The Safety Guidelines of The Duke’s Haunted Castle Chapter 66

The night, which felt unusually short, passed by. I opened my eyes in exhaustion and stared blankly into space.

“Is it… time to start working again?”

I had spent a full five hours buried in books and documents last night, but in the end, I had found nothing.

Naturally, after saying goodbye to Edwin with the promise that we would continue tomorrow, I went straight to sleep. But perhaps because I had been standing for so long, my shoulders and lower back still ached when I got up.

“Ugh, I’m dying.”

Even after washing up, I was sitting in an uncomfortable position when the head maid carefully approached me.

“Miss Windsor, are you all right?”

“Yes… probably.”

“…I heard that you stayed with His Grace until quite late last night.”

She set some bread, soup, and a fruit drink on the table, and her cheeks turned slightly red… Hmm?

‘Why is she blushing?’

Confused by her unexpected reaction, I suddenly realized what she might be thinking and was horrified.

‘Does she think something happened between us!?’

Of course, the more time I spent with Edwin, the more often it seemed like situations arose where he might develop feelings for me.

It was a romance simulation game, after all, so that was only natural.

But nothing had actually happened yet. I really didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.

“Um, I had something I needed to look for.”

“What were you looking for…?”

“Oh.”

Right. The head maid still didn’t know that I had overheard her conversation with the advisor.

After hesitating for a moment, I decided to simply tell her the truth.

“Actually, I heard the conversation you had with the advisor the other day.”

“Pardon?”

“It sounded like the two of you had a disagreement about working hours. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on purpose… I just happened to hear it while I was passing by.”

“Ah, then I must have shown you an embarrassing side of myself.”

Her face darkened slightly with embarrassment before she continued.

“I believe the advisor agreed to adjust the working hours according to your arrangement with Miss Windsor, but he seems to think that the recent changes are lowering the efficiency of our work.”

Since it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable concern, I didn’t simply agree with her. Instead, I asked her another question.

“What do you think, Head Maid?”

“I do think the advisor has a point to some extent, but there is no working system that we can apply right now….”

Hmm, so that was the problem.

As someone familiar with modern working conditions, it seemed frustrating to me, but perhaps solving the problem that way wasn’t appropriate here.

Since the advisor had brought up the employment contract, the best solution would probably be to handle it through the contract itself.

After listening to everything the head maid had to say, I honestly told her what I had been doing.

“What His Grace and I are looking for is an employment contract.”

“An employment contract…?”

“Yes. I thought it would be a good idea to write a new contract that replaces the existing one.”

“Ah!”

“I think we should carefully write down more efficient working hours in the new contract. And we should add something about vacations, too. What do you think?”

They say the best part of working is quitting, or rather… using your paid leave.

Right now, I was living comfortably as the duke’s fiancée, but outside the game, I was just another ordinary office worker. So there was no way I could accept a contract without vacation days.

But then.

“Vacation…?”

The head maid’s reaction was strange.

“What exactly is that?”

Huh? She didn’t know what vacation was?

I looked at her, wondering if she was joking, but there wasn’t even the slightest hint of humor on her face. She was completely serious.

Seeing that, I made up my mind.

“I-I really have to find that employment contract.”

And in this world, where no one seemed to have any awareness of workers’ rights, I absolutely had to change the terms for the sake of these poor employees…!

I looked at the head maid with overflowing sympathy, quickly finished my meal, and headed back to the secret library.

But despite thinking I would be alone because it was so early, Edwin had already arrived and taken his place inside.

I hurried toward him as he stood among piles of documents spread out everywhere.

“Huh? What are you doing here so early?”

“I woke up, and I didn’t have anything else to do.”

“Then you could have sent someone to tell me… Now I feel like I came way too leisurely.”

“I am simply doing what I am supposed to do as the head of the family.”

He really was like a knife whenever he said things like that.

I couldn’t even think of arguing with him when he so seriously insisted that it was his duty, so I simply nodded obediently.

“I’ll check from the inside again today.”

Edwin would start from the outside, and I would start from the inside. Just as we had agreed, I moved to my assigned area and continued checking from where I had marked things yesterday.

About an hour passed.

“Contract! Ah… What? It’s a lease contract.”

It was another dead end.

The word “Contract” was written in huge letters on the outside, so I had secretly gotten my hopes up. Naturally, I was immediately disappointed. I checked it carefully just in case, but it only contained information about leasing some piece of land.

“Ugh.”

After putting the document back in its original place, I reached the next bookshelf and noticed a book that stood out strangely among the thick stacks of paper.

‘What’s this?’

Looking more closely, I could make out the title written on its spine.

《The Belmont Family Genealogy》

The gold lettering on its thick leather cover had faded in places, and its edges were crumbling as though they had been worn down by the passage of time.

Unlike most of the documents and books, which were still in almost perfect condition, this genealogy clearly showed its age.

‘This has nothing to do with what I’m looking for.’

Even so, I found myself pulling the book out. Strangely, a cold sensation spread across my palm.

‘Am I even allowed to look at this?’

It seemed like an important document belonging to the ducal family, but I changed my mind.

Wasn’t the fact that it had caught my eye in the first place part of the game developers’ plan? Besides, it felt important for some reason.

If it could play a major role in solving this quest, I thought, there was no reason to hesitate.

I opened the book.

Inside, the bloodline of the family was neatly organized across generations. Names, dates of birth, major achievements, and even brief records of their lives.

Small, intricately drawn portraits were also attached here and there, seemingly belonging to the people whose names were listed.

‘It’s a genealogy… but with more details added, I guess?’

A great noble family would probably have something like this.

Carefully turning each page so that I wouldn’t accidentally tear the paper, I suddenly stopped.

[Isidore Belmont]

[Clementia Belmont]

[Edwin Belmont]

The three names were connected like branches on a tree.

Beneath Edwin’s name, written between the two unfamiliar names, was some brief personal information about him.

[Born June 10, 1013, Imperial Calendar.]

But there was something strange.

Unlike the other pages, there were strange red marks drawn over their names, immediately standing out from the rest.

Actually, calling them marks wasn’t quite right… It was more like someone had scribbled over them in red ink, the way a child might practice writing.

Red ink had spread around the names as though it had dripped there, and the ends of the strokes were sharp, almost as if they had been drawn with intense emotion.

I wondered if the same markings appeared on any other pages, so I quickly looked through the earlier ones again.

But the only page with a problem was the one bearing Edwin’s name.

“…What is this?”

I had an oddly uneasy feeling.

I set the documents aside and sat down on the floor, then began examining the page more carefully.

Looking again, I noticed that there seemed to be faint writing behind each name. But….

‘I can’t read it.’

They were strange letters forming an unknown sentence. Even the system didn’t seem able to translate them.

Had someone played a prank?

But there was no one who would dare scribble on the genealogy of the ducal family.

Once again, I looked at Edwin’s name.

Unlike the names of his mother and father, Edwin’s name had rough lines drawn across it, as though someone wanted to cut his name out of the genealogy entirely.

Come to think of it, the fact that the ink used to draw over his name was red was unsettling, too.

‘There are even ghost stories about how you shouldn’t write someone’s name in red….’

I didn’t know why, but I instinctively realized one thing.

This was definitely a malicious scribble.