Prologue

Lifting a boulder twice the size of my head is a strenuous task, but I can somehow manage it, despite the fact that I'm in [Student]-class. I need both hands to hold it, and I can't straighten my back, but it's still alright.

Then I change to [Ranger], my muscles grow, and it becomes a bit easier. Now I can straighten my back, but lifting it above my shoulders is impossible. Finally I switch to [Pikeman], and I can finally lift it over my head.

Man is this heavy!

“Lower it again,” Ara-san calls out to me several meters away. Dressed in her green garment, her snow-white hair in a ponytail, she observes me with slightly narrowed dark green and blue eyes. “To about chest-height, then change to [Student].” Her long ears are lowered, she's concentrating that much on me.

I do as she asks, and while the weight of the boulder naturally stays the same, it becomes much harder to hold it in place, my fingers and elbows want to give in.

Then Ara-san comes two steps closer.

Suddenly, I feel a surge of new power. It becomes easier for me to carry the boulder and I can lift it further. Now it's right in front of my face.

““Strange.”” Both of us comment on it.

We expected that surge of energy, since Ara-san just stepped close enough to me, that she's in the range of the [Increased Attributes]-power of the cursed ring. Since my [Attributes] are increased now, of course I would feel stronger,

But the numbers... In [Ranger]-class, my [Strength] is 132 without the bonus. In [Student]-class, my [Strength] is 53 with the bonus. Yet, it's still easier to lift the boulder in [Student] with the bonus than as a [Ranger] without it, while [Pikeman] without the bonus has a whopping [Strength] of 187, which made it easier than as a [Student] with the bonus.

Short, going by these numbers it makes no sense!

“Kenta-kun, change into [Ranger] now and elevate it further.”

Following her instruction, I easily raise the boulder over my head. Feels like I can do it one-handed. Yes, it works! I feel strangely masculine right now, but that might only be the case since I never had something to brag about regarding sports.

Then I put [Pikeman] on top of it. “That's unreal!” Following an impulse, I just throw the boulder some meters away. “How easy is this!?”

“Could you please not do things on your own? We're doing science here.” Ara-san's ears are laid back, even though her face is as neutral as always. It shows that she's angry that I just went ahead.

“Sorry.” She's right, we're doing experiments here. We already did them in Aroahenn, but we had no chance to gather the data when we acquired these curse-bonuses. “The bonus in [Student] is merely 6 points, but it's still much easier to lift things than with the difference of 79 points under normal class-change.”

“Hn...” Ara-san flicks her ear. “I already told you, that certain actions in an [Attribute] are limited unless you have certain [Skills]. Like the fact, that even if you have much more [Strength] as a [Pikeman], I can still jump much higher than you as an [Acrobat], because I have the [Like the Wind]-skill.”

“So you say, that the bonus is overcoming the limit?”

“Maybe. The more I see, the less I understand.” Without giving much care or worry, Ara-san picks up a paper and writes something down with a coal pen. “If our theory is correct, then it should also apply to me. Now we switch.”

With the roles reversed , we tried the experiment once more. Ara-san couldn't even lift the boulder as an [Accountant] or [Bookie], but she could raise it a finger wide as an [Acrobat] or [Druid]. The moment I got close, it became easier for her as well, but she still couldn't lift it to her chest.

“Hff... hff...” Her heavy breathing is kinda sexy, especially how the sweat runs down her chin and neck. Wait! It's not me who feels like that! It's the curse! “The effect differs... Maybe it's a percentage factor, or other factors are playing in. We should ask Momo and Katarine-san later to repeat this.”

“Phew... you mean, I have to repeat it with them.” However, intelligence is important and if Ara-san is the one who collects it, it'll at least be complete. “Alright, let's return to them. It's almost lunchtime.”

―○●○―

It's early afternoon. After the last trouble, we ended up being exhausted to the point that neither Ara-san nor I could move, so even if it's uncertain if we're currently being chased or not, we decided to take breaks seriously.

Not that Ara-san and I could just do nothing. So we went out for some 'light experiments’, promising our other companions to not do anything too strenuous. Well, the boulder thing is borderline right?

Warming up something that's called haerrous, a sort of alfr porridge, is Momokawa Kyou-san, a Japanese beauty with long black hair and dark eyes. Watching her is Rine, aka Katarine von Stolzherz, a rather short-haired, blonde idiot, who happens to be a princess. Her ember-like eyes are sparkling while she observes Kyou-san doing a rather mundane task as if she has never witnessed someone warming up a meal before. Most likely she did not before meeting us, but nowadays she sees it around every other day. Still, Rine doesn't seem to get tired of this.

All four of us, Ara-san, Rine, Kyou-san, and I are bound together by a curse. All of us wear copper rings on our left ring fingers, which try to impersonate wedding rings. It all started, when I picked up a ring in a cave and put it on my finger in order to identify it. Seriously though, who would have guessed that the ring was a cursed item in a remote place like that!?

Well after I got cursed, it spread. First to Kyou-san when we tried to get rid of the curse together, then to Rine, who Kyou and I originally planned to capture in exchange for a bounty to get another decurse attempt, and finally to Ara-san, who triggered it willingly, because she just assumed stuff.

To get infected three conditions had to be cleared. First a partner, then some kind of pledge, and finally a source of great magic power. The ritual pilgrimage that should have gotten rid of the curse on me collected the power needed to spread the curse to Kyou-san. The cool blessing of an Etna -some strange mountain creature- was the source of Rine's contamination. Lastly the mana-generator tree, Aeolferelda, made Ara-san a victim.

While the 'pledges' with Rine and Kyou-san were accidental, stuff we blabbered under very stressful situations, Ara-san intentionally tricked me into making the pledge. She didn't know about the marriage business and just expected some kind of convenient party-system! So it happens that I have three so-called 'wives' now! All of us have different feelings about the whole marriage-curse-thing.

Rine more or less really believes that we're married and I have a hard time persuading her otherwise. She's clingy as hell and calls me 'dear' and such, if I don't intervene, plus she's is annoying as hell overall! By the way, she's a wandering machine of murder, so if she truly wants she could just overpower me easily and do whatever she wants with me. I don't know if she has realized it yet, and I'm too afraid to find out. I don't want to put the idea in her head!

Ara-san is more or less indifferent to the marriage itself, but the curse changed something in her and in me. We shouldn't be physically attracted to each other in any way, since she's an alfr and I'm a human, but both of our bodies are calling out to each other due to the curse. I like her though, we think much alike, and she's the first friend I made in this shitty fantasy world, but the curse makes it unnecessarily complicated!

On the other hand, Kyou-san is the first actual enemy I made in this fantasy world. We started off as people who don't get along, and then we worked together for our selfish reasons, but then the curse struck and sour turned into acid. Of course she despises the curse with everything she has. It turned what life she had left after coming to this world into a mess, but she doesn't have to use me as a target for her bitching!

What about me? I hate it! If I'm not with everyone, I will get serious debuffs and it will lead to my death after a while. Also, these girls tire me out! It'd be so much better to work on my own!

Well, I could tolerate Ara-san, if she wouldn't trigger my lust. She's another species, dammit!

Also, from a battle standpoint, having Rine in the party is very practical, but she's clingy as hell!

Kyou-san really makes an impact on a daily basis, since I eat much better when she cooks, but she bitches around like every other second!

...seriously... What am I even doing here? I was summoned along with Kyou-san and our other classmates to this world to kill the demon king and end the war between Feuerberg and the demons of Daemonicus, but currently I'm far away from this goal. I’ve had to say goodbye to my grinding schedule, and now everything is about dealing with the curse.

If that's how marriage works for real, I never want to get ever married.

“Phew.” I pick up a waterskin from the backpack and drink a bit. “How long until lunch?”

“About three minutes.” Kyou-san doesn't even look at me, but stirs the porridge. “Could you help Rine drink as well?”

Rine currently has a broken arm. Even though she can drink from a waterskin without help, it's not that easy. These ones are little more than flaps of sewn leather, so they are overly flexible. No internal structure or anything like that.

“Here.” I give the waterskin to Rine.

“Thanks.” She put the mouthpiece on her lips, then I start lifting the other side a bit.

You gain 1 WP. You're so close that you don't even bother with indirect kisses anymore, it's so precious.

One of the most annoying things about the curse would be these messages. We get some WP for any action that lovers would do. WP can be turned into bonuses, which makes me actually want to grind like crazy, even though I don't want to perform these actions at all. Maybe if I were in a relationship with someone, but with these girls? No thanks!

I try to simply ignore the pop-up and lift the end of the waterskin a bit. “Rine, concentrate!” I call her back from dreamland, she was giggling with the mouthpiece in her mouth. If she doesn't watch out, she will just choke on water.

Why do we get WP when I get fed by one of the girls, yet this doesn't count? The only way to get WP with drinks is to feed it mouth-to-mouth, which I will not do!

After Rine gulped a few times, I lower the waterskin again and closed it. Then I put it back into the backpack and take out a stool. Magic pocket-dimensional backpacks are convenient, even though there are some limits.

I sit down and look at Kyou-san stirring up the porridge, her hands move slowly but methodically. The greenish pulp is stirred with muddy noises. Somehow it is fascinating, or maybe I'm just that bored.

Kyou-san has wrapped a cloth around her head to keep her hair in check, and is wearing an apron. She looks like some hobby-cook. “Phew.” Too bad that this girl is no good, since looking at her like this is actually quite pleasing. If she would play games and be nice all the time, she would be perfect. Well, there are no girls like that in reality.

“Are you thinking something rude, Ken?” She doesn't even look at me, but can still somewhat guess what I'm thinking? What a pain... Well, let's try something. Stupid, nagging, useless, XP-leeching bitch! “Rine-chan? Could you pinch Ken for me, please?”

A sharp pain later, and I'm sure of it: Somehow Kyou-san can read my thoughts. I check her status. Most likely it's [Spirit Magic]-related, but hers is useless. Just two spells: [Regrow] that activates and enhances the self-healing capabilities of a plant, and [Warp Plants], which will change the body of a plant to some degree.

So no 'Read Thoughts' or something like that, huh?

...man, I'm really bored, if I’m resorting to checking out things like that. Let's use the time a bit more effectively by checking everyone's stats. No new skills since yesterday, but there is still some stuff I’d like to try out.

“Ready.” Kyou-san fills a wooden bowl with the haerrous. “Here, Arako.” Then another. “Here, Rine-chan. Be careful.” And a third. “Here you go, Ken.”

I take the bowl. Something seems to be odd. Usually, Kyou-san would either throw an insult there, ask me to serve myself, or do some other stuff, which isn't reasonable. Our relationship is as rocky as a canyon, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but normally she should be pissed off right now since everything went wrong again just a few days ago.

We were hunted by monsters and mercenaries alike and almost wiped out. I was out of commission and Kyou-san had to take care of me. Every time something goes wrong, Kyou-san is in a bad mood for like an eternity.

Despite that, she still treats me... normally? Perhaps she finally got some reason beaten into her head and realized that I'm not at fault for everything, or maybe that unlikely rescue by that hynoar-ranger made her forget everything bad that happened.

I don't really care, as long as it makes her shut her mouth.

Tomorrow we will arrive at Goldbrunn. There we will resupply, look for some kind of faster means of transportation, and hopefully leave everyone behind with even a remote interest in us.

―○●○―

“Yikes!” Following the squirrels' direction, the oni stands in front of a town in the south. Chances are high that Katakata and her friends will show up here if she can trust her master's relic and the guess of her companions.

But the oni didn't expect a camp outside the town, especially one with a banner. It's not showing any random symbol, but one of the super-no-go emblems Master told her never to cross, the claw clenching a blade: Crusaders.

What are they doing here? The oni doesn't know and can't even think of a reason, but that's not good. She needs to get Katakata, unless she wants to anger Master, who undoubtedly will be furious, if he learns how she messed up before, and with no Katakata to compensate.

Good thing that she's a bunny right now, an innocent red bunny. So she only needs to wait here, until Katakata shows up. Until then, she just has to figure out how to spend her time in the meanwhile.

“Go and watch the gates!” With childlike glee, she says that to her loyal squirrel followers, who exchange silent looks with each other and split into small teams.