Just as I went ahead to tie up the lich, part of the wall on the side of the cavern suddenly exploded, revealing a passageway behind it.
Several figures rushed into the cavern and I realised it was the assault team that Katsuki and I were separated from.
Looks like they managed to fight their way through the Dungeon to get to here by themselves.
I waved at them, “Hello~”
“Young Mistress!”
“Sister Aster!!”𝑜𝗏𝓁xt.𝗇𝓔t
“Aster!!!”
All of them screamed out the moment they saw me.
Unexpectedly, a few of the maids disappeared from my view before reappearing in front of the lich, beating him into the ground mercilessly.
Umm… You guys know that he’s already beaten right? There’s no need to beat him anymore…
Unfortunately for the lich all of them seemed pretty intent on punishing him so he was stuck being beaten and kicked around by the servants.
I didn’t have time to worry about him as Odeta, Lisa and Delmare ran up to me and started fussing over me in their own way.
“Sister Aster!! Are you hurt?! Did anything happen to you?!”
“I’m… I’m fine Odeta, really,” I assured her.
She looked like a giant Teddy bear with how she was fussing over me, making me want to just cuddle her so bad
Lisa patted me up and down, “That lich did not rape you, did he?!”
“No, Lisa… I don’t think he has something to rape me with in the first place…”
Like seriously, Lisa, he’s a literal skeleton… I really doubt he can pop a boner when he’s literally just bones…
“Asterrrrr!!” Delmare cried, leaping up to hug me. “I was so worriiiiied!!”
She even went as far as to dispel her Somatomancy magic just so that she could say those words to me.
I giggled, “I’m fine~ I have Katsuki here to protect me after all!”
Katsuki bowed her head, “You give me too much credit, Mistress. I have realised that I am still not strong enough to properly serve you. I shall redouble my efforts when we return home.”
I wanted to say that she’s already strong enough for her age but I doubt I could make that sound convincing considering she was a year older than me and she was struggling against the Dread Knight and the lich the entire time.
But don’t worry, Katsuki! Your cookies are still the best! Aside from Mary’s of course, her cookies are just simply out of this World. But since she’s the one teaching you, I’m sure you will catch up to her in no time!
One of the maids that I do not recognise approached me and bowed deeply, “Young Mistress, is this Lich Balor Jules?”
I nodded, “That he is, umm…”
She smiled at me before her body shifted and morphed into Mary’s likeness.
Oh, so she was among us all this while as a different person.
“Forgive me, Young Mistress. Since he had already known that the Lina form was also me, I had to change my likeness to fool him.”
“I see… Umm… What do we do with him now?”
“We will take him away and find out why he was after Young Mistress of course.”
I raised my hand, “Ah… About that… He talked a lot so we already know why he was after me… Apparently he wanted to sacrifice me for some ritual to grant him power or something.”
“Truly? I see… I will need to find out how he knew that Young Mistress is from our Nilm Family in that case.”
“Ahh… We kind of know that as well… Though err… I’m not really sure the reasoning behind it?”
I turned to Katsuki for help and she spoke up in my stead, “He saw Mistress’s looks and simply assumed her to be from the Nilm Family.”
Mary tilted her head slightly, “Looks? I do not believe Young Mistress has any physical features that are unique to the Nilm Family now, does she?”
Katsuki shook her head, “It is not that kind of look, Head Maid… It’s that.”
She emphasised on the word ‘that’ and Mary seemed to understand what she meant. It feels like there’s some secret code amongst the servants or something that I don’t know about…
“I see… So in other words, this Lich simply got lucky?” Mary concluded.
Both Katsuki and I nodded our heads.
“Understood, I shall inform Madam of this in that case. Is there anything else I should know?”
I tapped a finger on my chin, “Umm… Remember the time I got attacked in school by a [Shadow Summon] from someone else? This lich can’t use Umbramancy so that means that was done by someone else aside from him… I don’t know if he hired someone to do it or it was someone else who is targeting me…”
She turned to the lich who was still being beaten by the other servants, “I will find out more about this from him, Young Mistress. I expect that you wish for the lich to be tortured?”
“Well… Err… ‘Tortured’ is a rather strong word… So I guess let’s just go with ‘punished’. He was rather annoying…”
“We will take care of him, Young Mistress, of that you can be sure of.”
That’s nice to hear~ I hope that guy regrets ever becoming a lich and obtaining immortality that way.
“Additionally, it seems that Mistress has learned Astromancy during the fight,” Katsuki reported.
“WHAT?!” Odeta and Lisa gasped while Mary only turned to me in surprise.
Delmare was being suspiciously quiet while clinging to me but I was not in a position to worry about her yet since everyone was staring at me in surprise.
“Did you really learn a new magic while fighting someone else, Aster?” Lisa asked, her eyes as wide as saucers.
Technically… I didn’t actually learn the magic but gained it instead… But I don’t think I would be telling them about the Off-Worlder and character creation thing since that might make things a little complicated.
Thus, I simply decided to just nod my head, “I… I did.”
I then raised my hand and used [Link Portal], creating one portal in front of me while the other one appeared just a short distance away.
Everyone looked at the portals, then to me, then to the portals, then back to me again. They repeated that a few more times before all of them gathered around me again.
“Aster really managed to learn a new type of magic just like that? I knew you were a genius but that’s not even enough to describe you anymore!” Lisa exclaimed.
“Mmm… As expected of Young Mistress. If you require aid in improving your Astromancy, I will be honoured to assist you,” Mary nodded.
On the other hand, Odeta simply just laughed out loud, “Wahahaha! Sister Aster is awesome!”
That was when they finally noticed that Delmare was just clinging to me without saying a word this entire time.
“Eh… Del? What are you doing?” Lisa asked, prodding the Siren with a finger.
“Aster… Aster… Smells so good… Sniff… The scent of the sea… The waves… Aauuu~” Delmare moaned.
Oh… I actually forgot that I gained that boon just now.
Lisa’s forehead creased, “What are you talking about? Doesn’t Aster smell nice all the time?”
“But this… Sniff sniff… This scent~ It’s a million times better than before~”
Lisa leaned over and sniffed at me, only to suddenly dive her head into my chest before sucking in huge lungfuls of air through her nose.
“Ahhhh~ What’s this?! What’s this, Aster?! How do you smell so good?! Ahhhhn~ This smell~ It’s so wonderful!! I want to live here now~”
Odeta also tried to give me a whiff but her reaction was more calm than these two.
“Mnn~ Sister Aster does smell nice now! Is it a new type of magic?”
“I… I don’t know?” I admitted, trying to ignore the Siren and Infrid who were busy rubbing their faces on my chest.
I could even feel something hard rubbing itself against my thigh and I realised that ‘something’ was the package in between Lisa’s legs.
Ok, I took this boon because I had expected myself to be on the road adventuring constantly. Because of that, baths might be impossible and it would be a hassle to keep myself clean like that.
That’s why I wanted this boon to at least help mitigate the bad smells even if I were to be stuck in mud and grime after a long battle with a tough opponent.
I most definitely did not take this boon with anything sexual in mind but I forgot that there were people out there where they could turn this into something sexual easily…
Although… I realised there was one person who seemed to be immune to it.
Katsuki wrinkled her nose but did not say anything. In fact, it kind of looked like she was trying to avoid smelling me for some reason?
Oh right, she has a really good sense of smell so she must have already realised my scent changed partway through the fight just now so maybe she’s already used to it?
Unless the boon was actually a lie and she doesn’t even like my smell?
Oh well, it’s not like that’s a big thing… The thing I’m more worried about is that these two that were hugging me were obviously going into heat right now…