Chapter 647: Guwon, the Man of Pure Love
Chapter 647: Guwon, the Man of Pure Love
Neither Amy, who had asked me to have a proper talk with Alicia, nor Lutia, who had blocked my way at the door, told me I had to accept Alicia.
This wasn't the kind of problem that could be solved by force.
And even if our relationship became something more because of that pressure, a relationship that started that way would never have a happy ending.
They both knew that well, which is why they didn't push me to accept Alicia's feelings, leaving the decision entirely up to me.
And after mulling it over on the way from the 4th Floor town to the Arachne Clan House, and then waiting for nearly an hour at the front gate, the conclusion I reached was that it was impossible for me to accept Alicia as my woman.
Alicia liked me.
It was something I had never expected, but to be honest, it wasn't a bad feeling.
No. Perhaps phrasing it like that is too arrogant.
To be blunt, it felt good.
Any man would feel a sense of pride hearing that someone was genuinely in love with them.
Even more so if that person was so beautiful it made your head spin.
But so what? Did that mean I had to accept Alicia's feelings? No, it didn't.
I thought about it over and over. Many thoughts came and went.
The promise I’d made to myself right before heading into the dungeon that I wouldn't get involved with any more women. The happy expressions on my girls’ faces at the thought that the number of women hitting on me would decrease.
But if I turned her down like this, Alicia would surely be incredibly dejected and sad. I didn't want to see that look on her face.
Countless thoughts crossed my mind, but I decided to shake them all off and focus on just one thing.
Do I love Alicia as a woman?
It was true that, until now, I had accepted every woman who said she liked me.
Because of that, I had no room to complain if I was misunderstood as the type to never turn a woman away.
But I had always followed my own standards, accepting only the feelings of women I genuinely loved.
Needless to say, this was true for Sara, Diana, and Leia, with whom I had built affection over our time together.
In fact, with those three, I was the one who fell for them first.
And with Silvia, Matilda, Vanessa, and Rachel, there was also a process of falling in love.
With Silvia, my heart was first swayed by her admirable resolve to protect my girls, even if it meant throwing her own body on the line. My heart gradually opened up to her cute demeanor, the way she couldn't hide her joy whenever she saw me.
It was the same with Matilda.
When I first met her, I thought she was haughty and arrogant, but it turned out she possessed the noble will to save others from curses, even at the cost of her own body.
And though it was because of the curse, her attitude completely changed from how she was at first. The way she would enter a pink-tinted mode and shoot hearts at me with just a little kindness…
I may have used her as if I were playing with her, but in the process, my heart began to move.
It was the same with Vanessa.
She always wore a cold expression, but I had seen just how much that expression could break when we were intimate.
Because of that, whenever Vanessa treated me coldly, I would secretly think things like, I want to make her cry, or, I want to strip off that iron mask.
I hadn't been aware of it myself, but those thoughts were probably a sign that I was already interested in Vanessa as a woman.
That might be why, when I had the chance to be with her again, I laid my hands on her body without any resistance. Of course, my conscience kept me from going all the way, but if I had put my mind to it, I probably could have brought her to climax with just the Saint's Wave, without even touching her.
But from the start, I didn't even consider that option. I chose the path of touching her body directly to bring her to her peak. I even kept it a secret from my girls.
As my feelings for Vanessa steadily grew, when she finally confessed, I immediately resolved to make her my woman—even though I didn't know the full story at the time.
And from the perspective of having been in love even before the confession, Rachel’s situation was much the same.
Was it the way she threw herself in harm’s way to protect people on the 3rd Floor?
No. Of course, I thought that was beautiful, but I probably started to fall for Rachel long before that.
Yes. It was the moment I first arrived in this world and met her for the first time.
The first peerless beauty I met after coming to this world.
Perhaps I had just been suppressing those feelings because I had my girls by my side now, but I might have been thinking about Rachel all along, right from the beginning.
Even during the time when I convinced myself that I no longer had any romantic feelings for her.
Feelings aren't something you can sort out as easily as you'd like.
Somewhere in my heart, my feelings for Rachel, which resembled a first love, must have been continuously suppressed.
That's why I kept showing up to see her, even while making the ridiculous self-justification that I was sad our relationship had become awkward again after we’d finally gotten close.
Frankly, if I truly had no feelings for her, I could have just registered the party and settled the magic stone payments with another guide from the moment things got awkward. That would have been the end of it.
By then, I had already vaguely sensed that she had feelings for me. If that was the case, the best choice for my girls would have been to stop seeing her altogether.
But I didn't. I kept showing my face to her, even though it meant facing that awkward atmosphere.
And those feelings, which piled up each time I saw her when coming and going from the dungeon, finally exploded on that day—the moment I saw Rachel crying as she rescued me.
In the end, every woman I'm with now is someone I had already been building feelings for before we got together.
But Alicia? Did I really have those kinds of feelings for Alicia?
In a way, you could say Alicia's case was similar to Rachel's.
The first woman I ever had sex with, not just in this world, but in my entire life. A beauty so stunning it made my head spin.
And we had consistently met and built a friendship over time.
Looking at it that way, she didn't seem any different from Rachel, but despite that, I just couldn't feel that my emotions for Alicia were romantic love.
There was plenty of friendship.
It wasn't for nothing that I was always happy to see her and joke around with her, even after she’d beaten me up like that.
It was the friendship you have with a guy friend, where you can have a huge fight but laugh it off the next day like it was nothing.
The feeling I had for Alicia in my heart was definitely friendship, not love.
Was the problem that her personality was too boyish?
Or was it because, unlike Rachel, with whom I’d had accidental physical encounters, I’d never had another opportunity with Alicia after our first meeting?
I didn't know the reason. And I figured I never would, no matter how much I analyzed it.
But whatever the reason, as long as I didn't love Alicia, I couldn't accept her feelings. That was my conclusion.
Even if I accepted her out of pity, it would probably not end well.
I'm not good at hiding my emotions, and that difference would quickly become apparent in how I treated my girls versus how I treated Alicia.
Alicia might be happy at first with the thought of being with me, but eventually, she would explode.
It's not like she's the type to hold her anger in.
So, I had to be firm and reject her feelings here.
I had already sorted all this out in my head before entering the room, but I hadn't planned on suddenly rejecting her right off the bat.
I came here to talk, after all.
First, we would talk slowly, pour out our feelings, and then I would turn her down. I would do it in a way that even the impatient Alicia could fully understand.
But as I watched the light of hope begin to dawn on Alicia's face, I had the sudden thought that this was wrong.
If I let her get her hopes up too high, the sense of loss when she was rejected would only be greater.
In that case, wouldn't it be less of a shock to just reject her first?
That thought flashed through my mind.
As a result of acting on that momentary impulse, here I was, not even a few minutes after entering the room, bowing my head and apologizing to Alicia.
I mean, come on. I tried to think things through coolly, but I was turning down a girl who liked me. I'm not used to this kind of thing. It's natural to get flustered and act differently than planned.
"S-Sorry...?"
And just as I expected, Alicia, who had been so suddenly rejected, could only manage those words, her chin trembling.
Yeah, turning her down before she got her hopes up was not the right move.
There's a process for these things.
Less of a shock? What a load of crap.
I was filled with regret for what I'd done, but right now, Alicia was the priority.
"Yeah."
"Th-The last time! Right! You're apologizing for misunderstanding and running away last time, right?!"
"Alicia."
I slowly shook my head at her desperate words.
Of course, I was sorry about that too, but that wasn't what my apology meant right now.
Considering the conversation we were having before I bowed my head, you should be able to figure that much out, right?
Of course, Alicia knew.
She just wanted to deny it.
"Th-Then... does that... mean...?"
"...I'm sorry."
This time, Alicia mumbled in a weak, trembling voice I never would have thought possible from her, and I slowly nodded my head.
In that instant, my collar was seized with tremendous force, and I was yanked right up to Alicia's face.
"Don't fuck with me, you son of a bitch! Did you come here just to mess with me?! Couldn't you see I was drinking?! Huh?! Did you really have to twist the knife like that...?! Hic! Fuck!"
Alicia, who had me by the collar, clenched her other hand into a fist and raised it as if to strike me, shouting.
But halfway through, her voice started to crack with emotion, and instead of punching me, Alicia ended up wiping her eyes with her fist.
Then, she let go of my collar, practically throwing me aside, and muttered in a small, still-watery voice.
"Why... Why... Why not me...?"
Hearing her say that, it seemed Alicia had also been holding onto a sliver of hope based on how I'd never seemed to turn away any woman who came onto me.
That must be why she had looked at me with such hopeful eyes the moment we cleared up the previous misunderstanding.
"Alicia. It's not your fault. It's just that I..."
I grabbed Alicia's shoulders, finally able to say the words I had prepared in my head.
In short, I told her that the feelings I had for her were friendship, not love, and that's why I couldn't accept her heart.
"...Is that so."
After hearing me out, Alicia replied in a much calmer voice.
"So in the end, you're no different from the rest of them."
No. Listening again, she wasn't calm.
She was just too dejected to even have the energy to be angry.
"What? What do you mean..."
"If you were going to do this, you shouldn't have gotten my hopes up in the first place..."
Shoving me away as I stepped closer to question her, Alicia trudged back to the bed and pulled the covers over her head again.
Gotten her hopes up? Come to think of it, she'd said something like that earlier when she was drunk and rambling to herself.
But me? Had I ever done anything to get Alicia's hopes up like that?
"Alicia. I'm sorry. I apologize. So please, just explain what you mean..."
"Shut up! If you're so satisfied after turning me down, then get the hell out!"
But instead of answering my question, Alicia yelled from under the covers, ordering me to leave.
But I couldn't back down now.
If I left this room, my relationship with Alicia would be completely over.
I knew full well it was selfish, but I had no intention of giving up my friendship with Alicia.
It was a friendship I had stubbornly maintained even knowing how much my girls were wary of Alicia for taking my first time.
She was one of the few people in this world I considered a true friend.
I didn't want to lose her like this.
"No!"
"Wh-What...?! D-Did you just say no?"
My response must have surprised her, because Alicia threw off the covers and glared at me again.
Looks like even when she's down, her personality doesn't change.
Then again, she wasn't the type to hide under the covers and mope in the first place.
"Yeah! I refuse to let our relationship end like this! Absolutely not!"
"Wh-What the...?! You're the one who just rejected me, you crazy bastard!"
"I said I can't accept your love! I never said I wanted to stop being friends!"
"What kind of selfish bastard...!"
"When have I ever not been like this?!"