Ch.9595. Possessiveness

When Ludion received my sudden request for a hug, he seemed momentarily confused, but after I briefly explained about the choice presented by the Favorability System, he seemed to understand and opened his arms.

It might have been a lie about choices and all that. I thought he was accepting it too easily, but in this situation, I didn’t really care about such things.

I mean, Ludion was standing there with his arms open for me to hug him. What else could possibly matter more?

The distance between us was already so close that I didn’t even need to step forward. I just had to lean in slightly to naturally reach his embrace.

But this was… um… well…

‘This is a bit more dangerous than I expected.’

Perhaps the stimulation was a bit strong for someone like me who had plenty of emotions but no real experience with affection.

For me, displays of affection had only ever amounted to holding hands and clinging to his side.

Anything beyond that was at most the few stolen touches in the carriage on our way back from the Imperial Palace recently. I remember the stimulation was quite strong even then.

Honestly, I thought it wouldn’t be much different from just clinging to his side. I thought only the angle would be different.

But I was wrong. Angle? Contact area? None of that mattered. There was no calculation for this kind of act to begin with.

An inexplicable heat warmed my entire body.

Perhaps because of that, I could feel my emotions gradually twisting.

What is this feeling?

This desire to have his embrace all to myself… could this be possessiveness?

[The Favorability System smiles.]

Such words appeared as soon as I realized it.

‘…Was this the purpose?’

That thought occurred to me as soon as I saw the words appear.

If this was the intention, it was an undeniable success.

I wondered if this really was the intention, and if so, what exactly it wanted by doing this, but there was no way to know.

[Checking another timeline.]

For now, all I could do was prepare to receive new information while nestled in his warm embrace.

///

I was surprised by the sudden request for a hug, but I sort of understood when she mentioned something about choices appearing.

If the Favorability System was visible to Celia, it wasn’t that strange that choices would appear too.

‘It’s a bit funny that the choice was randomly a hug.’

Actually, we’d been sticking close together all along, just without hugging, and since it was Celia, I figured she must have chosen the best option, so I didn’t think much of it.

So I just opened my arms, and Celia snuggled right into my embrace.

Her build isn’t particularly small, but due to my large frame, she seemed to sink into me a bit.

But… I thought it wouldn’t be much different from her just clinging to my side, but surprisingly, it feels quite different.

While I was feeling a bit awkward about that thought, Celia suddenly started nuzzling her face against my chest.

Wondering what she was doing, I looked down at her, and she called out to me with a slightly furrowed brow.

“…Ludion.”

“What?”

“I’ve noticed this before, but I can’t hear your heartbeat and it makes me anxious. Hold me tighter.”

…Oh. My heartbeat can’t be heard?

Just how far is this sound-erasing skill planning to go?

Whatever the case, I decided to comply with her request for now.

I couldn’t hug her too tightly, so I just applied a little more pressure.

She then buried her face in my chest again with a satisfied expression.

Looking at her like that, almost like a pet, I suddenly remembered her favorability score that I had seen earlier.

[Favorability: 66/100]

What could have happened for it to increase again overnight?

I don’t remember doing anything special. It’s really strange.

‘Would she tell me if I asked?’

With that thought, I glanced at Celia, and goodness, she had fallen asleep!

What should I do? Should I lay her down comfortably?

Just as I was about to release her from my embrace…

[You cannot check this.]

[You cannot check this.]

[You cannot check this.]

[You cannot check this.]

“Whoa! What’s this?”

Suddenly, system windows filled my vision.

This must be the Favorability System, right?

I still couldn’t see the content, but I could guess what it was about.

“Keep holding her?”

…I asked, but there was no response.

However, judging by how the messages spammed whenever I tried to put her down, my guess was probably right.

“Alright… I’ll stay like this…”

In the end, I had to remain still, holding her in my arms until she woke up.

Fortunately, Celia woke up sooner than I expected.

…Actually, I’m not sure. I started dozing off halfway through, so my sense of time became a bit hazy.

Still, I woke up before Celia did, so I was able to see her open her eyes.

“Mmm…”

With a strange sound, she stirred and slightly raised her head, soon making eye contact with me.

Without showing any sign of embarrassment, she asked with a grin:

“How long did you wait?”

“Don’t know. I dozed off too.”

“That’s so like you, Ludion. You can let go now.”

“Oh, right.”

As soon as I released my arms from around her, she jumped up and lightly stretched her body. She must have felt stiff from staying in an uncomfortable position for so long.

While stretching, she spoke:

“I won’t hide it. I just saw what they call different timelines.”

“…What are you talking about?”

“I don’t really know what it is either. I’m just telling you exactly what happened.”

Different timelines. What could she have seen?

I couldn’t know, but it was clearly something significant.

The look in her eyes as she glanced at me was different from usual.

“Well, never mind that. You wouldn’t listen even if I explained. I’ll just tell you what I saw.”

My questions didn’t linger for long. Celia started her story without dragging it out.

“I saw two timelines. In one, people from the Academy were fighting a giant demon. You weren’t there… it cut off in the middle so I couldn’t see the outcome, but from what I saw, they were struggling quite a bit.”

“A giant demon?”

“Yes. To describe it roughly, it looked like a minotaur’s body with a human head.”

“What, the one with three horns on its head swinging a double-bladed axe?”

“You know about it?”

“Uh, well… I do know.”

The timeline she saw seemed to be from within the game.

The timeline where I wasn’t present was touching on the main story of the actual game.

Based on her description, she seems to have seen a boss battle scene that will happen later… but it’s not strange that I wasn’t there.

The character Ludion is someone even I, as an experienced player, don’t know about. It would be more unnatural for me to be in that scene.

So I was just thinking she had seen some story spoilers, but the other story she continued with was quite interesting.

“I guess it’s not strange for Ludion to know. Now about the second timeline… contrary to the first one, we weren’t there, and you were alone.”

According to her, I was trapped in some well-constructed space.

And there, I was facing the boss monster she had seen in the first timeline, all by myself.

Just as I was getting interested in this completely new structure, Celia began to hesitate.

Wondering what was wrong, I waited a moment, and she continued carefully in a subdued voice:

“And there… I saw something I didn’t want to see.”

“What did you see?”

“I’m not trying to hide it, but let me phrase it a bit differently. In that timeline, Ludion was a bit… no, very inexperienced.”

“Ah. I think you can stop there.”

Having roughly understood, I cut off Celia’s story.

In a boss battle, parrying is practically sealed. Parrying has been effective for me so far only because I haven’t faced a proper boss yet. Usually, bosses come with patterns that can’t be parried.

The demon Celia mentioned is no exception, with patterns that can’t be parried.

So one would have to adopt a method of dodging and attacking to defeat it, but the me—or rather, Ludion—in the timeline Celia saw doesn’t seem to have been an experienced player.

When someone like that faces a boss one-on-one… the result is obvious without seeing it.

‘He must have died.’

In the game, when HP reaches 0, you just see a falling animation, but in this reality, there would be no such mild depiction.

His body might have been cleanly cut by the double-bladed axe.

Not knowing what to say to someone who had seen such a thing, I kept my mouth shut, and the silence continued to stretch.

At some point, she started to sob, making me feel increasingly awkward.

Why would the Favorability System show her something like that? I didn’t do anything, but somehow I feel like I did something wrong.

A little later, she broke the silence with a small sniffling sound and met my eyes.

Then, with slightly wet eyes, she said:

“Ludion. Can you hug me once more?”

Who could refuse when asked with such an expression?

When I silently opened my arms, Celia came right into them. Thanks to that, we ended up in the same position as before.

And so 5 minutes… 10 minutes… 30…

Wait, how long are we going to stay like this?

This time she wasn’t asleep. When I glanced down, I could see her eyes blinking.

She just wasn’t moving at all, even after a long time had passed.

Feeling like we might stay like this for hours if I didn’t move first, I tried to gently release her, but…

“Ludion. Don’t be annoying and tighten your arms.”

I got scolded. What could she be thinking to get irritated like that?

Whatever it was, I didn’t want to make her angry, so I had no choice but to stay like this until she was satisfied.

Even after that, she dragged it out for so long that I tried to escape a few times in between… but every time I loosened my arms, she would notice frighteningly quickly and pinch my side, causing all my attempts to fail.

At one point, she even pinched me for no reason, but that seemed to pass as a light prank.

I was finally released after a long time had passed…

“Ludion, you should really be grateful to me. Someone who thinks about you and sacrifices for you like I do… there’s really no one else like that. Really.”

It was after Celia said those words with a somewhat determined expression.

What on earth was she talking about? It didn’t take long to understand the meaning.