Chapter 23: Let’s Throw Our Hats in the Ring!

Chapter 23:
Let’s Throw Our Hats in the Ring!

 

WHEN LUNA PASSED OUT, I remembered that she had that Fainting Spell skill too. I looked into it with my Discerning Eye and, just as I thought, it made her prone to fainting spells. Apparently, they could be particularly bad if she used up all her magic or took a big hit.

“Luna, wake up!” Lola came running over and smacked Luna’s cheeks. It really seemed like she’d done this before. “She always does this. But don’t worry, she’ll wake up any second now.”

“Ugh…” Just like Lola said, in a moment Luna blinked a few times and then stood right up. “I seem to have made quite a fool of myself. Sir Noir, I would appreciate it if you forgot about that.”

But there was no way I could wipe that foaming face from my mind.

“Now,” said Luna. “Let us go to that poor little lamb. I have a duty to fulfill as a cleric.”

“But…”

“What’s the matter, Sir Noir? If you’re worried about me, I’m quite all right. You have nothing to fear!” She smacked her chest to demonstrate her heartiness, but I was more focused on her hips. They were trembling.

“Why don’t we try to come up with another way to lift the curse?” I suggested.

“What? Why?! We can save Maria with my Lift Curse skill! I can’t let someone die when I could save them!”

“But you’ve been shaking this whole time.”

“I-I, uh…I’m just quaking with excitement!”

“And I definitely heard you mumbling earlier about how scary curses are.”

“What? No way. I said that?”

“You did. Look, just stop lying and be real with me. You’re scared, aren’t you?”

When Luna fell silent, Lola bonked her on the head, pretending to be mad and insisting she spill the beans.

Tears streamed down Luna’s face. “All right! I’m scared. I mean, if I save Lady Maria, I might die. Just the thought of it makes my legs feel like jelly. I’m so ashamed I feel this way.”

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I told her. “Nobody wants to die. You know what my father said? He said he’d dance naked if it’d save her.”

“I’m not sure what good that’d do.”

“Anyway, you should stop using your Lift Curse skill for now.”

“But if I do that—”

“Don’t worry, I have an idea.”

To be honest, the situation wasn’t really that dire. If anything, things were looking up. I’d already taken the opportunity to look into editing her Lift Curse skill.

 

Delete “the user’s lifespan is reduced in proportion to the strength of the curse” — 10,000 LP

 

Unsurprisingly, completely removing the trade-off was really expensive. It would have been cheaper to just directly edit Maria’s curse skill to remove it. So, I changed strategies.

 

“Lifespan” changed to “finances” — 4,000 LP

 

That option would require less than half the effort. I explained my plan to Luna.

“So,” I said. “What if I made it so that using the skill only reduced your finances, not your life?”

“That would be so much better!”

“The one problem is that I still don’t have enough LP to do it.” I’d die if I used up all my LP, so I’d need more like 4,500. I already had 1,300 so I just needed to make up the remaining 3,200. “I can earn LP through erotically charged activity or eating delicious food, among other things. I get it when I feel accomplished from completing a task too.”

I did earn some from passing the test for the Hero Academy, after all.

“Can you think of any way I could quickly fill up my tank, so to speak?” I asked Lola. She was a receptionist, so she had to know all sorts of things.

“That’s a good question. Well, there’s an upcoming event that might do it.”

“Really?!”

“The harem pride event that the nobles hold every week.”

As surprised as I was, I kept listening. I mean, I knew that bigamy was common with particularly influential people, and that highly skilled adventurers often took multiple lovers, but I’d never heard of anyone having a straight-up harem. I guess people with lots of wives and lovers wanted to show them off.

“But it’s an event for showing off your harem, right?” I asked. “I mean, good for the people who have them, but it seems pretty insufferable if you’re on the other end of that.”

I mean, what would they do? Gather around just to watch? But apparently, I was totally wrong about how people felt.

“I’m told they gather quite a crowd every time,” said Lola. “Some people just want to see attractive folks, though apparently some go just to heckle.”

“Wow.”

“I hear they score the harems too. That’s why you shouldn’t go to watch, you should participate.”

I wasn’t so sure about the idea though. On one hand, I was pretty confident I could fulfill my ambition to win the competition and get some prize money, and the interaction I’d likely have with these three women would make it easy to earn LP. But, on the other hand, I really didn’t want to get lectured by random onlookers. Or rather, I didn’t mind if they bad-mouthed me, but I couldn’t stand the idea of Emma and the others being slandered.

“I’m not so…” I started.

“Let’s do it!”

“Yeah, I’m in too.”

That was a surprise. Emma and Luna were both into the idea.

“Are you sure?” Lola asked. “You might make people jealous and get all sorts of awful comments.”

“But it might help Noir earn the LP he needs,” Emma replied. “I can deal with it.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Luna. “I think my upbringing probably trained me to handle heckling pretty well. I’ll just think of it as another test of my willpower.”

“I’ll participate too,” said Lola. “I am Noir’s managing receptionist after all.”

And so, thanks to this trio of tough ladies, we decided to participate in the event. They even agreed to act like we were dating in the interim. The event was held every week on Sunday, which just so happened to be tomorrow, so we decided to split up for the day. When I got home, Alice and my mother let me rest my head in their laps and I earned a little LP that way.

“It’s not fair. Why does Noir get all the attention? Let me use your lap as a pillow.”

My father spent the evening glaring at me, green with envy, and my mother and Alice impressed me with their talent for ignoring him.

On the day of the event, I headed there together with my comrades. A stage had been constructed in the park for the participants to stand on and extol the virtues of their women. There were to be two rounds of judging. The first involved a simple introduction, where the judge was the noble sponsoring the event. Each girl was scored individually, with the highest possible individual score being 1,000 points. The best three teams then moved on to the second round of judging.

As an aside, while it was described as a “harem” event, it was entirely within the rules to enter a single romantic partner. Admittedly, that would put you at a significant disadvantage, since you’d only have one person’s score to work with. The upper limit was five.

“We’ve only got three, so we’re at a bit of a disadvantage.”

“What should we do? Though, last time a man with two girls won.”

Huh, I guess quality counts for something.

All that aside, I was impressed with the level of enthusiasm at the venue. Guests were already streaming in. There had to be over a thousand of them. We went to the counter and let them know we’d be participating. There were ten teams signed up, and our group was last on the roster. The plump, middle-aged nobleman who was sponsoring the event opened by greeting the audience and pumping them up for the festivities.

“Well, this time around we have ten very lucky lads participating. They’re gonna come up here, brag about their girls, and win a million rels for it! What absolute bastards, am I right?!”

“Off with their heads!”

“Feel free to take this as an opportunity to blow off some steam!”

“Hell yeaaaaah!”

I was hit with a sudden burning desire to go home. Then Lola gave me a little insider information that just made it worse.

“So, that nobleman up there, he’s been betrayed by women more than a few times in the past. The majority of the men gathered here seem to have had similarly negative experiences with women, or don’t have girlfriends.”

“Wait, so does that mean…”

“It’s going to be an especially fierce battle.”

Lola struck a fighting pose. She had thick skin. Maybe too thick. This thing seemed a lot less about showing off and more about being a target for abuse.

I really wanna go home.