Chapter 11

The unexpected answer caused his expression to become confused.

Neither one had actually said anything like that.

Derrick asked Emily, who has ten years of experience, to serve as my personal maid, and it was only to put pressure on Penelope.

You’re a worse being than an ousted chambermaid…

But so what, it’s not an empty matter anyway.

”If I really want to pursue this later, I’ll just say that I mistakenly thought that’s what I meant at the time.”

I nodded frankly to Leonard.

“So you didn’t kick her out and made her your valet again?”

“Uh-huh.”

His brow immediately furrowed again and he let out a deafening growl

“Are you a fool? You should have refused!”

“Would that have made any difference?”

“What difference! Are you going to continue like this, eating rotting away food and then dying, and ……!”

“And can you guarantee that the new maid won’t do that?”

“….”

Hearing my words, the yelling Leonard shut his mouth.

I kept a careful eye on the value of [Favorability -3%] on Leonard’s head and chose words that would make him accept it.

There’s absolutely no way to blame him for what happened because of the attitude of you two assholes.

That would only make, this guy who has pride in the Eckhardt family, resentful.

Why don’t we just change the calculation of favorability to anger value?

That way, I can guess the mood of this temperamental guy through the anger value.

It’s bound to die if it drops from -3% favorability again.

‘Ha……’

That’s why Leonard wasn’t happy at all when his favorability went up.

“I didn’t go to father yesterday to discuss the matter of kicking her out.”

I slowly open my mouth to carefully choose what to say.

“Rather, I knelt down and asked father to originally say that I caused a disturbance during my grounding.”

“What did you say?”

My added words startled Leonard.

Penelope, who had never admitted she was wrong, would actually kneel, something that seemed to surprise him greatly.

“You requested the original ……? No, father asked you …… to kneel and apologize?”

Of course I wasn’t asked, I was the one who insisted on kneeling and apologizing.

But this time I also hid the inside story and turned to other things.

“I said I’d pay attention in the future and wouldn’t cause a ruckus during my grounding.”

“So let this matter pass.”

Actually I hope it’s best if you don’t get on my case again.

Honestly as long as this temperamental guy can do nothing, the danger of a death ending is cut in half.

‘So please stop stirring up trouble and let us live without interfering with each other, huh?’

But such words can’t be said directly and originally, so I organized my words with a pleading mind.

“Please, brother.”

Looking at the way I even lowered my head in request, Leonard could only stare at me dumbfounded with strange eyes.

At one point the corners of his mouth quirked up as he barely managed to make a sound.

“The hell you ……”

Looking at the expression of Leonard whose face had once again darkened, I could anticipate what he was going to say.

It would be like before when he was picking on me for no reason, asking me if I’m crazy, saying that he should just leave me, who had eaten the food from Degree Drop, alone.

Because I’m acting too meek now, not quite the Penelope I was before.

“Do you even have any self-respect?”

But suddenly a thunderous roar erupted in my ears.

“You were made to do that kind of unseemly thing, and you’re just going to be able to turn the page?”

“Is that what you really mean? You might as well be yelling and throwing things around like you used to! That’s more like you!”

Leonard was ranting as if he was taking what had happened to Penelope as if it were his own.

Too bad I’m not even as grateful as a mouse’s tail.

“You had already thought of this scenario when you put the necklace of the Duke’s daughter in my room, didn’t you?”

I couldn’t help but let out a shrill voice out of control.

“Wasn’t it your hope that it would turn out like this that you’ve done this to me so far.”

“…… What?”

Leonard’s mouth opened wide.

If you consider the [-3% favorability], this would not work. But at this moment in time, I don’t have that kind of concern at all.

Who are you to talk to me about pride.

”Who was the originator who brought Penelope to this point.”

The butler, the head maid, and Emily were all just fronts. Isn’t the real culprit right here.

Facing my calm tone, Leonard called out to me with difficulty squeezing out his voice like someone who can’t make a sound.

“…… Penelope. That’s ……”

“To this day I don’t have thoughts of wanting to blame you or anything like that. Because during this time it was me who had to live through it all by myself being stupid and arrogant.”

“But I’m tired of it all now.”

I said to him looking straight into his azure colored eyes.

“I’m an adult about to have my bar mitzvah, I can’t be at Eckhardt’s house all the time can I.”

Leonard’s can color went pale for a moment

“What do you …… mean by this? That’s all you want to marry?”

“It all depends on what father and eldest brother want.”

I shrugged. Of course what I said was nothing like what I thought.

I had absolutely no intention of sacrificing myself to a political marriage according to the wishes of these dukes and lesser dukes who had been living underneath this worldview.

There shouldn’t be such an event in the game’s plot anyway, and I’m still relatively comfortable with that.

I’m definitely going to reach an ending with one of these Raiders and escape this damned hellhole.

Don’t worry, you’ll never be the hero in my raid ending.

Once again, I begged him not to need to pay attention to this matter.

“So that means you don’t have to care about me, Leonard.”

I’ll take care of my own business. Might as well just leave me alone as usual would be best.

“It’s bath time, can you please get out?”

I glanced at the door of the room to give him my expulsion order.

But Leonard’s face became miserable and twisted.

I had never seen this expression on his face in the game before, and while I was surprised, I suddenly giggled in my heart.

”Wait, the favorability won’t decrease, right? It can’t be ……!’

In front of Leonard, I never acted the same way as Penelope. Instead, I carefully organized words that he would accept. But why was that!

Just then, on Leonard’s light pink hair, the originally empty value bar began to shine ……

[Favorability 3%]

”What?”

Instantly my mind went blank.

‘Why has the favorability gone up?’

And it went up by 6%.

I kept looking back and forth between Leonard and his value bar, and was feeling overwhelmed when, at some point, Leonard, whose expression had become stiff, mumbled something.

“…… I was foolish to show a moment’s concern for you.”

Those blue eyes that were glaring angrily at me seemed very sad.

After saying that, he walked in the direction of the door.

‘I might be hallucinating.’

Looking at his back as he left the room, I decided that this was the hallucination I was having.

Bang ……!

The door was slammed shut and returned to silence shortly after.

I leaned my arm on the table to support myself and began to think.

It felt a bit subtle, directly watching the favorability of a character whose likelihood would have been zero rise was surprisingly good for me.

“Surely it’s because my dialog is a bit better after turning off the option?”

In order to not let both of these brothers’ favorability towards me drop to a negative value.

“Just keep turning off the option from now on as well.”

After making a decision, I stood up. Thinking about what I said earlier, it wasn’t a lie to say to Leonard that I was going to bathe.

Just as I pulled the rope to signal the maid to come in, a sudden thought came to mind.

I can’t call Leonard negative anymore ah.

The grounding didn’t last long, and even ended sooner than I thought it would.

“A letter of invitation from the palace?”

“Yes, my lady. The young duke instructed me to convey to my lady to prepare for this.”

“Did the young duke …… no, did the elder brother say so?”

I changed it in a panic when I almost used the title ‘Young Duke’ unintentionally like the servants and the others did.

After all, I’m the youngest daughter of this family, so I have to be careful not to create too much of a sense of dissonance except in front of Derrick.

”In any case, just do what Derrick told me …… .

Although he didn’t tell me directly, it meant the end of my grounding period.

“Here’s the invitation bundle, miss.”

Emily presented the invitation bundle to me in a respectful manner.

On top of the invitation bouquet stamped with the golden dragon seal, a symbol of the royal family, the name ‘Penelope’ was clearly written.

The birthday party of the second royal son is tomorrow.

“I have to prepare quickly.”

Although I’m going to become busy, I feel a bit sad that the days of my grounding are ending like this.

During the time of the grounding, the days were actually quite good, not only did I not have to face those two brothers, but I also had Emily’s attentive service.

And based on the game’s plot, after the end of the grounding, both Derrick and Leonard and I would inevitably come into contact ……

”Wait.”

While thinking about the upcoming events, a sudden thought interrupted my thinking.

”If I head to the palace then …… then I might meet the crown prince next isn’t it!”

No, it’s not ‘probably’, but definitely.

Although there was no scene of Penelope traveling to the palace in the game, this was the first chapter of the Crown Prince’s route.

I remembered the illustration in the game where the Crown Prince repeatedly put his sword on Penelope’s neck and then quickly crossed it.

“Don’t ……!”

“Little, Miss?”

Emily was startled by my exclamation.

“I can’t go.”

It was the only way left if we were going to avoid that madman.

I hurriedly asked to Emily, who was shaking in fear of what mistake she had made.

“Emily, is father attending the banquet tomorrow as well?”

“His Excellency the Duke has something to be busy with tomorrow, so the young duke will escort you, miss, to the palace.”

Finished ……