Seeing as the idiot in the next seat and I seem to be bound by blood relations, before the words ‘execute that idiot and his entire clan’ can come out, I have to survive right now first.
The madman with golden eyes looked at me while raising one eyebrow as if he was seeing all sorts of bizarre situations.
I was extremely terrified by the incomprehensible situation, but I politely bowed my head in greeting.
“I had not heard that the second son of the Luces family was intelligent.”
“…I will prove it with results rather than words.”
“Hmph.”
The madman with golden eyes began to toy with the handle of the sword girt at his waist.
Even if it was a simple action with no intent behind it, it was entirely sufficient to induce terror in a fragile office worker who had been living in the 21st century.
He seemed to ponder for a moment, then finally opened his mouth.
“Very well. Let the son of Luces wait until I call for him. Let us dismiss this useless meeting now.”
With the word ‘dismissal’, the Emperor turned his back and left the room.
I felt as though I might have locked eyes with his golden pupils between his black hair, but it was only after the heavy meeting room door closed with a thud that my mind began to return to reality.
…What on earth did I just do.
‘I’m completely screwed.’
Top graduate of the Business Administration department at Hankook University.
A third-year employee currently serving in the Supernatural Ability Management Bureau after passing the Higher Administrative Examination.
That’s right, that’s me.
But this isn’t even the Republic of Korea, so what did a third-year nobody know about the economic situation of the Empire to go stepping forward like that?
There are no seniors or colleagues here to help me.
While I was swallowing tears internally, sinking into despair, the nobles who confirmed that the Emperor had left began to rise from their seats one by one, letting out sighs of relief.
“At least it ended peacefully today…”
“If we don’t want to end up like Baron Woodrick during the last meeting, we have to lie low, indeed.”
“Of all things, to get caught for slave trafficking, tsk. I don’t want to see people’s heads rolling anymore.”
“Who on earth wants to see heads rolling, man!”
“Since the current ruler chooses to do only the things the predecessor never did, honestly.”
The elderly nobles walked out of the meeting room while clicking their tongues.
Among them, a man called ‘Duke Vielba’ was walking out surrounded by other nobles, allowing me to guess who stood at the pinnacle of power among the nobles in the meeting room.
“Hey.”
“……?”
“I’ll see you later.”
The guy called ‘Young Duke Luces’ who had been trembling violently next to me brushed past, striking my shoulder while glaring with wide, crazed eyes.
Well, I never.
That side might have been looking at me continuously, but to receive this kind of treatment from a person I met about 10 minutes ago.
The nobles left one by one, and I, too, finally stepped outside the meeting room last.
As if the words to wait were real, an attendant who was waiting outside bowed his head to greet me.
“Young Master Ian Luces, I will escort you to a comfortable space.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
The attendant began to walk along the hallway without a word.
A floor made of pure white marble, a Victorian red carpet laid out on the floor, and the cold weather with swirling snow visible outside the window.
Even if it was an unrealistic matter, there was no mistake that the task immediately facing me was reality. I let out a sigh mixed with resignation and quickened my steps.
That’s right, I should slowly accept it now.
This wasn’t a dream, nor was it a dimension transport.
I had possessed someone.
Inside the angsty BL novel I was reading after leaving work.
It was unbelievable, but my acceptance was fast.
That was because my appearance reflected in the mirror inside the room was not the appearance of ‘Choi Doyoon.’
My surprise at the appearance of a man I was seeing for the first time in my life reflected in the mirror was only temporary; regaining my composure, I primarily needed proof that all these things were not a dream.
So I slapped my cheek with all my might…
Regrettably, it hurt tremendously.
To the point that tears welled up.
If it were a dream, it would be normal not to feel pain, you see.
I stared at the face of the unfamiliar man reflected in the mirror.
Although an unsightly handprint had been added, looking at it continuously, he seems to be quite good-looking.
Pale silver hair and green eyes. His eyes, which angled up sharply, were hidden and not revealed due to the bangs covering his forehead.
It quite blocks my vision and gets in the way, so I should cut this first.
‘He looks quite a bit like me.’
To be precise, he resembled me only in the part where dark circles hung all the way down under his eyes.
The despairing part was that the functional muscles I had been carefully cultivating all this time vanished into thin air, ta-da, the moment I possessed this body.
They were muscles I built while doing push-ups in my room just to survive at the workplace…
No, wait, didn’t they say I’m a duke’s son?
Is there any reason to get stressed?
Wasn’t it a position where I could just play around and eat comfortably using the Duke’s money?
Heavens, if I knew it would turn out like this, I would have read only bright and hopeful novels.
A web novel about handing in a resignation letter to a company you were attending well and just resting at a resort… probably doesn’t exist.
‘The Rose Grows in the Emperor’s Cage’ is an angsty novel where a fragile, flower-like protagonist dodges here and there to escape the Crown Prince’s obsession, only to get caught by all sorts of madmen in the world, repeating the cycle of escaping and running away.
The problem is that I can’t get a grasp on who exactly I have possessed.
‘Ian Luces? I’ve never heard of such a name.’
I quietly muttered my name, which the attendant had just told me, to myself.
Inside The Rose Grows in the Emperor’s Cage—or The Emperor’s Cage for short—Duke Luces was a villain determined to ruin the country during the ‘Emperor Leonel’ episode.
A wicked man who participated in the tyranny more actively than anyone else by the Emperor’s side.
In the novel, only Duke Luces’s name appears, not down to his sons…
Ian… Ian Luces.
Wait, come to think of it!
Since my job involved reading materials, memorizing them, and giving briefings, I tended to remember the contents I read quite well.
Even if someone told me right this moment to recite the information on the C-class gate that occurred last Monday, I had the confidence to recite it point by point without a single change in my expression in front of my boss.
Tracing back my memories, a scene I caught a glimpse of in the recent chapters suddenly came to mind.
‘When the administrative official’s head fell to the ground, Lucian screamed. Ian had only been trying to help me, after all. He had made countless attempts to escape from this crazy place, but failed every single time. Just when he was about to stop thinking because he was too exhausted after countless failures, he discovered a single note placed under his soup bowl.’
‘Come to the back door of the greenhouse garden.’
‘Though he hesitated, he informed him of a small passageway that some imperial officials occasionally used, and I was finally inflated with the dream that I could leave this place even if only for a short while. I did not know I would witness his death with my own eyes just a day after learning his name.’
Right.
I suspected as much, but it seems the ‘Ian’ mentioned here is indeed me.
In other words, my role in the novel was an administrative official, but I was an ill-fated extra whose neck got sliced off while cooperating with the flower protagonist’s escape.
