23. It Must Be a Dream

“No, Isolde, this is…”

“Ugh…”

—Thud

“I-Isolde..?”

Isolde opened her mouth to speak but suddenly collapsed. Could it be…

“Isolde, Isolde? Wake up!”

“Ha..! Ha…”

“Are you hurt? There’s no external injury, but what is this.”

“A c-curse…”

“A c-curse..!”

Isolde’s curse! If it’s the one I know…

‘Is it giving her milk..!’

But I feel a sense of guilt. I vaguely know that if I don’t resolve the curse, there will be a penalty, but…

I didn’t expect it to be this hard.

“W-what! What should I do!”

“Come closer… just for a moment…”

As I approached the fallen Isolde and knelt down, she cautiously reached out her hand.

“Your mouth… here…”

“Yes!”

Following Isolde’s words, I hurriedly lowered my head, and I felt her struggling hand touch my cheek as she lay on the ground.

“Hehe… you shouldn’t get your food all over your mouth like that….”

“Y-yes, ma’am…”

Isolde laboriously lifted her upper body, then knelt on the floor.

“Come here, then…”

She then patted the leather pants clinging tightly to her thick thighs, beckoning me.

‘A lap pillow? Am I really going to end up getting fed milk?’

This is absolutely not for my personal gratification. Nor is it my s*xual preference. It’s simply my tearful dedication to resolving Isolde’s curse and returning the party to its proper state.

I’m absolutely not a man who’s getting excited about drinking the breast milk of a woman he barely knows.

“Okay. Mama.”

Isolde’s silver hair gently tickled my cheek as I rested my head on her lap.

—Pat pat.

Isolde took the handkerchief in her hand and tenderly wiped the blood from my mouth. The softness behind my head is incredible.

Firm yet soft, holding in a warm heat. The plump thighs, evidence of her femininity, are bursting within the tight leather pants, with no curves left to spare.

Because the moment there’s any extra room in sleeves or pants, they’d flap with every rapid movement.

They were thin, clinging leather pants close to leggings that rangers were required to wear.

“Oohuhu…”

“I-Isolde…?”

For a while, Isolde was silent, gently patting my chest while looking at me with a kind smile.

After about ten minutes, Isolde, her face flushed red, said to me.

“H-huuuh… thank you, Yuhan… You can get up now…”

“Eh.”

What on earth is this? Where has my food gone? What happened to my resolve to sacrifice myself for the party?

“Isolde, that…”

“It’s… it’s an excessive maternal skill.”

“Huh, what?”

Excessive maternal.

It is said to be a skill that amplifies a person’s maternal instinct, causing their mind to freeze if they don’t perform motherly actions towards others for a certain period of time.

If you ignore the accumulating maternal instinct and take no action, you lose your sanity and start treating everyone you see as a baby.

In a labyrinth city where vigilance towards others is essential, the penalty of entering an unconditionally positive state is dangerous.

If you were to listen to a criminal’s words in such a state…

“I see…”

The younger the appearance of the other person, and the more motherly the action, the longer you can maintain your sanity.

‘Breastfeeding is indeed a highly motherly action.’

In the end, it wasn’t a curse that would kill you if you didn’t breastfeed. Saying it’s a pity… it’s too easy to say when it’s someone else’s problem.

“Miss Lis occasionally stood out in the guild.”

“Indeed, she does look a bit like a kid.”

Short in stature and with a thin voice, she has an appearance that makes her look like a child at first glance. Isolde had noticed Lis a few times in the guild.

She had been eagerly looking for an opportunity to form a fixed party and go around together. There are few talents like her. There aren’t many people in the same iron rank adventurer who look as young as she does.

“So, how long can you endure by doing motherly actions to Lis?”

“About 10 hours, I think. The time tends to shorten a bit if you move your body vigorously, though.”

“Is that so… Then how long will it last, considering what you just did to me?”

“Maybe around 30 minutes or a bit more. I’ll have to go back and ask Miss Lis again.”

It’s quite a difficult skill. It wasn’t just a breastfeeding skill.

“It’s a secret from Garonde…”

“Yes, of course.”

As Isolde finished revealing her skill, the question was now directed at me.

“Then why on earth… were you doing such a thing?”

“Oh, well, it’s a bit complicated. It’s a skill that turns what I eat into my body.”

Something like this and that. As the proportion of direwolf increases, it feels like the instinct is trying to dominate the brain.

I also mentioned that it can’t be used unless eaten raw.

“That must be… tough for you.”

“As tough as it is, there’s a return. It’s fine.”

“Right… I don’t get any returns…”

Isolde pouted her lips with a gloomy expression. Should I comfort her?

“But, you know. It’s attractive. There are men who like women who are like mothers.”

“I don’t want to date such men.”

“Oh, yes. That’s true.”

* * * * *

“Garonde! We’re back!”

“My goodness, what happened! Did you manage to shake them off?”

“We have exterminated it. The corpse is a bit far away, and I’m wondering how to handle it.”

“No way. What… Did you really catch Urs?”

Garond, who was standing fully armed at the entrance of the goblin cave, had a dumbfounded expression.

There was no need to add various explanations.

Ris, along with Isolde, decided to stay in the goblin cave to relieve her curse and calm the minds of the affected explorers.

Garond and I went to the place where we fought to confirm Urs’s corpse.

Garond, who saw Urs’s corpse with a hole blown through it and intestines spilling out, asked what kind of battle resulted in this.

“I stabbed Urs in the back from the air. The intestines got tangled in the crossguard, and the blade got stuck in the ground. As I backed away alone, everything came out.”

“That’s… amazing.”

Anyway, since it was early morning when I was about to sleep, Garond also looked tired, blinking his eyes as the tension eased. Maybe because I had used all my muscles, I didn’t feel like I had moved at all. This is another new advantage.

“Well, let’s go back for now. You must be tired too.”

“Garond. I have something to tell you about that.”

“Tell me? What is it?”

“I’ll stay here until dawn. Garond, go and get some sleep with the others.”

The wind has stopped, and it’s very quiet. Anyway, if I want to smash Urs’s corpse again, whether it’s the leader or a regular one, I have to use the muscles of the direwolf.

Then my detection will surely reach the cave. At night, my senses become much sharper.

Using the leader’s vision, I can directly detect magic. There shouldn’t be any problem.

The current time is about 2 AM. For the next six hours, I need to chew, tear, taste, and enjoy Urs’s corpse as much as possible.

“Are you planning to eat Urs’s corpse?”

“It’s because of the skill. We can’t help it. Besides, it’s a bit much to start late after sleeping in. It’s hard for three people to carry all the luggage.”

It seemed that the victims’ Achilles tendons were all cut. It looked difficult for them to move their bodies to the portal, let alone carry the luggage.

In the end, I have to carry a part of the luggage, a rather large part, to be precise. If we want to move early in the morning, now is the only time to deal with Urs’s corpse.

“Go get some sleep, Garond.”

“…I’ll trust you.”

“Yes. Please explain it well to Lis and Isolde.”

Garond nodded solemnly and turned around.

“Oh, wait. Garond.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

“Do you know much about Urs?”

Garond stroked his beard and answered as if pondering.

“I know well about Urs as a food ingredient.”

“You don’t need to have extensive knowledge. I’m just curious if there’s any organ in Urs’s intestines with remarkable performance.”

“You… can replace your organs with those of the creature you ate?”

“Well, yes.”

Garond looked surprised, then soon fell into deep thought.

“It would be the liver, I suppose. It can handle most poisons…”

Garond’s tips on Urs’s organs continued for about 30 minutes. As expected from the Gourmet Guild, they had extensive knowledge about any edible creature.

“Thank you. That was helpful.”

“Yeah. Eating raw stuff must be tough. Good luck with that.”

“Yes.”

Now, all I have to do is make Urs’ incredibly powerful body my own.

“Let’s go.”

* * * * *

“Ugh…!”

With a bad sleeping habit, Reese, who had rolled around wrapped in her sleeping bag, ended up at the entrance of the cave, directly hit by the morning sunlight.

Human eyelids are not blackout curtains that perfectly block out intense light, so she squinted, covered her face with one hand, and stretched with the other.

“Yawn… Mmm…”

A deep yawn under the pleasantly warm sunlight.

She rubbed her face with her short hand, struggled to open her eyes against the intense sunlight, and looked ahead.

“Hmm. I must still be dreaming..! Just a little more sleep.”

A monster in the shape of a will was doing squats with a whole thick tree on its back.