"I love you," Lucy mutters with a smile so wholesome, it almost made my heart melt.
"I love you too,"
…
(Lucy POV)
I awoke from peaceful slumber, only to be met by a beautiful woman with brightly flowing red hair.
Scenes of last night quickly filled my head, reddening my cheeks as I quickly sat up and turned my head away to avoid eye contact.
"Good morning," The beautiful woman speaks first.
"Good… morning," I reply, hiding my face with my hands.
She removed my hands from my face, and even though her grip wasn't that tight, I couldn't get myself to tear my hands away.
"You really are a pervert, Lucy," She mutters with a smug face.
Huh…
I jolt upwards, ripping my hands away from her and shoving myself in the bathroom.
My face reddened even more, so I decided to take a warm shower to calm myself down… but the images of last night wouldn't go away.
As soon as the shower finished, I grabbed my towel and exited the bathroom, ready to face Mia face to face.
But when I opened the door, I could only look away.
"I'm sorry for teasing you," Mia apologizes as she circles around and hugs me from behind.
"I-It's okay," I mutter, my eyes unable to focus on anything but the ground.
"Ah, you're so cute… Yesterday was quite fun, but don't worry. I'll research more,"
I shivered from her words, and I didn't realize it, but my expression slowly shifted into an excited smile.
…
"So, how was it?" Aria asks with the biggest smug face I'd ever seen.
"Y-you bastard," I reply, squeezing the jar of ice-cold coffee in my hand.
"Wow now, did you not enjoy it or something?"
"I-I did… But you set us up, didn't you! Or you're the one who planted the thought in Mia's mind!"
"Yep! I knew it wouldn't work on you since you're so weird, but it will definitely work on Mia, who is nowhere near as smart as us," Aria replies with a slight smirk.
Aria Balthasar… A brilliant young woman, the same age as me.
We're both geniuses per see, but we specialize in different things.
I'm better at manipulation and overall smarts, but she has a good sense of street smarts and grasp of each other's emotions… and I guess she's alright at manipulation as she managed to manipulate Mia.
"Hey, hey, hey… Don't discredit my manipulation of you. I managed to plant a seed in you that affected you later on,"
"I guess," I mutter.
She managed to plant words in my mind that affected me later on… And it did manage to play a big part once the time came.
"Anyway, forget that… I want to know who was top," Aria says with an almost evil smile.
"I was top," Somebody comes from behind and wraps their arms around me.
"Oh, my, who knew our little cold ice princess would be a bottom…." Somebody rises out of the shadows next to me.
It was obviously Charna, and she intended to tease me for a bit.
She trailed her finger along the back of my neck, sending chills down my spine.
"H-hey!"
"I'm just joking," She chuckles, but Mia looked as if she was about to kill her.
Charna did an excellent job at ignoring her, though.
Soon, everybody from Tolf had gathered at this little restaurant near the corner of the campus.
"So, we have our first mission today outside the monitorization of Auntie," Celestine says as she shoves part of her burger into her mouth.
"Hey, calm down a bit. The burger isn't going anywhere," Clio says, wiping the ketchup from the side of her mouth with a napkin.
"I'm excited," I mutter, unable to hold the small smile growing on my face.
"Same," Mia mutters.
"Okay, you crazy couple, our objective is to find an intelligent monster and try to extract information from them… Like always," Amanda rolls her eyes.
For the past four years, while we were under my Mom's watch, we had to complete these missions, which consisted of entering dungeons, not killing any monsters, trying to find the boss, and then if they are intelligent extracting information from them.
But the problem is… None of the bosses we have encountered were intelligent.