“Violetta,” she said, wiping her tears.

It was the last word she said to me that night.

In the chaos of the night, we lost each other, and I couldn’t find her again, nor find anyone willing to tell me where I could. They were either too busy dying, tending to the dying, or saw the posters of me hanging around town.

Either way, I was out of luck.

 

“So, this Demon King’s soldiers are infesting the forests to the west now?” drinking CEL-inn’s sorry excuse for a beer.

“Yes. Apparently one of their portals opened there last night. It must have been a misfire,” Bart explained.

“And it just had to happen just when I found her, goddamn cockblocks,” I muttered as I downed more of the beer.

If I didn’t know any better, this misfire was the work of divine intervention. Actually, I didn’t know better. Goddamit Aphrodite!

 “Have you managed to find anything about this Violetta girl?” I asked.

“Nothing so far,” Bart said. “She must be new in town. If she’s as pretty as you say, someone would have noticed her by now."

Noticed. That was an interesting way of saying stared at creepily without ever trying to talk to her.

“More importantly, this demon portal. It’s really bad news. There’s no sign of any officer or commander of the Demon King’s army, but the foot soldiers are still pretty high level,” Bart gossiped.

I’ve been hearing none stop about this distant Demon King everyone seemed so obsessed with. This was the first time it was close enough to home for me to actually pay attention.

“Who is this Demon King anyway?” I asked.

“He’s the king of the demons!” one of the patrons declared.

“Yeah, but what does he want, and why do we care?” I asked.

“He wants to conquer Mithuna and feed all mortals to his demon army!” another patron said.

“Yes, but why do we care. Worst case scenario we die and go back to earth as babies,” I said. “Or go to heaven. God forbid.”

The inn was silent for few moments as they pondered their purpose.

“It’s the wish of the goddess that we defeat the Demon King,” Shinsuke said. “It’s why we were sent here to begin with. To be heroes!”

“I wasn’t,” I said, examining the inn full of heroes.

“Didn’t the goddess tell you about how evil and terrible the demon king is, and how important it is to defeat him?” Bart asked.

“No. I mean, she mentioned him, but she didn’t send me here for him.”

“Wait, seriously?” Bart was intrigued. “What did she send you here for then?”

“Something about finding the light of true love,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell the CELL-inners the full extent of my tasks.

“Dude, that’s some BL visual novel shit,” Shinsuke said. “Defeating the Demon King is a way cooler mission.”

I shrugged. “Didn’t exactly have a drop-down menu of choices.”

“How do you even know the plot of BL visual novels Shinsuke?” another patron asked.

“It’s Grundevar! And it was for research!” he barked back.

“For academic purposes!” yet another patron said, causing the inn to burst into laughter, and Grundevar to sulk.

“Is that why you’re looking for this Violetta girl?” Bart asked. 

“I know she’s part of it, somehow. So I have to find her,” I said

Bart snorted. “One thot is as good as another. It’s not like she has anything special to offer except sex. Just find another one."

“Clearly, that’s not how the goddess sees them,” I said drily, putting down my finished mug. I could feel every moment spent in this place sucking the seductive edge out of me.

These guys really needed a slap to the face from life, and maybe a good teacher.

But I’ve long since abandoned teaching. Trying to fix and educate the world. Now that was a Sisyphean task.

If those damn feminist flash mobs would let me be, I might be able to look for the girl myself. Instead I had to rely on the services of Bart and his associates. And by associates I assume he meant stalkers.

What I could really use was some divine intervention.

The door burst open.

“I found her!” a man cried as he ran in.

Well, Aphrodite could be nice after all.

 

Bart’s “scout”, indeed found Violetta.

Apparently, her favorite spot in town was the library.

Yes, that very same library.

That previous statement about Aphrodite was an absolute lie.

Violetta also, apparently, spent a lot of her time there.

The only option I had was to wait for her to leave.

And so I did, spending the day browsing the stalls of west gate while thinking of every way I would punish Melody for effectively banning me from one of my favorite spots.

“Oi! You have to pay for that!” the keeper of a stall of flowers said as I was about to absentmindedly leave with a bright red rose.

“Ah, my bad. Sorry, I think I’m hungover today,” I said, smiling and bowing my head in apology. “Here.” I handed the merchant a gold coin. “Do you have change for that?”

The merchant looked at what was likely worth more than all his roses put together, then back at me. “No,” he replied, still holding on to my coin though.

So it was going to be like that, huh?

A few moments later, I was walking away from the stall with his entire stock. A massive bouquet of red roses in one hand, and another of deep blue orchids in the other. On the plus side, I wouldn’t lack for romantic gifts for the coming days.

More importantly, I had to return to what I was thinking about before being interrupted.

How to approach.

Obviously, I couldn’t just wait outside the library and walk up to Violetta the moment she left. That would be creepy, needy, low value, and in general a terrible way of going about it.

If she had half a social brain cell, which women do have more often than not, she could also easily see through any “accidental” encounters outside. Being anything less than sincere would raise a quiet alarm in the back of her brain that I could ill afford with how much was at stake here.

The real tricky part was to come up with a plausible reason to want to see her again. One that wasn’t “The goddess of love instructed me to seduce and fuck you.” Which, mind you, was not the most direct approach I’ve ever made, but without any input on Violetta’s personality, it was best not to risk it.

And said reason also needed to sit logically with my own brain, lest I be forced to lie.

And as we know, I never lie.

Aphrodite put me in a goddamn catch 22. The longer I delay, the weirder it will be that I waited so long to speak to the girl again. But speaking to her right away would put me at an immediate disadvantage as there was no way I could spin this approach to not seem like I have nothing better to do in my life than to desperately try to find this random girl I exchanged one sentence with.

Basically, losing sight of her last night left me fucked.

I had no choice. I would have to start this one with yet another handicap.

Now, what the hell was I going to do with all these flowers?

“That’s him over there! The man who bought all the flowers!” I heard the flower merchant shout from behind me.

Oh god. It was the feminists! They’ve tracked me down!

I turned around, ready to use the flowers I’ve bought as a distracting smokescreen while I’d make a dash for the alleys.

But it wasn’t the feminists.

It was a single girl.

A girl with long, pink hair, kind, green eyes and flowery white dress that hugged her body perfectly, still stained with blood from the night before.

“Uh… Um. Could I, maybe... if it’s not too much trouble... buy a few of those orchids from you?” she asked as she hesitantly approached me.

Aphrodite you magnificent bitch!

Presented to me on a silver platter.

It was time to seduce a cute pink-haired girl.