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~Chapter 14~
‘There aren’t any cellphones here, I wonder what everyone does for fun?’
Eugene tried to remember. The games people played in an era without civilization…
*‘When there were no smartphones, what did I used to do for fun?’*
She had to go pretty far back in her memory to recall that. Remembering that distant past, she asked a passing maid for directions to a certain room and headed there.
***
“Wow.”
For the first time in a while, a genuinely impressed exclamation, not a dry one, escaped Eugene’s lips. Her eyes, moist with emotion, looked around inside the large doorway.
*‘Beauty and the Beast!’*
It was a sight that reminded her of a memorable scene from a movie she’d seen as a child.
Bookshelves that rose all the way to the high, vaulted ceiling were densely packed with thick volumes, and long ladders for reaching books on the upper shelves were positioned here and there.
The lamps on the walls, illuminating the room so it wasn’t dark, glowed with a warm light.
Among the neatly arranged bookshelves in the room, statues of great figures Eugene didn’t know decorated the spaces between them. They were likely authors of famous books.
“There are so many books.”
Overwhelmed by the enormous collection, Eugene soon pulled herself together and fell into thought about how to find the book she wanted here.
*‘There probably isn’t a search system like a library catalog here, right?’*
Couldn’t they do something like a search function with magic? She looked around with blank eyes and imagined such a thing.
Since she didn’t immediately see anything like a catalog or a librarian, Eugene decided to walk around the library herself to try and learn the classification system.
*‘I wonder where the fiction is…’*
Fortunately for her, who was writhing in boredom, the books in the library were written in Korean. Since she could read, she wouldn’t be left just staring at the books like they were an unattainable treat.
*‘Well, it is a Korean game.’*
Since it was a game serviced in Korean, it was natural for Korean to be used for things inside the game. The conversations she’d had so far were also in Korean.
*‘It’s a bit strange that their faces aren’t Korean but Korean comes out of their mouths…’*
Sometimes it felt incongruous. Especially when Crown Prince Michael spoke in Korean.
*‘He looks like an elf from a fantasy movie… It would be more fitting if he spoke some incomprehensible fairy language.’*
If the Crown Prince were in a movie, a halo would probably be CG-ed behind his head at all times. She still hadn’t gotten used to his self-luminescent beauty.
As she leisurely looked around the shelves, Eugene reached the wall where a blazing fireplace was located.
In front of the fireplace was a sofa for comfortably enjoying a book, and there, she could spot an unexpected face.
*‘Huh?’*
No, was it really unexpected?
This *was* his space, after all.
Inside the quiet library. In the innermost area, hidden from view when looking in from outside, was Crown Prince Michael.
On the table were what seemed to be a pile of papers and thick books he had brought here, and the Crown Prince, sitting on the long sofa in front of it, had his eyes quietly closed as if trying to chase away his fatigue for a moment.
Hair like a dawn sky, silver, had spilled slightly over his forehead.
The light from the fireplace flickered across his marble statue-like face, but the thick fatigue seeping through couldn’t be fully hidden even by the warm colors.
*‘Crown Prince Michael.’*
Eugene stopped walking when she saw the furrow between the Crown Prince’s brows.
From the perspective of a game player who had seen his past, present, and future many times over in repeated playthroughs, Eugene could tell just how tired Crown Prince Michael was right now.
The fact that he had fallen into a light sleep in a space where people could come and go was proof of that. Moreover, the furrow in the brow of the Crown Prince, whose expression rarely changed, suggested his level of fatigue was considerable.
*‘……He must be really tired.’*
Suddenly, a feeling of pity surged up. In the game, it was just listed that he had been buried in the emperor’s affairs and overworked since childhood, but facing him like this in reality felt different.
Crown Prince Michael was large-framed, enough to be mistaken for an adult at a glance. But as someone who knew what the adult Crown Prince Michael looked like, Eugene could tell that he was still not fully grown.
Furthermore, looking closely, she could see that his face still retained the youthful, boyish look unique to adolescents.
Though most people forgot, he was still just a boy.
A boy who especially needed rest.
*‘Aren’t they working this kid too hard?’*
Eugene was convinced most of that pile of documents were things dumped on him by the emperor, who had never acted like a parent.
Even if it was background for the cruel and ruthless Crown Prince Michael character setting in the game…
Seeing the Crown Prince right before her eyes, overcome with fatigue, a sudden surge of hostility rose towards the almost non-existent extra character, Emperor Dietrich.
“Ugh……”
For a moment, Crown Prince Michael’s mouth opened as if to say something, then closed again. Then he frowned even more deeply, as if in distress.
Without realizing it, Eugene reached out her arm as if to wake the struggling Crown Prince, but paused just before her hand could touch him.
*‘……Should I wake him up now?’*
She froze, lost in thought.
She didn’t know what the permitted distance was.
So far, she had become quite familiar with Crown Prince Michael’s face.
When she got hungry for snacks and went raiding his office, she sometimes found him working right at his desk. And when she woke up from sprawling naps in the garden, somehow it often coincided with the time Crown Prince Michael was on his way back from work, so she frequently ran into him.
From Eugene’s perspective, he was a character she had known unilaterally for a long time, and having faced him like this several times now, she had somehow grown quite accustomed to him.
But thinking from Crown Prince Michael’s perspective, Eugene couldn’t quite grasp how he might view the slave he had brought as a pet.
Judging by the fact that he seemed aware she was roaming freely around the palace yet left her be, it didn’t seem like he found her too bothersome…
*‘But usually, he has almost no expression…’*
The main story of the original game progresses after both the protagonist Kanis and Crown Prince Michael are adults. Moreover, the point where he falls for Kanis was one that ordinary people would find hard to understand, as it just suddenly jumped over.
In other words, most of what Eugene knew about Crown Prince Michael was from when he was an adult, and she only knew two versions based on the obsession point: the version of indifference before his obsession with Kanis, and the terrifyingly obsessive confinement version after his attitude did a 180-degree turn.
So, in this current state which didn’t fit into either the indifference or confinement versions, she didn’t know how to gauge the distance.
*‘…….’*
Eugene pondered for a moment, then…
*‘Tsk. Whatever!’*
Before the shadow of the flames flickering on her face could even shift once, she gave up thinking.
*‘I’m a pet.’*
And animals don’t worry about things like that! Eugene stopped her turning thoughts and moved her legs.
Indeed, the primate brain was an unnecessary thing for humanity. Giving up thinking felt so comfortable.
Eugene just did as she pleased and sat down right in the middle of the sofa, next to Crown Prince Michael.
In the original game, before the relationship between the protagonist and Crown Prince Michael reached its extreme, the thing that comforted Crown Prince Michael the most in how the protagonist treated him was, surprisingly, simple body heat.
The warmth conveyed just by being quietly by his side—something that seemed like nothing. That was the most effective comfort for him.
But Eugene, as if unaware of such a thing, approached him with a nonchalant face. It wasn’t like Michael, who wasn’t awake, would see it anyway.
*‘I don’t have any particular goal.’*
This is just because the fireplace here is warm. Like she had truly come to soak in the warmth of the fire, Eugene sat down and looked at the fireplace.
If this drives away your nightmares, that’s just a strange coincidence.
Stubbornly refusing to turn her head from the burning fire, Eugene thought as if talking to herself.
*‘Really.’*
I’m not the protagonist who was supposed to be in this seat, and this isn’t the time when you received comfort.
So, I’m sitting here to warm myself by the fire, coincidentally next to you.
Body heat transferred little by little from where she sat right next to Crown Prince Michael. Feeling the warmth that reached her, it felt ironic—rather than giving warmth, it was as if she had truly sat here seeking the warmth from the person next to her.
Eugene quietly cast a meaningless gaze into the air, feeling the body heat from the person next to her gradually transfer warmly, until she unknowingly fell asleep herself.
