Lilia's Story

"Last night, when I went to the bathroom, I heard strange sounds coming from Lilia's room..."

Rudeus quietly said this to Hilde.

Hilde looked at Rudeus with an expressionless face.

"W-what? Why are you looking at me like that?" Rudeus felt a little guilty.

"Tell me, do you have some kind of peeping hobby?"

Hilde poked Rudeus in the forehead.

"Don't tell me you were some perverted voyeur in your past life. You know, the type who liked sticking cameras under girls' skirts on the train, or installing hidden cameras in bathrooms to secretly film videos and then use them to get off?"

Rudeus: "..."

That was way too harsh.

He had clearly only wanted to share a secret.

But, unexpectedly, he couldn't refute it.

In his previous life, he really had been that kind of scum.

Seeing Rudeus suddenly fall silent, Hilde felt a little baffled. She hadn't gone that far, had she?

Surely she hadn't...

Actually hit the mark?

As they said, lies didn't hurt people—the truth was the sharpest knife.

Hilde had no intention of tearing open Rudeus's old wounds, so she tried to change the subject.

"Come to think of it, Lilia used to have a thing with Paul."

"Hm? Ah... I don't know the details either. It seems like it happened a long time ago."

"So it was what they call seducing someone and then abandoning them?"

"I feel like it might've been even worse than that..."

"Instead of sitting here making wild guesses, why don't we just go ask Lilia directly?"

"Huh? Are you serious?"

"If you don't want to come, then forget it."

Seeing that Hilde really seemed ready to go find Lilia and ask her to her face, Rudeus immediately fell into a bit of a struggle.

His instincts told him he should force himself to hold back his curiosity.

Hold back, hold back even harder...

But how could he possibly hold back when it was something this interesting?

"I'm going too!" Rudeus hurried after her.

Lilia, who was airing quilts in the courtyard, suddenly found herself surrounded by two children.

"Young Master Rudeus, Miss Hilde, do you need something?" Lilia asked, lowering her head.

Hilde looked up and met Lilia's gaze...

No, she didn't.

Her line of sight was blocked by two enormous protrusions.

...Though she had already suspected as much before, Paul really was into huge breasts. Whether it was Zenith or Lilia, they were astonishingly similar in that regard.

"Lilia, do you have time right now?" Hilde asked.

"I'm not too busy. Is there something you need help with?"

"We want to hear Lilia talk about Father."

"Paul? Why don't you ask him directly? He's always very willing to talk about these things."

"No... Father always embellishes his stories. We want to hear another person's perspective."

Hilde tugged at Rudeus.

"Right, Rudeus?"

"Ah, yeah... That's right."

"But why come ask me?"

Lilia found it strange. If they wanted to ask about Paul, even if they didn't ask Paul himself, shouldn't they ask Zenith?

What was the point of coming to her?

"Lilia, you knew Father before, right? Did nothing happen between the two of you?" Hilde asked.

Hearing this question, Lilia's expression instantly stiffened.

She subconsciously glanced around, and only after confirming that Zenith was nowhere nearby did she crouch down and bring her eyes level with Hilde's.

"Miss Hilde, who told you to ask about this?"

"We were just curious ourselves."

Hilde tugged at the hem of Lilia's skirt, trying to act spoiled.

"Lilia, just tell us. We'll keep it secret. We definitely won't let anyone else know."

"It's not a story worth remembering."

Lilia sighed. To be honest, she would rather none of it had ever happened.

"Then we'll help Lilia with the housework, and Lilia can tell us, okay? Just like telling a story," Hilde said.

"No..."

Before Lilia could finish, Hilde had already started helping beat the bedding on the drying rack. She also kicked Rudeus while she was at it, telling him to read the room and hurry up and help.

Lilia was instantly at a loss for words.

Watching Hilde and Rudeus get busy, she suddenly felt that having someone listen to her experiences from those years might not be such a bad thing after all...

Though those experiences were, in a sense, somewhat unsuitable for children.

Lilia's story was not that complicated.

She had been born in a remote countryside town. Her father had once been an accomplished disciple at a Water God Style dojo, and now he had gone independent and opened a dojo of his own, making a living by taking on students. Lilia was one of the dojo members as well.

She had always trained very hard. Although her progress was not especially fast, everyone believed that her efforts would one day be rewarded.

One day, her father brought some wild boy back from outside and announced that, starting that day, he would be a member of the dojo.

That person was Paul.

No one liked Paul.

Because although the guy was rather handsome, he always gave off an impatient, restless air, and he never showed anyone a pleasant face. If a man spoke to him, he would ignore them outright, but if a woman spoke to him, she would get an enthusiastic response. That undisguised habit of valuing women over friends was truly repulsive.

Lilia did not like Paul.

She did not hate him. She simply did not like him.

Because her father was always praising Paul's talent with the sword, saying that he would surely become someone great in the future, and that he might even surpass the Water God.

That evaluation was hard for Lilia to accept.

Because Paul always treated swordsmanship with a half-hearted attitude, working one day and slacking the next, while she had clearly worked so hard, yet she was completely unable to compare to Paul.

And yet her father thought very highly of Paul.

Lilia had even vaguely learned from her father that he intended to make Paul her husband, and have him take over the dojo in the future.

As for that sort of future... Lilia was not actually that resistant to it.

Talent and aptitude truly did exist.

Just like herself, who could barely advance no matter how hard she tried, Paul, who could earn her father's praise even while training with the mindset of playing around, was a manifestation of so-called "talent and aptitude."

Lilia was an only daughter, and she lacked talent in swordsmanship. At this rate, it would be impossible for her to smoothly take over the dojo after her father. So there had to be someone her father recognized to take over, and the best identity for that person would naturally be Lilia's husband, her father's son-in-law.

For Paul, perhaps that would have been a fine choice as well.

He could obtain a dojo and even marry a cute girl like Lilia.

Surely no one would refuse.

...That was how it should have been.

But on one perfectly ordinary night...

No, perhaps it had not been ordinary. Perhaps many things had happened in places Lilia did not know about. As always, Lilia finished dinner, completed her training, returned to her room, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

Then Paul burst into Lilia's room.

He forcibly took possession of her body.

Lilia did not describe it in too much detail. After all, her listeners were two children, and telling them too much would have been far too embarrassing. In any case, judging only by the result, Paul stole her chastity, then before dawn, abandoned her after tormenting her all night and ran away.

And after that, he never came back.

"That is what happened between Mr. Paul and me in the past."

After she finished telling the story, Lilia looked at the two children, who had been completely absorbed in "listening to the story" since earlier, and could not help revealing a helpless expression.

"It is only a very boring story. In the end, Mr. Paul and I did not actually have much interaction. It just so happened that my father wanted an heir, it just so happened that he chose him, and it just so happened that he made the wrong choice... That is all."

"Have you ever asked Father the reason?" Hilde asked.

Lilia shook her head.

Everything in the past was already past. Her life had taken a tremendous turn because of what happened that night, but at this point, there was no meaning in questioning Paul about it.

If anything, being able to find a place in this household now was quite good.

"All right. Thank you very much. You've satisfied our curiosity."

Hilde pulled Rudeus to his feet.

"Remember to keep it secret."

Lilia raised a finger and pressed it to her lips.

"To me, all of this is already in the past. But if Madam Zenith were to find out, she might feel a knot in her heart."

"Don't worry, Miss Lilia. Didn't we already agree on that?"

Hilde led Rudeus out of the room.

Even after they went from the first floor to the attic, Rudeus was still a little dazed. When he finally came back to himself, he couldn't help sighing with emotion.

"I always figured that guy Paul must've been trouble when he was young, but I never thought he'd go that far. That's already a crime, isn't it?"

"First of all, Paul is still very young now. He's only twenty-three. Second, you're right."

Hilde had a feeling.

The story they had asked about this afternoon just to kill time might, one day not long from now, turn into a rather astonishing bomb.