I Reincarnated as the Villain in an Eroge, But Before I Realized, I Became a Capture Target
Translator: Reo
Editor: PalenMisha
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 80 (Part 1)
A voice resounded from inside of me.
As soon as that voice enveloped me, the headache swiftly disappeared.
I felt strange, like my consciousness had separated from my body, but I was still somehow capable of moving it with my thoughts.
“My bad. At that rate, you’d have never been able to make it to the goddess in time, so I switched with you. I didn’t want to make Luca worry.”
– You saved me. But is it ok for you to show yourself like this?
“Of course it isn’t. We’ve got no time to waste. Hurry up.”
– Yeah, let’s hurry. I agreed.
Zagan closed his eyes and started searching for the goddess’s presence. Though Soleil’s deep-seated grudge continued to swirl around us, I gradually started to notice Lune’s presence. She was just ahead.
Still, how noisy. Maybe that’s why Zagan made a scoffing sound as soon as he opened his eyes.
“That’s some nice hatred you’ve got there. It ain’t enough to drive me mad though. My hatred wasn’t like this. It wasn’t something so lame that I’d be so consumed by it that I couldn’t see that I was making my loved ones suffer. Man, it’s been a while since I felt such an urge to kill someone.”
I won’t though. Zagan’s inner thoughts came to me naturally.
It truly was a strange sensation. It was even weirder because I could hear Zagan’s thoughts parallel to my own.
Anyway, we figured out where Lune was and were slowly making our way towards her.
My body moved on its own.
A few minutes later, we reached her. Exactly as I’d heard, Lune was a black cat, about 4 metres tall, with silver socks.
It would have been dangerous had she lost her sanity and gone berserk, but she just looked exhausted. Her eyes were closed.
A sigh of relief escaped me, my anxiety now gone.
“I can’t do anything in here. I found the goddess so imma go back now.”
– It hasn’t been that long, right? Shouldn’t you still be fine?
“Ah… I am you and you are me, so I know exactly what you’re thinking. I forced myself to the surface so now our thoughts run parallel to one another. Normally though, our thoughts and consciousness are one. So I ain’t gonna risk that just to be out here in the open. I’m only doing this because it was an emergency.”
– I see. Zagan is still me, the man who loves Luca.
“And the same guy who gets embraced by him every night. Ah, shit. Remembering that makes me embarrassed. I love him though. I love Luca a lot.”
I was also getting embarrassed. Any more than this and my love was going to spill over. I love Luca, I love him so much.
『Lo…ve…?』
A faint, almost transparent voice slipped in through the dreadful noise.
Was it Lune?
Anyway, Zagan was trying to go back, so I pulled him in and let our souls fuse back together. As I did, my body and consciousness properly connected and my thoughts became one once again.
After that was done, I touched Lune. I could feel a tremendous life force under the palm of my hand, but her presence was weak.
“Goddess Lune, I’ve come to save you.” I tried calling out to her, but she didn’t budge in the slightest.
Was the voice from earlier something subconscious?
How should I wake her up in a way that wouldn’t cause any problems?
Shaking her didn’t work, and grabbing her front paws didn’t either.
If she was overwhelmed by the sounds of the grudge that she was continuously being subjected to, then she might wake up if there was no longer any demonic essence around her. If I arbitrarily fired off some magic while protecting the goddess with my tentacles, then I’d probably be able to disperse some of this mass of demonic essence.
However, since I was currently using Dive, I couldn’t use any other magic. I couldn’t concurrently use two spells yet. But if I stopped using Dive, I’d choke.
What was it that made Lune react earlier?… Was it me thinking about how much I love Luca?
Was it because she sensed some positive emotions within this vortex of negativity? If so, then if I thought about Luca more, her sanity might return to her.
The moment I thought of this plan I immediately put it into action.
I wrapped my arms around Lune’s body so that she could feel my emotions better. It might be rude to hug the body of a goddess, even if she was currently in the form of a cat, but this was an emergency situation, so I hoped she would forgive me.
I placed my forehead against her as well and closed my eyes so I could concentrate better. Then, as if to shake off the negative words echoing in my ears, I thought of Luca.
Luca’s beautiful smile. His joyful voice when he called my name. How happy and at peace I felt when he wrapped his arms around me in a hug. How he always kissed my forehead and if I raised my head, he’d kiss me on the lips as well. How he would sweetly whisper in my ear – Zagan, I love you.
“Me too, Luca. I love you.”
Luca spoke to me without prejudice despite me being a dark attribute user. He invited me with him on his guild commissions and we talked about all kinds of things as I watched him work. Afterward, the two of us would walk around town and even have dinner together. We even took the gondola together to view the cherry blossoms.
I only realised that these were basically dates after Luca had pointed it out to me.
Speaking of which, the first time he embraced me was because I’d fainted due to mana deficiency. I was shocked to find Luca inside of me when I woke up, but the reason I didn’t feel repulsed by it was probably because I’d already been fond of Luca before then.
I was the one who suggested we eat a bar of chocolate on Valentine’s Day. And on White Day, we ate the return-gift cookies together as if it were only natural. If it had just been Valentine’s Day, you could have still counted it within the scope of friendship, but two men going so far as to give return gifts on White Day… as expected, that wasn’t friendship anymore.
However, at that time I’d been alone for most of my life and it didn’t occur to me that it was love because we were both men.
The reason Luca noticed my love for him while I was still unaware was probably because he was Soleil’s descendant. He was very susceptible to positive emotions.
Which was why Luca didn’t give up on me even when I rejected him. He told me he would wait until my feelings became love. And until they did, he showered me with lots of affection.
Had Luca given up on me, I’d have probably died.
After the battle with the dragons, Luca held me desperately since I was dying from mana depletion. I survived because I’d had sex with him several times before and had become accustomed to absorbing his mana. I’m alive today because Luca continued to love me without giving up.
If Luca hadn’t participated in that battle in the first place, I would have definitely died. It was impossible for me to defeat five dragons by myself.
Luca worked hard and got stronger because he said he wanted to protect me.
He taught me how strong two people could become when they supported one another. And how strong one person becomes when they have friends backing them up.
“Luca… Luca… Luca, I love you.”
Many emotions welled up as I thought of Luca.
It hadn’t even been a year since we met and my head was already so full of him.
When I tried to move on my own even after I realised my love, Luca was the one who hurriedly persuaded me against it. He said he would give his everything to protect me, so he wanted me to stay by his side.
I could face the discrimination because Luca gave me a lot of his love. I started thinking I could support and protect Luca because he gave me his hand. Because he told me he always wanted to be with me.
To make that wish come true, the problem of discrimination had to be solved. Luca was the one who brought me to the point that I could even consider that.
Even as he learned the truth about the past, even as Orobas challenged him to a duel, Luca never gave up. Even with a seven-thousand-year-old demon as his opponent, Luca promised me he’d win, and he did. Yeah, Luca was the one who taught me to never give up.
Thank you, Luca.
Thank you for not giving up on me.
Thank you for loving me.
Because you were there for me, I can stand here now.
“I love you, Luca. Love you, love you, love you, love you.”
I put my overflowing emotions into words, as if to drown out the sounds of hatred.
I love Luca.
Love. Love. Love.
『I… love Soleil.』
I heard that faint voice again, clearly this time. Lune’s body also stirred.
When I lifted my face and slowly opened my eyes, I saw Lune looking down at me.
『I wanted to meet you, my child.』
Her voice was quiet with no inflection, almost emotionless. Still, I could tell how happy she was. Was it because we were touching?
『Keep me close, as before.』
I had immediately tried to let go of her when she spoke, but she stopped me, so I hugged her close again. As soon as I did, a sudden gust of wind blew past.
The wind was so strong, I almost went flying. In a panic, I wrapped my tentacles around Lune as well so that we wouldn’t get separated.
As I did, my face was inevitably pressed against her fur and I couldn’t see what was going on around me.
My face buried in her soft fur, I heard the roaring sound of something being blown away. After a while, the force of the wind weakened until it stopped altogether.
『All is well now.』
Since she said so, I retracted my tentacles and let go of her.
At some point, the sound of the grudge had disappeared and there was also no longer any demonic essence around us. And, floating next to us was a gem emitting a black glow.
I see, so she converted the essence into a Lumiere.
That wind was probably because so much demonic essence was being condensed all at once.
Since the demonic essence was gone, I deactivated Dive. The reason I was still floating in the air despite that was probably because I was surrounded by Lune’s power.
“Zagan!”
I turned around at the sound of that voice and saw Luca staggering below. When I leaned forward to try and get to him, I was lowered safely to the ground and I immediately ran to support Luca’s tottering body.
“I’m glad you’re ok, Luca. You endured well by yourself.”
“I’m also glad you came back, Zagan. I was worried about what I would do if the demonic essence had consumed you and you didn’t come out.” He squeezed me tight and pressed his cheek against my head.
As expected, nothing made me feel happier and more at peace than being in Luca’s arms. This wasn’t the time to be doing this though.
I tapped Luca on the back so he let go of me and I inspected his body properly.
“No external injuries, right? No major damage to your armour either?”
Though it was a bit beat up and battered here and there, the amount of damage shouldn’t have caused him any problems.
Was he staggering due to the extreme fatigue and tension of having to defend against such a tremendously powerful attack?
Since Luca was a light attribute user, he was weak against the dark attribute. Furthermore, it was currently nighttime.
“It’s the time of day when the dark attribute is at its strongest, it’s impressive that you managed to suppress the attacks so well.”
“Um… if you’re talking about direct attacks, I did manage to guard myself against them, but… as expected, that much power and magic is hard to defend against and the surrounding buildings became like this. I did deploy the barrier you gave me, but it broke after a couple of blows. I’m sorry. Even though it’s something that you made just for me…”
“We can just fix them up, don’t worry.”
Though I did say that, the buildings around us were in ruins. Compared to Luca getting hurt, however, that was a trivial problem.
『The royal castle was mostly constructed via magic. As such, correcting the damage shall be easy.』
At some point, Lune appeared standing next to us.
Though a black mist coiled around her and I could still sense her tremendous strength, something about her, perhaps the cat form, calmed me down. However, I could feel nervousness emanating from Luca. He even fell to his knees and lowered his head.
That’s right, she was a goddess. Should I also be bowing down?
『There is no need for that, child of mine.』
