This Is an Affair
This Is an Affair
005
Amelia was calm.
With a beaming smile, she picked up the coat she had dropped.
Then, sensing the subtle atmosphere, she pushed the stiffened Deron into the bathroom.
She prepared the meal by neatly placing the bread Deron had bought from the bakery onto plates.
Tasting them together with Deron after he finished his bath, she shared a bit of the moved feeling Deron had experienced at the plaza.
"It's really delicious......"
"Right? I told you so!"
"Especially this one. It's my first time trying it...... I should have gone earlier if I knew it'd be this good."
"Wouldn't that have been impossible anyway? You look for a mouse hole to hide in the moment you hear a knock."
"That's enough."
They finished their meal while sharing an overwhelmingly ordinary conversation.
Declaring that she had really practiced properly this time, she ran to the kitchen to do the dishes.
Result: Smashed the plates with sheer brute strength.
A 3rd banishment from the kitchen.
...After receiving such a report card, she sat in front of the fireplace and shared a bit of old stories.
The process of reminiscing about memories was enjoyable.
Both Deron and Amelia were all smiles.
The problem was what came next.
"......Good night."
"You too, Hero-nim."
Deron on the 1st floor.
Amelia on the 2nd floor.
The day came to an end.
A night where their greetings crossed between upstairs and downstairs.
Ever since Deron arrived, the hero had been able to sleep comfortably, aside from a few occasional nightmares.
"......Why am I like this?"
However, today Amelia felt that insomnia had paid her a visit after a long time.
"I shouldn't be like this."
The former hero could not fall asleep.
She simply stayed up all night with her eyes wide open.
Surprisingly, I remember almost every single detail of the original novel.
However, not to mention 28-year-old cargo truck driver Kim Taeyoung, even the current body, Deron, didn't have particularly good memory.
Therefore, a novel that I hadn't even read particularly diligently.
The fact that its full text came to mind quite clearly was unexpected even for me, and at the same time, a stroke of good fortune.
If not for that, I wouldn't have been able to overcome the occasional crises that arose while serving in the Hero Party.
Perhaps I might have died without even witnessing the hero's banishment.
However, this is my 4th year possessed.
It was a short time if considered short, but the total amount of things experienced was nearly 11 to 12 times more.
The pain was 14 to 15 times more....!!!
......Anyway, one fact I realized while experiencing those various events.
This place is not a novel.
It is a world based on it.
A novel does not illuminate every event in the world.
People other than the main and supporting characters highlighted on the stage also live in this world.
Even Deron isn't even mentioned after the beginning of the original story.
"Ah, you're out here already? Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's just because I came out early. You're not late at all."
The presence in front of my eyes right now might simply be a character not described in the novel.
However, that does not mean she is unimportant.
'......It's tingling.'
If there were an authority like a status window—as part of a long-standing fantasy cliché.
Deron's status window would definitely have had a skill like [Crisis Detection].
Unfortunately, both in the original work and for me.
An ability like a status window does not exist.
However, this body's innate sensory perception is extremely good.
Therefore, that red-haired girl smiling brightly as if she knows nothing.
Can be felt to actually be a powerhouse on the level of at least an A-rank adventurer.
Even that measurement of A-rank is limited to the present moment.
I cannot tell where the root of this sense of incongruity lies.
However, the sixth sense of Deron, who has reached the level of 'Hero Party main force', is sending danger signals.
Hence, this woman can be termed a dangerous person.
Living a fucking top-tier leeching life off the banished strongest hero~
That means she is an existence that doesn't fit my plan at all.
Another facet not observed in the novel.
A person who has deviated from the future I know.
Therefore, I need to look into this woman.
Although how that somehow led to a date promise was a completely unexpected turn of events......
"......You've liked staring blankly without a word since last time, haven't you?"
"I tend to do that often. It is usually polite not to make noise during appreciation or viewing."
"Woah. What an old-fashioned way of talking for your age."
28-year-old Kim Taeyoung-ssi inside my head felt slightly outraged by her unrestrained "Ho-ho-ho—" laughter, but I stuffed him back into the back room.
I am Deron, a 21-year-old former royal guard knight.
"I've heard a lot that I'm rigid."
"From women?"
"I can't say no."
With Deron's body, no matter what outdated flirting I do, there's no problem.
It gets romanticized as the immaturity of a young man who hasn't quite shed his boyhood.
That was one of the things I realized while living in this body for 4 years.
......In fact, it was also one of the reasons I was able to endure in the Hero Party.
Among the members of the Hero Party, the women were surprisingly lenient towards Deron.
Though in return, I was subjected to sexual harassment all the time.
Unfortunately, there was no such institution where I could report the threat to a boy's chastity and daily harassment.
No, to be exact, there was one, but it wasn't a place I could utilize.
Because the one at the very forefront of that harassment was the very symbol and highest official of that institution.
Because it was the Saint.
"Keueueuk......"
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, I just suddenly remembered a bad memory......"
It's not some over-exaggerated reaction; it genuinely remains as PTSD.
At least when referring to that bitch, I cannot falsely claim the holy "Saint" title for her.
That is true sacrilege.
The fact that the Saint hasn't been struck by a bolt out of the blue yet must be the greatest mystery of the Solbine Holy Church......
"Are you really okay?"
"Nothing is wrong. I'm actually quite sturdy."
'Then why did you act like that earlier?'
She stared at me with an expression that said just that.
As if she was quite dumbfounded, she didn't particularly hide her true feelings.
But I have something to say too.
Meaning that the memories of those days held nothing but irresistible cruelty.
For the record, the Saint is not included in the half of the Hero Party I can defeat.
I could resist, but if we fought ten times, I'd easily lose about seven.
Compared to Total Troll-ssi, whom I beat ten out of ten times, she is twice as strong.
The Saint was definitely a living terror.
"......Mmm."
Because of that, a sudden surge of motivation welled up.
She was damn suspicious, I didn't even know if that name Lahel was real, and her intentions were dubious.
Even so, today's (fake) date partner wasn't an insidious perverted bitch, a sociopath with a broken personality, or a gloomy sociopath.
"Let's go. I will guide you."
"Your expression suddenly brightened up.....?"
"Because I suddenly got excited."
"Besides being called rigid, I bet you hear that you're peculiar a lot too."
I haven't particularly heard that.
For that, I'd have to summon the memories of Kim Taeyoung-ssi in the corner of my mind.
Because around Deron, there were already plenty of people who needed the word 'special' rather than 'peculiar'.
Thus, David (alias) and Lahel (alias) headed to their destination while talking.
A scene that looked utterly harmonious at a glance.
Though the two didn't know it, there was a beast contemplating it.
"......Hoho."
It was Venerable Grand Duke Charlotte-ong, a True Ancestor who was kicked out again right after returning.
The cute and sweet sight of two young men and women who were some nine hundred and several decades younger.
From the perspective of a 981-year-old wine (unopened), it was truly an intriguing sight.
"In any case, those things called humans try to breed the moment they start walking."
Although Charlotte-ong presented a deeply self-serving long-lived species' perspective, contrary to her words, a warm smile bloomed on her face.
The noble Grand Duke Charlotte-ong's hobby was reading romance novels.
Of course, she had failed to apply that to real life for 981 years, but by her own assertion, it wasn't a particularly important matter.
"Such brazen short-lived species......"
Even though, to anyone looking, the one looking like a brazen brat was this side.
At any rate, Charlotte-ong did not forget the original nature of her mission: surveillance and conciliation.
It was just a scene that warmed her heart and made her shoulders shrug with joy.
"They're totally gonna hold hands at this rate, hold hands...... What's next after holding hands...... Uhehe."
"Holding hands from the first day is progressing too fast...... The Deron I know is...... No...... There's no way......"
"Ha, you know nothing. These days, sleeping together first before dating is practically the trend, you know?"
"Deron... wouldn't do such a thing...!!!"
"What kind of thousand-year-old old demon talk is this—"
Ttuk.
Because she was immersed in the scene before her eyes, Charlotte-ong had been reflexively continuing the reply.
She stopped speaking at the sudden sense of incongruity and looked to her side.
"If, if Deron were like that...... he would have already laid a hand on me first......"
"Uh, u-uh?"
A dark, ominous aura oozing out thickly.
An aura so negative that if not for her outward appearance, she would have certainly mistaken her for a fellow demon.
"He always stuck around calling me Hero-nim...... Isn't it obvious.....? 'I want to become strong like Hero-nim...... I want to become like Hero-nim......' He said it every single day."
Kkulkkeok─
Listening to those muttered words, Charlotte-ong swallowed her spit.
This presence felt through her skin was by no means below that of the Demon King.
With that, she could be certain.
"Hero, are you really the Hero?"
"......What are you."
This sense of defeat and embarrassment.
And a woman filled with seething jealousy and romantic desire.
A crazy bitch who looked like she was about to run out with a sheathed longsword into that youth drama at any moment and smash the whole play to pieces.
The fact that this woman was the very Hero she had been searching for so desperately.
"I-I am, you see."
And in front of her, Charlotte-ong trembled like a bird encountering a predator.
No joke, those truly unhinged eyes were terrifying.
Those were eyes that, if things went wrong, would cut down a person...... no, even a True Ancestor without a second thought.
Therefore, Charlotte-ong declared.
"I am... nothing at all...!!!"
"......"
I am an individual.
I am definitely not an executive of the Demon King's Army who came to recruit you and just realized the truth.
Charlotte-ong mobilized every possible non-verbal expression available.
"Eohueuk."
Along with that, tears flowed once more.
It was the second time since coming from the Demon Realm to the surface continent.
Moreover, this time was a little more intense......