"This is a lot of stuff, Milord. Is all of it really necessary for the princess's birthday party? I get the large sum of money, but is your room key really necessary?It should only be a two day trip at most..."

"It absolutely is, whatever your name was!"

"Jredd, my name is jredd, Milord."

"Who the hell names their kid dread? Is your siblings' names despair and hopelessness?"

"No Jredd, with a J."

"Still a weird name, dude."

"Ugh, I can't believe I thought you were cool for a moment..."

"Ayyyyy? You think I'm cool? You wanna be like me?"

A mischievous smirk appeared on Kendrick face.

"Shit, you weren't supposed to hear that!

"Well I'm glad I did! Go on tell me why I'm so cool!"

"Do I have too?"

"Lay it on me!"

"Haaaa, fine. Its just that you seemed to have no fear when you slammed that bottle against the young lady's head yesterday. That confidence in your eyes just seemed to... I don't know stick with me."

"..."

Kendrick realized he hit a touchy subject he probably shouldn't have.

"If our roles were reversed, I don't know if I'd have enough courage to act like you did and I hate that... How do you act without fear when the Alastair family can just end you? How are you so brave?"

The smile on Kendrick's face has long since left. He takes a deep breath.

"You are operating under a big misconception. Bravery is not having no fear. I am not fearless. I am terrified of my family. One wrong move and I'll be tortured and killed without mercy, but I act anyway. That negative outcome is even more reason to act. Everyone has at least one thing they fear, but brave people act in spite of it."

"...Is that so?"

"Well, I also constantly have a good buzz going on, so I guess that helps."

"Hahaha, of course you'd say that."

Kendrick reaches over and grabs the bottle of alcohol on his nightstand

"Wanna swig?"

"Know what? Sure!"

-----

"We've arrived Viscount!"

A servant opens the door of the carriage for the Viscount and his Son. Before the Viscount gets up he says to Kendrick,

"Remember under no circumstances are you to speak to Princess Ruri. Are we clear?"

"Understood, Dadums!"

A shit eating grin is plastered on Kendrick's face.

"AND FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

"Ok, Dadums!"

Viscount Anwir gets out of the carriage while grumbling something about pulling out, bringing Kendrick some joy. 

Changing his focus, Kendrick decides to review what he knows about his fiance Ruri Dhair. She is the current crown princess of the Dhair kingdom and, if things go like the game, she'll be poisoned at this party. The gist of the situation is that the other royals value the position of being king or queen more than their family bond, so they decide to get some ambitious nobles to poison Ruri. This event has heavily focused on in the prince's route as he feels incredibly guilty about the whole killing his sister thing and seeks atonement by seducing the heroine who sorta kinda looks like his sister, who we once again must state, he had killed. 

Ignoring just how fucking weird that is, Ruri's drink will be poisoned after a luna element aligned tamer uses an ability to blow out all of the lights. When the lights come back on, an investigation will commence, but turn up empty. From there Ruri will consume the poision and die coughing up blood. When the body is examined the coroner will find no poison left in the princess's system, as the poision decomposes just as quickly as it kills, and the cause of death is ruled as her body rejecting the contents of the cup.

 This explanation would usually be pretty far fetched, but the drink in the princess's cup is a very special concoction source from a foreign continent called Lilac. Old palace records claim Lilac to be able to miraculously boost the body's strength, but is ultimately poorly understood due the foreign nature of the drink. The public's sentiment regarding Lilac will take a complete 180 after this incident. In-game you could obtain a singular vial of Lilac and It'd give the player a substantial stats up to all stats except for hp. There was a whole portion of the game's community that desperately started glitch hunting for a way to duplicate the item, but was mostly unsuccessful. An item dupe was found but it only duplicated items in chests and the singular Lilac was a one time drop from a boss fight.

Soon enough Kendrick found himself walking into the party hall. His name was announced and he took his spot in the assembly. The party wouldn't start until the royal family arrived and made an address. Any revelry before the address was made would be seen as being incredibly disrespectful to the royal family. Thus Kendrick was forced to just stand there and wait. After what felt like an eternity he heard the Royal Announcer proclaim,

"All kneel before the just and rightful ruler of the Dhair kingdom!"

The whole assembly lowered their head and kneeled.

"Raise your heads my citizens!"

The crowd raises their heads and there is a collective gasp! At the top of the balcony stands the king and meekly peeking out behind him is princess Ruri. Everyone in the crowd was enraptured by her beauty and adorable shyness, well everyone except for Kendrick. He had seen the princess's face on the start screen of the game countless times and considered it pretty standard for a dating sim. Yes he was baffled by the rest of the crowd. Was her looks really something worth gawking at? The king goads his daughter,

"Go on, sweety. Remember what you practiced."

"B...b...but there's so many people!"

And the crowd goes wild! The moe overload threatens to knock the crowd unconscious! How can a girl be this cute?! Kendrick remains unimpressed. 

"It's okay honey. You can do it!"

"O...okay. W...WELCOME TO MY PARPHF!"

"Jesus Christ, this country is fucked."

Kendrick's real thoughts leaked out, but the crowd was too focused on the princess cutely biting her tongue to hear it. Kendrick really couldn't figure out how THIS was the best candidate out of the king's children. The girl can barely speak out in front of a crowd, how was she supposed give orders on the battlefield or negotiate with other powerful people? Did her siblings really need to go as far as to kill her? To Kendrick it looked like the current heir apparent would willing give up the position if you asked nicely. Perhaps that was the reason they weren't fit. Either way no matter who took the throne, this country was bound to collapse in spectacular fashion.

After listening to a half mumbled speech, the party began in earnest. Refreshments were set up and promptly ignored as everyone scattered off into their own cliques, who then got into a line to begin greeting the princess. Our protagonist wasn't in too much of a hurry to meet up with his useless fiance so he decided to pay a visit to the neglected snack bar. Various fancy pastries decorated the table, but one specifically caught his eye. The apple fritters. A cold shiver ran through the party hall. Everyone instinctively turned their heads towards the source of the chill. There stood Kendrick ravenously devouring the apple fritters. Like a conveyor belt, one after the other, apple fritters were shoved into his mouth and swallowed. Kendrick barely even chewed, just unhinged his jaw and swallowed them whole like a snake. One of the more brave servants attempted to intervene, but the moment he walked close to Kendrick he froze! He was met with a terrifying glare. Not the glare of a man, but a beast! and that beast? It demanded not but apple fritters!

The nobles looking on were utterly baffled. Why would Kendrick do such a thing right before a banquet? The answer wasn't because he simply liked apple fritters (which he admittedly did). No its because apple fritters had a special effect in-game. Unlike other healing items, apple fritters allowed you to heal past your maximum hp giving you up to double your maximum hp in temporary health. Eating a bunch of apple fritters before a boss fight was like playing on easy mode. They could turn even the frailest of monsters into a fairly decent tank for a single fight. As apple fritters were fairly expensive Kendrick couldn't miss this chance and so he greedily devoured them. Soon enough the novelty of Kendrick gorging on pastries wore off and the nobles returned to their greetings. Kendrick finshed by downing a cup of fruit punch and entered in the back of the queue. Finally it was time to meet his fiance, the crown princess Ruri Dhair.

Afewconcepts65

I was going to initially make the whole party one chapter, but it became surprisingly long so I'm cutting it in two. Also bulleted list is back with a vengeance,  this time with random facts without a particular theme.

1. Rupert was actually a girl. The reason why Kendrick named her Rupert is because there wasn't many people willing to sex a tapeworm so Kendrick just assumed it was male. This means Rupert is objectively speaking best girl in this story. 

2. The wealthier Nobles willingly smash their expensive cups, plates, bowls, and vases and then have them repaired by using molten gold as an adhesive. Its a statement saying that even if you try to break the family, they'll just come back even better. It's also says a lot about their finances. Gold is expensive. All the fine china and porcelain in the royal palace has undergone this process.

3. The great wyrms, the gods of this world, are actually moths. You thought they were dragons didn't you? Well the dragons in this setting are all moths. Deal with it. They even have breath attacks still despite being moths. Why moths? Because what is a caterpillar, but a worm with legs? And isn't a moth just a caterpillar with wings?

4. At first there was the almighty wyrm that gave birth to the wyrms of Sol, Luna, Aeros, Aquas, and Grond. There was also a wyrm that never hatched called the unborn one. Each moth correlates to an element that all monsters have being Almighty, sun, moon, air, sea, land, and Infernal.

5. The alcohol that Kendrick bought called great worm's breath was once called great wyrms breath, but the manufacturer faced heavy backlash so they changed it. The change didn't abate peoples anger, so the company soon stopped production making bottles somewhat elusive. Bottles with Great Wyrm's Breath on them are highly valued collector's items since most were destroyed. The great worm's bottles were spared for the most part making them slightly less valued. Nowadays religious groups aren't as fanatical, so stuff like this doesn't happen that much in the modern day.

6. The major theme of the otome game Kendrick played was forgiveness. This is the reason that Kendrick, a very unforgiving person, hated the story so much.