The Obsessive Maniac Is Trying To Confine Me - Chapter 8

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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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Episode 08

“You have a deep fragrance, maid.”

It was the same thing he had said before.

He observed me with clouded eyes as if dissecting me, like a beast enchanted by a flower.

“But when I smell that fragrance, it doesn’t hurt.”

“….”

“It doesn’t hurt even though I haven’t taken the magic suppressant.”

Rihardt’s fingertips barely touched my forehead, just barely making contact. Then he carefully brushed my cheek.

“There’s no pain. When I meet you, maid.”

A strange heat settled in Rihardt’s gaze. When I faced the madness hidden in his gleaming blue eyes, I reflexively swatted his hand away.

A powerful instinct taught me.

If his shackles hadn’t been fastened.

If I had met him outside rather than at Count Evantes’ manor.

I would have been helplessly caught by him and thoroughly dissected under sharp blades wherever his curiosity reached.

It was an unpleasant sensation that made me shudder.

“Well, it’s good if it doesn’t hurt.”

Unlike my chaotically mixed thoughts, my mouth produced a very simple sound.

“Is that so.”

“Yes. Not being in pain is the best.”

A fragrance coming from my body.

Neither I, nor Emily who stayed with me, nor the people around me could smell the scent that only Rihardt could detect.

Was it a transmigrator buff, or was he lying to me?

It didn’t matter either way.

In a week, I wouldn’t have any reason to meet Rihardt.

Today too, I watched him eat while keeping his mouth tightly shut to save words.

The sight of his wounds gradually healing felt beyond miraculous, as if it wasn’t within the realm of humanity.

Eventually, I turned my head away.

But wait, did Arzen beat Rihardt like that in the original?

No.

An essential condition for beauty is being ‘intact and whole.’

Even when Arzen occasionally punished Rihardt, he extremely hated seeing scratches on his body.

‘Then what was that?’

Why was he injured?

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t figure it out. Did Arzen really beat him?

My curiosity was brief, as I was soon able to learn the reason for Rihardt’s injuries.

Why is this person….

When Rihardt finished his meal, I skillfully cleared the dishes and left the room.

But I saw something I hadn’t noticed before entering. More precisely, it was a part I hadn’t paid attention to.

Only then could I finally realize who the culprit was that had done this to Rihardt.

I looked at the person standing before me and smiled brightly. However, I was inwardly surprised by this completely unexpected figure.

It was someone I knew very well.

“Are you leaving, maid?”

Now that we had become somewhat familiar with each other, the gatekeeper spoke to me as I came out of Rihardt’s room.

I looked at the whip hanging from the gatekeeper’s waist and quietly harbored bitter thoughts.

His whip had dried blood on it.

So it was you.

The gatekeeper with his gentle smile looked different from usual.

If I hadn’t looked at his waist, I wouldn’t have had reason to pay attention to him.

To think the gatekeeper would assault Rihardt.

The gatekeeper probably knew about Rihardt’s monster-like recovery ability when he committed this act.

Come to think of it, in the early part of the novel, it was rare for Arzen to visit Rihardt.

Arzen’s frequent visits to Rihardt came later, after some time had passed and their love-hate relationship had accumulated layer by layer.

So did he think he wouldn’t get caught?

‘This is troublesome.’

If I had never known from the beginning, I wouldn’t have cared.

But why was Rihardt just taking the beating quietly?

Although Rihardt was wearing shackles, he had the ability to easily subdue a mere gatekeeper.

My head was complicated.

I seemed to have spent most of the morning thinking only about that.

“Roji! What are you thinking about so deeply?”

“…Just this and that?”

“It seems like you keep spacing out after meeting the monster.”

That’s all my admirable effort to avoid stepping on death flags.

“…But Roji, are you really going to work there?”

Seeing me sitting right next to the gatekeeper with a tray full of potatoes, cutting with a knife, Emily’s expression became complicated.

I smiled brightly at the gatekeeper standing stiffly beside me. The gatekeeper’s expression became even more rigid.

What’s wrong? I haven’t done anything yet.

I decided to thoroughly monitor the area around Rihardt.

Just in case the gatekeeper caused trouble and put me in danger too, I planned to monitor the gatekeeper as well.

“I asked the head maid if it was okay to work here, and she said there was no problem?”

The reluctant expression that had appeared on the head maid’s face when she answered my question remained vivid.

“…Roji, you know that’s not the problem.”

“Then?”

“Why are you working so hard? Do you have to peel potatoes even in front of the monster’s door?”

Well, to people who don’t know the original story, I might look like I’m making a fuss.

“You’re strange lately, Roji.”

“Emily, let’s be clear with our words. I’ve always been strange.”

“….”

Emily looked at me with eyes that had lost words to say, then shook her head as if she couldn’t stop me and went upstairs.

Scrape, scrape.

On the empty floor, only the sound of peeling potato skins could be heard.

“…Maid, what are you doing outside?”

Rihardt, who had been quietly inside his room, came toward the door as far as his shackles would allow and called to me.

“Working.”

“Next to the gatekeeper?”

“Yes.”

Even Rihardt, who was usually sly, seemed reluctant. If even Rihardt was like that, what about the gatekeeper who was trying hard to maintain a poker face while standing there?

The gatekeeper was breaking out in cold sweat.

“Let’s become friends.”

I shamelessly spoke to the gatekeeper.

“Don’t you want to become friends with me, maid?”

“No, I don’t.”

Rihardt spoke to me even more shamelessly.

You go away, shoo shoo.

I peeled potatoes while imagining gesturing toward Rihardt as if exorcising a ghost.

Then lunchtime came. It was time to go eat.

“Roji, were you still peeling potatoes there?”

Emily’s face darkened when she saw the half-peeled potatoes as she came to get me for lunch together.

I skillfully maintained my shamelessness even after seeing her expression.

Emily also said let’s go eat with a half-resigned face.

I excitedly got up from my seat.

What menu would come out today.

Several maids gathered in the dining hall to receive their meals could be seen.

When I accidentally made eye contact with one maid, I smiled at her.

But that maid averted her eyes as if she had seen something she shouldn’t have.

‘Huh?’

Something’s strange.

The atmosphere inside the dining hall is cold.

Emily also frowned as if she noticed something odd.

I went to get my meal without caring. But….

“Oh my, I’m so sorry! There’s nothing for you two.”

The brown-haired maid looked at Emily and me with a sneer.

“What do you mean there’s no food for us?”

“Just what I said. Someone must have accidentally thrown it away.”

“Hey!”

Emily approached the brown-haired maid with an angry face.

I was already starving to death, so what kind of nonsense was this. I was angry too, but decided to quietly observe the situation for now.

“Emily, I said I’m sorry. Why are you getting angry?”

“You say you’re sorry while talking about throwing away people’s food? What is this nonsense all of a sudden!”

At Emily’s words, the brown-haired maid glanced at me. And what she said was….

“She’s the monster’s maid, what if the monster’s curse spreads?”

“What?”

At such ridiculous words, Emily glared at the maid in front of her.

“What kind of nonsense is that, Mari!”

“Why is it nonsense? That’s a ‘monster.'”

The brown-haired maid smiled brightly as if the word monster was some invincible logic that solved this absurd contradiction.

I was a bit dumbfounded.

Though I had only been possessed for a few days, I had maintained amicable relationships with the maids so far.

There were no signs of problems at all, and if serving Rihardt was an issue as that maid Mari said, then what about all the people who had served him until now?

“Anyway, I’m anxious that the curse might spread, so could you leave?”

The brown-haired maid was triumphant, as if she thought I would comply with her words.

I thought to myself.

Messing with food is really not okay.

“Why should I leave?”

“….”

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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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