The dreamlike warmth and soft comfort of the hot spring turned into the set of a horror movie in an instant.
Kōichi had his eyes closed, savoring the jade-like coolness of Wiz beside his left hand, when he gradually felt that sensation growing thinner and thinner. Before long, a bone-chilling cold began seeping into his palm.
He snapped his eyes open and nearly jumped out of the pool in fright.
Wiz, who had been sitting beside him, had turned into a half-transparent pale-blue jelly. Her usually gentle eyes had rolled back, her tongue was sticking out slightly, and she looked so pitiful she might ascend to Heaven at any moment.
Even worse, her full, delicate body was giving off countless tiny white bubbles in the water, like a Slime that had been splashed with strong acid.
"Hey! Wiz! Wake up! Are you trying to reincarnate on the spot and report to Eris in Heaven?!"
Kōichi cried out and grabbed Wiz by the shoulders, which were already almost impossible to hold onto, trying to pull her out of the water.
"...Ngh... it hurts... Kōichi-san... the water is seeping into my body... I feel like my Lich Core is about to be purified into pure water... sniff..."
Wiz's voice was so weak it sounded like radio static.
Kōichi whipped his head toward the other end of the pool.
That idiot Goddess Aqua was spinning happily across the surface like a cheerful little duck, humming some unknown Axis Cult hymn.
As she moved, the slightly cloudy sulfur hot spring water rapidly transformed around her into something crystal clear, even giving off a faint sacred golden glow. Highest-grade Holy Water.
"Aqua! What the hell are you doing, you idiot?! Stop it right now! You're going to wash Wiz out of existence!" Kōichi roared furiously.
"Huh? What are you talking about, Kōichi?" Aqua stopped and innocently wiped the droplets from her face. "I just thought the water quality here wasn't very clean. As the Goddess of Water, of course I have to provide everyone with the finest bathing experience! Look how clear the water is now! You can even drink it straight!"
"Drink your own head! That's Wiz's life!"
Kōichi no longer had the luxury of worrying about modesty. He rushed over, and amid everyone's startled cries, scooped up the almost completely transparent Wiz by the waist and dragged her straight out of the pool onto the stone floor.
"!! K-Kōichi! You actually carried the nearly naked Wiz out of the water like that in front of everyone!" Darkness covered her face, though the gaps between her fingers were wider than anyone else's. Her face glowed with excitement from this sudden sense of public exposure. "That rough feeling of forcibly seizing a woman's body amid chaos... haah... p-please do the same to me!"
"Idiot, this is not the time!" Megumin's face was as red as a ripe tomato, but she at least understood how serious the situation was. "Yunyun! Hurry and bring a towel! Wiz's body is really disappearing!"
"Waaah! R-right! A towel, where's the towel?!" Yunyun spun around in a panic, only to slip and fall straight into Kōichi's arms, plunging the scene into total chaos.
Kōichi had no time to deal with Yunyun in his arms. He looked at Wiz lying on the stone floor, so weak she could barely maintain human form, gritted his teeth, and activated the same life energy supply he had used the night before.
"Wiz, hold on! If you die here, that 100,000 Eris I paid will really have been for nothing!"
Kōichi pressed his palm firmly against Wiz's icy chest. The sensation was delicate, but this was no time to care. His magic and life force poured out of him in a torrent.
"...Ah... haah... K-Kōichi-san..."
Nourished by his life force, Wiz let out a long moan. Her transparent body rapidly began to regain substance, and that alluring flush once again rose to her cheeks.
Since they were on dry land, the heat produced by the transfer caused a ring of white steam to rise around them, making the scene look extremely suggestive and taboo.
Just then, hurried footsteps came from the entrance to the hot spring area.
"This is the place! I heard what sounded like Aqua-sama's singing!"
"Look! The pool... the pool is glowing! It's a miracle! A miracle from Aqua-sama!"
A group of Axis Order believers, wearing nothing but loincloths and burning with fanatical light in their eyes, rushed into the mixed-bath area like a tidal wave while waving all kinds of bizarre banners.
The first thing they saw was Kōichi holding Wiz, with his hand still pressed against her chest.
"...That man... that man is desecrating the sacred hot spring!"
"Yeah! Why isn't that man me?!"
"A heretic! He must be a spy sent by the Eris Cult! Get him!"
Kōichi looked at the muscular, strangely wired cultists charging toward him, then glanced down at Wiz, who still had not fully recovered and was clinging to his neck with dazed eyes.
Far from hiding them, the steam in the hot spring seemed to cast a ridiculously suggestive glow over Kōichi and Wiz.
"Stop! You rude believers! Look closely, I am Aqua-sama, the one you worship! I will not allow you to hurt my companions... no, I will not allow you to ignore me!"
Aqua stood in the middle of the glowing Holy Water pool, spreading her arms in a sacred and inviolable pose as she tried to intimidate the rampaging believers with a Goddess's authority.
But before the Axis Cult, whose heads were filled with alcohol, steam, and single men's resentment, a Goddess's authority was powerless against humanity's most primal emotion: jealousy.
"Shut up! You blue-haired girl, get out of the way! Can't you see that man is desecrating that super gorgeous woman?!"
"Damn it... that woman... she's so beautiful! So cute! And... and that size is just cheating! Why isn't my hand on her chest?!"
"Heretics must die! No, before he dies, he has to give me that hand position!"
The fanatical believers roared like beasts and completely ignored their Goddess. One of them even shoved Aqua back into the water during the charge because she was in the way.
Splash!
"Waaah! You pushed me! I'm a Goddess, you know! I really am a Goddess!"
Aqua flailed around in the Holy Water, letting out miserable cries at being betrayed by her own believers.
Kōichi looked at the army of burly men charging toward him with fleshy faces, bloodshot eyes, and nothing but loincloths on, and his scalp went numb.
Although Wiz had regained her physical form, she was still limp as mud in his arms. Her hands clung tightly around his neck, and small breathy sounds that were far too easy to misunderstand escaped her lips.
"...K-Kōichi-san... I'm sorry... I can't stand..."
Wiz buried her bright-red face in the crook of Kōichi's shoulder, and the unbelievable sensation nearly made him lose all will to fight on the spot.
"Stop apologizing! If we don't run, we really are going to get purified by these lunatics!"
Kōichi roared, used every bit of strength he had to carry Wiz princess-style, then turned and sprinted toward the changing room.
"Stop! Don't you dare run! Put that beauty down!"
"You sadistic bastard! You must have used some dirty hypnosis spell on her! Let go of that girl and let me break the curse!"
A group of muscular men sprinted across the slippery stone floor at full speed, creating an absurdly macho scene.
"!! Is this... is this the legendary mob attack born from jealousy?" Darkness had somehow placed herself in the path of the pursuers. She was not dressed, merely covered by a pitifully short towel, yet her face was twisted with ecstatic joy. "Come, furious believers! Take your anger out on me because you're jealous of my companion... This development where I'm misunderstood, trampled, and used as an outlet... haah... please subject me to the cruelest 'interrogation'!"
However, the believers simply went around her. Someone even shouted, "Move it, muscle woman! We want the soft, no, the beautiful woman! Anyone in the way, get lost!"
"...Huh? I was ignored?" Darkness froze as if struck by lightning. "I don't even qualify to be ravaged anymore... This humiliation of being completely rejected... Uwooooh! It's wonderful!"
"Yunyun! Use magic to stop them!" Megumin shouted while holding up her slipping bath towel.
"But... but they're ordinary people! Crimson Demon Clan magic will blow them to ashes!" Yunyun was so frantic she was nearly in tears. "Um... everyone, please calm down! We're all friends... waaah! Don't grab my foot!"
In the chaos, Kōichi ran into the winding corridor with Wiz in his arms.
Because the floor was slippery, he had to rely on his high Agility to repeatedly kick off the walls.
(Damn it! How are these Axis Order believers stronger than Orcs?! Does jealousy really give an all-stat boost?!)
As Kōichi ran, he felt Wiz in his arms becoming a little more conscious thanks to the violent jolting. Her half-transparent fingertips lightly brushed the back of his neck, sending tingling shivers through him.
"...Kōichi-san... even though this is dangerous... being carried by you like this while you run... feels so blissful..."
"Blissful, my ass! If you don't help me out, I'm throwing you to those loincloth perverts!"
"Found you! Let's see where you can run now!"
"Hehehe... hand over that big-breasted beauty, and we might consider only paralyzing you from the waist down!"