No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 34

What if I was Lee Hyang, living in the present reality?

I’m a bit curious about this too. If someone with Ryuseong’s face made the proposal, would I have just gone along with it?

I probably wouldn’t have been obedient, but I would have tried to seduce him with all sorts of tricks while going crazy, but if I got in the mood, I think I would have done what he wanted anyway. But it’s different now. Because Cassice Demillang is someone who will never easily give up control.

This person, who will never be conquered by others no matter what, is subjected to this and that?

‘This is a destruction of the original work!’

I told you. Only character destruction is not allowed. It can’t be my future where the family draws their swords and swings them around, and my head goes flying off. I’m not buying the purge ending. Go away.

In short, the options given to me have a ruined balance.

My neck vs. Ryuseong’s social reputation.

‘What’s there to ponder?’

I will mercilessly ruin the latter.

If, if, I don’t even want to imagine it, but if Ryuseong really knocks down my body, if I have to give you the right to physically trample me, you should also have the right to lose that much.

It’s not for nothing that the art of seduction has been particularly fierce since ancient times. Because if you get stabbed while sharing love, you go straight to the afterlife, so you have no choice but to climax defenseless and die, that’s why seduction is so damn good.

If I’m the one on top, I have no intention of doing such a thing at all – of course, Ryuseong’s physique should be preserved as a national treasure for a long, long time – but that bastard might end up on top.

‘You can stab me with a dagger. Let me do that too.’

In short, it’s a mutually beneficial contract relationship, so it’s a loss if only I get fucked. Why should only I be damaged? So feel free to despise and hate me. Regardless, I will gladly damage you. I’ll take the social prestige. I’ll dominate and control your mind, but in return, I’ll let everyone know that I’m allowing you to climb up.

‘Then you can treat me more recklessly…’

Isn’t that kind?

Don’t think badly of it. We’re holding each other’s leashes. I’m saying I’ll let you occupy my body and declare it’s yours, I’ll give you all the rights to strangle my slender neck and control my breathing, so wouldn’t you feel reassured if I have a grip on your social reputation?

Instead, you can roughly violate me. I’ll forgive that, I’ll let you climb up.

‘Listen.’

Thinking like that, I stared at you as if I was going to devour you, and then suddenly came to my senses.

It was because my body floated up. I reflexively clung tightly to Ryuseong’s neck, and he had already supported my butt with his forearm.

So, ahem. In other words, I was being lifted up in his arms while hugging him.

‘Th-this is a bit erotic, isn’t it?’

Of course, from the students’ perspective, the kissing would have been more erotic, but to me, the embrace seemed more intense.

If you’re not going to kiss, why are you hugging me?

But the next moment, he took steps while holding me in his arms. He went down like that towards the doorway where Hae Yuna and Lee Hyang were…

‘Huh?’

Why are you taking me to meet your friends?

‘What, are you going to introduce me or something?’

Wait, wait! I’m not mentally prepared yet…!

***

If we were to talk about Lee Hyang’s situation here, he was having a hell of a time. He did stay up all night, but it wasn’t because he stayed up one night that he ended up like this. If we must specify, it’s because he stayed up all night, but anyway, it wasn’t that his stamina was the problem.

The problem was the density of that one night.

‘What the hell is going on!’

‘What the hell is this, Lee Hyang!’

Lee Hyang received all the contacts he would receive in his lifetime that day. When Ryuseong turned off his phone, the clan association targeted Lee Hyang. And the fact that there isn’t just one clan association in Korea and there aren’t just one or two elders there drove Lee Hyang to tragedy.

‘The elders pressured you? You’ve been through a lot. You’re the only one suffering on the elders’ backs. (omitted) So why don’t you trust only me and secretly tell me what this is all about? It would be a heavy burden for you to keep the secret alone, and I won’t tell anyone either… (omitted)’ Such tricks poured in endlessly.

It seemed like they all received the same tutoring from somewhere.

I know you’re having a hard time. Trust only me. It’s hard for you to suffer alone, right? I won’t tell other people. Fifty-seven people sent emails or text messages through this route. They really seemed like they wouldn’t tell others. Still, they were more polite than the elders who yelled angrily, but in order not to disappoint them, he had to receive calls all night in order of age, like a Confucian nation, and reply to emails and text messages.

But is age the only thing to consider? You have to start with the family branch, and if they’re the same branch and the same age, responding to one first can hurt the pride of the other, so somehow make an excuse… Damn it. Lee Hyang wanted to say, “Save me.” But the bastard next to Lee Hyang didn’t seem to have any intention of answering the phone or resolving the situation.

No, to be precise, he seemed to have no composure…

As he had been recently, Lee Hyang’s roommate, burdened by being the only son inheriting the imperial surname of the Great Korean Empire, said he would sleep in another room today, so Ryuseong could come and sleep on the empty bed and leave. Looking at Ryuseong, who was blankly staring out the window while sitting by the bed, Lee Hyang felt like his insides were burning up, but he couldn’t bring himself to urge him. He couldn’t argue with him or ask what this was all about. He couldn’t demand an explanation. It was nothing special, just that Ryuseong looked too exhausted.

To exaggerate, it was as if he was carrying the weight of all the living beings in this world converted into weight.

That was his expression.

‘What’s the problem, you bastard.’

Don’t frown as if it’s more painful that you can’t tell me. Because you really look distressed, rather be shameless. Stick out your chest and say you won’t tell me. I think that would be better for you, you bad guy. Don’t bow your head, straighten your back, yeah. Rather be like that Cassice Demillang, who’s dating you or just kissing you, I don’t know.

Then I could fucking hate you at least.

‘If you’re like that, I can’t even bring myself to ask.’

So Lee Hyang just stayed up all night smoking cigarettes. Even though he chain-smoked cigarettes like a heavy smoker without sparing his lungs, it was the first time he felt like he was going to die of fatigue. Due to the strategy user’s unique ability to strengthen the body and detoxify, regular cigarettes didn’t even reach his liver, so he rolled and smoked cigarettes with strong awakening effects, but he still couldn’t come to his senses. The problem wasn’t that he stayed up all night, but that the clan association grilled him, and he had to face the weight Ryuseong was carrying with a clear, sober mind, unable to avoid it.

That was the reason he was worn out with fatigue.

But when morning came and Hae Yuna heard about the situation belatedly, she couldn’t accept it.

‘What? He’s not saying anything? This bastard! Making only you suffer!’

‘No, that’s not it. I couldn’t ask him anything.’

‘What?!’

Actually, Lee Hyang also thought he might have been bewitched. If he wasn’t bewitched, there was no way he would have left him alone without asking anything like a crazy person, just staring blankly out the window without crying, but at that time, he thought he should do that. He himself didn’t know the reason, so there was no way he could explain it well to others.

It was natural for Lee Hyang to be frustrated. It was already frustrating that he couldn’t be with them last night due to the magic restricting dormitory entry based on gender, but when Lee Hyang even vaguely avoided the topic, Hae Yuna thought he might have been threatened or something.

‘Now that it’s come to this, we have no choice but to directly ask!’

That was the background of the incident where Hae Yuna summoned Kim Ryuseong with a back kick to the front door.

Since you never know where someone might be hiding in a building, it’s safer for security to avoid people’s approach and have a conversation in an open space.

For that reason, Ryuseong, who was dragged out again to the same rear garden where he was once dragged by Cassice, answered indifferently while thinking it wasn’t even funny that two completely different people chose the same direction.

“First of all, I have something to say. No matter how close we are, don’t arbitrarily decide my surname. I am Ryuseong and have no intention of continuing the Kim family.”

“Who told you to be a Kim?! It just rolls off the tongue nicely, so I called you that. I call Lee Hyang ‘Kim Lee Hyang’ too.”

Hae Yuna made an excuse, slightly taken aback.

Ryuseong has no surname. Even when the head of the Halla faction tried his best to pass on his surname, Ryuseong refused everything and left his surname undecided. Ryuseong. On his awakener registration card, Ryu was his surname and Seong was his given name, but Ryuseong always thought he had no surname. That was also true in a sense. If a surname is not simply a name but includes some emotional function and bond inherited from the person who gave birth to you.

The surname ‘Demillang’ that Cassice has inherits the history, power, and wealth achieved by the Demillangs.

For Hae Yuna, her surname symbolizes her bond with her grandmother, who is an elder of the Haenam faction.

For Lee Hyang, his surname is proof that he is the successor of the imperial surname passed down from Taejo Lee Seong-gye.

Ryuseong doesn’t have that. He didn’t inherit anything from the one who gave birth to him.

So Hae Yuna exaggeratedly elaborated and changed the topic.

“Anyway, anyway! I came to ask what you were thinking, but why did you bring that guy along?”

The topic she most wanted to ask about was here. The one who brightly curves his eyes, freshly curls up his lips, and gently whispers.

“Are you finally paying attention to me? I’m disappointed. I thought I was someone who drew attention to some extent.”

None other than Cassice Demillang…

“Oh, don’t worry. My eyes are about to fall out from trying to stop the gazes directed at you anyway.”

“Feel free to look at me as much as you want. The public is bound to be entranced and appreciate beautiful things.”

“…”

Lee Hyang was at a loss for words. Hae Yuna thought she should come to her senses and spoke defiantly.

“No, right now what’s drawing attention is not that you’re pretty or whatever, but the fact that you’re being held! I get that you two are l-l-loving… Damn it, anyway, you’re all over each other, but can’t you get down? Other kids keep staring too!”

However, the gazes looking at them from quite a distance away, not close enough to hear the conversation, didn’t seem to be able to block Cassice. Cassice Demillang, who lightly touched Ryuseong’s shoulder with his fingertips and had a faint smile, snorted as if it was nothing and revealed his white and neat teeth.

And what he said next was the highlight.

“Excuse me, isn’t it natural for you to look at me wherever I am?”

Wow.

They were doubly at a loss for words.

‘What’s with this kid?’

They wondered if he was originally a guy with such overwhelming confidence in his looks, but looking at his face, they couldn’t say anything, which was the most annoying. While Hae Yuna’s blood pressure rose and she exclaimed, “Oh my! Oh dear!” Lee Hyang mumbled while rubbing his exhausted eyes.

“Yeah, you’re a Fosa or Daji…”

You have the looks to ruin not just the country, but the world…

***

‘Haha. This guy Lee Hyang knows how to diss, huh?’

When an unexpected deal came in, even I, who was shamelessly praising my own beauty, had a moment of disillusionment.

No, Cassice is pretty, but not to that fucking extent. I have some objectivity too.

Of course, it’s partly because he’s not my type, but anyway, I was extremely embarrassed because he’s not to the level of being compared to beauties who ruined countries like Fosa or Daji. I heard that he was the final mastermind who orchestrated the destruction of the world behind the scenes, but the protagonist would have stopped that, right?

There’s no way I possessed a beauty who ruined the world, right?