OHNIR – Chapter 36
Chapter 36: Favorability
“Gloria’s favorability score for me went up by 3 points.”
Kelusta sat on the edge of her bed, tapping her fingertips on the system’s holographic screen. She propped her chin on one hand, scrolling through the favorability log, and said triumphantly, “See? Having Wend bring her a gift was effective after all.”
If the value changed while the target wasn’t in front of the host, the favorability monitoring system wouldn’t give a voice prompt. The only way to check was through the automatically generated log.
After seeing the score cross the twenty-point threshold again, the brown-haired girl smiled with satisfaction. The faint anxiety that had been nagging at her finally vanished. She stretched her arms out, sighed, and fell backward without a care, landing on the exceptionally soft and comfortable mattress Gloria had specially ordered for her not long ago.
“Honestly, I’ve discovered that Wend is a really decent guy. Not only is he willing to run errands without complaint, but he didn’t even ask me a single question about… where I got all that information I gave him.”
Kelusta lay on her back, staring at the white ceiling, and mused lazily, “The Fake Illness Potion, the legacy of the Dark Goddess, a formula that could shake the very foundations of potion knowledge on the Nobili continent… It’s hard to imagine. If I had been dealing with Satrick, I doubt I would have been able to walk away from him in one piece.”
“It seems Wend is still too young,” the System said. “He appears to have been well-protected by his family. Though he looks cold on the surface, he isn’t very cunning.”
It paused, as if feeling that statement wasn’t direct enough, and added, “In any case, compared to you, temporary host, he’s leagues behind.”
“Would you short-circuit if you didn’t insult me?” Kelusta rolled her eyes and sat up, crossing her legs and propping her cheek on her hand in the pose of a deep thinker. “But there’s nothing wrong with being a bit simple. Since Duke Silentdis and Gloria let him develop such a personality, they’ve most likely resolved to protect him for his entire life… Thinking about it that way, the legendary, unfathomable noble families aren’t all so heartless and terrifying.”
The System maintained a prudent silence on such deep matters of human relationships.
But Kelusta didn’t need it to reply. She stretched, her eyes curving into crescents as she continued to herself, “Oh, well. It’s not like I’m going to harm him. You can’t even call it using him; at most, it’s a fair trade—after all, I gave him every last detail about the Fake Illness Potion—”
Just as the System was about to praise her rare display of integrity, Kelusta’s tone firmed, and she added with conviction:
“This way, even if Gloria gets mad at me for deceiving her, I can drag someone else down with me to share the blame… Ah, that’s me, such a clever girl. Now that’s what I call a solid plan.”
System: “…”
It was already tired of saying, “Poor Wend.”
“So, is your appointment with him set for this weekend?”
“That’s right. The production cycle for the Fake Illness Potion is even longer than the Antipyretic Potion’s, and I want to ensure its quality. At the slowest, it will take at least two weeks,” Kelusta mused. “I’ll use this time to raise Musen’s favorability. You do your best to monitor Kevit and Starangui for me, and try to keep them from causing any more trouble.”
“Instruction logged, temporary host,” the System said. “I will do my best to cooperate. I wish you success in your plans.”
Although Kelusta had been too preoccupied with Gloria’s affairs to pay much attention to Musen lately, his acceptance of her didn’t seem to have diminished due to her recent neglect.
—Well, to be fair, their relationship had never been particularly warm to begin with.
But thanks to Kelusta’s previous shameless efforts, the withdrawn Musen was at least able to communicate with her without issue, which was something worth celebrating.
“…So, what are your plans for the holiday, little classmate?”
By the Swan Lake, the scenery once scorched by Avia seemed to have been properly restored. The water soaked the wetlands along the shore, and layers of lush grass grew outward, as soft as a meticulously crafted carpet—gentle on the skin, not the least bit prickly.
The capital of Nobili was situated in a fine location. The climate was always pleasant, with warm sunshine available at almost any time. Even now, with final exams approaching and winter drawing near, fashion-conscious girls could fend off the chill with just a long-sleeved dress. Compared to Seaside Town, which occasionally saw heavy snow during cold snaps, and the Continent Edge, which rarely had a good day all year round, the royal capital was practically a paradise on earth.
And within the Holy Light Magic Academy, the place that could be called a paradise was undoubtedly the shore of Swan Lake, where one could both bask in the sun and relax in the shade of the trees.
Kelusta leaned against a large tree and yawned. A sliver of her long, slender calf peeked out from under her apricot-colored dress, unconsciously rubbing against the grassy carpet. A faint sheen of moisture from her sleepiness clouded her golden eyes as she lazily watched Musen, who was feeding the swans by the lake with half a piece of bread. She raised her voice and asked her question in a casual tone.
Hearing the form of address, Musen frowned and straightened up, pulling back the hand he was using to feed the birds. “Don’t call me ‘little’ classmate,” he said, displeased.
At his movement, a swan that had been pecking at breadcrumbs craned its neck in dissatisfaction, flapped its wings, and leaned its red beak forward to peck at the black-haired boy in protest.
Watching Musen’s exasperated expression as he offered the bread back to the swan lord, Kelusta couldn’t help but laugh. When he shot her a glare, she wisely composed herself and said good-naturedly, “Alright, Classmate Musen—so can you tell me now what your plans are for the holiday?”
The piece of bread wasn’t very large, and with other swans joining in to compete for it, it was devoured in no time. Musen dusted the crumbs from his hands, his bright black eyes glancing at the smiling Kelusta who was waiting for his answer. He hesitated for a moment but still chose to answer truthfully. “I’ll probably stay at the academy… Besides, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Kelusta blinked, clearing the physiological tears that had welled up from her yawn. She pushed herself up using the tree trunk, brushed the grass clippings from her dress, and let out a slow “Hmm.” Pondering, she said, “Staying at the academy, huh? That’s good, too. I might stay as well… In that case, we might even get to be classmates for the holiday.”
“…That sounds like a nightmare,” Musen said mercilessly.
The so-called “nightmare,” Kelusta, pouted and rolled her eyes. She casually pushed back the hair obscuring her vision and said in a harsh tone, “I’m offering you my kind company, and you’re not even grateful, are you?”
Musen crossed his arms and, in a perfect imitation of her, rolled his eyes as well. He let out a cold laugh but ultimately refrained from saying anything more sarcastic or cutting.
“Ding. Musen’s favorability +5.”
Adding the points Kelusta had scraped together before, Musen’s favorability was now at a high of eighteen, not far behind Gloria’s.
Kelusta hadn’t expected her relationship with Musen to develop so rapidly. After careful consideration, she attributed it to Musen’s “lacking calcium as a child and lacking love as an adult,” which meant that anyone who showed him the slightest bit of kindness would be rewarded with such a direct response.
According to the System’s introduction to the favorability monitoring tool, the thresholds were twenty, forty, and seventy. The difficulty in crossing them was highest for the twenty-point mark and decreased sharply thereafter. This was because in interpersonal relationships, conflicts and disagreements were most likely to arise when two people were “strangers” or “mere acquaintances.”
However, one couldn’t blindly trust the numbers. The System had also warned that for individuals with certain personalities, the favorability tool might not accurately capture their true feelings toward the host.
Kelusta had a particularly deep understanding of this point. On the favorability panel, Gloria, with whom she was already quite intimate, had a pitiful score of twenty-one. Meanwhile, Starangui, who was so jealous she could grind her teeth and had tried to sabotage her multiple times, had a favorability score as high as thirty-seven.
“Under any circumstances, the numbers are for reference only, esteemed temporary host,” the high-dimensional intelligence had once explained politely when Kelusta questioned this. “Even the System cannot achieve one hundred percent accuracy. It’s just like the promotional pictures for the Pudding Workshop—have you ever eaten a product that looked exactly like the one in the picture?”
The logic was perfectly sound, and Kelusta had to concede.
But anomalies in favorability scores only appeared in groups with eccentric personalities like Gloria’s. For someone as straightforward as Musen, the fluctuations it captured could be considered almost perfectly accurate.
Initially, Kelusta had simply wanted to brainwash Musen into firmly believing he was human, to prevent him from returning to the demons and becoming the Demon King’s right-hand man. However, the rocket-like speed at which his favorability was rising had shaken her original intention. After days of observation and deliberation, she had decided to make Musen “a pawn representing Seaside Town’s faction, sent deep into demon territory.”
And she couldn’t abandon her initial brainwashing goal either—she wanted Musen to return to the Continent Edge as a demon orphan, all while believing he was human, and pull off a brilliant double agent plot.
But that was all for later. For now, the most important thing was to raise his favorability and break through the twenty-point barrier as soon as possible.
“…This is a nice place. I’ve never been here before.”
After a long silence, once the swans gathered around Musen had dispersed due to the lack of food, the black-haired boy finally turned and walked back toward Kelusta. He stopped, his eyes carefully scanning the dense woods, and offered the faint praise.
Kelusta casually plucked a willow branch that was dangling toward her head and agreed, “Swan Lake has been the most famous attraction at the Holy Light Magic Academy for years… It’s a bit of a shame you’ve never been, but from today on, you can come often.”
She paused, a mischievous urge bubbling up, and added in a magnanimous tone, “If you don’t know the way, you can ask me to come with you—after all, you’re still young, so it’s understandable if your memory isn’t great.”
“…” Musen said coldly, “Well, thank you so much.”
“Hey, don’t mention it.” The brown-haired girl’s eyes crinkled into a smile, her expression utterly infuriating. “What’s a little thing like that between us?”
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