The Villainous Me Turned the Losers into Blackened Bosses-Chapter 281 - Springtime for the Beastkin Maid (5)

“...A response?”

The word wasn’t ‘unfamiliar’ to him—from the very beginning, his purpose in coming to the capital had been to give Treya, whose ‘missing person’ posters were plastered everywhere, a ‘response’. Precisely because it wasn’t unfamiliar, it gave him a moment’s pause.

It seemed she had no intention of letting this morning’s ‘confession’, the one that had jolted him awake, simply fade into nothingness.

Will watched as the Eir before him lifted her skirt and curtsied. The Hysterm household maids did indeed have a whole set of rules for bowing to superiors, but he’d told Eir she didn’t need to do all that. So, this was actually the first time he’d seen it.

“Yes. Please respond to what Eir said—if you didn’t hear it, Eir is willing to say it again.” After the curtsy, Eir rose onto her tiptoes and suddenly drew close to him. She rested her head against Will’s chest.

“Eir loves Young Master very much. Forever.” This leaning Caction wasn’t quite like a lover’s embrace; it was more like a very, very trusting large dog, willing to rest its head on your shoulder, yearning for your affection.

“Just as you taught Eir, Eir should also be willing to say these things—you told me. As long as I say it all, Young Master will definitely feel this love—” Her voice started soft and low, a little husky.

“Young Master, you heard me, right? Eir told you, Eir likes you very much, Eir will always love you, yes, Eir won’t take it back, won’t pretend she didn’t say it.” Her tone suddenly became a little agitated, but then, at the very end, settled into a state of calm just before an eruption. She looked up, and Will could see her tail wagging happily.

Will finally understood where this strange emotion was coming from. Although she seemed more ‘normal’ than the others—as if she had no possessiveness, wouldn’t restrict his movements, wouldn’t lock him in a dark room—the current Eir... was... was just like them. Her body clearly possessed the same ‘color’, exuded the same scent as them!

This scent... it seemed to originate from a deep ‘unease’. Her impulse to gouge out his eye stemmed from this ‘unease’ she herself had voiced. Her radiant smile, always seemingly on the verge of shattering, also came from this ‘unease’. And her constant declarations of ‘love’, her constant demands for his ‘love’, also stemmed from this ‘unease’.

It was precisely this ‘unease’ that was the source of her strange ‘darkening’!

But... how? What on earth had happened? Because he left and didn’t reply to her letters, had Eir been in a state of constant mental strain for a long time? But, if it were only that, she shouldn’t have become so sensitive and fragile, almost as if she’d been ‘abandoned’ once before...

Will’s rapidly spinning thoughts were once again interrupted by an impatient Eir, pouting—

“So, Young Master, can you respond to Eir? This is the reward Eir wants, the one you promised.” She looked up, her eyes shining with excitement, though the corners were still damp with the tears she’d almost shed in fear when she nearly reached for his left eye.

“Please, say it. You’ll always love Eir, right?” Her tail wagged faster and faster, her wolf ears perked up excitedly.

Will sighed internally. Then, he reached out and wrapped an arm around Eir’s waist.

`Isn’t this a rhetorical question?` He had no reason to refuse. In fact, he would respond to every single one of them. The ‘girls’ now, they were his leading ladies. The heroines he had personally cultivated, watching them grow bit by bit. So, he wouldn’t let them become crying, defeated losers again—

“Mmph...?!” Eir, caught completely off guard, hadn’t expected it. The Young Master had scooped her up by the waist, lifting her into the air. For a moment, she felt her feet leave the ground by a few centimeters. The sunlight streaming through the window obscured half his face.

“Alright, you probably guessed my answer already.”

“I will. I definitely will.”

With his very brief, decisive answer, he leaned down—

For the first time, Eir saw those deep blue eyes so close to her own. In the space between one breath and the next, she felt her Young Master’s soft lips on hers. A brief, yet electrifying touch, their teeth clicking together for a fleeting moment, the sound seeming to reverberate directly into her brain.

Eir’s mind began to overload. More overloaded than when Will had first slapped the thick ‘300 Questions on Blackening’ onto her desk. More overloaded than when she first heard the Young Master explain the ancient magic of the ‘Rimefrost Phalanx’. More overloaded than when she saw the numbers Will had written in his own blood...

Eir’s heart raced. Faster than when she first saw the Young Master at the Hysterm estate gate. Faster than when the Young Master first demonstrated how to display ‘Blackening’. Faster than when she finally succeeded in rescuing the Young Master from the clutches of that bad woman...

Eir’s heart soared. Happier than when the Young Master first praised her for doing a good job. More joyful than when she first received a letter from the Young Master, knowing he was safe. More thrilled than when she finally saw the Young Master, lying there, awaken...

And so... as if compelled by an urge from the very depths of her being—

She slowly. tentatively, extended the tip of her tongue.

However...

“Wait... Hold on a second.” Will pushed Eir away—an almost reflexive action. Of course, it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to French kiss; he’d... been forced to experience it with both Leah and Treya before. It was just... A wolf girl’s tongue was really different! Very different! Extremely different!

“S-Sorry. I... I didn’t expect you... you’d stick out... your tongue on the first try. It was a bit, a bit too much for me.” Will couldn’t even look Eir in the eye now; he felt his own face must be burning hot. Though the ‘innocent’ Eir seemed to be acting as if nothing had happened. Just now, it had been a very cool ‘response to a girl’s affection’, but in the end, he was the one who’d been too ‘pure’ and lost this round of intimate contact.

“Mm. Eir has received it—a response very much in Young Master’s style,” Eir said. However, she wasn’t sad or disappointed by Will’s halting of the kiss. Instead, she continued to regard Will—her Young Master—with an all-encompassing excitement. She smiled very happily. Perhaps a Will like this, in her eyes, was more like the Will of the past. Always doing shockingly bold things, then immediately becoming adorable when he got flustered.

“After this, Young Master and Eir still have lots and lots of time. We can try again, step by step.”

`Mm, so gentle, so understanding, and so obedient, Eir.`

However, in Will’s left eye, that faint mist around her still hadn’t dissipated.

“Just as Young Master wrote in those numbers, Young Master loves me. He absolutely wouldn’t abandon Eir, like Lord Carver said.”

“Huh?”

`Wait.`

`That’s not right.`

`None of that sentence is right.`

`What she means by that... could it be... could it be that ‘Carver’, who seems to be secretly manipulating everything, had met Eir?`

`The person who tricked Eir and brought her before him...` `Was Carver?`

Will once again grabbed Eir’s shoulders.

“Father... No, Carver, what did he tell you?! No, wait, how... how did you two even meet?!”