After graduating from high school in the spring, I stayed at home with my dream of becoming a manga artist.

I had a father who was an office worker, a mother who was a housewife, and an older sister who has been working as an office worker since last year, but I…
To be honest, I was very fortunate, my sister's tyranny was the only thing that annoyed me.

“You're not busy, are you?”

After that phrase, I'll be forced to clean the bathrooms and go the convenience store with only those words…

Once, I bought an ice cream at the convenience store and when I gave it to her, she made me go back to buy another one again, saying “no, it wasn't the one I wanted”
There was also that time when….

Such an older sister was addicted to the Otome games.
She said, “I can't do anything unless I previously am healed by a handsome guy image. Ohh! This Otome game has an aspect of a ” tasks to do” and if you don't take the time to work on them, you can't progress comfortably. But, I can't! “
My sister was emphatic about it.
I had a bad feeling about that and tried to quietly escape, but there was no way she was going to let me go.
“You're not busy, are you? Raise the bar, please.”

Since then, I've been home every day, drawing manga and occasionally playing otome games to raise the level of the game and collect items.
My sister's favorite game, “Honey-colored Rhapsody”, had five characters to capture.
In order to capture them, you have to level up and improve your status, such as intimacy and love level, and you have to play steadily.
My sister, who came home from work, did the “important story progression”, and I was forced to do the preparations during the day.

“But still. You don't mind if I don't capture them all?”

I asked my sister when she got home from work.
She looked at me with a puzzled look on her face, then let out a snort making a gesture of disgust.

“You would have known if you'd been following the story on a strategy site or something. You won't see the real appeal of some characters if you don't advance in the story, so it's only natural having to capture all of them!”
“But, you don't make up your mind!!”
“Anyway, good luck with that since there's only one character left, right?”

She was a terrible tyrant.
It's been two months since my sister started “Honey-colored Rhapsody”.

“I'm a busy office worker! I've been in charge of the overall work! And I've already finished the endings of four characters! So do it for me”

The main target of the attack, the prince, his best friend, the duke's son, the new knight of the kingdom's chevalier order, and the male professor of the academy that the heroine attended.
So far, the one that my sister particularly liked was the red-haired professor that she was finally able to capture yesterday.
My sister apparently preferred older intellectual characters.

“Ah. I'm looking forward to the last fortune-teller-kun too~”
“Fortune tellers, isn't it such a change of pace again?”
“Right. There's very little information available except for the visuals.”

It's not just the work, but also the rival characters who were nasty and keep interfering with you, which made for a troublesome game.
But now that it's coming to an end, I've grown quite attached to the game.

While I was drawing manga, I would watch movies, manga and anime for both pleasure and profit, and it was a nice change of pace for me to play otome games that were far removed from my own tastes.

I would absolutely hate to be asked to do it again, though.

My sister, who came home from her overtime job today, turned on her portable game console in the living room while she was eating dinner.

“Sis, go take a bath first”
“Yeah, it's a pain in the ass. I'll come in if you get me a beer.”
“It's only Thursday and you're drinking?”

My sister took out a five hundred yen coin from her purse and sent it flying over to me like she always does.
Normally she only drinks on weekends, but maybe she's under a lot of stress.

“Can I buy something with the change?”
“Okay. It's fine for me.”

I took one look at my sister, who was waving her hand without looking at me, and I put on my shoes to go to the convenience store.
Walked through the city at night, feeling the early summer breeze on my skin.

“I haven't received any response yet since I sent my manuscript to a shonen manga magazine's Newcomer of the Year Award. Nowadays, there's a route to becoming a manga artist by gaining popularity by publishing on the internet, and you get a lot of experience from the people that see your work first. It might be a good choice.”

I stopped at a red light, thinking about that, suddenly, a bright light bursts across my field of vision.

“You're going to hit it!”
A car in the opposite lane, well off the roadway, plows straight into me.
Is it right before the collision, or is it at this moment?

Time and my body stopped and my thoughts flowed like a raging wave.
I chased my dream without finding a job, and although Dad and Mom didn't say anything, they must have been worried about me.
Sister… I think it's my own fault.
I looked up to you, and was grateful about it.
She was the first one to accept that I wanted to be a manga artist for real, and a shut-in. I knew she was trying to get me out of the house.
So, sis. If I die, don't feel responsible for my death.
Finally, I felt the car colliding head-on with me at a high rate of speed… no sound of brakes.
Then my thoughts were cut off, and I lost consciousness.

“Umm…”

My head hurts, my cheeks feel hot, and I can hear the faintest of birds chirping.
I rolled over, wanting to stay in bed, but then I came to my senses, woke up with a start and found myself in a soft, fluffy bed.

“I….ha…”

Something's wrong.
Something's definitely wrong.

“Who am I?”

“My name, my age, my family.”

“I can remember.”

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I can remember it, but there is another memory that exists inside me, layered with it.
It's very faint, and blurred, it would disappear, so I hurriedly put it into my mouth.
(crying in a very loud voice)
“I'm Leon Faulders. The brother of the Duke of Faulders, the head of the House of Faulders…”

Again, this time, but this time more firmly.
“My name is Leon. This is the Duke of Faulders Palace.”

I rolled up the covers, muttering what comes at my thin memory with interruptions.
A white lace cloth draped over the canopy of the bed, and when I turned it over, I could see that the room was surrounded by floral wallpaper.
A writing desk, a chair, a small low table and two sofas to go with it.

There was a heavy wooden chest of drawers and an almost no decorated mirror stand next to it.

Gently, I walked over to the mirror stand and looked at my face.
The silky red hair, the blue eyes like a summer sky.
… A tall young man with a thin but soft atmosphere, unlike the face I knew….
That was reflected there.

“Yes, that's me. It's Leon's face.”

At the same time as I thought so, I recognized this face in another way.

Isn't this the face of Leon-sensei, who was a “target character” until just recently?

Isn't this the world of “Honey-colored Rhapsody”?

“No, no, no, no, wait a minute.”

Influenced by manga and anime, when I was in junior high school I longed to be reincarnated in another world.
But it was a fantasy of swords and magic, or a world where people lived with guns in their hands. Yes, I did but…

I held my aching head in one hand while I took a deep breath.
“… Why is it an Otome game??!!!”

I yelled out in a fit of anguish
“Gehhhh Gehhhh!”

And maybe I was too japanese-conscious, but I was speaking in Kansai dialect like a comedian.
A few moments after I screamed, I heard a discreet knock at the door.
“Come in!!”
I urged, and one of the maids came in.
“Leon-sama, your voice just now…….. Are you all right?”

With those words, I could vaguely remember that “he” – Leon – was lying down with a fever, but unfortunately I couldn't remember the name of the maid in front of me.

It's not that I don't know her at all, but my awareness and memory of her as “Leon” is blurry anyway.

“Thanks… I'm fine.”

As I responded, I looked down at the window and saw a little girl drinking tea on the terrace of the courtyard.
A maid was standing at her side.
A small girl glanced up at me.

Immediately, her eyes were turned away, and she didn't notice me because our eyes didn't meet.

The girl's face is familiar, too.

Gently wavy strawberry-blonde hair, gold or pale pink, depending on how you look at it.
Also visible, her strong-willed red eyes were distinctive and clearly recognizable even from a distance.

Most of all, she was very familiar with the bright red ribbon that she wore right above her strawberry blonde hair.

That's right, that girl is the main character's rival character in the otome game, the duchess Miriella!

But “What?” I twisted my head around.

Miriella and Leon are uncle and niece, so it's no surprise that they are in the same house, but she looks much younger than the characters I know.

The main character in Honey-colored Rhapsody is fifteen years old.
The rival young lady, Miriella, is the same age.

However, the girl I saw under the window is, for all intents and purposes, a schoolgirl or younger.
She still looked less than ten years old.

So I hurriedly returned to the mirror stand.

I hadn't noticed it earlier, but apparently this Leon's face looks about the same age as I was.
However, Leon is the oldest character among the attack characters, and I'm sure he's in his late twenties.

So, that means….

“So this world at a point some years before the official story of the game begins?”

At my muttering, the maid who seemed to have been standing by for a long time, even not understanding nodded her head.