Chapter Twenty #5
“I am worried about how my mind will react. Though, now that you brought it up, I suppose I should worry about my stomach.” Jeanne let out a little chuckle. “Perhaps I am worrying too much.”
“Here.” I lifted her spoon up, scooped some of her soup with it, and held it in front of her lips. “I’ll help you take the first step.”
“How many first steps do you plan on helping me with?”
“As many as you’ll allow me to help with.”
Jeanne let out a soft sigh before opening her mouth and leaning forward.
I was careful to slowly tip the spoon once she had it between her lips. Once the spoon was empty, I returned it to her bowl and asked, “How is it?”
Jeanne took her time chewing the chunk of beef and potato I had on the spoon before sighing and saying, “It is… warm. Very warm.” A tear rolled down her cheek.
“It reminds me of my mother’s.” I couldn’t blame the other girls for stopping their own conversation to listen to ours now.
“Before we became monsters—when we were but elves in the countryside… a family, a blizzard snowed us in. Even… father, when he deserved to be called that, was worried for us. But my mother… she assured both of us that we would be fine. She kept the fireplace burning and cooked beef stew for us.” Her voice didn’t break at all, but tears steadily dripped into her bowl.
“It was so warm I forgot there was a blizzard outside. Then… father told me stories of his childhood in front of the fire, and I felt as if it was a summer day, dancing in the flower fields beneath the sun. That was how warm I felt—how happy I was.”
I placed my arm around Jeanne’s shoulders. “You’re going to make your stew salty.” I picked her spoon back up for her and brought another scoop to her mouth. “Come on.”
Jeanne nodded and took the next offering of stew. The tears only increased after that.
The rest of us were quiet, unsure of what to say at that point, except for Rosie who said, “You don’t have to worry about ever being cold again. If you ever need something to warm you up, whether it’s a hug or stew, let us know, alright?”
“Thank you,” Jeanne said. “All of you, thank you.”
Lupa then helped out by saying, “Cold. Rosie, hug.”
They were sitting right next to each other across from me, so Rosie hugged Lupa right away.
“You know, I think I could go for a hug myself,” Stella said. “Scoot over so I can come to the hugging side.”
Rosie and Lupa both scooted closer to the wall.
Stella went to stand up… but made everything on the table shake, almost knocking over the drinks, thanks to her breasts lifting up the table as she stood. Stella turned pretty red after that. “A-ah… my—my bad. I don’t usually… eat at booths for this reason.”
Lupa said, “The woes of the big boobs…”
After that, Stella made it over to the other side to sit with Rosie and Lupa.
They did their best to lighten the mood and to give me and Jeanne some more space to ourselves.
“Sev,” Jeanne said. “Rosie, Lupa, and…”
“Stella!” Stella said, helping Jeanne out.
“Stella. All of you… I will protect this warmth. That is my vow. More important than revenge—more important than the hatred of centuries is the warmth I feel now.”
That… was surprising.
That was something she didn’t believe in until after killing her father.
Her whole plan was to kill her father and then herself to rid the world of Dracula’s bloodline. But thanks to the player, she learned to cherish what she had now rather than to only live for the sake of revenge.
Was that my fault or something else? She had more progress in a few days than she had in her entire character arc in the game.
Jeanne’s route was getting speedrun even faster than it was in the game considering that all companion routes were pretty short. People criticized the game for every character arc feeling rushed, basically.
And this was even faster than in the game.
Or maybe…
The Jeanne of the game was artificially held back. Just like how Stella chose to be an adventurer in the game, the Jeanne of the game—who was always capable of such growth and feelings—was held back until after she killed Dracula by Seth’s writing rather than herself.
Now, without Seth forcing everyone to follow his script, nobody was held back by him any longer. If it made sense for them to improve or change faster than they did in the game, then they would.
But because of the way the world was thanks to his writing setting the foundation for it…
everything still happened way faster than it did back on Earth.
With all of the girls, really. Rosie, Lupa, Stella, and Jeanne.
I felt like I what I went through in days with them was equivalent to what took relationships on Earth months to years.
But it was nice.
It meant we got to skip straight to the good stuff.
And just because we skipped one, drawn out process didn’t mean that I wouldn’t get to see the girls change and grow over the rest of our lives together.
I looked forward to that.
And going by how everyone smiled after what Jeanne said, I was sure they were looking forward to growing with one another as well.
We had a beautiful future together to look forward to.