The Servant in the Horror Game is Suspicious Chapter 10

“Hiss!”

At Ian’s words, Buster bared his teeth in a threat. Acting like a child? Buster was truly dumbfounded.

Besides, what about the one talking? From the aura he radiated, he was clearly no ordinary brat, yet the way he acted like a submissive little lamb in front of that servant was pathetic to watch.

Even now, he was gripping Buster’s wing tight so he couldn’t fly away, yet earlier, he had feigned fragility, claiming to be “scared” of magical beasts. And he did it without even blinking.

Having seen that absurd performance with his own eyes, Buster felt like he was dying of injustice. He was so frustrated he felt like crawling back into his eggshell and staying there.

“Kaaaa…”

Buster’s pupils dilated, and a deep light swirled in his golden eyes. Behind his back, where the black wings sprouted, a purple mist churned like a sticky swamp.

“Don’t try anything stupid.”

However, Ian, who had calmly closed and opened his eyes, spoke flatly with a chilling gaze. The moment Ian saw the thing hatch, he knew exactly what kind of magical beast it was.

This was a beast of the mental manipulation class. It was Ian’s first time encountering a real one, but he knew the fact that the small ones were often the most troublesome and terrifying.

These were beasts that turned humans into their hosts. On the surface, they appeared to follow a human, but it was the opposite. They tampered with the human brain. They disturbed emotions and scrambled memories, slowly tunneling into the deepest parts of the psyche.

Showing illusions was child’s play; they could make a person wander endlessly through a loop of fear, delusion, and oblivion. Eventually, the human would lose themselves entirely.

Ian knew what this stupid beast had tried to do while he slept. Last night, the creature had tried to burrow into Ian’s mind. The sensation of it gnawing and scratching at his ears was quite unpleasant.

But it hadn’t been able to progress beyond that stage. The reason was simple: Ian carried the blood of the Linwood family.

The first head of the Linwood family was a being who had formed a contract with an ancient demon. Magical beasts’ tricks did not work on those who inherited that bloodline.

It was an ability granted only to the firstborn of the family. Ian was born with it. And this stupid beast had been playing its pathetic games without even realizing who he was.

After trying for a long time, the beast had gotten furious and fled to a distance. Then Ian had caught it and thrown it away. When it returned a short while later, he caught it and threw it again. Locking the door afterward was a bonus.

“Kyaaaaa!”

The beast’s darkened pupils began to turn red. It looked like it was about to attempt another worthless trick. Sneering coldly at the sight, Ian sent Buster flying once more. This time, he put his strength into it, throwing him as far as possible so he couldn’t return easily.

“Your problem is the delusion that such a pathetic trick would ever work.”

“Mya-aaaa-ck!”

Ian pouted as he watched the beast fly away with a scream. Cute and kind? A beast that must be at least a hundred years old? It seemed the new servant lacked any sense of judgment. He had no eye for quality whatsoever.

That beast’s egg was one of the items Ian’s great-grandfather had brought back after slaying a Black Dragon.

Since it was small for a dragon egg and a mysterious object with no telltale sign of when it would hatch, he must have judged it to have no utility value.

Thus, the egg was abandoned here, in the villa closest to where the Black Dragon had been slain. Even Ian hadn’t expected a magical beast to hatch from it. Beasts hatching from eggs were rare.

Magical beasts went through a long period of silence before waking to the world. They were naturally temperamental, so there was no telling when, where, or how they would wake up.

One unique thing, however, was that beasts growing in eggs like that developed from within. They found their sense of self, thought, and cultivated their powers while still inside the shell.

Then, when they found a target they liked, they hatched and claimed that person as their host. Ian figured that Jade must have looked like an easy target.

“’Buster,’ my foot.”

He didn’t know what it meant, but it wasn’t a name you’d give to such a nasty beast. He didn’t like it in many ways.

Besides, magical beasts didn’t even need to ingest food. That was how it could survive inside an egg. Seeing it act all cute and begging for mushrooms when it didn’t even need them made him sick.

“How did he come up with it?”

It was a naming style he’d never heard before. Was it an ancient tongue? Even Ian hadn’t mastered ancient languages yet, so this servant—though clumsy—seemed to know quite a lot.

And it seemed the beast’s tricks didn’t work on Jade either. Given its nature, the beast surely would have extended its demonic influence to Jade first, yet he was perfectly fine. And the beast seemed to have taken a liking to that human.

“…”

Ian stared blankly up at the third floor where Jade would be busy cleaning.

The servant who came this time was kind, but suspicious in many ways. A suspicious servant whose mind couldn’t be manipulated, who cleaned with passion, and roasted mushrooms well. And a strange servant who saved his life.

That was the current Jade in Ian’s mind.

“Whew.”

Jade let out a tired breath as he lay sprawled on the polished floor. After sweeping away the dust and even mopping with a torn cloth, the floor was gleaming.

Panting, Jade checked the experience points floating above his head.

[ Lv 1. Apprentice Cleaner’s Handiwork ]

[ >> EXP << ]

625 / 2,000

For one cleaning session, this was a decent result. And the fact that 625 EXP had gone up meant that Jade had swung that broom over a hundred times.

[ >> System << ]

Ian’s Room

Even the system was now designating this place as “Ian’s Room.” Just the fact that the words “dust pit” had disappeared made him feel proud.

But this was only the beginning. It looked much better after the hard scrubbing and wiping, but no matter how he looked at it, it didn’t seem like a room a person could actually live in. There were no curtains because Jade had ripped them off to use as clothes, and the few pieces of furniture were far too worn.

Still, after scouting all the rooms in the villa, he had found a few usable beds. Most of the mattresses were sagging, but he planned to pick the best one and move it into this room.

“Life is tough, so tough.”

To think he has to work even after dying. He truly had a harsh fate. Looking up at the chandelier with several of its crystals broken off, Jade recalled the time before he came here.

At eighteen, just having officially become an adult this year, he died during a part-time job. He slipped while carrying dishes. True to his terrible luck, he fell backward, cracked his head, and died.

The hazy sensation that came with the pain, the smell of dark red blood spreading across the kitchen floor. That was his last memory.

He didn’t feel wronged or regretful. Rather, he found it strange that he felt relieved, thinking he could finally rest.

Jade’s parents were people who couldn’t be called “decent” by even the kindest standards. They were the kind of trashy parents you’d only see in a third-rate novel, and living as their child was always lonely and grueling.

They didn’t look after young Jade. He had to prepare his own meals since before he even entered elementary school, and cleaning the house was always Jade’s job.

One winter day during his first year of middle school, Jade looked at the empty house, devoid of any belongings, and realized his parents had abandoned him and left.

He was too old to enter an orphanage, and a shabby, run-down one-room apartment held him back, so he didn’t even meet the criteria. Part of him also didn’t want to admit he had no family.

From then on, he lived alone. There wasn’t a part-time job he hadn’t tried or a humiliation he hadn’t endured. So, even at the moment of death, there was no one he missed or felt sad to leave behind. If there was one thing he regretted, it was perhaps the hourly wage increase he was supposed to receive starting the following month.

“What’s the point of thinking about it? Let’s just finish cleaning. Heave-ho.”

Jade got up from the floor and shook his hands. Staying still was even more of an ordeal. Depression had a way of creeping into even the smallest gaps. At times like this, he had to keep moving.

Now that Ian’s room was somewhat organized, the next step was to clean the room next door, which he would be using. After that, he had to go get more mushrooms to eat, and there were many small tasks to do. There was no time to be lazy.

“…Should I get firewood first?”

Every time the cold wind rushed past with a whoooosh, the window frames rattled. Jade looked out the window and organized the day’s to-do list in his head. As he counted them one by one, his stray thoughts seemed to clear away.

After finishing the rough organization of Ian’s future room, Jade went out into the snow to gather what he could for firewood.

He postponed cleaning his own room by a day. It was because he kept remembering Ian shivering in the cold last night.

Jade’s exclusive item, the broom, was surprisingly useful. Since he couldn’t find an axe, he used the broom to break thin branches and gather fuel. His arms were soon full of twigs and thin branches.

But once he actually brought them back to the villa, the branches were damp from the snow and wouldn’t burn well. He couldn’t even get a fire started properly.

He hadn’t considered that since he’d never actually built a fire with wood before. To Jade, who had lived among modern conveniences, every single thing was a mission.

He had kerosene and whale oil for the lanterns, but not enough to fuel a fireplace. More than anything, he needed something combustible to start the fire.

It occurred to him too late that he could just break up the old furniture and use it for firewood. But right now, he didn’t have the strength to lift a finger. Buster, who was huddling by Jade’s hand, was also shivering violently from the cold.

“Myaa-ang, Myang…”

“A-choo! Atchoo!”

Sneezing repeatedly, Jade shook in front of the fireplace that contained nothing but cold ash. A fever began to rise in his forehead, and his coughing wouldn’t stop. It seemed the acts of cleaning with the windows open, digging for mushrooms in the snow, and gathering branches had taken a toll on his body.

Above all, he had overlooked his physical condition. The stamina of this servant named Jade, whom he had possessed, was far inferior to his original stamina. While the build, body type, and appearance were similar to his original self, this was the one part that was different.