Knock, knock.
At the soft knock, Edwin looked up from the book he had been reading. Lately, there had been someone who interrupted his quiet time at around this hour every day…
He didn’t even have to look to know who it was.
“The head chef.”
“May I come in, Your Grace?”
At his quiet reply, the door opened as though it had been waiting for permission. The head chef stepped inside, holding his chef’s hat in one hand with impeccable manners. But the moment he began wheeling the serving cart into the room, the excitement in his light footsteps was impossible to hide.
Of course, he hadn’t been like this from the beginning.
“Y-Your Grace… I’ve developed a new dessert in the kitchen. Would you perhaps… like to try it…? Eek! M-My apologies if I’m disturbing you!”
Perhaps it was because he’d learned through Nadia that he’d been making bizarre food all this time.
As though he’d committed an unforgivable crime, the head chef had been beside himself with guilt, constantly preparing new dishes in an attempt to make up for his mistake.
Since Edwin now knew the food was no longer strange, he simply accepted them.
The problem began after this happened more than once.
“The fruit we harvested this time is unusually large and sweet, Your Grace! I’ve made hwachae. Please, give it a try!”
“Today’s salt bread is filled with blueberries and cream cheese. Ah, this is a secret… It’s Miss Windsor’s special recipe.”
“Miss Windsor told me that if you press croissants between those strange heated stones she calls a waffle maker, they become a dessert called a croffle…”
Before long, the head chef had started dropping by practically every day.
At first, Edwin found it rather uncomfortable and bothersome.
But people were creatures of habit.
No matter how lukewarm Edwin’s reactions were, the chef never gave up. Eventually, even Edwin accepted these visits as just another part of everyday life.
Even the “thing” inside him seemed to have developed a taste for fine food, thrashing about less frequently than before.
And it was all because of that Nadia Windsor…
“Your Grace, today I’ve prepared an even more special dessert. It’s an incredibly soft, fluffy castella served with fresh whipped cream. I’ve cut it into small pieces so it’s perfect for snacking while reading. And here’s some milk as well…”
“Was this made from one of Miss Windsor’s recipes too?”
Before he realized it, Nadia’s name had slipped from Edwin’s lips.
By then, the contents of the book in his hands had already become secondary.
The chef nodded proudly.
“Yes, indeed. I built upon Miss Windsor’s recipe and added a few techniques of my own. Hahaha!”
Only after saying it did Edwin realize he’d brought up Nadia himself.
A beat later, he quietly nodded.
It wasn’t that he was thinking about her.
It was simply because Nadia kept turning the entire castle upside down.
“…You’ve worked hard.”
He replied shortly and turned his gaze back toward his book as naturally as possible.
Then, all of a sudden, he noticed something strange.
At first, it was a change so subtle it was almost impossible to detect.
The faint grayish mist drifting around the room crept up around the chef’s ankles before gradually enveloping his entire body.
“…”
A bad omen?
Closing his book, Edwin gathered mana into one hand.
Thanks to Nadia, the servants had become much more stable lately.
But he knew the truth.
There wasn’t a single truly normal being trapped within the cursed Belmont ducal estate.
Yet nothing happened.
The head chef neither lost his mind nor attacked him.
Nor did he behave strangely.
The mysterious mist merely wrapped around him like a white cocoon before dispersing as though it had never existed.
“A-achoo! M-My apologies, Your Grace. My nose suddenly got itchy.”
The chef seemed completely unaware that he’d just been surrounded by the strange mist.
Yet the moment Edwin looked at him, his eyes widened more than ever before.
“Then I’ll take my leave now, Your Grace.”
“…Wait.”
The chef stopped just as he was about to leave the desserts behind.
When he turned around, Edwin was struck by an indescribable sense of familiarity.
The chef wore exactly the same warm expression Edwin remembered.
His gentle, drooping eyes.
His slightly hooked nose.
Even the carefully groomed beard.
Nothing had changed.
Slowly, Edwin blinked.
This wasn’t a hallucination.
Nor was it a dream.
The rich aroma of freshly baked bread filling the room proved this moment was real.
“I-Is something wrong, Your Grace? Are you feeling unwell?”
Confusion gradually spread across that familiar yet strangely unfamiliar face.
“No… it’s just…”
Realizing Edwin was staring directly at him, the chef became even more flustered and hurriedly felt around his own face.
“Is… is there something improper on my face…?”
There was little point explaining the situation to someone who clearly had no idea what had happened.
It would only confuse him further.
After a brief pause, Edwin calmly shook his head.
“No. You may leave.”
Though the chef still looked uneasy, he asked no further questions before taking his leave.
The moment the door closed, Edwin set his book aside and immediately stood.
Crossing the room, he pulled open the curtains without hesitation.
Bright sunlight streamed through the lattice window.
He didn’t know when it had happened, but the sky—which had always been a gloomy shade of gray—now held a brilliant sun.
Before he could even process that, his gaze shifted toward the courtyard.
Servants busied themselves with their daily tasks.
The scene was exactly the same as always.
Except for one thing.
Their faces.
The servants who had been trapped in this mansion alongside him ever since the curse had befallen his life…
…had gotten their faces back.
Among them, Edwin immediately spotted one particular person.
“Nadia Windsor.”
The outsider who knew absolutely nothing…
…running all over the estate as energetically as ever.
****
It started with the head maid, the head chef, and the steward.
But it didn’t take long for me to realize this strange phenomenon hadn’t happened only to them.
Every servant wandering through the hallways, lobby, front courtyard, and backyard like nameless NPCs now had perfectly restored faces.
After wearing myself out running all over the massive castle, I dropped onto a bench in the front garden and muttered with a serious expression.
“So… it wasn’t a bug?”
Then… was this actually part of the story?
The developers had never explained the branching storylines or endings in detail, so I only knew fragments about Heart-Pounding Destiny Love☆Crush.
That it was an adults-only romance simulation game.
That you raised affection through quests to romance the various characters.
That sort of thing.
So I never imagined the story would include estate management.
You could call it an exciting, unpredictable twist.
But on the other hand…
I could no longer predict where the game’s story was headed.
Maybe even that uncertainty was part of the developers’ design…
Wait… then did Edwin notice this too?
He was always so businesslike that I had no idea what he thought of the servants, let alone how he’d react to something like this.
“So this is where you were.”
Speak of the devil.
While I was deep in thought, a pair of unfamiliar polished shoes entered my field of vision.
The man I could wander this entire ducal estate without ever running into…
…had come looking for me himself.
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