After taking multiple random turns, we arrived at the next fairy square. When we parted ways with the Souma party, we had intentionally gone along paths different from the direction pointed by the compass so as to make tracking us that much harder. I guess this should be difficult enough.
“Welp, sorry Soumkun. Reina’s body turned bad after all”
Because of the curse’s effect, as soon as we’d arrived at the square, Reina’s corpse had ceased to move and turned to ash. It’s the same thing that happened in Masaru’s case.
But unlike my best friend, whose corpse-doll went bad after receiving heavy damage from Higuchi, Reina’s was in prime condition.
But it nevertheless crumbled to nothing, which might just have been Reina’s resistance of sorts. Seriously, what a bitch.
“Haaah…”
I heave a deep sigh.
Reaching this safe zone after that mess from before really took a lot out of me. I had a lot to think about, but my head was starting to draw a blank.
I was in an extreme state of fatigue. Physically as well as mentally.
“Kotarou-kun, how are you holding up?”
“Tired… I think I’ll sleep”
I dropped everything I was carrying and plonked down on the soft fairy square grass. I didn’t have the energy to make a spiderweave hammock like usual.
And this happened just as I went to lie down.
“Wha!”
She was hugging me. This incredible softness, this warmth, and this amazing smell. Mei-chan was holding me close to that large chest of hers in a face to face hug.
“Eh, umm, what is it?”
“I’m so sorry… For not staying by your side”
My face was buried in her tig ol’ bitties so I couldn’t exactly see her expression. But I could imagine it well enough.
Mei-chan, she was crying.
“No, it’s all good… You did end up saving me after all”
Her simple act of holding me like this was more than enough. This was my salvation. In heart, in body, in everything.
“I’m so, so glad you’re alive… but still, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Kotarou-kun”
“Heey, you don’t need to apologize”
What matters is that we’re alive.
I’m alive and not in imminent danger anymore. All thanks to Mei-chan. She’s someone who could tip the power-balance between me and Souma Yuuto’s cohorts.
She’s the berserker who had become my ally. I couldn’t even begin to express my gratitude for just that, and yet. And yet, just what cause did she have to apologize?
“It was tough, wasn’t it?”
Sure, it was tough.
“You went through a lot of pain and hardship, didn’t you?”
I did. I suffered and suffered. Almost to the point of death, multiple times.
But what about it? We were all in the same situation, all here, in this merciless isekai dungeon with monsters around every corner. The hardship came as a set.
“Please, Kotarou-kun… Don’t cry”
“Eh”
I’m not crying.
I think.
“I’ll always stay with you. I’ll carry your share of pain and hardship. So please Kotarou-kun, you don’t have to hurt anymore”
“I’m, not… ”
Crying, not particularly hurt either.
“I’ll protect you. Absolutely, no matter what”
I just had to struggle, over and over, only in order to survive.
“Anything and everything you’ve done, I’ll forgive them, I’ll accept you”
Right, I, to survive I…
“Even if God himself won’t forgive you, I will. It’s not your fault Kotarou-kun, you haven’t done anything wrong. So, c’mon, please don’t cry. Please don’t hurt. Please, believe in me”
Aaa, stop, stop it already. If you say it like that, all that stuff I buried deep down, tried to forget, all that shit I desperately tried to ignore –– It’s all coming back.
“It was so painful… so scary… Mei-chan was gone and I, I was alone”
“Mm”
“Rem was there, so I could manage somehow. We even beat a basilisk… But that, was really pushing it”
“Mm”
“But then, I just HAD to end up meeting Higuchi… And I… Ahh, shitshit, I had to do it”
“Mm”
“I met up with others too. This time, we did get along… But it took everything to get there. I had to work hard to get them to trust me. I’m just a Shaman after all, I can’t fight alone”
“Mm”
“I got separated, again. Then met more people… It went to shit. Why couldn’t she think, why couldn’t she understand, seriously, why couldn’t she at least try… She started hating me for no reason”
“Mm”
“I… Killed people”
“Mm”
“I killed Higuchi. Because he killed Masaru”
“Mm”
“I killed Reina. Because she killed Yamajun”
“Mm”
“Was it, was I wrong to do that?”
“Not at all, you did the right thing. Because, thanks to that, you’re here alive now”
“Uuh… ”
“You gave your best to survive, every time. When no one would believe in you, all alone… When you needed their strength, but just being with them only gave you pain, stress, anxiety, misery, and put intense pressure on you”
“U-uuu… ”
“Welcome back, Kotarou-kun. You don’t need to hold it in with me, alright?”
“[Crying intensifies]”
Aaah, Mei-chan’s absolutely right, I’m crying like a bitch.
Wailing, screaming, the tears just keep coming.
But, it’s fine isn’t it? It’s just this once.
Because I’ve finally, finally reunited with the one person I can trust from the bottom of my heart.
“Fuaaaah…”
I cried, went to sleep, woke up, and yawned, loudly.
Y-yeahh, I ended up doing something extremely embarrassing… Didn’t think I’d cry so much in front of Mei-chan. I had zero intention of doing that.
“Haaah~”
No, I’ll admit it. I was broken, to the point where I didn’t even realize it. My heart was messed up from all the piled up stress.
Asuna shoved me out, I missed the teleport, went solo. That was just the first of my troubles.
Versus the basilisk, if Rem didn’t do what she did, I would’ve lost. It really was a close call.
And just my luck, the next person I had to meet happened to be Higuchi. Monsters, they’re scary as a matter of course, but humans, they’re can be a whole other vector of scary. I could feel no emotion the whole time I had to look at that bastard Higuchi’s face.
In the end, Masaru ended up dead, and I succeeded in killing Higuchi. But then, Reina stole my way out. I was already at my physical limits, and then thrown into a situation of complete and utter hopelessness.
But as luck would have it, Randou-san picked me up. Tendou-kun and his gang, with them, it actually turned out pretty well. We had a good relationship going. I can still think of them as allies I can actually trust… But I can’t deny that getting to that point was stressful.
I had to employ my low-tier talking skills to somehow get them to accept me. Depending on what I did, I could’ve ended up as useless trash #2 next to Randou-san. Maybe even left behind to fend for myself.
For better or worse, my fate depended on my own actions. That was certainly an endless source of stress and pressure. That’s what it meant to start at the bottom rung of a party.
Thanks to my diligence, no, probably thanks to the good nature of Randou-san and the other gals, I was eventually accepted as one of them… But that all went to shit, from one moment of leisure. Well, even if I’d been alert, I couldn’t have prevented that Arachne from fishing me up like tuna.
After that, that’s when I met princess Reina and her circle of peasants.
Looking back, this party felt just as shit as Souma Sakura’s harem party. They simply refused to work together in a productive way, just remembering is starting to give me a headache.
So I had to leash them on warm meals, hot baths, and soft bedding. Even Reina couldn’t simply ignore the higher level of civilized life. If they’d actually wanted to work with me, I would’ve given them these amenities anyway, free of charge… The fact that I had to barter for their cooperation just goes to show how untrustworthy they were.
I did end up gaining enough influence to have ordering rights over them, and a vague sense of trust had started to form. But it was still a fragile, limited trust. Without Yamajun, who actually held us together.
What if Souma Yuuto hadn’t popped in after I killed Reina? I would’ve had to lead them through more dungeon. But without Yamajun, I wouldn’t be able to do anything as the party slowly broke apart. I didn’t have the self-confidence. If this party were to face a truly dire situation, I’m not sure we could overcome it.
When it came to that, I would surely leave them and run off on my own again.
But then, a shaman going solo is like, seeing how the challenges of the dungeon kept getting tougher, I could only see a bleak future down that path. Ultimately, for me, allies are a requirement.
“It’s, better this way”
I mean, reuniting with Mei-chan was the best thing that could’ve happened.
Despite my biggest mistake ever, as in, incurring the wrath of Souma Yuuto, being together with Mei-chan again, became my salvation. After all, my heart was cornered enough to warrant wailing like an idiot.
“Doesn’t change that it was embarrassing”
It’s shameful, as a guy. I know Mei-chan is a kind girl, so she wouldn’t shame me for doing something like that… But then, she’d also never see me as a man would she.
Dammit, there’s already Randou-san who treats me like one of her little brothers. Is Mei-chan gonna treat me like a crybaby now? C’mon, where’s my romance flag?
“Kotarou-kun, done changing?”
“Ah, yeah”
I was called by Mei-chan, so I put aside my embarrassment and regret, and tottered out of cover.
I’d gone to sleep right away after I was done crying my fill, so my clothes were still dirty from battle.
Even thought I was that dirty, Mei-chan let me sleep on her lap, without a word. I just can’t believe how much she spoils me. I wonder, what if Mei-chan secretly got the Mommy unique skill?
Anyway, after I calmed down thanks to the sleep, Mei-chan gave me one of her divine smiles and volunteered to do the laundry.
These days, I’d gotten used to cleaning up for myself, but back when it was just the 2 of us, Mei-chan was always proactively doing those chores, and I really helped myself to that kindness of hers. Now, while I do feel a bit reluctant to let her do all the work, my willingness to be spoiled won out, and I indulged once again.
That being the case, I was now changed into my gym clothes. And since she was at it, Mei-chan was also in her own gym uniform, currently washing her own clothes together with ––
“!?”
She was in her jersey. Seeing that, I froze.
“Kotarou-kun, what’s up”
What do you mean what? I’m getting extra eyefuls of your exemplary cleavage there, miss. Wait, is she doing that on purpose? Is this the new trend in girls fashion amongst dungeoneers?
She was wearing our school’s signature deep blue jersey. Its zipper, halfway down. But that’s normal. You see girls wear it like that in gym class all the time.
See, the problem is, she was doing the laundry, meaning, that her undershirt and bra were both not at their designated locations, meaning, that under her jersey she was naked. Boobies, raw, naked boobies, my friends.
And since she happened to undo her zipper halfway in that state, look. You can’t not look, I can’t not look… Ahh, such a divine valley of white. Such, an impactful, explosive sense of eros.
Everyone in class knew Randou-san as the girl with the most bombastic breasts, but Mei-chan, sweet mother of the Lord. If we went by pure centimeters, Mei-chan topped our class, topped the school, heck, I bet she topped the whole town.
And she was actually showing off those ginormous jugs with just me here, meaning… Is she inviting me? Is she really? … No wait, didn’t I just have my face smothered by those naughty knockers? This is insane, my emotions were a mess at the time, and I literally wasn’t aware of my tremendous bliss. I only felt strongly relieved by the sense of being enveloped, and wasn’t in any state of mind to consider their hugeness, their texture, or their sexiness.
Aaah, I’m such a dummy, dumdum, why, WHY didn’t I take the chance to get a good feel. Having stepped into such a land of bliss, no well, I dove face first into it, but anyway, I, don’t, remember, a thing!
No, but, this in itself, is pretty bad too… Now that I’m back to normal, the radiance of her blessed cleavage are poison for my impure eyes. Oi, I’m getting poison damaged here, Venomic Vessel, do your damn job!
Shit, I, I can’t… Her massive mammaries looked taut enough that they would burst out any moment, and my eyes simply refused to budge. This is bad, I won’t be able to make any excuses at this rate.
“M-Mei-chan, urm… Your, uh, zipper, looks a bit low?”
I squeaked out, gathering the vestiges of reason left in me to angle my eyes away, but having them constantly flitting back on target.
“It doesn’t go up more, too tight, you see”
What’s with that sexilicious reason!? You’re only supposed to find that sort of line in hentai.
“I, I see”
“Mm, I kinda feel like they’ve gotten bigger, you know?”
They’re still growing!?
No, wait, they’re not JUST bigger. I can tell, I just know. For I am, the self-proclaimed top titty connoisseur in class, and I claim… That those breasts have transformed into something much greater.
In the beginning, Mei-chan’s out-of-bounds udders simply couldn’t fight the forces of gravity. They sagged quite a bit.
However, thanks to her dungeon diet, and the Blessed Body skill, she now had the proportions to put any bust boasting gravure idol to shame. For her breasts had slowly begun to rise. Like how a space rocket escapes the bounds of gravity, she went from having simply huge tits, to huge rocket tits that stood high and proud.
It was close to the limit before, but presently, even Mei-chan’s one of a kind XXL jersey became no match for her megalithic mountains.
Here I stood witness to something truly fearsome. Mei-chan, she might just be the one to kill me…
“Don’t, mind it too much”
“I’ll, try”
“Erm, well… I guess it’s alright, if you look a little”
Yup, dead. I’m dead now. Goodbye world––
“I mean, well, I’m on the bigger side, so I tend to notice when people stare… But, if it’s Kotarou-kun, it doesn’t really bother me so, I don’t really mind”
“I see, sounds tough”
I spoke, to the breasts.
Excuse me. May I please use the washroom now?