101. Romantic Dreams and Romance
101. Romantic Dreams and Romance
Though there had been a brief issue regarding the discussion topic, we followed the priest's guidance to the reception room.
The moment the door opened, the Archbishop who had just moments ago been passionately orating at the podium greeted us with a benevolent smile.
"Welcome, brother."
The Love Archbishop was a man with a good-natured impression.
But despite that kindly appearance, the charisma in his eyes left no doubt that he was an Archbishop.
Even if this man insisted that a harem could be pure love, that pure love only required love regardless of body type, and that love with a split personality was pure love,
well, I, Allen Price,
as someone who had been an American soldier in a past life, could respect diversity.
I could respect this level of ideology... respect...
Damn, respecting it was hard.
I pushed aside the Archbishop's sexual orientation that kept surfacing in one corner of my mind, and we got down to business.
Without beating around the bush, I asked to borrow a single priest, and the Archbishop immediately agreed.
Since Ash's lover was involved, he said he would send us a highly skilled advisor.
Just when I thought the negotiations would wrap up that easily, the Archbishop made one suggestion.
"One of the heroes belonging to our temple has various problems, but I wondered if I might seek a production or advice for that friend."
If we accepted, he'd even give us a steep discount on the advisory priest's fee, wouldn't he?
I immediately gauged Nikolai's reaction.
Nikolai gave me a reassuring look that said to leave it to him.
"Fine. Let's take a look."
I accepted the proposal right away, thinking I'd at least see the face of our troubled charge.
At my answer, the Archbishop beamed and promptly led us to the office of that troubled hero—
and the first line that troubled hero said to me there was this.
"Hello. Virgin."
Snap.
That day, the Love Archbishop acquired a single unicorn velvet antler.
*
The reason I hadn't snapped the neck of the unicorn who spouted nonsense right to my face the moment I saw him was thanks to the sliver of reason I still had.
The antler itself was like a fingernail, so I didn't worry much about it, and the bastard didn't seem to be in much pain.
He put on a big act instead.
"My horn! Ack! My horn connected to my frontal lobe of the cerebrum— I'm gonna sue! I'm gonna sue!!"
Like a middle-aged man who grabs the back of his neck and rolls around after a minor collision, the beast writhed on the floor.
In Korea, there'd be no way to deal with that, but in America, there was a fine way to get that kind of bastard up.
I loaded a shell into the shotgun and jabbed the muzzle into the horse's back, remarking:
"In the name of the Lord Rictus, rise and walk."
There you go.
He walked right away, didn't he.
That was the power of the Lord.
The unicorn sprang to his feet as if he'd never been hurt and began glowing all over.
The corona of light subsided, and the man who stepped out from within jabbed his finger at me.
"I thought being a virgin meant you were decent, but you’re nothing but a filthy non-virgin bastard!"
Crack.
I immediately kicked his shin and forced him back to his knees.
I did hear something crunch, but it wasn't a big deal.
And then I asked the Archbishop, who was looking down at that hero behind me with dead eyes.
"Why is this person... no, this divine beast, here?"
The Archbishop avoided my gaze as he answered.
"He came to the city because no virgins have been coming to the forest lately."
"...Fuck. Ah. I'm sorry."
"No, no. My heart is at ease because you swore on my behalf, brother."
So the Archbishop felt the same.
I let out a hollow laugh at this absurd situation when Nikolai, late to shake off his shock, snorted and asked me.
"Prrrr. But why this temple of all places, acting like this?"
"Well... the unicorn is the symbol of our order..."
The Archbishop responded with an awkward laugh.
I didn't need to hear the rest.
In short, the creature was a freeloader who did nothing but consume food—no, dead stock incarnate.
They couldn't kick him out because he was technically a symbol, yet they had to feed him three meals a day for doing absolutely nothing.
Besides that, every time he went outside the temple claiming he was going to see virgins and got arrested for sexual harassment, they had to clean up the mess.
He was a symbol in name only; in reality, he was a goddamn plague.
I soothed my throbbing forehead with acupressure and attempted to exchange names with this beast.
"What's your name."
"Like I'd ever answer a rude virgin bastard like yo—"
Thud.
I drove a knee kick into the lower jaw of the unicorn in his human form, and he reverted to beast form, foaming at the mouth.
I tossed the unconscious beast into a corner and turned my gaze to the Archbishop.
"What's this fucker's name?"
"His name is... Dura."
"Even his name is shit. So this guy's problem is... well, I think I can tell without you spelling it out."
It was obviously his personality that was the problem.
He distinguished people as virgins and non-virgins, or rather maidens and non-maidens, when speaking—what kind of film could anyone make with social skills like that?
A film, no matter how outstanding, wasn't something you made alone. There was no way shooting would proceed with a guy like this.
Still, a promise was a promise, so I looked toward Nikolai.
To see if there was any material that could be given to a lunatic like this.
Perhaps having let go of all expectations, Nikolai spoke, his weariness unfiltered.
"There is something."
"What."
"Comedy."
I turned my gaze back to the Archbishop.
"You heard him?"
But the Archbishop shook his head side to side.
"That friend says he must absolutely film a romance..."
"Shit, fuck."
Rude in front of the Archbishop, you say?
I had already come too far to stand on ceremony here.
From the moment I occupied the same space as that bastard, the word 'courtesy' had long vanished from my mind.
Looking at Dura, who still couldn't get up, perhaps because his shin hadn't yet recovered from my kick, I tried to think of what kind of romance I could give this guy.
And the conclusion was.
"Let's take this guy into our movie."
"...Are you out of your mind, Boss?"
"No, the more I think about it, I think I can use him."
"How?"
"We've got that pure-hearted maiden who dies for love in the script we drafted, right."
"Are you insane? I put so much effort into that character. And the role has already been cast and even appeared on screen."
"That's not what I meant—let's use him as a production prop or something."
A unicorn's horn glows when a virgin or a maiden breathes magic into it.
Just like the velvet antler in my hand was sparkling now.
Moreover, the color of the light from the horn changed depending on the type of love the magic's owner possessed.
Passionate courtship, red.
Love with emotional distance, blue.
Warm love like familial affection, green.
And so on, among others.
And though it wasn't very important, when a non-virgin touched it, the horn took on a dingy, murky color.
The interesting point here was that the mane also reflected these properties similarly.
Unlike the horn, the mane did not change according to the thoughts of whoever touched it. However, when he was summoned as a familiar, its color changed like the horn according to the type of love possessed by his contractor.
After hearing my suggestion, Nikolai understood, yet also oddly didn't quite understand.
"Can't we just take the horn?"
I understood.
Of course he wouldn't want to film with a guy like this.
But the impact of pulling a horn out of your pocket to prove a noble love was completely different from summoning a unicorn to prove it.
On top of that, the horn couldn't be faked with directing.
If you handed the horn to an actor, it would display that actor's real-life love on screen, not the character's love.
By contrast, with summoning, the actor could pretend to summon while someone else performed the summoning from a blind spot, so it could be glossed over with direction.
When I tied the directing aspects together and proposed this to Nikolai, he reluctantly accepted.
Afterward, I also explained this unicorn's usefulness to the Archbishop.
Naturally, telling him the future story was essential to making him understand, so the Archbishop, who had suddenly been spoiled, was visibly downcast.
"I was a Liam Walker fan too..."
"...I'm sorry."
"No, it can't be helped."
After that, I finished signing the contract with him, and the unicorn officially became a prop—no, an actor—for our studio.
Hearing the product description that the unconscious unicorn's antler was like a fingernail and would grow back in three months, we shook hands with him.
Judging by his promise to send an exceptionally skilled priest as our advisor, he must have been very pleased with the deal.
His bright expression as we shook hands was surely the joy of a clergyman that his order's symbol would finally appear in a major production.
Surely.
*
The unicorn's delivery was scheduled for a few months later, and the scene that required that unicorn was slated for much later still.
But as they say, strike while the iron is hot, so while we had the time and remembered, we found that unicorn's contractor.
Since unicorns only form contracts with virgins, the studio first gathered the women who could use summoning magic.
The target color was a light purple.
If purple love was made by mixing the red of passionate courtship and burning love with the blue of resignation and longing, then light purple was created by adding a spoonful or two of the green of familial love.
First, I immediately handed the horn to the actress we intended to shoot the scene with.
Unfortunately, her color was green.
It was a situation I had expected anyway, so I handed the horn to the other actors as well.
But all we got were shades between green and red, with the occasional yellow where the two mixed—no purple.
Blue did appear occasionally, but it was as stark and icy as could be.
In the end, no light-purple glow was discovered among the actresses.
In a way, it was only natural.
To create purple love, the essential blue was a truly subtle love to interpret.
It was love, yet a love that desired to keep a distance.
Resignation toward the unattainable was blue, yearning was blue, and regret was blue.
Keeping a distance to protect the one you loved was also blue.
But at the same time, love born from admiration and worship was blue, and even the repayment of a debt of gratitude was blue.
When the emotion of blue itself was already this subtle, what must purple love be like, mixed with passionate red?
To love someone yet want to keep a distance, yet to be passionate enough to want to court them and draw closer.
It was an emotion like a collection of utterly contradictory words.
Naturally, such a feeling was no ordinary emotion, so it was only natural not to find it among a hundred people.
After all, if it were an emotion easily found, would I have used the word 'sublime' in vain?
But I didn't give up.
My network didn't end there.
"So you're telling us to hold this one at a time."
After being briefed on the situation, Pia pointed at the horn with a slightly bewildered expression.
I had gathered the women of our studio in one place.
As for the candidates I had called together—
Celestia, who had returned from a Mari cameo at another studio; Diane, who had nothing in particular to do lately but faithfully attended the club room every day; and Pia, who managed my schedule like a secretary.
For reference, I excluded Kylie on the grounds that she wasn't a wizard and couldn't summon a familiar.
Pia was first.
Her color was scarlet.
"What emotion is scarlet?"
Nikolai, who had heard my muttering, immediately analyzed the color.
"It's pure orange. No blue at all, a mix of red and green. However, compared to real yellow, the red is weighted more heavily."
"Please. Speak parmish."
"A lot of red with a moderate addition of green."
"Thank you."
Let's see.
Heavily weighted toward red with some green mixed in meant...
Wait.
Did Pia have someone she liked?
I immediately grabbed her shoulders and interrogated her.
"You really have someone?"
"..."
Pia, upon being grabbed by the shoulders and interrogated, kept averting her gaze as if she had something to hide.
That reaction gave me certainty.
"Who is it!"
"Huh?"
"Who is this person you like! Let me get a look at the bastard's face!"
How dare he set fire to the heart of my cute little sister?
I had to check out what kind of guy he was.
But no matter how much I interrogated her, Pia wouldn't open her mouth.
On the contrary, her face grew redder, and her condition worsened.
Only upon seeing that did I realize my mistake.
Pia was now an adult—what kind of display was this?
Wasn't this overprotectiveness?
Realizing this, I let go of her shoulders and apologized.
Perhaps my bowed head looked terribly pathetic, as Pia let out a deep sigh and forgave me.
Only then could I lift my head and continue with the unicorn horn color test.
After Pia's turn ended, Diane was next.
Her color was red.
"Red."
Nikolai stated it flatly, too.
In terms of ratio, it was so red you could call the proportions of red, blue, and green 255, 0, 0 respectively.
Since it wasn't a surprising result, I intended to pass the horn straight to the next person.
"Right. Next."
"You're not going to ask about me?"
"It's John, I'm sure."
Since she didn't particularly deny it, it seemed I was correct.
Unfortunately for her, however, John was a fictional character.
The real me was a far cry from the John she desired.
I suspected that color would probably turn blue before long.
'Even if it did turn purple, I bet it'd be a dark purple.'
Even if it were the same purple, the one we wanted was a bright purple with a trace of green mixed in, not a murky, dark one, so I excluded Diane from the candidates as well.
After Diane was Celestia.
Surprisingly, she also had someone she loved.
But the yellow-green color was, I had to say, very elf-like.
"A calm yellow-green love... I wonder if it's something close to familial love."
But Nikolai denied my guess.
"In what world is this green? It's lime. A moderate amount of red, a lot of green, a tiny bit of blue."
"... Do you have an eyedropper installed in your eyes, or what?"
How could he even know that?
Anyway, according to Nikolai, Ceres, like the game character, had someone she liked, though it was less passionate than Pia's and closer to familial love—while still wanting to keep some distance.
But unlike with Pia, I didn't ask her this time.
It would be a lie to say I wasn't curious, but I had learned a lesson from Pia and barely held myself back.
At that, a strange reaction suddenly came from Celestia.
"Hey. Why aren't you asking me?"
"I realized while questioning Pia that, no matter how I think about it, it's rude."
"Since when do you care about manners?"
"Can I ask you, then?"
"Hmph. I'm not going to tell you."
The hell.
Why was she picking a fight again.
But it was fascinating how she didn't seem to be in a bad mood despite that.
In any case, after observing them all collectively, the light purple we wanted didn't appear.
Without hiding my disappointment, I let it show on my face as I took the horn back from Ceres.
When I injected mana into the horn in my hand to check its condition, it emitted a white light.
Witnessing that color, Diane asked the human eyedropper, Nikolai.
"What's this?"
"It's white. Red, blue, and green at a one-to-one-to-one ratio."
"So it means every emotion is mixed?"
"No. It means he simply has no interest."
Nikolai said it with a deep sigh.
As he said, when all emotions mixed, it strangely didn't turn white but shone in rainbow hues.
White simply meant no intention of dating or no one in particular one liked.
At those words, sighs of an unidentifiable emotion escaped the women.
For reference, our future Empress's was slightly red.
Seeing that, Leon made a fuss, but that wasn't important, so let's skip it.
I irritably stashed the horn glowing uselessly white in my hand.
While it glowed moderately for others, when I touched it, it emitted a crazy burst of light—it felt like it was mocking me for being a virgin across both my lives combined.
Just as I was putting the horn into its case and about to close the lid, Ailey went toddling past the office door.
She seemed to be on her way back from giving a lecture with the props team members.
I called out to her as she was about to toss some props into the storage room.
"Miss Ailey~ Come over here a sec."
"It’s Emilia... Huh?"
"?"
Startled, Ailey clapped a hand over her mouth.
I couldn't help but ask again, intrigued by her reaction.
"Did you change your name?"
"No!"
"Then why did you introduce yourself as Emilia."
"It’s become a habit because you keep calling me the wrong name!"
"Hey. I'm only human—if I call you about a hundred times, don't you think I'd get it right at least once?"
"That's even worse."
Anyway, that wasn't the important part. Without preamble, I handed her the unicorn horn and explained the situation.
Once the explanation was over, she nodded her head readily and took hold of the horn.
And a brilliant light-purple glow burst from the horn.
Now, without even being asked, Nikolai automatically translated the light.
"Tulip Parade Prince—"
"Imperial language."
"It's light purple."
Having received Nikolai's confirmation, I immediately grabbed Ailey and lifted her up in celebration.
"You're the best! I knew it—there's no one else but you!"
"Heeheehee."
She giggled broadly, pleased by something.
I wondered what had given rise to her blue love, but asking about such an unusually subtle shade of blue would have been rude, so I kept the question to myself.