A few hours passed by, and it's already afternoon. My stomach is grumbling, asking me to eat some food, but I'm currently not in the mood to eat.
I have just finished my tasks for the day, and I'm finally free without any work for today. Time is precious, and I don't want to waste it.
I wandered around the mansion, looking for a particular scene or image to capture. I want to score at least 7 for the image grade this time.
"Young Master! Have you finished your tasks?" a cheerful-looking girl about the same age as I approached. It's Stella, my personal maid, appointed by Father to attend to my needs.
She's sweating at the moment, probably just freed from her tasks as well, which is why she came to me.
"Yes, I just finished them."
"Happy birthday, Young Master. What are you doing right now? Aren't you going to eat your lunch first?"
"No, I'm busy." I replied while still focusing on the surroundings, not even thanking Stella for wishing me a happy birthday.
I'm trying my best to act as normal as possible, but it seems like I'm already being a spoiled brat without myself knowing it.
"Should I help you with something?" Stella asks as she's curious seeing the young master goofing around.
"Hmm... you know what? Yes, you'll be the model."
I suddenly have a great idea, and since Stella offered to help me, I'm going to capture the hallway with Stella in it, perhaps while she's cleaning one of the windows or doing something else naturally.
"You stand here, pretend to do something naturally, anything you like."
Stella looks confused by the current situation, but she seems to find it fun, so she tries her best to follow her young master's orders.
"Like this?" Stella pretends to be wiping the window with a cleaning cloth in her hand.
"Okay, stay like that, don't move." I adjusted her posture a little, and afterward, I immediately summoned my Camera.
Stella is surprised as an object is materialized out of thin air. "Is that your artifact? It looks unique."
"Don't move. Stay there." I immediately stop her from approaching me to see my Camera, as I want to focus on capturing the moment.
I start taking pictures of the hallway with Stella in it, and with each shot, I ask Stella to pose in a different posture, adjusting the angle and finding the perfect image.
The images come out perfect. I save the best one into the memory, give it a name, and wait for the grading result to come out.
"It's done? Can I move now?" Stella pleads, not daring to move because the young master seems serious about the matter.
I totally ignore her as I go to the dining room to eat my lunch.
"Wait for me! What did we do just now? Can I at least know something about it? What class did you get? What is that?"
Stella bombards me with a bunch of questions at the same time, and to answer them, I just show her the image.
"That's you, I took the image with it."
"That's me?" Stella's eyes widen in astonishment as she gazes at the image. "Can I keep it? I looked nice in the image."
"No." I instantly say it out of instinct as if it's natural.
"Master finally admitted that he loves me, he's keeping a portrait of me, what should I do? I should prepare myself so I can be your perfect wife," Stella continues to grumble, and I just ignore her since it's normal she's acting this way.
"I'll delete the picture then." I pretend to tamper around with my artifact, knowing that Stella doesn't know what I'm going to do with it.
She instantly assumes that I am going to delete the image of her.
"Huh? No, don't!!! If you delete that, the effort I put into posing would be gone!"
Stella tries to snatch the camera out of my hand, preventing me from deleting it, but I instantly put away the camera and pretend that the job is done.
"Pfft." I was just joking around, there's no way I would delete my own work, but I might do it to tease Stella.
"Young master is mean." Stella cries, thinking that I really have deleted the image.
I ignore her and walk to the dining room. It's a long way as the mansion is pretty huge.
Multiple maids and butlers are standing by, as they know my eating schedule, though I am late, they adjust and wait for me to arrive.
It's only lunchtime, and I have more than ten people tending to my needs. I'm pretty sure we can't afford this many maids and butlers, but my father isn't going to just lay them off and abandon them. They have nowhere to go, but most importantly, it's a matter of pride.
My father doesn't want others to know that the Ashford family is having financial troubles, though I feel like this is a bad decision, I still like the feeling of being served by multiple maids and butlers and having chefs prepare meals for me.
I immediately compare my current life with my previous life where I never even had someone serve me food, but now I have at least ten people serving me.
As soon as I sit down, all the waiters and butlers bring me a surprise cake and sing me a birthday song.
I try to appreciate their effort, but I can't seem to bring myself to smile, only look at the cake with a cold expression as they have done this repeatedly every year, and it doesn't feel that special.
The atmosphere in the dining room is still brighter than usual, especially when Stella sings as loud as she can, trying her best as my personal maid.
"Thank you." I try to thank them as respectfully as possible, but who expects a simple thanks after I blow the candle surprises the butlers and maids so much.
"Young master is in a good mood today, did you guys taste the food to ensure that it's perfect?" One of the maids rushes to the kitchen, telling the chefs about the special occasion.
"What happened?" The chef doesn't quite understand, "Did he scold you guys for bringing a small cake?"
"YEAH, THAT'S THE POINT! Young Master didn't complain but he actually thanked us!!" The maid feels tingling in her neck as it's so weird when she heard thanks from the young master.
"What?! Today is the day he received the Blessing Ritual, perhaps he got a combat class that he dreamt? That should be why he's in a good mood."
There's a ruckus in the kitchen among the people in the mansion, making their own assumptions and rumors while the person sitting and waiting for food didn't know what's going on at all.
The maid and butlers are surprisingly tense around me, but where is the food? I blow out the candle and ate a piece of the cake already, and the food is not arriving even after they clean the table.
"Where is the food?"
No one dares to step up until I look at one of them, forcing him to speak up, "The chef is preparing a special course since, Young Master is in a good mood."
A special course just because I'm in a good mood? I don't need that, I just want some food and take pictures afterward.
"Just give me any food, I'm hungry right now."
"YES! I'LL GO TELL THE CHEF." He immediately leaves and goes to the kitchen.
Soon after, the food arrives, but there's something weird about the food.
What's with these sword-shaped foods, are they treating me like a kid? I try to recall the food I used to eat, but normally they would just serve me normal food, even on my birthday.
At least it tastes good.
After finishing eating, I immediately resume taking more pictures.
While I am trying to find objects and scenes to take pictures of, I feel a lot of eyes on me as my behavior is odd to the others.
Everyone seems to be curious about what I'm doing, but none dare to ask, which is why I decide to force them to model into my scene, just like what Stella did.
"Come here, since you are curious, I'll let you be part of it. Stand there and don't move."
They're busy, so I try my best to be as fast as I can, but I end up with an image with 5 out of 10 grades because of it.
I still get 2 experience points from it, but it is disappointing.
...
...
I continue until evening; I finally capture a total of 9 images, and this is the last one.
The moment I save it into the storage, the notification that I finished the class quest pops up.
[You have completed
[You have gained 50 Experience points]
[Your level increased from 1 to 2]
[