Volume 1 Chapter 11: School Faction Riot Part Two 1

It was expected for the commoner faction to come into contact with us during the new student welcome party, and it was also within expectations for the second prince– who was completely taken by Lady Sophia, to ask her for a dance.

But what I never could’ve expected would’ve been the event where the heroine that was supposed to enroll three years from now to suddenly appear before me.

In this situation where Lady Sophia wanted to dance with me; Libert suddenly asked her for a dance, after which Alicia went ahead and asked me for a dance, and following that the second prince asked my lady for a dance as well.

It was impossible to anticipate this.

Even so, I was Lady Sophia’s exclusive butler. Within this scene of carnage, I needed to prioritise minimising the damage to my lady.

…if giving her priority in a scene of carnage was even possible, the very concept was laughable.

No, now wasn’t the time to fall into escapism. Lady Sophia was currently trapped in a difficult situation while I’m doing nothing but ponder here.

What was most important here was my lady’s protection. For that goal, avoiding the factional conflict was the top priority at the moment.

The problem here is the second prince.

As a butler, I couldn’t dispute his invitation to dance. If I overstep my position and cross a line that I shouldn’t, I might end up casting doubt on Lady Sophia’s talent.

My lady turned towards me, but I couldn’t move. Instead, I put my hand over my chest and looked straight into her shaking amethyst eyes.

I haven’t just been protecting her this entire time. I raised my lady up so she could cope with any situation she may come across. If it was her, then she’d definitely be able to get through this dilemma.

‘It’ll be okay, I’m here for you.’ I repeated those thoughts in my mind to the point where they were about to overflow.

–soon after, Lady Sophia nodded her head. Then after straightening her back, and fixing her expression to one suitable for a daughter of a Marquis, my lady turned to the second prince with a stunning smile.

“Lord Alforth, I’m honoured by this invitation, but I’m currently in the middle of a conversation. You can ask me again later, so for now can you please relent?”

Those who were waiting in anticipation for my lady’s answer gasped.

But that was the only suitable response to give in this situation. If I were in her position, I would’ve reacted the same way.

Although there was a certain degree of respect required for dealing with higher-ranked nobility, the second prince’s actions have been lacking in tact for a while now. On top of that, the school did have a policy of equality regardless of status.

Under such circumstances, the second prince couldn’t be given preferential treatment.

With that said, it wasn’t possible to overtly support for the commoner faction either. If such an attitude was taken, then we’d be placing ourselves in direct opposition to the second prince.

Therefore, there was only one option for my lady left to choose. To give priority… to her previous engagement.

My lady would give preference to the people she was interacting with first. By doing so, her position wouldn’t be clarified, even if she continued to talk with Libert instead.

Although her actions could be taken as her neglecting the second prince, by saying ‘for now’, her words could also be taken as her setting aside time for him later on.

In addition to that, it generally isn’t considered normal for women to invite others to dance.

Therefore, to reply to the gentleman invited her out that she’d go see him on her own… could be seen as an unusually passionate response.

I thought the second prince would be content with this, but he had a strangely dissatisfied expression on.

…but why?

Could it be, that as an elitist he’s thinking he should be given preference regardless of who came first? Is this why he disrupted her conversation with the opposing faction in such a public place?

If that was true, then this is quite annoying–

“Sophia, do you not… want to dance with me?”

But it was for a completely different reason.

The second prince was just another boy in love.

“No, it’s not like that… but…”

In retrospect, even when Lady Sophia created her faction, she wasn’t able to convey the roundabout exchanges that were commonplace within aristocratic society to the other girls.

The mature nuances in my lady’s actions couldn’t be passed on to innocent children.

And so–

“Lady Sophia, are you really going to reject his highness, whose rank is superior to your own?”

It was one of the prince’s followers who spoke such words.

Certainly, taking only status into consideration, the second prince should be given priority. Although this was a school that valued equality, if the individual in the higher position said such a thing didn’t matter, there was nothing you could do.

However, my lady had already expressed her will to give consideration to both parties. Regardless of his identity, his words were ones that looked down on the daughter of a Marquis and her opinion.

Therefore, the final judgement for this situation could only be made by the highest-ranked second prince– but his face only seemed to say that he wanted to dance.

My lady then smiled, going “I would never hold his highness in contempt,” before turning to Alicia and Libert to bow while saying, “please forgive me for this.”

It meant that she going to accept the prince’s invitation to dance.

Libert responded, “I don’t care,” with a derisive smirk. To his brazen reply, my lady showed a bit of disappointment.

As I watched this all happen while calming myself, my lady suddenly called my name, “–Cyril.” I had already prepared myself for her order.

“My apologies, but he’ll have to keep you company in my place. Cyril, I’m leaving the rest to you.”

“Please rest assured, my lady.”

When I replied so, Lady Sophia made a little smile. However, then as the daughter of a Marquis, she then walked to the dance hall while escorted by the second prince.

Naturally, the prince’s entourage followed them.

I’d like to ask if those actions were appropriate for the main capture target of Espressivo of Light and Darkness.

He seemed more reliable in the game… will he grow up that way in the next three years? To become someone worthy of my lady, he was currently at a point that I’d want to retrain him from scratch.

…hmm, that could’ve been a spin-off work specifically designed to tickle the hearts of young boy enthusiasts, called ‘Let’s Nurture the Unreliable Little Alforth Into a Fine Prince!’ or something.

But putting that aside, right now I had to deal with the matter regarding Libert.

With how the situation developed, he was undoubtedly disappointed with my lady. If things continued to develop this way, he might misunderstand this as her abandoning him in favour of the elitists.

Keeping that in mind, I needed to keep him company until she returned. Taking a deep breath, I quickly thought up the appropriate actions to take here and turned around.

“My apologies for my lady’s rudeness. As the exclusive butler of Lady Sophia, I– Cyril, will give you the utmost hospitality in the meantime.”

While taking care of the eyes of the elitists on us, I told him that I would stay here on my lady’s behalf.

Then I turned to Alicia.

“Lady Alicia, I’m honoured by your invitation, but I’m only a butler, and in accordance with my lady’s orders, I’m currently busy with other matters. I hope you can forgive me but…”

I understand. I’ll give up on the dance considering the circumstances, but we can still talk, right?

“That’s…”

Not something for me to decide, so I turned towards Libert.

“I don’t care, but I’m a commoner. Will that be okay for a young lady like her?”

At Libert’s question, tension ran through the surroundings watching us, but Alicia tilted her head with an innocent smile.

“Is there any problem with me doing so?”

“Haha, hahaha… no, you’re right. There’s no problems at all.”

Libert’s expression broke down and he started to smile.

…oh, I remember this exchange. This is the scene where Libert– who hated the nobility with a passion, first showed interest in the character of the heroine, Alicia.

Though it was supposed to be an event that occurs three years from now after the game starts…

Because I had ruined Alicia’s fateful encounter with the second prince for my own goals, I’d like to support her relationships with the other capture targets if possible.

That’s what I want but… this is Libert. His was the route where my lady got into contact with the elitists and then was convicted under false charges.

My lady was now currently dancing with the elitist faction’s second prince, while Alicia and Libert were quickly growing closer. I feel like we’re rapidly heading towards our destruction end.

This is bad, I need to fix our current trajectory.

…but how would I do so? I couldn’t interfere in these two’s relationship. By preventing the nobility and the commoners from getting along, I’d be practically declaring that I had advocated for the elitists as well.

From the perspective of the elitist aristocrats, I was just a commoner butler. However, from the viewpoint of the other commoners, I was a sell-out that had pledged myself to the nobility.

My actions could be easily misunderstood considering their current opinions of me.

Moreover, for some reason Alicia’s good favour was currently held towards me. If I broke in between these two now, I feel like I’d be entering the swamp of some kind of triangle relationship.

As I thought, it would be best if I could convey that my lady wasn’t an elitist.

However, now because of Alicia, we were now attracting unneeded attention.

If I declared that, “My lady is an ally of the commoners” here, there’d be no point in the struggles my lady went through in accepting the prince’s invitation to dance.

So that the surroundings wouldn’t notice, I needed to say this in a roundabout way.

“By the way, the setup for the courtyard venue seems quite sloppy. As a butler serving a Marquis house, are those standards really okay?”

That’s what Libert said.

But what he meant was, ‘can I take that as you not caring as to how the commoners are treated?’

“Actually, I wasn’t responsible for the courtyard’s setup.”

“What are you saying? Every year there’s a party of the new students admitted to the school. Did you really not think I’d know that the top student of the servant course would be in charge of it?”

I hesitated to answer. Even if Raymond announced that he was the one in charge of the courtyard venue, it wouldn’t relieve the suspicion behind that area’s neglect.

It was my responsibility if something went wrong in the courtyard, but Raymond was the one responsible for its quality. Nothing I said here would matter.

With that said– it was somewhat suspicious that Libert didn’t know about the conflict that happened in the servant course.

It was already rumoured that Raymond and I were setting up the venues separately. This was because it was none other than Raymond himself who was trumpeting this fact everywhere.

If so, then this was a question made even after knowing the circumstances. From the beginning, he was suspecting if I– or rather my lady through myself, was an elitist.

“Another person was in charge of setting up the courtyard.”

“So you had no intentions of working there in the first place?”

“No, it was the teacher who made the groupings. If I was involved in the courtyard venue’s setup, I would definitely work my hardest, just like I did here.”

I indirectly appealed that I had no intentions of neglecting the commoners in the slightest.

“So that’s how it is, your words are a relief. However… this is what I think. The easier a person is to understand, the easier they are to deal with. So the problem here is–”

‘You’re hiding your true self, or you’re only pretending to be the way you are to deceive us.’ In other words, its suspected that my lady and I are misrepresenting ourselves to lure Libert into a false sense of security.

“Aren’t you overestimating me?”

“Definitely not. Where else would I find I guy who could understand my intentions with only a single sentence?”

…that’s true.

If it were Alicia, she’d probably just innocently reply ‘What?’ with a confused expression. In that sense, a girl like her that didn’t have any hidden sides was quite compatible with Libert.

However… this was troublesome. The way I answered his questions was perfect, but it’s because I replied that way that he couldn’t trust me.

As I thought, it was necessary to have him told directly from my lady’s mouth.

Fortunately, Libert had invited her to dance. Perhaps this was so he could talk with her confidentially. No one else could eavesdrop on their conversation in the middle of a waltz.

While in the middle of a dance, they would be able to talk about the current situation as much as they wished. It seems it would be better to keep him company until my lady returned rather than try to persuade him myself.

“Sir Libert, I understand your concerns, but I’d like to tell you that they’re groundless.”

“…oh? How are you going to prove it?”

“My lady is a person who values manners. She would never neglect her previous commitment to you.”

As the second prince’s partner, she was currently in the dance hall’s spotlight. As I looked at my lady’s slightly dissatisfied expression, I spoke with a small voice.

My words meant that she’d remember to dance with him later as well. Which would be proof that she didn’t have any ill-intent towards the commoners. The misunderstanding will be able to be solved immediately.

–but I made two mistakes here.

One was that the individuals surrounding the prince were more brazen than I expected, while the second being… that I didn’t understand how deeply my lady actually trusted me.

Soon the song finished, and my lady gave the second prince a bow in parting, but then the followers stood in her way as she tried to leave.

I didn’t know the contents of their conversation because we were too far away.

However, the two then offered one of their hands to her. I understood the meaning of that gesture. They was asking her out to a dance.

They knew that my lady only interrupted her conversation with Alicia and us in consideration of the second prince.

And yet they were ignoring her circumstances and inviting her out to another dance. If they valued their reputation, this was obviously an err on their behalf.

Originally the second prince should’ve relented, but things went through because he was unreliable and couldn’t understand the subtleties of the situation. With that in mind, even if we had to cut corners a bit, my lady had all the right to reject them as the second-highest ranked person here.

As I thought that– my lady whispered something as she noticed my gaze, before taking one of their hands and returning to the dance hall.

“It seems that your mistress doesn’t remember her previous commitments to a commoner after all.”

Libert spat that out unpleasantly.

However, if looking at the situation subjectively, despite my lady showing preferential behavior to her previous engagement, she eventually relented to the second prince and left dealing with Libert to her butler.

It’s no wonder that he felt bitter.

I understood that she wanted to avoid any conflict with the second prince, but it wasn’t like her to make a choice like this.

But after thinking about it for a moment, I was able to figure out my lady’s misunderstanding.

She really trusts me. Lady Sophia truly believes her exclusive butler was the best in the entire world, that I was more reliable than anyone else.

–so she didn’t understand that this fact wasn’t true for others.

Maybe if I was Lady Sophia’s blood relative, then things might’ve been different.

In that case, even if my lady left things to me, Libert would’ve been able to understand that it was still in good faith. However, to him I was just a servant, another twelve year old child.

To leave her answer to me would undoubtedly be seen as a lack of sincerity.

“I’m sorry. My lady doesn’t usually make mistakes like this.”

“I wonder. Are you sure all of this isn’t just according to her plans?”

“No, there’s no way it’s like that. However, it’s natural that you would feel uncomfortable in this situation, Sir Libert. I’d like to apologise on my lady’s behalf. We will make this up to you later.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Libert then left the venue because he said he had a previous commitment he had to deal with.