SIWALL 7

That day was a day when rain poured down fiercely. The servants were in a fluster from the sudden downpour of heavy rain.

Thick, tough cloths were draped over the carriages parked outside, all the laundry was hurriedly gathered inside the mansion, and the afternoon training at the training ground was temporarily suspended.

The situation in the garden was a bit better. Benny, with a beaming smile, brought out several flower pots from the greenhouse and placed them under the falling rainwater.

Inside the greenhouse, Elliot and Benny dried their rain-soaked bodies and gazed out at the gloomy and hazy outdoors.

“How is your daughter doing?”

“Her body has grown quite weak. Isn’t she even carrying a child in her belly? I told her to rest at home.”

Benny’s face was full of anxiety as he spoke about Rachel.

Benny’s daughter Rachel seemed to have gone through hardships over the past few weeks. It was said that her merchant husband had taken a boat to a neighboring continent and gone missing. Her husband’s family blamed Rachel for that misfortune. Rachel was kicked out of the house overnight.

Only her husband and Rachel knew about the pregnancy yet, and had she told them, they might not have driven her out, but Rachel had already completely lost all affection for them.

She didn’t want to enter that house again. Yet, thinking about telling her father Benny made her worry that it would break his heart.

So, while she was sorting out her board and lodging at a village inn, she ran into the mailman who had come to deliver a letter to the innkeeper. And she received the letter there, which should have gone to her husband’s home.

“Really, if it weren’t for you, our Rachel might have given birth out on the streets. Truly, thank you once again.”

Benny’s rugged face quickly became moist. At the expressions of gratitude he received dozens of times after Rachel’s return, Elliot twisted his body and waved his hands away yet again.

“Please stop already. Even if I hadn’t written a postscript like that, your daughter would have made up her mind to return just from Benny’s letter alone.”

“As expected, writing letters suits your aptitude.”

“Oh, seriously stop… huh?”

Although Benny had agreed with the immediate preceding words, those words hadn’t come from Benny’s mouth.

Elliot’s gaze was stolen by a tall, handsome man stepping into the greenhouse.

The man, who swept his burning red hair back with pomade, was wearing a black frock coat like the men in classic foreign films. Matching his hair color, his red eyes held a cheerful, playful gleam.

After roughly shaking out his rain-soaked umbrella, he habitually swept back his side hair, where not a single stray strand was out of place.

His flawless, snow-white lace cravat was tied with magnificent pleats, and tiny jewels studded every weave of the vest tightly cinched around his waist, making his entire body flash and sparkle whenever he moved his hands. In a word, he was an extremely dazzlingly handsome man.

What with that protagonist-like good looks? Could it be Grand Duke Teron? No way. They said that guy wears a mask all the time.

While Elliot was stammering in confusion, Benny quickly took off his hat and bowed politely at the waist. It was a commoner’s basic posture when dealing with an aristocrat.

Seeing a bandit-like man who was clearly older by all accounts give a 90-degree bow aroused a subtle sense of repulsion in Elliot’s mind. No matter how much the excessive etiquette of the Korean service industry was ingrained in him, he was a person born and raised in a Confucian country.

As Elliot stared at the handsome man with a look of reproach without realizing it, the man stopped propping his umbrella against the greenhouse wall and burst out laughing.

“That stiff neck of yours hasn’t changed a bit, our writer mate.”

However, the laughter vanished entirely from his handsome face soon after.

“That aside….”

His red eyes flashed fiercely.

“Don’t you have something to talk about with me, Elliot Brown?”

“…Eh?”

It was the familiar precursor of a difficult customer.

However, Benny seemed to admire the fact that Elliot was on speaking terms with a noble sir of such high standing that he would visit the Grand Duke’s estate. He offered greetings to the uninvited guest, shot a fierce wink at Elliot, and stepped away.

No, I don’t know this person. I really don’t.

Elliot cried out inwardly, but the red-haired handsome man, having cleared away the nuisance, approached with a satisfied smile.

“The letters stopped dead, you ignored all my messages, and you’re not even at home when I go visit. I’ve never put in this much effort for any woman, writer mate.”

Letters? A woman?

Only then did Elliot realize the identity of this man.

Generwin Tulion. A peerless playboy whom the original author had clearly been inspired to create by Casanova. A supporting character who would drag any woman to bed regardless of her social status.

He was the client who had continually commissioned Elliot in the original work to ghostwrite for him, and also the scoundrel who had drunkenly blurted out the existence of the love-letter ghostwriter to Loran.

However, Elliot had rejected all the work he was in charge of right after his employment was decided.

“I am so, so sorry, sir, but I stopped ghostwriting a month ago~”

So from Elliot’s perspective, it was simply deeply unfair. Elliot was someone who came from a world where the after-sales service warranty period was fixed and the consumer’s refund deadline was within one week. If Generwin wanted to lodge a complaint, he should have come sooner. Causing a rampage now, about a month later, claiming it was unacceptable, was an outrage.

“Look here, writer mate. Did you really think such a unilateral notice would work?”

However, Generwin was an aristocrat. And in this world, Generwin’s side was more common-sense.

Just because a washed-up ghostwriter, who was nothing more than a commoner and an employee, said, ‘I won’t do it anymore,’ there was no need for his noble employer to accept those words.

If they tell you to do it, you do it.

That was the implicit and absolute rule between the nobility and commoners.

Come to think of it, there was no need to distinguish between this world and that world. It was a rule that had always been enforced like a principle of life even back when he was Lim Seongsik.

Parents, teachers, superiors, seniors, customers. Whatever the superior party tells you to do, you must do it.

The familiar resignation slowly coiled its nest in Elliot’s heart.

“And the job you take on after quitting ghostwriting is a servant at Grand Duke Teron’s place? What, did you finally decide you want revenge?”

Generwin asked with a mocking sneer, looking around the greenhouse. At those words, Elliot’s face turned pale white.

“Re—revenge, you say! Absolutely not!”

Saying something that could get us both killed, you bastard.

That was something you could only say because you didn’t know how the revenge carried out by Elliot in the original work, El Black, had turned out.

And Generwin gauged an opportunity from that expression of Elliot’s.

“Ah, that’s right. Writer mate, you changed your name, didn’t you? From El Black to Elliot Brown. I suppose Grand Duke Teron doesn’t know yet that a rat has crawled into his territory?”

That was the correct answer.

But in reality, even if he knew, it was a question of whether the Grand Duke would even care about Elliot’s existence. The reason the Grand Duke killed El Black in the original work was simply because he was a punk that Loran paid attention to. Honestly, Elliot didn’t think the Grand Duke would even remember the past where he dragged El Black’s life into the mud.

Still, there was no way the flow of the original work wouldn’t bother Elliot. He was in a position where he had to take every precaution for survival.

“Isn’t the Grand Duke staying here these days? Since there’s a truce.”

Generwin’s voice carried an innocent playfulness. It was the attitude of a child tearing the wings of a dragonfly and stepping on ants for fun.

“Granted, I’m a disowned son, but I’m still a young master of the Marquis Tulion family. If I request an audience, the Grand Duke will meet with me, right?”

A threatening customer. That’s entirely blacklist material.

Elliot artificially curved the corners of his mouth into a smile and composed his posture.

When Elliot smiled, Generwin seemed to think he had seized the upper hand. This time, he brought out a carrot.

“Writer mate, can you make a living on a servant’s salary? You’ve gotten so thin you could fit right into my arms. Don’t you need more money?”

He asked, wrapping one arm around Elliot’s body. It was speech and behavior completely like a total playboy punk.

Actually, if he tried to write them, it wasn’t like he couldn’t. Elliot had read the original work. Generwin’s relationships with women were briefly mentioned in the novel, so he knew what kind of letters El Black had written.

On top of that, there was a passage stating that Generwin was generous and open-handed with his spending, so he paid quite a lot. There was also a part mentioning that El Black inevitably took that money, but out of disillusionment and self-loathing, he squandered all of it on drinking expenses.

“Five women are looking forward to your next work, writer mate. Whenever they see me, they pester me, asking when you’re going to write another letter and saying that’s all they’re waiting for, you know? It’s work you were originally good at. Just keep doing it the same way.”

All you have to do is write a few stupidly sweet yet romantically sweet words. A devilish whisper warmly tickled Elliot’s left ear.

“Customer Generwin Tulion.”

Elliot raised his head and looked straight at Generwin.

“Is it giving you a hard time trying to fool your older brother?”

“…What?”

Generwin’s face hardened stiffly. His red eyes could be seen trembling minutely with nowhere to go.

To repeat, Elliot had read the original work. That meant he also knew Generwin’s fatal weakness written in the novel. His secret, which absolutely no one except Generwin knew.

“Has the surveillance and violence of the young Marquis of Tulion grown severe again?”

“Y-you… how do you know that….”

Generwin jumped back as if Elliot were a hot kettle. He instinctively scanned his surroundings. It was to check if there were any assassins sent by his brother.

Brother. He was Generwin’s weakness.