Chapter 23

Chapter 23

“M-my lady!” exclaimed Emily.

It was already morning by the time I arrived at the manor with Eckles. The butler and Emily, having seen our approach in the distance, ran to me, faces pale.

“Lady Penelope. What were you...” the butler began to ask, trailing off.

“You disappeared during the night!” Emily said in a high screech.

It was at that point that I realized my plan to sneak in unnoticed with Eckles had failed.

“Does... Father know?” I asked.

“Of course, he does! The young masters have been out all night searching for you with the knights, and the slave traders came at dawn and turned the place upside down!”

I rubbed at my temples. Distrusting my word, the slave trader had come at sunrise to collect payment. What’s more, he’d come before I had. Derrick and Reynold had obviously made a huge fuss—as if the situation wasn’t bad enough already.

Crap... I shouldn’t have brought them with me, I thought with a groan.

Emily began pushing me toward the gate. “Please hurry inside, my lady. Quickly!”

“My lady. Who is this man?” asked the butler, stepping in Eckles’ way as he made to follow me.

“He will be my personal bodyguard from now on. Give him a suitable room and let him rest,” I ordered.

“M-my lady! You can’t just—” The butler eyed Eckles, who was covered in wounds and dressed poorly, up and down. He looked appalled. “That’s unacceptable! We don’t even know who he is. How can we just let him into the manor—”

“Pennel. Have we already forgotten our little chat?” I was exhausted from spending the whole night at the auction house. I wanted to go directly to my room and throw myself in bed, but I had a lot of things to take care of before I could even think of going to sleep. I had no time to waste on the butler. “Give Eckles a place to rest. Please.”

“Understood... my lady,” the butler said, bowing reluctantly.

I would have resorted to threats if he hadn’t listened, so I was relieved I wouldn’t have to waste any more energy. I quickly advanced toward the front entrance with my entourage.

“Hey! You!” Reynold, who had been pacing nervously in front of the door, saw me first.

The duke, who’d been sitting nearby, immediately stood and said, “Penelope!”

“Father...” I said, faltering under the duke’s glare.

The duke seemed to be holding back the urge to emulate Reynold’s shouting. Instead, he said, “Come to my office... Now.”

He stormed away like an icy blast of wind, and I sighed deeply.

Ugh. How am I going to get out of this one?

Was all this trouble worth it just so I could pursue an ending with Eckles? Feeling a burst of resentment, I spun to face him, but my irritation fizzled out when I saw the letters hovering above his gray-brown hair.

[Affection Score 18%]

I had to get through this. He was my best option for survival, after all. Reynold, noticing Eckles standing right behind me, glared at him menacingly.

“Who is this tramp?”

“Go with the butler, Eckles,” I ordered hurriedly, not wanting any more trouble.

“Go with the butler where? We don’t let vagabonds into the manor!” Reynold shouted, furious.

However, probably because I was expected at the duke’s office right away, he said no more on the matter. The same was true of Eckles, who was gazing at me silently, lips moving as if he wanted to speak.

“Go on, there’s a good boy,” I said, cutting him off resolutely. I didn’t have time for this. I left my mask with Emily and hurried after the duke.

The duke’s cold voice cut through the quiet like a blade as soon as I stepped inside.

“Penelope Eckhart.”

“Yes, Father,” I replied, politely coming to stand before him. The duke sat with his back to the desk.

“Explain what’s going on.”

My blood ran cold hearing his stern tone. I couldn’t get a good look at his face, so I was uncertain if I would be able to maneuver this conversation as well as I had previously. I didn’t care about the reputation points I’d accrued by improving my relationship with him, but I was concerned that falling out with him might negatively impact the Eckhart brothers’ affection scores. Thoughts bounced frantically around in my mind, and I eventually decided to continue with the tried-and-true strategy that had worked for me so far.

“I’m sorry I left without telling you, Father.”

“You seem to be apologizing an awful lot lately,” he replied, unimpressed.

Just apologizing wouldn’t work a third time it seemed. His next words left me at a loss.

“You’re quick to apologize, but I don’t think you’re really sorry, are you?”

“I...” I chewed my lip and decided to change strategies, starting with addressing what had concerned him the most thus far regarding Penelope. “I swear I did nothing to bring shame to our family name, Father.”

“I did not wait all night just to hear you give me useless excuses!”

I’d barely finished speaking when the duke slammed his fist loudly on his armrest. I gasped. I’d never seen him this angry while playing the game; he’d always been completely disinterested in Penelope. I felt a wave of terror.

What do I do?

My head was beginning to spin. Perhaps I’d been mistaken to think that pretending to regret my actions would get me off the hook easily, as it had last time following the incident with the crown prince.

“I want details, Penelope Eckhart. Why did my daughter leave the manor at night without anyone to protect her?”

Overcome with fear, I was unable to speak. Seeing this, the duke finally let out a ragged sigh. He asked in a more muted tone, “And who were those vulgar men that came knocking at my door this morning? What happened last night?”

I sighed quietly so he wouldn’t hear. If the duke was so insistent on an explanation, apologizing would do me no good.

“I... wanted to see the festival at night. So, I snuck out,” I said.

“Why did you want to go out at night when you could have gone during the day? And if you truly wanted to go, you could have just asked for permission.” the duke rebuked.

“I didn’t think you would agree.”

“What... did you say?” he asked.

“You never allow me to leave unless it’s for a formal event.”

This was true, and the reason I’d searched high and low for that gap in the wall. Even in the game, the backdrop to Penelope’s scenes had always been either the manor or a ballroom. Though nothing was said about it directly, I’d realized as soon as I set foot in this world that Penelope’s life was basically one of confinement.

She was always kept in the manor to prevent her from causing any trouble, and she was only allowed to participate in events that she was explicitly invited to. That was why she didn’t have a personal knight like all the other nobleman’s daughters. A knight would just be a waste of resources.

“...”

The duke was silent for a moment, then said in a low tone, “And?”

“I met my brothers on the way out. They tried to stop me at first, but I begged them to let me go, and they decided to come along instead. I couldn’t wake the knights so late at night just to escort me.”

“...”

“We were walking around the festival together but got separated by the parade. I found myself in a dark alleyway when I ran into a nasty nobleman, and things quickly got out of hand.”

“Wh-what!” The duke shot out of his seat. “Who was he? How dare he!”

“I-I was too confused at the time to recognize him,” I said, startled by his reaction. His eyes were burning with rage, and I felt like he might do something rash if I didn’t give him the nobleman’s name right away. “He did call himself Kluy or something...”

“Kluy, you say?”

I’d mentioned the noble only as part of my cover story, but the duke muttered the name to himself over and over as if committing it to memory. I felt a chill as he sat back down, continuing to mutter darkly. Frightened of what might come next, I hurriedly changed the subject.

“Eckles, who happened to be passing by, helped me.”

“Eckles? You mean the man you brought with you?” the duke clarified.

“Yes. He was escaping from the slave auction house at the time.”

The duke frowned heavily at the word “slave.”

I added quickly, “He was formerly a noble in his country before our empire defeated his in the war.”

The duke’s concerned expression smoothed at this, and the change in his demeanor left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Because he stopped to help me, the slave traders who were pursuing him recaptured him. I happened to have the blank check you gave me and a button from Derrick’s sleeve, so I bought him.”

“For the exorbitant price of 100 million gold?” the duke sputtered.

“I couldn’t turn a blind eye to the man who saved my life,” I said.

This was quite far from the truth, but Eckles was my savior, or at least, he had become so shortly after our meeting.

“I did not give you that check so you could buy a slave,” the duke said, anger evident in his voice.

“Look at you. How many dresses do you plan to buy with a blank check?”

I remembered the way he’d chuckled as he handed me the blank slip. Not that there was much he could say if my story was to be believed.

“He failed to escape because of me, and he was being dragged back to the auction house.”

“...”

“Even a beast knows to be grateful to their savior. As an Eckhart, how could I ignore him after what he did for me—”

I was prevented from continuing by a loud slamming noise. The duke’s office door flew open, and someone rushed inside.

“You!” It was Derrick, pale and covered in sweat. He strode into the room, glaring at me with a frightful scowl. “Where the hell have you been?”

“B-brother,” I said, taken aback as I glanced cautiously at the duke.

Derrick looked beside himself with worry.

“I’ve scoured the entire capital all night. Even the red-light district! I was afraid you’d been taken by human traffickers. You hear me?” he shouted.

“...”

“I thought they might have...” Derrick grabbed my shoulders, his voice filled with a desperate urgency.

I’d never seen this expression on his face before, and my shock only grew when I glanced above his head.

[Affection Score 13%]

What in the world?

I abruptly remembered his distraught face when the button had ripped from his sleeve, and I’d been carried away from him.

“Penelope!”

He’d struggled desperately to grab me again. Derrick didn’t just dislike Penelope; he hated her with every fiber of his being. Simply calling him “Brother” had been enough to eat away at his affection score. That was why I’d never even considered Derrick as a valid option after I found myself in this world, thinking it a success if I could just keep his score above zero. It hadn’t even registered that he’d been acting so unlike his usual self when he’d lost hold of me at the festival.

But why?

Forgetting that the duke was still there, I stared at Derrick and the score above his head.

Why do you look so frantic?