After finishing the arrangements 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, some rest!"
Eli jumped onto his bed immediately — 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 some 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 same? 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 met Irene! I dressed her… I complimented her… Don't wake me 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 calmed 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 same time, Eli actually had no clue about the time of the attack because the original Prologue never showed it. The cutscene where Elise sacrificed herself was at the very beginning of the gameplay, and the Prologue occurred mainly after the destruction of House Lagranche.
The only information he remembered 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 palmed his face.
'Let's check the status window and these features first then.'
With just a thought, the blue window appeared immediately.
╭────────-·-ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────────╮
[────HERO STATUS────]
Name: 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 me.'
When Eli said HOTA was difficult, he meant 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 meant his strategy had failed, and winning meant his heroines became unusable after death, Eli was losing his mind a couple times a day.
'Forget it!'
Leaving the hellish gameplay 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
[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 meant a total of nine stat points could be distributed!
And then there was the other thing.
In the game, a character could only grow in one direction: Magic or Aura. Investing in one meant locking out the other entirely. You picked a path and you stayed on it, because splitting your resources meant you'd never be exceptional at either.
'Dual mastery of aura and magic… I wonder if that's a good thing.'
The game had a special mechanic 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 mean, Elise is there too.'
After taking a quick mental 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────]
Name: 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 Armament] (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 meant those bastards were the crème de la crème 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 some 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 some were even free for families deemed to have made major contributions to key sectors such as agriculture.
These academies housed some important heroines in the future, and Eli thought of recruiting them somehow to defend against the assassins. However, they were at most diamonds in the rough right now.
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 come 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 same.
Save everyone he could. And let the Marquess die in the chaos.
He had to meet 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.