Chapter 23
“Wow..”
Cecilia's eyes sparkled as she looked around.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that a festival would soon be held after the Hero's arrival; most people were hard at work preparing for it.
The one strange thing was.. Cecilia, of course.
By now, she should have been glued to the Hero's side, but instead she put the Hero and me together while walking far away from us. Not only that, she kept insisting it was Holy Kingdom culture and practically forced us to hold hands.
I wanted to ask what kind of culture that was.. but I couldn't. Thinking about it, I realized I didn't even know anything about the Holy Kingdom's setting. Since this was an adult game, I figured it was possible and decided to keep quiet.
I couldn't bring myself to hold hands right after she told me that, so I pretended not to understand. But she took a sheet of paper from who-knows-where and scribbled on it, so even that excuse didn't work.
I should have realized she'd been laying the groundwork when she'd asked whether I was curious about Holy Kingdom culture. My mistake.
Come to think of it, what was that paper?
In the game, I think Lumia communicated with everyone besides the Hero by carrying around something like a whiteboard she could erase at will and writing on it.
“We'll have to find a magic tool once we leave the Holy Kingdom.”
The Hero said this while fiddling with the paper Cecilia had handed him.
...
I'm holding his hand right now, aren't I..?
It's kind of embarrassing..
I looked up at the Hero.
The Hero looked much more unfazed than I'd expected.
Does he not recognize me as a woman because I don't really look like one..?
No, why are his defenses so impenetrable..?
I thought an appearance like this would be more than enough to get through to him. Is Cecilia his type instead..?
I looked down.
All that greeted me was a tiny hill that couldn't even compare to Cecilia's. On top of that, I was wearing layers of clothing, so my figure wasn't very visible. It was only natural, since I had no figure to show in the first place, but it still annoyed me.
His type is a slutty-looking girl with those pointlessly huge lumps of fat hanging off her..?
Of course, she looked saintly and beautiful.. and she was perfect in every way, without a single flaw, but this was a matter of life and death for me.
I couldn't lose.
This wouldn't do.
I looked around at the people passing by.
Since things had come to this, I would pretend to bump into someone walking past me and try to link arms with them. Simply linking arms with someone while perfectly sober was too embarrassing, so what else could I do?
Fortunately, there were so many people passing through the market in this major city that pretending to bump into someone by accident wasn't difficult. My small build also made me easy to bump into.
Though from the other person's perspective, it would probably seem as if I'd walked into them.
That big guy should do.
Because of his armor, I'd be in his blind spot and he probably wouldn't see me clearly. Even if I sneakily bumped into him and fell over, he'd think it was his own fault.
I was about to fake an accidental collision with a man walking past in armor when—
“..?!”
He was much stronger than I'd expected.
I wasn't pretending anymore; I was actually about to topple toward the Hero.
Huh, this looks like it's going to hurt..
“Are you okay?”
The Hero somehow noticed the moment I started to fall and caught me.
I did succeed in falling into the Hero's arms, but..
“...”
No.. sigh..
“Hmm.. I thought I'd bumped into something..”
To make matters worse, the armored man turned toward us, saw that I'd fallen, jumped in surprise, and came over.
“Oh dear, I'm sorry.. I wasn't looking properly..”
“I'm glad you don't seem to be hurt.. but please be careful from now on.”
Ah..
I suddenly wanted to die.
I couldn't bring myself to say that I'd fallen on purpose, so I kept my head lowered. When I didn't answer and only kept my head bowed, the man became even more flustered, asking if I was all right and offering to take me to the Grand Cathedral right away. The Hero barely managed to stop him.
Fortunately, we somehow managed to explain it away because I couldn't speak or hear, but if he found out that I'd intentionally tried to bump into him..
I shuddered.
“Is Lumia all right?”
“Yeah, she doesn't seem badly hurt.”
“Hmm, just a moment.”
Cecilia scribbled something else on the paper and showed it to me.
- If the guy you bumped into was obviously doing it on purpose, or if you don't like him, tell me. I'll teach him a lesson^^
No, it wasn't like that..!
Don't abuse your power, you crazy bitch!
He didn't do anything wrong..
If anything, I was the only one at fault for intentionally trying to bump into him. He hadn't done anything wrong.
I shook my head vigorously.
“Lumia, you're really kind.”
“Right?”
The Hero grinned foolishly and pulled my pointed hat down over my head.
This guy..
Is he making fun of me for being short?
I wanted to curse him out, but since I couldn't speak, it only made me feel even sadder.
I lowered my head.
“Come to think of it, aren't you two getting hungry?”
...
I ate a sandwich earlier..
“We had sandwiches..”
“Aw, when you're young, you can eat a lot, right? We can buy one and share it, so come on in with me, okay?”
“All right.. Since we promised.”
After cheering at the Hero's sighing response, Cecilia led us to none other than a restaurant. I wasn't particularly interested since I'd already eaten a sandwich, but we'd promised to go around with Cecilia, so I couldn't refuse to go in.
I should just buy a reasonable amount of dessert and eat that.
.
.
.
As soon as we arrived at the restaurant, Cecilia ordered some food and took a seat.
I was worried that someone might recognize us, but fortunately, no one did. After all, no one knew what we looked like, and the only person here whose face people might recognize was Cecilia—and even she had her face covered right now, so there was no way they could identify her.
Of course.
After we ordered our food, Cecilia's dishes arrived a little later, while desserts were brought out for the Hero and me. Since we were going to eat anyway, I thought it would be better to order different things and share them rather than get the same thing, so I ordered something different from what the Hero had chosen.
The problem was how to eat the Hero's food..
I studied the Hero's dessert carefully.
Unlike me, who had pancakes, the Hero had some kind of pie.
It looked delicious.
Perhaps noticing my gaze, the Hero held out his plate and asked whether I wanted some of it, too.
Oh, no way. Is he just going to give it to me?
I nodded.
“Then, just a moment..”
“Oh, right. There was one more custom in my country.”
“Huh?”
Cecilia looked between the Hero and me with a mischievous smile. What was that woman plotting now? She wasn't going to bring up some strange custom and try to steal my dessert, too, was she?
I didn't remember the game ever establishing her as a pig, but after what had happened earlier, I couldn't help being wary. She might be deliberately bringing up culture to stop me from eating the Hero's food.
What was she going to say..
“When a man and a woman share food, it's a basic custom here to feed each other!”
“Wha, what..”
The Hero was horrified when he heard that.
I was also extremely shocked, but I couldn't react, so instead I speared a piece of pancake with my fork, put it in my mouth, and chewed.
What the hell was that supposed to mean..
I didn't remember anything like that in the game setting I knew. I hadn't played it that much, but I'd played diligently enough that this was the first time I'd heard of it, leaving me utterly bewildered. Well, it was an adult game, so it wasn't all that strange..
No, wait a second.
‘Huh..’
Could it have been in that situation where I was on a date alone with Cecilia..? At the time, I'd thought she'd only said it to make a move under the pretense of sharing food, but was it actually one of the Holy Kingdom's customs?
“Come on, hurry~”
This was my chance.
It was the perfect opportunity to seduce the Hero.
But I didn't know what they were talking about right now, so I couldn't butt in.
With the mindset of a beast stalking its prey, I waited for Cecilia to say those words to me.
Eventually, Cecilia smiled with her eyes, wrote something on the paper, and showed it to me.
I pretended to read the paper with interest, then made my eyes light up.
Now.
I quickly cut my pancake into a bite-sized piece, speared it with my fork, and held it out toward the flustered Hero.
“Uh.. huh?”
“Oh my..”
Go on, try dodging this..!
No matter who you were, it would be hard to withstand a relentless barrage of being fed like this.
I smiled triumphantly to myself and extended the fork toward the Hero's mouth.
I'm absolutely not doing this because I want to eat the pie.
No, that's not it. I'm doing this because I want to eat the pie.
Anyway, that's how it is.