Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 3

by Fujino Omori

  I can hear the Goddess Hestia’s voice ringing in my ears, telling me just how wrong this is.

  “Do you seriously think I’d let you take advantage of a defenseless, sleeping girl like this?! I don’t remember raising you to be like that!”

  A shiver suddenly runs down my whole body.

  Now it feels like my body is being pulled by strings, like I’m a puppet. But I feel…strangely normal.

  Yes, the goddess is absolutely right…!

  “If you try and kiss her like this, I’ll never forgive you, Bell! Got that? NEVER!”

  She sounds awfully desperate, and that tone in her voice sends yet another round of cold sweat out of every pore in my body. I try to put more space between us.

  My body shakes back and forth, my progress excruciatingly slow. It’s like two titans of will are fighting for control, and my body is their battlefield.

  The “light” of the goddess and the “darkness” of Gramps clash over and over.

  “Now, get away from her—”

  “The real war starts now!”

  “—Agh. Hey! What do you think you’re—gahh!”

  —The goddess lost!

  Her voice falls silent after a wave of dark energy tipped the scale the other way.

  What space was left between Aiz and I quickly vanishes, our noses touching.

  “……!”

  She’s so beautiful, sleeping peacefully with her eyes closed.

  She’s so close that my eyes can’t focus on one spot. My mind and body are burning just looking at her.

  With Gramps’s hearty laugh filling my head, I rotate my neck so that my lips will touch hers.

  “Wait—just—!”

  “!!”

  I have control over my body!

  My head twitches backward, away from Aiz, as my body rolls away from her.

  My heart is beating at an impossible rhythm; it feels like it’s going to explode. I’m practically lying in a pool of my own sweat.

  My back to Aiz, I can hear Gramps’s sigh of disappointment. Slowly, very slowly, I look back over my shoulder at the girl.

  “……”

  She’s still asleep.

  Her eyes closed just like before, her breath so quiet and delicate that I have to really focus to hear it.

  All the tension suddenly drains out of me.

  …wait?

  With my heart still beating against my ribs, I catch a glimpse of Aiz’s lips mouthing something at me.

  Not “stop”…but “wait.”

  That’s what she’s saying, I’m sure of it.

  I start to think about the meaning of that word when a sudden surge of guilt flows over me. I put my hands on each side of my head in agony. Just what the hell was I about to do… ?!

  AGGGGGHHHHH…I silently scream next to her, thinking about what I was about to do in shame.

  “…Haaa.”

  I lay there for a few more minutes, the shame and guilt radiating out of me.

  I let out a long sigh before putting even more space between us. This won’t happen again. Rolling over onto my back, I stare up at the sky.

  The events of the past few minutes on replay in my mind, I somehow manage to cool off my burning face.

  “……”

  A steady, rhythmic breathing reaches my ears. I’m not even listening for it.

  Should I? Should I not? Promising myself not to repeat what just happened, I slowly turn my head to look at her, my cheek on the cold stone path.

  “……”

  Her face is close—just as close as I remember it from when was lying down before our “practice.”

  The sound of her breath reaches my ears. One lock of her blond hair has fallen over her cheek.

  I’ve seen this somewhere in the Tales of Adventure…Which hero was it?

  Oh yeah, the princess who was cursed to sleep for a hundred years.

  She would only awaken when her hero found her, the princess trapped in eternal sleep.

  The character I read about so long ago and the girl in front of me have so much in common, right down to their breathing rhythm.

  “……”

  I lie there, staring at her peaceful face for a moment before looking away again.

  Looking up at the azure sky, I lift up my left hand, pinch my cheek and give it a little tug.

  Yep, that’s pain.

  It feels like a dream…

  Being next to her like this, spending time alone together like this.

  I put my left hand back down and let myself be drawn in by the sky.

  I let my emotions go, my heart feel like it has finally calmed down.

  Here we are, just two people lying down on top of the city wall, bathed in warm sunlight. I let my eyelids drop and fall into a deep slumber.

  The Orario City Wall was not only strong, it was massive.

  It surrounded the city like a ring. An uneven stone path sat on top of the ring and went all the way around the city.

  Citizens were forbidden to use it, so there was almost never anyone on the path.

  The purpose of the city wall wasn’t to keep things out, but to keep things in. So the inner guard wall of the path was high enough that the path couldn’t be seen from even the tallest buildings. It went without saying that it couldn’t be seen from the ground, either.

  The chances of someone seeing the two of them together was next to nothing.

  No one could spy on their training, let alone catch a glimpse of them.

  It was safe to say that Aiz’s plan to train Bell here, in order to avoid an issue between their Familias, had gone very well up to this point.

  “My goodness, you’re in plain sight up here.”

  There was however, a place from where their training could be seen: the highest room of the tallest tower in Orario—Babel.

  Sitting in a fancy chair facing the glass wall of her own room, Freya watched their training with interest.

  Even with the high guard wall, Freya’s room was high enough that she could see over it, and watch to her heart’s content.

  “That girl’s soul…the Kenki is blinding…”

  Freya was on the fiftieth floor of Babel Tower, in the middle of the city. The distance between her and the humans was much too far to see, but Freya’s eyes were different. She could clearly see their souls shining on top of the wall.

  Her Acumen Eyes allowed her to see the quality of any person’s soul by color. She had those eyes on a clear, colorless, glowing spirit and an extremely bright, golden pyre of a soul. There was no way her eyes could have missed them.

  She noticed them training beyond the early morning hours, and had been watching their training session all day.

  “And yet…things are getting interesting.”

  A small smile formed on her lips as Freya ran her fingers through her silver hair and behind her ear.

  As her disciple set the stage far below in the Dungeon, the star of the show was receiving training from that female warrior, as her student.

  It would be the monster trained by Ottar against the human boy trained by the Kenki.

  Freya’s heart was alive with excitement as she thought about this turn of events. It could turn out far more interesting than she had ever thought possible.

  “……”

  Her silver eyes fell on the two humans for a moment.

  They were lying down, as if they’d fallen asleep. Freya watched their souls glow with a smile on her face. Tap, tap, tap. Her fingers restlessly hit the armrest of her chair over and over.

  Then her other hand came up and started fiddling with her hair, wrapping it around her fingers. That’s when she suddenly stopped moving.

  She’d finally noticed what she was doing. She grimaced and lightly laughed at herself and whispered under her breath.

  “Ahh, so now I’m jealous, of her…”

  I can hardly believe this, she thought, as she had another laugh.

  For a god such as her to feel that way about a child wa
s absolutely absurd, and she laughed at herself for it.

  It was how she felt when Hestia and the boy were together. But this time, the feeling was much stronger.

  The fact that this golden pyre was shaping the clear light was a little—just a little—off-putting for her.

  A small bud of jealousy was starting to bloom in her substantial chest.

  “…This is irritating,” she whispered under her breath. She sat up in her chair and looked out the top of her glass window into the clouds.

  A few moments passed.

  She closed her eyes before opening them just slightly…and filled the room with her exquisite laugh.

  “I wonder, just how strong are you now?”

  Settling back into her chair, Freya’s eyes once again fell on the boy.

  Her gaze was filled with an urge to tease him—and something a bit more vicious: jealousy.

  Maybe it’s time to have some more fun with him, she thought with a dark smile gracing her lips.

  A sadistic grin reflected off the inside of the long glass wall of her room in Babel Tower.

  Following the long corridors and steep stairwells inside Orario’s City Wall, we finally arrive at the door that leads to the city and open it.

  The heavy wooden door creaks as it swings to the side, to reveal a back alley cloaked in shadow.

  The alleyway itself is strewn with dirty, wooden boxes, piles of old building material, and scrap metal. It looks like someone was using this spot as a storage area and forgot about it, as well as the door in the city wall. Aiz and I make our way through the bric-a-brac and into the maze of backstreets.

  We continued training after waking from a surprisingly refreshing nap, before making our way down here in the late afternoon.

  “A-Aiz, don’t worry about it. It was an accident, anyway……”

  “It’s not a problem. My stomach is empty, too.”

  …In the middle of a flurry of swift attacks, you see, my eyes following only the shadows of her movements, my stomach decided to…speak up.

  Aiz saw me blush out of embarrassment and suggested getting a light snack. That’s why we’re here now.

  I know I only ate breakfast today, just still…ugh…

  Holding back tears of shame, I follow Aiz with my shoulders down around my ribs somewhere.

  The unguarded door that Aiz found to the normally restricted city wall was on the outer edge of northeastern Orario. After turning many tight corners in the alleyway, we come out into one of the wider backstreets, close enough to Main Street to hear people busily going about their business.

  This spot is filled with houses and lined with fancy, pole-shaped magic-stone lamps. This is all new to me. My head on a swivel, I take in as much as I can.

  “Can I ask where we’re going?”

  “North Main. Tiona told me about a potato puffs stand over there.”

  That’s her answer. Tiona…must be another member of Loki Familia.

  Right now, Aiz and I are going through the backstreets because we can avoid being seen. And while it’s great that we’re being so cautious, something else is making me nervous being alone with Aiz right now.

  Potato puffs…I know that from somewhere. Why do I have a bad feeling about this?

  My ears pick up on the hustle and bustle of Main Street. We’re here.

  The sun is still in the sky, but very close to setting. The sky is starting to turn red. North Main is alive with elves, dwarves, and demi-humans of all races heading home after work. We really stick out, being in armor and all…Wait, it’s not me. They’re looking at Aiz. I try to make myself as small as possible as we make our way through the gawking crowd.

  Aiz isn’t paying them any attention; her eyes are scanning the buildings. She must have found what she was looking for because she suddenly turns into a side street.

  It’s not too wide, maybe one of those horse-drawn taxis could fit through, but that’s about it. I take a few steps down the street, and there it is. A street stall selling potato puffs.

  —But my body freezes as it hits me.

  “Welcome to our…stand?”

  A clerk greets us as Aiz pulls back the cloth “door” to reveal…the goddess. Time stands still.

  The goddess’s face is stuck somewhere between a welcoming smile and a look of wide-eyed shock.

  Reflected in her gaze are Aiz…and me, standing right next to her.

  Suddenly, my face is blue.

  “……”

  “……”

  “Two sweet-bean potato puffs, please.”

  Aiz happily orders potato puffs as the goddess and I stand like statues next to her.

  The “clerk” slowly starts to move, putting two fresh puffs with frosting on them into a bag and saying, “That’s eighty vals,” as she holds out the bag. Aiz sets the money on the counter, says, “Thank you,” and takes the food out of the goddess’s frozen hand.

  The clerk suddenly loses her composure, and all the muscles in her face twitch as she runs out from behind the counter and in front of us.

  Meanwhile, I’m experiencing an avalanche of cold sweat running down my back.

  “—WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOINGGGGGGG?!”

  “S-S-S-SO-SO-SO-SORRY!”

  In front of the goddess’s blaze of emotion, all I can do is scream my apology at the top of my lungs.

  I never told her about my training sessions with Aiz.

  By and large, it’s not good to have connections with someone in another Familia. I know that my goddess isn’t on good terms with Aiz’s goddess, Loki. And then there’s the fact that the goddess really doesn’t like Aiz herself, either…

  I knew that she wouldn’t allow me to train with Aiz if I told her, so I accepted the risk that something like this might happen, and kept it a secret.

  “Walking around, alone, with the Kenki?! What’s gotten into you, Bell?!”

  “Th-there’s a reason for this, s-so…!”

  “No excuses! Spill it, now! …Get away from her! GET!!”

  The goddess’s voice shrieks as she practically dives between Aiz and me.

  Aiz looks slightly troubled as she glances down at the goddess, who was looking up at her like an enemy while creating a physical barrier.

  “Explain! Why are you with the Kenki?!”

  “Eh, um, you see, we just happened to bump into each other… ?!”

  “…NO ONE CAN LIE TO A GOD!!”

  She spins to face me, throwing up her arms and screaming, “UGAAAHH!!!” I shrivel up into a little ball, tears leaking out of my eyes.

  Her jet black twin ponytails seem to come alive, smacking me in the face as the goddess shakes with anger.

  She’s passing judgment on me for my little white lie that was supposed to comfort her!

  “Um…I’m teaching him, how to fight.”

  Aiz, who had been silently watching this unfold, speaks for the first time.

  It must have been really hard to watch. She tells the truth right away, trying to protect me.

  The goddess’s neck snaps around, eyes blazing as she looks back at Aiz. The moment she understands what the girl had said, the goddess’s shoulders start shaking violently.

  “Bell, you haven’t by any chance shown her your status, have you?”

  “Of course I haven’t. Why would there be any reason to?”

  “So that means that your growth speed hasn’t been noticed… ?!”

  I couldn’t really make out what she said there, but I can see her staring down (or up, in this case) Aiz like she was her sworn enemy.

  Without warning, the goddess wraps her arms around my chest.

  Wha-what’s going on here?!

  “You’re trying to claim my Bell for your own, aren’t you! I won’t let that happen. I was with him first, no matter what you say!”

  “G-Goddess, what are you doing?!”

  “Wha…Waaaah?! B-Bell, why are you acting so bold?!”

  ME?!

  “Oh, Hestia darling, you’r
e making a scene. I can’t sell anything like this. If you’re going to quarrel, take it out back, would you please!”

  “Ah! S-sorry, Gram! You two, you’re coming with me!”

  An older animal person scolds the goddess from behind the counter. The goddess then glares at both Aiz and me in turn, before flicking her wrist and pointing outside the stand.

  I’m spent; I feel like a shell of my usual self. But the goddess grabs my wrist and pulls my listless body out into the street. Aiz follows quietly without saying anything.

  The goddess guides us behind the stand and around a few corners to a narrow backstreet. I don’t think anyone has set foot back here in a while…

  We stand in silence for a moment, the three of us in a loose circle.

  “…Hmmm. First off, I want to know everything about what’s been going on.”

  I’m so glad that she managed to cool off a bit. Gathering my thoughts, I apologize again for keeping her out of the loop and tell her everything that’s happened, starting with our chance meeting at the Guild.

  Every few sentences, I make sure to get an affirmative nod from Aiz before continuing.

  The goddess listens to my explanation with her arms folded across her chest, before nodding her head a few times when I finish.

  “…All right, I see. And it’s time that the two of you call it quits.”

  “Wha… ?!”

  “Is this bad… ?”

  “Yes, Miss Wallensomething. Never come near my Bell again. You have your own place, right? And considering your Familia’s goddess, I think this is the best—mmphmphfl?!”

  I’m mentally on all fours, bowing down and begging for forgiveness, as I reach out and cover the goddess’s mouth with my hand.

  “Please, Goddess. Just a little bit more. I beg you to let me continue training with Aiz for just a little longer.”

  “…… ?”

  Aiz tilts her head as I turn the goddess away from her, and lean in close to speak with her quietly.

  “A little longer, why would you ask?…!”

  “Just two more days! That’s all! That’s all that she said she’d work with me!”

  I explain that she’ll leave for an “expedition” with Loki Familia in three days and bow my head over and over, hoping that she’ll give me permission.

  I tell her from the bottom of my heart that I need to learn as much as I can from Aiz in this short amount of time.