A Complete Disaster
She's a real beastkin...?
Every instinct I had was screaming at me to reach out and stroke those soft cat ears, but I couldn't exactly do that the moment we met. I forced the urge down and offered a calm greeting instead.
"It's nice to meet you, Miya."
At my composed words, Miya's tail swished left and right in what looked like pure delight.
"Anyway, calling you 'guest' forever feels a little awkward... What should I call you?"
"Uh..."
I was stuck. I'd gone full amnesia cosplay, so I couldn't just give her a name. Besides, nothing from my old life would fit this place.
Actually, this worked out perfectly. I'd just take whatever name this beastkin gave me and use it as an alias.
"I've lost my memories. Just call me whatever feels natural. Whatever you like."
Miya tilted her head, cat ears twitching upright.
"Really? You don't even remember what letter your name started with?"
"Hmm... I'm not sure. I think it might have started with 'Do'..."
At that little hint, Miya's pupils sparkled. She clapped her hands as if the greatest idea in the world had just struck her.
"Do? Hmm... Then... Doranne?"
".........?"
Wait. Did she just name me?
Doranne? Is she for real right now...
I barely swallowed the string of curses that almost left my mouth.
"Th-that one's a little..."
"Huh? It's a very elegant, high-class northern name. You don't like it? Then... Dorsi? Dorwen? Or Dorathea? If not that, how about Dornjia?"
"..."
Every single one of them sounded like it belonged to someone who wasn't entirely right in the head.
When I stayed silent with a dubious look on my face, Miya flattened her ears slightly and stuck out her lower lip.
"Wow, you're so picky! If nothing with 'Do' works for you... then how about Diana?"
"Diana?"
"Yes! It means goddess of the moon. For someone as mysterious and dazzlingly beautiful as you—like moonlight on a night sky—it's perfect!"
I quietly rolled the name around in my head.
Republic of Korea Army reserve sergeant Han Do-gyeong. Age twenty-five.
Official nickname starting today: Diana.
Using a woman's name as an alias felt a little burdensome, but...
...it was five hundred times better than Dornjia.
"A-alright. Let's just go with Diana."
"Excellent choice! Then from now on I'll call you Lady Diana, Lady Diana!!"
Miya's tail swished happily from side to side.
"Well then, Lady Diana! Would you like to come with me and enjoy the morning air of the great Arthea Ducal Estate?"
"Right now?"
"Yes! Right now!"
She really was a lively beastkin girl.
"Then just a moment... I should put something on..."
I was already in indoor clothes, but it was a chilly autumn morning, so I figured I needed at least one more layer. The moment the thought crossed my mind, Miya reached for the buttons of my nightgown as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Here, just slip your arm out this way~"
"W-wait a second! What are you doing!?"
"Huh? I'm going to help you change, of course?"
"I'll do it myself! I can dress myself!"
I recoiled in horror from those manners-free hands that had barreled in without even using a turn signal, scrambling a step deeper onto the bed.
Miya only blinked her round eyes and giggled.
"Lady Diana, do you know how to put on a traditional northern robe?"
"Uh... you just put your arms through and tie it, right?"
"This is a traditional robe. There are more than three inner fastening cords alone, and if you don't get the shoulder-knot angles right, the whole thing slides off every time you walk and ends up completely open. Did you know that?"
"...No. I didn't..."
"Heh heh, see? That's why I have to help. Come on, just stay still~"
Completely defeated by pure logic, I had no choice but to spread my arms, trembling.
Shhhk—
Under Miya's practiced hands, the silk nightgown slipped from my shoulders and fell away.
"Kya—kyaaah!"
Even if we were the same gender, having another woman see my bare female body was embarrassing, mortifying, and just plain weird all at once.
"Your reactions are so girlish. Move your hands! I can't change you like this!!"
The moment I dropped my arms, the masterpiece of customization I had spent hours obsessively perfecting—down to every last pore—was fully exposed to Miya's eyes.
"...Nyang?"
The hands that had been about to dress me froze mid-air.
Her twitching cat ears flattened hard against her head in shock, and her round green eyes began to tremble wildly.
"M-Miya? What's wrong...?"
"Lady Diana..."
With a shaking hand, she pointed at the majestic pair of soft, enormous mounds rising from my chest.
"Are these... real? You didn't put some kind of magic artifact in there, did you?"
"Th-they're my actual flesh! Why would anyone put an artifact in their chest!?"
"Waaaaah..."
Miya let out a dazed gasp of pure awe.
"Your skin is as white and fine as freshly milked northern goat's milk... You're ridiculously slim, and yet your chest is this big? Wow, this is insane. Even the goddess statues I've seen in temples were more modest than this. How can a person look like this?"
Her gaze lingered on the deep valley of my cleavage for a long moment before slowly drifting downward.
To be precise, it fell to the peaceful, gently rolling plains of her own maid uniform.
Flop—
Miya's cat ears, which had been standing proudly toward the sky, drooped limply to either side.
Even the tail that had been swishing so cheerfully dropped with a soft thump onto the floor.
"...Haa. So unfair."
A deep, heavy sigh that seemed to sink into the earth itself.
"The gods are truly too unfair. They pour blessings all over some people, and for others... maybe they just ran out of dough while shaping them... Why is mine..."
Ran out of dough? That metaphor is way too sad...
It was such a self-deprecating, tearful tone that I almost felt guilty just listening.
"Um, Miya? Everyone's body has its own charms..."
"It's fine! Don't comfort me! Hearing it from someone like you, Lady Diana, just makes me feel like I'm dying twice!"
Miya dabbed at the corners of her eyes and flung the traditional robe over my shoulders, beginning to tie the cords with brisk efficiency.
Once the dressing was finished...
"Alright, hurry up and button it!"
"Ah, yes..."
With Miya's help I was finally wearing the indoor robe, though the chest area was a little snug and I had to struggle a bit with the buttons.
Still, at least it didn't hang as loosely as before. Moving around felt a little easier now.
The moment I opened the guest-room door and stepped into the corridor, I couldn't help drawing in a sharp breath.
"Whoa..."
What stretched before me was a high-end mansion of overwhelming scale, incomparable to any background I had ever seen through a monitor in the game.
The entire floor was polished white marble, and the dozens-of-meters-high arched ceilings were meticulously carved with the family's silver wolf emblem everywhere the eye could see.
Just the number of servants walking the halls easily put a major corporation's employee count to shame.
Miya walked a step ahead and launched into a proud guided tour.
"Our Arthea Ducal Estate is the largest single stone fortress in the entire northern continent! Eight hundred years ago, the first duke—the Iron-Blooded Grand Duke of Arthea—personally chose the site and had it built. The artificial garden and lake you can see over there are specially enchanted so they never freeze, even in the harsh northern winters!"
"Heeh, that's impressive."
I nodded along, then—pure occupational habit—naturally focused my eyes and activated my Spirit Eyes.
I wanted to get a proper reading on just how well the feng shui of this grand ducal estate had been set up.
The instant the Spirit Eyes opened—
"...!?"
My face twisted.
"Lady Diana?! What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?!"
"No, the sunlight was just a bit bright..."
This is serious... Who the hell did they hire for the site survey?!
To the eyes of Western knights it might have looked like a majestic, sacred mansion, but to a professional Korean shaman the feng shui of the Arthea estate was nothing short of a total family-ruining disaster zone.
Let's break it down one by one.
First: the main gate faced exactly northeast—the Ghost Gate direction.
That was the same as leaving the front door wide open with a free-pass sign for every yin-energy spirit and stray ghost in the area.
Second: that artificial lake in the central garden Miya was so proud of? They had dug it right on top of the wealth vein where fortune was supposed to gather, creating stagnant water.
Far from accumulating money, it was the perfect spot for the family's wealth to rot and leak away like a bottomless jar.
But the absolute worst was still waiting.
The central corridor connecting the east and west wings... that was where underground water veins crossed in a perfect cross shape—the most catastrophic type of double-crossing water vein, a textbook Upper Gate Death configuration.
And there was a room sitting right on top of it.
Is that a torture chamber? Are they trying to kill someone?
Anyone sleeping in that end room might as well be playing hide-and-seek with ghosts every single night. It was no exaggeration.
Now I understood why, according to the game lore, every direct descendant of this family suffered from headaches, "demonic energy poisoning," and early deaths. You didn't even need to read their destinies—the house itself told the whole story.
This wasn't a protective fortress.
It was a suicide factory slowly strangling the entire clan.
The fact that they had survived eight hundred years in a place like this was honestly impressive.
If I just moved those three garden stones and drove a single wall-blocking wooden stake into the water vein, it would improve a lot...
My hands itched.
But I quickly reined myself in.
No. There's no money in this. Do I really need to fix it for free?
Besides, right now I was supposed to be the frail amnesiac survivor Diana. Getting involved would be far too suspicious. I decided to keep my mouth shut for the time being.
That was when it happened.
"Lady Diana, do you see that black iron door at the end of the western corridor?"
Miya's cat ears perked up. She leaned in close and dropped her voice to near-silent levels, whispering secretively.
Beastkin hearing was the best on the continent.
In other words, she was a walking listening device that heard every piece of gossip in this estate in real time.
"You must never go near that place. It's the personal training hall of our family's eldest son, Young Master Leonhardt... Every night he talks to someone alone in there. No one knows who. Among the servants, the rumor is that the young master has been cursed."
...Eldest son Leonhardt talks to someone alone?
In that instant, game-setting data flashed through my mind.
Main story, Chapter Two mid-boss.
The event where the eldest son, his mind devoured by the self-aware demonic sword Eclipse, massacres the knight order and deactivates the estate's barrier from the inside.
They already brought that demonic sword into the house at this point in time?
From the very beginning, this ducal estate was a complete disaster.