Gift for Rias

The birthday party was over and the people in the hall had started to go home.

At the moment, only Riser and Rias remained. The two of them walked through the spacious hallway of the manison.

They had been walking for three minutes without speaking.

Rias who was following Riser while walking beside him was a bit nervous and scared. She didn't know why she was scared, maybe because until now Riser hadn't given her a birthday present, even after the birthday party was over and the vixens had finally left the two of them.

She was honestly surprised that there were so many famous beauties gathered around Riser before. Not only Grayfia and Sona, but surprisingly there were also young ladies from other big families such as Xenovia Quarta and Irina Shidou.

And they were all heroines!

In the past, Rias felt that Riser was not this popular, she had never seen any other women around other than herself or his family members.

Perhaps that was also one of the reasons why she in the past had also seemed indifferent to Riser, even when he had continued to pursue her for 3 years.

But now it was different, now Riser was surrounded by many women whose beauty and status were not even less than her. This made her more emotional about Riser, she felt insecure and very jealous seeing many vixens around him.

Her possessiveness was unbearable, she wanted to have Riser for herself. But if she took strong action for that, she was also afraid that Riser would resent her actions for restricting him.

And the truth was that she also felt shameless about restricting Riser's actions with their relationship that was basically only bound by an engagement contract.

Their relationship was not that close, it could even be considered awkward at times like this.

Rias did not know whether Riser still had love for her in his heart or not. Although he had helped her expel Diodora and Issei before, which made him seem to care about her.

But she could see that Riser was not enthusiastic when she embraced him, in fact he could practically look indifferent when she acted intimately with him.

Maybe he was doing it on purpose or maybe not.

Rias didn't know.

But when alone with Riser like now, she even felt there was a barrier that made it difficult for her to touch him.

Without realizing it, she and Riser arrived at a park area where they could see many flowers and a night sky filled with stars.

There were also several lamps lit up to illuminate the spacious and beautiful garden of the Gremory mansion.

Looking at Riser who stood looking up at the stars, Rias was getting anxious, she felt uncomfortable with this atmosphere.

"Riser, I..."

Before Rias could finish speaking, Riser spoke first.

"Rias, do you believe humans can capture stars?"

"Humans capturing star? That's... Is that possible?" Rias asked in confusion.

No, actually she was more confused as to why Riser was suddenly discussing stars.

Maybe because the stars in the sky looked beautiful right now?

Wait, why did she feel like this atmosphere was starting to change in a certain direction.

Rias's heart was beating a little faster than usual.

Her gaze fell on Riser's handsome face that was gazing at the sky, with the garden in the background, she felt that this scene looked cool and beautiful at the same time.

Riser looked like a handsome prince character out of a work of fiction which made Rias mesmerized and stared at him in a daze.

"It's possible for humans, but not all humans are lucky enough to be able to do it." Riser said calmly and softly, there was also a faint smile on his face.

"...Why?" Rias subconsciously asked, her gaze fixed on the side of Riser's face. She didn't know why, but she felt there was an air of melancholy around Riser that made her heart twitch.

"It's just a matter of luck and some other factors depending on one's character." Riser replied.

"...."

And Rias didn't understand what Riser meant, it seemed like this was a play on words that Riser deliberately made for her.

She bit her lip, she thought hard to find the meaning, but she still didn't understand.

She didn't know...

This feeling made her very uncomfortable.

Her chest also felt tight which made it difficult for her to speak.

But she forced herself to talk more with Riser as much as she could.

"If... If it was you, Riser. Would you be able to do it?"

Rias looked at Riser expectantly, the distance between the two of them was actually very close, but they didn't touch each other and just stood side by side.

There was a desire to touch Riser.

But she somehow felt afraid.

Afraid that Riser would brush her hand away or perhaps push her away.

She was also afraid that he would scold her with the cold words that came out of his mouth.

And she also really didn't want the distance between them to widen any further than it currently was.

"Me?" Riser asked himself, but he shook his head and said: "I've tried it before and it was a while ago..."

Riser said in a long tone as if describing how long he had worked hard to capture the star.

There was a wry smile on his face, which made Rias feel her heart ache.

She wanted to comfort Riser and even hug her at a time like this.

But she felt...

She felt like a coward now.

She wasn't as brave as a few days ago where she dared to kiss Riser, she even dared to declare that she would chase him.

The courage from that day had actually been steadily diminishing since then, even yesterday she had mustered up the courage to go to Riser's company and wait for her to give him a gift.

At that time she knew that she did not even dare to talk much with Riser, not even dare to kiss him like she did a few days ago.

Tonight, or rather earlier when there was the matter about Issei and Diodora, she had dared to hug Riser in front of many people.

Perhaps that courage also came by chance because it was forced by circumstances.

There were also those vixens hanging around Riser that made him dare to hug her in front of many people.

Now that courage was gone she was frustrated and hated herself.

She hated how cowardly she was now.

If other women were in her position now. Would they be able to do better than her?

Take that silver-haired woman for example.

If it was Grayfia, with her calm and cool personality perhaps she could have done better than her.

Even bolder than her.

Recalling the scene of Grayfia feeding Riser at the banquet where many people saw her.

Rias felt very envious of the silver-haired woman's bravery.

Why that woman could.

But I can't?

I'm Riser's fiancée, but another woman is ahead of me in so many ways?

How sad...

Rias Gremory is a sad woman...

Rias mocked herself in her mind.

She didn't even realize that her lip was bleeding because she bit it too hard.

Her gaze seemed to have nothing else but the face of the man in front of her.

She was still waiting for him to finish speaking, but the next words that came out of his mouth hurt her deeply.

"Until I fail because I've given up on catching that star."

Gave up.

That one word was inexplicably ringing in Rias' head, she didn't understand its meaning, but she couldn't bear to hear it.

"I saw another star that was no less bright than the previous one and was even willing to come down from the sky just so I could catch it."

Riser's tone seemed pleased when he said another star.

But Rias wasn't happy at all, she was getting more and more sad and depressed so she stabbed her finger hard into her own palm until it bled.

Her vision seemed to be foggy so she couldn't see Riser's face clearly.

Her breathing was labored, she found it increasingly difficult to speak.

So she could only stand still in place without saying a word at the moment.

She saw Riser turn his body to face her and take out something from his coat pocket.

"Happy birthday Rias. I don't know what number gift exactly, the gift I gave you this time. If you don't like it, you are free to throw it away like you did in the past."

Riser said flatly while taking one of Rias' hands and placing a small gift box in her hand.

Without waiting for Rias to speak, he immediately turned around and left.

Rias was stunned to see the gift box in her hand, her tears had already fallen from a moment ago.

"W-Wait..."

She tried to reach out to Riser's back with her hand, but the other party had already walked far enough away from her.

And somehow she felt her body go limp after hearing his words earlier.

She felt like she was going to fall at any moment.

Riser's words earlier shattered her psychological defenses making her heart ache until she could not help but clutch her chest.

The small gift box from Riser was also hugged with difficulty.

Gift...

Right, Rias just remembered that Riser had given her many gifts in the past.

In 3 years don't know how many gifts her had received from Riser, but she often refused them or if they were already in her place, she would throw them away or give them to someone else.

Rias' head buzzed as if realizing her mistake again.

She felt that looking forward to Riser's birthday present this time was a very wrong thing on her part.

She felt very shameless.

Making her laugh pitifully while crying.

She pondered over every word Riser had said earlier.

Riser had left, and she was left alone in the garden.

Not knowing how much time had passed since Riser left, Rias who was still crying alone in the garden felt her vision darken and she collapsed on the ground.

Rias felt she was dreaming, in the dream she was living happily with Riser and had 2 children with him.

They all played together in the playground.

The moment was beautiful, but she saw that whole scene shattered into pieces.

At that moment Rias felt that her dream was just darkness where she couldn't see Riser anymore.

...

At Riser's villa.

Riser had already returned to his villa, he changed his clothes, washed his face and sat on the sofa while opening his laptop.

He saw that Ophis wanted to make him coffee or milk for him, but he refused and told her to go to sleep in her room.

That loli went to her room with a frown.

But Riser was not in the mood to tease that loli, he just smiled faintly which made his system couldn't stand it.

[Host, what are you doing?]

"Hmm...what do you mean, system?"

[You... You seriously want to play that hard?]

"Hey~ what can I do? My predecessor already suffered a lot, so I just want to make it somewhat balanced."

[....]

The system didn't know how to persuade, so he could only change the topic.

[How about a reward from me? Want to open it now?]

Riser's lips twitched.

Isn't it obvious?

You're still asking about this?

What about your intelligence upgrade that you did in silence? You seem to be far from the level of Jarvis that Tony Stark has in Marvel.

[Host, I'm a system with supernatural powers that can give you various rewards. I'm only asking as a matter of formality.]

[In terms of intelligence level, I'm not lower than that artificial intelligence named Jarvis.]

[Can Jarvis give you various god-level abilities or powers easily? No, he can only hack, calculate, and move a metal object called--]

"Okay, okay, you're better than Jarvis, system. Let's open my reward quickly before I sleep tonight."

Riser felt must to stop his system from babbling on about how much better she was than Iron Man's artificial intelligence.

Otherwise, he would have a migraine.

The next second, the system finally threw his reward.

[Ding! You successfully survived the plot, you get...