"What will happen to you if Amelia comes for you?""She"ll fry me."
"…You think she"ll cut you up as an appetizer for a dish? That"s definitely possible. Should I ask her for a serving?"
When we discussed Amelia, the silly cat pretended not to understand my corny joke. But of course, it would be impossible to hide what she really felt through our soul connection. All I sensed from the silly cat was her sarcasm filled with evil intentions.
I felt rather complex feelings towards Amelia. She had treated me quite well back in the day, and yet I"d basically pushed her into a pitfall when I left. And when I"d met her in my previous life in the Northlands again, she still helped me without regards to the past and solved the lack of food in the Northlands. I thus owed her two great favors. And, while I was in the Earth Elemental Plane, I threw her into yet another pitfall, damaging her reputation by starting all those rumors about us being romantically involved in a love triangle. I now owed her three great favors.
I was no good person, and Amelia was definitely no good person at all. But at the very least, she hadn"t acted like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d toward me. Even I felt that it was going far too overboard to treat my benefactor so poorly. That was why when Amelia previously "forced me to get married to her" in order to save her reputation, I didn"t know how to respond. If it wasn"t for the fact that I wouldn"t be able to deal with Elisa afterwards, I probably would have agreed to marry Amelia already.
Actually, I felt like I should be ending my life as a bachelor. Amelia was quite nice, and I owed her plenty. I also knew that she seemed to feel friendlier towards me than just a relations.h.i.+p between teacher and student. It would also be nice to have a marriage at least in name. Yep, I definitely didn"t want to have a fake marriage just to salvage my reputation of being forever single or anything like that! But, for some reason, I kept feeling like something was off.
"…That"s what you think about her? I actually thought that you would make some progress after regaining your lost Sins. Was your brain eaten by a dog? Oh, you lost your memory again? In such a perfect and selective fas.h.i.+on? My "venerated" G.o.ddess of Order, are you certain that you didn"t do anything to him? Why does he always forget the critical things?"
[It"s his own fault for being unsalvageable in this area; it has nothing to do with me. Besides, all he ever thinks about are evil schemes about how to push other people into pitfalls. I suppose you could say that those are critical. If you have to find something not critical in his mind, you"d have to look at his personal life.]
Even now, I still remembered that when I"d thought about Amelia and how many favors I owed her, the silly cat had looked at me with such a condescending expression, and my System had thrown so many sarcastic barbs at me.
"Cough, cough, you"re looking at me as if I"m a sc.u.mbag who ditched his girlfriend. To be honest, I"m so old already, and it"s time for me to find a partner. It"s also time for the Mist Family to have a new descendant. I"m so old now, so my prospects for marriage are rather bleak. I actually don"t have many requirements for my partner."
"Why don"t you try saying your requirements?"
Harloys was quite astonished to hear this. Could it be that Roland had really improved in the matters of love?
"I"m actually a traditional man. That"s why I would like for my other half to be traditional as well. She doesn"t need to be particularly beautiful or strong. It would be best if she was a traditional woman who was gentle, kind, a homemaker, a skilled cook, and sometimes acted spoiled. It"s fine even if she"s not all that smart. She"ll bring me a cup of tea when I"m tired, she"ll be able to slightly understand my overall goal, she"ll understand my hards.h.i.+ps, and will gently tell me "welcome home" after I finish my work for the day. I"ll be satisfied if she"s like that…"
Alright then, I was originally quite happy as I described my ideal woman, and kept getting more excited as I went along, but then I recalled the cruel reality and lost my motivation to talk about it… It seemed that all the women around me were quite excellent, but they all had way too many skills points invested into their fierceness and strength attributes… Cough, cough, I meant that the women around me who fitted my requirements were quite few.
"…I truly sympathize with Elisa. She took the wrong direction from the very start. He doesn"t need a combat ally who can stand next to him. All he needs is a useless woman who can listen to his worries."
[Actually, she could simply wait. Men"s tastes in the women that they desire will change over time. From a certain standpoint, his current understanding of love is at an elementary schooler"s level. I can understand that he"s overly idealistic about his future romance. But as time pa.s.ses, cruel reality will give him a vicious lesson.]
"Such as?"
[Princesses are all slouches that don"t know how to clean their own rooms. A muscular female knight may smile quite sweetly, but her brain is quite empty. An ice-cold maiden type seems quite cute, but when you bring actually her home, you"ll find that she"s still icy and even boring. A dragon girl may look cute as well, but you"ll have to be afraid of her transforming into her real dragon form and snacking on you for lunch. It won"t take long for a man"s standards to go from "a nice and soft girl with long, straight, sleek black hair and a nice figure that understands me really well" to simply "any girl will do" to "she"ll do as long as she looks like a girl." Right, actually Krose fits all of your conditions, Roland. Apart from the fact that she looks like a girl, her physical body… is indeed a girl, so what are you hesitating about! You could use your status as her former boss to take advantage of her in a dressing room!]
"…Could the two of you please not insult me right in front of me next time! Also, what do you mean by taking advantage of her in a dressing room! And, how many times have I said already that Krose is a man… er, at least she was in the past, yep. Although I am indeed an honorable member of the Krose fan club, my heart definitely isn"t moved by her, nor have I ever considered the question of whether having descendants with Krose would be mentally or physically healthy! I"m not a pervert! Stop guessing at my interests! Also, you"re supposed to be the G.o.ddess of Order, so could you please have a little more shame!"
[Shame? I"ve already been completely tainted by your mental pollution.]
I also remembered that while I was retorting about how my System G.o.ddess was becoming ever more shameless, the silly cat seemed to be mysteriously depressed for some unknown reason.
"…Relax, I"m not in the mood to insult you right now. It really hurts my pride to lose in terms of feminity to a former man like Krose…"
[…Do you want to see Roland"s favorability rating towards all the females in his life like in a dating sim game? Krose would be ranked number one. Roland is so heartless. Also, I should tell you that your ranking is actually quite high, much higher than expected…]
"Shut up! Otherwise, I"m going to commit suicide and take you with me!"
[Commit suicide and take me with you? Haha! Why don"t you just try! Aren"t you afraid of me singing the Princess Peach song in your mind all day long?]
"I"ll go read gay p.o.r.n magazines focused on muscular men… No, wait, this tactic doesn"t work on you anymore. I"ll go read the Beifeng Cult"s advertis.e.m.e.nts and training manuals!"
[…]
Although I finally succeeded in making my System shut up as I wanted, I mysteriously felt like I lost something important to me.
Shame? That couldn"t be eaten, so it wasn"t important at all. The more important part was probably losing the instinctive repulsion that any normal human should have against certain immoral actions…
Yep, that was right, Beifeng and his believers were highly dangerous. Considering how his teachings were also leading to reduction of the population, he could even now be cla.s.sified as antisocial in a way.
What? Beifeng had already broken past the barrier of being completely different species with reproduction? He was casually creating all sorts of various strange new half-blood species? He wasn"t even at an anti-human or antisocial level anymore, he was basically anti-Eich, and the public enemy of all dimensions! To be honest, Beifeng has already entered the top ten of the Calamity Rankings. He was now the most wanted individual in the entire world, being hunted by every country and every G.o.d! Beifeng was now actually public enemy number one in every single dimension!
Cough, I should really set aside the subject of "He who must not be named." Let us get back to the topic of Amelia whom I felt complex feelings about.
I felt like I owed her a significant amount, but that something was still lacking for me to want to get married to her. Perhaps if I saw her, I would still try to run first.
But, although I was thinking like that just recently, I was absolutely delighted to see Amelia"s green figure who had such a seemingly sweet smile but countless th.o.r.n.y vine trees behind her which were enveloped in a black mist.
"Amelia, you"re so reliable to show up at such a time! Help! Please come save me!"
The land here was still violently shaking as all the magical elements were naturally dispersed. Although this place hadn"t reached the degree of a magical vacuum after a true forbidden spell, the tremendous magical energy shock wave had made all spellcasting impossible here.
Right across from Amelia was a certain familiar pale white figure, twirling around in the air. Conservation"s roar of undeath was completely filled with fury and killing intent that could cause any living to instantly enter death. This was the specialty of any ruler of death magic, and the most troublesome natural talent of ghost and undead type creatures.
"What"s more of a headache than dealing with an Undead Emperor? Dealing with an Undead Emperor who can"t even be killed by a nuclear bomb. And, she"s even gone berserk because of the nuclear bomb!"
"…And, you were the one who tossed the nuclear bomb at her."
I had no idea just how the female ghost Undead Emperor Conservation managed to survive that terrifying explosion. But, just from all the energy and windstorms gathering in the air, I knew that Conservation was seriously angry and that I was in deep trouble. Fortunately, my reinforcements had arrived…
"Wait a moment! Amelia, aren"t your vines attacking the wrong direction? Why are they attacking me! We"re on the same side!"