Receiving a gaze that was suspiciously ominous as I finished off all the soup in my plate, Lize took my hand and pulled me up, declaring we should now head to the reception room.
“What about the others?”
“They’re doing their own tasks. You’re the last one to wake up. We’ve been up for a while now.”
Well, it wouldn’t have been strange if everyone else had woken up ages ago. After all, I was the only one who got completely wasted and lost consciousness last night.
However, it was quite surprising that Aurora was all fine and dandy. I could understand the knight commanders being so tough, but for Aurora, who was just an ordinary person, to be completely alright after drinking just as much as I did was unexpected.
I was deep in thought as I made my way to the reception room, and Lize cheerfully flung the door open. Inside was Aurora, sitting elegantly on the sofa, sipping tea.
“……?”
Wearing the dress that was called the “New City Miss Look.”
It was definitely the same dress she had worn at the banquet last night. It fit snugly to her body, exposing her chest and armpits, with no sign of her underwear line.
As I tried to sort out my confused thoughts about the situation, Aurora flashed a slight smile and spoke.
“You woke up later than I expected. The sun is already high in the sky. Was last night too wild?”
“……What?”
Her words knocked the wind out of me like a hammer, but I quickly realized from the smile on her face that it was just a joke.
As I had guessed, Aurora soon set her teacup down on a small plate and mentioned it was just a joke.
Guided by Lize’s hand, I sat on the opposite sofa from Aurora. Lize sat right next to me as if it was natural. Aurora’s eyebrows fluttered slightly at the sight.
Well, it wasn’t unusual for Lize to act like that around me. What mattered right now wasn’t that Lize was clinging to me again.
“Why are you wearing that, my lord?”
“Hmm?”
Aurora looked down at her outfit with curiosity.
Her chest was so exposed it seemed likely her side and lower chest would show as well. The tight dress revealed her belly button line and indicated she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
No matter how I looked at it, it was definitely the same dress worn for yesterday’s banquet.
“That’s the dress you wore yesterday. The banquet finished a while ago, didn’t it?”
“……I thought you were saying something to me, but it seems you’re quite mistaken about something. You need to develop a bit more knowledge about clothing.”
Aurora chuckled lightly.
“The dress I just wore was nothing special I pulled from the closet. This one was specially made along with the banquet dress. I can’t just wear the clothes that pig bought for me, can I? It’s a bit too simple for me to show the dignity of a lord. I appreciate your recognition of my new dress, but your sense seems a bit lacking.”
‘……What did I just hear?’
I desperately tried to keep my face neutral, not showing the emotions I was feeling. In my view, the dresses she had worn so far suited the dignity and elegance of a lord far better.
That dress was designed purely to appeal to others based on sexual attraction.
But to Aurora, it seemed entirely the opposite. She truly believed that such a scandalous dress, which could easily expose her nipples, was a garment for dignity and dignity alone.
‘I think I kinda get why she’s acting like this.’
In the game, after Aurora assumed the title of lord, her attire would change over time. I thought it was fortunate that the previous outfits were decent, but that seemed to have been altered here.
The fact that the banquet dress was the same New City Miss Look-style dress was likely just due to reused modeling.
“Oh, you’re really awake!”
“Just like Iris said. How did you know?”
“It’s a gut feeling.”
As I was taken aback, trying to figure out if she was meaning something, the door opened and the other knight commanders filed in one by one.
Instead of the see-through dress and garter belt-lingerie combo from last night, they were all wearing white sleeveless tops with dolphin shorts of various colors matching their hair.
‘Yeah, honestly, that’s a relief.’
Seeing the sleeveless tops and dolphin shorts again felt as if they were celestial beings, making me feel relieved that I had a place to glance. The combination I had seen at the banquet was simply unbearable in so many ways.
With six people gathered, the once-quiet reception room quickly buzzed with noise. To be precise, it was Lize and Claudia who were making the ruckus.
If those two weren’t there, it would be no difference whether four of us remained or just two.
“Well then, shall we take a break from the chit-chat?”
The lively atmosphere instantly changed 180 degrees at Aurora’s statement.
The silence was filled with gazes. Five pairs of eyes were solely fixed on me. It was a somewhat chilling sight.
“……Why does everyone look like that?”
“I was just wondering how much you remember from last night? But it seems you don’t remember everything. You probably only remember up to the midpoint at best?”
“……”
I couldn’t respond to Lize’s words at all. The truth was, as I had lost my memory starting from the midpoint, it really matched her statement.
In reality, Lize had likely noticed I didn’t have much of last night’s memories the moment I answered her question with another question.
She acted quite childish, but her actual abilities weren’t lacking compared to the other knight commanders.
“Well, in the end, we didn’t really gain much either.”
“……?”
I was taken aback as unexpected words spilled from Iris’s mouth. I had completely blanked out, but they didn’t come away empty-handed? Had they not just passed out as well?
“Half of that was our fault, and the other half was Lize’s.”
“Half was Lize’s fault?”
I pushed Lize away gently to ask what she had done this time.
The five of them couldn’t find a sharp solution.
With the newbie keeping his mouth tightly shut, and any further drinking would likely lead only to him losing consciousness, it was clear we were in delicate circumstances.
He seemed to be swaying in his seat, seeming ready to fall asleep at any moment.
Eventually, that meant we needed to find some way to loosen his tongue without giving him more alcohol and not letting him fall asleep, which wouldn’t come easily.
“That’s quite surprising, Lize.”
“Hmm? What is?”
Iris stared at Lize and Aurora, who were busily touching the newbie’s face as if to fill their hearts’ desires, and dropped a line.
“I thought you wouldn’t let this moment slip by. I thought you’d use your charms on the newbie.”
Normally, the newbie held out against Lize’s temptations well, but it was a different story now.
From the moment I thought he was drunk, he had blatantly stared at Lize’s chest, not to mention sneaking glances at the other knight commanders and Aurora’s dress.
Being looked at like that by the newbie felt fairly pleasing, and I didn’t do anything about it. If another man had thrown those same looks, a lump the size of his head would have bloomed on top of his head.
Or some bone would have been shattered.
Given the situation, it wouldn’t be surprising to think Lize would try to tempt the newbie like usual.
Of course, the moment such a sign appeared, Erica and Iris would surely intervene.
“Oh, that?”
Lize confidently puffed up her chest. Aurora next to her seemed to wonder what she was about to say.
“There’s no sense of betrayal. If I try to seduce the newbie, he’d obviously fall for it. But what’s the point? It’s not the way I want it to be.”
Iris tilted her head. Seeing that, Lize continued to explain, thinking she didn’t understand.
“What I want is for a man who was weaker than me at first but later grows to surpass me in every way and crushes me. That difference in shame is what’s important. The moment the newbie realizes I’m just a mere female while I used to seem strong enough to take on the world. Got it?”
“……”
“……”
“……”
“……”
“……”
A silence fell over the banquet hall.
The person who asked the question, Iris, of course, and even Aurora next to her, along with Erica and Claudia, who were seriously discussing how to get the newbie to speak, froze at the shocking preference declaration.
“However, when you’re drunk, you can’t do that. The sense of betrayal is gone, and only the instincts remain. So naturally, one must take a step back. We need to wait for the perfect moment.”
“Lize, you really……”
Iris muttered in disbelief. It was true that I had heard a bit about Lize’s rather unique preferences before, but I could never have imagined it was this firm.
“Are you out of your mind, sis? That’s something you should just keep to yourself. Why do we need to know your preferences? What sin are we committing by hearing that right in front of us?”
Erica shot off her complaints like a rapid-fire gun. Her face was genuinely aghast. It was no wonder she was feeling that way, having just witnessed her sister expose her sexual preferences right in front of her.
“Iris asked, didn’t she?”
“I honestly didn’t think you’d spill your preferences like that. Isn’t it a bit excessive to blame me for this situation?”
“So what?”
Lize continued to poke the newbie’s cheek with her finger while smiling. The others merely watched this with a mix of complicated emotions in their eyes.
“Why should I care about what my companions’ preferences are?”
Claudia muttered quietly. Everyone present could relate to that sentiment.
“……”
“……?”
Iris was about to say something but instead blushed and began to tremble slightly. She scanned the surroundings. Erica and Claudia, as well as Aurora, had similar reactions.
Only Lize was acting completely normal.
“No, what on earth happened while I was asleep?”
“……I don’t want to remember.”
‘What on earth did she do?’
Since everyone except Lize was reacting that way, it was evident something had happened, but with Iris unwilling to say anything, I couldn’t grasp what it was.
“Ahem, ahem. Anyway, while time passed, you ended up falling asleep, and naturally, our opportunity to spill secrets slipped away. The one thing we managed to deduce is that you know far more than we expected.”
Iris cleared her throat and added. She seemed to think she had failed, but that alone was a considerable achievement.
The fact that I knew much more than I let on. And that I was hiding some secret. If they figured out those two things, it meant they had achieved at least half of what they aimed for.
“However, our job ends here. If it pertains to something you really don’t want to discuss, pushing further would probably be rude.”
“Really?”
“Instead, may I ask one more thing?”
Iris’s expression turned serious. I tensed up, as it seemed she was preparing to ask something significant. After a brief pause, Iris finally spoke.
“Are the secrets you harbor ones you can share with us someday?”
“Of course. I’ll definitely share them.”
As soon as I heard Iris’s question, I reflexively nodded my head. There was no need to think about my answer. I didn’t know when exactly it would be, but I fully intended to do so.
“Is that so? That’s all I need to know.”
Iris smiled faintly at my response. Aurora, Erica, and Claudia seems satisfied with my answer as well.
“Wait, I still have something to say.”
Lize interrupted abruptly, and I looked at her, curious about what she was going to say.
“After taking you to your room yesterday, we thought about it together. No matter how much you forget your name, we can’t keep calling you the newbie forever, right?”
Thinking back, that made sense.
Since I had claimed I forgot my name due to the curse, I had been addressed as “newbie” this whole time without any name. I had gotten so used to it that I didn’t even realize it.
“That’s true. So?”
“Your name still hasn’t come back, right?”
I nodded my head. I didn’t want to use my name from before possessing this body. Just the thought of my Korean name being called here felt embarrassing and uncomfortable.
“We thought of one name. What do you think?”
Since she said “we,” it seemed everyone had come up with a name together. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to listen, so I patiently awaited Lize’s next words.
“Delta. It means ‘change’ in ancient lore. You’re bringing change to us, so it’s a fitting name, don’t you think?”
‘Delta?’
For some reason, it conjured up an image of something swimming around in a deep-sea city with a diving suit and drill.
