The Direction of the Estate (4)
“Baron... a title...?”
Before I knew it, I had taken a step back.
My voice seemed to be carried off on the wind and spilled down the slope below. I thought I was hearing things. No—my ears had heard her perfectly well. It was my mind that refused to accept it.
A baron.
A noble title. During the half year since I’d fallen into this world, I had never once heard of a man being granted nobility in the Demon Realm.
Well, once, I had.
Rumor had it that when the Demon King’s lawful husband was given the title of baron, outrage had swept across the entire Demon Realm—a story so widespread even the back alleys of Hereun knew it.
He’d held the supreme title of the Demon King’s husband and yet had been granted nothing more than a barony, and even that had been opposed by countless noble families grinding their teeth in resentment.
A man, a noble? To demonkind’s common sense, that was simply unthinkable.
And now this woman was saying she intended to give that title to me, a former male prostitute of all things.
“Duke... that’s a little too radical, isn’t it? A noble title for a man? The other nobles won’t sit still for that.”
“They won’t,” Rosena replied without the slightest concern, her tone as calm as if she were discussing tomorrow’s weather.
“There will be resistance. Even my own marquises will likely dislike it, and the other ducal houses will each have something to say. When the Demon King’s husband received his barony, the Grand Council fought for three months. If I were to grant one to you, perhaps even greater uproar would follow.”
“And you know that, but...”
“To give title and authority to one with ability—what could be more natural than that?”
Rosena looked straight at me. The wind lifted her long black hair, but her gaze did not waver.
“I am not looking at whether you are a woman or a man. I am looking only at the fact that you have ability, and that you are the sort of talent I need. That is enough.”
For an instant, I forgot how to breathe.
The words I had heard countless times since arriving in this world flashed through my mind.
A man has no right.How dare a male.That worthless boy.
Every instinct of this world had branded me a second-class citizen simply because I was a man.
Even Lilith, who had valued me, had valued me as a profitable asset—not as a person.
And yet this woman, this duke of the Demon Realm, was saying she judged talent before gender.
I had never met anyone in this insane, gender-reversed world who would say such a thing.
“You look surprised.”
“...Honestly? Yes. Very.”
“What is so surprising about it? I have merely made a rational judgment.”
Rational. In this world, the only person who would call giving a man a noble title rational was this woman.
I bit my lip and lowered my head.
To say I was moved felt too simple for the mess I was in, and to say I wasn’t would have been a lie; something in my chest had definitely grown warm.
“And there is a practical reason as well.”
Rosena’s voice deepened by a note.
“If you are to do the job properly, you will need a certain rank. Managing a male brothel isn’t as simple as changing the bed sheets, is it? You will have to allocate resources, control manpower, and at times even refuse the demands of nobles.”
“That’s true.”
“But if you were to perform that work without any title, what would happen? Not only the lower nobles, but even ordinary demons would refuse to listen to you. Merely because you are a man.”
Rosena stepped closer as she continued.
“To keep ordinary demons from laying a hand on you so casually, you need a noble title. A barony would be sufficient. If I add the label of my direct subordinate, then no one below the rank of count would dare touch you.”
She wasn’t wrong about any of it.
In this world, a man was little more than a lump of meat.
No matter that he was acting under a duke’s orders, if he went around with no paper to protect him, it wouldn’t have been strange for someone to drag him off the street.
A baron’s title was a shield. The surest shield I could have.
“Of course, I will bear the backlash myself.”
Rosena looked down the slope as she spoke with detached calm.
“The responsibility will all be mine anyway. Making you a baron, entrusting you with management—it will all be my decision. If the marquises complain, I will deal with them. If the other ducal houses pick a fight, I will stop them. All you need do is the work I give you.”
The wind died.
The tent flaps sagged, and the barracks area fell briefly silent. In that silence, the faint sounds of moaning still rode the breeze upward.
The voices of broken men. The laughter of men drugged to the bone. The sound of the cycle itself—tomorrow, new bodies would be brought in, and more people would be discarded.
I thought it over. Seriously. Truly seriously.
If I accepted this, I would no longer be the male prostitute of Dreaming Chalice.
The district manager position Lilith had promised would vanish too.
I would be tied to the duchy.
To Rosena’s overwhelming existence, directly beneath her hand.
If I succeeded, I’d gain an unprecedented title: baron. If I failed, I didn’t even want to imagine how I’d end up—as the man who had disgraced a duke’s honor.
But at the same time, the tents at my feet kept drawing my eye.
Inside them were men like me. Men who, if their luck had been a little worse, might have been lying there in my place.
Drugged and grinning, bones jutting through skin, creatures whose names would never even be called.
If I accepted, would anything change for them? No—could I make it change?
No matter how strong my individualistic streak was, I wasn’t so inhuman that I could ignore a sight like this.
A sigh escaped me. Deep, long, the sort that felt as if I were emptying my lungs all at once.
The problem came after that.
My emotions were leaning toward those tents, but my head was still working coldly.
A barony.
No matter how I looked at it, it was dangerous.
Even now, I was attracting enough attention simply by being the duke’s pick.
The look Isabel had given me in the conference room, as if she wanted to tear into me. The way Karen had flicked her tongue.
Even an idiot could tell those stares would not end with mere sexual curiosity.
And if a barony were added on top of that? There was no way the marquises would sit still.
Even if I had the shield of being the duke’s direct subordinate, that only worked while the duke stood beside me at all times.
When Rosena went out on campaign, or was tied up in diplomacy with another ducal house, I would be left alone in this den of wolves.
At that point, would a noble title be a shield—or a target?
And if I was honest, there was something even more fundamental than that.
It looked like I’d have to work far too much.
Hundreds of tents. Hundreds of male prostitutes. Resource allocation, manpower control, negotiation with nobles, hygiene management, drug problems.
If I added a barony on top of that, there would be reports, council meetings, and official documents to process as well. Taking charge of the duchy’s core business meant carrying that much labor with it.
Becoming the district manager of Dreaming Chalice was a much better deal.
I could go to work two or three times a week, stamp the ledgers, do only what Lilith told me to do, and spend the rest of my time loafing around.
Sure, I’d be under Lilith’s control, but at least I wouldn’t die of overwork.
I made my decision.
“Duke.”
“Speak.”
“I’ll have to decline the noble title.”
Rosena’s eyes trembled faintly.
It lasted only a moment, but I didn’t miss it. Her lips parted slightly, then pressed shut again.
“...May I ask why?”
“Too much attention isn’t really my thing.”
I answered honestly. Not completely honestly, of course, but honestly enough.
“I’m a man. You know what happens in this world when a man gets a noble title, don’t you? You said yourself that when the Demon King’s husband got his barony, the Grand Council fought for three months. If someone like me, a former male prostitute, were to receive a title, the uproar would be beyond comparison.”
“I said I would bear that burden.”
“Even if you could bear it, I couldn’t.”
Rosena fell silent. After a beat, I continued.
“Your marquises, your counts. I saw the way they looked at me in the conference room today. Right now they’re not touching me because I’m your pick, but if a noble title were added to that, the story would change. Jealousy and suspicion are more dangerous than lust.”
The wind rose again. The tent flaps fluttered, briefly exposing the darkness within.
Without taking my eyes off that scene, I went on.
“But I’ll stay here and try managing the male prostitutes.”
Rosena looked at me.
A flicker of something passed through her red eyes.
I couldn’t quite tell what it was, but it was definitely different from her usual haughty, curt expression. The beauty mark beneath her lip shifted ever so slightly. It was the motion of someone wanting to say something and swallowing it back down.
“So you mean to take only the management, without the title.”
“Yes. The label of your direct subordinate is enough. An official title would only make the work more complicated. I’m better suited to working quietly, without drawing attention. It gets better results too.”
Silence settled over us.
Rosena watched me for a while, wordless, then turned her gaze back down the slope.
Through the black strands of hair scattered by the wind, I could see her profile.
Expressionless. Yet somehow different from her usual expressionlessness. A subtle, almost impossible distinction I couldn’t quite put into words.
“...Very well.”
Rosena gave a slow nod.
“I respect your wishes. I’ll put the title matter on hold.”
On hold.
Not withdrawn—on hold. I quietly filed that choice of words away.
“In any case, thank you for taking this on.”
Thank you.
When that word came out of the duke’s mouth, I genuinely wondered if I’d heard wrong.
I couldn’t imagine her saying such a thing to anyone.
Noticing my stare, Rosena quickly looked away and adjusted the collar of her uniform.
“I will provide whatever resources you need. Manpower, supplies, budget—whatever you request, I will approve. I’ll also order the marquises to cooperate with you.”
“Thank you, Duke.”
I bowed politely. Rosena gave one more nod, then turned and began descending the slope.
I followed half a step behind her.
As we went down, the barracks district came back into view. Ragged tents, muddy ground, men laughing themselves senseless on drugs, soldiers lined up and waiting their turn.
Now that was my problem.
Another sigh escaped me. But this one was different from the last. It was a sigh made of resignation and resolve in roughly equal parts.
“Duke.”
“What is it?”
“May I ask one thing?”
“Speak.”
“Until when are you expecting this by?”
Rosena answered without slowing her steps.
“Until I’m satisfied.”
...Satisfied? Such a vague answer made me ask again.
“And what exactly counts as satisfied?”
“Literally until I am satisfied.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? If she never became satisfied, did that mean I’d have to work for the rest of my life...?