Love often makes fools of people.
That sentence...
Don't know when he first heard it.
Maybe around the first grade of junior high school in his previous life?
When he first heard this, he was skeptical and felt that people were stupid because they were not good at controlling themselves and were unwilling to put in the effort to learn.
There were actually many reasons for that.
However, even when he had already graduated from high school and started to enter the adult world by starting to work.
He was still skeptical every time he remembered that sentence.
Although he had seen many of his schoolmates, office mates, and even his neighbors prove that it was true.
But he...he was skeptical and felt that if he fell in love with a woman. He was so confident that he wouldn't be stupid.
What kind of stupid? Well for example like acting less rational, often smiling to himself, feeling fine suffering as long as that person can see their loved one happy and etc.
There were many examples, and he had seen many examples of it from his friends and even strangers he accidentally saw in random places.
Even though those people looked stupid, he knew they looked very happy...
Actually, every time he saw them.
He was very envious.
Although he shouldn't be envious because his life wasn't bad either. Except for love, he had many friends, had a good family, and his career wasn't bad.
He didn't lack money because he didn't even have many things he wanted to buy except for something he needed for work, necessities of life, or if his parents needed money, he would give them immediately whenever.
His life was smooth, he never even experienced anything like feeling desperate due to lack of money or anything like that.
If he wanted to achieve something, he had no trouble studying and working hard to get it.
If he's bored, he often studies every single thing he finds interesting to the point where he's an expert in the field.
Once when he was bored, he saw a video on YouTube of someone playing the piano and played a piano cover version of the song "Kamado Tanjiro no Uta".
He didn't understand anything about piano at the time, but he was fascinated to see someone's skill to make a song into a piano version.
Not long after watching the video, he immediately ordered a piano and books about piano online. He started learning to play the piano not long after that and after many trials and errors.
In less than two months, one and a half months to be exact, he was no worse than a master and had almost no trouble making any song into a piano version. Even so, even though he knew his piano skills were good. He often felt that he hadn't practiced enough and in the end in a few more months he upgraded his piano skills to a higher level.
Don't know how high his piano level was back then, but he was definitely no worse than a Grandmaster.
With his piano skills, he could have entered a piano competition and started the path of a pianist.
However, he was never interested in becoming a pianist to begin with and he learned piano only because he was interested in it in the first place. And that's it, after he was satisfied learning piano, he eventually got bored and would usually look for something else interesting.
For example, learning guitar, drums, violin and not just limited to musical instruments. He also learns other things such as various martial arts, various languages, table tennis, badminton, golf, horse riding, airsoft gun, parkour, beat box, jet ski, archery, chess, hacking, drawing, and etc.
Many of the skills he can learn he has learned in his previous life. He mastered many things, but as time went by he even started to get bored of learning.
With his talent, it didn't take him long to learn and master what he learned. At least compared to the average person, he learned quickly.
Although he never really showed off all his skills in public. Some of his friends and family members knew how great he was and often gave his lots of compliments.
He was happy of course, but over time he also grew tired of the compliments. He once thought that maybe it would be more fun if a lot of unknown people praised his skills? So he posted videos of his skills on YouTube and people praised him so much that his own subscribers jumped to several million within a week.
He knew it was a great thing, he was happy with the many people who praised him, but again he quickly got bored and stopped being a Youtuber.
Over time he prefers to live his life as usual. He wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home from work, sometimes plays with some friends, goes to bed and the next day repeats the same thing except for holidays which may change slightly but are basically the same - monotonous and boring.
It's at times like that that he often remembers the phrase "Love often makes fools of people".
There are also other things about love such as "Love makes a person's life from boring to colorful like a rainbow".
"Love is like sugar that makes your heart sweet and you can't help but smile."
"Love makes your days more vibrant."
"Love is the most beautiful thing in the world."
"Love..."
"Love..."
"Love..."
And the word he says every time he remembers all that is...
"Horrible."
"Are these people stupid?"
Especially when he saw that people did look stupid when they were in love.
Yet, they look so happy...
Which makes him often feel and say "envy."
"I'm so envious."
Whereas with his looks, skills, and finances he would definitely have no trouble finding a woman to be his girlfriend or wife.
Unfortunately from all the women who had approached him back then. With his intelligence, specifically his high EQ, he could see that all those women were attracted to him because of the three things above.
There was nothing wrong with that. There was nothing wrong. He knew, it was just that even though many of those women had beautiful and sexy looks.
None of them made him feel the things those stupid words of love mentioned.
It made him annoyed and wondered if he had to deliberately lower his own EQ and even IQ to be able to enjoy what love felt like?
Of all things, he had a hard time learning about love.
None of those women were able to make him fall in love and do irrational or stupid things like smile to himself or something.
He began to sigh often and wondered why it was so hard to fall in love?
As expected, it must be because he did not lower his intelligence, right?
He had certainly tried lowering all his intelligence to the level of an ordinary person and tried dating a few women. But instead of feeling what love felt like, he was sure he was learning acting skills and honing them without realizing it.
In addition to becoming better at making the women happy, he was also good at deceiving and making the women think he liked them.
In the end after a date he immediately breaks up with them and looks for another woman which makes him look like a bastard, however he keeps doing it until he finds a woman who can teach him love or he gets tired of it.
When he takes a break and stops his bastard act for a few months he spends his free time watching anime or reading novels.
The Japanese entertainment entertained him enough, at least he wouldn't die of boredom and he naturally also started to learn about otaku culture back then.
But seeing many characters like the herbivorous protagonists who were often stupid and too dense to realize the heroines liked him. Even when the protagonists were given the chance to fall in love, they often annoyed him with their stupidity, hypocrisy, and inferiority complex that made her want to vomit blood.
He began to develop a hatred for characters like the herbivorous protagonist, but what annoyed him was that he was also...
Envy.
He was also very envious of the damn herbivorous protagonist, even the normal, capable ordinary protagonist who had a harem of beautiful girls. He was more envious of the latter to the point of driving him almost crazy.
Not that the protagonists had harems, but he envied how easily they could fall in love and they actually looked happy with the heroines.
"When can I feel that?"
He often asked himself this back then.
Until one day, precisely when his grandmother fell ill and required her to be hospitalized.
He put aside all the envy and thirst for love in his heart. Taking turns with his other family members to look after his grandmother in the hospital.
When it was his turn, he went to the hospital and as usual stayed overnight in the hospital to look after his grandmother. He often slept out in the open, precisely in the outdoor area where many chairs lined the hospital corridor.
There were actually more comfortable rooms for people who wanted to stay overnight at the hospital to wait for patients. The hospital facilities were very good, and there was definitely no shortage of such rooms.
However, for some reason he always found it difficult to sleep in the rooms in the hospital. So he often slept in the corridor area of the hospital while enjoying the night breeze and that's when he finally met her.
He did not think about the foolishness of love at that moment. Just nodded to give a slight greeting to the woman who seemed to also want to stay in the hospital corridor area who happened to be sitting not far beside him.
The woman also saw him and nodded to him.
"....."
"....."
At their first meeting.
Neither of them initiated conversation or were curious about each other.
Another day passed just as it was time for another stay at the hospital.
He met that woman again and she also happened to be sitting not far from him. Actually she had sat there earlier that time and because the room where his grandmother was being treated was not far from there.
He also preferred to sit there. And perhaps the woman was also accompanying a family member who was being treated in one of the rooms not far from where they were sitting.
The two of them sat side by side again, but this time when she looked at him, she gave him a small smile while nodding which of course he returned in kind.
She sat down while playing with her cell phone and he did the same after that.
The two of them did not speak to each other, but only he knew that he was completely dumbfounded.
"What's going on with me?!"
He shouted in his heart at that moment and was very confused.
Why?
It was because he felt a strange and first-time feeling when she smiled at him.
He must be crazy.
Oh, no. He wasn't crazy, it was just the sight of her smiling at him.
His heart beat faster than usual.
And there was also a strange feeling as if he was more excited than usual.
Maybe he has a heart problem?
...
..
Huh? Are you stupid? Of course not!
His IQ and EQ were online back then and he didn't intentionally lower them to such low levels as he pretended in his dates with those women.
It made him curious about the woman.
Sometimes, he would secretly glance to the side as if curious about the corridor road beside him, but actually what he was looking at was the woman.
He peeked at her profile from the side and it was enough to make him see what she looked like that he hadn't given much thought to before.
He knew she was very beautiful.
Her beauty was above the women he had dated, and in fact she had an almost two-dimensional appearance like the heroine characters in anime.
Her long black hair was flowing and looked very delicate.
Her lips were glossy pink, her eyelashes were long and her eyes that were staring at her cell phone were green.
Her skin is milky white, her figure slender and voluptuous.
Not much different from yesterday, the woman was now wearing a white shirt with a half-sleeved black blazer. A little accessory like a silver necklace hung on her white neck.
For her bottom, she wore long black pants that looked rather tight and showed off the curves of her long legs.
The shoes she was wearing were women's loafers.
Just from her clothes, he knew she must be an office lady who went straight to the hospital after work to visit a family member or something.
It wasn't really a matter of the woman's appearance which was very beautiful.
Okay, appearance is also a plus to enhance one's impression.
But what stunned him was her smile.
He didn't understand why that woman's smile could even mesmerize him. No, he actually understood it was just that his skepticism made him pretend to be stupid like those damn protagonists.
Even so, he quickly calmed himself down and only looked at her for 3 seconds before going back to staring at his phone which was displaying a YouTube video because it was quite boring staying in a place like that without playing internet.
At least until he felt sleepy, he would watch some YouTube videos first. It was just that while he was watching the video on his cell phone, was it just his hallucination or did he feel that the woman occasionally glanced at him from the side?
From the corner of his eye he could see that the woman's movements seemed to feign curiosity to look at the corridor at his side. It was almost the same as what he was doing earlier and he could feel that she was looking at him!
At that time he pretended not to feel her gaze and continued to stare at his phone while refraining from turning his head to her.
Surprisingly he was a little nervous.
It wasn't that he was narcissistic, but he was also very confident in his appearance and if it wasn't for that he definitely wouldn't be able to date many women who looked like models.
He didn't know when, but after turning off his cell phone. He started to get sleepy and he fell asleep while sitting on the chair without paying attention to the woman anymore.
"Miss nurse, did you or another nurse give me this blanket?"
The next day, he woke up with a white blanket covering his body. The woman had of course disappeared and unlike him, the other party did not stay overnight at the hospital. It was the same as the previous day, it seemed like the woman always left before midnight.
He thought the hospital gave him the blanket and of course he planned to return the blanket, but the answer of the nurse on duty around the area where he slept left his dumbfounded.
"I'm sorry sir, but it wasn't me and the hospital doesn't actually provide a service to give blankets to people sleeping in the corridor."
"So this blanket doesn't belong to the hospital?"
"It doesn't sir, maybe one of your family members gave it to you?"
"...."
He fell silent and thanked the nurse lady before folding the blanket and going to check on his grandmother. He had confirmed that she was getting better, and after that he got into his car in the parking lot.
Looking at the blanket in his hand, he brought it up to his face and smelled it.
"This smell...it's a woman's perfume."
With his intelligence, there was no way he could not guess who the person who gave him this blanket was.
If anyone were to see him at this moment, that person would definitely see him smiling to himself.
It was almost as stupid as the people he often envied!
However, he did not realize it at that time and night. After he went home from work, he still had to stay at hospital again.
He met the woman again and this time he took the initiative to talk to her.
"Miss, is this your blanket?"
The woman looked at him with her green eyes and beautiful face and she nodded while accepting the blanket.
"Yes, this is mine."
"Ah so it's really you? Thank you for lending me your blanket last night. I washed your blanket by the way."
"Eh...yes you did. Even though you don't need to wash it."
The woman smiled, a smile that was more beautiful than the last time that left him dumbfounded again.
His heartbeat increased almost like a drum being played and that feeling started to arise again.
Damn it...
His lips twitching, he tried to remain calm on the surface. However, it was as if he was stupid and lacking rationality. He sat right beside the woman and groaned mentally.
'Fool, what am I doing?!'
'But even if I do this, there's no need to be so nervous, right?!'
'During dating and seducing those women. I wasn't nervous like this!'
Still in the same corridor. They were sitting side by side, but their distance this time was closer which of course the woman noticed.
"....."
"....."
Their previous conversation was interrupted and an awkward air began to envelop the two of them.
Worried that she would take offense to sitting right next to her, he was about to widen the distance and sit like the night before.
But she stopped him by starting a conversation.
"Is your family member being cared for not far from this corridor?"
"Yes, my grandmother is being treated in room number 42."
Probably out of excitement, he still sat there and answered the woman honestly without caring about privacy.
Even though the woman was a stranger to him, the other party also didn't seem to care about that kind of thing.
"Room 42? My grandmother also happens to be admitted not far from here. It's in room number 48."
The woman looked at him and spoke in a tone that sounded excited. This of course made him even more excited, he even started not paying attention to the surroundings and just focused on staring at the woman.
"Really? What a coincidence."
"Un, now I understand why you often stay at the hospital."
He saw that she was still looking at him with a smile while hugging the blanket he had just returned earlier.
It made her rather cute, especially with her office suit.
All her movements somehow looked cute, and his eyes could not ignore them.
He must be crazy, right? He couldn't believe he would one day feel that way about a woman.
Whenever she spoke, her soft and elegant voice made his ears focus all their attention on her.
It must be his hallucination, he also saw that the air around him seemed to be colored as if the originally rather gloomy atmosphere of the hospital became bright instantly.
T-This...
Is this what people in love often see?
So this is how it feels? But he hasn't known this woman for long and he already feels that way about her?!
Well actually he also remembered a certain sentence about love from the internet that said.
"Love is no respecter of time. One can even fall in love at first sight."
If it was him before, he would definitely call that sentence nonsense.
The person who posted that sentence on the internet must have just been seeking attention with the words he had concocted when he was bored.
But now, he knew that sentence slapped him and told him what he called nonsense was his heartbeat which was currently beating like crazy.
"If I may know, what is your name, miss?"
After chatting a bit about why they were both in the hospital. He couldn't help but be curious about her and asked her name.
"Ah? That's right. I almost forgot to introduce myself."
The woman lightly brushed her hair that fell behind one ear before offering him a handshake.
He was a little surprised to see her offer her hand, but of course he did not refuse.
He held the woman's warm and soft hand with an excited feeling of finally knowing what the woman's name was.
"My name is Chelsea. What's your name, Mr?"
Chelsea? What a beautiful name....
He resisted the urge to utter the flirtatious words he usually used to please the ladies.
For some reason, he became very polite and didn't want to act too flirtatious because he was worried that she wouldn't like him.
So in addition to being somewhat foolish, love also makes people more cautious when acting in front of their loved ones.
Ugh...he couldn't help but groan mentally realizing the change in himself.
However, he didn't pretend and actually smiled at the woman.
The woman inexplicably widened her eyes slightly when she saw his smile, but he did not pay much attention to it and told the other party his name.
"My name..."
He knew after he introduced his name back then, the two of them would start to become friends, exchange contacts, and start to deepen their relationship.
They dated, until one day he was willing to sacrifice himself so that she would not die in a certain accident.
It was his first love in his previous life.
Which made him successfully learn what love was and in the next life he wouldn't be so hard to fall in love with.
It was all because of that woman.
I don't know when he started to forget those memories.
No, before that he only remembered them vaguely after he reincarnated.
But now he managed to remember them clearly.
Perhaps it was because of Lala's homemade fish soup that made him faint that night.
There was no telling how much time had passed.
He opened his eyes only to see the familiar sky of the room and the familiar pink-haired girl who seemed to cry upon seeing him awake.
"Woo! Woo! Eiji~! You finally woke up~? I'm sorry! I-I won't insist on making you eat my cooking anymore!"
Lala had already thrown herself at him and was looking at him with tears in her eyes. The girl even spoke while choking occasionally, which made him want to slap himself for making her cry.
"Don't cry Lala. I'm awake, I'm fine, see? And about your cooking...well, we can talk about that later."
"Really? You're fine now, Eiji~?"
"Yes~ look, I can even do this."
"Pfft! Hahaha! Eiji, stop~! Ah~! Ah~!"
The girl laughed and moaned, make people might misunderstand that he was doing something perverted to her.
But no, okay? He was just tickling her slender waist!
By the way it's really nice to hold Lala's waist.
It feels soft, supple, and...
¶{It's good to hear you can joke around again, host.}
'Miss System! How are you?!'
Hearing the familiar voice in his head, he couldn't help but tease the other party.
¶{Hmph! I'm fine, but the others are definitely not fine, host.}
¶{You've been unconscious for quite some time and some plot has been going on.}
"...."
He froze upon hearing this, he remembered the last time the protagonist's voice was heard and rambled on about his plans.
Well, he must have missed quite a few things during his unconsciousness.
"Lala, how long have I been unconscious?"
He sat up in bed and Lala was still hugging him like a koala.
She lifted her head, looking at him while putting her index finger on her lips with an expression of remembering something that looked cute.
[Lala, you are so cute.]
"Hehe~"
Lala giggled, she looked happy and was completely back to her usual cheerful self.
Eiji was happy to see this, but still asked.
"So, how long?"
"Ah...about you being unconscious. You were unconscious for about...three days."
"Three days?!"
With all the power he had from BoBoiBoy Thunderstorms, Demon King Varvatos, Anos Voldigoad, and other powers.
He...
He fainted for three days just from eating Lala's food?!
Miss System, confirm reality!
¶{Although I'm not sure why...although the ingredients Lala used definitely wouldn't be able to hurt you. It's just that Lala made all those ingredients into food}.
¶{You're the host exception! Other than you being unconscious for three days, other girls like Asia and Kuroka who ate Lala's cooking only got a stomachache and needed to stay in the bathroom for a few hours!}
"What?! Why is the effect so different?! Also, I'm obviously stronger than them. Why am I the one suffering the most?"
Eiji was confused.
Miss System was also confused.
Lala tilted her head and wondered why her fiancé was looking at her dumbfounded?
What surprised you?
"Lala, you must have hidden Rank EX skills related to food, right? Damn, if only I had the skill to analyze people's status..."
¶{You might get that kind of thing later, host! Those protagonists are waiting to be harvested!}
"Miss System, have you read the books from Country Z?"
¶{I haven't. I just read some novels about farm protagonists out of boredom.}
Both of them looked cheerful as if the emotional drama never happened.
They were even heard making fun of the protagonist afterwards.
"???" Lala.
Only she was confused.
She was confused about what her fiancé was talking about?
Also Eiji, who are you talking to?
Are you sure you're okay? Woo~ If I knew it would be like this, I wouldn't have insisted on cooking food for Eiji~
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A/N: If you want to read 5 advanced chapters with a faster update frequency than the webnovel, you can read it on my patreon whose link is below:
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By the way, don't forget to throw power stones and leave a review to motivate me :)
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Honestly, when writing this chapter I forgot that Eiji was immune to poison and I also forgot about Anos's physical defenses. Oh my gosh... It's a bit embarrassing, but at least I used this opportunity to explain a little about Eiji in his previous life. Cough, looks like I have to make a chapter that reminds everyone, including me about what rewards Eiji has received so far. That's all for today, sorry to disappoint you and good night~!