As I lay there blankly staring at the two cards side by side, I suddenly sensed someone approaching.
Shifting my gaze, I saw Lucian quietly kneeling down right in front of me, bowing his head.
“What are you doing?”
That intensely loyal, servant-like posture was something else.
Lucian looking up at me from his kneeling position felt strangely, eerily natural. He maintained his soft smile, speaking in a calm, steady voice.
“You may keep that as well.”
“……What?”
Pulling myself up to look down at him, Lucian placed one hand over his chest and bowed his head slightly.
“What is mine belongs to the Master, so it was never truly mine to begin with.”
“No, what are you even—.”
Then you spending my card on clothes counts as a beauty budget?
I stared at him in utter disbelief.
However, Lucian’s expression remained completely calm.
“Whenever the Master is faced with a choice that feels too difficult to bear, please feel free to use my help whenever you need it.”
“My credit card bill for this month?”
“You may pay it with that.”
……Somehow, this feels increasingly sketchy.
That smile felt inexplicably uneasy, but I couldn’t bring myself to press him any further.
Honestly, I didn’t have the energy to argue right now, and above all, finishing the gukbap brought a wave of heavy drowsiness crashing over me.
Sighing, I handed the character-printed card back to him and muttered.
“Fine. You use my card too. But there’s a limit, so spend reasonably.”
A black card versus a poor college student’s card.
No matter how you looked at it, Lucian was getting the short end of the stick.
At that moment, Lucian’s crimson eyes flickered.
After a short silence, he let out a low chuckle and bowed his head.
“Thank you for your generosity, Master.”
I tried hard to brush off the ominous creeping sensation slithering up my spine, but that unpleasant vibe only grew stronger.
Eventually, I pushed myself up, trying to shake off the feeling and get moving.
Leaving the sofa, I sat down at the table, wrapped up the movie I had been watching earlier, and started working on Ludger’s report.
Replaying the scenes from the screen in my head, I brought the final sentence to a close with a period, then stretched my arms out long and yawned.
Right then, an unexpected presence stirred behind my back.
……Eek.
A chilling sensation grazed against my cheek.
Goosebumps instantly erupted all over my skin.
Hurriedly turning around, I saw Lucian holding the report in one hand with a smile, wondering when he had even picked it up.
At the same time, he casually flicked a knife, peeling a piece of fruit right in his hand.
……He could do that with one hand?
My cheek almost got peeled off right along with the fruit.
“Was that professor a chancellor?”
He tilted his head slightly, lightly shaking the report.
“Uh-huh—”
“Did you attend his lectures, too?”
“It was pretty fun, in its own way.”
“The report is brilliant, but if I may offer a piece of advice, it might be good to approach it from a different perspective.”
“What?”
Hearing Lucian, I looked back down at the report.
The core content had been focused on an analysis centered around laws becoming the judge.
“Chancellors are naturally deeply impressed by things that catch them off guard.”
Lowering the report onto the table, Lucian quietly added a single remark.
“If you want to get a top score, adding a slightly different angle will make it even more flawless.”
That threw me into deep thought.
What I had written leaned close to the standard justice-fulfillment narrative: laws driving out corrupt authorities and justice being realized in a courtroom.
Chewing on Lucian’s advice, I picked up my pen once more.
Ludger’s lectures centered on viewing law in politics as a thoroughly neutral tool.
In other words, the stance was that law is inherently neither good nor evil; depending on how one wields it, it can become either a weapon or a shackle.
I decided to take it a step further.
Law is a tool to begin with?
Then, to prevent law from becoming a weapon, who should control the law itself?
If the conventional legal-philosophical view was that law is a neutral tool whose function ultimately varies depending on the user, I approached it from the opposite direction.
Then, how do we make sure law isn’t used merely as a tool?
If law is to function not just as a weapon or a shield, but as a self-balancing system in its own right, shouldn’t we shift our focus away from solely looking at ‘the person wielding the law’ and instead change the very existence and framework of the law itself?
I developed my argument around the perspective of establishing a fluid system for when those who operate the law become corrupt.
To prevent law from degrading into a tool that can be exploited by a specific class, the structure shouldn’t be fixed; it must evolve according to necessity and possess a form of self-renewal.
Midway through writing the report, I suddenly paused.
Then what about the world we live in right now?
If law isn’t just a simple tool, but the structural framework that constitutes society itself, what if a moment arrives where the law undergoes a transformation—does that not signify the birth of a new society?
If signs of that change become visible, how should those who perceive it react?
When the law changes, in what direction will the world that sustained that law move forward?
As I polished the revised content to the very end, a faint smile of satisfaction crossed my face.
Lucian picked the report back up, flipping through page by page before quietly nodding.
“Splendid, Master.”
“……You think so?”
It still felt nerve-wracking.
The concept completely contradicted the lecture Ludger had given.
On top of that, I had zero formal legal knowledge.
Cedric would probably snort in derision if he saw this.
Still, I had no regrets.
“I’m quite curious how the chancellor will evaluate this.”
He added with a low chuckle.
“It’s far too flawless beyond my expectations…… the chancellor might just take a personal interest in the Master.”
An instinctive wave of repulsion washed over me at those words.
……Take an interest? No, why?!
Whether that interest meant wanting to turn me into a graduate student or harboring romantic affection, I rejected both with a hard pass.
Furthermore, emotional entanglement was the last thing I wanted.
Getting tangled up with the Crown Maker male leads was supposed to be a temporary, passing phase.
I had zero desire to get any deeper or more complicated than this.
A vague sense of foreboding brushed past me, but I had no intention of rewriting a report I had already finished.
Shaking my head, I let out a tired sigh.
“Whatever, that’s enough. I’m going to sleep.”
As I tried to push myself up from my seat, Lucian suddenly wore a meaningful expression and spoke.
“Then, sweet dreams, Master.”
An eerie chill crept down my spine.
Leaving the lingering, unpleasant unease behind, I headed straight to my bedroom.
And—
“……Fucking hell.”
My bed had been changed.
To be exact, it had been upgraded to a queen-size bed.
“Lucian, you son of a—.”
Seething with rage, I pulled out my phone.
[Queen’s Department Store Romantic Bed: -2,190,000 KRW]
My hands trembled violently.
What even is this?
smh, i told you not to fall for those tiddies, seohyun….now look at ya, you gave him your card again, and now hes spending your hard earned money once more…. v_v