Leo was assigned a room at the thugs’ lodging house. He was to be available at a moment's notice in case of an emergency.
His working hours were also set. From 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. in modern time.
He was free to spend the rest of his time as he pleased, so he made it a point to wake up early and visit the shoe store where Lena was, spending the entire day with her.
His little sister had learned to read in just a few weeks, earning her endless praise from her teacher, and had become much healthier.
He would pinch her cheeks playfully, now plump after weeks of proper meals.
Leo was content with his current situation.
He had to work twelve hours every day, but seeing his sister grow up safely was more than enough for him.
Fortunately, the work was boring, but not difficult.
His job was to patrol and guard several warehouses on the western outskirts of Orville.
They didn’t tell him what he was guarding officially, but he quickly learned from conversations with other thugs that some warehouses held slaves while others stored drugs.
There were no major fights. There had been a few tense encounters with the rival Verza Family, but it never amounted to more than exchanging glares and showing off weapons.
The Verza Family mainly dealt in the illegal supply of weapons.
But they were now encroaching on the slave trade, causing friction with the Corolla Family.
Naturally, the Corolla Family growled and bared its teeth, and while the Verza Family pretended to back down, they didn’t stop their clandestine slave trading.
They were careful to cover their tracks and leave no concrete evidence, so a major conflict had yet to erupt, but the relationship between the two families was deteriorating rapidly.
Regardless, Leo, with no sense of belonging, befriended the other thugs and gathered information.
He learned about the Rauno Family, who controlled Orville’s commerce and collected protection money.
Other than that, most of the conversations were filled with the thugs’ crude jokes, complaints, boasts, and unfounded rumors.
One day, while becoming quite chummy with the thugs, Leo received some startling information.
“The prince of the Astin Kingdom is coming?”
“That’s what I heard. Got it from a friend who handles contacts in the north.”
A thug he had become close to said between gulps of alcohol.
“No wonder the guards have been tidying up the North Gate road every day… It’s chaos. They’ve increased patrols at the North Gate so much that they had to push back a few of our operations. Those guys are gonna have a tough time. Hahaha.”
Arnolf de Klaus was the prince he had met at the barracks at the end of the last scenario and had gained a slight favor with through an achievement.
‘{Swordsmanship},an ending reward ability like that, and [Achievements] carry over, so maybe I could talk to Prince Arnolf now?’
This was a major {Event}.
It was incredibly rare for the heir apparent of one kingdom to visit another.
He pondered ways to exploit this, but as of now, he had no idea how things would unfold.
“Why is he coming, though?”
“Don’t know for sure. Rumor has it he’s marrying our princess… Man, royalty has it good. I hear Princess Chloe is drop-dead gorgeous. Ahh, I wish I could marry a woman like that. If I were to marry a princess…”
The thug began to ramble on with obscene jokes.
He spoke of tying her up, hitting her, fondling her breasts, and then using his “flaming sword”… He held nothing back, even when it came to the princess of his own kingdom.
Leo gave half-hearted responses while racking his brain.
‘Come to think of it, do war events only happen in engagement scenario? Engagement scenario start in winter, while others start in summer… Do they each have different starting seasons?’
Questions kept popping up.
Perhaps this Beggar Siblings scenario took place years before the war broke out. Or maybe the war was already over.
He knew the years of the Orhen, Bellita, and Astin Kingdoms at the start of each scenario, but each kingdom used its own unique calendar system, like “Year 16 of Karoman de Tartalia,” so he didn’t know how they correlated.
Fortunately, Leo was able to find out easily by asking Lena’s teacher.
‘All scenarios start in the same year, but Childhood Friend and Beggar Siblings start in summer, while Engagement starts in winter.’
In other words, if a war were to break out, it would be next spring, and it was now nearing the end of summer.
‘Will a war really break out?’
In the Engagement scenario, war had broken out twice at the same time of year, but it was still uncertain whether it would happen in the Beggar Siblings scenario.
‘And are the scenarios independent of each other?’
The questions kept coming.
It was the same game, [Raising Lena], so it would make sense, but the world setting and timeline of each scenario matched up.
‘What if there’s a Lena and Leo in Avril Castle right now, and a Lena and Leo in Demos Village as well?’
He had never considered the possibility of the scenarios being connected. The circumstances were so different, and the distances so vast, that he had assumed they were completely separate stories.
Just like in Princess Maker, when you reach an ending and start a new game, it’s a fresh start, unrelated to the previous game…
But seeing Arnolf de Klaus appear in a different scenario made him reconsider.
Perhaps all scenarios were running concurrently.
‘Is the Leo in Demos Village living with Leo’s complete consciousness, and the same for Leo Dexter in Avril Castle? Am I the one mixed with the commoner?’
Leo shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
It was something he couldn’t figure out yet. Demos Village and Avril Castle were too far apart to easily verify if there were other versions of Lena and him there.
Communication in this world wasn’t completely primitive.
Priests used consecrated items to communicate with each other, and since there were churches in both Demos Village and Avril Castle, he could find out immediately if he used that method.
But that was a church function only available to nobles for a fee, and since the scenarios were far apart and everyone was busy with their own lives, there was no guarantee of help, nor did he feel the need to find out.
The current Leo had his hands full just raising his sister.
‘Let’s wait and see if war breaks out next spring. If it doesn’t, then the scenarios are definitely separate…’
Leo pushed aside the swirling questions. Meanwhile, the prince of the Astin Kingdom arrived in Orville.