Chapter 50
The protagonist personally steps in to save the heroine when she’s surrounded by a gang of punks.
It’s a fairly common cliché, since a simple event like this can raise the heroine’s favorability, but that only works once the protagonist has reached a certain level of combat ability.
Around this point in the original, Seo Woojin could easily subdue about three punks bare-handed, since Han Sora and Kim Isabel were just beginning to develop feelings for him. But I can’t.
Even combat support has its own way of fighting. Still, my Suggestion skill is reasonably useful against ‘humanoid’ targets.
「Suggestion : Fighting Technique ※ Target : Lee Seonho」
First, a self-suggestion.
It’s not a suggestion good enough to use often, but it should still help more than going in without any suggestion at all.
I can use the rest on those guys when I see an opening.
“Fuck, this is so damn frustrating! Fine, just….”
-Smack!
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Huh?”
“Ah, M-Mr. Lee Seonho….”
I grab the wrist of the punk who was about to seize Kim Isabel’s arm, stop him, and pull her toward me.
Taking advantage of a punk’s momentary fluster at my unexpected appearance, I wrench his arm behind his back and pin it.
-Squeeze!
“Aaaagh!!”
“I asked what the hell you think you’re doing to my friend.”
Pretending to ask in an angry voice, I casually yank on his yellow hair. I suppose it helps that I’m fairly tall; this sort of thing is a little easier that way.
And while he still hasn’t come to his senses, I make sure to use Suggestion first. It may be difficult to get through when the target is resisting fiercely, but expending a great deal of mana doesn’t make it impossible altogether.
After using Suggestion on the yellow-haired man pinned against my arm, I toss him toward the brown-haired man across from me.
The content of the suggestion is an illusion. And the subject of that illusion is….
「Suggestion : Illusion (Ogre) ※ Target : Bang Geopsu」
“U-uaaagh! F-fuck, it’s a monster!!”
“…What?”
An illusion that makes the burly brown-haired man across from me appear to be an ogre.
Even if this guy has an Awakened ability, unless it’s combat-oriented, he can’t help but feel fear when an ogre appears right in front of him.
Calmly thinking it through would tell him that an ogre appearing in the middle of an amusement park is strange in itself, but he didn’t seem like the cautious type. In a situation like this, the most a punk like him could do would be throw a punch and run away.
-Wham!
“Guhh?!”
“Aaaagh, f-fuck! Monster! A monster’s appeared!!”
“Haaah, shit….”
“…What the hell is wrong with that bastard?”
The brown-haired man falls backward after taking the yellow-haired man’s desperate punch, while the yellow-haired man runs away desperately, leaving him behind. Even the black-haired one merely mutters as he looks between the two, apparently still unable to grasp the situation.
After using Suggestion on the brown-haired man, who had been knocked down and was bewildered after taking a punch from the yellow-haired man, I take Kim Isabel by the hand and leave the amusement park entrance amid the chaos.
「Suggestion : Anger Management Disorder ※ Target : Pyo Jinuk」
“Hey, are you okay? Why the hell did Geopsu suddenly start giving you shit….”
“Fuck! I’m going to kill that bastard!”
“Hey, hey! Where are you going?! Why are you two suddenly acting like this?!”
“Don’t get in my way, you bastard!”
-Bam!
“Guhk….”
“Isabel, let’s get out of here. If we stay here for no reason, we’ll get dragged into it too.”
“Y-yes…!”
Kim Isabel seems to realize roughly what happened, given that she knows about my ability, and starts walking.
Even though I hadn’t used Suggestion on her, she was clutching my hand tightly.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
「Attention, customers visiting Neverland Amusement Park. We have received a report that a man is causing a disturbance at the amusement park entrance and are investigating. His description is yellow hair, a teal padded jacket, blue jeans….」
Around three minutes after I started running with Kim Isabel’s hand in mine, an announcement came over the amusement park’s PA system.
By then, I figured there was no need to run any farther, so I gradually stopped and turned toward Isabel.
“Are you okay, Isabel?”
“Y-yes….”
“I thought it was a little strange when you were late without contacting us, but I’m glad you’re here now.”
“Y-yes…. T-thank you for saving me, M-Mr. Lee Seonho….”
Perhaps because she’d gotten mixed up with a particularly nasty group of punks, her fear of men seemed to have come over her again.
Even so, the way she clung tightly to my hand as if it were a lifeline made me feel as though I alone had been classified as exempt by her phobia.
Of course, her instinctive fear seemed unavoidable, and she still couldn’t bring herself to meet my eyes, but this was more than enough for now.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it through. Since you have a fear of men, I should have come with you from the church.”
“N-no…. A-another priest did drive me to the amusement park entrance….”
“Even so, you got mixed up with those strange men at the entrance. I’m sorry I wasn’t more considerate.”
“No…. It w-wasn’t your fault, Mr. Lee Seonho….”
Of course. I know it wasn’t my fault. I’m only pretending to be sorry because it’s easier to build her favorability that way.
“B-but was that just now your ability, Mr. Lee Seonho…? I-I mean, when that man suddenly mistook another man for a monster….”
“…Yeah. Honestly, it’s not an ability I wanted to use for something like this, but I didn’t have the confidence to win three-on-one.”
“N-no, no…! I-I think you handled it very well…! If you can resolve things without fighting, then of course that’s the best solution…! A-and you looked a little cool, too….”
“Thanks for saying that. Still, if possible, I’d like to use my ability only for better things than this. Mental buffs could constitute a crime if they’re used improperly. Though I couldn’t really avoid it just now.”
“Y-yes…. It was a situation you c-couldn’t avoid….”
It was unlikely Kim Isabel would start guarding herself against the danger of my ability now, but there was no harm in being careful.
Considering Kim Isabel’s personality, it was advantageous to act as virtuous as possible in front of her and pretend to be a good person. I had to keep cultivating the impression that I was the ‘only man she could trust’ to a woman with a fear of men.
“M-Mr. Lee Seonho….”
“Yeah.”
“Y-your ability, Mr. Lee Seonho…. Then, could you use it for something good just once right now…?”
“Hmm?”
“You know the buff you gave me in the church treatment room last time…. I-I’d like to talk to you without st-stammering, if possible…. Ah, no. I-I mean, with you and your friends….”
She was now asking for a buff first, even though they were meeting outside rather than at church.
Just like Cha Eun-joo, I was beginning to sense that she, too, was gradually falling into my hands.
“Are you sure? If I use it now, you’ll probably need to keep the buff until we part ways, so you’d have to remain under it for at least five or six hours. The backlash might be severe when you return to normal, too.”
“I-I’m okay…. R-rather than that, since I finally get to see you, M-Mr. Lee Seonho… A-ah, no. I-I mean, since I get to see you and your friends, I hate the idea of the atmosphere becoming awkward because of me….”
It seemed I had built up quite a lot of favorability with her at the church without even realizing it. Even more so seeing how special she considered me, enough to unconsciously distinguish me from my other friends.
If Cha Eun-joo hadn’t gotten in the way, I might really have been able to get physically intimate with Isabel before being discharged.
In any case, it was an exceedingly good proposal for me. Even if Isabel hadn’t brought it up, I had planned to make up an excuse and use ‘Succubus’s Suggestion’ on her. I only pretended to hesitate a little because she had mentioned it first.
‘I’m currently the man Kim Isabel favors most, so it should be okay to use it on her outside now.’
The bond Isabel and I had built at the church over three days wasn’t something that could be overtaken by emotions formed over just a few hours. The Heart of the Succubus takes effect first on the man with the highest favorability in the surrounding area.
That was why, without any concern, I had Kim Isabel bring her head within reach of my right hand and used ‘Heart of the Succubus’ on her.
「Suggestion : Heart of the Succubus ※ Target : Isabel Maria Kim」
“…Phew. I feel a little more at ease now.”
“There could be side effects, so stay right by our side today if possible.”
“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind and stay right by your side, Mr. Lee Seonho.”
“Take Eun-joo or Sora with you even when you go to the bathroom. Even I can’t follow you in there.”
“You shouldn’t mention something like that directly to a woman, Mr. Lee Seonho.”
“Sorry. But I’m worried.”
“Of course, I appreciate your concern.”
Even before Suggestion was active, she had been subtly showing her fondness for me, but after I properly used Heart of the Succubus on her, that fondness became visible.
I would probably end up having a physical relationship with Kim Isabel after Cha Eun-joo. Given her restrictions, we wouldn’t be able to go all the way, of course, but a priest’s divine power could cleanse ‘that place’ too, so it didn’t really matter.
…For the record, this was knowledge I’d learned thanks to the original’s slutty priest villain, too.
-Clutch.
“……”
“……”
Kim Isabel and I moved along, holding each other’s hands tightly so we wouldn’t lose one another while the buff was active.
It was only after we were nearly twenty minutes late that we finally made it back to the original meeting place.
“Ah, Seonho…! What took you so long…?”
“Hey, what kind of guy takes that long in the bathroom…? What, Isabel’s here too?”
“I ran into her by chance on the way back from the bathroom. She seemed to be in a bit of trouble, surrounded by some men, so I ended up being late.”
“Oh, really? Are you okay, Isabel?”
“Yes. Still, thanks to Mr. Lee Seonho, there wasn’t any serious trouble. I’m sorry I’m late, everyone.”
We were twenty minutes late for the meeting, but no one seemed inclined to scold Kim Isabel. Everyone here knew about her fear of men.
Still, one person did seem sulky for a reason other than Isabel’s failure to show up at the meeting place on time.
“S-Seonho…. W-what’s with that hand…?”
“Hmm?”
“Oh? Come to think of it, wasn’t Isabel afraid of men? She’s holding hands with Seonho just fine.”
“It’s thanks to the buff. One of Mr. Lee Seonho’s buffs removes the fear of men, too.”
“…Really? There’s a buff like that?”
“Yeah. You saw it last time, Eun-joo, so you know, right?”
“Mm-hmm…. I-I know, but why are you holding hands….”
“That’s kind of amazing. I thought it was because Seonho didn’t even register as a man to Isabel, teehee.”
Han Sora changed the subject with a joke, but I saw it—the faint tremor in her eyes when she heard about the buff I’d used on Kim Isabel.
She was probably wondering whether my buff could raise her accuracy, too. In the original, there was a scene where she had a similar concern after entering the academy as the second-ranked student over the Owlbear subjugation.
Back then, with me not being an option, she probably would have just gone to the amusement park after-party to clear her head, but things were different now.
“Mental buffs depend on how well the user puts them to use. If you need a buff too, Han Sora, tell me. I can’t guarantee I’ll always be able to help, but if you need one, I’ll look into what I can use to help as much as possible.”
“…No, well. I don’t really need one.”
“Then don’t, if you don’t need one.”
Judging by her reaction, it didn’t seem like she was completely uninterested.
I’d prepared a buff called ‘Spirit of Artemis’ for Han Sora, who had been worrying over her accuracy. There would probably be a chance to use it on her during the attack that was going to take place today.
At first, she would be skeptical about relying on a buff to improve her ability, but once she got a taste of increased accuracy even once, I’d be the first person she thought of whenever her arrows started missing.