Chapter 38
Derrick was silent for a moment before speaking again with difficulty.
“…… If it was necessary, couldn’t you have instructed someone below you to do it?”
“Rumors of an as-yet-unmarried young lady going in search of a man of unknown origin would bring shame to the family.”
I roundly proposed the scenario as an opportunity to do what I needed to change the impression of Penelope in Derek’s eyes.
I’m not a noisy and stubborn parasite who yells all the time.
”So, can you not care at all about whatever I do? Can’t you just not care at all?”
Cold eyes [13% favorability]. I had to lower myself as much as possible and speak politely so that the favorability wouldn’t drop any further.
Though that said, I didn’t expect him to rise either.
“…… Penelope.”
But. Derrick sighed deeply and spoke.
“You’re close to adulthood, and I wouldn’t want to interfere with you if you didn’t even know what your purpose was.”
” ….”
“But if you want to go out, don’t use that dog hole anymore. Go out through the front door with pride, and I’ll inform the butler.”
[Favorability 17%]
“Or, you can go out with the slave that was brought back.”
Derrick’s favorability went up. What I couldn’t understand wasn’t just his goodwill, but also the words he said to me.
‘If I’m going to die by your hand without knowing what mistake I’ve made, then why are you granting me favors?’
Thinking about Penelope’s past, it was reasonable for him to be skeptical about going out in secret.
If Penelope was allowed to go around wide like a mad dog, he would be responsible for taking care of Penelope’s aftermath.
In any case, to my surprise, he agreed to me continuing to go out as I did today.
” You won’t let me?”
I snapped at him with eyes full of confusion. Derrick replied with a frown instead.
“Well shouldn’t you be walking back to the mansion wearing this mask with a stupid face on it?”
“…… What?”
He suddenly reached out to me and removed the mask I was wearing.
“Because it detracts from Eckhardt’s identity, this one, confiscated.”
“Ah ……”
I was removed from my mask. After a few moments, a cool evening breeze brushed my face quite after practicing tightly all day.
Looking up at Derrick through a narrow field of vision, he looked cold and angry. But when I opened my eyes and looked at him holding my river back mask, I felt some ……
“That’s today’s punishment.”
He looked pretty happy, was it an illusion?
“Leonard bought this for me ……”
I muttered absentmindedly a few times to myself, my eyes darting between his face and my mask.
“This one, take it.”
He snapped at me immediately afterward.
“There is magic poured into these jewels. As long as er wear it you’ll be able to activate protection and disguise magic.”
“The wizard who gave me this said that it will make you look like a boy your age to others.”
In his large hand lay a white gold bracelet with rubies.
“The cheap ones were broken before, so I just replaced them all with the best garnets.”
Derrick added. He sounded like he was whining.
I scanned towards his palm. It was the same bracelet Derrick had been holding when I picked out my mask on the first day of the festival, the night I snuck out to rescue Ikris.
I looked at the fuchsia-red color like a ripe plum and thought how similar it was to my hair color, on which I’d never imagined he’d give it to me as a gift.
Since it’s totally pink, I thought you’d keep it so you could give it to the heroine later, but—”
”So it looks like it’s the second one.”
The expensive looking silk scarf, and the magic bracelet.
I raised my head and looked into his blue eyes again, feeling overwhelmed.
“…… Why?”
It’s called ‘speaking before thinking’.
“…… What?”
“Why did you give me this?”
I glanced at the bracelet again and threw out the query thusly.
Having been replaced with the finest garnets, these small dark red side stones glowed under the night. It was something that even I, who had no interest in jewelry, could easily see.
But rather than thanking him for the gift of the hand touch, I preferred to have asked and suspected first. After all, he and Leonard had that history.
Something a little sleazy a
Those eyes were always wrathful in Penelope’s memory.
“You don’t like me to be profligate.”
“…… Don’t you like jewelry?”
For some reason, what I said embarrassed Derrick slightly.
“I like it.”
I took it meekly. Even in the game, Penelope couldn’t use any exaggerated jewelry. Even if that was the only thing that could fill the sourness and sadness inside her.
“All my jewelry isn’t stolen, and I wouldn’t steal it from anyone else.”
I couldn’t figure out why you would give it to me, because you clearly despised me that much.
I don’t know how far Derek could have understood what I said. But I’m sure his face froze because he knew what I was saying.
“If you don’t want it.”
“……..”
“Then throw it away.”
He easily flipped over the handkerchief he used to wrap the pot in. A gleaming white gold chain fell to the ground in response. It tumbled in the dust of the Skeleton Liner.
Putting an end to those acts of travesty, Derrick turned away and quickly descended the hill.
At this moment, I pondered whether I should follow.
[Yes]/[No].
Suddenly, the white window appeared in front of my eyes.
“…… Ha.”
I froze in place, my mouth smiling.
“Is this quest still incomplete?”
I’m pretty sure I pressed “Decline” when it asked me again earlier if I wanted to do the quest again, but why did it work?
With a deep frown, I nervously pressed [Yes]. The text in the square window quickly changed.
I obtained [Favor +3%] from [Derrick] and the [Magic Bracelet] he gave me from the system rewards.
“Oh, this is an other reward?”
I remember it saying, “Favorability and other.”
I didn’t pay much attention to it because I didn’t need any of it.
I looked down with cold eyes at the bracelet flopping around in the dust.
“…… Mean assholes.”
Eventually, I knelt down and picked up the bracelet that had fallen to the ground.
“Are you really going to throw it away?”
As I shook off the dust covering my cloak, a sudden sadness rose in my heart because I was in such a difficult situation where I had to be rewarded for accepting something like this.
How bad could the situation be after giving me such a good gift
[Good sense 20%]
Seeing the white text gradually getting smaller, I complained with dissatisfaction.
The last day of the month-long celebration is finally upon us.
Emily fusses that since it’s the last day, there will be more parades, acrobats, fireworks displays, and other fun stuff at the festival. She wanted to go out together too.
But I didn’t want to at all, so I ignored the whole thing and absently overslept.
I just got out of bed and ate a sandwich for breakfast and sat at my desk for a while.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been here. Having made contact with one of them during the festivities, it looked like the time had come to get to the important chapters in the game.
‘But it’s still stagnant.’
In the days when I first arrived, every day was like a death crisis. Of course, I’m still on the edge of the tightrope. I can’t fix this. There’s still a long way to go.
‘I’ll have to do a midsection check.’
I opened the drawer and took out the paper hidden in its depths. On it was written the basic settings for the male leads…
It was written down to prevent me from forgetting when I first arrived.
I re-found a blank piece of paper, and began to write down my early favorites, and my recent progress.
Derek Eckhardt 0% to 20%.
Leonard Eckhardt -10% to 10%.
Callisto Legulus 0% to 2%.
Ikris 0% to 25%.
Winter Belldandy 0% to 15%.
I wrote these down one by one only and glanced over them to see the significant difference between the start and now.
“What a surprise.”
Looking at Derrick and Leonard’s favorability, I slept round. Especially Leonard, his favorability was much lower than the other male leads, but considering that it started from a negative number, he went up by a full 20%, as much as Derrick’s.
“Is it because you’ve encountered him the most?”
I cocked my head, thinking about the surprising actions of those two. Just looking at the paper where it was first written, I could also see the forks drawn at the time, representing the fact that I had never considered those two for the route.
All in all, getting a good feeling from both of them wasn’t anything to be happy about.
“My favorability went up slightly because their favorability only goes up when they can’t see me.”
Penelope may well have gone from “abhorrent” to “less honorable.” Because I didn’t act as reckless as the original fake millennial.
“If we can minimize contact, we can maintain the status quo.”
Considering that the base favor given in Normal Mode is 30%, both of these situations are still very unstable.
But since I don’t have a “reset” button, I don’t intend to take any chances just to raise my favorability.
The tip of the pen crunched –
I firmly put a cross in Derrick’s and Leonard’s names, as I had done before.
“Next, the Crown Prince.”
This one, well, couldn’t even be a consideration. Without a moment’s pause, I drew a few forks in quick succession and moved on to the next one.
But immediately, I stopped holding the pen in my hand.
“Ikris ……”
As planned, Ikris is the one with the highest favorability right now. Now it seems that if you raise it by another 5%, you’ll reach the basic good sense in normal mode.
That’s a lot easier than the other male protagonists. Ikris’ good sense increase is huge. If it continues to develop like this, then we’ll see the end soon.
“Well, since the last time, I’ve been busy and there’s absolutely no probability that I’ll meet him ……”
I drew numerous bubbling circles around Ikris’ name in succession with the tip of my Sharpie.
Intermailing, I was busy was no more than a mouthful, and not terribly busy except for the day I went to see Winter. Yet I didn’t go to him either.
”…… Why do I feel so uncomfortable?”
Unlike good feelings, I couldn’t tell what he thought of me.
I still remember that day vividly. Aiming at the enemy in just a blink of an eye, and that creepy look that could kill you at any moment.