DED 29

Chapter 29

Lucy was surprised when she returned to the annex and saw Bartholomew.

“Bartholomew Gongja?”

“You’ve returned.”

At his greeting, emotions Lucy couldn’t put into words surged within her.

The strongest of them was relief.

“Bartholomew Gongja!”

Lucy rushed forward and threw her arms around Bartholomew.

“I missed you.”

Bartholomew’s eyebrows shot up.

Then he caught the strong scent of wine coming off Lucy.

“You drank quite a lot of wine.”

“Do you know how hard today was for me without you, Bartholomew Gongja?”

“What happened at the social party?”

“Do you know a fruit called durian?”

“I don’t.”

“It smells terrible. Everyone avoids it. I became a human durian.”

Lucy made a sniffling sound, as if about to cry.

Bartholomew looked flustered as he watched Lucy cling to him.

Her voice was thick with tears, as though she might burst into sobs at any moment.

For now, Bartholomew led Lucy over to a bench.

He seated her and sat down beside her.

Cerberus stood up on his hind legs, placing his front paws on the hem of Lucy’s skirt, panting happily to show his excitement.

Lucy hugged Cerberus tightly and rubbed her face against him.

Holding the soft, warm Cerberus in her arms helped her calm down a little.

“What happened?” Bartholomew asked with a puzzled expression.

Lucy turned sharply toward him, her eyes half-open.

“It was my first debut in high society, and I completely ruined it.”

“……”

“Did you know? Just because something is true doesn’t mean it’s always good.”

Lucy pushed her lips out in a pout.

“Just because it’s the truth doesn’t mean you always have to say it. There are truths that are better kept hidden.”

“I think I understand,” Bartholomew replied honestly.

He, too, knew that telling the truth didn’t always lead to the right outcome.

Some truths were buried without ever being revealed, disappearing altogether.

Just like the truth Bartholomew carried within himself.

“But I couldn’t tell the difference and just blurted everything out. People looked at me strangely. They might even hate me.”

“Are you afraid of being hated?” Bartholomew asked.

At his question, Lucy stopped stroking Cerberus.

“Aren’t you afraid too, Bartholomew Gongja?”

“……”

“Think about being hated by someone you want to be close to.”

Bartholomew fell into thought.

Someone he wanted to be close to.

Did such a person even exist for him?

He glanced sideways at Lucy.

If Lucy were to hate him—

Just imagining it made Bartholomew feel unpleasant.

That wistful feeling he’d had while watching the fireworks surfaced again.

“So who is it that you want to become so close to?” Bartholomew asked, purely out of curiosity.

Lucy counted on her fingers as she listed names one by one.

“Cecil, Logan, Patrick…….”

Cecil.

Once again, the healer’s name came up.

It seemed he had attended today’s social party as well.

The other two names were unfamiliar to him.

“Why did you want to become close to those people?” Bartholomew asked.

“Well, that’s because……” Lucy trailed off.

She couldn’t exactly say it was for the true ending.

Waving her hands dismissively, Lucy said, “Even if I explained it, you wouldn’t understand, Gongja.”

“At least try,” Bartholomew urged.

He was curious about the men Lucy showed interest in.

Ever since she’d shown interest in Cecil, the thought had crossed his mind.

Does Lucy like Cecil?

The idea of falling in love with someone felt unimaginable, unreal.

But that was because Bartholomew deliberately tried to remain indifferent to everything.

Lucy, an ordinary person, might naturally fall in love with someone.

Thinking that way made something heavy settle in his chest.

‘Is a fit coming on?’

He pressed his palm firmly against his chest.

But there was no sign of a coughing fit.

It was just an unpleasant sensation washing over him.

“Bartholomew Gongja,” Lucy said, hugging Cerberus tightly.

“Please tell me everything will be okay.”

“What do you mean by ‘everything’?”

“Just… everything. If you say it’s going to be okay, Bartholomew Gongja, I feel like it really will be.”

Lucy gazed steadily at Bartholomew.

For some reason, she reminded him of a puppy.

She looked pitiful—like someone who needed to be held.

‘Have I lost my mind?’

Bartholomew scolded himself.

He’d been so focused on Cerberus that he was starting to see people as puppies too.

“Everything will be okay,” Bartholomew said, giving Lucy the answer she wanted.

Lucy nodded, slowly blinking her eyes.

She looked ready to fall asleep right there on the bench, so Bartholomew called for the annex servants.

The maids arrived, supported Lucy, and led her back into the annex.

Bartholomew silently watched them leave, then turned away.

The next day.

Lucy woke up suffering from a hangover so bad it felt like her head might split open.

‘When did I come back to the annex?’

As she retraced her memories of the previous night, she recalled hugging Bartholomew.

And whining at him, demanding to know why he hadn’t come to the social party.

‘Oh no.’

Lucy was horrified.

She’d gotten drunk and picked a fight with Bartholomew!

‘I didn’t say anything weird, did I?’

Even with her head pounding, Lucy desperately replayed last night in her mind.

Stuff like being possessed by a game, or needing to see the true ending—

Thankfully, it seemed she hadn’t said any unnecessary nonsense to Bartholomew.

“Haah……”

Lucy let out a deep sigh and grabbed her hair.

‘This isn’t the time to be like this.’

She couldn’t just collapse after failing once.

There was still a long way to go in the game.

She hadn’t even met Alexander yet.

‘I have to reach the true ending and escape this game.’

Thinking calmly, failing the social party quest once wasn’t a fatal blow.

There would be plenty of opportunities to attend social parties in the future.

The bad reputation she’d gained this time could be offset at the next one.

‘Everything will be okay.’

Lucy recalled Bartholomew’s words of comfort.

That’s right. Everything would be fine.

She steeled her resolve.

There was something she’d learned from yesterday’s painful failure.

The reason she’d gained the Disaster Mouth title was because of random answers, and those random answers were triggered by insufficient stats.

‘The imperial banquet quest succeeded even with negative stats because Bartholomew helped me.’

Lucy gained confidence that quest success was possible even with negative stats.

But yesterday, without Bartholomew, it had turned into a complete disaster.

In other words, the reason she’d been able to succeed before was because Bartholomew had made up for her lacking stats.

‘If I want to progress smoothly through the game, I need to fix my stats first.’

So she’d never have to choose random answers again.

‘The most serious problem is Reputation.’

The Reputation stat was influenced by the male leads’ favorability.

The higher their favorability, the higher her Reputation stat.

And raising their favorability required high Intelligence and Stamina stats.

In short, to raise Reputation, she first had to normalize her Intelligence and Stamina.

‘Alright. Special training starts today.’

Lucy decided to start by raising her Intelligence stat.

After washing up and finishing breakfast, she headed straight to the library.

She began reading the short stories she’d ordered from the bookstore last time.

They definitely took longer to understand than fairy tales.

Still, Lucy didn’t give up.

How long had she been reading?

She was just starting to feel hungry when—

Ding!

[Congratulations!]

[You have read an astounding one hundred books in a single week!]

[Your love for books has been more than proven.]

[As your ‘Bibliophile’ level reaches its maximum, your eye awakens—able to discern special and valuable books among countless others.]

[The new stat ‘Collection Power’ has been unlocked.]

[Collection Power: 10]

[As a first-time limited bonus, your Intelligence stat increases by 10.]

The system window announced the registration of a new stat.

Lucy’s eyes widened.

For the first time, it felt like she’d gained a proper stat.

‘Collection Power, huh.’

It was the ability to find special and valuable books.

Wouldn’t books like that help her raise Intelligence faster?

Or maybe they’d provide important clues to reaching the game’s true ending.

‘Like rare items obtained through fishing.’

Granted, she still hadn’t found any use for the items she’d fished up—they were collecting dust in a corner.

But rare books seemed far more useful than randomly obtained rare items.

Lucy closed her book.

‘I should go to the bookstore and put this stat to use.’

She might discover something special there.