Chapter 541: Sly Harloys
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
“What should I say next? Please teach me!”
I pleaded with my gaze towards Harloys for help, yet she didn’t react.
“Hey, hey, hey, could you please at least give me a hint?”
My eyes were so wide open and round as I stared, yet she still wouldn’t respond. The silly cat in her Gold Elf form was actually pretending not to notice me.
[Even I can’t stand watching this anymore. What is she even supposed to say in such a situation? You need to decide for yourself.]
Only now did I discover that all women would forever be a united front. At such a critical moment, I couldn’t count on anyone but myself in the end.
“I need to express my feelings for the silly cat, tsk, and it also needs to be truthful… No, wait, isn’t this something that Beifeng would do?”
Humans were capable of doing anything when forced to their limits. For example, giving a speech filled with praise about a coworker or cla.s.smate that you had a terrible relations.h.i.+p with. If one prepared beforehand, it would even be possible to deliver touching words about that person you hated. Although my situation wasn’t quite the same, my life was at stake here, so I indeed managed to come up with some truthful words during this time of personal crisis.
“To be honest, I’m quite happy being together with her. She can understand anything I want to say because of our soul connection… and I can understand anything she wants to say… No matter if it’s good… or if we’re trying to do bad things, she’s always by my side. Whenever I’m dissatisfied, she’ll always be there to listen to my complaints. Whenever I lack confidence, she’ll always encourage me… even if her form of encouragement is in the form of a disparaging comment, a retort, or laughing at me, it will still make me feel better.”
I did my very best to list all of the silly cat’s best traits. As I spoke, it became easier and easier to say what I thought as if these words had already been in my heart for a long while already, waiting for this opportunity for them to be said today.
“Also… Sometimes, what I want to do is completely misunderstood by everyone else in the world, even to the extent where the person I’m trying to protect ends up hating me. Yet, the silly cat is still able to understand me, and she’ll even console me or make a joke to try and improve my mood. To be honest, I thought that I had long since gotten used to being alone and facing others’ fear and hatred, but now I’ve discovered that… even for someone like me, I want someone to be able to understand me, trust me, and support me.
“It’s difficult for me to describe what I feel… it might be exaggeration to call it love. I think it’s that I’ve finally gotten used to having someone always by my side, so it’s difficult for me to imagine being alone anymore. When I think about how she’ll accompany me for eternity, I won’t feel as lonely as I did in the past. She’ll laugh and joke together with me, make dastardly schemes together with me, and deal with any troubles together with me… all of this makes me happy.
“At the very least, I’ve felt a lot less pressure over the past few years. And, she’s always by my side to act ridiculously together with me. I think the past few years are the happiest I’ve ever been.
“Um, I don’t know how else to describe it. I think, I want her to forever be by my side.”
Without realizing it, my words kept coming out more successfully. Harloys’ head kept lowering further and further to the point where she was looking at the ground as I said the last sentence. Her pointy elf ears were now a bright red.
When I said my final sentence in an adamant tone, an ambiguous silence replaced the tension in the atmosphere. I broke out into a cold sweat and was nervous enough to have my legs twitch uncontrollably as I awaited a reply. Yet, both Harloys and Amelia remained abnormally silent.
As I thought over what I said just now, even I felt that it was rather corny. I kept looking around everywhere for a hole in the ground that I could hide myself in. But suddenly, Amelia’s vines loosened their grip on me, and I obtained my freedom.
“Eh? The curse on me has been cancelled?”
I was overjoyed when I noticed that Amelia’s previous curse of weakness on my physical body had suddenly vanished completely. My body’s physical attributes received a ma.s.sive increase, and I was suddenly restored to my peak combat strength.
What astonished me even more was that not only was Amelia not seemingly angry at all, she even smiled and walked off to the side as she began talking to the wood spirits about the combat situation against the undead.
While I found the current situation rather strange, I secretly heaved a sigh of relief as I was probably on the brink of death there.
“Even someone like me would regret it if Timlad died in those ruins because of my personal matters… well, I would at least regret it for a few minutes.”
However, what Roland didn’t know was that the negotiation between the two women hadn’t ended yet. Their private mental spell communication, unbeknownst to Roland, was just like a powder keg waiting to explode.
“My sly teacher, even if you’ve used your tricks to temporarily become the leader in this race, why don’t you think about it some more? Even if Roland’s current elementary schooler level way of thinking about love is truly pure and cute, the great majority of first loves regarding ‘I want to be together with her’ or ‘curiosity about the opposite s.e.x’ will always end in failure,” said Amelia.
From a certain standpoint, now that Amelia had completed her long hibernation and evolution, her ability to read the soul had now been strengthened to an incredible degree. Not only that, her matured intelligence and understanding of the world now made Amelia seem far more down to earth.
In Roland’s current reincarnated body after the battle of h.e.l.l, he now had a complete soul due to recovering all of his Seven Deadly Sins. This also meant that it was possible for Roland to love again.
When a.n.a.lyzing his current situation with soul reincarnation studies, the current Roland was just like a youth who had just entered p.u.b.erty. His newly regained emotions were still immature and difficult for him to control. His sense of logic and reason was becoming ever more affected by his complex and mult.i.tudinous emotions.
And, for any youth who had just learned how to love, the easiest person for him to fall in love with would naturally be the pretty girl who was always next to him.
At this time, Harloys was the one who convinced Roland to go out and around in the world, and she was the only one who was constantly by his side. With her influence, Roland felt that Harloys was a good friend who understood him the best, and those feelings mixed together with his newly regained ability to love. In the end, Harloys succeeded in being #1 on Roland’s favorability ranking. This all seemed quite underhanded to Amelia and Elisa who had been patiently waiting for so long for Roland to regain the ability to love.
“Ha, are you talking about yourself? If I recall correctly, Roland is your first love. So, you really want a bittersweet and deep memory about a failed first love?” said Harloys to Amelia.
Perhaps Harloys’ face was far too red to the point where she found it impossible to calm down, so she returned to her cat form. But then, she noticed that even her cat ears were flushed a bright red.
However, Harloys today was different from her usual self of loving to watch chaos unfold from the sidelines. She was currently highly aggressive, seeming like she didn’t mind fanning the flames even more.
“Only girls who have never been in a single romantic relations.h.i.+p would deal with their own feelings in such a foolish manner. Do you all feel that sacrificing so much for the sake of Roland, along with constantly forcing him to do your commands, means that you all will be able to obtain him? You’re all completely wrong. That will only make him feel like he owes all of you. That will only make him afraid of all of you, and want to run away from all of you. Even if all of you had the opportunity to be together with him during the past few years, he would still choose me in the end. This is no coincidence. It’s a definite,” Harloys told Amelia.
Even back in the Northlands, Harloys had already sensed that even if she wasn’t around, it would still be impossible for Amelia or Elisa to truly obtain Roland’s love.
That was right, Harloys kept using the phrase “you all” instead of “you” to Amelia. Harloys was making it clear that she was including Elisa and Reyne along with Amelia.
In Roland’s mind, Elisa was just like a precious daughter. Since that way of thinking was already set in stone in Roland’s mind, no matter how much effort Elisa put in to become his lover, or how much she sacrificed, that would only make Roland feel like he owed her more and more, and that he wanted to treat her better. Yet, he had completely missed the foundational reason for Elisa to do all this… because he had never seen her as a woman that he could love or have in the first place.
“Roland feels nothing except for familial love towards Elisa. He can unhesitatingly risk his life for Elisa’s sake, but that’s only because he views Elisa as his own daughter. Don’t look at how Roland seems to be so insane in so many areas. He’s actually highly conservative when it comes to family and love. That’s why it’s the exact same situation for Reyne. Since Reyne is a descendant of the Mist Family, she never had a chance with Roland to begin with.”
Harloys’ light-sounding words contained a hint of exclamation. In Harloys’ opinion, Elisa was truly pitiful. Elisa had spent all her efforts on helping Roland as much as she possibly could, all for the sake of obtaining his love. Yet, all she obtained was Roland’s grat.i.tude and regret that he couldn’t treat her better. All that grat.i.tude and regret became heavy shackles that ended up completely cutting off all possibility of Roland developing any romantic feelings for Elisa.
Although Elisa had selflessly stayed behind in the Chaos Abyss to help Roland and keep him updated on the happenings there, this really moved Roland while making him feel even more guilty about not being able to pay her back. With all those complex emotions mixed up within him, it became absolutely impossible for Roland to fall in love with Elisa.
“Unless one of these women is willing to force herself on Roland, none of them will possibly have a chance at all.”
Harloys had come to such a conclusion long ago. Judging from this point, the Banshee Queen was indeed one of the slyest individuals in the entire world. Perhaps from the very start, she had seen through everything, yet she had pretended to be an uninterested bystander while secretly getting closer to her goal.
And, when it came to love experience, Harloys indeed had far more experience than her two main compet.i.tors… well, if girl/girl experience counted as love experience, Harloys was indeed superbly experienced. And, her two main love rivals, Amelia and Elisa, both obviously had zero experience in love.
Elisa and Amelia constantly made novice mistakes while pursuing Roland’s heart, while Harloys knew exactly what Roland wanted due to their soul connection. That was why Harloys had always stayed by his side without acting, but she held the greatest guarantee of obtaining his heart… Was this a cla.s.sical example of how no wonderful oath of love about a long-distance relations.h.i.+p would stand the test of time? Or was this a cla.s.sical example of how the most patient would always win out in the end?
“Amelia, you indeed have a much higher power level than Elisa. However, even she knew what she wanted long ago, and you’ve just realized that you want to be with Roland. Don’t you think that you’re a little too late?”
“I, Amelia Milan, am someone who will never give up on what I want. Even if a first love seems so beautiful, the person who will win in the end will always be the person who’s best for him. Once Roland’s emotions mature some more, he will naturally choose the woman that’s best for him.”
“You still don’t understand yet? Roland himself has said it quite clearly. He doesn’t need someone to help him, or someone who’s the most capable fighter or schemer. He’s never cared about any of that. All he wants is someone who can support him, be there for him, listen to his worries, and understand him… Forget it, I probably shouldn’t help you by telling you all this.”
The feeling of love was emotional, so trying to use logic or calculations seemed wrong from the very start. In Harloys’ opinion, both Amelia and Elisa were far too much the logical type.
And sometimes, sincere emotions would be far more moving than any potential logical benefit. No matter how much one sacrificed while being far away, that would never possibly compare to someone else who was right by your side, greeting you with sincerity every day.
Elisa had constantly been sacrificing and working her hardest for Roland’s sake. She believed that this would make Roland fall in love with her. However, Elisa had never considered whether Roland would want to see her working so hard and sacrificing so much, nor did she realize just how guilty and pained Roland would feel after seeing all her efforts and sacrifices. In Harloys’ opinion, Elisa’s behavior was just another type of self-satisfaction and selfishness.
To use an a.n.a.logy, this was just like two men arranging to have a deathmatch duel over a woman, but neither man had asked the woman which person she actually liked, or if she would want to see someone dying over her.
So what if Elisa had forced Roland to swear and declare Elisa to be his girlfriend? This was nothing more than taking advantage of the situation at the time to pretend to be lovers. In fact, this actually caused a rift between the two. If only Elisa had remained as Roland’s venomtongued maid always by his side, it would have likely been impossible for Harloys to even do anything to shake Elisa’s position.
Elisa voluntarily left Roland’s side, wanting to help him out. The sly Harloys had taken advantage of this opening to become the woman who always remained by his side, accompanying him through thick and thin, sharing his pains and joys, and patiently waiting for Roland to finally regain his ability to love and for his emotional intelligence to slowly mature so that she could become the only one for him.
Perhaps Harloys would still need to wait for an incredibly long period of time for a dense block of wood like Roland to finally realize his own feelings, and perhaps Roland’s current good will towards Harloys wasn’t to the point of developing into love yet. However, Harloys had the confidence that she could patiently wait until he reached that point, and that she would become the ultimate victor in the battle for his heart.
Of course, for someone as sly as Harloys, she had already said everything she wanted. Since she had now declared war on her love rivals and suddenly entered the fight for Roland’s heart, there was no way that she would tell her love rivals about their own mistakes.
The current Amelia had also matured and realized her past mistakes. Since Amelia had now become certain of her own feelings for Roland, she no longer acted as overboard as before, and even started treating Roland far more gently.
Perhaps in the near future, as long as Roland didn’t act too idiotically, he would actually have a far more comfortable time than what he expected.
If only Roland knew that these two powerful women had declared an all-out war against each other with him as the ultimate prize, he would no longer be celebrating his unexpected “freedom.” He would likely be s.h.i.+vering in a small corner somewhere while crying about how scary women could be.
Meanwhile, the suns.h.i.+ne was quite brilliant and the bad weather had all disappeared. And now, the higher-ups of Starwood City finally dared to come talk to Roland now that the “internal conflict” had finally ended.