Is This You, Cha Seyeon?
But I must not confront her prematurely. That would be a direct clash with her private fantasy of a one-time encounter with an superior man she would never meet again.
If she panicked and pressed that button in a desperate attempt to erase me, even this reinforced body would not survive.
First I would have to condition her completely so she no longer had the capacity for such thoughts.
As I was formulating exactly how I would train Cha Seyeon, she approached me, eyebrows furrowed sharply, and let the words spill out.
“Mr. Kim Sunghyun! You’re thinking about something else again, aren’t you? Haaah…!”
She had assigned me as some kind of special management subject and was already trying to inspect my work, complaining since the crack of dawn.
“You keep telling me to focus properly. What kind of attitude are you planning to show my young lady…?”
The bitch was stomping her feet.
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, Head Maid. I’ll fix it immediately.”
I waved off the hysterical tone and fixed my gaze on the utterly shameless post floating above her head.
‘Can this tool actually be used for other functions too?’
If it worked, life would become far more convenient.
[DM (Unknown) -> ToiletBitchSeyeon]
“Yo!”
It worked.
The “unknown” name on the sender meant the server hadn’t registered my ID data at all. Of course. This wasn’t a mobile device; it was direct control over the terminal through pure consciousness.
“Eh? What’s with the weird noises all of a sudden?”
Crap.
“Head Maid’s training has been drilled so deeply into my head that I felt a rush of enlightenment. Haha.”
“…Really now. Cut the empty talk. Flattery like that won’t work on me.”
Even though she spoke that way, the irritation in her voice was clearly fading, so maybe some of it actually landed.
“Today there’s main maintenance work for the mansion. Keep that in mind and follow whatever Ms. Ishihara tells you.”
She seemed to be dumping all the annoying chores onto Ishihara Haruka. Fair enough. In military terms the head maid was a major, and I couldn’t keep wasting time training a single wounded soldier.
“Yes, understood. Then I’ll go receive my training right away.”
“Go ahead.”
I left the servants’ meeting room and shifted my gaze back to the DM window.
[Unknown -> ToiletBitchSeyeon] Unknown: Cha Seyeon, hello? (Unread)
A few seconds passed.
Unknown: Cha Seyeon, hello? (Read)
‘Read.’
She had probably checked her phone in the empty meeting room.
[ToiletBitchSeyeon is typing…]
Unknown: Cha Seyeon, hello?
ToiletBitchSeyeon: Who are you?
Her tone sounded cautious.
I knew most of the women running these secret accounts would get flooded with lewd sexual harassment DMs, but experience with investigations showed those cases were extremely rare.
This empire poured every resource into passport renewal; anyone caught doing something like that would end up in prison. Not even mild flirting was common among modern men, so harassment was unthinkable.
Whether the woman posted nude photos online or not, a man who simply contacted her could still be sued.
I had no idea if Cha Seyeon had received such a DM before, but it was clearly an unpopular account with low reposts and likes.
I answered her question about who I was.
[Unknown: The one who took your panties.]
“Kyaaah!?”
A shrill scream exploded from inside the meeting room. She really could make such a girlish voice.
[ToiletBitchSeyeon is typing…]
[ ]
[ToiletBitchSeyeon is typing…]
[…]
The typing-notification icon kept popping up and disappearing repeatedly.
Her heart must have been about to burst out of her chest by now.
It was one thing for the panties she had so brazenly displayed to be missing, but the fact that the thief already knew about her secret account was a completely different matter.
While she imagined the worst—her real identity being exposed—she was probably shaking with pure terror.
[ToiletBitchSeyeon: Is this you?]
Her trembling fingers had produced so many typos it was almost comical. A mistake that had nothing to do with her usual sharp demeanor.
[Unknown: Of course. I know you perfectly.]
“Hiic…! Hic…!”
The sound of choking sobs began from inside the room.
She was probably the type who broke down crying when suddenly startled.
[ToiletBitchSeyeon is typing…]
[…]
Cha Seyeon kept deleting and rewriting the message, but she couldn’t control her pounding heart. She still hadn’t answered.
That was fine. The initiative was always mine.
“For now, let’s handle today’s cleaning duties first.”
I stepped out of the meeting room to tackle my first task of the day.
A slap and a whip?
I wanted to see her work harder while I was gone.
* * *
“Miss, packaging is complete.”
In the underground room lit by high-intensity lights placed all around, the suited man gave his report.
“Good work~”
Cha Seyeon circled the items with a tired expression and continued.
“I know these are raw materials for Father’s ‘private business.’ Finish them properly.”
“Yes.”
The man attached a paper tag labeled “product” to the cage and, at that moment, a human voice drifted out from inside it.
“Hooeeeong… please send me back… please… I beg you…”
A girl in a plain hospital gown sobbed desperately. Her height was barely over 160 cm, her body emaciated from weeks of insufficient food. Her skin was so pale it looked almost translucent, as if she had never seen sunlight.
“Eh? There’s still someone pretending to be human as a material? Sir, give me the chart.”
“Here you go.”
Cha Seyeon flipped through an A4 binder, eyes sparkling.
“Ooh? It was hidden inside the package, but she’s quite plump…? How old is she…? Ufufu… this is a brand-new product I’ve seen in ages…”
She licked her lips hungrily and walked up to the tiny cage.
“Hey, are you Ishihara Yuuka?”
“Y-yes, that’s me!”
“Do you want to go with your sister? We’ll have a fun game together. Then I’ll let you out and give you lots of food, okay?”
Gurgle!
The sound of a growling stomach came out as if by instinct.
To a girl already imprisoned in a cage too small to even straighten her back, with no proper food or rest, the offer was far too tempting.
“I-I’ll go! I’ll go with my sister!”
“Puhuh… puhuhuhu…”
Cha Seyeon covered her mouth with her hand and shook with laughter, either finding Yuuka’s desperate voice ridiculous or simply satisfied by the sense of superiority.
“Good. We’ll have lots of fun with your sister?”
She clearly wanted to take this smaller, younger, more pathetic girl and do something repulsive.
At that moment, the chief butler Park tried to stop her.
“Miss, if raw materials are suddenly intercepted like this, the first young lady—”
Crack!
Cha Seyeon’s eyes flashed like a snake’s slit pupils.
“Listen, Chief Butler. If I intercept, I intercept. And we’re just taking out the brain anyway, turning it into powder. How the hell would I know if the bitch has been replaced?”
“…”
“Just get an appropriate woman somewhere else and send her over.”
The chief butler lowered his head in resignation, having become the shrimp caught between whales.
A low-class villain. Either way, it ended in death.
“Chief Butler, no answer?”
“…Yes, yes, I understand. I’ll handle it properly.”
But the instant the predator bared its teeth, the fear was even greater.
Clank. Clank.
Clang!
Screeech—
“Come~ Yuuka~ Come follow your sister. Let’s have a nice bath together?”
“Uuuh… y-yes…”
Cha Seyeon dragged Yuuka’s wrist with a hand flickering with twisted desire and led her toward her own room.