Fitting for a story with multiple male leads chasing one protagonist, the men in this novel completely lost their minds and turned obsessive the moment they laid eyes on him.
The male lead locking up the escaping protagonist for the nth time today was the tyrant of the Northern Empire, ‘Leonel de Valquia.’
There were two main reasons why he was called a tyrant.
First, he slaughtered his own parents and siblings to become emperor.
I don’t know the exact details, but I recall he killed his brothers because they suffered from fits of madness.
And second, he suffers from a ‘madness that drives him wildly aroused from time to time,’ which adds flair to a mature novel.
‘The readers only ever look forward to the madness scenes.’
The readers would leave praise in the comments, saying it was thrilling when the tyrant—usually described as abstinent and cold—loses his sanity and claims the protagonist like a beast.
However, as a civil servant who constantly has to stop awakened people when they lose self-control and engage in excessive guiding, those scenes honestly trigger my workplace trauma.
‘Well, looking at it in text form makes it purely erotic and nice, though.’
Anyway, in the newly uploaded chapter today, the protagonist, Lucian, was asking the Tower Master for help to escape from the crazy northern tyrant.
To be honest, I couldn’t really understand it.
I mean, why give up such a luxurious confinement and try to escape?
The male lead showers him with all kinds of diamonds, gems, and expensive food, while the protagonist just gets to rest in bed.
Sure, the tyrant is a lunatic who draws his sword whenever something displeases him, but as long as I don’t die, isn’t that fine?
‘Leonel grabbed Lucian’s slender ankle and pulled him close.
The iron shackle fastened around his white ankle followed, making a clanking sound.
Then, he thinks: If I break his ankles and blind both his eyes, will I be able to make him mine forever?
A pair of golden eyes glinted with madness.
He looks at his fragile lover, Lucian, with eyes resembling those of a beast.
Then, slowly, he presses his lips against Lucian’s. The kiss gradually deepened.’
However, I couldn’t read the next sentence because of a sudden phone call.
Ring ringing—
[Gate Management Team] Team Leader Park
“Yes, this is Choi Doyoon from the Ability Management Team.”
“Oh, Doyoon, I am so incredibly sorry for calling this late. A B-class gate just burst open near the main gate of the Ability Management Bureau, so our team is currently in an emergency. If things go wrong, our entire building could collapse… Could you send over a list of hunters and guides available for deployment by tomorrow morning? Our team is investigating the gate details right now, and we should be able to give you the data before you log in tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for your hard work at this late hour. I’ll check it and send it over as soon as I arrive at the office in the morning.”
“Uh-uh—thanks. Get some rest, I’ll hang up now.”
Whew, is there even a single department in the Ability Management Bureau that doesn’t get completely run into the ground?
The Gate Team was a department that had to investigate information related to a gate as early as possible before a Gate Break—meaning before monsters poured out of it—even if a gate occurrence was confirmed in the middle of the night.
Because of this, the staff belonging to the Gate Management Team were famous for setting up a rotation to pull dawn shifts.
‘Actually, is my situation better?’
Since I was a humanities student anyway, there was no way I’d be assigned to the Gate Management Team, which had the absolute worst work-life balance and where bioengineering and ecology majors were placed.
And since I was a business major, I ended up taking on government projects related to the gates as well, which doubled my workload, but there really is no other company that pays this well.
Let’s just sleep. There’s going to be a mountain of work waiting for me when I wake up anyway…!
Yeah, once I retire, a massive civil servant pension will be waiting for me. I have to stay alive and work until then.
The moment I closed my eyes, fatigue rushed in like a tidal wave, and for the first time in a long while, I fell into a very, very deep sleep.
[SYSTEM] Fatal Error Occurred!?
“Searching for cause.”
“Loading—”
“Searching for target subject.”
“Loading—”
‘What is this? Why isn’t my alarm going off?’
I definitely woke up, but the alarm I usually set didn’t ring.
Ever since I joined the company, the alarm was always ringing the moment I opened my eyes.
No, wait, did I even fall asleep in the first place?
When I came to my senses, I was sitting on a chair inside a very antique, Victorian-style room.
It was an exotically designed room, the kind you might see in a ‘European Culture and Space’ class that I vaguely remember taking as a college elective.
However, the surroundings are strangely quiet.
Dozens of people are sitting at a circular desk with their heads completely bowed.
With the intuition of a third-year employee, this flow of air was unmistakably the phenomenon that occurs when work has gone terribly wrong.
The kind of atmosphere where you finish your presentation and yell, “That is all,” but your team leader sets the presentation materials down with a thud, looking utterly dumbfounded.
What is this?
Work stress?
Did the presentation I did yesterday leave me traumatized?
I wrapped it up pretty well, though.
For work stress to come rushing in along with a strange European building all of a sudden.
Just as I was thinking it was a rare phenomenon, a low, growling voice struck my ears.
“Young Duke Luces. What is the reason we must increase the defense budget for the Luces fief?”
A voice as cold as frost settled low in the space.
Just like a meeting room cooling down to sub-zero temperatures after a comment from our team leader, a silence arrived where you could practically hear an ant crawling.
Only the single person singled out was continuing to speak while his hands trembled violently.
Hmm, and since he’s the guy sitting right next to me, I can see him very clearly.
“Th-that is, b-because the Duke… decided on this matter…”
“So the Young Duke does not know?”
“I, I heard that the frequency of magical beast appearances in the Luces fief… has increased.”
The person next to me, presumably the meeting villain, swallowed his spit as he continued to speak.
I thought to myself that I was having a remarkably realistic pipe dream.
At any rate, in a bad atmosphere like this, there is no choice but to wait quietly for the situation to pass without upsetting the superior.
It’s best not to even lock eyes.
Lowering your eyes and taking backward steps with a sly smile is the only way to ward off a mad dog.
“So, do all of you lords also mean to say that an additional defense budget is necessary?”
A displeased voice echoes from the seat of honor.
With the intuition of a third-year employee, if a boss double-checks what was said in this manner, you will not escape disaster.
