After furiously scribbling in her notebook, Dorothea flashed a mischievous grin at Allen.

“So, Charlotte seems fine with it. How about you, Allen-shi?”

“Me…?”

“Pretending to be lovers. Do you hate it?”

The teasing question left Allen speechless.

It was a vicious trap. If he said he hated it, it was obvious Charlotte would be hurt.

But he also hesitated to openly declaring he wanted to pretend to be her boyfriend. The moment he said it, something would end.

Allen hesitates again and again…

“Hmph, if that’s the case…”

With resolve, he smiles refreshingly at Charlotte.

“A little make-believe like this, pretending to be kids again… That falls squarely into the realm of naughty things!”

“R-really…?”

“Of course! So let’s do it! Since it’s just a game, there’s no deeper meaning at all! None! Absolutely none! All Right?!”

Dorothea clicked her tongue in frustration.

But for now, he made it through. Allene sighs in relief.

(Let’s just do whatever she want from now on…it’s impossible for us to really pull off acting like lovers anyway…)

Charlotte didn’t seem to dislike pretend play itself, but she was just as stiff as Allen earlier.

Even if they tried to pretend, neither of them would be able to act properly. If by some miracle Charlotte did become more forward… Allen had absolutely no idea what would happen to him.

Anyway, he’d try to act the way he always does.

Just as he had made that decision, Dorothea spoke up in a light tone.

“Well, that’s settled. let’s have you two start flirting exactly as I instruct!”

“WHAT!?”

A bolt from the blue.

But Dorothea said it without hesitation.

“Well, of course. If I waited for you guys to flirt on your own, even an elf like me would die of old age.”

“That’s how serious this is?! You’re saying we’re that hopeless?!”

Allen had hoped that if they took it slow, maybe, somehow they could pull it off.

But this was a very bad turn of events. He had been relieved because he knew that neither of them would be able to do anything on their own.

But with instructions from a third party, and from Dorothea at that, nothing good was likely to come of it.

Dorothea was smiling, while Allen was shaking in shock.

“C’mon, c’mon! I’m a seasoned romance master who’s caused thousands of readers to swoon and die from cuteness overload! I’ll have you two head-over-heels in no time!”

“If you’re such a master, why drag us into this…Just write from your own experience”

“Sadly, I have zero personal experience with romance.”

“You… and you still manage to write romance novels…?”

“Obviously. If writers could only write about what they personally experienced, all historical novelists would have to be mass murderers!”

Dorothea said this while staring off into the distance.

“Besides… I think it’s because we don’t know much about this world that we can write about it. Creators like us are like creepy bugs on the underside of a big rock. We create our works driven by our admiration for the sunlight, and die the moment we adapt to sunlight… we’re such fragile creatures.”

“You should apologize to all creators around the world for that statement.”

“But hey, don’t they say virgins create the spiciest erotic works?”

“I don’t know anything about that kind of crazy myth.”

“Allen-san, Allen-san! What’s ‘virgin’ mean?”

“Forget it right now. Okay?”

“Y-Yes.”

Allen locked eyes with Charlotte and, with utmost sincerity, urged her to forget everything.