CH 45

[You’ve Blossomed a Talent You May Better Do Without, Grimm-chan!]

“I can’t wait to see how my equipment turned out~.”

A day after I picked up Grimm. As soon as I logged in, I immediately headed to the mansion I’d given her.

It was the largest mansion in the huge city of Helheim. When I had given it to her yesterday as a gift, Grimm instantly had gone into a daze, her jaw literally dropped. Then I’d gone on to shut down some equipment shops and give all the craftsman NPCs and materials to her, causing her to, again, start trembling. “These high-level craftsmen and piles of super rare materials are all for me…?! W-what will happen if I can’t meet the expectations…?” so she had muttered to herself as she shuddered.

Now then, I arrived at the mansion.

“Pardon the intrusion~.” I opened the large doors and proceeded to the floor that had been turned into a workshop.

By the way, I was wearing a black one-piece dress, my initial equipment. Equipment could apparently be altered, so I’d given Grimm the ‘Shinigami’ set I’d gotten from Francoise. When I did, Grimm had, for the umpteenth time, trembled as she cried out in fear, “Huh?! You want me to alter the top craftswoman Francoise’s works?! I-if I ended up breaking it and lowering your battle power… Fueeeeeeee…!” For someone with a strong sense of rivalry and belief, she sure was quite a timid craftswoman.

Then again, when I’d gone on to say, “Please, Grimm, you’re the only one I can count on…!” she’d immediately become super motivated, her short body reinvigorated.

I was just telling the truth, but I was really glad it had inspired her.

While thinking about things that had happened yesterday, I entered the workshop. There, Grimm was waiting for me with her arms folded, a confident look on her face.

“Kukuku, you’re finally here, Demon King! Your equipment is done!”

“Oh, I knew I could count on you, Grimm. Of course, I can expect a great increase in the Luck bonus, I presume?”

“Yes. I went as far as to add negative corrections to all other stats to increase the bonus rate as much as possible. Ordinary players would very likely be put off if they were to see the details, but I really had a fun time working on it…!” So Grimm said as a smile bloomed across her glossy face. She sure loves her crazy equipment.

Yes, what I’d asked of her was to push the equipment’s Luck-increasing bonus to the limit.

As a matter of fact, thanks to the item, ‘Cursed Princess’s Ring’ I’d bought at Grimm’s shop yesterday, the ‘Tenacity’ skill that had been nerfed by the devs had regained its power.

While the devs had made it so that ‘Tenacity’ could withstand attack only once every five seconds, with the ring’s effect of ‘having a low probability of reducing a skill’s cooldown to 0 in exchange for setting the wearer’s HP to 1’, I succeeded in removing that restriction.

But unlike before the update, I now had to deal with not only Tenacity’s but also the ring’s low activation rate, or else I wouldn’t be able to withstand continuous attacks.

So, what do I have to do? The answer was obvious.

“Double the difficulty, double the Luck! Grimm, the stuff, please!”

“Here you go! Marvel at my most prided work yet~!” Grimm puffed out her small chest. Smiling at her charmingness, I checked the items she’d sent to my item box.

The ‘Shinigami’ set originally increased Luck by 30, let’s see how much the increase had gone up…!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

・Headpiece, ‘Cursed Shinigami Princess’ Hair Ornament’ (Creator: Francoise; Alterer: Grimm)

Halve player’s Strength, Magic, Defense, and Agility; MP +100; Luck +300

・Body piece, ‘Cursed Shinigami Princess’ Dress’ (Creator: Francoise; Alterer: Grimm)

Halve player’s Strength, Magic, Defense, and Agility; MP +100; Luck +300

・Feet pieces, ‘Cursed Shinigami Princess’ Boots’ (Creator: Francoise; Alterer: Grimm)

Halve player’s Strength, Magic, Defense, and Agility; MP +100; Luck +300

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Wait, whaaaaaaat…?! It shot up from ‘30’ to ‘300’…?! The MP increase has more than tripled too, that’s insane…!”

“Fuhahaha! What do you think? This is my true ability! Amazing, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they’re really amazing! You really are a genius, Grimm! I’m so glad I got to meet you!”

“Fuee?!”

When I grabbed her hands tightly and told her my honest thoughts, Grimm’s face turned red and she froze.

But she really was a genius, so let’s praise her more!

“Thank you! You’re great! Amazing! Brilliant! I’m so lucky to have met you!”

“D-Demon King, please stop~?! I-I’m not used to being praised~…!” Embarrassed, Grimm finally went hiding behind a pillar, trembling.

I meant everything I said, so you can just accept it honestly, you know~?

Alright, let’s leave it here, I couldn’t wait to put on my upgraded equipment anymore!

I’d asked Grimm to alter the idol-like gothic dress to ‘be more in line to men’s taste’.

With bubbling anticipation inside, I tapped the equipment icon, then my body was enveloped in light—

“—W-what the hell is thiiiiiis?! Why is it exposing more skin than before?!”

“Eh, isn’t it how men like it? I tried really hard to meet your expectations…”

She misunderstood?! I wanted her to make it cool?!

…Due to a small miscommunication, the Shinigami’s dress had transformed into something extremely sexy.

The dress had originally exposed my shoulders and armpits, but now even the area around my chest was greatly exposed.

The skirt’s fabric became very thin, too. While nothing seemed weird at first because of how the frills were multi-layered, upon closer look, each of them was see-through…!

In addition, there was now a long, thin, light purple cloth—similar to a celestial maiden’s hagoromo—that was wrapped around my arms and flowed down to my waist, but it didn’t give a sense of purity as it normally intended at all. On the contrary, the see-through cloth only served to enhance the dress’s sexiness.

Kh… that wasn’t even the end of it! The area around my chest had become tighter and my bodyline more pronounced…!! To make a dress one size smaller so that it became sexier, where did you learn this technique, Grimm?!

“Hey Grimm, did someone teach you the design of this gothic idol sexy dress…?”

“Huh? No, I made it mostly by intuition…”

I-intuition?! This?! S-she is… a geniuuuuuuuuuus?! Even though she’s so smol, she’s a genius at making sexy equipment?!

The fact that I had picked up such an extraordinary talent made me shudder…!

“C-could it be that my taste is bad?! S-should I realter it?! Ah, but if I do that, the stat bonus may drop…!”

“…No, you’re very talented, in fact. Be confident and puff up your chest.”

“R-really? That’s a relief…!” Grimm-san (the genius sexy fashion designer) sighed in relief and smiled innocently. There was no way I could tell her to redo it when she showed me such a face. It might lower the Luck bonus, too.

—Okay, I’ve decided. As they say ‘if everyone crosses against the red light, then there’s nothing to be afraid of’, once Seele got back, let’s turn hers into sexy equipment!

A/N:

・Believe it, the bond of friendship will bud from sexy equipment!  (*Or maybe not.)