I'd thought up plenty of excuses, but in the end, decided to honestly apologize. I mean, Mei-chan just wasn't like Souma Sakura or the totem-pole trio who I could play word games on. I trusted her beyond anything, so I didn't want to lie.

“Thank you, Mei-chan”

“That aside, whose are they?”

Wh-what now? If I confessed honestly, I kind of have the feeling that I'd be putting Randou-san's life in grave danger. Like, Mei-chan's serious face super scary. That, ladies and gents, was her berserker face.

Like, oi oi oi, what am I supposed to do here… I could choose my right to keep silent, but there was a limit to that too. I wanted to be honest to Mei-chan, as much as I could. But can I really just tell her basically everything? About how Randou-san's leopard-print panties were simply marvelous, that I used them every night, and couldn't bear to live without this wonderful, 5 star treasure anymore! Could I actually tell her that?

“…”

“I bet, these belong to Randou-san”

“I, I won't fall for leading questions”

Sh-s.h.i.+ts.h.i.+t, she'd deciphered it by size!

It should be mentioned that of the girls in cla.s.s 2-7, whether it be the hotties group including Souma Sakura, or the average to bleh like Nis.h.i.+yamsan, they were all of normal size and build. The only one you could say was clearly plus sized would be Mei-chan.

“She isn't as big as me, but she's pretty big. I can't imagine other girls having this sort of imported lingerie”

“And this is pretty famous brand too. It's very much like Randou-san”

It was a shocking truth, a guy like me would've likely never found out. The next time I use these, I'll be sure to appreciate their splendor to the fullest… There wasn't going to be a next time, was there…

At this stage, I had no hope of covering for Randou-san, and just kept nodding my head like a bobble-head. I'm so sorry Randou-san, I had no idea about the intricacies of high school girl panty culture, and their owner was easily unveiled by Mei-chan.

“Um, Kotarou-kun, don't tell me… You're the type that prefers a girl's underwear more than her body?”

I can't lie to Mei-chan. Yup, truth it is.

“That's right, believe me, I did no such thing as forcing Randou-san to hand over her panties you see. This is what happened, when I got separated from them, Rem was about to go after me, when she'd apparently given this as a parting gift, and well, yeah, Randou-san's the type who'd pull this sort of dirty prank right?”

Good? Really? Hey Mei-chan, are you really thinking that? Is this sort of explanation, that sounds more like an excuse than anything, really ok with you? That kinda makes me worried.

“Alright, so, can I have them?”

“Well you see, having just one pair is a bit…”

“Also, I think this size will fit me pretty well as I am now”

This was the crucial bit! I gave in to her suggestion as fast as I could.

“No no, you should thank Randou-san if anyone”

And yet, these foreign luxury panties had now found another master to call their own, it was a happy day too.

“… Haah, glad that didn't turn into a mess”

It was an insignificant argument that made me feel numb inside, but we'd resolved it. I felt like I had escaped another face off with death, and gotten stronger as a result. I didn't want to try this again. With the incident of Mei-chan discovering the leopard-print panties over with, we did in fact leave that fairy square. We encountered some skeleton troopers, been a long time since I'd seen those guys, and quickly took care of them. I used the bones as parts for remaking Rem. Rem came back, expectedly, in a black skeleton form.

For the time, I handed over her equipment, the sword and spear, as is.

“GAGA!”

“GAGAGA!”

And now, with the old team back together, Mei-chan, Rem and I continued on our path. From here on, we were following the compa.s.s, and going towards the boss room so we could teleport out.

But relaxing was sin. This place was similar to the earlier parts of the dungeon, but it was in fact much deeper here. There might be various unknown traps, or simply super strong monst––

We'd made it to the boss room unbelievably easily. Well, I guess there were times like this too.

I couldn't see the boss itself, must be deep inside.

We'll be entering head on this time. I'll keep an eye on the door, so we can run if it looks too dangerous.

“GOHRRRRR…”

“Kotarou-kun, stand back alright”

Mei-chan gestured ‘got it' behind her, and took a fighting stance.

It had a muscle-bound gorilllike body, a brutal expression on its face and horns sticking out of its head. I'd seen one of these before, so this was without a doubt, a goliath.

“Careful Mei-chan, this guy's pretty strong and also moves fast!”

The monster was coming straight at Mei-chan who was standing closest, bearing it's sharp fangs. It was so fast, I couldn't find the time to send in Blackhair Bind.

“HMPH!!”

When I was thinking, ‘what the', I could see Mei-chan holding her Dark Tower s.h.i.+eld in front of her, and the goliath, sloppily collapsed belly up on the floor.

Then, raising her Night Halberd of Dark Iron, she dealt the finis.h.i.+ng blow to the dazed goliath in one merciless swing.

“Fuuh, that wasn't so bad”

“That was awesome Mei-chan. You're so strong now”

“But, you could beat it without using them right?”

Her smile was too much.

Her high base strength and speed, plus the newly acquired battle arts, plus a few high quality, upgraded weapons, and most importantly, all of the battle experience she's been gathering… She'd, grown so much. And she was still growing, even now.

“I'm glad I am too, Kotarou-kun”

“And look at that, I got my hands on some fine parts here”

So, without further ado.

“Rise from chaos, bind in foul blood, stand on stained earth— Vile Mud Doll”

Oof, using the goliath whole was really draining the mana out of me. But I was all rested up, and hadn't fought once so far, so mana stores should be full. I won't run out from this much.

Almost, almost, there…

With a roar from Rem, black smoke plumed out from the ritualistic hexagon.

The dark gas dissipated, and out came something large and human shaped.

“Wah~, Rem-chan, you got taller”

The new Rem was tall enough to easily surpa.s.s me, closer in height to Mei-chan. She was definitely taller than 170 centimeters.

“Ooh, you've got muscles”

As for how these metallic strands were functioning as muscles… Perhaps the contraction and relaxation was all being managed by mana? I didn't quite get it.

As far as vestigial elements go, she still had a skull as a head, but that now had two horns growing out same as the goliath.

“Rem, you look great… I'm proud of you”

The fact that she now had a s.h.i.+nier new body shouldn't fully be attributed to the goliath parts. Just like Mei-chan, Rem had also grown a lot.

From here on, we could hunt as many goliath tier monsters as we want thanks to Mei-chan. And with stronger parts, I could always further improve Rem.

“Sure”

“Eh, whwhat is it?”

Ahh, I get it. Starting with the thing with Asuna, I had a tendency to incur ma.s.sive problems right after beating a boss. Like meeting Higuchi first thing after a transfer, like getting kidnapped by an arachnee, like Souma Yuuto suddenly popping in… I needed to be extremely careful about the time right after a big fight.

“Thanks. I feel much safer”

Really, thanks so much, for the soft fun-bags all around the back of my head. I, can't I just stay like this… I thought, tasting a little bit of heaven, as the familiar light whisked us away. We arrived at the fairy square safely and without incident. The fact that there being no one from cla.s.s waiting took a load off my shoulders might mean that I was getting pretty anthrophobic these days. Well, considering all my experiences, I suppose I'd have to.

Those experiences tought me that rather than finding reliable friends in arms, I was more likely to chance upon useless burdens, and people who want to straight up kill me.

Mei-chan had a gentle and trusting heart, and on top of that, I'd saved her life, helped her in becoming able to fight, and survived a ton of ordeals together. And making through all that and more together, we'd developed a powerful bond. To look at it another way, if any of that mindset and experience was at all lacking, we wouldn't be trusting each other very deeply.

If girls find out your masturbating habits you're suddenly a prisoner on death row, if multiple girls like the same guy, they start burning with jealousy, sabotaging each other and what not. People generally tend to focus on the negatives. Doubting was much easier to do than having some trust.

Whatever, what mattered now was that there weren't any others from cla.s.s here.

Those Chains as they were, would of course depend on the person. But with my Witch's Cauldron, I could make good food and hot baths, plus, I could provide decent spiderweave bedding too. Those little things together would make for a hard to ignore modic.u.m of luxury in their daily lives. And I already had proof of their effect. They were so good that even that lazy a.s.s Reina had to think hard before wanting to let go. Us kids from well off households would loathe to live without them.

Ok, it's fine and all preparing for people, but right now we needed to focus on the dungeon. We should first check out what's going on in this new zone.

“Woah, this is some place”

“Like, one of those where human civilization had fallen, and they were fighting zombies and stuff?”

Basically, we were looking at a post-apocalyptic cityscape.

Most of the architecture on this place were stone constructs, not unlike the stuff you'd see in medieval Europe. But then, there were also these tall, box shaped buildings that reminded me of office buildings or apartment complexes back in modern j.a.pan.

I didn't know how advanced of a civilization the Astria kingdom was, as they were the only ‘people' we knew of in this world. What I did realize was that the people who built this city must have had tech rivaling that of 21st century Earth. No, we didn't have huge geofronts like this either, so they'd be ranked higher. Well, having a dungeon on this ma.s.sive scale already spoke for itself.

Buildings were crumbling, roads unmaintained, it also lacked any light of the sun, with vegetation, like the stuff I'd seen in the jungle zone, overgrown all over. The city looked as if it was transitioning from a state where the people had gone extinct to one where it was once again being swallowed up by mother nature.

Still, having this sort of vast uninhabited city laid out in front of you really pulls on that adventuring spirit. It got me excited.