The Price of Betraying Affection Is Harsh
Stella… The day I met her again was a week later.
It was spring, around the time the cherry blossoms fell. Petals drifted on the wind. It wouldn’t have mattered where we met, but of all places, did it have to be somewhere like this…?
I never particularly liked cherry blossoms. Honestly, they even repulsed me a little.
“Aaron… you came?”
Maybe she had dressed up for spring. In a quiet restaurant beautiful with cherry-blossom decorations, she sat waiting in a neat white dress that didn’t suit her at all.
“Looks like a pretty expensive place… You’ve come up in the world, huh?”
“Yeah… I actually left the party… and became a knight commander, haha…”
She gave an awkward, flustered laugh at my pointed jab. Irritatingly, that smile of hers was still beautiful. I clapped with deliberate sarcasm.
“Knight commander… You really have made it! Congratulations. So, what business does the great knight commander have with me?”
“Aaron… it’s not like that… I just… um… I really… missed you so much… re—hic… really… hic…”
She tried to say something through her tears, then broke down completely. I couldn’t understand it.
“No matter how hard I looked… and looked… I couldn’t find you…”
“Why the hell were you looking for me in the first place?”
“Of course for you, Aaron…”
“For me what?”
“Please… don’t talk so coldly, Aaron… I’m scared… Please, just like before… I’ll explain everything… hic… hic…”
Once, I would have found her hiccuping sobs cute and thought, That’s so like her. Now it only felt stifling.
I didn’t change my expression at her tears. I asked in a cold voice,
“Sorry, but it’s honestly disgusting. Could you stop crying and just tell me why you came?”
“Aaron… please… my chest hurts like my heart’s stopped…”
Was she only now shocked by my words? It wasn’t even funny.
“You, who kicked me in the gut?”
“Ugh… th-that…”
“We’re not… or rather, you and I aren’t the kind of people who can sit around chatting and laughing warmly anymore, are we?”
She wiped her tears.
“It’s been so long… I’m sorry… I guess I couldn’t control my emotions…”
“I’ll say this one last time. Tell me why you came. No extras. Just the point.”
It wasn’t that seeing her now made me rage or want to lash out. The one thing I was grateful for was that I could stay calm. Separate from that, the deep revulsion rising from somewhere inside me was something I couldn’t help.
“Aaron…”
Stella looked at me with tears still in her eyes. Was she hoping for some warm words of comfort? I had neither the obligation nor the reason to give her any. So I simply kept a cold silence.
“…”
In the end she seemed to give up. She wiped the corners of her eyes and began to speak.
“…Hic… All right, Aaron. But… there really were… circumstances… a reason… sob… hic…”
She spoke with a face that looked truly wronged, as if her heart were being crushed.
“It’s all… because of that man Yuki… If only I hadn’t been so stupid and fallen for it… If only I… all of it was because I was an idiot… Even Lisa…”
I stared at that expression of hers as if it were absurd.
“You’re really crying like you’re the one who’s been wronged.”
My chest grew heavy. Of course it wasn’t because of her. It was just… because I’d heard the name I least wanted to hear.
Stella wiped her tears as if she had calmed a little and said,
“Aaron… didn’t it seem strange to you? You must have felt it too…”
“What are you talking about?”
“When Yuki first joined our party… We used to hate it when new members came in…”
She was right. We were always short-handed. Even so, each of us would rather push ourselves a little harder than let a new companion in. There had even been a time when I suggested hiring a porter because we were short on hands, and Stella insisted she would carry everything herself until I finally gave up. We used to say four of us felt like a family and that was nice…
“Thinking about it now, it’s not even funny. So what?”
She flinched at my cold reaction, but soon continued.
“You might not have known, Aaron, but the Saintess… and I… we both had feelings for you…”
“I see… I thought that might be the case.”
“What…? Ah… so you knew… Since when…?”
It wasn’t that I hadn’t known their hearts. That was why I had been even more careful, why I had tried so hard to treat everyone well. It wasn’t that I was pretending not to notice just to keep the relationships intact. That would have been nothing but cowardice. Rather, I had been waiting for the chance to face those feelings and answer them first. Even so, what would have changed?
“What does that matter now?”
“But… no, I’m sorry…”
I simply told her my thoughts, calmly.
“Whether you had feelings for me or not, all of you are just people who insulted and betrayed someone who believed you were family.”
“…Yeah.”
She hesitated at my words, then forced herself to nod.
…
Affection… What good was hearing about it now? The old me would have been happy. Now it only made me nauseous.
Stella carefully broke the short silence first.
“Aaron… do you remember the day you went alone to the capital for supplies…?”
Normally a party managed its own consumables and gear. I was both the leader and the treasurer. There had been a time when I thought it was fine to handle all the supplies and finances alone if it was for my comrades. I really was a sucker…
“It was not long after Yuki joined… For some reason we were already…”
She trailed off, as if it was hard to say.
“Spit it out. I don’t want to waste time.”
She glanced at me, then finally opened her mouth with difficulty.
“Everyone… st-started feeling affection for him and believing whatever he said. B-but! Even then we never once thought about betraying you! Really…”
She flailed in a panic on her own.
“Feeling affection… that wasn’t… sincere at all… I’m sure of it…!”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t worry about it and just speak freely.”
I deliberately smiled and spoke gently. She knew the words were barbed, yet she forced a smile of her own.
“Yuki came into my… room that day and said… He hadn’t been with us long so he couldn’t be sure, but something was definitely strange…”
What the hell was supposed to be strange…?
“Our party was one of the higher-ranked hero parties, famous enough…”
“If you say so, I suppose.”
“But our income was strangely low… At best only about twice what a bottom-tier party made… Yuki said it was definitely because you, the treasurer, were skimming… Of course at first I had no intention of believing him…”
What was this bitch spouting? I couldn’t believe it.
“That’s right. Our party’s income was low. So you thought I was skimming it, Stella?”
When I rebuked her, she flailed.
“N-no! Aaron… that’s not what I meant… I was just being stupid back then…! Now…”
“It’s true our income was lower than other top parties. For efficiency… and more than anything, for the safety of the party I held so precious.”
“What do you mean, Aaron…?”
“Stella, I knew your head was empty, but I honestly didn’t realize it was this empty… What did you think was the reason we could always fight dangerous battles and still adventure without a single serious injury?”
“Th-that…”
“Were those potions you guzzled like crazy free handouts?”
Even if they weren’t the absolute best, I had always stocked plenty of high-quality potions, various status-ailment cures, and spare scrolls. That was a big part of why we could become a top party. I had thought they couldn’t possibly not know that…
“Ah… so you left all the finances and supplies to me and didn’t know a thing, Stella?”
“I-I’m sorry… I’m really… really sorry, Aaron… You know… I’m an idiot…”
She grabbed my hand with a trembling voice.
“I’m such an idiot… such an idiot… I didn’t know anything…”
Her words grated on me.
“What kind of person you were… how precious you were… I knew, and still… your efforts, how carefully you treated us… I was too much of an idiot…”
What the hell was she saying she hadn’t known?
“It’s far too late, but I’m really sorry, Aaron… But… I really was tricked back then, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it!”
I brushed her hand away.
“No. It’s not because you’re an idiot… You were just that kind of person to begin with.”
I rebuked her.
“Did you ever think of me as family… or even as a comrade? No, of course not.”
“N-no… No! There’s no way I would… There’s no way! Why would you say that… Aaron… there’s no way…”
She clutched her head and screamed, then broke into sobs.
“But Yuki said we were being deceived! That he had clear proof, that if we didn’t believe him we could just ask Lisa, that you had a hidden skill…”
She shouted as she went on.
“And then a skill I’d never seen before came up—‘Charm’… And the effect was [Charms women]. When we saw that, Yuki said you’d definitely been deceiving us with that skill!”
“…Ha. Haha… hot… hahat……”
…
.
I couldn’t even laugh.
“The feelings I had… my heart for you… I thought they were emotions you’d fabricated with a skill. I was so scared… and that fear soon turned into a sense of betrayal…”
“That’s right. My hidden skill, Charm.”
“What…?”
“Except… limited to women I’m close with, it only gives me ‘the amount of favor you’d get from treating someone to a single piece of dessert.’ That’s all.”
“What… are you talking about, Aaron…?”
“If you came all this way just to tell me that crap, get lost right now.”
I handed her the receipt.
“You’re paying. Just looking at you still makes my gut throb, so I didn’t even touch the food.”
“W-wait… just wait a second!! Aaron, the real reason is something else… I’ll explain everything… everything, please…”
“Don’t make it any uglier, Stella. Old feelings with you… no, even old feelings are disgusting, so just go already.”
Without meaning to I’d almost said something like “old feelings”… Even that was too good for this bitch.
“Aaron… please… our… memories… don’t talk about them like that… please…”
“Memories? I never thought that word would come out of your mouth.”
Memories, my ass.
“When you threw away those ‘memories’ and that ‘comradeship’ of yours like trash, where was all this? Why the hell are you going on about memories now?”
I slapped away the hand she held out, trembling.
“Go rub up against that Yuki bastard you love so much and fuck, you dog-fucking bitch.”
Maybe hearing the word “memories” from Stella’s mouth had gotten me worked up; my language had gotten rougher than usual.
“We… I… hic… made you like this…? …Sob, hic…”
“Please stop squeezing out those tears, you fucking bitch. Thanks to you trio of bitches I couldn’t even speak properly in front of people—I just stammered like an idiot.”
Haa…
“If someone’s gaze so much as touched me I’d shake and piss myself like a retard, so please just get lost. You bitches… you really did make me that way.”
“…”
As if she had taken a blow, she couldn’t open her mouth easily and just cried with a vacant, devastated look.
“What? Feeling sorry now? Don’t even feel sorry! I want to erase every memory of you from my life.”
“Hic… I’m sorry… I’m really… sorry… hic… sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
“Aaron… Lisa used that rare skill Appraisal on you… and then she happened to use it on Yuki… and she saw his hidden skill…”
“Isekai NTR…”
“At first I didn’t even properly understand what it meant… It was a skill I’d never seen before, just like yours…”
“The effect was completely ridiculous… We couldn’t help it either… Aaron… sob… hic…”
“By the time we found out… it was already too late to turn back…”
It was absurd. Was she seriously asking me to believe that?
“You want me to believe that? I don’t even understand why you’re doing this now, but if you’re just going to spout that kind of nonsense…”
“Please!! It’s true!!… I’m telling you it’s real… It’s not a lie… It’s true, believe me, Aaron… please!…”
From far away I felt a familiar presence.
“Ahh… that’s what they call NTR…”
“…?”
“Ah… never mind… ahem…”
“Hmm… I came because I was worried about my disciple and look what a mess we’ve got here…”
“Y-you…”
“No need to be so wary, young lady. I’ve got some good news for you as well.”
“This young lady is right. I’ve met him myself, you see. And what she said about his skill is true.”
Color visibly returned to Stella’s face.
“See… see… Aaron, it’s… really true!”
Stella no longer mattered. She wasn’t even on my radar.
My chest began to tighten. Even with Master right beside me I couldn’t calm down at all. Master had met that bastard? What did that mean? The ability was real…? That meant…
Whack!
Master’s smack landed squarely on my head.
“You little rascal, what do you take your master for!”
Master’s smack and scolding snapped me back to my senses at once.
“I did meet that Yuki bastard, yes… I don’t know much about it myself, but it’s some kind of otherworld privilege…? And his skill really was ‘Isekai NTR’… that’s correct…”
Master made a gesture as if stroking a beard that wasn’t there.
“It was such a strange skill I remember it clearly…”
Stella, as if she had seized her chance, twisted her face into a smile.
“See, Aaron… we got hit by that skill too, so we couldn’t help—”
“But it had no effect whatsoever on this master of yours? Hoho~”
The life that had returned to Stella’s face drained away in an instant, leaving her deathly pale.
“What… does that mean…”
“Well… the skill itself is real, but… basically it only works on people who’d fall for it if you seduced them, hoho~”
“Who the hell are you to suddenly show up and say that!!! Are you saying I was the kind of bitch who’d fall for that Yuki bastard!?”
“Th-there’s no way!!! Don’t listen!! Aaron! This bitch is the same!! She would’ve fallen for it just the same!!”
Stella’s face twisted into something ugly as she began to scream.
“There’s no way!! How much I loved you, Aaron!!! How much I trusted you!! It’s all lies… all of it!!… Please believe me!!… Please!!…”
“Look at this!!! The cherry-blossom hairpin you gave me!! The flower’s gone but I always kept it close to my heart…!!”
“Young lady… I’m not particularly saying you’re a bad person. I was angry that you hurt my disciple, so my words came out harsh…”
Master soothed Stella in a somewhat gentler tone.
“For an ordinary woman it would be easy… no, of course she’d fall for a skill like that…”
“Shut up!! Who the hell are you to keep butting in! If only you weren’t here! If only you hadn’t run your mouth, Aaron and I could have been happy again…!! Get lost!!”
Had she lost all sense of reason, or had she finally gone mad? Even though she was a former comrade, I felt not the slightest pity. If anything, compared to the pain I had endured, it still felt insufficient, and that was the only thing that disappointed me.
“Stella, whether Master is here or not, the result wouldn’t change. I no longer want anything to do with you.”
“Aaron!! It’s all that bitch’s fault!! If only she weren’t here!!”
“In the first place, if it weren’t for Master I wouldn’t even have come out here today…”
“Aaron!! You’re being deceived! By that bitch!! I thought her aura was weird from the start!! That bitch, that bitch…!”
Maybe it was because I was angry at Stella for insulting Master. I knocked the cherry-blossom hairpin out of her hand and crushed it under my muddy boot. Stella dropped to the ground as if she had dropped a treasure and clutched the hairpin to her chest.
“Ah… no… that…”
I told her,
“Why don’t you just leave instead?”
“Ah… ah…… ah……… aaaaaah…”
At those words, something inside her seemed to snap. The woman who had been making such a racket until a moment ago sank to the spot as if it had all been a lie. After that she only kept touching the crushed hairpin and letting out dry, broken moans.
“Sorry for the disturbance.”
I left a suitable tip for the owner and walked out.
For the first time in a long while I took a deep breath. The warm energy of spring seeped into every corner of my lungs. Even though all I could see were bare cherry trees stripped of their petals by the wind, the cherry-blossom scenery I was seeing after so long was beautiful.