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“NINA, are you okay? I heard you caught a cold.”
The next day, students swarmed Nina when she arrived at the academy. The students were one thing, but there were teachers in the huddle too, which made her want to ask who was running all their classes.
No matter what she said, the buff would grow even more until there was nothing but perverts around her.
She didn’t want to waste her energy on something like that since she was recovering from her cold. Instead, she managed to put a smile on her face. “I-I’m okay. Just a little tired.” She tried to leave before things could get worse, but one of the students shook their head.
“Nina, you don’t have to cover for her. You caught a cold because Lady Clarissa threw a bucket of water on you, right?”
Several other students then started saying they saw the event, too.
It looked like the bucket event had already turned into Clarissa’s bullying. It was sloppy and confusing, but it couldn’t be wrong if everyone accepted it as “the villainess bullying the heroine.”
She was glad it seemed all right even if Dino hadn’t been there; it had nearly been a wash.
But Nina’s mission as the hired heroine was to set up a great failure for the villainess to gloat over. This wasn’t enough yet. She needed to give it one more push.
“You misunderstood,” began Nina. “Lady Clarissa’s hand accidentally slipped. She didn’t do anything wrong.” She brought a hand to her mouth and looked down apologetically.
A true heroine never interpreted bullying as actual bullying. Even if someone were coming straight at her with a knife, she would take it as a coincidence, a mistake caused by misinterpretation.
“Nina, you are so kind-hearted!”
Seeing as the boys collapsed to the ground from the sheer emotional impact of her declaration, she decided it was the right move.
It was clear to everyone that Clarissa intentionally threw the water on Nina, which apparently led to Nina’s cold. But heroines saw the world through rose-tinted glasses, or, even if they understood what was happening, they would always respond in a way others would like.
So, essentially, they were masochists.
Even though she questioned what a heroine was, Nina gave a heroine-like smile and left.
“Oof, I’m so tired…” It was incredibly draining to say things you didn’t believe with a forced smile on your face.
She completely forgot that her effect turned all the students into perverts before she got sick. At this rate, all sorts of worked-up students would declare they wanted Nina to throw a bucket of water on them. The quickest way to calm things down was to remove the source: Nina.
For both her and the students’ peace, she kept going toward where there were no people until she eventually found herself standing in front of the vegetable patch.
Without thinking much about it, she crouched down and started weeding, and her heart began to settle. Maybe that was why older adults got into gardening all the time. She was suddenly starting to worry about herself for finding weeding so calming.
“Oh, Nina. I heard you caught a cold. Are you feeling better?” came a voice. She didn’t notice when the beautiful blue-haired boy came to stand next to her.
A pretty face was also very effective at soothing the soul. She gladly basked in his beauty.
“Hello, Your Highness. I got some really effective medicine, so I’m feeling much better now,” she answered.
“Really effective medicine?”
“Yep. Ed, the cat working for the god, gave it to me.”
Dino’s eyes twinkled. “Ed? He’s been visiting you, too?” He crouched beside Nina and joined her in weeding.
“The medicine came in this dark blue bottle with gold lines. I should’ve known a messenger of a god would use such a pretty bottle, and the medicine worked nicely.”
“Dark blue with gold lines, huh?” Dino nodded, looking satisfied about something, smiling as he weeded.
He seemed in an oddly good mood. What was so amusing? “Did something happen, Your Highness?”
“Hm? Oh, I was only thinking that god’s servant seems to treat you well.”
“Well, Ed is a really kind cat, and he did have to work extremely hard to find someone to be the heroine. It makes sense he’d want to take care of me.”
It was practically an emergency, after all, since they couldn’t find anyone who wanted to enter the raffle to get chosen as the heroine, meaning they didn’t have the heroine to start school at the same time as the villainess. Now that they had finally found someone, they’d be in quite a pickle if she ran off.
“Of course. Let’s just assume that’s what it is,” Dino replied with a smile as he started to hum while he weeded.
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“YOU’RE growing up so pretty, Nina,” exclaimed Aida, shocking Nina into a frown.
There’s no way the effect could even be working on her own mother, was there?
On one hand, the god’s power was scary. On the other, Aida was probably an obsessed mother, so Nina couldn’t be sure which it was for sure. Either way, it wasn’t the sort of topic that encouraged discussion.
“Y-You think so…?” responded Nina. She hoped to get through this with that noncommittal response and expression, but her mother sighed.
“I do. You’ve always been cute, but lately…you look more like a young woman.”
“Uh-huh…”
The “You’ve always been cute” part was probably the obsessed parent bit. Then maybe the heroine buff was bumping up her femininity. Maybe her cleaning at school wasn’t seen as janitor’s work, but the sort of thing a girl who likes things clean would do.
This divine filter was terrifying.
Nina felt like having everything she did interpreted positively was actually kind of like harassing her.
“So, I was wondering if there’s anyone you like?” Aida posed playfully, but Nina froze, not understanding what she meant.
“Anyone…I like?” Her voice squeaked.
Aida sighed, looking troubled. “Don’t look so disgusted. I’m just…looking forward to it.”
“Looking forward to what?”
“It’d make me so happy if you brought home someone someday who wanted to be with you.”
Nina couldn’t look directly at Aida’s smile; it was too blinding.
Mom, I’m sorry. You only think I’m prettier ’cause I’m the heroine.
And it caused all the students at the academy to love her in a perverted way—it was a false love.
Nina stood firm against the urge to apologize growing in her and somehow managed to put a smile on her face.
“It’d be nice if there were someone,” she answered measuredly, “but I haven’t met anyone like that.”
Well, quite a number of people wanted to be with her, but none of them were the kind of normal, suitable suitors she wanted to be involved with.
“That’s too bad. I’d feel so much better if there was someone like that,” sighed Aida in an offhand way.
Nina stiffened. This was the sort of conversation mothers and daughters likely had all the time. But to Nina, this sounded like more than just romance talk.
Aida said she would feel better if there was someone other than her who would be with Nina—it would ease her concerns knowing before she died. That’s what it sounded like to Nina.
Tears welled in her eyes. She knew she couldn’t cry in front of her mother because of this, but she didn’t think she could stop them.
“I’m beat. I’m gonna head to bed. Night, Mom,” Nina jumped up from her seat and rushed to her room, closing the door behind her.
“I’m glad Ed didn’t come tonight…” she mumbled as she wiped away her tears and crawled into bed, trying to escape everything.