After finishing the arrangents and chores, from tidying up his Lady’s belongings, cleaning her brushes, putting away her night clothes, to setting up the dining table, organizing with the chefs, Eli was exhausted.
[Entering the resting area of Elise Moreau.]
[Exiting the Main Mission Area.]
[Assimilation ended.]
"Finally, so rest!"
Eli jumped onto his bed imdiately — well... after changing into his new uniform, of course.
He found out that, usually, maids didn’t have breaks and would only take brief rest in their work space, but the Lady’s maid had so more privileges than the others, and they generally had more freedom.
’This is so unreal.’
Now that the assimilation had ended, he felt different but also the sa? Everything was his own doing but filtered through Elise’s lenses, but essentially it was still him subconsciously driving these actions.
What absolutely reverted, however, was his confidence and composure. Without Elise, the pent-up emotions exploded in one go.
’I t Irene! I dressed her... I complinted her... Don’t wake up from this dream if it is one, or you’ll feel my wrath!’
Like a little girl, he was kicking his feet up and down, left, right, and center.
"OUCH! Cramps! Fuck!"
***
About ten minutes later, Eli finally cald down.
He poured himself a glass of water and drained it in one long swallow.
"Phew! Okay. Let’s focus."
Eli couldn’t play around anymore. The Prologue, which ended up with everyone dead, including Elise, was about to happen.
He wasn’t stupid enough to let it play on his watch.
But at the sa ti, Eli actually had no clue about the ti of the attack because the original Prologue never showed it. The cutscene where Elise sacrificed herself was at the very beginning of the gaplay, and the Prologue occurred mainly after the destruction of House Lagranche.
The only information he rembered was that the murderers were assassins, and it happened at night in Irene’s bedroom. After Elise sacrificed herself, Irene escaped through a secret tunnel where the Hero rescued her.
’But now there’s no Hero as well! What luck.’
Eli pald his face.
’Let’s check the status window and these features first then.’
With just a thought, the blue window appeared imdiately.
╭────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╮
[────HERO STATUS────]
Na: Elise Moreau
Title: [Hero Successor], [Lady’s Maid]
Class: None · Rank: I · Level: 1/20
EXP: 0/100
[────STATS────]
STR 28/120 (E)
AGI 34/120 (E)
END 19/120 (F)
MAG 5/120 (F)
AUR 5/120 (F)
[────ABILITIES────]
Passive: [The Hero] (EX-1), [Maid’s Intuition] (S-1), [Maid’s Dexterity] (B-1)
Active: [Rapid Step] (D-1)
Songs: —
╰────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╯
’This fucking status window always traumatizes .’
When Eli said HOTA was difficult, he ant it with every fiber of his being. He would burn hours every day staring at the stat window, fine-tuning each heroine’s build to perfection, only to fail at the latest stage.
When losing ant his strategy had failed, and winning ant his heroines beca unusable after death, Eli was losing his mind a couple tis a day.
’Forget it!’
Leaving the hellish gaplay aside, he had never seen an EX-Rank ability before. The Hero wasn’t a playable character and only appeared in the visual novel, so this was new to him.
Eli clicked on it like he would on a phone screen.
╭────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╮
[The Hero] · Rank: EX · Level: 1/50
[The path of a hero is an arduous one. As the Hero Successor, you’re the one to change people’s destinies.]
[Level up increases all stats by 1.]
[Stat limit 20]
[Combat mastery rate 100%]
[Stat growth 50%]
[Bond growth 50%]
[Link Efficacy 50%]
[Access to heroines’ status window]
[Dual mastery of Aura and Magic]
╰────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╯
’Oh my days! A literal cheat code in my hands...’
Leveling up increased all stats? In HOTA, one level only increased two stats by two each — four in total. But [The Hero] gave him additional stats on top of that, which ant a total of nine stat points could be distributed!
And then there was the other thing.
In the ga, a character could only grow in one direction: Magic or Aura. Investing in one ant locking out the other entirely. You picked a path and you stayed on it, because splitting your resources ant you’d never be exceptional at either.
’Dual mastery of aura and magic... I wonder if that’s a good thing.’
The ga had a special chanic called [Songs], which were massive breakthroughs that could redefine a character’s entire build, and they were unlocked through increasing one’s rank.
’Let’s check Irene’s status window.’
Eli quickly went into [Index] — the only sensible place to store all the information about this world.
’There she is.’
Irene’s portrait sat in full color at the far left. Besides her were a row of darkened silhouettes of locked heroines.
’Huh... I’m ther—I an, Elise is there too.’
After taking a quick ntal note, Eli tapped on Irene’s portrait, and two tabs appeared beneath it: [Profile] and [Status]. He went straight to [Status].
╭────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╮
[────HEROINE STATUS────]
Na: Irene Lagranche
Class: Mage · Rank: II
Bond Level: 10 (Maxed)
Link Status: Active
[────STATS────]
STR 14/140 (F)
AGI 30/140 (E)
END 23/140 (E)
MAG 114/140 (B )
AUR 3/140 (F)
[────ABILITIES────]
Passive: [Blessing of Frost] (A-2), [Calm Heart] (C-10), [Pure Mana Channels] (C-8),...
Active: [Glacier Formation] (A-5), [Ice Armant] (B-8), [Ice Step] (D-5),...
Songs: [Song of Tranquility], [Song of Frostbite]
╰────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╯
Just as Eli thought, Irene had the [Song of Frostbite], which granted her [Blessing of Frost], along with other buffs. It was perfect for a mage of her caliber, and it later served as an OP passive that allowed her to survive until the final act.
’But she still couldn’t stop the assassins...’
That ant those bastards were the crè de la crè of the assassin world. It made sense to hire them, considering the mastermind had the balls to assassinate an heir of a Great House.
Also, if that was the case, then no matter how strong Eli got, he wouldn’t be able to defeat them.
’I’m really in a shithole. Should I just tell Irene to escape now?’
But on what grounds? Irene loved her house and cherished it as much as her mother did. She would never cowardly escape just to save her own skin. In the story, Irene would have wanted to die with House Lagranche, but the death of Elise probably changed it.
Besides, Eli had so other plans based on his knowledge of the story.
House Lagranche ruled over a fiefdom called Sienne, and it had one of the more developed and classless societies among the Houses of the Latia Kingdom.
The late Marchioness was a prominent advocate for commoner education. She built magic and knight academies with low tuition, and so were even free for families deed to have made major contributions to key sectors such as agriculture.
These academies would later produce several important heroines, and Eli considered recruiting them to help defend against the assassins. For now, though, they were diamonds in the rough. Many might not have even attended the academy yet. The tiline in Sienne between the Prologue and the original Act 1 was frankly a blur.
Also, Eli’s main advantage was knowing the future, so he didn’t want to stray too far from the original story.
’Dammit! There’s not even a deadline.’
Not knowing when the attack would co was the worst, because it might be weeks from now, or even tonight! Contingencies only worked when you knew when the disaster was coming, or at least how.
Eli had pieces of both, but not enough of either, which was frustrating.
Either way, his plan stayed the sa.
Save everyone he could.
He had to et with that woman at the magic academy.
Before then, Eli had a guest to attend to in an hour, and Irene would expect him at her side.
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