sampah

“Lord Cezar, it’s dangerous to stand on the back of the ship like that! Please go back inside!”

I was on the deck, leaning on the railing and looking out at the sea. I sighed, taking care not to be heard.

Sorcié had lent us this ship, and it was much better than the battered, flimsy ones from our country. Even the railing at the back was solid. I could lean against it all I wanted and it wouldn’t be dangerous… But what would they know? These people had never seen any country but theirs, and knew nothing about the world.

Still, pointing that out would have just created needless friction, so I obliged and went back to the room that had been prepared for me.

“Welcome back, Lord Cezar,” Janne, my servant and childhood friend, told me as soon as I stepped inside.

“Come on, Janne, don’t call me that when it’s just the two of us. You know what I think about that kind of formality,” I told him, annoyed, and his stiff expression turned back into his usual grin.

“I know, sure, but I’d better practice. You don’t want me screwing up in public, do you?” he said with the informal register I was so used to hearing him use.

“You’re not the type to screw up anyway,” I rebutted.

As someone who’d known him for years, I had to think he was joking. I was biased because we were childhood friends, but even ignoring that bias, I still considered him an extremely talented man. I couldn’t recall a single time he had ever screwed up something. He was probably acting like a humble servant just to make fun of me.

“You’ve got a point. I, the great Lord Janne, know nothing but success,” he said with a grin, confirming my theory. He made himself sound insufferable, but he was right.

“That’s great. Incidentally, wouldn’t the great Lord Janne pretend to be a Dahl? Bearing that surname is too burdensome for me,” I said jokingly.

“My liege,” he said, going back to his ridiculously formal speech while theatrically dropping his shoulders, “I could never. That most blessed of names belongs to the royal family, and as such, you shall be the one bearing it, O Lord Cezar Dahl.”

I was expecting that sort of reply, so I just sighed and forgot about it.

Indeed, that was my name: Cezar Dahl, Prince of Ethenell.

I still wasn’t used to it, though. Just a few months ago I was still just Cezar the mercenary, wandering from one country to the next.

My destiny changed when Ethenell’s lewd king became interested in my mom, who was part of a foreign traveling company of entertainers, and forced her to live in the palace. He eventually got bored with her, but by that point, she was already pregnant with me and therefore couldn’t afford to leave.

Despite being alone in a country she didn’t even know that well, Mom did her best to bring me up by herself. “When you grow up, let’s leave this place and travel the world together,” she always used to say. As a former traveling entertainer, she still hadn’t given up on seeing the world.

I wondered if life in that unfamiliar country was what weakened her. Disease took her away from me when I was still six years old, and then I was alone.

The palace was full of women and children, and nobody cared about a little orphan like me. I was at the epicenter of the country’s nobility, and yet I risked starving to death.

Yet despite everything, someone helped me: my half-brother, who is now the King of Ethenell. He was nine years older than me, and had therefore just become an adult — a young but talented one. His mother was a very well-known noble, and he was already one of the best candidates for succeeding his father as king. He was like someone from a completely different world.

One day, when I still didn’t even know that he existed, I was passed out from hunger on the street in front of the palace. He found me and started taking care of me. His mother disapproved, but he insisted on becoming my guardian.

He entrusted me to his loyal governess, hired an instructor to teach me all that I would need to thrive as royalty, and sometimes even tutored me himself.

He told me that he didn’t have any brothers from his mother, and he’d had few opportunities to spend time with his half-brothers, which is why he treated me so well. “I’m so happy to have you with me, Cezar,” he’d always say.

Once I came of age, I arrogantly said that I wanted to leave the palace, where I didn’t feel at home. He supported me even then, saying that it was my life and that I was free to do what I pleased with it.

So, at the age of fifteen, I left behind the palace and the title of prince, traveling the world simply as Cezar. The youngest son of the governess who brought me up, Janne, came with me. Allegedly it was to look after me but, knowing him, it was just to have fun.

It was harsh out there, but everything was new and interesting. I had some money with me, but it eventually ran out. So I became a mercenary, because the pay was good.

My brother had taught me how to fight with the sword back at the palace, and I had a natural knack for it to begin with. I quickly made a name for myself as Cezar the mercenary, and was able to earn enough to live freely.

More than ten years passed, and I thought I’d just be a mercenary until the day I died. But one day, while on a trivial mission back in Ethenell, I heard the news that the brother who had saved me had now become king.

So he finally did it, I thought and, curious, went to visit him… Little did I know that doing so would change my life once again.

My brother had become king, yes, but all around him were nothing but foes.

He wanted to do something about the terrible conditions in which our father had left the kingdom, but in doing so, he had ended up antagonizing the siblings who wanted the crown, the nobles’ concubines, and even his own mother.

After seeing that, I couldn’t go back to being a mercenary. He had saved me, and now I wanted to return the favor. I would become his best, most loyal ally.

My brother seemed sorry to see me renounce my freedom to help him, but he made me work day and night until I could fit back into my role as prince. I was planning to stay by his side as nothing more than a vassal, so that felt like too big of a burden for me. However he insisted, saying that having that title would “make all the difference,” and I begrudgingly accepted.

This is how I ended up participating in the International Assembly, held in Sorcié, as the prince representing Ethenell. Rumors had it that Sorcié had flourished even more since the crowning of the current king, so I looked forward to learning all I could from my experience in the kingdom.

I’ll have to play my part, fool everyone, and take in as much information as possible. All for Brother.

★★★★★★

“Ugh, I’m so bored!” I said while lazily stretching out in my room within the castle. “The weather’s so nice. I really want to go for a walk…” I muttered while looking out the window.

“You cannot,” Anne immediately replied. “Dignitaries from other countries are visiting the castle, and you have been told not to walk around needlessly for the duration of the day.”

To be precise, the Assembly was going to start on the next day. But since many of the participants were coming from so far away, the castle started accepting them as guests this morning.

Some of us were supposed to welcome the foreign representatives, and those who weren’t were told to simply wait in their rooms. In particular, Jeord and Keith had told me not to leave my room for any reason, to avoid running into — or causing — any problems.

I would have been happy to read indoors if it were raining, but the clear blue sky I could see through the window looked too beautiful to stay indoors.

I can’t see any important-looking people from the window, so I don’t think anybody would notice if I just went to the nearby garden for a bit. Anne is so strict about this kind of stuff though…

I couldn’t come up with any good excuse to leave the room, so I just read a book for a while. Anne was eventually convinced that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, and went to have lunch early. She had lunch by herself, before me, so that she could accompany me when it was time for me to eat.

“I will call another maid to look after you while I am away,” she said, but I quickly refused.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine by myself. Everyone’s probably busy preparing for the Assembly right now anyway. I’ll just be here reading,” I said.

“I will be back as soon as possible,” she said, looking a bit worried as she left for the servants’ dining hall.

This is my chance! I can go to the garden! But if I walk out of the door, someone will probably see me…

So naturally, I jumped out of the window. It was a piece of cake, since my room was on the ground floor.

I’m just going to take a little stroll under the sun. I’ll go back to my room in no time and Anne will be none the wiser.

“This is great!” I said to myself after filling my lungs with the fresh outdoor air.

It was pleasantly warm, and the garden (as expected, since this was the castle) was wonderfully cared for. There were no flowers, but the lawn was neatly trimmed and framed by rows of beautiful trees.

I crouched and touched the ground, rejoicing at how good the grass felt to the touch. How could I resist the temptation of this lush greenery after all that time spent studying in the castle?

And luckily, there was nobody around. I laid down with my back on the grass to better enjoy its softness and smell.

So cozy… I thought to myself as I stretched out.

As the warm sun shone over me, I started getting sleepy and eventually closed my eyes…

“Hey, are you okay?”

I heard a voice coming from above. As I opened my eyes, I saw an unfamiliar man looking perplexedly at me.

“Y-Yes, I am,” I replied, still half asleep.

“Oh, so you aren’t unconscious. That’s good. How do you feel? Do you think you can walk?” he asked me in a worried tone.

He probably thinks I fell down because I was feeling sick! I was just taking a nap, but I ended up making someone worry…

“Well, yes, but I think you’re misunderstanding something. The grass was so soft that I just wanted to lie down on it, and when I did, it felt so pleasant that I fell asleep… I’m feeling perfectly fine!” I said, shaking my fists to emphasize my point.

He was visibly shocked. “So you didn’t pass out or anything. You were just… sleeping?”

“Exactly!”

“Unless I’m mistaken, you’re in the castle’s garden, though…”

“I know that, of course! But I couldn’t resist this wonderful grassy turf,” I explained, and he started laughing without restraint.

This time, I was the one visibly shocked. I wonder what’s so funny.

Once I had regained my composure, I looked at the man more carefully and realized how handsome he was. He was tanned and muscular, and had black hair and eyes.

Oh, the wild and handsome type. That’s rare around these parts.

At first I thought he was scary, but now, as his slightly crooked teeth showed through while he laughed, he looked like a youthful, approachable person.

I kept observing him, and he eventually stopped laughing.

“Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed that much. There I was thinking that you had lost consciousness or something, and then I hear you explain that you were just sleeping, and for the funniest reason too! Hahaha!” he said, breaking into laughter again.

It was no wonder he was surprised — the average person doesn’t really sleep in the castle’s garden.

“…Don’t worry. If anything, I’m sorry for choosing a place to sleep that could cause misunderstandings,” I apologized, and he laughed again.

“Anyway, you are from this country, right? Are you one of the castle’s servants?” he asked while looking at my clothes.

Since I wasn’t supposed to leave my room today, I was wearing a very simple, comfortable dress, not too different from what a servant would wear. And now it was also covered in grass to boot.

As for him, he didn’t look like anyone I’d ever seen in Sorcié, so he was probably from another country. The last thing I wanted was for foreigners to think that the noble ladies of this kingdom wear clothes this plain and sleep on the ground, so I decided to lie.

“Y-Yes, I am!” I said, and only then realized that this could get me into trouble if we ran into each other during the Assembly. “And who may you be?” I asked him.

“I’m Cezar, a servant from Ethenell,” he replied with a smile.

Great! He’s a servant too. Well, he actually is a servant. I’m not. But still, this means that he probably won’t take part in the actual Assembly, since that’s only for nobles and Sorcié servants, or so I heard.

“My name is Katarina,” I told him, relieved.

“Nice to meet you, Katarina,” he said, giving me his hand. I took it, and we exchanged a firm handshake.

His hand is so tough. He must do a lot of manual labor.

“I just reached the castle and was taking a look around. I must say I’m impressed,” he said.

“Oh, really?” I said. I had never been outside of Sorcié, and this was the only castle I’d ever seen in my life.

“How’s the work here?” he asked with a grin.

I was surprised by his question, until I remembered that I was pretending to be a servant. “It’s not bad,” I replied.

I didn’t know what the actual servants thought about working here, but I’d heard Anne mention that it seemed like a good workplace, so I guess I technically wasn’t lying.

“Is work tough where you are from?” I asked, noticing the jealous look on his face.

“You bet,” he said with a laugh. “A new king just took the throne in Ethenell, and the whole place is as busy as it’s ever been. It’s not an easy job, but I hope things will get better for everyone eventually.”

I remembered hearing something about the recently crowned king, and how much that had shaken up the country, during the seminar. This must have been hard for a servant like Cezar.

“Why don’t you rest on the grass too? It feels really good,” I suggested, thinking that he may be tired, but he started laughing once again.

“That sounds wonderful, but if I got covered in grass minutes after reaching the castle, I wouldn’t hear the end of it from my friends,” he said, looking at how dirty my dress had become.

He had a point, and I realized that if I didn’t clean myself up before going back, I wouldn’t hear the end of it from Anne either.

“You’re right… I should do something about these clothes too,” I said, and started brushing off the grass as best as I could.

This made him laugh again. He really laughs a lot, this Cezar.

But he helped me clean up, even asking permission before touching my clothes. He didn’t look the part, but he had a gentlemanly side to him. All in all, he was a mysterious guy.

“Cezar!” I heard someone shout when we were almost finished with my dress.

“Oh, I guess I spent too much time relaxing. Someone’s come for me,” he said, and his shoulders dropped a little bit. “See you around, Katarina,” he said with a smile before walking away, waving at me.

He had left a deep impression on me, maybe because of how unique he was, or maybe because he was from another country.

Anyway, even though he said he’d “see me around,” I figured that we wouldn’t see each other again. After all, starting the next day, I’d be busy attending the Assembly.

He was a good guy, so I was sad about that. I finished cleaning up and started walking back to my room, and that was when I noticed someone standing beyond the rows of trees.

It was a familiar someone — someone who shouldn’t have been there.

That dream I had… was that more than just a dream? I thought, and started running towards that person.

★★★★★★

“Cezar, you had me worried. You said you just wanted to take a quick look around, but you sure took your sweet time,” Janne scolded me.

I was the one at fault, so I apologized. “Sorry, that was my plan, but I met someone so interesting that I ended up chatting for a while.”

“You? Finding other people interesting? Now that’s unusual. What made this person so interesting, anyway?” he asked, staring at me curiously.

I explained what I had just seen, and he laughed almost as much as I had.

“Wow, sleeping in the castle’s garden while there are foreign dignitaries all over the place? Talk about fearless,” he said between laughs. “That guy is wasted as a servant in this peaceful castle. He should be a mercenary or something. Actually, you should have scouted him,” he said half-jokingly.

“Unfortunately that was no guy — it was a girl. I’m not so sure she’d last long as a mercenary,” I replied, and he looked back at me in disbelief.

“A girl?! That’s even crazier,” he commented. After thinking for a while, he said, “Then you should have scouted her as your wife.”

“Huh?”

Why’s he talking about wives all of a sudden?

“I mean, it’s the first time you’ve ever shown any interest in a woman,” he said casually. “You’ve played around a lot, but you’ve never had a proper fiancée. That would be fine for a mercenary, but for a prince? You can’t stay single forever. What would the people think?”

He did have a point, but it was just annoying for him to say that out loud.

“I just said she was interesting, not that I’d fallen madly in love with her.”

Maybe I can’t stay single forever, but do I really have to find a wife here and now?

“Let’s go back now,” Janne said, completely ignoring my displeasure, and headed towards the room that we’d been assigned.

Sheesh, I was having so much fun and he had to go and ruin it. I wish I could speak with that Katarina girl again — that’d make me laugh.

I wondered how surprised she’d be once she saw me at the Assembly and found out that I’d lied about being a servant like her… But then again, would they really choose a girl like her, who takes naps on the ground, to wait on nobles?

Maybe I’d run into her again if I went back to that garden. Just thinking about that possibility brought my smile back.

Janne’s talk of marriage was an exaggeration, but I guess that I really do feel interested in her, even after just chatting for a short while, I thought to myself unconcernedly.

★★★★★★

I kept running towards the figure I saw behind the trees.

“Lady Katarina?” called out a familiar voice that was full of surprise.

“Maria? What are you doing here?” I asked her, surprised as well.

She wasn’t supposed to be here, and I certainly didn’t expect to see her in those clothes. She was dressed as a maid.

“Did you quit the Magical Ministry to become a maid at the castle?”

“No, not at all, this dress is borrowed… I am just here on a mission for the Ministry,” she replied, lowering her voice.

“A mission?”

What kind of mission would require her to go to the castle dressed up as a maid?

“Well…” she started to explain.

“Hey, newcomer, come here. And make it quick,” an old maid called with a menacing voice.

“Yes, ma’am!” she replied nervously, before whispering “I will see you later” to me and quickly walking towards the maid that had called for her.

So she’s working as a maid as part of a Ministry mission… I thought, and then remembered what I recently saw while passed out.

In my dream I saw Maria, inside the game, say that she had to do her best at the Assembly. Since at the time she was nowhere near the castle, I assumed that it was just that: a dream.

But now she was here, and it looked like she would actually be working at the Assembly. This meant that this was part of the game’s story, and the castle wasn’t safe for me anymore.

I stood there for a while, shocked, before realizing that I’d better get back to my room. However, I was so busy thinking about what had just happened that I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to leave my room, and went back in by casually walking through the door.

Apparently a lot more time had passed than I thought, because Anne was waiting to ambush me with a firm scolding.

I was in my room, worrying about how the Assembly was actually part of the game, when Keith stopped by to check whether I had been staying inside as instructed. Anne promptly informed him that I had not, so despite my best efforts to fool him, I was scolded again.

Once he was done with that, I told him about seeing Maria in maid clothes, and that she had talked about a mission for the Ministry. I wanted the opinion of someone smart.

“I wonder why the Ministry would ask her to work as a maid,” I said.

“It’s just a theory,” he said, furrowing his brow, “but I doubt that the Ministry asked her to actually work as a maid. She is probably just supposed to pretend to do so in order to investigate something within the castle.”

Keith’s theory sounded very convincing. Maybe when Maria talked about her “work at the Assembly” in my dream, she meant this mission.

“But if they chose a newcomer like Maria for a mission like this…” Keith murmured by himself with a preoccupied expression on his face.

“What’s that?” I asked him.

“No, it’s nothing. You just stay here and rest in preparation for tomorrow,” he said, brushing off my question and then going back to his own room to prepare as well.

There only was one day left. The Assembly would take place with all nobles of the same rank gathered in separate open areas.

After the relief of thinking that the Assembly had nothing to do with FL2, knowing that I had likely been wrong and that I would have to worry about the Catastrophic Bad Ends completely ruined my mood.

But just worrying about it without doing anything wouldn’t solve my problems. It was time to call the Katarinas inside my head for a meeting.

Please assemble for today’s meeting of the Katarinas.

Meeting chairwoman: Katarina Claes.

Meeting representative: Katarina Claes.

Meeting secretary: Katarina Claes.

“The first and only item on today’s agenda is the discussion of the International Assembly, and, in light of the fact that it is part of the scenario of the game known as Fortune Lover II, whether it could include some game-relevant events.”

“Yes. It could be a romantic spy story, for example. That would be nice.”

“Nice indeed! A change of scenery is the perfect occasion for love to blossom!”

“Just imagine this: one of the love interests, made bolder by their unusual surroundings, looks at the protagonist and tells her ‘I won’t let you go back home by yourself. Not tonight.’”

“But Fortune Lover was rated for all ages, so I don’t think they’d go that far…”

“But this is the sequel! So maybe now it’s rated M because of some new raunchy stuff.”

“Oh my! I’m still too pure for this kind of—”

“Please, everyone! You are forgetting what we are actually supposed to discuss! How can you be so nonchalant about this whole matter? Our issue with the Assembly is not whether love is waiting for Maria, but whether doom is waiting for Katarina!”

“Y-Yes, you are right…”

“Sorry…”

“I’m glad you understand. Now, let’s think of how we should act once the Assembly starts.”

“We can’t just not show up and go back home… right?”

“Definitely not.”

“But we’ve never played the sequel, so we don’t even know what kind of events we should avoid if we don’t want to run into the bad ends.”

“Unfortunately, that’s true.”

“For the time being, I think we should try to stay close to the love interests and rival characters as much as possible.”

“So you mean that the only way for Katarina to end the Assembly without any problems is to get help from her friends?”

“If that is the case, making some major mistake as a normal noble lady would be even more likely than running into one of the game’s bad ends…”

“Unfortunately, that’s also true.”

“So, what should we do?”

“Be a good, ladylike girl?”

“That’s the least specific idea I’ve ever heard…”

“But that’s all I can come up with!”

“Three heads should be better than one! Why can’t we come up with any useful solutions?”

“Technically we’re all inside a single head though. And not a particularly brilliant one either.”

“…You’re right.”

“…Excuse me, may I…?”

“Go ahead, Katarina.”

“I wonder if Katarina even takes part in the Assembly at all in FL2”

“What do you mean?”

“According to what we know so far, Katarina is supposed to be infiltrating the Ministry undercover, but she’s not a noble lady anymore. So why would she be at the Assembly?”

“That’s right!”

“So, I think that there are no Katarina-related events awaiting. We should just be concentrating on avoiding screw-ups.”

“Katarina… I didn’t know you were so smart…”

“Hehe, how do you think I survived FL1? I’m a genius!”

“Haha, that’s a bit much. So, in conclusion, even if the events at the Assembly are part of the game, they won’t affect Katarina. We have nothing to fear! Let’s do our best at the Assembly.”

“Yeah!”

“Yes ma’am!”

And thus, the meeting of the Katarinas was dismissed. I realized that, even if FL2-related stuff were to happen, it couldn’t be a problem for me. And so I effortlessly fell asleep.

“Young miss, please wake up. It is morning already.”

Like on most mornings, I woke up to Anne’s voice. I had slept well and was feeling full of energy. I started preparing, ready to give 100% at the Assembly.

Specifically, I had to go to the gathering for nobles with the rank of count or higher from all the participating countries. On the surface, the purpose was to strengthen international bonds, but the real purpose was searching for useful information about foreign powers and finding out what they thought of specific policies in order to get a diplomatic advantage. So I was told to only speak the bare minimum and be very careful not to do anything that may put my country at a disadvantage.

I had always hated the gatherings of Sorcié nobles greeting each other with fake smiles, so having to withstand it on a much bigger scale and for a whole day was just the worst… But it was my duty, so I had no choice.

Thankfully, I had some reliable people to count on: Keith, Mary, Sophia, and Nicol. Jeord and Alan were at a different gathering reserved for royalty.

Let’s do this! I told myself, and together with Keith, I went to the hall.

It was large and luxurious — even for the castle’s standards — and a lot of people were already there. At a glance, it looked more or less like the princes’ graduation party, but the attendees were completely different.

First of all, they looked different. Sorcié people all had white skin and, usually, slender bodies, but there were some guests with plump physiques and the same skin tone as the Japanese people from my previous life, and even some with brown skin and black hair, probably from the same country as Cezar.

These traits made them unusual enough, but their clothes were very peculiar too. When attending a formal event such as this one, Sorcié nobles would normally wear dresses similar to ones from European high society in the Middle Ages in my old world. But today, I could see all kinds of outfits throughout the hall. If I were to compare them to things that I’d seen in my previous life, some looked like southeast Asian traditional clothing, and some like Japanese kimono.

I was taken aback by the exotic scene in front of me. If this had been my old world I would have expected to hear lots of different languages, but it seemed that there only was a single one in use here, and nobody had trouble communicating.

I was extremely grateful for that. For someone who hates studying as much as I do, having to learn a foreign language would be downright hell. My first experiences barely avoiding catastrophe actually dated back to when I was a Japanese high school girl and had to take English tests.

I was reminiscing about that when Keith pulled my arm. “Big Sister, don your best smile. We’re going for a round of greetings,” he whispered to me.

I remembered that I was supposed to act like a perfect lady throughout the whole Assembly, so I pulled myself together, smiled, and followed my brother into the circle of people. Even with so many nobles from other countries, what we had to do was the same as always: smile, greet them, introduce ourselves, and chat for a while.

I had been told to be wary that some of them would try to use these little chats to gain sensitive information, but then again, I didn’t really know much about the kingdom’s policies. The more important thing was to be careful not to say too much about the Magical Ministry.

It was rare for such a high-ranking noble to work there, but that fact wasn’t confidential, and most of the guests here actually knew about it. I was surprised that people from other countries would know that about me, but Keith explained that it was normal for nobles to know things like that.

I was asked several times about what kind of place the Ministry was, but I just smiled and replied with, “I only help with some minor tasks, so I am not so sure.”

I actually owned a Dark Familiar and was currently deciphering the Dark Covenant, but obviously I couldn’t reveal those national secrets.

Everyone quickly believed me when I said that I didn’t do much work there, as that made perfect sense for a noble. When I first entered the Ministry, the other employees thought that I was just there to kill the time until marriage, and the people that I was talking to now probably imagined something similar.

Using this strategy, I was able to get through all conversations without any problems.

Sophia and Mary, my beautiful friends, were on the receiving end of several advances. But since I wasn’t anywhere near as beautiful as them, cursed as I was with the villainess look, unfortunately luckily that didn’t happen to me.

I kept smiling and chatting, and eventually the day came to an end. I went back to my room and, absolutely exhausted, quickly changed into something more comfortable and jumped onto the bed.

Ugh, if I’m so tired after just the first day, this is going to be really hard… I thought with a sigh as I watched the trees outside the window turning red in the evening sun. Judging from my exhaustion I would have guessed that it was already late at night, but if the sun was still setting, that meant it was still earlier than when the seminar lessons usually finished. I thought those were hard, but this was on another level.

Hm? As I looked outside the window, I noticed the person I’d met on the previous day. My room was on the edge of the castle farthest from the entrance, so it was rare for people to come into the nearby garden. Seeing the same person there on two consecutive days was really weird.

Could it be that he came all the way here just to see me again?

If that were the case, it’d be rude not to go. Thankfully Anne had just left and I was alone in my room, so I could sneak out of the window.

I started walking towards Cezar, the handsome man I’d met the day before. He noticed me and turned around.

I still haven’t said anything, and I wasn’t that close to him, so how did he even notice me? Must be his wild survival instinct or something.

“Oh, I didn’t think I’d really see you again,” he told me with the same childish smile I’d seen on him last time.

“Did you come here just to see me?” I said, surprised that he’d really do something like that.

“Well, I was just taking a walk, and I figured that if I passed by this garden you’d be here too.”

He hadn’t come specifically to meet me, so there was no need for me to go out of the window to greet him. But now that I had, I couldn’t just up and leave without at least exchanging a few words.

“Are you done with work for today?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I’m all done. What about you?”

“Me too. I’m finally finished, and I am so exhausted,” I replied, with so much tiredness in my voice that it was obvious I wasn’t lying.

“The people of the host country all have it tough, huh? From nobles to servants,” he said with a laugh of sympathy.

“Aren’t you tired?” I asked him, because, despite having had to work as a servant for a full day in a foreign country, he still looked full of energy.

“A little, yeah, but nothing major. I’m very resilient, and I’ve done harder jobs in the past.”

“What kind of job did you do before becoming a servant?”

“I was a mercenary,” he said casually.

“A mare scenery?”

“Hm, I guess you aren’t used to the concept here in your country. A mercenary is a soldier for hire. Sorcié has a proper army, so it figures that there aren’t any mercenaries, but in poorer countries a lot of people make a living like that.”

Right, mercenary. Of course.

I’d heard about them in manga and novels in my previous life, but I didn’t think that they existed in this world, as I’d never seen one before. Cezar was muscular enough that one could tell through his clothes, and that, together with the way he instinctively realized I was approaching him earlier, definitely made him seem like someone who fights for a living.

I was staring at him in awe, and he raised an eyebrow.

“Are you scared of me now?”

“Hngh?” I didn’t understand what he meant, and the best response I could muster was a weird, meaningless sound.

“I mean, now that you know that I’ve made a living with a job as gruesome as that,” he said with a slight grin.

I guess being a mercenary is gruesome, but…

“To be honest, there are probably some details I don’t understand… but I don’t think that you are a scary person,” I said, and this time he raised both his eyebrows in surprise.

“Really?” he said with a laugh.

I wasn’t scared of him, but I did have one doubt. “Why did you decide to stop being a mercenary and become a servant?”

Maybe it was too personal of a question to ask someone that I didn’t know that well, but he seemed candid enough not to care. Indeed, he replied without thinking twice about it.

“My brother became the new head of his family, and since I owed him a lot, I decided to go help him.”

I was expecting some deep, sad answer, but I was relieved to hear such a normal explanation. Still, the work of a mercenary and that of a servant were so different that changing jobs must have been tough, so I asked him about it.

“Yeah,” he replied, “I feel much more constrained right now. Being a mercenary was way easier,” he said with a nostalgic look in his eyes.

“But mercenaries fight in wars, right? Wouldn’t that be much more dangerous than being a servant?” I asked, cocking my head to one side. Even if changing jobs was difficult, being a servant sounded easier than having to fight while risking one’s life.

He nodded and started explaining. “It’s true that as a servant you’re not risking your life, but there’s less freedom. As a mercenary you may be killed any day, but you’re free. You don’t serve any specific country or master, so you can go wherever you want. There’s nothing tying you down, and you can travel as far as you please. That way of living suited me better,” he said, and I noticed that his eyes were sparkling.

“Freedom…”

When he talked about it, the concept sounded so fascinating.

“Yes, freedom. I could decide what to do and where to go.”

“So you’ve been to a lot of different places?”

“Yes, I’ve always loved traveling, so I’ve visited many countries.”

“Oh? What kind of countries?” I asked, leaning forward with curiosity, which seemed to amuse him.

“You want to know?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, I’ll tell you a little bit,” he said, and started telling me about the many places he had seen. A country whose capital had a harbor thriving with trade, one whose castles were built along a river… I had heard about other countries from Sora, but Cezar’s stories were grander in scale and made even more interesting by his funny comments.

I asked him to go on so many times that, before I knew it, the sun had completely set.

“It’s late, you’d better go back to your room to rest. You also have work tomorrow, don’t you?” he told me.

“But I wanted to hear more stories…” I murmured to myself, and he grinned.

“I’m going to take a walk through this garden tomorrow too. Come see me, if you’re free after work,” he said.

We parted ways, and this time I remembered to sneak back in through the window. Since Anne had gone back to her room to sleep, I got back to my room without being noticed.

Having to be so careful all day long had drained me, but hearing Cezar’s stories made me feel refreshed.

Cezar from Ethenell… He’s a strange guy. We barely knew each other, but he was so easy to talk to. It felt as if we’d always been friends.

Actually, rather than friends, we felt like siblings. He kind of reminded me of my older brothers in my previous life.

I hope I’ll be able to see him tomorrow too, and then I’ll ask him to tell me more stories, I thought as I lay in bed. I heard some kind of growling animal, but I was definitely too tired to care about that, and I immediately fell asleep.

“Young miss, please wake up. It is morning already.”

I woke up to Anne’s voice, as usual. I had slept well, so I had no problem getting up.

I’m going to do my best on the second day of the Assembly too!

Today I’d be attending a tea party with the noblewomen from the participating countries. The first day was supposed to be for exchanging information between high-ranking nobles, and the second day was for exchanging information between ladies.

The place and people would be different, but what I had to do was more or less the same, so I was told to stay careful and be proper at all times.

Since this gathering was only for women, my trusted ally and problem-solver Keith wouldn’t be there. But I was going to have my dependable friends Mary and Sophia by my side. Together with them, I once again stepped inside that dizzying circle of people, where different nationalities and ways of dressing came together.

Despite it being called a tea party, we weren’t sitting down. Everyone had to eat and drink standing up so they could walk around and speak with more people.

I recognized some faces from the previous day, but I also saw many new ones.

Will they all ask me about the Ministry again? I feared, but after greeting one of the ladies, she asked me something completely different and completely unexpected.

“Is it true that your brother Keith is still not engaged?” The one asking was a lady from a neighboring country who looked slightly younger than me.

That really came out of nowhere! I thought, surprised, but I replied honestly.

“Yes. He still does not have a fiancée.”

As soon as I uttered these words, a swarm of foreign ladies surrounded me for some reason. In seconds, I was being aggressively interviewed, with questions such as, “What kind of girl does he like?” and “Are there already any candidates?”

Those ladies were so intense that I had no choice but to reply reluctantly. “I don’t really know about his tastes, and I don’t think there are any candidates right now,” I faltered.

This wasn’t the first time someone had asked about Keith at a tea party, but the people asking usually did so much more calmly.

After they finished telling me their ranks and what made them especially attractive, the women finally let me go. Exhausted, I found Mary, who had been looking at me throughout the whole ordeal and sympathized with me.

“Now those were some frantic ladies,” I said with a sigh, and Mary explained to me what was going on.

“Your brother is an extremely handsome youth after all. The people of our high society have become used to him, but for foreigners who see him for the first time, this reaction is not surprising. Our princes, Master Nicol, and others are getting a very similar treatment.”

“Really? Yesterday I spent the whole day with Keith, but I didn’t see that many girls approaching him,” I said, remembering the first day of the Assembly, and Mary laughed.

“Of course, they were in a foreign country together with their fathers and partners — it is natural that they would restrain themselves. But today there are only women gathered here, so they have no reason to contain their excitement.”

“Oh, I see.” I also only talked about romantic stuff with girls, so it made sense. “Speaking of… where’s Sophia?”

She had come with us, but even after doing my best to look throughout the hall, I couldn’t find her.

“She is there,” Mary said sadly as she pointed towards a small crowd of people.

“Inside that crowd?!”

“Yes. She is being surrounded and asked questions about her brother.”

Poor Sophia, through no fault of her own except having a handsome brother, was suffering the same fate as me, and with even more ladies asking her questions. I wanted to help her, but after seeing for myself how difficult it was to escape that circle of beasts, I couldn’t find the courage to step inside it.

I’m sorry, Sophia. Just answer enough questions and they’ll go away, I promise, I apologized to her inside my heart.

Mary, judging from the way she was looking at that crowd, was probably feeling equally bad for not being able to help her.

“Say, Mary, did they also surround you to ask questions about Prince Alan?” I asked her. She said that the foreign ladies had been crazy about the princes, so I figured that she also had to withstand their questions. But she shook her head.

“They did seem to be envious of me for being engaged to such a wonderful prince, but they were not so brazen as to ask anything directly of his fiancée. While they certainly seem to be a bit overexcited, all of these people still realize that they are here representing their own countries, so they would never cross the line with an engaged man. They asked you nothing about Prince Jeord, I assume.”

“You’re right. They had questions about Keith, but they only told me about how envious they were that I had Prince Jeord as a fiancé.”

“See? This is why they can’t contain themselves when it comes to handsome men who happen not to be engaged.”

Now that I think about it, it’s obvious that women who are looking to get married would be targeting all the single men.

“But I’m sure that there are a lot of handsome single men. Why’re they all swarming around me and Sophia like that?” I asked, furrowing my brow, and Mary laughed again.

“You are right. Our country is full of handsome people,” she said, sipping her tea. Hearing that from a girl as beautiful as her made it that much more convincing.

Even for an otome game, this country had a ridiculous number of attractive people — especially in my vicinity (or rather, in Maria’s, as she was the protagonist). No wonder the foreign ladies reacted like that.

“I have heard the opinions of most of the participants today, and it seems that Nicol and Keith are amongst the most popular at this year’s Assembly,” she said, taking another sip from her tea.

She looked so relaxed, drinking her tea in a corner, but she was actually always collecting information. Amazing. I should really learn to be more like her. Nicol and Keith were amazing too, though.

“That’s incredible, considering how many people are here. Isn’t there anyone who’s popular in the other countries?” With all these participants, it would have surprised me if there wasn’t.

“Hmm, well, the Prince of Ethenell is also enjoying a lot of popularity, but as he has no female relatives, there is nobody here to ask questions about him to.”

How did she learn so much about everyone so fast? Also, Ethenell… That’s the country where Cezar comes from. He’s very handsome too. Maybe next time I see him I should ask him about the prince.

I spaced out while thinking to myself, and before I knew it, I was once again surrounded by ladies who wanted to ask me about Keith.

After a while, once the lines of people around me had gotten sparse enough for me to escape, I excused myself by saying that I needed to go to the toilet.

I left the hall and rested in a corridor not far away, sighing deeply. I was so tired. They all asked me the same questions. I wished I could just write the answers on a piece of paper and post it on a wall. I didn’t want to go back… but I had to.

I was looking at the garden outside when I heard the squealing voices of ladies in love. D-Did they chase me here to get more information about Keith?! I braced myself and turned around, but I didn’t find any noble ladies.

I did find some female servants, though. Judging from their uniforms, they had come here from abroad. They were blushing just as much as their noble counterparts, and they were all staring at something.

I followed their gazes and saw a handsome man with blue eyes and blue hair wearing the uniform typical of Sorcié servants.

“Is that Sora?” I asked myself, but I was so surprised that I blurted it out so loudly that it caught his attention. As our eyes met, he looked agitated.

What’s up with that? Is that how you look at a colleague you haven’t seen in a while? I was thinking, disappointed, as he started walking towards me.

“May I help you, miss?” he said with an obviously fake smile.

“What’s wrong with you?” I tried to ask him, but he immediately interrupted me in a whisper.

“Don’t divulge anything,” he said with that same smile.

I realized that I might have done something wrong, so I closed my mouth.

“Oh, so you have become lost. I see. I would be most pleased to show you the way,” he said all of a sudden, and guided me somewhere the group of female servants couldn’t see us.

Once there, he let out a big sigh. “You already saw Maria, didn’t you? So I’d expect you to know why I’m here,” he said, and I remembered my encounter from the previous day.

Yeah, Maria was dressed as a maid for a mission, and that was probably a secr… Ah!

“So… You’re investigating something, so it’d be a problem if people found out you actually work for the Ministry, right?”

“Exactly. You’re a genius,” he said sarcastically. “My mission is classified, so pretend that you don’t know me as long as I’m here. Everyone here knows that you work for the Ministry.”

As he spoke to me with such a serious expression, all I could say was “Okay.” But then I couldn’t resist asking, “But what kind of mission is it?”

“You don’t need to know. Actually, don’t stick your nose in this. You’d just make everything more complicated.”

His reply stung a little; he was a newcomer in the department just like me, after all.

“I’m busy, so I’ll be going now. You probably have your noble lady duties to attend to,” he said before quickly walking away.

If the Assembly was part of the game, I guess it’s natural for Sora to be here too.

Still knowing nothing about the Ministry’s mission, I went back to the hall, where I was once again flooded with questions about Keith.

I spent the rest of the day answering those ladies, which made me feel just as tired as yesterday, even if for a different reason. Sophia had it even worse than me, and she looked totally spent when we silently shook hands and parted ways for the day.

I went back to my room and quickly changed, just as I had done on the previous day, and then ate some of the snacks that Anne had prepared for me. I’d been so busy during the tea party that I hadn’t even managed to eat properly, and I was starving.

I wonder if he’ll come by today too.

I looked out of the window, but when I saw no one there, I disappointedly went back to my snacks.

Maybe he’s too busy today, I thought as I looked around in my room, until my eyes fell upon the Dark Covenant, which I had carelessly left lying around. I was supposed to take good care of it, so I quickly put it back inside my bag.

Then again, who would ever want to steal this? Nobody, except for a few select people at the Ministry, even knows it exists.

I felt like I was being watched, and I turned towards the windows, thinking that maybe Cezar had come. But he wasn’t there. I must have imagined it.

“Grrrrr…”

Did I just hear something like a growling animal? I looked towards the window again, and this time I found him there, facing away from me.

He came!

I stood up from my chair, stuffed some snacks in my pockets, and jumped out of the window and into the garden, forgetting everything about the growl I’d heard.

Once again, he noticed me coming before I could say anything, and turned to face me. He’s definitely the real deal.

“Good evening, Cezar.”

“Good evening,” he replied with a smile. “You look even more tired than yesterday. Are you alright?”

Before I knew it, I was venting to him. “I’ve spent the whole day replying to the questions from foreign ladies about one of our noblemen who still doesn’t have a fiancée, and it was exhausting.”

“Your country is full of attractive men and women. It figures that everybody would be head over heels about them,” he said with a nod.

“People from your country are too?”

“Yes, of course. It’s rare to see people this good-looking in Ethenell, and here there are so many,” he said with a laugh.

“Rare? But you’re also very good-looking!” I said, staring at his handsome face.

For a second he stared back at me, surprised, but then he started laughing again. “Hahaha, why thank you. But noble ladies tend to like a more refined type of guy, like the princes you have here in Sorcié.”

“I guess that’s true…”

Cezar didn’t look like the fairy-tale Prince Jeord, but I was sure that some girls were into the ruggedly handsome type. Maybe there weren’t a lot of those girls in Ethenell. Speaking of Ethenell…

“By the way, I’ve heard that Ethenell’s prince is really popular too. What kind of person is he?” I asked, remembering my earlier conversation with Mary.

“Our prince? Uhm, well… he’s… I guess it depends on who you ask,” he replied in a very roundabout way while he scratched his head.

“All the ladies say that he’s really handsome.”

“You know, he got all prettied up for the occasion, so maybe he’s looking a bit better than usual… Anyway, you wanted to hear more of my stories from yesterday, right? Let’s stop talking about the prince.”

I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to talk about him, but it was also true that I wanted to hear about his stories from abroad, so I asked him to start telling them.

“Oh, right,” I said, taking the snacks out of my pockets. “Eating something sweet really helps when you’re tired. Would you like one?” I asked, and Cezar’s eyes widened as he stared at me.

“Do you… not like sweet things?” I asked, and, after looking surprised at my question, he started laughing.

“I do like them. Thanks, I’ll have one,” he said, then took one of the snacks and ate it. “Wow, this is delicious.”

“I know, right?! It’s from a famous shop downtown. They sell so fast it’s hard to get hold of them… and, oh, try one of these cookies! They’re so flaky and delicious!” I said, getting excited about the sweets.

Cezar laughed yet again like a child, showing his teeth. “This also looks good, thank you.”

We kept eating sweets as he told me his tales, and he actually must have liked sweet things quite a lot, since he kept complimenting the things I offered him. His stories were so fascinating that I didn’t notice the time passing by until the sun was close to setting and he told me it was time to go back.

“Say, tomorrow…” I started saying, but I remembered that, on the next day, I’d be busy starting first thing in the morning with the preparations for the ball. Pretty much everyone was going to participate, and it’d start in the evening and last until late at night.

Before I could explain myself, Cezar intervened. “I’m a bit busy tomorrow,” he said, smiling awkwardly. “So it’ll have to be another day.”

There were only two days left of the Assembly: one for the ball and then one for simple parting greetings. After that, all nobles would go back to their own countries, and their servants would obviously follow them. We had known each other for only a few days, but I really liked Cezar. I didn’t want to part ways with him so soon.

“Would you like to…”

…meet again before you have to leave? I wanted to ask, but I only managed to get the first part out. The second part was drowned out by my scream of surprise, because, as I was trying to get closer to Cezar, I tripped over something and fell forward.

I braced for the impact, but instead of the hard ground I was expecting, I found myself falling into a pair of muscular arms — Cezar had caught me.

“Th-Thank you,” I said, still held in his arms.

“Be careful, it’s already dark,” he said. Then he whispered something to himself, clearly panicking. “Oh no! It fell out!”

“What fell out?” I asked, and, looking up, noticed that Cezar’s face was very close to mine.

His face, although it was as handsome as always, had something different about it: his eyes. Minutes earlier his eyes had been black, but now his right eye was a sparkling gold color.

“Cezar… what happened to your eye?”

“Oh, this?” he replied, looking troubled by the question. “I usually have black pieces of glass in my eyes, but one fell out.”

“So… does that mean that this is the real color of your eyes?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Why’d you go through the trouble of hiding it though?”

“You don’t see a lot of people with eyes like this around here, do you? Well, the same is true in Ethenell, too… My mother was born in a faraway country, where this was normal, but for me it’s anything but. People would probably get scared of it.”

He was right that this color was rare. I’d never seen anyone with beautiful golden eyes like that, sparkling so much despite the sun being close to setting and the garden getting dark. I couldn’t help but stare at his face.

“Sorry… You’re scared too, right? I’ll be going. Be careful…”

“It’s so beautiful…”

“What?”

“Your eye. It sparkles like the sun…”

“Huh?!”

As soon as I praised his eyes, Cezar froze.

“Cezar?”

All of a sudden, he let me go and looked away from me. “Excuse me…”

I tried getting closer to see what had happened, but he moved farther away. Why is he doing this? I thought, worried, and he started talking.

“…Aren’t you scared of me?” he asked, and his voice sounded very different from how it had sounded so far. He sounded cold and distant.

“What?”

“My eyes, or the fact that I was a mercenary. Sorry, but I don’t deserve anyone’s approval. I don’t have regrets, but I realize I’m not someone that people should look up to either,” he said, lifting one of the corners of his mouth.

I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but I got what he meant. As a mercenary, being feared must have been part of his job.

“But you aren’t scary. And I really like your eyes,” I said.

I knew next to nothing about his past. I didn’t know what kind of person he was. What I did know was that he was so kind as to entertain me with his stories despite being tired, and that he liked the sweets I gave him. In my book, that made for a good person, not a scary one.

However, he froze once again when he heard my words. His last statement had made it obvious that this was a sensitive topic for him, and maybe I should have chosen my words better.

Unfortunately, all I was able to do was to honestly tell him how I felt. Maybe things would have been different if I were the game’s protagonist, but I wasn’t.

I waited for his answer. I was scared that I had hurt him, and that he wouldn’t want to see me anymore.

After remaining silent for a while, he spoke. “…I can’t meet you tomorrow, but the day after that, before leaving, I’ll come by this garden. I’d like you to come too.”

“Okay!” I said, and he ran away as quickly as a wild animal.

I still didn’t know how what I’d told him had made him feel, but at least I knew that we could see each other again, and that made me happy.

I went back to my room, careful not to trip over anything. The ball was awaiting me the next day, and it promised to be the most tiresome event so far. I lost no time in diving into my bed and falling asleep.

★★★★★★

Janne was waiting for me outside of my room.

“Hey, Cezar, where have you… What happened to your eyes?!” he said as soon as he saw me.

This guy has a talent for always appearing at the worst of times…

“I was going for a walk. I dropped one of the pieces of glass, but I have extras, so it’s fine,” I said, shoving him aside so I could get in my room.

He had known me long enough to know that, when I acted that coldly, it meant that I didn’t want to be talked to.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, and left.

I sat down on the couch, gave a loud sigh, and drooped backwards.

I just couldn’t calm down. I’d been hiding the rare color of my eyes when in public back in Ethenell, and that went double for other countries.

My mother used to tell me that I had beautiful eyes when I was little, but all the others who commented on them did so out of either fear or disgust. Eyes like these were regarded as a positive trait back in Mother’s faraway country, but in this region, just by virtue of their uniqueness, they were seen as evil and scary.

I remember being bullied about them for a long time, at the palace, after I became an orphan. My half-brothers and half-sisters, who couldn’t stand me, would chase me around and call me a monster, an abomination with golden eyes. Often, they’d get tired of throwing insults at me and start throwing rocks and sticks instead.

Because of that, I’d come to hate the eyes that my mother liked so much. I was so embarrassed by them that, once I became a mercenary, I grew my hair long to hide them as much as possible.

And on the occasions when I would accidentally show them to someone, they would become terrified of me. People are scared of those who are different.

On the other hand, it was a great way to instill fear into the hearts of my enemies. The name of the “golden-eyed wolf” was enough to make soldiers tremble, and this feature of mine had become something of a weapon.

I kept my eyes hidden from people I didn’t want to scare, especially girls, since the last thing I wanted was for them to start crying. Every once in a while, though, a flirty girl came close enough to see them, and the next moment she’d be running away with a horrified expression.

They were the ones approaching me at the beginning, which made it even worse. Ladies of the night, wouldn’t go as far as to run away, as they were paid to be with me, but I could see the fear in their eyes as they looked at mine.

After spending years in the palace, surrounded by people who hated me, I had learned how to guess what someone was thinking just from their facial expression. I was so frustrated by the way girls reacted that I started wearing black pieces of glass when I was around them.

Katarina, the girl I had recently met in the castle’s garden, was different from the others. There was something childlike about her, and even someone much less skilled than me would be able to read what she was thinking just by her expression.

Being with her was fun and pleasant, which is why I didn’t want to see her face twisted with fear, much less fear of me. So I did my best to avoid showing her my eyes… but fate likes to play the cruelest. The pieces of glass which I put in my eyes to hide their color almost never fell out, but they happened to do so at the worst of times. I tried not to show it, but I was extremely nervous at the time.

I couldn’t even look Katarina in the face. I didn’t want to see that horrified expression that I had grown so accustomed to over the years.

But her words surprised me.

“It sparkles like the sun…” she told me. I was so surprised that I turned back around to see her, and sure enough, she glowed with the expression of someone who was looking at something beautiful. It reminded me of the way my mother used to look at me.

In that moment, I felt like I could honestly tell Katarina the things which I’d kept hidden until that moment. I told her that I didn’t deserve her praise.

I was a child with no experience when I left the palace, and there was no way I could find a proper job and make a living. I went from one dirty job to the next because I had no other choice. I never regretted that, but I felt that nobody would ever look at me with a gaze as warm as my mother’s. I got used to being feared, and started avoiding clean and beautiful places, scared that I wouldn’t fit in.

And yet, that girl, who was obviously raised in the cleanest and most beautiful of environments, didn’t reject me. She looked at me without any fear in her eyes.

It felt as if her gaze had pierced all the way into my heart.

Ah, she’s going to steal my heart…

But even if, unlikely as it was, she had accepted me — the Prince of Ethenell couldn’t just go and fall in love with girls from other countries.

My instinct told me that it was dangerous to stay there, and I ran away. But the fact that I almost unconsciously made a promise to meet again went to show how much I already cared for her.

I liked her from the beginning, but seeing the way she looked at my eyes, and what she told me after that, risked making me completely fall for her.

And, unlike those ladies who were paid to be flattering and polite with me, she had nothing to gain from doing it. She just said what she had thought, and that’s what made it so powerful.

She was doing all the right things to bewitch me, without even meaning or realizing it… That was actually scary in a way.

I’d thought I wouldn’t have any problem parting ways with her, but now I was starting to feel greedy. I wasn’t thinking of her as a potential wife, as Janne had said, but I would have liked to bring her back to Ethenell with me.

It wasn’t as rich of a country as Sorcié, but thanks to my brother, it had become much better than before. Life in our castle would probably be close enough to what she enjoyed right now.

I had the feeling that someone as interested in other countries as she was might actually agree to come with me, even if she hadn’t known me for that long.

Then I could get to know her better, grow closer, and eventually…

Well, it seems that she’s already stolen my heart.