Novels2Search
Odyssey of the Guardian Emperor
73. How to pick up girls

73. How to pick up girls

Alaric was astounded, beyond words, flabbergasted, freaked out. Alaric froze at the reflection in the mirror… Was that him? No, that couldn’t be.

Where were his light scars? Where was the occasional freckle? Why was his skin tone so even, as though the sun did not affect him? Why did he look like some rich brat who didn’t know the meaning of hard work? Why was his skin lighter? Why did his hair look like it was made of silk?

He must have imagined it… but was his skin glowing?

“Is the new soap enchanted?” he asked the caretaker who was currently staring at him with a sheepish grin.

“Oh, it’s cute when you’re in denial,” Sister Marla chuckled.

It was then that Alaric noticed something strange about the caretaker. All his life he’d known her to be exceedingly attractive. Part of the reason the boys loved her hugs was because they would get close to what they perceived to be an angel.

Sister Marla was very beautiful and her skin was just as fair… but only now did Alaric finally question whether her beauty was at all… natural.

“Sister Marla, what Temper Rank are you?”

“Oh me… Wood Rank Ninth Level. Why do you ask?” she replied innocently.

‘Wood Rank?’ he wondered. He’d seen Garin and his guards and they were Wood Rank as well… but they still looked a bit rugged. Attractive, but rugged nonetheless. If anything, Alaric was the anomaly here.

[ Perhaps people change differently as they increase their Rank? ] Alia tried.

“Have you always looked so…” he stopped his tongue before he continued… “I mean when you were younger. Did you also look so…”

[You have a nice way with words.] Alia rolled her eyes within from within his shadow.

“Have I always looked so… what, Alaric?” the woman asked with a brilliant smile that seemed to light up the heavens. Was she the sun?

Swallowing, Alaric continued, “Unblemished.”

Marla’s jaw dropped and she asked with a raised brow, “Unblemished?”

“You have no scars at all. Your hands aren’t calloused even though you wash utensils, cook and do all sorts of hard work every day. Your skin is still smooth despite all of that and you don’t seem as interested in skincare as I’ve seen other maidens of the Five Hills are,” Alaric responded.

Marla facepalmed and pinched the bridge of her nose, “No, Alaric, I’ve not always looked like this. It happens when you perform the Tempering Ritual. The higher you rise in rank, the more your body gets rid of small… imperfections. Also, the next time you're trying to compliment a girl, try using more direct compliments.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Alaric thought through her words for a bit before beaming, “I was trying to sound less… creepy but since we’re on the topic, would it have been better if I’d used words like beautiful and stunning.”

“What’s your context, complimenting a girl or complimenting your caretaker?”

“A girl,” Alaric responded eagerly.

“Is there someone in particular or are we being random?”

“We are being random. I don’t have someone in mind but I think this is a lesson I ought to learn,” Alaric responded.

“Fine… 'Beautiful' and 'Stunning' are fine if you’re not trying to court them which is what you should have done two seconds ago. However, if you’re trying to court a girl, then you have to get a bit more poetic. Talk about something she probably didn’t notice about herself or something someone else wouldn’t normally notice about her. As you can already tell, if she’s gone through Body Tempering, then she already knows she’s beautiful. That’s just a fact,” Sister Marla explained.

At this point, Nina had stopped drawing and was paying more attention to the conversation. A few other girls were listening in on the other side of the dormitory door. A similar scene was happening on the other side of the boy’s dormitory door as well.

Garin was frozen beneath the kitchen windowsill, his face white as ash with a white flower in his mouth, ‘What’s with this conversation?’

Alaric spoke up, “Alright, so for your case, I would compliment your eyes and explain how they remind me of the deep oceans I’ve read about in novels, so much I could drown in them.”

Marla’s face was now a shade redder. She nodded feverishly, wondering when it was that her eyes had ever been described like that.

“Okay, what else… Your hair is as soft as silk and like rivers of silver, it makes you look like an angel,” he continued, his eyes scanning her body for more features to exploit.

He described her skin to be as fair and smooth as a ceramic cup, delicate yet soft and warm like a mother’s hug. Only when his eyes had gone down to her modest bosom did Alaric realise what he was doing and go full red.

There was silence for a while before his nose picked up on an odd smoky scent. His eyes went wide and he rushed into the kitchen to salvage the situation.

Marla noticed only after the boy was bustling through the kitchen that there was a disaster on their hands. The meat needed to be stirred, the potatoes were ready and the rice… Well, the rice was beyond saving.

Alas, rice didn’t take long to cook, so supper would be late by at least ten minutes.

The pair had worked together in the kitchen before, so it wasn’t hard for them to find their balance. They did, however, have trouble finding their voices as their last conversation made it so that they couldn’t even look each other in the face.

Ten minutes passed before Sister Marla just said, “You’re so silly.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

With that, the two burst out in laughter, the tension dropping both for them and their spectators, who had also gone still like sculptures.

Garin, who was outside taking notes, was currently smiling like a thief in a mansion made of gold. He’d been planning a similar approach but nothing he’d come up with would have been as creative as what Alaric had said.

As it so happened, the few books Alaric had read, albeit repeatedly, had given him just the right amount of creativity to pull off the lines Garin needed to refine his crude understanding of a love confession.

Seeing as he’d already come up with something already, there was no harm in taking a few tips from his very target’s suggestions and incorporating them into his own work.

“Soooo… Garin’s nice,” Alaric mentioned, catching the man’s attention.

“Yes, that he is,” she responded lightly but didn’t say much else. Secretly, Garin was hoping she could say a little more so he could get a clue on whether he had a chance.

Alas, that didn’t happen… and he was left even more confused than he’d come.