Quietly Hiding that I am a Man chapter 50- Fake Ghost

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Jerome, with a smiling face that Luke did not know when he had arrived, looked down at him.

Luke, silently glaring at Jerome, lowered his bow.

“…You keep slipping away like a rat. I didn’t want to see you again.”

“Liar, you missed me.”

Luke frowned in distaste at Jerome’s cutesy tone.

Guild members, belatedly noticing Jerome’s presence, drew their swords in unison.

Jerome raised both hands as if in surrender.

“How unfortunate for you,” Jerome said, “This was your perfect chance to get rid of me.”

“Yes, it’s a pity. I was planning to run a few experiments on your corpse.”

“Good and evil are still as ambiguous as ever, whether in the past or now.”

Jerome, who had been smiling slightly, poked Luke’s cheek with his index finger.

“Are you still as jealous as before?”

Luke, who had flinched and was shivering slightly, slowly lifted his head and muttered in a subdued voice.

“Get your hands off. You’re just a dog of Mephisto.”

Luke, moving in close to Jerome, whispered calmly.

“Whatever schemes you have, my thoughts are clear. The hero of the Empire must be Carlisle, not you. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen, even if it means killing the woman hiding behind you.”

“…….”

“So keep on laughing as much as you can until then. You won’t have much to laugh about in the future.”

Despite the threatening tone, Jerome remained calm, responding warmly as if to an old friend.

“Luke, scary men aren’t popular. These days, young ladies prefer gentle men. Well, it’s probably pointless advice for you, since you like men.”

“Shut up. Take your woman and get lost.”

Luke shot back coldly. Jerome, who had been silent, looked bewildered.

“But could you repeat that line one more time? The one about ‘your woman’…”

“……”

“Okay, okay. Don’t glare at me so menacingly. You’re just hurting your own skin by getting angry. It’s your own loss.”

Jerome grumbled and lightly picked up the limp Jeanne. The guild members watching Jerome’s actions looked somewhat puzzled.

Female guild members whispered among themselves with interested expressions.

“Didn’t Jerome say he was admitted to a psychiatric ward?”

“Yeah. So did he recover from his neurosis and get discharged?”

Jerome, adjusting Jeanne in his arms with a nonchalant expression, turned his head and gave a bright smile to the female guild members.

The women, who had been whispering, nodded with pleased expressions.

“I hope you return to the academy soon.”

“Yes, keeping such a handsome man in a psychiatric ward is too harsh on the ladies of the Kaiser Empire.”

“But… who is that woman in his arms?”

After admiring Jerome’s looks for a while, the women’s attention shifted to Jeanne, nestled in Jerome’s arms.

Feeling their gaze, Jerome pulled down his hood to cover his face.

“Oh, right. And give my regards to Carlisle.”

Jerome, who seemed to quietly leave his place, turned back toward Luke.

The setting sun, beginning to fade, cast a monstrous shadow at Jerome’s feet.

“All the nightmares you’ve given me….”

Luke flinched, his hands trembling. Jerome’s eyes, watching Luke quietly, narrowed into crescent shapes.

“I’m going to return them all to you.”

Ding, ding.

The sound of bells rang out from the clock tower in the shopping district.

The gray clouds parted, revealing a red sky.

After finishing his words, Jerome disappeared into the forest.

Mia, who had been watching carefully, hurriedly ran over to Luke.

“Wow, I’m surprised. To think I’d meet Jerome here. But more importantly, Luke, how did you two…?”

Mia closed her mouth when she saw Luke’s expression. Luke’s normally emotionless face had gone completely pale.

Trembling, Luke turned abruptly and wiped his face with his shaking hands.

‘I’ll kill him.’

Luke, who had been walking briskly, slammed his fist into a towering tree.

Blood dripped from his crushed knuckles.

His peridot-like green eyes flickered with murderous intent.

‘I’ll kill him. Jerome, and that woman too.’

✽ ✽ ✽

“Caw, caw.”

Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed ominously.

Despite being fully awake, there was only one reason why I couldn’t open my eyes.

“No, don’t say that. Shut up.”

Jerome had started muttering to himself.

He held me in his arms, continuing forward somewhere.

He laughed to himself, got angry, and mumbled words whose meaning I couldn’t grasp.

It seemed like Jerome was having a conversation with the sealed Mephisto.

A memory of a past conversation with Vermouth flashed through my mind.

“Is Mephisto’s influence that strong?”

“You may not feel it, but I find it incredible that he’s even alive. If he were an ordinary human, his mind would have been destroyed long ago.”

The amount of magical power someone could contain differed from person to person.

If Jeanne’s magical capacity was like a small bowl, Jerome’s would be more like a massive basin.

Of course, this is just a metaphor; in reality, Jerome’s magical power was beyond measurement.

Even the current Tower Master, Duke Michael, feared him.

That was also the reason Jerome could seal Mephisto inside his body. His capacity to hold magic was far greater than others.

But even so, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t break.

No one knew when cracks might start to form in Jerome’s vessel.

To avoid being killed by Jerome, I needed to gather Maya’s Stone as soon as possible.

‘If only there was a map showing where the divine beasts are…’

As I was overwhelmed by this helpless feeling, Jerome suddenly stopped in his tracks.

‘Why did he stop?’

I couldn’t hear Mephisto’s voice, so I didn’t know what they were talking about.

But I could tell that Jerome was deeply disturbed. I listened closely to his murmuring while keeping my eyes shut.

“You’re right. If I kill Jeanne now, she can never leave me. But…”

Jerome trailed off. It seemed like Mephisto was still urging him to kill me.

A scene from the original story flashed through my mind.

On a dark, silent night when everyone was asleep, Jeanne pulled out the dagger hidden under his pillow.

Climbing onto Jerome’s body, he raised the knife.

Boom!

A flash of lightning lit up Jeanne’s beautiful face.

Though it was a scene he had imagined countless times, for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to stab Jerome. Jeanne whispered weakly.

“Jerome, why…?”

Jerome, who was fast asleep, had an innocent, angelic face. It was hard to believe that such a beautiful being had raped her.

No matter how much he cried or clawed at the ground, Jerome wouldn’t stop.

Like a beast that hadn’t eaten for days, he pushed her to him limit.

With empty eyes, Jeanne looked down at him, biting his lip.

‘Where did it all go wrong?’

Jeanne had been notorious as a difficult patient at the Waverley Asylum. He’d bite the caretakers at every opportunity or vomit everything he ate.

Unable to handle him anymore, the caretakers locked him in the basement prison to torment him.

That’s where he first met Jerome, the mysterious hero hidden behind a veil.

“You’re truly beautiful.”

“You can see my face?”

A gloomy voice slipped through a crack in the wall.

Jeanne pressed his ear against it to hear more clearly.

The man’s meaningful words echoed in his ears.

“Yes, there’s nothing I can’t see.”

Jerome visited Jeanne’s solitary cell every dawn, but he never asked how it was possible.

Just having someone to talk to in that dark, damp space brought him comfort.

No matter what Jeanne said, Jerome would listen quietly.

For someone like Jeanne, who had never experienced anyone taking him seriously, this was a new and wondrous experience.

Jerome never made him feel bad for saying something pointless or told him he was wrong. Maybe that’s why Jeanne’s face gradually brightened as their conversations continued.

“The nomadic Sacre remember time, not places. When a child is born, they don’t recall the date but the season and which territory it happened in.”

In the pitch-black room, Jeanne often shared stories about Sacri.

Unlike Jerome, who accepted his unfortunate fate, Jeanne always longed for freedom.

He often thought about returning to Sacri, where even the birds flew fearlessly high.

“How nice it would be to return to Sacri…”

Jeanne mumbled weakly, his face buried in his knees. Jerome, who had been reading next to him, asked in a gentle voice.

“So, which season were you born in?”

“Me? I think… I was born in the winter. My mother used to say her bones ached every winter because of me.”

Jerome reached out to him, gently brushing aside Jeanne’s messy hair. He smiled faintly.

“When winter comes, let’s go to Sacre.”

“…”

“We have to celebrate your birthday, after all.”

The Jerome who raped him and the Jerome who clumsily spoke the Sacre language he had learned from him—Jeanne wasn’t sure which one was the real him.

As his thoughts drifted to the past, Jerome suddenly grabbed his wrist.

Boom!

The sound of thunder roared once again.

Startled, Jeanne swung his dagger wildly.

Blood slowly spread across Jerome’s shirt where the blade had struck.

Jeanne, who barely escaped from him, slowly stepped backward.

“Why did you do it? Why?”

The sound of rain filled the silence.

Ever since he had resolved to kill him, his emotions had been in turmoil.

Jerome had been the only person who had ever shown Jeanne kindness, even when everyone else shunned him.

That’s why Jeanne couldn’t forgive him for raping him.

The betrayal he felt was overwhelming, and he was consumed with humiliation.

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