By Zephyria 
In the meantime, whenever I ran into him ‘by chance’, I pretended to be lost while running around here and there on my master’s orders. Since my favorability rating had exceeded 5 percent, Carlisle had been trying to say something whenever he saw me like that, but he had only moved his lips. But today, he finally moved.
‘If… if you’re okay with it. I can help you.’
‘Yes? What kind of help?’
‘……’
‘Young Duke?’
It wasn’t like he was confessing that he liked me and wanted to get married right away, but Carlisle, whose ears were red to the tips, couldn’t even bring himself to make eye contact with me and said he would tell me about the geography of the castle. I was so frustrated by his words, which came out slowly, one letter at a time….
Anyway, it’s a good thing. I still don’t know why he told me to come to this place.
It’s too late to say that it’s because you can see the overall structure at a glance because it’s high up. It’s too dark to see anything. All I can see are the stars in the night sky, shining as if they’re about to pour down.
“Since you said you’re a servant, you should have no problem reading and writing the Imperial Common Language, right?”
“Well, that’s true….”
I had a strange feeling in the back of my head. “That’s good.” Carlisle, who had quickly regained his cold reason, as if he had thrown away the shyness and embarrassment he had shown during the day, nodded nonchalantly and dragged the portable chalkboard that was in the corner in front of me.
The inside of the observatory, which was as bright as day with torches placed in every corner, was ominous for some reason. It seemed that my wishful thinking, which was to meet him naturally at least six or seven times under the guise of guiding me through the geography of the castle, was about to be kicked away.
“Ahem. I’ll only explain it once, so open your eyes wide and watch carefully.”
“……Yes?”
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you sitting at your desk?”
“……Yessir.”
The Young Duke, with an expression of solemnity that didn’t suit his age, ran across the vast chalkboard, which was perfect for drawing astronomy, without any hesitation. Every time the hard chalk ran boldly across the black board, the overall structure of the Ducal Palace was clearly revealed.
“Now. It will be easier to understand if you think of this place in the center as the main castle.”
“……”
Ha… This is crazy, really… Does this make sense? Someone tell me why the romance genre, which was clearly smooth until today, suddenly turned into MeX Study?
“The structure of Graham Castle can be largely divided into four parts. First of all, the main castle has….”
I’m going to tell you a story about how I tried to seduce a little kid and ended up going back to high school senior year.txt….
“Why? Is it a little too much to follow?”
“No, no. It’s not that….”
Carlisle, who had noticed my not-so-bright expression, asked cautiously. I paused for a moment, choosing what to say, and Carlisle tilted his head and asked again.
“Then?His cute gesture, which seemed to be his age, would be a remarkable change compared to when I first met him, but right now I didn’t have the luxury to notice such a change. Then? Theeeen? Is that what you’re going to say now, you little rascal! I was too busy bursting inside.
“Hmm, I honestly thought you were going to guide me yourself, Young Duke. I thought I could make a proper appointment to meet you, not just run into you by chance.”
“……”
“Too bad. I got ahead of myself.”
“H-How can you say such a frivolous thing…!”
The Young Duke, who was flustered and raised his voice, was all red in the face. I secretly cheered inside and checked Carlisle’s current favorability rating.
Favorability rating: 21%
Sigh… I thought it would have gone up at least 3 or 4 percent, but it was a little disappointing result.
But it’s better not to stimulate him any more today. This Young Duke, who hides his delicate adolescent emotions under a stoic expression, is more sensitive than I thought, and if I give him more stimulation than necessary, he might jump up and hide.
“Young Duke.”
“Why, why, why are you calling me again?”
The dignity of the majestic Young Duke was nowhere to be found, and his trembling voice was just young and cute. I chuckled mischievously and decided to tease him just one more time, really just one more time. I was always dealing with guys who were incomparably taller and bigger than me, and whose personalities I couldn’t say were very good, so when I faced this little kid who seemed like he hadn’t even stopped drinking milk, my mischievous heart kept popping out.
It was also quite fun to see him react so quickly to my teasing.
“Your face is red.”
“…Shut up.”
Favorability rating: 20.5%
Ah, I shouldn’t have teased him!
As expected, the Young Duke was not so easy to deal with.
As soon as I blew on the dust that had accumulated thickly, my eyes became blurry. The dust that was floating around in a dizzying manner rushed into my nose and mouth all at once.
“Cough, cough, cough!”
My eyes reflexively closed tightly. A series of violent sneezes was a bonus.
It seemed that much more dust had accumulated than I had seen with my eyes. If I had known this would happen, I would have just wiped it off, even if my hands got dirty.
After sneezing for a while, I waved my hand to clear my still blurry vision and reached for the shelf. There was a hardcover book with nothing written on it.
“This time it’ll be right, right? Please….”
Even before I could check if this book was the one I was looking for, I became desperate and started praying to a god I didn’t even know, “Please let it be right, please let it be right.” The god of this world was always on Allen’s side rather than mine, but Allen hadn’t appeared yet. It wouldn’t be too much to hope for this much luck, would it?
“Please, please, please….”
If I couldn’t find it this time, there was really no hope. I was getting nervous. I had a total of one month to capture Carlisle Graham. The one month that had felt so relaxed at first passed by in a blur. When I opened my eyes, there were only a few days left until the day I had to leave.
The progress of my favorability rating was going smoothly, but the problem was that I hadn’t been able to pull out the decisive ‘flag’ yet.
The identity of the flag was an old book that I had been searching for since I first arrived at the Ducal Palace.
Even when playing the game as Allen, whether or not I found this book determined whether my relationship with Carlisle would progress as lovers or simply remain close friends.
Of course, as I’ve emphasized many times, the original game was so easy that all I had to do was press the ‘find’ option and the book would magically appear somewhere in the vast Ducal Palace.
There was no way such magic would be allowed for me. I didn’t have enough luck to be plausible, and I didn’t have miracles where the things I wanted would magically appear. Instead, I was given the stubbornness and strong limbs that I had gained from repeating dozens of iterations.
So, I just searched the entire castle in a simple-minded way.
On the surface, it was just an ordinary, dusty old book, but it was actually a secret diary left by the original Graham Young Duke, Carlisle’s older brother, who had died in an unfortunate accident.
Carlisle Graham was the youngest child of the Grand Duke’s family when he was born. His older brother, who was already close to twenty when he was born, had already finished preparing to take over the succession.
The Young Duke, Jeremy Graham, who was called a genius unlike any other in the world, loved his younger brother, who was the age of his son, so much that everyone in this Grand Duke’s territory knew it.
The promising successor had already grown up, and the youngest child, who was so precious that he wouldn’t hurt even if he put him in his eyes, was just lovely. The atmosphere of the Graham Grand Duke’s family in those days was quite different from the icy and desolate atmosphere of today.
The young Carlisle, who was full of laughter and mischief, changed completely after the death of his beloved older brother. He became obsessed with the idea that he had to become the Young Duke who was no less than his brother, who had disappeared in an instant.
If you think that his mature way of speaking and rigid attitude, which didn’t seem to be his age, were also the product of such a tragedy, it’s a bit… I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. But I was too busy to feel sorry for anyone else.
“What are you doing here? I’ve been waiting in the garden for a long time.”
I was startled by Carlisle’s voice and reflexively hid the book I had found behind my back and quickly turned my head.
“O-Oh, Young Duke? How did you get here… By the way, you were waiting? For me?”
“…Ahem.”
It wasn’t that he was just blushing at the tips of his ears, but he couldn’t even make eye contact with me and was looking down, which made him look very cute.