Did she already know what I would ask her for?

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"BLUE WIND, NO!" shouts Delia beside me as the spear in her hands extends at blinding speed towards the boss's body before she has time to react.

The spear penetrates through the acidic cloud and begins to pierce the boss’ body repeatedly, causing the gas to close around it at the speed of the talking weapon's movement.

As this happens, Delia looks at her spear with tears in her eyes, as I and Alessia watch helplessly.

Only a few seconds later, a shrill screech is heard, and the cloud begins to disappear as the colossal spider's body dissolves into golden particles.

Delia panics at the thought that she might lose her companion and quickly begins to cast detoxification into the spear as it retracts to regain its normal length.

But then the three of us are surprised to notice that she has no damage.

'- Don't you ever do anything like that to me again!'

'- It's all right, Delia. I knew that the cloud couldn't do anything to me. I am too sacred for something like that to pose a threat to me.'

"How come the weapon isn't damaged?..." asks Alessia to me as she approaches us.

"...I saw in the front row how the arrow you shot towards that cloud disintegrated into nothingness itself."

"Perhaps... the Celestial Chalice rune gives magical resistance to the weapon that possesses it. If we assume that that acid cloud was magical, and considering that Blue Wind has an enhanced version of Celestial Chalice, that's the only explanation I can think of for this..." I say, as I look with renewed curiosity at the weapon in Delia's hands while pondering the subject out loud.

I am increasingly amazed at how bizarre the creation I contributed to making is.

"...By the way, Delia, why didn't you alter the direction of Blue Wind while she was extending? If you had done so, you could have prevented her from putting herself at risk like that."

"It was all too fast! I didn't know how to react in time!" says Delia, wiping away her tears with the back of her left hand while looking furiously at the spear she holds in her right hand.

Delia checks it from several angles to see if it doesn't have any damage she hasn't seen yet.

"Well, that's something you need to work on. Nothing bad happened today, thankfully. But in another situation, we could end up seriously injured if you freeze like that...." I say, putting away my bow and sitting down on the floor while leaning my back against one of the walls of the room to rest for a moment, before walking through the doors leading to the next floor.

"....And I'm not just talking about this last moment. At the beginning of the fight, you also stood idly by for several seconds while Alessia risked her life for us."

"Don't talk nonsense, Master; I wasn't risking my life. That thing could never have touched me unless I allowed it to," says Alessia, full of herself, as she sits down next to me and leans against my right side.

'And there we go again with that new attitude of hers. Haa.... One of my girls is overconfident, and the other is too shy. I wish they could learn from each other to balance their personalities a little bit'

"I'm going to work on that, Emir. I promise I won't get paralyzed like that again," says Delia pining, but with the conviction and professionalism that characterize her when she sets her mind to a new task.

"Okay, I believe you. Take it easy. Remember, you're not alone," I say, extending my left hand to invite her to sit with us.

Delia sits down, leaning against my left side, and I wrap my arms around both girls.

"I know. How could I forget?" Delia says, snuggling up next to me as she gives me a tender kiss on my left cheek.

'Come to think of it, I've never had sex with Delia before in the labyrinth....

Hmm, this would be a good time for the three of us to have a little fun together, but....

All these spider webs and the dust in the place make the ambiance not accompany the idea....

I'd better focus on more useful things for us in the immediate future'

"Delia, how much do you know about the next floor?" I ask, already anticipating the answer.

"What do you mean? It can't be much different from the previous ones, can it?" says Delia absentmindedly.

'I already figured she’d answer something like that... By the way, isn't Alessia very quiet?'

I look to my right and see that Alessia is dozing peacefully on my body.

'Haaa... it was to be expected.'

Trying to speak in a low voice volume and not move my body too much, I begin to explain to her what the No Man's Zone is and its characteristics.

"In a large labyrinth, like the one we are currently in, the floors from 10 onward have a different shape than the first 9. These floors are called the no man's zone. The special name doesn't make much sense, but the important thing is that there are no stone corridors on these floors...." I say, gently tapping the wall behind us with my left hand.

"... The whole place takes the form of a huge forest, in which there are trails along which adventurers travel in search of passage to the lower floors."

"If the place is just one big forest, does it make sense to keep calling it a 'labyrinth'?" asks Delia, stifling a yawn.

'It seems Alessia's drowsiness is contagious'.

"I'm not done with my explanation yet..." I say, giving her a little tap on her beautiful nose with the index finger of my left hand.

"...It's true that it's possible to go off the trails, but it's not recommended. It's a matter of safety and how reckless each group is. On the trails, the monsters are controlled by the labyrinth in terms of level, spacing, and numbers, although there are no longer predetermined monsters. But if you go into the wooded areas, there can be an indeterminate number of enemies with indeterminate levels..." I say as I begin to feel a slight discomfort in my back, sitting against a hard wall as I bear the weight of the three of us.

"... The latter is because the monsters, unlike in the first 9 floors of the labyrinth, only have the level of the floor initially, but in the no man's zone, they can level up by killing other monsters or people."

"Wow! That sounds dangerous.... Shouldn't you explain this to Alessia too?" She asks while looking worriedly at the sleeping beauty who is leaning on my right side.

"She already knows about it. We've done a little bit of research on it. Besides, Alessia already knew many things about the labyrinths because of her past as an adventurer..." I say, looking fondly at the blonde girl next to me.

"... But it was necessary for me to explain this to you so that you are on equal footing with us and fully understand the difference in risk we are going to face on the next floor..."

After these words, Delia swallows saliva and looks with visible fear at the door that would lead us towards the tenth floor of the labyrinth.

"... Don't be frightened. Remember what I told you a moment ago? You are not alone. We are a team, and we are more than capable of facing any danger if we are together. Don't you trust me?" I say, taking her by the chin and forcing her, with my left hand, to look directly into my eyes.

"Y-" Delia starts to say, but then I plant a playful kiss on her lips, which silences her response.

Delia instantly kisses me back passionately, her hands flying to my hair to cling to me and prevent me from pulling away as she caresses my head.

I let her do what she wants with me until....

After a few moments, it seems to dawn on her where we are, and she gives me a slight push to pull me away and open her mouth so she can continue talking, but something interrupts her intentions again.

"Huh? What happened? Emir?" asks a confused Alessia as she wakes up to our movements.

"It's nothing, Alessia. You can go back to sleep if you want. I was just talking to Delia about the No man's zone," I say, laughing as I see Delia's frustrated face, who again has to swallow her words.

"I wasn't sleeping! I was just.... resting my eyes for a bit. I think those Boss fumes irritated my eyesight a bit," Alessia says quickly.

"Why didn't you say so before? I can heal you!" says Delia, getting on all fours to get closer to Alessia and better examine her face.

"No... there's no need. I'm fine now," says Alessia, shielding herself with her hands so that the more than obvious lie, which the naive Delia is not picking up on, doesn't show on her face.

Laughing again at the scene in front of me, I say, playing along, "Well, since you weren't asleep, can we go on exploring some more now?"

"Yes, we can go on as long as you want," Alessia says as she slyly removes a speck of eye booger from her right eye.

"Good. Likewise, if we want to rest in the No man's zone, we could do that. I got some very interesting toys in the war zone," I say with a mischievous smile while I take out the Pseudo dimension magic object that Fabio's guild gifted me.

[Pseudo Dimension: Small pseudo dimension, both the bearer and those in his team will be invisible to monsters belonging to the No Man's Zones. Effect valid for monsters under level 50.]

The magic object has the shape of a little crystal ball, with no special details in sight.

But I guess, when activated in the No Man's Zone, it will create some kind of invisible barrier around us.

'- I don't like the way Master’s words sound... Those kinds of objects are usually very expensive... Haa.... I just hope Master didn't steal it. No... he wouldn't be that stupid to steal something from the kingdom's army.'

'Alessia is looking at me suspiciously....

She must be trying to guess how I got this item, but....

If she knew who this object came from and the story behind how I acquired it, she wouldn't have any objection to it....

But I'm not going to say anything about it....

It's better to keep a little mystery in our relationship....

Lately, I've been revealing too many things for my liking'