I wasn’t trying to be full of myself or anything. This deduction was the result of a calm and collected review of the evidence before me. I wasn’t able to understand other people’s feelings, so it went without saying that I didn’t understand romance either. In fact, I found it illogical. If even psychologists couldn’t understand it, there was no way I could.
“Romantic feelings are close to a type of psychological suggestion. It’s pretty normal to start to think you might like a person after someone makes the suggestion, even if you don’t actually like them and there’s no logic behind it.”
This was especially true for sheltered princesses like Ariya. As someone who hadn’t had any sexual experience until now, it wasn’t unexpected for her to not have experienced any proper romantic feelings yet. So if she was pushed to be conscious of someone, it wouldn’t have been easy for her to get them out of her head.
“Anyway, I think that the reason things have been weird is because you’ve started being conscious of me as a guy. Am I right?” I phrased this as a question but didn’t wait for her inevitable denial. “Anyway, don’t be.”
“Huh?”
“To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s wrong for you to be conscious of me as a guy. Rather, I’m saying that who I am inside shouldn’t mean anything to you.”
What do the awkwardness and nervousness of romance lead to? Apart from sexual arousal, all you get is fear and uncertainty about the other party’s feelings.
“Regardless of how you feel about me, you serve me. You work in my best interests. That means you need to ensure that any information you have is actually shared with me.”
Ariya fell silent for a bit, and then exhaled. “I feel so stupid.”
“Great.” That’d been my main intention in having this talk. I bet she was feeling pretty embarrassed. This would probably be a sore spot in the future.
“I wonder how much longer I’ll have to watch you act so cocky in your position as my master. You should watch your back.”
Cool, that’s the Ariya I know. “So let’s start sharing information. I’ve figured out a few things over the last couple of days,” I said.
“Oh, you mean to say you haven’t just been playing around with girls?”
“Of course not. Training is hardly ‘playing.’”
Ariya chuckled lightly. I could tell that she was slightly relieved at my answer. I went on, explaining most everything that I’d learned. I was a little concerned that Furuth, or whatever her name was, might’ve been eavesdropping on us with wind spirits, but there wasn’t really anything I could do about that anyway. I needed to get rid of that elf. As for Ighnoa, I decided to keep his existence from Ariya for now, since she was sure to run into him in the guild. I couldn’t have her tense up in front of him or act suspicious. He might’ve already caught on to the fact that I’d figured out who he was.
“Oh—I need to go pick out a weapon tomorrow.”
“A weapon? Don’t you have weapons already?”
“Yeah, but this is an order from Sister Sensei because she won’t be around to teach me tomorrow. Would you mind coming with me?”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yeah, you. I can use Appraisal to figure out the abilities of each weapon, but I don’t have any idea what it’s like to use any of them. You have more knowledge about this world’s weapons than I do, so I’m hoping you can help out.”
Was I being too cautious? No, being cautious was good in this situation. Things rarely worked out the way you’d think.
“Also, it’d be annoying if people started freaking out, thinking that I’m turning over a new leaf just because I’m buying a weapon. At least, with you there, it’d look more like I’m begging the great Black Rose to buy me a weapon.”
Ariya stared at me in silence with a tired look on her face. Until Sister Sensei had come along, my relationship with the people around me had been perfect—they had all hated me. They had hated me more than something cancerous. I’d been so close to being completely shunned.
Fans of Black Rose were very clear about their hatred for me, but the adventurers here were shrewd. I hadn’t been violent with her in public or coerced her, so whatever problems we had were strictly between us. Without any of that, they wouldn’t stick their noses into our business.
“All right. I don’t have any requests tomorrow anyway, so I’ll accompany you,” Ariya said.
“Great; it’s a plan. Feel free to sleep now.”
“Are you sure? Will you be going hunting again?”
“No, I’ll probably stay here. There’s something I want to try out. I’ll leave leveling up Sexual Prowess for another day.”
“I see...”
Ariya seemed slightly relieved and also a little disappointed. Yeah, she’s been tainted. And I had nobody else to blame for that but myself.
“Good night, then,” she said as she left my room.
Let’s get started. I sat on the floor, crossed my legs, and relaxed myself. It was almost as if I was meditating...though I guess some types of meditation have you on your knees instead of sitting like this. But, well, whatever.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus, putting as much strength as I could into Detect. My goal was to try to detect spirits. If I could, I wanted to see them. Given that beings like that elf existed, it was imperative that I started being able to sense spirits.
I’d come up with a theory yesterday regarding how to make Detect have even more clarity. And right now, I was trying to put it to use. Information about the world filled my head. I could sense the underside of my bed and even the tiniest bumps on the ceiling. I was able to sense things that I’d never noticed before.
But I still wasn’t able to detect spirits. Because of this, I could tell that this was going to take a while. There was no need to rush, but was it possible to achieve my goal tonight? Without that, I wasn’t sure how easily I could move around at night without having to fear being detected by people who could use spirit magic. In the end, I decided it’d be best to take a few days to sort this out. And so I tried concentrating even harder.
However, by the time morning came, I’d had no success whatsoever in detecting spirits. I did have a feeling I’d detected something stirring, but it could just as easily have been my imagination. As soon as the sun rose, I could feel my exhaustion returning. I was sure I could sleep now. Yeah, let’s do that.
We weren’t planning to look for weapons at the crack of dawn or anything, so I still had time to sleep. Surely, Ariya would be considerate enough to realize that I needed more sleep and not come and wake me up. I lay down on my bed and drifted off to sleep.