Chapter 416
Aeria herself did not want to admit it, but her movements resembled bugs crawling on a wall. It was embarrassing and shameful, yet she believed there had to be a reason for Davey's actions.
"Princess Aeria..."
Then, it happened. A slightly startled voice echoed, and Aeria slowly lifted her head to see a black-haired boy looking blankly at her. Overwhelmed by a sudden surge of shame and embarrassment, her face flushed bright red.
"What... are you doing?"
Unable to explain her actions, tears welled up in Aeria's eyes.
* * *
When Davey first saw Aeria mimicking his peculiar movements in an attempt to help him, he thought she was cute. Who would abandon their royal demeanor and adopt such an appearance in a situation where they knew nothing, even if they wanted to help? He would certainly bet all his assets on a 'no'.
As she tried to quickly rise with her face blushing red, Aeria got tangled in her arms, failed to stand, and fell. "Gah!"
Davey suppressed a sudden surge of schadenfreude watching Aeria covering her flushed face with both hands, trying to hide it from him. Unlike Illyna, tormenting this particular princess seemed fun, but he was not sure he could handle the aftermath.
Unlike Illyna and Perserque, who would both explode in anger, Aeria seemed like she would just start crying right away.
"Well, that's..."
‘Don't laugh.’
He knew her feelings, it would be wrong to laugh! Suppressing his laughter desperately, Davey...
"Pff..." He burst out laughing anyway. "Kuk... kuh... hahaha!"
Laying down and laughing loudly, Davey drew the attention of Aeria who was also lying down. She jumped up and glared at him with tears welling up in her eyes.
"Please, don't laugh..."
Seeing Aeria’s tear-streaked face and unable to protest, Davey, who had been laughing for a while, eventually got up when she started to sob. He then knelt down, slid his arms under her armpits to help her up, and grinned at her. "You just need to stay still."
"But I have to do something..."
"You don't have to do it yourself."
Davey roughly understood what the trial of this ruin wanted.
"We just need to press, so why would you need to do it yourself?"
[7th Circle]
[Control Gravity]
Woong... Slam!!
The heavy air pressed down, exerting a powerful pressure on the ground. At the same time, panels of different colors in Davey’s vision began to lose their light and turn off. What difference did it make if the things spread all around could substitute his hands and feet?
With a loud sizzling sound, the magic device fully manifested, and the door leading to the next path began to open. Destroying the door could be a good method, but based on his experience, if you carelessly destroy things in such ruins, there was a high chance of losing the target.
* * *
The accursed ruin demanded various trials afterward. There were blade traps with shining blades, and there were hellish traps with red flames flickering.
These trials were all dangerous and complex, but the strategy was surprisingly simple. He blocked the path with a huge safety wall to avoid the blade trap and crossed it, and he forcibly blocked the air in the entire area to prevent the combustion for the hellish fire trap. As a result, it took him only about 30 minutes to reach the final altar, which was very short.
"Wow... It's beautiful..."
The final room was a beautiful one, containing a massive pond. Staring at the pond that sparkled as if studded with stars across its entire surface, Aeria seemed to lick her lips with an unexpected desire.
"Nobody can see us in here," Davey whispered, to which Aeria looked at him with surprise. He then asked, "Do you not wish to wash yourself?"
Since both of them had fallen into this place, neither had had the opportunity to clean properly. Perhaps Davey was right, for without a word, Aeria sniffed her wrist and then her eyes began to well up.
With a sorrowful expression on her face, Aeria said, "I'm... I'm sorry. You must have found my smell unpleasant..."
"Not really," Davey answered. Then, he slowly walked in, stopping to read the inscription on a stone slab in front of the pond. "Sacred is the soul of the dead. Mortal who has reached this place, you have successfully navigated the rooms that test your bravery, rationality, and strategy. All truths lie within the dead. To pay respects to the dead, cleanse your body and mind."
At Davey's murmuring, Aeria's eyes widened, her face flushing red. His words implied that they needed to clean themselves in this place if they wanted to proceed to the next room. And who was the subject? Naturally, it was the intruders, including both Aeria and him.
"Maybe we can just break through," Davey suggested.
[If it were within your power, it could be possible. But it might not be the wisest course of action. You could mess up at the very end.]
"Would it collapse?"
[Most likely, yes. I'm sorry, but even I can't fully understand this place. All I know is that Silver Chime is at the final part of this place.]
Considering the time when Davey had come into being, he could not know any more than this.
"Hmm..."
Without saying a word, Davey dipped his hand into the pond to test the water. It was refreshingly cool, flowing swiftly over his hand and inducing a sense of clarity. This subtle feeling seemed familiar... Ah, this was a natural pond rich in mana. At that realization, Davey's eyes lit up.
"Damn it."
Aeria looked at Davey in surprise as he suddenly rose. She asked, "What's... What's wrong?"
"Let's get in."
This was no ordinary water. It was mana holy water! It was water imbued with the blessing of mana. Simply bathing in it could potentially transform an average person into an expert level mana user. It was said to take hundreds of years to produce enough for a single bottle, so absorbing all the power of this pond might stabilize Davey's currently unstable state. With this realization, there was no reason not to indulge.
A human had a clear limit of mana they could absorb, so both Aeria and Davey would benefit the most from entering the pond together. Finishing his calculation, Davey's eyes shone.
"Come on."
"But... But..."
"It's fine. No need to strip. Just go in as you are."
At Davey's words, Aeria looked terrified, but then took a deep breath. "Alright. I can't just keep relying on you. If there's something I can do, then I will do it!"
With that, she slowly lifted the hem of her dress and cautiously began to step into the pond. The water made her clothes cling fast to her body, revealing her curves, and all Davey could think of was how he had struck gold. So this was how such treasures were concealed.
Considering that this was here... Was it not implying that such a thing would be present in the original world too? This realization excited Davey so much that he quickly turned to the Observer.
'Tell me about every other place as well. Everything.'
[You, you're not seriously...]
“This isn't against the rules of the world, right?”
* * *
Maybe it was because of the cold, but Aeria shivered and huddled up. While bathing would typically involve disrobing to some extent, Davey just strode into the pond until he was in the middle of it.
"Eek!" Aeria let out a cute scream and staggered a bit.
"What's wrong…?"
"Don't look!" she pleaded.
Ignoring Aeria’s startled cry, Davey turned his head only to see her shielding her chest with her hands before plunging herself into the pond. Then, she muttered with a gloomy expression.
No matter what, revealing the curves of her body in front of a man was an unbearable humiliation for her, who had become extremely introverted. She had decided to trust Davey, but it was different from the time she used to blindly believe in him. Some unconscious part of her was still instinctively favoring him, but originally, this would have been an unthinkable act.
In the still silence, Aeria slowly walked up to where Davey was, and they sat back to back in the middle of the pond. The water was about chest-high when they sat down, so they did not submerge.
With Aeria in silence behind him, Davey was experiencing a thrill from the massive amount of mana coming into his body through the sacred mana water. It was likely that Aeria, too, was feeling this phenomenon. She, who had come in with a shy face, seemed to be fascinated by the mysterious feeling brought by the sacred mana water, staring silently at the glowing pond and smiling, forgetting even that Davey was watching her.
"It's amazing..." Aeria said and without another word, she scooped up the water in her hands and, like a cat grooming, she wiped her ears. It was like something a cat or dog would do. But when she, of all people, did it, it looked quite unique.
"Aah, it feels refreshing..." she sighed.
Seeing her strangely cute behavior made Davey feel a strange tremor, as if someone was whispering in his head.
‘Isn't this the chance I’ve been waiting for? Am I going to ignore the feast that has been set before me? Fool! Cast off the hesitation and become a resolute being!’
As if the devil was whispering, Davey slowly buried his head. Such a whisper in a situation where impulses were momentarily controlling his body...
When Davey started to shiver, Aeria cautiously turned her head and her eyes widened. Her gaze fell on his upper body, defined with solid muscles. The water made his clothes cling tightly to him, and with his outer clothes off, his muscles were revealed under the white clothing.
"Ah..." she swallowed instinctively and jerkily turned her head away, moving back from him. "Prince Davey? Are, are you alright?"
She reached out her hand cautiously to him, and Davey, with wide-open eyes, grabbed her wrist. She exclaimed, "Eek!"
"You started this, princess," he responded.
At those words, Aeria’s eyes widened even more, and she blushed, catching the certain desire reflected in his eyes. "D-Don't do this! I, I have someone I...I..."
Suddenly, she stopped. "Huh...?"
She seemed taken aback, not even understanding what she was saying herself. Seeing her reaction, Davey tightened his grip on her wrist even more.
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