The Unfilial Heir Who Tries to Kill Me Tempts Me - Chapter 13

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

Chapter 13.

“Wait, what are you talking about?”
I pressed Kaius urgently.
He stood favoring one leg, looking down at me with an insufferably arrogant expression.
“You thought an Exclusive Mage who’s already signed a Contract could just loaf around like you’ve been doing?”
“No, that’s not—”
The problem was the desk and chair coming into this office in the first place.
I tried to appeal to him with my eyes.
“Isn’t this the Duke’s office?”
“It is, and from now on it’ll be your workplace as well.”
“Why?”
“So I can keep you nearby and observe you.”
What am I, some laboratory mold?
Keep me nearby to observe?
My mouth fell open at the absurdity of it. But Kaius’s face held not a shred of amusement—only one hundred percent sincere resolve.
“Don’t worry. As you can see, my office is quite spacious, and one more person won’t interfere with my work.”
Why does he look faintly pleased about this? Infuriating.
“What about my opinion?”
“You don’t have one.”
“This is unreasonable.”
“How so? It benefits you as well.”
“How could it possibly?”
“Because you get to look at my face.”
“…I’ll have to pass.”
What am I supposed to do with this narcissist?
Just as I was about to insist on my right to privacy and dignity, servants poured in.
Ignoring me—who stood there flabbergasted—they followed Kaius’s instructions and placed a desk and chair in an empty corner of the office, then silently withdrew.
“There’s your proper workplace.”
Where exactly was proper about this?
I lost my words entirely. When something is absurd enough, speech simply fails you—and that was precisely where I stood.
“From now on, come in every day at a set time. Morning at ten o’clock should suffice.”
Kaius rose from his seat and returned to his desk, speaking as he went. Too stunned to process reality, I merely tracked his movements blankly.
Suddenly he turned and smiled.
“You’d best keep to that arrival time. Unless you want to be dismissed on your first day.”
His finger pointed to item seven on the Contract.
I wanted to cry.

***

Was it sophomore year of university?
A professor in one of my elective courses had warned us.
Never sign contracts without thinking it through. He said so many young people in their twenties and thirties got scammed that way.
I should have listened.
“…What is all this?”
The next day, I returned to Kaius’s office in tears only to face an unbelievable sight.
The desk that had been empty yesterday was now buried under a mountain of documents.
Worse still, during the thirty minutes I sat before it, servants kept pushing more and more papers toward me in an endless stream. Finally, they hauled in a trolley and began unloading entire boxes of documents beside my desk.
I wanted to faint.
“Accept them. This is work you need to handle.”
“All of… this?”
“Did you think the Lucifenia Dukedom was some trivial place?”
No matter how I looked at it, this was workplace harassment. Violence through hierarchy.
If I’d known that “I won’t kill you” was a ploy not to end me physically but to work me to death, I’d have been more careful before signing blindly.
“Such is my fate…”
Since Kaius showed no interest in engaging with me further, I abandoned my protest and began sifting through the documents.
And within a few minutes, I realized these stacks weren’t simply a means to torment me. They were genuinely necessary matters for the Dukedom.
Most concerned damage reports from Black Magic incidents within the territory, with pages crammed with welfare issues for the residents and all manner of problems requiring magical intervention.
As I read, I arrived at a fundamental question.
“But Your Highness, what exactly were you doing all this time to let your domain fall into such a state? You never hired a mage in all that time?”
Surely a single mage was within reach at this point.
Even if he despised Black Mages, he could have easily brought in White Mages.
I’m the author, true enough, but the Lucifenia Dukedom wasn’t the central setting of the work. I’d never bothered to think through every detail like this.
Kaius lifted his head and looked at me.
For a moment, our gazes caught in the empty air, neither of us speaking.
“All Black Mages were once White Mages, or so I’ve heard.”
That was all the answer he gave.
But there was no need to hear more.
Everything made sense in a single phrase.
Kaius had lost his entire family overnight without knowing why. As if that weren’t enough, he’d never even found a trace of the culprit. He was only fifteen at the time.
To him, Black Mages were far more than mere enemies—they were the embodiment of abstract, conceptual hatred.
Every mage was to Kaius a potential danger, latent with the possibility of becoming a Black Mage. I could understand his reluctance to take unnecessary risks.
As I thought it over, conscience pricked at me, so I pressed my lips together and buried myself in the documents.
“Now you seem motivated to work.”
“It just feels like I should be.”
If the original plot hasn’t diverged too far, in one year’s time the Lucifenia Dukedom will be half-ruined by the appearance of the Hidden Mastermind.
That bastard tears everything apart searching for the final Divine Artifact.
Strictly speaking, that’s my fault too.
The more I thought about it, the more it felt like I’d done something terrible to Kaius, and the weight settled on my shoulders.
It can’t be helped.
Since things have come to this, all I can do is prevent what I can from my position.
Besides, I’ll be taking the Divine Artifact for myself anyway, so there’s no reason to sit idle and watch the Hidden Mastermind reduce the domain to rubble.
I’d really made up my mind.
Resolved, that was me.
“Your Highness, you’ll be grateful to me.”
Kaius didn’t even look my way—just let out a short laugh.
He’s ignoring me.
I already know he’ll prostrate himself thanking me later.
Does he think an Author Buff is something you get your hands on easily?
Suddenly energized, I flipped through the documents with combative focus.
The list of tasks I needed to handle to prevent the foreseen ruin unfurled in my mind like a scroll.
Among them, there were a few priorities.
“Ah, here it is.”
I took the document I’d found in the stack and headed toward Kaius’s desk.
He tilted his head back slightly and looked up at me.
That expression suggested he wouldn’t take kindly to frivolous business.
“You didn’t deliberately leave this section of the wall unbuilt?”
His indifferent gaze shifted to the map I was pointing at.
“The walls are sturdy everywhere else, but there’s no wall on the side connecting to that mountain range over there.”
“The Snow Mountain Range beyond it is the continent’s second-highest peak. Behind that lies the Swampland, where golems inhabit. The natural terrain itself serves as a wall, so there’s no need to waste resources building one.”
Kaius’s reasoning made sense.
Those towering peaks and the golem-infested lands beyond meant artificial invasion was effectively barred. At least, it was—if you only thought about artificial invasion.
But in a few months, a landslide will strike that mountain range.
For the dramatic romantic development between Leoni and Fabian, I’d written an episode where the two of them, visiting near the Lucifenia Dukedom, get stranded on the Snow Mountain Range.
That’s great for the protagonists, but I didn’t think about the people who actually live in the Lucifenia Dukedom, did I?
“Still, just to be safe, wouldn’t it be good to build a wall around here?”
“Necessary?”
“Look here—the boundary of this mountain range is quite steep. If a landslide were to occur here, residents in the outer districts of the domain would suffer damage.”
“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a landslide in several years. The ground in this region is solid; such a thing happens perhaps once every century, if that.”
That’s right.
But it’s going to happen.
“…When was the last landslide in this area?”
“Well.”
Kaius narrowed his eyes at my question. He paused for a moment, then drew a book from the shelf and flipped through it.
“…Ninety-two years ago.”
“See?”
I straightened up with satisfaction.
“If they happen once every century or so, that means a landslide could occur within the next ten years.”
Kaius said nothing.
For a moment, he simply stared at me as though lost in thought.
“Come with me.”
“Pardon?”
We’d just finished one task. Where were we going now?
Kaius set down the documents he’d been reviewing and rose to his feet, looking down at me.
“You said the walls needed to be built, didn’t you? Let’s go see for ourselves.”
“But couldn’t we simply order the knights to handle it?”
He’d just heard me say it—
that physical labor could be delegated to others.
Kaius smiled faintly.
“No, it can’t.”
Bastard.

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