“May I ask who it is that has come to visit?”
“I am one of the maids of the royal castle, here to deliver a message: the esteemed daughter of House Victirium, Lady Annemarie, wishes to pay a visit to Lady Luciana of House Luthorburg.”
“Understood. Then, if you would allow us a moment.”
Hearing that her request for a visit was accepted, Annemarie sighed in relief.
Annemarie had come to visit Luciana, who had been staying in a guest room at the royal castle, but her real goal… was to ascertain whether Luciana was another fellow reincarnator.
The previous night, Annemarie had remembered that while in-game Luciana had been an enemy character, given the circumstances now, it was possible the current Luciana was also a reincarnator. However, Annemarie had haplessly fallen asleep, and she had woken to find herself embracing a still-sleeping Christopher in bed… That had been quite an amergency situation for a maiden such as her.
She secretly had such fun beating on Christopher that she simply forgot to visit Luciana sooner (or so she claimed). Annemarie had avoided hitting Christopher’s face, so everything was fine… probably.
Aside from what had happened this morning, the game’s plot has truly started, but with the heroine still absent, Annemarie could not predict how the future would unfold. It was paramount that she sought out Luciana now to gather more information.
Annemarie entered the guest room, but as she began to walk over to Luciana, something catches her eye that causes her to stop.
The girl at the edge of her vision triggered a sense of déjà vu.
She was simplly a black-haired girl wearing a maid uniform, and, as though sensing Annemarie’s curious gaze, turned to look her directly in the eye. Her black hair and black eyes… were common traits individually, but extremely rare together.
(Was she… a character in the game? No, I don’t think so. I don’t remember there being a maid with black hair and black eyes. Or maybe… what if she’s a character I forgot about, like with Luciana-chan?)
“…Have we met before, somewhere? What is your name?”
“My name is Melody Wave. I believe today is our first meeting, miss.”
“Is that so…”
Melody Wave’, was it… Annemarie could not remember any character with that name.
Without another word, Annemarie put aside her thoughts on the strange feelings and continued towards Luciana.
“Please accept my apologies for such a sudden visit. I just heard that you would soon be leaving the castle, and so I quickly rushed over.”
“It is no trouble at all. It makes me happy that you came by so fast.”
Annemarie could not help but smile back as she watched Luciana blush around a shy smile.
The two walked to the nearby table to take a seat while Melody left for the guest room kitchen to prepare tea. An older maid followed Melody over to prepare for serving the cake Annemarie had brought along.
That left only the two of them alone in the room… This was a ripe opportunity for Annemarie.
“Luciana-san, are you like me, a reincarnator and former Japanese person?”
Annemarie directly asked Luciana a question in Japanese. Surely she would react to this…
“Hm..? Did you say something just now?”
Luciana tilted her head in confusion; her reaction was not what Annemarie had expected.
“…If you are also a former Japanese person, could you please speak in Japanese?”
Luciana appeared even more confused; perhaps she truly knew nothing.
“Um, is that perhaps a foreign language you are speaking, Lady Annemarie? I must apologize for my lack of knowledge as I do not understand what you are saying.”
(Uh… what? Is she pretending to not understand Japanese? Hm… she seems to be genuinely unaware…)
Annemarie, a prime fiancée candidate, could read others to a certain extent, having honed a sort of sensor after her many years of socializing among the nobility, but… it seemed Luciana was telling the complete truth. Annemarie’s assumption… was completely wrong.
“I apologize. Please forget about that just now. Would you happen to know about ‘The Silver Saint and the Five Oaths’?”
And again, Luciana answered with a tilt and a confused expression. This time, she seemed to ponder over the question with a troubled look, but it seemed this was another thing she was unfamiliar with.
“The tea is ready.”
Melody and the other maid were coming out of the kitchen, having finished the preparations. Seeing her maid return, Luciana gave a smile as she brought Annemarie’s question over.
“Melody, do you know about this Silver Saint and some such?”
“‘Silver Saint and some such’…? What might that be?”
“…The Silver Saint and the Five Oaths.”
Melody tilted her head, a blank expression on her face. She reacted the same way Luciana had just now.
“Please excuse my ignorance, but is that the title of a story, or..?”
“No, it’s just… Well, if you don’t know anything about it, then there’s nothing to worry about. Please forget that I asked.”
Melody gave a polite bow before moving to the opposite end of the room to prepare the tea with the older maid.
Annemarie gave an outward smile but had an inward sigh. From what she could tell, Luciana truly knew nothing about the game nor understood Japanese; Annemarie could only conclude that Luciana was not a reincarnator.
However, there were still questions needing an answer, and so Annemarie asked away as she enjoyed their tea party together.
“About that dress you were wearing last night, it was simply magnificent. Might I ask from where did you purchase it?”
In the game, Luciana had not attended the ball because she was unable to prepare a dress; however, in this reality, she not only attended the ball but attended wearing a most wonderful dress. What could this possibly mean?
“Actually, it was Melody! Melody worked hard to sew this dress together for me.”
“Oh my, could you tell me more?”
“I actually had two different dresses, but Melody unraveled the threads and cleaned it all. Then, she used all the threads to sew together a brand-new dress”
There had been quite a lot of magic involved with making the dress, but Luciana’s explanation made it seem like there was only pure effort and sewing technique involved. Well, it was not as though the magic had not also required a great deal of skill…
Annemarie looked over to the maid in question; Melody, standing against the wall, calmly smiled back.
“That was… quite an amazing job.”
“Isn’t it? Melody is simply amazing! She came to replace our old maid, and everything she does has been so helpful! And she’s also quite skilled in brewing tea!”
“Indeed, this tea is quite delicious. May I know the brand? The taste is quite unlike anything I ever tasted before.”
“I think it was called… Belschuit?”
Annemarie nearly spat her tea in surprise.
Belschuit was… the cheapest and worst quality brand of tea leaves that even the lowest tier of nobles would hesitate to buy.
“Though I am ashamed to admit it, my famiily’s finances are not very well off, so we could only ever afford this tea. But thanks to Melody, I have learned about how delicious black tea could be!”
“This is supposed to be Belschuit..? This taste… is not something even the highest quality brands can compare to.”
Factors such as location and leaf quality, as well as the production process greatly affected a tea’s flavor, but for a low-class brand of leaves to have a fragrance and taste comparable to the top-class brands… This was a new experience for Annemarie.
“And Melody isn’t only good at making tea, either! Our house in the capital used to look like a rundown and haunted mansion, but because of Melody’s hard work, it has transformed into a beautiful place we can proudly invite guests over to!”
Luciana extolled Melody’s achievements with pride and joy; it was clear that she truly loved her maid.
To Annemarie, seemed like quite an exaggeration for Luciana to say her home had once been a “haunted mansion”, but the amount of work it took to clean it must have instilled that kind of feeling. Either way, this Melody of hers seemed to be quite an outstanding maid overall.
Annemarie suddenly felt as though something were out of place.
(Didn’t the companion book mention that the old maid retiring was the start of Luciana’s tragic downfall? I don’t remember it being mentioned that House Luthorburg had hired a replacement…)
Then perhaps Melody was the reason for the current Luciana… Perhaps it was because of Melody, having fixed the Luthorburg estate and having made a beautiful dress for the Spring Ball, that Luciana never developed an inferiority complex.
It was as though this Melody had appeared from nowhere and, knowing how the game played out, gave Luciana the help she needed.
But going by the question from earlier, Melody seemed to know nothing about the game. Annemarie could not shake the déjà vu she had been feeling.
Unable to find an answer to her deeper questions, Annemarie brought up another irregularity.
“Actually, Miss Luciana, I was curious about something; last night, that assailant hit you directly with his sword, but you had come away unhurt. I was surprised but glad to see you truly suffered no injury, but… do you know how that may have happened?”
Frankly speaking, it was a complete anomaly that Luciana, someone untrained and uneducated in magic, was unhurt despite taking on an attack from the Demon King. What could be the reason for that?
“Th-that is…”
For the first time, since the tea party started, Luciana became panicked at Annemarie’s question. Her reaction was completely unlike how she received the previous questions, and it was obvious she was hiding something now.
“Surely you have an idea as to why, right? If it would not bother you, could you tell me? I am quite curious about it.”
Annemarie’s eyes appeared to sparkle from behind her smile. Luciana took a moment to gather her thoughts before replying, a determined look on her face.
“Lady Annemarie… I first must strongly ask that you keep this secret just between the two of us.”
Annemarie instinctively felt the pressure from Luciana’s serious expression, but still she nodded slowly to indicate her agreement.
“The truth is… the dress I was wearing last night… Melody had also enchanted it with her protection magic.”
“Protection magic?”
“That’s right, protection magic strong enough that even if an explosion happened, the dress would be enough protect me. It was because of the enchantment on the dress that I was unharmed last night.”
The explanation seemed so absurd that Annemarie could only wonder if Luciana were trying to make a joke.
While Silver Saint was primarily a dating sim, it also had multiple RPG-like combat segments where characters could use defensive magic to mitigate damage.
Of note was during the final battle, when the heroine learned the strongest spell in the game, ‘Protection of Holy Silver’, which was able to completely nullify any attack. Perhaps this ‘Protection Magic’ that Luciana was talking about was something similar.
But then, the other mitigation spells in the game were nowhere near strong enough to nullify damage. This fact remained the same now that the game had become reality; even for Annemarie, someone particularly skilled in magic, it was impossible for a normal mitigation spell to invalidate an attack on that level.
Or so Annemarie knew, but… it seemed Luciana truly believed the dress did have an enchantment powerful enough to do so.
Well, it was never a question of how powerful the spell was; the fact of the matter was Luciana really had been able to take on the Demon King’s attack and come away without injury.
“Miss Luciana, if you do not mind, could you show me the dress?”
“Of course, that would not be a problem at all.”
Melody brought forward the dress in question and spread it out on the table. Annemarie began concentrating magic into her eyes.
“…See the flow of magic, Detailed Observation“
This was another original spell Annemarie had come up with; it focused magical power into the user’s eyes so as to find traces of magic and parse its composition. Because it required great concentration and took a large amount of magical power, the spell was still fairly impractical to use.
Spells would leave behind invisible traces of magical power, like bloodstains after a crime; these traces were difficult to completely hide, and more powerful spells left more obvious evidence. Annemarie’s spell acted like luminol on unseen blood, revealing to her anything a spell may have left behind.
Which was why… what Annemarie found left her in complete shock: there was not a single trace of magical power in Luciana’s dress, let alone defensive magic on the level of Protection of Holy Silver.
Annemarie momentarily directed her Analytical Observation spell toward Melody, but there was not even an iota of magical power coming from the maid. Magicians constantly emitted magical power, even trace amounts, but this complete absence of magical power… meant there was no way Luciana’s maid was a magician.
But what Annemarie did not know was that Melody… purposefully kept any of her magical power from leaking. Her preventative measures had been so perfectly controlled that even the Demon King was unable to detect it at first.
And regarding the lack of magical power on Luciana’s dress…
“It is quite badly damaged, so it might be better to turn it back to threads to resew. Most of the protection magic I put on it is also gone… I will remove the rest of my magic from it for now, otherwise it might get in the way with the resewing later.”
As Melody had said, she had removed her enchantment from the dress, a feat her flawless control of magic easily achieved. Of course, she had also conveniently stripped away any remaining traces of her magic, as that ‘may have gotten in the way with her resewing later’.
If only Annemarie had arrived ten, or even five, minutes earlier, then perhaps…
“Thank you for showing it to me.”
“It was my pleasure.”
While Melody was putting away the dress again, Luciana hesitatingly spoke up.
“Um, Melody? I told Lady Annemarie about your magic.”
“M-my magic..? You mean, about the enchantment I put on the dress?!”
Melody, who was in the middle of folding up the dress, suddenly turned her head down as her face blushed a furious red; something appeared to have embarased her.
“Is something the matter?”
“I am ashamed to admit, but it would be a little… embarassing to show the esteemed Lady Annemarie such useless spell. After all, it was just the result of my own inexperience…”
A flash of insight struck Annemarie: if Melody was calling it “useless spell”, then… what if the maid had meant something vague, like a good luck charm?
Perhaps this whole “Protection Magic” thing was just… a good luck charm Melody had wished upon?
The innocent and unaware Luciana believed it to be a real spell, and Melody had probably exaggerated its effects… Perhaps Luciana’s maid had become embarassed because Luciana truly believed she had used some amazing spell to enchant the dress.
This was… quite the misunderstanding going on, a disappointing dead end to a potential answer.
The mystery behind Luciana escaping unscathed remained unanswered, but as far as Annemarie could tell, Luciana’s maid had nothing to do with it.
Every one of her assumptions coming in were mistaken, and her investigation returned once more to the start. Annemarie gave another inward sigh when she remembered another important point.
“Oh no, actually, I must apologize for having acted so rudely. This was supposed to be a visit to a recovering guest, and yet all I have done is ask about unrelated matters! How have you been feeling since waking up, Miss Luciana?”
“I seem to be fine. The doctor was saying I might actually be too healthy to receive visitors, though.”
“Oh my, is that so? Fufufu…”
Annemarie’s giggle answered Luciana’s childish joke; having cleared Luciana of any suspicion, Annemarie could finally relax and let her guard down… Although the mystery behind the appearance of Melody still remained.
“There was another thing I must apologize for: the crown prince was supposed to be here with me, but he seemed to still be busy with something he had been handling since yesterday.”
“Oh no, it isn’t something you need to apologize for! It’s natural for someone like the crown prince to be busy working so hard in the aftermath of an attack like last night! Please do not worry about me!”
At the moment, Christopher was off questioning the culprit they had apprehended and the fourth love interest, Buque Kischel… and he would do so while nursing a very bruised abdomen.
Incidentally, after she… punished Christopher, Annemarie quickly escaped to her private room using a secret passage; she wanted to avoid starting any potential scandals involving the crown prince in a morning after with the marquis’s daughter.
It did help that the gossip-loving servants had slept soundly through the entire night, but Annemarie, unaware of their deep slumber, was simply glad no strange rumors had started.
“That is very kind of you to say. I also wish to offer my gratittude. For what you did to keep His Highness safe last night, I thank you, Miss Luciana.”
Luciana blushed with embarassment as she answered.
“I just… wanted to do something, to give something back to His Highness, after everything he did for me.”
Annemarie was confused; last night should have been the first time they had met, so what could Luciana be thanking him for..?
Luciana’s next words came as a great shock to Annemarie.
“He was the one who created the regular carriage services, right? So it is indirectly because of him that I am here right now. If not for him, there would be no regular carriage service. If not for the regular carriage service, Melody would never have come to the capital. And if Melody had never come to the capital…”
Crash..! Annemarie’s teacup slipped from the finger she was using to hold it.
“Oh no! Lady Annemarie! Your dress!”
Yet Annemarie remained frozen in place; she was too busy processing the stream of ideas flowing through her mind to react.
The regular carriage service was a nationwide project Christopher and Annemarie had proposed when they were only seven years old, and it continued to grow even in the current day… But it was also a concept that did not exist in the game.
As a public works project, the kingdom could guarantee a certain standard for quality and reliability; not only were the roads an improvement and the schedule consistent, bandits would actively avoid that road, increasing its safety. That would result in a greater circulation of goods and people, improving the country’s economy.
It all led back to an increase in national power; a nation with a strong economy would also find itself strong.
If this world were similar to the one from the game, then events happening in the background could also eventually lead to one of the bad endings, like if the Demon King sent its monster minions to overrun the capital, or if it manipulated the Roldopier Empire into invading. Any number of potentially catastrophic events could occur.
On the other hand, despite this world being similar to the game, this was ultimately their new reality, and there was no guarantee of a happy ending. The best they could do now was to prepare for the worst.
By improving the economy, the national budget would allow for greater military spending. By improving the infrastructure, military reinforcements and supplies could better cross the kingdom. Even the regular carriage service was but another means of national empowerment: better personal transportation meant it would be more likely for talented individuals to make their way to the capital and well-maintained roads would provide a reliable means by which to collect valuable information.
That was not to say it was a foolproof plan; if they invested too much into favoring military development, it was possible for the nation to go all-in on growing their power that way. In addition, some advances were two-way improvements, and it was not a stretch to believe foreign powers could make use of the improve road network or the ease of transportation.
But it was possible to have countermeasures in place for those scenarios if they were aware of the danger ahead of time. Rather, handling those scenarios was much easier than preparing for the Demon King, an entity only the heroine could stop.
Overall the regular carriage service steadily improved the kingdom’s economic status. While it was impossiblie to directly compare the two, it was very likely the current kingdom was more prosperous than it had been in the game.
As a nationwide project that affected the country’s economy… there was no way it would not change how the story went, but Annemarie only realized this truth after hearing Luciana’s words.
(So Luciana-chan was saved from her tragic fate here because of Melody, her new maid… And Melody was able to get to the capital because of our regular carriage service… Does that mean… what actually changed her fate wasn’t Melody, but… the existence of the regular carriage service?)
Annemarie’s theory was not entirely wrong; it was specifically because of the regular carriage service that Melody had arrived at the Commerce Guild at the exact time she needed to find the request and the meet Luciana.
Without the regular carriage service, Melody would have arrived at the capital later; in fact, it would have been much more likely for Lect to have caught Melody before she left her hometown. In that case, even Melody would have been unable to avoid meeting her true father, and then the game would proceed as normal… And Melody would have become Cecilia Reginbars.
Slight perspiration dotted Annemarie’s face; she had broken into a cold sweat.
At first she had thought about the countermeasures she prepared against the bad endings, but then she realized there was a more important inconsistency to address: her own character. Truthfully speaking, the current Annemarie may as well be a completely different person compared to the game’s Annemarie.
The original Annemarie was an archetypal villainess: foolish, haughty, and selfish. The current Annemarie, having inherited the memories of her past life, acted nothing like the original and became known as a lady blessed with beauty and brains, one who lived purely, justly, and beautifully.
Perhaps it would have been better if Annemarie acted at least a little similar to the in-game version, but it was not as though her personality was the only problem; at this point in the game, Annemarie was supposed to be the crown prince’s fiancée, but she was still only a fiancée candidate now.
So while Annemarie made remarks about respecting the game’s plot progression, her actions were actually quite contradictory.
It was possible Annemarie subconsciously held a unwavering conviction that minor discrepancies would correct themselves and that the events from the game would unfold as intended; if that were the case, then the things she did differently would not affect what happened later on.
And that would explain her panic upon discovering the heroine had not shown up at the entrance ceremony, when the game should have started.
It has already been nine years since Annemarie regained the memories of her past life; if she had been serious, it would have been no trouble at all to find the silver-haired heroine in that time. Her overconfidence led her to believe the heroine would attend the Royal Academy, come what may.
From this, Annemarie had not put much thought into how her and Christopher’s actions could have changed the story.
Annemarie was certainly a dating sim enjoyer who had played The Silver Saint and the Five Oaths, but, to put it bluntly… that was all she amounted to.
No matter how well she knew the game, at the end of the day, Annemarie had simply been an average, ordinary girl.
Was she not technically thirty-two years old? Of course not. She had simply lived until seventeen years old and then restarted from zero back to fifteen.years. Humans did not simply become adults by growing older; it was the accumulation of life experiences that separate the adults from the children. Therefore, a child with only the life experiences of a child would simply remain a child.
In short, Annemarie had simply been unable to distinguish the differences between the game and her current reality.
Annemarie forcefully stood from her seat.
“I… must apologize. With my dress the way it is, I think it would be better for me to take my leave for now.”
“Uh, um, of course, that would not be a problem, but… are you all right, Lady Annemarie? You look quite pale.”
“It is nothing to worry about, I am just a little… shaken from my mistakes.”
“Oh no, it was just a little spill. There’s no need to worry so much over it.”
“Y-you’re right… Thank you for having me, but please excuse me for departing so soon.”
“Of course. It was still a lot of fun, so thank you for visiting.”
“I as well. Then, I will be hoping to be seeing you at the Academy.”
“Yes!”
Annemarie exited the guest room, her face still pale…
“My lady, let us return to your room and get you changed… my lady?!”
… and she started running. Annemarie ran with all her might, abandoning the grace and elegance she usually conducted herself with.
(Oh no no no no no, I messed up! I messed up so bad! Why didn’t I realize everything we did, all the preparations we made, could completely change the scenario?!)
It was the butterfly effect, an idea in chaos theory asserting that a small and seemingly trivial change caused a completely different outcome later on.
If the game’s plot were the original condition without any changes, then Annemarie and Christopher regaining the memories of their past lives would be the first flap of the butterfly’s wings.
(So Luciana and Melody’s situation is proof that creating the regular carriage service changed the story, and that means… the heroine not appearing, the existence of the mysterious Cecilia at the Spring Ball, Luciana remaining unharmed by the Demon King, the Demon King’s sword breaking unlike in the game… there have been so many changes… Is every one of these things a result because of what we did?!)
…Just to be clear, the aforementioned events was actually because of a certain maid who very clearly ignored the intended plot progression. Annemarie, clueless to the truth, unknowingly blamed herself for the deviation.
But then, how could she have possibly predicted that someone who knew nothing about the game would have reincarnated as the heroine and then proceeded to use the power of the Saint for something like maid work? Actually, would she ever discover the truth?
Ultimately, there was no way for Annemarie to guess that Melody was actually the heroine, Cecilia Reginbars… She was so close, too! Too bad!
There were three big reasons why; the first of which was Annemarie’s baseline assumptions.
She had reincarnated as the villainess and knew about the game; Christopher was the same. Thus Annemarie assumed there was a pattern of “reincarnators will know about the game and will reincarnate as a major character”.
The second reason was Melody’s current appearance: black hair, black eyes, and wearing a maid uniform.
It was as simple as having an appearance completely different from the heroine of the game. How would Annemarie know that the character she was searching for was basically cosplaying?
The game was two-dimension, but reality was three-dimensional; it was quite a difference.
And then there was the third and most important reason of all. At the Spring Ball, Melody appeared beautiful enough to be called an angel by the onlookers, so how did she avoid Annemarie’s detection when all she did was change into a maid uniform?
…It was because of her maid aura. By simply donning a maid outfit, Melody would fully immerse herself in her role and project that overpowering aura.
That very same aura, that desire to be a behind-the-scenes worker, corrected the narrative readjustment that should have made Melody, as the heroine, stand out.
Thus, even if her every action were so polished and refined, everyone else would simply see a maid.
She truly was the very model of a maid! Such was her adherence to the role that Annemarie simply would never suspect Melody could be the heroine.
Oh, if only they had met at the Spring Ball… Things would truly have been different, but Annemarie was simply unfortunate when it mattered.
And so now, Annemarie was making her way to the interrogation of Buque Kischel. Having determined the world has deviated greatly from the storyline she knew, it was of utmost importance for Annemarie to gather as much information as possible.
Had events gone as planned, Buque Kischel should not have been captured; the heroine would have repelled him and the Demon King’s sword after she awakened her latent powers. Instead, Annemarie now has the opportunity to pressure Buque for information.
But as she made her way down the hallway, she encountered Christopher, who should have been busy questioning Buque, and, oddly enough, Maxwell. Seeing her, the two came over.
“Annemarie!”
“Christopher?! And Lord Maxwell, too.”
“I was curious about our attacker, so I decided to come along. Christopher filled me in; how fares Lady Luciana?”
“She appeared perfectly fine. More importantly, has something happened? The two of you seem rather agitated. What happened with the questioning?”
At Annemarie’s question, Christopher frowned while Maxwell’s expression grew downcast.
“…nothing there.”
“Come again?”
“When we got to the room where we were holding him, there was nothing there! Nothing was there, not him nor the sword, nor any trace of where he went! He escaped!”
Christopher vented with a frustrated anger. Buque Kischel must have made his escape in the early morning hours, when the guards had fallen into a deep sleep because of a certain maid; he must have taken the Demon King’s sword with him…
“Miss Annemarie..?”
Maxwell called out with an anxious look; Annemarie had cast her gaze to the floor, trembling.
The attacker responsible for incapacitating Luciana had escaped, so Maxwell could not help but worry that other ladies may be in danger, but…
“Why?! Why, why, why! Why is this where the scenario fixed itself?!”
Headcanon TL 
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