Chapter 17: Proposition

Charlotte's face immediately became died in a deep shade of crimson as she began to contemplate the question asked by her mother. 'How should I answer this? I want to say how I really feel about spending time with Arthur, but….' Charlotte's monologue paused as she turned her gaze away from her waiting mother and towards her still sour looking father. 'If I say that father will just do something to try and either oppress or outright kill Arthur…And I can't let that happen. No one can touch my Arthur! no one!' Charlotte continued her eyes, momentarily darkening as she pictured the brutally misshapen corpse of her own father.

Sure, Charlotte may be a girl blinded by her overwhelming love for her attendant, being able to overlook every little flaw the boy possessed and even going so far as to ignore his lingering gaze that hovered over her mother, its intent undecided, but that didn't mean she was stupid, far from it, in fact when it came to matters concerning Arthur's livelihood Charlotte could be called a prodigy as she quickly picked up on the rather blatant hostility her father held to the boy and promptly factored in this issue into their future together. 'Sigh, I guess I'll just have to give a surface level response for now,' Charlotte groaned, sending another glare at her father, spiting him for being an obstacle between the love of her and Arthur, which she mistook as a mutual thing.

"It's been amazing so far!" Charlotte beamed an aura of pure happiness radiating from her blinding smile.

And with this one simple answer, as if a dam had burst, a torrent of relief swept over Arthur's very being. He was safe. He would live another day. 'Thank you, lady luck!!!' Arthur praised. If not for his current environment, Arthur would have surely been in tears, huddled on the ground as he screamed his lungs out in sheer ecstasy. Yet what he didn't know was that luck was not even a factor in Charlotte's decision, and neither did the blessing of one of his Ex in game wives play a role in the ordeal. Hell, even if lady luck wanted to help the struggling Arthur, she wouldn't be able to, thanks to the game rules strictly enforced upon her by the lower gods.

"Hmm, that's good then~" Vienna purred, sending an appraising smile at the still relieved Arthur as she felt her heart skip another beat. 'What's going on!' Vienna questioned as her mind instantly became filled with the same repeated image of a smiling Arthur, which, no matter how hard she tried to flee from, would always appear before her, and when she was in the midst of this state, an idea came to her, an idea she just had to bring to fruition. "And how has Arthur been performing in the service side of his position?" Vienna questioned, momentarily stunning the seven-year-old boy.

'What does she mean by service side of my position? I thought my job was just to be an attendant to Charlotte, acting almost like a body guard to her,' Arthur questioned. At no point in his job brief had he been told that he would have to perform any services to Charlotte aside from giving her his strength if she so required. William had made the point particularly poignant that he was not even to be trusted with the simple task of folding Charlotte's laundry as that was a job much more suited to the other servants of the Zepar family. Arthur was there to train and protect Charlotte. That was all. Even now, this job was becoming somewhat redundant as William began to weigh the option of just killing the young Arthur now before he could potentially become a threat to him in the future. 'Did William not tell Vienna this? Or is she trying to get me to do more?' Arthur speculated, his gaze moving away from the seductive Vienna to the clueless William. The latter seemed just as shocked as Arthur regarding the mention of any form of services that Arthur had to provide to Charlotte. 'Well, I guess that rules out my first idea, so that only leaves the second option,' Arthur answered. 'She probably wants me to do more, which I suppose makes sense. After all, what's the use in an attendant that can't even relieve the stress of their master.' Arthur continued, his thought process entirely in line with the act he had to portray to the world/

"What do you mean?" Charlotte questioned. She had never been told that Arthur could perform services for her, and if she had, she would have abused this privilege to kingdom come. The mere idea of Arthur massaging a worn out Charlotte gave the girl goose bumps.

"Well, he is your attendant, right?" Vienna pressed, a seductive smile slowly forming on her beautiful face.

"Yes," Charlotte slowly nodded, a slight sense of jubilation and anticipation slowly sprouting in her mind as she waited to hear the confirmation of her only recently formed dream.

"Then shouldn't he be able to perform the simple duty of a maid along with being able to protect you in a time of crisis," Vienna continued.

'So I was right,' Arthur sighed. If what he thought was true, then he would have a lot less time on his hand to spend with any of the targets. Instead, Arthur would be spending every waking moment training in the way of a butler. However, Arthur didn't know that the very next words that Vienna would mutter would flip that very idea upon its head, granting him the best possible outcome even he couldn't have imagined.

"So from this moment forth, I, Vienna Zepar, will take Arthur under my wing and guide him into becoming an attendant suitable to the Zepar family," Vienna proudly declared, her cheeks shining in a faint pink hue as she awaited the chaos that would inevitably arise.

{+3 Love (Vienna Zepar)}

{+300 Affection points}

""WHAT!!" And as if on cue, a flurry of angered voices erupted from the dining room, with the leading vocal protesters being, of course, William and even the quiet Iris, who couldn't help but question her mother's judgment in this seemingly hasty decision.

'What,' Arthur dazedly mumbled. Wasn't this situation precisely what he had hoped for the moment Vienna began to edge around the idea of training him into a butler? With this, he wouldn't have to separate from either Charlotte nor Iris. In fact, this arrangement even allowed him to get closer to the ever so elusive Vienna, who seemed to shy away from the rest of her family even more than ever, thanks to the inclusion of the newly appointed attendant Charlotte. 'What's going on? Am I dreaming,' Arthur continued, his hand subconsciously moving to his closest piece of exposed flesh and giving it a hard pinch.

'Ouch,' Arthur cried, 'Nope, I'm definitely not dreaming…so then why did Vienna decide to train me personally?' Arthur questioned, his disbelieving gaze returning to the scene of chaos where he could see a furious William angrily shouting at the cool headed Vienna, 'Well, she's not going to train me if William gets his way, so I should probably try to stop whatever he wants from happening,' Arthur affirmed, vowing to stop whatever William had to say before even hearing the man out. Yet this vow wouldn't even have to come to fruition as Vienna began to masterfully handle the situation, leaving Arthur sidelined.

"Why should you have to train this peasant when we have maids that can do the job? You're being unreasonable, Vienna!" William screamed, a small cream coloured vein pulsing on his perfectly sculpted forehead.

"Yeah, father's right. If you really want to train Arthur to be a butler, then wouldn't it be better to leave him in the hands of the head maid or someone of an equal position!" Iris protested, joining in on her father's wrathful protest with a slightly agitated tone of voice as if her heart wasn't fully invested in the cause she was speaking out against.

"Yes, Iris, but you seem to be forgetting who personally trained the head maid in the first place," Vienna smiled as she chided her daughter, who couldn't help but sulkily retreat from the conversation.

"I still don't see why that matters at all. You've already trained the head maid, so why should you have to personally train this," William paused in an attempt to cool his hot head. "Boy," William disgusting spoke, his tone carrying a severe weight of superiority as though he didn't view Arthur as a child or even a human but rather a worm. Even though William had tried to repress his anger towards Arthur by not calling him a peasant in the presence of his wife, who seemed to be oddly attached towards the child, his aura of superiority still seemed to slip through his flimsily made defence.

And this slipup was immediately noticed by both Vienna and Charlotte, who sported sour faces at William's arrogance. "William," Vienna growled as an aura of intimidation similar to the one Arthur first experienced upon his initial arrival to the Zepar family began to slowly ooze out of her body and towards the now shivering wreck that was William.

"Sorry," William immediately coughed as the sound of his softly clattering teeth began to fill the spacious dining hall.

"I'm going to personally train him simply because he is Charlotte's attendant, and he needs to be the best possible servant to her, nothing more, nothing less," Vienna lied as easily as she breathed. No, the real reason why she went as far as suggesting the idea was because of the primal instinct running through her blood that seemed to scream at her to get closer to Arthur. It was a feeling she had never felt before and a feeling she wanted to indulge in fully and attempt to understand.

"I still don't think that's necessary, though," William muttered through pursed lips. He had always been a pushover when it came to Vienna. Sure he had managed to marry her and worm his way into the Zepar family, but that by no means meant she both loved and respected him.

"Well, I do," Vienna scarily smiled as another involuntary shiver ran down William's spine. "Charlotte, do you have any issues with this arrangement?" Vienna questioned, shifting her gaze away from her "Husband", who was in the midst of yet another silent childish tantrum and to the slack-eyed, drooling Charlotte, who instantly became alert upon her mother's call.

"Huh, oh sure," Charlotte dreamily replied, her mind on cloud nine as the image of Arthur slowly massaging her body began to play on repeat throughout her mind distracting her from the ever present fact that her alone time with Arthur was being ripped away from her, and by her mother none the less.

"Good, did you hear all that, Arthur? From this moment forth, you'll have lessons with me every day to train you into becoming an attendant suitable of the Zepar family's status," Vienna smiled a dazzling smile that unconsciously made Arthur's heart skip a beat as a slight blush surfaced on his otherwise blank face.

'Pretty,' Arthur unconsciously commented, his eyes drawn towards the seemingly glowing Vienna. Arthur remained in this tantalised state for almost a second before the system alerted him to his rather slovenly drooling through a harsh message and a bass boosted voice.

'Ow,' Arthur commented as he suppressed the urge to swear at the piece of shit that called itself a system, 'What was that for?' Arthur angrily questioned.

{The host was too busy admiring lady Zepars beauty to notice that she asked a question,}

The system repeated, stunning the adamant Arthur, 'when did that happen?' Arthur continued his mind a whirl of thoughts as he suppressed the animalistic urge running rampant in his body to move his gaze back to the stunning Vienna in hopes of catching another glimpse of her almost other worldly beauty.

{Just seconds ago. Does the host want the system to repeat what Vienna said?}

'Uh sure,' Arthur groaned out a response. In truth, Arthur wasn't entirely focused on the system but rather on his own body, or rather his mind. 'Why do I want to take another look at Vienna,' Arthur groaned, a throbbing headache overwhelming his sense of pain as he suppressed the urge to once again look at the beautiful mother of Charlotte and Iris. 'It's almost like I've been charmed,' Arthur moaned as his gaze finally met with the beautiful emerald eyes of the mother of two of his capture targets, only to find himself instantly ensnared by them once again.

"Arthur," Vienna seductively questioned, her cherry red lips appearing more plumper and appetising than ever in Arthur's mind. He found himself lost in Vienna's sweet melodic voice like that of a sailor to that of a Siren.

"Yes," Arthur almost drunkenly moaned. His head unconsciously shaking in agreement with whatever the temptress had said.

"Great!" Vienna clapped in childish glee, showing both Arthur and the rest of her family a side she had never shown before, nor she knew she even possessed, as she quickly reeled in the glee and gave a cold cough. "I'll see you at my quarters after your lesson with Rono then," And with that final announcement, she picked herself up off her ornately decorated seat and strode her way past the still frozen Arthur's, whose eyes couldn't help but drunkenly follow after the visage of the buxom woman as she made her way past him, his nostrils filling with the sweet almost ambrosia smell of her body that in his mind could make any man crave her.

But that was just it. This was only in Arthur's opinion. To any other man, Vienna may have simply smelt like a wonderful flower or a mixture of the most delicate perfumes but only to Arthur did her body seem to release such a euphoric scent. And it seemed like this weird feature went both ways as the moment Vienna passed by the innocent child, her face immediately erupted into a ploom of red while her breathing became rapid and laboured.

'I need to get out of here,' Vienna steamily announced, her breaths becoming heavier with each second that passed, but, as if in denial of her statement, her head turned around once again, as her perfect emerald eyes matched with the dull brown eyes of Arthur, a jolt of electricity running through both her body and mind as the two seemed to become lost in each other's eyes enamoured by the mere presence of one another until the startling voice of William came, interrupting the two and freeing them from the shared state of frozen observation. And with a startling jolt, Vienna dashed out of the room, leaving Arthur alone and desperate to see the girl again. It was as though Arthurs entire being called out to Vienna, begging to reunite with the woman once again even though they had only parted seconds ago, as that seemed to be the only proven method to relieve this weird, almost painful sensation.

'What's going on? What's going on,' Arthur wondered. He could only faintly recollect the past few minutes he spent watching Vienna, his thoughts foggy as though he was trying to remember a very pleasant dream. And it was then that he pieced it all together, his mind recognising the symptoms of a scenario that his character had become very accustomed to throughout his playthrough of The gate to Avalon 'Am I charmed? Did Vienna Charm me? But that shouldn't be possible. As far as I know, Vienna doesn't have a charm skill…Unless this isn't a skill and this is just our bloodline attraction,' Arthur monologued, remembering his time playing the gate of Avalon through the lens of the red haired protagonist and reminiscing upon a particular event where both the protagonist and one of his bloodline attractions incidents where both sides found themselves enamoured by one another. 'I suppose that's it then. The other answer makes no sense…but then again, neither did Vienna having an intimidation skill. Yet, here we are, with a fully grown man about to piss his pants from a little aggression,' Arthur smirked, finally removing his gaze from the spot where Vienna had been not even minutes earlier and over to the now hyperventilating William.

'I'm starting to worry about what's going to happen in our meetings now,' Arthur commented as a tug on his blazer alerted him to the still starry-eyed presence of Charlotte, but that wasn't the only person who fell into his view as just behind the dazed girl stood a fiery-eyed Iris.

"It's time,"