Final Episode
The sound of footsteps, or rather, destructive sounds, was approaching with tremendous force. It seemed to be barreling through, knocking aside anything in its path.
It was as if a rampaging monster was on the loose, but I was sure it would be alright. Millie just liked me a little too much. Just because we hadn’t seen each other for four years didn’t mean things had gotten twisted in some strange way.
As I told myself this, trying to calm my rapidly beating heart, the footsteps came right up to the door of the room. This was it.
“…………Hnn?”
Millie, the woman who could take down a Hidden Boss in a one-on-one fight.
I was focusing my mind to brace myself for a Millie-powered slap, but the door didn’t open. Millie was definitely on the other side of this door.
And Shino, for her part, was sighing with a “good grief” expression. What was going on…?
As I met Shino’s eyes, wondering what to do, she smoothly moved to the side as if to clear a path to the door. Did she want me to go?
“Hoo… alright.”
Millie was on the other side of this door. Millie, after four years.
I almost reached out to Shino for help, but if I thought about it, if Millie was in the state I feared, she would have kicked down the door and charged in. If that wasn’t the case, there was nothing to fear.
Chastising myself, I mustered my courage and flung the door open.
“Eep!”
When I opened the door, Millie was indeed there… but her figure vanished in an instant with a cute squeal.
“….Millie?”
An ordinary person would have thought she had disappeared into thin air, but I could at least follow her with my eyes. Millie had moved away with a quick movement and seemed to be hiding in the shadows now.
“Wawa…”
She peeked out, looking at me, but when our eyes met, she quickly pulled her face back.
Was this… not anger, but shyness? Was Millie really shy about our reunion after all this time?
She had come all the way here making such a racket, but when it came time to meet, she got embarrassed and froze in front of the door?
I had been afraid that the sheer weight of her love and the resentment of me breaking my promise and disappearing had combined to put her in a strange mental state… but this, I could handle. I had the initiative here.
I walked right up to where Millie was and leaned in close to face her. I didn’t forget to put my hand on the wall to block her escape route.
“Eh, wa, wawa.”
The important thing was to keep up the momentum. I would overwhelm Millie while she was flustered and smooth everything over.
“Long time no see, Millie.”
“T-that’s, um… Lord Geld…?”
Millie’s face was bright red, and she was fidgeting with her head down. She was acting like a naive maiden who had just realized she was in love.
Even so, Millie was still… amazing. There was no other way to describe it. She was so full of violent cuteness and sex appeal that I wondered if she was a new kind of creature born to captivate men.
Her face, her body, her voice, her scent, her gestures. Everything was shamelessly stimulating my instincts as a man.
The Millie in the original game wasn’t this erotic and cute, and there wasn’t any particular depiction of that. The resentment contained in the massive amount of erotic fan art must have made Millie in this world like this.
And now I realized that Geld’s strong libido was probably the reason for it. Everything must be the fault of the doujinshi.
Wasn’t it this libido, which didn’t exist in the original story, that caused Geld to be killed by Shino? He approached Shino with more force than he should have, and as a result, Shino couldn’t hold back, or something like that.
“You’re as absurdly cute as ever…”
“M-more… you’re really, really Lord Geld. It’s really you.”
She should know that I’m not the real Lord Geld, but in Millie’s mind, the real one was being treated as a fake.
However, Millie seemed to be gradually regaining her composure, and she was now able to look at my face, albeit glancingly.
So, to press the attack further, I hugged Millie tightly. Or rather, when I saw Millie up close, I couldn’t help but want to hug her.
“I wanted to see you… I always wanted to see you.”
“…Me too. Always, always.”
Millie hugged me back, burying her face in my chest. She hadn’t changed at all in this respect.
Millie, who hated being apart even for a moment, had endured and worked hard for four years. I would let her have her way for a while.
“You see, I came back here because I became the Maiden of Genesis. And I heard about you from the God of Creation. After that, I begged him every day… I begged him so hard.”
“O-oh, you begged him. I see.”
Even though I said “for a while,” I didn’t think it would take all night. The next day, I was hearing about the outline of their journey and the general situation from Millie and Shino.
“By the way, is it okay that I was keeping Geld… protecting him? Did Waslein say anything?”
“There is no problem. Lord Geld has already been disowned, and we have officially gained considerable standing.”
“Disowned? What did he do…?”
He hadn’t been reprimanded for lazing around for three years, but he was disowned in less than a year after that. Would I be able to return to Waslein?
And speaking of official standing, I think there was such a scene in the game’s ridiculously long ending. The protagonist, Haruto, was being publicly recognized as a representative.
“How about you, Lord Geld? How was it in your original world?”
“Me? I don’t know, it had been so long that I didn’t know what was going on. Yeah, it was tough.”
It had been a year of just playing games while eating away at my savings, but after hearing about their arduous journey, it was a little hard to talk about how laid-back I had been. More than that, I would never tell them about the game.
So, I made up a story about my hardships based on the contents of the game, and I made it sound like I had become successful. There was no way for them to verify it, so I could embellish the story as much as I wanted.
“So, if I walked around town without disguising myself, everyone would turn around, and young girls would scream and shout.”
“Girls?”
“Ah… no, well… and young men, and uncles and aunts, and old people, everyone supported me as a star in every household.”
“Hey, Lord Geld.”
Perhaps because I had accidentally let slip the words “young girls,” Millie had a serious look on her face. Shino’s face was also tense.
“W-what is it?”
“Do you… want to go back to your original world?”
“Ah…”
That’s right. Now that I thought about it, Millie had forcibly brought me here without confirming my intentions. Well, that’s how it felt, anyway.
And if I said I wanted to go back, she would beat up the God of Creation again and send me back. Suppressing her own feelings and prioritizing me.
Had my embellished story made her worry about that more? I shouldn’t have made unnecessary embellishments.
“Like I said before. It’s not like I wanted to go back to my original world.”
“…Yeah.”
“Of course, I’m attached to the world where I was born and raised. But Millie and Shino aren’t there.”
“…Yeah!”
“That’s why this place is a hundred times better for me.”
“Lord Geld!”
“Lord Geld!”
Millie and Shino seemed overwhelmed and hugged me again, shedding tears.
As I embraced them, I resolved to bury the fact that I had been a little reluctant to come here in darkness. I would work hard to train, beat up the God of Creation, and keep him quiet.
Besides, if I had known that Millie and Shino felt this way, I would have come here happily. So, it wasn’t really a lie.
After spending plenty of time comforting them, and as the sun was setting and things had finally calmed down, we continued to talk about trivial things to make up for the four years we had been apart. Suddenly, the conversation started to take a strange turn.
“Come to think of it, you two aren’t angry at all.”
“Angry? Me?”
“Angry about what, exactly?”
Even though I had been so scared, the two of them didn’t seem to get it. Maybe I had been scared for nothing.
“When you say angry… oh, did you cheat on me?”
“Cheating, you say?”
“No, no, no, it’s not that. I mean, I suddenly disappeared. And I heard from the God of Creation that you were angry.”
“Hmm? It’s not Lord Geld’s fault.”
“Yes. We’re angry at the wrong person.”
It seemed that only the God of Creation had been scolded. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but the pressure from Millie only increased.
“More importantly, Lord Geld. Didn’t you cheat on me?”
“Eh? Ah, of course not. Ahahahaha, hahaha…”
I didn’t. I definitely didn’t. I didn’t, but when I was asked like this, I somehow became flustered.
But Millie would surely believe even a suspicious guy like me. I’m giving off this vibe like I’m up to something, but I really didn’t do anything!
“Heeh?”
Millie’s reaction is… what? She doesn’t seem to believe me at all. That’s strange… But she doesn’t seem to suspect me strongly either. What’s going on?
When I look to Shino for help, she has a detached, expressionless face. That’s not unusual in itself, but when I think about it, there’s no way she’d help me. No good.
“Heeh. Heeeh?”
“Well, you know. I was in Waslein while you two were traveling, but I didn’t lay a hand on any of the many Maids surrounding me.”
“So it seems.”
When I made a desperate claim, Shino readily acknowledged it. Or rather, she already researched it? I’m really glad I properly refused Shell’s requests.
“Maids, huh? Was Shell-chan the one you got along with the best?”
“Hyuu”
I couldn’t help but gasp. She seems to know everything.
It’s not like I have any guilty feelings about the Maids, but I still felt a chilling pressure.
“But if you’re back, you need to go report properly. Quite a few of them were feeling down.”
“Lord Geld. That’s the situation, so let’s return to Waslein soon.”
“Ah, yeah. That’s right.”
“But you can’t make them your concubines, okay?”
“…Of course.”
While being warned about various things again, I was led out of the room by the two of them.
Apparently, this was a castle-like building built on top of a mountain, and when I went out onto the balcony, I could see a vast grassland below and the sea beyond.
This is the castle where the Final Boss was. The battle with the God of Creation should also be around here, so it makes sense that Millie came so quickly. …No, “around here” is when looking at the world map. She really did run here at an amazing speed.
“Even if we go to Waslein, what route should we take? Ah, Geld-kun. The ship is okay, right?”
“Huh? Well, probably. I don’t know since I’ve never ridden one in this body.”
“I see. Then, first Nota, huh? Then by land or along the coast—”
“Millie, that’s too much of a detour. Lord Geld should first go to Waslein and—”
The two of them are noisily discussing the travel route. My opinion doesn’t seem to matter.
But, since they suffered for four years for my sake, I should let them do as they please for four years too… No, will four years be enough?
“Well, maybe a lifetime is fine.”
There were many painful things during the repeated Loops.
There were many times I was worried about whether I could escape the Loop.
I can say that this future I grasped at the end of it all is the best I could possibly have.
“That’s right, Geld-kun! You know, there’s a cool Throne here, and I’ve always wanted you to try sitting on it.”
“I think that Throne suits Lord Geld very well too. Let’s go.”
“Geld-kun, you should sit there with your legs crossed and look important, and I’ll stand next to you, waiting.”
“Then I’ll play the role of kneeling at your feet.”
If I walk into the future with these two, no matter where I go or what I do, it’s sure to be fun.