Apparently, in my drunken state, I had done something to my beautiful maid.
I don't remember a single thing, all I know is that Christina had told me Helene was set to visit that day, and since I wasn't aware beforehand I panicked and told her to get me the usual, that was it, I drank whatever she brought and woke up in bed, and the strange part was that Helene never actually showed up that day like I was told she would.
And how exactly did I force myself on a maid who was supposed to be stronger than me? She was my bodyguard for crying out loud, so how? Well, unless she couldn't fight back simply because I was her master and... no, that's bullshit, there's no way she'd just lie there and let some fat drunk bastard drool all over her out of obligation... would she?
...I genuinely don't know.
I wish I could remember what happened but I never could, which is what bothered me most about the whole thing, because why would a person lose their memories just from drinking alcohol?
I asked a knight about it once and he told me that's not how it works at all, that you remember everything eventually, it just takes a while to come back, along with the nasty side effects... what's it called again, that awful next day thing, the heavy head, the whole disaster... tsk, I can't remember the word, but the point is I never experienced any of that, no pounding headache, no slow return of memories, nothing, which tells me something about whatever I was drinking wasn't exactly normal.
Anyway, that's the whole story, the incident blew up inside the mansion and somehow leaked out, which did even more damage to my already ruined reputation, this time spreading beyond the dukedom.
Helene stopped visiting, which honestly I was thrilled about, the engagement though... wasn't cancelled, and that's the part that still frustrates me to this day, I genuinely can't tell if her family are idiots or if there's something about this engagement nobody is telling me, because her family is significantly more powerful and influential than mine, so it would make perfect sense to cut ties with a confirmed scumbag who awakened a D rank talent, and yet they haven't, they're still holding onto the engagement, and I don't understand why.
Sighs.
Engagement aside, Sasha almost killed me, and that particular memory still sends a chill down my spine whenever it surfaces, because I literally woke up one morning to find her standing over me with a kitchen knife, which she would have buried straight into my face had Christina not been grabbing her from behind, and even then she was dragging her out of the room the whole time.
I had never been so terrified in my entire life.
Did I ever mention I was fat?
No? Well... I was fat.
Not chubby, not pudgy, I mean genuinely, deeply, aggressively fat.
So fat that even with a knife right in front of my face I couldn't get my body to react, I just sat there like a lump staring in frozen horror while someone hauled the deranged girl out of my room.
Pretty sure I pissed myself at least twice if I'm being honest.
It was that moment I realized getting fat to sell the image of a useless heir was probably one of the dumber ideas I'd ever had, but the damage was already done, I was a colossal human being with enough meat on me to keep a pack of mana beasts fed for days.
So I started exercising, but that's a story for another time.
Looking at the way Sasha is glaring at me right now, I don't think pushing my luck further is a smart move.
"Fine, get my clothes ready," I said and rolled out of bed.
I wasn't fully there yet, still carrying a bit more weight than I'd like, but if I trained hard enough at the academy I'd probably burn off the rest by the end of first semester.
Right, I was saying something about Christina being moved out of the mansion, because like I said she probably hated me enough to actually do it, which made it genuinely strange that she was the one holding her sister back, when by all logic she should've been the one with the knife. What was even stranger was that after the incident she never acted like someone who'd been through anything, no awkwardness, no avoiding me, she was somehow the most normal person in the room, even more composed than I was, and I was walking on eggshells around her every single day after that.
She wasn't my personal maid anymore, though she didn't know that yet, father had only told me privately that he was going to have her go through proper training, the same kind I'd had in Alpheroisa, before enrolling her into the academy, which meant she'd no longer be in service to me. I had no idea what the old man was trying to do with the girl, whether he was considering her as some sort of candidate or something else entirely, I really couldn't figure it out.
Then one day, Christina snapped.
It took several knights to pull her away.
She wanted to kill me, for reasons she didn't bother explaining, and the part that made it so much worse was that she was smiling the entire time, full on smiling while holding a knife, same weapon as her sister, completely calm in the way someone is when they've already decided something and have no regrets about it.
I tried talking to her but she was gone, I don't really know how else to describe what I saw that day, all I know is I haven't seen her since then.
After that, Sasha was assigned as my personal maid, and when I went to father and told him Sasha had tried to kill me, expecting at minimum some kind of reaction, he just told me not to piss her off too much.
Like I said, the old man is strange, and I have a strong feeling he knows exactly what I'm planning.
Tsk.
"Hmm, no wonder the lore called it villainess maker, who could resist this level of handsomeness," I said, shamelessly admiring my own face in the mirror... okay, maybe losing weight turned me into a narcissist, but in my defense, the pink hair framing both sides of my face and those amber eyes are genuinely not something a person should have to be humble about, and if I wasn't still carrying this leftover fat I'd be a genuine problem for any woman with functioning eyes, come on, the hero in the original story wasn't even half this good looking and they were all throwing themselves at him anyway.
Sighs.
After a minute or two in front of the mirror, striking a pose or two that would make most people feel bad about themselves, I walked over to the tub and tested the water.
Nice, not acid.
Good enough.
I got in and had myself a proper bath.
Cheers.