Chapter 25
Did I overdo it?
Even if he was the Hero, he was still a man, so something like that was bound to happen. He was a man in his prime, too, and since he couldn't properly relieve himself while traveling, it was only natural for it to happen after all that jostling, even if it was with me.
Since he was a man, I could understand it.
The only problem was that it had felt a little disgusting because it had touched my body.
I'd only done it because I was thinking of seducing him a little while eating a piece of pie, but somehow it had turned into a major disaster.
“...”
As expected of the Hero..
It really was hard and big.
I had only felt it through the sensation of it against my body, so I couldn't say it was all that accurate, but just touching me had made it throb.. What the hell am I thinking?
Well, honestly, it wasn't so much unpleasant as bewildering.
In a way, I'd seduced him while pretending I hadn't meant to, all to achieve my goal, so I suppose I could call it a success.. I'd looked at my current appearance objectively in the mirror and was aware of it, so it wasn't all that strange that the Hero had reacted that way.
I almost blurted out that he was some kind of gay bastard.. But from the Hero's perspective, I was a woman, so it was a natural reaction. Wouldn't it be terribly unfair to curse him out by calling him a gay bastard for that?
I had toyed with the feelings of a guy who had never even had sex once and probably never would, all to save the world and my life.
No, of course, I hadn't either.
Still, I wasn't exactly well-endowed; it was only my face that was incredibly cute and pretty, so I couldn't quite understand why he'd reacted that way. I even had the reasonable suspicion that this guy had remained a virgin until now because his type was someone with a figure like Lumia's.
No, well, Lumia wasn't actually all that young.
It was fair to call her a short, slender beauty, but perhaps because every heroine who would appear later had an explosively curvy figure.. Cecilia had a fairly large, well-proportioned figure, while Ruril was, without exaggeration, fucking huge, so it was true that I looked young by comparison.
But he got hard just from touching me..?
Is this guy seriously a pedophile..?
I looked back at the Hero.
Of course, I didn't forget to keep my expression and gaze in check, either.
Looking at him suspiciously here would have been like advertising that he should suspect me~, so I didn't do that. I merely pretended he'd caught my eye and looked at him for a moment..
Then our eyes met.
“Lumia?”
“...”
I silently turned my head away.
Why had that guy been looking only at me this whole time..?
What is this..?
Surely he wasn't fixating on me because of what had happened earlier?
No way, really?
Could he really be a pedo?
Was this for real?
To give him the benefit of the doubt, Lumia wasn't really at pedophile level.. Her height was already in the low 150s, and although her breasts were tiny, they were there. Her figure wasn't some absurd, impossible S-line, either; it was a well-balanced, beautiful body.
At least, that's how it looked to me in the mirror.
No, but still.
There were so many impressive girls around, and he was paying attention to me?
This was seriously a problem.
“...”
In any case.. if this guy was paying attention to me, I could instinctively tell that going any further would be dangerous. The best first step would probably be to stop sleeping together and start sleeping separately, at least from tonight.
It would look strange if I suddenly tried to sleep in another room, but Cecilia was here, too, so couldn't I use her as an excuse and sleep with her? If I could sleep with Cecilia for a little while and get some healing, it would be perfect.
I still preferred women..
In the game, I'd already done everything with Cecilia, so I thought being with her would be more comfortable.
Well..
I looked to the side.
Cecilia was walking alongside the Hero and talking with him.
When I thought about how everything that had happened today was thanks to the Saintess walking beside me, I couldn't help feeling a little worried..
Of course, I'd liked Cecilia enough to pursue her route, so I knew she had that kind of personality, but with my life on the line as well, I couldn't help being sensitive about it.
I was here to keep the Hero from falling for Cecilia, yet seeing them like that kept making harsh words rise to my lips.
Fortunately, even when harsh words threatened to spill out, magic had sealed my mouth, so all I had to do was control my expression.
Of course, keeping my expression under control was so difficult that I ended up lowering my head.
“Will you be okay?”
“Since we've started adventuring, shouldn't we get used to rough accommodations?”
Cecilia said with a smile in response to the Hero's question.
That was true.
Still, it was better than I'd expected. Unless we were sleeping rough outdoors, an inn bed like this wasn't terribly uncomfortable. Maybe it was because, in my original world, I hadn't even had a bed—I had just slept on bedding.
Of course, Cecilia was a Saintess who was essentially the princess of an entire country, so this must have been a considerable downgrade from what she was used to. But since she'd set out on an adventure to defeat the Demon King, what else could she do but endure it?
She hadn't really complained much in the game, so she was probably fine.
“Since everyone's probably tired from walking around all day, let's not go out tonight. Let's leave early tomorrow morning.”
I thought that would be more tiring.
I've always thought so, but leaving early in the morning was much harder than staying up all night.
When I got up early, the sleepiness that hit me and the previous day's fatigue formed a perfect combination, making it insanely difficult to wake up.. The Hero always ended up waking me. Unlike me, he didn't seem to have much trouble getting up in the morning.
Maybe I'm just a night owl.
“We've arrived.”
I wasn't sure whether it was for Cecilia's sake, but it seemed we'd come to a fairly nice inn.
“Oh, you didn't have to book a place like this..”
Perhaps Cecilia thought he'd chosen it out of consideration for her, because she said that.
“Since this is our last night before we leave the Holy Kingdom, we should stay somewhere nice.”
Whew.
Well, I'd even gone so far as to call the Hero a kind-hearted virgin, so his behavior wasn't hard to understand. But seeing him act like that—it wasn't as if he was even trying to seduce her, yet I was suddenly afraid Cecilia really would fall for the Hero.
Judging by her affection level, it wasn't as though it had suddenly shot past 100, so I didn't need to worry about her falling for him yet. But ever since Cecilia arrived, something had..
Something just felt off.
It was the sort of anxiety that made me feel as though she might be taken away from me if I left things as they were.
To get onto the proper pure-love route, I had to keep the other girls' affection below a certain level, and even if a heroine fell into unrequited love, she had to end up with me without first getting together with someone else. If Cecilia fell for the Hero, everything would become a real mess.
Maybe that's why I couldn't shake this anxiety.
But if I pushed any harder and the Hero actually lost control of himself..
“...”
That couldn't happen.
Beyond my aversion to sleeping with a man, if that happened, he would have slept with me before I even liked him, and the pure-love route would be ruined. I was the one who had initially said we shouldn't think of this as a game, but this was a matter that had to be judged by ordinary, objective standards.
So I was stuck, unable to do either thing..
“Hmm.. Could you wait here a moment?”
“Huh?”
“The owner here is someone I know well. I used to stay here often whenever I ran away from home.”
Cecilia approached the counter first, asking us to wait a moment.
Was that really the case..?
In the game, I remembered that she hadn't gotten a discount or anything just for coming here..
Well, I had already figured out from my experiences that things didn't necessarily have the same settings just because they had happened in the game, so I let it go..
Apparently finished with her conversation, Cecilia returned to us with a pleased expression.
“How did it go?”
Instead of answering, Cecilia gave a thumbs-up.
When we went inside, someone who appeared to be the innkeeper greeted us with a smile that seemed to conceal some ulterior motive.
What was that about?
I thought she'd said this was someone she knew, so why did the innkeeper have such a sly expression?
“Welcome. You're acquaintances of the Saintess, I presume?”
At the innkeeper's question, the Hero nodded.
“How many rooms will you need?”
“For now, one single room and one double room..”
“I could make it much cheaper if you took a couples' room.. What do you think?”
“Excuse me?”
Ah.
Wait, no, that won't do.
I turned toward Cecilia with a flustered expression.
Cecilia was smiling.