Kiraware Yūsha ni Tensei Shitanode Aisare Yūsha o Mezashimasu! - Chapter 3

[I Think I’ll Raise My Fiancée Affection Level Before the Protagonist Steals Her From Me]

Barrett, at the young age of thirteen, had already shown glimpses of traits of being a damn domestic abuser bastard.

……But that ended today.

It was complicated, but the now Barrett was no longer the old Barrett—it was me. From now on, I must raise others’ affection for me to avoid that sort of miserable ending.

And my favorite girl-cum-fiancée Tayte would be the first target of my ‘Affection Rising Plan’.

If I wanted to prevent the Protagonist Raul from stealing Tayte, I first had to raise her affection for me, which was most likely way down below the x-axis—sitting firmly in the negative—if I were to use a graph to illustrate it. And to do that, I decided to spend my school time with her as my immediate goal.

――But there was a catch, it had grim prospects.

After all, although our parents had specially arranged for Tite and me to ride in the same carriage—one from the House of Ehrenberg—so as to give us a space wherein we could be alone, it was probably nothing but a prison from Tayte’s point of view. I mean, she’d been shaking in fear since a while ago. She looked exactly like a rabbit that had been thrown into a lion’s cage.

“H-hey.”

“—! Y-yes!”

Tayte immediately sat up straight when I tried to start a conversation.

Hmm… not a very optimistic response, but anyway, I had to come up with a topic first.

Desperate, I racked my brain trying to remember all I knew about Tayte.

Something, there had to be something to keep the conversation going—that’s it!

“Tayte. What type of flowers are you growing these days?”

“Huh?”

The question must have been completely out of her expectation.

Her mouth was open wide, and she was frozen for a while.

But it was only natural.

Tayte loved flowers, and thus she often gardened. The scene was frequently described in the novel. You might even say it was Tayte’s hobby.

Incidentally, the real Barrett hated it. During their school days, he ruined the flowerbed that Tayte and her schoolmates worked so hard to create and made it seem like the doing of the Protagonist Raul. You couldn’t see the limit of the bastard’s maliciousness, really.

……But now that ‘bastard’ was me.

I would never do such a thing.

Only, Tayte seemed to be worried about how to answer the unexpected question from me. Let’s try asking a little more in-depth question.

“There’s a large garden at your place, right?”

“Y-yes.”

“Isn’t it difficult to tend it? I mean, given its size and all.”

“W-well, yes… But I also receive help from the maids and gardeners, so I’m having a lot of fun.”

Oh?

While her voice still contained some fear, this was the first time that we could establish a somewhat proper conversation.

This was it.

I had to keep up the momentum and liven up the conversation.

“You sure like flowers, Tayte.”

“! Y-yes! I of course love watching them, but I love growing them more! A while back, my mother brought back some flower seeds from the south and—” Tayte joyfully kept on and on, but she suddenly came back to her sense and fell silent. She seemed to be thinking that she had talked too much. …Well, her sudden change of mood had caught me by surprise, but it was apparent that bringing up this topic was a good choice.

“Please tell me more.”

“L-Lord Barrett…?”

“What did you do with the flower seeds that Lady Lilia brought back?”

Ah, Lilia was the name of Tayte’s mother, by the way.

Her mother’s name was casually spoken, but that seemed to have completely relieved Tayte of her tension.

“The other day, they bloomed into beautiful flowers, and then I gave them to my mother as a gift.” Her words came out smoothly and clearly, indicating that she had calmed down considerably. Her eyes were also firmly directed at my face, and she was even showing me a bashful smile.

Good.

Let’s keep this up.

After a while of excitement on the topic of the flowerbed, we moved on to talk about the memories of when we were small.

The childhood of the hated Hero Barrett wasn’t mentioned in the original storyline.

But it was in my memories.

Just what kind of life Barrett Albers had been leading to this day—it was firmly etched in my memories. That being said, because there was the big problem with Barrett’s personality, they honestly weren’t decent, to say the least. His involvement with Tayte was especially horrible.

Still, Tayte was talking so jovially with me.

It was… kind of unexpected.

I mean, Barrett had done a lot of considerably awful things to her. Did she not hold a grudge over it?

But come to think of it… When Tayte had left Barrett, there was a description of her looking back on the past. In it, there was a scene which suggested that she had held feelings for him at one point.

……Maybe Tayte was now still—

“……Um, Lord Barrett.”

“Huh? Yes?” My mind had been wandering, so I unconsciously leaked out a strange voice.

“You seem… slightly different from usual today.”

It looked like the pleasant conversation gave Tayte the courage to ask a more personal question. However, she appeared still harbored some slight amount of fear in her heart considering that the volume of her voice was low when she posed the question.

However, that was only a matter of time.

The closer we got, the more relaxed she’d be around me.

I spoke in a gentle tone so as to reassure her, “I know that everything I’ve done… is not something that can be forgiven with just an apology. But still, please let me apologize. I really, really am sorry.”

This time I was the one bowing deeply, contrary to when we were back in my room.

To be honest, there was no way my deeds could be forgiven with just this apology. But it was important to express my remorse and apologize properly, that was what I believed.

Tayte panicked slightly upon seeing my actions. While we were both nobles, the Alberses were far higher in rank than her family. Considering that, it was no wonder that she’d be flustered. —But after a while,

“I-it’s fun.”

“Huh?”

“Being able to talk to Lord Barrett this way… is really fun.” Tayte stared straight at me, her cheeks reddened. There was a smile on her face—a heartfelt smile, or at least that was what it seemed to me.

Aren’t you a little too easy? I thought, but if that was what she truly felt, then all was good. In the novel, it was written that she ‘wasn’t the type to lie’, so what she had said most likely came from the bottom of her heart.

“I’ll be sure to make myself be available to have more fun talks with you from now on. In preparation for that, I’d like you to just call me Barrett.”

“! T-there is no way I can be so impertinent…”

“I insist you call me that way.”

“…I understand. In that case, please treat me well, Barrett.” Tayte called me by name only, smiling bashfully. She was still speaking formally, but I’d make sure to get her to change to casual speech soon enough.

――For that reason, I vowed to myself again.

I’d never, ever make Tayte sad again.