The first ray of morning sunlight pierced through the gaps in the stable's broken roof like a blade, cutting through the dim air and lighting up the drifting dust.
A few old horses were already awake, idly chewing hay with loud, crunchy bites.
Kōichi slowly opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Aqua's sleeping face right in front of him.
Honestly, when Aqua kept her mouth shut, stayed still, and did not move, she truly possessed the kind of flawless beauty worthy of being called a Goddess.
The morning light poured over her waterfall-like aqua-blue hair, as if outlining it with a sacred golden glow, and her defenseless sleeping face was so pure it looked like a masterpiece.
And yet, Kōichi's heart was unnervingly calm.
There was no racing pulse, no flushed face, not even the normal physical reaction a healthy man ought to have in the morning. Nothing at all.
He simply looked at her the way one might admire a finely carved marble statue, or maybe a particularly pretty cabbage.
"...Hey, Kōichi."
A trembling whisper came from beside him.
Kōichi turned his head and saw that Kazuma was already awake.
He was curled up in the corner, both hands clamped tightly over his crotch. His face was as pale as a dried corpse that had been drained of its life force overnight, and his dead-fish eyes were filled with a level of terror and despair Kōichi had never seen before.
"S-something's seriously wrong..." Kazuma's voice shook on the verge of tears. He glanced at Aqua, who was still sleeping soundly, then lowered his eyes in despair toward his lower half. "My body... I think something's broken. There's a ridiculously gorgeous girl sleeping right next to me, and she's even going commando... but mine... mine isn't reacting at all! It's completely dead calm! Did I... did I lose my manhood somewhere during the isekai trip?!"
Seeing Kazuma look like the sky had fallen, Kōichi's heart sank.
Because he had realized the exact same thing. That bizarrely holy state known as Sage Time was currently filling his entire body.
"Calm down, Kazuma-san." Kōichi swallowed and forced down the panic rising in his chest, then reached over and patted him on the shoulder. "Actually... I'm the same. Last night, when I first lay down, I definitely still had a few thoughts. But the closer I got to her, the faster all those worldly desires disappeared. At this point, I feel like I could shave my head and become a monk on the spot."
"Huh? You too?" Kazuma froze for a second. The despair in his eyes faded a little, replaced by deep confusion and suspicion. "Then does that mean... it's not our bodies? It's..."
Their eyes turned toward Aqua at the same time.
She seemed to be having a nice dream. A glistening line of drool hung from the corner of her mouth, and she mumbled sleepily, "Hehe... another bottle of bubbly... put it on Kazuma's tab..."
In that instant, the truth hit both of them like a bolt of lightning.
"Case closed." Kōichi let out a long sigh, his gaze turning incomparably clear, in a dead-fish-eyes sort of way. "It's not that there's something wrong with us. This girl is toxic. That so-called sacred aura around her automatically purifies every impure thought in the area. Add in that unfortunate personality and that intelligence level... the second you get close to her, any sexual tension instantly collapses and turns into this solemn feeling, like you're taking care of an intellectually disabled daughter or worshipping some unknown idol."
"So in other words..." Kazuma slowly took his hands off his crotch and slumped against the wall in relief, letting out a long breath. "She's a walking libido crusher? A natural chemical castration agent?"
"Exactly."
Kōichi nodded and confirmed it.
At that moment, the libido crusher woke up.
Aqua rubbed her sleepy eyes, let out a huge yawn, sat up with absolutely no regard for appearances, and casually wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth.
"Ah... is it morning already? I slept great last night!" She stretched, and for an instant her lovely figure was on full display, but Kōichi and Kazuma just stared at her blankly, their hearts perfectly still. If anything, they kind of wanted to laugh.
"Morning, Kōichi, Kazuma." Aqua blinked at them with her big eyes. "Why do you two look so awful? Did you sleep badly? See? I told you, mortal bodies are just too fragile. Unlike me, as long as I've got hay, I can sleep like I'm lying on a cloud!"
"No, we slept very well." Kazuma stood up and brushed the bits of straw off his clothes, sounding like a man who had narrowly survived disaster. "Thanks to you, Aqua. You helped us realize that some things matter more than beauty... atmosphere, for one."
"Huh? What kind of weird nonsense is that?" Aqua tilted her head, completely lost.
"Never mind. Let's go." Kōichi stood up, already feeling his bodily functions gradually returning, as long as he stayed a little farther away from Aqua. "Let's head to the guild and see if there's any work. Now that we know our bodies aren't broken, it's time to figure out how we're going to fill our stomachs."
Even though the misunderstanding about their bodies had been cleared up, the two of them had reached an entirely new understanding of Aqua. She was an absolute safe zone, something you could look at but not touch, and not even think about.
In the guild hall that morning, adventurers had already started gathering in little groups, and the air was filled with the smell of toasted bread and the faintly tipsy scent of malt beer.
Kōichi, Aqua, and Kazuma stood at the guild entrance, their stomachs rumbling one after another as if they had planned it.
"I'm starving!" Aqua plopped down on the steps and wailed while clutching her stomach, with absolutely none of a Goddess's dignity. "This Goddess's stomach is already as flat as a sheet of paper! If I don't get an offering, breakfast, my divine power is going to run dry! And when the world gets destroyed, don't blame me!"
"Quit yelling. I'm about to faint from hunger too." Kazuma held his stomach, his face tinged green. "That hard bread from yesterday didn't fill me up at all. And after the psychological trauma from last night, I seriously need to recharge."
Kōichi looked at his two hopeless teammates and sighed. "Complaining won't solve anything. We already used the dine-and-dash trick, so now we have no choice but to work honestly and earn some money. Come on, let's brainstorm. What can we do to make enough for breakfast as fast as possible?"
The three of them formed a circle and began a brainstorming session full of both despair and hope.
Aqua shot her hand up first, her eyes shining with the light of wisdom, or idiocy.
"I've got an idea! We can perform in the plaza! I can show off this Goddess's peerless beauty, turn water into all sorts of shapes, and even make coins disappear! If people enjoy the show, they'll definitely throw money at us! And I'm a Goddess, so my performance would be a miracle!"
Kōichi and Kazuma looked at each other and made matching faces of disgust.
"Rejected," Kazuma said coldly. "The last time you did a disappearing act in the kitchen, we ended up losing money. If you make some passerby's wallet disappear this time and can't bring it back, the guards will throw us in jail. Besides, who's going to pay to watch water tricks? This is another world. Wizards are everywhere."
Kazuma stroked his chin and offered a suggestion full of practical realism, and sleaze.
"How about this. We take jobs like finding lost pets or helping nobles recover missing underwear. The pay may not be great, but those jobs are usually safe, and if we get lucky, we might even get a little extra reward."
Kōichi frowned. "Looking for pets takes too long, and those jobs usually mean running all over town. By the time we find anything, we'll have already starved to death. And as for finding underwear... Kazuma-san, your intentions are way too obvious. You'll get arrested as a pervert."
Kōichi looked at his two pale-faced teammates, and a meaningful smile curved across his lips, one so sinister it looked almost demonic.
He lowered his voice and leaned in between them as if he were passing on some forbidden spell capable of destroying the world.
"Rejected. All of it." Kōichi raised a finger and shook it. "Performing is too tiring, and looking for cats is too slow. We need to use the highest-grade resource we have on hand to make the fastest money possible."
His eyes slowly shifted toward Aqua, who was crouched on the ground drawing circles and moaning about how hungry she was.
"Listen. Even though this one is industrial waste, something you can look at but not actually use, we already confirmed it this morning. As long as she doesn't talk or move, based on looks alone, she's the greatest beauty in Axel. No, in the entire kingdom."
Kazuma seemed to catch a whiff of danger, and his dead-fish eyes narrowed slightly. "Hey, Kōichi. Don't tell me you're planning to..."
"Exactly!"
Kōichi snapped his fingers, his eyes gleaming with the radiance of a true scumbag.
"We're setting up a honey trap! In other words, blackmail with a beauty!"
"A honey trap?!" Kazuma sucked in a sharp breath. His voice trembled, but he did not reject the idea right away. Instead, an expression appeared on his face that practically said, This is awful, but it might actually work.
Kōichi kept laying it out persuasively. "The plan is simple. We find a secluded alley and have Aqua stand there looking pitiful and vulnerable. Then when some rich, lecherous adventurer or dirty old man takes the bait and tries to get handsy with her..."
Kōichi made a chopping motion with his hand.
"We jump out immediately and yell, 'How dare you molest my sister, wife, Goddess! Pay up, or we call the guards!' To protect his reputation, he'll definitely hand over the money and settle it quietly."
"But..." Kazuma frowned and pointed out the one flaw in the plan. "Didn't we already establish this? Aqua has that Sage aura. Any man who gets close to her loses all lust and turns pure. Who's going to take the bait?"
"That's the key!" Kōichi patted his chest confidently. "That passive skill only works at close range. From a distance, she's still a Goddess with maxed-out temptation stats! All we have to do is jump out before the guy gets close enough to enter the Sage zone, or the instant he gets close, before he has time to react. We win by exploiting the timing gap!"
Aqua, who had not understood a single word until she heard her own name, finally reacted. She jumped to her feet, crossed her arms over her chest, and stared at Kōichi in disbelief.
"Hah?! Kōichi! You actually want this Goddess to be bait? To lure in those filthy humans? I am Aqua-sama, the Goddess of Water! I am revered by countless people! How could I possibly do something so shameless? This is blasphemy against the divine! I refuse! Absolutely refuse!"
Faced with Aqua's righteous indignation, Kōichi did not change expression. He merely dangled the bait in front of her.
"If we pull off one job, we go eat marbled red frog steak, paired with the most expensive top-grade Louisiana red wine in Axel. If you refuse, then today we'll be digging through trash cans in the back alleys for rotten apples."
Aqua's expression froze instantly.
The holiness and fury on her face visibly collapsed, replaced by drool and hesitation.
"M-mar... marbled steak... top-grade red wine..." Aqua swallowed, her eyes darting around. "Well... actually, as a Goddess, occasionally descending to the mortal world to punish evildoers with wicked intentions is part of my sacred duty! This is called law enforcement by entrapment. It's for purifying the evil of the world! Yes, that's exactly what it is!" She immediately put on a righteous expression, then pushed her luck even further. "Then... if we make a lot of money, can I get an extra serving of fried chicken too?"
"Deal."
Kazuma looked at his two teammates, who had just sealed a filthy agreement in an instant, covered his face, and let out a deep sigh. Then a twisted grin spread across his face as well.
"Since everyone's agreed... I've got no objections. As long as the guards don't catch us, this kind of robbing the rich to help the poor, meaning us, is exactly what I, Kazuma Satou, do best! Let's go! Time to find our prey!"
And so, the strangest and most shameless honey-trap trio in the history of this other world was officially born.