The Servant in the Horror Game is Suspicious Chapter 27

“Just try it. Okay? You can do this.”

Jade ignored the protests and put his idea into action. He laid Bluey right on top of the mop ghost.

“Ooh, waaaah.”

Bluey started wailing again, picking up right where it had left off. But parenting—or whatever this was—sometimes required a bit of a firm hand.

“Hush! That’s enough! And you, Ghost, get moving. Stay on the beat. Rock-a-bye.”

“Waaaaaaah!”

“Kieee…”

The mop ghost didn’t seem particularly thrilled about its new reality as a babysitter either. It moved as Jade ordered, but it wiggled so slowly that it could hardly be called a “rock-a-bye” motion.

“Kie-ack.”

After a few half-hearted squirming movements, the ghost swayed slowly from side to side as if to say it couldn’t do it. Jade let out a deep sigh at the sight.

Looking at the reluctant mop ghost, Jade realized that orders alone weren’t enough. For anything to turn out well, it shouldn’t be forced; it had to come from the heart.

“Ghosty, come on, do a good job. You’re the butler of our villa, aren’t you?”

“Kie-ack?”

The mop ghost made a puzzled sound at the unfamiliar title. However, it didn’t seem to hate it. Its tassel strands began to move up and down more lightly than before.

“If you’re not the butler, who is? The one who manages the villa is the butler. That’s definitely you.”

“Kieee…!”

The mop ghost, which had been flattened against the windowsill, lifted its head. Now that it had been given an official title, it moved its body with much more vigor than before.

“Kie-ee, kie.”

The ghost, which usually only thought about slacking off, actually looked quite excited now. There was soul in its movements. As expected, the carrot was more effective than the stick.

“Waaah— waaaah… oooh…”

“Myang?”

The movement was closer to a celebratory dance than a gentle rocking, but thanks to the mop ghost’s efforts, Bluey’s crying gradually subsided. Watching the scene, Ian blinked in wonder.

Buster also watched the mop and Bluey from the side, looking as if he’d seen it all now. The look Buster gave the ghost—who had clearly fallen for the sweet talk—was full of pity.

“Alright, now let’s head to the kitchen. I’ll show you what I dug up.”

Regardless of the audience, Jade—having solved the problem more easily than expected—headed to the kitchen with his bundle. Ian tapped the back of Jade’s hand to stop him.

“Aren’t you cold? You should warm up first…”

“Haha, I’m okay. Truly, only Ian thinks of me like this.”

Jade gave a warm smile and lightly brushed Ian’s fluffy curls. Ian’s cheeks flushed a soft pink.

“Oh, right. You don’t like that.”

Belatedly remembering that Ian avoided physical contact, Jade withdrew his hand. Ian stood in silence, fiddling with the hair Jade had touched.

“Myack—!”

Watching this, Buster puffed out his cheeks grumpily and squeezed himself between Ian and Jade. He fluttered his wings so forcefully that the gap between Ian and Jade naturally widened.

“Still, please rest a bit. I have something to show you, too.”

“Huh? What is it?”

Ian’s face grew even redder as he spoke hesitantly. It seemed he had prepared something while Jade was away. Whatever it was, Buster seemed to have played a part in it too, given how proudly he puffed out his chest.

“I found some flour. Just a little bit, though.”

“Wh-what? Seriously?!”

“And sugar, too.”

“Sugar as well? Where on earth did you find those?”

Jade’s eyes went wide. Flour and sugar. It was the best news he’d heard in a while.

“I put them on the dining table.”

In front of the jubilant Jade, Ian scratched his pale cheek awkwardly and pointed toward the table. Jade sprinted over to it in an instant.

“Myang—”

Ian and Buster scurried after Jade toward the table. Buster’s wingbeats were more vigorous than ever, radiating triumph.

“Whoa!”

On the table sat a truly tiny sack of flour and a palm-sized wooden jar of sugar. The string tied around the opening looked flimsy, so he opened them quickly, but thankfully, no bugs or anything had gotten inside.

“Where did you find such precious things? I scoured the whole villa for days and couldn’t find any food…!”

Jade hugged the flour sack, forgetting the cold. Back home, flour was everywhere, but here it looked more precious than gold.

“In the end room… on the fourth floor.”

When Jade asked with great excitement, Ian hurriedly avoided his eyes and spoke in a small, mumbling voice.

Ian was particularly weak to praise. Whenever Jade gave him a little compliment or said something nice, he would turn red and look away. Jade knew this well, but this time, he couldn’t help but praise him.

“You did a wonderful job. This is amazing…!”

“I-it’s not even that much.”

Sure enough, Ian replied with cheeks that were burning red. Perhaps out of embarrassment, his tone was a bit prickly. Under his rapidly blinking eyelids, his long, pale eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings.

“Myang! Myang!”

Beside them, Buster grabbed Ian’s shoulder and shook him, as if demanding his share of the credit. When Ian continued to ignore him, Buster even gave his small shoulder a tiny nip.

“…Together with him.”

Letting out a small sigh, Ian looked into the distance and reluctantly acknowledged Buster’s contribution. Buster glared at Ian’s index finger, which was pointing at him quite half-heartedly, but he soon held his head high and flew circles around Jade.

“Yes, yes, Buster did great too. Very well done!”

“Myung, Myang.”

As Jade praised him and stroked his head, Buster’s ego soared to the sky.

“…”

Beside him, Ian stared intently at Jade’s hand as it stroked Buster. The way it tickled the top of the head and the bridge of the nose looked both clumsy and gentle.

True to his refreshing personality, Jade’s touch was also simple and direct. That touch occasionally reached Ian, and every time it did, Ian would instinctively shrink back and avoid it.

It wasn’t that he felt any repulsion toward his touch. On the contrary, Jade’s body temperature was cool and clean, which felt good. But strangely, whenever those hands touched him, he found himself pulling away in spite of himself.

It might have been because physical contact with others was extremely rare for him, but something unbearably ticklish kept Ian from staying still.

So, he had shrunk away without thinking, yet now that the hand wasn’t touching his head, a strange lingering regret swirled in his chest.

I’m glad I found the flour, at least.

Ian thought to himself as he watched Jade’s bright smile.

As they passed the two-month mark of living together, their daily routines had become similar. When Jade went out alone to find food, Ian would look around the interior of the villa.

It wasn’t that Jade had asked him to. On the contrary, Jade wanted Ian to spend his time like a child, reading picture books. Ian had done so at first.

The books Ian read were far from picture books, but regardless, he hadn’t felt any guilt about Jade taking on the hard work alone. As Jade said, he was the attendant.

However, from a certain day, the situation changed. If asked when that day was, it would be hard to pinpoint a specific moment. It was just that from a certain point on, Ian found himself looking out the window more often whenever Jade went out for food.

If Jade’s return was later than the sunset, he would pace near the door, and if Jade returned earlier than usual, his steps to meet him would quicken.

Then one day, Ian suddenly felt that he wanted to do something helpful for the villa as well.

It wasn’t out of some grand desire to help Jade or out of consideration. He simply liked Jade’s bright smile that he saw whenever he found new food or useful items.

But contrary to his wishes, he had come up empty-handed for days. Then today, he finally found a small sack of flour behind a bookshelf. Since his arms were still short, he’d had to get Buster’s help to pull it out, but that didn’t matter.

From the afternoon he found the flour until Jade returned, Ian sat at the dining table, hugging the flour tight and waiting for him.

Strangely, his heart was thumping, and time seemed to crawl. How would he react? Would he praise him for doing well? Or would he laugh out loud?

While imagining such things, the sun gradually set, and the clock eventually pointed to 6:00 PM. His stomach growled with hunger from time to time, but today he didn’t even feel that hungry.

“What a stroke of luck, all thanks to Ian!”

“…”

And Jade gave the exact reaction Ian had imagined. As soon as he saw the flour and sugar, he was overjoyed and full of admiration, praising both Ian and Buster.

“…”

Ian suddenly felt a desire to provide him with a vast amount of flour and sugar. How would he react if Ian found even more sugar than this? What if he could get fruit or meat instead of flour?

But Ian was still far too small and young to obtain such things.

“Haha. This will last us at least two days.”

Unlike Ian’s lingering regret, Jade was moved as he smelled the flour. The fact that today’s haul didn’t end with just carrots and potatoes made him very happy.

“Great!”

Clutching the flour sack, Jade made a determined shout toward the kitchen. Buster and Ian looked at him with puzzled eyes.

“Pardon?”

“Myang?”

“Let’s make vegetable pancakes today.”

In a way, finding carrots and potatoes today might have been destiny. The amount of flour was small, but it was enough to fry up a few pancakes. Carrot cake came to mind, but since there were no eggs or baking powder, it was impossible to make right now.

Vegetable pancakes were the best food he could make with the current ingredients: flour, carrots, and potatoes. Conveniently, there was also a little bit of fat left from the Frost Lizard tail he’d been saving.

The Frost Lizard was a monster covered in glass-like frost that Buster had caught about a week ago. The tail of a Frost Lizard was composed entirely of fat, making it perfect for rendering oil.

“Vegetable fritters would be delicious, too…”

He thought of the deep-fried vegetable fritters he used to eat back home, tossed in spicy rice cake sauce at snack shops. But there wasn’t enough oil for deep-frying, so he decided they would have pan-fried pancakes today.

“What are vegetable pancakes, Jade?”

From below, Ian asked with a tilted head as he watched Jade already licking his lips. It was only natural that Ian didn’t know what a “pancake” was.

“Um, you put vegetables into a thin flour batter and… well, you’ll know once you try it. You’ll like it too, Ian.”

“Okay.”

When Jade spoke with such confidence, Ian nodded his head as submissively as a good child, just as he always did. His thin golden hair swayed softly.

“Ka-ack—!”

The moment he heard they were being made of vegetables, Buster unsheathed his claws. Buster, who loved sweet things, was a very picky eater. Even now, he was making a scratching motion next to Jade’s bundle.

Regardless, Jade pulled out today’s trophies with a proud smile.

“Tada! Carrots and potatoes!”