Chapter 599: The Condition for Apostle Appointment
Chapter 599: The Condition for Apostle Appointment
While Vanessa was away preparing our meal, I gave the girls a brief summary of my failure to perform the Apostle Appointment and my theory about the cause.
“So, to put it simply, for the Apostle Appointment to work on Vanessa, we need something that can break down her final emotional barrier. Well, that’s just my prediction, of course.”
After hearing my explanation, the one who reacted most strongly was, as expected, Matilda.
“So you’re telling me the reason you singled me out and made me confess like that was because my case was the only one you couldn’t figure out?!”
“W-Well… I’m sorry. No. But my feelings for you haven’t changed….”
Matilda had every right to be angry.
She must have been furious that I’d guessed the reasons for all the other girls but had been clueless about hers.
Realizing this, I tried to apologize and soothe her at the same time.
“So you’re saying you have a good idea about everyone else’s cases! Like what, for example?!”
But it seemed that wasn’t the reason for her outburst.
Whether I knew why she had come to love me or not didn’t matter, since we were already in love. But since she was the only one who had to make a shameful confession, she was determined to hear everyone else’s reasons, too.
Matilda’s reaction, which radiated that fierce determination, began to fluster not just me, but everyone else as well.
“W-Wait a minute! Matilda! That’s not what’s important right now!”
“Th-That’s right, Your Eminence. For now, we should focus on Vanessa….”
“What are you talking about?! Not important! Are you saying those memories aren’t important to you?!”
“Th-That’s not what I meant….”
“Now, you! Tell me! Right now, it’s all just your speculation, isn’t it? Don’t you think your hypothesis would be much stronger if you got confirmation that the events corresponding to these ‘quests’ are the ones you’re guessing they are?”
…I’d felt this once before, but sometimes, she says things that are so sharp and accurate, just like a Cardinal should.
It’s a rare sight, since she’s usually in a lovey-dovey pink mode whenever she’s with me, all dazed and lovesick.
“W-Well, if that’s the case, we could confirm it with each person separately….”
“We don’t have time! We don’t know when Vanessa will be back! Now, you! Hurry!”
Incredible. Matilda was winning a four-on-one.
Well, it was partly because she was fundamentally right, and partly because my girls were too conscientious to back out now after having heard Matilda’s story.
In any case, overwhelmed by Matilda’s intensity, I had no choice but to start explaining, one by one.
“A-Alright, then… For Diana, it must have been when we promised to live together forever.”
“A-Ahem! Ahem! Y-Yes, I suppose that was it…. That was likely the decisive moment….”
The moment I spoke, Diana, despite trying to act nonchalant, couldn’t hide her beet-red face, letting out a series of cute, fake coughs as she affirmed my guess.
Still, her reaction showed her experience.
Getting needlessly embarrassed here would only make things more embarrassing. So, to minimize the damage, she was pretending to be as unbothered as possible.
It’s cute seeing her try to think her way out of it.
I smiled fondly at Diana’s reaction and decided not to tease her any further.
I could use this situation to poke more fun at her, but tonight was Diana’s turn.
It would be a problem for me if I teased her so much that she got upset.
“And for Leia, it was when I helped her overcome her Gumiho state.”
“Th-That’s not quite right….”
For that reason, I moved on to Leia, but contrary to my expectation, she denied my words.
“Oh? Really?”
“Y-Yes…. You see….”
Leia hesitated, glancing around at the other girls.
Of course, Matilda’s sharp gaze, which seemed to urge her to speak up, made her immediately hang her head.
Matilda, my dear. What happened to that wonderful Cardinal who once said she never wanted to use her position to pressure others?
Right now, she was totally using her Cardinal authority to pressure a good-natured, ordinary cleric.
Well, I guess it’s fine since the two of them are so close.
After all, Leia was the one Matilda spent the most time with.
“The reason I fell for you, Guwon… was because you tried to save me, even though you knew you could be in danger.”
“R-Right. But Leia.”
“Yes…?”
“My theory is that the ‘quest condition’ isn’t the reason you fell for me, but the thing that broke down the final emotional barrier. So wouldn’t overcoming your Gumiho state be correct?”
After all, even in games, you first raise a character’s affection to a certain level—meaning they’ve already fallen for you—and then you complete a quest to unlock the affection limit.
Besides, if we’re talking about the moment they fell for me, Diana’s wasn’t when we made our promise to be together forever. By then, she had already made up her mind to kiss me. She had fallen for me long before that.
Most importantly, Vanessa, too, had fallen for me a long time ago.
“Ah, ahh…!”
As I said that, Leia covered her face with both hands, her ears folding forward flat against her head as her tail trembled and she writhed in embarrassment.
I gently stroked her head. Leia peeked at me through a small gap between her fingers and mumbled softly.
“W-Well, to be precise, it’s because I was able to properly make love with the one I love. I think it would be more accurate to say it was when I realized my Gumiho state was no longer a problem.”
She wasn’t completely denying my words, but she was correcting me to emphasize the part about love.
Seeing her stubbornly correct me even while looking like she was about to die of embarrassment, it seemed this was a point she couldn’t back down on.
“Th-Though another problem has come up now.”
She even mumbled that while gently wrapping her trembling tail around her lower abdomen.
You’re talking about making a baby, aren’t you?!
Ugh. That look is so full of maternal instinct.
It makes me feel pathetic for thinking that gesture of wrapping her tail around her belly was sexy, even for a second!
“Leia…. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
“Yes…. I believe in you, Guwon….”
“See! I knew it! There are differences between your thoughts and theirs! Now, next! Who’s next!”
Just as Leia and I were about to get lost in our own little world, gazing into each other’s eyes, the atmosphere was shattered by Matilda, who urged me on as if she still hadn’t had enough.
She’s the one who’s always lost in her own little pink world, yet she has the nerve to interrupt when someone else is having a moment.
Fine, whatever. Next up is….
I glanced at Sara, then immediately averted my eyes and turned to Silvia.
“Uuh….”
“For our Silvia, it was when I helped her experience sexual pleasure.”
Even though I had just told Leia that it wasn’t about the moment they fell in love but the moment the final wall came down, I hesitated to bring up the moment Silvia fell for me. But I had no choice.
That’s because after Silvia and I had sex, she was completely head over heels for me. To the point where a girl from a noble family was willing to call herself a sex slave.
Given that, I couldn’t help but think that she didn’t have any emotional walls left by the time she fell for me.
“N-No, that’s not it!”
But once again, my guess was wrong.
Silvia, though trembling, desperately tried to open her mouth.
“I-It was… the k-ki… kiss….”
“You want one?”
“Hyaaaang! N-No…!”
“You idiot. Stop teasing her.”
As I was messing with Silvia, I ended up getting my side pinched by Sara once again.
What can I do? It’s all Silvia’s fault for being too cute.
Anyway, is that so? Is Silvia thinking of the moment we kissed?
But that’s not it. Silvia might not know this, but while her official Apostle Appointment was delayed, I had actually tested it on her before and it had succeeded.
So Silvia’s thought that the kiss was the Apostle Appointment quest was wrong.
This time, I must be right.
No. Even if my theory is wrong, at the very least, the kiss wasn’t the quest.
“That’s not it.”
“H-Heh?”
“Actually, I secretly tested to see if the Apostle Appointment would work on you long before that. And it succeeded back then.”
“Eeeh?! W-When was that?!”
“A long time ago. Not long after you joined our party?”
“W-Waaah! Waaah! Th-Then what was it? What was it…?”
At my words, Silvia looked like she was about to die of embarrassment. She clutched her head and fell into deep thought, muttering to herself in a tiny voice. So cute.
“Was it when you refused to let me be your sex slave? N-No, or was it when you saved me when I was hurt? Uuuuh… uuuuh….”
It seemed she had quite a few potential moments in mind.
If that’s the case, then why did she think the kiss was the Apostle Appointment quest in the first place?
Ah. Don’t tell me… she didn’t think she could truly become my woman until then?!
And when I kissed her, she finally felt a glimmer of hope that she could be mine?
Just how little self-confidence does she have?
No, of course, I’m also to blame for not even kissing her until things got to that point, but I made it pretty obvious that I genuinely liked her even before that.
In the first place, the reason our kiss was so delayed was more than half your fault, Silvia. If only you hadn’t kept talking about how you were going to die!
This won’t do. It looks like Silvia needs a serious confidence boost.
The confidence that I love her enough.
“Hey. Silvia.”
“…Eh? Heh?”
The moment I tapped her on the forehead and called her name, Silvia froze like a robot that had just been switched off.
Hey, hey. What’s wrong? That’s creepy. Why did you suddenly stop trembling?
Just as I was getting a little scared, Silvia, thankfully, rebooted.
“H-Hyaaaaaat!”
She clutched her forehead, scrambled backward with a clatter, fell to the floor again, and then stopped moving.
“…Girls. I’m just asking, but… does getting the Apostle’s Seal turn that spot into an erogenous zone or something? Ah, you guys got it on an erogenous zone to begin with, so you wouldn’t know… Keoheok! Sara… that hurts…! I surrender! I surrender!”
“You really can’t tell when to joke and when not to!”
No. That wasn’t a joke, I was genuinely asking.
Of course, saying that out loud would probably get me into more trouble, so I decided to keep my mouth shut.
“She’s alright. She just fainted for a moment.”
While I was getting an earful from Sara, Leia, who had approached Silvia at some point to check on her, lifted her body and placed her back in the chair.
“But Guwon. That was too much.”
“Sorry. I didn’t think just lightly touching her forehead would cause that.”
To be honest, it was the first time I had touched Silvia’s Apostle Seal after engraving it.
I just tapped it like I sometimes do with the other girls’ seals. How was I supposed to imagine she would react like that?
“A-Ahem! Anyway, Matilda was right! It seems communication really is important. I never would have thought we had such different ideas about all this.”
Moreover, thinking about Silvia’s case, I realized that the quest wasn’t necessarily about overcoming trauma.
Of course, it wasn’t the kiss like Silvia first said, but the other events she muttered about afterward had nothing to do with her frigidity.
In other words, the quest related to Vanessa doesn’t necessarily have to be about her trauma—that is, something related to her being a Dragonian.
Considering the Apostle Appointment had already failed even after she had come to accept her Dragonian state, this fact seemed to further support my hypothesis that completing a quest was the key.
“Alright! Then from now on, all I have to do is spend time with Vanessa and figure out what the quest is. Just you watch. I’ll definitely succeed in the Apostle Appointment. Oh, and until then, everyone please keep the quest talk a secret from Vanessa. It would be a problem if she thought my actions weren’t sincere.”
“Yes. Understood. But before that, you.”
“Hm?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Tch. Busted. I was hoping to somehow gloss over it.
As Matilda spoke, her eyes were clearly fixed on Sara.
It was as if she were saying that since everyone else had shared their embarrassing memories, I shouldn’t show favoritism and let Sara off the hook.
But Sara’s story is really difficult to talk about….
“Matilda.”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
“Ah, ahh… I love you too…. So, what about Sara?”
Hey, wait a minute! Why are you still pressing the issue when you’ve gone into your pink mode?!
Curse! Aren’t you going to do your job properly?!
This is bad. This is really bad.
Damn it. At this rate, I have no choice but to resort to my last option.
I’ll have to lie.
Sara. Just play along with whatever I say.
I shot Sara a look, trying to convey that message.
And Sara, interpreting my gaze in her own way, slowly opened her mouth.
“…It was when you helped me get my revenge on my grandfather’s killer.”
At the sound of that cold voice, which we hadn’t heard in a long time, everyone flinched.
However, the three girls’ reactions weren’t exactly the same.
While Matilda flinched as if she truly hadn’t expected it, Diana and Leia’s reactions were more like….
“Hey. Wait!”
“It’s fine. Matilda is right. It’s not fair for me to be the only one to keep it a secret.”
“I-I’m sorry. I-I didn’t know….”
Matilda finally seemed to realize she had gone too far and apologized.
Well, technically, it wasn’t her fault.
How could she have possibly predicted something like this? She wasn’t even with us back then.
She probably thought it would be, at worst, an embarrassing love story.
“It’s okay. It’s all in the past. Besides, that event is what allowed me and Guwon to be together. So please don’t worry about it too much.”
Seeing Matilda bow her head in apology, Sara’s tone returned to normal as she accepted it.
But even with Sara’s cool acceptance, the atmosphere that had suddenly turned cold didn’t recover.
What’s more, not just Matilda, but Diana and Leia weren’t saying anything either.
Those expressions on their faces… could it be that they have some idea what’s going on?
“Thank you for waiting. If you’ll just give me a moment, everything will be ready shortly.”
And just as the mood sank, as if on cue, Vanessa reappeared.