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Chapter 29
When Lucy returned to the annex, she was startled to see Bartholomew.
“Lord Bartholomew?”
“You’ve returned.”
At his greeting, emotions Lucy couldn’t put into words came rushing over her.
The strongest among them was relief.
“Lord Bartholomew!”
Lucy threw her arms around him.
“I missed you.”
Bartholomew’s brows shot upward.
Soon, he caught the strong scent of wine coming from her.
“You drank quite a lot of wine.”
“Do you know how hard things were for me today without you there, Lord Bartholomew?”
“What happened at the social gathering?”
“Do you know a fruit called durian?”
“I do not.”
“It smells incredibly awful. Everyone avoids it. I became a human durian.”
Lucy let out a pitiful whining sound.
Bartholomew looked flustered as she clung to him.
Her voice sounded damp, as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
For now, Bartholomew led Lucy over to a bench.
He sat her down and took a seat beside her.
Cerberus placed both paws on Lucy’s skirt and panted happily in greeting.
Lucy hugged Cerberus tightly and rubbed her face against him.
Holding the soft, warm Cerberus in her arms calmed her down a little.
“What exactly happened?”
Bartholomew asked with a puzzled expression.
Lucy turned toward him with half-lidded eyes.
“It was my first debut into high society, and I completely ruined it.”
“……”
“You know something? Just because something is true doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good.”
Lucy pouted.
“Just because it’s the truth doesn’t mean you should always say it. Some truths are better hidden.”
“I think I understand.”
Bartholomew answered honestly.
He too knew that speaking the truth did not always bring the right outcome.
Some truths disappeared forever without ever being revealed.
Just like the truth Bartholomew himself carried.
“But I couldn’t tell the difference and just blurted everything out. People looked at me strangely. Maybe they even hate me now.”
“Are you afraid of being hated?”
At Bartholomew’s question, Lucy stopped stroking Cerberus.
“Aren’t you?”
“……”
“Imagine being hated by someone you wanted to get close to.”
Bartholomew sank into thought.
Someone he wanted to get close to.
Who would that even be for him?
He glanced at Lucy.
If Lucy were to hate him…
The moment he imagined it, Bartholomew felt irritated.
The same melancholy he had felt while watching the fireworks returned.
“Who exactly did you want to become close to?”
Bartholomew asked out of pure curiosity.
Lucy counted on her fingers as she listed the names one by one.
“Cecil, Logan, Patrick…”
Cecil.
That healer’s name again.
So he must have attended today’s social gathering as well.
The other two names were unfamiliar to him.
“Why did you want to become close to them?”
“Well…”
Lucy trailed off.
She couldn’t exactly say it was for the true ending.
Waving her hands dismissively, she said,
“Even if I explained it, you wouldn’t understand.”
“At least try.”
Bartholomew was curious about the men Lucy showed interest in.
He had started wondering ever since she began paying attention to Cecil.
Maybe Lucy liked Cecil.
The feeling of falling in love with someone was something Bartholomew could neither imagine nor understand.
But that was because he constantly tried to remain indifferent to everything.
Someone ordinary like Lucy would naturally fall in love with someone, wouldn’t they?
The thought made something heavy sink inside his chest.
‘Is another episode coming on?’
He pressed a palm firmly against his chest.
But there was no sign of coughing.
Only an unpleasant sensation engulfed him.
“Lord Bartholomew.”
Lucy hugged Cerberus tightly as she spoke.
“Tell me everything will be okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just… everything. If you tell me it’ll be okay, I feel like it really will be.”
Lucy gazed at Bartholomew quietly.
Looking at her, Bartholomew thought she resembled a puppy.
She looked pitiful, like she needed to be hugged.
‘Have I lost my mind?’
Bartholomew cursed himself inwardly.
He had been so obsessed with Cerberus lately that he was now comparing people to puppies too.
“Everything will be alright.”
Bartholomew gave her the answer she wanted to hear.
Lucy nodded slowly and blinked heavily.
She looked ready to fall asleep right there on the bench, so Bartholomew called for the servants of the annex.
The maids came over and helped Lucy back inside.
Bartholomew silently watched her retreating figure before turning away.
* * *
The next day.
Lucy opened her eyes suffering from a splitting hangover.
‘When did I even return to the annex?’
As she retraced last night’s memories, Lucy recalled hugging Bartholomew.
And whining at him about why he hadn’t come to the social gathering.
‘No way.’
Lucy was horrified.
She had gotten drunk and harassed Bartholomew!
‘Please tell me I didn’t say anything weird.’
Like talking about transmigrating into the game or needing to reach the true ending.
Even as her head throbbed painfully, Lucy desperately reviewed the previous night.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like she had said anything unnecessary to Bartholomew.
“Haa…”
Lucy let out a deep sigh and grabbed her hair.
‘This isn’t the time to dwell on it.’
She couldn’t just collapse after failing once.
The game still had a long way to go.
She hadn’t even met Alexander yet.
‘I absolutely have to reach the true ending and escape this game.’
Thinking calmly about it, failing the social gathering quest once wasn’t a devastating blow.
There would be many more opportunities to attend social events in the future.
The bad reputation she earned this time could simply be offset at the next gathering.
‘Everything will be alright.’
Bartholomew’s comforting words came to mind.
Right. Everything will be okay.
She steadied herself.
Through yesterday’s painful failure, she had learned something.
The “Calamity Mouth” title had been triggered because of random dialogue choices, and those random responses were activated due to her insufficient stats.
‘At the imperial banquet, I succeeded despite my negative stats because Bartholomew helped me.’
Lucy realized that quests could still be completed even with negative stats.
However, yesterday, without Bartholomew, the result had been a complete disaster.
In other words, the reason she had succeeded before was because Bartholomew compensated for her lacking stats.
‘If I want to progress smoothly through the game, I need to fix my deficient stats first.’
So she would never have to select random dialogue options again.
‘The most serious issue is reputation.’
The reputation stat was influenced by the male leads’ affection levels.
The higher their affection, the higher her reputation stat would become.
And to raise their affection, she needed high intelligence and stamina stats.
Which meant that to raise her reputation, she first had to normalize her intelligence and stamina.
‘Alright. Training starts today.’
Lucy decided to raise her intelligence stat first.
After washing up and eating, she headed straight to the library.
Then she began reading the short story collections she had ordered from the bookstore before.
They definitely took longer to understand than children’s fairy tales.
Still, Lucy refused to give up.
How much time had passed?
She had just begun feeling hungry when—
Ding!
[Congratulations!]
[You have read a whopping one hundred books over the course of a week!]
[Your love for books has been more than proven.]
[As your “Bookworm” level has reached its maximum, your eyes are opened to recognize special and valuable books among countless others.]
[The new stat “Collection” has been unlocked.]
[Collection: 10]
[As a limited first-time reward, your Intelligence stat has increased by 10.]
The system window announced the addition of a new stat.
Lucy’s eyes widened.
For the first time, it felt like she had gained a truly useful stat.
‘Collection, huh.’
It was the ability to discover special and valuable books.
Wouldn’t books like that help her raise her intelligence faster?
Or perhaps provide important clues for reaching the game’s true ending.
‘Like rare items obtained through fishing.’
Though the items she had gotten from fishing were still shoved into a corner without any apparent use.
Still, rare books seemed far more helpful than randomly obtained rare items.
Lucy closed the book.
‘I should go to the bookstore and see if I can make use of this stat.’
She might discover something special there.
