Zeldryn stared at Hera, who was standing among the other servants.
There was actually one sentence he really wanted to say right now.
‘Hey, Hera. Please clear up what happened last night.’
Simple.
He should've only needed to say that, Hera would explain everything, and the misunderstanding would be over.
But...
Zeldryn slowly looked around the kitchen.
The servants were still watching him.
Some were only glancing at him.
Some were openly staring.
And a few weren't even trying to hide the suspicion on their faces.
“...”
Zeldryn immediately realized the problem.
‘Shit.’
The situation was like someone pointing a gun directly at his face.
While only a few steps behind him was a bottomless cliff.
Moving forward was wrong.
Backing away was also wrong.
If Zeldryn suddenly said,
Hera, tell them that nothing happened last night.
What would the servants think?
The simplest possibility would be...
Zeldryn was forcing Hera to lie.
Especially since Hera was his personal servant.
With the old Zeldryn's reputation, it wouldn't be difficult for the servants to imagine that Hera was being threatened into covering something up.
But the other option was just as bad.
If Zeldryn asked Hera to leave the kitchen so they could talk alone...
‘That's even more suspicious, damn it.’
After rumors had already spread about Hera being summoned to his room late at night, now Zeldryn came looking for her and took her away alone?
By tomorrow, there might be a new rumor.
Or even within the next hour.
The third possibility...
Ignore everything.
Ask where Kera was.
Then leave.
Zeldryn considered it for a moment.
But...
‘I can't.’
This rumor genuinely bothered him.
If he left it alone, the comfortable life he wanted to build in this mansion would be affected too.
Every time he left his room, he would keep getting stared at like some disgusting pervert.
Every time he talked to Hera, another rumor might start.
And everything he did could continue being connected to the old Zeldryn's reputation.
Zeldryn almost wanted to grab his head and scream.
ARRRGHH!
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from NovelPhoenix. Support the author by reading it there.
‘Why do characters in novels never have to deal with shit like this?!’
He was genuinely starting to get irritated.
‘Were those novel authors drunk or something?’
‘Something this basic almost never gets considered.’
When he read novels before, problems like this were almost always skipped over.
The protagonist did something.
The misunderstanding got resolved.
People accepted the explanation.
Then the story moved on to the next problem.
Simple.
But now that Zeldryn was actually living inside a world like this...
He had somehow gotten trapped in a problem that an author would probably consider too insignificant to even write about.
Rumors.
Prejudice.
The way other people saw him.
Small mistakes spreading from one mouth to another.
‘Bastards.’
Zeldryn only became more annoyed the more he thought about it.
‘Must be nice being you guys, novel protagonists.’
They could act however they wanted.
Make stupid decisions.
Create problems.
Then a few chapters later, everything would be resolved without any meaningful consequences.
As if the entire world simply stood still, waiting for the protagonist to do something.
When the protagonist moved...
Only then would the world move with them.
But the reality Zeldryn faced was different.
This world did not revolve around him.
Even after someone from another world entered Zeldryn's body...
People still continued living their own lives.
The servants still talked.
Rumors still spread.
Other people still had their own thoughts and conclusions.
And Zeldryn couldn't control any of that just because he might be someone special.
‘But I'm a transmigrator, right?’
Zeldryn almost wanted to laugh out of frustration.
‘By story logic, shouldn't I be something like the protagonist?’
Then why was his life this damn complicated?
Zeldryn let out a long sigh.
‘Shit.’
‘I really hate this kind of thing.’
But whether he liked it or not...
He had to choose.
Zeldryn finally started walking toward Hera.
TAP.
TAP.
Several servants around Hera immediately tensed slightly.
Their hands slowed down.
One servant even stopped cleaning the table.
Hera herself looked slightly nervous as Zeldryn came closer.
“L-Lord Zeldryn?”
Zeldryn stopped only a few steps away from her.
He briefly looked at the servants around them once more.
Everyone was listening.
‘Fine.’
Zeldryn made his decision.
Rather than trying to hide it, it would be better to say everything right in front of them.
“Hera.”
“Y-yes, Lord?”
“I want you to clarify something about what happened last night.”
!!??
Several servants immediately reacted.
None of them dared say anything.
But their eyes widened slightly.
Even Hera looked confused.
“C-clarify?” Hera asked.
Zeldryn immediately noticed the change in the servants' expressions.
‘Tch.’
Of course.
From their perspective, those words sounded extremely suspicious.
Zeldryn really was standing with a gun pointed directly at his face and a cliff behind him.
And in the end...
He chose to face the gun.
“Yes.”
Zeldryn deliberately spoke clearly enough for every servant nearby to hear him.
“I want you to clarify it.”
Hera still looked confused.
Zeldryn continued,
“You know the servants in this mansion must've misunderstood what happened last night.”
Several servants immediately exchanged glances.
Zeldryn caught their reactions from the corner of his eye.
But he kept talking.
“The only way is for you to tell them yourself what actually happened.”
He paused for a moment.
“I know they might think I'm forcing you to say something.”
Several servants' faces grew even stiffer.
Zeldryn had said it deliberately.
If he pretended not to know that possibility existed, it would only make him look even more suspicious.
“But there's no other choice.”
Zeldryn looked at Hera.
“If I explain it myself, they won't believe me either.”
Now none of the servants dared interrupt.
The kitchen, which had previously been filled with the sounds of work, became much quieter.
Hera looked increasingly awkward.
“U-um, Lord Zeldryn...”
Zeldryn frowned.
“What?”
Hera lightly clenched the edge of her clothes.
“Actually...”
She seemed hesitant to continue.
“I already spoke with several servants who asked about me after last night.”
Zeldryn went silent.
“...What?”
Hera gave a small nod.
“I already explained that you really did only have something important to discuss with me.”
She hurriedly continued,
“And Lord Zeldryn didn't do anything strange to me.”
“...”
Zeldryn froze.
Hera then looked toward several servants standing not far from her.
“Even...”
Her gaze pointed toward one of the servants.
“Some of the servants here already know about it.”
Hera turned toward one of the female servants.
“I already explained it to you this morning, right?”
The servant immediately looked awkward after suddenly being dragged into the conversation.
She glanced at Zeldryn for a moment.
Then quickly lowered her head.
“Y-yes...”
Zeldryn said nothing.
“...”
His head slowly began to feel heavier.
!!??
‘Huh?’
‘What's going on?’
If Hera had already explained everything...
Then why were they still looking at him like that?
Why was the rumor still being discussed?
Why had the servants he encountered in the corridor still been saying that something might have happened to Hera last night?
Zeldryn looked at several faces around the kitchen.
And slowly...
He began to understand the answer.
‘Shit.’
This was even more complicated than he'd thought.
But...
It made perfect sense.
With Zeldryn's reputation all this time, why would the servants immediately believe Hera just because she said nothing had happened?
They had spent years watching how Zeldryn treated the servants.
They knew Hera was his personal servant.
They knew Hera was afraid of him.
So when Hera said,
Lord Zeldryn didn't do anything to me.
What would they think?
It didn't mean they would immediately believe her.
Instead, they could think...
Zeldryn had forced Hera to say it.
Zeldryn fell silent.
‘...Damn it.’