If You Are Suited for the Villain's Secretary - Chapter 23

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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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If the Villain’s Secretary Suits Me
Chapter 23
‘Has this man lost his mind?’
I stood there in bewilderment, but the debt collector seemed to interpret my silence as contemplation.
He spoke as if bestowing a favor.
“Don’t worry so much. You’re young and pretty enough. Just fix that habit of questioning everything so relentlessly.”
“Since when did Fang start matchmaking in addition to loan sharking?”
“Hey, aren’t you listening to me? I’m telling you that you need to break that questioning habit of yours?”
“I don’t understand why you need to find a wife so ‘urgently’ like she’s some commodity. The marriage agreement document you brought is completely blank—surely I’m allowed to ask about that much?”
“Damn it, Thomas must have spoiled this girl rotten. Even when I tell him to ignore her, he answers every single question, so now she thinks she’s someone important.”
Thomas was the name of another debt collector who hadn’t come.
In truth, Thomas had been kinder to me than most debt collectors—at least compared to this bastard standing before me.
The scowling debt collector spat on the floor of someone else’s home.
Everything about this—from his proposal to his behavior—was utterly repulsive.
“Something about inheritance issues and succession problems with the Marquis Estate, but you don’t need to know the details. Got it?”
From the way he spoke, it was clear he didn’t know the details himself.
A Marquis from the Southern Region dealing with succession problems in secret, then.
There was only one Marquis family from the Southern Region that I knew of. Could it be…?
‘…I’ll think about that later. But there’s something about what this man said that bothers me.’
I was turning over the debt collector’s words when he took a step closer.
“Listen. An opportunity like this doesn’t come around easily. Not only would you be freed from a debt of 200 million gold, but if you play your cards right, you’d become a Marquis’s wife. A complete rise in status.”
“…”
“If you just keep quiet and stay still, you can wear fine clothes, eat good food, and live well. You won’t have to live in this shitty house anymore, clutching your mother’s jewelry. I’m saying all this for your sake, understand?”
The debt collector laughed with naked greed.
“So just sign this agreement. I’ll take care of everything else.”
He wanted me to sign a blank document.
This offer was merely a formality.
Now that things had come to this point, whether I refused or not, he’d either force my signature or simply abduct me.
Though nausea threatened to overwhelm me, I asked calmly.
“If I sign here, what happens to my father?”
“Well, he’ll be released, of course.”
“I see.”
“So, are you done with your questions? All that’s left is your signature?”
I picked up the document and slowly walked toward the desk.
The debt collector watched me with satisfaction as I rummaged through the pen holder.
“But here’s the thing. ‘He’ll be released’ sounds like you’re not certain about it.”
I turned my head sharply to stare at him.
“If I pay off 200 million gold with my body as collateral, the debt disappears. Then naturally my father would be released too. So why are you speaking as if you’re just guessing?”
“…What?”
“Why did you come alone today? Does Thomas know you’re acting on your own?”
I shot back at the collection agent who had frozen in place.
“And more importantly, did you even get approval from Vargas of Fang in the first place?”
Vargas was the head of Fang and the loan shark from whom my father had borrowed money.
I could ask this because I knew that Vargas had been betrayed by a nobleman and had fallen in an instant.
Yet that same Vargas, whom any nobleman should have trembled before, was casually arranging marriages for the Marquis Estate?
“Y-you little bitch, what do you think you know…!”
With those words, it was as good as a confession.
‘Two hundred million? He never intended to give me a single coin from the start!’
I rapidly calculated my options.
This wasn’t official Fang business. Which meant if this fell through, Vargas had no reason to retaliate against me or my father.
Rather, if his collusion with the nobility came to light, this man would be purged by Vargas himself.
In that case.
‘I don’t need to hold back either.’
“Aren’t you tired of calling me a bitch? Get some new material!”
Shhhhk—
I immediately pulled out the pepper spray I kept in my pen holder and sprayed it directly into the collection agent’s face.
I’d made it as a self-defense tool for emergencies, and finally it had a use.
“Ahhh, my eyes!”
“My father might be a pushover, but I’m not. Sure, I’m obsessed with money, but I’m not so stupid that I can’t see what’s right in front of me!”
“Aaaahhh!”
“I’m even giving you advice out of kindness—if being a Marquis’s wife is such a great position, why don’t you take it yourself and climb the social ladder, you trash!”
After emptying the entire spray can, I immediately tried to bolt out the door.
‘I need to get away from this debt!’
But as the collection agent flailed his arms wildly through the air, I got caught by a blind elbow strike and tumbled straight to the ground.
My glasses flew off in the process.
Damn it. If only the apartment were a bit larger, this wouldn’t have happened!
“Ugh!”
The collection agent approached the direction of my sound from the floor.
The way he looked down at me, his eyes swollen and reddened from the pepper spray barely open, was utterly chilling.
“Tch, I was trying to do this nicely, but you had to make a scene? Fine. This is my personal business anyway. So what are you going to do about it!”
Something caught against my back as I retreated step by step.
It was the side business box. When I gripped the box tightly and lifted my head.
Our eyes met.
“If you won’t sign, I’ll just take you by force and sell you off… huh?”
The collection agent, who seemed to have his words catch for a moment, blinked his teary eyes several times before suddenly letting out a scream.
“W-what did you put in this! What are you doing to me…!”
But his words couldn’t continue.
Crack!
Taking that opportunity, I swung the side business box down hard against the collection agent’s face.
What burst out from the crumpled box along with glass shards was.
“S-s-spiders!”
Several pitch-black mountain spiders, their bodies bristling with coarse hair, scattered across the room.
The debt collectors hadn’t been the only ones watching me intently—I’d observed these creatures long enough to grow sick of them.
And through that observation, I’d learned something crucial about the man before me:
“Damn it. Why are there so many insects?!”
This debt collector despised bugs.
Particularly large spiders.
“Ahhh—!”
Confronted by the grotesque sight of the spiders crawling up his chest, the debt collector shrieked and instinctively stumbled backward.
Of course, I harbored no illusions that the spiders would actually defeat him.
My purpose was merely to distract him, to create a window of opportunity to slip from his line of sight.
‘I don’t need to flee far. There’s plenty of brush nearby—I can hide among it, wait for him to panic and run, then return.’
While he convulsed at the mass of spiders clinging to his body, I moved swiftly toward the window—then froze.
‘My jewelry box!’
The small wooden box sat abandoned in the corner of the desk.
If I left it behind, that mad debt collector would undoubtedly smash it to pieces in a fit of rage or steal it outright.
Unfortunately, he knew all too well how dearly I treasured Mother’s keepsakes.
I’d already halfway climbed through the window when I forced myself to turn back.
I stretched out my hand as quickly as I could and snatched the jewelry box—but it was too late.
“Well, well, look what we have here!”
Just as I was about to climb back out, a massive hand seized me by the hair.
“Let go!”
“You’re right—it was foolish of me to be gentlemanly about this. I should have simply gagged you, knocked you unconscious, and tossed you into the carriage from the start.”
“Ugh…!”
“Go ahead and struggle. Do you really think the Marquis Estate would cast you out over a broken limb or two?”
Despite his eyes swelling grotesquely from spider bites, his vision likely obscured, the debt collector’s demeanor remained brutally menacing.
It wasn’t for nothing that I’d been faithfully paying Fang their dues. These men were relentless.
“My earnings might decrease slightly, but I’m willing to bear that cost, you wretched girl!”
As I thrashed against him, the debt collector gripped my arm savagely, applying pressure as though he truly intended to snap it.
Tears welled up from the pain.
Yet even as I clutched the jewelry box desperately, my mind raced frantically.
Was there any way to escape now? Should I wait for an opportunity in the carriage? Or perhaps after arriving at the Marquis Estate…?
‘Think of something, please!’
That was when it happened.
Crash—!
The door burst open with a tremendous bang, and from within the thick night mist emerged a dark silhouette that charged at the debt collector without hesitation.
“You—what are you—gah!”
The debt collector barely had time to react before the shadow overwhelmed him.
The debt collector was no stranger to physical combat himself, but he had no opportunity to respond.
Thwack!
With a dull thud, the debt collector’s massive frame was driven into the ground like a sheet of paper.
The man who approached like the dimness of night elegantly trampled the debt collector’s back beneath his shoe, then looked down at me and asked.
“Are you all right?”
It was Aden.
Half-collapsed and dazed, I looked up at him and thought.
‘Thanks to him, I’ve dealt with the debt collector, but….’
…Why is the CEO appearing here…?

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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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