Chapter 126
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T/N: Until the results of the poll are in, I’m only going to use markers as needed. So this chapter won’t have them!!
“Eh!?”
“Even Al-nii and the rest of those Liz-for-brain ‘friends’ of mine stopped saying anything bad about you when Duke’s around.”
“Did Duke-Sama kill those two?”
“Yeah. He did,” Henry-Oniisama says, nodding.
‘Yeah. He did.‘ How can you be so calm about this!? Doesn’t that mean they died because of me!?
Wait, Duke-Sama literally killed people. How is he still so popular after that? Could it be that having an ungodly beautiful face means he can do whatever terrible things he wants and girls would still willingly fling themselves at his feet?
Plus, resorting to murder…. isn’t Duke-Sama a bit too terrifying? If he keeps acting like that, I feel like the genre of the game is going to change from romance into horror.
Speaking of which, I faintly remember that in the game, Duke-Sama had quite the heavy backstory. Though I can’t exactly recall what sort of backstory it was…. But anyway, I think his character was rather dark to start with, but after falling in love with the heroine, his personality slowly started turning brighter.
Wait….. But he’s in love with me now, not the heroine! So doesn’t that mean that his terrifying, deranged personality isn’t going to change….!?
“Today’s the first time I saw Duke smile in a long time,” Henry-Oniisama says, quirking up one side of his mouth. It might be a small gesture, but I can tell that he feels truly happy for his friend.
“I have so many questions that I want to ask…. but I’ll save them for later, when I can ask the actual person about them,” I say resignedly.
Giving Henry-Oniisama one last smile, I am about to leave when he calls out to me again.
“Wait! Hold on a second. Can you tell me what’s up with your eye now?”
“You’re finally asking that!?” Gilles interjects before I can say anything.
“I missed the timing to ask about it earlier….” Henry-Oniisama admits sheepishly.
Hmm, should I tell him? Or would it be better to leave it as a mystery?
Mel and Duke-Sama already know about it….. but they aren’t likely to reveal that information to anyone else.
“If you don’t want to tell me, I won’t force you….. It looks really cool, by the way…. Your eye patch,” Henry-Oniisama says, smiling in childlike excitement.
Since it’s him, it should be fine to tell him the truth, right?
“I made her that,” Gilles says proudly.
“Seriously!? Nice! You did a great job on it.”
“Right? And despite having only one eye, doesn’t Alicia still look particularly regal?” Gilles says, considerately trying to change the subject.
But, there’s no one else around…. so it should be okay if I tell him right now. Henry-Oniisama is one of the few people who’s on my side after all.
“I gave my eye to someone else,” I interject, looking straight at Henry-Oniisama. His eyes momentarily widen, but then he just lightly pats my head.
“Ali, you never fail to amaze me. It’s your body, so you can do with it as you please. I won’t say anything.”
“Henry-Oniisama. I really like this side of you.”
“Thanks….! If you tell Duke, he’s gonna be livid though.”
“Yeah, he was furious…… or, maybe I should say he was more exasperated than angry?”
“You told him already!?” Henry-Oniisama blurts loudly.
“Yeah, that was one of the reasons I paid a visit to the dining hall.”
Henry-Oniisama stares hard at me for a moment, looking lost in thought.
Well, it’s not as if he could tell from my conduct in the dining hall that I told him about my eye already.
……Thinking about it again, I did some pretty bad things in front of that huge crowd of people. I even dared to grab the prince by the lapels! How marvelously villainous! Just that alone ought to be enough to allow my name to live on in history…..!!
Well, maybe not. I’m sure it can’t be that simple.
“No wonder he was in such a foul mood,” Henry-Oniisama murmurs as if sudden understanding had dawned on him.
“He was in a foul mood?”
“Yeah. It was so bad that he was refusing to speak to anyone,” he says, his smile looking a bit strained.
The number of things I want to ask Duke-Sama about seems to just keep growing. At this rate, I won’t be able to remember them all.
“Well then, I’ll be off.”
“Ah! Wait! One last thing,” Henry-Oniisama says, once again stopping me from leaving.
Somehow, I have a bad feeling about it this time though. If possible, I’d rather not have him ask me anything else, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get out of it.
“Were you able to make it to level 90?” Henry-Oniisama asks, gazing fixedly at me.
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T/N: Haha, I love this family moment. Alicia is being that typical teenager, just answering what’s asked without giving any extra info, while Henry just keeps grilling her with more and more questions. And that last move is mom asking how that big math test went today, and Alicia is all like “Damn! I was hoping he’d forgotten about that!!”
I know it’s not exactly like that, but it just feels so nostalgic that it’s how it seemed to me XD