She easily headed across the distorted flooring and approached the enemy. Using shield to repel one of the dryad’s branches, she lifted her sword up high and brought it straight down.
Initially, I thought that this would be enough. However, I had forgotten that Claris had a habit of making careless mistakes.
She generally didn’t mess up in combat, or at least I had never seen her do so. But since this erotic element of this dungeon had made her flustered…
“Kousuke, turn around.”
“Yup, you got it.”
I turned around at Ludie’s behest. Claris had managed to get a hit in, but since the wound wasn’t deep, it wasn’t enough to fell the monster.
In short, it was now naked and powered up.
Though if we were splitting hairs here, the monster’s tentacles covered up their most important parts like steam would do in a bathroom scene, so not everything was on display. With the CG stored in my memory, I could have easily replicated it all for myself, but I got the feeling that doing so would interfere with our dungeon clear, so…
As I listened to the sounds of Ludie and Nanami’s long-rang attacks, a thought came to me.
The Undress skill raised the enemy’s dodge and crit rates, too; perhaps that was because of the user’s naked body being so distracting? I know, I know, it’s a very childish conclusion.
Regardless, I had this strange feeling I was forgetting something very important…
The Undress skill, right? The Undress skill…
Now that I thought about it, after you got that patch, how did you actually learn the skill? Once a character obtained it, they had it forever, and you generally didn’t use it for speedrunning purposes.
Why was that again?
Hmm… It was starting to come back to me. Needing a patch made the requirements steep to begin with, and actually getting the skill in-game was a real pain, since you only had a low chance of learning it whenever you defeated a monster with the ski…… Wait.
Okay, okay, just hang on a second. No need to freak out; I had to stay calm.
The chances of one of the girls learning Undress were so low, someone would have to have some unbelievably good luck, or I supposed in this case, bad luck for that to happen… Though, Yuika might have managed it.
Anyway, there was no way she would hit that small, tiny, miniscule percentage right here. I mean, that would have been ridiculous, right? For some reason, memories of Ivy flashed through my mind.
“All right, I took it down! Hold on, why is my body is glowing?”
Thinking about it a bit further, I remembered that after gaining the skill, an event triggers where the clothes of the person who learns it disappear without them taking any damage. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Right, the event was supposed to teach you how to use the skill. A-ha-ha-ha!
I sort of felt like throwing up here. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
I glanced at Yuika. Her clothes were starting to disappear. Realizing how bad the situation was, I turned back to where I had been looking before, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d still managed to lock eyes with Yuika as her clothes were essentially all gone.
I imagined what was going to happen after this.
Yup, time to run.
“Eeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!”
“Ah what an amazing battle it was. I can remember it all so clearly, as if it happened only moments ago,” Nanami murmured profoundly as she examined the dungeon walls.
“Of course you can remember, it literally just happened. By the way, do me a favor and forget it. Preferably for the rest of your life,” Yuika immediately quipped back at Nanami’s silly comment. The slight red tinge to her cheeks was understandable.
Though, Nanami was right about the battle being amazing, in more ways than one. We had fought against a branch-tentacle monster with its Undress skill at max power. That would’ve never been fit for broadcast. On top of that, Yuika had accidentally gained the Undress skill herself, leading to pure pandemonium.
“If one of those jumps out again… It’ll be, um, tough to tackle,” Yukine chimed in.
Claris, walking next to her, agreed and nodded. Normally, this wouldn’t be nearly enough to wear her down, but right now, she looked totally burnt out.
“Do you think more will show up?”
“Nah, those things are pretty rare, so I don’t think we need to worry too much.”
Save for the rare exceptions like the “Fap to Me Dungeon,” which is filled with enemies possessing the Undress skill and other monsters desperate for attention, it’s generally safe to assume these enemies wouldn’t show up all. Though among esteemed eroge aficionados, myself included, there were those who would fight over and over again to fully fill out their database and CG collection.
There are also male monsters with the Undress skill, and after defeating these, an event triggers where all the woman in the party would share their very suggestive impressions with one another. Iori could also learn this skill. Normally, a guy getting totally naked wouldn’t be okay to show, but well, it was an eroge after all.
While I was reminiscing about the game…
“Master, they’re coming,” Nanami said.
I had sensed the enemy’s presence, too, and I immediately readied my stole.
We battled several times from there, but no other monsters with the Undress skill appeared. Around two hours into our expedition, we finally reached the item I was after.
“Hmm… Looks like there’s treasure over there.”
Nanami sprang into action at Yukine’s comment. She was looking for traps.
“Phew. Besides Master’s perverted proclivities, there doesn’t seem to be any problem.”
“Nanami, his case is terminal, so I would just give up on it.”
“Ah-hah-hah…”
Yuika didn’t really need to agree with Nanami’s silly little joke. Also, Claris? In this situation, a lack of denial was basically agreement, okay?
“Kousuke, let’s just open the treasure chest.”
I nodded at Ludie’s words. I knew that there weren’t any traps, but just for practice, I used my stole to open it up.
Inside we saw…
“Is that a bangle?”
Yuika had correctly identified the item. Once I laid eyes on the jewel attached to the top of it, I became convinced it was the item I was looking for.
“A tree branch bangle. And it’s got a green jewel attached to it.”
Yukine described the item’s appearance to us.
In this dungeon, you could obtain all sorts of elf-exclusive weapons, armor, accessories, and tools. However, if someone asked me what was the most useful out of all of them was, this bangle would have been my answer.
“What is this?”
“It’s an item that increases the growth rate of elf abilities.”
Yuika’s eyes widened in pure disbelief.
“Uhhhh, what?! Does something like that actually exist?!”
It sure did. However, much like the Seed of Possibility, the effects weren’t immediately apparent, and the wearer had to work hard to truly get the most out of it. However, this bangle would prove vital for taking the wearer’s strength to the next level.
“Sure does. No mistaking it, this is what it looks like.”
As I spoke, I turned to Ludie and stared at her meaningfully.
“…Really, are you sure I can have this?” she asked in surprise.
First of all, the only people I knew who could even equip this were Ludie, Anemone, and Claris.
“Well, Claris will probably…”
When I turned to her, Claris went bug-eyed and shook her head so forcefully, it seemed like it would fly off her shoulders. If I was in her position, I probably would have declined the offer, too.
Though, if I had enough of these, I would have liked to give a copy to Anemone and Claris each, but my true feelings on the matter were that since Ludie was more likely to be put in harm’s way in the future, I wanted her to wear it.
If I could do a second or third run, I could get enough for everybody, though.
“…Look, even Claris is telling you to take it.”
Ludie heaved a sigh.
“That’s not what I’m saying. If we sold this, we’d all have a lot of money to go around, right?”
“Oh, is that all?” Yukine chimed in. “Don’t worry about it, Ludie. Yuika, Nanami, and I have all gotten something like this already.”
“Yukine’s right. You’re far more important than any money, Ludie. I agree that Takioto’s got a few, or several, screws lose, but you should just take it.”
“Listen, Ludie didn’t say anything about me being screwy, okay? What’s there to even ‘agree with her’ about?”
“With that, I believe the matter is settled—Nanami is the greatest maid of all time.”
That didn’t settle anything.
“Again with the absur-Nami, geez. Ah well, forget it, at any rate,” I said, before handing Ludie the bangle.
After she slid her arm through it and passed mana into the item while rubbing the jewel, the bangle began tightening around her until it fit her arm perfectly.
Ludie must have felt like something was different, since she quickly excused herself for a moment and cast a few spells.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hmm, how can I describe it? Something feels a bit off. Though, it’s not actually hindering my magic at all…?”
The item was supposed to raise her growth rate; it didn’t actually raise her stats directly. In other words, its purpose was to make the character who equipped it the strongest they could be.
Perhaps Ludie felt as though the bangle was getting in her way precisely because it affected her overall growth. Or maybe, this was fundamentally a different item?
Visually…to be honest, I didn’t really remember what it looks like in the game.
“Well, if you’re not feeling any effects right now, why don’t you try using it a bit more? If anything happens, Takioto here will take full responsibility. Isn’t that right, Takioto?” Yuika said, looking at me with the others.
“I suppose you’re right.”
I had basically given a non-answer, yet for some reason, it convinced Ludie. What sort of “responsibility” were we talking here, seriously?
“In fact, it appears Master is ready to take responsibility right this moment.”
“Right this moment? What are you even talking about?”
When I gave Nanami a retort, Ludie laughed.
“Hee-hee. I guess I don’t have to worry then. Shall we keep on going?”
We all moved deeper into the dungeon and looked for our next treasure.