Chapter 108: Hertanid’s Proposal

Cass wasn’t even sure how he got home.

He vaguely remembered refusing his classmates’ invitation to the Banquet.

It seemed a purple-haired girl had also tried to talk to him, but he refused.

By the time he snapped out of it, he was already home.

He accidentally ignored Hyder’s friendly greeting.

Cass and Cassia both hadn’t changed their clothes as they walked to their brother’s sickbed.

“Why did things turn out like this, Brother?”

“This morning I was so happy, but now I feel so sad, like nothing matters anymore. Is this what they call joy turning into sorrow?”

Cass breathed evenly on the hospital bed.

“Siloque… He actually had a girl he liked?”

“Why didn’t I think of that…?”

“No, I actually had a vague idea. How could someone like him not have someone who liked him? I’ve always forced myself not to acknowledge that fact. I was avoiding it.”

“Right, maybe Siloque was deceived!”

“That girl probably thought Siloque’s innocent and pure appearance made him an easy target!”

Cass didn’t respond, the hair on his forehead fluttering from Cassia’s agitated breath.

“Fine, I know. Maybe he was pretending to be interested in that girl for some plan. Knowing Siloque from these days, there’s no way anyone could trick him. Unless…”

Unless he willingly let himself be deceived.

If you like someone that much, what can you do?

If it were Siloque lying to me, I’d be willing to be deceived too.

No matter what he says, I’d want to believe him.

“Brother, tell me, what should I do?”

Cassia’s tears traced down her cheeks.

To keep them from dripping onto the bed, she kept wiping her face with her arm.

“Liking someone is such a painful thing… Groundless delusions, just excessive self-consciousness, thinking the other person cares about me…”

Comics are all lies.

Love that you think will be reciprocated just for giving, the process is nothing but pain and torment.

That sweet-and-sour romance or whatever, it doesn’t exist at all.

“Tell me, is it possible that you’ve always been interacting with that kid as a male, so he never saw you as a female?”

At some point, Hertanid had appeared at her side in the form of a silver-haired little girl, bluntly stating a fact Cassia had overlooked.

“…Ah.”

A single sentence pierced through her.

Cassia suddenly understood.

Siloque’s words were such a shock that her brain froze, and she forgot all about it.

Thinking carefully, maybe she and Siloque didn’t even count as having started anything?

“But, Siloque already has someone he likes. That’s true. And they’re going on a date the day after tomorrow. Everything’s already too late.”

“Just kill her.”

“What——?”

“Didn’t you say it yourself? Loser Leaves. If you get rid of all the females who like that kid, then naturally that kid becomes yours.”

Hertanid, using the appearance of a silver-haired young girl, spoke cruel yet calm words.

“How could I possibly… do something like that? If Siloque found out, he’d hate me.”

“Then don’t let him know. You have me, after all. As for human corpses, if you just provide more Bananas, I can help you eat them all up cleanly.”

“Such a thing…”

A shadow crossed Cassia’s face, but she quickly shook her head violently.

“If Siloque doesn’t truly like me, doing that is meaningless. I don’t need fake feelings. If he only fell for me because he was desperate and needed comfort, I don’t want to see that kind of Siloque.”

“True feelings? What’s the point of that? You can’t eat it.”

“You wouldn’t understand, Hertanid…”

“On the contrary, it’s because I understand too well that I say this.”

Cassia sat in a chair, and the silver-haired little girl looked her in the eyes at equal height.

Hertanid’s small, pale hand pressed against Cassia’s head.

“How many humans do you think I’ve eaten?”

“Those who called themselves family, lovers, comrades who lived and died together—no matter what they said before the altar, no matter how touching it was (not that I found it moving), if they cried hard enough, in the end, they still offered themselves to me to eat.”

“Do you think their hearts were all fake?”

The girl’s silver eyes were simply looking at her calmly, yet Cassia felt as if she were being glared at.

…Well, maybe what you went through was just too extreme, Hertanid?

With a human appearance but once a Shenqi, the being shrugged.

“Whatever. I’m just offering a suggestion. Whether or not you do it is up to you. If you really have feelings for that male, just go snatch him. With your status and ability, it’d be easy.”

The silver-haired girl’s emotionless eyes drifted away.

Cassia blinked, then smiled after thinking for a moment.

“Even though your method is pretty absurd, I do feel a lot better… Thank you, Hertanid.”

“I’m not comforting you. Don’t misunderstand on your own. When I said kill, I wasn’t joking.”

“Even so, you’re still worrying about me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come out to say these things to me.”

“…Is this the unnecessary overflow of human emotion?”

Just as suddenly as she had appeared, Hertanid vanished into thin air, returning to Cassia’s magic.

Cassia confirmed her sleeping brother was fine, then went back to her room to change.

The girl entered the washroom and washed her face with warm water.

She took off the Expulsion Ring.

The girl in the mirror had damp, light blue hair clinging to her face, looking a bit listless—though it was just the melancholy style of a beautiful girl.

“I’m not bad-looking either.”

Delicate features, lines on her face especially refined, and the phoenix eyes inherited from her mother Vitoris Benol gave her an extraordinary air.

Cassia undressed, white underwear tracing out the lines of a youthful body.

Below her collarbone, the slender curve of her limbs was defined—her balanced and beautiful body shaped by training and LV upgrades.

…Her abs were a little obvious, but as long as she didn’t breathe too hard, they shouldn’t show.

“Siloque said ‘Cass’ couldn’t go with the past.”

The girl pursed her lips and wiped the water mist from the mirror, as if erasing another self.

“Then, ‘Cassia’ can go, right? He never said ‘Cassia’ couldn’t.”

***

Beiren walked the road home from work.

That student named Cass had tried too hard.

Cliff was taken to the hospital and died despite emergency treatment.

In terms of results, Siloque had won the bet, utterly and without room for argument.

“In that case, there’s no helping it, huh… Mmm, really no helping it, I’m a person of my word too.”

Beiren didn’t even know who she was talking to, but her cheeks flushed as she coughed lightly into her hand to calm her excitement.

But…

Beiren checked LINE on her phone and saw Siloque still hadn’t sent a message.

The messages stopped at the midday duel’s reminder.

She had thought he’d be happy enough to notify her first thing.

D-did he forget?

No, no, that’s impossible.

At the duel, he was so excited greeting me—it shouldn’t be that.

Or, is it that I should be the one to send “Well, what can you do, let’s go on a date the day after tomorrow” first, to seem generous?

Oh, right.

A flash of inspiration struck Beiren, and it was as if a beam of white light shot behind her.

She was the loser in this bet. She should be the one to send the invitation.

To lose and then keep silent, made her seem like a sore loser.

Thinking this, Beiren planned to send a message to ask about the time and place for the date, to regain some adult dignity…

Her finger had just touched the screen.

In the pinned LINE chat window, a new message appeared silently:

–Sunday at 11 a.m. I’ll wait for you in front of the fountain at Rocks Plaza–

“!”

Beiren tapped “Okay” four times with the fastest speed of her life.