After debating for a long time, I decided not to tell him.
Knowing would only make it more painful.
Even if he knew, the current him couldn’t go to rescue them anyway.
And the places where a few of them went were places where harsh labor like logging and mining took place.
They wouldn’t last long.
‘I don’t know how the frame is cleared.’
It was a part I read myself in a dream, but it was simply described that the unfair frame was finally cleared.
Meanwhile, the scene where Lucas shed tears as he reunited with his mother and younger sister after being reinstated as a duke was described in detail.
It was needlessly touching.
‘If I knew, I would help.’
Surprised by the thought that crossed my mind unconsciously, I shook my head.
I can barely take care of myself, so who would I help?
It’s nonsense.
Especially when I can’t even find my brother and sister-in-law.
There was no story about the two of them in the novel.
Knowing that this place was inside a novel, the first thing I tried hard to think about was the whereabouts of those two.
‘With my situation, who am I helping…’
If I knew the method to clear the frame, I would drop a hint indirectly.
That is, if it was certain. I don’t gamble.
‘Will I not have that dream again?’
I had the dream of reading the novel exactly once and never had it again.
It was a pity for me, as I desperately needed information.
‘If I dream it again, I will definitely read it from the beginning.’
First of all, I was curious about why I acted so cruelly.
If I knew that, I thought I could know what differences there were between the novel and reality.
Perhaps the reason why the real Lucas doesn’t even attempt to escape could also be found in the novel.
Honestly, because of that part, I couldn’t believe the novel 100%.
I am not a person who gets pleasure from torturing people.
Perhaps the novel character ‘Hyacinth’ might not be me.
Then I would have to rethink how much I should trust that novel.
After putting the documents into the drawer, I lay down on the bed.
Since you can only dream when you sleep, I intended to sleep.
The time on the monitor read 8:21 PM.
I had finished all my assigned tasks for the day, but the team leader refused to let me log off.
It was for the utterly irrational reason that his own workload was piling up.
‘Old-school bastard. No wonder he’s so unpopular.’
The team leader—a man—made a habit of begging people to set him up on blind dates.
Yet whenever someone finally gave in and set him up, he got dumped without fail.
Well, obviously.
He was unattractive, stuck in his ways, and had a nitpicky personality to boot.
If I were a woman, I wouldn’t date him either.
I chewed him up in my mind with a venom that matched my anger.
‘I hope all your hair falls out.’
Cursing him made me feel a bit better.
To kill time, I pulled up a fake Excel spreadsheet on one screen to look busy and opened up a web novel on the other.
‘Should I do a full reread?’
I opened the novel ‘Roll, Roll, Whiny Slave’ and started reading from chapter one.
[Framed by an unknown culprit, Lucas plummeted from duke to slave in the blink of an eye and was dragged off to the Empire. Upon arriving, he was dragged along even further for what felt like an eternity. When he finally reached his destination, Count Hyacinth remained utterly unfazed and indifferent to his beautiful appearance. He treated him like an ordinary laborer.
“You have a good build. Were you a knight?”
“Yes.”
“Then assist with the order’s duties.”
Hyacinth called a servant and instructed him to help Lucas wash, eat, and rest. There was no unfair treatment. He even unlocked the handcuffs and shackles binding him. Everyone merely followed orders, and no one mistreated him. If a slave’s paradise existed, this was it.]
When I first picked up the novel based on the title, I was honestly disappointed by this part.
How could the author put “Whiny Slave” in the title and then have absolutely no one mistreat him?
Soon, however, the heart-pounding plot kicked into gear.
[No matter how well they treated him, Lucas was still a slave. Rather than settling for complacency here, it was better to seize the moment while they let their guard down, escape, and plan for the future. Lucas had many people to save. He couldn’t just live comfortably here by himself. If Lucas could just get his hands on a sword from the knight order, no knight could best him.]
“Aha.”
As expected of a true angst-driven story, the main character has to twist his own fate.
The author really knows what they’re doing.
Look at him already planning to run away just because the lead was being nice to him.
It’s delicious already.
Lucas spent a few days helping with the knight order’s duties while mapping out an escape route.
After securing a sword and finalizing his path, he executed his escape under the cover of night.
The one who blocked his path was the Knight Commander.
True to his word, Lucas fought and defeated the Knight Commander, as well as every knight who lunged at him.
However, he failed to dodge an arrow aimed at him from afar.
[The sudden arrow pierced Lucas’s arm. Lucas ripped the arrow out and tried to fight again, but the accumulation of his previous injuries combined with the fresh wound caused him to stumble. Seizing the moment, a volley of arrows flew through the air. Lucas’s back became a pin-cushion, riddled with arrows like a target board. Ultimately, Lucas collapsed.
No sooner had he fallen than two people grabbed him by the arms and dragged him up. Hyacinth looked down at Lucas with a frigid expression.
“This is how you repay my hospitality.”
The ground was drenched with blood spilled by the knights. Among that blood was the blood of the Knight Commander, Tayros—Hyacinth’s close friend.]
This was the exact moment Hyacinth awakened into a “cruel, tyrannical bastard.”
Lucas had touched the one person he absolutely should have left alone.
He had left Tayros, the Knight Commander and Hyacinth’s dear friend, hovering on the brink of death.
Tayros was the companion Hyacinth relied on like a brother in the absence of his missing older brother.
Hyacinth stopped holding back.
[“Give me a sword.”
A knight standing nearby handed over a blade. Hyacinth drove the sword straight into Lucas’s abdomen.
“Aaargh!”
“I hope it hurts.”
His voice was completely devoid of emotion, so much so that no one could believe he was raging inside. Hyacinth slowly twisted the blade before pulling it out. Lucas shrieked, unable to endure the agony. Hyacinth, unmoved as if the scream were nothing but a melody, retrieved the sword and returned it to the knight.
“Treat him exactly as you would treat Tayros. If Tayros loses an arm, sever his arm. If Tayros stops breathing, take his head.”
“Yes, sir!”
Hyacinth did not kill Lucas. He couldn’t let him off that easily. Since Lucas had shown Hyacinth the gates of hell, Hyacinth intended to drag him all the way through them.
“Treat a slave like a slave.”
The gates of hell swung wide open before Lucas.]
‘Yes, this is it.’
Though the content that followed was brutal, it was incredibly thrilling.
In fact, I felt a flutter of excitement thinking about the grueling path that lay ahead of him.
This is exactly how you have to relieve stress from a exhausting corporate life—by consuming a story as comforting as a painfully spicy meal.
