Chapter 35 : Chapter 35
Volume 1
Chapter 35 : The More He Thought About It, the More Terrifying It Became
Drip.
Drip.
In the dim space, some unknown liquid kept falling somewhere in the darkness, giving the place the cold, eerie feeling of a haunted realm.
With both hands bound by shackles, Muen could still do nothing but maintain that crucified posture, like a suffering Jesus.
He could not move at all, and even the most important and vulnerable parts of his body were left completely exposed and utterly unprotected, which filled him with intense unease—and a different sort of stimulation.
It reminded Muen of a little white rabbit waiting to be slaughtered.
Or of a certain sort of play between a man and a woman under very specific circumstances...
And the current situation...
Looked rather like both.
Because Ann had cast aside her usual dignified elegance and seemed to have transformed into a seductive serpent of a beauty, her soft body twisting around Muen as she greedily devoured everything about him.
“Um... Ann, could you get up first? I think we can talk this through.”
Muen swallowed.
The exquisite sensations coming from certain parts of his body made an uncontrollable heat rise in his chest.
He silently recited a calming mantra over and over in his heart, doing his best to keep his voice from trembling.
Ann rose to her feet, her fragrant tongue sliding over her lips, which were red and glossy.
“What does the Young Master wish to talk about?”
Ann’s cheeks were still flushed with an unnatural redness.
Her eyes were slightly dazed, and deep within them lingered both an air of dissatisfaction and a trace of irritation at having been interrupted.
“Well...”
Muen hesitated for a long while, organizing his words in his mind.
“You like me, right?”
“That is right.”
Ann smiled as she answered, “I have always, always, always, always, always, always, always liked you, Young Master. To the point of madness.”
“N-no, you do not have to say that many times.”
Muen wanted to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, but unfortunately, his hands could not move.
Yet right at that moment, Ann suddenly bent down and ran her soft tongue across his brow, licking away the sweat and drawing it into her lips.
“Mmm... Young Master’s taste...” Ann revealed the blissful expression of someone savoring a delicacy.
“...”
Muen froze.
Before he could even properly appreciate the sensation, his teeth had already begun chattering uncontrollably.
This was bad.
Very bad.
Ann’s yandere tendencies seemed even worse than I imagined!
But at this point, Muen had no room left to retreat.
He could only brace himself and continue.
“The truth is, Ann, you do not need to do all this.”
“Hm?” Ann looked puzzled.
“You like me, so we could just start dating normally, like an ordinary couple.”
Muen spoke urgently.
“You may not know this, but when Father left, he told me that he does not care about differences in rank at all. So even if I am the Duke’s son and you are a maid, there would not be any resistance to our relationship.
“There is absolutely...” Muen glanced at the shackles beside him. “Absolutely no need to go this far. This is already a crime.”
“I see. So that is how the Young Master thinks.”
Cupping her cheeks in both hands as though imagining something beautiful, Ann revealed an expression of boundless happiness.
“To truly be joined with Young Master... just imagining it makes me feel blissful.”
“Yes, exactly, so let me go first.”
Seeing that there seemed to be hope, Muen hurried to press his advantage.
“We can start as a couple, slowly come to understand each other, and then—”
“Ah, no. That will not do.”
But Ann suddenly cut him off.
“Huh?”
Muen looked up in astonishment, only to find that her eyes had already turned chillingly cold.
“Being in a relationship with a Young Master would indeed be wonderful, but that falls far short of what I need.”
“What do you need?”
“Did I not already say so just now?”
Ann spoke softly.
“What I want is all of you, Young Master. If you were in a relationship with me, would you be able to give me every part of yourself?”
“No, that is far too unreasonable!” Muen growled in anger.
“I am a living person, not someone’s possession!”
“But did I not spend a full ten years for the sake of achieving exactly that?”
Ignoring Muen’s anger, Ann continued to gently stroke his cheek with her hand, expressing the sincerity of her obsession.
“Sadly, I did not expect to fail in the end. Left with no other choice, I could only use this final method.”
“Ten years... what do you mean?”
Muen suddenly could not understand what Ann was saying.
He only felt the chill in his heart deepen further and further, as though some terrible truth was about to rise to the surface and drag him down into an abyss of fear.
“What do I mean? Naturally, I mean all the things I did for your sake, Young Master.”
Ann answered softly,
“Guiding you, protecting you, doting on you, making you arrogant and conceited, reckless and ignorant, turning you into a true wastrel and a good-for-nothing, making people despise you—especially those aristocratic sows who only knew how to flaunt themselves—making it so that, aside from me, no one would dare truly approach you, making it so that once you left me, you would be unable to do anything at all.”
“For the sake of making you belong completely to me alone, Young Master, I have been doing exactly that every moment for the past ten years.”
“Wh... what?”
Muen’s mind buzzed violently, blasted senseless by that sudden, overwhelming revelation.
He stared blankly at Ann, then saw reflected in her eyes—those eyes burning with fanatical desire—his own horrified face.
Wait.
What did Ann mean by that?
According to her, the reason Muen Campbell in the original novel had become such useless trash... was because of her?
Because of the deliberate guidance of his personal maid?
How could that be possible?
How could anyone in this world devise such a deranged plan merely for the sake of possessing someone?
...
No, it did seem possible.
Because whether in the original novel’s descriptions or in Muen’s own memories, everything pointed to one fact—
Muen Campbell had trusted his personal maid Ann deeply, so deeply that in the original novel, he had not even hidden from her the matter of drugging the princess.
No, that was not right.
The original plan to drug Celicia had been Ann’s suggestion in the first place!
A sudden flash of insight struck Muen’s mind.
That was how it had gone in the original novel. Muen Campbell had grown furious over Celicia getting closer and closer to the protagonist, and at that moment, Ann had casually said:
[If that is the case, then why not make the princess completely yours, Young Master?]
That was right. It was those exact words that had finally made the original Muen Campbell resolve to do it!
“But why would she do that? Would that not be ruining her own life as well? In the original novel, she was executed as an accomplice!”
As Muen looked at Ann, a terrifying thought suddenly rose in his mind.
Had Ann really died in the original novel?
If she had only been an ordinary maid, then yes, she would surely have been executed without any surprise.
But judging from the strength she had displayed earlier—strength enough to knock Muen unconscious in an instant—would she really have died that easily?
After all, her execution had only been mentioned in passing in the book.
What if she had faked her death, or used some other method to make everyone think she was dead?
And taking it one step further, in the original novel, had the protagonist really stumbled upon Muen Campbell’s crime because of so-called “destiny”?
At least from what Muen himself had experienced now, that so-called destiny was not nearly as reliable as it had seemed.
And taking it one step further still, had the original Muen Campbell really lost a hand and a leg and become a beggar because, as Muen had guessed, he had borrowed from loan sharks?
Or had he lost a hand and a leg trying to escape some existence—and even gone so far as to become a beggar for the sake of fleeing it?
The more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became.