TLed by NolepGuy
Chapter 38
Late dawn.
Carried on Ricardo’s back, Olivia returned to her room but couldn’t fall asleep easily.
Even after propping up the pillow high.
Even after turning her body toward the window.
Even after burying her forehead into the pillow face down.
Sleep wouldn’t come, and her eyes remained wide open.
Olivia rested her chin on the pillow and muttered like an unemployed person.
“I’m tired… But I’m not sleepy.”
The scar she had seen earlier in Ricardo’s room kept flickering before her eyes. The grotesquely distorted skin and the blackened arm. It wasn’t a scene that could be easily forgotten just because she wanted to.
‘It was so disgusting.’
Ricardo’s faint smile kept surfacing in her mind, leaving her uneasy.
After all, sleep is achieved when both the body and mind are at peace, allowing for a good quality rest.
If this gloomy emotion persists, she would likely stay awake all night until the morning sun rises.
Olivia let out a sigh.
With only a single lamp on the nightstand lit beside her bed, Olivia, who was making a distressed face, muttered softly.
“For three days, I was in a good mood…”
But now I feel gloomy.
*
Three days ago.
Every time Olivia looked at the calendar, she felt happy.
[☆September 21st☆]
*Foolish Butler’s birthday!
*Think of a birthday gift!
*Plan a surprise!
She was looking forward to the birthday party of the Foolish Butler who forgot the day he was born every year. Although it wasn’t a party with a gathering of people but a party just for the two of them, Olivia was thrilled because it was the first time she was celebrating Butler’s birthday since he injured his leg.
Ricardo didn’t care much about his once-a-year birthday.
-Birthday? Oh, why bother with something so annoying? Just eating a bowl of seaweed soup should be enough.
-Seaweed soup?
-It’s a soup made with sea plants.
-Sounds like it wouldn’t taste good.
Even last year and the year before, just before his birthday ended, he said, “Oh right, today was my birthday, wasn’t it?” Then he went to the kitchen alone, ate seaweed soup, and that was it.
She thought it would be the same this year.
Not celebrating his own birthday, which he should have, but putting his soul into celebrating hers, Olivia wanted to show the Butler how exciting and fun a birthday could be.
So Olivia prepared a surprise.
She read about it in a book.
In the philosophy book [Father, You Shouldn’t Do This!].
Ricardo’s favorite book filled with truths and insights about the world. He said it was full of helpful content for life.
When she asked to read it together, he handed it to her after shading half of the book with a black pen, but the content inside was genuinely authentic.
Adultery and love rivalry.
How to slap someone with less pain.
And even how to get rid of a flirting fox.
Ricardo’s favorite book, full of tips for life.
Among them, page 134.
It detailed how to create unforgettable memories.
-Father hid in my closet.
Because Ricardo scribbled over the rest with a black pen, she couldn’t know the backstory, but as a well-read intellectual, she could roughly guess the next part of the story.
The daughter-in-law must have loved the surprise from her father-in-law. Every time the father-in-law appeared, the daughter-in-law’s face turned red.
Taking inspiration from the Old Master, Olivia prepared Ricardo’s surprise party.
She worked hard for three days.
She wanted to hint at it.
She wanted to ask if Ricardo knew what September 21st was, and she wanted to test if he would like the gift she prepared, but she barely held back.
If she suddenly asked, “Do you like this?” it would’ve been obvious.
When the gift she had the Maid run an errand for arrived, she couldn’t stop smiling. Forgetting Yuria’s words that Ricardo’s leg couldn’t be healed, she wholeheartedly prepared for his birthday.
The birthday came quickly.
While Ricardo went to practice his sword, the Maid helped her onto a tray.
Although the tray, unable to bear her feather-like weight, got dented, it was probably because it was cheap. She thought the Butler would forgive her.
After much trouble, she arrived at the Butler’s room, which was shabbier than expected.
Ricardo had converted an old storage room for outdated dresses into his room. It had poor conditions with no proper heating or soundproofing.
No interior decorations.
No luxury items, just a simple room.
She felt a pang of sadness in the room, which seemed to exist solely for the purpose of hearing her voice.
Her eyes caught a book left open on the desk.
A medical book, stained with countless fingerprints.
Next to it was a notebook filled with dense writing.
[On Neurology.
*Once severed, nerves are difficult to regenerate. Especially the central nervous system…]
Not this one.
I’ll have to look for another book.
[On Rehabilitation.
*Rehabilitation is a miracle. If done consistently, one day, you can hope for a miracle…]
Should I try it once a week?
Only to the extent that it won’t be too hard for the Young Lady.
A thick notebook filled with tightly packed, hard-to-read handwriting lay on the desk. Olivia hugged the wrapped gift tightly.
For a Butler who had no association with studying. For Ricardo, who used to hit his forehead on the desk whenever he opened a book at the Academy, imagining him sitting at such a cramped desk studying made her feel uneasy.
I should have prepared a better gift.
Instead of the scarf and gloves sold in the marketplace, I should’ve gotten him a tie from the tailor shop Young Noblemen frequent… Of course, the gold coins saved in her piggy bank would be far from enough to buy even a tiny tie, but Olivia, feeling regretful, crumpled the gift in her hands.
Time passed, the Maid went off duty, and it was time for Ricardo to return to the room.
Olivia held her breath inside the wardrobe.
Creak. With the sound of the opening door, a sweat-soaked Ricardo entered the room.
‘Ha… I’m tired.’
With a sigh, he propped the sword at his waist beside the chair and unhesitatingly unbuttoned his shirt.
Unaware that she was in the room, Ricardo revealed his bare skin, and Olivia clenched her fist tightly.
-…How indecent.
Momentarily forgetting her feelings of nervousness, Olivia, focusing on the surprise party, covered her mouth with her hand.
-He doesn’t know I’m here.
Foolish Ricardo.
If I jump out of the wardrobe and go, “Ta-da!” he’ll be startled.
‘I want to tease him quickly. Quickly. I want to tease him now.’
Ricardo slowly undressed. Undoing the front of his sweat-soaked shirt, he revealed his sharply defined abs. Gulp. She swallowed involuntarily.
Olivia’s face flushed hot. She didn’t know where to look, and though she covered her eyes with her hands, her fingers were wide open.
‘Ugh…!’
It would be troublesome if he took off his pants.
I feel like I’m going to get a nosebleed.
Feeling like her face would explode, Olivia grew tense.
‘If it looks like he’s going to take off his pants, I’ll leave immediately.’
Her fingers spread open as Olivia peeked at the Butler’s body.
Ricardo unfastened the cuff button on his sleeve. Then, he began to remove his sweat-soaked shirt.
Gulp. She swallowed hard.
This isn’t peeping; it’s for the surprise party, so Ricardo would understand, Olivia thought as she focused intently.
When Ricardo’s white bandages slowly came into view, she was left speechless.
‘Huh?’
There was a bandage.
A bandage wrapped tightly around the body beneath the clothes.
This wasn’t a battlefield.
Ricardo, half of his body covered in white bandages, stood before her.
‘What is this?’
Anxiety struck her in an instant.
Because she felt that something was wrong.
It was strange that half of his body was wrapped in bandages.
He had clearly mentioned his arm to her, but why were the bandages wrapped so extensively? It was odd.
‘Is it a tattoo? No, Ricardo said he only tattooed his arm.’
‘It’s no big deal. He just wrapped the bandages to cover the tattoo.’
She desperately denied it.
Even though she knew what was beyond the bandages, she consciously denied the truth to herself.
Since seeing the Blue Window last time, she could already guess. She thought she had mentally prepared for it.
She had even planned to ask and talk about it when Ricardo took a vacation.
‘Ricardo clearly said he wasn’t hurt.’
It seemed her heart wasn’t ready yet.
She watched Ricardo with trembling hands. Watched Ricardo as he unraveled the bandages wrapped around his body.
As Ricardo, facing the mirror, unwound the bandages, the hidden wounds on his body slowly came into view before her eyes.
Drip. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“No… No!”
[Viewing Ricardo’s Hidden Secret. 1/1]
‘No…! Ricardo clearly. Clearly said so!’
She uttered meaningless whiny complaints.
She kept denying it, saying it couldn’t be, that it had nothing to do with her, that the rotting right arm wasn’t connected to her at all.
But the vividly visible Blue Window before her eyes… that cursed Blue Window caught her as she tried to run away.
‘This doesn’t make any sense.’
Yuria’s words echoed through her mind.
-Huh? Didn’t they say it was a wound caused by the Dark Magic going rampant?
-That’s right.
-Then why does it look so clean…? This doesn’t make sense.
-It doesn’t make sense?
-When Dark Magic fails, most of the time, the Mana Circuit burns out, causing instant death, or the flesh slowly necrotizes, eating away at the body. But Olivia, both externally and internally, has no necrotized areas. It’s completely clean.
Yuria’s words, spoken with eyes filled with wonder, suddenly came back to her.
-It’s a miracle. A miracle.
-The leg should’ve rotted under normal circumstances.
-Seeing as Divine Power doesn’t work, it must indeed be a wound caused by Dark Magic…
Starting from his chest, the scar marks twisted like burn marks. And the blackened right arm.
Time seemed to stop.
In the span of three seconds, dozens of thoughts raced through her mind, and her lips trembled as if broken.
What Ricardo had called Tree Bark turned out to be that.
When he said it resembled Tree Bark.
He was referring to that arm.
He was calling those blackened, cracked wounds bark.
Olivia trembled.
It would’ve been better if she had remained unaware.
It would’ve been better if she had shamelessly stayed ignorant.
It was truly a terrible thought, but Olivia didn’t have the confidence to face Ricardo.
She hoped the wardrobe door wouldn’t open.
Because she wanted to run away.
She had never resented her unmoving legs more than she did now.
The Butler’s hand drew closer and closer.
Olivia spoke in her heart.
‘Don’t open it.’
‘Please don’t open it.’
‘Please…. I’m not ready yet….’
But time didn’t wait for her fragile heart, and she locked eyes with the startled Butler.
“Ah… Young Lady?”
Even though the sin was hers, Ricardo looked at her as if he were the one who had done wrong.
The first words out of a flustered Ricardo’s mouth broke her heart.
“Ah…. I fell, and that’s why.”
At that moment, she thought.
‘I’m truly trash.’
***
In the empty room, Olivia stared at the Blue Window before her with empty eyes.
[Q. Viewing the secret he was hiding has been completed.]
The day the Master Served for 13 Years collapsed.
Ricardo was there at the scene.
Nobody knows what happened that day.
Except for one person.
Only the Butler knows the truth about that day.
Ricardo plans to keep that day’s events a secret for the rest of his life. A truth he intended to quietly let pass, unseen by anyone.
[!] Uncover the Secret of That Day.
1. Viewing Ricardo’s Hidden Secret. (1/1)
2. Touching Ricardo’s Hidden Secret. (1/1)
[29th Side Story]
[You can access ‘The Man’s Secret.’]
[Would you like to view it?]
Olivia nodded.
“I’ll view it.”