9. No weapons, no weapons!\n\nI was distressed.\n\nMy height hadn't stagnated. In fact, it has grown tremendously. In the last two years, I've grown another 20 centimeters or more.\n \nThere was a time when I woke up in the middle of the night with aching legs, and at first I thought it was muscle pain from too much sword training, but it turned out to be growing pains.\n\nAt ten years old, she was already taller than the average height of Japanese women, and not much taller than her brother, who was five years older than her. I guess it's fair to say that girls tend to grow taller earlier in their childhood.\n\nWhat I was struggling with was my direction.\n \nAs I was doing squats in my room, a maid of honor brought me a cup of tea. I made eye contact with her and smiled.\n\n"Thank you."\n\nThe young maid's face flushes red.\n\nMy make-up skills have improved, and I've grown taller and more stronger.\n\nMy manners are perfect as they have been ingrained in Elizabeth Barton's body since she was seven years old.\n\nI have been able to learn swordsmanship not from her old tutor, but from a knight cadet instructor that her father brought in from somewhere.\n \nAs you can imagine, I still can't beat him, but he praised me for my good streak.\n\nIn addition, the duke's maidservants are usually ladies of lower nobility who have come to train as brides. They have almost no immunity to men.\n \nThe combination of these factors has made it easy for me to win over maidens who are not used to men.\n\nRecently, I've been experimenting on all the maids in the house, and the head maidservant was very angry with me for it.\n \nI didn't do anything to make her angry.\n \nI winked at them a little and even helped them with their luggage, but it seems that many of them are losing their jobs.\n \nThings are going well. I'm steadily getting popular.\n \nBut that's only because it only works on maidens who aren't used to men.\n \nMy opponent is the heroine. I have the potential to defeat all of her targets and the bluntness to change the target's motion to "gentleness" with the protagonist's correction.\n\nAnd I have to compete with and win against the handsome targets, whose good looks make the game's package look shiny.\n \nEven if I have to leave the other players behind, I have to get her to enter my route.\n\nWith these two points in mind, my current abilities are insufficient.\n \nI'm just a slightly handsome, slightly tall, slightly polite boy (or girl).\n \nMy status and skill with a sword are probably up to par, but I'm not much more than a mobster. It's sad to say, but I'm not very good.\n\nThat's why I'm worried about my direction, like a young comedian.\n \nAt the very least, I need a point of appeal. Do I have any weapons?\n\nAs I was doing more and more squats without any good ideas coming to mind, I heard a regular knocking sound.\n \nI bowed lightly and the head maid came into the room.\n \nThis is not good. Has she found out that I've been sprinkling powder on the maids again?\n \n"The master wants to see you, sir."\n\nThe level of the.... person who was angry with me was two steps higher than I imagined.\n\n\n***\n\n\n\n\n