Chapter 73: Giving Every Yandere Villainess Her Happy Ending

After sufficiently scaring Aqua, what came next was another round of theatre. It went off without a hitch. New scripts, new movements, and more moments of Anna genuinely questioning the material.

Honestly, even I was starting to get suspicious. But nothing was overtly wrong yet, aside from Lucius’s sudden deathly glare toward me, and even then it wasn’t really directly related to Seraph as of now.

As for her script itself, Seraph had already fulfilled her end of the bargain, so as long as I found no hard evidence that she was conspiring against me directly, I’d let her keep her suspicious script and continue playing along.

For now, everything was normal.

"You’ve gotten quite strong."

I said it to Anna as I escorted her back to her dorm. It wasn’t a minor observation, either. Aside from Lucius’s abrupt hostility, Anna’s power spike on just the second day in the Federation was another oddity.

"Strong? Well, I’d sure hope so after the effort I’ve been putting in."

She giggled, and I could have sworn the slight movement of her uniform carried the faint scent of blood toward my senses.

Don’t tell me she...?

"Did you kill someone?"

"Of course not! Even I’m not dumb enough to do something like that in foreign territory, y’know?"

Anna waved her hand casually, as if I’d asked her what she wanted for dinner instead of something grave.

"Then what’s with the smell?"

"Well..."

Anna stopped.

"Actually, how about I show you by the end of the week?"

"Sounds good to me. Just make sure to hide whatever you’re doing better. It wasn’t that hard for me to smell it."

"More like you just have superhuman senses. But I’ll keep it in mind."

We continued walking for another minute, then I stopped when we arrived at her building. Anna looked back with a confused expression.

"You aren’t dropping me off at my room today?"

"No, it’s not that."

I reached inside my uniform coat. It was finally time to give Anna something. She was my first villainess, after all. I couldn’t just abandon her while I was pursuing others.

That did mean finding an actual good gift was hard. A villainess like her deserved the best. I couldn’t just whip out another strong artifact. That was boring and cheap, and more importantly, it wouldn’t change anything between us.

So I chose something more traditional.

"Here."

I pulled out a ring, a blood-red gemstone engraved with Anna’s name. It hadn’t been that hard to get, surprisingly. During the Citadel’s break, I’d made a quick trip to the main square and found a jewelry shop.

With the amount of money from my newly increased allowance, a custom commission with rapid creation wasn’t difficult.

Her entire color scheme was pink, yes. But in my opinion, a little bit of red mixed in with pink looked kind of beautiful. It fit her.

"...A ring?"

The moment Anna saw the ring, her breath caught. Her pink eyes locked onto the blood-red gemstone before flicking up to my face, searching for any sign that I wasn’t taking the gift as seriously as she was.

"What is this?"

"The gift. The one you’ve complained about not getting."

"I—"

She stopped, her fingers hovering over the ring but not quite touching it.

"Reyn, this is... how expensive is this—?"

"I wanted to give it to you, so don’t think about the price."

She took it then, carefully, as if it might shatter if she moved too fast. The gemstone caught the evening light, the engraving of her name etched deep into the surface. Her thumb traced the letters.

"Anna..."

She read aloud. Just her name and nothing else.

"I thought about adding something more. Like something more poetic."

I shrugged.

"But nothing felt right. Your name was enough."

Her eyes welled up with something bright and volatile. The kind of emotion that threatened to spill over whether she wanted it to or not.

"I thought you were going to give me a power-up like Lady Aqua and Trish. But this... this is what you give me? You’re going to make me cry in front of my dormitory."

"Wouldn’t be the first time I made you cry."

She laughed, a wet sound that broke whatever dam she’d been holding. Then she slipped the ring onto her finger.

It fit perfectly.

Of course it would. I’d measured her fingers months ago. If I was going to marry these women eventually, I needed to know their sizes. So far, I had Anna’s and Trish’s.

"And here I thought you were starting to take me for granted, just like Lucius..."

Anna sighed, but there was happiness in it rather than exhaustion. If I had to guess, I’d just relieved her of a secret burden she’d been carrying. That was one of the things I’d hoped this gift would accomplish.

But that motive came second to simply wanting to give her something she deserved.

"I told you when we met, remember? I changed. Even if I’m resembling my old self somewhat by being a womanizer, that doesn’t mean I’d still be an asshole. Especially not to you."

"So you’re just flat-out admitting you want other women? That kind of ruins the moment, don’t you think?"

I had already prepared a reply for that.

"It’s not like I’m choosing them at random, you know."

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

"Think about it. So far, every woman I’ve gotten close to has gotten along pretty well with you, haven’t they?"

Anna’s eyes widened.

"A-Are you saying—?"

"I’ll admit it. I’m still somewhat of a lecher. But at least when it comes to that, I’m picking women I know you’d get along with."

This was as honest as I could get, and considering the situation, it was the best time to just flat-out say it to her. This whole time, Anna had been unofficially fine with me finding other women, using the excuse that they treated me well.

But that excuse obviously wouldn’t hold up if she scrutinized her justification even slightly harder.

So why not reassure her now? I wasn’t going to keep hurting her by continuing what I was doing and letting her make excuses on her own.

"I hope you’ll be okay with that. And if you aren’t, then..."

I stopped for dramatic effect, mimicking what she did every time she wanted to deliver important news.

"I’ll be even better for you, until eventually, you’ll have no reason to complain."

"You’re dead-set on it, huh?"

"I am. But I’ll never leave you in the dust for it."