Livia's True Feelings

I had, in fact, vaguely known how Livia felt about me.

She liked me, and it was a long-standing feeling that had persisted since childhood. It was impossible not to know. After all, she had told me herself that she ran away from the Orphanage as a child, determined to find me. She explained it to me without hiding anything.

“...”

Of course, it was a childish act born of ignorance back then, if only she had known a little more about the World, if she hadn't been kidnapped by Adventurers after leaving the Orphanage.

The timeline might have been slightly different. She probably would have wandered around the Empire, then returned to the Orphanage. And, comforted by the Nuns at the Orphanage, she would have cried like a child for a few days... then slowly forgotten me.

And perhaps she would have lived an ordinary life, like the other children at the Orphanage. But that future had already vanished.

After being kidnapped by Adventurers, she yearned for her Orphanage memories while doing all sorts of menial tasks. Just as childhood memories last a long time, those memories became an integral part of her.

She liked me—lingering affection, regret, obsession, and so on—all those slightly twisted emotions combined. Her somewhat childish demeanor was also one of her ways of recalling past memories.

All of those facts were things I unconsciously already knew.

Nevertheless, the reason I had left her be until now was that even I couldn't quite figure out how to deal with Livia. My Womanizing Tendency was, well... frankly, a bit complicated...