episode_0086

“That… that…”

Just as Hilde was about to continue his excuse, Friede plopped down in the empty space on the sofa—meaning, right next to Hilde’s legs—and cut him off.

Then she asked again.

“Is that all?”

In a distance so close that they could almost smell each other’s scent, it was a pressing question that was pushed once again.

“I, I feel a bit differently.”

No, it wasn’t a question.

Friede was not subtly asking about Hilde’s inner thoughts but rather slyly… yet much more directly than before.

“What, what’s different…?”

Hilde barely swallowed those words inwardly. She couldn’t handle whatever answer might come.

“Party member, comrade, friend… Yes, being friends is fine too… It’s definitely nice, but… I, I want something more than that.”

Of course, even if she kept her answer to herself, Friede’s mouth didn’t stop after once revealing it.

“…Do you dislike me, Hilde? Do you hate me…? That kind of thing.”

An overt expression of her intentions.

Even though she thought she hadn’t confessed her love, it proved that Friede was already intoxicated.

Whether it was with alcohol or with the heat in her own heart, no one could tell.

“Um… hey, Friede. I mean, I…”

Hilde struggled to find an excuse, turning her gaze around in confusion. It was a state of emergency.

The situation could explode with one wrong word, or she might be forced to respond to Friede’s feelings. Either way, it was an unwanted outcome for Hilde.

Losing someone who was nearly her equal in skill, whom she could wholly trust and comfortably deal with… No, someone she had lost to this problem.

She might be twenty years old, but she looked about four years younger, so becoming the lover of a girl who had never even considered “that side” was out of the question.

Especially the latter was something Hilde’s conscience simply couldn’t allow.

A man disguised as a woman taking advantage of a girl who seemed underage and making her his lover.

According to the original ethical standards of the world, shouldn’t the wrists be bound with handcuffs and the ankles with fetters?

At the point of having killed over two hundred people, it seems like it’s already too far gone to adhere to the original ethical standards of the world, but…

“Well, that and this are different…!”

At least for Hilde, it was a serious issue to respond to Freide’s feelings.

That’s why.

“So… I mean, Freide. That… I’m happy about your feelings, but I can’t accept them.”

Hilde decided to reject Freide’s almost confession-like statement, and to come up with an excuse that would make her understand and step back.

It could be called an “let’s just be friends” strategy.

If she rejected too sharply, Freide might leave the party feeling hurt, so she tried to persuade her to continue as friends, not lovers.

“Why…?”

Freide asked with a slightly darkened face, leaning her head slightly towards Hilde.

With heightened tension, Hilde’s mind raced at an unprecedented speed, quickly sifting through old memories to craft an excuse.

Among the various situations she had witnessed, these were the lines often used for gentle rejection.

“That… I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you, but… actually, there’s someone I have feelings for.”

Hilde closed her eyes tightly against the mounting tension and a twinge of conscience, uttering what she thought was the best first response.

“I can’t accept your confession because I have feelings for someone else, so let’s just be friends.”

In the stories and comics she had read, this was the most typical and effective rejection line. Therefore, Hilde believed this was the best excuse.

…Objectively, it could be considered the worst statement, but it was a human-like response learned from romance novels.

◆◆

“…What?”

Freide’s pupils momentarily shrank like dots.

As Hilde had her eyes tightly shut, she didn’t even realize that the smile had vanished from Freide’s face.

Should this be considered fortunate or unfortunate?

If she had faced that face, she would have realized that she had stepped on a very large mine even if it was not a pussy, so she could continue the conversation.

“…Is that, by any chance, about Amy? It can’t be Kikel.”

“No, it’s not Amy… It’s an old story. That, I’m actually not from this country but from another country? It happened back then…”

From hearing that there was someone she loved in Hilde, Freide, who was feeling a severe shock, momentarily regained her clear reason upon hearing that word.

If it was a story about her hometown, it must have been a reference to the time of the hero party.

‘Who could it be?’

Then who could that person be?

Emelia, who was part of the party?

Or Irina, the elven archer?

‘It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be Gunter, right? Yeah, it wouldn’t be. He said he didn’t like men.’

Emelia and Irina, which one could it be? It couldn’t be Gunter. Freide swallowed dry saliva. Her fingertips trembled with anxiety.

“By any chance, was it a man…?”

“…It was a man. I prefer women more, but… If I really like someone, it doesn’t matter which side they are.”

‘A man…?!’

Freide, sweating coldly, pondered over who Hilde was talking about. Before she could speak again, Hilde gave her the answer ahead of her.

“He, a former comrade from the same party… Not just a comrade, what should I call it? A disciple? It was a relationship similar to a disciple. He fought recklessly without knowing swordsmanship, so I taught him the basics of swordsmanship.”

“……Huh?”

Freide let out a dumbfounded groan with a stupid look on her face.

A comrade from the same party and a master-disciple relationship.

The swordsman who learned the basics of swordsmanship from her.

Would she not realize who that person was?

‘…Me?’

Yes.

The subject revealed by Brunhilde, who is now lying next to her, was none other than Freide herself from the time of the hero party.

At that time, she had the body of a man instead of a woman, and accordingly, she used the name Fritz instead of Sigfried or Freide.

‘No, um, wait, me? Me? In your heart? Really…? No, there was no indication of that… There wasn’t, right?’

It was a bewildering, no, shocking remark. To the extent that the thought of this being unrequited love didn’t even occur to her.

Of course, Hilde, who didn’t even know Freide’s true identity in her dreams, continued to make excuses without even imagining how her words would sound to the other person.

“I thought that if we continued to get along well, someday our hearts might connect… but that didn’t happen. There were too many practical problems. There were also too many people getting in the way. So… in the end, we had to break up.”

Hilde continued to tell heartbreaking lies, her voice filled with a sense of sorrow as if confessing a painful story.

“Hmm. Sad thoughts, sad thoughts…”

Trying to grasp her emotions by recalling the saddest thoughts possible in her mind, she distorted Brunhilde’s character from the novel into a tragic love story.

“…We broke up. Isn’t that enough?”

Freide asked bluntly, driven by the impulse to understand Hilde’s inner thoughts.

“Well… it wasn’t a pleasant breakup. I was worried after I left, so I deliberately said hurtful things to try to make myself fall out of love… It was just, it was a bit sad. Various things, really.”

For Freide, it was a perfect answer.

“So… I’m sorry. I don’t have room in my heart for someone else right now. It was really tough back then…”

…In order to avoid this situation, Hilde had no choice but to keep giving unsatisfactory answers.

“Ah…”

Freide seemed genuinely moved by her words, tears streaming down her reddened face.

Hilde, still immersed in her acting, didn’t realize this.

“So, let’s just forget about today and continue being colleagues. Like before.”

“…Please.”

Therefore, Hilde, with closed eyes and a pitiful expression, expressed her reluctance to accept Freide’s confession for that reason.

‘…Alright, this should be enough to persuade Freide, right? Even I can see it was a perfect answer.’

And then, I liked her inside.

…Actually, it wasn’t something to like.

The situation where I confessed to liking Fritz in order to reject Freida’s confession. In fact, there was no irony, so there was no such irony.

But Hilde still didn’t realize anything.

What on earth had she said?

What meaning did those words sound like to the girl in front of her?

Well, if she had realized that, she wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place.

“…Yes. Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.”

So, Hilde breathed a sigh of relief inwardly as she looked at Freida, who nodded in acceptance with a slightly turned head.

Thinking it fortunate that her hastily concocted excuse seemed to be well received.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry, Freida.”

“…No, it’s okay.”

Without even realizing the tremendous joy in Freida’s face as she turned her head.