Chapter 27

Chapter 27 : The Traitor Under the Lamp (3)

Sek.

The Master of Phantasms.

The Former Underworld Lord.

The owner of the red-thread earring.

The author of the travel record.

An Underfolk tied to Pan by old acquaintance.

And so on.

“Me?”

If someone carried around that many titles, there was no way he could have been Minor Role F to begin with.

I drew my brows together and twisted my face into every kind of grimace imaginable.

My Frame was already coming out as though it had inherited something from that side, and Pan’s easygoing way of referring to me outright as Sek made my stomach turn.

I asked Pan again exactly who it was they were looking for.

“You. Sek.”

Pan stroked his chin, tilted his head, and then put that teasing expression back on.

“Hmmm, to be precise, you’re the one being mistaken for Sek, so there’s no real difference.”

“How is that the same? If I say I’m not Sek, then wouldn’t I be safe?”

“And to whom would you say that you’re not Sek? Me, the foolish elders, or the traitor?”

I rescued the tea tin from Pan’s hand as he started pouring leaves into the strainer again, then snatched away the stirring stick he was holding.

So to summarize, regardless of whether I merely resembled Sek or not, I was the only Underfolk here, and some faction that had mistaken me for Sek had been planning to do something to me.

Ideally, something that involved killing me all the more thoroughly.

“So increasing the number of Phantasmal Species was naturally meant to lure me into the Black Forest.”

“That’s my conclusion too.”

“And Timol came at me trying to kill me because he thought it was worth a try.”

“Probably.”

I bit down on my lips and tried to decide how I was supposed to accept the fact that people were out for my throat from every direction, only to end up despairing.

The elders of the forest were itching to devour me alive, the traitor in league with the Underfolk wanted to kill me and offer me up, and the current Underworld Lord, who wanted to find and kill the Former Underworld Lord, probably did too.

And if Karon was entangled behind the traitor as well, then it looked as though I was about to attract the male lead’s attention all at once too.

“What kind of man is Karon?”

“Well, I haven’t properly met him myself yet.”

In the Original Work, Pan had wandered the Black Forest searching for Sek.

Karon could not have been any different.

If I had not been here, I could not rule out the possibility that the two of them might have met.

Was that why a branching point had formed in the Original Work?

This time, because of me, they had obtained information about the Underfolk who had settled noisily into the forest’s domain, and as Pan said, the entire incident had taken place because someone was aiming for me.

‘He’s right. It really isn’t any different.’

If I failed to find the traitor, it looked as though my head was going to roll.

I rubbed the back of my neck and seriously contemplated how I had managed to end up in a world where there was not even a single moment to rest in peace.

Whether this world simply didn’t suit me at all.

Ignoring Pan’s sparkling gaze as he clearly asked for one more cup of tea, I put the tea tin away.

Pan slumped his shoulders with an expression full of disappointment, then jabbed a finger right into the area of my wounded abdomen.

When I turned back with a frown, he was wearing the exact same expression he had worn when we first met, and then he said something ominous.

“I’m thinking of setting a trap.”

“No more bait for me.”

Shuddering, I tried to lie back down on the sofa again, but Pan stopped me and said it once more.

“It’d be fun.”

“Games that stake my life aren’t my taste.”

“What if you wouldn’t die?”

“……This feels very similar to your pattern back then.”

Only then did I realize that when he had told me to remember that I would not die no matter what happened, it had not just been some casual remark.

Unlike the nature of the Execution Ground, this was a result that had become fixed because of me.

“Do I have an immortal body or something?”

“It’s not far off.”

“……What is that trap, then?”

I really should have stopped the moment I saw that sly smile.

Getting dragged into things with Pan had started out with him coaxing me, but later it became the result of me stepping forward even more actively myself.

The more I listened, the more it sounded interesting.

---

I dusted off all the grime that had piled up while I’d been loafing around and opened the door to the fixer’s office for the first time in a while.

People had still been coming and going while I was recovering, since I had been living here the whole time, but it really had been ages since the sign had been lit up properly.

I opened all the windows so the plants inside could bask in the fresh morning sunlight, and the teas I had been tinkering with while shut up in here were now lined up in stylish glass bottles.

With a few more small decorations and a few more little plants growing quickly, the office had turned into something genuinely pleasant to look at, easy on the eyes.

Ding!

[It asks whether you really intend to do this.]

I brushed away the text rising in the corner of my vision and lay down in the hammock I had set up on the outer terrace of the office.

The breeze was just cool enough, the perfect temperature, so there was no discomfort, no unease, no stickiness. It felt refreshing and nothing more.

Ding!

[It tells you this is dangerous.]

[It wishes to dissuade you.]

[Your foolish thoughts for falling for Chezer Pan’s coaxing……]

“Would you shut up.”

When I actually needed it, it wouldn’t even throw me a proper Original Work scene.

This was the same system that had plastered me with noisy alarms and clung to me stubbornly after Pan left a few days ago.

It really needed to stop this pathetic obsession already.

“Mister!”

I’d just been about to take a nap when a head suddenly popped up along with a stream of chatter.

It was Konu, fully recovered.

The Konu who had been groaning and sprouting stag antlers that day had grown a whole handspan taller in the meantime and now looked rather dignified, but the way he stood there smiling brightly reminded me of someone else too much, so nothing particularly warm came out of me.

“Don’t bother me and go away.”

“Disappointing. I’m wounded now.”

“Yes, yes.”

I shut my eyes and waved a hand, and then something landed on my stomach with a thump.

When I opened my eyes a crack, it was an awkwardly wrapped box.

About the size of my two palms put together.

“It’s a gift.”

“For me? Why?”

“The real souvenir was bought by my mother. I wrapped it myself, with all my heart.”

“Ah…….”

Still sprawled over the hammock, I sat up and tore open the wrapping without ceremony. When I noticed the crooked little doodles on the corners of the colorful flower-patterned wrapping paper, I couldn’t help smiling.

Inside the paper was a transparent glass case.

‘It’s a miracle he managed to bring this without breaking it.’

I rubbed Konu’s head briskly, then peeled away the rest of the wrapping and checked what was inside.

It was a doll about the size of my palm.

A ball-jointed doll with neatly cropped silver hair just a little shorter than a bob, large bright blue eyes, and skin as white as snow.

And I had seen a slightly larger doll very much like this before.

“The Ruler of the Sky?”

“You recognized it? So you’re not a fool.”

“……Mister isn’t that bad.”

When I held it closer and examined it, even the details of the elaborate uniform and the silver longsword at its waist had been faithfully preserved.

It felt as though the full-sized original had simply been shrunk down perfectly.

“It looks expensive. Is it really all right for me to have it?”

“They said you should treasure the savior of your life.”

He really did read nothing but books, and somehow he’d ended up speaking beautifully too.

“Tell them thank you for me. Ah, wait. Come inside for a moment.”

Cradling the case carefully in my arms, I beckoned to Konu and went inside the office first.

Not much had changed from before, but there was one noticeable new thing: now that I had properly started selling tea, I had arranged the table to resemble something of a bar counter.

The moment Konu stepped inside, he ran over, leaned his arms on the counter, and craned his head forward.

“Mister, are you selling alcohol?!”

“……Tea.”

“What. That’s boring.”

“Even if I were selling it, it wouldn’t matter to you. Eat this instead.”

I brought out the basket of cookies Ochel had given me. Konu’s listless eyes lit up at once, and when I saw him stuffing cookies into his pockets one by one, I let out a soft laugh and handed him the entire basket.

“Give some to Chiru too. Ahem, and don’t come by for a while.”

“Am I bothering you?”

“That…… anyway. A terrifying Underfolk mister might gobble you up.”

I bared my hands like claws and tried to frighten him with a little roar, but Konu only looked me up and down with narrowed eyes, as though wondering what strange thing he was seeing.

I know I’m strange too.

“Ah! I get it. You want me to spread rumors like that, don’t you?”

“Hm?”

“If you’re holding some kind of secret meeting, I’ll do my best to help.”

“It’s not that—”

“—I saw everything. Lord Pan coming out at that late hour.”

“……You saw that?”

“The adults won’t listen to me, but my friends will keep away.”

“Riiiight. Thanks?”

Konu nodded to himself with a proud expression.

There was a slight misunderstanding there, but since I needed to keep the children away anyway, I didn’t bother correcting him.

“All right, now go back. Mister still hasn’t fully recovered, so he needs to rest.”

“Still? Mister really is weak.”

“I’m wea…… yes. A weak Underfolk mister who wants to be alone.”

I had halfway given up on persuading him properly, and after a lot of coaxing, I finally sent the chattering Konu back home.

It felt as though all my energy had drained away, even though I had done nothing.

After waving back to Konu, who kept turning around to wave at me again and again, I set the doll he had given me, still inside its case, on a visible shelf.

Something about seeing it tucked there among the blue plants reminded me again of how it had looked when I was trapped in that cage, and the bitterness returned.

---

“What exactly are you plotting with my lord?”

I shrugged as I handed Pering his tea.

Perhaps the rumors had truly started spreading in earnest, because when he came by the office after work in the evening, looking ready to collapse, he seemed full of dissatisfaction.

“Ha, now my head feels a little clearer.”

That was caffeine addiction, wasn’t it?

Though the tea was still hot, Pering took several gulps at once, then adjusted his fogged glasses and repeated his first question with more emphasis.

“My lord has been smiling excessively for the past several days.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Yes. It is. He’s working excessively.”

“Is that so. Poor thing.”

So that was why the dark circles under his eyes had multiplied beyond their usual amount, and why he looked like an office worker crushed under the ruins of adult life.

I was offering him my most sincere sympathy for the ravaged daily life of a working person when I met Pering’s eyes, blazing with anger, and looked away.

“That’s not something to dismiss with a poor thing. You are the cause, Riwin.”

“I’m not the one who told him to work or forced him to. Calling me the cause is getting ahead of yourself.”

Strictly speaking, since Pan had started all of this, “concerned party” would be more accurate than “cause.”

Pering, apparently finding my answer absurd, even sighed, then waved a hand as though sick of everything.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell him what the plan actually was.

Not when I still hadn’t confirmed who the traitor was.

That applied to Pering as well.

Even if there was a 99.9 percent chance that it wasn’t him.

Smiling like the warm barista in some social-media-famous café, I cleared Pering’s empty cup and brought him a fresh hot tea.

Pering looked between the tea and me with shaking pupils, then reached into his bag with narrowed eyes.

What came out was a stack of documents.

“These are materials from the Black Forest investigation. My lord asked me to give them to you.”

“Is this a summary of the latest incident?”

“Yes. It’s top secret.”

Even while holding them out to me, Pering clearly didn’t want to let them go, gripping the stack tightly.

Pan had said he would keep silent about the spheres, and Timol hadn’t brought them up either, so whatever was written here was surely nothing more than a scenario crafted to placate the elders.

‘A silent warning to make sure my story matches theirs.’

And on top of that, encouragement to perform my role as fishing bait properly.

“I don’t know what you and my lord are planning, but please, let it not be another disaster.”

“So Pan causes disasters fairly often, then?”

At my words, Pering, whose face had become visibly more gaunt, twisted his features into every possible expression of misery and downed the rest of his tea in one gulp.

That was answer enough.