After a quick lunch, the group, having gotten a taste of how sweet the "Let the Hero Die First" tactic was, kept right on leaving the Hero to one side, grinding monsters to level up and build their rapport while gathering loot to trade for cash.
And so, at dusk that day.
The finally-resurrected Hero took one look at the mountain of loot piled high and immediately, sincerely praised these heartless, cold-blooded teammates of his:
"Everyone's amazing! You gathered this much loot!"
His reaction genuinely caught Ningning off guard.
Because Ningning had assumed the Hero would surely complain about them not resurrecting him in time.
She'd even gone to the trouble of dreaming up a whole pile of airtight excuses, like "a monster wave scattered us, so it took ages to find your body."
But the Hero didn't seem to care in the slightest that he'd spent an entire day dead.
He was simply, purely delighted at today's haul.
Watching the Hero's heartfelt, innocent smile, Ningning felt like a heinous, thoroughly rotten scoundrel for having deliberately left him unrevived:
"I guess... next time we really should save him at some point."
"Yeah."
『Mm-hm.』
Standing at Ningning's side, Baiye and Leilei both signaled their agreement.
Seemed their hearts were brimming with guilt too.
After a brief silence, Baiye, as captain, spoke up first:
"It's getting late. Let's head back to the city for today."
"Yay, yay! To celebrate today's haul, let's throw a banquet at the tavern!"
Bursting with energy, the Hero immediately raised his hand to propose it.
But at that, Baiye promptly put on a stern face, assuming the air of a captain-slash-teacher:
"Denied. In training, one must guard against pride and rashness, and not grow slack over a single day's success... hurgh!"
Baiye's lecture never made it to the end.
Hearing that Baiye disagreed with his proposal, the Hero immediately launched a boar-charge straight into her arms and whined, all pitiful and clingy:
"Big Sis Baiye! Even just a tiny banquet is fine, come on, I'm begging you..."
That soft, syrupy voice sent goosebumps racing across Ningning's whole body:
Hold on. Wait a second.
Hero-san, you're a man, right?
The file Her Highness the Princess gave us states in plain black and white that this Hero is a young adult male!
Ningning pressed hard against her temples, trying to find some reasonable explanation for the Hero acting spoiled like a naive little maiden.
After a moment, a flash of insight suddenly lit up the girl's mind.
Ah, eureka!
She understood now —
This crafty Hero was going for the puppy-boy route!
This conjecture, countless times more absurd than "the Hero is secretly a girl in disguise," was instantly accepted as fact in Ningning's chaotic little brain.
Hmph. Clever of you, Hero.
Against a tough-tongued, soft-hearted big-sis type like Baiye, playing the doting puppy really was a reasonable capture strategy.
But, Hero!
The opponent you're up against is none other than me, Ningning!
You think that just because I'm saddled with this freakish body, you can rest easy?
What a joke!
Let me show you the skills that I, Ningning, honed over a decade-plus steeped in galge!
And so the White Mage sprang into action.
She walked over and lightly patted the Hero on the shoulder:
"Hero, get up first, would you? Is this any way to behave? Baiye's going to end up disliking you. And Baiye, you shouldn't reject it so quickly either. We rarely get a haul this good, so celebrating a little isn't out of line, is it?"
At that, the Hero immediately bounced up out of Baiye's arms and gazed at Ningning with grateful eyes.
Finally freed from the Hero's clinging, Baiye let out a breath of relief, but she still didn't relent:
"But this loot is all supposed to be sold for travel funds. How can we just squander it on a banquet?"
Ningning gave a faint smile and held forth with ease:
"True, every day we go out to the forest beyond the city to clear monsters, all to save up travel funds for the journey to the Demon Lord's Castle."
"But Baiye, travel funds are only one part of it."
"If it were only about the money, we could just as easily take on some other kind of work. We don't have to fight monsters to earn it, do we?"
"Baiye, think carefully. Didn't we choose to earn money by fighting monsters precisely to strengthen our rapport with one another and boost the team's combat power?"
"And doesn't today's rich haul mean that our coordination has climbed to a whole new level?"
"So celebrating that, deepening the bond between teammates in a different way, that's hardly out of line, is it?"
"In short: Captain, this is party member Ningning, formally applying to hold a banquet tonight."
Watching Baiye left dumbstruck and speechless after Ningning's crisp, logical speech, the Hero immediately piled on:
"Me too, me too! I'm applying too!"
『Me as well.』
Standing to the side, Leilei hoisted her little blackboard high overhead, her cat tail drooping listlessly to the ground and trembling nonstop.
"Haah, you three... fine. Just this once. There won't be a next time."
Surrounded and pressed for an answer by these three little rascals, Baiye deliberated a long while before finally relenting.
"Woohoo!"
Watching the Hero, ecstatic at getting his way, Ningning gave a faint smile and, at last, showed her true aim:
"Baiye, there's quite a lot of loot today. Could you do me a favor and come sell it with me?"
"Hm? Oh... sure."
Looking at the mountain of monster materials heaped behind Ningning, Baiye nodded in agreement.
"Then Baiye and I will go sell the materials. Hero, Leilei, you two head to the tavern and reserve us a spot. Got it?"
"Got it! Leave it to us!"
The Hero thumped his chest, promising to handle it.
Seeing the Hero agree to the proposal without a hint of suspicion, Ningning let a barely perceptible smile cross her lips —
Heh heh. This way, the image of the spoiled, clingy Hero in Baiye's heart would be replaced by the memory of selling materials together with Ningning!
Terribly sorry, Hero, but your capture progress just reset to zero again!
Yet, almost in the very next instant, Ningning's smile vanished.
Because she saw a bloody hole open up in the Hero's chest.
The Hero looked at his own palm, slick with fresh blood, went "Eh?", toppled to the ground, and dropped dead again.
The Hero had slapped himself to death.
...Well then.
Ningning's eyes went round and her mouth fell open; she felt her common sense take yet another critical hit.
Faintly, she heard Baiye sigh beside her:
"Heh... how do I put it. He's died so many times these past few days that I've completely lost the ability to be surprised."
"Are we saving him?"
At the thought of having to resurrect this guy again, Ningning spoke numbly:
"...He's going to die either way whether we save him or not, so we might as well wait until after we conquer the Demon Lord to bring him back."
『Sounds reasonable.』 Leilei silently held up her blackboard.
"Good point... no wait, there's no point in that at all!" Baiye struggled to climb out of the logical rabbit hole. "That's out of the question. Have you forgotten? Only the Hero can kill the Demon race."
"Oh, right. There was that little detail."
Ningning couldn't help a sigh:
"Haah. Then hold on a moment, everyone. I'm going to resurrect the Hero."
"Mm." Baiye nodded. "Biluo, stay alert. Leilei, keep Ningning safe. I'll go deal with the loot."
『Understood.』 Leilei wrote on her blackboard.
Up in the tree, Biluo gave no reply, only kept right on munching her metaphorical popcorn.
Ningning made her own way over to the Hero's corpse, slowly crouched down, and began the resurrection procedure with practiced ease.
Still, this Hero's pecs were pretty well developed.
As she resurrected him, Ningning idly mused.
She'd have to remember to ask the Hero someday how he trained those pecs.