NOVEL NEXT chapter 237
Chapter 237. Old Scene, New Story – The Red-Light District
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
In these two days, Noah accompanied Clothilde as they temporarily left the Water City, going to higher-level ‘instances’ to level up.
Now, Clothilde has regained the fighting strength she had when the two first met.
She no longer needs to consciously control the usage time of the two ancient relics, even holding them constantly is no problem.
Of course, this is just an analogy to show that her magic power is abundant.
She wouldn’t really keep the weapons in her hand all the time.
Since she can summon them at any time, there’s no need to hold onto them constantly.
It’s fine in the wilderness, where nobody minds, but it would be too eye-catching in the city.
To be honest, feeling her own abundant magic power, Clothilde secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
A little more than two months ago, she worried that she would suddenly regress to a new adventurer’s combat power. If she encountered even slightly dangerous monsters, she would be easily defeated and cruelly humiliated.
But in reality, that didn’t happen, and she successfully avoided the fate of many young female adventurers.
She had more than once seen the miserable plight of female adventurers in the wilderness. Though they weren’t dead, they weren’t in any good shape either, their defiled appearance was truly filthy and unbearable.
Whenever she used purification and healing magic to care for female adventurers, she had a strange vision.
If she had been too eager to restore her magic and had entered areas with even more powerful monsters, maybe it would have been her lying on the ground, being cared for by others.
And all of this was because Noah had helped her.
Even though he was a terrible person, if not for Noah, she would have become even worse.
Either becoming a tool for the monsters to vent their on, or being dominated by l*st marks, shedding her nun’s habit and donning different clothes to search for ‘prey’ on the streets.
She would have committed even greater wrongs, and if exposed, it would be no joke.
Luckily, the hardest days seemed to be behind her, and she had regained the magic that the l*st demon had stolen.
And the wrong she had committed was merely breaking her vow of chastity, not to the point of being ‘promiscuous’… maybe.
Of course, even so, Clothilde still had committed a wrong.
Therefore, feeling guilty, she prayed and confessed to the goddess whenever she had free time.
Hoping that the goddess would forgive her and Noah’s sins.
And also hoping that the goddess would show her the way forward.
Specifically, news of the l*st demon who stole her magic.
And Noah was simply watching her silently from within the ruined temple, as she prayed devoutly to the goddess.
He had not done anything more these past two days.
But after two days of adjustment, Noah was preparing for the next round of training.
Just as Noah had previously thought, he planned to have Clothilde leave the water city for now, but not to head to the next major city, but rather back to the small to medium sized city they’d visited before.
More precisely, the city with the red light district that Clothilde, as a nun, could never acknowledge.
The original Clothilde had worked there, it was an important place for her, and now it was time for her to face the red light district again.
…
“…Seriously, how come Mr. Noah disappeared again so quickly?”
On the afternoon of the third day, Clothilde and Noah returned to the small to medium sized city where they had first met.
But what troubled her was that she had merely suggested visiting the book store run by the cross-dressing signboard girl they had met earlier, and Noah had agreed.
But the moment she turned her head, Noah’s figure had vanished into thin air.
This made Clothilde unconsciously want to sigh.
It seemed like Noah was still just like when she first met him, so free, you wouldn’t know where he’d run off to if you weren’t careful.
Now she had to think hard, had Noah said anything special recently, something that would give her a clue as to where he’d gone.
And so, Clothilde started walking back, while trying to recall their previous conversations.
Truthfully, since they talked quite a lot, it would probably take Clothilde a while to think back if she was just trying to remember.
But whether you could call it luck or not, after walking back for a short while, Clothilde noticed an alleyway that was emitting an obvious suspicious aura.
“…Wait, Mr. Noah wouldn’t have gone to *that* place, would he?!”
Clothilde, of course, knew where the alleyway led, but she couldn’t believe that Noah would suddenly, and without a word, abandon her just like that, while they were walking together and go to that place.
Ah… no, although she’s not exactly Mr. Noah’s anything, she really has no right to interfere with Noah.
Should she just pretend she didn’t see it, and go do something else?
Because she knows what awaits at the end of that alley, the nun is hesitant, wondering if she should actively step into that place.
This causes her to pace back and forth at the entrance, her expression troubled.
“…R-right, even though Mr. Noah isn’t dressed as a priest today, he’s still a priest, and as a nun I certainly can’t watch Mr. Noah fall into depravity, um, yes, that’ll be my reason.”
Soon enough, Clothilde found a reason she couldn’t refuse.
It was like finding an excuse, and once she had that excuse, Clothilde could justify her actions.
Of course, she knew that brothels were the complete opposite of the church’s ideals, places full of desire and sin.
But Noah went in, she was just going to find Noah, surely the Goddess would understand her predicament.
And so, Clothilde stepped into the red-light district underground, which she had often visited in the original works, for the first time.
At the end of the narrow alley was a staircase leading downwards, and Clothilde carefully and nervously walked down.
Before long, she arrived at a place completely different from the street above.
Just a glance was enough to shock Clothilde at the scene before her.
And this was still during the day, young and pretty women wearing various revealing outfits were trying to entice male customers on the side of the street.
Not only were there women from other races, but even human women.
The thought that Noah definitely wasn’t here for the first time made Clothilde feel a sudden, unexplained wave of displeasure.
No, she had to stop Noah before he spent any money!
Even though she wasn’t comfortable in this environment, Clothilde started asking around the streets for news of Noah.
But in fact, Noah was not far behind her, watching the anxious nun searching for him.
Noah wanted to see what Clothilde’s reaction would be, alone in the brothel district.
He considered it a kind of trial, Noah believed the current nun could certainly break through.
Or rather, if she couldn’t break through then Noah would be troubled, after all, the time for Horace to act was quickly approaching.
……
……
PS. Taking a small break today, so here are three chapters, this is the first one.