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 came 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 me; even with my best efforts, the most I got was friendship, nothing romantic. I think I missed something 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 me 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 something with to start a romance, and she was the only one who slowly started accepting me, so I decided to focus 100% on her!

Besides, her favorability is at 80!! Meaning she’s gone from infatuated to truly loving me. 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 me, 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 someone important to me. She said if I ever had a wish, I should break the charm and wish secretly."

"And possibly the wish would come true."

"Possibly?" she questions, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, possibly. Because the wish can’t be something too big, according to the little story that came with the charm. I kept it for years, determined to give it to someone special to me." She blushes when she realizes what I mean.

"...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 seemed—kinda cold and tyrannical most of the time, but she has a good heart. I think demon culture just obscured her good heart.

"..." She takes it and crushes it, murmuring something extremely 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 something from her pocket and hands it to me. It’s a vial with something inside.

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

"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 me 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 time."

"It was only bad in winter. The cold weather messed 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 became the Heroine. The sword every hero carries went flying, piercing through the church and several houses until it stopped in front of me."

"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 me in. Not because he liked me, but because his bastard daughter was now someone important... and me, a 10-year-old child, foolishly thought he had finally noticed me."

"...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 me orders and I didn’t want to follow them, they couldn’t force me."

"So, they stopped sending me to war and tried to force me into the nobility... Then something 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 me 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, some were happy about that because there’s a lot of forced marriage."

"Normally, they’d try to force me 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 somewhat 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 me to this continent. He was kinda legally expelling me."

"...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 me, I would never sleep with anyone else but you!!" I say seriously. She stares at me, assessing my honesty.

"Then prove it."

"Huh?"

"Prove it. Prove to me 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 moment.

"How much time 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 me 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 me to do nothing."

"..." I enter her tent and place her on her own bed. She looks at me 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 me?"

"..."

"Say it, Marie. Do you love me? 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 something 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 compliment someone 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 me want to put you in a little jar..."

"Lolicon."

"!!!" She calls me exactly what I didn’t want her to call me! She has a mischievous smile on her face!! This damn girl tricked me!! She wanted me to compliment 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 me 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 me! 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 me 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 something 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 me 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 troublesome, 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.