“Milady, your presence was requested. Could you please follow me?” A voice called me (it was one of the maids from yesterday, but I don't remember who she was with) from the outside of the room, which was more than enough to wake me up. Not that I was happy or ready for it, but someone was calling, so I got up without a problem.

Being good at waking up was always a very useful skill.

Still, the day started a little earlier than I would have liked (my guess was that it wasn’t even the evening yet), which would have been fine if I hadn’t lowered my guard too much. I thought they would at least wait until noon to prepare the things they needed, so I wasn’t ready.

Would asking for an hour or two be too much? The fact that I had no other clothes than my uniform and the plain sleepwear thing they gave me during the bath was already a problem, but I had to fix everything else too. I mean, I couldn’t just go around without make-up, right?!

First things first, though, I had to answer the female voice at the door before she would decide to enter.

“Give me a minute, please,” I answered, betting on the idea that maids wouldn’t be asking what exactly a guest was doing and that this person was indeed a maid. If either was false, then I would have a serious problem.

“Understood. Just don’t take too long, His Highness has a busy schedule.”

Oho? So that’s how it is, eh? I feel this person will be fun to deal with. But I ignored her tone for now and hurried with what I could.

My inventory was the two sets of clothes (uniform and medieval pajamas), a pair of leather boots from who-knows-where, a cellphone with no battery, and my powder locket (my most important item). Not perfect, but every other cosmetic I had ended up forgetting where I was before together with my shoes, so it had to be enough.

With no time to lose, I hurriedly put on some clothes, checked if they had any wrinkles, painted over anything that was better hidden, used both my cellphone and the mirror on the wall to fix my hair as much as possible, and then finished by changing the color beneath my eyes a little. A very subtle change, but I was sure it would have the right effect.

The ‘right effect’ is of ‘a sad girl who got stranded in a strange place but is pretending to be fine’, by the way.

Very useful against wannabe heroes and dutiful monarchs if you ask me. Also, very useful to pretend you didn’t simply wake up a minute ago… But this bit I can ignore.

Still, the magic of make-up would show itself to be supreme once more.

So, with my one minute turned into fifteen, I hurried to the door, controlled my breath, and opened it.

The next thing I saw was a maid slightly shorter than me with lightly tanned skin, caramel-colored eyes, and dark hair tied in a ponytail. Her face was a little lacking in skin care, likely due to her position, but she had the potential to be a heck of an eye candy with some work.

Her clothes were the usual maid fashion, but of the maid-cafe variant instead of the proper one. Black and white frilly dress, headpiece, and a short skirt different from the more ‘authentic’ look. Still, in all honesty, I couldn’t complain much about her looks at all. She had a very passing grade by me.

Not too shabby, Ms. Maid, not too shabby indeed.

The only negative I could see, and with the utmost care to be considerate with my words, was that she had a lacking upper body. It evened out with, being considerate again, how much she had on her waist, but the contrast could be bad to some.

Explaining it in a more direct way would be against my character, though, so that's how I'll leave it.

Either way, God bless stupid otherworld miniskirt maids no matter how unfit to the setting they are! And God bless my perfect control over what I think and what I say…

“Sorry for the wait. Can you show me the way now?” I spoke to the maid waiting for me while trying to avoid making too much eye contact or showing that I was describing her in my head. Wouldn’t want her to notice something I forgot or tag me as weird right away.

“Not a problem, milady. Now, if you don’t mind…” She made a gesture as if to tell me to follow her and then started to head deeper into the corridor.

This area of the castle had many other rooms, but how empty it was made me guess they were guest ones, which would explain how they had one for me right away. Either that or this area of the castle was isolated to keep me and Hayato away from everyone. Valid too, but more unlikely...

I also noticed that, since this one corridor was the same as the protagonist’s room, it seemed they either called him first or he was somewhere else. A little worrying since nothing good would happen without him around in this situation, but I chose to avoid thinking about it, going instead to some small talk.

“Excuse me, but what’s your name? I’m not very fond of silence…”

“My name, milady?” The maid stopped and I nodded many times in answer, so she gave me a short answer and then went back to walking. “It’s Evelin, milady, and I’m somewhat fond of silence.”

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“That’s a nice name, but can I call you Eve or something? Faster to say and all. You can call me Illia, by the way. Or Lia. Or Ill. Or anything other than milady;” I went on without caring at all about what the maid hinted, and again, she stopped to answer me.

“I cannot fulfill this request, milady. It would get me in trouble…”

She then turned once more and continued leading me. Something that, once again, I was sure to ignore until she understood that she would need to keep my head unfocused until we got to our destination. And to show so, I rushed forward a little and tried to block her path.

What I wasn’t expecting was that she would jump away in surprise and get ready to pummel me with the gauntlets I hadn’t noticed she was wearing until now.

“Wah?!” I jumped away in answer and tried to protect my head as the standard procedure dictated. “Please don’t kill me.”

“What?! I-I mean… I’m sorry, milady…” The ponytail maid rushed to bow way too deeply and apologized while stowing her weapons in a hurry. “I deeply apologize, milady. Pointing weapons at a guest just because I got a little surprised… Please deal with me as you see fit.”

I mean, I know I don’t have much of a presence, but that’s a little too much, you know? I would be very angry if it wasn’t for the fact you are still decently beautiful, Eve.

“Well, mess-ups happen, so let’s forget it…” I went back to my refined self and then went back to walking towards the throne room, leaving her behind this time and forcing her to hurry after me. “Anyway, the guy that came with me, or it would be the guy I came with…? Whatever. the protagonist-looking guy, where’s he?”

I could faintly hear Eve’s footsteps hurrying to reach me again and feel her glare on my back, but that was for the sake of not getting too late. I won’t apologize for it, okay?! And I'm surely not having fun!

“Sir Hayato was helping around the castle even against the head butler’s suggestion, so he should be arriving earlier, mi…”

“Illia!” I interrupted her before she could call me something that had no chance of creating a decent bond even if she would find me annoying at first. “Anyway, that guy sure likes being helpful, eh? I wonder if he doesn’t care about being in a strange new place for no choice of his…”

Dropping the seeds like this is real neat, isn’t it? If I’m lucky, she may even spread what I said around and help out with everything. No one will bully a poor beautiful girl, right? Right? Wait, now that I think about it…

“Milady?” The maid asked as I was the one who stopped this time, which got my head back on track very fast.

“Sorry, sorry. I was only thinking that you’re a very nice person.”

“I don’t believe I understand…”

She didn't seem to understand my deflection, but that was fine too, so I only kept going.

“Anyway, Eve, thanks for all the information.” I bowed for the now confused maid and then hurried on ahead with my new realization. “Now that I think about it, wouldn’t going around making friends be a better survival strategy? Or at least, talking with that guy a little more than some greetings here and there… Better not think about it, right? Right. I decided it’s right then it should be right!”

With whatever realization I was having dropped to the ground, I started marching forward again. I also made sure to make small checks on my looks on the way since I had little time before.

The closer to perfect I was, the better it would be if I had to beg for my life, and looking perfect was something I could do. One has to always play to one’s strengths, you see? And people are always more lenient towards beautiful people, which is something I surely am.

So, while bothering Eve with more small talk so as to not panic too much, I continued walking until we were right next to the same room as yesterday. I even managed to get there right at the same time as my same-world companion. He was too focused on his little group to notice me, but that was still a chance.

A chance that I wouldn’t waste, that’s for sure.

“Hello there, Mr. Hero! How you doing on this dreadful day?”

“Huh? Oh! Good morning, Illia, but do you really have to call me ‘Mr. Hero’ now?” He answered from the middle of the small procession headed to the throne room after noticing me. “And were you always like this? I mean… Errr… I can’t get the right words right now…”

“Don’t mind, don’t mind. And why wouldn’t I call the protagonist what he is? It’s much cooler than saying ‘Hayato’ anyway… And by the way, hello to all your groupies too, although I’m sure a bunch of you don’t even know me.”

“Now that you say, I didn’t see much of you today… Even during breakfast, you weren’t there. Are you doing fine?”

“Oh? Worried about me, are you? You shouldn’t do that, Mr. Hero. I’m used to changing where I live all the time, so don’t worry.”

“Hmmm… Okay.”

He didn’t seem to believe me, which was as planned, but I was more interested in the other people following him right now. They barely answered my greetings and didn’t seem that interested, but I’d like to remember their faces later. Some of them may even be important considering who they were following.

From what I could see, the line-up was maid, maid, maid, noble, noble, knight, mage, knight, and an eye-catching young woman. Other than the young lady, though, the others didn’t feel like they were worth the effort.

Seemed like many side characters with a single major one moving together. And since she was a major character, it was for the best that I got her burnt in my memory.

It was somewhat easy since she was like a younger version of the queen (not much mystery on who she was too), but there were differences. The biggest ones were how her face was more friendly-looking, albeit a little fidgety, and how her hair was braided at the end.

Other than those, she had the same excessive body that put my perfect equilibrium to shame and the serious aura with the same reddish eyes. Her clothes were the same style of dress too, although hers were mostly silver in color with some details in red. She also lacked the gem-encrusted gauntlet and was instead wearing a pair of white gloves with much smaller gems but carrying a sword.

Very good, but not my preferred type. A bit too serious.

Still, well done, Mr. Hero, you already have a nice fan club, don’t you? That’s how someone who goes around being a busybody works.

It wasn't something I could do naturally, but maybe I could try roaming around doing small niceties later. I had to be sure to avoid anywhere that I could, in any possibility, mess things up, though.

“Anyway, Mr. Hero, I believe our goal is right there, no?” I pointed to the more ornated door at the end of the corridor we were in and headed there without waiting for an answer. “We have an important talk to have, so it’s better if we don’t leave our host waiting.”

Push along and keep going, that's what you should always do.

I already showed off my looks and got my personality imprinted in their heads, so risking a slip right now wouldn’t be nice. Also, to not lie too much, I’m actually interested in seeing if I really don’t have some overpowered skills lying around. In special, if I don’t have something straight-up cool-looking that I could show off.

Who knows, right? Maybe I’m even the actual protagonist and the hunk following me with a worried expression is the real tagalong… Not likely, but no one could fault me on betting on that this one time.

Either way, I ignored the group right in front of the throne room and pushed the door open without noticing that there should be proper etiquette for entering.