“L-Ludie?”
“Not Ludie.”
Appearing before me was Ludie indeed, but…
“That’s Queen Ludie, to you,” she said with a sneer.
—Yuika’s Perspective—
Normally, I’d immediately think we needed to go save them right away.
After all, when I’d realized a magic circle had appeared at Ludie’s feet, Takioto protected her and was teleported away.
At the same time, however, part of me thought he’d be fine, so we could just leave him, right?
“Lady Ludivine!”
Unfortunately, however, I lost the ability to say anything like that. Takioto had saved Ludie, but she was teleported away by a second magic circle an instant later.
The two magic circles that whisked them away instantly disappeared. A new spatial magic circle materialized right after, like a substitute. Seeing this, I felt the inside of my heart immediately go cold.
However, in complete contrast to my own inner mental state, Claris was frantic. That came as no surprise. She didn’t know what we knew—about the sheer number of truly bizarre dungeons out there.
“We need to follow after them!”
Claris looked ready to jump right into the magic circle at a moment’s notice.
I, on the other hand, really didn’t want to go. Takioto’s face had that oh, crap look he always wore before we ended up in some god-awful embarrassing dungeon. Nanami seemed pretty convinced of this herself. Ah, well.
“If Ludie’s in there, we really don’t have any choice, do we…?”
It looked like I would just have to steel myself.
“Oh, boy, I can’t wait.”
Observing our reactions and surmising what was going to happen, Yukine said…
“…Come on, then.”
…and stepped onto the magic circle with a wincing smile.
We emerged into what appeared to be a broadcast room.
“Wh-what is this place…?!”
“A broadcast room, by the looks of it.”
Several big monitors. Many different cameras. Microphones set up all over, and a bunch of set lights, too. It was all so awful, I felt bile rising up in my throat.
Claris was deeply unsettled, though it made sense given this was a first for her. I could understand it, though. She must’ve thought that circle was going to lead to another dungeon, only to end up in this dumbass room instead.
Moving as if she was intimately familiar with the place, Nanami walked over and began to manipulate a magic tool of some kind.
I decided to check out our surroundings with Yukine and Claris. Yup, the more we looked, the more it seemed like this was just some random studio somewhere.
“Everyone, there’s a room over here,” Claris said, opening a door and moving into a different room. Yukine and I followed inside after her.
“Clothing and dressers… Is this a warehouse? No wait, there’s a vanity here, too. And a refrigerator?” Yukine commented as she looked over the whole space.
I looked at the outfits hung up in the room and couldn’t hold back my sigh. Just the usual bullshit, I suppose.
Claris hadn’t seemed to notice yet, but it was only a matter of time.
“Why are there all these clothes… Wait, what?”
Claris squinted and took one of the outfits from the clothes rack. She had picked out what appeared to be a school swimsuit. The room had everything from school uniforms, cheerleader outfits, and police uniforms, to succubus and angel costumes, along with regular bathing suits, and almost anything else you could come up with. To top it all off, every last costume was skimpy and sexy.
I pulled out a drawer of a nearby dresser. Inside were sunglasses, wigs, fake glasses with red frames, an octopus tentacle, a split-tipped whip, and animal ears. Now what exactly was all this for, then?
“Oh no, everyone come here quick!!”
Hearing Nanami’s voice, we all quickly headed over to where she was.
She appeared to have successfully activated everything. There was an image displayed on one of the monitors. On it, we saw Takioto and several orcs.
“J-just kill me!”
He was in what was obviously an S&M playroom. Takioto was in the center, bound so that his limbs formed an “X,” while a group of orcs in very creepy outfits all surrounded him.
“Master Takioto!” Claris yelled in panic. “Hngh, let go of him at once! If anything happens, the elf armies of the empire will take your lives!”
“Please calm down, Miss Claris. It seems they cannot hear us on their end. Alas, poor Master! Gah! Those dastardly cowards…!”
Nanami’s words only made Claris panic further. I just knew she was doing this on purpose to screw with Claris.
“Oh, Master Takioto… What are we to do?”
Claris was clearly inexperienced. Uh, actually, it sounded weird when I phrased it like that. She wasn’t accustomed to pervy dungeons. Yeah, actually, no matter how I put it, it was never going to come out great.
Brushing all that aside, I went up to Yukine.
“This looks like a total farce to me. What do you think?” I asked.
“…Takioto does seem to really hate what’s going on, though.”
Yukine didn’t refute that it was a farce.
“I mean, it does seem like a terrible situation to be in. I’m guessing he’ll be subjected to some pretty weird stuff.”
“That said, I’m curious why Ludie isn’t there.”
“Good point. If Ludie had been here on our side of things, I would’ve immediately booked it out of here, but— Wait, the door is opening, and someone’s coming into their room… Is that Ludie?”
The woman on the screen was, without a doubt, Ludie. As for why I had found myself questioning if it really was her or not, that would be because of the S&M dominatrix outfit she had on.
“Lady Ludivine! Lady Ludivine! What a horrible outfit! Lady Ludivine! Can you hear me?!”
“It’s useless, Miss Claris. They cannot hear our voices on their end. Also, having been turned into a bratty bitch once before, I can attest to Miss Ludie likely being under some form of mind control.”
“B-bratty…bitch?”
Claris was all mixed up.
“For the time being, please just think of Miss Ludie as being manipulated. That being said, nrgh, what a cruel fate indeed, to be forced into such dire straits.”
That very moment, the nerdy-looking orc with glasses drew in closer to the display. Though, from Takioto’s side of things, he was coming closer to the camera, actually.
“Well now, I didn’t think we had anyone watching our little broadcast. The connection doesn’t seem good, though. You, patch us through,” the glasses orc said, and the muscular orc began working controls of some kind. Then a green light came on one of the cameras in our room. He must have turned something on over here.
“Yuika?! Everybody?!”
It appeared a video feed of us was being displayed in their room.
“Are you all right, Master?!”
“Still holding out for now.”
Claris stepped forward.
“You damn orcs! Do you have any idea what you’re doing here?!”
One of us was clearly more impassioned than the rest. It made sense, given she was in the dark.
“Heh-heh. Oh, we know all right.”
“Ngh, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I can say one thing for certain: Master Takioto will never yield to you! Unlike you foul orcs, he has a noble heart!”
Uh oh, Takioto’s eyes were going every which way. The words “noble heart” had triggered that reaction. I bet he had a loooong list of reasons why the compliment made him feel awkward.
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that. Do it.”
At the nerdy orc’s words, Ludie swung her whip at Takioto.
“Nhaugh!”
A strange gasp escaped Takioto’s lips.
Claris ground her teeth and glared at the screen.
“Mrgh, you cowards! Come over here and fight fair and square!”
“Yeah, come and get us!” Nanami joined in.
“Skweeh-hee-hee-hee-hee!”
Yikes, the orc’s spittle flew all over Takioto. Oh, and now he was retching. It looked like it reeked, too. Though, I was a bit surprised this was what an orc’s chortle sounded like.
“You ladies wanna save this guy, do you?”
“Of course we do!”
Personally, I was all set… There was a wide gulf between the level of enthusiasm among our team.
“Then I suppose I’ll give you a chance to do so. Get to it,” the nerdy orc said, signaling the muscular orc, who began touching a nearby panel.
“Bwe-hee! Alright then, ladies, look at the other monitor.”
“What other monitor…? Wh-what is this?!”
Claris sounded flabbergasted after looking over to the screen. Displayed there was…
“It looks like all of us on some sort of video-sharing website? There’s something a little odd about it, though.”
Visually, it resembled a video-sharing website, except the video didn’t have a view count. Instead, there was an area that seemed meant for live user comments, along with a weird point display labeled OVERALL RATING POINTS.
“What’s all of this for?! What’re you playing at?!”
Hearing this, the fat orc let out a piggish laugh.
“As you can clearly tell, we are a group of orcs skilled at video broadcasting.”
“Nope, didn’t pick up on that at all.”
Yukine cleanly shut them down. I had assumed they were a comedy group or something. I mean, they all had their characters on lock and everything. “Nerdy glasses orc,” “muscular orc,” “fat orc,” and then there was “horny orc with the cringey eyepatch bandage combo sending the scariest looks at Takioto.”
“If you’re able to stream something more entertaining than what we’re doing, I’ll save your man here.”
The orcs all let out a roaring “skwee-hee-hee-hee.” These guys were dastardly all right.
“Hold on, what about Miss Ludie?”
“This chick? Putting the boy here aside, she’s basically just set dressing. We’ll release her as soon as we’re done,” said the fat orc.