Chapter 129
Fernand, who needed seed money, headed toward his father’s armory. He planned to grab a few hunting rifles and leave them at a pawnshop for a short while.
“‘They say it’s worth 3,000 times, huh? Am I any less capable than that Quendel guy? I can just make the money and get it back later.’”
He conscientiously picked the oldest-looking weapons in the armory, completely unaware that their historical value was enormous.
“Odette, I need you to come out with me for a bit.”
‘I can’t do this sloppily. Father, who is strict with me, will just find some reason to scold me.’
“Odette Dress… or whatever pretentious name you like, just wear the dress you have on now and follow me.”
After stopping by the pawnshop to secure the seed money, Fernand took Odette to the casino.
‘Good thing I came to inspect it. Looks more popular than I expected.’
Seeing the long line to enter the casino, Fernand thought:
‘It’s probably just a brief hype due to the novelty.’
The person who built this casino must have been a true bumpkin.
If they knew that the Ulrich Casino across the street belonged to Albrecht, they would never have dared to establish one here.
Having Odette, the only purifier, with him meant his money would never run dry. Losing to competitors was impossible.
‘Well, it makes sense that a bumpkin would build such a vulgar casino—no trace of nobility at all.’
Fernand, who had been sneering while standing in line, could only be surprised the moment he passed the entrance.
‘What…? Why is it so… dazzling…?’
Gambling and luxury were considered noble pursuits. That’s why casinos were usually remodeled from coffee houses frequently visited by nobles.
One could indulge freely without appearing vulgar.
But this place wasn’t a coffee house—it seemed made solely as a ‘casino.’
A space blatantly glamorous, as if deliberately designed to be vulgar. Exactly Fernand’s taste.
“Sir, would you like to rent a mask?”
“No, that’s fine. A casino is the best place for socializing. Who would be foolish enough to wear a mask there?”
Fernand waved his hand, declining.
‘And they charge 1 Atasha just to rent a Bautah mask? That’s more expensive than buying one. Who’d pay for that?’
Yet, once inside, he understood why people rented masks.
A liquor fountain in the center of the room, dim lighting… created a strangely seductive atmosphere.
Men and women who liked each other freely kissed or held hands while wearing masks.
Even in this turbulent era, it was audaciously bold.
‘What the… here, you can play with other women just by wearing a mask? The princess won’t hear a thing.’
After the talk about the crown prince, Fernand had forced himself to cut ties with women, and he swallowed hard.
“Would you like to try the slot machines? We’re debuting them for the first time today.”
“Or roulette? If it’s your first visit, we’ll give you 5 chips just for participating.”
Inside were new gambling machines even Fernand had never seen.
The colors were dazzling, and the initial bonuses were irresistible.
It was hard to keep a clear mind.
‘Huh… everyone’s eyes are spinning.’
Clearing his throat and adjusting his collar, Fernand sat at a roulette table. The moment he did, the dealer’s face caught his eye.
‘What? Why is he unnecessarily handsome?’
The dealers, the staff—every male employee at the casino was strikingly good-looking.
Because of that, men who came to gamble flaunted more chips than necessary to capture the attention of their accompanying women.
“20 Atasha, convert everything into chips and bet it all.”
Fernand, too, bet far more than planned. It was instinctive after seeing Odette’s admiration for the dealer’s face.
‘Goal for today: 100 Atasha. Win that, then leave.’
Fernand naively thought so, unaware that the dealers at Wolfgang Casino had been waiting for him.
After winning and losing large sums several times, Fernand fell deeply into the casino.
By the second day, he had completely forgotten Odette’s presence.
Thanks to that, Odette could go to the hospital near the Lotvart River that the status window had recommended.
The largest hospital in the capital.
[Remaining time: 2 days 6 hours]
[Reputation: 100]
Four days into volunteering, Odette, wearing a white apron over her sky-blue dress like the other volunteers, sighed.
‘Sigh… I’ve been working for four days straight with barely any sleep… and my reputation is still only 100?’
Much higher than the pitiful 8 she started with, but considering the remaining time, it was dismal.
‘Can I make up the remaining 400 in two days?’
She had tried donating money from the status window’s treasury, but that only raised her reputation by 15.
[Warning! Donations exceeding the current amount will make citizens feel deprived and decrease your reputation.]
Plus, the warning prevented her from donating more.
She considered risking the count noticing and turning her hospital volunteering into a “knight’s deed,” but that was impossible too.
The status window immediately warned:
[Warning! If you knight this action, Odette’s treatment will be seen as ‘hypocrisy’ by the citizens and decrease your reputation.]
In the end, relentless hard work led to this result—raising her reputation by 77.
After hitting 90, reputation gains slowed noticeably.
‘I’ve been working nonstop, and my reputation hasn’t budged all afternoon. Are they telling me to reach 500 or not?’
At that moment, a nurse called loudly from the corridor:
“Clean water’s all gone! Any volunteers willing to fetch some from upstream?!”
The bodies of those affected by disasters had fallen into the wells and lower river.
To get clean water in the area, volunteers had to go to the upper reaches of the Lotvart River.
A long, arduous task. While everyone tried to avoid the nurse’s gaze, only Odette raised her hand.
“I’ll go fetch it.”
Having witnessed Odette’s dedication over the past few days, the nurses now looked at her with reverence.
“…Once again, Lady Odette takes on the hard task. It won’t be easy, thank you.”
The nurse was the same person who had been the most hostile when Odette first arrived.
‘I was suspicious, thinking “what scheme is she up to with these strange actions?”’
“I’m ashamed for having misunderstood your sincerity initially.”
But Odette wasn’t volunteering for such noble reasons.
[Reputation +2]
[Reputation: 102]
She volunteered because doing disliked tasks increased her reputation.
‘And it was a chance to do something without being seen by others.’
Arriving at the river’s downstream with a heavy wooden bucket, Odette found no one there.
The contaminated river reeked.
After checking the surroundings, she placed the bucket beside her and quietly said:
“Inventory. Bring the report into my hand.”
A 10-page report appeared in her hand.
It was Muller’s report secretly delivered earlier by Gizela.
She couldn’t read it easily in the hospital, so she planned to review it now.
The gist of the detailed report:
“The person who met the pink-haired girl in Athena Island was only the wife. However, we found a few people in the capital who claimed to have met her.
Each person said the girl maliciously spread rumors about Lady Odette. Since we found those who met her directly, we’ll investigate further.”
‘Maliciously spreading rumors about me? She hasn’t even met me, so why?’
Even after reading the entire report, Odette couldn’t understand. She frowned.
Then—clack! A piece of paper loosely tucked in the report fell to the ground.
“P.S. I wrote down what my wife heard just before losing consciousness. I tried to memorize it perfectly, thinking it would help catch the culprit later.
It seems to be a foreign language, but we searched all languages on the continent and found none.
I’ve written the pronunciation exactly as my wife remembered.”
Below were letters of the Barcheha alphabet, forming a meaningless sentence in Barcheha.
‘Now I understand why it was separated.’
A sentence meaningless in Barcheha and every other continental language.
Since the meaning was unknown, Muller couldn’t report it, but his wife had forced it to be included.
‘If I can’t understand the meaning, it’s pointless to check—’
Just as she tried to ignore it, the arrangement of letters felt familiar.
Slowly, she tried pronouncing it:
“Mu…seon…jit…eul…hago…dani…neun…geoya,”
Goosebumps ran down her spine as she stumbled over the syllables.
It was a language she knew. More precisely, a language Han Suwan knew.
“Jigeut…jigeutan…Suwan…unnie…”
Odette felt her mind freeze.
“Suwan unnie.”
Han Suwan had no one to call a friend, and few acquaintances—so the only person to call her “unnie” was Han Song-i.
Odette froze, struck by the unexpected shock.
“Wake up, Odette.”
A sound like lightning struck her mind.
She collapsed onto the ground.
