Chapter 119

It would be best to clear things up so the misunderstanding didn’t deepen any further.
I pressed the second option.

“Noah and I are just good workplace colleagues.”

“Hmm. Is that so?”

“What a pity. I’m usually quite good at reading these things, but I was wrong.”

…?

Something had felt off since a moment ago.

Just what on earth did my relationship with Noah mean to Robert for his stats to fluctuate so wildly?

I had never seen such a massive swing in values even in the first playthrough.

‘…Should I test the waters?’

For the sake of affection farming, I needed to clearly verify their correlation.

Before Robert could notice, I rubbed both cheeks to make them flush, lowered my gaze as if embarrassed, and stammered.

“You’re amazing, as expected. You figured it out. Actually, we are dating. We were trying to keep it a secret, but I didn’t expect you to find out so quickly.”

Robert’s face, which had been stained with disappointment, instantly filled with ecstasy.

“I knew it! My eyes didn’t deceive me after all!”

‘What the hell. Seriously.’

Robert, whose affection had been shooting up randomly, suddenly stood up from his seat and approached me.

“So, when did you start dating? Come on, have you held hands yet?”

It was hard to hide my bewilderment when I met his eyes, which were brimming with sheer fervor, head-on. I wanted to back away, but since he grabbed me by the shoulder, I couldn’t even do that. Still, I was enduring it because I still needed to observe his reaction, but that wasn’t the end of it!

That was because Robert suddenly equipped a sticky, melodramatic gaze and gently grabbed my hand! Goosebumps crawled over my skin as if a spider were creeping up my body.

“How did you hold them? Intertwined like this?”

Waaah!

My body reacted before my reason could catch up. Without pausing to weigh whether it was okay or not, I reflexively flung Robert’s hand away!

“This is…”

Imagining Robert shouting that a mere commoner maid dared to inflict injury upon a noble’s body, I braced myself to blurt out an apology immediately, but my mouth clamped shut.

His affection went up even in a situation like this.

‘He’s just an absolute lunatic, this guy.’

“You’re spunkier than I thought. Well, I suppose I was being too hasty, at that.”

Staring at me with a face still lingering with satisfied laughter, Robert rose from his seat.

“You look tired, so you may head back and rest for today. You seem like you need some time to sort out your thoughts, anyway.”

Just what on earth had happened back there?

Having returned to my room early after getting off work, I scrubbed my hands repeatedly with a water-soaked towel to wash away the lingering disgust as I thought.

‘What do you mean, what happened—I just found out that Robert is a complete freak of a bastard, that’s all.’

Affection values don’t lie.

Robert’s abnormal behavior of touching me the moment he heard I was dating Noah pointed to a very clear conclusion.

In other words, Robert was a perverted bastard with a wildly crazy quirk.

To put it more accurately, he was someone who liked to snatch other people’s women, or secretly carry on affairs behind other people’s backs…

…!!

The surprise at encountering a brand-new type of achievement and the joy of gaining a whopping 5 shop points were instantly vaporized by the harsh reality sinking in.

‘…This asshole just needs to die.’

If the Duchess knew about Robert’s quirk, it made sense that she’d be anxious enough to keep tabs on the women around him. My fists clenched tightly of their own accord.

‘Why don’t they just get a divorce, instead of dragging this out and living together.’

Perhaps this Robert-Divorce Project might actually be the path to everyone’s happiness.

Well, everyone except Belita, that is.

I hope you’ll consider it a sacrifice for the greater good, Belita.

With the thread-thin hesitation I had left now vanished, my direction was crystal clear.

‘First, I need to make the bluff I threw at Robert a reality.’

If I show off being all cuddly with Noah right in front of him, that pervert bastard will probably love it, too.

And by using that pervert bastard’s boosted affection, I’ll be able to dig deeper into his weaknesses.

Roughly crunching the numbers in my head, I opened up the affection panel.

Noah was already at 43.

It was horrifying that Robert’s affection was chasing closely right behind Noah’s thanks to what just happened.

Well, anyway, since he’s showing it so blatantly that he likes me, there’s a high possibility he’d accept it even if I confessed right now.

‘Ah, right. I need to report to Jeffrey, too.’

Jeffrey had been pressuring me to hurry up and produce results, even if they were minor.

The quirk of wanting to lust after other people’s women.

For a high-ranking noble, this was information that would amount to mere gossip, but Robert was a man whose primary asset was a publicly spotless reputation.

Since I could drag that image down to some extent, it wouldn’t be entirely useless information.

Since Jeffrey might already know, I should deliver it well, framing it as the harm continuing right up until recently. Not knowing would be best, though.

‘Please, let that be the case.’

Pulling out the fountain pen that was still energetically glowing and thrashing inside my pocket, I jotted down the text.

The writing, which I perceived as Korean, blinked once and had already transformed into the language of this world before I knew it.

‘It’s fascinating no matter how many times I see it.’

If not for the system, I might have been reduced to someone who had to learn the alphabet from scratch.

Giving thanks that no terrible disaster had occurred, I neatly folded the paper into a note shape and tucked it inside my apron.

Now I needed to hand this over to Evan…

If there was a rigid rule about meeting at a set time and place to submit secret messages, things would get troublesome, but I couldn’t just wait around for an opening forever. I’d better figure out a smooth excuse.

‘Where could they be?’

If it were the old days, I would have used a Character Location Tracker, but right now I needed to save even a single shop point.

‘…Running around on foot is free.’

After double-checking the fountain pen and the secret message tucked inside my coat, I set out to look for Evan.

“Ah, Evan? He’s probably down at the storage room by now, isn’t he?”

“Where’s the storage room, you ask? Go down that hallway, take a right at the fork, and go down the stairs—”

“Oh my, look who it is. If it isn’t Belita, the Duke’s personal maid!”

While I was asking people I bumped into along the way to find Evan, unwelcomed figures blocked my path.

“Bridget.”

“Belita, looks like you’re looking for Evan. What do you want with him?”

The troublemakers were Bridget and two of her subordinates.

I had no idea what kind of deep grudge she held against me to pull this, but I had no time to waste here.

As I tried to simply ignore them and step past, Bridget followed my movement and blocked me once more.

“Ah~ Don’t tell me, you’re trying to seduce him like Noah?”

“Ahaha! As if it’s just Noah, Bridget? What kind of trick did you use to even hook the Duke!”

When I grimaced in annoyance, bursts of laughter erupted.

A wretched, frizzy-haired orange-curled woman named Hella scoffed, leaned her ear toward me, and whispered.

“You sure have quite the knack. Teach me that secret method, too. Fellow maids should help each other out and live a little~.”

Ding!

…I chose the most generically infuriating reply.

“W-what? Have you lost your mind?!”

That was my line.

However, Hella apparently disagreed, raising her arm with the clear intent to slap my cheek.

No, she actually swung her arm.

Of course, I had no reason to just stand there and take it.

Whack!

“Hey, let go of this? Are you insane? Ow, it hurts!”

Hella’s arm, which had been darting rapidly toward my cheek, was caught effortlessly in my grip.

“Would you let go if you were in my place?”

When I sneered, Hella’s face flushed red with rage.

“Y-you little…!”

“Drop it. It’s too vulgar anyway, so it’s not a method you’d be able to copy.”

Bridget grabbed my hand, which was holding Hella’s wrist, and squeezed hard.

She seemed intent on pulling me off, but it was so exasperating that I lost any desire to release her easily.

Even as veins bulged on her forehead and she strained with all her might, my hand didn’t budge an inch. When Bridget was left sweating and struggling awkwardly—too embarrassed to even give up—another maid standing nearby provoked me once more.

“That’s right. Don’t bother trying to find out. You won’t even have any business here much longer anyway.”

…? No business here?

Even if I had been reassigned to a new duty, our quarters were close by, so our paths crossed more often than not.

Wondering what on earth that was supposed to mean, I kept quiet. Mistaking my silence for holding the upper hand, Bridget curved the corners of her lips into a sneer and continued.

“Do you really think you’re the first one who tried to cash in on a single night to dream of rising in status? How do you think all those other women ended up?”

Bridget and her clique were maids who had worked in the mansion even before Rachel became the Duchess. That meant they were the kind of people who might actually know intimate gossip about the ducal household.

This was worth listening to.

“How did they end up?”

“Disappearing without a trace is a blessing! At worst, they committed sui—”

She probably didn’t have the courage to air out the ducal family’s scandals right in the middle of a hallway.

Realizing how many eyes were gathering on her, Bridget caught herself and immediately clamped her mouth shut.

“Ahem! W-well, anyway, you better watch your back too!”

Oh my, she was even running away?

The three of them turned on their heels and bolted down the opposite corridor.

It was a somewhat anticlimactic conclusion, but I could roughly guess the gist of it.
It probably meant the atrocities committed by a Duchess blinded by jealousy were quite legendary.

‘Is it a famous story?’

If it was a topic floating around the mouths of maids like Bridget, it seemed to be a widely known secret that everyone whispered about yet still knew.

“Gah! What are you guys doing running in the hallway—oh? Belita! What are you doing here when you’re not even feeling well?”

Right on cue, Noah spotted me and came over.

Talk about not feeling well was probably just the early-leave excuse Robert had thrown together.

Well, whatever the case, it worked out. A person perfectly suited to ask about the Duchess had just appeared.

“Got a minute?”

When I sent a glance that carried the nuance of being mindful of other people in the hallway, Noah understood immediately and led me to a quiet courtyard with little foot traffic.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m a bit blunt and lack social skills, you see.”

“Ah, well, that’s true. Still, I find that part of your charm—no! Not at all! Lack social skills?! Don’t say such self-deprecating things about yourself.”

Startled by his own slip of the tongue, Noah desperately tried to cover it up.
Seeing him struggle so hard to sugarcoat it was absurd.

“E-even the Duke praised you so much!”

Robert did?

Just as I was about to feel a strange mix of emotions, Noah hurriedly tacked on:

“He said that as a veteran maid of the ducal household, you’re quick on your feet, witty, and smart, making you absolute top-tier as a conversational partner! He even said you’re quick-witted enough to bring whatever’s needed right where it’s needed without him even having to give separate instructions!”

Still with the veteran maid shtick here, too.

In reality, my experience working with the protagonist was practically worthless, and my actual tenure working in the mansion was a mere two months.

For a total rookie like me to be mistaken for a veteran made me deeply doubt Robert’s judgment.

Or perhaps Noah had just made up stories on the spot to comfort me.

‘Well, that’s not the point right now.’

I managed to smooth out my twisting expression, and after a brief moment of thought, I opened my mouth.