Chapter 5: A Strange Request

I grabbed the… pastries? Snacks? Desserts? Whatever they were, and stuffed them in my mouth one after another.

The sugar, which I felt like I hadn’t tasted in ages, made my tongue feel like it was melting. Or maybe they were just that sweet.

But they were delicious.

I hadn’t thought I liked sweets that much, but maybe I just didn’t know what real sweetness was.

‘I’ve wasted half my life not eating desserts!!!’

Or maybe they tasted better because of how long I’d gone without.

Before meeting Iris, I hadn’t eaten anything, and afterward, it had just been lightly seasoned meat.

Lost in the deliciousness, I quickly emptied the plate. ‘Too little, too soon. I want more.’

‘This body is definitely strange.’

Once I started eating, it felt like there was a black hole in my stomach. I felt like I could eat endlessly unless I stopped myself.

But not eating didn’t seem to cause any problems either. ‘Is this a cost-effective body or not? I can’t tell.’

As I savored the taste, I heard the maid’s voice.

It was possibly the sweetest voice I had ever heard.

“Would you like more?”

I nodded silently, and she left with the plate, replaced by another maid.

‘Seamless service? Or surveillance?’ My pleasant, dessert-induced mood cooled.

I had forgotten my conversation with the Duke while I was busy eating.

Leaning back on the sofa, I replayed the conversation in my mind.

‘I wonder why this character I’m inhabiting wasn’t in the game.’

Except for her short stature, she was attractive, and though I didn’t know about her abilities, the Duke’s attitude suggested they were decent.

‘She should have at least appeared as the protagonist’s mentor or by Iris’s side. She seems perfect for that kind of role.’

‘Well, those developers messed up their own genre, so what did I expect? If they cared about consistency, wouldn’t they have made proper endings?’

‘I’m pretty sure this isn’t a human body, but what is it? Does that mean I survived because of game mechanics, not because of this body?’

The deeper I thought, the more lost I felt. The Duke seemed to know something, but I couldn’t ask him, which was frustrating.

He had spoken to me with a ‘you know, right?’ expression, so I couldn’t just blurt out, ‘So, what am I?’

‘Well, whatever this body is doesn’t really matter. Knowing might give me some advantage, but as long as I reach the ending, that’s all that matters.’

‘More importantly, I can now move freely in this place.’

‘I might need to be careful, but this is great! I can find a comfortable spot and… leech off… no, that sounds bad. I’ll just be a freeloader.’

‘I unintentionally deceived the Duke.’

‘Honestly, I didn’t deceive him. He just made his own assumptions.’

‘It’s a world doomed to destruction anyway… what difference does one freeloader make to the Duke? It’s the Dukedom, they’re loaded.’

Just then, a sweet aroma drifted to my nose.

I sniffed unconsciously. It was the same scent from before.

It seemed the desserts had arrived. Drawn by the scent, I turned my head and saw the plate from before. But something else caught my eye.

A dark figure loomed behind the piled-up desserts. I looked up to see Iris, her face stern.

“Gah.”

“…”

She placed the plate on the table and sat across from me with her usual cold expression.

“Leave us. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

“Understood.”

The maids vanished instantly at Iris’s dismissal.

The room felt cold, in a different way than before.

In the tense silence, even the drop of a pin would have echoed.

Crunch

The sound of a dessert being bitten into broke the silence.

‘Delicious, as always.’

As I munched on the desserts, pretending to be oblivious, Iris sighed and spoke.

“Why did you hide the truth… from me?”

“Pfft! Cough, cough!”

She seemed to have gotten used to speaking informally, as the polite speech didn’t come naturally. ‘I almost choked to death.’

Judging by her attitude, the Duke must have told her something.

Or… he might have told her everything he knew.

She was his only daughter.

‘There’s no way for me to know.’

‘But now things are a bit awkward. It wasn’t bad before.’

“Why are you suddenly being formal? Why don’t you speak like you usually do?”

“I cannot do that.”

“Well, if you insist, I won’t force you…”

‘That’s unexpected. I thought she’d immediately switch back to informal speech.’

‘Now I feel like the bad guy for dropping the formalities the moment the situation reversed…’

Seeing her unexpectedly serious demeanor pricked my conscience.

‘Right, I got here thanks to Iris… I shouldn’t tease her too much.’

“Since you hid your identity first, I won’t bother apologizing for that.”

‘…Or not?’

“Did I perhaps offend you?”

“…Of course not.”

Crunch Another dessert was consumed.

“I heard you’ll be staying as a distant relative’s child.”

‘That’s what we… or rather, what the Duke unilaterally decided on.’

“Yes.”

“So, in public, you must call me ‘older sister’.”

‘Where did that come from?’

“Why would I…?”

“If you think about it, I’m clearly older.”

The desserts suddenly tasted bitter.

“…Is that necessary?”

“I don’t know why you’re hiding your identity, but if you’re trying to deceive the enemy, you must first thoroughly deceive your allies.”

Iris looked at me with a calm expression. ‘Is that really a calm expression?’

“I would prefer to do so right now, but that seems… inappropriate.”

‘So that’s Iris’s pouting face. Hard to tell. I’ll have to remember that.’

‘Despite being the heir to the Dukedom, she’s still a child.’

‘She’s probably about to come of age, so…’

‘Right, I’m older, so I should be the bigger person.’

“Alright.”

Iris’s lips seemed to curve upwards slightly. It was barely noticeable… but somehow, I saw it.

‘I don’t really understand what she wants.’

Iris Winterhoff was confused.

‘That… is the Previous Duke? That… little thing?’

The Duke hadn’t told her everything.

The information Iris received was as follows:

Evrys was the Previous Duke.

She would be staying as a distant relative’s child for the time being.

And lastly, she was to decide how to treat Evrys herself. Along with this, Iris received the ‘order’ to halt all other duties and attend to Evrys.

Iris struggled to understand the Duke’s intentions.

Even if Evrys was the Previous Duke, based on what she had seen… there didn’t seem to be anything to learn.

She admired Evrys’s boldness in not fearing the monster corpses, but that was it. That kind of composure came naturally with experience in dealing with monsters.

If Evrys had been hiding her identity and testing her, it would have made some sense.

But based on what she had seen over the past week… Iris was doubtful.

Perhaps that was why, on a whim, Iris had played a small prank on Evrys.

It was something she hadn’t done since becoming the sole heir.

She immediately regretted it, but Evrys had accepted it with a smile.

Seeing that, Iris felt confused. Evrys was unpredictable and incomprehensible.

It was unfamiliar to have to put effort into getting to know someone. Until now, others had always been eager to introduce themselves to her.

The incompetent fools were filtered out from the start, so she never needed to bother.

She had always carried the burden of being the heir, constantly striving forward.

She had no siblings or friends of similar age to run alongside her, and the Duchess, who would have embraced her, was long gone.

Iris still didn’t understand why the Duke entrusted Evrys to her.

But she didn’t dislike the idea of getting to know Evrys.

Perhaps the seed of a new relationship between them…

“So, will you call me ‘older sister’?”

“…”

…needed a little more time to sprout.