That World of Otome Games is Tough for Us - Volume 2 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4:

An Enjoyable Festival

THE ACADEMY FESTIVAL would go on for three days. For the first two, students ran stalls and programs similar to those at a Japanese cultural festival. The third day was more like a sports festival with various competitions. On the first two days, nonstudents were welcome to attend as guests, but they needed a special invitation to attend on the third.

Students participated in the festival in small groups rather than classes. It was a rough time for anyone who spent life at school isolated and lacked friends to work with. 

In my case, though, I had Daniel, Raymond, and Marie. The four of us were running a stall together. Today, with the festival just on the horizon, we arrived at the spot where our stall would operate and busied ourselves setting everything up.

“This sucks. I really wanted to do a café,” I grumbled.

Marie gave me a blank, unimpressed look. “We’re doing something else because everybody’s doing cafés, remember? Daniel and Raymond are taking this seriously and shopping for supplies, so quit complaining and get to work.”

Daniel and Raymond were desperate to earn brownie points with Marie. No matter what she said, they agreed with her and happily carried out whatever errands she sent them on. Their subservience and willingness to prioritize Marie’s opinion had prevented us from running the café I’d wanted.

Marie and I were the only ones around, so Luxion weakened his cloaking device and made himself faintly visible. “Master, you should recognize when to give up. After all, you wanted to run a café out of selfish personal desire, not for the sake of profit.”

Oof. Bull’s eye. Luxion was absolutely right; I’d suggested a café for my own reasons, and it wouldn’t have bothered me if we ended in the red. I was rich enough as it was.

Marie glared at me through narrowed eyes. “Ignoring profit margins is business sacrilege. Are you even serious about earning money?” Her curled lip communicated genuine disgust.

“I’d argue it’s weird that you’re trying so hard to make ends meet via a school festival stall,” I barked back before pausing. “Huh?” 

A female student had caught my eye as we worked.

Olivia snuck glances at her surroundings as she walked, careful not to get in anyone’s way. She hugged thick tomes to her chest, suggesting she’d just come from the library. The way her eyes darted about made her seem frightened for whatever reason.

While I stared, Marie paused and watched her, too. “Olivia’s lost weight,” she remarked.

“Has she?” I tilted my head, unable to tell.

“Olivia!” Greg hollered as he rushed over to her. “So this is where you were. Hey, if you’re not helping with anything here, want to come have a bite with me?”

“Huh?” For a split second, Olivia’s face contorted with anguish, but that was gone just as quickly. “Oh, sure.” She set off with him.

I second-guessed what I thought I’d seen. If Olivia was willing to go eat with him, surely nothing was wrong.

“Glad things are going so smoothly between our protagonist and her love interests,” I said. “Now, how about we wrap this up?” 

As I busied myself resuming our preparations, I noticed Marie’s grim expression. 

“Did something about that bother you?” I asked, concerned. “You’re not going to tell me you’re jealous after all, are you?”

“You’re so simpleminded. Must be nice being you.”

“What?”

She jerked her chin. “Look around.”

I did. Glancing nearby, I noticed most students had trained their eyes on Olivia and Greg’s receding figures. Straining my ears, I picked up their whispers, too.

“Not only is the prince obsessed with her, so is House Seberg’s heir.”

“What is she, some kind of enchantress?”

“Why’re they so obsessed with her? What’s she got that I don’t?”

Olivia had earned the ire of all those watching.

I let out a muted sigh. “Well, going by the game, things should gradually quiet down. But…” I trailed off, slight concern in my voice.

“I only hope things are that simple,” Marie said skeptically.

This issue was complex. To be honest, even I didn’t see an easy way to resolve it. Daniel and Raymond returned from shopping around then, so Marie and I dropped the topic.

***

Finally, the day of the festival was upon us.

“Come check us out, please! Get yourself some cheap treats!” Marie belted in her capacity as our stall’s hawker, trying to reel in customers.

We were selling doughnuts. Well, to be precise, we’d gone with doughnut holes rather than full doughnuts, skewering them and popping them in paper cups for easy consumption. Marie had also come up with the idea of coating them with a ridiculous amount of colorful chocolate sprinkles. We knew regular doughnuts wouldn’t be enough to tempt customers.

“Personally, I wouldn’t want to eat these,” I said with a wrinkled nose as I oversaw the deep-frying process.

Daniel and Raymond worked beside me, decorating the doughnut holes with toppings and scooping them into cups for customers.

“Less whining, more working,” Daniel instructed.

Raymond nodded. “You heard him. Marie needs our profits for her daily expenses.”

They acted like they were helping because they sympathized, but they had an obvious ulterior motive—wanting Marie to introduce them to those girls she knew. That made their “charity” work hard to respect.

I pursed my lips and focused on the doughnut holes. There fortunately weren’t many left over. Marie was doing an admirable job of luring customers, so the doughnut holes sold in no time. Of course, that meant I was frying nonstop.

“Marie’s not half bad at this,” I said.

At times she was a bit aggressive, at others persuasive, and failing all else, tears worked pretty well to coax people into a purchase. She employed every strategy in the book to keep sales coming. I was genuinely impressed.

“Shouldn’t you learn from her example, Master?” Luxion asked, hidden by his cloaking device. I don’t know how, but he kept his voice so low that only I could hear him. Daniel and Raymond were oblivious.

“I’m too rich to work,” I whispered back.

“A despicable statement if ever there was one.”

“Despicable or not, I quite like myself the way I am. In fact, I love that I’m so true to myself.”

Luxion ignored my narcissism. “Please remove the doughnut holes from the oil.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I did as he asked. Predictably, they were perfectly golden brown on either side. At least my task was easy; all I had to do was follow his instructions.

“Master, the second hole from the right does not meet our sales standards. It is far too small. Please measure the doughnut holes properly before frying them.”

On the other hand, Luxion was a real nag. “You’re too nitpicky. Who cares if some are small? I’ll just set those aside and eat them during my break.”

Outside the stall, Marie’s voice echoed. “Come one, come all! Colorful doughnut holes for sale!”

***

At last, our lunch break came. I collected the doughnut holes Luxion deemed unfit for sale and retreated from our stall to a deserted corner, where I parked on a nearby bench. I was lucky to have found a place with no stalls; that meant little foot traffic, so it was a perfect spot to eat lunch.

I’d invited Marie to join me, but our doughnut holes had proven more popular than any of us predicted. We could barely meet demand, and Marie decided to skip lunch to keep selling. She’d even said she was so thrilled, she couldn’t stop smiling. Her stellar work ethic impressed me, honestly, but I didn’t want to replicate it.

“I made so many freakin’ doughnut holes that I kind of hate looking at them.”

“You’re the one who swore you would dispose of any that failed to meet our standards, though. Remember?” Luxion said. “Since they are your mistakes, it is your responsibility to ensure they don’t go to waste.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Be honest. You hate me, don’t you?”

“I neither hate nor like you.”

“Why the ambiguity? For an AI, you sure aren’t very straightforward.” 

I tossed a doughnut hole in my mouth. Luxion had provided the recipe to which I faithfully adhered, so they had turned out better than you’d normally expect at a school festival.

“These aren’t half bad.”

“Of course not. I assisted in making them,” Luxion said proudly.

As I swallowed the first doughnut hole and bit into a second, a girl walked toward me. She was lost in thought, eyes focused on the ground. When she was practically right in front of me, she stopped all of a sudden, arms folded over her abdomen. Her stomach grumbled adorably in protest—likely due to the doughnut holes’ sweet aroma wafting her way.

Blood rushed to the girl’s cheeks. She jerked her head around to look at me. “D-did you hear that?”

Being the gentleman I was, I ordinarily would’ve pretended I hadn’t, but her intense panic threw me off. Before I knew what I was doing, I nodded. “Uh, yeah, I did.” Realizing my mistake, I quickly shook my head. “Er, I mean—no, I didn’t.” It was a bit late to deny it.

The girl—Angelica—blushed brightly. “I-I have been terribly busy, so I didn’t have the opportunity to eat lunch,” she rushed to explain. “A-and I…I usually have more people with me, but today, I…”

I had no idea what she was trying to say, but I at least understood that she was hungry. She kept stealing peeks at the doughnut holes I held. Angelica looked domineering at first glance, so this unexpected vulnerability struck me as pretty cute.

As tension drained out of me, I held out the cup of doughnut holes. “Want some?”

She hesitated. “A-are you certain?”

“Yep.”

“My apologies for imposing. I will be sure to reimburse you later.” She only carried cash in substantial sums, so if she’d actually purchased the doughnut holes now, she would’ve needed change I couldn’t give her immediately.

I appreciated her promise, but I couldn’t take her money. “Don’t worry about it. These are defective anyway.”

When I said that, Angelica had just pressed a doughnut hole to her lips. Her eyes widened. “Defective?” She was obviously worried.

“Oh—either too big or too small to fit our stall’s standards. That’s all. We have a real nag helping out, and he won’t let me sell any that aren’t perfect.”

“They taste perfectly delicious to me. In fact, I prefer the smaller ones. They’re crispier.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Angelica sat next to me on the bench, savoring each bite of the doughnut holes.

She gave off a very different impression when she wasn’t surrounded by her followers. She was friendlier, more relaxed. Most of the time, she had an unapproachable aura, but not today.

“My entourage would never let me eat a treat like this,” she confided. “It’s so novel.”

It was hard to believe she was the villainess of the otome game I was trapped within when she was here eating doughnut holes at my side. Nothing about her seemed evil, at least not at a glance.

Marie had said something about that before—that the game’s protagonist was far more evil, since she stole another girl’s husband. Not that Marie was in any place to judge; she’d attempted to commit that very same sin herself.

When Angelica consumed the last doughnut hole, her face fell.

“Something wrong?” I asked. “Did they get worse?”

She smiled at me. “No. I enjoyed them immensely. But I never imagined I’d get the chance to speak with you like this, Lord Bartfort.”

I blinked. “Huh? You know who I am?” Why would she? Cold beads of sweat trickled down my back.

Angelica grinned mischievously. “You’re already a successful adventurer, and you apprehended those pirates lurking in the capital. You should be more aware of your fame.”

“Oh, uh, all that.” I fumbled to explain. “It was mostly coincidence. Or I guess you could say I acted on impulse.”

“Whether it was by fortunate coincidence or not, what you did was impressive. You should hold your head higher.” Angelica patted her lap. “Well, I must be going. Allow me to extend proper thanks for this some other time.” She giggled as she rose to her feet, seeming in good spirits as she left.

“Am I really that famous?” I wondered aloud.

“You are. Given everything you have accomplished, I am exasperated that you did not realize that sooner,” Luxion said.

I let his grumbling filter in one ear and out the other. Still bemused, I scratched my head and stood, heading back to the stall. If I didn’t return soon, Marie would likely give me an earful.