After leaving the study, Victor’s first action was to return to his room. He instructed the maids to pack the last of his luggage. And it will be shipped out after the ceremony.
Then after the maids left, Victor sat on his bed and waited while thinking about his next step. “this is going to be another gamble,” He thought.
He had a reason to wait. As there is an important item that he needs for his plan, and this item will be delivered to him at any moment now.
He did not have to wait for long, as a few minutes later, the room’s heavy door was pushed open.
“Ha ha, brother, I hope you get a good result tonight, I heard about it from my big brother, The ceremony is very dangerous and half of the candidates would die every year.”
A youth with curly purple hair swaggered into the room with an evil grin. And behind him, an exquisite maid followed in silence.
This was Luke Von Weise the youngest son of the first lady of the house and victor’s last step-brother, the maid behind him was his personal maid and bodyguard.
If outsiders saw her, they would presume she was Luke’s little lover, but Victor knew that the heirs of the Von Weise family were forbidden from getting laid before the coming of age ceremony as it is said to dilute their bloodline.
As for poor Victor, he was forbidden from recruiting a maid till his ceremony because he was almost seduced by one when he hit puberty a few years back. That accident ruined his reputation and he was punished very hard by his father and had to spend the rest of his middle school days in an all-boys aristocratic boarding school.
Victor looked at Luke and smiled, “ I am not afraid, I will make our father proud like my elder brother and sister, I heard that big brother Rex’s results were barely passable, and father was so angry with him that he sent him to be a part of the dark jungle expedition.” he said.
The first mother has three children, The eldest, Max is a player. While the second, Rex is just a semi-player and his father was very disappointed with him back then. And the youngest was Luke, who has yet to be an adult.
This lineup put Luke’s mother in a tight spot, Victor’s mother already has two full players offspring, and there were talks in the family for her to be the main wife.
Although his mothers and younger siblings have no knowledge about the hidden rules of the world and who is a player and who is not, they know that some heirs would be more valued than others after the ceremony, and it has to do with some secret test and bloodline purity.
Hearing Victor’s ridicule Luke’s face turned red with anger. But he was no fool and knew that he can only swallow this bad breath, he can’t screw up his brother’s plan. He knew that using the thing his bother gave him, he can ensure that Victor will disappear forever,
“Brother there is no need for such talk,” said Luke with a silly smile. “I just came here to wish you a good ceremony, and hope that you will succeed.”
With that Luke stepped forward and gave Victor a tight hug then backed away awkwardly and left the room in a hurry. If his father saw that right now, he would really believe that Luke cared about his brother.
Watching her master leave, the maid followed him quickly without forgetting to give a bow to Victor before closing the door on her way out.
Victor stared at the door for a moment, then burst into a laugh. “Ha ha, this stupid bother of mine can really act, in my past life I did truly fall for this stupid play of his.”
Reaching his hand into his jacket’s pocket he took out a pure black octagonal piece of Jade, this thing was put there by Luke when he hugged him.
‘‘At last, in my past life I was screwed by this rune, but now this will be the key to my success’’ thought Victor.
This jade is called ‘Reduction Rune’, and it was a very rare SSS item, it’s effect is the permanent reduction by 1 of any attribute defined by the user. However, it also has the passive effect of reducing all the attributes when equipped.
Of course, his brother did not know what was this thing nor how to activate it, but he seemed to have figured out that this stone will make the holder weaker, It was probably one of his elder stepbrother’s plans. He planned to use it to lower Victor’s chances of completing the ritual.
In his past life, His brother’s plan only half succeeded.
With his qualification and bloodline, Victor should have been able to be a full player with ease, but he fell short by just a few points because of the rune, and could only be a semi-player with a very weak position in the family.
Victor knew about this plan later, when Luke bragged in front of him on the night of his banishment, he still remembers the ugly smirk on his face to this day.
Looking at the jade Victor sighed, this thing was kept by him in his past life as a memento before discovering its real use, This rune will be the essential key to his next step.
Victor took a leather bag from his closet, then put the rune in it, before returning it to his pocket. Holding the rune in a bag will not be considered equipping. Then he adjusted his clothes, and gave his room one last look, then went downstairs.
His mother was waiting for him in the hallway, she gave him a tight hug, “Be careful, and no matter what, you have to return alive.” she said with tears in the corner of her eyes. She had to act strong.
“Yes mother”, he replied while feeling the warmth in his heart, his mother is the only one who has never lost hope in him.
His little sister Lara peeked from behind his mother and looked sadly at her brother, “goodbye brother.” she said and ran away. but victor noticed the tears in her eyes as well, likely she thought that she would never see her brother again. It’s probably Luke’s instigation. He will take his revenge on him back later.
“Are you ready, let’s go, we have a long trip.” His Father’s sound came from the back.
“Yes Father,” said Victor then after letting go of his mother, he walked out of the mansion’s door in silence. Not failing to notice the shadows of his step-brothers who were smirking while peaking at him from the windows upstairs.
So you changed "assaulted a maid" to "seduced by one". It will definitely make MC more likeable. Was that another trap by his half brothers per chance?
Maybe, maybe not.
Didn't read the old version, but that definitely sounds like a good edit!
Him assaulting a maid sounds a bit out of character to me. Wouldn't effect his likability all that much, seeing as that happened 20x years ago when he was a kid.
@RandomReviewer That's your opinion, but for casual biased reader it would affect A LOT.
The character who assault the maid will be hated, and the character who was forcibly seduced by the maid will be pitied.
I have to mention that Reader hate rapist more than killer and mass murderer. Character raping a maid is a huge turnoff, but character doing mass murder and destroying whole country and 9 generation bloodline is forgivable.
Hell, there's lots of readers would hire those mass murderer and Genocide expert just so they could torture and destroy the accused pervert character from the story.
@ACertainPassingUser Yea, that comment was made before I realized what the average reader on this site was like.
@RandomReviewer Pretty sure the average HUMAN dislikes rapists. It's potentially a life lasting scar for the victim and devastating. I would hope you dislike people who rape.
I think the murder comments are more hyperbole but assuming they have a justifiable reason it's passable. Just like s*x with a justifiable reason, like consent, is fine. People who mass murder are also disliked.
@Cypresslb Yea, but given the circumstances it's not exactly the huge deal like people want to make it out to be. Happened 2xx years ago, was a horny teen at the time, it's very likely normal and may even be expected, and if it is it's not as if the maid is stupid. This is also a fantasy world and in fantasy worlds aphrodisiacs are common. Oh right, and he was also stopped before going through with it anyways(So checkmate I'm not defending a rapist.).
It's actually not. Dead people can't be traumatized and thus it's better to be dead than be raped. It's not exactly a rare view to have. You yourself likely hold similar beliefs on similar topics, as do I.
@RandomReviewer I don't think people can call it normal to TRY to rape someone. Being young and horny never cause me to try to rape anyone, nor my friends. Plenty of us drank with women and when they passed out we kept them safe. Found out one dude assaulted a girl who passed out in our department, of 200, in the military and everyone was pissed at him and wanted him jailed.
I don't think fantasy will ever justify it if you want me to like the character. If he's suppose to be unlikable then it's a great move.
Devil's advocate, dead people are dead and have their lives robbed from them, raped people do not. Better to be raped. Even our legal system agrees with this and passes much harsher penalties on murder and attempted murder. Even manslaughter can be harsh given the fact that a victim can NEVER be made whole if they're dead. A raped victim has a chance to be made whole. I'm 100% a believer that that's the most important part of justice, even if our system disagrees.
@Cypresslb Good job on the straw man there. Absolutely textbook. Not going to bother replying to it because I don't like retyping stuff.
And that's why it's very commonly used and why the author changed it in this case. The average SH user doesn't care if his only other option was to be slowly tortured to death. I would highly not recommend reading Mushoku Tensei.
Large portions of our legal system have been created by rational individuals, but portions aren't. I question you: Do you support the Death Penalty? Well the legal system largely doesn't and neither do the majority of people. They won in part because many don't believe in taking a life for any reason and another part because many people view Death as the easy way out, similar to the rape thing, compared to spending the rest of their life in prison.
If you do believe in the Death Penalty then I congratulate you on your consistent belief. Otherwise this loops back around to my previous comment perfectly about circumstance, but you conveniently ignored that so I'll end this here.
P.S. I've only said what I believe once and that was in my previous comment under a very specific circumstance.
@RandomReviewer There are a lot of issues with the Justice System and people have written books on those. Even in normative sentencing based on crimes. That being said I don't believe they got it wrong on murder vs rape. Both are very serious but one ends a person's life. If I was raped I'd still be able to care for my kids, if I die my kids lose the major bread winner of the family along with a parent and their mom will be majorly impacted by the loss of a loved one along with the rest of my family. Death isn't some easy way out of things as you've said and implied, it carries major impacts into the people around you.
I don't believe in the death penalty because I don't believe we have a right to take someone's life when they're under our care and control. It's one thing as defense or assisted suicide or something, but ending someone's life who isn't an active threat is wrong...it also limits their ability to make the victim whole again.
I believe my beliefs are consistent while also looping back to your previous comment...and remaining 100% consistent. Feel free to highlight my strawman because I don't know what argument I'm creating for you, I think you might not know what that phrase actually means. I'm not sure what I conveniently ignored either so feel free to highlight it because I don't see it. You hand waved attempted rape with "horny teen" and said being dead was better than being raped. I think I'm strongmanning your position if anything. I simply disagree with you and have you reasons why, if that upsets you then maybe it's because of your poor choice of position.
@RandomReviewer saying average reader like you are some special existence.
@Vikass17 Yea, sorry to break it to you, but I'm not here to read Gender Bender-Girls Love-Harem.