Hiss—
Who, who the heck would ever choose to beat the war drum?!
Faced with her nemesis’s absurd two-option ultimatum, Keti’s mouth twitched uncontrollably for a moment, but immediately after, she chose—without the slightest hesitation—the one she could still barely accept…
“Head… head pats, I choose head pats!”
The silver-haired beauty bit her lip, her face flushing red as she shouted, while Lynn gave a mischievous grin at that moment, cocking his head as he said:
“Oh~? Then… strike a cute catgirl pose, and say to me, ‘Master, please pat the little kitty’s head, I love it when Master pats my head~’, and meow for me~ Best do it before I change my mind and make the reward the war drum again…”
“Gr…”
How, how could I possibly say something like that?! That’s… that’s way too embarrassing!
Deep inside, Keti’s heart was trembling.
She seemed to realize her nemesis’s trick…
This—this is that so-called window principle, right?
Using the war drum, which she absolutely couldn’t accept, as a threat to make her actively choose the relatively less embarrassing head pat.
This guy, grrr…
Getting completely played by her enemy, and in such a mortifying pose, no less.
“Pa—!”
A moment later, seeing the hesitant girl, Lynn smirked and reached out, gently patting the girl’s small war drum, urging her along~
He said: “Hurry up, or…I’ll count it as you picking the second option~!”
“Ahh—”
The silver-haired beauty shuddered all over, and after a long pause, finally looked up, her face burning with shame, and opened her mouth with difficulty…
“Meow~ meow~ ooh…Master, please pat the little kitty’s head, I love it when Master pats my head, meow~ meow~”
“Mm…not bad, not bad~”
Lynn tried hard to suppress his laughter, reaching out to gently stroke the girl’s head. Watching her cheeks turn an even deeper red, he then upped the ante.
“Mm…add some actions, you’re way too stiff~”
“Ugh…W-Why do you have so many demands, meow~”
Keti, trembling all over, raised both hands and placed them in front of her face, posing like a cat’s paws.
Her mind was inexplicably excited, her body even feeling a little feverish.
She stuck out her cute, pink tongue, and then…
If…
Behind the sofa, at another dining table, Alice, Layla, and Sylvia were wolfing down their food.
None of the three girls were acting ladylike at all today—they were just too hungry and desperately needed energy.
At first, no one said anything…
Then, because the atmosphere was so quiet, they vaguely seemed to hear some cat meowing?
Sitting with her back to Keti, Alice couldn’t see what was happening behind her.
She even turned her head to look for a kitten somewhere.
Ahem…come to think of it, Alice was a total cat lover, but after looking around and finding nothing, she just let it go.
After a while, Layla was the first to cough twice, breaking the silence at the table.
From the moment they entered the dining hall, the purple-haired jellyfish-cut nun had been brooding, pondering the conversations she’d overheard from the passersby earlier.
After a moment, she sighed again…
Seeing that everyone had almost finished eating, Layla decided to bring up the topic herself.
Though it would spoil the current good mood a bit, some things had to be faced.
It was better to talk it out now, while everything was still fresh in everyone’s minds.
“About what happened today, I think we should take this chance, while everything is still clear, to review what went down.”
“Actually…from our previous intel, the Ancient Behemoth Augujadel wasn’t even as strong as some of the Bosses we’ve beaten before, but today…the situation really got dangerous.”
“If it weren’t for Sylvia’s Transfer Magic, we might not have made it out.”
Bringing up this heavy topic, Alice’s expression immediately darkened…
But she didn’t stop the conversation, just listened quietly as Layla continued:
“Ahem, of course, a single defeat isn’t really scary. But if there’s a problem and we don’t fix it, next time, no one can guarantee we’ll be lucky again.”
“After all, we still need to keep teaming up to do quests, or else we’ll run out of funds…So, I hope everyone can now, from your own perspective, talk about why fighting Augujadel felt so tough today, and what problems you ran into.”
“Don’t hold anything back—bring up any tricky parts so we can solve them…We’re definitely going to have to fight that Boss again!”
With that, the purple-haired jellyfish-cut big sister took a deep breath and started with herself.
“I’ll go first. For me…my casting speed for healing Magic was noticeably slower than usual. Even though Sylvia was covering me, I just couldn’t finish High-Tier Healing Magic in time…”
“If I could’ve revived Alice and pinned down the Boss then, we wouldn’t have fallen into such a disadvantage…”
“Mm… that’s because we didn’t have Keti’s Spell Speed Booster this time…”
After listening to Layla’s analysis, Sylvia—unusually talkative today—slowly took off her eyepatch, rubbing her eyes with a downcast expression.
“Actually, I felt the same. When I cast Defensive Magic, the Mana consumption was clearly much higher than usual, so the Shield I made wasn’t as strong. Thinking back, it’s because Keti would usually bring Mana Reduction Potions, so I never had to worry about my Mana reserves. This time, without Keti…”
“How…how can that be?”
Hearing Sylvia’s conclusion, Alice immediately voiced her doubt.
Why…did it sound like their whole team depended on Keti?
That didn’t match Alice’s impression at all!
“No way…”
After a while, the twin-tailed blonde girl pouted and looked down, a little dissatisfied.
“Keti’s Potions help a bit, sure, but… it’s not like we can’t function without them, right? Our usual strength is obvious to everyone, it’s not like we can’t perform at all without Keti’s Potions.”
“How could the problem just be that he wasn’t there?”
“No…actually, the impact is huge.”
Sylvia put her eyepatch back on and continued in a flat tone:
“True, the Potions only offer a limited boost, but…Keti’s tools are more than that. For example, today, Augujadel’s body could absorb Magic.”
“If Keti were here, maybe he could’ve used his Chemistry Tools to break its armor. That’s how we dealt with the Stone Elemental before…But now, we’re basically out of options.”
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