No Regression for the Victor - Chapter 7
After suddenly becoming the traitor Duke Transis, Hyun quickly adapted to the situation. Having been raised with little personal opinion outside of work and a tendency to conform easily, he didn’t feel much discomfort even in these changed circumstances.
Even so, if there was one thing he found particularly awkward, it was none other than the attitude of the caretakers.
“Are you really sure you’ll be all right? You do know how to adjust the cuffs on a dress shirt, correct?”
Just thinking about the commotion caused by insisting on changing his own clothes was enough to leave Hyun thoroughly embarrassed. The caretakers felt the same.
The real Duke Transis, now left with nothing but a single backwater village where the people barely survived by digging up roots—hardly worth confiscating—nonetheless never abandoned his habits as the lord of a great domain. He was always trying to treat the caretakers as little more than slaves.
He had made a habit of having caretakers attend to even the most trivial matters: not only helping him dress, but also serving tea and snacks, and even turning the pages of his books because he found it bothersome. So when he suddenly said he’d bathe himself as long as there was hot water, it was no surprise the caretakers were flabbergasted.
“I… I mean, I can handle it myself, sir.”
As someone who, having lived in the modern world, naturally used honorifics even with subordinates, Hyun also found dealing with the caretakers quite awkward.
Do they really intend to do even this for me? Surely not this too? He was constantly sweating as he tried to fend off their persistent service, and it was all the more uncomfortable because the caretakers frequently wondered if the Duke had finally snapped from self-pity and lost his mind.
‘Maybe I should just pretend I lost my memory from some accident after all.’
The memories of Duke Transis remained perfectly intact in this body he had so abruptly come to possess, so there was no fear of blurting out nonsense. Still, it was only natural that someone like Hyun—who had always done things for himself as a matter of principle—would find it hard to adapt to the aristocratic lifestyle of a fantasy world.
“No, Your Grace, I must insist! I’ll take care of it, as always!”
Having already lost his twenty-fifth opportunity to do something himself, Hyun sensed that his plan to spend his remaining days peacefully resting and taking the break he’d never had as an heir—until the day the imperial curse ended his life—was somehow going awry.
“No matter how I think about it, something’s off about the Duke… That man isn’t the type to change so suddenly…”
“Maybe he’s finally regained enough rationality to objectively judge his situation…?”
The caretakers assigned to the exile at the frozen lake were now an elderly couple, their children all grown and independent. Each week, they submitted a brief report on the Duke’s condition and, every day, debated why the once-unruly Duke was suddenly trying to behave like a proper human being.
“If that were the case, there’d have to be some trigger, wouldn’t there? There has to be a reason for this sudden change.”
“How should I know? If I did, I’d have gotten promoted and escaped this place ages ago.”
“Honestly, why is he suddenly doing things he’s never done before and making people so uneasy?”
“Is it already time for him to die? He should still have quite a bit longer left…”
Maybe something really did go wrong with his head during that failed ritual?
With that suspicion, the caretaker tried probing the Duke, but there was nothing odd in the Duke’s memory.
“Your Grace, I’ve prepared the trout stew you like.”
The caretaker mixed in a little lie when bringing the food, but the reply came back instantly, as if by instinct.
“Trout stew? I’ve never heard such nonsense.”
With a look of disbelief, Hyun sent the dish back at once. The caretaker’s heart nearly stopped at the response, and even Hyun’s heart momentarily sped up at the clear attempt to test him.
‘As expected, they’re definitely suspicious that something happened to me.’
Fortunately, he had a vivid memory from last year of the caretaker serving trout stew and the real Duke flipping the entire table in a fit of rage over how fishy it tasted, so he managed to handle it smoothly this time.
But what should I do when they keep suspecting I’m plotting something suspicious?
Hyun honestly just wanted to say outright: ‘It’s nothing like that—I just want to live quietly, lazing around within the budget like a wastrel, so please don’t worry about me.’
