Chapter 103

Chapter 103The monitor lights up white.

From it, a familiar game phrase emerges.

[Would you like to play the game?]

[Name the players, their factions, and their characteristics].

Inner Lunatic.

The opening music of a game I’ve played dozens, maybe hundreds, of times before, and which I’ve beaten to perfection, rings in my ears.

My heart is pounding hard.

Click. Click.

(jjaekkag. jjaekkag.)

Now I’m sitting at my computer, the calendar on my stark white wall marking the day I’ll die.

The words are scrawled in red, barely recognizable.

As I stare at it, a thought flashes through my mind.

What if this is all a dream?

Suddenly losing my memory, being diagnosed with a terminal illness, abandoned by my family, and immersed in a game.

I begin to realize that I am an alien in this world.

I wonder how many people in the world are in the same situation as me.

The question is even more troubling.

Why do I have such a spacious house if I was left in a nursery school?

Who sent me the hundreds of millions of won in my bank account and what has been my life so far?

Why can’t I even remember the face of the doctor who gave me a life sentence.

All my memories melted away like ice cream in the middle of summer.

I’m standing on the edge of a line where I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.

Everything I thought was so vividly colored is fading.

The room and the computer seem inorganically cold.

My breath catches in my throat.

Suddenly, I remember a person.

The childhood of a sickly boy who became a villain is superimposed on my memory.

Nox.

Nox von Reinhafer.......

The boy’s ending was a tragedy.

* * *

‘What? I must have been dreaming something...... that was a terrible nightmare. Probably.’

I must have slept for a long time.

When I woke up with such an insignificant thought, I realized that the nightmares that had been plaguing me were now frequent. The problem is, the memories are completely gone.

As is often the case with dreams, they scatter almost immediately after waking up.

If you ask me why I’m suddenly talking about dreams after collapsing in the middle of a duel, it’s because I have a feeling that I had a very important dream and forgot about it.

Even in my past life, nightmares were a dying breed, but this one was so vivid. But I’ve never had a dream where I didn’t remember anything in the end.

One scientist, studying dreams, said the following.

“The dreams we recall are scattered because they are not encoded in long-term memory.”

But how many people can even understand that?

It’s just ridiculous to add reasons for this and that because I just can’t remember. I just shook my head, thinking that it was just an appropriate reason.

‘What can I do? It’s embarrassing, but... By the way, is my body fully recovered now?’

After regaining my senses, I checked.

It had been about two hours since I had regained consciousness.

Zitri, Elena, Rona, and Mei were all standing by my side.......

For some reason, they were all giving me disgruntled looks.

I rubbed my forehead, feeling the heat rising in a steady stream.

“One by one.”

“How come there isn’t a ‘single day’ that Young Master Knox doesn’t have an accident, and how come the maids who serve him don’t die of heart palpitations?”

Indeed.

As expected, Zitri was the first to speak.

She’s seen all of my recent (?) misdeeds firsthand. She probably thinks I’m the one responsible for them.

I tried to console myself by saying that these were preceding events, and that I was only preventing the main storyline from being twisted.......

This fight with Theo is something that even I didn’t envision, so I can’t say anything. Even if I had ten mouths to feed.

But there is one thing I have to remind myself of, and that is that I am an asshole.

“It just happened.”

I can only be an asshole if I can overcome the narrowing of Zitri’s eyes.

I reminded myself of that and shifted my gaze to the others. Suddenly, Elina swoops down on me, her arms tightening around my neck.

“Hmph~! Seobang-nim...!! You shouldn’t be doing such dangerous things...!! If you keep doing that, I might become a widow!” {1}

“Elena...? Ugh... no.......”

Mei sighed. Honestly, she doesn’t even know where to start at this point.

Of course, neither do I. So you’re going to have to do some of the tackling, because I can’t do it for her, so try harder.

I cheered Mei on, albeit inwardly.

In this harsh world. Survive the demons and fiends, slay the lowlifes, and move on.

Along the way, I protect those who stand by my side, and I reach the end of the episode, because that’s the best I can do.

Brilliant.

I lay back on my arm pillows, renewing my resolve. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. I gently push myself up and move my gaze to the door.

“Who is it?”

“Young Master... it’s me, Rona.”

An unexpected person had come to visit me out of the blue.

Rona, she had found my room.

‘Why would Rona suddenly visit me at this hour?’

“I... have something to tell you,” she said, “and it has to do with your confrontation with the Lord this morning... and what you said there.”

Her next words fueled my questions even more.

Why was Rona suddenly talking to me about it?

As I pondered this, I realized that it had gotten quite late at night, so why would Rona come to me out of the blue? I couldn’t help but think that something was amiss.

‘Come to think of it.......’

Looking back at her behavior earlier, I also felt uncomfortable for some reason.

She didn’t accuse me of anything,

She didn’t look for Carl,

nor did she bother me.

Was it her, and not someone else?

‘It’s definitely weird, now that I think about it.......’

“Come on in.”

I said in a gruff voice, and.......

It didn’t take long for the door to open.

Creak.

(kkiig.)

The wooden door creaked open on its hinges, and I jumped out of my skin. I was momentarily in shock.

The reason was simple.

The door opened to reveal a girl, neatly dressed in a revealing maid’s outfit. Rona de Nero had tears in the corners of her eyes for some reason.

I had a hunch.

In her tears, there were fragments of Nox’s past.

* * *

Rona hadn’t been able to compose herself long after she entered my room.

I didn’t ask her why.

There had to be a reason she was so shocked.

Rona is, after all, a unit on my side.

She spread a lot of scandalous stories about Nox and his misdeeds, but the truth is that most of them were false.

Furthermore, Nox’s reputation was based on his own actions, not on me making up things to accuse her of something.

Even that had all but disappeared after my recent possession.

It is true that her backstory about Nox has also faded.

Instead, she has shown a warmer side to me and my units.

When everyone else turned their backs. Even in the worst of times, she held Zitri with warmth, knowing that I had a debilitating congenital condition and making sure I wasn’t in pain every night. {TN:Nuisance Curse}

The Head Maid never scolded Rona because she knew why she woke up late every day, and Theo left her alone, too.

In the many fevers I had suffered in the past, she had always stood by my side. If it weren’t for her, I would have been in danger many times.

Nox the Cripple. If it had been Nox, who was suffering from minor illnesses, he would probably continue to be like that even now.

With that in mind, I collect my thoughts.

A unit that has always stood by my side. Why did Rona come to me so late at night. I wonder if she came looking for me.

With such a pitiful face, erasing every trace of mischief from her eyes.

For some reason, I feel a tingle in my chest.

Why?

Why am I feeling this way, and why is she doing something that isn’t her business? Is she stealing tears for Nox and his father, Theo.

It won’t take long to find out why.

I thought, and waited. Rona somehow managed to catch her breath, to compose herself, and her lips parted.

“That...... night of bloodshed, when my mistress died. You remembered that night, didn’t you...?”

The night of the slaughter.

I hadn’t expected the words to come out of Lorna’s mouth. Why, she was Nox’s mother, Theo’s wife, the hostess.

So.......

You’re telling me about the death of a character whose name has never been mentioned?

A story was beginning that I didn’t even know about, and I was mesmerized by Rona’s story.

I was not wrong.

Rona’s story is about Nox von Reinhafer.

The family scoundrel had a secret.

And why Rona de Nero was so afraid of me. She came to me every day, worried about me, and she cared about me.



{1} : “Seobang” is Brother-in-law but that doesn’t exactly make perfect sense but that’s what author put.