Chapter 2

Chapter 2. The Porter of Yensi (1)

I cracked my eyes open to slits. First, I had to check whether this was hell or heaven. It was completely different from the tension of drawing in a gacha game or checking your hwatu hand.

My entire 28-year life was being judged here. But as I opened my eyes further, I sank deeper into despair.

This place was nothing but darkness. Darkness and gloom meant hell; light and radiance meant heaven. I must be in hell right now.

"Hey, isn't this bastard dead?"

"Yensi being Yensi."

"He's starting to open his eyes, though?"

What are they going on about? I rolled my eyes side to side. Could they be grim reapers? They seemed a bit too frivolous for grim reapers, though.

Then a soft hand pried my eyes wide open. I tried to squeeze them shut against the sudden light, but the hand wouldn't let go.

"He's awake, all right."

"Lady Airi! To think you would touch a filthy Yensi with your own hands!"

"You and him are equally filthy to me."

Lady Airi? I'd heard that somewhere before.

"Of course. What in the world could possibly be clean before the hands of Lady Airi Lapitess?"

"At least you know that. Hmph."

She said it primly, then washed the hand that had touched my eyelid with water and turned back. At the same time, a rough pair of hands slid under my armpits and hoisted me up like a cat.

"They say you have to beat a Yensi before they'll listen."

Yensi? Airi? Lapitess? Those words assembled into one in my head. The puzzle pieces all pointed to a single engraving, the romance fantasy novel I'd last been reading, 「The Bed Strewn with Rose Petals」.

"You got knocked out by a goblin right at the start of the first floor, and then when you wake up, you pretend to still be out?"

"Hey, if he's scared, it happens. Wasn't he brought along cheap?"

I sprang to my feet. But why was everyone here so tall? Having them surround me and look down at me made me feel absolutely terrible.

"Is this the Trafviche Empire?"

"Well, well? Playing amnesia now too? This bastard's the real deal, isn't he? Yeah, that's right. This is Trafviche—so you think this is your stinking homeland of Yensi?"

Well, look at that. So this was neither heaven nor hell. The Trafviche Empire, of all things. If I wasn't dreaming, this was definitely the world of 「The Bed Strewn with Rose Petals」.

"We have to clear up to the 10th floor today. The 10th floor is the standard for passing the Sword Expert exam!"

"Understood, my lady!"

The woman addressed as 'my lady' had shouted it viciously. Her silver hair was braided down the middle like a waterfall, with the back flowing long and loose—beautiful hair. And it wasn't just her hair. Her face, too, with its pale skin and crimson eyes, was like a doll carved from milk and rubies.

Anyway, she said Airi Lapitess. If this was the Airi Lapitess I knew, she was one foul-tempered bitch. Of course, that temper had already shown itself when she pried my eyes open.

"A goblin! All of you, fall back!"

Airi charged forward excitedly, brandishing a silver sword that matched her hair. The goblin was cleaved in two before it could even scream.

"As expected of our lady!"

"Isn't this at least Sword Expert level?"

"Come on, that's Sword Master level at least."

What horseshit. Sword Master level was equivalent to an S-rank Hunter by my world's standards, and considering S-rank Hunters made up the top 0.04%, that was a laughable claim.

Airi surely knew that herself, but she simply covered her mouth with her white-gloved hand and laughed demurely.

"Hey, porter. Are you going to collect the corpse or what?"

Someone shoved my back. It was the guy who'd been flattering Airi by calling her a Sword Master. He had greasy hair tied back tight—a typical thug look. I was shoved, dazed, right in front of the goblin's corpse.

Well, I'd seen far worse than a corpse like this, so it wasn't that disgusting.

Then again, 「The Bed Strewn with Rose Petals」 was a romance fantasy, so realistic scenes like this never came up. It was all just the male and female leads flirting with each other.

I grumbled internally, but this place was basically a dungeon in this world. I didn't know the way out, and Airi's glare was too piercing to ignore, so I decided to butcher the corpse.

Corpse butchering was naturally a taboo scene in romance fantasy. I just drew on my memories from my Hunter days and dismembered the monster with the dagger beside me. This kind of thing was my specialty.

Because the people who commissioned Hunters always wanted top-grade corpses and byproducts. Of course, once you had enough seniority as an S-rank Hunter, you didn't handle corpse cleanup anymore—but that didn't mean you didn't know how.

SQUELCH—! CHOP—!

I deftly dismembered the goblin's corpse with the dagger. Damn, she really hacked it to pieces.

The moment Airi cut it like this, this corpse was B-grade at best.

"My lady, you shouldn't watch that sort of thing."

The man beside Airi—wearing a suit and a monocle on a chain—spoke up. Probably a butler.

Airi, apparently not wanting to watch either, turned her face away.

If she wasn't going to watch this, why did she even come here? I sneered inwardly and carved out the gum tissue from the deepest part of the goblin's mouth. The teeth came out still attached to the gums, looking just like dentures. This was how you kept the teeth fresh.

"What's with that guy?"

"His corpse work is insane."

"Well, a porter just needs to be good at stuff like that."

Murmurs from behind. I ignored them and finished processing the corpse.

Hide sorted as hide, meat sorted as meat. I cleanly removed the brain and innards and buried them in the ground. Innards staining the hide would make it spoil fast.

"About done."

I opened the leather pouch from my back pocket. Amazingly, the inside of the pouch was divided into compartments by glowing lines. So this was magic in a romance fantasy world.

Fascinating.

I sorted the corpse parts by compartment, then tossed the pouch to the guy who'd shoved me earlier. He fumbled the pouch on his hands as if he'd been tossed a chunk of lava, barely catching it.

"What, are you catching mice? Such a fuss. You look more pathetic than that Yensi over there."

"That bastard threw it without a word."

He glared at me. Was it my fault he couldn't catch? I gave him a little smirk and turned away.

"Hey, Yensi......"

"This porter is quite A-grade. We brought him along cheap because he was from Yensi, but who knew he had a talent like this."

The guy's attempt to pick a fight was shut down at the butler's level. If your defiance gets stopped by a butler, don't go acting tough.

"My lady, shall we proceed?"

"Sure. But this is too slow."

"A porter who processes that precisely is A-grade."

"How much can you get out of a goblin corpse that you'd bother processing it? Just tell him to do it roughly."

She could just say it to me directly. Did she really need to go through the butler? Then again, since I was someone who knew Airi Lapitess, I said nothing. Talking back here would get my head lopped off.

She was the duke's only daughter, and the arch-enemy of the female lead, Marina. The so-called villainess lady. Pretty face, rotten personality, thinking only of herself—a textbook romance fantasy villainess.

"All right, move out!"

Airi said it innocently, raising her sword as if commanding us.

The people beside me were probably the duke's household guards. In other words, nameless commoners. And I was no different. As I followed behind, the butler who'd been beside Airi came to my side.

"What's your name, lad?"

"Pardon?"

"I asked your name. So you can speak Trafvichan."

I had no idea. Why could I speak it? It was clearly a language I'd never heard before. I deliberated. Should I use the name Ju Hwanyeong?

But this was a romance fantasy. The kind of common, historically inaccurate romance fantasy where even the Eastern-styled Yensi had Western-styled names. Because that's what sounded cool.

"Hm, no name? That's possible, I suppose."

"No, hold on. I'm thinking."

"You're thinking about your name?"

A life without a name was something I didn't want. I thought about it with the dumbfounded butler standing before me. What was 'hwanyeong' in English again?

Just then, a semi-transparent window appeared before me.

【환영: Apparition [ˌæpəˈrɪʃn]】

What's this now? A dictionary? The semi-transparent window didn't seem visible to the butler. Did 「The Bed Strewn with Rose Petals」 have a setting like this? And it even played with the pronunciation.

"It's Apparition."

"Appari... Tion? You even have a surname. Were you perhaps someone of note back in Yensi?"

That's not what I meant. Either way, my surname became Tion and my given name became Appari.

"I've heard Yensi is in turmoil."

Beats me. 「The Bed Strewn with Rose Petals」 was set almost entirely in Trafviche, so Yensi was only ever mentioned in passing, never actually shown.

"By the way, your corpse work was quite outstanding. Skilled enough to be given a permanent position at the ducal estate. Only, your build seems a bit scrawny. Since you have to work as a porter too, how about bulking up a bit?"

A job offer? No thanks. I had my pride as an S-rank Hunter. This wasn't even a scouting offer—it was like getting a phone call from a warehouse saying they were short on people.

"I'll think about it."

"Sure... Wait, you're turning down a permanent position at the ducal estate?"

"It's 'permanent' in name only."

I'd done some loading and unloading work before getting my S-rank, and they'd call me 'sir' back then. 'Sir' and 'permanent employee' in title, but treated like a temp in practice. I'd pass on that.

"If you change your mind, write up a résumé listing all your skills and bring it."

"What skills?"

I said that, then it suddenly hit me. Oh right—this was a world with skills. Not so different from the Hunter world. The only difference was that the Hunter world just called it experience, while here they slapped the label 'skill' on it.

If anything, this world was a bit more cumbersome. So I wondered whether I couldn't do the things I knew without having the corresponding skills.

I tried to instantly grab the butler from behind using movements I remembered, but my feet tangled and I fell flat on my face.

"What are you doing all of a sudden? Why are you dancing?"

"No, I was just so excited about the job offer......"

Embarrassing as hell. The other guards burst out laughing at me. Airi, watching me crash to the ground, had a look of pure contempt.

Airi watched our antics for a moment, then called the butler in a shrill voice.

"Butler! Are you my butler or that Yensi scum's butler?! Don't you know our estate prohibits moonlighting?!"

"Coming, my lady!"

The butler said that, then whispered to me on his way out.

"You know where the estate is, right? Write your résumé on your own and come find me. We'll negotiate salary there."

Who said I was coming? The butler left for Airi's side without catching my exasperated look. When he arrived, Airi naturally turned forward and kept walking.

A moment later, the butler glanced at the wall above and suddenly blocked Airi's path. Had the man lost his mind? Blocking that madwoman's path.

"When did we reach the 10th floor? Beyond the 11th is off-limits."

"Oh, that was easy. I cleared two floors while you guys were chatting."

She broke through two floors just by walking? The dungeon here was structured similarly to the ones I knew. Room-format dungeons. Clear one room, and they'd say you'd cleared a floor.

Well, the author who wrote this novel did write it in my world, so they'd probably referenced it.

"The Duke gave strict orders regarding this. The 11th floor is a zone where named monsters appear."

"Why don't I just blow through to the 15th floor in one go? I want to earn Sword Expert Two. Wouldn't that make my father happier?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Don't use the word 'absolutely' with me, Butler. Just because you have my father's favor doesn't mean you have mine, does it?"

Look at that, look at that. The way she talked to someone her father's age. That's why she was the villainess lady with the most antis. Whenever she appeared, the comment section would be plastered with curses. Of course, I'd contributed my share to that.

Still, as a near-main-cast character she wouldn't die, but her doing whatever she pleased was infuriating beyond measure. When I was a party leader, anyone who acted like that would've been kicked out immediately. Of course, no one ever did that in front of me.

"Let's head to the 11th floor!"

The guards silently followed Airi's excited command. The butler's sigh spread thick across the 10th-floor dungeon.