## Chapter 194 – Dragon’s Nest (2)
A massive mansion overflowing with servants, even without a master.
A black figure silently darted through its corridors, a blur like the wind.
‘Amazing…
To give something like this to me…’
Nemea, now acting as clothing, clung tightly like full-body latex, revealing the voluptuous figure with a glossy black sheen.
At the same time, it supported Vivian’s characteristic ample breasts like underwear, minimizing any bouncing, making running relatively comfortable.
However, given the physical size, some jiggling was inevitable.
Moreover, the heeled shoes had melted and transformed into flexible rubber overshoes that clung to her feet, almost completely silencing her footsteps.
“Huff… haa… haa…”
Thus, with no rustling fabric or hard soles to make noise, Vivian’s body moved silently through the mansion, able to move without being detected.
As she ran, Vivian gently twisted her long hair up, revealing the nape of her neck where beads of sweat trickled down.
They touched Nemea’s skin, and the black membrane shuddered as if savoring the taste.
‘Aside from this…’
Still, enduring the vibrating membrane was easier than awkwardly crawling around with a cardboard box over her head.
Although there were people in every other corridor, it was only a problem for outsiders.
Vivian had lived in this mansion for decades, from birth until recently.
She knew the habits of each servant who had worked there for years, as if she could read their minds.
Predicting their movements, she hid behind decorations or, at times, used her enhanced strength to cling to ceiling ornaments, avoiding their gaze. Vivian raced towards her destination, holding her breath.
‘Here… it was…’
Finally, she arrived at a door.
Vivian stared at the door adorned with Grenot’s ornate decorations with a fixed gaze before slowly reaching for the doorknob.
Perhaps in the past, someone would have opened the door for her before she even touched the knob.
“I’m back…”
Vivian stepped into the dark room and began to look around.
A familiar room.
The place where Vivian de Grenot spent most of her personal life, living as a young lady.
‘My room…’
But the pampered, cherished noble lady no longer existed in this world.
Only her shadow, a remnant, a mere residue, remained.
A feeling of tightness welled up in her nose, and she bit her lip. Vivian, her eyes now accustomed to the darkness, began to look around.
She suddenly realized that the room hadn’t been touched at all and approached a corner of the wall with anticipation.
‘Then it must be there…’
She gently lifted the picture frame on the wall, revealing a small safe behind it.
Opening it, she began to take out the important items she had left inside. She found a small necklace and gently put it around her neck.
Her mother’s keepsake, her mother’s cherished treasure.
‘Open.’
As she infused it with her will, the surrounding air trembled with a lukewarm light, and the jewel on the necklace began to expand.
‘Everything important should be here…?’
This was an artifact, also known as a magic tool.
Its exact name was Spatial Expansion Dimension Generator, or simply, an item box.
Magic tools were difficult and expensive to mass-produce, but this one was a gift her mother had received when she was courted.
Artifacts were usually operated by mages who supplied the magic power.
However, some artifacts had a separate magic source, allowing those without magical talent to use them.
Similarly, her mother, who had no magical talent, always wore this necklace but never used its function.
She didn’t know why.
She only learned that it could be used after it came into Vivian’s possession as her mother’s keepsake.
So, it was a convenient keepsake that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, as most people thought of it as just an accessory.
‘Thank goodness… it’s all here…’
Vivian reached into the expanded jewel and rummaged around, feeling the various items that had been stored inside.
Of course, as the young lady of the Marquis family, she could have almost anything she wanted, but these were important items that even she needed to keep separately.
And these were insurance policies prepared for the off chance that they might be needed.
It was her meticulous nature, preparing for the worst-case scenario, albeit in a slightly different way.
‘I never thought I’d actually take them out…’
But at that moment.
A voice from outside made Vivian quickly put the necklace back into the safe, replace the picture frame, and throw herself behind a sofa in the corner.
The moment she silently rolled across the floor and hid herself, the door creaked open.
“Your Excellency…!!”
“Leave us.”
Someone called out to the man who opened the door.
And a voice, as if dismissing that someone, overlapped, creating a moment of silence.
But eventually, the sound of footsteps receding could be heard, and the remaining man slowly walked through the open door, letting light into the room.
‘You… why…’
She knew from the moment she heard that voice.
It was a voice she could never forget.
‘There’s no way you’d be here…
Well… so what…
If I end it here…’
Vivian quietly picked up a sharp letter opener from the table behind the sofa and clutched it tightly in her hand.
The man walked into the room and looked around. He clapped his hands, and the surrounding light gradually brightened as if by magic, illuminating the room.
At that moment, Vivian, who was hiding behind the sofa, saw the man.
He walked to where he had been standing as if it were the most natural thing in the world and placed the picture frame on the floor.
‘Huh…?’
That place was supposed to be a secret only she knew.
Seeing him so naturally open the safe hidden behind the picture frame, Vivian’s hand gripping the letter opener tightened with tension.
He picked up the necklace that she had been holding just a moment ago.
Why was he looking down at that object, which meant so much to her but probably nothing to him?
“……”
He simply held the necklace in his hand and stared at it silently for a moment, then, with the same stern expression as always, silently placed it back in the safe and closed the door.
He replaced the picture frame, clapped his hands again to turn off the lights, and turned to leave the room. Vivian could only hide behind the sofa and do nothing.
All her thoughts, which she thought had perfectly deceived everyone, seemed unbelievably trivial.
It was as if all her thoughts had been exposed.
What was the current head of the Grenot Marquis family thinking when he found that necklace?
What was ‘Father’ thinking when he discovered the move prepared by his cunning daughter, who didn’t even trust her family, under the guise of ‘just in case’?
As the footsteps faded away, Vivian came out from behind the sofa, opened the safe, and took out the necklace. She fed it to Nemea, making it store it in its ‘pocket’.
Then, she quietly opened the door and slipped through, her breath growing even more ragged as she ran in the opposite direction of the footsteps.
‘There are plenty of opportunities…
Even if not now…’
.
.
.
Back in the room, Vivian was greeted by Marie, who was sitting in the same position as when she had left, fidgeting anxiously.
“Did anything happen?”
“No… you hadn’t come back yet…
But I…
Can I go to the bathroom…?”
“No. Just piss on the guest.
They’ll probably like it, calling it holy water.”
“E… Eee…?”
Seeing Marie’s face turn ashen at her words, Vivian sighed softly and pointed to the door with her finger, then flicked her fingertip to the left.
“I’m kidding. Go out and turn left, it’s at the end of the hallway.”
“O-oh… thank you…”
Marie’s usefulness wasn’t over yet.
She still had plenty of use.
Marie, as if in a great hurry, grabbed the hem of her dress and scurried out.
Vivian glanced at her retreating figure, then sat down on another chair and slowly crossed her legs.
‘Then… now…’
Having retrieved her insurance policy, the necklace, she had achieved her first goal.
Now, only the second goal remained.
‘In this family, bringing a virgin into the mansion…
The one who ends up eating her is already decided…’
Although there were several relatives and elders in Grenot besides the direct family line, only a few of them were still sexually capable enough to desire a virgin’s fruit.
Moreover, if it was someone with enough power to bring a prostitute into the house, the scope would be even narrower.
The most likely candidate was probably that man.
‘Father…’
How many years had it been since her mother passed away?
Perhaps only a handful of years had passed before he brought in a stepmother, another noble lady, as his legal wife.
And that stepmother hated her so openly that it was almost obvious.
It was about two years ago.
Just before she entered the academy, she gave birth to a boy.
“It’s a son who looks just like the Madam and Master!!”
“Congratulations!! Hahaha!!”
As the midwife who helped with the delivery said, a boy who resembled the stepmother’s eyes and mouth, and the father’s nose and eyebrows.
“Look here, Vivian?
What do you think? Isn’t he cute?
He’s your ‘younger brother’?”
“He’s beautiful… you’ve worked hard…”
A cute baby in the stepmother’s arms, who had been crying loudly after birth, eventually showed a bright smile.
Although she outwardly rejoiced and welcomed the birth of the child, she couldn’t bring herself to feel that way in her heart.
‘That bitch is too greedy…’
Perhaps she was already calculating the inheritance and the advantage of succeeding the Marquis title at the time of her son’s birth, because from then on, she began to reveal her true colors.
And that may have been the reason why she especially regarded Vivian as a thorn in her side.
The problem was that her father had no eye for women, as he had accepted such a woman.
It was undeniable that she was somewhat pretty, but she was inferior to her mother or herself, and even her heart was arrogant, just like a typical trashy noble.
The fact that he had chosen such a woman as a stepmother, a being who should have been another mother to her, showed the Marquis’s lack of discernment.
‘Right… my mother was a maid too…’
Her mother, who was just a lowly commoner maid compared to the nobles.
No one taught her such a cruel truth.
She only knew from hearsay that the two had married belatedly after giving birth to her, and she had even fantasized that they had a passionate romance.
That was fine.
If she had a flaw, she could arm herself with excellence to cover it up.
But that, of course, and the stories she had secretly overheard in the mansion, led to this conclusion.
She was just a useless girl born from a maid her father had touched, unloved by anyone, and unwanted by anyone to be born and raised like this.
Apart from being an illegitimate child in a noble family, she couldn’t cover up the fundamental problem that her mother’s birth itself was different.
‘A concubine born between a maid who was just a servant… they wouldn’t have cared about her…
If someone knew the truth, they would have found it quite amusing that I was walking around with my shoulders held high.
Anyway, it seems Father wanted another woman to play with this time.’
As if he wasn’t satisfied with the stepmother,
Then he could just play with Marie, who he was going to ruin anyway.
Marie was a well-managed noble lady with considerable value as a woman.
Of course, that fact itself was a secret, but Marie, who was as beautiful as her maid mother who resembled her, would have been enough to captivate him.
From now on, she could have Marie extract internal information and recite pillow talk, and the possibility of him falling for it would increase.
‘I just need to make her an internal spy.
And later, I just need to tell her that Monehen was ruined because of Grenot…
After that, even if I don’t say anything, she’ll be so blinded by rage that she’ll dig up anything.
I just need to get the result of seizing the excuse to end Grenot.’
Vivian, lost in deep thought, didn’t even realize how much time had passed. It was only when she heard the sound of the door opening that she was startled and looked up.
Marie was returning from the bathroom.
“You’re back? Are you behaving properly… hmm…?”
But Marie wasn’t the only one who had returned to the room.
Vivian’s eyes trembled slightly as she noticed someone walking into the room behind Marie.
