What a High Drop Rate!

Blushing, Veronica changed Wayne's clothes. Her clumsy fumbling made it obvious this was her first time, and she was rough enough that it was lucky Wayne was already awake—otherwise, the pain certainly would have jarred him awake. Changing someone's clothes inevitably involved some minor friction. Veronica caught sight of a certain indescribable thing and turned her face away in disgust. Then she stole another glance. Ugly, but intriguing! To the left and right, Monica kept her eyes shut the entire time, while William clamped both hands tightly over her eyes—though the gaps between her fingers were so wide that covering them had the exact same effect as not covering them at all. After leaving the Gate of Truth, Wayne had collapsed in exhaustion, achieving the rare feat of pinning three pretty girls beneath him in one go. Unfortunately, he hadn't known that Veronica would be the first to awaken. The Gate of Truth had swallowed the town, leaving behind a barren ruin where charred earth from raging blazes stretched all the way into the surrounding woods, a scene of total devastation. The space overlapping the town had been sacrificed by Mike to the Gate of Truth, allowing the real world to get back on track. The timeline had broken off on that night fifty years ago, and getting back on track began from that very same night. Veronica had awakened William and Monica, and the three of them fetched a change of clothes from the trunk, wrapping Wayne in a bedsheet along the way. Afterward, they carried Wayne to the barn behind the church. After resting for the night, they scavenged the town and found Wayne a set of clean clothes. None of the three understood how they had emerged unscathed after experiencing the Gate of Truth, but seeing Wayne in such a deep slumber, they guessed it all had something to do with him. They could have waited for Wayne to wake up and dress himself, but leaving their savior naked wasn't right either. Besides, heaven only knew when he would wake up; he needed to be dressed promptly so he could maintain some dignity. Who would dress Wayne? That was the dilemma! The issue wasn't the task itself, but that there were onlookers—and close gal pals at that. Handle it poorly, and being branded a "little pervert" by your best friends risked becoming a dark stain that would haunt you for life. William talked a big game, but chickened out at the crucial moment. With no volunteers, they needed a fair way to decide. Veronica proposed rock-paper-scissors, knowing William always had terrible luck at it. Veronica lost. Drenched in sweat, Veronica finished dressing Wayne and trudged downstairs in a daze to wash her hands. Her hands were dirty, her eyes were tainted, the image wouldn't leave her mind, and even her heart felt sullied. She was no longer pure. She hated rock-paper-scissors! A moment later, a loud boom resonated from the church. Who knew which wall had met its doom. Hearing the blast, Wayne sat straight up. Clutching his dizzy head, his vision slowly focused on William and Monica. "Wayne, you're awake!" "Who... are you two?" Both girls were exceptionally gorgeous. As for their figures, they clearly had plenty of nutrition—drinking plenty of milk had done them wonders. Judging by their appearance, they were around the same age as Veronica, every bit top-tier magical girls. Wayne had a pretty good idea who they were. He was merely flabbergasted, marveling at how bizarre the curse was while silently counting his blessings that he hadn't turned into a pretty girl or a dog. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Villy—let's be friends!" William—no, Villy—winked, gave Wayne's shoulder a hearty slap, and delivered virtually the exact same line from their first meeting. Seeing the sheer shock on Wayne's face, she broke into a triumphant grin at having pulled off her prank. That was the face! She had waited a long time for this moment. "No, William—!" Wayne let out a tragic wail. After going through life and death together, he had resolved to throw his arms around his muscled bro's shoulders in eternal camaraderie. Yet the bro was gone in the blink of an eye, swapped out for a pretty girl cute enough to land someone in prison. Curse it all, could he still throw his arms around her shoulders from now on? Could he? "Veronica Landau." "Villy Watson." "Chris Letty." "Wait a second, let me cut in—why did your name change so drastically?" Wayne couldn't help but complain. Veronica was still Veronica, and William had become Villy—at least the pronunciation sounded somewhat related. But why had Monica thrown all convention out the window and jumped straight to Chris? Besides, the transformation was way too extreme! What was up with those ridiculously oversized chest muscles? Could this be the little bell he had been longing to flick? If so, was it too late to flick it now? Wayne deeply regretted not taking decisive action earlier, kicking himself for missing his chance to satisfyingly flick the bell. At the same time, the realization dawned on him: that hadn't been a dream after all. He really had been surrounded by three girls with flowing long hair. That brought up a question: whose was that "plump, perky, silky, and springy" sensation from his dream? Wayne opened his mouth, but wisely kept quiet. The curse had been lifted; if the three of them ganged up on him by force, screaming his lungs out wouldn't save him. Once his strength was on par with theirs, it wouldn't be too late to ask! ... Having had their lives saved, the three treated Wayne as one of their own. No longer secretive like before, they shared their true names and gave a full introduction. Veronica was no foreign lady chasing her dreams from afar; she was a Londan native and attended Evanston Women's College in Londan alongside Villy and Chris. Veronica and Villy were roommates, while Chris was a senior student one year older, studying for her master's degree. On the surface, Evanston Women's College was an ordinary university with zero connection to magic. In reality, an internal division offered specialized courses in magic, cultivating an abundance of high-caliber believers for the three goddesses: Nature, the Sun, and the Moonlight. Veronica and Villy were nearing graduation. Their graduation assessment was to wipe out a stronghold of Death cultists. Because the enemy forces were formidable, they were permitted to invite a senior student to assist. Veronica had invited Chris, a senior who had always looked out for her and whom she admired as a role model. With the three joining hands, barring any unexpected mishaps, clearing the graduation assessment would have been a breeze. True to form, the unexpected mishap occurred. After clearing the stronghold, they were cursed by a Vicar of Death, transforming into the disheveled states they were in when Wayne first met them. With their stellar academic standing, they should have easily defended against the curse. Take Villy, for instance—the magic she cast could even shield Wayne from the curse's influence. Yet that day, all of them had overthought it. Chris had been invited purely as backup. It wasn't her graduation assessment, so she planned only to support and not actively attack, trusting completely in her juniors' abilities and assuming they had already set up defenses against any curses that might crop up. After all, that was common sense! Veronica assumed Villy would put up the ward; Villy assumed Veronica would do it; and then... In short, because Villy couldn't beat Veronica in a fight, she ended up taking the main blame for the fiasco. Chris enjoyed high prestige at the college, widely admired by younger students as a prominent figure. Veronica was no slouch either; with her beauty, figure, family background, and academic prowess, she had always been one of the campus's stars. Unwilling to scurry back to the college in such a pathetic state to beg a tutor to lift the curse—which would ruin their graduation scores and bring utter embarrassment—they discussed it and decided to track down another stronghold of Death cultists. So long as they kept their mouths shut and returned to the college before the deadline, no one would ever know they had committed such a rookie blunder. Searching high and low, they ended up wandering into the Wayne Detective Agency one night. Viewing Wayne as a mere passerby, the three casually made up an excuse to gloss over their origins, and the gears of fate began to turn... As for the name Monica, Chris explained that such a cat did exist—also black with golden eyes, residing at Veronica's house—and they had simply borrowed the name for convenience. Wayne nodded as he listened, thanking fate for delivering three magical girls right to his doorstep. Otherwise, he would have been the one roaming the night in search of mages. While he might still have managed to open the Book of Greed, things certainly wouldn't have gone this smoothly. For all he knew, he might have ended up as a loyal running dog for the Goddess of Death! "By the way, where did these clothes come from? Who changed me into them?" "..." x 2 "I did!" Villy raised her hand. "Shut up, there was no—right, it was her." Just as Veronica was about to snap at her, she realized this worked out well. Wayne had been sleeping like a log at the time and knew nothing anyway, so letting Villy take the credit was fine by her. --- With the Town of Kafuno resuming where it had left off fifty years ago, the ruins following the great fire were scorched earth all around, with only the church grounds remaining intact. Yet due to the battle the previous night, Veronica had smashed most of it to pieces, reducing it to near-ruins as well. Wayne cleared the battlefield, rummaging through the rubble in an attempt to scavenge every last drop of value. Wait, when it's between a living person and phantoms, can that even be called looting a corpse? This was called a rational redistribution of resources. Through Wayne's tireless efforts, he successfully located the priest's study. Spending another half a day searching, he unearthed three trophies. A white glove. The priest's Bible. The Nelson Family Handbook — Fisher Nelson Manuscript. The white glove was emblazoned with an inverted black triangle. It was a magical artifact of Death cultists that required no incantations; channeling mana into it was enough to activate it, giving it tremendous practical combat value. The Bible contained the priest's insights into divine arts alongside several extremely practical spells. Aside from being an outdated edition, it was virtually flawless. Moreover, its true value lay not in the divine arts, but in the Bible itself. It was a casting focus that exerted a powerful suppressing effect on creatures such as evil spirits. Phantoms, for instance! Without doing a thing, Wayne could make phantoms steer clear just by clutching this Bible. If he felt so inclined, he could chase phantoms through the dead of night. The most precious was undoubtedly the Nelson Family Handbook, written by Fisher Nelson, an ancestor of the Nelson family. Supplemented by subsequent generations of the family, the book was exceptionally suited for a novice like Wayne. The opening pages recorded the Nelson family's faith. No faith whatsoever! Members of the Nelson family viewed faith as a transaction. They respected deities, but were never loyal to them. The manuscript detailed their understanding of the divine. Several of the maxims struck Wayne like a sudden revelation, giving him the sense that he had found kindred spirits, though there were others he only half-understood. "Deities possess neither good nor evil. Where there is dazzling light, there is deep darkness; every god has two faces." "Take the Goddess of Death: death is eternal tranquility, yet it is also cold and terrifying. She embodies good just as she represents evil; the key lies in how mortals interpret her." "Power itself holds neither good nor evil. If it does, that power must belong to a master; weigh your choices carefully before using it." "Faith grants conviction, but religion breeds ignorance. Do not associate with cultists; they are all madmen." "Other men's wives are always the best." Wayne: (눈‸눈) Something strange seemed to have slipped in. Paging past the opening admonitions of the Nelson family, what followed was the family's fence-sitting history of constantly jumping ship and bending the knee to various deities. Due to their chaotic faith, the Nelson family had never learned profound magic. However, their repertoire was vast and recorded a multitude of beginner-friendly spells, making it a perfect fit for Wayne right now. "What a high drop rate!" Wayne treated it like a priceless treasure. Flipping to the very end, he spotted a rather peculiar insignia. "Free Mages Alliance..."