"Young Master Wensley? You are awake?"
The careful voice tugged Wensley out of his thoughts and back into the room.
He pulled himself together and turned toward the doorway. A maid stood there with both hands curled into fists against her apron, eyes wide. "Are you alright?" she asked, the words coming out a little too fast.
"…Were you the one who brought me back here just now?" he asked.
"Yes, it was me." She hesitated and lowered her gaze.
Everyone in the capital knew the reputation of Wensley Fauce. The nobles joked about the ruined viscount's mad dog temperament and were not particularly afraid of him, since they had power and status to shield them. A servant like her had no such shield. He had just confessed in public, been rejected, and lost face in front of the entire hall. If he decided to vent his anger on a convenient target, she would be the easiest neck to step on.
I should have kept my distance, she thought, already regretting that she had helped.
The young man only drew a slow breath. The wildness from earlier was gone. His face had lost all color, and his eyes seemed heavy and far away, as if he were still standing on that marble floor beneath the chandelier.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Then he walked past her and headed for the corridor with slow, weighted steps.
"…Eh? Wait, what?" The maid blinked, stunned. By the time she recovered, Wensley had already disappeared through the door.
"Young Master Wensley, that is not the way back to the hall," she called after him.
"I know," he replied without turning his head.
Return to the hall? After that performance? The banquet had not hired a troupe of clowns, but he had already provided more than enough entertainment for everyone present. If he went back now, he might as well hand out tickets.
"I am not feeling well. I will be leaving early," he said over his shoulder, more to himself than to anyone else. After that, he simply continued toward the rear of the manor.
He pushed open the back door. Cool night air rushed against his face and swept away some of the haze in his mind. The street beyond the garden wall was one he had walked many times, yet at this moment it looked both familiar and oddly distant.
His thoughts had settled into some kind of order, but his emotions were still a knotted mess.
Seriously… I really did transmigrate.
Because of some ridiculous performance evaluation in his previous life, he had landed here, playing cannon fodder in an otaku yuri game.
Of all the possible worlds to fall into, it had to be Citrus Crown. Any ordinary fantasy world would have been easier to work with. He would have taken a generic swords and magic setting in a heartbeat.
In Citrus Crown, men might as well not exist as people. All the important female characters eventually turned toward other girls, and even the ones who started out straight always seemed to take a step out of the doorway sooner or later.
"General Wen," who had liked to talk big about strategy and calm decisions in his old life, was currently simmering inside.
Other transmigrators woke up in worlds where they could build a harem as the male lead. Even the unlucky ones who did not become the main character usually had the chance to play the role of the side guy who stole the protagonist's love interest.
What had he drawn?
A notorious male cannon fodder in a gacha style yuri game, saddled with the wrong gender and a fate that promised empty hands.
No, calling it empty was almost flattering. His future did not even guarantee survival. Female villains in this kind of story were teased, half forgiven, dragged into the heroine's harem, and given routes with fan art. Male villains were there to be crushed until nothing remained.
Sometimes, being born into the correct genre really was a kind of talent.
Calm down. Think first. Survive first.
In these transmigration stories, as long as the villain came to his senses and honestly changed, there was usually a chance to slip away from the script. Even if he became a completely irrelevant person, he could still live quietly as a background extra.
That was the hope.
Then the memory of the banquet replayed in his mind.
His fingers went cold.
The omen of his death lit up in his thoughts like a bright red warning.
He remembered now.
Tonight's banquet had not only gathered Princess Mirielle and the nobles of the capital.
The female protagonist of Citrus Crown had been present as well.
The designated cheat player of this world. The owner of two magic souls and two holy blessings.
In the game information he had read in his last life, her full name was Aisiefis Galatus. In this world, people just called her Aisiefis.
In the deeper setting notes, her true name was Aisiefis Karelliman, last surviving heir of the ancient Tyrelis imperial family. She had hair like pure silver, eyes the color of violet crystals, and a beauty that seemed untouched by anything dirty in the world. In a few of the game illustrations she even outshone some of the lovers in her own crystal harem.
He had first picked up Citrus Crown precisely because of her character art. She had been that striking on the screen.
Now he had seen the real person.
And with her came the invisible blade hanging over his neck.
Because not long ago, during that very banquet, he had splashed red wine all over her.
In front of everyone.
Her clothes had been drenched.
Wonderful. I have already offended the main character.
The whole thing had started when Aisiefis said, very casually and right in front of Mirielle, that she liked the princess. She even laughed and claimed she had fallen in love at first sight, as if Mirielle's rumored preference for girls might give her an opening.
Her tone had been playful. Most of the people listening had treated it as a joke, assuming Miss Aisiefis was only praising Mirielle's looks in a dramatic way.
Girls made that sort of joke all the time.
However, anyone who understood Wensley's personality knew one thing. Whether the comment was serious or not, if you said it in front of him, he would take it as a direct challenge.
You dare say you like her? You think I will simply pretend I did not hear that?
Then the accident happened.
In truth, it was more like a deliberate outburst than an accident. With a childish temper and no control over his emotions, he had hurled red wine at Aisiefis without warning.
Mirielle had been standing beside her.
True to her nature, when the usually composed Mirielle lost her temper and demanded an apology while Wensley stood pale and silent, Aisiefis simply smiled. She said she was fine, suggested that he must have acted on impulse, and even handed him a neat step down.
High emotional intelligence. Graceful exit.
Wensley, whose emotional intelligence was comparable to a rock sitting at the bottom of a river, admitted in front of everyone that he had done it on purpose and that he only wanted to make things difficult for Aisiefis.
The word "awkward" did not even begin to cover the atmosphere in the hall.
No wonder Mirielle had smashed his flowers without hesitation in front of so many people.
The original Wensley thought he was refusing to give the silver haired girl any face.
In reality, he had taken Mirielle's dignity in his own hands and thrown it on the ground.
Aisiefis, by contrast, displayed kindness and patience. She picked up a wave of goodwill from Mirielle and the nobles watching, and she walked away with all the advantages.
And that still was not the real danger.
The real danger lay in the person hiding behind that angelic smile.
When something interested her, she paid careful attention. When it did not, she barely looked twice. No one could say what passed through her mind behind those warm, polite eyes.
If Wensley had been an ordinary villain and decided to change now, he might still have had room to maneuver. Aisiefis had no interest in men at all. She would not waste energy on a man who stayed quiet and did not stir up trouble.
Unfortunately, Aisiefis had another important trait.
She had been reborn.
To be reborn, you had to die once.
So the obvious question followed. Who killed her in that first life?
The answer was simple. Wensley Fauce, after his fall into darkness, had taken her life.
"Can this even be repaired?" Wensley muttered.
He could almost feel the malice of the world leaning down over him.
Throwing wine on the protagonist was like stamping your foot on the accelerator. He was already speeding down the road toward that doomed ending.
The space he had to move in had shrunk to almost nothing.
When you laid out all the details, the situation sounded complicated.
In essence, though, it boiled down to one sentence. He could stand still and wait to die.
From Aisiefis's point of view, with her memories of the previous timeline, she simply needed to observe. As long as he gave her a reasonable excuse, she would be able to strike him down without the slightest burden on her conscience.
To make things worse, Wensley did not even remember the complete plot of Citrus Crown. He had only played through the prologue, looked at some illustrations, browsed a few forum threads, and picked up scattered story points and character names.
That was all.
He knew that Aisiefis, as the chosen heroine, was absolutely and completely uninterested in men, and that her taste was clear enough to be printed as a tag line on a box.
She loved soft, sweet smelling pretty girls. When she ran into someone who matched her type, she would happily flirt for as long as she liked. In the original game she was practically a charming little demon, a born teaser.
It was an Origins title. Of course the main heroine had that sort of setting.
With her looks and her social grace, almost no one could bring themselves to dislike her. She treated everyone with courtesy. Even people she did not care for or even people she quietly disliked still received a warm smile and a gentle voice.
Hating her felt like trying to hate sunlight.
Unless you were the original Wensley Fauce.
To be fair, although that Wensley was pitiful, he was also painfully incompetent.
He was the final member of House Fauce, once counted among humanity's sacred lineages. Yet he had almost no magical ability. On the family tree of saints, he was the dead twig clinging to the end.
His parents were gone. His family line was broken. He possessed nothing.
Only a fragile temperament and a mind that had stubbornly refused to mature.
Beside Aisiefis, a descendant of an ancient imperial line, he did not even measure up to a single strand of her hair.
Silver haired heroine, golden haired princess. The match between them was obvious.
If he had any choice at all, he would have preferred to keep a safe distance from their story, stay out of their orbit, and wish them a happy ending from the farthest corner of the map.
The story, however, was no longer asking for his opinion.
This was not just about their romance.
This was about whether Aisiefis would one day remove his head from his shoulders.
The wrong road, the one the original Wensley had taken, led straight to a wall.
Even if he tried to avoid stepping on that path, could he really be sure Aisiefis would not one day kill him over something as small as "offending her mood at the doorway"?
"System? Hello? Any system at all?" Wensley tried speaking to the empty air like the protagonists in all the stories he had read.
Nothing answered.
His last little bit of hope faded.
So there was no system. No panel. No mysterious voice. For a supposedly standard transmigration package, this felt a little cheap.
"Young master, please spare a coin. I have not eaten in three days…" A hoarse voice cut across his thoughts.
A beggar in torn clothes limped toward him with cupped hands, face turned up in appeal.
Wensley instinctively checked the purse at his waist.
There was one single copper coin.
This fallen noble really had gone as low as it sounded.
He still passed the coin over.
"Thank you for your kindness!" The beggar snatched it away with a speed that did not quite match his story of starvation, as if he feared Wensley might change his mind, then shuffled off down the street. He looked a good deal livelier than someone who had supposedly gone three days without food.
Wensley sighed. "I pity him, but who is supposed to pity me?"
As he lifted his head again, something flickered above the beggar.
For a second he thought his eyes were failing him.
A faint line of golden text floated there.
"Huh?" he breathed.
He rubbed his eyes hard.
The words remained, dim yet clear.
Merit +1
"…Merit...plus one?" he repeated, dazed. "What is this, a world clicker game?"
Before he could decide whether he was hallucinating, a glow rippled across his sight.
A large, gold edged panel appeared in front of him.
There were only two options written on it.
[Best Soul Artifact Selection Guide]
Required Merit: 3
[Awaken your family bloodline and unlock the Merit Tree]
Required Merit: 30
On the side of the panel, a small line of text displayed his current status.
Current Merit: 1