Episode 5

When he opened the door, the first thing to enter his eyes was a bed sitting alone in the spacious room.

Next, he saw something mixed with crimson and pink atop the bed. He could tell even without looking properly.

It was the hair of his one and only younger sister.

Reuden slowly moved his steps. His expression was somehow ominous.

Finally arriving near the bed, he quietly looked down at his younger sister.

Her eyes were closed. Her usually smooth brow was furrowed, and the sound of her breathing was quite loud.

The corners of her eyes and her cheeks were red. The pace at which her chest rose and fell was quite fast.

And that wasn’t all?

Sweat was flowing like rain, completely unfitting for the arrogant her.

“……No way. Could it really be?”

Reuden unknowingly muttered and reached out his hand, bringing it close to her face. The ragged breath escaping from her mouth was incredibly hot. And her forehead touching his fingertips was as well.

Did she swallow fire? Looking at her parched lips, Reuden had a preposterous thought.

Then, a complex white pattern spread from his fingertips.

Reuden muttered something, and the pattern floating above her face crumbled like dust. The particles drifted through the air like fireflies and disappeared the moment they touched her body.

At that sight, Reuden quietly withdrew his hand.

“Healing magic doesn’t work.”

“Holy power did not work either.”

Catherine, who had followed him inside, told him once more, as she had said a short while ago.

Holy power did not work either… Reuden fell into thought.

“What should we do, shall we call another physician……”

“No.”

“……”

“No need to call. Leave her be.”

His voice was cold as ice. However, his expression crumbled unlike usual.

It was an expression she was seeing for the first time, so the butler Catherine maintained her silence.

And she had a premonition. That something would change.

* * *

-Such insolence……! How dare a mere human……!

-I curse you!

-For your whole life, live without being loved!

“Hah!”

Opening my eyes with a start at the shouts ringing painfully in my ears, a hazy, blurred vision greeted me.

‘What was that, just now? A dream?’

My thoughts didn’t continue long. A headache that pierced through my brain assaulted me. As I let out an involuntary groan and grabbed my forehead, I recalled how I had ended up like this.

[You have refused all of today’s missions. A penalty is given.]

Those words engraved in black upon the red window. Penalty.

Right, absurdly enough, I had received a penalty.

Why? Because I didn’t do bad things.

It was a situation like a manga. No, to be exact, a game-like situation? No. Since I had possessed a character in a novel, should I call it a novel-like situation?

Thinking that far, a scoff naturally flowed out.

For the past week, I had lived in a half-dead state, if that was any exaggeration. I think someone kept coming and going, but I was in too much pain to pay attention to that.

And the reason for that was merely refusing missions. A scoff leaked out again.

Still, one thing had dawned on me.

If this mission window had existed even before I possessed Rene Blair.

Then Rene Blair had been forced to commit evil deeds all this time.

She had no choice! Who could endure not doing it when the penalty was catching a high fever for a week?

Having experienced that pain and agony until just a short while ago, I sorely understood Rene Blair. Rene Blair must not have wanted to experience it twice either. So inevitably, until now……

“Sigh……”

A sigh deep enough to hollow out the earth came out. Because a problem had arisen.

My goal was to live in leisure and comfort with Anastasia Solen, spending the money Rene Blair had saved up until now.

To do that, I first had to prove with my own body that I was different from before, in other words, that I had been reborn.

Which meant stopping the evil deeds……

Because of the mission window, I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to, could I?

Then what should I do? What do I do now?

Suddenly, Rene Blair’s final moments flashed through my mind. Now that I thought about it, didn’t Rene Blair die at someone’s hands in the banquet hall?

My memory wasn’t clear, but what was certain was that she seemed to have died after offending someone very important.

What if that was because of the mission window?

Thinking that far, I got goosebumps as if all the blood in my body had drained away.

“I can’t let that happen!”

“What can’t happen?”

“Hah, you scared me!”

Having shouted while shooting up because it was dizzying just thinking about it, a strange voice was suddenly heard from nearby.

Letting out a scream without realizing it and looking to the side, some man was sitting in a chair. Holding a book that looked heavy.

After blinking my eyes several times, the man finally came into view properly.

Coral-colored hair and coral-colored pupils.

I had seen it the day before yesterday…… No. It was the same color as my hair that I had seen on the day I possessed this body.

Then it was obvious who it was.

“Reuden……?”

It was definitely Reuden Blair. But why was he here?

At my call, Reuden’s eyebrows subtly narrowed.

‘Hah, did I make a slip of the tongue?’

I quickly thought of how Rene Blair in the novel had addressed Reuden Blair. But perhaps because I had been sick for a week and just woken up, my head wasn’t working well.

In the end, I made a risky play.

“O… ppa?”

Having never used the word oppa in my life, the word oppa was extremely awkward.

So awkward that my facial muscles all trembled.

‘Ah, it’s too much. Now that I think about it, I don’t think she ever called him oppa in the original story.’

It was the very moment I vowed never to say oppa again.

A heavy thud was heard.

Wondering what the sound was and looking toward where it came from, the heavy book had fallen. Above it, Reuden looked at me with a face that doubted his own ears.

Damn, it seemed to be because I called him oppa.

“Sorry, sorry! I just suddenly wanted to try calling you that…… I’ll refrain from using that form of address from now on.”

“Sorry……?”

The dazed Reuden muttered it as if hearing the word for the first time. At that, I made another mistake.

Because with Rene Blair’s personality, she wouldn’t have apologized so readily.

Reuden’s eyes narrowed. It was a suspicious gaze, so I had to break into a cold sweat.

‘No, isn’t this actually a golden opportunity? Should I try saying straightforwardly that I’ll get my act together and live properly from now on?’

But my excuse couldn’t come out of my mouth. Because Reuden picked up the fallen book and spoke first.

“You must have been really sick. The first thing you say upon waking is an apology……”

“……”

“Before apologizing to me for calling me oppa, apologize to Solen first. You struck her a week ago.”

He pressed the crumpled page with the tip of his finger. I looked at it blankly and then frowned.

Solen this, Solen that. So cold.

I didn’t like the way he addressed Anastasia. It was a thought I had even when reading the novel.

Reuden Blair.

He was a man who knew nothing but receiving the title of count at a young age after losing his parents early. And that wasn’t all. In the field of magic, he was so outstanding that he was called a genius.

He had naturally become a mage, and having caught the king’s eye in a favorable way, he was made a royal mage—and among them, given the highest rank.

In other words, whether as Marquis Blair or as a mage, Reuden Blair was a man who had spent his entire life doing nothing but work.

And there was someone who stirred such a man’s heart into disarray. That person was Anastasia, a mage like him and also his aide.

Well, our Anastasia was so dazzling, so clever, and so extraordinarily skilled at magic that it was only natural he’d fall for her.

‘But still…….’

Why did he have to call her Solen so coldly?

He ought to be calling her by name, acting close, and making his appeal among his rivals, and even that wouldn’t be enough.

“Aren’t you going to apologize?”

Reuden’s voice cut into my thoughts, which had wandered off on a tangent. Snapping back to my senses, I shook my head vigorously.

“No, I will! I was going to do it anyway.”

Reuden stared at me with an unreadable look, then rose from his seat.

“Take care of yourself. Ever since you were young, it’s been a headache whenever you’re sick.”

“Of course, of course. Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of myself!”

“As if.”

He muttered so quietly it was barely audible, met my eyes once more, and then left the room altogether.

I quickly got down from the bed.

Come to think of it, had Reuden stayed by my side because I was sick, despite being busy?

In the original story, Reuden was portrayed as someone who had given up on Rene. Whether it was because he’d grown tired of Rene’s repeated evil deeds, he hadn’t shed a single tear when she died, so that said everything.

‘And yet he stayed beside me like this, huh…….’

For the past ten years, I’d been so hounded by debt that I’d never received love from the people around me, let alone from family, so it left me confused.

Was Reuden staying by my side simply the bare minimum courtesy between family?

Or was it sibling affection?

Hmm, maybe it was sibling affection? It would be nice if it were. If I showed him just a little bit of how I’d changed, he might even shed tears of emotion.

Morning sunlight was streaming in through the window. As I stared at it blankly, a sound I’d heard once before reached my ears.

A monotonous dinging sound. It was the chime of the wall clock I’d heard on the second day after my possession.

Come to think of it, the mission window had appeared as soon as I heard this sound.

Ding.

No sooner had I thought it than that dreadful sound rang out.

I hadn’t even come up with a way to deal with it yet. For it to come already was a disaster. But it wasn’t as if I could avoid it, so I clenched both fists tightly and raised my head.

Today’s Mission

“Slap the maid’s cheek!”

Accept / Decline

Ha, a maid again? Leave the maids’ cheeks alone already…….

It felt unpleasant, but what choice did I have? For now, I accepted.

As soon as I pressed the option, the window disappeared.

It felt as though that marked the first step of my new life after being possessed, which left me with a strange feeling.