F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!! Chapter 188: Marie and Grace in Their Secret Romance

"...Seriously, Grace, why are you here again?" Marie speaks all Tsun-Tsun, but I know she likes it because she can’t hide that tiny smile at the corners of her lips.

"I ca to bring you another present." I’ve been actively "romantically attacking" Marie. I tried with all the siblings, but unfortunately, it failed with most. Esther and Evelyn are married, so they were off the list.

Augustus never trusts ; even with my best efforts, the most I got was friendship, nothing romantic. I think I missed sothing that could have evolved our relationship.

Laplace... well, he’s been so absent I never got a chance to try anything. And Lucien only wanted friendship with and nothing more. He’s a pretty cool guy and easy to get along with, but he doesn’t want anything romantic.

That left Marie! Of course, I’m not treating her as leftovers! She was one of the first I tried sothing with to start a romance, and she was the only one who slowly started accepting , so I decided to focus 100% on her!

Besides, her favorability is at 80!! aning she’s gone from infatuated to truly loving . It took long months of attempts to break through her defenses, even though she’s very Tsu-Tsu, being such a Tsundere that nothing seems to have changed!

But I know she likes , so I keep trying to go further! Maybe I can even marry her when the favorability hits 100!

"A present?..." She takes the box I hand to her. She opens it and sees a wooden pendant. It’s very simple but has a symbol carved on it with the letter ’G’.

She doesn’t throw my presents away anymore. She started accepting my handmade gifts, and now this is one of the most special.

"What is this?" she asks, doubtful.

"A special good luck charm... I got it in childhood, from soone important to . She said if I ever had a wish, I should break the charm and wish secretly."

"And possibly the wish would co true."

"Possibly?" she questions, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, possibly. Because the wish can’t be sothing too big, according to the little story that ca with the charm. I kept it for years, determined to give it to soone special to ." She blushes when she realizes what I an.

"...Y-You saved a wish for a special person?"

"Yes, and that’s you." I say with a sweet smile. Marie is much nicer than she seed—kinda cold and tyrannical most of the ti, but she has a good heart. I think demon culture just obscured her good heart.

"..." She takes it and crushes it, murmuring sothing extrely quietly to the point I can’t hear.

"What did you wish for?" I ask curiously.

"...I-It’s a secret... I... I also have a present for you." She takes sothing from her pocket and hands it to . It’s a vial with sothing inside.

"Wow... this is a lot of holy magic condensed into a single point... thank you." This is really useful, especially for to put on my sword, in the Demon King’s castle, and in so other places I’ve been finding really useful things that are making stronger.

"I knew you’d like it..." she says in a pleased tone, and I notice there’s a bit of blood in the vial.

’...Better not to know how many angels she killed to accumulate this much holy magic...’ They’re at war; I can’t judge Marie for killing people.

"Grace, you look sad?" she asks when she notices my expression.

"...I don’t like wars..." I sit in a chair, looking at this little vial.

"...I told you about my past... why don’t you tell yours?" Marie asks curiously. I ponder for a second.

"I was a [Bastard]. My father was a noble, but my mother was a commoner... so until I was 10, I lived on the streets... It wasn’t all bad. I had many friends, and my mother managed to keep us alive and well most of the ti."

"It was only bad in winter. The cold weather ssed everything up, but I don’t hate winter. In winter, I would hug my mother, and her warmth was comforting..." I start to tell her.

"It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was good... However, when I turned 10, I beca the Heroine. The sword every hero carries went flying, piercing through the church and several houses until it stopped in front of ."

"While the title appeared in my status, and a light destroyed the surrounding houses, I was chosen as the Heroine in a blatant, impossible-to-hide way..."

"It was then that my father took in. Not because he liked , but because his bastard daughter was now soone important... and , a 10-year-old child, foolishly thought he had finally noticed ."

"...But no. Humans are... well, chaotic. Not as much as demons, but they wage many wars among themselves, and I was used as a weapon of war from age 11 to 16..." I slowly recount what happened.

"Why until 16?" she asks curiously.

"Because by that point, I was too strong, too uncontrollable to take bad orders. In other words, I was a threat they let grow too much, and then they realized if they gave orders and I didn’t want to follow them, they couldn’t force ."

"So, they stopped sending to war and tried to force into the nobility... Then sothing started... As petty revenge, I decided to steal the daughters of nobles for myself and build a huge harem." When I say this, Marie looks at with a bit of anger.

"Ah, but I gave up on that! After a while, it felt empty... but once I started, I could never stop being too much of a flirt... I think I started flirting recklessly with others to deal with loneliness..."

"Besides... it was funny to see the nobles’ faces when they found out I’d taken their daughters’ virginity, hahahaha."

"In human nobility, a noble girl’s virginity is very important, so most of these girls couldn’t get married anymore. Of course, so were happy about that because there’s a lot of forced marriage."

"Normally, they’d try to force into marriage, but when they found out I was doing this, I’d already taken more than 17 girls, and I didn’t want to marry, so they couldn’t do anything."

"Hmmm... which girl was the best?" Marie asks with a sowhat empty look.

"...W-Well... it was the princess... she was... good in bed... and it was funny to see the king’s face after he found out... Actually, that’s why he wanted so badly to send to this continent. He was kinda legally expelling ."

"...So you slept with the king’s daughter and wife!" she says, referring to that secret I revealed to her.

"W-Well, hahaha... y-yeah..."

"But Marie, I stopped that!! I want just one person now! And that’s you! If you want to be with , I would never sleep with anyone else but you!!" I say seriously. She stares at , assessing my honesty.

"Then prove it."

"Huh?"

"Prove it. Prove to that I’m the best of all those girls." She speaks in a rebellious tone with an angry look.

"..." I stare at her for a mont.

"How much ti do you have before you have to lead in the war again?" She makes a cute, thoughtful face.

"3 days until I restart the offensive against the angels."

"3 days? Perfect." I stand up and go to her. She lifts her head to look at my face. I grab her arms, lifting her up and hugging her firmly.

"Then, Marie, I’ll prove to you that you’re the best girl of all, my easily irritable little shorty." I carry her to her tent, her private place with her bed. She hugs firmly.

"W-What are you doing?"

"I’ll show you paradise with my fingers. I’ll give you the best 24 hours of your life, to the point you won’t be able to walk straight when I’m done. Unless, of course, you want to do nothing."

"..." I enter her tent and place her on her own bed. She looks at for a while as I wait for her permission.

"...I-I..."

"V-Very well! I’ll grant you the honor of touching my body!! Be grateful! Hmph!!" she says, all arrogant and proud, while I smile at the permission.

"Of course. Just a quick question, do you love ?"

"..."

"Say it, Marie. Do you love ? Because I love you. The last few months with you have been amazing, and I adore you, my cutie."

"L-Liar... y-you don’t like my small body..." she says, bringing up sothing that wasn’t even an open issue.

"Oh, you don’t trust the appeal of your cute little body? I love..." I stop talking, realizing how wrong it would be to say I like cute, short little girls of the tiny variety.

’Okay... it’s kinda hard to complint soone so short...’ Demons don’t seem to care much about height since they’re a very variable race, but for us humans, very short people aren’t usually easy to find.

"Love it?" she asks while I bite my lip.

"...Haa... I love it..." Her confidence seems to waver a little. I take a deep breath.

"I love your cute, small body. Your cute, immature breasts are sexy. Your barely developed curves are a sweet dream. And your miniature size makes want to put you in a little jar..."

"Lolicon."

"!!!" She calls exactly what I didn’t want her to call ! She has a mischievous smile on her face!! This damn girl tricked !! She wanted to complint her like that!!

"...Ah, yes. I am a lolicon. So now, get that cute little body of yours ready, because I’m going to show it what a mature woman like can do." I play along. I grab my shirt and quickly pull it up along with my bra. My breasts jump out of the clothes and move almost hypnotically as Marie stares at them.

She looks away, blushing, as I take off my skirt, leaving only my panties and exposing the rest of my body to her.

"T-T-This is going too fast!" she says, all embarrassed.

"You seduced ! Now face the consequences of your actions!" I smile, approaching her. She closes her eyes, all shy. She’s already an adult and knows well what we’re doing. She provoked because she wanted to!

’I never thought I’d like such a cute and Tsu-Tsu girl!!’ She is undoubtedly the cutest girl I know and will have sothing with, and I must say... it wasn’t a lie when I said I liked her and her body. I feel excited, my heart racing.

"Y-You shouldn’t describe my body like that, you know... it sounds wrong..." she murmurs while I feel embarrassed.

"I-I know, alright! I didn’t want to give that description either! But you’re small! How the hell do you describe a small body?" I don’t know!! I’m racking my brain here trying to think of it!

"Don’t call small! I think that’s the core of the problem, isn’t it? You could just say that..." She gets distracted by my breasts. I see her swallowing hard.

"You little pervert! You like what you see, huh?" I say, all proud.

"...J-Just do it already, or I’ll leave!! And about your earlier question... I-I... I love you, you troubleso, flirty dummy." She gets all defensive and Tsun-Tsun again.

"Of course! Of course!! I love you too, Marie." The mood gets a little lighter and more pleasant for us to move forward.