Ch 239: What the hell is going on here?

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"See, I told you so," I say while rubbing my right cheek, where I still have the red mark from the slap Melisa gave me when I explained to her the reasons for my visit.

The attractive 27-year-old mature farmer with dark brown hair and two blonde-colored front locks welcomed me with a radiant expression.

But everything quickly went downhill when I started talking.

She seemed to have either accepted or forgotten the special circumstances under which we had sex last time, showing an open mind towards this type of activity that I find very attractive and exciting.

Unfortunately, that open mind did not seem equally open to the idea of me having more than one girlfriend.

As soon as I started talking to her about Alessia and Delia, Melisa understood what I was proposing and gave me a hard slap, which had nothing to envy about the attack power of some monsters.

She also told me that, if I wanted to be in a relationship with her, I could not have any other romantic relationship with other women.

Obviously, I flatly refused that request.

I'm still not sure how I feel about Melisa, but for the past few days I've been convinced that I love Delia and Alessia, and no one will keep me away from them.

After that, she threw me out of the house, throwing me everything she could get her hands on.

So I ran away without looking back until I could use space travel to travel back to my home in the capital.

The old gossip was probably spying on Melisa's house from the moment I entered it because, when Old Gerald saw me running past his store, the old man fired on me with a stream of questions.

But I ignored him and kept running, annoyed that I had let myself be convinced of the stupidity I had just committed.

"Still, you had to try..." says Alessia thoughtfully.

The three of us are sitting at the table in the kitchen of our home in the capital, finally having breakfast after a long time of waking up.

' - This complicates things.... If only I could be sure that Master would never see that woman again.... But I can't be sure. He is too unpredictable and, unfortunately, too irresistible to women.... Sooner or later, he'll see that woman again, and she will surely try everything in her power to seduce him.'

'Why is it that Alessia is so pensive? Could it be that she doesn't believe me? The truth is, I wouldn't be surprised after all I have done in the past.... Still, the thought pains me. I've got to try to be more honest with them from now on.'

' - I wish I could trust Master to be able to keep his stupid penis inside his pants! But he's already shown me that I can't trust him in that regard. That being the case, there's only one way available.... Haa… The things that I have to do for my perverted Master'

"... When we finish breakfast, I want you to take me and Delia to her. We'll change her mind."

'What?! I must have heard wrong'

After hearing Alessia's words, I start picking at my ears with both my hands, looking for any wax plugs.

"Really? Will we?..." asks Delia innocently.

'- If the woman doesn't accept Emir for who he is, there's no point in trying to convince her of anything. She's simply too blind to see the truth.'

"... I think we should leave things as they are."

"I don't know what you're going on about, Alessia. But if Melisa reacted that way, I don't see what good it would do for you and Delia to go see her," I say, confused.

"If I could be sure that you would stay away from that woman, I would agree. But I know you, and I have a sneaking suspicion that you feel more for her than you are willing to admit," Alessia says, her voice strained.

'- Rather, I am certain that you are an impulsive and lustful teenager. But you are MY impulsive and lustful teenager, and I have to try to control the situation somehow.'

'I really don't understand Alessia right now.... She seems determined that I should keep my relationship with Melisa.'

'- I hadn't thought of that! Hm... It's true that Emir didn't know how to define to us his opinion about Melisa, and.... if Emir has feelings for Melisa, Alessia could be right.... Hmm, I don't know what to do... I think I'm going to go and evaluate this Melisa. If she's a person destined to be in a romantic relationship with Emir, surely god will give me some kind of sign.'

"Hmm... I've changed my mind. I think Alessia might be right. I want you to take us to see Melisa too," says Delia with a strange twinkle in her eye and a slight frown on her brow.

'What the hell is going on here?... 

No, no, no, no, I must be confused. Let's recap....

I told my two girlfriends about my strange relationship with another woman, and now....

My two girlfriends, one of whom is a Saint, want to help me get a third girlfriend...

Yes, it seems as ridiculous as I imagined....

I must be dreaming....'

"Ouch..." I say, rubbing my forearm where I pinched myself hard.

'...It looks like I'm not dreaming, being like this...'

"... Okay. I'm going to take you with her, but I don't think it's going to do much good," I say, slightly dazed by the direction our day is taking.

'...What's next? my parents coming through the front door to congratulate me on getting Delia and Alessia to so readily accept a third woman in our relationship? Yeah... That won't happen.'

…

'Agh… What the hell would the three of them be talking about right now?'

As soon as I left Delia and Alessia in front of Melisa's house, the 18-year-old kicked me out of the place.

Her explanation was that my presence would probably make everything much more complicated.

For that reason, she told me to go entertain myself in some labyrinth and not to come back until dusk.

Again, given the logic of her arguments, I had no choice but to listen to her.

I don't like to be so obedient. 

But if there is even the slightest chance that what Alessia intends to do will succeed, I will not be so stupid as to obstruct her plan.

However, before I left, I gave them some money.

The three gold coins I left each will be useful so that they can entertain themselves with something when Melisa inevitably throws them out of her house.

When I handed them the coins, Alessia at first started to say something about her having her own money. 

But when Delia took the three gold coins with a smile and no comment, the young blonde stopped objecting.

I was really surprised that Delia silently accepted the money. 

But I figured that religious people are probably much more used to receiving money than they are to receiving gifts. 

I just hope she doesn't think that money is an offering to the Solus god or some such nonsense.

So now I'm in the Golden Labyrinth, making some chains to get some extra cash in the first few floors of the labyrinth.

I'm probably going to have to spend quite a lot of money if I intend to buy the building for 'Saint Delia's Clinic' someday.

I don't know how successful my idea will be, but, either way, we'll have to furnish the place and equip it with whatever Delia thinks is necessary for such a place.

All of this will require money.

I don't know how much, but that's not really important.

What's important is to have enough money so that we don't have to worry about it.

And there's also the fact that I still want to start looking for useful magic items, which will require mountains of money.

With the whole matter of Alessia and Delia getting to know each other and accepting our relationship, my idea of getting new toys was momentarily put on the back burner. 

But sooner or later, I'll focus on it again.

'At least I don't have to spend money on a chain mail and new clothes... Anyway, at some point I have to test out the full power of this newly discovered feature in my inventory.'

Something I discovered when I entered the labyrinth is that, when I equipped my chain mail and the clothes I normally use to explore the labyrinths, I saw that they were completely repaired and clean.

Even though they were supposed to be damaged and stained with blood from everything that happened yesterday.

That led me to reflect on the fact that I've never seen any signs of wear on my arrows, despite how much I've used them.

And that made me realize that I've never had to do any kind of maintenance on my equipment.

My sword, for example, has never dented or lost its edge.

After much thought on the subject, I figured it's probably due to the mysterious 'flow' mentioned in the Inventory skill since I acquired Great Adventurer.

[Inventory (Ex) Lvl. Max] [3|3] [The inventory is available at full capacity. Flow has increased to maximum]

That's the only thing that could have something to do with this new feature of my inventory.

Flow.

You might think that this word in the skill description refers to the flow of time, and that it means that the skill reverses objects slightly over time, repairing them.

But that doesn't make sense.

If it did, any cooked food that I would store in my inventory would revert to its 'uncooked' stage.

However, the foods I store in my inventory remain indefinitely in the state in which I stored them at the time.

No. 

This new feature must work in some other way, but it must be much more complicated than it seems.

And the information provided by the skill description is too ambiguous.

'Haa... If only the process of getting money was a bit more entertaining, maybe I wouldn't be so distracted with thoughts of how the talk between Alessia, Delia, and Melisa will be unfolding.'

Being on the first few floors of the Golden Labyrinth has the advantage that the variety of enemies is less, so it's much easier to get the most out of my sword enchanted with the Chain Rune, using it as efficiently as possible.

But it also has the disadvantage that I find the enemies absurdly slow and weak.

After increasing my stats so much, the lowly Snow Wolfs, Hell Cats, and so on seem more like mere helpless victims than ever before.

For this reason, I am rambling on about various issues in an attempt to distract myself.

I mean, they're still monsters that would kill me at the slightest chance, but the only way they could hurt me would be if I deliberately stood still for several minutes.

'Maybe I could get a second weapon with Chain....

That way, I could probably have two chains active at the same time, and then I would be able to efficiently collect runes in deeper floors of the labyrinth....

Why didn't I think of this before? The idea makes a lot of sense...

Moreover, even if the idea didn't work out, why didn't I think before about the possibility of giving weapons with Chain to Delia and Alessia?....

Haa... So much wasted potential....

It seems that increasing my Intelligence stat is much more important than I originally imagined....

I now recall, with some embarrassment, my initial stupid mentality....

What good would it do me to have 99 in Strength if I couldn't properly think of the best ways to take advantage of it?....

Luckily, that stupid conception is in the past....

I now know that I need to have most of my stats relatively balanced, at least in my 'basic' profile.'