The butler and his group were packing up and leaving when Simon, standing guard in the entrance hall, met their eyes.
He leaned forward and gave Butler Sheldon a brief bow of farewell.
Sheldon froze. The other servants were all afraid of being implicated and had been avoiding him, yet Simon had actually come forward to see him off.
He removed his hat and returned Simon’s bow. “Thank you.”
The companions behind Sheldon also saluted Simon one after another, marveling at the noble character of their former colleague and regretting that they hadn’t managed to drag Simon into their embezzlement scheme with them.
None of them knew that the person who had reported them to the young lady and gotten every last one of them fired was Simon himself.
Simon calmly accepted their gratitude and watched them leave the estate.
The incident had implicated seven servants in total. Five male servants and two maids. With all seven gone, the manor suddenly felt much emptier.
Head maid Maria announced Elisa’s decision: Simon was to be promoted to first-rank male servant and placed in charge of the remaining ordinary male servants.
“You can move into any vacant servant’s bedroom you like,” Maria briefly instructed him. “You’ll need to start preparing for the salon. Choose two ordinary male servants to help. The maids will handle everything else.”
Now he could finally move to a room on the sunny side, and he even had a few ordinary male servants he could order around. Simon gave this operation full marks.
“One more thing,” Maria said after a moment’s hesitation. “Starting today, you’ll come to the butler’s office every day and help me handle the estate’s purchasing, including the expenses for this salon.”
You’re putting me in charge of purchasing? Simon began to question Lady Elisa’s mental health.
I’m the guy who can inflate a donation by three times and lie about it!
It was probably Maria’s own idea. Was she voluntarily sharing authority to prevent any more corruption?
Simon agreed.
“Please come to the butler’s office after lunch.” Maria turned and left.
Going to the butler’s office after lunch wasn’t for work but for an extra snack. Higher-ranking servants were entitled to refreshments in addition to their regular meals.
A first-rank male servant wasn’t considered a higher-ranking servant. Only personal male servants and butlers counted. Is this because there has to be a male servant among the senior staff, and I’m the only first-rank male servant?
Come to think of it, I still haven’t asked about my salary. That head maid actually forgot to mention the most important part.
***
[Simon accepted Maria’s invitation to manage the estate’s expenses alongside her]
Elisa’s eyes widened as she stared at [Simon’s Log].
What? The guy who can pocket 4 shillings out of a 6-shilling budget is going to manage the estate’s expenses?!
For a moment, she could almost see her gold pounds sprouting wings and flying one after another into Simon’s pockets.
Why would Maria make such a request? Is she voluntarily demonstrating her loyalty? Showing that she’s willing to be supervised?
There’s really no need for that! And if you’re going to choose someone to supervise you, at least pick the right person! You’re inviting a wolf into the house!
Elisa wanted to summon Maria and revoke Simon’s authority over the finances, but she couldn’t think of a suitable reason.
Not only was she not supposed to object, she was supposed to show her approval… How was she supposed to approve of this?!
Lady Elisa paced back and forth across her bedroom before realizing the problem wasn’t that serious.
That male servant is only there to supervise. Maria still controls the actual purchasing, so he can’t get his hands on my money!
After some time passes, I’ll pretend I’m very satisfied with Maria’s work, promote her to housekeeper, then show my trust in her by giving her full authority and kicking Simon out of the arrangement. Problem solved!
My gold pounds are safe! Elisa finally relaxed.
She continued reading [Simon’s Log].
[Simon received a promotion and a raise, putting him in a cheerful mood]
Of course he was happy. His annual salary had gone from 16 pounds to 30….almost double!
That’s all money I earned risking my life! Elisa’s heart ached.
She consoled herself. She had to employ servants anyway, so if someone was going to earn that money, it might as well be Simon.
Come to think of it, now that I’ve given you a promotion and a raise, your Intimacy with me is definitely going to increase, right?!
Could it jump straight to 20? And then unlock another new ability for me! Elisa made a wish.
[Simon’s intimacy toward Maria increased.]
It increased, just as expected… Wait, whose intimacy increased? What the hell does Maria have to do with this?!
Elisa clenched her fists.
I’m the one who gave you the promotion and raise, and your intimacy toward the head maid goes up?
Give me my money back! Return those 14 pounds!
Elisa glared viciously at the screen, wondering whether she should sneak into the servants’ quarters that night and teach that male servant a lesson.
Reason prevailed, and she suppressed the thought.
It made sense for his favorability toward the head maid to increase. After all, as far as the servants knew, I’d never even spoken to Simon. Maria was the one who recommended Simon to deliver the letter, and Maria was also the one who announced that a male servant would be promoted.
If anything, this proves how good my disguise is. Even Simon hasn’t realized that I’m the young lady pulling the strings behind the scenes!
Besides, who cares about the Intimacy of some mere male servant? Even if it went up by eight or nine points, this young lady wouldn’t care in the slightest!
Elisa gave a soft snort, sat down on the sofa, and picked up the newspaper.
[Simon enjoyed an after-lunch dessert in the butler’s office. The warm sunshine and delicious sweets soothed his work-weary soul]
[Intimacy +3]
It went up!
Elisa raised the newspaper and sprang up from the sofa.
Her personal maid, who was pouring tea, looked up in confusion at the young lady who had suddenly jumped to her feet.
“My back’s a little sore.” Elisa pretended to rub her lower back, trying to cover up her breach of proper manners.
After doing a set of stretches to ease her aching back, she sat down on the sofa again, reopened the newspaper, and positioned the screen over the middle of it.
It felt just like secretly reading a novel during class.
Elisa felt guilty, yet strangely thrilled at the same time.
Her eyes darted toward her personal maid before she continued reading the screen.
[Intimacy: 20]
It’s reached 20! Where’s my new feature?!
[Note: The next feature will be unlocked when Intimacy reaches 30]1
What? I actually need 30!
Only ten more to go. That wouldn’t take too long.
Elisa eagerly wondered for a while what other features might appear later.
Could I hear what the male servant is thinking? Could I control his body?
This time the unlock is at 30. What about the one after that?
Elisa tapped [Note]. It wasn’t a permanent entry and only appeared from time to time.
Last time, when she reached 9, [Note] popped up to tell her that a new feature would unlock at 10. This time, it only appeared after she reached 20.
Is there some kind of pattern to this?
***
The pattern was that it only appeared after she’d passed the halfway point.
Simon assigned work to the male servants, then wandered idly around the estate while thinking about game design.
New features weren’t rewards. They were bait.
It was just like the workplace. Bonuses weren’t there to reward you for the work you’d already done. They were there to motivate you to reach your full potential and do even more work.
Players were always rushing from one task to the next, earning rewards, even though most of those rewards weren’t actually useful and were nothing more than little toys.
What players enjoyed wasn’t the reward itself, but the process of achieving a goal and earning that reward.
[Note] was the goal Simon had set for Elisa.
This new goal couldn’t be revealed immediately after she completed the previous stage. That would make the player feel as though the goals were endless, eventually wearing them out.
Ideally, the player should first receive the reward from the previous stage, enjoy the novelty for a while, relax for a while, and preferably make some progress toward the next goal along the way before the new goal was revealed.
A goal that popped up at 0% completion and one that popped up at 50% completion had completely different levels of appeal. With the latter, you’d feel as though stopping now meant wasting the 50% you’d already completed.
Although Simon felt that in this simple era, he didn’t need such devious game psychology to keep Elisa hooked, as a veteran game designer, he held his games to high standards.
He was equally meticulous about controlling the game’s pacing and planned to move into the next stage of the game after the literary salon.
“Mr. Simon,” Maria called as she approached him from behind. “It’s time for us to begin preparing for the literary salon.”
So I’ve graduated to being called Mr. now.
“Very well.” Simon agreed.
The literary salon had originally been a plotline in which Elisa suffered a setback. After he’d driven out the butler and his group, all that remained was its function of introducing new characters, so there wouldn’t be many twists and turns. Still, there were a few parts he could work with.
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