Becoming the Guide of the Mysophobic Villain? Absolutely Not! - Chapter 249
Claude finally relaxed his expression and let out a slight chuckle.
“Yes, Rose. You need to be careful. What if another Esper finds out you haven’t been imprinted while you’re defenselessly close to them?”
He spoke lightly, as if making a joke.
But his words were enough to freeze me in place.
“…What’s wrong?”
Claude immediately noticed my unusual reaction and raised an eyebrow in question.
I was torn for a moment, grappling with an intense internal conflict. Was now the right time to bring this up?
But it’s better to rip off the band-aid at once, and I didn’t want to keep any more secrets from him.
So I confessed.
“…Actually, someone already found out.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry…”
I mumbled in a barely audible voice, glancing up at Claude.
His face… was absolutely furious.
“That person found out you haven’t been imprinted? How?”
Claude demanded, his tone severe. I avoided his gaze, mumbling my explanation.
“I-It wasn’t on purpose. It was an accident…”
“An accident? You told that person by accident?”
“No, no. I didn’t say anything, but he found out somehow…”
“Explain it properly.”
Claude growled, grabbing my shoulder and turning me to face him as I sat sideways on his lap.
I stammered out my explanation.
“I-I didn’t mean to, but when I was trying to set him up with Irene, I accidentally brushed against him, and at that exact moment…”
But the more I spoke, the colder Claude’s expression became.
“Still, Lord Daniel promised me. He said he wouldn’t tell anyone…”
“…Rose.”
“Yes?”
“Close your mouth.”
“…Yes.”
I couldn’t deny my guilt, having wasted 4 billion Berks on an uncompleted imprint. While Claude was away, I accidentally revealed to another Esper that I hadn’t been imprinted.
I lowered my eyes and kept silent, unable to deny my wrongdoings.
After a moment of silence, Claude finally spoke, his tone sharp and accusatory.
“What did I tell you before I left?”
He sounded aggressive.
“I asked you to please stay out of trouble where I couldn’t see you. I only asked you to stay quiet. But you couldn’t even manage that?”
I admitted my fault, but listening to him made me feel more and more resentful. I couldn’t hold back and snapped in a bitter tone.
“Then you should have taught me how to control my guiding…”
“Are you even listening to yourself…!”
Claude’s voice rose, but he hesitated when he saw the resentful look on my face.
I acknowledged that I had made a mistake. But he knew that I couldn’t control my guiding abilities, and yet he had left me alone at the center while he went on a mission.
If I accidentally guided another Esper, was that entirely my fault?
“If I knew how to control my guiding, I wouldn’t have made a mistake. Why don’t you just tell me, so I can be more careful?”
“…”
This time, Claude clamped his mouth shut.
There it was again. Claude was the only person who knew how I could guide, yet he never taught me how to control it.
I didn’t know the method. He knew but wouldn’t teach me, yet he blamed me for it.
“……Come on. I said I’d be careful, didn’t I?”
Claude frowned in annoyance at my repeated urging.
After a long pause, as if struggling to contain his anger, he finally spoke.
“Fine. I expected you to get into trouble even when I took my eyes off you for a moment. It was foolish of me to hope you wouldn’t get into any during such a long time apart.”
“?”
“Let’s forget it ever happened. It was just a single mistake, after all.”
His grip on my shoulders tightened.
His burning eyes seemed to be trying to brainwash me into believing that such a thing should never happen again.
The problem was… I couldn’t simply say, ‘Sure, it will never happen again.’
“Um, you see…”
As I hesitated with a troubled expression, Claude seemed to sense something was wrong.
“……What else?”
“It wasn’t just once… it was twice…”
Claude was speechless.
* * *
“So… you ran away from home?”
Irene, rubbing her temples, asked me.
“Yeah. I’m never going back!”
I replied, fuming.
Irene scratched her brow with her elegant fingers, looking like she was thinking, ‘What am I going to do with this child?’
I didn’t care. I had resolved not to go back home easily.
