Chapter 11

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Lino had initially assumed Baron Haklan adopted him because he possessed the divine power that the Baron’s firstborn, Iscazel Noth Haklan, lacked.

However, specifically hunting down an obscure orphanage in the absolute middle of nowhere was highly suspicious. While an orphan possessing divine power like Lino wasn’t exactly common, with a bit of time and a hefty sum of money, one could easily be found.

There must have been plenty of children with far better backgrounds than me.

Furthermore, the daily routine forced upon Lino at the Haklan estate was incredibly bizarre. He naturally expected to be educated in the refinement and etiquette required of the nobility. Yet, he was never taught a single stance of swordsmanship—an absolutely fundamental requirement for any male aristocrat.

Locking me in a room from the very beginning was already incredibly shady.

Setting the lack of swordsmanship aside, the noble refinement and etiquette Lino was forced to learn leaned bizarrely toward the feminine. How to properly tilt his head, the exact angle to cast his gaze downward, the delicate speed at which to accept an offered hand, how to compose high-society letters, how to act as a supportive spouse managing the household interior, the proper attitude when managing servants, the virtues required of a party hostess… At a glance, it seemed like standard aristocratic education, but Lino constantly found himself questioning, Why the hell does a man need to learn this?

In modern society, enforcing strictly gendered education invited fierce criticism for being anachronistic. However, the reality was that no social class was as profoundly detached from modern reality as the nobility. Just a decade ago, it was an unwritten rule that women attending aristocratic parties had to wear excessively voluminous, physically restrictive dresses.

Regardless, Lino was never explicitly ordered to wear a dress or anything quite so overt, but he was systematically instilled with the refinement expected of a noblewoman. Having grown up in an orphanage completely ignorant of aristocratic customs, Lino never questioned the curriculum he was being fed. He only realized the horrifying truth the year he finally ran away.

Having successfully escaped his locked room during the coming-of-age celebration for Iscazel Noth Haklan, the Baron’s eldest son, Lino watched the female nobles dancing with the male aristocrats. It was then he realized the social dances he had spent days agonizing over were the female steps, not the male ones.

“Hah… I should have realized it way sooner.”

Recalling that moment made him grind his teeth with a harsh grrrk. He raised a hand, pressing the back of it firmly against his eyelids. Despite the study being maintained at an optimal temperature, the skin of his eyelids felt feverishly hot against his knuckles.

When he first realized the dances he’d learned were meant for women, Lino shoved the shock aside, terrified of being caught outside his room, and frantically scurried back. In truth, rather than profound shock, a deeply unsettling revulsion dominated his thoughts: Why the hell was I, a man, taught how to dance as the woman? Once safely back in his room, he forcefully regained his composure and meticulously analyzed everything he had been taught over the years.

Seventy percent of the curriculum was exclusively for women. Twenty percent was gender-neutral etiquette required of any noble. The remaining ten percent consisted of the sophisticated, intimate considerations required of a male aristocrat’s wife—specifically focusing on pregnancy, childbirth, and meticulous postpartum body care.

Were they planning to sell me off as a male concubine to some decrepit old billionaire or perverted noble…?

While having a male lover wasn’t considered a massive scandal these days, it certainly wasn’t welcomed with open arms. Societal pressure prevented blatant ostracization, but the hushed whispers and pointing fingers behind closed doors remained as vicious as ever. Naturally, one would expect the nobility—who praised outdated, rigid traditions as “high culture”—to be the most fiercely exclusive against same-sex relationships. Yet, bizarrely, same-sex relations were most fiercely active among the upper echelons of society.

Political marriages to secure various advantages between families was a time-honored tradition dating back to antiquity. However, if the power dynamic was too heavily skewed, it ceased to be a marriage and became a one-sided tribute. Rather than sacrificing precious, legitimate bloodlines to such tributes, it became terrifyingly common practice to pluck a pretty orphan off the streets, superficially adopt them into the family, groom them like livestock, and use them as disposable political pawns.

Consequently, Lino had heard rumors of specialized grooming programs designed exclusively for these adopted pawns. While girls were far more commonly adopted for this purpose than boys, it made terrifying sense that a curriculum for male adoptees existed as well.

I just don’t get it. Even if I accept all the other twisted bullshit, there’s absolutely no reason I needed to learn about pregnancy and childbirth. Unless I was supposed to be a fucking midwife.

Because that specific education was reserved for the very end of his curriculum, Lino’s mind had been a swirling vortex of confusion even as he memorized the material. And thinking about it now, the confusion remained entirely unresolved.

“Maybe he was just an absolute fucking lunatic.”

Rather than overcomplicating things, Lino simply concluded that Baron Haklan—contrary to his pristine public scholarly image—was a clinically insane bastard. Even if he brought in an orphan to use as a disposable pawn, there was absolutely no logical reason to keep him locked in a room for eight solid years.

And it wasn’t just confinement and surveillance. The neglect and verbal abuse were constant, and physical assaults from the “Young Master” (Iscazel had beaten Lino until both his cheeks split open merely for calling him “Brother”) were relentless. While the Baron never personally threw a punch, he never once reprimanded or stopped his biological son, making him utterly complicit in the abuse.

Lino didn’t care which decrepit old noble they were planning to sell him to; he was sick and tired of wasting mental energy on that lunatic. However, as long as the Baron continued hunting for him, Lino couldn’t afford to drop his guard. Whenever he occasionally heard whispers from the information brokers he dealt with—Hey, I hear Baron Haklan is looking for a fully grown man now?—he would be consumed by such paralyzing anxiety he’d bite his short fingernails until they bled for months on end.

Still, I can’t just sit here trembling in fear because that bastard scares me.

Clenching his fists, Lino leaped up and sat properly. He returned the folklore book he had chosen purely out of interest to its shelf and began selecting books necessary for sheer survival.

Starting tomorrow, it’s intense training. If I stay complacent and get caught, I’m the only one who suffers.

Having monopolized the study for an entire month, Lino already knew exactly how the library was categorized. He flawlessly pulled out the volumes he needed, stacking them neatly on his arm. How to Avoid Freezing to Death in the Snowfields, Surviving the Jungle, Starting a Fire Without Flint, Digging for Food, Winning Without Weapons… Anyone observing him would assume he was meticulously preparing to be stranded in the wilderness in the immediate future.

Arms loaded with a new stack of books, Lino returned to the mattress, hugged a cushion to his chest, and dove face-first into his reading. Once this escort detail was over, he planned to formally resign from the Order of St. Margia, pass through the Cartia Empire, and eventually—no matter how long it took—make his way to Isberg.

Because Isberg was an unfathomably freezing domain, studying snowfield survival was an absolute necessity. If Baron Haklan managed to track him down before he reached Cartia, Lino planned to flee to the Derma Empire instead. Since the Derma Empire was covered in dense tropical jungles, he needed to master jungle survival as well. 

Foraging for food in a jungle will be easy, but a snowfield seems impossible… Should I learn how to make beef jerky too?

Magic has been entirely replaced by incredible scientific advancements, so why haven’t they invented a pill that replaces a day’s worth of meals? Foraging is so damn tedious.

Honestly, if this is the peak of science, they should have stuck with researching magic. Why did the ancients reject magic anyway? Did they get severely burned by it or something?

Initially deeply focused on the survival texts, Lino’s thoughts soon derailed, sparking a chain of entirely unrelated questions that dragged him far away from the subject matter.

During his eight years of captivity at the Haklan estate, Lino had gained exactly one benefit: he was able to partially satiate the burning curiosity he had been forced to suppress. Having devoured every pathetic excuse for a book in the orphanage, Lino compensated for his inability to read freely by feeding his ravenous curiosity.

Naturally, the vast majority of his questions pertained to Isberg, and he managed to resolve about ten percent of those mysteries during his time at the estate. If he had been granted access to the Baron’s main study, he would have learned significantly more, but confined to his room, he was restricted to whatever books were periodically handed to him. Still, it was better than nothing. Recalling how he had lived feeling immensely grateful for those scraps, a short, bitter sigh slipped from Lino’s lips.

Hey, you crazy bastard. You really outdid yourself. To be treated like livestock and actually feel grateful for it… you’re the real fucking lunatic.

Scolding his pathetic younger self, Lino snapped shut the survival book he hadn’t actually been reading. Continuously dredging up vile memories from the past was giving him a throbbing headache. Taking a short break seemed like the best option.

“Hmm…”

Rolling onto his back, he closed his eyes and took a deep, deliberate breath. Inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly, he forced himself to banish the dark memories. He wouldn’t forget them. Forgetting meant lowering his guard, and lowering his guard meant being dragged back to the Baron’s dungeon.

But when it’s time to rest, resting properly is vital for my mental health.

Lino moved his hands from his feverish eyelids and firmly massaged his throbbing temples. Then, he obediently rested both hands on his stomach. Having skipped breakfast with only an apple and eaten absolutely nothing by lunchtime, his stomach felt caved in, prompting him to rub it gently.

Slowly, his hands drifted up to his chest, patting it rhythmically. Pat, pat. It was hilarious that a habit he had completely forgotten while sharing a room with Rodic at St. Margia had aggressively resurfaced after just one month of sleeping alone.

I really need to fix this.

It was a childish habit that would instantly invite ridicule if anyone saw him. Yet, for Lino, if he didn’t soothe himself like this, he found it impossible to easily fall asleep in a massive, isolating room where absolutely no one cared about his existence.

He hadn’t felt this way at the orphanage, where several children were crammed into a tiny, bustling room. This deeply ingrained trauma was entirely the result of eight years of absolute solitary confinement at the Haklan estate.

Well, no one’s watching anyway, so who cares? I can’t sleep if I don’t do this. Squeezing his eyes shut, Lino rhythmically patted his chest. I’ll just lie down for exactly two hours and then get up. He had even meticulously set an alarm on his phone.

Just as his patting arm began to tingle slightly, Lino’s consciousness slowly began sinking beneath the surface of sleep. Had someone else been patting him, he likely would have passed out the second he closed his eyes. It took a little time to drift off, but surrounded by the study’s comforting, faint scent of old paper, he soon slipped into a profound, heavy slumber from which no amount of shaking could wake him.

It’s hot.

Didn’t I fall asleep in the study? This place is maintained at the absolute optimal temperature and humidity by mana stones, so why is it so damn hot?

Did someone move me to my room while I was sleeping?

But it’s the middle of summer. There’s no way the heating is turned on.

As the questions relentlessly multiplied, Lino tried to open his eyes to verify his surroundings. Yet, inexplicably, his eyelids refused to budge. More accurately, only a microscopic fraction of his consciousness had awakened; his physical body remained utterly crushed beneath the crushing weight of sleep, rendering him entirely paralyzed. Trapped in a hazy, suffocating lethargy, he could barely string his thoughts together.

Is this… a dream…? Having rarely experienced dreams regardless of how deeply he slept, Lino couldn’t definitively distinguish whether the oppressive heat he was feeling was reality or a hallucination.

He struggled desperately to push himself up, but his limbs refused to obey, resulting only in a faint, pathetic whimper escaping his lips. However, his desperate struggle wasn’t entirely in vain; his face, pressed hard against whatever he was lying on, shifted slightly. Simultaneously, Lino realized the surface pressing against his cheek was scalding hot and impossibly soft.

I’m definitely lying face-down on top of something right now. With a mind heavily saturated by sleep, Lino barely managed to assess his current state. He remembered falling asleep in the study. He had definitely lain down on the mattress in the lounge area. Yet bizarrely, the texture brushing against his cheek lacked the synthetic softness of a mattress or a cushion. It wasn’t a rug or a carpet either. What the hell is this? Wait… don’t tell me… did Baron Haklan catch me while I was sleeping?!

I’ve been caught— The terrifying realization violently whipped across Lino’s consciousness. Tragically, the sleep paralysis continued to crush his body with leaden weight. He fought to open his eyes, but only his eyelashes fluttered frantically. Fortunately, his desperate attempts to wake up yielded a tiny victory: he could faintly twitch the tips of his fingers.

Lino frantically rubbed his fingers against the surface to identify exactly where he was lying. Because Baron Haklan hailed from the freezing Hestin Kingdom, he frequently laid massive animal pelts across his floors. If what his fingers were brushing against right now was a thick pelt, the probability that he had been kidnapped by the Baron skyrocketed to…

Grrrrr—

The low, vibrating rumble of a beast erupted from terrifyingly close. Simultaneously, a deep, rhythmic vibration transferred directly through his cheek and chest. Is-is this an earthquake? Or perhaps an explosion had rocked the foundation of the building.

As he weighed the possibilities of earthquakes and explosions, Lino realized the surface his hands were touching was moving slowly, rhythmically.

…What the hell? Why is this thing moving?

It wasn’t just the area beneath his hands. Because he was lying face-down, his cheek, shoulders, chest, stomach, and legs were all slowly, steadily rising and falling. More accurately, Lino’s entire body was being smoothly lifted and lowered in perfect synchronization with the breathing of whatever unidentified entity he was lying on top of.

It’s way too hot to be the floor during an earthquake. It feels exactly like I’m lying on top of a massive beast.

The scalding heat radiating from beneath the incredibly soft fur, combined with the slow, rhythmic rising and falling, violently dragged Lino’s briefly awakened consciousness back down into the suffocating depths of sleep.

No, I can’t. Wake up. Think about where you are right now…

He desperately wanted to slap his own cheek to jolt himself awake, but he only had microscopic control over his hands and feet. If that’s the case…

Lino’s lips twitched clumsily. If I can move my extremities, I should be able to move my lips. Fortunately, they obeyed. His tongue moved as well. Sluggishly, Lino maneuvered his tongue between his teeth and clenched his jaw with everything he had. If this is a dream, it won’t hurt. If it’s reality, the pain will wake me up.

Ugh…!

The sickening crunch echoed inside his mouth and scraped against his eardrums.

It hurts. 

Truthfully, he had leaned slightly more toward the “dream” hypothesis, prompting him to bite down with absolute, merciless force. Instantly, hot liquid pooled in his mouth. He could feel the fluid leaking from the corner of his lips, parted slightly from the sharp agony. Without even looking, he knew it was blood pouring from his violently bitten tongue.

If this isn’t a dream, where the hell am I, and what kind of absurd situation is this? The searing pain in his tongue successfully banished a significant portion of the sleep paralysis, which was a relief, but his eyes stubbornly refused to open. Did someone drug me in my sleep so I couldn’t escape?

As the fog of sleep retreated, suffocating anxiety rapidly flooded the void. Because he firmly believed this could never happen within the secure confines of the Duke’s study, his logic naturally defaulted to the terrifying conclusion that the Baron had kidnapped him.

What do I do? I have to wake up. I have to run. I need to wake up, figure out where I am, and find an escape route—

“My, for a sleeping habit, it’s a bit… rough.”

…?

The voice rumbled directly from the slowly heaving surface beneath him. Instantly, every single hair on Lino’s body stood on end. It was undeniably human language, yet inexplicably, it resonated with the deep, feral reverberation of a beast’s growl, instantly enveloping his entire body in primal terror. Only a moment later did his brain process that the owner of the voice was male.

“This is entertaining in its own way.”

Entertaining in its own way?

Before he could even attempt to decipher the meaning, the “floor” he was lying on surged upward dramatically. Lino’s body slid off the incredibly soft fur and landed with a soft thud onto a plush surface. He had been absolutely certain he was lying face-down on the floor, yet here was another floor. Before he could process the sheer absurdity of the geometry, a massive, scalding hot hand effortlessly hoisted his limp, paralyzed body into the air and laid him flat on his back.

Who is this?

The hand gripping him through the thin fabric of his tracksuit was far too massive to belong to a normal human. Furthermore, this unidentified entity was handling Lino’s dead weight with a single hand as effortlessly as if he were tossing around a toddler.

Ugh… I need to open my eyes and see who this is. Is it a mercenary hired by the Baron? Did he hire a literal giant? How can anyone possess this kind of monstrous strength?

His shoulders and waist throbbed dully from the crushing grip of the massive hand. As he furrowed his brow in pain, the hand that had moved away returned, hovering over Lino’s face. The man’s hand gently swept the sweat-drenched strands of blonde hair, which had plastered themselves to Lino’s forehead from the intense heat, back out of his face.

“Tsk. With a face like that.”

……

On the absolute verge of snapping over the blatant insult to his appearance, Lino completely froze. The texture of the hand sweeping his forehead was entirely alien. It wasn’t the smooth, calloused skin of a human, but the incredibly soft, dense fur of an animal… The sensation was exactly like a massive, meticulously groomed cat aggressively nuzzling its head against his forehead. His entire body shuddered violently.

What the hell? What is this? Is it… a dream after all? Maybe the dream is just so vivid I can physically feel the textures. Even with the incredible scientific advancements of the modern era, creating a human covered in thick animal fur was impossible. It violated every code of bioethics in existence. And calling it a gorilla or a chimpanzee was impossible because it was speaking human language perfectly… no, entirely fluently.

That texture is absolutely not gorilla or chimpanzee fur. While he had never seen them in person, the illustrations in books always depicted their hair as coarse and wiry. But is there a breed of cat this massive? It’s not like he’s a lion or a tiger.

Well… there’s no point agonizing over it. It has to be a dream. There was simply no logical reality where a giant cat existed that could effortlessly lift a fully grown adult male with a single paw.

The scale tipped completely from reality to dream. Instantly, the suffocating terror of being kidnapped by the Baron evaporated, replaced by a sudden, burning curiosity to see this giant, talking cat. He could feel the giant male cat’s paw firmly pressing down on his cheek. A massive shadow fell across his face, proving the creature was looming directly over him, staring down. If he could just pry his eyes open, he could confirm it instantly.

Whimpering softly, Lino strained with every ounce of willpower to force his eyelids open. Suddenly, something exceptionally hard pressed down firmly on Lino’s deeply furrowed brow.

“Truly ugly. Terrible sleeping habits, too.”

Excuse me? For a cat, you’re awfully judgmental about human faces, aren’t you?

“Still, enduring this much without even being able to open your eyes is quite commendable.”

“…What the hell are you talking about.”

“Hoh, speaking now, are we?”

The hard object tapped lightly against Lino’s cheek. What is this? It’s not fur. A claw?

“Hmm, I’d like to observe a bit longer.”

“You cannot.”

Someone else is here…? The abrupt intrusion of a second voice caused the wrinkles between Lino’s brows to deepen further. At his reaction, the man who had been poking his brow let out a low, amused chuckle. Lino had been feeling it since the man first spoke, but the sound was undeniably feral. The low, reverberating growl seemed to physically scrape against Lino’s insides.

But who is that? I feel like I’ve heard that second voice somewhere before.

“You cannot.”

“Tsk, so strict.”

At the firm reiteration of the refusal, the man clicked his tongue. Lino had absolutely no idea what was forbidden or what the man wanted to “observe a bit longer.”

“I suppose I’ll have to aim for the next opportunity.”

“As you wish.”

“Right, I should get going.”

The standoff between the two entities resolved itself amicably. Meanwhile, Lino, the actual subject of the conversation, remained entirely blind and profoundly confused.

The man’s massive hand descended, covering Lino’s entire face. Once again, Lino marveled at just how impossibly huge the hand was. And then, he instantly lost consciousness. Like a sudden, violently pulled power cord.

When Lino finally woke up, it was 11:00 PM—a full five hours after the Duke was scheduled to return. The soft, ambient lighting of the study remained unchanged, but the sky beyond the narrow windows was pitch black.

“Ah… the greeting…!”

His eyes snapping open in pure horror at the realization that he had missed the evening greeting, Lino frantically checked the time on his phone. I definitely set an alarm before I fell asleep! He had meticulously set the alarm to coincide perfectly with the Duke’s scheduled return. Checking the alarm history, he saw the alarm had indeed triggered flawlessly at the designated time. It had even reliably cycled through the repeated snooze settings. The only thing that had failed was Lino’s ears.

“Hah… I’m out of my fucking mind. What the hell was I doing that I couldn’t even hear an alarm—ugh, what’s wrong with my tongue…?”

Cursing his own stupidity, Lino couldn’t even finish his sentence due to the dull, throbbing ache radiating from his swollen tongue. I think I bit it while I was half-asleep…

Rolling his tongue awkwardly around his mouth, Lino frantically tried to organize his thoughts. It was far past the time for the evening greeting; even dinner was completely over. Debating whether he should sprint out right now, track down the Duke or Enoch, and offer a pathetic excuse, Lino ultimately collapsed back onto the mattress.

It was 11:00 PM. It was entirely too late.

“What the hell kind of excuse am I supposed to use?”

Claiming he was too exhausted from his duties was laughable; he had been lounging around eating and sleeping like an unemployed bum for a solid month. Claiming he had a bizarre, hyper-realistic dream about a giant cat and couldn’t wake up would make even a passing dog laugh in his face. And claiming he was too violently ill to move completely contradicted Lino’s incredibly healthy, glowing complexion.

Grumbleee—

“Uh…”

While he was agonizing over what excuse to fabricate, a thunderous roar erupted from his stomach. Come to think of it, he had eaten absolutely nothing but a single apple all day, making the violent growling sound even more pronounced.

“If I tell them I fell asleep because I was starving… they’ll definitely call me a crazy bastard, right?”

Perhaps he was so agonizingly hungry that his brain lacked the calories to function, because only the most pathetic, useless excuses came to mind. Forget it. I’ll just clean this up and head back to my room. I’ll chew on the beef jerky I hid for emergencies.

Because Yuneria had recently taken to tampering with Lino’s meals, he had been forced to stockpile emergency rations like beef jerky. Enoch had reportedly rained absolute hellfire down upon the kitchen staff after witnessing Lino looking deathly pale and clutching his stomach from food poisoning. Because the Duke’s meals were prepared in the exact same kitchen, Enoch naturally reacted with explosive sensitivity to any hint of contamination.

Yet, seeing as Yuneria continued to tamper with the food despite the heightened security, Lino deduced the bastard was utterly confident the Duke wouldn’t reprimand him even if he were caught red-handed.

Well, what can I do? The powerless one just has to keep his head down and crawl.

Staggering to his feet, Lino felt as though his stomach lining was literally glued to his spine. It had been a very long time since he had experienced hunger this agonizing. At the orphanage, he was moderately hungry; at the Haklan estate, he was neither hungry nor full. The last time he had suffered from starvation this violently was when he had escaped the estate and hidden in the slums. He had managed to steal several valuable items during his escape, but within a single day, the slum gangsters had completely cleaned him out, leaving him utterly destitute.

Thanks to those bastards, I spent a good while surviving by digging through trash cans.

Thinking about that time still made him grind his teeth. Yet, he simultaneously believed that being robbed by the gangsters had actually saved his life. The gangsters had quietly vanished after fencing the Haklan estate’s stolen goods, and shortly after, unidentified thugs had viciously scoured the slums searching for the thief.

If Lino had attempted to fence those items himself, his escape would have been entirely pointless; he would have been instantly captured. I’d rather eat stale bread soaked in muddy puddle water than ever go back. I refuse to be locked in that prison-like room ever again.

Returning to his room to gather the books he planned to read and the ones he needed to reshelve, Lino froze when he saw what was resting on the small table next to the sofa. On a silver tray sat a bowl of stew, fresh bread, and a plate of tropical fruits sliced into perfectly bite-sized pieces.

Who brought this? Wait… Yuneria? Lino immediately defaulted to suspicion. Perhaps the only reason he hadn’t heard the alarm and slept like a corpse until late at night was because Yuneria had done something to him. Having suffered countless petty attacks, Lino reflexively suspected Yuneria first.

Approaching the table, he cautiously dipped the tip of his pinky finger into the stew and pulled it out. It was ice cold. Given the complete absence of even a microscopic trace of warmth, it had clearly been sitting there for quite some time. He tasted the drop. It wasn’t overly salty, sour, or bitter. In fact, even cold, it tasted so phenomenally delicious that he wanted to ditch the spoon entirely and just pour the entire bowl directly down his throat. However, if Yuneria was behind this, the probability that it was laced with laxatives was practically one hundred percent.

He poked the bread. It was soft. Picking it up and inspecting every angle, Lino confirmed it was in pristine, freshly baked condition without a single suspicious puncture mark or tear, and shoved it into his mouth. He didn’t even glance at the fruit plate. Peeled and sliced fruit was by far the easiest target for tampering.

Chewing the bread furiously, he reorganized the books on the shelves. He gathered the tray containing the untouched food and the books he intended to read in his room. Meticulously erasing any trace that he had lain on the mattress, he finally exited the study. He made a quick detour to the first-floor kitchen to return the tray before heading back up to his room on the second floor. As his signature light footsteps met the thick carpet lining the corridor, he produced absolutely zero sound.

However.

“Cough, hack!”

The sound of Lino violently choking on the dry bread was thunderously loud. Startled by the sheer volume of his own hacking, Lino frantically slapped his free hand over his mouth. He still had half-chewed bread shoved in his cheeks, but smothering the noise was the absolute priority.

Covering his mouth, he frantically scanned the corridor. He was terrified someone might have heard his coughing fit and stepped out to investigate. Fortunately, the corridor remained entirely empty.

Releasing a massive sigh of relief, intense fury toward the painfully dry bread he had aggressively shoved down his throat belatedly surged within him.

Ah, fuck. What kind of bread is this dry? Even though he was entirely at fault for aggressively dry-swallowing bread clearly meant to be dipped in stew, Lino viciously cursed the chef who baked it.

Yuneria, that bastard… did he explicitly order them to bake this dry-ass bread so I’d choke to death? Having finished cursing the chef, he moved on to cursing Yuneria.

Mentally unleashing a torrent of filthy slum profanity he hadn’t used in years, Lino headed back to his room. Unlocking the door and stepping inside, he noticed the air felt bizarrely cool.

Did I leave the window open when I went out?

While he occasionally opened the window when he was lounging inside, he absolutely always closed and meticulously locked it whenever he left the room. Pulling a bottle of water from the fridge, Lino carefully retraced his steps and actions from that morning.

Got dressed, closed the window, latched the lock, put on my shoes, stepped out, and locked the door. His memory of securing the window was crystal clear. Lino set his half-drank water bottle on the table and walked back to the entryway. Standing perfectly still, he slowly and meticulously scanned the living room. He needed to verify if absolutely anything had changed since he left.

Is it Yuneria again?

It was blatantly obvious. Who else could it possibly be? Baron Haklan’s subordinates would have to be certifiably insane to infiltrate the estate of an Imperial Duke. The Baron was a deeply shady bastard, but he was also a massive coward.

Enoch had explicitly stated that he personally managed the master keys for Lino and Yuneria’s rooms. If Enoch needed to enter, he would simply unlock the door; there was absolutely no reason for him to perform an acrobatic stunt and break in through a second-floor window from the outside. By process of elimination, Yuneria was the only culprit left.

Lino inspected the living room window, which was thrown wide open. If it had been forced open from the outside, there should be at least a tiny scratch. Yet, the Robin’s egg blue paint on the window frame was utterly pristine. The interior latch mechanism was also completely undamaged.

Seriously… is he doing all this just because I laughed at him once? He had a gorgeously pretty face, but his insides were more rotten and twisted than a crushed tin can in the slums. Sure, physical beauty wielded immense power in this world, but shouldn’t a human being possess at least a baseline level of compassion or basic mercy?

Grumbling internally, Lino swept his gaze across the living room and parlor before moving into the bedroom to check. If Lino locked his door and left, the staff absolutely never entered his room. A locked door signaled that the occupant explicitly forbade entry while they were absent, meaning cleaning was only done while Lino was physically present in the room.

Consequently, Lino’s bed still bore the faint indentations of where he had slept. Thanks to the habits drilled into him at St. Margia, it was reasonably neat, looking exactly as he had left it that morning. He opened the closet, checked the nightstand, the table, and meticulously re-inspected the fridge he had just opened. Finally, after checking the bathroom shelves and even the gap behind the toilet lid, Lino scowled deeply and collapsed onto the edge of the bed.

“Hmm… is this just to manufacture a sense of psychological terror?”

If it was Yuneria—who delighted in utilizing a massive variety of petty, micro-aggressions precisely engineered to fly under the Duke’s radar—this exact scenario was entirely plausible. Lino closed the open window, firmly secured the latch, and flopped heavily onto the bed. All he had done today was fall asleep while reading in the study, yet perhaps due to the bizarre, hyper-realistic dream and the agonizing hunger, he felt utterly exhausted. He had practically slept the entire day away, yet the second his back hit the mattress, sleep immediately came calling again.

I need to shower. Change my clothes. Should I at least fall asleep chewing on some beef jerky? Glancing lethargically between the bathroom, the closet, and the fridge, Lino muttered, Fuck it, I don’t care, and sluggishly wiggled his hips, inching his way fully onto the bed without even sitting up. He tightly rolled himself into the blanket, hugging it close, and curled onto his side. His stomach was still violently growling, but he figured the water he had just drank would eventually mix with the dry bread, swell up in his stomach, and resolve the issue. If it did, the hunger wouldn’t wake him up again.

And just like that, Lino plunged back into a deep, heavy slumber.

***