Chapter 79
The magic circle activated, but I wondered when it would actually bring something here.
Would I have to wait at least a few days?
With such thoughts in mind.
But who could have guessed it would be the very next day?
After my earlier escapades, I awoke to the commotion outside and realized the event had already begun.
“Hey hey, Yui, Luna. Wake up.”
“…Hmm.”
“Luke, if you put that in, you’ll die….”
Luna got up quietly, but what on earth was Yui dreaming about to mumble such nonsense?
Though she appears innocent, I’m starting to think Yui is actually the most risqué one here.
Every time I’m fatigued, just a little bite from her rejuvenates me—it’s like having an infinite power source.
But right now, time was of the essence, so I delivered a slap to the face.
-Slap!
“Ahhh!”
“What are you doing? Wake up quickly.”
“Uh, uh…?”
She still looked half-asleep.
Cracking my knuckles, I pretended I’d give a real slap if she didn’t hurry up, making her leap up and get dressed.
Already prepared, Luna checked outside through the window and turned back to me with a question.
“Is this what you meant by the Behemoth event, Luke?”
“Yep.”
I replied while changing my clothes.
“A colossal A-Rank monster, Behemoth. Inside it’s controlled by a demon, and that demon has control over Behemoth and the monsters it has swallowed.”
“So we just have to deal with the demon inside, right?”
“At least for now. But there are others who take care of demons, so I’m just planning to enjoy the buffet.”
After finishing dressing, we headed straight outside the lodging.
I noticed the other professors seemed to rush out haphazardly, leaving the doors wide open as they hurried away.
“Geez… no matter how rushed you are, you should at least lock the doors.”
Otherwise, a thief might come in?
“Luke, you’re not thinking any strange thoughts, are you…?”
“What strange thoughts?”
“You wouldn’t think of stealing from an empty lodging or something… would you?”
“Steal? I’m only giving a lesson to the careless professors who don’t realize the dangers of leaving the door ajar. It’s a quintessential teaching moment.”
“….”
This is my way of showing why we should always lock the doors. Even someone without a learning ability learns if they face a consequence.
“Hehehe.”
*
We completely cleared out the professors’ lodging, which had been left wide open.
There were quite a few nobles among the professors, so there were lots of expensive items.
From gold decorations to mere money pouches.
After exiting the building, we sprinted towards the direction of the Behemoth.
I spotted some students engaged in battles against monsters along the way.
But the monsters that sprang out from the Behemoth weren’t that strong, so the students could handle them with some degree of ease.
The real strong monsters would be left for the professors.
Besides, this event from the original story was going to unfold well even without me, so I headed straight towards the Behemoth’s face.
Normally, the proper approach would be to enter after Lucia stops the descending Behemoth.
Why? Because that’s how it has to be. If you want to enter the Behemoth’s mouth floating in the sky, you’d need to levitate like Lucia.
However, no student had that ability. Not even the protagonist, Arthur.
So, ideally, one would wait for the right timing.
“Luna. Platform.”
Levitating isn’t the only method available.
Another possibility is to enhance my body using magical power to make a jump, but there aren’t any students with that level of power or agility.
If someone had those abilities, they wouldn’t be a student but rather something akin to an A-Rank adventurer.
Ironically, while I lack magical power, I do have a slave who can cast spells for me and possess strength greater than anyone else.
And strength isn’t limited to mere physical power.
For a regular person, agility is three times as strong as physical strength.
So then.
What about when considering the criteria of a superhuman getting assistance from a status window, instead of simply being an ordinary person?
I held Luna and Yui by the waist and stepped onto the platform created by Luna.
“Hold on tight. If you fall in the middle, it’s not my responsibility.”
Yui and Luna clung to my arm. It felt pleasantly soft.
I bent my knees, shifted my weight, and with a mighty push against the ground—
-Bang!!
“…!”
“Ahhh!!”
With a blast of sound, we shot up to Behemoth’s face in an instant.
“What kind of agility…”
“Isn’t it amazing?”
The agility, multiplied by a strength of 150, surpassed even three times the normal ratio.
It was nothing short of amazing.
-Grrrrr…
-Kirrrrrrrr—
However, there was no time to rest.
A welcoming party awaited us.
Monsters swallowed by the Behemoth, all controlled by the demon, were oozing hostility towards us.
With that view in mind, I pulled the greatsword from my inventory and said to the two.
“Listen well, Luna, Yui.”
Don’t let a single one escape.
Our breakfast is something we must defend!
“…Breakfast?”
“Yep.”
“Are we eating those…?”
“Yep. I’m already salivating at the thought. Slurp.”
According to the author, they’re the finest ingredients.
Itadakimasu~
After that, the battle was completely one-sided.
The monsters inside were only B-Rank at best.
While they could be a calamity for the students or common folk below, for us, they were weak prey we could easily slaughter.
From the beginning, when I activated the Manly Man title, all monsters aside from the Behemoth knelt before me, so it hardly even counted as a battle.
After taking down all the monsters inside the Behemoth, I stored everything in my inventory except for what I wanted to eat right away.
Immediately after the battle, I took out some firewood and started a fire right on the center of the monster’s tongue.
“Are we eating here…?”
“Yep. I’m hungry.”
Perhaps it was because I moved around a lot yesterday, but I felt hunger gnawing at me from the start.
Before digging in for real, I grabbed a piece of marbled meat and cooked it medium-rare.
“Yum~!”
Grade 1++ beef.
So delicious it felt euphoric.
It was so tasty that it could even trigger a meltdown.
I used to only watch it from behind the screen in my previous life, but here I can indulge for free.
“Is it that good…?”
“Yui, do you want to try?”
Since Yui loves blood, I seared the surface a bit to give her a rare piece.
“…!”
Flapping about!
She waved her arms wildly, expressing how delicious it was.
Right, right. It’s probably the first time she’s tasted something so delicious.
While our previous meals weren’t bad, they couldn’t compare to this feast.
Afterward, I sampled everything, and they were all outstanding.
According to the author’s TMI, the Behemoth flies around indiscriminately swallowing everything.
Sometimes in the mountains, sometimes in the sea, and other times, it’s soaring through the sky.
So, it was essentially a buffet filled with all kinds of delicacies.
“Now that the main course is done, let’s move on to the tuning.”
I took out a stand and a pot from my inventory to set over the fire.
“Where did you get that from…?”
“An excellent gourmet always comes ready to eat anywhere, anytime.”
Always prepared to eat, any place, any time.
I’m not a great cook, so I had prepped the stew in a semi-cooked state for storage in my inventory.
The first dish was the meat stew.
I chopped big pieces of meat into the semi-cooked stew and let it simmer.
-Thud!
-Whooooooosh!!!!!
Just as I thought it was going well, an impact made the pot shake dangerously, but luckily it didn’t spill.
I deduced that this shock must be from Lucia’s magic. There was something about it in the description.
‘What on earth did she do to make such a big one hurt?’
It was a shame I couldn’t witness the fireworks show.
Anyway, now that Lucia’s attack ended…
“Soon, it will come.”
“Who’s coming?”
“The toilet.”
“…Arthur?”
“That was a name, too.”
How can a person’s name be toilet?
And sure enough, our so-called toilet came in person to clean up the mess I made inside the Behemoth.
“Did you come?”
The usual group was still intact.
“Why do you look like that?”
“…Why are you here?”
What? Am I not allowed to be here?
I’m also a reincarnate, I can be here if I want.
What a self-centered protagonist he is, questioning why I’m here.
Don’t question where people are; everyone has their own circumstances.
“I came to have breakfast.”
I jiggled the ladle at the pot to show him.
Seeing the boiling stew, Arthur and his group exchanged looks back and forth between me and the stew.
“What are you looking at? I won’t give you any, so scram.”
These guys have the audacity to eyeball someone else’s food.
If it were something tasteless, I might have tossed it out, but who would throw away grade 1++ beef ingredients?
I absolutely have no intention of sharing.
“Are you not looking at it because you want to eat?!”
“Is that so? Then hurry up and go kill the demon.”
Killing the demons gives you skills, but what’s more important than food is money, of course.
Why do we grow? To survive, right? It’s obvious that food takes precedence over skills.
“…Could you leave me just one bite?”
“100 gold coins.”
“Why would you charge me 100 gold coins for a single dish?!”
“My choice.”
Looks like this guy just remembered the author’s TMI.
“You want to eat? Go forage and sustain yourself, idiot. There’s plenty inside.”
With the demon alone inside, there’s no way it would just stay unprotected.
It likely left behind a few strong monsters to guard itself.
If it’s too expensive, they can just catch something from inside and eat it themselves.
“And do you have time for this?”
Looks like Toilet forgot about his main job.
I threatened him to get lost, and he grumbled as he started to walk towards where the demon was.
“Tsk. You should have listened while I was polite.”
“But, Luke, do you really think they can handle it alone?”
“I don’t know.”
It’s still far too early for the Behemoth to come out.
For the original Arthur, this would have been an early call, but for me, a reincarnate, it should be easy enough.
“Should we help them out?”
“Why should I?”
Luna looked perplexed, as if she couldn’t grasp the situation.
“Seems like you might be under a misapprehension.”
Reincarnates aren’t heroes here to save the world.
In fact, I’m not even a protagonist.
“That sort of troublesome task is for those who want to do it.”
The demon lord’s descent? World’s destruction?
I couldn’t care less.
I’m just doing what I feel like doing.
“I see…”
I lifted the ladle I’d been stirring the stew with.
It seemed rather cooked through now.
“Then let’s dig in~”
I retrieved a bowl from my inventory and portioned out some stew.
A stew made using the finest beef. I’m looking forward to it.
Before I could even take the time to grab a spoon, bringing the edge of the bowl to my lips to drink it…
-Thunk!!
It felt like the interior of the Behemoth shook violently, as if a battle had commenced.
And then—
-Splash.
“Ah.”
The vibration knocked over the plate I was holding.
Not just that, even the pot tipped over.
“…….”
“Yui, let’s run.”
“Y-Yes…?”