Chapter 7

“Don’t worry though. I can take care of finding a place for our family to stay.”

“What?”

I was momentarily stunned.

He said he would handle it—since when did he have such confidence?

It was hard to believe that someone who had always been passive and reluctant to step forward was speaking with such certainty.

“What are you planning to do? Oh, it’s not that I don’t trust you, I’m just curious. Do you have a good idea?”

Had the fall of our family suddenly cleared his mind?

I didn’t want to think that the shock therapy of the tyrant had helped, but maybe it had awakened something in my husband to some extent.

My husband drank some cold water and stared into the air with a serious and determined look.

With a gaze and resolve I had never seen before, he spoke.

“First, I need to earn money to buy a house.”

“…?”

* * *

I was dumbfounded.

A house isn’t something you can buy like bread on a whim. Where was he going to suddenly get that kind of money?

But I couldn’t stop him.

I was too taken aback to even move.

“Please stay here and wait for me.”

His resolve was unshakeable.

‘I bet he’ll be back in no time, within a few hours.’

Believing that, I paced anxiously in the room.

I worried that he might get into something too dangerous and reckless.

Why did he suddenly ask for the tyrant’s name?

“I have one thing to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“What is the name of that tyrant emperor?”

“…”

Was he planning to engrave the enemy’s name deeply in his heart?

I couldn’t help but feel uneasy about my husband’s words and actions.

Ah.

What a plight I’m in.

Come to think of it, I’d never heard of someone thinking clearly after ingesting poison.

“Just come back soon, Alec…”

* * *

Alec, after leaving the inn, wandered around for a while, observing his surroundings.

With his sharp and intense gaze, perfectly chiseled nose, and sensually red lips, he couldn’t help but attract attention wherever he went with his tall, striking figure.

People passing by couldn’t help but glance at his face.

He too discreetly looked over people’s clothing.

Silk hats and canes, gleaming dresses, and abundant lace, which were rare in his time.

’18th century? No, 19th century…?

Coming outside where people were bustling around, he realized this really was another world.

It felt like history came alive.

‘I seem to have come far into the past, but at least it’s not the prehistoric era.’

Yet, despite the so-called system reward, he was in an emergency situation with no house or money.

Would he really have to live here from now on?

For a while?

Or forever?

As he walked, he thought of the emperor who had brought about his downfall.

‘The Emperor’s name? It’s Aksen Kaisley. Why do you ask all of a sudden?’

“…”

Aksen Kaisley.

It was a name he had heard somewhere before.

Strangely, he felt like he already knew a tyrant by that name.

Frowning slightly as he dug through his memories, he suddenly realized.

‘Could it be from that book?’

Alec recalled a book he had received as a system reward in his previous life.

It was a novel titled *The Twisted Sun*.

Aksen Kaisley was one of the character’s names in that book.

Born into the royal family, Aksen had an insignificant and troubled childhood.

He detested his situation so much that he always dreamed of power that no one could ignore.

Eventually, Aksen carved out his destiny with blood and ascended the throne.

He assassinated his uncle and aunt, the emperor and empress, and imprisoned his young cousin, the heir to the throne.

‘Could it be that I’ve entered the world of that book?’

He had hesitated to read it, but having done so, it now proved useful in an unexpected way.

It was astonishing.

Of all places, he had ended up living in the world of that book.

But he quickly became indifferent. After all, this too was arranged by the system.

He started to recall how Alec, the person he had possessed, had fared in the book.

Since it didn’t come to mind easily, Alec must not have been a major character.

As he rifled through his memories, he suddenly remembered an extra who had died early in the story.

A duke who died from ingesting poison. His wife had followed him in death after he died.

‘Could that duke be me now?’

In his promised paradise after completing a grueling journey, a tyrant awaited him.

He hadn’t even had the chance to see the splendid mansion of the duke’s family or enjoy the high status that would have made life easy, as it was all taken away from him before he could experience it.

Although he wasn’t directly harmed, it was still quite irksome, if not deeply frustrating, that the duke had been reduced to nothing.

The original Alec would have died instantly from ingesting poison.

At that moment, something happened.

“Wow! It’s the stupid Duke Alec!”

Thud.

A sticky object hit his forehead.

“…”

The sweet, dense smell, like that of overripe fruit, wafted over him.

A hard seed sharply struck his smooth forehead before falling.

Wiping away the unpleasant juice from his face, he looked up with eyes that now glowed with a sharp, dangerous light.

Who dared to do this?

[Skill: Death Glare.]

One look from these eyes could intimidate even the fiercest of beasts.

He wasn’t going to let whoever it was get away with this…

However, he soon realized something was wrong.

‘Ah, I don’t have that skill…’

There was no system here.

It could be that it just hadn’t appeared yet, but he felt a bit of emptiness.

The culprit was unexpectedly a child.

A boy, dressed like a noble, was approached by a woman who seemed to be his mother.

“Adam! You mustn’t do that! Besides, he’s not a duke anymore!”

“…”

The woman, without even looking at him, hurried away with her son.

Alec stared at their retreating figures, feeling a sense of futility.

‘Has Alec been treated like this all along?’

To be despised and attacked by such a young child.

It was incomprehensible to him.

Alec’s eyes shone as coldly as when he had used his skill.

* * *

In the end, I spent the night wide awake.

My husband didn’t even return until the next morning.

I had been so flustered that I hadn’t even managed to prepare food for him properly. Where had he slept that night?

“Could we stay for another day…?”

“How long do you plan to stay?”

The innkeeper asked irritably.

“Well, I’m not sure, but maybe a few more days… If we stay for more than two days, could you possibly lower the lodging fee a bit…?”

“What? You want a discount now?”

“Pardon?”

“Your husband told me yesterday to let you stay and that he’d pay three times the room rate when he returns. Why are you changing the story now?”

“…”

What on earth was going on?

For a moment, I felt dizzy.

I couldn’t claim my husband’s words were a lie, or we might be thrown out immediately, so I just returned to our room.

‘That man, really!’

Perhaps I should have followed him after all.

Another anxious day passed.

I, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law were gathered at a table in the inn’s garden.

There was warm tea, but I was too anxious to take even a sip.

My sister-in-law, who was sipping her tea, muttered curtly.

“I don’t understand how my brother plans to find us a house. Didn’t the poison affect his brain?”

“Eloise.”

I glared at her for speaking ill of her brother.

Eloise didn’t seem to care and pouted even more.

“What? Am I wrong? What can he do? He can’t hunt, he can’t ride, and he certainly can’t wield a sword. So how will he get the money to buy a house?”

“What does that have to do with buying a house? He must have some plan, or he wouldn’t have gone out.”

“Plan? More like he’s getting hit by rocks somewhere.”

“…”

I stared at Eloise with cold eyes.

Sadly, she wasn’t entirely wrong.

Alec didn’t ride horses or hunt, and he never ran.

It wasn’t even that strenuous, but he was strangely sensitive to physical activity.

Doctors and other healers had tried to find out why, but to no avail.

Alec had tried various treatments, but there had been no improvement at all.

I thought it was some sort of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder or mental illness.

Doctors had asked him many times if there was a special reason he couldn’t exert himself, but he always denied it without giving any explanation.