001

“Miss, brunch is ready in the dining room. Shall we go?”

On a lazy, clear afternoon, brunch enjoyed in a sunlit dining room of a spacious noble villa—large enough to be called a mansion—would unanimously be considered the finest brunch possible.

Yet exceptions exist for everything. There was precisely one person who deliberately refused the finest brunch prepared entirely by others’ hands without any effort on her part.

Tap–

None other than the owner of this villa and the lady of House Irone, Agate Irone.

The first thing the noble lady’s precious hand did after rising late and finishing her toilette was to sharply strike the back of the butler’s hand.

“……”

Agate stared straight ahead at the mirror as if nothing had happened, while the maid Kanna, not knowing what to do, kept glancing nervously between her mistress and the butler.

The cracking sound her hand made as it traced a spiral path was quickly swallowed by a solemn silence. Kanna’s anxious eyes, darting around without knowing where to look, glanced at the butler who stood a head taller than herself.

She worried that, though unlikely, the newly arrived good-natured butler might fail to maintain his composure.

But such concern proved unnecessary. The first-rate butler never lost his sunshine-like smile. Sion gently massaged his stinging hand while maintaining his pleasant expression until the end.

The lady’s strike was so fierce that if he removed his white glove, a reddened hand would surely be revealed.

“I see you’d prefer to dine in your bedroom. I’ll have the brunch brought here.”

His gentle voice attentively accommodated the discomfort of House Irone’s precious eldest daughter. Lady Agate didn’t even spare a glance at Sion the butler, let alone respond, and simply stared blankly out the window as if waiting for the brunch to be served.

Sion, still wearing a smile brighter than the midday sun, quietly bowed to the lady and left the room. He was going to personally bring the impeccable brunch prepared by the head chef who had accompanied them from House Irone’s main residence to the villa.

With his naturally long legs, he strode through the hallway with steps twice as long as others’ without needing to hurry. Of course, his gait was refined enough to be immediately acceptable in high society.

With his picture-perfect handsome features, tall stature, and an appearance that deserved every possible compliment, this man seemed almost too good to be merely a butler, even when viewed from the side.

Just before descending the stairs, Sion’s eyes met those of other servants standing at a distance. He returned their greeting with his never-tiresome smile before slipping onto the landing. By the time he had descended all the stairs and set foot on the deserted first floor, that previously fresh, juice-like smile had completely vanished.

“Such rudeness…”

Unable to contain himself any longer, he finally spat out a curse.

Grinding his molars, he vented his rising irritation in a single phrase. He’d expected the lady—who was supposedly sickly and had come to recuperate in the countryside—to be naive and docile, but she turned out to have quite a temper. This was what he had learned about Agate during his few days working as a butler.

‘It’s going to take some time to conquer that temperament.’

Sion scratched his smooth black hair roughly, as if annoyed—a frivolity unbecoming of a first-class butler.

Yet the moment he stepped into the dining room, his demeanor transformed completely, burning away his previous impudence and becoming perfectly restrained.

For Sion, such pretense and acting were nothing. It was merely a small investment toward securing a major score. The more he invested, the greater the return would be. It was certainly not a losing proposition.

With a neat black suit and bow tie with every detail perfectly aligned. Pristine white gloves without a single blemish and shoes polished daily to a brilliant shine were the basics. Add to that his elegant and composed bearing that would make even high nobles envious, and he gave the impression of an etiquette manual come to life.

And that wasn’t all. Sion, who possessed all the basic qualities a butler should have plus exceptional looks that weren’t even necessary, could undoubtedly be called the finest of butlers, with no need for humility.

“Oh, Daniel! Why are you alone? Where’s the young lady?”

Head maid Molly rushed out to greet Sion with a beaming smile. The expressions of the other maids peering at him from behind were no different from the head maid’s. Sion responded to the women’s blooming smiles with a slight smile of his own—a reaction he was thoroughly accustomed to after receiving such attention nearly his entire life.

“She wishes to dine in her bedroom, so I’m here to bring the meal to her.”

“I bet you would look extremely handsome even without glasses.”

A maid suddenly interjected, her cheeks turning peach-colored as she spoke. It was an annoying comment he’d been hearing frequently since arriving at this estate—essentially asking him to remove his glasses.

“Haha, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

When Sion dismissed it with a casual smile, sighs of admiration escaped from women all around.

‘If I could take off my glasses, I wouldn’t be stuck in this rural backwater in the first place.’

He clicked his tongue inside his mouth in displeasure. Sion knew better than anyone that his face was a gift from the gods. Though currently concealed, his tempting golden hair and captivating emerald eyes; his flawless skin and, most notably, his features themselves.

‘I must stand out quite a bit even with these nerdy glasses.’

The square frameless glasses he had chosen as the most unfashionable at the eyeglass store and the black dye in his hair meant to keep him inconspicuous had utterly failed to disguise the fugitive’s appearance.

Sion barely managed to suppress his rising irritation beneath a mechanical smile.

Scrambled eggs with bacon, freshly baked focaccia, and Caesar salad with yuzu dressing—Sion loaded the typical brunch items and tea onto a tray. The maids saw him off all the way to the door, while head butler Adollo watched the scene with evident disapproval.

‘If it bothers you that much, try being handsome yourself.’

Sion recognized all these behaviors and let out a neurotic sneer. In truth, his perfect looks—for which the term “handsome” seemed inadequate—were a double-edged sword for him. With his appearance and innate talent, he had successfully robbed several wealthy people’s vaults, but otherwise, his looks were merely cumbersome shackles.

It was the same wherever he went. When among people, women would either cling to him relentlessly or flirt with him, while men would look at him with envy but also pick fights out of jealousy and rivalry.

Take the recently widowed baroness in the capital who had set Sion on his current fugitive lifestyle.

* * *

The baroness, who possessed her late husband’s enormous fortune, had been Sion’s target from the beginning. After infiltrating high society, Sion successfully engineered a “chance” meeting with her.

Then, posing as a wealth manager, Sion completely won over the baroness, who proceeded to hire him.

If only it had stopped there. But the baroness, trying to win Sion’s favor, committed the life-altering mistake of handing over management rights to her vault, packed like a golden goose’s belly with gold bullion, in just one month.

Following the expected course, Sion soon made off with all the gold bullion and disappeared. The baroness, more devastated by the betrayal than by her emptied vault, immediately reported him to the central police station.

And when the officer asked about the swindler’s distinguishing features, her answer was truly remarkable.

“Special characteristics? Miles is handsome, extraordinarily handsome!”

“The special characteristic is… his handsomeness?”

The officer who had been diligently taking notes stopped at the baroness’s answer and raised his eyebrows as if appalled. She got robbed like that and that’s all she could say? This was the natural thought process for the officer who had never seen Sion.

Nevertheless, the baroness had perfectly succeeded in making Sion’s life difficult. She had created the circumstances that led Sion—who had traveled throughout the Kingdom of Bladen committing fraud—to become wanted nationwide for the first time.

‘I should have seen it coming when she kept babbling about being lovers and such. I triggered a bomb at the end.’

Thanks to her, Sion had no choice but to completely revise his plans. Instead of heading to the capital for the first and last time to secure a substantial score before fleeing abroad to live a peaceful, unfettered life, he temporarily postponed his plan and turned toward Ponten near the capital rather than heading for the border.

As the saying goes, it’s darkest under the lamp. The dim-witted officers would surely comb through major cities or border areas like they were picking lice. Based on his experience, there was no way they would cleverly start by searching under the lamp, especially when they hadn’t even properly identified the swindler yet.

‘It seems they still think I’ve only defrauded our dear baroness… I can afford to take my time and secure funds for settling abroad.’