#3. The Beast on the Bed

Damn it, seriously! Chloe Riden, are you an animal or something?!

A wave of intense regret washed over her.

If she had known he would search for her so seriously, she would never have done something so reckless.

But even that, she couldn’t be sure of.

No matter how she thought about it, her state last night hadn’t been normal.

She hadn’t taken any mind-losing drugs or anything like that, so she couldn’t understand—or explain—how she had ended up committing such a catastrophic mistake in her lifetime.

Wait, hold on!

She did drink alcohol yesterday.

The inn she stayed at was in Arne, a small town roughly halfway between her hometown in Børgen and the duke’s estate in Roizen. More precisely, it stood awkwardly isolated at the edge of the village, almost as if it didn’t belong anywhere.

It took a full day to travel from her home to the ducal estate, so she always stopped there for the night. Yesterday had been her third visit.

Because of its odd location, there were hardly any guests, and it even had a back entrance. As long as you paid in advance, it was the perfect place to slip out at dawn disguised as a man without drawing attention.

That was why she chose it.

As usual, when she went downstairs for dinner, she was the only guest in the inn’s dining room.

Unlike previous visits, however, the elderly couple who ran the place had unusually insisted she try some alcohol they had personally brewed.

They were so insistent, and she was the only customer, so it was hard to refuse.

And honestly… since it was her last day of vacation before returning to the duke’s estate, she did want to get a little drunk and forget things for a while.

The guilt of leaving her mother in Kalcus’s care, and the burden of spending another month disguised as a man until her next break—she had thought drinking might help her forget even for a moment.

She had barely ever drunk alcohol, so she didn’t even know her tolerance.

Could there have been something like an aphrodisiac in it?

She had heard rumors of such crimes before—at banquets where drinks are secretly laced with drugs so one can pursue fleeting pleasure for a single night without the other person’s consent.

But she quickly shook her head.

The more she couldn’t understand her own behavior, the more ridiculous suspicions she started to entertain.

After she actually drank, the innkeepers—who had been so kind—even brought her chocolate, saying it helped break down alcohol.

If there had been drugs in the alcohol, then those kind old people would have had to be the culprits.

But in a quiet place with almost no visitors, where they gained nothing from such a crime… those gentle, frail-looking elderly people? On that specific day? Targeting her for no reason?

No, that didn’t make sense.

Even giving her chocolate to prevent drunkenness didn’t fit the logic that they would have predicted she would come, drink, and be affected that night.

So it couldn’t have been drugged.

Ah! Come to think of it, there was that medicine she had forgotten about.

As she thought about drugs, she suddenly remembered the medicine she hadn’t taken.

For several years, her mother had always given her medicine whenever the seasons changed.

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

She had asked that many times, since her older brother Klein was never given it—only her.

But her mother always said it was just a nutritional supplement.

Since she never experienced any symptoms, she had eventually accepted it.

But this time, she hadn’t taken it.

Because about three or four months ago, after a certain accident, her mother had fallen into critical condition and was now bedridden. She could no longer even give her daughter the medicine—she had to rely on others just to receive her own treatment.

In any case, she hadn’t taken any unusual drugs yesterday. If anything, she had missed her usual medicine.

Or rather… if anyone had taken something strange, it would be the duke.

Given how drastically he had changed.

Hugray Ulphaz, the Duke of Ulphaz—no one would ever imagine he could turn into a beast in bed.

The young head of the Ulphaz ducal house, which had produced generations of sword masters, was recognized as the greatest swordsman in the history of the Elion Empire.

But even more famous than his abilities was his breathtaking appearance, enough to steal anyone’s breath away.

If he already had the talent of a Sword Master, he could have been ugly and it would have been fine.

But instead, he possessed unmatched beauty—so much so that even the fact he was the greatest Sword Master in history, surpassing even the era when beast-like races once ruled over humans, was overshadowed by praise for his looks.

And for someone that beautiful, shouldn’t his personality at least be terrible to balance the world?

But the world was not fair.

The duke was not especially warm or friendly, but he was still polite and composed, possessing a well-balanced personality.

He had almost become the most perfect human in the Empire of Elion.

But perhaps even the gods envied his perfection, because a fatal rumor clung to him.

“Duke Hugray Ulphaz is impotent.”

That was the rumor attached to him. A nickname that had become almost a proper title: the “Impotent Duke.”

Of course, it hadn’t always been this severe.

At first, it was merely said that he avoided women—so much so that even the livestock in his estate might all be male.

He lived like a fruit hanging high on a tree that no one could pick, yet no one wanted to see it fall.

The rumors had not been allowed to become more damaging, so as not to devastate the women of the kingdom.

But as years passed and he continued refusing any contact with women, the rumor evolved into “he prefers men.”

At least that version limited despair to women only.

But even that wasn’t true. He avoided men just as much if they got too close.

That was why Chloe always had to keep a careful distance when receiving orders from him.

Eventually, after another year, the rumor changed again: “something important is broken.”

Now it destroyed both men and women equally.

Broken. In other words—impotent.

…Impotent, huh.

Ha!

As if.

It wasn’t that something couldn’t work.

It felt more like something that wouldn’t stop working all night long.

No, no!

Don’t think about it.

She forcefully pushed down the chaotic memories trying to surface.

Last night’s disaster had to be forgotten as quickly as possible so she could focus on the present.

Only then could she repay her debt and finally escape this disguise.

The Ulphaz ducal house was known as a “dream workplace” due to its exceptionally high salary, but Chloe had never intended to stay there long.

She simply didn’t meet the key condition for employment.

The Ulphaz household had a strange hiring rule that made the “dream job” something only men could ever have.

[Employment Regulations for Servants of the Ulphaz Ducal House]

Article 1

1. Must be male.
2. Under no circumstances may women be brought into the ducal estate or given any reason to enter.
3. Violation of either clause requires repayment of all wages already received, plus a penalty equal to the total amount of wages paid.

These were absurd rules, and the high salary was precisely because of them.

Since no female staff were hired, even work traditionally done by women was handled by men.

The penalty clause on top of the salary created immense pressure—even for those who had done nothing wrong.

Naturally, Chloe—being a woman—could not work there.

At least, that had been the case.

The reason she ended up working there anyway was because her twin brother Klein, who had originally been hired, died just before his first day.

At first, she had intended to inform the ducal house of his death and say she could not take his place.

But she changed her mind.

On the same day Klein died, their mother collapsed into critical condition.

To save her mother, who was wavering between life and death, they needed medicine made from the mana core of a monster thought to be extinct.

That medicine cost an astronomical amount—exactly equal to one year’s salary Klein had been promised.

In the end, Chloe had no choice.

She had to disguise herself as a man and take Klein’s place.

There was no time to find another job, and the duke’s household was the only place that could provide an advance payment of an entire year’s salary.

But it wasn’t that she wanted to disguise herself as a man—only that she had no choice.

How suffocating and nerve-wracking it was to hide her gender.

Of course, once she paid off the debt, she intended to quit immediately.

To do that, she had to survive at least one year without being exposed.

And yet…

A one-night mistake with the duke.

The year’s salary she had taken in advance had already vanished into treatment costs the moment she received it.

Even her mother’s ongoing medical expenses—too much for her still-weak condition to bear—had not been covered.

Now Kalcus was paying those costs for them.

If she had to repay all the already-spent salary and the penalty on top of it…

No.

Just imagining it made her chest tighten painfully.

She absolutely could not let anyone discover she was a woman.

Not under any circumstances.

And it wasn’t just about money either.