Chapter 37

“How does it feel? This is your first outing since arriving at my estate, is it not?”

“Well… considering I went to the Baron Merchant Guild, it would technically be the second—”

“You went there specifically to plunge yourself into Sir Disson’s trap. I hardly classify that as an ‘outing.'”

Grondil offered a bright, chilling smile. While technically traversing to the Baron Merchant Guild fit the dictionary definition of an outing, Grondil’s expression—smiling lips paired with dead, unsmiling eyes—made it terrifyingly clear that the event was to be permanently stricken from the record.

“Y-yes. It is m-my first.”

“I was informed you were raised in an orphanage before being confined at that estate. Following your escape, you wandered the slums before eventually enlisting in the Order of St. Margia.”

“That is correct.”

Grondil had succinctly summarized Lino’s long, arduous history of suffering. But why is he asking me when he already knows everything? Did he dig up something new to use against me? Is he trying to find an excuse to add more ‘punishments’?

Anxious, Lino’s eyes darted around the interior of the vehicle. His gaze landed on a mini-fridge generously embedded with mana stones. And it wasn’t just a fridge; equipped with air conditioning, a wine cellar, and luxurious amenities that utterly dwarfed the limousine he had ridden in with the Holy Knights, this vehicle was gliding forward without a single, perceptible vibration.

How did it come to this?

He had been on his way up to the second floor to wash up, exactly as Grondil had instructed. However, Enoch, whom he had assumed was busy conversing with the Duke, had been waiting for him.

‘Please wear this,’ Enoch had said, thrusting a cardboard box into Lino’s hands.

What is this? Does he want me to wear some bizarre outfit while we do it? As if his bedside manners weren’t appalling enough, now he’s introducing weird costumes…?

Accepting the box, Lino’s face had turned deathly pale. Coincidentally, in one of the videos he had watched yesterday, the actors had engaged in intercourse on a dining room table while one wore a ‘maid outfit’—a garment that blatantly lacked a skirt. Was that video specifically preparing me for right now?! Since he hadn’t been able to pay for the full video, he had only seen the preview, but the sight of a hairy, burly man stuffed into a perverted costume had been enough to permanently traumatize Lino’s aesthetic sensibilities.

‘Wear it and come down to the first floor.’

‘…Pardon? The first floor…? Wearing this?’

Lino’s voice had trembled like a leaf in the wind. He was already entirely convinced the box contained a bottomless maid outfit and crimson fishnet stockings. The instruction to wear it and descend to the first floor was a shock far more devastating than a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.

Does he plan to do it outdoors? Or does he want an audience?!

Lino’s imagination had violently spiraled out of control. Seeing his hands shaking uncontrollably as he clutched the box, Enoch had asked with genuine concern, ‘Are you still unwell? Shall I inform His Highness that we should postpone the morning excursion to tomorrow?’

‘…Excuse me? Morning… excursion?’

‘Yes, the morning excursion. Surely you are aware of it, Sir Cliff. It is the same morning schedule Sir Disson accompanied him on until recently.’

‘…’

Lino’s pale face had instantly flooded with heat. He felt like absolute garbage for immediately jumping to conclusions about outdoor exhibitionism and audience play. No, he was garbage.

“Given your history, I suppose you’ve never had the opportunity to enjoy a leisurely sightseeing trip like this before,” Grondil’s deep, resonant voice dragged Lino back to reality.

Banishing the mortifying memory of his near-fatal misunderstanding, Lino nodded vigorously. “It is my first time.”

“How did you spend your days in the slums?” Grondil suddenly inquired about Lino’s past. The Duke clearly possessed an intense curiosity regarding a lifestyle he had never, and could never, experience.

The slums. The slums, huh. What did I do there?

“In the slums…”

Lino cast his mind back to a time long past. The slums. The shantytowns. A designated criminal hotzone. Recalling his wretched existence in that place made it difficult to open his mouth.

“Um… must you hear about it?” Lino attempted to gently deflect. It’s nothing good. Do you really need to hear it? Protect your ears. Ask something else. It was a genuine attempt at consideration for the Duke’s sensibilities.

However, Grondil ruthlessly crushed Lino’s consideration with a refreshingly bright smile.

“Yes. I am very curious to know what you did to survive there.”

Since His Highness demanded it, Lino had to say something, but he genuinely had nothing to share. He had experienced a great deal, but absolutely none of it would be remotely interesting to Grondil.

His time in the slums had been so horrific that it marked the only period in his life where he actively regretted escaping Baron Haklan. In that wretched place, alcohol, narcotics, fraud, and assault were mundane daily occurrences; kidnappings, human trafficking, rape, and murder happened a minimum of three times a week. For Lino, whose entire knowledge of the outside world came from books, surviving the slums was far more difficult than trying to dig through frozen earth with bare hands in the dead of winter.

I suppose I should start with the most mundane thing. Fidgeting with the hands resting politely on his knees, Lino spoke slowly, dredging up old memories.

“Well… firstly, I was beaten a lot.”

“Beaten? By whom?”

“By practically everyone in the slums. I was much smaller then, so I was constantly beaten by anyone larger than me.”

“Did they beat you for no reason?”

Intrigued by the grim tale, Grondil slid closer, pressing his side against Lino’s. Frankly, in the Duke’s eyes, Lino didn’t look particularly large or imposing now, but since the knight was making a point to distinguish his past from his present, Grondil let it slide. He supposed the boy could have been even weaker back then, easily turning into the neighborhood punching bag.

“Because I was wearing high-quality clothes. Because the soles of my shoes weren’t worn out. Because I had no calluses on my hands. Because my skin was too pale. Because they didn’t like the look in my eyes. Because my hair color was too flashy. Because I looked like a whore… If you strung any words together, it became a valid reason to beat me.”

“A whore… A whore, you say.”

Muttering the final reason Lino had listed, Grondil stared intently at the knight’s face. His gaze was blatantly searching for features that might justify the derogatory label. Desperately ignoring the highly uncomfortable scrutiny, Lino pivoted to a different topic.

“I also had everything I owned stolen. I managed to sneak out a few valuables when I escaped the Baron’s estate, but the very moment I set foot in the slums, I was stripped clean. Not just my outer clothes, but my underwear and socks as well. I lived completely naked for quite a while.”

“Naked?”

Grondil’s scrutinizing gaze, which had been analyzing Lino’s face for whorish traits, immediately dropped to his crotch. Irrationally terrified that the Duke might suddenly grope the member currently sleeping peacefully between his legs, Lino snapped his thighs tightly together.

“I-I made sure to keep my crucial areas properly covered… at all times.”

“Hmm. And then?”

“Pardon?”

“Keep going. The slums sound quite entertaining.”

“Haha…” Lino laughed awkwardly. Just thinking about that time was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat.

“While you were running around naked, did no one try to touch you?”

I knew it. The dreaded, entirely predictable question had arrived. Offering another awkward chuckle, Lino answered honestly.

“At that time, I looked so incredibly wretched that I doubt a single person harbored any desire to touch me. I was so emaciated that a light shove would have knocked me over.”

“Emaciated?” Grondil sounded genuinely perplexed. “He adopted you for a specific purpose, so I highly doubt he starved you. Did you intentionally starve yourself?”

“Ah… the food at the estate was actually quite decent. However, the only viable escape route out of the manor was exceptionally narrow. I had to endure quite a bit of hardship to force my body to fit through that gap. Still, my divine power was abundant back then, so I didn’t suffer from malnutrition. The real problem began after I escaped. I had no money, no identification… I had to travel on foot, but I couldn’t use the main roads out of fear they would immediately track me down. So, I blindly navigated through back alleys. I got chased by thugs, hid in forests… and eventually, that led me to the slums.”

Lino had deliberately dragged out the story of his journey to the slums, hoping the limousine would either reach their destination or Grondil would naturally change the subject. However, the exact moment Lino finished speaking, Grondil pounced.

“So, aside from being beaten in the slums, what else did you do?”

“……”

“Go on. I know the slums are a brutal place, but I have only ever heard stories. Having never seen it myself, I am very curious.”

“If you are that curious, why don’t you visit the area yourself…?” Lino fired back, finally gathering a sliver of courage. Wasn’t seeing it once far superior to hearing it described a hundred times?

“Ah, while I acknowledge that firsthand experience is superior, I absolutely detest filth.”

“I see.”

Earlier, you reprimanded me for my ‘deeply ingrained class prejudices’, yet now you refuse to visit the slums because they are ‘filthy’. Lino desperately wanted to call out the hypocrisy, but remembering his own initial shock upon entering the slums, he swallowed the critique.

It was dirty, foul-smelling, entirely devoid of manners, and overwhelmingly violent. Of course, even at rock bottom, there were people who survived by supporting and relying on each other, but even they possessed fundamentally rough, hardened dispositions.

For Lino, who had endured immense psychological torment but relatively little physical hardship prior to his escape, struggling to adapt to the grueling reality of the slums was inevitable.

“Did you participate in criminal activities, Sir Cliff? Murder, kidnapping, narcotics, rape… that sort of thing,” Grondil asked, his eyes gleaming with morbid fascination.

He didn’t actually believe Lino had committed those crimes. A single glance told him his escort knight wasn’t the type to dirty his hands with such troublesome, high-effort endeavors. Murder, arson, and kidnapping all required meticulous planning and coordination. What use would a slum dweller have for kidnapping another slum dweller? It only made sense to kidnap someone from a wealthy family for ransom.

Murder also required a certain level of skill. The Lino of that era had been skin and bones, and it was impossible that he had enjoyed three square meals a day in the slums, rendering murder highly unlikely.

As for narcotics or rape… given Lino’s disastrous reaction to the aphrodisiac at the Baron Merchant Guild’s underground auction and his spectacularly clumsy performance in bed, it was blatantly obvious he had never even entertained the idea.

“I absolutely, categorically, never even considered doing such things,” Lino stated firmly. “I simply cleaned and looked after kids.”

“Kids…? You mean children? You did childcare?”

Cleaning is one thing, but childcare? The completely unexpected revelation caused Grondil’s eyes to widen in genuine surprise.

“Sir Cliff, do not tell me… you are already married and have a child…”

“Ah, no! It wasn’t my child—!”

Desperate to shut down Grondil’s bizarre misunderstanding before it took root, Lino instinctively yelled, only to catch himself and shake his head with a heavy sigh.

“Haa… It wasn’t my child. I looked after the children of the women who sold their bodies… ahem, sold themselves in the slums. It wasn’t exactly extensive childcare, just changing diapers and feeding them formula. For the slightly older kids, I taught them how to read and write.”

“By the way, Sir Cliff.”

“Yes.”

“I have something I am truly curious about. Will you answer me honestly?”

Grondil tilted his head, leaning down slightly to meet Lino’s eyes at eye level. The request, delivered in that deep, resonant voice, sounded incredibly sweet, yet it carried an undeniable, suffocating undercurrent of coercion.

It was a pressure that practically screamed: You do not have the option of refusing.

“…What is it?” Lino forced the words out, trying to keep his voice steady despite the terrifying sensation that an invisible predator was about to clamp its jaws around his throat.

“I know I was your first man, but you must have rolled around with plenty of women there, didn’t you?”