SIWALL 3

Loran immediately puts his plan into action. He utilizes a trade secret that a playboy noble young lord had carelessly blurted out while drunk at a certain party.

He seeks out a once-upon-a-time writer who had disappeared in disgrace long ago, and asks him to ghostwrite love letters instead. Articulate and poetic love letters worthy of the ‘sculpture of God.’

Elliot Brown, who received Loran’s commission, succeeds in embellishing yearning feelings with sentences that are as beautiful and solid as possible. Letters that Grand Duke Teron—rumored to be a warmonger yet an avid reader—would fall for are written by Elliot Brown’s hands.

Feeling a sense of fondness upon seeing the letters, Arzen increases the frequency of meeting Loran in person. Loran desperately minimizes his words to act out the image of a pure and shy single flower, and Arzen falls for it hook, line, and sinker. The sculpture of God really is pitiful and delicate.

And around that time, Elliot changes the direction of the letters.

In the anecdotes from their meetings that Loran shares for reference, he appeals what mistakes Arzen made and how much that hurt his own heart. He points out the cruelty that Arzen, who had roamed battlefields, unconsciously displays. He expresses how creepy Arzen’s mask is, and those pale eyes like ice picks beneath the mask.

Elliot weaves all of that very craftily, disguising it as affection and worry, slowly and little by little into the letters.

Also, he makes trivial requests. Like wanting a single lily of the valley, or hoping they might watch a new opera together at their next meeting… or wanting to read a tragic novel that had suddenly disappeared several years ago.

Grumbling, Arzen grants every single one of those requests. He even tries to hide his nature that makes Loran afraid. He even takes off his mask in front of Loran.

Because Loran liked Arzen like a dog that listens well to commands, he turns a blind eye no matter what Elliot demands in the letters pretending to be him.

However, the requests begin to take on a bizarre obsession. In the last letter, Arzen receives a plea to ‘restore the barony to El Black using the Grand Duke’s authority.’

By this point, Arzen makes a fairly reasonable deduction. The truth must be that Loran Pedet deeply loves this writer named El Black, and approached him for his sake. Otherwise, there is no way he would mention El Black in every letter, nor would he try to change and manipulate him like this.

Arzen’s suspicion toward Loran burns as if it had been waited for.

Loran, who is smooth as a running stream in letters, yet closes his mouth tightly and sends tragic gazes when face to face. And yet, while tossing out cheeky words every now and then to captivate a person, Loran talks about love and terror again pretending not to know through letters. Loran, the ‘sculpture of God,’ who isn’t satisfied with receiving the adoration of all, but tries to even take hold of him and shake him.

One dawn, driven mad by jealousy, Arzen knocks on the door of El Black’s small, shabby house. And he kills the washed-up writer who dared to steal Loran’s love.

However, in the middle of trying to burn down El Black’s house, Arzen learns the fact that El Black is Elliot Brown who ghostwrote Loran’s letters, and feels a new sense of betrayal.

Right then and there, Arzen finds Loran, cuts out his tongue and both hands, and brings him to the Grand Duke’s estate. Naturally, the Count Pedet family violently objects. So, wearing the crest of the Pedet family and in disguise, he kills the emperor.

The crown prince, who awkwardly became the new emperor, destroys the Pedet family.

Loran, who instantly becomes a traitor, lives on by Arzen’s side as a ‘sculpture of Teron,’ forever unable to speak any words or write any letters.

Ugh, so stressful. Ugh, so ruinsome and depressing.

Sitting at his desk, Elliot shuddered all over. From his perspective, there was nobody sane in this novel.

It was a natural course of action for Elliot, who knew the contents of the original work, to refuse Loran’s commission. Loran got angry and even resorted to something like intimidation, but it couldn’t be helped.

The very starting point of the tragedy was the fact that the letters, which were thought to contain sincerity, were ghostwritten.

Furthermore, unlike the original work, the current Elliot did not have the writing prowess to satisfy the picky and ruthless Grand Duke Teron. Although he liked books and web novels, he had never written anything himself even once.

Understandably so, because the talent Lim Seongsik possessed before possession was simply handling difficult customers with a friendly smile.

“It would have been better to possess a servant instead. What am I, a writer….”

Elliot made a crying face. He couldn’t figure out at all how he was supposed to handle the chores piled up in front of him right now either.

Wait, a servant?

Elliot, who had been slumped over his desk messing up his hair, suddenly jerked his body up. Because of that, Camembert, who had been resting comfortably behind him, let out a short, sharp protesting cry, “Mreow!” as if startled.

“Sorry, sorry. But Camembert, I think I found a way to earn your food!”

Whether he liked it or not, Camembert gave a warning look telling him to be quiet and rested his chin on his front paws again.

Elliot pulled out a sheet of paper and hurriedly scribbled something down at length. After letting the ink dry, he left the house, carefully holding the paper so it wouldn’t get crumpled. Elliot’s expression was noticeably lighter than before.

Right, he had neither the intention nor the ability to live according to the original plot anyway, so there was no reason to stubbornly stick to the profession of a ghostwriter. He just needed to earn enough money to make a living by looking for customer service work like he used to do. Wasn’t he originally an ‘Employee of the Month’ who had mastered all kinds of service jobs?

The body Elliot possessed was thin and weak, but it didn’t seem like anywhere was particularly sick. It was probably because he plunged into alcoholism every day, didn’t eat, didn’t exercise, and didn’t see the sunlight that his stamina had bottomed out like this. It even seemed like he was a chain smoker.

Customer service was precisely a job that required tremendous stamina. In order to work, it was necessary to return the state of the body he possessed back to a normal orbit.

He still didn’t know how a fantastical thing like possession had happened. He couldn’t know what happened to the original Elliot Brown, or if Lim Seongsik from Korea was doing okay.

Over the past week, Elliot had also torn his hair out, worrying and feeling anxious. But the conclusion he reached, as always, was ‘Let’s do what I can do right now.’

Can he solve things happening on the level of the soul?

No.

Can he go back to being Lim Seongsik just by worrying and being anxious?

No.

Is it a problem where he can find an answer by racking his brains?

That’s not it either.

What he could do right now was first secure food and pay the rent. And take care of the cat, Camembert.

That was why Elliot had come here holding a resume even now.

“Numerous labor experiences; I will do whatever I am told.”

Elliot handed out the paper to Mrs. Kelly, who was looking up at him with a dumbfounded face. Then, as if putting the cherry on top, he showcased his personal specialty, a ‘customer-pleasing smile on the level of an employee of the month.’

Go bring a new servant into your house. It’s cheap, it’s dirt cheap.

∞ ∞ ∞

There would be no landlord who would be happy to take in as a tenant an artist who lived a life soaked in alcohol and cigarettes on the pretext of writing letters, and moreover, an artist at the end stage of depression who attempted suicide at the drop of a hat.

The biggest headache these days for Mrs. Kelly—who merely lamented that she was a humble commoner owning just a few buildings around Rustic Street—was definitely Elliot Brown.

The ‘resume’ that such an Elliot brought seemed to be for a purpose roughly similar to recommendation letters that servants receive from their previous masters. Since Mrs. Kelly also knew very well what kind of good-for-nothing Elliot was, the writing detailing various labor experiences was definitely fake.

However, that was none of Mrs. Kelly’s concern. Because she only needed to collect the rent.

So she remembered the fact that she had mentioned in passing not long ago that the uncle of the friend of the eighth cousin of the sister of Mr. Teron, one of her tenants, was looking for an assistant, and she arranged a job for Elliot.

Until then, Elliot thought things were working out really well.

Before he found out that the job was as a gardener’s assistant at the Grand Duke Teron’s estate.

“What kind of work did you do?”

The middle-aged gardener was a large and rugged-looking man. He was holding giant landscaping shears in one hand, and the hand holding the shears was as big as a rice-cauldron lid.

I just want to go home. No, first, for now….

Suppressing the home-seeking instinct that had been boiling up ever since he realized the grand mansion he had entered was the Grand Duke Teron’s estate, Elliot calmly organized his thoughts.

Let’s subtly ruin the interview first and then bounce.

He smiled politely and handed out his resume.

“It’s all written here. But it’s so unfortunate that I have absolutely no background in landscaping….”

“I don’t know how to read things like writing. So tell me yourself with your own mouth.”

“Ah… yes. I have experience working in parks, movie theaters, tea houses, restaurants, inns, and shops, and taking phone… no, handling grievance counseling through letters and babysitting—I’ve served customers for a total of 6 years.”

Elliot, whose nature compelled him to kindly answer questions whenever asked, replied politely.

“Why is there so much? Not being able to work steadily.”

The gardener wrinkled his thick, bushy eyebrows. Elliot let out a bitter smile without realizing it.

Elliot Lim Seongsik Brown, who had been loved by employers as the employee of the month wherever he went. Why on earth did he always have to swap jobs so frequently?