After traversing through the castle for quite some time, James arrived before the big door to the office.

Sophia stayed behind as James knocked on the door, and soon a deep voice was heard.

"Come in."

James took a deep breath and exhaled before entering the Duke's study room. Inside the room was a large desk where the Duke sat behind, going over paperwork. A small library within the room covered the walls, mostly filled with books of direct importance to managing the realm's affairs.

Leonhart's father was a tall and robust man with regal facial features. He had short blonde hair, a matching beard, and sky-blue eyes like him. In front of the table, there sat his mother, a black-haired, busty beauty, who looked at him with her glistening sapphire eyes in a perplexed manner.

James didn't know any of their names or anything about them, yet he felt like he had known them for a very long time. It was like he had done this many times before. A strange feeling.

But looking at the lady, he felt something was amiss?

"So, Leon, my son, when are you going to stop giving me trouble?" his father spoke distinctly.

James did not know what Leonhart had done, so he appeared bewildered naturally.

"Why didn't you join the princess at the ceremony?" this time his mother spoke in a worried tone.

And yet again, James understood nothing.

"..."

"Stop acting like a fool and answer me." his father spoke, slamming his fist on the table.

"She sent you the letter weeks ago. You said you would accompany her, but you didn't. Care to explain why?" His voice grew louder with each word.

Nervously, James took a step back. His brain was not processing anything. Who was this princess? When did she even send a letter? And why on earth did his acting seemed too genuine to be fake?

Noticing the confused look on her son's face, his mother spoke.

"Listen, Leon, you know how important Elizabeth is to us. And this is not the first time you have done something like this..."

"Important...How..."

"Do you have any idea how delicate the situation is? No, you don't. That's why you keep repeating the same damned mistake every time." said the Duke. His face was full of anger and frustration.

"Dear..." The Duchess tried to say something but couldn't as the Duke spoke gain.

"Do you know what's on the stake here? "

"..."

"Everything literally everything, our pride, reputation, power everything and yet you couldn't do a single thing." the Duke retorted.

"You do realise that what will happen if you failed to make the princess your fiancee right?"

"I...I..."

"Someone else will take her and we will lose everything."

"Listen, I...." James wanted to say that he understood nothing but couldn't.

"Damn those three sons of bitches and their sons." said the duke with a resounding voice, again slamming his fist onto the table.

Now he really was getting scary. Just what the fuck Leonhart did to make this guy so angry?

"Leon my son, if you don't make Elizabeth your fiancee than those other duke's sons would do it and that is not a good sign for our duchy, for our future. So please listen to your father." said the duchess in a pleading tone.

"..."

"7 days... You have 7 days to fix this mess you created."

"Wha..."

"You will go to the palace, ask for her forgiveness, and solve this mess and if you failed to do even that, then my son, you better be ready for what's coming," said the Duke in a threatening tone, which send shivers down James's spine.

"You understand what I said, right?.."

"..."

"Right?" shouted the Duke.

"Yes."

"Now get out."

As soon as James heard the word get out, he literally ran out of the room.

Just what the hell just happened? He was an 26-year-old adult, but still got scared to death by just mere words. The Duke really was scary and surely he was not acting. His confident demeanour couldn't be faked.

James again traversed through the huge castle corridors and made his way to the room. As he sat down on the massive bed, he focused on the entire events happened so far. He came to this world out of nowhere, did not know about anything, and now had to fix some mess he did not make. But if he won't do what the duke said, then it would create another problem for him and it was also not like he could go around announcing that he was James, not Leonhart.

"What in the world I did to deserve this...?" shouted James in frustration. He was getting frustrated. After all the effort he put into his dream project, everything was gone in just an instant, and now he had to deal with something entirely different.

Before James could shout again, he was disturbed by a knock on the door and it was none other than the maid named Sophia. She was here to get the young Lord to the dining hall.

"Come in," said James, fixing his appearance and face. He was not Leonhart but had to act like him, not to raise any suspicion.

"Sir James... Please come to the dining hall. The food is ready..."

James was not that hungry, but had to eat something, and he had bigger things at hand to find out, so he asked the maid to bring the food to his room.

"Can you bring the food here...?"

"Yes, Sir." said the maid, bowing down.

When Sophia was about to leave, a shout from behind halted her steps.

"Hey Sophia..."

"Yes, milord." said Sophia tuning around to face Leonhart.

"Can you tell me something?"

"Yes..."

"Yea, so, can you tell me what's going on with the whole making the princess my fiancee thing?" asked James in a hesitant tone. If this situation was getting more delicate with passing day, then at least some people had to have some basic idea about the total scene.

"Sir... I can't..." she couldn't believe that the man who was making the situation worse was asking her about his doings.

"Listen, it's between you and me. No one else will know anything, so just explain." That's the least James could say. He had no choice but to ask her and even if she said no, he couldn't do anything.

"..." The maid just nodded, saying nothing. It was an order from the Duke's son himself and she couldn't dare to disobey him.

"Elizabeth Von..." She explained everything from the very beginning, and James just kept staring at her with a blank expression.

"... happened."

"That's it." Asked James.

"Yes Sir..."

"..." Hearing everything from Sophia, James fell into deep thoughts, scratching his chin.

"Sir..." seeing the young Lord who was busy scratching his chin, Sophia again asked.

"Yes...."

"..." both of them looked at each other with awkward expressions, and soon James realised what he had to do.

"Don't tell anyone about what I asked now or earlier today. I will explain everything to you later."

"Yes, Sir."

"You can go now."

The maid once again bowed down and left the room.

James had no self-confident but was trying to appear convincing. In the bigger picture, it was just a facade. He was still not used to anything but was trying to play the role of Leonhart.

And about the fiancee story it went like this. The emperor had asked the princess to choose someone befitting to be her husband, but only 4 choices were available and those were the heirs of the 4 dukes.

Every duke was trying to get the princess as his daughter-in-law because of the power struggle, or what you might say, wanted to be in the good grace of the Emperor. So they were trying their best by sending their sons to impress the princess, but it didn't seem like anything was working. Whatever they tried, the princess didn't choose anyone?

The other day, she had sent a letter to Leonhart asking to accompany her for a certain ceremony. This was a clear sign that the princess had some interest in him, but he didn't accompany her, and this outraged his father, Duke Esper. It had become a competition among the Dukes, and nobody was backing down.

"Idiots... bunch of idiots." James muttered to himself. The whole thing seemed like a kid's play to him. They were not treating the princess like a human. It was as if she was a possession, which everyone wanted to have, like a limited time item on sale. Everyone had the choice to love whomever they want, but this thing was just too idiotic. All these people were competing over what... a person who had no interest in them.

But if he wouldn't do what the Duke had told him to do, then God knows what would happen, so it was best for James to follow the orders. He had 7 days to go to the palace and ask the princess to forgive him.