Vol 3. Chapter 95: Warning Awake

“Ah, ahem, Luna, you’re being way too generous.”

Vinny was almost grinning himself crooked from Luna’s praise. When it came to emotional value, Luna was giving way too much.

Whether she meant it or not, who didn’t like being complimented? And it wasn’t like Vinny had grown up hearing praise from anyone. This wave of emotional value hit exactly where it needed to.

Before this, he’d even suspected Luna might be secretly two-faced and had wanted to keep a respectful distance because of her family. But no matter how you sliced it, she really had helped him out a lot.

Whatever the truth was, Luna really was a beauty with a kind heart.

She left that one white-haired nutball who did nothing but mock him all day and think up new ways to blow up his Virtue eating her dust for blocks and blocks.

Right now, Vinny felt Luna was way more beautiful than a certain white-haired nutball—yeah, beautiful in spirit.

Who could possibly refuse a pretty girl with great temperament, who kept calling you handsome, smiling at you, and constantly feeding you emotional value??

Very soon, the server came over and handed Luna the menu.

“Do you come to this place often, Vinny?” Luna studied the menu carefully as she spoke.

“Mm, not that often. I’ll drop by once in a while with friends, something like that,” Vinny answered.

“In that case, you should know which fruit teas here are worth trying, right?”

As she spoke, Luna “casually” leaned in, closing the distance between them. She placed the menu in front of Vinny, her slender, onion-white fingers lightly tapping the surface.

Something smooth as fine silk brushed across his cheek. Vinny felt his skin go tingly, and for a long moment he just... froze.

Only after a beat did he realize that when Luna shifted her body, a strand of her honey-colored hair had lifted and brushed the tip of his nose.

That scent—sweet, a little cloying, tangled with something like jasmine under the sun—sank straight into his chest and left him oddly at ease.

Just like the honey-haired girl in front of him: pure, warm as a spring breeze, radiant. Those white-gold cross eyes of hers could melt someone on the spot, like stepping into a spotless holy cathedral.

“Vinny? Vinny?”

“...Ah—sorry, what is it?”

Only when Luna called him softly twice did Vinny finally snap back to himself.

“What were you just thinking about, Vinny?~” Luna asked with a playful smile.

“Nothing, really. I just zoned out for a second.”

Vinny cleared his throat, then suddenly blurted out, “When there’s a stunning beauty sitting right next to you, getting a little mesmerized is pretty normal, isn’t it?”

“Heehee~ You really do have a sweet tongue, Vinny. Have you already used that mouth to steal who-knows-how-many girls’ hearts?” Luna teased, half playful, half amused.

“H-How could that be? Luna, what are you even saying? That’s impossible.”

Vinny was being praised to death by Luna; he was almost too embarrassed to look straight at her.

Yeah, when he was Vinny, with all the hormones running wild, he really couldn’t relax completely around Luna.

“Come to think of it, do you usually come here with friends?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just curious why you’re alone today.”

“Me? I just wanted some peace and quiet today, so I came to have tea by myself,” Vinny said.

“Eh? Then I hope I’m not disturbing your peace.”

Luna’s fruit tea and cake were delivered as she spoke.

“Not at all. Honestly, being alone gets pretty boring. I’m happy to have someone to talk to.”

Vinny’s gaze drifted toward the fruit tea and cakes Luna had ordered.

Luna’s fruit tea was something called “Molten Blueberry.” It looked like a cup of pure blue, with a deep red center like magma seeping up from beneath the earth’s crust.

Besides that, Luna had ordered two slices of cake: one was white cream with a chocolate heart in the center, and the other was chocolate with a cream heart in the middle.

The two cakes were complete inverses of each other.

“Do you want more cream and less chocolate, or more chocolate and less cream, Vinny?” Luna asked with a bright smile.

“Ah, I’m fine with either. Are those... for me?”

Somehow, just chatting with Luna had already made Vinny feel way better. Maybe talking to someone who could constantly spark your emotions really was energizing.

“A pretty girl can’t finish two pieces of cake by herself, you know?”

Luna tilted her head and smiled, letting the sunlight spill over her honey-colored hair.

With that, she slid the dark cake with the white heart over to Vinny.

“Then you can have this one, Vinny.”

“Thanks.” Vinny nodded.

“You don’t seem to be in great shape right now. Do you need me to help and feed you?” Luna’s smile bloomed like a flower.

“N-No, no, I can eat by myself.”

Vinny hurriedly refused. That kind of thing was way too ambiguous. There was no way she meant it seriously, and there was no way he could accept it.

“No need to be so formal. If you trace it back far enough, one of my ancestors might have really waited on one of your ancestors like this,” Luna said with a squinty-eyed grin.

“Uh...”

Vinny had no idea why she suddenly brought that up. “That’s... different.”

As they talked, he suddenly noticed something else: the fruit tea he had ordered matched Luna’s almost perfectly.

His own fruit tea was called “Deep-Blue Heart.” Except for the blue heart in the center, the rest of the drink was red. Luna’s fruit tea was exactly the opposite.

He had no idea if she’d done that on purpose.

But either way, something about it just felt off to him.

Especially when he thought of Luna’s identity. She was the eldest daughter of the Haukekai Family, after all. It wasn’t like every heir of a high-ranking family was like Shicodale—overprotected, dumb-cute, and soft.

Take Aesphyra Galathus, the publicly visible Galathus heiress, or Isatia of the Lanteville Family. Those Destiny Heroines each had hundreds of schemes going at once; the only question was whether they were pointing them at you.

Something’s wrong.

In Vinny’s judgment, Luna shouldn’t know about Vanessa’s identity yet. Even in the worst-case scenario where she did know, there was no way she could figure out the relationship between him and Vanessa.

So why was she deliberately cozying up to him like this? Why waste this much breath on a failed, fallen descendant of the Facilis line??

A small tightness crept into Vinny’s chest.

“Luna, did you suddenly come find me because you needed something?” Vinny probed.

“Eh? Didn’t I say already? I just happened to run into you.”

“Oh. I see.”

Vinny nodded, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“Vinny, you haven’t been sleeping very well lately, have you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Your mental state doesn’t look as good as the last time I saw you.” Luna held his gaze. “Pardon me for asking, but... have you run into anything strange recently?”

“Something strange?”

The moment those words left her mouth, Vinny fell silent for a beat.

He couldn’t talk to anyone else about those things.

“Vinny, my fruit tea looks pretty good, don’t you think? Want to try it?”

As she spoke, Luna pushed her fruit tea over in front of him.

Vinny looked at Luna, then at the cup she hadn’t taken a single sip from yet. He hesitated for a moment.

“Then... thanks, Luna.”

He took a sip of the fruit tea, then a bite of his cake.

“How is it? How does it taste?” Luna asked with a light little laugh.

“It’s not bad. Pretty sweet,” Vinny said.

Maybe because he hadn’t really eaten much growing up, and didn’t have the means to, he actually liked sweet things quite a lot.

“Pretty sweet, huh. And? Anything else?” Luna pressed.

“Anything else??”

Vinny frowned and carefully savored the flavor. “No, nothing else.”

“Is that so?”

Luna looked deeply at him for a moment before finally drawing her gaze back. That last look she gave him... Vinny couldn’t shake the feeling there was something more in it.

“Vinny, you don’t seem as awful and clueless as the rumors say.”

“Am I supposed to say, ‘Thank you for the compliment, Luna’?”

“It seems the rumors aren’t completely true. In fact, to me, you’re almost a little too innocent,” Luna said, smiling with her eyes, but there was a deeper meaning beneath it.

“Too innocent?”

Vinny arched a brow, feeling a bit indignant. “And how did you figure that out, Luna? Just from a few sentences with me?”

“Maybe I accidentally got a peek at your heart?” Luna said playfully.

Her words carried a unique kind of charm—no matter what she said, it never grated. Instead, you just liked her more.

“Being pure is a good thing. But, Vinny, you can’t be pure toward everyone and end up trusting everyone.”

“Even at Carillian Academy, you have to remember: some people’s real nature will never change.”

“Trust everyone? I don’t trust everyone,” Vinny said, not quite getting her point.

“Really? That’s good then.”

Luna scooped a tiny piece of her own cake and slipped it into her cherry-like mouth. “You seem a little more lively now, Vinny.”

“Well, I’ll get going. Thank you for keeping me company for so long.”

As she spoke, Luna’s holy white-gold cross eyes lingered on Vinny for a long, deep look. Then she stood up, turned, and walked away.

Vinny stared at the untouched fruit tea and the cake with only a single bite taken out of it, completely dazed, still not quite sure what had just happened.

“Another woman I can’t read,” Vinny sighed softly.

Why were all the women around him like this??

The difference was, though, that while Luna was just as unreadable, he had to admit she really knew how to please people, how to steer their emotions, how to feed them emotional value—enough that Vinny genuinely enjoyed talking and spending time with her.

That white-haired nutball was a whole different story. She bickered with him every day, always mocking him. He used to at least be able to spar with her verbally fifty-fifty, but ever since she developed immunity to his ginseng rooster insult, Vinny could barely gain any ground. That white-haired nutball had already hit the “dead pig doesn’t fear boiling water” stage.

Looking at the two cups of fruit tea on the table, Vinny fell silent.

A pretty girl wouldn’t eat two cakes and drink two fruit teas in one sitting.

But he could.

If he didn’t deal with them, wouldn’t that just be wasting food??

So Vinny finished off both fruit teas.

Since Luna hadn’t had any, and he was the only one who’d drunk from them, it didn’t really matter.

Once he was done, he suddenly felt hungry, so he ate his own cake as well.

As for Luna’s slice—she’d already taken a bite. Him going over and eating something a girl had already eaten... wouldn’t that make him a total creep??

Vinny wasn’t hurting for that one piece of cake anyway. After he finished, with nothing else to do, he stood up and got ready to head back.

“So hungry.”

Vinny had no idea why, but he felt completely hollowed out inside, stomach growling. He’d barely even finished half of the breakfast Shicodale made for him that morning. Shicodale had been worried he’d caught some serious weird illness. And now he was starving like this.

I should get back and have Shicodale whip up a second round for me.

Wait.

Vinny quickened his pace, then suddenly came to an abrupt halt.

Something’s wrong??

He stared down at his own hands, stunned.

He... wasn’t tired at all.

After finishing those two fruit teas and the cake, Vinny felt completely back to normal. The all-over ache and weakness from before had vanished, the fatigue gone without a trace.

Not long ago, he’d still been limp as a pile of rotten mud, barely able to walk a few steps.

What the hell was going on?

Could the priest’s medicine really be that effective—working this fast after taking it??

Vinny didn’t think so. Something about this felt off.

Wait. Could it be... Luna??

He suddenly remembered those meaningful words Luna had said to him earlier.

“Vinny, you can’t be pure toward everyone and end up trusting everyone.”

“Even at Carillian Academy, some people’s real nature will never change.”

Vinny mulled those two lines over and over. Before, he hadn’t thought much of them. The more he turned them over now, the more wrong they felt.

Thinking back on how Luna had asked him to drink the fruit tea she ordered, and just so happened to say those things right then...

Could it be that she’d put something in that tea, or imbued it with something, to restore his condition??

But how did Luna know something had happened to him recently?

Aside from Aesphyra and Mirexia, no one knew, right?

Including the priest and the nuns who had treated him...

Wait.

A terrifying possibility suddenly came to Vinny’s mind.

“Even at Carillian Academy, some people’s real nature will never change.”

Vinny whispered the line to himself, repeating it once more.

Right.

He remembered now.

He remembered how most of the clergy in the Cathedral of the Dawn at the royal capital of Camella had treated him.

Even in the Carillian Academy church, some of them still belonged to the Church of the Dawn, didn’t they??

Vinny didn’t know exactly who.

But if he was understanding Luna correctly.