[V8C24] I Like You So Much I Want to Eat You; I Love You So Much I Don’t Want to Eat You
Translated by Jodas 8: The Witch of the BoundaryThe boy who came to save Romy, Oliver Lange, was a member of the Monster-Hunting Lange Family.
The Lange Family… They were famous even among Monsters. Countless of her fellows had been hunted by them in the past.
She understood all that, but Romy just couldn’t help herself from taking an interest in that boy. She wanted to talk to him.
So, she disguised herself as a human, and snuck up to meet Oliver.
“Thank you, for saving me, last time!”
She gathered her courage and spoke to him, but the moment she expressed her thanks, Oliver made a displeased face.
“I didn’t save you.”
“Eh?”
“I couldn’t save you. All I could do was pass out from the boar’s charge.”
‘You’re wrong, that’s not it at all! After all, I was so, so, happy! It was my first time!’ — With those feelings, she peered into Oliver’s face.
‘Ah, he looks so tasty,’ She thought.
At the same time, she also thought ‘I don’t want to eat him.’
“I was so happy when you came for me, Oliver. I’ve never had anyone else come to save me before…”
“It was Father who saved you.”
“But! You were the first one to come for me, Oliver!”
Oliver lifted his face and gazed at Romy.
‘Ah, how nice. Wonderful. So lovely’ — The desire to hug him tightly and the desire to eat him arose simultaneously in her mind.
Suppressing both, Romy smiled.
“So, thank you, Oliver.”
“……Next time.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll save you, for sure.”
She was so happy. She liked him. She loved him.
She liked him so much she wanted to eat him; she loved him so much she didn’t want to eat him.
“Thank you, Oliver.”
There were many areas around the Crystal Territory where humans who’ve lost their purpose in life come to die. In human language, those places are known as ‘Suicide Spots.’ From time to time, they also get used as a way to dispose of bodies.
While many Monsters subsided on the humans who went to such places for sustenance, some years there was a bad harvest, and some times the mana density in the area dropped too low.
Romy’s mother in particular was a strong Monster, so she couldn’t last long in areas with low mana density. Approaching human settlements would be nigh on suicidal for her.
Nevertheless, short on food, the Arachnes decided to attack a human settlement.
The moment they did, it would be almost guaranteed that the Lange Monster Hunters would come out to fight them.
Romy’s face paled, and she pleaded with her mother.
—I’m begging you, Mother, at least leave Oliver alive! He’s the brave boy who saved me! I love him! Please, Mother, don’t eat him!
Granting that wish, her mother let Oliver run away.
Romy was relieved, but ultimately Oliver was devastated at losing his father and placed the blame on himself.
His father had died, and his brother had been driven mad. All because of his weakness. All because of his cowardice.
As Oliver curled himself into a ball saying such things, he looked so painful; he looked to be suffering.
“I want to be stronger. I want to be a brave man who knows no fear.”
Romy only granted that wish of his.
She placed her hand on Oliver’s cheek and looked into his eyes. Then, she dulled her consciousness and slurped up his fear. Bit by bit, carefully.
‘It’ll be alright now, Oliver. With this, you won’t have anything to fear. You’ll be stronger, Oliver.’
Those thoughts filled her heart.
(Ah, I’m so happy. I might be a good-for-nothing Monster, but I can do good for the person I like.)
The fear of the one she loved was rich, juicy, and so tasty her brain felt paralyzed by its sweet taste.
In the forest, the silver-haired Arachne stretched webs across the trees and jumped between her webs.
In the brief moment she spent in the air, the Harpy’s talons slashed through the Arachne’s body.
“Luaaaaa!”
As she said, Tia did not use her songs. She only chased after the Arachne with her talons.
Lately, she had been growing accustomed to more human fighting styles, but her Harpy body still remembered well how to fight against other Monsters.
For comparison, take the magic battle at the Wedge Tower. In that battle, magecraft was their only available weapon, and they fought in a strange environment that drained their mana in proportion to the damage they took — From Tia’s perspective, that was an incredibly odd thing to do.
If she wanted to kill a human, she had no need to go through all those hoops. All she had to do was run them through with her talons. Alternatively, she could drop them from high up.
In battles against Monsters, on the other hand, a little more skill was involved. After all, Monsters tended to be much tougher. Just breaking their neck would often not be enough to kill them.
—That was why she would tear them apart until they were a pile of goo. She would crush their flesh, their bones, their organs — everything. That was how Monsters fought.
From a human perspective, it was probably a difficult fight to watch. There were no tricks or techniques.
But Monsters had enough pure strength and speed to surpass humans, even without relying on such tricks. With pure brute force, Tia could easily trample down humans or weak Monsters. While she was a poor match for large, tough beast Monsters, she had a huge advantage against bug types.
The Arachne’s bodily fluids splattered all over and she stopped moving. Not giving a moment to breathe, Tia jumped at her and bit into her neck.
She tore off a chunk of flesh, chewed on it for a bit, then spat it out.
“You’ve got old meat. You won’t last long anyway.”
Bug Monsters didn’t have particularly long lives. Even the Monsters with human-like bodies could only live around twenty years at most. Not much different from Harpies.
This Arachne in particular had probably lived for almost thirty years. She’d lived quite long for her species, but her end was drawing near.
The Arachne’s face, a beautiful woman’s face, twisted and laughed in a hoarse voice.
“Of course I won’t. That’s why I wanted to leave that for my child. The ultimate prey, implanted with the utmost fear. The Langes had two kids, didn’t they? That one who ran away didn’t look all that brave to me, so the other one must have been Romy’s prey, no?”
Occasionally, some Monsters would prepare meals for their young.
This Arachne had worked hard to prepare such a meal for her daughter.
(Frederik was mistaken. The one this Arachne marked wasn’t Oliver. It was Frederik himself.)
This silver-haired Arachne planted the seeds of fear into Frederik, hoping to raise him into the ultimate meal.
So that her daughter could slurp up all of that fear whenever she was most starving.
Tia had heard rumors that the Arachnes were extremely harsh towards their fellow Arachnes. Furthermore, this silver-haired one was an existence known as a ‘Queen’ even among the other Arachnes. There was no way she could let the others witness her being soft on her daughter.
That was why she had prepared such a delectable meal in secret.
“But your daughter didn’t eat that prey.”
Tia pointed out the flaw in her story, and the Arachne’s brows furrowed.
“…Oh? I thought I heard Romy was eating the Lange kid… Was I wrong? I went through all that trouble to plant so much fear into the brave-looking one.”
‘I thought so,’ Tia confirmed her suspicions.
This silver-haired Arachne had confused Frederik and Oliver.
In the first place, this Arachne might not have even been able to distinguish between Frederik and Oliver. In a sense, that couldn’t be helped. Most Monsters had a hard time identifying human faces.
Even if that wasn’t the case, the Lange brothers looked remarkably similar. The only real difference between them was their hairstyle. While Oliver was also much more muscular, so long as they were wearing clothes it would be hard to tell at a glance who was who. That was why she marked him.
(The mother Arachne planted the seeds of fear in Frederik, but Romy only ever kept eating Oliver’s fear.)
In the end, each of the Lange brothers had marks placed on them by one of the Arachne family.
Frederik had the seeds of fear planted in him by the silver-haired Arachne in the name of providing emergency food for her daughter.
Meanwhile, Oliver had his fear continually eaten by Romy.
She had no idea what Romy was thinking as she kept eating Oliver’s fear.
Only, Tia was confident that Romy hadn’t eaten any humans in any way other than Oliver and his fear.
(After all, Romy was all skin and bones. Ever since Oliver left the Lange Hamlet and went to the Wedge Tower, she hadn’t had anything to eat at all.)
The silver-haired Arachne in front of her now had gone through all that work to prepare a meal for her daughter.
Whether Romy was aware of that or not, she kept eating Oliver’s fear.
Thus, the Lange brothers had their fates entwined with these Monsters.
Tia’s Harpy heart assessed the actions of both Monsters to be only natural, while Tia’s human-knowing heart led her to take pity on the Lange brothers.
(To begin with, Monsters have no place criticizing the actions of a different species…)
Why was Tia standing in this Arachne’s way at the moment?
Just because this Arachne pissed her off? … No, Tia should think of her own reasons for fighting.
With that in mind, if she were to put it in words, it would be:
“Because Oliver, my comrade, said he believed in me. Because I don’t want Frederik, my rival, to die.”
Soon enough, the time came that she couldn’t maintain her Harpy form any longer.
While screaming in anguish, Tia popped another candy into her mouth.
“I won’t let you get to Frederik and the others.”
Tia was a Harpy, a Monster, but at the same time she was a creature of the flock known as the Wedge Tower’s Apprentices.
Therefore, she would fight for the sake of her flock.