Aoi’s Confession

Everyone sat down around the table and then Guy looked at each person sitting around the table and opened up with, "Guy de Montfort is dead." Everyone stared at him blankly as if not understanding what he was trying to say. Guy thought back to the first day he arrived and continued, "My name is Ito Aoi, in my world and in my culture we say our surname first. So to all of you, my name would be Aoi. I was a twenty-six-year-old man who lived with my father and younger sister. My mother died when I was just thirteen." He paused and looked around the room, "At twenty-six years old, I died. When I woke up, I was in the body of Guy de Montfort. Guy had died during training with his father's soldiers. One of them hit him in the head too hard during sword practice."

Madeline shook her head and then said, "How would something like that even be possible, it just sounds crazy!"

Guy nodded and then said, "I know how it sounds, but that's the truth. Now, as for the reason, I know so many strange things... My world, Ito Aoi's world, is hundreds of years more advanced than this world. Things like electricity are as commons as horses. I hardly know a tiny fraction of my world's technology and it's already enough to make me a billionaire here. That may sound like an exaggeration, but it's not. I managed to fill gaps in my knowledge by letting the skilled craftsmen here interpret my ideas into things they are familiar with, it's not perfect, but they shock me with their level of imagination."

Olivier looked pale as he asked, "What about, Otome game?"

Guy nodded and then took a deep breath, "My sister played a game, I don't have a way to properly describe this to you, because there is nothing you have ever seen, heard or thought about that you could possibly relate it to, because the technology level of this world has no equivalent. It is a game which is similar to a book, a book you can interact with, a book that changes based on the choices you as the reader make. This game that my sister played, was about this very world, and all of you were characters in it."

Alicia gasped and covered her mouth. Olivier looked at Guy and Madeline seemed on the verge of tears. Diggory looked interested. Claude seemed completely lost. Madeline asked, "Did you use knowledge of this, game, to make us do things we wouldn't have done?"

Guy looked her in the eye and said, "I only heard about the game from my sister, and in the game, you were the villain." He turned and looked at Alicia, "And you were the hero."

Claude asked, "Was I also a villain?"

Guy shook his head and said, "No, you were a capture target. As was Olivier and our late friend Charles."

Olivier asked, "What do you mean, capture target? They were to kidnap us?"

Guy smiled and chuckled, "No, Olivier, let me explain the game for you. In this game, the reader would play as Alicia. The goal of the game was for Alicia to have a relationship with one of the male characters in the game. So, Claude, Charles or you, Olivier. As Alicia tried for one of these three targets, Madeline would be in the way and use her family's influence, or friends, to harass or defame Alicia."

Madeline blinked tears out of her eyes and said, "I would never do that!"

Guy nodded at Madeline and said, "But think about how your school life began here, Madeline. Didn't Alicia mistake your actions for harassment? Remember when your guards almost killed the male students Alicia had been complaining about you to?"

Madeline thought for a moment and said, "But that was just a misunderstanding due to Alicia not knowing about the Order of the Rose.."

"Never the less, those events happened. In the game, the character of Guy de Montfort didn't exist. The things I have introduced didn't exist..." Guy started to say.

Madeline gasped, "..And you were never there to save me. All those times you saved me, it was because you knew I wasn't really a villain?"

Guy smiled and said, "I was telling you the truth, the first time I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. I had no idea who you were or that this.." He waved his hand around, "Was even that game my sister used to talk about. I did think you reminded me of that character, because of your hair, but at the time, I had no idea who you were or what this place was." He sighed and then said, "When I realized that you were that character, I merely watched from a distance as things started to play out. When I realized that this was just a misunderstanding I took action to save you."

Olivier asked, "Did you know I was the third prince from the beginning?"

Guy shook his head, "No idea, that one caught me off guard as well."

Diggory asked, "Now that you have interfered with the game world, are things beyond your ability to know in advance?"

Guy nodded and said, "Once I started making changes here the world became unknown to me. Magic never existed in the game for instance."

Diggory asked, "The reason you read the magic books?"

Guy nodded and said, "In my world, that is the language used by these games I mentioned."

Everyone at the table let out a breath. Doreen who also had tears in her eyes asked, "Could you have saved Charles or Renée?"

Guy shook his head and said, "If I could have saved them, I would have Doreen. You all know me here, if I had the power to stop that, it would have been done, I promise you."

Madeline wiped at her eyes and then asked, "Should I call you Howie now?"

Guy shook his head and said, "I am Guy de Montfort now and forever, as near as I can tell. Nothing needs to change between us, you are still the woman I love and who I intend to marry, and I am still the same man you have always known." He looked around the table and said, "That goes for all of you here. I have only been the person I am now since Guy de Montfort and I became one person."

Diggory asked, "Then you are trying to tell us, the other guy was responsible for all those crimes?"

Guy nodded and said, "It was because of those crimes, Duke Montfort had his son trained by his soldiers."

Doreen asked, "On the status, where it says favorability, is that due to the capture you mentioned?"

Guy nodded and said, "In an Otome game, they add that in the status to let you know how your progress is with the target you have selected for the relationship. When it is at Max, that is when you would see the end of the game. Alicia and Claude have come to that point which means the game would be over. The fact that we are still here leads me to believe that my changes have caused the game and this world to diverge from each other."

"Or you are not in the same game." Diggory thought out loud.

Everyone turned and looked at Diggory with apprehension.