I'm a Jack-of-All-Trades Shop Clerk, but Honestly, I Want to Quit - Volume 3 Chapter 74
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- Volume 3 Chapter 74 - The Adorable Alice-chan
Volume 3 Chapter 74: The Adorable Alice-chan
“Yo, you worthless Noil.”
“Uh, yes?”
What is it now? And could you stop calling me “worthless,” please?
“You interested in becoming my servant?”
“Not a chance.”
Yeah, like that would ever happen.
“Tch! Why the hell not, you piece of crap?!”
Seriously, stop calling me that.
Out of nowhere, Lady Helsite—her words as sharp as ever—let out a dramatic, obnoxiously loud “Tch” of dissatisfaction.
We were currently in the massive hall that formed the foundation of the Floating City Pharmament, waiting for Aizon to arrive. Since Tesea had gone to summon Aizon, she wasn’t here with us.
Despite her cute appearance, Lady Helsite had the foulest attitude, and she aimed a kick at my shin. Though her strength wasn’t much, it still stung a bit.
“And what exactly brought this on?”
Couldn’t she act a little more composed? Why throw random nonsense at me like this?
“If you became my servant, I’d get to see that stuck-up woman completely lose her cool. You should be able to figure that out, you idiot.”
Like hell I could figure that out.
Lady Helsite—or no, let’s just call her Alice. There’s no point in being formal with someone like her. Alice placed her hands on her hips and glared up at me, as if daring me to challenge her.
She was probably talking about Elle.
“I want to see that composed face of hers twist in frustration. Don’t you get it, you absolute moron?”
No, I don’t. Let me say it again: no, I don’t.
It seemed Alice absolutely despised Elle. Or maybe she saw her as a rival? Whatever the case, it was clear she didn’t have any positive feelings toward her.
But making Elle frustrated, huh?
If that actually happened, Elle would probably crush Alice without mercy. It might sound arrogant of me to say this, but—actually, no, it’s not arrogance. Even I, as clueless as I am, can tell how obsessively Elle clings to me when she feels threatened.
“You really shouldn’t do something like that.”
So, I decided to gently warn her.
Alice might be strong with her Magis Gear, but Elle was on an entirely different level. If they went head-to-head, Alice would get utterly demolished.
Elle could even hold her own against the Manager in a fight—though she probably couldn’t win.
That being said, some of it does come down to compatibility.
Elle uses the power of spirits. I don’t know much about spirits, but they’re perfect mana-based lifeforms without any physical flaws. This means they’re immune to techniques like the Manager’s bizarre magical needles or mana waves.
Of course, if something doesn’t work, the Manager has her monstrous physical strength and insane recovery ability to brute-force her way through anyway.
I don’t know Elle’s full strength either, but no matter how I imagine it, I can’t see the Manager losing. During the Sierra incident, Elle even seemed slightly shaken by the Manager’s unexpected level of power. The outcome would probably favor the Manager.
Still, the fact that Elle could hold her own in such a battle was impressive. Meanwhile, I can’t even make for a halfway decent sparring partner.
And as for Alice, who’s now—
“What the hell?! Don’t you dare look down on me, you piece of crap! Idiot! Trash! Scum!”
Kicking my shin repeatedly, Alice was doing little to change my impression of her as someone small-minded. Sorry, but that’s just the truth.
Unlike earlier, she seemed more serious now, but the kicks didn’t hurt nearly as much. Once you know they’re coming, they’re easy to endure.
“Ow… geez…”
It seemed that Alice, the one doing all the kicking, ended up hurting her own leg. My physical durability isn’t much different from a regular human unless I use mana, but… honestly, the Soujin are just far too fragile compared to other races. I’d heard somewhere that the Soujin are among the most susceptible to illnesses like colds.
It’s as if they were a race that poured every ounce of their potential into the power of creation.
Could it be that humanity from long ago was just as frail?
Seeing Alice crouched down, holding her leg with teary eyes, I couldn’t help but get lost in these thoughts.
“By the way, Alice, how do you even know about me?”
Elle liking me… well, I suppose that’s true. But she’s not the type to go around blabbing about it to anyone.
“Ow…”
Apparently, it still hurt. Maybe she should take some pointers from Mina’s kicks instead of slamming shin against shin like this.
“Tch, when that stupid woman holed herself up for an entire month, of course it became the talk of the Miner’s Guild. On top of that, her entire ‘stupid party’ stopped their activities. It’s only natural people would start poking around to figure out what was going on.”
Still rubbing her leg, Alice explained with a bitter expression, though the tears hadn’t completely disappeared.
“And when I looked into what they were doing, guess who showed up? You!”
“Ah, I see.”
“I’m telling you now—right now, you’re pretty famous among the miners.”
“Ah, excuse me—what?”
“What’s with that face? It’s obvious! That stupid ‘Spirit King’ put her work on hold just to coddle some guy. Of course everyone’s going to be curious about who he is, you idiot!”
…
…
“…Ugh!”
Spitting her words out like venom, Alice stood up and, for emphasis, spat on the ground.
I decided then and there: once this mess was resolved, I’d hole up somewhere. I wouldn’t set foot outside until the miners lost interest in me. Absolutely not.
“So… why do you hate Elle so much?”
“Anyone who gets more attention than me pisses me off, you moron!”
“Ah, I see.”
In other words, jealousy.
I’d never say it out loud, but this was pure, undiluted jealousy. And honestly, it was kind of impressive in its intensity.
“‘Spirit King,’ my ass. ‘Spirit’s Wind’? ‘The rising stars of the adventuring world’? A party full of gorgeous people? And their leader is this strong, beautiful ‘embodiment of grace’? Seriously?”
Alice inhaled deeply.
“IT MAKES ME SICK, YOU PIECES OF TRASH, SCUM, FILTH, GARBAGE, WORTHLESS PILES OF CRAP!”
She screamed as though letting out all her pent-up frustrations and stomped the ground ferociously.
“The most important one should always be me! The cutest one should always be me! The adorable, adorable Alice-chan should be NUMBER ONE in the world!!”
Howling to the heavens, Alice panted heavily before turning to glare daggers at me.
Where exactly was this adorable, adorable Alice-chan she kept going on about?
Apparently, the world’s number-one Alice-chan had been pampered as a Soujin for so long, it had clearly fried her brain.
“Don’t you agree with me?!”
“…”
She demanded an answer, but I stayed silent. At this, her demeanor flipped instantly.
“That’s why, Noil, you should become Alice-chan’s servant~!”
“No, I won’t.”
Striking a sparkly, overly cutesy pose, she said this in a sugary-sweet voice, but I immediately shot her down.
“…”
“…”
“Become my servant~!”
“No, I won’t.”
“Servaaaant~!”
“No, I won’t.”
“…”
“…”
“Se…rvant…”
“Absolutely not.”
It was a moment where I couldn’t help but let my words slip into rough language.
“I SAID BECOME MY SERVANT, YOU IDIOT PIECE OF CRAP!”
“Hey, I said I won’t!”
Alice bared her teeth and lunged at me.
Her arms and legs wrapped around my body, holding me tightly as if trying to pin me down from the front.
Was she… a monkey? Was this woman actually a monkey?
Fortunately, she was light enough that I didn’t topple over, but the smell was unbearable. It was horrendously vomit-inducing. Absolutely wretched.
Come to think of it, this woman hadn’t rinsed her mouth at all.
Still, her strength was weak. Even without using mana, I could—
“Hnngh?!”
Just as I was about to shake her off, she pressed her lips against mine in an aggressive, forceful kiss.
It wasn’t romantic in the slightest—it was violent, revolting, and, above all, vomit-inducing.
Horribly, disgustingly vomit-inducing.
“Mmph… pwah!”
“Gyah!”
The moment Alice’s tongue barely grazed the inside of my mouth, I mustered all my strength and threw her off me.
She tumbled to the floor with a thud, groaning as she clutched the back of her head.
“Gaaah… you bastard… what the hell was that for…?”
“Haah… haah… that’s my line…!”
What was with this woman? What the hell was going through her mind? Was she insane?
Thankfully, the vomit-inducing stench completely eliminated any trace of excitement or heart-pounding sensations. I was deeply sorry, but this was just plain unpleasant.
As she writhed on the floor for a while, Alice eventually began to chuckle softly, eerily.
“Kheheh… Kheheheheh…”
Then, shakily, she stood up.
“Aaaah… Kheheheheheheheheheh…”
Oh great, she’s broken.
“I DID IT… I DEFILED THAT STUPID WOMAN’S MAN… KEHEHEHEHE!”
With a crazed glint in her eyes, Alice cackled like it was the funniest thing in the world. Her entire being was twisted beyond belief.
“I can’t wait… can’t wait to see what kind of face that idiot makes!”
For the record, I am not Elle’s man. Not that saying this would change anything.
Also, I had the strong feeling this incident was something I absolutely shouldn’t tell Elle about.
For Alice’s sake. And for mine. If we wanted to keep breathing, this had to remain a secret.
“Serves that smug idiot right,” Alice sneered.
She clearly wasn’t the type to stop on her own. While I was carefully choosing my words to try and calm her down, something shifted.
“They’re here,” she muttered.
Alice’s deranged eyes instantly sharpened into something cold and calculating as she directed her glare toward a large pipe in the center of the hall.
Following her gaze, I noticed a white, translucent sphere descending slowly through the pipe.
“We’ll stick to the plan,” she said curtly.
“Got it.”
As expected of an A-rank miner, Alice’s demeanor had completely transformed. The air around her was entirely different.
Even I, who had been thoroughly distracted by her antics, found myself unnaturally calm. Perhaps the chaos earlier had inadvertently helped me relax.
Could all of that madness have been a setup to help us focus? …No, definitely not. That was Alice’s genuine lunacy. I almost gave her too much credit for a moment there.
“You thinking something rude about me?” Alice snapped.
“Nope, nothing at all.”
Alice’s suspicious gaze lingered on me for a moment, but I maintained my usual poker face and ignored it.
By then, the white sphere in the pipe had reached the center of the hall.
I adjusted my posture, adopting as dignified a stance as possible, and waited for the figure inside to emerge. Alice, meanwhile, stood at my side, feigning the demeanor of a meek and delicate woman. Her acting skills were astonishing.
When everything was ready, the door opened.
From within emerged a man draped in white cloth—Aizon.
A quiet, simmering rage began to rise within me.
—Stay calm.
I gritted my teeth and held back the overwhelming urge to knock him out on the spot.
Behind Aizon, Tesea emerged, also draped in white cloth, walking slowly and deliberately.
We had only one shot at this.
“Ooooh… Sacred Heavens, Lumelherc-sama! To have been summoned by you fills this humble Aizon with the utmost joy,” he said, his trembling voice laced with insincere reverence. After stopping a short distance from me, he knelt.
Then, his gaze shifted sharply to Alice, standing by my side. His eyes were as cold as ice, chilling me to the bone.
“And why is she here? She is hardly worthy of standing by Lumelherc-sama’s side, is she?”
Exactly as expected.
Confirming his reaction, I slowly opened my mouth to put the next phase of the plan into action.