episode_0089

“……”

After Pisces’ shocking declaration, the already quiet watchtower became even more still.

It was a stillness so profound that the late May night wind suddenly felt cold.

Pisces, unlike her usual self, was infinitely serious, mature, and in a grave mood.

“Hmph… Pisces.”

“Yes, Master-nim.”

But that doesn’t work on me.

I stretched out my hand and lightly pinched her cute, squishy cheek.

Her skin was so baby-soft that her cheek stretched out with a pop!, looking incredibly cute.

“You, you thought you might be rejected, so you said both things at once, didn’t you? You figured if you brought up regression, I’d be flustered and forget what you said earlier, you sly one.”

“Eek…!”

Such a clever little schemer.

When I released her cheek after she let out a cute squeal, she glared at me with a teary expression.

“Hmph…!”

Pisces was good at being serious, but this adorable side suited her much more.

*

‘Hmph…! Seriously…! How did he know??? It was a perfect plan…!’

Pisces, whose clever plan had been seen through, pouted inwardly.

Truthfully… for the past few days, Pisces, uncharacteristically for her usual confident charm, had been trembling with anxiety and fear.

That anxiety and fear had suddenly surged from within poor Pisces’ heart ever since Ras and Rosalie became lovers.

Even without being told directly that he had a lover, she could tell.

Because the Ras she met immediately the day after he got together with Rosalie felt a little different from usual.

Extreme happiness, stability, love.

Of course, Ras had always shown affection to Pisces, but what she saw that day was different from what he showed her… a profound and feverish atmosphere.

Pisces witnessed her Master’s unusual atmosphere with her own eyes and genuinely became a crumpled mess…!!!

‘Oh no..! I thought the Master was a lecher who would be interested in women… but those eyes are definitely the eyes of a pure-hearted man…!’

It was an atmosphere that suggested he wouldn’t even spare the tiniest corner next to him.

‘It’s completely a Rosalie monopoly market..! Pisces is utterly and grandly ruined..! The Master is totally head over heels for Rosalie Unnie…!’

And so, in her mind, an insurmountable wall, like a social class system, was grandly erected for Ras’s relationships: Lover (Rosalie) ////// Minion (Pisces) ///// Seagull (Irha).

From this point, her anguish and struggles truly began.

The psychology of wanting to convey her growing feelings before Ras fell even deeper for Rosalie was 70%.

And the psychology of, ‘Although it feels cowardly, rather than stirring up trouble and being rejected, should I just maintain a suitable position?’ was 30%.

In any case, Pisces, despite being mischievous, was pure-hearted, and so she always wanted to convey her immense, grown feelings, even while playfully teasing.

However, she was still afraid of a situation where she might be rejected. Especially since it was her first time confessing or experiencing love!

Of course, even for her, there was a cunning strategy of her own…

‘Master-nim… no! The wicked Master’s huge secret… smart me has already figured it out…! It might not be, but it’s definitely true!’

Surprisingly, Pisces, who had already noticed her Master’s biggest secret, ‘regression,’ with her unique cleverness, came up with a good plan.

‘Hehe! First, I’ll confess my love, and then, without giving him a chance to respond, I’ll tell him a big secret! Then the Master will be flustered, babbling, and forget to reject me, right? After that, I’ll just play innocent!’

This was a strategy to hide one’s true intentions behind a problem that the other person considered more important… a so-called “Hiding Sincerity on a Crow’s Wing” [a strategy to distract someone with a more pressing issue to avoid addressing an immediate, potentially uncomfortable, matter].

A strategy that exploits the momentary gap where the other person is flustered by what follows, unable to answer what was said before, pushing one’s own agenda without giving them a chance to respond.

In truth, this was simply a rather pathetic… not even a strategy, just an avoidance of outcome, but it could be said to be Pisces’ cute, desperate effort to somehow convey her feelings.

Of course… she was found out, and it failed.

There was a reason why the strategy failed.

There were several minor reasons, but the biggest reason was…

“Pisces.”

“Hmph… What? It’s ruined. Pisces is useless now, she can’t even pull off a proper trick. If you’re going to reject me, just do it quickly… Hmph…”

Ras, with a smile-filled expression, lightly kissed the serious Pisces’ cheek.

“….!!!”

Surprised by the touch of affectionate lips on her cheek, Pisces looked at Ras, who was grinning in front of her, with wide eyes.

“Why would I reject you? The reason your trick failed, you see, is because what you said before was far more important to me than what you said after.”

That’s right.

From Ras’s perspective, Pisces discovering his secret of regression was merely something he was curious about how she did it, not a particularly important matter.

What was far more important was the fact that his incredibly cute subordinate had shyly… and desperately maintaining her composure, subtly! confessed.

“Gasp…!”

It was a situation that Pisces, who was accustomed only to such pathetic things as secrets, escape, fleeing, petty theft, subsistence fraud, and stealth, couldn’t quite adapt to.

In a world where everyone intensely disliked having their secrets exposed and hid them like a dragon’s inverse scale, why was he smiling as if nothing was wrong?

She had been most afraid of her feelings being outright rejected, so she had even risked the fear of Ras getting angry and interrogating her, provoking him, but…

“What am I going to do with this cute little thing? Let’s put regression aside for now. That’s not important right now; you are far more important, Pisces.”

“Mmm…”

Ras continued speaking, gently stroking Pisces while giving a light smile.

“Pisces, you’re mine. Even if you run away, I will never let you go; I’ll bring you back. Why did you pull such a strange trick? It was a cunning method, but also quite cute…”

“Well… Master-nim is already dating Rosalie Unnie, isn’t he? And after that… he had an atmosphere like he became the embodiment of pure love….”

The calm and composed atmosphere Pisces had just moments ago when revealing the regression felt like a lie; she instantly started to shrink back.

Of course, Ras, who had long since thrown pure love to the dogs along with regression, simply found the whimpering, shrinking Pisces adorable.

“If I was going to choose only one person in the first place, why would I have asked for your permission last time? Have you already forgotten what I said while we were playing chess?”

“But… that was before you started dating Unnie. Unnie might hate it, and she might not give her permission, and I have low combat power… I’m a hodgepmpus with no identity… and I can’t even attend the academy that the stupid seagull attends…”

Ras gently embraced Pisces, who was whining and grumbling about the world.

Not as mature and voluptuous as Rosalie, but for someone small and slender, she had a pleasantly undeniable feminine volume.

Though hodgepmpus were looked down upon in Azulda, she possessed breathtaking beauty that could stand anywhere, along with the pleasant unique scent of her hodgepmpus race.

“Who would I ever concede this beautiful and lovely woman to? That’s out of the question,” Ras thought, and with that, he reassured Pisces.

“If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Don’t worry about Rosalie. It’s my responsibility for setting things in motion, not something for you to be needlessly intimidated by.”

“I don’t know… I hate you. I still hate you… but I like you. It’s a problem that I like you, who I don’t even know how many women you’ll try to get involved with. Still, since I was completely saved by you, can I consider this me being a grateful crow?”

“Why would the reason matter so much? In a world full of people trying to harm others for no reason, liking someone for no reason isn’t a problem at all. Love doesn’t need a reason.”

“You really are a playboy.”

Pisces pouted, but she couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from turning up.

Ras said softly to Pisces, who was beaming.

“But I am a bit curious. How exactly did you figure out my secret? Did you regress too?”

“Ah..! About that~ *Ahem*…!”

Since the important matter had been resolved, it was now time to address the secondary curiosity.

The process by which Pisces deduced Ras’s identity was roughly as follows:

*

Pisces said that from the very first time she met me, she was curious about what kind of person I was and what my true identity was.

Because a child who appeared to be around her own age (for reference, I’m one year older than Pisces, so I’m her Oppa!) had completely burned down the notorious Black Rose Vine and Valdes.

“Honestly, isn’t it true? And Master-nim’s power… it’s neither magic nor dark magic, but an anomalous power. You know I’m sensitive to malice and the flow of power, right? Among the hodgepmpus, I was exceptional in that regard.”

“True. Wielding that much power at twenty-one isn’t normal. So, you didn’t just feel an immense magical power from me.”

Pisces’ casual “combat power assessment” was said to have worked on me with unusual strength and sensitivity.

She said that if she observed someone for a long time, she possessed a strange ability to gauge them, much like reading tree rings.

It was originally a type of supersense that the hodgepmpus of Azulda were born with to some extent for survival, but Pisces was a case where this was exceptionally well-developed.

Especially since they weren’t just acquaintances who met once or twice, and she had constantly been with me, there were many times she felt an intense sense of anomaly regarding my power.

“However, I couldn’t immediately conclude, ‘Ta-da! You’re a regressor!!’ based on just that. The second part… this is where it gets real, and it’s about when you saved the stupid seagull’s younger sister.”

And the second.

On the day I entered Mirha’s mindscape, surprisingly, Pisces also saw that scene with me.

“The reason it was possible was… I can’t be entirely sure, but there’s one thing that comes to mind.”

“What is it??”

“Well… on the day we first met. Master-nim entered ‘inside me’ without mercy~”

The sly thing, winking and wagging her tail, seemed less like a crow and more like a fox.

Lest anyone misunderstand, I feigned innocence and said,

“That time? Right… was that the day our Pisces was all messy… smelling like an unwashed puppy?”

“Hmph…! You never let me win. I hate you! Anyway, back then, Master-nim burned away the worm Valdes had planted, right? But you didn’t physically burn the worm, did you?”

“That’s right… if I had physically released flames inside your body, your internal organs would have been burned to death too. I used something called Mindscape Flames to kill it in a complex way. By burning the worm’s mind and soul.”

Hearing my answer, Pisces giggled and continued.

“From that point on, it seems a strong mental link formed between Master-nim and me. It’s a bit risqué, but it’s like our ‘inner selves’ were completely exposed to each other, wouldn’t you say? Souls and minds are, in a way, inner selves… Eek…!”

The little thing kept trying to steer the conversation into risqué territory, so I gave her a light knock on the head for the first time in a while.

“Hmph… Anyway, after that, I became increasingly sensitive to Master-nim’s mental state. I could see all the landscapes and memories Mirha held in her mind. I couldn’t fully understand it with my own mind, but… I also saw your ruthless appearance in those memories. Although your outer appearance was fierce…”

After she had also been to Mirha’s mindscape (though I didn’t know that fact), Pisces said her mental link with me grew stronger.

“So… that’s how you picked up my thoughts so well. I thought you were a mind reader.”

“Hehe… and that’s how hodgepmpus are. It’s a characteristic of hodgepmpus to naturally feel the emotions and thoughts of a target if they hold immense fear or great affection for them. Fear and affection allow us to survive. So, the conclusion is that Pisces loves you very much… Heeheehee…!”

In any case, I wondered if all hodgepmpus were pathetic yet lovable beings like Pisces.

Of course not. I concluded that no one was as lovely as Pisces.

This cute little thing didn’t miss a beat to shower me with affection, and I proudly lifted her up, bounced her, then set her down.

Listening to her story, I somewhat understood that she had reacted a bit excessively to my happiness after I started dating, leading her to devise such a foolish scheme.

Anyway, Pisces’ story continued.

“So… when that idiotic slave came to provoke you last time… I was able to glimpse your fleeting emotions and memories then too. One by one… as the pieces gathered, I came to my own conclusion.”

It was the day I had acted as the loan shark Iorca, a fallen noble from Kashmir, but Pisces said that amidst that resentment, she saw who I truly was, more deeply and clearly.

“It flashed by quickly, but I could also see everything without missing a single detail. Because you are my love. Your joy, your sorrow, your anger, your despair… all of it is mine.”

As she spoke, Pisces gradually transformed into a more serious, quiet, yet loving atmosphere.

“When I considered it under the assumption that you had regressed, everything made sense. First, the young master of Etgard Merchant Guild suddenly coming to the back alleys… even to an obscure place, to rescue me… the absurd level of power you displayed, and the complex ‘power rings’ that were hard to gauge… all of it.”

An ordinary person wouldn’t be able to draw the conclusion of regression from that, but my clever minion is different.

This woman of ever-changing charm, whose speech had matured, met my gaze calmly.

“Before regression, was I a precious subordinate to you? Or a lover? I remember you sometimes showing unconcealable regret and pity when you looked at me. My end was probably tragic, wasn’t it?”

“Yes… you were my subordinate, and the chief of staff to the King of the Back Alleys. You got unfortunately entangled with me and died a miserable death. I didn’t love you, but after I lost you, I thought of you often. I felt regret, pity, and the desire to turn back time.”

I was reflected in Pisces’ calm and clear eyes.

And the Pisces within those eyes was smiling with a past appearance, slightly more subdued and quiet than her current self.

The me of that time might have felt that the girl who ultimately couldn’t leave me with the words “I love you” was a bit foolish and pathetic.

“I love you,” what was so difficult about saying that?

The reason I urgently sought her out in Sephir after my regression was partly to keep Leon in check, but also because I wanted to free her from her hellish life as soon as possible.

Because, without my knowing it, you, my loyal subordinate who had been with me for a long time… I wanted to reclaim you and keep you by my side to protect you.

So this time, I wanted to forge a better relationship than before regression and let her say all the words she couldn’t say then.

Pisces didn’t throw a tantrum this time, even as she saw me thinking of another woman.

Instead, she gave a picturesque smile, then cupped my cheeks and kissed me.

A fresh, then passionate kiss, where tongues intertwined.

Pisces pulled back from the kiss and smiled slyly at me.

“I love you, my Master-nim. In this life, I’ll go with you wherever you go. Whether it’s to fiery hell or a cold, ice-filled wasteland… I was completely subjugated to you from the moment you saved me and began pouring your affection on me. So, cherish me and love me.”

In a sweet voice that would have been unimaginable from the usual Pisces, she whispered her love to me.

“So this time, it’ll be a happy ending, okay?”

The cheerfully smiling girl was even more adorable than usual.

“I promise. This time, I will never make you sad.”

Under the starry sky, Pisces and I held each other for a long time.