Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Oswell is acting strangely.

Even though just yesterday he was still persistently checking up on me every chance he got, making sure I was okay, today, all of a sudden, he seems completely dispirited.

When the class rosters were posted, as I had predicted, Oswell was also placed into Class A, so I feel like he shouldn’t have anything to be feeling down about….

“Did you get jilted by one of your girlfriends?” I ask him, walking over to his seat after class had ended.

“Huh?”

Oswell tilts his head to the side in surprise at hearing me suddenly start talking to him, but his expression quickly morphs from that of shock into a bitter smile.

“It’s rare for you to come and talk to me first. I’m so happy.”

“If you’re happy, why don’t you try showing it on your face? You’ve been acting oddly all day. It’s been annoyingly painful to watch.”

I wasn’t mistaken. Before he hangs his head, I notice Oswell’s smile turn even more bitter at my remark.

“Getting jilted isn’t such a special occurrence. You give me the cold shoulder practically every day.”

“Even when you’re feeling down, that frivolous tongue of yours still seems to be going strong.”

It’s at this point in the conversation, after Oswell has tried to garner my sympathies and has been brutally shot down, when he’d typically go on the defensive…. But today? Nothing. He really must be feeling bad.

“Aside from your relationships with women, you should try to have some other types of human interaction. Come on, cheer up! Don’t let those things get to you so easily!”

“……Well, I guess if you’re willing to listen….” Oswell mumbles, looking back up to stare at my face intently.

“What?” I ask a little sharply, startled by the intensity of his gaze.

“I’m just surprised because you’re being so nice for once. What happened? Finally start noticing how charming I am?”

“Not particularly….. I just thought that it’s about time that I repay my debt to you.”

I was super thankful when he agreed to be my partner for the exam, helping me to avoid partnering with Leila.

“You know I……”

“Yes?”

“You……… No, never mind.”

“It’s bad for your body to bottle everything up inside.”

“So uncharacteristically nice. Whenever you’re being cold to me, I should just try acting troubled next time.”

There it is, his facetious attitude…..

But… his downcast mood from earlier really didn’t seem like an act.

~~~

“Anyway…. I’m worried about him.”

“Are you doing this on purpose? Are you deliberately talking about another man in front of me?”

On the way home from class when I was walking back to the dorms with Ashley, Oswell ended up coming up in our conversation. But, other than Oswell, the thing that has really been on my mind…..

“By the way, why are you walking back to the dorms with us as if this was natural, Leila?”

“Even if it’s just for a few minutes, I was hoping to be able to spend time with you Cecile-san.”

“You can drop the act now. Nearly the whole school has already found out what your true character is really like, so why even bother?”

This whole way back, Leila has been walking beside me, my arm clutched in his like this was a natural, everyday occurrence between good girl friends, while Ashley walked on my other side. If you didn’t know, we’d probably look like any other group of friends just heading back from classes. Why is this happening?

“Isn’t it fine like this? Your goods are seriously awesome, so I feel healed just by being next to ya.”

“That doesn’t make me happy in the slightest…. And stop looking at my chest.”

This dang pervert has been ogling my breasts this entire time…. Does he seriously have no shame!? Is there anything in that head of his?

“Hey, can I come to your room after this? For some girls’ talk?”

You aren’t even a real girl!

“Oy, Underclassman. Is that the sort of expression you should use when looking at your Senpai?”

Hearing Leila’s comment, Ashley clicks his tongue and turns his face away from him.

“Spending time with you is rather inconvenient for me so….”

If the Capture Targets were to start thinking of me as a bully because I have to use force on him to protect myself from sexual harassment…. that would be unbearable. Now that all of the other students and teachers here are thinking that we are lesbians, I’ll just let them continue to misunderstand. That sort of misconception can only help me.

“If you don’t try to please me, I won’t do as you say?”

“Wow, your personality is actually pretty terrible, Leila.…. Fine. You win. Come to my room when we get to the dorms. We can go over the details of what to do next.”

We’re in an alliance now, so I doubt he’ll actually try to do anything to me. And if he does…. then I’m not going to care what happens to him. I’ll make sure that he receives a nice, bloody end.

“Ojousama… She’s not the sort of person that you can trust, you know?” Ashley says, startled, wanting to ascertain what was going through my head.

“If something happens I can just run away, so I’ll be fine.”

Seeing Ashley clinging onto me, trying to change my mind, Leila snorts scornfully.

“By the way, Ojousama. I heard that Master brought that up again?”

“Yeah. Let’s not talk about that.”

“Understood.”

“What did he bring up again?” Leila asks curiously.

“It’s not something that you need to know about, Senpai.”

“I wasn’t asking you! Cecile, what are you guys talking about?”

Ugh, this kid really knows just how weak I am to Leila’s cuteness. He’s too cunning! Looking up at me with those adorably pitiful eyes….

“A marriage proposal.”

Father feels obligated to make sure that I’m going to be taken care of, so he’s been sending prospective marriage matches to Ashley, asking him to play up the guys’ good points to me. Apparently he told Ashley to casually bring up each of the guys in conversation. Something like telling me that So-and-So from House Such-and-Such has done this and achieved that… and then he wanted Ashley to nonchalantly ask me, ‘But what does Ojousama think of him?’ And then, if I expressed a favorable response towards any of them, Ashley was supposed to create a chance for the two of us to meet.

My father forbid Ashley from mentioning any of this to me, of course, but Ashley told it all to me anyway saying that I was his one and only master.

On the contrary, it is now Father who is being left in the dark about the fact that Ashley spilled all of his secret instructions to me.

“Nothing interesting. I can’t really think about love at the moment.”

“Ohhh. Yeah, not much of a priority when you could die at any time, right?”

At Leila’s remark, Ashley’s expression becomes suspicious as he turns his head towards me sharply.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It was just a figure of speech. Nothing to worry about, Ashley.”

Ashley continues to stare at me, looking anxious and unconvinced so I give him a bright, carefree smile. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m going to do my best and survive this.

“Please don’t forget. Ojousama, if you were to ever lose your life, then your last moment will also be mine. So I sincerely ask that you care for your own life a bit more.”

“That is the single scariest threat I’ve ever heard! I definitely need to have a long life.”

“Having said that, I’ll make sure to protect you so that you don’t have to worry about such things,” Ashley says, stroking my hair. Leila, having been left out of the conversation and seeing this interaction between us, stares at Ashley intently.

＊＊＊

“Hey… was that on purpose?” Leila asks me, sighing. After we had eaten dinner, he had come back to my room and had proceeded to lounge around in it like he owned the place. He really should learn not to treat other people’s bedrooms in such a way.

Not bothering to look up from the letter I was writing to Father, “Was what on purpose?” I ask in reply.

“Ashley Carlyle. The guy’s clearly interested in you.”

At that, my hand slips, spilling black ink everywhere.

Quickly, I pick up an old rag and try to blot up the mess, not forgetting to rebuke Leila in the process.

“What are you saying!? There’s no way. Don’t be ridiculous.”

I throw out my now soaked letter and attempt to clean off my desk, scrubbing harshly at the wood.

“He’s my servant. And a Capture Target. And plus there’s no way that he would like a villain like me.”

“Does being a Capture Target matter at this point? With me being like this? Plus, in the game Cecile bullied that guy, but you’ve been building a good relationship with him, right?”

“I mean, that’s true but…..”

“And did you see his face when you were saying how uninterested you were in the marriage proposals? Sure, his expression didn’t change, but his face slackened a bit when you said that.”

Agh! Don’t just nonchalantly start groping someone’s thigh in the middle of a conversation!

“My relationship with him is like that of brother and sister,” I say, smacking his hand away.

“That’s not what your face is telling me. You sure looked happy when I said he was interested in you.”

That’s not true. Ashley and I have been together since we were children. He’s like family to me.

“I don’t look at that child in such a disgusting way.”

“So does that mean that if that guy looks at you as a member of the opposite sex, you’d find it disgusting?”

“No!”

This chapter is scrapped from readlightnovel.org

“Then why try so hard to deny it? If you really thought that Ashley had no such thoughts about you, there’d be no need to get so serious about this, right?”

Grinning like a cat who had caught a mouse, Leila’s smile turns devilish as he looks my way.

“Would ya look at that. Who would have thought you’d have such an obvious weakness? If I were to kidnap your beloved Ashley, you’d do anything that I want.”

“Aren’t you misunderstanding something here? You’re just a weak little girl. There’s no way you’d be able to kidnap Ashley.”

If he’s going to fight against Ashley by himself, Leila won’t even be Ashley’s opponent. I won’t say he wouldn’t be able to do anything to Ashley but….. there’s no chance of him winning, that’s for sure. I doubt that anyone in this school could fare much better though, considering even Oswell, who has both magic ability and physical strength, was powerless to resist him. Especially if it is someone with such an indecisive personality. The moment he picks a fight with Ashley, he’ll practically be signing his own death warrant.

“Even if I lack power, I can still tear him down little by little. Cause I already know the guy’s weakness,” Leila declares, jabbing his delicate, white finger at the tip of my nose.

“I’m going to say this once, so listen up. If you ever try to hurt Ashley, or me, or even Gray-Senpai, I will sacrifice you as a scapegoat when the time comes.”

“How ya gonna do that?”

“When the hidden character appears, I’ll present you right to him.”

“Ugh…..”

I ball up the now ink-soaked rag and toss it at Leila’s face.

“Agh! That stinks of ink!” Leila shouts, but I just ignore him.

“Since we’ve taken the trouble to gather here together, let’s actually talk about something productive, shall we? Let’s start planning our next steps. Cause you’ve completely ruined everything up until now, Leila. All you had to do yesterday was meet Alec and raise his favorability by some degree and our chances for survival would have shot up!”

“But, you know…. Hasn’t a suspicious guy already shown up? Gray-Senpai’s brother-in-law or whatever…. Roland?”

“Rona.”

Honestly, if that’s the case, our fate might already be sealed… But even if he’s really the hidden character, we should at least do everything that we can to make sure that the situation doesn’t get any worse.

“Let’s just prioritize doing the things that we are actually able to do. We still have one more chance left! Your homeroom teacher. We still haven’t tried anything with Rudolph! If you can just become friendly enough with Rudolph McLachlan to get the normal ending then…..”

“Ha! Impossible. Not gonna happen.”

Why’s he laughing like that?

“Do you know what that Teach calls me? A demon. He thinks I’m a like demon! Hahaha!”

“Why……?”

“I don’t really have a clue but, suddenly he just started spouting these complaints at me about how teaching is so hard.”

When Rudolph starts confessing his problems to Leila, that means he’s starting to open his heart to her, idiot! Don’t tell me he’s already started doing that?

“When did this happen?”

“Today.”

That’s crazy! Why did another event happen this fast?? And today I was totally focused on Oswell, so I completely forgot about Leila…

“He said that he hates when the female students fawn over him. And that since I don’t try to flirt with him, that I’m easy to talk to or something.”

Right. Exactly. That’s just like how it happened in the game, too.

He has a line like, ‘You’re not like those other girls.’

“Guys with good looks don’t have any appreciation for what they got. So, after he said that stuff to me, I said something like, ‘What sort of nonsense you saying, Old Man? Quit your yapping. You think you’re cool just cause you’re a bit popular? What a joke. Just go and die for all I care.’ And that’s when he said, ‘Are you a demon!?’ And so then he literally ended up calling me Demon all day today. And I doubt that just waiting til tomorrow will change that.”

“Agh! You…..!”

What has he done!? That event was literally the easiest early game chance to raise one of the Capture Target’s favorability and he completely ruined it!

Now we have no choice but to try to raise someone’s favorability at a later event.

But at this point, literally every Capture Target has a bad impression of Leila now!

Gray-Senpai’s Favorability→ I won’t even bother to think about it.

Lufrey’s Favorability→ Negative. Super negative.

Alec’s Favorability→ 0.

Rudolph’s Favorability→ Negative.

So the Capture Targets’ favorability has actually fallen to this pitiful state. I guess we might still have some hope with Alec…. Even if he has a really bad first impression of Leila, we still might be able to recover from that.

Lufrey is definitely out of the running at this point. Rudolph probably is too. It will be hard to salvage any positive favoribility after Leila basically poured salt in his wounds today.

And Ashley…..

“Ashley…. isn’t an option, Leila.”

“Why? Does the idea of me flirting with him make Cecile-Ojousama feel jealous~?”

“Because there’s no way I could leave my precious servant in the hands of a pervert like you.”

The nerve. Calling me jealous…

Ashley and I don’t have that sort of relationship.

“You seem pretty desperate to me.”

“……What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why are you trying so hard to deny that Ashley might be interested in you?”

I’m not. I’m merely stating the facts.

I’m not denying Ashley’s feelings or anything like that since Ashley would never feel something like love for someone like me. Adoration for me as his master, maybe, but love? There’s no way.

Plus, even if, for argument’s sake, I assumed that Ashley was interested in me, I would have no reason to deny it. Whether or not to accept it is another matter, but I wouldn’t deny it. I’m just objectively stating the facts.

But Leila keeps spouting nonsense as if he knows everything… And now he’s snickering at me!

“What!?”

“Nothing? You just look like you a struggling hard right now.”

Leila’s hand sneakily stretches towards my butt this time.

“Stop touching me in weird places! Ugh, I can’t even hold a proper conversation with you! Just get out of my room, you molester!”