“Hm…”

“Mrow?”

A tiny paw nudged me, urging me to play.

“Not now, clingy kitty. Let me finish this chapter first.”

“Miao!”

Looking dissatisfied, Floofbottom settled down on my chest again. He yawned and closed his eyes while I flipped to the next page.

My lessons with Albert were over for the day, but I had borrowed this book on magical theory from him. I was relaxing in the tea room, lying down on a couch and still trying to catch up on my studies. This room had quickly become my favorite place to hang out in the entire mansion; it was cozy, quiet, and there was never any shortage of great tea leaves to sample.

Today I had to prepare it myself though. Emma was covering for a girl who fell sick, so I haven’t seen her since this morning. Well, even though it’s kind of lonely without her, this was a pretty nice change of pace too. I can behave as slovenly as I want without feeling embarrassed.

Anyway, regarding magic.

It has existed in various forms throughout all of recorded history, so there’s no way to tell what the origin of magic is or who ‘discovered’ it first. However, there’s been thousands of years of research on it, so the people of this world have a pretty good idea of how it works. Some of the most important confirmed truths include the following:

The gift of magic cannot be gained through artificial means. No exceptions. You either have it or you don’t, and you only find out on your day of awakening. Awakening takes place on a random day between your 16th and 18th birthdays, so mine might come any time now. Every mage can use most magic types, but being competent at it is another matter. Mages lean towards a certain affinity; someone with the Fire affinity will be best at casting fire type spells, while being terrible or mediocre at pretty much anything else. There are a rare few exceptions to this rule however. Bloodline is a crucial factor. By and large, the children of powerful mages will inherit their parents’ talents. Even if they don’t, the ‘mana’ remains dormant in their blood, so their future descendants still have a large chance of inheriting the gift. As you can imagine, this means that nobles pay close attention to the pedigrees of potential marriage candidates. Occasionally though, someone with no magic at all in their family tree will awaken. The official term for these people is “progenitors”, but I’ve internally nicknamed them “fresh blood”.

Mary was one such example, born with the extremely rare Light affinity and a massive amount of mana. It’s actually the reason she was even able to marry the Second Prince in his route - normally, it would be unthinkable for royalty to break off an engagement with a ducal house in favor of a commoner girl (no matter how terrible Christine’s attitude may have been), but things change when magic is involved. For the sake of enriching the bloodline, it is acceptable for nobles to ‘marry down’ and bring a talented mage into their family.

Yaaaaawn.

I love this couch, but it was getting harder to focus on the words on the page, since I felt like I was melting into the soft cushions. The warm sunlight certainly wasn’t helping.

Maybe I can just rest my eyes for a little while.

Yeah, just a few minutes… then I’ll get right back to reading.

...

I don’t know how long I was out when I was awoken by a few hissing voices. My eyes opened, yet only saw darkness; it was then I realized that the textbook on magic was covering most of my face.

“And what if he gets a cold? The madame will be furious...”

“Well I’m not waking him up, you do it if you want!”

So noisy. They were trying to whisper, but they were too lost in their argument to notice that their voices had already risen. Sound traveled easily in this room too, so they may as well have been talking by my ear. While I was debating whether or not to get their attention, one of them spoke again.

“But you know... looking at him sleeping like this with that kitten on his chest, it’s hard to imagine that he can be such an ass.”

Hey. Don’t talk trash about someone right in front of them. I was tempted to sit up right then, but a mischievous urge to keep listening won out.

“Don’t be fooled. He may be a little sweet on Emma for now, but we all know what he’s really like. People don’t change that easily. We can’t let our guard down around him!”

You’re letting your guard down plenty right now, miss.

A soft sigh followed. “You’re right. I still wonder if she’s being forced, to be honest.”

“No, I think she’s actually pretty happy, but there’s no telling how long that will last. Nobles get bored easily. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sadistic bastard cast her aside tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, I would never do that. Emma’s really helpful and I owe her a lot.”

“Yeah, you- hm? Eh… WAAAH!?”

A shrill cry answered my nonchalant attempt to join their conversation.

I sat up and pulled the book off, while also taking care to gently move the sleeping kitten. “Good afternoon. I seem to have dozed off because of the fine weather. Were you three about to clean this room?”

The maids were staring at me with fear and panic in their eyes. The one in the middle, a short haired, slightly tomboyish girl, stuttered as she pointed a finger at me.

“H-h-h-h-how much d-did you…”

I recognized her voice as the one warning the others not to trust me so easily. Even now, shocked after being caught off guard, she still sounded a little defiant.

“How much did I hear? Oh, not much at all. I definitely didn’t hear anything about me being an ass or a sadistic bastard."

My sarcastic voice caused all color to drain from their faces.

I’m sorry for being so immature. I know it’s mean to mess with them like this, since for all they knew I could order them executed for their ‘crimes’, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Let’s just consider it as payback.

“Lord Halesworth, please forgive us! We have no excuse for our rudeness!”

“...Ugh, please forgive us!”

“We’re really sorry~!”

The girl on the left, a timid looking woman with braided hair, was the first to bow and frantically apologize. Tomboy only hesitated for a second before doing it too, and was followed by-

Wait.

I did a double take as I stared at the girl on the right.

I only caught a glimpse of her face as she bowed, but that caramel colored hair tied into two loose pigtails reminded me of someone...

“Loraine?”

Surprise filled her face as she looked up. “Young master knows who I am?”

Her curious green eyes stared at me.

There was no mistaking it.

“Err, yes. I’ve heard about you from Emma,” I answered carelessly while lost in thought.

That was a lie, I actually knew her from the game. This girl was a minor character in Lost in Love and served as Christine’s handmaiden while studying at the academy. She was what you would call a dark horse favorite; the poor girl suffered a lot because of her unreasonable, sometimes hysterical mistress, so despite her small role Loraine had a pretty large fanbase.

There were even some petitions for a secret Loraine route, but considering the nature of Lost in Love’s endings... I’d say she was better off not having one. Being a background character in this game was a hidden blessing.

As for the other two? If they were ever mentioned, I don't remember it. They definitely didn't have their own wiki pages or anything.

Loraine laughed nervously. “Well, we are her friends after all. So um, young master, could you please forget what we said earlier? We really didn’t mean it.”

She batted her long eyelashes at me. The timid girl and tomboy both clasped their hands with hopeful expressions too.

A sigh unconsciously leaked out of my mouth. “It’s fine, I’m not actually mad.” I said while smiling. “Given how I’ve acted until now, it’s normal for me to be resented.”

The three stared at me, unsure how to react to my self deprecation.

“At any rate, drinking tea on my own is a bit lonely.” I said, and gestured to the numerous empty seats. “Would you care to join me for a while?”

An awkward silence followed as the girls seemed to be struggling for words. Loraine was the first to break it.

“Then don’t mind if I do.” She plopped down on one of the seats and gave me a relaxed smile.

“Loraine!?” The timid maid gasped in horror.

“What? The young master offered, so it would be rude to turn him down. Come on!”

Unable to refute her, the hesitant girl and the tomboy sat down as well. “P-please excuse me…”

“I’m afraid I don’t know your names yet.” I said to the two while Loraine poured tea for everyone.

“I-I’m Megan. Thank you for your leniency, young master.”

“...Sam. I’m sorry about what I said earlier.”

“Nice to meet you, and like I said, don’t mind it.” I said while taking a sip. Wait, crap, it’s gone cold, I must have been asleep longer than I thought. Oh well, might as well brew up a new batch. “This is a good chance, I’ve been meaning to get to know Emma’s friends better anyway.”

They exchanged strange glances. Yet again, Loraine was the first to talk.

“Young master seems to care about Emma a lot.” She said cautiously, but there was an excited gleam in her eyes. “She’s fortunate to have been chosen by you.”

I laughed and shook my head. “No no, I’m the lucky one. I couldn’t ask for a better attendant, and she’s a wonderful friend as well."

I wanted to emphasize that the two of us got along well, but their reactions were a bit more dramatic than I expected. Loraine grinned with a face that just screamed Aha!, while Sam and Megan looked shellshocked.

“You’re not just stringing her along right?” Sam blurted out.

“Excuse me?”

“Ah!” Loraine fiercely clamped a hand over the other girl’s mouth. “Don’t mind her, young master, Sam has a habit of talking rubbish sometimes, hahaha! So you’re really, um, ‘friends’ then?”

I smiled helplessly.

Even if I was a thousand times more clueless, I’d be able to understand what they were getting at by now. So they thought that I was in that kind of relationship with Emma? No wonder she looked so exasperated when I told her about the other maids’ strange behavior.

Ah screw it, let them think what they want. Denying it would probably only convince them further.

Besides… as far as misunderstandings go, this one honestly didn’t sound so bad.