I Became the Female Lead Ruined by Others - Chapter 39

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 39

“Ted.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If someone mentions a country with a harsh climate accompanied by blizzards, what comes to mind?”
“That would be… the Schuts Kingdom, without question, sir.”

Ted shed his simpering manner in an instant, donning cold precision as he pushed his glasses up with a decisive tap.
Then, as though reciting from memory, he delivered his answer with mechanical fluency.

“It is barren land where one cannot even catch the scent of spring or summer. It is a place perpetually haunted by famine, and its security is abysmal. The reason it lacks any proper system of governance is that notorious bandits and mercenaries spark coups and uprisings with alarming regularity.”
“…Are they really allowed to call that a nation?”
“In severe cases, the kingdom has suffered three usurpations and riots within a single month. I have heard that due to the harsh environment, it is difficult for most to survive until adulthood.”

As Ted elaborated, I pressed my forehead repeatedly against the carriage window.

‘So that pretty face has lived through quite the rough existence, then.’

It was the moment everything fell into place—his overwhelming strength, the ease he carried with him always, that peculiar habit of using windows as entrances from his very first appearance.

‘So that transmigrator brought him in because he’s an expert at dangerous things?’

Realizing he was far more dangerous than I’d anticipated, I felt like weeping.
Now that I thought about it, he’d mentioned that his countrymen trembled at the mere mention of Karzen’s first letter.

“Do people from the Schuts Kingdom have a poor opinion of Karzen?”
“I cannot speak with certainty, but it is decidedly not favorable. The lingering effects of the prolonged conquest wars likely remain to this day.”

I fixed my gaze on a leaf precariously clinging to a branch tip before speaking.

“What is he doing now?”
“Pardon?”

Ted replied in a bewildered voice that held not a trace of his earlier coldness.
But it wasn’t long before he grasped what I was asking.

“Ah, the guest is currently in the kitchen learning to cook from the Head Cook.”
“…Cooking?”

The words were so absurd that my head turned of its own accord.
I wasn’t sure when it had started, but Ted wore the same sour expression as I did. His lips had twisted into a grimace.

“He said he wished to learn the dishes the master favors, so he stormed—rather, descended into the kitchen this morning.”
“…”
“…”
“…Sigh.”

The long silence that followed ended in a sigh that belonged to both Ted and me.

‘I can’t fathom what he’s thinking.’

I was certain the man harbored some hidden agenda. So over the past two days, I watched him more carefully still.
Yet I found nothing even remotely unusual.

‘No matter how I look at it, he seems like nothing more than a carefree wastrel…’

Besides, there was no reason to expect the Kitchen harbored any great secrets.
The confidence I felt stemmed from a simple fact: I’d conducted a thorough search of the Kitchen in the dead of night.

‘But doesn’t Ted know the man’s name either?’

In fact, I’d called Cap over this morning to probe whether he’d asked the man his name.

―You were here at the Mansion the day before yesterday and yesterday too, not going out the entire time. Looks like you’ve been having fun playing with him all day—did you ask his name?
―Of course I did!
―Yeah? What’d he say?
―Jebi!
―…? I mean his name, Cap.
―Yes, his name is Jebi! I guess I was the only one who didn’t know until now. Come to think of it, I’d hear the stewards talking about him saying things like “Jebi this, Jebi that”! He said he’d call me Eagle!
―Just keep calling yourself Cap.

According to Cap, the man had no intention of revealing his actual name, and the servants referred to him as Jebi. And the man himself was aware of this fact.

‘No matter how good an actor he is, doesn’t he know shame? Just how brutally has this man lived his life?’

Learning the man’s real name through Cap seemed impossible.

‘Then there’s only one failsafe method left.’

I opened my half-closed eyes wide and fixed my gaze on Ted.

“It’s been a week now, and you’re still calling him a guest?”
“…Pardon?”
“I’m saying you never even bothered to ask the name of the guest I brought into my own Mansion.”

As I straightened my posture with arms crossed, radiating confidence, Ted’s face grew troubled.

“I did ask on the day I showed him to his room, of course.”
“And?”
“He replied that without your permission, he could not reveal his name to anyone, no matter what.”
“….”

I stood frozen, turning over in my mind the startling message that had just struck my ears.
Slowly, I uncrossed my arms and turned my body toward the window.

“…I’ll give permission now, so from here on, don’t call him a guest.”
“Yes, understood.”

What I currently knew about the man was precious little.
An appearance that warranted the word beautiful; composure so serene it bordered on the uncanny; overwhelming physical prowess.
And the fact that he was strange enough to devote such seriousness to deceiving the people of this Mansion.

‘The way the servants call him that behind his back—it means everyone, not just me, recognizes how odd he is.’

But as if that weren’t enough, there was also a backstory of growing up harshly in a pseudo-nation. Carrying around a narrative branded as dangerous.
He’s just a bit-part extra, yet he’s loaded down with excessive characterization like this.
*Click.*
Just then, as I pressed my forehead against the window again like that.
A magnificent carriage came to a halt beyond the Mansion’s driveway in the distance.

“What’s that?”
“Is something the matter, Young Lady?”

It was a carriage I’d never seen before.
Judging by its ornate appearance, it seemed to belong to a noble house.
Though the distance prevented me from identifying it properly, it bore no separate noble crest.

‘Here, it’s like a license plate for carriages.’

As I narrowed my eyes and stared at the carriage, a striking man stepped out from within it.
Anyone who’d seen that ostentatious outfit and measured gait even once could never forget him.

“……Julian Stern?”

I murmured the name before I could help myself, and Ted sidled up beside me.

“Ah, so the young master of House Stern Duke has arrived.”

At his composed response, I gave a gesture of acknowledgment to Cain and Abel, then looked away from Julian as he passed through the main gate.
I couldn’t make sense of how naturally he entered, nor of Ted’s unfazed reaction.

“It’s been a while.”
“……A while?”
“The last time was the day before the master left on his travels. Shall I prepare tea in the reception room? As always, the young master dislikes anything hot and won’t touch it, so perhaps some lukewarm water instead?”

A while, and—always. As in, repeatedly.

‘Why in the world with that bomb of a man?!’

The very person I’d warned that Possessor against getting close to was none other than Julian Stern!
I whipped my head around again, but Julian had already disappeared from view.

‘No—why did he come? What do I do?’

I was just racking my brain for an excuse to turn him away.

“A letter was sent to the mansion he rents for business purposes, but the messenger got lost on his first trip, so the young master came at once upon receiving it. Well, the two of you do get along splendidly, don’t you.”

Get along splendidly?
From what I knew, the most contemptible pair in this empire was Julian Stern and that Possessor at loggerheads with one another.

“You should hurry, master. His temperament is dreadfully impatient, so he’ll head straight to the reception room without waiting for an escort, and if you’re late he’ll raise his voice and cause a scene. He always insists on seeing you before he leaves, doesn’t he.”

I, who had been about to refuse with the excuse of exhaustion, found myself speechless.

‘What is this—why would he want to see my face when he’s extorting me?!’

In the end, I had no choice but to drag myself forward reluctantly. Ted strode ahead of me with quicker steps.

‘A mansion for business purposes, my foot. It’s a safe house for skimming funds from the gambling den.’

For every slow step I took, ten more theories piled up.

‘And yet he casually reveals the address?’

In the game too, Julian ran his gambling operations in complete secrecy—though admittedly, he later got entangled with the heroine and everything came spilling out.
Combining what Ted had said with everything else, I had a gnawing sense that some situation I didn’t want was unfolding.

‘No, surely not. It can’t be.’

But the moment the reception room door opened and I stepped inside, I understood.

“Oh, you came.”

If I’m to trust my instincts, my ability to sense misfortune ranks in the top one percent.

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