LNU 12

Just then, I spotted Nicole, whom I had called earlier, arriving nearby, and I used that as an excuse to quickly leave the scene.

If this were the first time I had met the Crown Prince without experiencing the repetitions of the previous rounds, I might have thought he had fallen in love with me at first sight. The appearance of this body I possessed, ‘Noah Hamilton,’ was beautiful enough that it wouldn’t be strange for anyone to fall in love at first sight.

But that, too, was merely a means to emphasize Allen’s pure and pitiful appearance. After it was revealed that Allen was the lost youngest of the Hamiltons, I was constantly compared to him, despite being similarly handsome, and criticized for having completely different personalities and atmospheres, and told that I couldn’t compare to a blood-related son. That was the role and duty given to me, this beautiful shell.

“Young Master, what’s wrong? You don’t look well.”

Nicole asked worriedly as she stopped tidying my disheveled hair.

“…I thought it had all subsided, but it seems like the Manifestation Pains have returned. Nicole, I’m sorry, but I think I should just go up to my room and rest. Could you tell my father and eldest brother?”

“Oh, yes, of course!”

I dissuaded Nicole, who was fussing over me, and returned to my room alone. The statement that the Manifestation Pains seemed to have started again was, of course, a lie. I just wanted to be alone as soon as possible. I needed time to reorganize my complicated thoughts.

No matter how much everyone says that everything depends on what you set your mind to… Even though my actual actions haven’t changed much compared to what I’ve decided, so many things have changed.

Meeting the two brothers, Andrew and Frederick, as soon as I got home, well, I could accept that. But the Crown Prince still didn’t make any sense.

Why, for what reason, did he decide to attend a banquet that he had never attended before, and why did his favorability skyrocket as soon as he met me? I wanted to be able to guess the reason, even if it wasn’t accurate.

Frankly speaking, I hated it when something happened in this world that I couldn’t understand. If I couldn’t avoid the misfortune that was about to come, it had become my long-standing habit to at least recognize the signs and prepare myself mentally.

The System laments that it can no longer bear to see your troubled face. | ´ʖ̼|

“Then don’t look, you crazy bastard. You looked with your own eyes and now you’re getting on my nerves…”

It was quiet for a while, but then it started again. Since I was alone in the room anyway, I opened my mouth comfortably. Ah, that’s refreshing. It was better to curse at that crazy bastard directly than to curse in my mind.

The System is dejected, asking how you can say such cold things.｡° (ꢳ‎‎ࡇꢳ) °｡

“Oh, don’t be dejected. Just die.”

A wounded heart…｡° (ꢳ‎‎ࡇꢳ) °｡

“Ah, mister. If you’re not going to help, just get lost. You’re distracting me.”

Usually, the System would grit its teeth and display more notification windows at times like this. Was it really going to listen to me? The surroundings were quiet for a moment. I took that opportunity to sit at my desk and take out a blank parchment and quill. I intended to calmly organize the events that had occurred since I woke up this morning.

“Sigh, as expected… Everything else was the same. The only difference was that I rested at the temple for a while. Is there some connection between the temple and the Crown Prince? There definitely wasn’t such a setting…”

I pressed my temples and tried to get my stiff head to work somehow.

Critical Hit!

An unexpected notification window flashed before my eyes, and as a side effect, a fanfare burst out!

The ‘System’ has generously prepared a guide to satisfy your curiosity about the identity of the continuously rising favorability.

The System boasts that this is a service that is not normally provided, and isn’t this quite helpful?

=͟͟͞͞(๑•̀ㅁ•́ฅ✧

You have properly grasped and hit the target of the ‘Adrian Pearson’s Preferences.

As a first-time achievement bonus, a 10% added value will be automatically applied to the favorability increase of all targetable characters for the next month.

Too many windows popped up at once, making it difficult to grasp the contents at a glance. I read the windows one by one in order…

“Adrian Pearson’s secret preference… A beauty you want to make cry…?”

‘Adrian Pearson’s Secret Preference: Beauty You Want to Make Cry (Unlocked),

xxxxxxx, xxxxxxx, xxxxxx.

At that very moment, a conversation from my past life, buried deep in my memory, quickly flashed through my mind.

‘Ah, Assistant Manager Lee. Have you heard about the hidden ending that’s trending these days?’

‘Hidden ending?’

CEO Kim’s long-winded voice, trying to somehow revive a game that had already failed, suddenly felt like a slap to the back of my head.

‘Yes, yes. Our game is getting some feedback that it’s a bit easy. It’s a bit difficult to fix the scenario or overall difficulty of the main game, so we’re adding elements like the characters’ secret preferences to show a more maniacal ending from the second playthrough onwards. You have to use your head well to pick the pockets of perverts. How about it, isn’t it amazing? With this, we can… without putting much effort into the patch!’

“…That damn CEO Kim, he finally did it!”

I had a sudden death before that story was shared and the patch was officially applied, so oh my god, I wasn’t even thinking about it. The back of my neck throbbed.

In my past life, I was an employee in the marketing team of a platform company that provided PC games of various genres. And this game, ‘The Nobleman of the Rose Mansion,’ was the very first title I was put in charge of promoting.

CEO Kim, who had produced several fairly well-known game titles in the Windows XP era, scraped together all the money he had to develop what was practically a barren land. After the game was released, CEO Kim would often visit our company and nag me, even though he wasn’t busy as the CEO.

‘There’s no way the game I made could fail like this! Assistant Manager Lee didn’t promote it properly! Market it more aggressively, huh? Didn’t you learn that in college?’

He didn’t think about the shortcomings of the title, which was too easy, had too short of a playtime, and lacked any sense of tension or immersion. He just grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

I also did everything I could, even though it was the first time I was in charge of a yuri genre and he didn’t show much enthusiasm for the game, so he seemed to think that there was surprisingly no market response even after the game was released.

I endured the harsh glares of my superiors, who asked why I had to promote a game that didn’t have much attention, and tried to expose the game in a good spot on the main page, and even begged famous game streamers who said they couldn’t accept any more paid advertisements. Of course, I monitored all of the streamers’ play videos.

It was the first solo task I was assigned, so I worked hard to find things to do beyond what was required. In fact, my last memory before I died was printing out a setting book that no one was looking at to see if there were any phrases that could attract other aggro, so what more can I say?

Well, as a result, I watched other people’s plays with various endings dozens of times until my eyes fell out, and I read the setting book until it was tattered, so it was nice that I memorized all the major narratives such as the individual endings for each target character and the very minor settings such as the choices and flags required for them.

“Ah, what should I do? I don’t know the characters’ secret preferences because it’s before the official update…”

No matter how hard I tried to squeeze my memories, it was blank. If I had known this would happen, I would have listened more carefully to CEO Kim’s long-winded nagging.

This round, I was determined to steal Allen’s share of the true ending. My original plan was to combine the information I already knew and pull out the flags that Allen had set up for the target characters one step ahead of him.

In fact, I don’t know if setting such a goal is the right path, but what can I do? To satisfy the damn condition of making it fun, I had to do something. So far, it seems to be going pretty well. Meeting Andrew at a time I had never encountered before, or the Crown Prince popping out at a time he had never appeared before and revealing unknown secret preferences,

The System is very proud of you!ಥﭛಥ

Special Bonus!

~Proud of you, fighting!~

ﾟ(ﾟ‪ᯅ´ ﾟ)ﾟﾆｰ

The fatigue remaining in your body is reset. Your stamina increases by 10.

… Okay. It seems like this direction is the right one.