Everyone burst out into laughter including me. He had said exactly what was in my mind and that triggered a funny bone in me.
The time it took the laugh to leave our system my mind ran through the reasons he could know about pac-man, it could be that he was a sage or knew about the sages.
When everyone quiet down and started cutting little pieces of their food, their mage Shihoru who kept her eyes on the floor made her question known. "Um, what is a pac-man?"
No...
"Cmon don't you remember it's that yellow ba-.... wait, what did you ask?" Ranta was no doubt about to make fun of her but his thoughts came to a screeching halt mid-way through his sentence.
Nononono FUCK!!!!!
"You were... huh can't remember." Haruhiro popped a thin slice of meat into his mouth. "But anyway did anyone else gain 40 levels from the fight?"
"42" Moguzo whispered.
"45!!" Ranta jumped up giving his nose a swipe no doubt thinking he looked cool.
"38" Shihoru tried to raise her voice when she mentioned her gainz but just made her sound unsure.
"41" Mary said last, "Probably thanks to all the healing since I didn't go in and fight like usual.
The mention of levels reminded me to check mine. I looked inn my back pack for the adventurer card, they did not need to be updated at the guild since it read the magic signatures of the owner.
---
Name: Nouzen Entei
Class: Warrior
Age: 17
Level: 118
Rank: C
---
Huh, I increased my level by 71 since I last checked it, should have checked it when I got home on my birthday. Thanks to that now I don't know how much I got exactly from this last fight.
For a moment the thought of how easy to level up crossed my mind but I shook my head and threw it away. It might be easy from a gamer's perspective but the pain and the near-death experiences change the way you view something a lot compared to being behind the screen in a comfy ergonomic chair with an A/C on.
Sophia must have a gamer system thingy, that erases the pain from the wound she must get or have the syndrome thing of the guy in Kengan Asura where the pain he gets turns into pleasure. She is level 1200 at least I think she was when she first fought Makoto and was still no match for him.
And now I might also have to deal with the Undying King, more and more keeps getting added to my plate that I'm 100% sure I don't want.
My jaw kept chewing the food while my mind was in a different place. Tifa noticed by looking at my eyes that stared at the wall of the cave without looking anywhere else.
It is true I am nowhere near the power of the true wielder of this body, and considering what I just found of the new threats in this world I felt pushed to reach that level to survive. Where before I wanted to get strong and live my life how I wanted it then changed into getting strong and getting revenge for Leyla being taken away from me by that Highland Orc to now doing it for simple survival.
"Entei?" The worried voice of Tifa pulled me back to the present. The taste of the meat finally registered again in my head, the faint scent of her sweat found my nose encouraging me to close my eyes and enjoy the moment.
"I bet he is smelling you and imagining how loud you'll be moaning under him." Jessie made all the girls turn red.
"Jessie! Shut up." She raised her arm and pointed at her, she used the motion of her arm to discreetly take a sniff of her armpit. I noticed the small wiggle of her nose when she checked if she somehow smelled bad.
"We are all adults, there's no shame in enjoying the pleasures we can." She use an arrowhead to cut a strip of meat and started sucking on it akin to a blowjob with the gagging sounds added.
"Grrr, you you.." We could all see Tifa struggling to either find the word or say it, "Pervert!!" When it finally came out she jumped to her feet almost dropping our food on the floor. I managed to snatch the arm guard with the food resting on it the moment I noticed she intended to stand up.
A moment later her eyes opened in realization and they dropped expecting to see our food on the cave floor. "I'm so sor-" Her apology was cut short when she found no food on the floor, turned to me and noticed the armguard on my lap.
I padded the stone she was sitting on before she stood up. "Eat the rest with me"
"ooouuooooooo!!" Jessie wooed when she heard me.
-
Thankfully by the time we hit the road on our way back, the sun was more than halfway through its cycle. The heat was not as harsh as in the morning or around noon and the shadows were more pronounced.
Briggs and Moguzo took the tip of the spear as one would say, healers stayed protected in the middle of the group, DPS to the sides with one in the back with the archers and mages.
Compared to our previous fight the encounters we had were nothing. It got so boring that I was wishing for a fully grown Cerberus to appear and the team let me fight it alone. It was interrupted by a realization, I am becoming an Adrenaline junky. Sophia the DragonSlayer might have been onto something, being close to death might have awakened a fetish in me, maybe I was always wanting something like this. Something to awaken my blood, have it pumping at high speeds feeling like any and every moment could be my last.
"Hey psst." Ranta got closer to me. "How did you do it? How did you get that hotty to be all over you?"
"Hmm what hotty?" He gave a deadpan stare. "You lose when you start placing women on a pedestal. And I did not do anything special, I was just focused on getting stronger -still am- and she started getting closer to me. Showed her she was attractive to me and backed off to let her decide what she wanted." I found that in my memories and did it.
"So what tell em you like me and pull back and wait and see another guy take her?" He scratched the back of his head.
"Well, I will tell you something you never thought about... probably. Women are also sexual creatures just like us guys, While we mainly get turned on by visuals they get turned on by feelings you can evoke, not only feelings but it is a good way to form an attraction."
I unsheathed my sword and held it in front of me. "Let's say a blacksmith is selling a badass-looking unique sword, guys will want it because it's powerful and looks badass. Women warriors will want it because it is powerful and unique. So by pulling back after showing or telling her you like her, the sense of another girl taking you gets instilled in her. Always keep them on their toes, have them feel like something could go wrong when they let their guard down." I personally never tried it but I said similar things to friends and they ended up with stable relationships, a playboy or they asked someone else after me and followed their advice instead of mine. I would also tell him against cheating but I don't know how that works in a world where polygamy is accepted, maybe not banging a new girl without telling the 1st girlfriend?
"Ooh I see, I'll try that with her. Already failed with not placing women on a pedestal tho." He crossed his arms behind his head and began whistling a tune I vaguely remember being sung at the Inn by the drunk customers.
"Also be sure to let her know your bottom line, so she knows if she ever crosses it you're gone, and make sure you don't look back if it happens." I sheathed my sword back on my back before grabbing some stones on the floor and covering them in a fire brid to shoot down some of those damn bears that eat dead things, Vultures I think they're called.
They were circling something in front of us, They could be missed thanks to the darkening orange sky but the dots circling kept increasing in number.
"Yume thinks something is dead or about to die!" Yume started jumping up and down.
"You guys want to check it out?" Briggs stopped to ask, and Moguzo also stopped to wait for our decision.
"it could be someone in trouble, offering a little help won't hurt us." Maty pitched in.
"I vote to continue our way. It could be a serial killer or something similar." Ranta's words made it clear he did not care of anyone outside of their group.
---
Word Count 1529
If there are any grammatical errors let me know with a comment on the paragraph.
Thank you guys. I appreciate your reading so far.