“Ha-Haru...!”
“What?”
“D-Does it feel good?”
“Oh, yeah. Super good. Nn!”
Bringing my hips down on Chiba, I was thinking of something entirely different.
Maybe what I need is some soul-searching.
It’s been six months since I became a sex worker. I would have been a third-year in high school. There would have been less than a year before graduation. All my friends are probably worried about going to college, club stuff, plastic surgery—moving toward their futures.
Yeah, I need to change too.
Transformation every day. A fresh way of life. I can’t keep doing the same old thing forever. Gotta try something new.
After scraping Chiba’s cum out of my pussy and throwing it away, I went over to where he was lying like a lump.
“Hey, Chiba, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Hm?” For some reason he sat up in a hurry and gulped. “About you being my slave, perhaps?”
“Huh? Dream on. No, something else.”
He poked my boob, and I leaned over him.
“Would you teach me how to adventure or whatever? You can make money exterminating monsters and fighting in the arena, right? Maybe I could do it while I’m free during the day.”
Chiba took his time, letting out a long sigh and frowning. “Koyama, you’re not taking us Innovators seriously.”
Apparently this guy, who had been an “adventurer” just the other day, now called himself by some pretentious class name. It sounded like he was getting carried away, so I glared at him.
“What?”
“W-Well, it makes sense, since you just don’t know what it’s like, but...”
This guy is basically a chicken-shit loser, so when I get aggressive he backs off immediately.
No matter how strong he gets, he’s scared to be glared at by a girl his age. It’s just a conditioned reflex at this point.
“Monsters are super dangerous, though! An amateur can’t just waltz in and fight them.”
“Eh, I’d be fine, wouldn’t I? Even I’ve played Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter before. I borrowed them from my boyfriend.”
“It doesn’t even compare, though. And you can’t even get past the army’s line without registering with the guild and buying a travel pass. And really, only guys can register with the guild.”
“Seriously?”
Male-dominated society.
These assholes are always standing in my way.
“It seems like you forgot how this world works, Haru, so I’ll explain it one more time.” Chiba crossed his arms and got all pedantic.
There’s been a war on for the past few hundred years with the demon lord’s army. They come from Demon Lord Forest, which is near this city. Supposedly the demon lord’s castle, which appears only at night, is located deep in those woods.
The humans have been dispatching troops to subjugate him, but the forest is vast and the monsters come popping out all over the place, so it’s practically impossible to reach the castle; they only ever make it about half-way. Since it’s too hard to get through the boggy forest with its gigantic monsters, traps, and poison, they’ve been fighting a defensive battle for hundreds of years.
Monsters all have their own personalities. Some operate in packs with leaders; other immensely powerful ones wreak solo havoc. Their intelligence levels are all over the place, too. Some are essentially wild animals, while others can speak human language and use magic.
No one knows the demon lord’s aims, but what the monsters have in common is their hostility toward people. They’re enemies of the human race.
The human army generally fights units of the organized monster army, while the adventurers handle the stray ones that cross the line, subjugate the ones that act on instinct (to abduct, rape, and kill people), and venture past the line themselves, into the forest.
It’s a dangerous job, but apparently you can make quite a bit of money by taking on requests to kill certain monsters. Selling the treasures and valuable historical documents found in the mysterious ruins and labyrinths slumbering in Demon Lord Forest can be lucrative, too.
“But sometimes there are women adventurers, right?”
“Those are priestesses with blessings—they’re called ‘Sisters.’ They can use white healing magic.”
“Huh?”
“I guess in this world, for some religious reason or whatever, only women can use healing skills. But just because they can heal doesn’t mean they can fight, so they can’t cross the line unless they pair up with an adventurer, and only women with a partner can register at the guild.”
“So all I have to do is become one of those healer girls, then.”
“Like I said, you’re not taking this seriously. All the girls train from a young age, and only the skilled ones get to be Sisters. Even if you started now, unless you happened to have the perfect skill for it, it’d probably be impossible. Plus, Haru, you didn’t even get a skill, did you?”
“Well, no...but...”
“You’re being too naive. It isn’t that easy to get by in this world. There aren’t very many instances where knowledge from the other world comes in handy, either. You hear lots of stories like that, right? Some common-sense notion or product from the other world doesn’t exist in the new one yet, so the hero makes a killing. Like making soap, or cooking something totally normal that tastes really exotic there.”
“They have way better soap here. The food is good, too.”
In this world they use organic, plant-based soap. It smells super nice and doesn’t leave my hair all coarse. Meat and fish are expensive, but vegetables are insanely cheap and really tasty. You can eat even if you’re poor.