"Kyaaaaa! Stop, Helen! No more!" Mirian screamed.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
"Kyaaaaa! My butt hurts!" Mirian lamented, twisting her body. "Ryan, please tell her to stop!"
"Haha, haha!" Helen laughed and raised her hand again. "It's the first time I'm really enjoying a perverted order from Ryan."
"Hey Helen, that's not being perverted. It's a punishment, understand?" Ryan corrected, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, yeah," Helen muttered.
Ryan sighed. "Just say yes for once."
Smack. Smack. Smack.
Three more spankings and Helen finished all ten. The skin on Mirian's buttocks was left completely red.
[Debt collection applied x2]
[Debt Bonus: +100 points]
[Debt Bonus: +90,000 EXP]
"It hurts so much..." Mirian murmured, rubbing herself with tears in her eyes.
'They're supposed to be top-ranking heroines, but they act like children.'
Mirian sobbed and looked up. "I'm sorry. I won't do anything reckless again... Really."
"I wonder if that's true," Ryan reflected. "If not, Helen can always punish you."
"No, I'm serious..." Mirian grumbled and pouted.
Ryan nodded.
...
After a while, their clothes dried and they put them back on.
"By the way, do you have any idea where we are?" Ryan asked, staring at them.
Mirian bent down looking at the ground, and then stood up, still rubbing her sore buttock.
"Judging by the surroundings and the shape of the forest, it's some kind of elven territory," Mirian said, looking at Helen.
"It must be that place, right?" she asked Helen, though it sounded more like a doubt she had herself.
"Don't ask me," Helen said, taking in the details of the area.
'Now I have even more doubts about this being the place I expected. I mean, there aren't supposed to be elves in the game I know,' Ryan evaluated in his mind.
Then they ventured deeper into the forest, trying to head toward the center. According to Helen, it would be easier to leave from there if they found the elven village, since as they had been told, spirits guarded the forest and often set traps to make travelers with bad intentions get lost.
"Look around you. There are many dead monsters," Ryan pointed out, observing the terrain.
"Yeah. That's normal," Mirian replied.
"But why don't they disappear like the ones in the dungeon?" Ryan asked, turning to her.
Mirian explained: "You should know this already. Unlike these monsters, which are real creatures, the ones in the dungeon are more like summons or manifestations of mana power condensing inside the dungeon. No matter how real they seem, they aren't. Though they can still kill you."
'I see. To me, an MMORPG dungeon is just a functional loop, but in this world, they have their own logic.'
"Stop talking and come look at this," Helen intervened, pointing ahead.
"Footprints?" Mirian responded as she approached. She squatted in front of the tracks and picked up some dirt, turning it over with her fingers. "They're fresh. Someone passed through here recently."
"Human footprints?" Ryan asked with curiosity.
"More like an elf's," Mirian reaffirmed, looking at the stride. "There shouldn't be any humans here."
They began following the tracks. They weren't heading in a single direction; every few steps, they veered off several meters.
Mirian deduced that this was the movement the elf used while fighting, alternating between the ground and the trees. However, they saw many dead monsters as they followed the tracks.
"We've come a long way from the dungeon. My feet hurt. These boots are really old," Ryan complained, though he kept walking behind the girls.
Helen smiled and looked back over her shoulder. "Fufufu. Maybe you should order Mirian to give you a foot massage."
"Don't give him crazy ideas. Shut up," Mirian grumbled, blushing slightly.
Ryan chuckled. "Come on. It's not like I'm planning to ask for something like that."
Grrr... Grrr...
"A monster?" Helen whispered, instantly on alert.
They turned in all directions, trying to find the source of the sound. They were on guard. Ryan looked behind one of the trees; what appeared to be leather shoes came into view.
As he got closer, he immediately noticed the sound was coming from right there. And there she was: a beautiful woman passed out. The sound was coming from her stomach.
"I think she's hungry," Ryan commented as Helen and Mirian approached.
"She's an elf," Mirian murmured, examining her features.
Her long ears protruded from her yellow hair. And she had luxurious ornaments on her hair.
"Ryan, heal her, please. She's dying..." Mirian commented with a faint tone of concern.
Ryan stepped closer. He knelt in front of her and placed his hands toward her body.
"Recovery."
Her body moved. She began to slowly open her eyes.
"Huh? Brother?" she asked in confusion.
"I'm not your brother," Ryan said gently. "You haven't fully regained your senses yet."
"Ah, I'm sorry." She panicked and woke up with a start, backing away. She began looking at everyone with suspicion, but then calmed down upon realizing they had healed her. "How rude of me. Thank you very much for helping me."
"It's fine," Ryan replied. "But what happened to you? Did you kill all these monsters?"
"Yes. I was training, but there were too many monsters. I got carried away and ran out of mana." She paused and took a deep breath. "So I couldn't move. And I almost starved to death."
"You're very careless. You should value your life more," Mirian stated in a scolding tone.
'Look who's talking.'
Bang!
"You're worse! Shut up!" Helen smacked Mirian on the head.
"That was just that one time," Mirian murmured, rubbing her head.
'They really act like children.'
Ryan sat down on one of the tree's roots, which, due to its protruding shape, could be used comfortably as a chair.
"And can you tell us how to get out of here?" Ryan asked. "We don't want to disturb your village."
"Yes," the young elf replied. "But I would like to invite you to my village to thank you for helping me. You don't seem like bad people."
Ryan waved his hand. "Don't worry about it."
"I insist. Please, come with me," she pleaded.
'Well, there's nothing wrong with that. After all, I left the dungeon to try and understand where the hell I really am. Maybe the elves will say something more...'
[Automatic debt collection initiated]
The system window suddenly appeared, pulling Ryan out of his thoughts.
"Damn it, I forgot about it," Ryan muttered.
"Huh? What's wrong with my body...?" the young elf gasped for breath.
Helen and Mirian stared with their hands on their foreheads. From their expressions, they had clearly forgotten about Ryan's debt system as well.
'What kind of debt is it this time...?'
The young elf approached, kneeling until she was right in front of Ryan. She grabbed his foot and began taking off his boot. Once his foot was free, she held it with both hands.
"What... why is my body not responding? What am I doing...?" she complained, confused and blushing.
Her fingers massaged Ryan's foot with firm movements, but her expression was one of pure indignation.
"This is humiliating..." she whispered in a low voice as her face got closer to Ryan's foot.