I felt goosebumps rise as I saw Felix’s smile.

His bright red eyes were the most striking thing under the lit chandelier.

His blood-red eyes, more intense than the daylight-colored light, were smiling like a child who had found something interesting.

Yet at the same time, they felt cold, as if they would cut down anything without hesitation.

“I think so too.”

But I had come back here to survive.

I had no choice if I wanted to avoid directly experiencing the main business of the Le Pelique duchy.

Felix Le Pelique was more suspicious than anyone.

He probably thought I might betray him.

If I hadn’t come here leaving Thanasis behind, he would have sent other subordinates to take my life and disguise it as an accident.

“Heh.”

He must have found my answer amusing, as he laughed like that and pulled out a small hidden dagger.

Then he waved it around before placing it on a nearby table.

“I’ll wash up first.”

“…Yes, I’ll prepare the bath water.”

“No. You clean up first. There must be a lot of blood splattered on the stairs.”

I nodded at Felix’s words, and he smirked.

So I had to head towards the stairs.

****

The sun was slowly rising. Perhaps that’s why things I couldn’t see due to the darkness suddenly came into view.

“Wow, this is insane.”

I don’t know how he got in, but the first floor main hall where I had encountered Felix was in chaos, as if a murder had taken place.

The surprise was brief; my only thought was that I needed to quickly get a bucket and mop to clean it up.

The servants’ morning started much earlier than the nobles’.

Seeing the dawn breaking, it was probably just past 5 o’clock now.

That meant I had to clean up this mess within the next hour. Otherwise, the servants would see it.

Then the basement would be full again.

“That won’t do.”

I shook my head and gripped the mop tightly. Then I sprinkled water mixed with lemon wherever blood had splattered and scrubbed hard.

I felt like retching from the smell of blood, but I had to endure it.

Right now, cleaning this up quickly was more important than vomiting.

The one fortunate thing was that while the floor was a complete mess, nothing had splattered onto the railings or walls.

Thinking about Thanasis’s condition, it seemed he had been dragged into the mansion already covered in blood.

Since I had roughly stopped the bleeding from his abdomen before coming out, he probably wasn’t dead yet.

But going down to treat him might upset the master, so it was better to leave him be unless specific orders came.

After all, the Thanasis Avein Apentina I had seen in “Beyond Dreams” was a weapon that wouldn’t die from something like this.

Prince Thanasis was also a human weapon created by the imperial family.

In this book’s world, magic had almost disappeared and didn’t remain.

However, a few very old objects still retained magic.

Like the ring I was wearing, for example.

In Thanasis’s case, due to his mother’s greed, he had continuously absorbed stones that could create fire.

Perhaps because of that, he had gradually become stronger than ordinary people.

And in the middle of this book, starting with killing Reniel Beila, the servant of the Le Pelique family, he ends up killing the mad duke Felix Le Pelique who had imprisoned him and obsessed over him, and completely burning down this mansion.

Then, unable to let go of his twisted affection for Felix, he ultimately commits suicide.

That’s how they all end up dead in the ending.

So I need to run away before Thanasis shows any ominous signs.

Perhaps because I was cleaning, my thoughts seemed to be getting organized.

For now, what I needed to do was this:

First, gather as much money as possible.

Second, appropriately divert and launder that money.

Third, if I just ran away, I would certainly be caught.

After all, that was the main business of the Le Pelique duchy. So I would need to fake my death before running away.

Fourth, live quietly in a foreign country.

Maybe I could even live as a woman in a foreign country.

Having lived as a man for so long, I now wanted to live a proper life.

Have a romance like everyone else does, wear pretty dresses, eat delicious food alone.

I decided to think positively like that.

“Phew.”

By the time my thoughts were organized, the cleaning was finished.

The first floor stairs and entrance were so clean that you couldn’t tell blood had ever splattered there, which made me feel a bit calmer.

“I should hurry.”

But my work wasn’t over yet.

After tidying up the cleaning tools, I had to go back to Felix’s room. He had told me to come back, after all.

****

“You’re here?”

‘Kyaaaa!’

Swallowing my internal scream, I lowered my gaze.

“If you’re here, do your job.”

“Yes, master.”

I needed to quickly find a towel nearby. He had come out with just a towel around his waist and was wet.

Moreover, he was holding a cloth to his stomach as if there was a large wound there. That white cloth was becoming stained red.

While wondering how he had managed to bathe in that state, seeing the scars all over his body made me think this must be a familiar situation for him.

“Outside?”

“I cleaned it up neatly.”

Saying that, I approached him with a dry towel.

His scarred body was glistening, perhaps from the moisture.

Soon, a water droplet that had fallen from his jet-black hair trickled down his temple to his nape.

Then it ran down his neck, past his Adam’s apple, and pooled in his collarbone.

As he breathed, the water droplet pooled in his collarbone flowed down his chest.

The truly amazing thing was that his body was so perfectly muscular, like a precisely carved statue, that the water only flowed in predetermined directions.

The water droplet passing between his pecs merged with other droplets already there and flowed down his scarred pectorals to reach his abs.

The water droplet that reached his abs gleamed brilliantly in the chandelier light as it rolled and was absorbed into the towel he had tied around his waist.

Though I too had a perfect male body now, every time I saw Felix’s body, I seemed to realize that I was originally a woman.

“Your hands are slow.”

“I’m worried about irritating your injuries.”

Trying to act nonchalant, I stood on tiptoe and wiped from his neck down to his abs. He looked at me as if annoyed.

A water droplet that had flowed down from the top of his head got into his eye, making him frown and squint one eye.

I quickly tried to put a clean dry towel on his head to wipe his hair.

I had to stand on tiptoe to barely reach the top of his head, so I tried to dry his hair like that, but.

“That’s enough for the moisture. Treatment.”

“Yes, master.”

Saying that, he went to sit on the bed with the towel still covering his head.

Around the bed was another mess with crystal ashtrays where cigars had been stubbed out.

It was also surprising that he had smoked three in such a short time before entering the bathroom.

“Wouldn’t it be better to call your personal physician, master?”

When he removed the cloth he had been holding, a long gash came into view. I was so shocked for a moment, but he mockingly said to me.

“Why? Why don’t you tell everyone that we’ve kidnapped the prince while you’re at it?”

“Ah, yes. I’ll do that.”

Not understanding the strange order at first, I nodded. Then he stared blankly before laughing as if it was truly amusing.

“Master?”

“Never mind.”

Unable to think normally, I just smiled awkwardly as I brought over the first aid kit and sat down.

“Are you sure you don’t need a doctor for this?”

He was looking at me with gleaming red eyes. It was that testing look again.

“Do you think you’re needed to see this wound?”

At first I thought that wasn’t the case, but realizing he had me stay to clean up the mess in the room, I nodded slightly and stepped aside.

Then he found a cigar cutter and cut off the corner of a cigar.

He put the cigar in his mouth and carelessly turned the wheel of a lighter to light it and inhaled.

Until just now, I didn’t know what kind of cigar he was smoking.

However, if this was the book I knew, that was a cigar with pain-relieving effects.

He held the cigar in his mouth as he took out a sterilized needle and thread from the first aid kit and.

“Hup…”

He began stitching his own open wound.

He stitched up his abdomen with a frown, then carelessly tossed the bloody needle and thread to me.

After retrieving them, I immediately wiped his abdomen with cotton soaked in disinfectant from the first aid kit. Then I quickly wiped the blood off his hands.

He looked at me with quite a satisfied expression.

I was holding my breath to avoid coughing from the cigar smoke, but.

“You have quite good sense.”

He blew cigar smoke in my face. My eyes stung and I felt like vomiting, but not breathing made it somewhat bearable.

“The head servant position must be vacant…”

“Ah, yes. I confirmed that Head Servant Mariben is also in the basement.”

Head Servant Mariben had been dragged to the basement recently after being caught embezzling.

“Go take over from her.”

Then he carelessly pulled out a key from the first drawer of the bedside table and gave it to me.