Please Seduce My Younger Sister

Chapter 98

After hearing that heartfelt confession.

Emma, who had been looking at Elysia with teary, affectionate eyes, answered in a gentle voice.

"Even if you had only come here when times were hard, madam would have gladly held you in her arms and been happy all the same."

"…"

"The very fact that our young lady still remembers madam's embrace as the warmest place in the world is enough."

"You think so?"

Tears gathered at the corners of Elysia's eyes.

"Of course. Without a doubt, just as you said, young lady."

Emma stepped up to Elysia.

"Being able to see the face of such a lively, happy young lady must have made madam happier than anyone else in heaven."

Emma gently asked, opening her arms a little.

"May I hug you once, in madam's place?"

At those words, Elysia slipped eagerly into Emma's embrace.

Emma held Elysia's slender back with gentle, careful hands and patted it.

A warm embrace reminiscent of a mother's warmth.

Emma softly patted the cloak Cassian had draped over her.

Elysia felt that warmth through her whole body and slowly closed her eyes.

'I'm happy.'

It was the truth.

A sense of security she had never once felt while living as a woman of House Rosenberg.

This overflowing feeling that rose naturally, without needing to reach out to anyone or force herself to hide her true nature and pretend to be refined.

Because she was happy, Elysia rested her forehead against Emma's shoulder and made a firm resolve.

'I have to protect it.'

So that this miracle-like happiness would not run away because of some petty whim or outside pressure.

To do that, she would have to change herself.

She mustn't become the foolish woman from the past who clung desperately to Louis and forced her feelings on him.

So that that indifferent man who hated troublesome things would never find her existence burdensome.

She had to be the most perfect, dependable helper at his side, and a wise partner he could gladly lean on and rest with.

'I'll think it over and over all night about what the best relationship for you would be.'

Beneath the sparkling Milky Way of the Star Tree Forest.

Elysia's smile was blooming at the corners of her mouth, shining more dazzlingly and firmly than any jewel.

* * *

Shake!

"…young master."

What?

Why are you waking me?

Shake-shake!

"Young master, young master."

"Mm……."

Just as my dazed mind was slowly coming back.

Someone was furiously shaking my shoulder.

I hadn't woken up on my own; my consciousness had been forcibly dragged back above the surface by outside physical force.

I opened my half-lidded eyes without even wiping the sleep from them.

"…What is it, old man? Why are you shaking someone like a rat-catcher first thing in the morning? What time is it? It's only seven."

I checked the clock myself and answered my own question.

But Alfred's expression as he looked down at me was far from normal.

Had the family been struck by lightning or something?

Or maybe he was plainly flustered, as if I'd once again done something outside that amounted to selling out the country.

"Well, um… a guest has arrived."

"A guest? At this hour?"

I scowled.

No, seriously, what kind of shameless guest barges into a noble house at 7 a.m.?

"Who? Did the Church send an inquisitor to arrest me?"

"No, young master."

Alfred swallowed hard and kept stealing glances at me.

And slowly kept lifting the corners of his mouth.

"According to the man who just arrived at the front gate…"

"he said."

"Sir Lucius, who accompanied you on the Legion Tour, said he'd come to bring the matchmaker you promised... or so he said."

"…Huh?"

My brain flatlined.

"Ma… what?"

"The matchmaker, sir."

"Ah, damn it."

Another memory that had blanked my mind white flashed back to life.

'My tastes are extremely similar to my younger sister's. I'd like to introduce my twin sister to Cassian.'

Damn it.

I never thought this crazy bastard would inflate a blind date into a matchmaking event and storm in at the crack of dawn.

I kept calling him a crazy bastard, and he really was a crazy bastard.

* * *

Thud, thud.

My head felt like it was about to split open.

I dragged my body, which had barely slept for three hours, down to the first-floor drawing room.

When I opened the door and went in, I saw an unwelcome brown-haired intruder sitting elegantly with his legs crossed on the sofa, backlit by the early morning sun.

"…"

Lucius.

This bastard had barged into someone else's house at 7 a.m., and yet from head to toe he looked as perfect as if he'd just stepped out of a salon.

He was even leisurely sipping the black tea our maid had brought him.

I flopped down on the sofa opposite him with sunken eyes and snapped,

"Was it so urgent that you had to come at the crack of dawn?"

At my sharp greeting, Lucius set down his teacup and smiled brightly.

"Ah. If I disturbed your blissful morning sleep, I sincerely apologize."

"Then why do something you need to apologize for?"

"But please kindly understand that it was urgent enough to justify the discourtesy."

I really can't hate him.

He always behaves with this shameless kind of courtesy, which makes it oddly hard to be properly angry at him.

"What are you talking about? Urgent?"

Lucius leaned his upper body slightly toward me.

His blue eyes gleamed sharply.

"I have an intuition."

"An intuition?"

"That before long, your reputation is going to be turned upside down in the capital's social circles."

Hmm.

I crossed my arms and leaned back against the chair.

I hated being told I had an inflated sense of self, so I didn't want to agree out loud, but in my heart I could kind of see it.

Whether it was my feat of flattening the slums with my clicker ability during the Legion Tour,

or last night's incident of making the pope and the Cross Knights kneel at the academy gate,

none of those were small matters.

It wouldn't be strange at all if my name were splashed across tomorrow morning's imperial paper in huge headlines.

But admitting it would be embarrassing, so I had to put on a hard face.

"What are you talking about? Don't exaggerate."

"I'm not exaggerating; it's a reasonable prediction—"

"Enough. So what the hell is this matchmaker nonsense?"

I cut Lucius off and got to the point.

"I clearly said I'd have a meal with you as a compromise for the debt, not that I'd go on a blind date."

In most medieval fantasy settings, there probably wouldn't be a clear distinction between a blind date where a man and woman met alone and a seon between families.

Fortunately, this was a very trendy romance-fantasy world.

Separate from the formal, family-to-family arranged-marriage 'seon'.

There was also a very casual culture called a blind date, where eligible men and women could casually meet one another without promising the future.

Of course, even this blind-date culture wasn't completely free.

Unlike seon, even if you kept meeting through blind dates, there was a real boundary that until an engagement was made you had to maintain an almost obsessively platonic relationship.

For example, secret rendezvous were strictly forbidden.

Meetings had to take place only in the capital at midday, and only in public spaces everyone could see, like an open café with a wide terrace or the academy, according to an unspoken rule.

In any case.

Damn it, the fact that a simple, casual meal date got blown up into a "matchmaker" and ended up at our front gate was not something you could brush off as ordinary wordplay.

If my father heard about it, he'd be fiddling with the crystal ashtray again.

And then it'd come flying.

Under my murderous glare, Lucius shrugged.

"Of course it was a joke."

"For a joke, didn't it feel like our butler's lifespan got shaved off by a year?"

"Of course it was only half a joke, though."

"?"

Look at this guy.

This crazy bastard.

"What? Half a joke?"

"If you talk to my younger sister and give me the go-ahead, it means I was fully willing to push this straight into a family-to-family arranged marriage."

His shamelessness shot straight up to the heavens.

So he really had made up his mind to turn me into his brother-in-law.

I rubbed my forehead and drew a hard line.

"Don't say things that could be misunderstood. Listen."

"Yes. I'm listening."

"Because the financial loss you took isn't small, I'm not going to sit there in front of your sister with dead-fish eyes and just kill time until I leave."

"Oh."

"I'll escort her properly at the meal, and I'll make sure your sister has a meaningful time, so don't worry about that."

Lucius's face brightened.

"As expected of Lord Cassian. I knew I judged you right."

"But."

"You're saying that's as far as it goes, right?"

Lucius added, reading my mind exactly.

Of course.

Eat together, exchange a few decent words, and part ways cleanly. That's all.

"Understood. I've fully understood that point."

Lucius took a sip of black tea, then set the cup down with a clack and looked at me seriously.

"However."

"…"

"I came today because I have something else I'd like to ask Lord Cassian at that meal, so I hope you'll bear with me."

A request?

It looked like this was the real reason this bastard had come to our house at 7 a.m. looking ready to tear it apart.

I uncrossed my arms and asked.

"What is it? Are you asking me to uncork an expensive bottle of wine at dinner or something?"

Lucius curved the corner of his mouth upward.

And then, in a very clear voice, he blurted out something utterly insane.

"Please seduce my younger sister."

"…"

The air in the drawing room froze in an instant.

It felt like even the sparrows chirping outside the window had gone silent.

"…Huh?"

I doubted my ears.

"What did you just say?"

"I asked you to seduce my younger sister, Sophia, to perfection."

Ah.

Why the hell was this bastard acting up again?

What kind of crazy older brother politely asks another family's second son to seduce his twin younger sister?

"Did you take something?"

Why have so many people around me started spouting nonsense like they've been drinking herbal tonics lately?