Why Are You the Only One Losing It? (1)
The stares had already been sharp when Eletra drew near to Gilliam. The moment she took the seat beside him, they turned outright scorching.
That guy just…
With Her Highness the Princess…
What the hell does he think he's doing…?
Eletra was famous for her beauty. And Maron, for all that people shunned her because of the Phantasm Star she carried, was every bit as lovely when you judged her looks alone. She didn't fall short of Eletra in the slightest.
Which meant the two most beautiful women in the lecture hall had just sat down on either side of Gilliam.
What is Her Highness thinking? Don't tell me she's planning to join hands with that bastard for real?
Trying to stand against the Crown Prince's faction…? Or the opposite—signaling she has no interest in the power struggle…?
Some strained to read a political message into it. Others simply seethed with envy.
That damn reprobate…
Everchess…
A girl on either side… I'm so jealous…
I liked her first… I liked her first…
Especially the men.
Then an unexpected voice drifted toward Eletra.
"U-um… Eletra, Your Highness… right?"
Maron, the outcast girl, in that outcast-girl voice of hers.
Eletra turned a look on her that was anything but friendly.
"And you are?"
"Ma… Maron Clearias."
"Ah. Sorry. Didn't know."
An apology on the surface. Underneath: I have no idea who you are, and you're not someone I need to care about, are you?
"…It seems Your Highness and Liam still don't know each other very well."
She put a little extra weight on Liam.
"…Hmm?"
"I came and sat beside Liam starting from the very first class yesterday."
Translation: I claimed him first.
"Is that so? Liam came to me first, though."
Translation: The man you claimed seems to like me better?
"Plenty of people approach Your Highness, after all."
Translation: You've got so many people who adore you—why are you trying to steal the only man I've got? There's no guarantee Gilliam even approached you because he likes you, is there?
"Mm… if you dig through a sandbar long enough, you do sometimes turn up a pearl."
Translation: How many people like me and who I happen to like are two completely separate questions, aren't they?
"Hahaha…"
Maron's awkward little smile.
"…"
Eletra's silent one.
Neither pair of eyes was smiling at all.
A smile-on-smile war of nerves. Romance-fantasy posturing. Roundabout barbs. A battlefield thick with bloodlust.
The female cadet sitting in the row ahead of them actually flinched, shrinking into herself in case the fallout spilled her way.
A different kind of whispering started to spread through the students.
Whoa…
Getting stuck between those two would be hell, wouldn't it?
Tch. Maybe not so enviable after all.
The stares aimed at Gilliam cooled a fraction—and tipped toward something almost like pity.
And yet.
Caught dead in the middle of that bone-chilling duel, Gilliam's reaction was:
"Hwaaaaah…"
A carefree yawn.
As if that weren't enough, he stretched both arms out wide, rolled his shoulders, and scratched at his head.
"—"
"…"
Maron and Eletra each decoded the meaning of that yawn.
D-don't talk about such silly things, right…?
Maron's self-esteem was rock-bottom to begin with. After a lifetime of being avoided, the first person she'd befriended… a friend… probably, for now, and if Liam thought of her that way too—anyway, the one irreplaceable person she had. He'd already shot her a look telling her to stop. She couldn't push any further.
And as for Eletra—
…If you're going to be this irritating, go do it somewhere else?
She was oddly restless about Gilliam. Strangely so.
Praising a princess was the natural order of things. You endured compliments you didn't even want to hear, and if one of them happened to be halfway decent, you might toss the flatterer a reward. The princess stood above; the one doing the praising stood below.
But with Gilliam alone… she was starting to think it might be different.
The compliments this man gave her… she might actually want to hear them again.
The two romance-fantasy heroines' eyes met.
"…Shall we get ready for class?"
"Right. That sounds good."
One yawn from Gilliam, and a ceasefire was signed.
The stares that had softened for a moment turned scorching again.
What is with that bastard?
…Kind of annoying, honestly.
Who the hell does he think he is, shutting both girls down with a single yawn?
I liked her first… I liked her first…
Gilliam, for his part, hadn't even noticed a battle had been going on.
He did, however, have a problem of his own.
Maron on the left. Eletra on the right.
I'd planned to farm points off Maron. In this seating arrangement, that was… awkward.
One lesson I'd picked up while grinding through female-dominated workplaces: for reasons I still don't understand, women get pissed when you compliment another woman in front of them.
I seriously don't get why.
Complimenting a woman they hate and watching them get mad—that, I get. So does complimenting a woman they like make them happy?
No?
It makes them even madder.
Why, though?
What possible reason is there to get upset when someone you like gets praised?
If I'd figured that out, I probably would have survived those female-dominated companies just fine.
So what was I supposed to do?
Objective: Compliment the targets on either side of you and earn Compliment Points from each.
Reward: 1000 Compliment Points
Time Limit: 1 minute
One minute? Cutting it close again.
Compared to the last sudden quest, which had given me a grand total of ten seconds, this was practically merciful—except this time there were two targets.
Still, a thousand points was far too much to shrug off.
No choice, then.
I dropped my voice to a whisper.
"Maron. Eletra."
"?" "??"
"I'm going to compliment the two of you in turns from now on."
"??" "???"
No time. With the situation like this, I probably wouldn't stick the landing on the first try. Factoring in retries, I had to hurry.
"Maron."
"Y-yes!"
Maron blinked. The irises that had been a dark red while she was talking to Eletra shifted to a bright orange.
"Your eyes are pretty today too, Maron. That fresh color—just looking at them puts me in a good mood."
"Eh—ehehe…"
Compliment Points: +50(150 → 200)
"And Eletra."
"…"
"You were beautiful at night, and you're beautiful in the day. You seem to suit both sunlight and moonlight equally well."
"…"
Compliment Points: +50(200 → 250)
Huh?
Reward of 1000 Compliment Points has been granted.
Balance:1250
Wait—why did that clear in one shot?
I'd figured I'd have to spam as many attempts as possible inside the minute and just thrown out whatever compliments came to mind.
Well… a clear is a clear, I guess.
With 1250 points, I could start eyeing two-star skills. Or items on that level. The real question was what to pick from the shop.
Thinking about the events that trigger during next week's dungeon exploration, there's one thing I absolutely need to grab.
The Cross of Inverse Night.
An item that let you draw out holy-attribute mana that grew more powerful the darker your surroundings became.
And I should start prepping my main weapon soon, too.
In Astra Radius, the weapon with the highest ceiling was locked in clear as day.
If I'm going to plan the build around that…
I was still thinking when I lifted my head—and found scorching stares pouring in from both sides.
"…" "…"
"…What is it?"
"Is that all?" "You don't have anything more to say?"
…They wanted more compliments?
Well. No helping it.
"I like how diligent Maron looks, showing up early and waiting."
"Hehehe."
Compliment Points: +30(1250 → 1280)
"And I like Eletra's dignified presence."
"…"
Compliment Points: +40(1280 → 1320)
Maron nodded along with a soft hehe, yes-yes-ing. Eletra stayed silent.
Damn…
Just how misandrist was this system? I'd thought complimenting women just copy-pasted the score over, but—
"And?" "Anything else?"
I'd found the problem.
I was starting to run out of compliment material.
What happens if I give almost the same compliment as before?
"And… Maron, your eyes really are nice to look at. The yellow they are right now is pretty too."
"Yes, hehe."
Compliment Points: +20(1320 → 1340)
"And Eletra looks good with the sunlight on her too."
"…"
Compliment Points: +20(1340 → 1360)
Both of them still gave me points, but the amounts had dropped.
Getting used to it, so the joy's dwindling?
Rule number one: the Compliment Points you can earn scale with how much joy the target feels.
Yeah, that tracks.
Hearing the same praise over and over still feels nice each time, but you don't get the same dopamine spike as the first. That's normal.
So two solutions, then.
One: keep finding new things to compliment.
The other: keep finding new women.
Tch. If the system weren't so misandrist, I could've just gone around complimenting men and women evenly.
No helping it.
From here on out, I'll have to meet as many different women as I can and compliment my way through them.
Life really isn't easy.
What can you do, when the world itself has decided to hard-counter you?
"…Have you quite finished your harassing, Gilliam?"
While I'd been lost in thought, the professor had come in.
Unfortunately, this one wasn't an attractive woman like Professor Kadisha—just a balding middle-aged man. His name was Orhe, if I remembered right.
"Hmph. Women as a species only ever look at a man's money, in the end."
A potbellied bald guy with a rotten personality saying that carried zero persuasive power… but Orhe himself seemed to sincerely believe it. Or he'd brainwashed himself into believing it, at least.
"No matter how demure a woman pretends to be on the outside, the second she sees a man richer than her husband, she can't help but throw herself at him. That's just how their brains are wired."
Orhe tapped his own head. Dandruff drifted down.
"That's why I never got married."
Couldn't, you mean?
"Live with an inferior sex and your own life just gets dragged down with them."
Pretty sure it was a couldn't, no matter how you look at it.
"Ah… yes. All finished, Professor Orhe. Please begin the lecture."
Professor Orhe's face flushed a furious red.
Wow.
Getting that angry over the possibility a student might not focus on class… what a true educator.
"My apologies. During class, I'll do my best not to speak with the women on either side of me. You heard that, right? Don't cling to me, don't lean in to whisper either. That goes for both of you."
Professor Orhe's fists began to tremble.