“I asked you what you meant when you said, ‘I thought you’d say that’?”

The vampire asked again courteously. Despite Areum stupidly just repeating “I’m sorry?” again.

A triumph of man.

When Areum had grasped the puzzle piece in her hand, those four words came to mind. Could there be anyone else in the world besides Areum who could have actually found the puzzle piece after entering this large room by themselves? She had only found it by crawling around the filthy area beneath the bed and groping around inch by inch with her hands. If it hadn’t been for her, the puzzle on the table would remain incomplete with a gaping hole in the middle.

And so, she had thought she might even be praised for her work. For she hadn’t even complained that she couldn’t find it, but instead did as he said and obediently upended the room in search of it. But instead all he had to say was what she meant by ‘I thought you’d say that’? Without even a word about the puzzle?

To make matters worse, Areum had completely forgotten she had said any such thing, even though it sounded like something she would say. The man’s brow furrowed as he looked down at her face and the idiotic expression on it. His expression hadn’t been so severe, when in an instant his emotionless face turned terrifying. He looked as if he were about to grab her and slit her throat.

“Ah!”

After frantically racking her brain, she finally remembered saying those words. It had been her response when he had told her not to open the curtains.

Wait, but wasn’t that obvious?

Areum made an ambiguous face. It was obvious why the man before her didn’t allow her to open the curtains. Though it was dark in here, it was a bright morning outside. The bright sunshine was illuminating the earth, and if she were to draw back the curtains that light would unmistakably enter the room as well.

Though certain compositions would place them outside, it was widely agreed upon that if sunlight were to shine on a vampire, they would burn or even turn to dust. Though it may not kill them, the idea of sunlight being a great limitation to vampires was something close to a steadfast rule.

And so, for that reason Areum had been able to accept him telling her not to open the curtains without any complaints, and she had unwittingly said the words ‘I thought you’d say that.’

“I really hate having to repeat myself.”

The vampire spoke in a low voice. Areum inadvertently met his eyes and suddenly felt short of breath. It felt almost as if her lungs had collapsed out of fear. Areum felt very strongly that he’d be able to wring her neck with just a single look. It sounded ridiculous when she put it like that, but if you had been shot that glance, you’d know exactly what she meant.

Areum struggled to smile as she spoke.

“Master, don’t you hate the sun? So that’s why I said that I thought you’d say that when you told me not to open the curtains.”

Perhaps she hadn’t reworded ‘Don’t you die if you see the sun?’ well enough because the the vampire’s expression hadn’t softened, and he continued to interrogate her.

“Why is it that I hate the sun?”

Wasn’t the answer obvious? “You probably hate it because your body will burst into flames if sunlight touches you,” she thought. Secretly, Areum believed that this vampire would die if he came into contact with sunlight. After witnessing him plunge his teeth into a person and suck their blood without any hesitation, she had come to see him as the stereotypical vampire. Besides, she still couldn’t shake those eerie red eyes of his.

Areum, deep in thought, searched the room with her eyes, then, looking at the thick curtains, spoke again.

“Though it was already bright out when I arrived here, the curtains had not been drawn back, so I assumed that you did not like it to be bright, master.”

Areum licked her lips out of nervousness. They were rough like sandpaper. She wished she had some Chapstick. Something with jojoba oil in it, she thought to herself while biting the dead skin off out of habit.

It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours.

Ultimately, Areum’s lip started bleeding before the man said anything. Every time she would look up after glancing around, the man would still be staring down at her, deep in thought. And when she saw that she would smile out of obligation, then she would look down and turn the puzzle piece over in her hands.

“You’re right.”

The vampire suddenly affirmed.

“I do hate sunlight.”

He murmured and then burrowed into his blankets. Now that he was laying on his side, his eyes were at the same height as Areum’s. he asked her:

“What else do you think I dislike?”

There were no wrinkles on his forehead anymore. Areum took comfort in that fact and looked around the room.

Secretly she suspected that the man didn’t like cleanliness. Just from her experience looking for the missing puzzle piece just now, whether it was the pile of books that had been supposedly set aside or the white dust blanketing the floor, or even the tea cups and spoons that should have been retrieved, there were numerous things cluttering his room.

An aristocrat’s manor has people designated to clean it. Areum could already rattle off the names of 3 or more maids. And if the wood-paneled hallway was the servants’ quarters, then there were likely even more than the ones she knew. So, why was his room so dirty if he had so many maids? If they did their jobs, there was no way that the room would be this dirty. Especially when compared to how the hall leading here had sparkled. There was only one answer.

“Uhm… I think that you do not like having a clean room, master.”

The man let out a huff. He stuck out his arm. From how high it was, Areum thought that he was about to stroke her hair. But instead, he flicked her on the forehead with his forefinger.

“Ow!”

Areum clutched her forehead. It hurt even more than when she had bumped her head under the bed. Had she given the wrong answer? Even so, did she deserve to be whacked so mercilessly?! The pain radiated from where she had been flicked outward. No matter how much she rubbed it with her hands, the stinging didn’t go away. It hurt enough to make tears well in her eyes.

“Those books.”

The man pointed at some books with the same finger he had just flicked her with. It was the very stack of books that Areum had bothered to stack according to size like a brick wall.

“Take them all to the study.”

Areum took her hands off her forehead. The man was studying her intently, to watch her reaction. Areum wanted to give a breezy response—"Got it!” or something along those lines. But she still held in her palm that headache of a puzzle piece she now had absolutely no clue why he had told her to find.

“And what should I do with this?”

Once he saw the small piece that she held up, he took it, as if he had just realized what it was. He carefully examined it. If you were to only see him when he was concentrated, he’d look like a mere harmless, handsome man. Perhaps he seduced his victims with this face. Areum, who had been staring at his face while thinking such useless things, quickly turned her gaze away after meeting eyes with him. Her face became hot at the thought that she had been caught stealing a look at him.

Her face, which would have looked like a tomato in proper lighting, changed subtly in an instant. The man tossed the puzzle piece he had been holding into some far corner of his room.

“Go now.”

“Yes, master.”

Areum responded with a cheerful voice to express that she didn’t care at all what he had just done. And she smiled to top it off.

The corridor between the rooms on the 3rd floor had no windows in it except for one at the very end of it. In the central part of the building, where the main stairs were, there were only sconces on the wall. Yet the light from the window showing the clear sky stretched down the corridor, and the light coming up the main staircase was far brighter than the duke’s bedroom had been.

Areum picked up a stack of 10 books and mindlessly exited the vampire’s room. She didn’t know where the “study” was. She did know, however, that it wasn’t something that she could ask her employer. Saying, “I understand,” to whatever is asked of you was something she had read in a self-help book she could no longer even remember the title of. She planned to say she understood first, then ask someone she ran into when she left his room.

But the corridor was completely empty. And so, Areum, back against the door to the duke’s bedroom at the end of the corridor, became somewhat lost in thought.

Would she randomly open each door? Considering that the study was a space used by the duke, it was probable that it would be in the same area as his bedroom. If she were to use the time to acquaint herself with the building by looking around the 3rd floor and checking the different rooms, and maybe finding the study in the meantime, it would be like killing two birds with one stone. Then again, if she were to open the door and go somewhere she wasn’t allowed to, or there should be someone else inside the room, she could end up in a sticky situation.

Areum decided that she had no choice but to ask someone else and headed towards the stairs she had come up with Solenn. She was just about to go down floor by floor and check to see if she saw anyone when the back of her heel started to hurt with every step. It seemed she was getting a blister after all. The shoes were so tight on her, so this hadn’t caught her off guard. But remembering that she was now in an era where Band-Aids clearly did not exist, meaning she would have to walk around all day with the blister oozing, she naturally was baffled.

“Days are hard when your life is collateral,” Areum sighed.

So far today, she had been in the same room as a vampire, crawling around on the floor in search of a puzzle piece, and now she was walking down the stairs, carrying a stack of books you’d find at an antique bookstore while wearing a maid’s uniform.

She couldn’t have even dreamed up the kinds of things she was doing now. When she had been sitting at her desk and studying literature, English, math, and social studies, never would she have expected that becoming the slave of a vampire was what her future held.

The surreal nature of her fate washed over her without warning. Why was it that her mind would always wander after something tense happened? At times like last night when she was laying alone after washing up, or now. Though she had no intention of crying whatsoever, tears would well in her eyes. Areum bit down hard on her lips so as not to cry. She lifted her arm and wiped away the tears from her eyes. This wasn’t the time to get sentimental. She had to focus on finding the study.

When she entered the 2nd floor corridor, she finally spotted two other maids. They were wearing the same uniform as her. One was wiping down a window, and the other was mopping the floor. When Areum went up to them, they must have seen her coming, since they stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

The closer that Areum got to them, the more she realized that something strange was going on. Both of their faces stiffened upon seeing Areum. Their faces were full of disgust, as if witnessing an abomination which should not exist in this world.

"Excuse me…”

Their faces grew into deeper grimaces upon Areum speaking to them, and as if they had planned it in advance, they both took up their cleaning supplies, turned, and left down the hall, leaving Areum all by herself.

“What on earth was that about?”

Areum thought to herself in a haze, then furrowed her brow at the sudden feeling she had. She felt upset. She didn’t fully understand what had just happened, but she felt like she had been greatly insulted. Why did they avoid her in such a disgusted manner? As if she were garbage, or a freak?

Then Areum's jaw went slack. She was remembering what had happened just after she had plummeted into this strange world. She had been mistaken for a vampire based on her looks and put out to auction. Here in this world, there was hardly any difference between the creature holed up in the dark room a floor above her and herself.

“Ha. Ha.”

She laughed wryly. Something gave her the feeling that the days ahead of her here wouldn’t be smooth sailing. Would she have to endure those kinds of looks from every person she met? Now, she was angry at the vampire. How had he conducted himself that people now reacted like this to her? If he had been nothing but smiles and kindness, there wouldn’t be any reason for Areum to be treated this way. For example, if he had been well received for being a vampire who was kind to humans, or even if they disliked him, but found him easy enough to at minimum coexist with, there would have been no reason for those two maids to have reacted as they had.

Neither of them had said a word to Areum. They didn’t even scream or tried to flee. They had merely made foul expressions and left down the hallway. From their behavior towards her, Areum got the impression that they already knew about her. Wouldn’t the head maid, Lady Solenn, have told them that a black-haired maid would be joining them? Was that why they had been able to avoid her without being surprised in the slightest?

That is, despite knowing that Areum was a human, they had no-holds-barred, expressed their hatred and disgust for her, and then left.

The more she thought about it, the more that anger swelled inside of her, and so Areum went up the back staircase meant for servants to the 3rd floor. She also grew angrier, the more intense the pain in the back of her heel grew. Leaning against the door, she struggled to balance the stack of books on one hand, then knocked loudly on the door to the duke’s bedroom.

“Master! It’s Areum! I’m coming in!”

She deliberately spoke loud and firmly. Once she had counted 3 seconds without hearing a reply from the duke, she opened the door and slipped into the room. She opened and closed her eyes. The room was still dark inside. Once again, she wished she could open the curtains.

When her eyes had somewhat adjusted and she was about to take a step forward, Areum heard something fly through the air and hit something hard with a thwack. She turned her head to see a dagger stuck in the door. A flicker of embarrassment. If it had been only a hand’s width off its mark, the dagger would have pierced Areum right in the throat. While Areum stood there panicked, the man stood and approached her without a sound. His demeanor was entirely different from when he had flicked her on the forehead minutes ago. He seemed furious. Areum regretted acting rashly.