When Ari got up, she didn’t even want to look at me. Inside the mimic’s gullet had been a pretty mediocre set of loot—even I could tell that. I must have played RPGs in my past life, because I found myself thinking in those terms when looking at what we had.

Ari took first pick of the items, using a slime-covered strip of bloodied cloth to wipe herself off as well as she could. I let her go ahead, since she was the one whose magic had actually killed the monster. So far, my role in this makeshift adventuring party looked to be “help Ari face the consequences of her decisions.”

If I didn’t end up being those consequences, that is. Right now, her decisions involved putting on a thin strip of bandage-like cloth that couldn’t even charitably be called clothing. She wrapped it around her back, barely managing to connect the two ends behind her. Barely an inch wide, the brown cloth pressed against her breasts. I could see her nipples poking through the thin fabric.

“Whatever unfortunate lady this once belonged to must have been flat as a board,” Ari winced, testing her mobility with the fabric. It threatened to tear with every movement she made.

To be honest, she looked lewder with her new “clothing” on than without, but I didn’t mention that to her. She clearly felt better with it on, and I didn’t mind the eye candy.

Her new set of panties, if you could even call it that, wasn’t much better. It was a bronze-colored metal, which would have been alright if not for the fact that it looked more like a decorative artifact meant to be found and sold for its component pieces. The bronze lingerie barely even covered her slit, and from the uncomfortable grimace she made combined with a slight surge in the lust in her body, I could tell that it dug into her just a bit.

That was still more than I got, though. I wasn’t going to subject myself to trying to use even smaller scraps to cover myself, and besides—I caught a look of myself in the reflection of the slime, and goddamn was I hot. I didn’t mind showing this body off—besides, who was going to see it besides Ari?

Besides the excuses for clothes, there were also a few mundane items. A pouch for storing the collected monster shards, which I strapped around my waist and put behind my back. A rusty gilded dagger, which Ari said I should take since I had no other way to defend myself.

As we continued navigating through the tunnels, I decided to get a bit better acquainted with her. I’d been inside this girl and still knew basically nothing about her.

“So I just appeared here,” I asked her. “Why are you in this facility?”

Her pretty face contorted in disgust. “My eldest step-sister. We share a mother, but she is first in line to succeed the household title. She wanted a certain rare artifact, and I drew the short straw.”

“You implied you’re from a noble family,” I said. “Shouldn’t you have people you can pay for that?”

“Adventuring is a high art,” she said. “The highest any family can achieve, truly. It is supposed to be our honor.”

“High art,” I repeated drily, pointedly looking at the strip of fabric struggling to contain her breasts.

“This is nothing like what an adventure should be,” she huffed, blushing. “This is an exercise in humiliation. I do not know where the rest of the party I was with is, only that we entered, I was surprised and knocked unconscious, and I woke up here.”

“Sounds like a pretty shitty party to me,” I said.

“Perhaps.” She sniffed. “I will take it up with my mother when I return.”

That was clearly supposed to impress me, but I had no idea who Lady Skyheart was, so it did nothing for me.

“I’d like to meet her,” I said. “And this sister of yours.”

“My sister is a snob,” Ari hissed. “She is uptight beyond belief.”

“And you aren’t?” I reconsidered my words. “Actually, you let me fuck you in the ass. I guess you can’t be that bad.”

Ari eeped, then slapped me lightly. “Do not remind me.”

“For what it’s worth, you were a great fuck,” I said, grinning. “You’re really a virgin? Well, outside your ass, that is, which you aren’t anymore.”

She didn’t seem to be able to decide whether to be indignant or shy about that and settled for the midground of burying her face in her hands.

“You have no right to be asking that question,” she said between fingers.

“It’s directly relevant to my class,” I pointed out. “I have every reason to ask.”

That pricked her straight in the adventurer. She considered, then sighed deeply.

“Yes,” she admitted quietly. “I was supposed to save myself until I was to carry a child. I never thought—“

She hiccuped awkwardly, and I sighed, moving in and wrapping her in a hug, conscious of the way my chest pressed against hers.

“It’s okay,” I said gently. “We’ll get out of here, and you’ll be fine. You’ll be able to save yourself. You’re still untouched there, aren’t you?”

“Y-yeah,” she said, sniffling. She took a deep breath in, then disentangled herself from me. “Apologies. That was unprofessional of me.”

“Nothing about this is professional,” I said. “Besides, maybe you could stand to break your family’s expectations. That felt good earlier, didn’t it?”

“No!” Ari protested, her moment of sadness gone already.

“I can tell what you’re feeling,” I said. “I know that’s a lie.”

“Shut up,” she huffed. “We need to keep moving.”

After a few more minutes, we passed through a door and the floor changed from the metallic surface to cave rock.

“Oh no,” Ari said, peering ahead. “This is the end of the Templar facility, but…”

We were in a cavern. Behind us was the building we’d just left.

“We’re still in a dungeon,” she said. “That’s why there were so few monsters in the facility. They’re all out here.”

“Do you think you can find a way out?” I asked.

“I have to,” she said. “We’ll look for a chest. A normal one, not a mimic.”

She led the way through the massive cavern. The monsters closest to the facility were slimes, which Ari was easily able to kill, but further down, we could hear the wailing of creatures that sounded very large and very hungry. I suggested that we not go that way, and she agreed.

As I gathered up the shards from another slime kill, the gems in my hand merged together, dissolving into a single large crystal with a flash of light.

Surprised, I dropped it on the ground.

“Interesting,” Ari said, picking it up. “That is an awakening stone. They are typically made in laboratories, but sometimes, if someone’s potential magic is very high, they will assemble themselves immediately.”

“Then that means I have good potential?”

“Very likely. Take the stone.”

I held it in both hands, felt a tug on my mind, then watched as it dissolved into my flesh, disappearing into white light.

[Champion of Lust] has gained a feature.

[Champion of Lust] - Your body is equipped with a weapon of lust. By using it, you can increase your strength and that of the ones you use it on. In addition, for a brief duration, you can copy one of their skills. The more intense the experience, the stronger the skill and the better your understanding of it.

“Huh,” I said. “That could be useful.”

“What did you receive?” Ari asked.

I recited the skill modification to her. Her face twisted into a complex expression.

“That is… it is powerful,” she admitted. “I had dearly wished you would gain something else, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”

“I wasn’t able to pick what I wanted, yeah,” I said.

“The path ahead is not going to be as easy as it was earlier,” she said. “The ambient magic is strong. We will need every resource we have.”

“Easy enough for you to say,” I said. “My skills completely depend on other people.”

Ari got on her knees, flicking her eyes up to meet mine in a way that sent electricity tingling through my body. “Then you will depend on me for the time being. Are you willing?”

I looked down at Ari’s barely-clad breasts, then at my own body, which betrayed the heat I felt.

“What do you think?” I asked, resisting the urge to grip her hair and use her like I had shortly after I’d become aware of this world.

Ari tsked, reaching a hand out and running it over my stiffening cock. “Then, I shall do what I must.”