Cursed Heroine

Chapter 62: The morning after

“LILY!”~Thessa

“Oh, it seems that your aunt finally woke up, Mistress.”~me

“What did you do?”~Scarlet

*THUMP THUMP THUMP*

“You’ll see…”~me

I was busy cooking breakfast in the kitchen with Scarlet sitting off to the side still wearing her pajamas when Thessa had shouted. She then ran into the room still naked looking somewhat exasperated. Well, mostly naked.

“Lily what is this?”~Thessa

“A very pretty collar.”~me(note)

“Yes, I know that much. What is it doing on my neck?!”~Thessa

“You were so heartbroken about the loss of your collar, droning on and on about it, that I decided to gift one to you. I was trying to find the best place to leave it so that you would definitely find it this morning and decided that the most obvious place would be if you were to wake up wearing it.”~me(note)

“PFFT, HAHAHAHAHA. It looks good on you aunt! She has a point. Your constant whining about the collar was starting to get tiresome. HAHAHAHAHA...”~Scarlet

Scarlet doubled over on the floor while laughing. Thessa got red in the face and disappeared back into her room. She only came back out, now also wearing a robe and slippers, when Scarlet called her for breakfast.

“Lily, you’ve had your fun. Can you take this off me now?”~Thessa

“Not gonna. I might consider it, but only after you’ve worn it for a while. Also, have you not realized how beneficial it is for your cultivation? Congratulations on reaching stage five, by the way.”~me(note)

“Wah! I really reached stage five last night and didn’t even notice!”~Thessa

“Congratulations aunt.”~Scarlet

“I suppose I should thank you for last night then? Thank you, Lilia. So what’s next, my adorable little sweetie?”~Thessa

“You dare to mock me?! Just good timing. I’ve had two things on my mind that I wanted to test out. First, let’s see if this works. From now on, you shall address me as Meowstress. That’s an order.”~me(note)

“I.AM.NOT! Calling Meowstress tha…”~Thessa

Based on the fact that she covered her mouth so quickly, written orders do indeed register with the collar’s servitude effect. She definitely meant to say ‘you’ instead. Scarlet is also once again doubled over and rolling on the floor in another fit of laughter. Thessa is glaring at me.

“You can disregard that last order. I just wanted to see if writing orders even worked.”~me(note)

“L-Lily, you said that there were two things. What’s the other one?”~Thessa

Ahh, such a cute response. And that was weirdly satisfying to hear too. Maybe I should order her to use that address when it’s just the two of us?

“I noticed last night that our cultivation speed was about double when dual cultivating and it didn’t use up any crystals. If we both have collars, I want to figure out if that would become four times or not. We’ll experiment tomorrow night.”~me(note)

“Double and without crystals?! No wonder this thing is worth so much. We should wait until we get back to test the four times thing. It would be dangerous to do such things in a dungeon.”~Thessa

“No worries. As a priestess, I can put up wards to keep the monsters away. They will be completely effective until we reach the fortieth floor. Then, it will be necessary to keep watch in addition to the wards. My wards aren’t strong enough to completely block all stage four monsters.”~me(note)

With things settled and breakfast eaten, we went back to the rooms to get our gear on. Scarlet’s armor is HOT! Her pauldrons, grieves, bodice, skirt and boots are all made of black wyvern hide. The boots are especially AWESOME! They’re crotch-high platform heels, but the platform is made up of spikes and the wedge heel narrows as it goes further back becoming blade-like. She can literally cleave a skull in two with a drop kick. They are enchanted to give her the weight reduction effect in order for her to more easily stay balanced. The top of the boots are secured with strong garter straps that hang from the bodice.

Underneath all that she wears a red ultra-thin bodysuit made with her own webbing that’s been specially treated. It was merely a large ball of string before she used her thread manipulator trait to equip it. She can infuse qi into it to strengthen it to the point that most blades can’t penetrate, but the impact still hurts. If she expects the blow, she can concentrate energy in that area and harden it temporarily. The primary ingredient of the solution used to strengthen the webbing, powdered garnet, gives it the red color and the crystalline structure of garnet improves the durability and energy capacity.

Compared to her niece, Thessa’s equipment isn’t all that impressive. It has the appearance of what a traditional back line female adventurer’s leather gear would look like. The main color is a blue that matches her hair with dark blue features.

You might be thinking that their wings should get in the way, but that’s not at all true. Fairykin wings become intangible when glamoured, not just illusioned. Most will glamour their wings or at least the base area of the wings, so that they can easily wear normal clothes without special tailoring.

My gear appeared as we were leaving and Thessa decided to wear a scarf at nearly the same time.

“Order: You are not allowed to hide it. Also, you can’t avoid or refuse to read my notes when I present them to you.”~me(note)

Why should I be the only one? That last bit was an afterthought, but I can see it possibly becoming a necessity.

Thessa begrudgingly took the scarf off and stowed it in her inventory. Plenty of eyes were attracted to our collars causing her cheeks to flush. We will be picking up a fourth person along the way who Thessa had originally planned to go with. A dwarf named Azalea or Az for short. She lives and works as an armorer near the dungeon’s entrance at the center of the city.

When we got close, I could see a girl who’s shorter than me waving to us. She has red hair that’s tied back in twintails and is wearing a full plate mail armor suit. A full-sized shield and large flail mace are sitting beside her.

Super strong loli. Check! Got one right here!

She is however, not an airport-grade loli. Kat once told me very proudly that she had ensured that no female in her world would ever be lacking for such assets. Oddly enough, the conversation had started with me asking about how the statues in her image that I’ve seen all seem to have been exaggerated in certain areas.

“How’s this kid supposed to tank for us and not get thrown around? Can she even keep up with all that weight on her?”~me

“First, don’t ever let her hear you call her ‘kid’. She’s older than both of us combined and hates it when people say that to her.”~Scarlet

“Uh, kind of mute here.”~me

“Don’t write it then! Secondly, she uses lightweight enchants on all her gear. She uses a qi technique to stiffen herself when attacked and has some sort of enchantment on the bottom of her heels that fixes her in place. That particular enchantment was made using a material that stores nearly zero mana, which means it deactivates as soon as she stops feeding mana into it.”~Scarlet

“Okay, that’s pretty impressive.”~me

“Isn’t it! She made the armor that Thessa and I are wearing and even helped me formulate the solution that strengthens the threads.”~Scarlet

“Hey, Az. Ready to go?”~Thessa

“Yeah, but what are you wearing?”~Az

“The armor that you made for me, of course.”~Thessa

“And?”~Az

“...”

Scarlet quickly regaled her with the tale of how she brought home little ol’ me intending to capture, but was beaten to it by her niece. Then, in an ironic twist, she was captured instead in the end. Az took it all in and then just glanced between us for a minute. Then she broke down laughing. Thessa’s complexion became bright red and there were lots of stares even after she decided to cast a noise isolation spell.

Thessa stored the additional gear and we headed for the dungeon once again when Az finally caught her breath. Scarlet continued her story along the way, filling Az in as to the details of what had happened first thing this morning. We had to stop for Az to catch her breath once more when she heard about my meowstress order.

“With your aversion to attention, I would think that you’d be hiding it.”~Az

“I want to, but was ordered not to.”~Thessa

“I’ll feel lonely if it’s just me.”~me(note)

“Maybe I should make some that look the same. That way we can all match?”~Az

“Please don’t. Although you may see it as a fun game. The city guard will think of it as counterfeiting.”~Thessa

“Lily, what are you suddenly thinking that has you emitting such a mischievous feeling?”~Scarlet

“Just that getting a collar for Az to wear could definitely be arranged.”~me

“You have another one, don’t you? If you do, give it to my aunt to use on Az. The one you’re wearing was supposed to be worn by her in the first place.”~Scarlet

“We’ll see…”~me