* * *
He isn’t crazy, but it’s only natural for a servant to find his master’s sudden kindness strange after years of abuse.
Still, his personality shifted so drastically the moment I started acting nice.
It makes me realize just how much resentment he must have harbored toward me.
To be honest, it felt a bit unfair since I wasn’t the one who did those things before waking up in Cedric’s body.
But given the circumstances, I decided to be the bigger person and let it slide.
Besides, what else could I do?
He’s the original protagonist—the future Emperor who could ruin my entire family with a single snap of his fingers.
I closed the lid of the ointment jar and pressed it into Locke’s hand.
As I did, his jaw tightened so hard it became prominent, and his body trembled. Just how much had he been tormented for him to shudder at the mere touch of my fingertips?
‘It’s all my karma.’
Even if it was my first time in this life… I had no excuses given what “I” had done to him in the past.
“If you hate me applying it, take it, wash up, and do it yourself.”
Locke looked at me.
His gaze, colder and sharper than ice, momentarily overlapped with the face of the Locke who had become Emperor.
“…This sudden change is difficult to adjust to.”
There was no point in saying, ‘If I don’t fix this hellish relationship, you’re going to kill me,’ since he wouldn’t understand anyway.
I decided to give a plausible excuse instead.
“You’re my personal servant. If I treat you poorly, it makes me look weak as your master. Just think of it as my apology for failing to protect you from my brother.”
But did I offend him again? Locke suddenly raised his hand.
Reflexively, I let out a yelp and covered my head with both arms.
‘Why is he raising his hand so suddenly?! This scary guy…!’
“…A spider.”
“Huh? What? A spider? Augh!”
I thought he was going to hit me for talking nonsense after all the bullying, but that wasn’t it.
It was a relief, but the news of a spider wasn’t much better.
I absolutely loathed bugs!
The moment I heard “spider,” I shrieked, jumped up, and began shaking my body violently like a wet dog.
Locke watched me intently.
For a split second, his golden eyes seemed to waver.
I couldn’t tell if they actually did or if it just seemed that way because I was moving so frantically.
“Anyway, make sure to avoid my brother and sister. Them hurting you is an indirect insult to me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
We were on our way back to the mansion.
Since the seasons were shifting from spring to summer, the garden was overflowing with roses.
“You have said that six times now.”
“Can’t you just answer all six times? For my peace of mind.”
“……I will do so.”
“And what else did I say?”
“That if you suddenly become sharp-tongued, it is because you are in pain, and never because you hate me.”
“Good boy.”
I smiled with satisfaction as we walked through the rose-scented garden.
But my joy was short-lived.
My face hardened instantly at the sight that appeared before my eyes.
[Mission: Order your servant, Locke, to pick ten thousand thorny roses with his bare hands. Select one of the lines below.]
The thing I dreaded had finally happened.
I should have gone back without him.
I was so caught up in the fact that I’d finally opened a line of communication with Locke that I forgot what kind of missions triggered in this location.
‘Picking Roses’ was one of those missions with specific requirements that left no room for loopholes.
I wanted to avoid it at all costs.
‘Damn it.’
I looked back at Locke, who followed behind me.
His face, lost in thought, was bruised a deep purple, and his lips were torn with dried blood.
Through the gaps in his tattered clothes, I could see the raw welts from the whip.
Even if he had a stoic expression and defiant eyes, being tough didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
‘Sigh…’
I hesitated for a moment, but the choice was already made.
‘How could I do that to you again?’
With trembling fingers, I selected ‘Mission Forfeit.’
The second heart blinked before vanishing without a trace.
“Cough!”
A glob of blood erupted from my mouth.
Simultaneously, a pain like thousands of red-hot needles piercing my heart surged through me.
“Gasp…!”
The agony was so intense I couldn’t even scream.
I had experienced this several times.
I knew the pain was enough to wear away my very soul, yet I couldn’t bring myself to make the same choices as before.
The image of Locke from the original novel—drenched in blood so thick his wounds weren’t even visible because of this rose-picking mission—kept flickering in my mind.
I collapsed immediately, writhing on the dirt path.
The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was Locke’s cold gaze looking down at me.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my familiar antique bed.
[ ♥ ]
‘…I’m sick of this.’
I was back to the daily grind of trembling in fear of when I might die.
I stared blankly at my one remaining heart, lost in thought, when I noticed something strange.
On the table next to my bed sat a glass vase.
In the translucent, faintly blue vase was a single, fresh, elegant pink rose, just beginning to bloom.
The routine had changed.
The scenario had shifted.
It had been a week since I began enduring the aftermath of the failed mission.
Every day, a beautiful rose sat in the vase on my table.
‘It’s a different flower from yesterday.’
Flowers peak and then wither quickly.
Knowing this, looking at a full-bloom flower usually made me feel depressed.
It felt like my own situation—destined to die once the peak passed.
Every night before bed, I secretly hoped the rose wouldn’t wilt.
But this morning, the rose was still beautiful, greeting me as I woke.
Someone had clearly replaced it with a fresh one before it could wither.
At first, I thought a servant was trying to brighten the mood of my gloomy room.
“A flower? I thought you had ordered another servant to bring it, Young Master.”
The servant shook their head.
When I asked who brought it, the answer was always the same: they didn’t know.
It seemed someone was sneaking in while everyone else was asleep.
‘Who could it be?’
My mother, worried about her terminally ill son, ordered the servants to check on me periodically.
I was usually awake at the same times, so I knew most of the people who came by.
But I had no idea who visited while I was asleep or unconscious.
I briefly suspected Locke.
He was the one who entered my room most often, and I remembered complaining to him that my face was getting uglier.
‘Could he have given it out of pity?’
I wondered, but then I shook my head.
A person’s true nature comes out in extreme moments.
The coldness and cruelty I saw from Locke in my previous life were his true self.
He even described himself as an ugly, cruel monster—not even human—and he proved it right in front of me.
‘There’s no way. Pity is still a form of affection. If he were the type of person who could feel affection after a few short conversations, he wouldn’t have done what he did back then.’
He is a monster who feels no guilt after a slaughter. A man like that giving roses?
“That’s impossible.”
I erased that theory from my mind.
As I mentioned before, there is a culture here of using flowers to compliment someone’s appearance.
Pink flowers generally symbolize “You are the most beautiful person in the world.”
Of course, that’s a noble custom, so I wasn’t sure if a servant would know the meaning…
To think there was someone in this mansion who would give such a gift to a dying man and even go so far as to ensure I never had to see the flower wither.
This never happened in the past.
I tapped the rose with my fingertip.
The petals, dewy and full of life, swayed gently.
I pulled the corners of my mouth into a smile.
It was the first time I had laughed in the morning since being transmigrated.
The world inside the novel was boring.
My body was weak, so I couldn’t leave the mansion, and there were no phones or TVs.
However, being on my “second life” as Cedric, I had learned to appreciate the leisure of boredom.
I read romance novels from my mother’s room, and when that got dull, I watched the servants tend the garden from my window.
Occasionally, I would lock eyes with Locke.
Well, “locking eyes” sounds a bit strange… anyway, sometimes Locke would turn around as if sensing my gaze, and other times I would look away to avoid his murderous glare.
I still hadn’t figured out who was leaving the roses.
I tried staying up until dawn to find out, but my weak body gave out every time, falling into a deep sleep before the sun rose.
After a few failures, my curiosity began to fade.
Today, I brought another novel from my mother’s room—part of a trade shipment—and leaned back against my headboard.
“I knew this jerk was going to cheat. Seriously, why are the novels in this country all so trashy? People with money or power have zero integrity. Zero.”
I felt the urge to throw the book in frustration but held back.
It seemed like if it wasn’t a legend or a myth, the only thing to read was drama.
I sometimes wished I had friends my age, but it was practically impossible.
I was too weak for the hunting or horse riding they enjoyed.
How do you make friends without common ground?
Sure, I could use my status to force people to hang out, but that wouldn’t be a real friendship.
Knock, knock.
I shook off my thoughts and was about to go back to cursing the frustrating plot when someone knocked gently on the door.
A sudden chill ran down my spine—it was definitely Locke.
* * *
