“So, put that thing down in your hand… Wait, you’re my maid, right?! Oh, I am so telling Daddy!”

“…….”

Because of that unpleasant silhouette glimpsed in the dark, all sorts of thoughts were running through my mind.

Ethan, the Lout Prince, aka the Abomination.

True to its title, my brain was instantly filled with expletives at the sight of that distinctly fat figure from my childhood.

Unlike my first encounter, I was not distracted, and I was forced to face Ethan head-on and suffer the discomfort.

Aside from his puffy face, almost like a steamed bun, he had a stuffy brow clustered tightly in his face’s center.

He had a short stature and an equally short stomach.

There was probably some exaggeration due to the nature of the game, but even taking that into account, he was undoubtedly unpleasant to look at in person.

It was a face I had been forced to see many times in my previous life, that is, every time I had gone through the Lilith Route, so I had a personal vendetta against it.

‘Should I kill him right here and now?’

For a moment, I was surprised that I even had this thought.

Now that I think about it, it’s not a bad idea to kill him now, considering the 500 hours I wasted on him, and the betrayal of not being able to “virginize” Lilith at the last minute.

On the topic of non-virgins, I hated Lilith as the main heroine, but my biggest in-game pet peeve was that fucking Ethan.

If this asshole hadn’t taken Lilith’s virginity in every single run-through, I wouldn’t have wasted those hours and watched Lilith’s ending nearly thirty times.

Plus, I wouldn’t be repeatedly posting that Lilith was a slut on LuAGal *1, and I wouldn’t be possessing said Lilith in this damn game.

Not to mention, I wouldn’t be waking up two hours earlier than I have to, nor would I be chewing on raw garlic.

He’s practically the cause of all this pain I’m experiencing.

I had a knife in my hand, and the only exit from this warehouse was the door behind me. It was the middle of the night, so I knew I could make a clean getaway.

…Of course, if I were caught by Harold, who would probably unleash his entire army to track me down, the punishment wouldn’t simply be death.

If there is a fork in the road, as in the game, then now, this moment, is the time to decide my fate.

In a moment of choice that could potentially change my life forever, I finally came to an important decision.

‘…Yeah, whatever. What could possibly go wrong with this little fucker?’

Instead of killing this damn Ethan right here and now, I decided to leave him alone for now.

I was right to hate Ethan because of my memories from my previous life. That was THE Ethan, the Lout Prince. He’s the one who had fucked Lilith, took her virginity, and thwarted my strategy.

Even so, it was rather odd that I would have murderous intentions toward a child who had just awakened from the curse.

It was too pitiful to see him die for a sin he hadn’t even committed yet.

If I could just get away from this guy in the first place, maybe he wouldn’t be as irredeemable as his future self in Luminor Academy.

…I can’t say for sure, because you never know if a person’s rotten to the core.

Faced with the life-altering decision that would determine my fate, I came to a difficult conclusion in my mind with all sorts of thoughts.

I suppressed the killing intent that flashed through my mind and drew back the knife in my hand.

“Put that thing away! Go, how dare you take a blade to your master….”

“I apologize, Master Ethan. I allowed my fear to overcome my ignorance and made a grave mistake.”

“……?”

“I was afraid that the great House of Blackwood had been invaded by a foe, and I was prepared to fight it with my meager forces, but I am so glad that you, Master Ethan, are here.”

“Uh, that is true, yes….”

“Since it was the fault of the foolish maid’s ignorance, will you not graciously forgive her? I, for one, will forget all about today’s incident when Master Ethan slipped out of bed in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, okay…. I forgive you….”

It was a lame excuse that would have worked no matter how old the person in front of you was.

Especially in that, I hadn’t sheathed my weapon as soon as I realized the opponent was a noble.

Anyone with the intelligence of a 17 or 18-year-old would have realized that I had some murderous intentions toward him. 

However, the Ethan in front of me, while 18 years old, was not technically 18 years old, so I was fortunate enough to get away with it.

I mean to say that he’s 18…no, 18, but not 18, because he’d been asleep for five years, thanks to a curse that had been placed on him when he was 13.

The name of the curse that Ethan had suffered for the past five years was the Curse of Erosion.

It’s a fairly deadly curse that, if left unchecked, will quickly erode your body and then trigger a year later to take your life.

This curse was actually implemented to some extent in the game. If you were cursed with it in combat, you had to use a special item to release it.

In fact, it was such a terrifying gimmick that if you left a character under the curse, there was a penalty for leaving the story or dying.

‘I also used it in my previous life to eliminate my rival male characters.’

Some of the heroines couldn’t be captured as virgins without eliminating certain rival male characters (boyfriends, brothers, fiancés), so I’ve killed more than a few enemies by “accidentally” using some curses during battle.

I’m not saying I feel guilty about it now, I’m just saying that the curse is that dangerous. A curse so powerful that even the game’s main characters can’t avoid it.

So if you’re wondering how this kid, who looks like he should be taller when measured sideways, was able to survive the Curse of Erosion for five years…

…it’s because of an ancient magic tool Harold used, the Eternal Pocket Watch.

The device is a time-based magic tool that can freeze the user’s body’s time for up to five years.

As soon as he realized that his son was under the curse, Harold used the pocket watch.

Over the next five years, while Ethan slept, Lilith gathered an endless amount of items here and there that she knew would be necessary to lift the curse.

Eventually, as soon as Ethan woke up after the tool’s effects ended, Harold succeeded in breaking the curse and protecting his son.

‘Although, to be honest, I don’t think he’s worth the trouble of protecting.’

Well, there’s no point in ranting about the characterization of a game character, so let’s move on from that and talk about Ethan’s five years of the curse.

While using the Eternal Pocket Watch, your body doesn’t age. It’s at a complete standstill.

In other words, the Ethan before me is 18 years old by birth, but his physical and mental age are still 13, five years younger than that.

Using the terms of my previous life, he’s an elementary school student at best.

A 13-year-old can’t possibly recognize the murderous intent I had at that moment, no matter how noble.

Not to mention, he wouldn’t want to tell his dad about breaking into the kitchen in the middle of the night because he was hungry.

“It’s late, Master Ethan. I suggest you return to bed.”

“…….”

“If you’re afraid of the dark and the silent hallways, I’ll be happy to accompany you.”

“…It’s not like that.”

*GROWL*

That sound didn’t come from Lilith’s body, which had been eating three meals with a proper schedule for over a year, so it was simple enough to deduce who it belonged to.

“Hey, I told you I came here because I was hungry. You got a problem with that?!”

‘Fucking pig.’

“It’s not strange, master. You’re still growing up, so you might be hungry at this time of night.”

The situation also gives us a pretty good idea of how Lilith and Ethan met in the original story.

This encounter was never revealed to be canon, but Luminor Academy is based on this world.

Perhaps Lilith and Ethan’s first meeting wasn’t so different from the situation I’m in now.

Lilith’s appearance caused her to be transferred from hospitality to the kitchen, and a slap from the head maid forced her to work the early morning shifts alone.

It was by talking to Ethan, who also sneaked into the kitchen at dawn, that Ethan first learned of Lilith’s existence.

Of course, in the game, Lilith would have never tried to fight Ethan, nor would she be chewing on garlic and chopping vegetables with Clean.

“I said I was hungry…do you have any leftovers or anything?”

‘Seriously?’

“The Blackwoods make it a rule to consume the day’s cooking within the same day, so I’m afraid we don’t have anything for you to eat.”

“I’m hungry!”

‘What the hell. Just starve.’

Whether 18 or 13, Ethan was still Ethan in the sense that the asshole was making me want to kill him for what he was doing.

The problem was, I couldn’t get any work done today unless I could get this asshole out of here.

Even if he was a 13-year-old, the fact that you can’t use magic unless you’re a noble should be drilled into his head.

There was no way I was going to leave him alone in the kitchen, so the most amicable way to resolve the situation was to feed him something and send him upstairs.

“If you’re really hungry, go sit in the dining room. I’ll make you something simple to eat.”

“Huh? Do you know how to cook?”

“I can’t do anything complicated, but since you’re hungry, I suppose it can’t be helped.”

“Aww!”

“Instead, you can eat it all and then go back to your room.”

“Yes!”

Even though it’s been a week since I decided to escape from Ethan, I can’t believe I’m supporting him.

This was the moment when I fundamentally questioned whether or not I was handling things correctly.

T/N

1. LuAGal is short for Luminor Academy Gallery, the forum where our MC, in his past life, repeatedly called Lilith a slut.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and see you in the next one!