Letia, who was still straightening her clothes, paused in surprise when she heard Liz’s words.
She turned around.
Seeing Liz’s serious expression, Letia seemed to understand something as well.
“You saw it?”
Letia knew that, in fact, Liz often visited that place.
But ever since what happened at the dinner, Liz hadn’t gone much lately.
Still, she hadn’t expected to run into her by coincidence like this.
“…”
Liz took a deep breath, her tone a bit forceful.
She looked at Letia and asked again.
“What do you really think of Red? You used to say you didn’t care much, but judging from your recent behavior… you don’t seem as indifferent as you claim.”
“Well, I can’t deny it—before, I really didn’t care much about Red. Most of the time, honestly, my attitude was the same as yours. You all boss him around like a servant; as for me, I played with him like a toy. At the core, it’s all pretty much the same, isn’t it?”
After Letia said all this, Liz couldn’t help but clench her fists.
If it were before, she might have agreed with Letia, but she was different from her old self now.
After a long silence, she continued to ask.
“Since you said that’s how it used to be, what about now?”
“As for now, it’s much simpler…”
Letia didn’t hurry to answer Liz’s question, just looked at her in confusion:
“But why are you so concerned about my personal life? Worried something bad will happen between me and Red?”
Liz looked at Letia, as if trying to read something from the priest’s casual demeanor.
But compared to Letia, she was still a bit too inexperienced, unable to see through the other’s thoughts at all.
Since she couldn’t figure it out, she simply stated her intentions directly.
“I’m not worried about anything bad happening between you and Red… I just want to ask about your attitude toward Red, as of right now, not in the past.”
Liz looked at Letia with total seriousness, her voice just a little frosty.
“If you don’t have feelings for him, then why keep getting close? If you’re just toying with his feelings… is that really fun?”
When Liz spoke so frankly, Letia started to see her in a new light.
One thing was clear—she was slowly learning to face her own heart, and even said such words out of concern for Red.
But…
Am I really just toying with Red’s feelings?
Thinking of this, Letia couldn’t help but laugh.
“With a clear conscience, I can say I’ve never toyed with Red’s feelings.”
“But your behavior with him has already crossed a lot of lines,” Liz pressed on, undaunted by her denial.
Her gaze was as sharp as a hawk locking onto its prey, her tone as forceful as ever:
“Letia, stop dodging and answer me directly.”
“Hmph?”
Letia snorted softly at first, then seeing Liz’s face, couldn’t help but spread her hands in resignation.
“Then my answer’s simple. I like him, that’s all there is to it. Nothing more to say.”
Such unexpected honesty.
When Liz heard this answer, her tense body visibly relaxed, if only a little.
Instead of the anger or jealousy she’d expected, it was more like her anxious heart had finally settled down.
She let out a quiet breath.
This odd reaction, on the contrary, left Letia a little confused.
She tilted her head and looked at her carefully.
“Liz, you should have feelings for Red too, right? So why, when you heard me say this, did it seem like a burden was lifted from your shoulders?”
Liz went silent again.
She turned her back to Letia and said,
“That has nothing to do with you.”
After speaking, she once more walked toward the Training Ground.
Letia stood in place, watching her leave.
After the air in the Living Room had fallen silent for a while, Letia turned to another direction and spoke.
“Hey, you two over there, how long are you planning to hide and watch?”
Upon hearing this, Jessica and Bethany, who had been hiding in the shadows, sheepishly stepped out of the corner.
“Ahahaha…”
Bethany turned her gaze away awkwardly.
“We just happened to be passing by. We didn’t hear anything at all, really.”
Before she could finish, Jessica took the initiative to step forward and said to Letia,
“Letia, when are you going to bring Red back? Honestly, I’m sick of eating out every day. It’s expensive, tastes awful, and the service sucks!”
Within Dawnblade, probably only Jessica, that loli mage, had the purest attitude toward Red.
She simply saw Red as the housekeeper.
As for the others, they all more or less had their own hidden agendas.
“Hey, Jessica!”
Bethany, who’d hoped to muddle through, felt a bit desperate when Jessica blurted that out.
With no other choice, she braced herself and asked Letia, “Um… so… are you planning to pursue Red?”
“Pursue Red?”
Letia tilted her head, as if she’d heard something completely baffling.
“Why?”
“Uh… didn’t you just say you like him?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jessica nodded vigorously.
“Letia, you have to go for it! I mean, Red’s already so smitten with that nun Litt he can’t even see straight. If you keep stalling, you’ll end up like Liz, chewing on a handkerchief in the next room!”
At this, Jessica seemed to think of something.
She fished out a pink potion from who-knows-where.
“Just use this! Drug him, turn the raw rice into cooked rice, and then what? Still afraid Red will run off?”
“Uh…”
Letia looked at the two of them, unable to stop herself from retorting, “I do like Red, sure… but aren’t you guys misunderstanding something?”
“Hm?”
Matching question marks popped up over both Jessica and Bethany’s heads.
Letia continued her explanation.
“When I say I like him, I mean it as Battlefield Camaraderie and Brothers’ Affection—it’s not the kind of love between a man and a woman you guys are thinking of, okay?”
She spread her hands in helplessness.
“Why do you two think I’d be like a little girl, suddenly swept up in a romantic crush?”
“Am I really that easy to fall for someone? Look into my eyes, take a good look…”
“Can you even imagine me, face red and bashful, lying in bed letting Red have his way?”
Hearing this, Bethany’s face froze, but Jessica just nodded in deep agreement.
“I really can’t imagine that.”
“There you go…”
“I can only picture you pinning Red to the floor, yelling ‘Submit to me!’ over and over.”
Letia silently drew a question mark, but Bethany chimed in too.
“Uh… yeah, that does seem a lot more likely.”
Listening to the two of them going back and forth, Letia could only hold her head and sigh.
“Enough already. I am still a proper maiden, okay? There’s no way I’d do something so shameless!”
“Honestly… I’m just not the kind of girl who falls in love so easily,” Letia sighed.
“That fluttery feeling—it’s really not there. If anything, does just raw Desire count?”
At these words, Jessica and Bethany quietly took a step back.
They hadn’t forgotten that Letia swung both ways, after all.
Still, neither of them really believed Letia’s explanation.
After Letia also left the Living Room, Jessica finally said,
“Bethany, do you ever think…”
“Tsundere? Liz is definitely tsun, but I don’t see much dere. As for Letia… that word has nothing to do with her.”
“If only Monica were here, she could just walk up and give Letia a good bite, and we’d know if she was telling the truth. Too bad… she just ran off to Succubus Street for some roleplay gig, so she’s out having fun. Sigh~”
At this, both Bethany and Jessica sighed at the same time.
“…We sure have a lot of tsunderes in our party.”
At the same time, Letia returned to her room.
She tossed the bag onto her bed and lay spread-eagled on top.
Closing her eyes, the script in her mind slowly surfaced once more—the cold and bloody scenes, the pain that felt all too real, making her body shiver.
Only, maybe she was used to it by now.
Compared to the first time, her feelings had calmed down a lot.
Looking back, at first she just wanted to use Litt’s identity to survive.
But after all this time, she was surprised to find something new.
She was now gradually coming to terms with her approaching death.
Instead, she was enjoying the happiness of living in the moment more and more.
Maybe, after putting in so much effort and ending up with just Liz, that sense of powerlessness made her quietly accept reality.
So, if she had to answer with a clear conscience, her feelings about the current situation… she was satisfied.
“But I really don’t want to die…”
A sigh, laced with fatigue, resignation, and a hint of self-mockery, sounded in that utterly quiet room.
As for what it feels like to like someone?
She didn’t know.
If you ask a perpetually single dog who, in her past life, only ever turned her dates into brothers, isn’t that just asking for a joke?
For a moment there I was shocked to think she was becoming honest. Of course she couldn’t be totally honest in the end, but at least she’s one step closer to admitting it to herself.
Maybe then we’ll see something actually happening between the two.