[Redacted] is an unwitting Capture Target in a world that looks suspiciously like an otome game. Cursed to be short, adorable, and money grubbing, the [Heroine] was his hope for redemption... or damnation. If she chose him, he'd turn into a compassionate businessman who used his money to help the world. If she didn't choose him, he would continue being a conniving, greedy little man who only cared about making more money. Worse, if she caught his affection but she chose someone else, he'd get charged with kidnapping and illegal imprisonment of the [Heroine]. Unfortunately he was competing with: the all-around perfect [Crown Prince], the serious and studious [Duke's Son], the kind but strong [Knight-in-Training], and the suave adult Natural Studies [Teacher]. No matter how a player looked at it, [Redacted] would always be the last choice.

Luckily, the life of a Capture Target is filled with Hidden Routes. Someone unexpected crossed his path and unlocked his...

~Synopsis of Extra Chapters~

Daren Wallsby was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His great-great-grandfather had been one of the first western merchants to begin buying from the traders on what would later be called “the Silk Road”. Rare goods from the exotic eastern nations were sold as luxury goods and soon became THE items to own and wear among the nobility.

Not content to be the biggest importer of these exotic goods, Great-Great-Grandfather Wallsby actually married the daughter of the richest foreign trader he regularly did business with, all to make sure he had a permanent connection to the east. This worked very well, and the two families maintained a tight connection several generations later.

Thus Daren’s family inherited “rare” straight black hair of the east, youthful round faces, and….

...shortness.

There was no way around it. Great-Great-Grandfather Wallsby had already been on the short side among his peers, marrying someone who also came from a line of short people only worsened the height for the next generation. Great-Grandfather Wallsby and Grandfather Wallsby were proud men and both refused to marry anyone taller than them. By the time Father Wallsby was born, any chance of gaining a few inches seemed lost for good.

But then Father Wallsby married a short woman who came from a tall family and a glimmer of hope could be seen for the first time in three generations. Every time Daren Wallsby visited his maternal side of the family and saw his towering relatives, he clung to the hope that he could be like that one day too.

Every day, he had a big breakfast, drank milk, studied hard, and went to bed on time without any fuss. All things he was told would make him tall.

And found to be a lie.

At 12, his growth spurt seemed to end. When he didn’t gain an inch for an entire year, he felt betrayed. At first he was extremely bitter and in an act of pure rebellion, skipped breakfast, wouldn’t drink anything but water, ignored his homework, and contrarily stayed up until late into the night.

This lasted for about a week.

His father was vexed with his angsty moping and forced him to work. This was the first time Daren had worked at one of his father’s stores—called WallGoods—and he couldn’t help being a little curious.

Poorer families usually had their children learn basic reading and math and then sent them off to apprentice somewhere at around 10. Daren, coming from one of the wealthiest families in the region, was educated more like a noble. He had private tutors from the age of 4 up until his current age of 13, and next year he’d be enrolled in the Royal Academy.

Basically, he’d never worked a real day in his life. And no one in the family expected him to do so until he had graduated from the Royal Academy. It showed just how annoyed Father Wallsby was with his son’s behavior that he threw Daren into one of his stores.

The employees of WallGoods didn’t dare put the son of their boss to real work. After talking amongst themselves, they gave him the easiest job they could find: manning the register. They even gave him a chair to sit on, rather than making him stand like they usually required.

WallGoods stores came in many varieties for many different customers, but the store Daren was forced to work at was for high-end clientele. The first group to come in that day was a gang of middle-aged noblewomen. Usually they were arrogant and demeaning, terrorizing the WallGoods employees until their spirit’s were broken.

However, these overbearing women took one look at Daren, who at 13 looked 10: with his round face, bright hazel eyes and straight black hair, and felt like they’d suffered several blows to their hearts. He was a cherub, adorable from every angle one could imagine. Even his voice was like sweet honey to their ears. Their maternal instincts went haywire.

Daren quickly realized anything he told these women to buy, they’d buy. The next group of women that came in, young married noblewomen, responded the same way. Even more surprising, the closer the girls were to his age, the more outlandish their behavior.

It was then Daren realized that his shortness had an unexpected benefit: he was so cute women found it almost impossible to turn him down. He could get any woman who walked through the door to buy almost anything with a smile and a tinkling laugh.

He was on a high most of the day, until male customers finally trickled in. Then it was a splash of cold water on his head; they were not so easily fooled. If he tried to be cute with them, they’d be repulsed. After several failed attempts, he realized that the way to these male customer’s hearts was by acting very serious about his job.

The more serious he treated them, the more they let their guard down. With their guard down, they too fell prey to his adorableness. They found themselves leaving with things they hadn’t wanted and didn’t know why they bought.

After three days of Daren being in the store, the sales had doubled.

The Wallsby’s blood was strong, Daren found he loved selling things to people. This was partly because he loved the sound money made when it jangled together, but also because he genuinely enjoyed finding just the right item a person needed. There was something wonderful about completing a transaction where both he and the customer benefited.

His original depression over his height vanished and was replaced with a new appreciation. It seemed three generations of Wallsby had produced the perfect selling machine in Daren.

When he turned 14, Daren became the first Wallsby to enter the Royal Academy. Previous generations hadn’t been allowed to because, like the name indicates, it’d originally only allowed nobles and royals in. But shortly after Daren’s birth they’d opened up enrollment to anyone who could pay.

Not many commoners could afford the tuition, so even though it’d been years since they’d allowed anyone in, Daren was one of only two students in his year who came from a commoner family. No one was surprised that the Wallsby’s could afford to send their son. They were richer than some kings!

The Wallsby family viewed this as a business opportunity. Noble children were closely guarded by the parents and were difficult to sell things to, because the salesman often didn’t know if the young noble actually wanted the item or if their parents were forcing it on them.

But in the Royal Academy, there weren’t any parents to get in the way. With a little effort, Daren could easily find what his peer group was really interested in and pass that information on to his father. And since Daren found he liked business, he was more than willing to do what had been asked of him.

The day before school officially started, Daren walked around the commercial district near the Academy. The Wallsby family had never managed to open a store in this area, because the business owners all looked out for each other and refused to sell any land or stores outside their group. Basically, they had a monopoly on the area.

Worse, they could smell a WallGoods spy from a mile away, and would always chase them out like they were thieves.

Well, they were a sort of thief. The Wallsby family was trying to figure out what they sold and how much they sold, in the hopes of creating a store targeted specifically at young nobles.

Since Daren had a uniform, no matter how suspicious they were of him, they didn’t chase him out. He could freely walk in and snoop all the stores, so he did.

While he was in one store he saw something really amusing:

A tall blond girl with sharp blue eyes wearing the Royal Academy uniform was arguing with the cashier.

Over what?

Spare change!

She was arguing over the fact she’d been given the wrong change and been shorted!

Among mid-to-lower class commoners this kind of complaint was perfectly reasonable, but among the nobility they didn’t argue over their change. It would be the same as declaring they were poor, which would be extremely embarrassing. Because of this, merchants often skimmed money from nobles, not too much but just enough, and the nobles turned a blind eye. It was one of those things everyone implicitly understood.

Had this girl not gotten the memo? Even supposing she was a commoner, her family had to be loaded to attend this school. Rich commoners were always imitating nobles, so she shouldn’t have cared. Maybe she was a poor noble, but then why bother coming to stores to buy anything? She ought to be avoiding places that would bring attention to her “destitution”. Having to argue over change was shameful for a noble after all...

He guffawed at her for being insensible but didn’t think anything more about it.

Until the next day.

When he discovered the penny-pinching blond was, in fact, the daughter of Duke Florentine. There were only four ducal houses in the kingdom and they were all filthy rich! Discovering the Duke’s daughter was thrifty with her money shattered his understanding of nobles completely.

That night he took out his journal and began rethinking his assumptions. If the Duke’s daughter could be such an oddball, who’s to say other high ranking noble children won’t be too? If he went into his research with a biased perspective, it would affect the accuracy of the data he was collecting.

Many years later he would look at this moment and feel immensely pleased with himself. This habit of questioning assumptions saved him from a lot of pitfalls within business and allowed him to expand WallGoods to unprecedented levels.

After that, Daren always kept an eye out for the strange Duke’s daughter.

Indeed she was strange.

Besides being a penny-pincher, she showed very little noble arrogance. It’s not to say she wasn’t arrogant, but it wasn’t in the right way.

For instance, within the school nobles tended to look down on students who were commoners. They valued status and prestige and treated people according to those metrics. But Miss Florentine never did that. When it came to comparing herself with others, it was always from a merit-based perspective.

That is, she boasted with great zeal about being the 1oth smartest student in school, excelling at archery, and dominating the cooking class. As to her abysmal performance with horseback-riding and dancing, she stealthy avoided talking about them. To the point of point blank pretending to be deaf if the topic was brought up.

The first time Daren heard, with his own two ears, her publicly proclaiming her pies, puddings, and hard candies could rival a bakery and that she should start charging everyone for taste-testing, he laughed so hard he almost suffocated. She’d sounded so insufferable and proud, but it was all over pies and pudding! Who could take that kind of boast seriously?

Then he got a chance to taste one of her hard candies and stopped laughing. It turned out she didn’t brag without reason; they were really good. He didn’t usually like sugary foods, but even he couldn’t deny her abilities. In fact, he really wanted the recipe she was using so he could sell it…

Miss Florentine also had a very sharp tongue. Usually nobles were slippery with their words, filled with false praise and back-handed compliments. But Miss Florentine was never like that. If she liked a person, she liked them. If she didn’t, she said so without any filter.

A lot of people were offended because she’d say exactly what she was thinking of them, but some—such as Daren—found this honesty a relief. When dealing with Miss Florentine, a person always knew where they stood, and that was refreshing in it’s own way. So while her mouth put off a lot of people, it also attracted a very specific sort of person at the same time. One of those “sorts” was Daren.

As the weeks passed, Daren found Miss Florentine more and more interesting. Without realizing it, he would often find himself following her around campus from a distance to see what she’d do next. Since he was an underclassmen, he could only follow her during certain times of the day and never get too close when he did. After all, she had no idea who he was, she’d be quite alarmed if she found out some strange kid was keeping tabs on her.

Everything was going fine until he got caught by Crown Prince Albert and was accused of stalking. That kind of accusation—especially coming from the Crown Prince—could get him kicked out of the Academy. Unlike most people, the Prince wasn’t affected by his adorable appearance and actually seemed disgusted by it. Daren panicked and promised Prince Albert he wouldn’t do it anymore and in return for not reporting him, he’d do anything the Prince wanted.

This had been a serious miscalculation on his part. He’d always been in the position of examining and manipulating other people. It didn’t occur to him someone might be able to do the same to him.

Prince Albert used Daren Wallsby very well over the next few years. Because Daren was researching for his family, he’d been using his cuteness to network like crazy. Every girl in the Academy knew about Daren, and loved him—like a little brother, of course. They told him all kinds of things they’d never tell anyone else. This extensive network was what the Prince was actually after when he accused Daren of being a stalker.

Well, the Prince also didn’t like anyone hanging on to his fiance either. Something Daren didn’t need explained to him.

Even if Prince Albert was diabolical and had a good grasp of people’s weakness for blackmailing them, he wasn’t exactly bad. Daren found that the Prince, much like Miss Florentine, didn’t judge a person by their background. Prince Albert gave people a chance to succeed or fail on their merits. This was something Daren really admired about the future King of his country.

It was just unfortunate those “merits” had to do with following the Prince’s orders. Follow the Prince’s orders well, be rewarded. Do a bad job, suffer for it. Fortunately Daren was highly motivated, smart, and the Prince didn’t have unrealistic expectations for him.

There was one thing that puzzled Daren though.

He couldn’t understand the relationship between Prince Albert and Miss Florentine. It was clear that the Prince genuinely liked Miss Florentine, but it wasn’t at all clear what she thought of him. She treated him well enough, but not… in a romantic kind of way. It was a little pitiful to watch, because the Prince tried so hard and his efforts always fell on a blind man… or woman, in this case.

Daren wouldn’t usually care about the romantic lives of nobles, unless he was selling something they needed to woo a girl or scare a guy away, but he had a personal investment in their relationship. He wanted Miss Florentine to be happy.

If she wasn’t happy, he felt like he couldn’t be happy. Therefore, he wanted her to have a good marriage. But he also felt a little, unmistakable irritation in his heart whenever the Prince and Miss Florentine were actually happy together.

It took him a long time to understand the contradiction in his heart.

Somewhere in the weeks and months since he’d started watching her, he’d developed a massive crush on her. Other than the initial false accusation of stalking, Daren thought he hid his crush on Miss Florentine very well. Otherwise, why would the Prince still let him be around her?

In fact, the Prince was a major player in making Daren’s crush worse. By working for the Prince, Daren came in contact with Miss Florentine. The more time he spent time with her, the more he liked her. Whereas before they had no kind of relationship, through Prince Albert he was at least known to his crush and was able to have real conversations with her regularly.

During one of these conversations, she told him to start calling her Camilla. Any “friend” of Prince Albert she considered her friend too. With Prince Albert glaring daggers at him, he didn’t dare call her strictly by her first name and had settled on Miss Camilla.

Constantly being around Miss Camilla because of Prince Albert was agony. After all, she was engaged to a “Perfect Prince”. No guy on campus was even close to Prince Albert in looks and abilities. Why would she give him a second glance?

Even if she wasn’t with the perfect man… she was the tallest girl in school and he was the shortest boy. His inferiority complex about his height skyrocketed when he dared entertain any thought of being with her. Next to Prince Albert, she looked like a glamorous, when he stood next to her….

They looked like a big sister and little brother…

It was so humiliating...

His heart was a disaster! Even though he’d managed to get into a close relationship with the most powerful teenager in the country, he wasn’t happy. He was miserable.

To make matters worse, Prince Albert started flirting with some little chipmunk of a girl named Bethany. Daren was mad enough to eat copper! How could Prince Albert make eyes at some other girl when he had Miss Camilla by his side! He had the perfect girl but he dared find another one! If he had the strength for it, he’d have strangled the Prince when he first heard the rumors.

To add insult to injury, Bethany’s cuteness rivalled his own. She could make men do just about anything she wanted by just blinking her eyes cutely. He felt like she was competing with him, further annoying him. Sometimes he’d see her and just glare daggers.

But truthfully she was also a victim. She never looked for the Prince, it was the Prince who found her. She got a lot of flack, being called a slut and a hussy, even though the real problem was the Prince for always pushing himself on her. But she never blamed the Prince for any of her mistreatment nor did she resent the people who thought and said the worst about her.

It really irked him to no end!

How dare she be that smart and have that level of adorableness AND have the personality of a Holy Mother! That was making him feel bad in multiple ways! She could at least act a little more selfish so he had legitimate reasons to be angry at her!

Then the last Winter Ball the Prince could attend before graduation loomed over the proverbial horizon and his understanding of the situation was promptly turned on its head.

He, along with two others boys, and later a teacher, were told the whole story:

Miss Camilla was in a forced marriage, and had been from the beginning. Prince Albert and Miss Bethany were actually helping her to eventually annul the engagement in a public space so their parents would be forced to agree.

When Daren heard he was so ecstatic he almost missed anything else that was said afterward.

Miss Camilla had never liked Prince Albert! She had no intention of marrying him at all! Her unhappiness and jealousy towards Miss Bethany had all been an act!

He wanted to roll around the floor and laugh with glee.

And then he heard the actual plan and his heart dropped.

To get out of this unwanted marriage, Miss Camilla was going to ruin herself. Not only would what she planned to do destroy her reputation as a noble, it almost guaranteed a permanent shunning from high society. This would severely limit her choices going forward. Rather than deal with that, she’d elected to forego her noble title completely and live as a commoner in another country.

Not just him, none of the others involved thought this was a good idea. The teacher in particular kept insisting she should work things out with her father, Duke Florentine. Even if she couldn’t work things out, there must be some other way than fleeing the country…

But no matter what they said, Miss Camilla remained firm in her resolution. She didn’t want to marry the Prince and she didn’t want to be a noble. Her freedom to make her own choices was more important than her ability to live comfortably.

The itch in Daren’s heart, that he’d been suppressing since he realized she was engaged, came back with a vengeance. If Miss Camilla became a commoner that meant he had a chance… right?

The thought he might actually be able to win her, overpowered his inferiority about their height difference. His heart screamed: If he could be with her, then he’d just put up with looking like a little brother!

Thinking so, he strongly supported her resolve to leave the aristocracy. Not only that, he contacted his father to help her find a job in the Republic. That way she’d have an immediate source of income upon graduation and local connections to keep her from getting swindled. He did it all out of love, while saying it was because the Prince had asked him to help.

After all, Miss Camilla had never shown any romantic interest in him. If he suddenly proclaimed his undying love, she’d definitely turn him down. And she was too honest to be nice about it, which would be a double blow for him. Rather than deal with rejection, he decided to wait.

Everything went very well. Though he had been her strongest supporter, watching how easily people could be manipulated into turning against her broke his heart. She didn’t deserve to be looked down on like that.

Worse, he couldn’t do anything in public to show his support. As one of “the Prince’s aids” it wouldn’t make any sense for him to show her pity. Every time he said something that painted her as the scum of the earth, he felt like throwing up. Once the Prince graduated, he finally found some relief because he could just choose to ignore Miss Camilla by acting angry at anyone mentioning her.

Miss Camilla graduated 10th in the test score charts but at the bottom in popularity. On graduation day, not even her father or adopted brother showed up to support her, she was completely alone. Other students actively kept their distance from her, creating the illusion she was surrounded by a large invisible bubble.

Seeing this put him in a terrible mood for the rest of the day. He promised himself that if he ever got to be with her, he’d never miss the important days in her life. Even if it killed him, he’d make sure to always be there.

Life after Miss Camilla left was a little dull. She was nice enough to send him, as well as several others who were in on the secret, letters occasionally. He cherished these, going so far as to tuck them away in a fancy gold-gilded box with a lock and key.

And then, without any warning at all, he hit a growth spurt.

His body was in agony. Everything fiercely ached. His body and brain seemed to forget how to communicate. He constantly walked into things, smacked elbows and knees on sharp surfaces, and even tripped at random. None of his clothes fit, and buying new clothes was almost pointless because of how fast he grew out of them. No matter how much he ate, it never felt like enough. For two months, he felt like his own body was an alien.

Until finally, blessedly, it stopped. He slept like a deadman for a week, as if recovering from an illness.

For the first time in Wallsby history, a direct descendant Great-Great-Grandpa Wallsby was a normal height.

That’s right, he didn’t grow tall like a certain Duke’s son, but he was at least taller than most women! He was, in fact, a whole inch taller than Miss Camilla!

Finally, he no longer looked like a little brother! He could stand with his head raised high next to Miss Camilla! He was giddy with relief and ecstatic for the future.

The future…

The wheels in his mind turned. He had to graduate, and graduate well. With the Prince gone and Genius Bethany already graduated, he finally competed for the top spot on the scoreboards and won! His last year at school he was (relatively) tall, handsome, and smart!

After he graduated with honors, making his whole family immensely proud, he got to work as an apprentice under his father. The first thing he was given was a mediocre WallGoods store within driving distance of the Wallsby manor. Within a year, he had its profits doubled.

Impressed, his father gave him a more challenging store the following year: a failing store in the extremely hot southern part of the kingdom. The culture down there was different from where they lived and several managers had already been sent and failed at bringing it around.

Taking from his experience many years prior, Daren took over the store and first started questioning the assumptions about it. He discovered through his research that the major problem with the store was it sold items that were novel but useless for the area and the customer service was viewed as too formal and cold. What was considered proper in the north was considered downright rude in the south.

Once again, Daren worked for a year and got the store turning a profit. Of course, the change wasn’t as amazing as the first store. But the problems, like finding products that would sell and improving their reputation in the area, took longer. Even though the store was only doing “well”, the fact that it was no longer failing was considered a remarkable feat.

Whatever Father Wallsby had planned for his son next, got sideswiped by the son in question. Having proved himself twice, he asked for something big the third time: Let him take over the Republic branch. It was borderline failing, with many stores barely meeting their quota. Putting him in charge couldn’t make things any worse than they already were and, if he succeeded, it would only be good for the Wallsby family.

This was a big risk for Father Wallsby to make and it took a lot of clever arguing—and some pleading—before he finally, somewhat reluctantly, agreed. It was fortunate that Father Wallsby had no idea his son’s real intention was to woo a girl and he was just using the family business as an excuse. If he’d found out, he’d have throttled his son for taking such a huge risk for such a stupid reason.

Daren arrived in the Republic early on purpose. He knew there was a big holiday, he knew no one was prepared for him and there were no vacancies in the inns or hotels. What's more, WallGoods stores were required by law to close for at least three days of the holiday, so he couldn’t even do any work.

When he approached her house without any warning, he took a single deep breath before knocking.

He wouldn't be like Prince Albert who was timid and got his heart trodden over.

After all, he was the greatest salesman of his era. There was nothing he couldn't sell and convince someone to buy.

Including himself.