"Did you really have to follow us this far?"
"Of course I did."
"···."
Inside the plane heading to the front lines.
Everyone was staring at Amelia with disbelieving expressions.
"What? Why?"
"But he’s your father…"
Honestly, it was still shocking.
A daughter exposing her father’s hidden secrets? Unthinkable.
Even if you stretched your imagination to accept that, why did it have to be *that* kind of secret?
His tastes weren’t just unusual—they were bizarre.
Sure, he spent all his time at the front lines, but he was a famous, beloved hero.
How could someone like that be into light novels?
Was this the author’s doing?
As if sensing their suspicions, the author frantically began to deny it.
[N-No! It’s not me! I swear!]
"···."
[I-I just set it up so Amelia’s personality was inherited from her father! And I did that ages ago!]
So you *did* do it.
The way she tried to defend herself only made her confess to the crime, and the absurdity of it all made him snort in laughter.
"Your parents probably stopped you because they thought it was dangerous."
"Well, yeah. They’re always messing with me, but when it’s actually dangerous, they try to stop me."
"And you still…"
"Don’t you remember what I said last time?"
"···What?"
Amelia stared at Siwoo as if he were being ridiculous for trying to talk her out of it.
What in the world had she said?
As Yu Siwoo and I exchanged confused looks, Amelia sighed and spoke up.
"Could someone who abandons their friends ever dream of becoming a hero?"
···Ah.
Now that she mentioned it, she *had* said something like that.
Siwoo and I both grew nostalgic.
It brought back memories from not long after we’d first enrolled.
What was it again? A rat-type beastkin?
He’d had these big, protruding front teeth that really stood out.
I remembered the scene vividly—Amelia had stepped forward, refusing to abandon her friend in danger.
Yeah, she *had* said that.
Time really flew.
"Don’t worry so much. I can take care of myself. And Dorothy might look like that, but she’s *extremely* valuable. You know how important buff totems are, right?"
"This isn’t a game, though…"
Dorothy, now being treated like a buff totem, slumped over in defeat.
She knew it wasn’t *wrong*, but that didn’t make it any less hurtful to hear.
Still, she couldn’t argue, so all she could do was pout.
"···We’ll be arriving soon. Please start preparing to disembark."
"Ah, right."
"And Amelia, please, *please* be kind to your parents…"
"I’ll think about it."
Maybe it was because of his experience at the front lines.
The voice of Hayul, who had come along as the student chaperone, carried a note of pity.
"Sigh… He’s still into that stuff… At least he could’ve hidden it from his daughter."
"···Huh? You know my dad?"
"Of course I do. We met briefly a while back."
People who met at the front lines tended to form tight bonds. After all, they were comrades who shared life-and-death situations.
As he said that, a faint smile tugged at the corner of Hayul’s lips.
"You saw him doing that back then too?"
"Don’t even get me started. He claimed he didn’t have time to date women, but all he ever did was read those things."
"...But why wasn’t it discovered until now?"
"Well, we have to protect a comrade’s private life, don’t we? Besides, he was quite promising. If rumors started swirling around someone on the rise, it’d just cause trouble."
Hayul smiled as he explained how he’d done his best to cover up his friend’s preferences.
"Plus, well, he’s always so busy that he doesn’t even have time to date women. Everyone just assumed that was the case."
"...But how did he meet his mom? They seemed really close."
"Ah, um. That’s..."
Hayul, who had been talking to Amelia, suddenly started glancing at me.
...What?
I’d been listening with amusement, remembering the past.
How should I put it...
It felt like listening to a teacher tell a story during class.
There was something oddly fascinating about it, even though it wasn’t anything special.
...Is teaching really his calling?
Hayul, unable to bear the students’ gazes any longer, finally opened his mouth.
"They’ve been close friends since childhood, I hear. He took a rare vacation to visit her, and then..."
Kwaang!
Hayul spread his arms in an adorable gesture and let out a small shout.
"He got ambushed!"
"...Oh."
What? Why is everyone suddenly looking at me?
Amelia and Dorothy were staring at me with meaningful expressions.
As for Yu Siwoo... I can’t tell. What kind of look is that?
Hayul just looked worried.
"...I think that’s enough of this story. Everyone, get up. Let’s go greet the commander."
Since we’d be living here for a few months, I started unpacking the luggage I’d brought.
Maybe it was because the author’s settings were adjusted to fit the plausibility without any changes...
Amelia had ended up as the daughter born from her mother’s "preemptive strike."
But their family seemed harmonious, so maybe it was fine.
"...Hmm."
I’d always thought the idea of a woman making the first move was just a delusion from subculture media.
But it really did happen, huh.
When I turned to look at Yu Siwoo, he quickly averted his gaze.
"...?"
"L-Let’s go, Arte."
His voice was shaking.
...Is he sick? Did he catch a cold?
"If we walk this slowly, we’ll be late. Everyone’s already way ahead."
The others were already far in the distance, so I hurried to catch up.
...But I’m a little uneasy.
No matter how much of a protagonist he was, he was still human.
Knowing he’d walked into a dangerous place of his own accord made it impossible not to feel tense.
He couldn’t have gotten sick from lack of sleep, could he?
I hastily grabbed Yu Siwoo’s hand.
"?!"
"Uh, are you okay...?"
...I don’t know.
In manga and novels, people always checked someone’s temperature by touching them, but didn’t they all just have really good senses?
No matter how much I touched him, I couldn’t feel any difference from myself.
All I felt was his firm, well-trained hand.
"...Uh, Arte?"
"..."
Squish, squish.
A whirlwind of emotions made me absentmindedly fidget with Yu Siwoo’s hand.
It’s so firm. Then again, he trains every day, so that makes sense.
I felt a little jealous of his physique... but...
I’d seen with my own eyes how Yu Siwoo trained.
Could I really keep up with his training methods? It looked exhausting.
Instead of his hand, I tried touching my own—it just felt soft.
…Hmm, yeah. Whatever.
I don’t need to train hard. There’s no point in building muscle, right?
I used to be angry about why I had to make this kind of body.
But now, I guess I’ve gotten completely used to it.
I can’t even remember my original form anymore.
"…Arte. Let go. I’m really gonna drop it."
"Ah. Sorry."
Oops.
I must’ve absentmindedly been fiddling with Yu Siwoo’s hand again while lost in thought.
Startled, I let go of his hand and quickly ran toward where my companions were walking.
"…Phew. That scared me. You really caught me off guard."
So I didn’t see Yu Siwoo’s face, now flushed red, or the shallow sigh he let out.
[So?]
"Huh? What do you mean?"
[You said you’re moving to a new stage. Got any plans?]
"No? Not really."
[You… never mind.]
He was probably about to spout some nonsense again.
Why was he complaining about me not setting things up?
The girl declared boldly,
"We weren’t even planning to go there in the first place!"
[Ah, right.]
[That’s just like you…]
To the girl, storylines no longer mattered.
Because of that, some people were already getting bored and leaving to do other things, but who cared?
This was all for my own satisfaction from the start.
I’d found an interesting world, picked up a wandering soul, and made a story out of it.
It was a work I’d created purely for my own enjoyment.
"I don’t care about the protagonist’s growth story anymore."
After all, the Reader-nim, who was supposed to be nothing more than an observer, was far too precious.
It had completely upended my original plan to create a story about the protagonist’s growth.
And now that I couldn’t even control the protagonist as I pleased, that goal was impossible anyway.
My only objective now was one.
To watch the Reader-nim and the protagonist connect.
"So I don’t really mind that the setting changed."
[…Yeah. That does look fun.]
Of course, it was great to see the protagonist shine.
But the ultimate goal was no longer the protagonist’s growth.
It was how the Reader-nim and the protagonist would end up together.
That was what the girl was most curious about.
"The protagonist already seems smitten…"
Maybe it was because of the hand-holding, but the Reader-nim hadn’t noticed—Yu Siwoo’s face was red.
Well, anyone would react like that if the person they loved did something like that.
[Your Reader-nim… is about halfway there?]
"Yeah. They haven’t realized their own feelings yet. But it’s fine."
In the girl’s judgment, the Reader-nim already had some feelings for Yu Siwoo.
The one and only person who understood them. Even if the whole world turned against them, the only one they could trust.
This wasn’t a joke. The Reader-nim genuinely thought that way.
"Feelings like that aren’t ordinary to begin with."
The Reader-nim probably thought of it as just trusting a close friend… but.
Well. Would a close friend cling to someone else’s clothes for comfort?
That kind of attachment usually required romantic feelings.
"And the setting’s a battlefield, right?"
A very dangerous one, at that.
Perfect for emotions to reach their peak.
The girl smiled innocently.