sinking their teeth into the unsuspecting

prey which is then paralyzed and robbed of its ability to run or defend itself, and in

the moment where it is the most defenseless, snakes then devour their prey whole.

.

However, a fact that they actually end up eating something that they have filled with

their own poison literally moments before capturing and devouring it was something

that I never thought about much until now, but now that this has been brought up, I

started ruminating over that particular matter. Yes, snake venom being actually

digestible does make a lot of sense, because if it was not like that, then snakes would

have also been dying from their own poison after eating the prey that they have

previously filled with it to the brim.

However, that is how the snakes of my old world worked, and it is entirely possible

that the snakes of this world can be build a little bit differently, but essentially, if their

primary method of hunting their prey is through the usage of poison, then I think it

would be safe to assume that they are more or less the same as the one that were

present on earth, because the possibility of the snakes from this world being this much

of an alpha predators that they would have two separate kinds of poison: one for the

purpose of hunting and the other for the purpose of protecting themselves from other

predators is extremely unlikely.

"Is that so? I am amazed that you happen to know so much, because that is a really

specific type of knowledge."

"I, on the other hand, am not surprised at all. As expected of master, your knowledge

truly knows no bounds."

Roxanne and Sherry were fawning over how much I knew about snakes and, but the

truth is that this piece of knowledge was really nothing that special. Moreover, In the

modern times where I was originally from, I am pretty sure that something like that

would have immediately been branded as the so called "useless knowledge" that

would not be of use to anyone aside from those who would want to flex their

knowledge of random animal trivia at a party or some other social gathering. And

besides, that one piece of info about snakes was pretty much all that I knew about

them, and that was it. I did not know how to handle poisonous needles or stingers,

and I most certainly did not know how to safely remove the venom from the body of

the bitten victim without making the situation even worse for them as a result, and

that kind of practical knowledge could have been pretty handy on this floor and

against the enemies that we had a chance of encountering, but since I do not know

how to do that, then the best option for me here is to not dig myself an even deeper

grave, because I can already imagine the kind of stares that Sherry would be giving me

if I started to boast that I know how to handle poison and poison needles, only for it

to turn out that I actually know jack shit about it at the most critical moment possible.

So instead of acting like some kinda redneck who stubbornly refuses to stop believing

that he is the center of the entire universe, I decided to play my cards straight here

and ask Sherry about everything that I might have not known about poison, poison

needles and the like in hopes of actually learning something useful about it or the way

of how to use it and utilize it either in fusion or some other fields.

"Sherry, if I may, then would you tell me how exactly there Poison Needles can be

used?"

"Of course, master. It would be my pleasure! So, what do you want to know?"

"Pretty much everything, but let us start from a slightly different angle: can these

Poison Needles be utilized in combat?"

"Yes, they can, and in fact, they can be pretty effective against ordinary monsters, since

if you throw such a Poison Needle at them, then you are going to be able to inflict the

poison status on them quite easily, and I also heard that some of the Adventurers tend

to utilize them in such a way that during the encounter with the Floor Boss they are

throwing them at him to inflict him with poison and only then do they proceed to

engage them in a regular battle, because that method, which has become widely

accepted as one of the basic strategies of monster fighting that has the potential to

make certain Floor Boss encounters much easier and shorter than they could have

been otherwise.

"So Floor Bosses can also be poisoned in the same was as regular enemies can?"

That piece of info really surprised me, because if my knowledge of modern RPG games

has taught me anything, then it would be that most if not downright all of the Bosses

in video games would be resistant, or downright immune to most harmful status

effects, including poison.

"Normally doing something like that would have been relatively difficult, but if all six

members of a full Party would start throwing Poison Needles at the Floor Boss at the

same time, than that would have resulted in a considerable accumulation of poison in

said Floor Boss for sure."

"In other words, poisoning the Floor Boss is definitely possible, but you would need a

considerable amount of Poison Needles being thrown by a full Party of people, so

outside of the probability of inflicting poison upon the Floor Boss has to be relatively

low, correct?"

If we assume that a full Party of six people would start throwing two or three Poison

Needles at the Floor Boss all at once, then that would give us from between twelve to

eighteen stacks of poison and twelve to eighteen chances for that status ailment to

proc in the first place, so if you compare these numbers to the ones that a Party of two

or three people would be doing on it, then those numbers would really be not as

impressive as the ones achieved by the full Party, and I can already guess without even

having to ask Roxanne or Sherry that Poison Needles are going to be quite costly, and

going bankrupt just so that we could poison a Floor Boss is definitely not something

that I would recommend.

"Do these items have any other special uses besides that one we discussed just now?"

"Yes, there is, the one that is used mainly against the kind of monsters from outside of

the Labyrinths that do not attack anyone who just happens to wander into their line

of sight outright, but rather only do so when they are provoked, or if they feel that

their territory has been threatened by trespassers. Now, since the only purpose of the

Poison Needle is to inflict poison onto the target that it has been thrown at, such

monsters are not going to recognize it as an actual attack that would provoke them to

attack the one who threw the Poison Needle at them, and that exploit can give

travelling Explorers and Adventurers the edge they need to defeat such monsters

roaming the wilds even quicker than usual because of the poison that is going to

repeatedly damage them in tandem with the damage from normal attacks that would

then be inflicted."

So, there was actually such a trick that works not only against the monsters in the

Labyrinths, but against the ones in the overworld as well? In tha case, does that not

make this one item kinda strong in various ways?

"Ah! Now that you started talking about it, I remembered that I used to play with that

when I was a little kid."

Roxanne raised an enthusiastic voice at Sherry's commentary. So she used to play with

such a dangerous thing when she was a little kid? Honestly, I… I do not know what I

should be thinking about it.

"You used to play with it, Miss Roxanne?"

"Not often, but there were a few occasions when I had the chance to. Nowadays

though, I think that only aristocrats and wealthy people can afford doing something

like that purely as a hobby, because Poison Needles can be quite expensive after all."

Yeah, that makes sense. After all, Poison Needle is not just a toy or an ordinary

commodity that can be obtained just about from anywhere, but a material from a

dangerous monster obtained by delving into the depths of the Labyrinth, so of course

it would cost a lot of money. If the Guilds buy even something as cheap and common

as Kobold Salt, then something useful like Poison Needle is definitely going to cost a

hefty amount of money, so naturally it would be a huge waste to simply be using these

items as playthings to be throwing at the monsters in the wilds.

.

"You said that you were playing with the Poison Needles on occasion, but how exactly

did you do that since you could not buy them because they are expensive?"

"Uhm… actually, near the place where I used to live there was a place that was

essentially a nest of wild NT Ants, so I was going there to collect the Poison Needles

from those who have died or were killed by other monsters, which always resulted in

me being severely scolded by my family that I should not be going to dangerous places

and should not be doing anything dangerous that might result in me getting hurt or

even worse, and I always had to go to the forest nearby to throw the Poison Needles

that I brought back with me away, but as I was getting older, I started taking those

opportunities to go deeper into the forest where monsters lived so that I could throw

the Poison Needles at them and kill them is such a way…"

Hmm, certainly, for the standpoint of someone young who has never hunted monsters

before in their lives, such an approach makes a lot of sense. However…

"So… You hunted NT Ants outside of the Labyrinth when you were younger? Just like

that?"

"Yes, that is right."

"Even though you knew that you would probably get into a lot of serious trouble if

your family ever found out?"

"I was not afraid of it at the time, or I guess it should be more accurate to say that I

was going to face the eventual consequences when they happened without needlessly

worrying myself over small things. That being said, when I was younger I was

considerably weaker than I am right now, so when I took on a single NT Ant, defeating

it took me as long as few hours of time."

I think that what I just heard were some pretty insane words, but Roxanne spoke them

in a matter-of-factly fashion, almost as if it was not that big of a deal to her. Did I

misheard what she said just now? Or maybe there is something wrong with my sense

of time, or perhaps a few hours in this world are equivalent to only a few seconds of

the time that I knew back on earth?

"Uhm… Roxanne? Do not take this the wrong way, but I think that what you were doing

back when you were younger was very dangerous, not to mention incredibly careless.

Since NT Ants can poison you with their attacks, then what would you have done if

you were attacked and poisoned by it without any option to quickly get rid of the

poison from your system?"

"Dangerous? Why would that be dangerous, master? As long as you are able to dodge

every single attack that comes your way, there is nothing that you could possibly be

afraid of."

As long as you can dodge every single attack that comes your way, huh? Well, I am

sorry to say this to you Roxanne, but what you are talking about is basically impossible

for anyone else but you to pull of.

"Miss Roxanne, you were fighting against monsters as fierce as the ones from the

Labyrinths when you were younger, and you were doing this for hours?! That is

amazing!"

"Is it, really? Because for me it was something perfectly normal, but nevertheless,

thank you for your kind words, Sherry."

Well, I on the other hand, am going to go out on a limb and say that Sherry should not

be digging into this matter too deep, because even though she means Roxanne no

harm with her praises, I am afraid that they might cause her to act is a similarly hotheaded way just because she thinks that her godly dodging abilities are making her

invincible and immune to the attacks of all the monsters out there.

"So, like, what exactly were you doing, Miss Roxanne? You defeated the NT Ant, got its

Poison Needle and used that Poison Needle to go hunt other monsters?"

"Yes."

"And what was that like?! I assume that you were hunting some pretty strong monsters

that could not be hunted through any ordinary means, right?!"

"Of course that I was aiming for the strong monsters, but at the same time I made sure

that they were not too strong for me to handle at that time. It was tough finding a

proper type of monster at first, but after some trial and error I found the one that I

could take on without having to worry that I will not be able to dodge its attacks. And

once I got that figured out, I could hunt them normally without any major issues."

"And what exactly was that monster, if I may ask?"

"It was a Non-R.E.M Golem, another type of monster that happened to inhabit the area

that was relatively near where my family lived. Due to their size and mass heir strikes

could hurt you pretty badly if you allowed them to hit you, but because it was pretty

slow with both its attacks and movements, I had no trouble dealing with it

whatsoever."

This is the first time when I heard the name Non-R.E.M Golem, but just from the

"Golem" Part I can already guess what kind of enemy that must have been, which

brings me to my next question: Roxanne said that she could hunt it normally without

any major issues, but can a strategy where you have to kill a giant, poisonous ant so

that you could grab its Poison Needle and then stab a golem, a being made out of stone,

with it considered something normal? Well, it might not be entirely normal, but from

the perspective of someone who presumably did not have much experience with

fighting monsters, such a strategy really makes sense. After all, if Poison Needle really

poisons anything that it comes into contact with, then just think how devastating the

poison damage is going to be if a single target is going to be attacked with it repeatedly,

over and over again.

"N-Non-R.E.M Golems?! I thought they were supposed to be one of the types of

monsters that would never attack people outside of the Labyrinth! So you are telling

me that they can really do that?!"

"Yes, they can definitely do that."

"But then, would it not be pretty dangerous when that golem was finally able to spot

you? I know that right now Miss Roxanne is superb at dodging the attacks of every

monster that might try to attack you, but in the past surely you were not as good at

dodging as you are now, so the risk of you getting hit by the Golem's fists must have

been that much greater, right?"

"It was dangerous all right, but the thing is: no matter if you attacked it normally, from

a distance or through sneak attacks, when it finally notices that it is being attacked,

you are going to have to dodge its attempts at attacking you anyway, meaning that the

final outcome is going to be the same in every case, so why bother with it?"

No Roxanne, this is where you are wrong. It is actually totally different. Poisoning a

non-active monster and an active monster are completely different situation, because

with inactive monster, you will always have the element of surprise in your favor and

you will most definitely be able to poison such a monster when it is going to be not

expecting any kind of attack to actually come its as it is just minding its own business,

but poisoning an active monster that is presumably going to start charging right at

you with the intent of killing you as soon as it sees you is on a whole other level of

difficulty.

"And what about other monsters? Can they also be found in places where the NonR.E.M Golems usually roam?"

"I can always determine the position of other monsters by their smell, so if there will

ever be a need for that, we will always be ready to launch a successful sneak attack."

"Yeah, I understand that and I know that sneaking up on them would not be the hard

part. What I want to know the most right now is how hard would it be for us to actually

poison such Golem. Would you say that it would be more on an easy side, or perhaps

more on a hard side of the possibility scale?"

"Hmm, let me think… If we could hit it with approximately twenty or so Poison

Needles, then we would definitely ended up poisoning the Non-R.E.M Golem for sure."

.

Sherry asked the most important question here, and Roxanne gave her the answer in

the plainest voice possible.

"Twenty Poison Needles? That is quite a lot. Not to mention that the possibility of us

getting found out and attacked in the meantime is definitely going to be high."

"Yes, definitely, but that is something that should be expected. All you would have to

do then is to continue throwing Poison Needles at the monster while avoiding all of its

attacks."

Continue throwing the Poison Needles while avoiding the attacks of a Golem-type

monster from up close and personal? Again, I feel like this is something that no one

else beside Roxanne would be able to pull off, since she has her godly dodging abilities

and all that.

"Well, poisoning such an enemy would be fine and all, but after you poisoned it, what

were you doing next?"

"That is also quite simple. I would continue to avoid and dodge its attacks until it

would have collapsed due to the accumulation of all the poison damage."

"You… you just dodged? You did not try to attack it in any other way, only avoiding its

attacks the entire time?"

"Yes, Because Non-R.E.M Golem is one of the few opponents against which my attacks

were not working at all, and if I would have been hit with even one of its attacks, it

would have definitely resulted in my instantaneous death. In the worst-case scenario

anyway."

"Worst-case scenario? And what would the best-case scenario be?"

"You would survive the direct hit of the Non-R.E.M Golem's fist and not die instantly,

but the impact would likely be so strong that it would shatter most or all of the bones

in your body, thus resulting in your death soon after, or perhaps the pressure of the

air would crush your internal organs into a bloody paste. That is why I was always

super desperate to dodge every single one of its attacks, because I knew that if I do

not do it, it would be all over for me. But on the bright side, fighting against Non-R.E.M

Golem takes way less time than it did with the NT Ant, because the poison really

helped in bringing things up to speed."

I do not know about you guys, but somehow, Roxanne's words did not convince me or

relieve my worries. At first I thought that she was kidding and was only telling us all

of that in order to illustrate how powerful of an item Poison Needles can really be, but

the serious expression that she had on her face the entire time told me that she was

not kidding at all, and that she meant every last word that she spoke.

Could this be the source of Roxanne's godlike dodging abilities? It has to be. If she was

doing something like that ever since she was a young kid who was "playing" in such a

way, then it would not be all that strange for her body to retain the habits and muscle

memory from those times, allowing her to utilize the moves that she learned through

trial and error...

No, something is telling me that it actually might have been the other way around. She

was probably able to "play" in such a way exactly because she had that kind of evasive

power since a very early age. Did her power to perform evasions and dodges increased

because of that kind of play, or was it possible for her to play around in such a way

precisely because of that evasion power? What came first here, the egg, or the chicken?

Evasive power, or its refinement through frequent battles against the monsters that

Roxanne was playing with?

However, whatever the case may be here, it remains a fact that when I first met

Roxanne, her Level was actually not that high. Maybe it is because the Level of the

monsters found in the overworld is Lv.1, meaning that the value of EXP that can be

gained from them is really small? Or maybe there is a rule that states that you cannot

gain EXP for killing an enemy through the passive means such as poison, and it has to

be done with your own hands in order to actually count? But those are just a few out

of the many more questions that I actually have for Roxanne.

"Roxanne? Were… Were you the only one who was "playing" in such a way, or were

other kids doing the same?"

"I tried to invite them to play with me like that on occasion, but every time I did that

it always ended up in them being scared, and the adults were very angry at me and

they would give me quite the earfuls on top of forbidding me to ever play with other

children in such a dangerous way."

Yeah, they had every right to be angry at you like that, because such a dangerous thing

as throwing Poison Needles at Golems is definitely not something that I would call a

good way for little kids to play.

But knowing that she was unable to rope other kids into playing such dangerous

games together with her also made me kind of relieved, because at least now I am

absolutely sure that there are no more people with Roxanne's level of dodging

incoming attacks. I mean, imagine if pretty much everyone of her friends from back

there learned to do exactly the same thing that she does, simply by the virtue of

hanging around with her and copying her movements when the monsters would start

attacking them. It would definitely be a sight to behold, but the one that would also be

pretty disturbing at that.

When I glanced back at Sherry to see how she was doing, I noticed that her shoulders

were trembling, and that she was literally in tears. Yes, Sherry. There is nothing

shameful in crying. I know perfectly well how you are feeling right now. I placed my

hand on Sherry's shoulder, which was trembling like a small leaf in the wind, and then

we both called out to Roxanne, because there is something that we absolutely have to

say to her, and she needs to hear it from us.

"Roxanne."

"Miss Roxanne."

"Yes? What is it, master? Sherry?"

" "We are glad your family stopped you. Please, do not do that ever again." "

Telling her that right now was like doing her a kindness, because it will be much better

for her to hear something like that form us than from a complete stranger or the

figures of authority if she ever tried to introduce children to the methods of "playing"

that would place them in danger.

Now that we have started exploring the ninth floor of Quratar's Labyrinth in earnest,

we discovered that most of the groups of enemies that we have encountered so far

were either just NT Ants, monsters native to the ninth floor of his Labyrinth, or

Needlewoods from the previous floor, or combinations of these two, which was a

pretty weird and unusual combination, since Needlewoods are resistant to Water

Magic while NT Ants are weak to Water Magic, which made it somewhat difficult for

me to adjust my spells and change them on the fly whenever I had to switch to a

different target.

Up until now I did not really have to pay attention to those things and aside from

testing the other types of magic out I was pretty much using either "Fireball" or "Fire

Storm" all the time, so needless to say, the flow of the battles is not as smooth as I

would have liked it to be, but if there is one good thing to be taken from such a setup,

then it would be the thing that, at least in my opinion, it is good that NT Ants are the

monsters from the ninth floor that have a weakness that I can exploit.

If it was the other way around and the Needlewoods were the monsters from the ninth

floor instead of eighth, then it would have been much harder. But now, when we are

facing a group of three NT Ants and one Needlewood, I can quickly get rid of the ants

with Water Magic and then finish the remaining Needlewood without any issues or

fear of getting myself poisoned in case I would focus on it too much and allowed the

NT Ants to get close to me.

The situation was also the same with the other configuration of three Needlewoods

and one NT Ant, but in that case Water Magic is substituted for Fire Magic, which I use

to dispose of the Needlewoods with "Fire Storms".

.

And once the three Needlewoods are dealt with, I can easily switch back to the Water

Magic and dispatching the remaining NT Ant with "Water Balls". It is quite a bit of

tedious work, but it is certainly better than trying to use only Water Magic that the

Needlewoods are resistant to, which would just be a needless waste of my MP.

In the Labyrinth of Quratar the setting is such that the eighth floor was the place where

Needlewoods were the native monsters, and the ninth floor is the place where NT Ants

are the native monsters, so naturally the probability of NT Ants appearing as the mobs

that we are going to have to break through is going to be much higher than any other

monsters.

And since NT Ants can poison us with every attack they are going to make, then

dealing with them first is the highest priority on our to-do list whenever they appear

as part of the group of monsters that we are currently facing. Thankfully, since they

are weak to Water Magic, all that it takes to defeat a single NT Ant are three shots of

my "Water Ball" Spell, so most of the time I am capable of defeating them without even

allowing them to close in on our location enough for them to get into the melee range,

so with the way that things stand, it is very unlikely that any one of us is going to get

poisoned by the NT Ants anytime soon.

Now that we are on the ninth level, the level of the Needlewoods went up from Lv.8 to

Lv.9, which means that they have more HP and that the battles with them are going to

last a little bit longer than the ones on the eighth floor and that more spells is going to

be needed to bring each individual one down, but since the overall number of battles

is lower than the number of battles that we had to go through on the eighth floor, I am

actually using fewer spells than I was anticipating to be using, which is good from the

standpoint of the conservation of my MP.

It took us a few battles to adjust to the changes in comparison to the previous floor we

have been on, but now I feel that we can fight in quite a smooth way here on the ninth

floor. We then wandered around the ninth floor of Quratar's Labyrinth until the

sunrise, and after we returned back home from the Labyrinth, it was just the perfect

time for us to cook breakfast. And the dish on today's menu was yakisoba…

Okay, maybe not the genuine Japanese yakisoba, but rather the closest thing to

yakisoba that I could have prepared with fried macaroni, sauces, meat and some

vegetables that were cut in as smallest pieces as possible. The process of making it

was not as complicated as you might think.

We just fried Rabbit Meat and the vegetables with olive oil, add in some boiled short

pasta, sprinkled it all with a bit of the cooking wine and then fried it all while adding

just a little bit of fish sauce as a finishing touch before finally taste-testing the entire

thing. I have already made this dish before for our dinner on one particular evening

so I was pretty confident in the outcome, and sure enough, I was definitely not

disappointed with how it turned out in the end.

Taste-wise, it was pretty good, and not a single ingredient tasted like it was out of place

or not in harmony with the others. Oh, and by the way, this world has not only short

pasta, but also the long variant that is typically used in making spaghetti, but there is

one problem with it: I do not know how it happened or why it is like that, but for

whatever reason, this world has no forks in it, so in order to eat this makeshift

Yakisoba, Sherry and Roxanne were skillfully using a combination of wooden knives

and spoons.

As for myself, I do not have to worry about how I am going to eat because I bought a

pair of chopsticks for myself, but then I began to wonder: if I made a classic yakisoba

with long pasta, how would Sherry and Roxanne go about eating it?

Would they just start grabbing the pasta and everything else with their bare hands

then shove all of that into their mouths unceremoniously? Meat and vegetable can

always be eaten by stabbing them with a knife, but eating hot, fried pasta is definitely

not something that I would have liked to see Sherry and Roxanne doing, and that is

exactly why I decided to go with short pasta instead of the long one: so that we could

avoid the bare hands pasta eating scenario. Short pasta is ideal for this kind of world

without forks, because it can be easily scooped with a spoon.

We divided the house chores in the following way: I was in charge of cooking breakfast,

Roxanne was doing laundry and Sherry was doing some minor cleaning around the

entire house.