"Well, you see, Nina, I had already made up in my mind that I was going to marry the proprietress of this hotspring at that very moment without even considering how old she was or how she looked, since her courageous spirit already managed to capture my heart..."
I said as if I was head over heels for a woman that I had never even met before and said some rather cheesy words that even made Nina blush out of shame for saying such terrible lines and made her wonder how I could say such garbage with a straight look on my face.
But as trashy as it was, it also made her giggle, which she quickly covered up so that I didn't find out that she found my words to be rather amusing.
"...But who would've thought that the moment she stepped out and when I finally got to see her figure, I would find out that not only was she a valorous woman who could probably fight off a pack of hungry wolves if she wanted to..." Nina blushed when she heard my statement and glared at me like she wanted to smack me at the back of the head for making her out to be such a vicious woman, while I gazed at Nina's gorgeous face and continued saying, "...But also such a drop-dead gorgeous woman as well, who almost made me slump down onto the floor with those three because of how smitten I was by how pretty she looked."
Nina was expecting to hear more from me about her glorious fighting abilities, which she was actually happy to hear since she was rather proud of her skills. But her eyes went wide when she heard something completely different—that she had never heard a man say even once to her in the past and didn't know how to react since she was so inexperienced in such matters.
She looked like she wanted to reject what I was saying since she didn't believe a word I said due to her insecurity about her own appearance. But seeing as to how boisterously I said it as if I were putting my life on my words, she found it hard to do so.
I didn't mind the confused and flustered look on Nina's face and continued saying, while looking at her,
"To be honest, Nina, I had thought that the owner of this hot spring was a barbarian with biceps the size of logs, since I could only imagine the build of a lady who could take out three men to be like that..." Nina gave a hostile stare at me, as even though she liked to be praised for her strength, she wasn't a fan of being called brawny when she was actually as slender as a green bamboo stalk.
"...So you could imagine how I felt when instead of the body builder I was expecting to come out, a beautiful lady who looked like the proud queen of her forest with her ever-so-tall legs and her ravishing green eyes came out instead."
"B-Bullshit Kafka! I'm calling your bullshit right there!"
Nina suddenly called me out in a fluster while pointing her finger at me like she had caught me saying an irredeemable lie, which proved all that I said about her earlier was a hoax.
"K-Kafka you..."
Nina was speechless as to what I was asking her, and she couldn't really say anything in response since every word I said stuck a chord in her heart that made her wonder if she really did have such flawless features and made her want to check out a mirror to see for herself if what I said was true.
But what she really wanted to ask me at the moment was something else that she had been wondering about.
"Kafka, did you memorise a bunch of lines to compliment me before coming here, or did you just think of all those words that sound like they belong in a poem on the spot?"
Nina asked, as she had seen others complimenting others in simple and modest ways, but was taken aback when she heard a high schooler describe herself in such an eloquent way, which was making her feel rather bashful because of how sincere and wholehearted it sounded.
"No, not really, Nina." I denied, as I looked into Nina's dazzling eyes, which were looking at me in a daze. "All I did was glance at your ravishing face once, and the words just started flowing out of my mouth."
Nina looked back into my eyes and carefully tried to find any signs of deceit that she could use against me, as she had already realised that she couldn't defeat me in a battle of words after seeing how every time I opened my mouth, I made her heart skip a beat.
But she only ended up blushing even more and glaring back at me for not even showing a single gap that she could take advantage of, after seeing that there didn't seem to be a single lie in my words or the expression I was showing.
She had built up a rather decent judgement of character after running a business for so many years, so when she realised that I wasn't joking or making fun of her by calling her pretty, she didn't know what to make of it and was rather confused since it was the first time such a situation ever occurred.
But just as Nina was lost as to what to do about the schoolboy who was pouring out his feelings towards her, she realised that she still hadn't pulled out her trump card yet, which she was sure would make me back off.
She then gave a triumphant smile, like victory was in her grasp, and looked at me like there was no way that I could insist that I found her attractive, after she herself pointed out her one characteristic, which was her biggest insecurity.