Charity of the Fan Filter

An hour later, Leo and Asuna Yuuki finished the banquet, exited the Okura Hotel, and climbed into a stretch limousine.

The familiar driver started the engine silently, pressed the accelerator, and drove Leo and Asuna Yuuki toward the manor.

Asuna Yuuki turned her head to glance at the Okura Hotel as it grew smaller in the distance. For some reason, a hint of melancholy appeared in her eyes.

"Starting to miss your family already?"

Leo's voice came from beside her, snapping Asuna Yuuki out of her thoughts.

"If you really don't want to stay here, you can go back to Tokyo," Leo said. He didn't look at Asuna Yuuki, but instead crossed his arms and leaned back against the seat, as if resting with his eyes closed. "As long as you come to the manor in the evening to finish what needs to be done, I won't force you or demand that you stay."

Admittedly, he personally preferred for his peerage to stay with him, but he wouldn't force the issue.

If Asuna Yuuki truly didn't want to stay at the manor, then she could go back. He wasn't suffering from loneliness; there was no need to keep her there against her will.

Whether or not Asuna Yuuki realized this, she sighed and pulled herself together.

"No, it's a rare opportunity, and I want to try a new life," Asuna Yuuki said, looking ahead. "Besides, it's not that I'm reluctant to leave them. I just feel like something has officially come to an end, so my feelings are a bit complicated."

Thinking of her family, who had accepted that she had become someone else's peerage servant—feeling helpless about it, yet not angry—Asuna Yuuki even wondered for a moment if she wasn't important to them at all.

Especially her mother, Kyoko Yuuki. In her eyes, there was only the displeasure of having the life she had planned for her children disrupted, with not a shred of concern. Asuna Yuuki really began to wonder if she was even her mother's biological daughter.

Look at Yukino Yukinoshita. She always seemed to feel that she wasn't valued at home, that she was a substitute for her sister, and there were signs that she was being isolated, not nearly as favored as her sister. Yet, after what happened today, her family had asked her to stay; they surely had many important things they wanted to discuss with her.

And what about her?

Although her father thanked her master for saving her, and her brother blamed himself for not looking after her properly, in the end, neither of them chose to ask her to stay. They just let her leave with Leo like that...

She was about to embark on a different life from now on. Did they really have nothing to say to her?

Asuna Yuuki, unable to avoid such thoughts, felt her mood sink.

"Snap!"

Suddenly, a hand reached out and flicked her on the forehead.

"Ah!"

Asuna Yuuki let out a cry, unsure if it was from the shock or the pain.

"What kind of complicated things are you thinking about?" Leo, the culprit, retracted his hand without a hint of guilt and said calmly, "Even if you are at a sentimental age, seeing you wear such a 'discarded' expression makes me feel a bit unhappy."

"...Isn't Leo only one year older than me?"

Asuna Yuuki covered her forehead and muttered under her breath.

"But the feeling you give me always makes me feel like I'm taking care of a daughter." Leo curled his lips into a smile and said, "I wouldn't mind fast-forwarding to having a little girl of my own, but unfortunately, you're a bit too old. It would be better to wait until you pick up a certain ai girl before we talk about that."

"An ai girl?" Asuna Yuuki was stunned for a moment, asking blankly, "Do you mean artificial intelligence? Can you even pick up something like that?"

"Who knows." Leo smiled nonchalantly. "Although I feel like that shouldn't be possible in this world, one has to have some dreams, right?"

"...I don't understand what you're talking about." Asuna Yuuki furrowed her beautiful brows, pondering hard for a while before eventually giving up. She said helplessly, "Leo-san is always like this, saying strange things from time to time and doing surprising things every now and then."

"That's the only way to keep things from getting boring." Leo looked at Asuna Yuuki's delicate profile and smiled. "Perhaps it's because my life before was too ordinary and too repressed. Now, I'm letting myself go a bit. My main philosophy is to do whatever makes me comfortable."

"That really is a survival style that fits a devil." Asuna Yuuki seemed to sense Leo's gaze and, feeling a bit embarrassed, tucked her hair behind her ear. "However, it's quite enviable."

"No need to be envious; you can do it too." Leo patted Asuna Yuuki on the shoulder and said, "From now on, live however you want to live. There will be nothing left to bind you."

"Really?" Asuna Yuuki's mood seemed to improve, and she even knew how to joke. "But aren't you my master, Leo-san? Does that mean you won't restrict me either?"

"That depends on whether you're obedient or not." Leo said with a straight face, "If you're disobedient, I'll tie you up and spank you."

"...Pervert." Asuna Yuuki's face flushed slightly as she whispered a rebuke. "I won't give Leo-san the chance to bully me."

"Then I'll look forward to it." Seeing that Asuna Yuuki's mood had completely improved, Leo smiled. "I'll be counting on you from now on, Asuna."

Asuna Yuuki was taken aback for a moment, then nodded heavily and broke into a smile.

The limousine arrived at the manor shortly after, drove into the garden, and stopped in front of the mansion's main entrance.

Leo and Asuna Yuuki said their goodbyes on the first floor and returned to their respective rooms.

However, before she reached her room, Asuna Yuuki's mobile phone received a text message.

"Remember to take care of yourself. --Kyoko Yuuki."

Looking at the content of the text, Asuna Yuuki's eyes grew moist.

On the other side, after returning to his room, Leo also took out his mobile phone to check his new messages.

"My sister and mother will be responsible for taking me to school tomorrow. Let's just meet at school. --Yukino Yukinoshita."

"How is it? Have you already dealt with Musashi-san? --Sona Shitori."

"Perverted devil-kun, I've finished a new piece of content. This time it will definitely work. I've sent it to your computer, so take a look and give me your thoughts. --Utaha Kasumigaoka."

Besides the messages from these acquaintances, there were also some scheduled communications from his contacts reporting various matters.

Leo read through them one by one and replied to each, leaving only Utaha Kasumigaoka's message for last.

"Already have new content, huh?"

Leo raised an eyebrow, stood up immediately, and grabbed the laptop from the nightstand.

He opened the computer, accessed his email, and quickly spotted a message from someone signed as "Utako Kasumi."

He opened it, read through the contents, and replied immediately.

"Isn't this just the same old thing in new packaging? It's still just sugary scenes between the protagonist and the heroine, sweet from beginning to end. In a way, it does make one smile, but as I said before, it lacks anticipation and doesn't have the same appeal as the first volume. If I had to rate it out of ten, I'd give you a three: one for your elegant prose, one for the charming heroine, and the last one is just charity from a fan's filter. You still have to keep working at it~~~"

After finishing the message, he clicked send, tossed the laptop onto the bed, and headed to the bathroom to shower.

Little did he know, at that very moment, a certain up-and-coming light novel author was absolutely fuming.

"What do you mean 'charity from a fan's filter'...?!

In an apartment in Chiba City, Utaha Kasumigaoka, having received the reply, was trembling with rage. She nearly threw the laptop in her hands across the room.

At this moment, Utaha Kasumigaoka was in her own room, and it appeared she had just finished taking a shower.

The evidence was the young girl's still-damp hair and the steaming vapor radiating from her body. She was wrapped in nothing but a bath towel, leaving her shoulders, arms, and thighs exposed to the air—a truly eye-catching sight.

"That perverted devil-kun, how dare he say something so excessive..."

Nearly stark naked, Utaha Kasumigaoka gritted her teeth. Her chest heaved, causing the knot of her bath towel to loosen slightly, revealing quite a bit of skin.

"And here I was, actually looking forward to that guy's feedback. I should have known better than to send it to him."

Utaha Kasumigaoka couldn't contain her frustration. She grabbed the pillow from the bed and began pummeling it, as if she were taking out her anger on someone's face.

Only after she had vented enough did she unhappily pull the laptop back over, reread the content of her new book, and let out a long, melancholy sigh.

"Is it really that bad?"

Utaha Kasumigaoka muttered to herself, feeling somewhat dejected.

She had never shown this side of herself to anyone else; only when she was alone in her room like this could she not help but let it show.

"Could it be that I really can't write a second volume? Am I just going to watch Koi no Metronome get axed?"

Utaha Kasumigaoka was distressed, her face full of sorrow that would truly make anyone feel a pang of sympathy.

"Is there any way..."

Utaha Kasumigaoka paced around the room, ignoring the clothes she had kicked onto the floor, even nudging them further away with her foot.

"Hm?"

Just then, Utaha Kasumigaoka noticed a piece of vintage parchment that had fallen out of the pocket of the clothes she had kicked aside.

Utaha Kasumigaoka recalled the origin of this piece of paper.

"This is a very effective amulet. Perhaps it can offer you some help when you're feeling troubled."

The image of the boy handing it to her with a radiant smile was still fresh in her mind. While Utaha Kasumigaoka felt annoyed, she picked it up nonetheless.

"If you can really help me, then hurry up and do it," Utaha Kasumigaoka snorted coldly. "Help me finish the second volume and don't let Koi no Metronome get axed."

The moment Utaha Kasumigaoka spoke those words...

"Zing—"

On the parchment, a simple magic circle lit up.