Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 40

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 40

Even after that, the quiet war taking place on the dining table continued.

“Shall I serve you some more soup?”

“Gladly, if what you just added was pepper and not sugar.”

“This is a 50-year-old vintage wine. It was made during a good harvest year, so the flavor is very rich.”

“Would you switch it with the butler’s? I have a feeling someone might have slipped something into my glass.”

“Tsk.”

Even when Terry tried to mess with him while maintaining his polite butler facade, Chaser kept slipping away with a constant smile.

Then came the moment when he was serving the roasted vegetables that came out as garnish.

Terry, who had heard something whispered to him by Vivian, smiled ominously.

Soon Chaser’s plate was filled with paprika, paprika, and more paprika.

“I heard from Vivian that you love paprika. Please eat to your heart’s content.”

“If you’re going to say that, hic!”

“…”

“I, I, I didn’t tell him, Chaser. I, I don’t know anything about this.”

For the first time, the smile disappeared from Chaser’s face.

He deliberately cut up a piece of paprika that was already small enough to eat in one bite into even smaller pieces, then stabbed it with his fork and put it in his mouth.

Without showing any sign of chewing, Chaser swallowed what was in his mouth and regained his smile as he spoke.

“I overcame my picky eating habits long ago. What do you think of a man who can even fix his only weakness?”

“Ha, to think that disliking paprika was his only weakness. Whoever that is must be quite insignificant and arrogant.”

“What if that man looked like this?”

“…Damn it.”

Terry trembled his fists in frustration, while Vivian cheered him on enthusiastically from the side.

I, who had been quietly observing the situation while pretending to examine the invitation, spoke up.

“Is that true?”

Everyone’s gaze turned to me.

I looked up from the invitation and swept my eyes over everyone gathered at the dining table, finally fixing my gaze on Chaser as I asked again.

“Without a single lie?”

Chaser answered with what I assumed was a gentle smile he only showed in front of me.

“Of course.”

Looking straight at Chaser who was simply gazing at me directly, I asked again.

“Even when you said you liked me?”

“Pfft!”

Crash!

Thunk.

Ignoring the sound of Vivian spitting out her meat, something breaking, and Terry stabbing his meat knife into the table, I stubbornly stared only at Chaser’s face.

“Ah…”

He seemed to have trouble answering as he slightly rolled his eyes, then half-lowered his head and scratched his cheek embarrassedly as he whispered.

“Did it show?”

“That, that, that fox-like!”

Terry dangerously swung his meat knife, but Chaser didn’t even look at him.

I brushed off Chaser’s pathetic antics and arrogantly tilted my chin.

“Answer.”

Chaser kept opening and closing his mouth as if he was too nervous and trembling to answer properly, then smiled as if giving up.

“That’s right…”

“Master! Don’t be fooled by that face!”

“Cha, Chaser! Th, that expression is cheating!”

“…”

The hall became noisy for a while.

Then, Leo, who had been observing the tense atmosphere by only rolling his eyes throughout the meal, spoke for the first time.

“Lady Belinda.”

I turned my head to look down at Leo.

“I, I also eat paprika well.”

Having misunderstood something, Leo seemed to think that I considered eating paprika extremely important.

With trembling hands, Leo put a piece of paprika in his mouth and moved his jaw like a nutcracker doll, crushing the paprika.

“It’s delishush.”

The lie detector waves fluctuated wildly over Leo’s cute face as he whispered with his lips strangely twisted.

I placed some shrimp meat that Leo liked on the child’s plate as a compliment.

Only then did I take off the lie detector glasses I was wearing and pressed my brow as if tired.

Today at this gathering, there were two people whose lie detection waves remained calm throughout.

One was Lord Penandel, who finished his meal cleanly without any disturbance despite the series of commotions.

And the other one was…

“Thank you for inviting me, my client. It was a meaningful dinner in many ways.”

It was Chaser, who was leaning toward me and whispering.

The calm waves meant either that he only spoke the truth, or that he was such a skilled liar that he didn’t even show biological reactions when lying.

And unlike Lord Penandel, Chaser was the latter.

An outrageous liar who felt no pangs of conscience.

Only then could I face reality more seriously.

That people who showed me favor might not have purely innocent motives.

Because Belinda came with an enormous dowry.

Chaser was definitely after that.

‘Even though it was force majeure, to think my heart fluttered even for a moment at those antics.’

I earnestly hoped that his luck would be rough for several days for trying to manipulate people’s hearts.

‘…I definitely thought that, but it didn’t mean I would make his luck rough with my own hands.’

In front of me was Chaser, who looked as sweet as a sugar doll crafted by an artisan, tied to a chair while unconscious.

He was currently in a state of being kidnapped and confined.

By none other than my command, as I sat with my legs crossed like a third-rate villain, waiting for him to wake up.

Suddenly overwhelmed by the seriousness of the situation, I covered my face with both hands.

“How did it come to this.”

To knock someone unconscious, kidnap them, and even confine them!

* * *

On the day of the dinner.

What Belinda wanted to confirm with the lie detector glasses was whether ‘Chaser is a liar’ and whether he really liked her.

The principle of the lie detector glasses was to detect lies through biological reactions, but sometimes the biological reactions themselves revealed the truth or falsehood.

For example…

“Even when you said you liked me?”

“That’s right.”

Even when Chaser confessed his feelings as if embarrassed, the calm waves indicated that he felt no emotional disturbance whatsoever.

But Chaser, unaware that his true intentions had been revealed to Belinda, became noticeably dejected by Belinda’s suddenly cold attitude.

“Master, if I did something wrong, please tell me. I’ll fix it.”

“Does Little Sprout have no interest in magic anymore?”

“My client, couldn’t you spare me some time?”

How pitiful that gloomily shadowed face was.

Even knowing it was all an act, Belinda had to suffer from guilt as if she had plucked the world’s only flower.

And eventually, unable to bear the guilt any longer, Belinda exploded.

One afternoon after Leo’s lessons ended.

Belinda spoke heavily to Chaser’s back as he packed his things.

“Chaser, acting like this won’t get you what you want.”

Leo followed Chaser so well, and his lessons were still excellent, so Leo’s stats were rising day by day.

But she couldn’t leave someone who had approached them to use her by Leo’s side like this.

So Belinda delivered what was essentially an ultimatum.

“This is your final warning. Stop with the pathetic scheming. I know what your real purpose is.”

At those words, Chaser, who had been moving his hands busily, turned to look at Belinda.

He smiled faintly and leaned back leisurely against the desk.

“You talk as if you know what I want, Master.”

Well, look at that?

At his strange attitude, Belinda crossed her arms and looked Chaser up and down.

It was definitely the same face as usual, but somehow it felt like she was finally seeing his true face.

“Well then, Master, shall we be a bit more honest with each other?”

A light tone as if proposing a game.

The moment a thin ray of sunlight streaming through the window sharply drew a boundary between Chaser and Belinda, Belinda willingly participated in this game.

“You didn’t accept my request because of money.”

“I didn’t accept this request to earn a few gold coins, that’s true.”

“You must have a different target. Chaser, were you after me?”

“That’s right, if it weren’t for you, Master, I wouldn’t have accepted the request. The day I first saw you, Master, I felt destiny.”

“Don’t talk about destiny.”

“Well, I recognized Master’s secret at a glance.”

“My dowry isn’t much of a secret.”

“Dowry? How disappointing. I was talking about the secret that Master has dabbled in black magic.”

“…What?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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