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“Then I’ll see you after the server maintenance.”
“All right.”

There were actually 5 minutes left until servers temporarily shut down for maintenance. Worried about whether some data could be lost if I didn’t log out in time, I promised her to talk to her later.

I wore my Robe of Concealment again as I backtracked to my mansion and logged out of the game.

After the capsule opened, I realized how thirsty I felt and moved to the water dispenser to turn on the cold water tap.

Drip drip.

A nice stream of cold water started filling the cup. Cooling against my hot hand, it started to show signs of condensation as it produced droplets on the outer layer of the cup.

I picked up a layer of tissue, wiped the droplets, and drank the water.

“Phew!”

Letting out a loud overreacting exclamation as if I was someone dying of thirst finally drinking some water, I realized that I was naturally becoming more of a western person, as in being more brazen with my actions.

“Tsk… People would think you drank down a mug of beer or something if they saw you like that.”

Katalina clicked her tongue at me, letting me know she had just logged out as well.

“And who is going to look at me?”
“Me. I just saw you act like that.”

She made an annoyed expression as she pointed at herself. I suddenly felt teasing her.

“So you don’t like me?”
“…”

Katalina couldn’t find the words to say. Her expression slowly turning to one of astonishment, at the disbelief of how I was acting. Even I thought I was quite brazen there, so the victim would think doubly so.

“Jeeze, you’re so cute.”

I poked Katalina’s cheeks as she stared with a shocked expression, and quickly went towards the door.

“Hey! Ellie, stop right there!!”

A loud scream echoes out of her mouth ringing throughout the mansion, as if she finally came to her senses. The best thing is to not be caught.

“Please, you’re both grown-up ladies, how could you conduct such shameful behavior?”

The butler was reprimanding us with a serious expression as Katalina and I was sitting politely on the sofa together. The hide and seek game that lasted ten minutes had resulted in the destruction and damage of thirty dishes, two flower vases, one statue, two ceramics and two paintings.

According to the butler, the damages we cause in just monetary terms reached over 300 million dollars.

I wasn’t sure how Katalina took this news, but it was a serious shock to me. A moment of playfulness had cost me an amount equal to the rental deposits for expensive residences within the capital cities of South Korea in the past.

Of course, the glares that the servants and the butler shot at us were frightening, and I reflected upon my childish behavior. Katalina also came as a guest here so even if she wasn’t directly responsible for the damages, she must have felt morally responsible for the damages as well so she was also silently hearing the sermon from the butler with her head bowed down low just like me.

“I’m sorry.”
“We won’t do it again.”

As we thought that the butler’s sermon would go on longer if we just sat there listening silently, Katalina grabbed onto one side of the butler’s arm and begged while I did the same with the other arm.

“W-Wait, if you come at me like this…”

The butler was old, but he was still a man. It was obvious that desperate pleas from such beautiful young women like us would definitely make him feel flustered.

“We beg you. Please forgive us, we won’t do it again.”

I thought that if I pushed just a bit more it could work, so I begged once again. But…

“No, my lady. Please don’t ask for forgiveness from me, you’ve just been coronated as a Duchess. You mustn’t ask for such things as forgiveness without any thought like that from a humble servant such as I. Ahh, how disappointed the previous head of the family would be to see you act like this if he were here. You must begin to show pride and self-respect from now on as the head of this family. And also, please, we ask you to be more careful from acting in ways that could damage your reputation.”

He quickly changed from being flustered to beginning another sermon about my behavior as if he was a chameleon changing its skin color.

Ahh… He’s so mean to me, even though I’m now a Duchess…

“Ngh…”

Katalina glared at me with resentment as if blaming me for ruining a perfectly working plan. But how could I have known it would turn out this way?

In the end, Katalina and I had to endure a marathon of 2 hours sermon from him before being finally released.

“Ugh. I thought I’d die.”
“This is the first time I had been lectured like this, but I never want to experience it again. That was just torture!”

As soon as the butler left the room and closed the door behind him, we immediately began to cry about the pain we went through. It seemed like Katalina was especially exhausted from it, having experienced his lectures for the first time as she laid on the sofa completely exhausted.

“And who’s fault is this?”

Katalina’s eyes glinted sharply as she asked me.

“Well of course…”

I knew that I had to choose my words carefully here. I had already had plenty of mental damage put on me by the butler’s lecture. If I were to have additional critical damage put on me via Katalina getting angry or sulky, I didn’t even want to imagine how I would end up.

“It was my fault. I’m sorry.”
“Hmm. Yes, since it’s your fault, you have to take the punishment as well, right?”

Her expression turned menacing towards me. The finger flick I had taught her a few days ago to tease her now came back to haunt me as her long fingers poised ready to flick my forehead came ever so closer to me.

“Ngh…”

As Katalina had experienced my finger flick to her head a few times now, she knew just how to properly deliver a painful finger flick thanks to me.

Naturally, thinking of how painful her flick could be on my head made me feel like tearing up at any moment. I swear I wasn’t making a big fuss!

“Now, lift up your head.”

While I was getting ready to face the incoming calamity to my forehead, Katalina used her two hands to lift up my head while fixing my hair that was covering my face to behind the ears.

She then made sure to have a clear path towards her target, as she smiled even more menacingly.

Seeing her fingers now coming extremely close, I unconsciously closed my eyes in fear. Though it wouldn’t be any different just because I closed my eyes, it was still an instinctive action that I couldn’t help.

Steeling myself for the painful sensation that will come soon, I get ready with my whole body to confront her attack.

‘One, two, three!’

I counted down the expected amount of time she would take to complete her finger flick, but even though the expected time I had thought of had finished for a while now, I still didn’t feel any pain.

So do I open my eyes again? This was one of the cruel factors I used in my method of finger-flicking her forehead, making her think that I was not going to flick her and flicking her just as she opened her eyes in hope that I had stopped. It meant that I had to make sure I never opened my eyes until I properly was flicked.

Kiss!

A sudden attack that I didn’t expect. I was expecting pain, not this kind of attack at all.

“Ah…”
“Hehe.”

Though it wasn’t as long as our first kiss, this second kiss had also happened without me being in the lead again so I felt a great sense of shame.

But I also didn’t feel bad from her kiss as well, so my mind was in a complete mess, not knowing whether to be happy or ashamed.

“Did you not like it?”

Katalina cautiously asked, perhaps thinking I may have gotten angry. The face she made was so cute that if I was in a man’s body, I would have pounced on her right away.

“That’s not it, it’s just that our first and now second kiss had happened with you leading the kiss instead of me.”
“Hehe. Yep, that’s how it ended up. All right then, now, go ahead~”

Katalina’s face glowed again, closing her eyes and held out her lips as if it wasn’t a big deal. Goodness, this girl!

My reasoning stops me from taking this chance, but a strange throbbing began deep inside of my heart.

However, that wasn’t enough to win over my reasoning. I couldn’t bring myself to put my lips against hers, so as a replacement, I put a finger against her lips.

“Mmh…”

Katalina happily hummed as she rubbed her lips against my finger. Thankfully she didn’t realize it because she had her eyes closed. Ah, wait, wait!

Feeling the squirming of her tongue against my finger made me feel extremely ticklish.

“Pfft.”

I was trying my best to not laugh at this situation, but I couldn’t stop myself from letting escape a giggle.

“Eh?”

Katalina’s eyes opened up wide right away sensing something was strange from my giggle. She then looked back and forth between my finger which was put against her lips and my eyes repeatedly.

“???”
“??!”
“?!!”
“!!!”

Having watched the rapid stage development of her expressions turning from confusion to realization and then to anger, I realized now is not the time to tease her like this.
It was because I saw that her eyes became deathly cold when they reached that 4th stage.

If we have a fight again we may end up listening to some lecture from the butler again. As my mind went that far in evaluating the situation, I quickly pulled my finger off her lip and stopped Katalina from exploding in anger by pushing my lips against hers.

“Mmph!”

She kept trying to say something but with both her hands and lips sealed by me, she gave up on resisting and became quiet.

Our tongues wrapped against each other as it exchanged saliva, but I didn’t think it was disgusting or anything. After teasing my tongue around hers for a while, I saw that her eyes had calmed down quite a bit from being completely angry just a moment ago.

“Phew!”
“Hoo…”

After our long kiss had ended, Katalina and I both inhaled deeply from holding our breath for too long.

“Nngh~! Ellie, you’re so mean.”

She must have remembered the prank I did on her lips a moment ago, as Katalina puffed up her cheeks in a cute way. However, she still had a faint blush hanging on both her cheeks, making her look attractive as well.

Ah, she must not realize just how much it makes me want to pounce on her if she acts like that. Or maybe she does know and is aiming for that. I really can’t tell.