Chapter Eleven
W-w-what in the world is happening!?
Lisbeth was utterly startled by the sudden embrace. To make matters worse, she found herself completely unable to escape the person’s grip. Her hands, it seemed, were currently stuck to whatever she had been touching just moments before.
‘Damn it,’ she thought, ‘to be ensnared by such a soft trap. Hmph, as an opponent, this is truly… so incredibly soft.’
If anyone had seen Lisbeth’s expression at that moment, they would undoubtedly have described it as utterly lewd. The woman holding her, noticing her silence and faint murmuring, sounded genuinely puzzled. “Merlin, what’s wrong?” she asked. “Why aren’t you speaking?”
‘How am I supposed to speak?’ Lisbeth inwardly fumed. ‘The moment I utter a sound, I’ll expose myself as a woman!’
Since the other person was clearly a woman, it meant her intended rendezvous partner must have been a man. Fortunately, her identity hadn’t been discovered yet. Lisbeth’s best course of action was to remain silent and seize an opportunity to escape. However, her silence did not mean the other woman would follow suit. As Lisbeth remained tight-lipped, a soft chuckle suddenly escaped her captor.
“Hehe, it seems my little Merlin is feeling shy, aren’t you? That’s quite alright. I’ll just listen to your shy little sounds then~”
“H-huh!?”
As the words left her lips, Lisbeth felt a hand climb onto her chest, beginning to gently knead her. Simultaneously, the other hand, which had been embracing her waist, slowly began to descend, nearing a very unwelcome region.
“Hmm!? Little Merlin, how did your chest get so much larger since we last met? I’ll just have to give it a proper, thorough inspection!”
‘Hold on!’ Lisbeth thought, aghast. ‘So the person you were originally meeting was a woman after all!’
Lisbeth had wondered how, even in such darkness, the other woman could fail to notice she was embracing a girl. But now, upon hearing her words, Lisbeth finally understood the entire situation. Yet, more pressing than this revelation was the increasingly dire predicament she found herself in.
“Mmm… Hmph…”
In the mere seconds Lisbeth spent pondering, the woman’s hand had nearly reached an utterly inappropriate place. Meanwhile, the hand still cupping her chest continued its slow, deliberate kneading, causing Lisbeth to instinctively let out a peculiar sound.
‘Damn it,’ she cursed inwardly, ‘why is this woman so incredibly skilled at kneading chests?!’
Despite the strange sounds escaping her lips, Lisbeth, a woman with important matters at hand, refused to let herself become completely incapacitated. Thanks to the woman’s peculiar actions, Lisbeth’s waist was no longer held captive. Taking a deep breath, she then shoved the woman away with a sudden, powerful thrust.
“Whoa!”
Clearly startled by Lisbeth’s abrupt push, the woman let out a cry of surprise. As soon as Lisbeth confirmed she was free, she bolted forward, not daring to glance back.
“Flash!”
“Tsk.”
Lisbeth’s sudden actions had evidently alerted the woman to something amiss. The instant she was pushed away, the woman immediately cast the first-tier magic spell, ‘Flash’. However, Lisbeth had anticipated such a move. The very moment she shoved her attacker, Lisbeth once again shrunk her own body.
“Huh? No one? What in the world just happened?”
After casting ‘Flash’ and finding no one, the woman looked utterly bewildered. Meanwhile, Lisbeth, shrunken and concealed in a corner, got a clear look at the woman’s face. “Damn it,” she muttered with a lingering sense of dread, “I almost blew it. But now I’m in trouble. Shrinking magic can only be used four times a day. If I use it again, I’ll be in a bind when I return to the prison.”
Yet, Lisbeth was not one to be timid. Having escaped the immediate danger, she patted her chest, reassuring herself. “Never mind, never mind. The important thing is that I’m safe. But I’ll definitely remember that woman’s face.”
With the woman’s face etched into her memory, Lisbeth continued her path toward the treasure vault, never looking back.