I’ve been locked in my room since yesterday.

How do I get rid of them…?

I need to make them make a mistake somehow.

No… I need to get rid of them all at once.

If one of them is left alone with me, it’ll be seen as me joining that faction. That’s why I don’t want to choose a caretaker.

Having one of them as a caretaker will make it seem like I’ve joined another faction. I also won’t get any of the benefits that come with joining a faction. All the negatives, and none of the positives.

In that case it would be dumb not to go get the positives too.

I also can’t get rid of them by killing them like I did Cent. That would lower my reputation. I don’t think they’re willing to challenge me to a duel after seeing what I can do.

Teleporting that quickly and that often is no joke.

I wonder how many of them also want me to join their faction for my potential?

Certainly Saith has that in mind. The church of light probably leaked my status to him.

Though Saith isn’t someone from the church of light. He’s someone from the church of nature…

The churches are still one faction though.

They don’t agree with each other, but they do all want the kingdom to be more controlled by religion.

It’ll turn into a war of faith after the succession war is done with. All of them will be trying to convert everyone to their religion.

I’m in a really tough situation.

My other option is to just accept it and try to make the best of it.

I’ll still get rid of at least two of them, but leaving the other two will be necessary to keeping me a neutral party in the succession war.

I’ll do that then.

I get out of my bed, then I look through my curtains. It’s morning now. I didn’t sleep last night. I was too stressed thinking of how to avoid getting a caretaker while also avoiding the succession war.

I’m not smart enough to think of a decent solution, it would seem.

I sigh. I feel like some kid on the day of a big test that they didn’t study at all for…

Fine. I’ll just accept it while getting rid of two of them.

I reach for the door handle. I don’t think I handled yesterday very well. I lost my cool.

It keeps playing in my mind over and over again.

I should have just kept to noble etiquette…

…

Haaa. I forgot that I can’t actually reach it…

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I ring the bell beside the door and wait. It’s not long before a maid opens it up for me.

“Salutations, little master,” she greets with a bow. Commoners who greet a noble are supposed to say Salutations though they normally greet each other with a ‘hail’.

I nod my head at her.

Nobles aren’t supposed to respond with a ‘salutations’ to a commoner’s salutations.

Nobles also aren’t supposed to say hail.

As such a nod is the proper etiquette to use.

“Please bring me to the dining room.” I ask the maid

“As you wish, little master,” she replies with a bow before turning around.

I’ll just ignore them for now…

I’m really quite hungry now since I was up all night.

Heading to the table, I find Rosalie sitting there eating. There’s plenty of food there along with evidence of three others sitting there previously. Though some of them look like they were longer ago than others.

They probably ate earlier.

In this world, there’s not really such a thing as eating together regularly. Jobs start and end at different times, so trying to do such a thing would be impossible.

It’s just something that’s different here. On Earth I always had to eat at the very least dinner with the rest of my family.

“Ah, salutations…” Rosalie greets quietly.

She hasn’t done much at all since she got here, so I don’t have an issue with her.

“...Salutations,” I greet in return, climbing up onto my chair, which is at the head of the table.

I take a look at the food available. Muffins, Sweet Bread, Eggs, and some bacon-like thing. There’s also a couple of leafy greens, but I don’t know what they’re called.

“A muffin, please.” I tell the maid

She goes to the kitchen, grabs a small plate for me, and puts a muffin on it. She puts the muffin directly in front of me. She places a fork and knife in front of me as well.

It’s nice having servants…

It’s really embarrassing though, and I can feel that it’ll make me lazy.

For this kingdom though, it’s something completely normal. Even a number of commoners have slave servants.

I don’t use my servants often. Normally I’ll grab everything myself.

It’s considered improper for a noble to not use their servants though.

I resist the urge to just use my hands to eat the muffin and begin to cut it into small pieces that I slowly eat one by one.

There’s an awkward silence hovering in the air.

“If…If you don’t want me to be your caretaker I can just leave…” she mumbles just loudly enough for me to hear.

…that… that’s very kind of her. To be able to accept that I don’t want anyone to be my caretaker and drag me into their faction.

I’m not quite sure how to respond, so I’m silent for a few moments.

“...That’s very nice of you to offer.” I tell her

“Err, not really, it’s just really uncomfortable for me to be here” she replies.

Eh? I’m not entirely sure how to respond to this insult. It really caught me off guard…

“Oh, uh, I mean, your estate isn’t what’s making me uncomfortable. It’s the people here…” she says, jumbling over her words

So you’re insulting the people of my territory…?

Her face turns slightly red.

“Ahh, no that’s not what I meant either… Sorry… I’m not very good at talking… What I meant is that social situations like interacting with your other possible caretakers make me very uncomfortable…” she apologizes

…

I sigh. I used to be bad, and probably still am, at getting my point across properly, so I can understand.

“I find it rather difficult to imagine your position in this too… you’re incredibly smart for a child, maybe even almost as smart as your average noble, so you figured out what’s going on beyond the front so quickly… It was a plot meant for someone with a child’s mind. It must be difficult to try to avoid being dragged into a faction…So I’ll do my best to help you out even though I’ll still try to get you into my own faction.” she mumbles

So she is nice, huh?

“Thank you,” I tell her

“Ah, it’s not an issue… it’ll be bad for me if any other faction gets you anyway…” She replies hurriedly.

She seems to put herself down a lot, huh?

I finish up my food and leave the table.

Now… I wasn’t really planning on doing that, but now if I don’t go and at least try to talk to everyone else it could push me a bit in the direction of the Tabito faction…

Haaa… I hate politics when I aren't one of the people in control…