Chapter 12
“Hey, Lucy.”
“You know I’m a research student, and you’re still speaking casually to me.”
“Would you like me to call you Senior Lucy?”
“No, I want you to speak casually to me, boy.”
“You have weird tastes.”
“Maybe not just boys.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“According to the rumors, there’s a freshman who’s been walking around with a woman on each arm since the first day of school.”
“Damn, who could that be?”
Lucy blinked.
“No, I suppose it’d be ‘boy.’”
“That’s not me.”
Although I’d accompanied Maron and Elettra now and then, I wouldn’t say I’d been walking around with them on my arms.
Surely she meant someone else—or it was just a baseless rumor.
“…As the rumors say, you’re quite the delinquent.”
“?”
“Never mind. I feel like even I’m going to get taken in by that wastrel….”
Lucy cupped her breasts from underneath.
They bounced.
“….”
“What? You’re not going to do that thing from earlier this time?”
“Wow, your tits are insanely sexy.”
“…That was even more vulgar than before.”
【The target isn’t in a bad mood】
<Praise Points: +10(1590→1600)>
What on earth makes this person earn points for something like this? Isn’t this too easy?
Still, I’m grateful.
“…Are you interested in breasts?”
“Any man who says he isn’t interested in breasts is either a liar or a dangerous guy.”
“Hmm….”
Lucy shook her breasts again.
They bounced.
I love that this is a subculture game’s world.
It’s a little disappointing that it’s a romance fantasy, too.
Now that I think about it, this pisses me off. If I was going to be transmigrated, wouldn’t it have been great to end up in the old-school game I liked?
I could’ve saved the heroines, already knowing what they’d been through, and gotten close to them.
“….”
Now that I think of it, am I already doing that with Maron?
I still don’t really know what Elettra’s thinking.
And Lucy…
I know what she went through.
“How’s life as a research student?”
“Well, it’s pretty much the same as anything else. Hard when it’s hard, manageable when it’s manageable.”
“Aren’t you having an especially rough time of it, Lucy?”
Lucy paused.
“Who knows? How would you know, boy?”
Because I read the original.
The reason Lucy Merhantia became a terrorist who attacked the academy was that she was tormented by a vicious advisor.
She was forced to handle lab work and her professor’s personal errands day and night.
Whenever she came up with a decent idea, the professor stole it as their own achievement, while finding fault with Lucy to keep her from graduating.
This continued for one year, two, three, four….
Eventually, crushed by constant overwork and abuse of power, Lucy developed a mental illness.
The world was blurred.
Apathy.
Everything was painful and difficult.
Even a simple task like tidying her room felt like an impossible undertaking, like lifting a mountain.
Her body went to work out of sheer inertia, analyzed research materials, fed her advisor’s pet dog, watered the potted plants, then ran errands and returned.
Then one day.
Lucy saw a carriage speeding down the street and thought, If I get hit by that, I won’t have to go to work.
A healthy person would have thought, If I don’t want to go to work, I just won’t.
But in a brain already sick and broken, death felt like the only escape.
Just as Lucy was about to walk in front of the carriage with a peaceful smile, a hand reached out and stopped her.
“Are you all right? You look… exhausted.”
When the only lifeline offered from the depths of despair is right in front of you, you have no choice but to grab it, even if it’s covered in poison.
It was her first encounter with the heretical cult, the <Abyssal Order>.
But it wasn’t as if I could tell Lucy that I knew her future.
Instead, I had a convenient excuse.
“That professor has a terrible reputation. I’ve heard plenty of rumors, since they’re from a ducal family and all.”
“….”
“Lucy.”
“Hm?”
“Sometimes, avoiding it may be the only right answer.”
Lucy was in her first year as a research student.
But graduate students start working in the lab as soon as they graduate from undergrad, and get worked to the bone even before the semester officially begins.
So Lucy had already been dealing with her advisor for about three months.
Lucy put two fingers to her lips in a V again.
“…You’re unexpected.”
“What is?”
“I thought you were pretending to be oblivious on purpose.”
“…I think you’ve got the wrong idea. I’ve never pretended to be oblivious.”
Because I really am oblivious.
I must’ve done something oblivious once or twice since possessing this body. Or three times. Maybe four.
But.
“Whether you’re perceptive or not and how you respond to people’s feelings are two different things.”
I had friends through all twelve years of elementary, middle, and high school, and even after I got to college.
—Kim Siwoo’s a clueless bastard who can’t read the room, but he’s actually a really good guy.
That was what my friends used to say about me.
While drinking together, staying up all night working on assignments and loading up on caffeine, or grilling meat on a summer trip to a mountain stream.
That’s right. I can’t read the room.
My ability to figure out what someone is thinking from their little actions, glances, and expressions is worse than other people’s.
But when I see someone sad, I can comfort them, and when I see someone struggling, I can help. So I’ve comforted people and helped them.
And naturally, I made friends that way.
That’s how I’ve lived.
And that’s how I intend to keep living.
‘If only I hadn’t ended up at a female-dominated company….’
I’d been unable to get hired, so I applied to all sorts of places and ended up there.
‘Maybe I should’ve just stayed unemployed a little longer.’
If the gender ratio had been even, I might’ve gotten along with the male employees and made it work. But it’s all in the past now.
“So being perceptive or not and how you respond to emotions are separate things….”
Lucy rested her face on the breasts propped on the fence. The words ‘Wow, boobs’ nearly burst from my throat.
“Then what are you feeling toward me right now, boy?”
“Concern.”
“For a woman you met yesterday? Just because she’s a research student?”
“I did meet you for the first time.”
What I knew through the original was only one-sided knowledge and information.
But.
“We’re neighbors. Neighbors should help each other.”
“……Neighbors.”
Lucy repeated my words and burst out laughing.
“Heh, heh-heh.”
“…Did I say something weird?”
“No, heh, hehehe… it’s you who’s weird… heheheh….”
It wasn’t weird.
Lucy simply found those words amusing.
‘He said he’d help because we’re neighbors.’
As could be seen from the fact that she lived in the noble dormitory, Lucy was a noble, too.
And among nobles, it was usually neighbors who were most at odds and snarled at each other.
But Gilliam’s words didn’t feel like hypocrisy or affectation at all.
Because she could see his eyes.
She could feel that he meant what he said.
How could anyone have such a pure, clear heart?
‘As expected of a boy.’
And the boy was right.
Since starting her life as a research student, Lucy’s insides had gradually begun to rot away.
‘Of course, he probably didn’t know that much when he said it.’
He was probably just making a general remark about how hard being a research student was… but even so.
It hit home.
The boy’s words of comfort, in her chest.
Deep in her heart.
“Heh, hehehe….”
Something hot surged up in her chest. Her throat tightened.
“Here.”
The boy held out some hot tea. When had he gotten that?
Lucy took the teacup.
“You drugged it so I’ll fall asleep and you can have your way with me, right?”
“…?”
Gilliam asked, looking at her with a serious expression.
“Why would I do something like that?”
“…Eep.”
Lucy let out a strange sound without meaning to.
‘What was that just now? Why did he say it so seriously?’
Could it be…
‘Does he mean he doesn’t even need to do that?
That spending the night with a woman like Lucy Merhantia would be easy, even without using drugs?’
‘…Bold, boy. But you’re mistaken.’
She wasn’t such an easy woman to win over.
She wasn’t about to casually offer up the chastity she’d protected all this time just because a boy she’d met yesterday coaxed her into bed.
‘Right, of course.’
To reassure herself, Lucy decided to imagine it once.
The fact that she even needed reassurance in the first place was a little questionable… but anyway, she closed her eyes and pictured Gilliam Everchess.
Mysterious silver-gray hair.
Eyes the color of sweet honey.
A handsome, striking face.
Just the right height to make looking up at him a pleasure.
A lean yet toned body. Proportions that looked great in uniform.
Gilliam lifted her chin and said this in a savage, ferocious manner.
- Hey, Lucy. Spread your legs.
Then she would, of course…
“Y-yes…♡”
Huh?
This wasn’t right?
Lucy jolted and shuddered. The hot tea in her hand spilled onto her hand.
“Eek!?”
“Careful.”
Gilliam took her hand. A man’s hand—refined-looking, yet broad. What would it feel like to have that hand holding her by the waist?
“Uh, ah, uhh.”
A strange sound came from Lucy’s throat.
“…Are you okay? Want to go inside and rest?”
Gilliam’s face drew closer. He looked even more handsome up close.
But what did he just say?
He wanted her to go inside and rest?
…Together?