Madam, believe me, how can I be a minotaur?

Before today, Makoto Asano would have preferred to live a simple, carefree life forever.

But now, looking at Eriko Miyajima's worried face in front of him, he suddenly changed his mind.

After thinking for a moment, he said to Eriko Miyajima in a slightly embarrassed tone, "Miss Miyajima, thank you, I'm much better now, but... um, could I trouble you to get me another glass of hot water?"

Hearing this, Eriko Miyajima immediately nodded and left the room, taking the water glass from the bedside table to boil water for Makoto Asano.

Actually, there was water in that glass, but it was the water she poured when Makoto Asano fainted earlier, and it should be a little cold now.

Seeing Eriko Miyajima leave the room and close the door, Makoto Asano quickly opened the system and took out a bottle of drink from it.

This was a single stamina potion issued by the system after completing the Yuna Kamino mission last time, and it looks like an ordinary soda can from the outside.

As the name suggests, stamina potions are used to restore stamina.

The system's description is more detailed. This thing can restore the body to its best condition after overwork, and it is no problem to fight another round.

Although Makoto Asano felt that this thing should be used at other critical moments, it is not impossible to use it now since it can restore the body's condition.

Makoto Asano did not hesitate, directly opened the can and drank it all in one breath. The potion had no taste, a bit like boiled water, but slightly sweet.

After drinking it, he threw the can into the trash can. Before he could carefully feel the changes in his body, the closed door opened again—Eriko Miyajima was back with the water.

Chapter 26: Eriko Miyajima's Water

Makoto Asano took the water glass and tasted it. It was warm.

Eriko Miyajima was very careful. To prevent him from being scalded, she specially mixed the boiling water with cold water to make it warm.

After testing the water temperature, Makoto Asano completely let go of his worries and drank it in big gulps.

Although he had just drunk the health potion, he still drank all the water in the glass in one breath. After all, he hadn't had water from night until now, and he was really thirsty.

"Mr. Asano, drink slowly, don't choke."

Eriko Miyajima's worried voice came from his ear, and Makoto Asano also put down the empty water glass and breathed a sigh of relief: "It's okay, I'm much better now, Miss Eriko's water is really amazing."

"How could it be? Mr. Asano is too exaggerated... Huh? Really, your complexion is really much better."

Seeing Makoto Asano's originally pale face turn rosy at a speed visible to the naked eye, Eriko Miyajima was also surprised. She didn't expect her water to be so useful.

However, seeing that Makoto Asano was indeed much better, her originally nervous heart also relaxed.

At this time, Makoto Asano scratched his head with an embarrassed look and asked, "Um, Miss Miyajima, can I ask what happened? Why did I faint? Why is Miss Miyajima at my house? I still haven't figured anything out."

Hearing this, Eriko Miyajima nodded and explained with a look of fear.

After the explanation, Makoto Asano also roughly knew what was going on.

In fact, Eriko Miyajima didn't know why Makoto Asano fainted, just because Makoto Asano had asked her to come to do housework today yesterday morning, so she came as scheduled at 9:30 in the morning.

And when she knocked on the door, she found that the door was not closed, and it opened with a light knock, so she noticed Makoto Asano, who was pale and lying in the entrance.

Although she was taken aback, she quickly reacted and immediately bent down to simply check Makoto Asano's condition.

Fortunately, he was still breathing, not completely dead, but his body and forehead were very hot, probably he had a fever.

Seeing that he was not in any major trouble, Eriko Miyajima breathed a sigh of relief, and then tried her best to drag him back to the bedroom and put him on the bed.

During this time, Eriko Miyajima took care of him and simply cleaned up the kitchen, so that she could make something for him to eat when he woke up.

Makoto Asano listened to Eriko Miyajima's explanation, his expression becoming more and more embarrassed, and he felt a little guilty in his heart.

Because he had been living alone before, Makoto Asano never bothered others, and he always carried everything on his own. Even when he was sick, he would lie in bed and endure it alone.

He didn't expect that he would be taken care of to such an extent this time, and it was still by his target.

At the thought of his weak appearance being exposed in front of Eriko Miyajima, he felt a little ashamed, and even wanted to lie down immediately and bury his head in the quilt.

But Makoto Asano did not forget the most basic politeness. He scratched his head with a red face and sincerely thanked Eriko Miyajima: "Miss Miyajima, thank you so much. If it weren't for you, maybe I would have already..."

"Mr. Asano, please don't say such things!"

Eriko Miyajima interrupted Makoto Asano very seriously.

But perhaps feeling that this was too harsh, she turned to reveal a very gentle smile and said, "As neighbors, isn't it right to help each other?"

Hearing this, Makoto Asano nodded a little awkwardly and said nothing more.

The room fell into a strange silence.

Makoto Asano was because he was too embarrassed now and didn't know what to say for a while, while Eriko Miyajima was because she had basically no social life after coming to Tokyo, and her social skills had severely deteriorated, so she didn't know what to say in the first place.

After a while, Eriko Miyajima finally seemed to have found a topic and said loudly: "Ah! Let me make you something to eat. It's already afternoon now. You must be very hungry after sleeping until now without eating anything, right?"

Makoto Asano originally wanted to refuse. He really didn't want to bother the other party to take care of him anymore, and he knew that there were no ingredients in his house. If Eriko Miyajima wanted to cook, she would have to go home first.

But before he could say anything, the other party had already left the room.

In the room, Makoto Asano looked at Eriko Miyajima's leaving back, slightly stunned.

For a moment, he had a strange idea: he wanted to possess this woman, not because of the mission requirements, but because he actively wanted to do so.

But soon he shook his head, letting himself get out of this absolutely abnormal state, and began to check the changes in his body.

After drinking the stamina potion, his body had returned to its original state, and he felt no discomfort at all.

And he was pleasantly surprised to find that his stamina attribute value had directly increased from 4.3 to 5.5, which was equivalent to him jumping from a weakling to a slightly stronger ordinary person.

Therefore, he completely understood the reason why he suddenly fainted after returning home last night.

After the 8 stamina attributes rewarded by the system expired, the heavy weight training performed with a body with a stamina attribute of 8 did not disappear, but was actually fed back to the original body.

These trainings may not be anything to people who originally have 8 stamina points, but they are definitely super-large experience packs for Makoto Asano, whose stamina value was originally only 4.3.

This is equivalent to playing a game. The original account is only level 1 and can only go to brush low-level monsters to slowly accumulate experience.

But by chance, you suddenly get a one-day experience card that allows the account to be upgraded to level 100, and then use the level 100 account to brush a wave of high-level monsters.

After the experience card expires, even if you return to level 1, the experience you brushed before is still there. This experience directly allows you to instantly upgrade to level 30.

But the difference between playing a game and upgrading an account does not bring any negative effects, but the growth of stamina attribute values is actually fed back to the body.

You need to know that the basic mechanism of muscle growth can be simply summarized as the process of "destruction-repair-super-recovery".

When doing strength training, muscles will be slightly damaged, which will stimulate muscle growth.

After the training, the body will automatically begin to repair the damaged muscle fibers, which requires sufficient nutrition and rest.

And in the final super-recovery stage, the body will not only repair the damaged muscle fibers, but also make the muscles stronger than before to adapt to possible future damage.

This is the so-called "super-recovery", which is also the key to muscle growth.

The reason why Makoto Asano fainted was because his body had damaged a lot of muscle fibers during the previous training, so after the experience card expired, his body instantly fainted because it could not adapt to this feeling, and even after waking up, his body was still sore.

However, he later drank a bottle of stamina potion, which restored his body to its best condition, and also allowed all the damaged muscle fibers to recover, directly reaching the super-recovery stage.

This is the fundamental reason why his stamina attribute value has grown.

Chapter 27: The Punishment for Failure is Becoming a Minotaur

After seeing the changes on his attribute panel, Makoto Asano immediately climbed down from the bed and jumped a few times in place.

Whether it was psychological or not, he felt that his body had become lighter, and some places that used to be often sore and swollen no longer had similar symptoms.

In short, this growth made Makoto Asano truly feel the benefits of improving himself, and it also made him more active in this matter.

Because the existence of the attribute panel means that his growth will be quantified, he can clearly know the gains he has made from his efforts, and then get positive feedback from his growth, maximizing his enthusiasm.

Just when Makoto Asano felt happy all over, he suddenly heard the sound of closing the door.

Realizing that Eriko Miyajima had gone home to get the ingredients and came over, he quickly walked out of the room.

Seeing him walk out of the room, Eriko Miyajima was taken aback and quickly said, "Mr. Asano, why did you come down? Go back quickly, your body has not recovered yet."

But Makoto Asano did not reply, because he suddenly noticed Eriko Miyajima's little feet that had just taken off her shoes.

At this moment, she was bending over to take off her white flats, and her bare white jade feet were gently stepping on the floor, forming a strong contrast with the wood-colored floor.

Eriko Miyajima was initially wondering why Makoto Asano was not talking, but soon she noticed the other party's naked gaze staring at her feet, and her face could not help but blush slightly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Asano, because I thought it was just next door, I didn't wear socks, and the indoor shoes were also brought from my own home, because I don't know which pair of shoes in your house is for guests... Mr. Asano, you shouldn't mind, right?"

"No, it's okay, I don't mind at all, as for indoor shoes... How about this, I'll buy you a new pair next time you come."

Makoto Asano said this, and even hoped that the other party would not wear socks every time she came.

After all, it would be too wasteful to wrap these beautiful little feet in socks.

Oh right, some socks are not included.

For example, stockings and garter stockings, these two are not impossible, um, over-the-knee socks seem to be very good, and calf socks seem to be okay too... It's hard to choose.

Just when Makoto Asano was busy choosing a suitable pair of socks for the other party's jade feet in his heart, the system prompt suddenly sounded in his mind.

[Detecting that the trash host has awakened the foot fetish attribute, activating Eriko Miyajima-related side quest!]

[Quest Requirements: Touch Eriko Miyajima at least twice, limited to the feet once, time limit of two hours.]

[Quest Completion Reward: Random item.]

[Quest Failure Punishment: Become a Minotaur, lasting for three days.]

Hearing the prompt, Makoto Asano almost vomited out all the stamina potion he had just drunk.

"What the hell? What does it mean to awaken the foot fetish attribute? And what's the difference between this punishment and telling me to die!?"

Although he wanted to retort, "I'm not a foot fetish at all, don't slander me", but halfway through the words, Makoto Asano couldn't say it.

Because the system would not lie, he did choose socks for the other party's jade feet in his heart just now.

In this way, this task was really released because of this, otherwise it would not have specifically limited the touch to the feet once.

It can only be said that Makoto Asano's current encounter confirms the old saying - anything jade will eventually harm you.

Helpless, Makoto Asano had to accept his fate and start thinking about how to complete this task.

However, looking at the requirements and punishment of the task, he still sighed in his heart.

Although the task punishment does not seem as serious as the previous few times, just becoming a Minotaur, it is actually similar.