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“I heard that you requested my presence. What is the matter, this late at night?”

When I entered the room, my Lady was wearing her tracksuit jacket. From her appearance, I assumed that she was wishing for me to practise with her.

“Lady Sophia, the live performance is tomorrow. Staying up late won’t be good for your body.”

At the rehearsal earlier that day, both Prince Alforth and Alicia had displayed a proper performance. Since Isabella began teaching them, their acting skills had improved remarkably. At tomorrow’s live performance, they would probably show their true acting abilities, even better than what they’d shown us today.

Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be a laughing matter if Lady Sophia performed poorly due to a lack of sleep.

“I know it isn’t. However, I would like to grasp a better understanding of the character just a little bit further, one more time.”

It was Fol’s dying wish to perform a successful play together with everyone. Lady Sophia was probably trying to grant this wish with all her might. 

I felt something sinister emanating from Lady Sophia right now.

“…I shouldn’t be staying up too late, should I?”

I smiled as cheerfully as I could and moved to the practice room with Lady Sophia.

She began her performance with a grand gesture that she hadn’t been doing at the beginning. If she made a normal gesture, the audience wouldn’t understand it. Therefore, for the performance, movements that were almost too exaggerated were just right.

Isabella taught her that. 

Putting her experience to good use, my Lady performed the role of Elvira now even bolder than in the past. 

The prince’s heart was growing distant from her. After she found out about it, Elvira continued to think of him in a pure way, simply genuinely wishing for him to look her way, wishing he would love her.

However, when she found out that these wishes wouldn’t come true, Elvira thought:

‘If only that girl didn’t exist.’

My Lady’s performance was truly compelling. She was as beautiful as a crimson rose, and yet, she had thorns that would bring harm to anyone who might touch her. After I had finished watching over her whole performance, I let out a sigh of admiration.

“As expected of you, Lady Sophia.”

“Thank you, Cyril. But this isn’t the result of my acting skills alone. I can completely understand how Elvira is feeling, so it’s very easy for me to empathize with her.”

“I-is, that so…”

I felt like Lady Sophia had some memory of being the villainous daughter after all. If she didn’t, then it must mean that the current Lady Sophia had qualities that might allow her to fall into darkness.

Either of those options was frightening.

“Elvira simply used the wrong method.”

“By saying that she just used the wrong method, you mean to say that everything else was correct?”

Elvira, who had fallen into darkness, had done enough evil deeds to be labelled as a ‘Villainous Daughter’. In the original work, there were enough reasons to empathize with her, but the play’s script wasn’t written to such detail.

It seemed strange that Lady Sophia would feel empathy for her, saying that only her methods were wrong.

“Even if she had killed Aurelia, she wouldn’t have been able to gain the prince’s love. If she wanted for the prince to look her way, she should have improved herself and done some thorough maneuvering behind the scenes, creating an environment in which the people around her would support her.”

‘This is something you’ve been carrying out, isn’t it, my Lady?’ – was something that I, of course, couldn’t say. My Lady herself had decided what she wished for and where she was heading.

Since I remained silent, Lady Sophia repeated her words.

“I believe that Elvira went down the wrong path because she didn’t think about this method,” Lady Sophia concluded.

I was able to empathize with his line of thinking myself. In the end, the villainous daughter was simply a child.

“If it were me, I wouldn’t have fallen to ruin. I would definitely find a way to achieve my goals. Therefore… when the time comes, will you help me?”

Lady Sophia tightly squeezed her small hands into fists and looked up at me. I was the only thing reflected in those anxiously trembling amethyst eyes.

“I promise. I will definitely help you.”

“Will you really?”

“Yes, of course. Since I am your exclusive butler, Lady Sophia.”

“…Sometimes, you can be really mean, Cyril.”

She showed a little pout. This Lady Sophia was so cute, that I broke out into a small smile.

“What is it? Why are you smiling?”

“No, it’s nothing. More importantly, it’s time for you to rest.”

“…Alriiight.”

It was impossible for my Lady, covered in sweat, to simply change her clothes and go to sleep. And so, busy with preparing the bath, I entrusted the slightly sulking Lady Sophia to Rouché.

It was the morning of the School Festival.

Together with my classmates, I was performing a final check of our class’ program in the courtyard. By the way, the servant course’s Class A, using the courtyard, would be hosting an open-air café.

There might probably be some people who would think that this was a basic idea, but that wasn’t the case. We were the servant course’s first year students, and the majority of us didn’t have a master yet. Therefore, being able to set up a café to show our waitressing and organization skills was a recipe for success. Since every class wanted to host a café, the competition would be harsh, but our Class A was ready to tackle the challenge head on.

Moreover, we weren’t simply opening a café. In order to raise the popularity of the crêpes Libert was planning on selling, having gotten the recipe through Prince Alforth, we had decided that he would begin selling them on a large scale through our class. For this event, he would make them using top class ingredients, aiming to sell them to the nobility and the wealthy. He also wouldn’t forget to advertise them as a new sweets recipe that Lady Sophia gave Prince Alforth as a present. Because of this, people who wanted to feel a connection to the royal family or the marquis household were expected to gather around.

As a result, the crêpes’ fame would spread among the wealthy in the blink of an eye. At the same time, he\'d let the common folk know about the crêpes\' popularity among the upper classes – and then he’d begin to sell the much-awaited crêpes using lower cost ingredients, since they would be intended for commoners. Libert had devised this plan using my suggestion as a basis.

Since a lot of nobility might possibly show up, naturally, Class A’s responsibility was even greater. However, the class readily took it all on led by Luke. 

It seemed that they were thankful that such a great opportunity had been offered to them. And, just as their reliable words promised, Luke and the others had succeeded in setting it up perfectly.

Making use of the experiences he had gathered during the New Students’ Welcoming Party preparations, Luke skillfully divided the workload and brought out their classmates’ motivation.

Also, Raymond had been assigned to be Luke’s assistant. I believed that, while there were no problems with his abilities, as of now, our classmates didn’t find him trustworthy yet. That was the reason why I didn’t try to convince them to let him lead in any way. Luke was the one who decided on it and then persuaded the others.

And Raymond lived up to their expectations. He made good use of the experiences he had gained from leading the courtyard group at the New Students’ Welcoming Party, and showed that he was receptive to Luke’s methods. The one who brought the classmates together was Luke, but the one connecting the two groups together was Raymond.

‘Learn from your mistakes.’

This seemed to be the education method of Luke’s teacher. Also, according to what Luke had said, this teacher was Fol’s tutor as well.

And so, it was likely that –

“Chloe, would you mind if I asked you something?”

I addressed her as she checked the lined up tables in the courtyard.

“Oh my, it’s rare for you to have a question for me, Cyril. What is it?”

“Ah, it’s just… I heard that you were stuck with Luke for ages, but to think that he actually secretly likes you…”

“Huh?”

She looked at me with cold eyes.

“I apologize. I was just joking.”

“It wasn’t funny at all, though.”

“How harsh of you. Well then, let me get straight to the point. I would like to know about your teacher.”

“Just to let you know, I cannot tell you their identity. I’m forbidden from speaking about it.”

“Yes, I know. Luke told me the same thing.”

As I messed around, the expression on Chloe’s face seemed to say: ‘So why are you asking me?’

“Since Fol seems to hold her in high esteem, I became a little curious about her myself. Therefore, I wanted to ask you, Chloe, whether you have a good impression of her as well?”

”…It’s not a laughing matter.”

“You’re right. Please excuse my behaviour. I’ll take my leave before I offend you any further.”

In accordance with my words, I began to walk past her. However, right as I tried to leave, Chloe grabbed my arm.

“…What is it?”

“Answer me. What did you find out?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb. You said that you had something you wanted to ask me. However, you just keep messing around asking me pointless questions and then tried to leave. There’s no way you… simply did this for no reason, is there?”

Just as I thought, Chloe was outstanding. She seemed to have noticed that, through our conversation just a moment ago, I had already achieved my aim.

“It’s not such a big deal. I simply verified something.”

If someone didn\'t have the information I wanted, it\'d be near impossible for them not to misinterpret my questions. If someone did, their reaction would show it clearly. And yet, Chloe had misunderstood me nonetheless.1

That was the reason why I was able to figure out ‘her’ identity.

I didn’t intend on letting her know about even the fact that I was extracting information, but it seemed that quickly running away from the guilt of secretly getting information out of Chloe was a failure.

As expected of Chloe.

She seemed to be one or two steps ahead of Luke when it came to conversations such as these.

“…Answer me. What information did you get from me?”

“That\'s a secret for now.”

“…ugh. And you think I will just accept that?”

“I don’t. So allow me to tell you something. Lady Sophia loves Miss Fol dearly. Therefore, I would never do anything to hurt her.”

Chloe glared at me. I faced her gaze head on.

“…If what you just said turns out to be a lie, I will never forgive you.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

After my conversation with Chloe had ended, I went back to work. I was checking for any inadequacies in our set up. Up until now, I had gone to help out simply as a member of the class whenever I was free, but since the work schedule had been well thought out, there was enough time to deal with any unforeseen circumstances that might appear. 

The set up was also done properly, so we were likely to receive a high rating from our future customers.

“Oh my, are you doing a secret check up?”

“Please don’t say things that could lead to misunderstandings. Right now, I am merely a member of the class.”

The one who addressed me was our teacher, Tristan.

When it came to setting up the School Festival, I was just a helping hand. I merely planned on receiving praise as yet another member of the class, since the honours meant for the leader belonged to Luke.

“You say that, but, if you had spotted any issues, you would have interfered.”

“That’s your duty, teacher, not mine.”

As I made it clear that I had no intentions on stealing their achievements, I thought about teacher Tristan. I realized that coming into contact with Tristan, who was Fol’s father’s butler, so often lately, couldn’t be a mere coincidence.

Luke and Chloe were the ones who were monitoring me. Then, after Luke determined that I wasn’t a threat and I lowered my guard, there was one more person surveilling me.

It was an old trick to thoroughly investigate someone.

“Come to think of it, I need to express my gratitude to you.”

“…Express your gratitude?”

“Yes, in regards to Lady Fol. Thanks to all of you, she has become quite cheerful lately. She might have found her  purpose in life with the play.”

Although he said that he felt grateful regarding Fol, he didn’t actually say that it was because of her finding her purpose. I understood the meaning underlying teacher Tristan’s gratitude.

After much deliberation I decided to split this chapter into two parts, because it\'s the length of two regular chapters, so it was split in order to maintain quality. For some reason the first half of it was quite challenging this time so I think it was a good call! Immense thanks to my editor Barebones (please do check her out and support her if you can, she\'s amazing and so hardworking!) who always delivers amazing edits and who helped me out so much this chapter. Also huge thank you to Graze and BAD MACHINE who have been a big help as well.

Thank you so much for reading and your support! <3

1. crediting my editor Barebones for this paragraph