Extra And MC-Chapter 75 - 71 - Marriage Proposals

"Dad…"

"Son…"

"You look good…"

"And so do you son…"

Two figures could be seen standing in the long hallway of the Belmont’s mansion, both of them directly facing each other as they stood, their resemblance so similar, almost like the younger figure was an exact clone of his father in his youth.

The two figures were also almost of similar height, although the son was just ever so slightly shorter than his father.

"How’s the academy been?" his father asked with a warm smile.

"Oh you know… It’s been cool. Asides causing a few troubles here and there, pissing off a few instructors and evading some of my responsibilities, it’s all been quite nice if I’m being honest…" the son responded, a slightly mischievous smile on his face.

"So you’ve been enjoying your time at the academy then…" the father surmised with a gentle smile.

"Yeah…" Derek answered with a genuinely warm smile this time, both it and his slicked back brown hair mirroring his dad’s.

"So, head butler huh… Must be super stressful…" Derek followed up with another question, one of his eyebrow cocked up questioningly as he watched two maids scurry past the hallways while carrying large boxes of wrapped gifts.

"It’s my duty. I get by just fine" Frank answered with a slight smile in response to his son’s words.

"I see… Well, with that out of the way…" Derek casually spoke again, this time, his gaze now angling downwards to look at the purple-eyed young girl whose brown hair was tied in a long ponytail braid today, her small figure wearing a long-sleeved red shirt with small black pants and similarly small black flats.

"Who’s this little ball of sunshine?" Derek asked, as he shifted to a crouched position to stare at the young girl directly in the eye.

"Grandpa… He looks suspicious" Briar suddenly said while tugging at Butler Frank’s well-tailored suit pant, her other free hand pointing to Derek who was now quite amused by her sudden words.

"Suspicious huh… Reminds me of that little twerp called Flynn when I first met him. He said the exact same thing all those years ago…" Derek said with a thoughtful tone, after which he then spoke to Briar.

"Well I won’t deny that purple-eyed girl…" Derek said with a small mischievous grin.

"Hey! My name’s Briar!" the young girl swiftly replied in an offended tone, her small arms now placed and folded across her chest with an annoyed pout on her lips.

Just as the brown-haired youth was about to respond, a maid respectfully came along to request for Frank’s assistance with a few matters here and there, to which the Head Butler then promptly went back to his job but not before giving Briar a gentle head pat first before he left.

Upon leaving both of them alone in the corridor, Derek smiled at Briar’s happy face after his dad had left and then asked her.

"So Briar, you have any idea where Aiden and Flynn are?" he asked calmly to which Briar gave him a squinted look, tilted her head slightly and then, after a few seconds, walked towards him and requested for him to carry her with outstretched hands.

Derek on the other hand just smiled at her gesture and scooped her up from the ground as she began to navigate him through the mansion and all the way into the small living room.

Before he actually met up with his dad, he had actually run into Ivar previously in the hallways and had introduced himself while also meeting up with Ivelia and Anna when he walked past the kitchen.

Although their mansion was now bustling with almost every type of worker, maid and maidservant going about their duties, the Duchess and Ivelia had found cooking and baking together to be something akin to a hobby and a bonding time at this point, so, even though the chefs would try to help them, they would insist on doing it themselves.

During his separate conversations with all three, Briar had come up a few times so it wasn’t anything too surprising when he had actually met her.

Him playing dumb to who she was, was actually done in an effort to casually start a conversation with her.

Now although Derek could’ve actually found the way around the mansion if he actually wanted to, it had been four years since he’d been back here so he needed someone to guide him, even if it was a little girl like Briar.

As another set of maids walked past both of them whilst carrying another set of large boxes that were finely wrapped, Briar spoke again with a beaming smile.

"Those are my care packages!" she stated happily.

"Care packages? All of them?" Derek asked with a curious tone.

"All of them!" she answered with another beaming smile after which she then added cheerfully.

"Princess Caroline sent them!"

"Princess Caroline?" Derek said, a hint of slight confusion present in his tone.

Before he could ask who exactly that was though, Briar suddenly spoke again.

"We’re here!" she said, her hands pointing to the door of the small living room.

Derek after hearing this, just put his current thoughts on the back-burner, and then, opened the door with a twist of the knob.

Upon opening the door though, Derek was met with a pretty interesting sight.

Right in the heart of the small living room, two youths were sitting down on the modernly tiled floor, completely surrounded by piles upon piles of envelopes with various noble crests, tired expressions on both of their faces.

They had rearranged the small room and had placed the chairs and table to one corner, giving them enough space to deal with the multitude of letters they were tasked to respond to.

Ever since Ivelia and Ivar’s accomplishments had been revealed to the world, Leopold, along with receiving letters for invitation, had also been receiving marriage proposal letters for his sons.

However, he had decided against rejecting those ones because he had wanted for his sons to make that decision themselves, especially since he knew they would most definitely have to deal with such in the future.

Now, after their overwhelming performance at the entrance exams, the marriage proposal letters had tripled and as a result, Leopold deemed it necessary that they dealt with all of it however they saw fit before they finally went to the academy.

That was the reason for the current situation the two brothers were finding themselves in.

Derek whistled loudly as a result of this sight, immediately catching their attention as he also spoke just after he did.

"That’s a lot of marriage proposals…" he said with a genuinely amused expression on his face, a slight chuckle also leaving his lips.

"Maybe this is just karma at work. Kinda like a punishment for killing my buzz at the entrance exams…" Derek added with a smug smile on his lips, this time while placing Briar on the ground.

"Sure sure…" Flynn had been the first to speak, his tone dry and sarcastic as he kept replying with a letter of rejection to the noble family whose daughter had requested for his hand in marriage without looking up towards Derek at all.

Briar on the other hand, after getting down from Derek’s arms, had gone straight for the videogame console and switched it on, a bit of excitement on her face as she did, all while simultaneously also catching Derek’s attention too.

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"We were given a single day of relaxation before finally going to the academy and yet, here we are, responding to a crap ton of marriage proposals…" Aiden said with a tired sigh while opening another letter.

"What a drag…" the black-haired youth muttered aloud.

"Well considering how immensely well you two performed, it’s only natural that something like this would happen…" Derek replied, his hands grabbing one of the controllers on the ground while Briar picked another.

Following the end of the entrance exams, a list of the highest performers at the exam was released and it detailed which position each youth had claimed.

Aiden had been the first, taking out 81 robotic monsters, followed by Flynn with 69, Adrian with 65, Caroline 58, Lucas 57, Beatrice and Bryan 55, Amelia 54, Ben 50, Ivar 48, Ivelia 46 and surprisingly, Maya 40.

The academy had also stated, just after list was released that they were also going to give them a nice reward for their outstanding performances, apparently.

"I wouldn’t play that game with her if I were you…" Flynn suddenly spoke to Derek, his concentration still on the letter he was writing as he continued with a few more words.

"She’ll trash you silly…" he casually added.

"It can’t be that bad…" Derek replied in a relaxed tone, a smile on his face as he also settled onto the tiled floor in a lotus position.

"Well, he did warn you…" Aiden added, his eyes scanning through the content of the new letter he had opened.

A few minutes later, after a wave of silence had passed in the small modern living room, Derek muttered a few words in utter disbelief.

"What sorcery is this…" he muttered loudly, deep perplexity on his face as he watched the small holographic screen displaying the game he and Briar had been playing for the past ten minutes.

"Ten games! Ten freaking games and I lost to this cute little demon every blessed time?! How does that even make any sense?!" Derek spoke aloud this time, his gaze locked onto the young girl who was staring back at him.

Briar in response to his words though, just let out a mischievous giggle.

"Well I did teach her. It’s only natural that you’d lose Derek" Flynn declared as a matter-of-factly, a smug smile on his face and even then, his attention was still on the new letter he was now reading through.

"You were warned. You didn’t listen. Now that’s karma Derek" Aiden said with a small laughter.

Derek just sighed once again in resignation at this but almost immediately, Flynn asked a question that had been bugging him.

"How and why exactly were you allowed to become the announcer for our entrance exams?" he asked, his gaze locking onto Derek’s whose face had now had an impish grin across it.

"And judging by the structure of the exams, I’m pretty sure most of it was your idea..." Aiden added after which he then continued.

"Only you would create something so crazy for your amusement so how exactly did you do it?"

"Hmmm… Well the planning committee had students come up with ideas in the form of a presentation along with a few instructors…" Derek explained, his lips curling into a devious grin.

"I only had to put in a bit of effort to create a well-detailed plan to scre-… I mean to give you all a pretty fun experience" the brown-haired youth continued in ambiguous tone.

"Although I did end up pissing off a few instructors and students here and there by kicking their ideas and presentations to the curb, it all worked out in the end…" he concluded, his expression morphing into a thoughtful one.

"That doesn’t explain anything…" Flynn and Aiden stated together with a slightly annoyed tone.

"It wasn’t supposed to…" Derek answered with a sly smile while staring at both brothers whose slightly annoyed expressions kept glaring at him intently.

"I wonder how you survived the academy all these years…" Aiden then stated with a sigh of resignation.

"I often ask myself the same exact question…" Derek answered in relaxed tone, his gaze now back on Briar who was requesting for another game.

"C’mon! One more game brother Derek!" she pleaded, her hands gently tugging his black shirt, to which Derek obliged while patting her head.

"Brother? Guess she’s taken a liking to you then" Aiden said while smiling in Briar’s direction as her dainty hands picked up the controller once more.

’Like? She’s just planning to break my spirit, isn’t she?’ he inwardly asked himself as he watched her choose another character from the selection screen, a bald grey man with thick beards holding an axe to be precise.

"That being said Derek, you actually have any idea as to why the exam was suddenly implemented?" Flynn asked, his tone obviously very curious.

"Honestly, I have no idea either… I was just pulling everyone’s legs with my supposed knowledge of it when I was giving instructions at the entrance exams…" he answered, his attention back on the holographic screen while deciding to select his own character too.

"So weird…" Flynn and Aiden muttered but after a few seconds, both of them, upon realizing that they had spent a good chunk of their time talking to Derek, refocused their attention back on the heaps of marriage proposal letters they were yet to respond to.