First Impressions (6)
The girl in front of me was named Faye. Her full name was Faye Ronand, eldest daughter of the Ronand barony. As you could probably tell from a single glance, her personality was pure cheerfulness incarnate. She loved hanging out with people so much that I sometimes wondered if she might actually be a dog beastman instead of a human. She approached even complete strangers without hesitation.
She had the battle maniac trait and enjoyed fighting more than she enjoyed eating three square meals a day. She wasn’t particularly hung up on winning or losing. Instead, she found joy in every single exchange of blows. Of course, that didn’t mean she was fine with losing. She never forgot that defeat in real combat usually led to death, so she always fought with the intention of winning and gave it her all. She never slacked off on training and was always eager to learn new techniques. On top of that, she had an outstanding talent for swordsmanship, so her growth was ridiculously fast. And with her pretty, adorable looks on top of everything else, you could honestly call her life blessed.
However, that was exactly why she ranked relatively low in my personal list. What list, you ask? Obviously, the ranking of heroines I needed to add to Theo’s harem.
Looking at everything I just said, you’d think she had nothing but a bright, straight path of success ahead of her. But since Faye was also a heroine in this piece-of-shit game, a tragic future was already set in stone if she didn’t end up with Theo. That’s why I call it a piece-of-shit game, you know?
Still, Faye’s tragedy didn’t really kick off until at least her third year at the academy. In game terms, that was around the time the main story started getting noticeably darker. Conversely, that meant she could live without any major incidents until the end of her second year. So I had planned to put off recruiting Faye for a while and focus on seducing other heroines first.
It wasn’t particularly urgent in her individual storyline, and our current party was a brawler, paladin, and mage composition. One close-range damage dealer, one tank, and one long-range damage dealer. If we added Faye, who was another close-range damage dealer using a sword, we’d be way too heavy on melee. I was thinking we should either recruit another long-range dealer or bring in a supporter or pure healer.
But then our dear protagonist said he wanted to fuck Faye. He wanted to grope those cute little tits and cross swords with the one between her legs on a bed. Okay, that’s not exactly what he said, but I think we can chalk it up to a slight difference in interpretation. Yeah.
Alright. Time for me, the party’s official talent recruiter, to get to work!
Befriend Faye
The first step in seducing Faye was to get close to her. Honestly, that was obvious. It applied to anyone, not just her. Before you could even think about inviting someone into the harem, you had to actually get to know each other first, right? Besides, our party wasn’t some simple harem where girls just clung to one guy. We were a real combat party that had to clear dungeons. You couldn’t entrust your life to someone you barely knew. So first, we needed to get friendly and learn about each other.
Of course, since I already knew Faye extremely well, all I had to do was let her get to know me. The method was simple.
“Faye! Let’s throw down!”
“A spar? Hell yeah!”
After class, I walked up to Faye while she was happily chatting with her friends and immediately challenged her to a spar. Her eyes would sparkle as she jumped to her feet. The friends she left behind would just laugh it off with an “Ugh, there she goes again” and let her go without complaint. They knew exactly what kind of girl she was.
This gave us the perfect chance to have a casual chat on the way to the training grounds. Easy, right?
“Luna, you’re really something else!”
“Why?”
“Not many people spar with me this often. After a few times, most of them say they’ve had enough.”
That made sense. Faye was a battle maniac. On top of that, she was incredibly diligent, so she threw herself into every single fight with everything she had. While it was true that no half-assed student could even get into the academy, there was a big difference between not half-assing it and going all out every single time. If someone kept asking for spars every other day and came at you like their life was on the line every single match… yeah, I could understand why people got tired of it.
I got a little tired too. But it was so much fun that it didn’t feel like a burden at all. Every time I went all out in a spar with Faye, I could feel my skills improving by leaps and bounds. That must be what talent feels like. Since I could literally feel myself getting stronger in real time, even the slight exhaustion didn’t bother me.
“That’s why I love sparring with you so much, Luna!”
“Really? That’s a relief. I was worried you might secretly hate it even though I kept asking for daily matches.”
“No way! It’s totally fine, so call me out every day!”
Walking beside Faye as she laughed with that bright “ehehe,” I felt my own mood lifting. She really was a good kid.
After that, we’d head to the training grounds and spar like crazy until we were both covered head to toe in dust. We kept that up every single day, and by the end of the first week, our after-class spar had become routine. I’d gotten used to pulling Faye away from her now-familiar group of friends. They seemed to think I was satisfying her battle maniac tendencies in their place, so they let her go without much complaint.
It was a peaceful daily life. Then I decided to throw a little change into that routine.
“Huh? Who are you?”
When Faye and I arrived at the training grounds, someone was already waiting there.
“You’re… from Class B… um… Theo! Right?”
It was Theo, of course. Aside from me, Faye and Theo had basically zero connection, but they did share the same basic classes. It was only natural that she knew his name and face.
“That’s right. This is the first time we’ve actually talked, huh?”
“Nice to meet you! What brings you here? Oh… wait.”
Faye’s eyes darted back and forth between me and Theo.
“Am I interrupting something? Sorry!”
Whoa, what kind of misunderstanding is she jumping to all of a sudden? Did her brain short-circuit?
“But I can’t say no to a spar! Sorry, but I can’t yield on this one!”
Ah. There’s the sane Faye I know.
“Faye. Theo and I aren’t like that.”
“You’re not? Then what’s going on? Are you just here to watch?”
I shot Theo a look. This part had to come from him directly. He looked a bit reluctant, but he still spoke clearly.
“I wanted to spar with you too. Would you be up for it?”
Perfect. He delivered the line exactly as planned. This was all part of the strategy.
The best way to raise Faye’s favorability was through sparring, and lately I was the one doing all the sparring with her. If we kept building that favorability like this, recruiting her into our party shouldn’t be too difficult. There was no way a battle maniac like Faye wouldn’t be drawn to a party whose goal was dungeon clearing. Plus, she already had a close friend in the group, so she’d probably join even more easily.
But that wasn’t enough. To prevent the bad ending and secure her spot in Theo’s harem, we needed to raise her favorability toward Theo specifically. That was something I couldn’t do for him.
When I explained this plan to Theo, his reaction was basically “Huh? Me? Why?” but he eventually agreed. He must have realized that clearing dungeons with just the three of us would be tough. Whatever his reasons, the fact that he was willing to go along with it was good enough for me.
And so, the spar began. Like I said, there was no better way to conquer Faye.
“A spar? Weren’t you a mage, Theo?”
“I am.”
The one problem was that Theo was a mage. Naturally, a spar between a mage and a swordsman was very different from a normal match. They maintained distance, gave the mage a few seconds to prepare, and once the match started, the swordsman tried to close the gap while the mage hindered their approach and attacked. The match ended when one side fell. Since a mage who allowed a swordsman to get close would usually lose without being able to put up much resistance, most of the spar tended to consist of the swordsman getting one-sidedly beaten down by magic. Obviously, not many people enjoyed getting pummeled like that, so matches between swordsmen and mages were pretty rare.
Of course, that wasn’t always the case.
“I’ve never sparred with a mage before! This is gonna be fun!”
Because Faye just loved fighting, period.
“Faye. Do you want to spar with Theo first?”
“Whoa! Is that really okay?”
“You look really excited about it. I can wait for one match.”
“Hehe, thanks!”
Faye broke into a huge grin and practically dragged Theo up onto the training platform. Theo wasn’t exactly a bookworm either, so by the time he stood facing her, his expression had already turned serious, ready for battle.
“Begin!”
The moment I called out to start the match, Faye closed the distance at incredible speed. Theo fired off fireballs and created bumps in the ground to trip her up, but while they managed to hinder her approach, they didn’t have enough power to actually knock her down.
Hmm. Was my judgment wrong? I thought that if he was the protagonist who chose the mage route, it would at least be a decent fight. Considering the protagonist’s starting specs in the game, I figured he wouldn’t get pushed around this one-sidedly unless he had god-awful hands.
But in the end, Theo couldn’t stop Faye from closing in and ended up giving her the distance she needed to swing her sword. Just as I thought the match was over, something completely unexpected happened.
- Clack!
The wooden sword that came crashing down was blocked by Theo’s staff instead of the shoulder it was supposed to hit. If that had been all, I might have thought he’d just gotten lucky and stuck his staff out on reflex. But then—
- Tap, tap-tap, clack!
Faye’s continuous flurry of strikes was blocked one after another. The more the sound of wood striking wood repeated, the less it seemed like mere luck. On top of that, he occasionally spun his staff like a pole and even attempted counterattacks.
Faye, who had started to loosen up thinking she had already won, immediately tightened her focus again.
“Not bad at all? Are you really a mage?”
“These days, even mages need to know how to protect themselves at least a little.”
“Ahahaha! This is fun!”
Faye laughed with genuine delight at Theo’s unexpected display and swung her wooden sword even more sharply. Having sparred with her many times, I could tell. She was truly enjoying this fight with all her heart.
But my own feelings as I watched the match were the complete opposite.
No way. My protagonist is a jack-of-all-trades?!