'Haahh…'
Seojin groaned.
His eyelids felt like lead as he forced them open, only to blink against the sudden brightness. After days of being unconscious, the light now felt intrusive.
For a moment, he just lay there and let the warmth of the blankets sink in.
'Finally…'
He was awake.
A part of him wondered if he had died.
But if that were the case, there was absolutely no way he would have dreamt of his seven stepfathers in maid outfits, perfectly synchronized as they performed the '002' dance.
That absurd image made him pause.
It was not just the skirts or the disturbingly well-practiced choreography that caught his attention. It was the fact that each of them kept their usual and dead-serious expressions while twerking left and right.
"Pftt…"
He chuckled.
Hff…
He took a deep breath to suppress the laughter and to erase the image from his mind.
But just as he did, a system interface appeared in front of his eyes.
|| Progression Quest: End is a Beginning ||
|| Preparation: 7 Minutes ||
|| Objective: Survive your scripted death and prove your existence to the story ||
|| Reward: Exclusive Trait for Reader #7 ||
|| Failure: Character Erasure ||
He frowned.
By all logic, he should have fulfilled the quest already.
If survival was the only condition, then he had undeniably survived the assassination.
Though he had no idea what happened after, he was a hundred percent sure that the assassin had already been taken of.
But there was no indication that he completed the quest.
|| Progression Quest: Cleared ||
|| Exclusive Trait Acquired: Imperial Bower ||
…Or maybe there was one after all.
Yet, instead of relief, a dull frustration settled in his chest. His eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at the interface.
He looked at the interface intensely and frowned one more time.
After all, who in their right mind would want an unknown trait with no description or any kind of phrase that may display its worth.
As of now, it was basically useless.
"...!!"
A sensation on his chest snapped him out of his thoughts.
Warm.
Soft.
Pressed against his bandaged torso..
But before he could say something, he coughed.
Cough.
He choked on the apple he did not realize he was eating.
"Young Lord, are you alright?"
He swallowed the chunk of apple and forced himself to act as though he had not just nearly died a second ago.
He turned his gaze toward the owner of the hand.
A girl.
She stood beside his bed, dressed in a black-and-white maid's uniform. The contrast of colors only sharpened her already striking features with dark lashes against pale skin, a refined beauty that would not be out of place among nobility.
And yet, here she was, a mere maid serving an extra.
"Young Lord, do you need water?"
"..."
He did not answer the question.
Not out of reluctance, but because he genuinely did not know how.
A human.
It had been so long since he had last spoken to someone face-to-face— arguing online did not count— that he was not sure if he even remembered how to hold a normal conversation.
Again, a normal conversation.
His conversation with the assassin three days ago did not belong to the description of a 'normal conversation'.
The maid frowned slightly at his silence.
"Young Lord?"
"...I'm fine."
She hesitated, as if she was not entirely convinced.
"Are you certain? You seem—"
"If I needed water, I'd ask."
He cut her off.
The maid blinked, her lips parting slightly before pressing back into a neutral expression.
Again, he had to act the part of Seven Hart being a scoundrel through and through. The kind who got irritated over the smallest inconveniences.
The kind who used to smack passing maids on the backside just because he could.
The kind of scoundrel that the wolf-masked figure reported to the Archduke of what Seven Hart used to be.
Seojin was unaware that the Seven Hart had changed into someone altruistic.
A system interface appeared before him.
|| Basic Information ||
|| Character: Iria Amaranthe ||
|| Age: 18 ||
|| Talent: Cursed Healing ||
'I can see her info?'
It was one of the features of the Protagonist System that allowed him to view the basic information of other characters.
'Amaranthe…'
The name sounded familiar to him, but it was not mentioned in all of the released chapters of the novel. Rather, it was somewhere within the review that the author gave to his own novel: the question and answer section.
Apparently, it was not Iria's surname that caught his eyes, but her talent that was unlike the 'unpredictable' one he had.
There were also more things that did not seem to make sense such as the 'Cursed Healing'.
If his memory serves him right, the novel mentioned it was either the healing drains the caster's lifespan or it makes the patient's health worse instead.
He then tried to recall any information about the maid, Iria.
But the moment he focused, his body froze.
His blank stare locked onto nothing in particular with a vacant expression as if he had suddenly lost consciousness while still wide awake.
"Young Lord, are you really alright?"
He heard Iria's voice, but he could not respond.
Because at that moment, the body's memories surfaced.
It was fragmented at first, then small pieces, until all of the information overwhelmed him when all he wanted was just about Iria.
"Urrgh-khhh…"
A dull ache built at the base of his skull. But as the minutes passed, the pain dulled and settled into something more bearable.
And then he understood.
This boy, the original Seven Hart, was the epitome of the word unpredictable.
Miserable.
Jolly.
Erratic.
Defiant.
And fragile all at once.
He did not fit into any mold as his entire personality, behavior, and thinking changed with the slightest inconvenience, thus the world had tried to crush him into just one of them to fit his anomaly existence.
Seojin, the current Seven Hart, breathed raggedly.
'Was this your life?'
He thought.
For a moment, he was not sure whether to scoff or feel sorry for the boy whose life he had now taken over.
Then, a dry chuckle escaped his lips.
'Well… no wonder the system picked me.'
Because one thing was certain: The original Seven Hart was no one's idea of an extra turning into the protagonist.
"This… this is one pathetic backstory."
This time, he spoke the words aloud.
"Pardon?"
Iria asked.
"...Nothing."
He blinked, as if snapping back to the present.
"You brought the oranges, didn't you?"