#3. The Beast on the Bed

“Ugh, really! Chloe Liden, are you a beast?!”

A wave of intense regret suddenly washed over her.

If she had known he would look for her so seriously, she would never have caused such trouble.

But even that wasn’t certain.

No matter how she thought about it, her condition last night wasn’t normal.

She hadn’t taken any mind-altering drugs, yet she couldn’t understand or explain how she had caused such a massive mistake of her life.

Ah, wait!

She drank alcohol yesterday, didn’t she?

The inn where she stayed yesterday was in Arne, a small town halfway between Bergen where her home was and Roizen where the Duke’s mansion was located. To be precise, it was oddly situated quite far from the town’s entrance, standing alone in an awkward location.

Since it took a full day to travel from her hometown to the Duke’s mansion, she always stopped there to spend the night, and yesterday was her third visit.

Given its location, there weren’t many guests, and it had a back door. It was the perfect place to disguise herself as a man and leave at dawn after paying the lodging fee in advance, away from prying eyes.

That’s why she had chosen this inn.

Yesterday, as usual, when she went down to the first-floor restaurant for dinner, there were no other guests besides her.

Unlike her previous visits, the elderly innkeeper couple was unusually insistent on offering her alcohol they claimed to have brewed themselves.

They were so persistent, and since she was the only guest, it was difficult to refuse.

In truth, thinking it was her last day of vacation before returning to the Duke’s mansion, she wasn’t entirely opposed to getting drunk.

The guilt of leaving her mother in Kalkus’s care and the burden of having to spend another month in male disguise until her next vacation — she wondered if drinking might help her forget these worries, even momentarily.

Despite barely having drunk before and not knowing her alcohol tolerance.

Could there have been some aphrodisiac in that alcohol?

She had heard rumors of such crimes. At parties where drinks were served, people would secretly spike drinks with aphrodisiacs for a night of pleasure.

But she soon shook her head.

She was becoming suspicious of everything because her actions were so incomprehensible.

When she actually started drinking, the kind elderly couple even offered her chocolate, saying it contained ingredients that would help neutralize the alcohol.

If the drink had been spiked, it would have had to be those kind elderly people who did it.

In such a remote place with barely any guests, what reason would those seemingly innocent and frail elderly people have to commit such a crime? Why yesterday of all days? Why to her, a complete stranger?

No, it didn’t make sense.

It wasn’t logical that these kind elderly people, who even gave her chocolate to prevent drunkenness, would have predicted her arrival yesterday and prepared to drug her.

So it couldn’t have been drug intoxication.

Ah! Speaking of medicine, she had forgotten about that medicine.

Thinking about drugs reminded her of the medicine she hadn’t taken.

For several years, her mother had always made sure she took medicine when the seasons changed.

“What kind of medicine is this? Do I have some incurable disease?”

She asked her mother several times since she only gave it to her and not to her brother Clyne, but her mother had always just said it was a nutritional supplement.

Since there were no particular side effects when she took it, she accepted that explanation, but that time, she hadn’t taken the medicine.

After the accident three or four months ago, right after she had last taken the medicine, her mother had been hovering between life and death and was now bedridden. Far from being able to give Chloe medicine, she was in a state where others had to help her take her own medicine.

Anyway, she hadn’t taken any unusual drug yesterday. Though there was that medicine she hadn’t taken.

If anyone had taken something, it would make more sense if it had been the Duke, not her.

Given how he had changed so dramatically.

After all, no one could have imagined that Duke Hughgray Wulfaz would transform into a beast in bed.

The young head of the Wulfaz duchy, which had produced Sword Masters for generations, was recognized as the greatest Sword Master in the history of the Elion Empire, but what was actually more famous than his abilities was his striking appearance that could take one’s breath away.

If he had the abilities of a Sword Master, he could have at least been ugly.

He possessed an unrivaled beauty. So much so that even the fact that he was considered the greatest Sword Master since the era when the now-extinct beast-people ruled over humans was overshadowed by praise for his appearance.

And if he was such a beautiful Sword Master, shouldn’t he at least have had a terrible personality for the world to be fair?

But the world wasn’t fair, and while the Duke wasn’t particularly friendly or gentle, he maintained a balanced personality that never lost its courtesy and dignity.

He could have been the most perfect human currently existing in the Elion Empire.

However, as if even the gods were jealous of his perfection, there was one devastating rumor attached to him that could offset all his fame.

‘Duke Hughgray Wulfaz is impotent.’

This was the rumor that stuck to the Duke. His nickname had become ‘The Impotent Duke.’

Of course, the rumor hadn’t always been this devastating.

At first, despite his strange aversion to women — to the point where one might wonder if even the livestock in his house were all male — the rumors only went as far as ‘he dislikes women, hates them, despises them.’

As if he were like fruit hanging too high on a tree for anyone to reach, but one couldn’t bear to see such tempting fruit fall to the ground.

Perhaps they couldn’t bear to devastate the kingdom’s numerous women with worse rumors.

However, after years of excessive fastidiousness where he wouldn’t allow any woman to approach him, the rumors gradually evolved into claims that ‘he prefers men.’

As though he was trying to limit those who would be disappointed to women only.

But just because he kept women at a distance didn’t mean the Duke showed any signs of homosexuality.

In fact, he became uncomfortable even when men got too close.

That’s why Chloe always received his instructions while standing several steps away.

Eventually, after another year of this, the rumor changed to ‘his important part is broken.’

Completely and equally devastating both men and women in the kingdom.

Broken, that is, impotent.

Impotent…

Ha!

How ridiculous!

It wasn’t that something was broken beyond repair, but rather something that wouldn’t die all night long.

No, no!

Don’t think about it.

She tried to suppress the wild memories trying to surface in her mind.

She needed to forget last night’s massive disaster as soon as possible and focus on the present.

Only then could she safely pay off her debt and escape from this male disguise.

While the Wulfaz duchy was known as a ‘dream workplace’ due to its exceptionally high wages compared to other workplaces, Chloe had no intention of working there for long.

She didn’t meet the crucial condition for employment.

The Wulfaz duchy had strange employment regulations that couldn’t be found in other workplaces, and because of this, the term ‘dream workplace’ only applied to men.

[Employment Regulations for Servants of the Wulfaz Duchy

Article 1

Section 1: Must be male.

Section 2: Must not bring women into the ducal mansion or create any circumstances that would allow women to enter for any reason.

Section 3: If either Section 1 or 2 is violated, the total amount of wages already paid plus a penalty fee must be paid. The penalty fee equals the total amount of wages already paid.]

These were truly strange regulations, and the duchy’s high wages were all because of these rules.

Since they didn’t hire any female servants at all, even work that was typically considered women’s domain had to be done by male servants in the Wulfaz duchy.

Moreover, the penalty clause on top of the monthly salary was intimidating even to those who had no reason to violate the contract.

So naturally, Chloe, being a woman, couldn’t work at the duchy.

She hadn’t planned to at first.

Nevertheless, she ended up working there because her twin brother Clyne, who had been hired as a servant at the duchy, died before his first day of work.

Of course, at first, she intended to inform the duchy of her brother’s death and tell them he couldn’t start work.

But she soon had to change her mind.

Because on the day her brother died, her mother also became critically ill.

To save her mother, who was wavering between life and death, she needed medicine made with the core of an allegedly extinct monster.

The medicine was so expensive that ordinary people couldn’t even dream of affording it, and it cost exactly the same as her brother’s expected annual salary at the Wulfaz duchy.

In the end, Chloe had no other choice. She had no option but to disguise herself as a man and pretend to be Clyne.

In such an urgent situation, she didn’t have time to look for another job, and crucially, only the duchy would pay a year’s salary in advance.

However, while the choice of disguising as a man was unavoidable, it wasn’t that she didn’t want to avoid it.

Having to hide her gender — it’s uncomfortable and nerve-wracking.

So naturally, she planned to quit working at the Duke’s mansion as soon as she paid off the money.

For that, she needed to somehow endure well for at least a year.

But…

A one-night mistake with the Duke.

The advance payment of a year’s salary had long since disappeared on buying the medicine.

She couldn’t even save enough for her mother’s ongoing medical expenses, though she hadn’t recovered enough to get up.

In the end, even the daily medical expenses were being covered by Kalkus…

In this situation, what if she had to pay back the annual salary she had already spent plus the same amount in penalties?

No way!

Just imagining it was enough to make her chest tighten in suffocation.

She absolutely could not let anyone find out that she was a woman!

Besides, it might not just be a matter of money.