episode_0054

– I would have warned you, Your Highness Charles.

Karl looked down at Beatrice with a cold gaze.

What met his eyes was the defenseless sleeping Beatrice, who seemed to be having a bad dream.

– I will take Beatrice with me, Your Highness Charles.

What came to mind was a scene from a novel.

The scene where he had raced to the Primera Kingdom and negotiated with Charles II… It was a scene that Karl had read repeatedly.

It was an episode he had liked so much.

It was also a scene that clearly showed who the protagonist was to Charles II, who persistently courted Beatrice, and who was seizing the role of the heroine.

– Take care from now on, Trixie.

Calling her by the nickname Beatrice had given him, he held her hand and left the palace. The ticklish excitement brought about by that scene was incomparable to anything else. With that, Beatrice’s conquest was complete. She became so deeply enamored with Karl that she could never escape from him.

“……”

Suddenly, there was a reason why the original work came to mind.

Now that the development had changed, he had only intended to leave it as a reference, but it seemed that he couldn’t ignore the setting of the original work.

There were too many men in the original work who had their eyes on Beatrice—King Charles II of the Primera Kingdom, the giant Matthias of the imperial underground economy, and David, the student council president who seemed close to Beatrice, among others.

Thud – Force entered Karl’s clenched jaw.

He knew it in his head, it was obvious.

The fatal and elegant face, the reversal charm brought about by the seemingly haughty yet kind impression, the sophisticated atmosphere exuded by the flowing hair and graceful gestures…

Above all, Karl knew the dangerous allure of her curves, which revealed a hazardous beauty to men.

Moreover, there were no elements missing, including status and ability. So it was natural for men to lose their minds over her. Karl understood this, even before possession, and even now, having actually seen her.

But… even so.

He couldn’t maintain his composure.

The moment I hear the name Teo, the moment her lips call out to another man, the moment she desperately searches with tears in her eyes.

Calmness shattered into pieces.

The pounding heart sank coldly.

What followed was anger.

The anger was evident in Beatrice’s distorted expression as she looked down at her.

“Who is Teo…?”

She knew there would be no answer. Beatrice was still deeply asleep, looking sad.

No matter how much I tried to recall, calmly recollect, it didn’t come to mind. He boasted of reading this novel repeatedly more than anyone else before possession. If he doesn’t know, then he must be a character not introduced in the original work.

Teo is probably a character ‘yet’ undescribed in the original or a character around Beatrice who has not been described. But what’s important is that he’s a man she calls out to so desperately. If he’s that close…

‘First love.’

There was no need to answer, so I swallowed it inside.

If Beatrice heard and responded, it seemed like it would be irreversible. Like a childhood friend who inevitably fell out when entering the academy… If I heard such an answer, I wouldn’t be able to bear it.

Thud-

The knife found a soft-looking chair in Beatrice’s corner and sat down. Because of the throbbing head, I had no choice but to press the temple with my fingertips.

A man’s body is greatly influenced by instinct. It wasn’t easy to suppress the impulses brought about by hormones. Karl was not free from instincts either. It was something he had learned harshly since possession.

The fate of a male.

Competition and victory.

Possession and monopoly.

Endless struggle to fulfill the desire for domination was a man’s instinct. Before possession, it seemed interesting from someone else’s perspective, but now, embedded in a man’s flesh, I realized it wasn’t all that enjoyable.

The heroine…

My woman must never be taken away. That is death or destruction. Anyone who gives the impression of being taken even a little bit must be rejected and annihilated.

The man she would come to know, the man who would become her everything, had to be only one person. Her first and last, all had to belong to him. Her life… had to belong to him.

That was the relationship between the heroine and the protagonist as Cal saw it.

For him, with his distorted mindset, it was a very dangerous situation now.

“One out… or in.”

First love, the heroine must have a pure heart that thinks only of the protagonist. The first love allowed to the heroine is only for the protagonist. For Cal himself.

A while later, the chest that had been coldly sinking began to beat like crazy. He wanted to speak. Beatrice, how could you! But he was afraid. Afraid that he might regret hearing the answer…

He removed his finger from pressing against the side of his eyebrow and looked around from where he was sitting.

It was quite a messy room. Among them, what caught his eye was a shopping bag.

The shopping bags were neatly arranged. They were made of expensive-looking leather. It seemed difficult to get just one shopping bag separately. Judging by the department store pattern engraved on the shopping bag, it seemed like they had been to a commercial district.

“……”

Cal quietly examined the inside of the shopping bag.

There was a box decorated with a ribbon. It looked like a well-wrapped gift.

…A gift?

His rapidly beating heart began to beat even faster. It was loud enough to ring like a drumbeat. With complicated feelings, Cal slowly untied the ribbon.

“If it’s not a gift, it wouldn’t be wrapped like this…”

Swish- As he removed the ribbon and opened the lid of the box, this time, it felt like his rapidly beating heart was about to stop. Cal’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t even hear his own breathing.

“……”

Inside, there was lingerie.

It was so provocative that he couldn’t take his eyes off it, and it was underwear that brought to mind the image of Beatrice wearing it. In fact, it was also underwear that he wanted to see her wear. It seemed to have been made for a purpose other than practicality, with lace… It looked like it was made for a different purpose rather than for practicality.

Cal closed his eyes.

His eyes were closed, but the pupils hidden behind his eyelids were trembling without rest.

No matter how much he thought about it, there was no way Beatrice would have bought such underwear herself. Moreover, judging by the well-packaged state… it was clearly a gift. Karl’s suspicions grew to an uncontrollable extent.

A small spark.

When a small doubt met harsh speculation and groundless guesswork, it created the worst but plausible conclusion imaginable.

“Beatrice already has a man.”

Assuming that because the original work unfolded from Karl’s perspective, he had not known. No, he concluded. There was a similar development with the original Clove, so it wasn’t unreasonable to assume.

So he became even more angry.

He detested the author who made the protagonist look like a fool and staged a dreadful situation. If he stayed in this room any longer, he didn’t know what might happen.

Karl took a deep breath and barely walked towards the door.

Bang!

He roughly opened and closed the door and hurriedly left the room.

Leaving Beatrice behind, he disappointed his roommate, who had been listening in the next room for both of them… and disappeared with quick steps all the way to the first-class dormitory.

*

When he opened his eyes, he saw the ceiling.

It was a familiar ceiling, the one he had seen every day since entering the academy.

He tried to get up, but he couldn’t.

It seemed like something had happened last night… What was it?

He hadn’t been as drunk as he was yesterday…

His head was ringing – he probably couldn’t control himself and got plastered.

Knock knock –

He heard a knocking sound.

It was a very cautious knocking sound.

The only person who would knock on my door is Leticia. Since no one else comes and goes here… if someone else knocked, that would be scary in itself, wouldn’t it?

“What’s wrong? Why are you knocking so timidly?”

I said, getting up and opening the door.

Certainly… it wasn’t like Leticia.

As expected, Leticia was standing where the door had opened.

Leticia, dressed in pajamas, looked tired as if she hadn’t slept at all. The long dark circles under her eyes caught one’s attention.

“What happened last night? You look like you didn’t get any sleep.”

“B-Beatrice….”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

“What is it?”

She was visibly flustered.

Her face turned as red as a beet, and her voice trembled.

“W-w-we both agreed to it, right…?”

I couldn’t understand what Leticia was saying at all.

Looking at her with confusion, she jumped up in alarm from her seat.

“No way!! Forcing someone while unconscious…!?”

“??”

“Oh…! I’m sorry, Beatrice. I shouldn’t have pried into this. I thought both of them were okay…”

I still couldn’t understand Leticia’s words.

Before I knew it, tears streamed down her cheeks as she hugged my shoulders.

“I wondered why I couldn’t hear anything… I thought maybe Beatrice had become numb to it…”

“Numb?”

“Mainer Gongja was such a creature, what should I do…?”

…Mainer?

Suddenly, bits of memory from the night before began to return.

….

Listening to Matthias’s story at Green Arms, drinking whiskey on the rocks, encountering a knife on the way back, being supported by him on the way home.

…Ah.

“L-Leticia… Can you tell me slowly what happened yesterday?”

“Sob, sniff… You really don’t remember?”

To Leticia, who seemed to be sobbing, I asked, covering her mouth with my hand.

“You two…?”

“Two?”

“You and Mainer Gongja… together….”

It doesn’t feel good.

Leticia raised the hand that was covering her mouth, pointing towards my room.

…More precisely, my bed.

“You two slept together!!”

“W-w-w-what!!!!?????????”

All I could do was scream.

Right now, there’s no way for me to express my bewilderment.