Her Guide Is a Liar

[Female Guide × Male Sentinel, BG]

After causing a serious incident, a Guide was exiled to a border tower. One day, she took in a berserk Sentinel who had been abandoned by others.

She took on the task of treating him for her own purposes.

Skilled at manipulating emotions and easily able to interfere with a Sentinel's mental world, the Guide initially thought this would be a simple job.

But the Sentinel's mental domain was unexpectedly powerful. Unable to break in, she had no choice but to use emotional appeal. Even though she disliked her and hated being around Sentinels, she put on every bit of gentleness and patience she could muster.

The plan went smoothly. The Sentinel came to trust her, but she always felt something was missing.

It seemed he only saw her as a friend.

Unclear, dark emotions began to swell inside the Guide.

That wouldn't do. If they were only friends, why would she be willing to risk her life for him?

Of course, she couldn't possibly like him. But he had to be the only person she looked at.

The Guide altered the Sentinel's memories.

-

The Sentinel knew that the Guide who had helped her might have ulterior motives. So when she learned that all that tenderness had been an act, she only thought, Just as I expected. It was no different from all the other times.

So much had been false, but the care was real, the companionship was real, and so was the way he had pulled her out of a torturous abyss. The Guide had helped her a great deal, so she was willing to become his blade, killing his enemies to repay him.

She had always been the sharpest weapon. Perhaps that was the only thing she was good for.

But when she lay on the ground, barely conscious, she saw through her blood-blurred vision the Guide running toward her, his expression seeming to shatter.

She tasted the bitterness of tears.

-

He had thought he was the one in charge, the one in control. But then the scheming liar began to sink of his own accord into the warmth woven from those lies.

Yearning for a sincerity that didn't exist, he grew anxious and uncertain, uncontrollably trying to guess whose reflection appeared in her eyes.

The liar who had spun himself a beautiful dream was terrified of the day the deception would be exposed.

[Reader's Guide]

* My own take on the Guide-Sentinel world. I'm writing the kind of story I want to read, with plenty of my personal preferences and a strong focus on control.

A poker-faced, wooden woman × a smiling fox of a man.

* Several male supporting characters will appear, along with a few atypical groveling arcs and love-triangle elements.

* I'm getting back into writing, so the update schedule is currently uncertain. Updates usually come between 10 and 11 p.m.; other times are mostly for revisions.

Theme: Only by treating others sincerely can you receive sincerity in return.