Chapter 22
Anything?
If I asked whether I could do anything I wanted in this situation…
‘I… she means that thing between a man and a woman, right?’
Sharing a bed.
Spending the night together.
To put it bluntly, se—
‘Aaaagh!!’
Maron remembered the size she'd checked with Elettra yesterday.
It was big.
Very.
That thing was going to go inside?
Inside her?
It would definitely hurt, wouldn't it?
“Gulp….”
But.
If it meant she could become one with Liam through that.
It was okay.
No, she would even learn to love the pain.
“Yes!”
Maron lowered her face back to the floor.
“I promise! I'll do anything Liam wants!”
“…Get up first. Anyone who saw this would think I was bullying you.”
“If it's you, Liam, I wouldn't mind being bullied—”
“Hey, now.”
She was starting to go in a dangerous direction.
Was this part of my five-star magnanimity, too?
I helped her up and sat her down beside me.
“Just so you know, you're going to be really embarrassed. You're sure you're okay with that?”
Maron's face turned red.
Her irises were tinged with a tender crimson, too.
“I'm okay. If it were anyone else, I'd absolutely hate it, but if it's you, Liam…”
She swallowed hard.
“I'm okay.”
In a way, with those words, Maron had already given him everything.
Her virginity.
All that was left was for Gilliam to take what she'd offered him.
“That's a relief.”
“Hehe….”
I was relieved to see Maron smile.
“Then let me touch your star mark.”
“…Pardon?”
“You know, the thing you showed me a little of last time.”
The mark on Maron's lower abdomen.
The mark connected to her star of fate.
I have to get stronger.
I need to get a lot stronger, and to do that, I need to gather a massive number of Praise Points.
But there was one thing I couldn't figure out.
A single compliment gave me at most a few hundred points, and only a few thousand in truly special cases.
But once I reached four or five stars, the minimum requirements alone ran into the tens of thousands.
And beyond that, they'd probably reach hundreds of thousands.
How was I supposed to reach numbers like that?
The clues were the Bond Quest that had occurred to me when I saw Maron's star mark last time, and the Destiny Quest.
【Bond Quest - Calamity Star】
〈Contact with the Wicked Calamity Star〉
Objective: Touch the Calamity Star's sigil
Reward: Connection with the Calamity Star (LV.1)
This was a world where the conventions of subculture games applied.
‘If that's the case, then most likely…’
If I cleared that Bond Quest and raised my bond level with Maron, the number of points I could get from her would surely increase dramatically.
In other words.
To get stronger, I had to progress through Bond Quests with women who possessed a Star of Fate.
I had to meet a lot of women.
And among them, I had to progress through Bond Quests with the women who had a Star of Fate by touching their star marks.
‘Wait, isn't the order of this all wrong?’
Shouldn't touching the mark be the end of the Bond Quest, rather than the beginning?
They said it appeared on the part of the body people were most embarrassed about during puberty.
It was custom-tailored humiliation play, wasn't it?
Wouldn't it make more sense to touch it only after the relationship had already progressed, rather than having the relationship progress from the moment you touched it…?
‘Ah!’
Of course!
In the original game, you could touch the characters on-screen after pulling them!
‘Damn it!!’
If this is reality, then patch the difficulty to match!!
In a game, I could just reach out and tap it, but in reality, it's so much harder!!
“….”
Even now, Maron's gaze had turned cold the moment I'd asked to touch the mark on her lower abdomen.
“…After saying you'd do anything I asked, that's what you request?”
“Sorry. Should I not ask if you don't want to?”
“It's not a matter of whether I like it or not…!”
Maron bit down hard on her lip.
“Ugh.”
Huh?
Was she crying?
“Uuugh….”
Wait, she really was crying?
“I was already mentally prepared…! I'd practically given everything to you already…!!”
“Hey, wait, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you'd be that embarrassed—”
“That's not the problem…!!”
“H-hey, hey.”
When I hugged her to comfort her, a strange sound escaped Maron.
“Eek.”
“I'm sorry.”
I patted her on the back, doing my best to ignore the feel of Maron's soft, ample chest.
“I'm sorry. I was wrong.”
“Sniff, sob….”
Maron rubbed her eyes and glared at me.
Her tearful face was right in front of me.
Her eyes were red from rubbing them, and her irises were flushed, perhaps because she was angry with me.
This might go without saying, but Maron was truly beautiful, too.
“Sniff… Uuu… I was really looking forward to it…”
“…To what?”
“How can you make me say that out loud!”
“…?”
“……Are you really going to make me say it? You awful ma—”
“Hey, Everchess.”
Professor Mela appeared, swishing the curtain open.
“Save the flirting for later and come get your test results.”
“How are they?”
“Your mana, stamina, strength, internal organs, drugs, and everything else are all normal.”
“That's a relief.”
“I'll be honest. I thought you'd used drugs or some kind of black magic because you wanted to get stronger in such a short time.”
“I'm… really glad the tests say I didn't.”
“I apologize.”
“It's all right.”
“Good. It's a small consolation for suspecting you, but you can put a few cakes on my tab at the cafeteria and enjoy them.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
Was Professor Mela unusually frank and straightforward for a character in a romance fantasy?
〈Next Compliment Suggestion (LV.2)〉
【Automatically identifying target→Mela Tonishika】
Recommendation - Praise her decadent beauty and say she's unconventional
Not recommended - Don't mention her diligence
…That's strange.
Wouldn't all the healers in this world be diligent people?
Usually, people who've lived diligently like being praised for their diligence, don't they?
Still, should I try what the system recommends?
If diligence was the opposite of…
“Professor Mela.”
“Hmm?”
“Were you the genius type, by any chance?”
She flinched.
“You think I'd like hearing that?”
【The target is happy】
<Praise Points: +100(700→800)>
Apparently, she likes it.
Oh.
Did she want people to think of her as a genius?
Was she being so frank instead of using romance-fantasy speech because she thought it made her seem like a genius?
“….”
Was she just an adult who hadn't quite grown out of her chuunibyou phase?
“Anyway, I'm done here, so you can check yourself out. And take care of your girlfriend yourself.”
“Huh? I don't have a girlfriend, though.”
“….”
Professor Mela blinked rapidly.
“You lunatic….”
She didn't even give me a chance to answer before swishing the curtain shut.
What on earth had she meant by that?
But then I heard a soft, wet sound beside me again.
Maron's tears, which had stopped for a moment, were now falling drop by drop once more.
“Liam, you really are an evil womanizer…!”
“…Sorry.”
How was I supposed to comfort her?
“Want me to buy you a tasty cake at the cafeteria?”
“Do I look like an easy-to-please girl who'd be happy just because you bought me cake!?”
.
.
.
Om nom nom.
“Hehe, chocolate cake is so good. Ehehehe.”
“….”
Didn't she say she wasn't?
Didn't she say she wasn't some easy-to-please girl who'd be happy if I bought her cake?
“I-I know what you're trying to say, even if you don't look at me like that…”
You do?
Impressive.
“Well… it's not just the cake itself. I've never come to the cafeteria with anyone and shared a meal before.”
Maron, Maron, how is that not something a friendless person would say?
“Let's come here together now and then.”
“R-really? Ehehe…”
Anyway, a fantasy world with chocolate cake in the cafeteria…
Am I complaining? No, I'm saying this because I love it so much. Let's keep things this way from now on.
“…All right.”
“Hmm? What is?”
“That… down there. The thing you said you wanted to touch.”
Maron whispered shyly.
“I was surprised when you first asked… and I got angry because you asked for only that and nothing else… but it's okay. If it's you, Liam, I'm okay with it.”
Maron swallowed.
“Then, from here, we can go to my place or yours…”
“Oh, wait. Today's Saturday, right?”
“That's right?”
“Do you have plans?”
“No?”
“If you don't, would you like to spend the day going around to a few places with me, just the two of us?”
………
Maron's brain stopped for about ten seconds.
‘A guy and a girl are going to spend the whole day going around together, just the two of them?’
We decided to call that a date.
It's a social convention, you know?
‘Seriously, that's so unfair.’
What a bad person.
Such a bad man.
It was just then, as Maron lowered her head.
“Gilliam, I've been looking for you.”
“Elettra.”
The princess took an item out of a box she'd brought with her.
Making sure it was positioned where Maron could see it clearly.
“It's the elixir from the alchemist Vade you asked for.”
“Oh.”
“I apologize that it took longer than the date you originally requested.”
“It's fine. He's famous for being eccentric.”
“That's right. I used my connections as a princess to get you an elixir made by an alchemist who's famous for being eccentric.”
“Thanks.”
“…Heh.”
Elettra looked pleased with herself.
“By the way, Gilliam, do you have plans today? If not—”
“Yeah. I do.”
“…I see. What are you doing?”
“Getting stronger.”
“I heard about what happened last night.”
“That was what prompted it. But I'm free tomorrow.”
“Then can I have tomorrow?”
“It's a promise.”
“Hehe, all right. It's a promise.”
Elettra met Maron's gaze deliberately.
“…Heh.”
Interpretation:
「See?
This is the difference in our standing.
Even with you right in front of him, Gilliam made plans to go on a date with me.
Which means…?
It means I'm higher in Gilliam's heart than you are.
It seems certain that I'll win this competition of ours.」
So many words were conveyed with just one look.
As expected of a romance fantasy.
But even after perfectly interpreting Elettra's gaze, Maron didn't feel like objecting at all.
Because she knew the ‘truth’ Elettra didn't.
‘Hehe… as I thought, Liam really does treasure me the most, doesn't he?’
He'd said he'd spend today with her, but told Elettra he was going to get stronger.
To the princess. Right to her face.
That meant he considered risking the princess's displeasure a fair price if it meant he could spend time with Maron.
In other words, Maron was far more precious to him than Elettra!
‘Hehehe… Elettra, you foolish, pitiful woman. It's hilarious watching you get so smug over your own delusion….’
Elettra smugly chuckled, ‘Hehehe.’
Maron smugly chuckled, ‘Ehehe.’
Just as the two women were feeling superior to each other, right between them…
“Or do you want Elettra to come along today, too?”
“…???”
“…?????”