Antagonist Protection Service-Chapter 141: Preparation

Firstly, since it seemed it was the dragon girl's first time being in any human settlement before, the Protagonist was showing her around the city. Before they went off somewhere unknown, I approached them, having just one thing to ask to her.

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"―Excuse me, before you go. Is there anything you think might be a good gift for your tribe?"

When I asked that, she simply glanced at me without saying anything for a few seconds, then frowned.

"...Give me your hand."

Breaking the silence with that terse order, I was naturally puzzled but listened anyway. When she then grabbed my right hand and stared down at it for a strangely prolonged period of time, she eventually spoke her mind.

"There will be no need for a gift. Your body contains no mana except for within this hand. Merely show them this and that will be satisfactory enough. That is a more interesting phenomenon than any human item you could find in this place."

"..."

"You also... no, nevermind. Just, that is all."

Turning away from me after that, she immediately continued on what was probably going to turn out to be a date with the Protagonist.

'What was that about...? Oh, right. The cold...'

Gazing down at my hand for a while, it wasn't entirely shocking to me that this was the result, but at the same time, I couldn't say I exactly expected it either.

Also, although she seemed about to mention the extreme, and undeniable peculiarity of my body's temperature, the fact that she didn't say anything explicit probably meant there wasn't a huge concern.

'The Mark is the only source of mana in my body. And I don't even know if I could call it 'within' my body since it's just on the surface... Uh, what are they even going to do when they see me...?'

Suddenly having the idea that they might tear me open to see what's inside after getting curious, I shook my head and quickly continued with the shopping.

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The four days were peaceful, as expected, but they were also worrying.

As soon as I finished purchasing everything we would need for our journey, I spent a lot of time, admittedly more than maybe I should have, spying on the Protagonist.

For no reason other than to gauge what his relationship was like with each of the girls, you see. I also think I did a decent job building rapport with them myself, at least with the dog girl Cassie, who was by far the friendliest of the bunch.

Anyway, what I discovered didn't exactly blow me away, but it certainly wasn't a good sign.

Each day, the Protagonist went on a date with each one of the girls. Perhaps because they had only recently met, but the first day with the dragon girl was less of a proper date and more of him simply showing her around and seeing her get excited by all the new things she had never experienced before.

Regardless, at least with the other three, I think I could confirm without a doubt that they were, in fact, completely infatuated with him. Even if they didn't show it outwardly, it was obvious from an outsider's perspective.

If they could help it they wouldn't leave him alone, and especially when he left two of them to go on a date with the third, those two who remained really became a handful, whining and whimpering constantly in Cassie's case and becoming a grouchy sulk in Katya's case. Feanya was mostly fine, strangely enough.

If there was a single silver lining, I guess it would be the fact that they actually listened to him despite not wanting to.

That meant, even if they normally never left him alone for a single instant, so long as I could somehow convince him to tell them to go somewhere, even if it was for just a short while, I could take advantage of that.

Still, to convince him to make all four of them leave, including the dragon who I was entirely confident he hadn't yet "tamed"... That'll be a tall order.

By the time our four-day break was up, I had already gotten everything prepared and we gathered to leave the city on the fifth morning.

Thanks to me, who had secured us a carriage powered by magic similar to that which formed the hostile Golems outside the city, it would also take us a vastly lesser amount of time to travel back to the mountains.

And so, with everyone ready and my own plan steadily formulating in my mind, we set off.