TMKCBL 02

Chapter 02

‘Why did he come back to his room at this hour?’

The unexpected situation made my mind go blank.

“It’s a mana bullet.”

Recognizing the gun, Eden Croyden’s face twisted into something like a smile. It looked absurd, almost ridiculous—yet beneath it lingered faint anger and humiliation.

He took a step forward.

“Have you forgotten the hiring conditions of this mansion? Only mana rejects are selected—”

“Don’t come any closer! If you move, I’ll shoot!”

At my pathetic threat, Eden Croyden instead seemed amused as he confidently closed the distance between us.

“Go ahead. Shoot, if you can.”

“I-I really will shoot!”

My sweat-soaked hands kept slipping on the gun. I tightened my grip desperately.

Step. Another step. Eden Croyden approached.

“Have you forgotten? This mansion is—”

My trembling hands tightened again. My fingers stiffened.

The moment he took another step—

“I said I’ll shoot…!”

Pushed by that small burst of force as I shouted—

Bang!!

And then, in an instant, all breathing stopped.

The expression on the man’s face turned to shock.

Thud…!

His body, releasing its final breath, collapsed to the ground.

I stared blankly at the gun in my hand.

The faint glow that indicated it had just been fired slowly faded away.

“M-Master…?”

“……”

“…Eden Croyden?”

The owner of that name did not respond.

Staggering, barely able to walk properly, I approached the fallen man.

“D-dead…?”

Blood from Eden Croyden’s gunshot wound flowed toward my feet. Only then did I flinch and step back.

My trembling gaze was drawn, as if by gravity, to his collapsed body.

Warm blood still flowing… his body already growing cold.

‘Eden Croyden’s corpse.’

A wave of nausea hit me, and I quickly covered my mouth.

‘He’s dead?’

Just like that?

I looked down again at the now lifeless master of the mansion.

‘Eden Croyden is dead.’

I killed him.

Me.

I killed a person.

A high-pitched ringing filled my ears from the shock. My legs nearly gave out, but I forced myself to stay standing.

As I lowered my head, I saw the gun still in my hand.

‘The gun that killed Eden Croyden.’

Startled, I flung it far away.

It felt like all the blood had drained from my body. I staggered and grabbed onto a table for support.

‘Get a grip. Get a grip, Luana Polly.’

I raised my right hand and slapped my cheek hard.

‘What do I do? What do I do…?’

Eden Croyden was dead.

That didn’t just mean my employer had died.

The hidden villain died before the story even began. What happens to this world now?

I never imagined I’d be the one involved in an accidental shooting.

And that the person I’d shoot would be my own master.

Even if he was the villain who genuinely wanted to destroy the world.

The one who got shot wasn’t me—

But my whole body trembled as if I had been the one hit.

‘What should I do?’

My mind went completely blank, and my fingertips turned cold.

I stared down at Eden Croyden’s corpse, lost in thought.

Should I just abandon the body and run?

‘That gunshot… people will come soon.’

Should I escape before that? Stick to the original plan and loot the safe?

But inside it were only useless documents.

My gaze snapped toward the safe in the corner of the bedroom. Just as I made a quick decision and turned—

A chill ran down my spine.

Along with a suffocating sensation that gripped my entire body—

Creak… creak…

In a distorted, unnatural form—

The mana in the room

began to twist.

All living beings in this world are instinctively drawn to mana.

But how should I describe it?

That sense of something from this world no longer belonging to it.

Like the air turning upside down, like water flowing upward—

The warped mana emitted a deeply unsettling sensation that tightened around my body.

And beneath that twisting mana—

As if even space and time were reversing—

Eden Croyden’s time

began to rewind.

I could only watch, eyes wide, unable to make a sound, as his resurrection unfolded.

The blood that had seeped into the carpet flowed back into his body.

The hole from the gunshot rapidly closed.

The breath that had left him returned, and his stopped heart began beating again.

“…Haa.”

Eden Croyden exhaled his first breath after death and rose to his feet.

When our eyes met, I saw undisguised shock on his face. It was the first raw emotion I had ever seen from him since I started working in this mansion.

Even he seemed unable to believe what had just happened.

What we had just witnessed—

Could it really be that someone who had died came back to life?

He looked perfectly healthy, his complexion normal. If not for the faint bloodstains on his clothes, no one would believe he had just died.

But I stood there, dazed, staring at the man who had been shot and killed—now alive again before me.

No matter that this was a fantasy world, there was no way anyone could stay sane after witnessing something like this.

Just as my legs began to give out—

A series of hurried footsteps and a knock sounded.

“Master. It’s Robert. Is something wrong?”

People had come running after hearing the gunshot.

Only then did Eden Croyden seem to snap back to his senses and turn toward the bedroom door. His expression was unfamiliar, like someone hearing sound for the first time.

Then his gaze dropped back to his own hands, as if he still couldn’t believe it.

“Master! Are you alright?”

As his eyes moved over his body, they landed on me.

For a brief moment, our eyes met.

But to me, it felt like an eternity.

If Eden Croyden simply said, “Come in,” the door behind me would open, and people would rush in and arrest me.

But what if—

He looked just as shocked as I was about what had just happened.

And if he wanted to talk about it first—

His sunken gaze turned toward me. It was an observing look.

Under his gaze, I became as meek as a lamb and lowered my head.

As if he had made up his mind, his voice came from above me.

“No. There’s no need to make a fuss. That sound just now was made by me. Everyone may return.”

It was the declaration that began my negotiation with the hidden villain.

What are the odds that a perfectly normal college student gets hit by a truck and reincarnates as an extra in the novel they read the night before?

Honestly, I don’t think that’s all that rare. It’s practically the age of mass possession—everyone and their dog is reincarnating these days.

But what are the odds that the mansion you end up working in belongs to the hidden villain?

‘Well… it’s not completely impossible.’

Those kinds of stories are trending these days.

But then—

After possessing someone for a year, you accidentally kill that very villain!

At that point, you’d start thinking, “Huh? This is getting weird…”

And then—

The dead villain suddenly comes back to life!

At that moment, forget the original story—cold sweat starts pouring down your back.

Right now, I was with the hidden villain of the novel, Eden Croyden.

Yes. The very same Eden Croyden I had just killed moments ago.

In his room, I stood there, completely at a loss, nervously watching him.

Eden Croyden, who had just performed the miracle of returning from death in less than a minute, looked like he himself couldn’t believe the situation.

He let out a hollow laugh, stared at the ceiling, then lowered his head to look at his hands—repeating the motion several times.

Honestly, if I were him, I’d be shocked too. A maid working in my house picks a lock on my safe and suddenly shoots me?

That alone would be enough.

But to be shot, die, and then come back to life?

How shocking must that be?

I cautiously glanced at him from time to time.

I couldn’t believe this situation either.

A dead person coming back to life?

Even setting aside whether that was possible—

There was no such setting in the original story.

‘Does this even make sense?’