Today Is a Joyful Day of Delivering the Master's Affection Gifts to Everyone
...So the time has finally come.
I was watching Powder's back with a rather fluttering heart.
Powder was a character who unlocked at 2-Star, and raising her affection all the way to 20 was required to obtain her. Of course, clearing the main story would get you there automatically — but reality, as it turned out, didn't work quite the same way as the main story, and that was the problem.
At first, her affection had been climbing far faster than it ever did originally. Then somewhere in the middle the pace suddenly slowed, and by the time she hit 19 the number barely budged at all. I'd started to wonder whether she'd ever make it to 20.
Well, it's up now, so no more worrying about that.
I'd been fretting that if we couldn't unlock her before the Deadly Battle, we'd be without a tank and in serious trouble... but after a long stretch of smiling conversation today, her affection rose at some completely unfathomable moment and she hit 2-Star.
"What on earth were you two talking about?"
I was honestly curious. Yesterday I'd coached him through every decent topic I could think of, fed him conversation starters Powder would like — and nothing. So what had they talked about today that finally broke through that wall?
"We were talking about Jasmine's cute points."
"...Excuse me?"
What the hell is this lunatic saying.
She said it so casually that I was too dumbfounded to even speak. At first I thought she was joking — but the protagonist nodding along right beside her made it clear she was telling the truth.
"Master has been acting a little strange lately. He's the type who'd never worry about me, and yet he keeps saying he's worried."
"Uh...?"
That had been my handiwork, of course. We needed to raise intimacy somehow, so I'd made him put on that act... but apparently he'd been so terrible at it that she'd seen straight through him.
"Hauh...?"
What is this monster busty woman doing.
Powder suddenly pulled me into a hug and started crushing my face into her chest. What kind of reward was this supposed to be?
"Pwah...! I-I thought I was going to suffocate."
"Hah... I only ever saw that sharp, decisive side of you, so I never realized. No wonder the Queen loved you. How greedy of her, keeping something like this all to herself."
"W-What is that supposed to mean!"
She just kept smiling wordlessly, hugging me and nuzzling against me, until the protagonist — looking a little sour — grabbed my arm and pulled me free of Powder's embrace.
...What is even going on right now?
"Ah, I'm sorry, Master. Are you angry?"
"Forbidden."
"Hehe. All right."
Someone explain this situation to me first.
I hadn't expected a proper explanation out of that guy, but I never thought Powder would play along like this either.
"Master gave up and just started saying whatever he wanted."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Since he was talking about things he actually likes, I rather enjoyed it."
...Come to think of it, Powder did have that kind of personality.
Once her mental state recovered to a certain point, she would start observing the protagonist and the people around her on her own and improve from there. Since the protagonist couldn't truly care for Powder the way she needed, she'd felt uncomfortable instead, and her affection had stalled. But the moment he gave up and showed her his honest self, that alone was enough to make it climb.
"...His honest self?"
"He just talked about whatever he felt like, whatever came to mind. I listened. It was the opposite of how we usually do things."
"Ah, I see..."
I definitely hadn't thought of that approach. What I still didn't understand was how that connected to talking about Jasmine's cute points. What exactly had he said?
"You're well loved by Master, Jasmine."
"Eunyak...?!"
"You don't have to be so wary. I'm not going to steal him."
"What are you even talking about."
"Master talks about Jasmine all day long."
"What?"
"Master spent hours delivering a passionate speech about how adorable Jasmine is. It was such a long-winded monologue that it completely shattered every illusion I had about you and made you seem cute instead."
"...H-How far did he go?"
"Far enough to cite countless examples of you getting flustered over physical affection?"
"Th-That never happened!"
What the hell has this guy been going around saying.
Granted, if it filled her affection to 20, it had been necessary... Still, Powder had spent a long time talking with him, so hopefully that weird misunderstanding from before had been cleared up.
"The misunderstanding? Ah, that... I have absolutely no intention of clearing that up."
"Why not?!"
"Because your reaction every time it comes up is adorable. And Master doesn't seem particularly bothered by it either."
Right — Powder always did have a mischievous streak under the surface.
I'd forgotten, buried under her role as captain and Citrus's prankster energy... The way she smirked with a finger pressed to her lips was thoroughly annoying.
"Or would you like me to change it?"
"Change it?"
"To something closer to the truth... For instance, I could revise it so that Jasmine has fallen so deeply for Master's intense, passionate love that she's surrendered her loyalty entirely."
"Stop that..."
You absolute menace.
If those were the options, I'd rather keep the current misunderstanding. When exactly had I been conquered by that idiot? I was the teacher and he was the student, end of story. At most I could acknowledge a friendship.
"Haa... Anyway, it looks like Powder has been registered without any issues."
With our most important tank secured, it was time to lock in a healer and a dealer. That part, though, was essentially already done — because the haul of Affection Gifts had been better than I'd expected.
Five 1-point Affection Gifts for Aroma, the 1-Star healer.
Twenty 1-point Affection Gifts for Fruity, the 2-Star dealer.
Five 1-point Affection Gifts for Citrus, the 1-Star dealer.
The real bottleneck in that plan had been Fruity's Affection Gifts, but the drop rate had been decent enough that focused farming got us there somehow. With this much, we should have enough personnel to handle the first Deadly Battle — the Sand Ghost.
All that remained was to scrape together every resource we had and pour it in, raising stats and levels as high as possible. Until the Deadly Battle started, I needed to focus more on farming Linger — the leveling currency — than on acquiring anything new. Not that there was much time left before it began.
"Aroma, Citrus. Could you come over here?"
...And then there was the most important event of all. The Affection Gift — something I'd experienced firsthand and still feared. We had no choice if we wanted to survive, but the guilt was unavoidable all the same.
The protagonist had said something psychopathic about how he didn't care how many he used as long as the target wasn't Jasmine. Hearing that only made the guilt of someone who still thought normally — me — even heavier.
"...From this point on, Master will present gifts to raise the affection displayed on the back of your Stigmata. Do you consent?"
But I was pretty twisted myself — seeking permission from people who knew nothing, just to ease my own conscience. Of course they wouldn't refuse anything related to Master when they had no idea what it meant. In reality it was a completely meaningless act of self-consolation, just so I could steel myself.
"Master, please send the gifts to both of them."
In that instant, a small box appeared in each of their hands. Their Stigmata lit up brightly as their affection values rose to 5, and a new stroke was added to the marks — announcing that both of them had reached 1-Star.
A faint heat radiated from their bodies with the rank-up, but compared to me — who'd shot past 19 straight to 20 in one go — the reaction was mild.
...The real problem was what came next: the forced injection of fabricated memories that artificially raised affection.
"Aroma, are you all right?"
"Hm? About what?"
"......?"
What? Even if her affection only went to 5, is it already over?
When I'd gone through twenty of them, I'd apparently sat there for a long time absorbing the memories. Even with fewer gifts, how could the reaction be this immediate?
I can't say anything definitive since I didn't see it myself...
I had no way of knowing whether the shock had just left me vacant for a long time, or whether the memory implantation genuinely took that long. Comparing based only on what the protagonist had told me about my condition wasn't easy. If only there'd been a recording.
"Is anything strange? Any new memories you don't recognize?"
"...What do you mean? I feel fine. Just a little warm, that's all."
...Don't tell me their memories settle so perfectly that they don't even notice?
Was it only because I was a transmigrator that I'd been able to resist at all?
A chill ran down my spine at the thought of that terrifying system — but I decided to let it go quietly, thinking that perhaps living without knowing was the happier path.
"It's nothing. Next is Fruity."
"Yes!"
I felt sorry for doing something so cruel to this adorable child, but it couldn't be helped. I sighed and had him deliver the gift.
A much larger gift box reached Fruity this time, and a considerable wave of heat burst out as she shot straight to 2-Star.
I'm sorry...
I looked at Fruity, fully expecting it would take her a while to come back to her senses — and instead found her excitedly tearing open the gift box, looking utterly adorable.
...What?
"H-Hold on, Fruity. Is anything strange?"
"Huh?"
"Memories... no, you wouldn't understand it that way. Tell me everything that's happened recently!"
Fruity looked puzzled as to why I was asking, but she started listing off everything she'd experienced — and all of it matched the patterns I already knew about her. In other words, no fabricated memories had been added at all.
I'd simply assumed the same thing would happen with Affection Gifts. But there was one difference between then and now. Back then, I'd raised affection using Choco. These girls had received their own dedicated Affection Gifts.
Actually, when I first received my dedicated Affection Gift to unlock myself, nothing happened either, did it?
...So as long as we didn't use Choco, the memory implantation wouldn't trigger?