Chapter 17.2

When I was forced to accept the quest, a small bar flashed above Curtis’ head. A third of the white-filled bar seemed to signify his karma.

‘Still, it has already filled up a little.’

Well, it could be his karma after he backed out on his offer to give money to Edith – me – who was a maid.

‘Look into the past, I guess it wants me to find out what happened between Curtis and Edith before, right?’ I thought to myself.

Quickly taking a grasp on the quest, I went on a tour of the mansion, passing Jian and Curtis, who were talking about each other with affection about trivial things.

* * *

As I thought, the tracks of Curtis’ karma were hidden all over the mansion. Unlike his brief past that was revealed in <Experience: Scenes of Life>, Edith and Curtis seemed to have a slightly more complex history.

“What do you mean that the Marquis doesn’t treat you like Lirina?”

“…”

“I’m sure you must be mistaken. The parent’s duty is naturally to treat their children fairly.”

The boy, Curtis, frowned as if Edith was just plainly making a ruckus out of it.

“I think my father hates me.”

“…I don’t think so.”

“As soon as Lirina was born, he excluded me from succession education.”

“Edith, didn’t you hate studying in the first place? Perhaps that’s why.”

Edith pursed her lips as Curtis’ words. In fact, she never hated studying. It was just that the Marquis’ succession education was too harsh.

“You always worry about trivial things and get stressed out. It’s better if you fix that mindset.”

The scene of young Edith and Curtis’ conversation played slowly like a black-and-white movie. When the light green box at the corner of Edith’s bedroom closed, the video of Edith and Curtis repeating the same line disappeared.

Little Curtis refused to believe that an adult could deliberately bully a child. He closed his eyes to the pain of Edith, his friend.

Perhaps this was just a small karma, since Curtis’ bar was only slightly filled.

‘Let’s aim to fill more than half of it within the day,’ I told myself.

I can’t die just because I failed the quest. Having taken a day off from work, I began to walk around the mansion and collected Curtis’ karma boxes.

RING

<SYSTEM> Curtis Caballero’s karma is filled by 5.

RING RING

<SYSTEM> Curtis Caballero’s karma is filled by 15.

‘Oh, this is going up a lot.’

In less than half a day, Curtis’ karma filled up to 60%. In fact, Curtis’ karma was also Edith’s karma. He wasn’t entirely the only person to blame.

As I embraced a huge karma box that closed with a click, I pressed my throbbing chest. Perhaps because I took over Edith’s body, even if I didn’t go through it personally, it felt a little too much to face her difficult past.

‘Curtis, you bastard. No matter how nice the Marquis was, I’ll take Edith’s word for it.’

Unlike his late wife, the Marquis was a man who enjoyed his fair share of entertainment and had a fairly solid external image. Since Curtis was young, Marquis Abina had frequent interaction with the Grand Duchess. A knight like Curtis’ father, he played a very gentlemanly role.

‘He helped Curtis when he was abused by his step-mother, the Grand Duchess…’

But he was abusing Edith, his stepdaughter, at the same time. I frowned as I recalled Marquis Abina’s abominable face.

When she was young, the Marquis obviously showed he favored Lirina, but from the time Edith approached adulthood, the harassment began to turn sexual. Edith was protected as Curtis’ Lady, so there was no evidence of a full-fledged molestation, but he must have been waiting for an opportunity.

However, Curtis didn’t believe Edith’s claim. He simply thought she was lying so that he wouldn’t leave her. Because by then, Curtis’ distrust of humans and Edith, who was obsessed with him, was already reaching its peak.

Until one day…

“Did you sell Theodore to the battlefield instead of me?”

Curtis’ younger brother was dragged to the battlefield and unfortunately died. It was only during his brother’s funeral that Curtis found out Edith had urged Theodore to join and fight in the war.