17 Alex’s masterplan and Alice’s anticipation
A/N: In case it had been confusing, Affection Points(AP) are not equal to gains in Affection stat. Both are different, in the sense that AP is more of an instantaneous or sudden gain in affection for various reasons. Eg: Alex's mother loves MC. Her Affection for her son is already at 99. So, whenever she sees him or thinks of him, he gets an automatic AP gain of, say, 10 points. So, if someone has higher points in Affection, you're more likely to gain AP from them and in more quantity too. Someone like Alex's mom (or now younger sister Alice) are basically AP grinders. Alex just needs to stay close to them, or they need to be having affectionate thoughts of him and he can enjoy the gains. But naturally, it can not be exploited that much since he gains only 10s of points at once unless it's a major event and in that case, he can gain sudden 100s of points. This is why he could only amass a few hundred AP in 1 whole week even if he "grinded" the points from Alice.
There's also a thing called passive AP income, in which Alex gains constant 1 to 5 points of AP at every interval(minutes/hours/etc.) from people with whom his Affection stat is 75+.
Affection, on the other hand, is the quantitative value of the overall affection someone has for the MC out of 100. A person with 100 points in Affection has an absolute love for MC. No matter what. It'll be blind and absolute love. (Sometimes possessive too.) They'll also release AP like a fricking dam that's been opened. (You'll see examples of this in the future.)
Hope that's helpful. Enjoy the story. :)
---
I saw the usual cold head maid being strangely expressive today. And not just that, her Affection/Obedience/Reputation had skyrocketed! And for the first time, I had received actual Affection Points from the maid! Woo!
'Dayum, son. Today was a lucky day for me. Not only did I gain lots of Affection Points from Emma and improved my Aff./Obe./Rep. with her, I even raked in a wild Laura in the net and this has become something very interesting.'
Starting with Emma, I had just gained about 200 or so Affection Points from her during our conversation. I was still getting some stray points now, but they were almost inconsequential 1s or 2s.
Emma's Aff./Obe./Rep. sheet looked like this now.
[Affection/Obedience/Reputation: 65/25/70]
Safe to say, the gain was huge. Well, I had given quite a speech and a show after all. But it wasn't just for Emma, even if I was focusing on her.
Next, Laura.
I was made aware of her presence when Emma unveiled that she knew of my secret with Olivia.
That time, I received a sudden pop-up.
[+25 Affection Points from Laura!]
At the time I wasn't sure why I received that sudden pop-up, but I realized it soon after I got more such messages on the side.
It started with simple Affection and Reputation gains as I continued talking to Emma. But soon, I got a barrage of Obedience and Reputation gain messages.
[+15 Obedience with the user from Laura!]
[+10 Reputation with the user from Laura!]
[+35 Obedience with the user from Laura!]
[+25 Reputation with the user from Laura!]
[+20 ….]
…
..
.
[90+ Obedience with Laura reached!]
For some reason (I could make some rough guesses what), this had happened. It seemed she had become quite obedient to me.
When I first saw Laura's Observe page, it wasn't looking good.
[Name: Laura Barton
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Race: Human
---
Tier: 3(Foundation grade: Copper)
Talent: Cleaning, Cooking, Management, Leadership, Arithmetics
---
Affection/Obedience/Reputation: 5/10/-15
Capture Difficulty: SS
---
Remark: Likes service, Likes Maximus household, Likes working, Dislikes lazy and/or weak-willed people, sees you as timid and weak, pities you, has complex feelings about your dark secret.
---
Status: Calm, Determined, Serious]
…
Now, her last 'Observe' showed this–
[Name: Laura Barton
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Race: Human
---
Tier: 3(Foundation grade: Copper)
Talent: Cleaning, Cooking, Management, Leadership, Arithmetics
---
Affection/Obedience/Reputation: 55/95/85
Capture Difficulty: S-
---
Remark: In turmoil, feels guilty, feels dirty and improper, feels apologetic to you, sees you as someone worth her respect and obedience, etc.
---
Status: Calm, Determined, Serious]
Needless to say, I was elated to see the changes.
The maid was under my grasp. Maybe one or two pushes and who knows? I might get my hands on something really great, namely, a completely obedient maid. One who doesn't disobey any of my orders. But it was not an easy task.
Laura was still an S-ranked capture target, so the difficulty was great still.
'This is still good. I can definitely work with this. I can't stop myself from imagining some pretty diabolical things now. How will it feel like to break this stoic and cold maid into a mussy woman.'
I gulped as my lips twisted into an evil smile.
[Someone is turning into a Sadist.]
'What? Who? Not me, no. I'm a gentleman.'
[Ah, yes. A 'gentleman' who is planning to mind break a guilty woman and have his wicked ways with her.]
'… Yeah, well. I mean—I guess if you put it like that. I'm not a gentleman. But I'm not completely despicable either. I'm not gonna be too forceful if she hates it, but I feel like I have a chance here. You get what I mean?'
[Of course. Good luck on your maid hunt. ;)]
'Thanks. I'll try.'
After the whole fiasco, I stayed in my room, trying to think of some not-so-good things I needed to try with my maid and also how to get closer to Emma.
After a while, I left for my lessons and the rest of the day was normal.
***
The next few days were quite 'normal'. After the mini-drama was over, I noticed the changes in Laura. She was much more obedient to me. She listened to what I said and followed most of the time. She still acted stoic, but the coldness was gone.
Her new change was a delight to see. I felt like I was on to something with her.
Curiously, she never once tried to talk about the 'dark secret' with me, but her status showed that she often thought of it. And every time that happened, I gained Affection Points.
In just 4 days since the drama, she had given me over 150 Affection Points. Thinking of that and how stoic her face was, gave a strange sensation. I could tell there were cracks in her façade, but she still hid it so damn well.
Just looking at her Aff./Obe./Rep. sheet made it clear.
[Affection/Obedience/Reputation: 58/95/86]
Our relationship, as master and maid, was building quite well.
Leaving that matter aside, I was finding my little sister Alice quite adorable.
I remembered the day I spent with her just the day after the scene with Emma and Laura. It was quite enjoyable.
—♦♦♦—
[Alice's POV]
Next day after the scene with Emma.
Alice was in her room that morning, after her breakfast with her family. She had a smile on her face as she waited for the hour to pass, holding her favorite bunny doll in a hug.
Why? Because she had an appointment. An appointment to play with her older brother.
Ever since a week or so ago, her brother had started playing with her and this made her very happy.
As the youngest child in the family, she was provided with all the love and care she could ask for. But she still felt lonely. There was no one to play with. She didn't have any friends outside the mansion and the mansion was filled with maids and adults. She couldn't play with them, even if some maids did accompany her during her plays. She felt shy.
She had siblings, two of them, in the house. But one of them, namely her elder sister Emma, wasn't into playing house and other childish games she liked to play. That left her big brother Alex whom she used to play with in past, but he stopped playing with her a few years ago.
He had changed into a meek boy who kept to himself most of the time and didn't interact much, not even with her.
Alice felt lonely. Her only playmate had left her and now she had only her dolls with her, whom she absolutely adored, but they could neither talk nor act.
Truly a shame, she thought.
But for some fortunate reason, her brother was back to normal, well, not really, but he started playing with her. And she didn't care for anything else. Ever since that day, her life was full of joy and nothing else.
She waited eagerly as she stared at the clock in her room, watching as the seconds passed and then minutes. But it was not fast enough. Time seemed too slow for her liking.
She kept holding her bunny doll as she thought of what she was going to play today. She had been playing house and tea party a lot lately. She even got a real tea set from her big sis Laura on the condition that she doesn't break it. She had to serve juice though since Laura didn't allow anything hot to be handled by her.
She had pouted but she couldn't go against her. Laura could get really scary at times. She liked the head maid since she took great care of her, but she was scared of her too.
Luckily, her big brother didn't mind. So, they pretended to drink the cold beverage like it was hot aroma-filled tea.
When they would play house, he was the husband, she was the wife and the dolls were the kids.
She loved the drunk husband play her big brother would act as. And she would be the strict wife who would punish her husband after giving him her piece of mind.
Now, one might think such plays were bad for children and if their mother or Laura knew of this, they would absolutely forbid them from playing that scenario. But they didn't since she and Alex did it all behind a closed door.
She giggled as she remembered how her brother acted so funny while playing the drunk husband. She loved this new big brother of hers. He was funny, caring, and very fun to play with.
He even patted her so kindly. Something only her mother and her big sis Olivia used to do. She liked being patted by him. She liked him in general. Her big brother was the best big brother she could ask for.
She kept waiting patiently as the clock slowly but surely hit 11 AM. It was time. She rushed through the door and ran towards her big brother's room, now adorning a joyful and excited smile on her cute little face. She even ignored all the surprised but smiling maids along the way.
She was going to have so much fun today as well!
[End of Alice's POV]
***
A/N: In this two-sectioned chapter, I initially wrote about Alex's schemes, but that wasn't enough word count, so I decided to add Alice's POV in it too. Might seem kinda random or forced to do so, but hopefully not still acceptable.
Currently, Alice and Alex share nothing but a familial bond. Alice will be the cute Imouto character in this novel. I love cute anime imoutos. And I will NOT soil a Loli. It is absolutely unforgivable! No comments on the adult Alice though. I have some interesting plans for her. Alex might turn her into something scary with all that love and head pats.
P.S: Sorry for too many Author's Notes. Wanted to get some things out of my system.
P.P.S: Next chapter is a time-skip! :D
