No excuses, other than I fell asleep, so I didn't get to post the chapter until I woke up. Sorry! Also, this is the last translated chapter on my queue, so I’ll be bugging Ridwan for the next one.

Enjoy!

——————–

When we arrived at my house, Maria came answering the door with a cheerful "Welcome back!"

… at least that was what was supposed to happen.

She didn't even finish when she suddenly stopped as she saw Lastiara standing beside me. Maria is clearly shocked. Perhaps realizing that she might be a guest of the house, she immediately fixes herself and welcomed us in with a tone fitting a servant.

Well, after that, we started having dinner together.

The food on the table were stuff made by Maria. They all look good. The ingredients for all this were bought with Maria's own money, so after looking at this, she must have given it everything she had.

But, the food's only enough for two…

So, to avoid having to take food from Maria, I decided to share my food with Lastiara. Even though she's a member of the party, for now she's still a guest of the house. Denying food to a guest is simply impolite.

But why did the room's temperature drop when I gave some food to Lastiara?

Ah… Maria's glaring daggers at me. Even though her mouth is curved to a smile, her eyes are deathly sharp.

Your smile is scaring me, okay?

"Whoa, this is amazing! I've been looking for food from the outside since forever! Ah, it's so warm~ Hey, can I have more?"

Well, at least Lastiara's happy…

Perhaps, for a sheltered daughter like her, food like this is a novelty.

"—Ah! Yes? You're welcome? Right, Maria?"

"Y-yes! Of course, I don't mind…"

Maria too was surprised as she answered. But she still has that scary smile on her… I think she feels threatened by Lastiara for some reason.

"Then, I'm digging in~"

She brings her hands together and continues eating. Taking the opportunity while Lastiara is distracted, Maria comes to me and said:

"Master, if this continues, you won't have any food left to eat. So please, take my share."

"But this was bought with your money, right? I want you to be able to eat. It's fine, I still have some food left over from a previous meal. Don't worry about me and eat."

"… sigh.. I knew you'd say that."

Maria is usually a calm person, but she seems oddly troubled tonight. I do understand, though; she's upset that the food she made for me was taken by Lastiara.

"… As I thought, I'm being a bother, huh?"

"Ah, no! I don't mind! Please, have some more, miss Lastiara."

"Well, you do have a point. Sacrifice between companions shouldn't be a habit. So! Hey, Sieg, let's eat this together! I think bonding between adventurers over meals are important!"

Huh?

"Eh? Wait, by 'eating together' you mean feeding each other?"

"As far as I know, yes! Adventurers do that, right? Exciting, right?! Hey, Sieg, say ahh—"

Lastiara, with a spoonful of food on her hand, reaches towards me, leaning over into quite a dangerous angle. Because of her innocence, or simply childish naivete, she believes that adventurers do those things…?

"Uhm… It'll be rude if I let a guest do that, so let me—"

"Huh? Guest? You're mistaken; I've become your companion as well!"

"Eh? C-companion?"

Maria probably thought that Lastiara is just a guest that's going to stay one night, but the reality is sadly different. In the latter's own words, 'companions are ones who share happiness and sadness together', so she's probably planning on staying for a long, long time.

Considering that this is an excellent opportunity to tell Maria about it, I do exactly that, taking advantage of Lastiara's initiative.

"It's as she said, Maria. Will you be fine with having Lastiara accompany us? I know you two barely know each other right now, but I hope that you two could get along well in the future. Well, of course, as the host, I'll take responsibility."

"Thanks, Sieg!"

"Huh?! Wait a seco—"

Lastiara, seemingly having had a glorious epiphany, stood up and transferred her food back to me. Then she took her chair and placed it beside Maria.

"Okay, let's eat together, little Maria~"

Ah, no! I have to refuse…"

"Aww, don't be shy~ Come, let's eat."

"Eh?!"

Well, problem solved! With this, I can calm myself down and let others (Maria) handle things for me. I hope they can get along.

"Fufufu~ I like this girl! She's so cute! But she's a slave, right? Without a collar, even? Fufufu, ahahaha! This part is so soft~!"

"Uwah, please don't! Ah, don't touch me there!"

Anyway, the increased number of party members will give rise to even more problems. But at least, in the meantime, nothing's really come up. I just need to focus on our task at hand and explore the labyrinth as deep as we can possibly reach.

And so! Despite the commotion happening in front of me, I continue eating my dinner in a refined and elegant manner.

… Lastiara's treating Maria like a pet…

"Oh, that's right, Lastiara. After dinner, would you like to spend the night with Maria? You know, together with a comrade, in the same room, just like those stories? Because you two are girls, there won't be any problems, right?"

"Yeah that's a great idea! Come, Maria~!"

With great delight, Lastiara drags Maria off. I can feel Maria's resignation from the expression on her face. Well with this, I can have some quality time to myself… even though it feels kind of wrong to be living in the same house with two girls.

I let them both be to spend time with each other and head to my own room. There I can spend the remaining of the night practicing my magic until my MP runs out. The most important factor in magic is not how high your stats in it is, but your imagination.

On my hand, there's an ice sculpture. Compared to my previous attempt, this one's much better. I feel like I'm getting better at this.

I don't just practice ice magic, of course. I also practice my forte, dimension magic, too. I use this time to look for different uses for my spells. Compared to ice magic, dimension magic is harder to make sense of. Ice is a real thing in my world, after all, but dimension is something only found within games.

After I'm through with a night of training, I decide it's time to sleep, and so I lie down on my bed to try and get comfortable.

I place my sword down on the ground, but just within arm's reach.

I… can't sleep.

The fact that I don't know what the two of them are doing bothers me.

… Maybe I should go up to their room to check if they're asleep or not. Yeah, just check. Because if they're not asleep yet, they'll surely bother me later when I'm finally sleeping. This will also serve as practice for my dimension magic use, yes.

Huh, they're not in Maria's room. Did they go out?

Using my dimension magic, I manage to locate them inside the house. They're in the bathroom. With the enhanced perception my magic grants, I can see Lastiara's lovely face and Maria's soothing body—

Immediately, I deactivate my magic, shocked by what was in my head. Probably because I couldn't deactivate it in time, or because of my familiarity to this skill, that the imagery in my head's still vivid as if I still have it active.

It was Lastiara holding Maria's body, causing Maria to hold her breath, face flushed.

Ahh, that was embarra.s.sing. And that wasn't all I got, dimension still managed to retrieve even more. Truly, a frightening magic to specialize in.

Maria's body is very slim; something that can be attributed to her youth. Although she didn't have much ability, her body compensated with many other things. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were still developing; already forming a soft bulge on her chest, just enough to make them desirable. Is my increased interest in her because of her being a slave? Or does she have an ability that can attract males or corrupt minds? Well that aside, seeing her frail, developing body like that, it gives me the urge to protect her; to hug her—

And then her lower body, with her slender legs—

—A cute girl with black hair and eyes…

(TL: Nooo Sieg! Don't be that s.l.u.t! Lol)

(ED: You mean "don't be like a s.l.u.t"? Anyway this chapter developed in an unexpected direction lol. Who knew Sieg was so detailed in taking note of a female's body? Something must have been in the food)

Next to her is Lastiara, who's was.h.i.+ng Maria's body with water. Her pale white skin is top cla.s.s. Her posture is great, as well. Up until now, I haven't seen anybody who can compare to her beauty. She hasn't changed any from when we first met. She has smooth, s.h.i.+ny hair and a bewitchingly beautiful face. Her long eyelashes can surely make people fall into delusions about her. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were surprisingly quite large and her legs are slender and beautifully toned. Lastiara has everything every women desire. She's the epitome of beauty.

Ah— enough of that.

I'm close enough to where they are that if I make any noise, I'm sure that they'll hear it. But compared to that, really, my dimension magic is truly fearsome. With it I can collect information about my opponent to such an extent that I could probably even determine how much they weigh. But other than that, I could also determine the status of their body, the flow of magic around them……… the shape of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and b.u.t.tocks… their private area—

"Ahh! Ahhh…! What the f.u.c.k, I— AHHH!!"

(TL: Wut? Wut did you do?)

I'm still just a guy in the middle of p.u.b.erty! Just seeing them in the nude caused my pent-up l.u.s.t to flare up. It made me anxious and I wanted to keep on peeping at them, but at the same time, it's not enough to get me to lose sight of myself, making myself feel guilty.

I run up to my room, jump on the bed and bury my head into the mattress, cursing myself at what I just did. I've never peeped on anybody in my entire life, but just now, just a few minutes ago, I did it. I haven't even seen a woman's body other than my sister's! I've betrayed their expectations of me!

(ED: Other than your sister's? Dude…)

I should have been more careful. It's like I forgot the very first lesson I've learned since coming to this world. Magic is like a knife; it's something that can be used for both good and bad things. I definitely want to use it for something good… but instead I used it for peeping?!

Agh!

But even so, with my feelings of confusion and hate (to myself) going berserk, my skill "???", which serves to protect me from my own emotions, hasn't activated yet.

… Is it because this is something I shouldn't be protected from? "???" you b.a.s.t.a.r.d…

Well, Lastiara's quite okay. She's within that age, after all. But Maria…?

No, no, I shouldn't feel things I should not feel. Nope.

I shouted irritably into my blanket, drowning my voice with the softness of the mattress.

"—Ugh, hahhh…"

—Okay, let's pretend everything that happened a few minutes ago didn't happen.

I didn't see anything. I didn't see anything. I didn't see anything.

Any excuse is fine!

It's okay. I didn't see anything anyway! I didn't see anything! I didn't see anything!

Thinking so calmed me down. "???" didn't protect me, so instead I need to control myself. I managed to do so by chanting a "I didn't see anything" repeatedly, like a curse.

I hear their voices coming out of the bathroom, but just to be sure, I use dimension again to check. The scene of Lastiara catching up to Maria is shown, ending with Lastiara dragging Maria to her bedroom.

(TL: Did you really reflect on yourself?)

(ED: He's a young man in the midst of p.u.b.erty after all~)

Right now, they seem to be having a conversation. They should be going to sleep afterwards.

After some time, they finally go quiet. They should be asleep now. I also deactivate my magic and get ready to go to sleep. A lot of things happened today, so I'm quite exhausted. But I can finally get some much-needed rest now.

A lot of battles have been fought today

(ED: Yeah, he definitely hasn't reflected any)

——————–

ED: Again, this is the last one in my queue. I'll be bugging Ridwan for the next chapter, ofc. But he might be busy? I'll make an announcement on Tuesday if no chapters are done by him at that time.