Chapter 237

The next morning, after Natalie and Jordan had gotten showered and dressed into normal clothes—Jordan had joined her in bed after Natalie and Malice were finished—Ana knocked on their bedroom door.

“Natalie. Jordan,” the mage greeted, her brown eyes impassive and her tone as monotone as always. “Good morning.”

“Hey,” Jordan said, having been the one to open the door. She looked curiously at the mage, obviously not knowing why she’d chosen to visit. “What’s up?”

“I need to speak with Natalie.”

“You do?”

“You can stay, but the topic might be ... personal.”

Jordan’s eyebrows went up. She laughed. “Don’t wanna intrude. I’ll leave you two to it. Let me guess. [Divine Invigoration]?”

“Indeed,” Ana said.

“Don’t wring her out too much. We need her for the fights today.”

“Mm,” Ana said noncommittally.

Natalie, having been in the bathroom brushing her teeth, gave the two of them a confused look. She’d only half heard what they’d said. “Hm?” she asked Jordan past a mouthful of toothpaste.

Jordan just laughed again. She left, closing the door, leaving Ana alone in the room with her.

Spitting out toothpaste and setting aside her toothbrush, Natalie said, “What’s going on?”

“I need to speak to you.”

“About?”

“A practical matter.”

“Okay...?”

Ana sat on the bed. She was in regular clothes, not adventuring gear—so not her revealing mage robes. Just a knee-length skirt and a blouse.

“Initially, we decided Elizabeth was the best target for [Divine Invigoration],” Ana started.

So Natalie hadn’t misheard that. But [Divine Invigoration] and Ana? What was this about? Jordan apparently knew, or had guessed.

And, honestly, Natalie was getting a sneaking suspicion as well.

“Yeah?” Natalie asked tentatively.

“But seeing how we’re fighting a swarm of lower-level monsters, applying the buff to me is smarter,” she finished, with neither overt bluntness nor subtlety. Passively stating a fact. “I am, after all, the person most capable of clearing large amounts of weaker enemies. And that will be especially important today, with us heading out to find their nest. I didn’t mention it yesterday because the skill can only be applied once per day.”

Ah.

Admittedly, Natalie had also considered this topic. So she wasn’t wholly caught off guard.

But still.

“Additionally,” Ana said, as if she were structuring an academic argument, not propositioning Natalie to cum inside her, “it might be worth [Empowering]. The goblins’ behavior is clearly aberrant, and I suspect we’ll find something dangerous out there. Not just a low-level swarm of monsters.”

That claim was interesting enough that Natalie could briefly ignore the implications of Ana’s request. “Something dangerous? Like what?”

“I have no clue. But,” Ana said, raising her pointer finger. “Goblins don’t hoard items and lug them back to their nest. It simply doesn’t happen.” She raised a second finger. “Tenet knows we’re a team rising in prominence and would be more likely to assign unusual tasks to us, as a test.” A third finger rose. “Your class, along with Malice’s appearance, inherently suggests something strange is going on with the world.”

“What? You think that’s related?”

“Perhaps,” Ana said. “Perhaps not.” Once again, she raised a pointer finger, readying herself to professionally structure her argument. “But I prefer not taking unnecessary risks, as any delver.” A second finger rose. “It’s worth testing how powerful an [Empowered] [Divine Invigoration] is, especially when it lasts for an entire week.” A third finger joined the first two. “And lastly, the bonus will be useful for the entire duration, not just this quest, since our team is weak against swarms. Shoring up that vulnerability isn’t a poor idea even in the medium term, regardless that a healer or tank would be the usual target.”

Natalie stared at the girl for a few moments, then, eventually, laughed. She sat down next to Ana. “This is the weirdest way I’ve had a girl convince me to sleep with her.”

Ana tilted her head. “I’m not trying to convince you to sleep with me. If you could simply apply the effect and move on, that would be much more convenient.”

Natalie winced.

Ana paused, recognizing she had said something wrong. “Not that I’m uninterested,” she said. “You merely had the facts incorrect. My primary motivation.”