The Era

After having fun in the mall, the siblings went home satisfied. Lenneza was curious as to why Leonard took so many pictures but she didn't question it. 

After all, it counts as memories as well. 

On the other hand, in Leonard's room. He found that it was missing something. 

"A computer."

He had a phone but not a computer, a CELLphone, it was far from the one he knows which is the smartphone but he was pretty sure that it would only take a few decades before that item came to fruition. 

For now, he has to go above and beyond his peers in terms of coding, in the first iteration he doesn't remember but, there would be an app for blogging, yes blogging instead of video sharing like youtube, picture sharing like Instagram or even all of the above like Twitter. 

But he couldn't go and make an account to that app and browse it, since after all. He's busy being a third-rate villain. 

"Yeah, I should learn to code first."

Leonard has a lot of time on his hands so he first prepared for the lessons he wanted, he asked Richard for a private tutor in coding and even a set of computers.  

He only waited for a day for a good computer to come to his room, and it just took 3 days for the tutor to be hired. 

"I hope they didn't skim on this."

"Oh, it was the head Butler who chose the tutor."

A servant replied to Leonard. 

"Uncle Ron did?"

"Yes, He said that he was quite curious about why the young master wanted to learn coding all of a sudden."

Leonard looked down and then fell in thought than just had a malicious smile on his face. 

"Tell him that I wanted to learn to code so I could make an app where I could connect with his granddaughter and date her from there."

"Y-young master if he hears that from me he would go ballistic!"

"Then let him go bananas."

Leonard wasn't able to sleep all night that day solely because Ron, the head Butler keeps sending killing intent whenever Leonard was about to sleep, forcing him to wake up. 

Just like that time moved on and 2 weeks were gone. Now it's already December and there are a few more weeks for Elizabeth's trial. 

—knock knock. 

"It's me."

A knock came from Leonard's door, the voice on the other side was Richards, of course, it would be rude of Leonard to keep his father waiting. 

"Come in."

When Richard opened the door, what welcomed him was Leonard's well-designed room. 

"Oh… I heard what you did to your room but this seems…. Quite futuristic."

His previous room of Leonard looked quite conservative, but now it looked a bit nihilistic and at the peak of minimalism. The neon lights are also something that adds to it. 

"Well, I arranged this room because it pleases my eyes, ya know… like eye candy."

"I see. So, how're your studies?"

"It's pretty good. I never knew coding would be this easy."

"I-isn't that right?"

"Yep."

"Though, I'm quite worried. How are your magic studies?"

"Self-learning."

Leonard flicked his finger and a small fireball appeared at the end of his index, Richard nodded in approval. 

"Why did you start learning to code, I mean there's a lot more than that other than hobby right?"

"Yeah… Well… I got annoyed that there isn't one place for videos at all. So I have to search sites instead to look for it."

Leonard gave a proper excuse. 

"Hmm…"

"Father, Why won't you get on the main point? I know you don't know much about this."

Richard's brows twitched and he coughed before looking at Leonard with soft eyes. 

"Am I that obvious?"

"Well, Father, you don't make small talk unless you don't know about something."

"Right…"

Richard cleared his throat before looking at Leonard seriously, Seeing this Leonard couldn't help but be serious as well. 

"You're getting engaged."

It took a while before Leonard processed this information in his head but when he did he couldn't help but yell. 

"What?! This early?"

"Yes, I know it— wait early?"

"Ahem…"

In the first iteration, Leonard was eleven when he got engaged. Right now he's just ten and he just came back almost 3 months ago. So why was the engagement this early?

"Leo?"

"No-no… I uh… who is this young lady?"

"Yula Von Hereon"

"Oof."

"... Leo?"

Leo just laid back on his chair, well his custom gaming chair that he ordered. 

"Well... Uh… yeah when am I meeting her?"

"After Elizabeth's case. So prepare yourself."

"Alright, father."

"Well then, I've said what I want to say. Have fun with your… studies."

"Okay."

Richard left the room, with a smile and closed the door silently. Leonard couldn't help but put a hand on his face. 

"Right, how could I forget her?"

Yula Von Hereon, The girl who manipulated Leonard in the novel. She was the one who made his life worse indirectly.

"Yeah, let's change the scenario. I wonder why that silly girl would want to be my fiancee this early… to build more strength? Hmm… I'm curious."

Yula Von Hereon, the 6th girl born of Viscount Eren Von Hereon, well… she's practically the youngest child. She has no power in her household at all. 

And of course, his oldest brothers who have the highest chance to inherit the viscountcy, and since Yula's father is very conservative, one that lives and believes that 300 years ago was the right way to be an aristocrat completely removed Yula's ability to inherit a single thing in the viscountcy. 

Furthermore, Her siblings' relationship isn't great, so being there is like living in the most poisonous swamp one could be in. 

"hmm…"

In the first Iteration, Yula became a business tycoon in the Marchen territory first and slowly spread her influence in other territories of course Yula and Lenneza became business partners but they became friends from trying to make Leonard's life worse. 

Well, Leonard made their life worse but yeah they made it worse for Leonard. 

Anyways. Since the engagement of Leonard and Yula became earlier than the original storyline Leonard started thinking of things to break this engagement up. After all, in the novel, Yula only got engaged with Leonard because he was stupid and she was building her forces. 

So, this time, Leonard was thinking of a way to make Yula's forces strong and then break off the engagement. That way they could get an agreement and stay away from each other. After all, Leonard experienced firsthand how sadistic that girl is. 

"Welp gotta finish what I have to do."

Leonard saved everything on his computer and turned it off. After that, he stood up and went to his closet drawer and opened a box, containing a ring. 

"Time to see laws from hundreds of years ago."

He wore this ring and injected magic into it. He started changing forms and when he looked in the mirror he looked different from before. Black hair, black eyes, and smooth delicate skin. 

"Shapeshifting is great…"

He looked at a ring then curiosity hit, he tried turning to a girl, he didn't even look at the mirror he just checked his pants. 

"Cool…"

Then he reminded himself of what he needed to do, so he turned back to his original form and dressed himself up. 

"The Imperial Archives."

The Imperial archives, the palace that holds all decrees, edicts, and laws made and ruled out by the previous emperors, also hold history not known by the public. 

In these Archives, there would surely be some laws about mingling with Fairies. Leonard was sure he could find some clues there. He already had enough evidence to put Elizabeth in prison but he is still having this bad feeling. 

Leonard was sure to use evidence and the law to make sure everything went smoothly. 

***

Lorraine carried a notebook in which she was deciphering with a spirit in her room, what she's seeing right now is just 1 and 0's so she is having a hard time. 

—knock knock. 

"Lori it's me."

"Big sis!"

Lenneza opened the door with a gentle smile on her face. She went to Lorraine because she was bored of what to do, after all, she's just human. 

"B-big sis w-why are you here?"

"I just want to play with my little sister, can't I?"

Lenneza revealed a sad smile, as if a lost animal, Lorraine saw this and revealed a gasp. 

"No! No! B-big sister is w-welcome here!"

Lorraine tugged on Lenneza and Lenneza found Lorraine so adorable she couldn't help but hug Lorraine. 

"So what is Lori doing?"

"Oh! Oh!"

Lorraine ran up to the notebook filled with ones and zeros and showed it to Lenneza, Lenneza couldn't help but be dumbstruck at what Lorraine showed her. 

She had a feeling that it was the same as Leonard's diary in which he encrypted it. 

"D-did Leonard made a new diary? Wait why does Lorraine have it?" Lenneza spoke inside her head before asking Lorraine. 

"Lori, where did you get that?"

"I-I found an n-notebook under b-brother's bed and it was f-full of black and w-w-white boxes but a spirit h-helped me understand it… but…"

She looked quite detected when she looked at the ones and zeros, however,  Lenneza saw it differently as she knew what was written on the notebook. 

It was binary code. 

Lenneza knew that Leonard had at least three ways of coding a message. Morse, base64, and binary. She knew of this thanks to the diary Leonard left in the first iteration, he simply explained the codes by a simple diagram on the back of the notebook. 

"Lori, can I have this notebook? I'll try to solve it."

"Mm… really?"

"Yeah?"

Lenneza had sweat running down her cheek trying to fool Lorraine this way. She knew that looking at Leonard's New diary is morally bad for her but she can't help it. 

What does Leonard think of her? She's excited and scared, she's worried about Leonard's image of her, and what he thinks about her. 

It was wrong yet, Lenneza took the notebook, remembered that Leonard always uses his phone, and took out hers and took pictures of the said notebook. 

"Big sis?"

"ah… yes yes." Lenneza cleared her throat before giving back the notebook to Lorraine. "Let's see…"

"I think it would take a while for me to solve this. Would Lori be willing to wait?"

Lorraine nodded enthusiastically, as Lenneza thought, Lorraine, thinks that the notebook is a puzzle. But for Lenneza it's the most guilt-inducing diary but whatever, Leonard wouldn't know about it anyway, and she's just curious. 

"Y-yes!"

Lenneza immediately made a puzzle for Lorraine, she also added a description of how to decode a coded message except for this time it's base64 and it's completely unrelated to the diary Lorraine innocently copied. 

Lenneza shamelessly gave this unrelated text to Lorraine to decipher and went on her way back to her room just to decipher the diary of Leonard that she took a picture of. 

This would make her regret her decision in later chapters.