Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Ashley and I didn’t change into our uniforms until we had arrived back at school. We each went to our own dorm to change, and then it was already time for the entrance ceremony. At that point, all of the students had to go to the ceremonial hall to attend the assembly so I still wasn’t able to see Ashley in his new uniform yet. No matter how many times I had begged him to show me back at home, he always firmly rejected me. ‘Don’t be so nosy,’ he’d scold me. But now it’s just a matter of time!

From my seat in the hall I spy Gray Randolph-Senpai practicing his speech up on stage. Since he was recommended as the student council president just before the break started, he will be taking this opportunity to announce his new position in front of the students during the assembly. It seems he was very highly recommended for the position as well.

There is a signal for the incoming freshman to enter, and then the doors open to let in the new students all wearing the uniforms designated for first years. For girls, that is knee-length, white dresses, and for the boys, their uniforms look like white tuxedos with tailcoats.

Even from within the huge crowd of new students, my eyes are drawn directly to Ashley. When I see him looking my way, I wave to him, but instead of waving back he quickly averts his eyes from me. I wonder why. It’s not like my wave was overly noticeable so it shouldn’t have been embarrassing…..

Oh well. At least I finally got to see him in his uniform. And even though it’s my first time seeing him in it, I need no time to get used to his new look. I can already attest that it suits him very well. I guess that’s the blessing of having a handsome face: everything looks good on you!

Really, instead of watching Ashley though, I should probably be looking out for Gray-Senpai’s younger brother…. But seeing as they are not blood-related, they probably won’t look similar so I feel like identifying him would be nearly impossible. Since Senpai said he has a pretty face, I tried glancing through the crowd with that criteria in mind, but the only one that ended up standing out to me was Ashley. And in the end, the entrance ceremony was over with before I could locate any other likely candidates.

Now that the ceremony is over, we are free for the rest of the day since classes won’t start until tomorrow. And after the long carriage ride to get here today, I’m feeling pretty tired, but I don’t even think about heading to my dorm yet. Instead I search through the throngs of students for a familiar blonde head…. Aha! Found him!

“Ashley!”

“Cecile-Ojousama….. How many times must I tell you not to run in the halls?” Ashley scolds seeing me rushing over to him. As soon as he’s done speaking though, he glances down at his clothes and starts to look a bit embarrassed. He drops his eyes to the floor and won’t meet my gaze.

“……. I’m not comfortable wearing this sort of clothing. It doesn’t suit me.”

He’s probably just not used to it since there aren’t many occasions that call for wearing a tailcoat…. But I feel like that’s such a shame since it looks so nice on him!

“Really? I think it looks great on you. Though since you’re so ill-tempered all the time, rather than white, black might be more suitable for you.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’m joking! White also looks amazing on you. You out-shined every other student in the assembly hall earlier.”

bonk Ashley bats me on the head. Although his face usually stays expressionless even when he’s embarrassed like this, I notice that this time his cheeks have gone a bit rosy.

“Cecile,” I hear a voice call out from behind me. I had just raised my hand above Ashley’s head to tousle his hair, but after hearing my name I think better of it and drop my hand again.

Before I even have the chance to turn around, Ashley has already reacted for me.

“Duke Randolph’s……” he starts to say, looking over my head. I turn to see Senpai standing behind me.

Although this is their first time meeting, Ashley seems to have recognized him instantly, though since Senpai had appeared on-stage during the entrance ceremony, I suppose that’s not that surprising.

Hearing Ashley replying instead of me, Senpai frowns for just a moment before he plasters his face with a wide, rehearsed smile.

“Oh, you must Cecile’s servant. I’ve heard a lot about you from her. My apologies, but I need to speak to her alone, so you’ll have to excuse us for a bit.”

Oh, that’s right! I almost forgot! Senpai and I do have some things that we need to talk about.

“Ashley, feel free to go back to your room and rest. You’re probably feeling pretty exhausted, right? I think I’ll be able to manage without your assistance for today at least.”

“…..Surely you can allow me to accompany you.”

Senpai was the one who replied first, before I even had time to come up with an excuse.

“Sorry, but I have some business to take care of with your master. Just your master.”

“You must excuse me, Randolph-Senpai, but I have not the least bit intention of listening to anyone besides Cecile-Ojousama.”

That’s rich coming from you, Ashley…

“Do you ever even bother listening when it is me who’s speaking?”

“Of course. You seem rather confident in calling out the person who has been indulging you in your willfulness up until now. I believe I have kindly complied with every reasonable request you’ve ever made.”

Don’t you think it’s a bit weird for a servant to “kindly comply” to their master’s requests, Ashley?

“Do you even know your place? I can’t help but wonder since a mere servant is trying to interfere with his master’s affairs.”

“I am not trying to interfere. I am merely apprehensive of the possible threat that being alone in a room with a questionable man poses to my master.”

I think you might have just nonchalantly said something pretty insulting to Senpai there, Ashley. Then again, I myself have never been particularly nice to Senpai, either though…

Exasperated, Gray-Senpai looks my way, using just his gaze to tell me to “do something about this.” But that puts me in a bit of a bind here. While it is true that I need to talk to Senpai about various things that I can’t allow Ashley to hear about, that doesn’t change the fact that Senpai is not my top priority, Ashley is. I really don’t want to criticize Ashley just for Senpai’s sake.

“Ashley, we’re just going to be talking about some things for the student council. I’ve already declined their invitation to join, but it seems that they haven’t quite given up yet. I’ll just go and tell them once and for all that I’m not interested. So there’s no need for you to worry so much, okay?”

While the academy supervisor is the one who decides who will become the student council president and most of the rest of the council, the president still has the right to make one recommendation of his own. On that front, I already told Senpai quite some time ago to “please not recommend me under any circumstances” so I shouldn’t have to worry about that…. but this sort of little white lie should be fine, right?

“…..Even so, please allow me to accompany you.”

“I’m sorry, Ashley, but that might cause individual privacy issues, so I can’t let you listen in. Just for today, can you go back and rest? And maybe you can let me visit your room afterwards?”

“……I understand,” says Ashley, although his face is saying that he gave his consent very unwillingly. I’ll have to give him more of an explanation later on. Ashley gives a very slight bow, glaring at Senpai the whole time, and then turns on his heel heading off in the direction of the dorms.

Senpai grabs my arm, pulling me down the hallway and into the empty classroom we are always using for these sorts of meetings. Once the door closes behind us, he heaves a huge sigh.

“Give me a break for once, would ya…..? I don’t want that dangerous guy acting all hostile towards me!”

“Ashley isn’t dangerous!”

“Letting your guard down around him like that might literally be the death of you.”

I swallow back my retort before I can say something I might regret. It wouldn’t be good to disparage him just for trying to look out for me. Besides, Senpai doesn’t know Ashley that well yet, so it can’t be helped if he still has some misgivings about him.

Senpai drops his head and places a hand on his temple, recollecting himself, before saying a little apprehensively, “I need to ask, what are my own chances of survival looking like at this point? As long as the hidden character doesn’t run amok, you’re not likely to die, are you? But what about me? There’s no chance of me being killed off either, right?”

“Of course there’s still a chance of that. What made you finally start worrying about that nowthough?”

“Seriously you-“

“Congratulations on becoming the student council president, by the way. Everything will be great as long as the heroine doesn’t enter Alec’s route.”

“What!?”

“In Alec’s bad end, you suffer quite a gruesome demise, you know?”

“HEY!!!”

If you yell so loudly like that, someone’s going end up barging in here. “Shhh” I say, raising my index finger in front of my mouth, but Senpai just grabs ahold of it and twists.

“Ow ow ow ow ow.”

“I didn’t hear anything about that!?”

“Because I didn’t say anything about it.”

“Sh*t. If I would’ve known this beforehand I never would have accepted the student council president’s position……!”

I mean, that is why I never told you….

“Cecile Alldington! You tricked me!!”

“Don’t be ridiculous….. Even if you don’t know much about the game, you should have at least known just how dangerous this world is, right?”

“You evil b*tch!”

No matter what you call me, I will always know in my heart that I’m an adorable angel.

“If you want to be on the safe side, just don’t talk to Leila and you’ll completely destroy that death flag. It’s because you two got close in the game and Alec got jealous that he ended up killing you, Senpai. But, thankfully for us as long as Alec’s route isn’t triggered, there’s absolutely no problem with you getting intimate with her.”

Honestly, kicking up a fuss over something so small…. it’s not like you have death flags looming over your head every which way like I do! So spoiled.

“But, Senpai…. That couldn’t have been the only reason you called me out today, right? What about your adopted younger brother?”

“What’s with that face? As if this is no big deal…..! To me, the possibility of having a death flag is no joke, you know!”

“Sigh. Then please evade that one dooming scenario of yours as if your life depends on it. But, back to the matter at hand.” Since I don’t particularly mind how Senpai’s face just keeps getting stiffer and stiffer with irritation, I just calmly continue the previous conversation: “About your younger brother…..?”

“Oh, so you do remember about that? I never got a letter in reply and I had no other way of contacting you so I had decided to just stop worrying about that.”

Oh…. that letter…. Since it had caused so many misunderstandings for me, I hadn’t felt up to sending a reply.

“Getting right to the point, none of that new information was definitive enough to draw any conclusions. You’re right, someone with that sort of background can’t possibly be just a mob character…. But that doesn’t mean your brother is the hidden character. As for Oswell, it doesn’t really matter what kind of past he has. He’s afraid of blood so that all but disqualifies him. And even if he did end up being the hidden character, with that sort of constitution the chances of him posing a threat to us are almost zero. So we shouldn’t have to worry about him at the very least.”

Then again, I have no idea who the hidden character is…. It’s probably not a good idea to be jumping to any sort of conclusions on anyone since it’s impossible to know what might happen.

Senpai folds his arms in front of his chest, lost in thought.

“But I would think that the character is called hidden for a reason. He shouldn’t show up that easily, right? So shouldn’t there still be the chance of us graduating without ever having to face him? Like, pretend that my younger brother is actually the hidden character…. Isn’t it possible that he would have nothing to do with Leila Morton? Or, even better, he would play no role in the game’s events at all?”

“While that is possible, on the other hand, if a certain condition is met, then the hidden character is guaranteed to appear and he will become an integral part of the game.”

If that happens, even if Senpai makes sure that his little brother and Leila are never introduced, fate will throw out every trick in the book to bring them together.

Senpai swallows hard, his breath hitching.

“Do you know what the condition is?”

“Yes.”

When I died, it was just after I had looked up how to make the hidden character appear in the game but just before I actually got to attempt it…. Go figure…. I had been oh so careful when doing my research on the web in order to not catch a glimpse of what the character looked like or to read anything about his background in order to not spoil the surprise…. but now I’m really regretting all that. How much safer would I have been if I had just seen it! But I do at least know this much, if the condition is met before the first event in the game occurs, then the hidden character is sure to appear.

“And? What is it?”

“Before the first event occurs…. basically until the rehearsal ball….. the main character must maintain a zero in the favorability stat for all of the capture targets.”

Senpai stares at me, confused.

This chapter is scrapped from readlightnovel.org

“Is it really okay for it to be that simple?”

“Simple? Are you serious? Do you really understand, Gray-Senpai? ‘Bloody Mind’ is a romance simulation game where the whole goal of the game is to raise that favorability stat through the various choices you are forced to make. With each time you are asked to make a decision, there are typically three options. Maybe four. It’s already hard enough trying to guess which one is going to raise your favorability, but to be able to choose the option that won’t raise the stat at all every single time without fail is nearly impossible!”

Moreover, just how many decisions do you think the character has to make before the first event occurs? With so many chances to mess up, it’s ridiculously difficult to be able to make this happen.

“But, if it’s that hard, doesn’t that mean it would also be difficult for our Leila Morton to do? Since she doesn’t have a terrible reputation or anything, wouldn’t her favorability have gone up naturally already for at least one of the guys?”

“We unfortunately can’t rely on having that sort of luck.”

As I relate to Senpai the conversation I had with Sarah three days ago when she came to visit me, his face starts to cloud with apprehension.

“So, are you telling me that girl’s a lesbian?” he asks, mixed feelings plain on his face.

“Senpai, do you seem kind of happy about that?”

“Well I don’t hate the idea, but I guess that means there’s no way this is going to end quietly.”

I can’t imagine it will.

“It doesn’t seem like she’s going to raise your favorability at all, Senpai.”

Since you only care about a girl’s breasts.

“And she seems suspiciously into yuri…..” I continue.

“So thanks to a heroine who seems to have zero interest in raising her favorability with any of the capture targets, it’s almost certain that we are going to face a huge crisis soon?”

“Yup…..”

On top of that, I was forced to agree to try to become friends with her….. Right. This was the other thing that I had to talk to Senpai about today.

“By the way, Senpai, continuing on about what Sarah Cosgrove came to talk to me about the other day….”

I explain to him how she basically forced me to agree to become friends with Leila and he doesn’t even wait until I am finished to double over in hysterical laughter. With tears in his eyes he barely manages to get out that ‘it serves me right’ even while he continues to laugh at me.

It’s this side of him that always makes me so irritated. But I still have the upper-hand. I am almost gleeful as I interject with, “So I was thinking that you and I would take make some time to spend together with her.”

“Absolutely. Not.”

“Whenever it looks like Sarah is going to bring Leila over to me, I’ll come to find you, Senpai.”

“Wasn’t avoiding Leila Morton the only way for me to completely guarantee that I won’t be being brutally murdered? Are you trying to get me killed?”

“She’s a death flag to me just by existing! Doesn’t matter which route she takes! I don’t want to die either!! I’m not going down alone!”

“Can’t you just have your servant help you!?”

“Are you telling me to give him that dangerous of a job!? There’s no way I could do that!”

“Even if it’s just a sliver of kindness, can’t you give some of that consideration to me and mylife!?”

But if I asked Ashley and he somehow incurred the wrath of the other capture targets…. I can’t bear the thought.

“Without even thinking about it, isn’t it obvious that Ashley’s life is more important than yours?”

“Don’t look at me like you expect me to just accept that logic! There’s no way I would agree with that!”

“Oh, and by the way, personally, if I were to compare your life with my own, mine would win hands down.”

“And obviously in my calculation, mine is more important to me!”

Well, doesn’t really matter if you hate it or not….

“I’m planning to get you involved with or without your consent so…. thanks in advance for your help!”

“You’ve got to be @#$%ing kidding me!!”

Your opinion really has nothing to do with it. I’m putting my life on the line here.….. Well, and Senpai’s too, but you know….

＊＊＊

“Ashley!”

I say throwing open his door and diving into the room. Ashley’s reaction is quick as usual. As I start slipping, he makes sure to catch me.

“One, please knock first. Two, it’s dangerous so please don’t just leap into the room like that. And three, this is the boys’ dorm you know. I won’t allow you to come here when you are by yourself.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport. I just wanted to see you!”

“……..”

“Ashley?”

“The way you say things really has a way of giving people certain types of expectations….”

“Huh?”

“Just talking to myself.”

He seemed like he was ignoring me a bit before…. could he possibly be mad?

“Hey, Ashley? If there’s anything you want me to do, just let me know, okay? We’re going to be busy from tomorrow on since classes are starting. So for today, as long as I’m able, I’ll do anything you want.”

“……Anything?”

“Yes!”

“Then please stop trying to tempt me!”

“What?”

“For now, please get out of my room.”

Is he really angry after all?

The next day, though, when Ashley came out to meet me in front of the girls’ dormitory, he seemed like his usual self, so I felt relieved.