Slap!
The moment I returned to the mansion, Duke Luces slapped me across the face without warning.
With a loud cracking sound, my head whipped to the right.
The idiot who had cowered at the Emperor’s single word during the meeting was now standing proudly beside the Duke, sneering at me with pure delight.
“I heard everything from Chrome. You dared to drag the reputation of the Young Duke of Luces through the mud.”
“….”
“Is it really that difficult of a request to live like you are dead, as if you don’t even exist?”
‘Ah, so that’s what it was.’
So, the author of ‘The Golden Birdcage’ must have really loved the plotlines of Korean makjang dramas, filled with affairs, illegitimate children, and falling in love at first sight.
It looked like Ian Luces was an illegitimate child.
Even as I sighed inwardly, I tried to humor the furious Duke so I wouldn’t provoke him any further.
“…I am sorry. I was foolish.”
“I sent you there telling you to keep your mouth shut and serve them well, and yet… Butler, lock that fellow away and do not give him a single drop of water!”
“Yes, come this way, Young Master!”
The butler dragged me away with a sigh, as if this wasn’t the first or second time something like this had happened.
Even as we walked down the wide corridor, I could feel the mocking gazes of the servants working in the grand mansion.
Ian Luces, just what kind of life have you been living?
Held like a criminal, I passed through the grand marble corridor, walked down the basement stairs, and arrived in front of a very small door.
“Go on in. I will let you out when the Duke allows it.”
The butler pushed my back into the room. I could only stare blankly with my own two eyes as the door shut before I could even say a word.
“It’s locked.”
I pulled at the door from the inside, but it really seemed to be locked from the outside.
This is insane.
There goes my plan of playing and eating well under the status of the Duke’s second son.
Once I get out of here, should I secretly sneak out of the mansion and prostrate myself at the Imperial Palace, begging them to please accept me as an official?
Still, even though this was the smallest and most shabby room in the grand mansion, it was much wider than my tiny five-pyeong studio apartment back home.
Well, it was hard to call a dusty room covered in cobwebs comfortable, though.
At least the bed looked soft.
Dragging my exhausted body, I collapsed onto the bed, practically falling into it.
“Oof, my aching body.”
Now that all the noise was gone and I was left alone, reality finally started to sink in.
I thought I would wake up today, do my work at the office all day long, and then go home.
But from the very first day of being dragged into an alternate world without Wi-Fi, I faced death threats and even got slapped by someone I had never seen before.
“If I tell the Hunters about this later, they’ll ask if I was dreaming.”
I remembered the words of Hunter Kim Juwon, who was the first person to ever introduce me to web novels.
“Manager Choi, you know, what if I were to fall into some alternate world? Then the very first thing I’d do is shout, ‘Status Window!’ Who knows? Maybe I’ll have a setting like a rank-up type Hunter who gets stronger the more skills he uses.”
“Hunter-nim, you don’t need a status window like a novel to be fine. Why does an A-rank psychokinetic user want game skills on top of that?”
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to be the strongest in an alternate world, right? S-rank gates could suddenly pop up one after another there.”
“…Please don’t say such things, even as a joke.”
“Ugh… I’d hate it too. If I used my abilities there and came back, my dedicated Guide wouldn’t let me go for at least a week. No, Manager, speaking of which, can’t he be disciplined for excessive guiding? I’m telling you, the day after I get a level 8 overload judgment and receive guiding, I can’t walk at all. He doesn’t get tired day or night.”
“I don’t think I need to know that much…”
Right.
Even if it wasn’t a world where gates erupted, I had still dropped into a world where gate monsters roamed around anyway.
How could a regular person with no physical power or supernatural abilities survive without feeling sorrowful?
“It would be convenient if I had something like a status window too.”
The moment I finished my miserable monologue, a sound like a smartphone notification rang in my ears.
Even though there was no way a phone could be here.
Ding-
[SYSTEM]
Unread Message: 1
A holographic message floated in the air.
I stared at the popup window, which looked exactly like something you would see in a real game.
“What is this? Is this real?”
I reached out my hand to try and touch the hologram, but I couldn’t really feel it.
An unread message?
How am I supposed to view that?
Thud, thud-
“Hey, are you in there?”
An unpleasant voice was heard along with the sound of someone kicking the door.
Since I didn’t take any action, the holographic message floating before my eyes slowly vanished from my sight.
“Are you not answering?”
The locked door opened with a clicking sound, and the idiot from this morning showed his face.
Given that I was locked up, that bastard entering this room was not a very good sign.
“What is business?”
“Hey, why are you acting so strange? Did you eat something wrong? You couldn’t even look me in the eye before, but now you’re staring right at me.”
The guy seemed completely irritated because I wasn’t groveling.
Since the real Ian Luces grew up in this kind of environment, it was obvious he couldn’t look people in the eye and couldn’t speak properly.
“…”
I looked at him without a word.
If they were brothers, they should have looked alike, but unlike Ian, who had sharp and sensitive features, this lazy noble bastard was buried in fat, likely from only eating and never exercising.
Did I really have to mingle words with a guy like that? Did I have to live under the same roof?
“If you only came to pick a fight, why are you here?”
“Wow, you’ve really gone mad, haven’t you?”
The one who is mad must be you, the lunatic who doesn’t even read the data properly when reporting.
Before I could move my lips to speak, his fleshy hand suddenly grabbed the collar of my shirt.
The fragile body of Ian Luces was helplessly dragged by the strength of the larger man.
Disgustingly, he brought his mouth close to my ear, forcing his unpleasant voice right into my ear canal.
“Or are you doing this on purpose to turn me on?”
“……?”
His round face came closer and closer.
Was it just my imagination that his fingertips seemed to strangely brush down my waist as he grabbed me?
‘No, it’s not an imagination.’
His thick hand gradually moved lower and lower along the thin shirt wrapping around my waist.
The moment his repulsive lips were about to touch my cheek even for a split second, I made up my mind. I chose violence.
Smack-
I punched the lunatic right in his philtrum with all my might.
The Supernatural Ability Management Team of the Supernatural Ability Bureau had to control ability users in case of emergency situations.
That meant, in an emergency, several civil servants had to be able to suppress an ability user with physical force.
It was a self-defense technique I learned to prepare for such situations.
“Th-this bastard…”
“What, you didn’t pass out? Ruined body.”
Thud-
Only after throwing a second jab did the molester collapse onto the dirty floor with a heavy thud.
