The Villainess Whom I Had Served for 13 Years Has Fallen

27 – The Secret He Hides -3-

The young lady reached her hand out towards me.

“Show me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your hand.”

The young lady pointed to her right hand, hidden behind her back.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

Pretending not to understand, I whistled and the young lady threw a yellow rubber duck, her beloved toy, at me.

-Quack

The rubber duck fiercely perished.

I picked up the fallen duck from the floor and threw it back at the young lady.

“Quack!”

This time, I heard the sound of the young lady fiercely perishing.

The young lady glared at me.

She reached out her hand towards me, snapping her fingers. Am I supposed to give her my hand like a dog?

I crossed my arms and showed my will to resist. How dare she shamelessly look at someone else’s body. That’s not Eastern etiquette, is it?

Anyway.

I couldn’t afford to indulge the young lady this time.

“Give me your hand.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Give it to me.”

“I don’t like it.”

It felt like an intense battle, like a rice cake pounding session.

As the girl reached out her hand to hold mine, and I deliberately kept a distance, it felt like I was teasing her, just like making rice cakes.

As you know, in rice cake pounding sessions, offense is more dominant than defense. As a master of rice cake pounding who turned children’s foreheads into unicorns with a smack in my past life, avoiding the slow girl’s grasp was easier than making children cry.

The girl glared at me with a pout.

She didn’t like the fact that I was hiding.

“Why are you hiding it?”

“The chocolate is in the fridge.”

“Oh… I see.”

The girl, who loved the hidden treasure trove, changed the topic of conversation as soon as she realized my strategy to change it.

“No! I’m not talking about chocolate. I definitely saw your arm!”

She definitely saw it?

I thought she wouldn’t have seen it.

Although she was usually slow, her sense of sight was better than a sword master’s at times like this.

I quickly hid my hand behind my back, but in that moment, it seems like the girl saw a scar on my arm.

One fortunate thing was that the girl didn’t see it clearly.

Maybe she only saw a faint silhouette on my wet shirt, as her gaze was still fixed on my wrist.

Maybe I could smoothly transition to something else.

It’s a good thing for both the girl and me if she doesn’t know. Isn’t a good thing a good thing?

I thought of an excuse to tell the girl in my head, but I couldn’t easily defend myself against the fierce mental attack from the girl’s piercing gaze.

“I should be more careful.”

A clumsy excuse would be easier for the girl to notice.

But why would she be curious about this?

I nervously brushed my hidden right hand again behind my back.

A blurry black silhouette, wet in the water. It piqued my curiosity, but it wasn’t so fascinating that I would risk my life for it.

It wasn’t a tattoo symbolizing a religious sect.

It wasn’t a tattoo representing a fan club for Yuria.

It wasn’t a tattoo that contained the family’s secrets.

Just a gruesome scar, enough to make others go ‘ugh…’ when they see it.

Especially the scar that I hope no one sees as much as the young lady.

It’s not only unpleasant to look at but also something I didn’t want to reveal.

Of course, I thought I would be exposed someday.

You can’t live your whole life wearing long sleeves.

I planned to slowly show it when the scar faded enough to be excused as an injury while working.

But I didn’t expect to be exposed like this.

Still, the fortunate thing is that I had prepared excuses in advance.

In case I get caught, the excuses I thought of while cleaning the mansion out of worry about what if she finds out were still lingering in my mind.

Whatever the young lady misunderstands, I can show a plausible reaction.

If she says it’s dirty.

– I haven’t bathed, that’s why.

If she asks why there’s such a big spot on my arm.

– There’s a huge birthmark on my forearm.

If she says it’s scary.

– Ugh. There’s a black dragon living in my right hand…

With such excuses, it wasn’t scary at all. Of course, my heart was pounding like crazy, but it can be naturally resolved.

The young lady is reaching out to me.

And I am awkwardly hiding my hand.

Our awkward gazes intersected.

After about a minute of silence passed, unable to bear the wait, the young lady opened her mouth first.

“Ricardo.”

“Yes.”

“Actually, I know everything.”

She said she knows.

I swallowed the dry saliva.

Since when did she know?

I haven’t given any clues.

Wearing a shirt that didn’t show sweat stains no matter how much I perspired. I wonder how the young lady knew.

A myriad of thoughts brushed through my mind. I hadn’t considered the possibility of being caught.

If I were caught.

The ambiance of this mansion didn’t seem quite welcoming.

Tension hung in the air of the bathroom.

The young lady spoke to me with a cold stare.

“It happens, Ricardo. Humans are prone to mistakes.”

“…Yes.”

“Humans also hold secrets they can’t tell.”

“That’s true.”

“Yes, sometimes one might hit someone like me, or turn a quarrelsome person into a bald one.”

“That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?”

The young lady opened her eyes sharply.

“Listen to me.”

At this moment, I felt like the youngest daughter of the Desmont family. The conversation might belong in a confessional at a church, but the aura I felt from her was like observing the head of the Desmonts.

The young lady continued, “I also have a secret I keep.”

“Is that so, young lady?”

“Yes.”

The young lady patted her chest again.

“Actually, today, I stole some chocolate.”

“?”

She showed the melting, crumpled chocolate and smiled.

“Three whole pieces.”

The young lady smirked wickedly.

I genuinely wanted to scold her.

-Under the bed.

-Between the pillowcases.

-Within a strand of hair.

Continually disclosing the locations of emergency rations, as I watched her, I had a gut feeling.

The lady was stumbling over empty words.

I was a fool for being so tense.

The lady has always been someone who is distant and unaware. While everyone else says “jjajangmyeon,” she alone shouts “jjamppong.”

I was a fool for thinking that she caught on.

My tense mind started moving again.

The lady, who had turned into a slime in the bathtub, slowly opened her mouth.

“Did you notice Ricardo’s tattoo?”

Once again, the lady stumbled over empty words.

I was relieved by her consistent behavior.

“…”

“It’s a tattoo, right? Are you hiding it because I don’t like tattoos?”

“So I’ve been caught after all.”

The lady smiled at my awkward laugh. She seemed to think her deduction was accurate.

The lady felt pleased as her curiosity was satisfied.

I awkwardly scratched the back of my head.

To avoid arousing suspicion and allow her to mistakenly think, “I’ve been caught,” I began acting with all my might.

“Was it very obvious?”

From Noble mtl dot com

“Yeah. It was difficult pretending not to know.”

“I tried hiding it as much as possible, but it seems I can’t deceive you, lady.”

“Of course not. Who do you take me for?”

The lady pat her chest.

I was thankful for being deceived properly.

Since things have turned out this way, I must deceive the lady convincingly.

It’s not too difficult to turn lies into truths from the moment they are mistaken as real.

The secret about this scar is something only I know, and it’s something that only needs to stay quiet with me.

Forging a lie won’t be a problem at all.

I smoothly spat out the lies I had thought of in my mind.

“A while ago, I got a tattoo without the lady knowing.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m sorry for hiding it. It turned out to be a rather strange tattoo to show to others.”

“Hmm… Really? Since when?”

The young lady asked a sharp question.

“Um… About a year ago?”

“Eek! You did that so long ago?! This servant! Still hiding it!”

In her betrayal, the young lady threw a rubber duck.

-Quack

This time, I dodged it.

“The recent attack was quite fierce.”

I extended my thumb, and the young lady vented her anger with an ‘eeek’ sound.

The young lady spoke defiantly.

“Next time, it’ll hit for sure.”

“I apologize. Avoiding feeble attacks is a habit of mine.”

“eeek!”

It was time to come out of the bathroom slowly.

Three hours had passed since the young lady had immersed herself in the bathtub, and at this point, she seemed somewhat distant to call a person.

The young lady turned into a slime, making ‘ho-eek’ sounds.

She seemed to have forgotten all memories of the tattoo.

-Splat-splat.

The young lady was throwing the rubber duck against the wall, playing catch with it.

-Quack!

“Hmph!”

-Quack!

“hehehehe!”

The rubber duck made dying sounds as it hit the wall. I got up from my seat, expressing condolences for the toy duck suffering from meeting the wrong owner.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll go get a towel.”

“A towel?”

The young lady looked at me with a puzzled expression at the mention of a towel.

But I couldn’t back down.

“Now, I have to go home.”

I conveyed my intention clearly to the young lady through simple gestures.

Pointing at her.

“You.”

Pointing outside the door.

“I’m leaving.”

Then I pointed to the floor.

“Right now.”

“eeek!”

The young lady who threw a rubber duck at me.

***

The young lady sitting on the bed entrusted her hair to me.

The young lady asked me to dry her hair.

She was a young lady who wasted high-quality talent in a strange way. If Hannah saw this scene, she would have probably freaked out and pulled Olivia away.

There’s nothing as challenging as adjusting Oloro in such detail.

I do things that even a sword master can’t, but does the young lady know how extraordinary I am?

The young lady, who was absent-mindedly muttering, seemed to have no idea.

“Ugh… alright.”

“Is it good?”

“Mm.”

While drying her hair.

The young lady casually asked.

“Ricardo.”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask what kind of tattoo you have?”

It was unusual for the young lady to ask such a formal question.

Normally, she would have said, “Show it to me!”

I felt proud that the young lady was maturing, asking in a dignified manner, leaning against my chest.

“I think it might be difficult to show…”

“Mm, I won’t look. No, I don’t want to see.”

“Is that so?”

“I don’t like tattoos.”

She frowned when I said I didn’t like them.

It hurt me to see my daughter, who was running away from her bearded father because she didn’t like him.

I thought deeply in my heart.

What did my scar look like?

It was as cracked as a drought-stricken land.

There were dark, scorched marks here and there. It looked like something.

Since lies are more believable when based on truth, I tried to come up with a plausible excuse.

After thinking for about 3 minutes.

I thought of the most similar thing.

“Bark.”

“What kind of bark?”

“Tree bark.”

The young lady looked at me.

She had a subtly changing expression.

She looked at me with an expression as if she were about to cry.

Why is she doing that?

Did I brush too hard?

Around the time I couldn’t easily move due to various thoughts.

The young lady asked me in a hushed voice.

“Why? Did you do it with wood?”

“Just because.”

I thought of the most similar thing.

I didn’t know she would ask for a reason.

I gave the young lady a plausible answer to her question.

“Just because, it’s sturdy and strong. It provides shade too.”

“Is that so?”

The young lady nodded.

“You resemble her.”

The young lady who answered me was staring blankly at the ceiling.

She had been staring at the ceiling blankly for a while now. I asked her in a soft voice.

“Why are you looking at it like that?”

“Huh? It’s nothing, really.”

She let out a sigh.

“Just… it’s because of a tattoo.”

[Q. The Secret He Hides]

The day his master, who he had served for 13 years, fell.

Ricardo was there at that moment.

No one knows what happened on that day, but one person

The only one who knows the truth of that day is her butler.

Ricardo has been trying to hide the truth of that day for a lifetime, quietly passing it without anyone knowing, the secret of that day.

(!) Uncover the secret of that day.

1. See the secret Ricardo is hiding. (0/1)

2. Touch the secret Ricardo is hiding. (0/1)

Reward: You can read the 29th extra chapter, ‘The Man’s Secret.’

Olivia knew it all.