The sight of him lowering his gaze lazily and licking his finger with his tongue.
It was sensual and dangerous.
But to me, it felt like a well-fed beast licking saliva over its prey.
When Lucian curved his eyes into a smile, goosebumps broke out all over my body.
Instinctively, I buried my face in the plate and chewed like a madman.
I felt like if I concentrated purely on eating, I could forget that terrifying moment just now.
As I was desperately engrossed in the tonkatsu—
Suddenly, something caught the corner of my vision.
The button fastening Lucian’s chest was holding on for dear life.
I blurted out without thinking, “……Doesn’t that feel stuffy?”
Lucian blinked.
“Pardon?”
“……It looks like it’s going to pop.”
As I spoke while glancing at the button, Lucian’s eyes widened slightly.
Then, wearing an expression as if he had just realized something, he muttered, “I never once thought to change into a different set of clothes.”
……My bad.
I never used the costume feature even once.
That meant Lucian had been wearing the exact same outfit for the entire year I played.
A basic outfit designed specifically to capture women’s hearts: a sexy shirt.
A design that bared his chest muscles entirely.
“I’m glad you care about me.”
Lucian added with a satisfied smile.
No, I couldn’t not care!
Right now, his buttons were fighting a desperate battle for survival against his chest.
“Since there are no clothes that fit me properly, we should go shopping for clothes tomorrow. Are you free?”
“……Y-Yeah.”
As I nodded, the exact moment Lucian beamed brightly—
Snap.
A button ripped off, bounced through the air, and struck me square in the cheek.
“—Urgh!”
A hot sensation spread instantly, and I reflexively clutched my cheek.
Lucian hurried closer. “Master! Are you alright?”
My cheek burned.
As time passed, a wave of heat washed over it, and I could definitely feel it swelling up.
Lucian’s startled breathing reached my ears.
With a despairing expression, I muttered, “……No.”
It hurt like hell.
What kind of ecchi manga situation was this?
Even worse, it wasn’t some busty older sister, it was a busty villain.
I looked up at Lucian with a hollow face.
As physiological tears welled up slightly in my eyes, Lucian put on a flustered expression and rushed forward.
Clatter!
As Lucian moved, the desk was shoved forward, and from that impact, the rest of the buttons ripped off—snap, snap, snap.
“……Stop coming closer…….”
You fucking bastard. The remaining buttons whipped against my face.
My head rang for a moment.
Reflexively caressing my cheek, I swallowed back a groan.
The burning sensation soaked deep into my skin, and a tingling pain spread across it.
I could feel both my cheeks swelling up from this mad button bombardment.
Yet the primary culprit of this disaster spoke in a calm tone.
Well, or maybe he looked somewhat flustered.
“Are you alright, Master?”
I stared at him in silence.
“……I am not alright.”
“If you tell me what hurts, I can treat—”
“Your chest!”
You’re the cause of it!
Completely forgetting that the person in front of me was the main villain, I shouted reflexively.
At that moment, Lucian’s expression stiffened subtly.
……I feel like I made a slip of the tongue.
I immediately tucked my tail and shut my mouth.
But then, Lucian quietly opened his mouth.
“Then there is only one solution.”
Words that sounded as though he had reached a firm conclusion.
“From now on, I will not button my shirt at all.”
My jaw dropped in shock.
“……How on earth does that lead to that conclusion?!”
“Wouldn’t that prevent the buttons from falling off in the first place?”
That’s not the point!
This guy, is he seriously planning to push forward with a buttonless fashion style?
When our gazes met, his red eyes were infinitely serious.
Crazy, he must actually mean it. I clutched my face in agony.
However, perhaps mistaking that reaction for me clutching my face because it hurt, Lucian reached out with a serious look on his face.
As the villain’s touch approached, I instinctively twisted my body to dodge.
“Forget it, don’t touch me!”
Ending with those words, I marched straight into the bathroom.
After locking the door behind me and looking in the mirror, I saw that my cheek was indeed swollen.
“……Is this making any sense?”
That the villain’s chest was so big I got smacked in the cheek by his button.
I let out a deep sigh and, to cool down my heated face, scooped up a handful of cold water and carefully brought it to my cheek.
The moment the cool water touched, a stinging sensation rushed through.
Only then did I realize just how much my face was burning.
I pressed my fingertips cautiously against the reddened skin.
Whether it was out of frustration at being beaten up by a mere button, or because the cause of it all was Lucian, irritation flared up inside me for no good reason.
“Fucking hell, anyone looking would think I got into a street fight.”
No, this wasn’t even a fight.
It was just a record of one side being completely disarmed, taking a button bombardment, and suffering a miserable, unilateral defeat.
“……The villain’s weapon wasn’t a sword, it was buttons.”
I muttered in disbelief and glared at the mirror.
It would’ve been nice if a skill like this existed when I was playing the game.
If I had utilized this technique instead of swinging a sword on the battlefield, I definitely would have secured a definitive victory.
I might have even earned a title like, ‘The Legendary Day the Villain Subdued Enemies with His Chest.’
……No, if it really came to that, Lucian’s route wouldn’t have been scrapped; it would have gone down in history.
A dry laugh escaped at the absurd imagination I had conjured up myself.
In the first place, the battlefield events in Crown Maker were closer to bonus content than main features.
Most players didn’t even pay attention to them, and I was the only one who dug into it until the very end.
In the end, he was a character destined to be scrapped one way or another.
I scooped up more cold water and rubbed my cheek again.
I tried to dull the burning sensation, but perhaps because I was alone, my annoyance only grew stronger.
At that moment, I suddenly wondered what had happened to Crown Maker.
If the service had ended, the official website should be gone now, too.
Can’t I return the unrequested villain and the other targets?
