Free Web NovelChapter 38: Chapter 38
"What the hell? Did the item not work?"
Startled, I turned the Good-Looking over in my hands.
The single-use item rusted blue before my eyes, its purpose spent.
Rusted Bronze Mirror: A hand mirror that has rusted over. Its surface needs to be polished.
Seeing the item description change, it had definitely been used.
’Did it break or something?’
My plan had gone sideways, but I could still get the True Ending without the Good-Looking.
’It’ll take way longer than I expected, though...’
I’d just have to move as efficiently as possible.
I put the Good-Looking away and looked around.
The cleaners who’d been dragged to the mansion were slowly starting to accept reality.
They’d realized that resisting meant getting a ray gun hole through their body, so they stayed quiet, only rolling their eyes.
The cat butler waved his hand.
A roulette appeared before the cleaners’ eyes.
"A bunch of rags wearing rags. At least show some basic decency! I’ll only let those with fundamentals into the mansion."
Before entering the mansion, you had to spin the roulette three times.
In order: clothing, cleaning tools, and weapons.
The colored slots were divided into different sizes — the worse the item, the wider its slot.
For the clothing roulette, the Clean3 standard uniform — a tattered jumpsuit — sleepwear, and a large black garbage bag took up most of the space.
For the cleaning tool roulette, a straw, a lollipop, and an old feather pen formed the Three Kingdoms era.
But the weapon roulette was the real joke.
A bath duck, a puppy-shaped balloon, and a water gun took up two-thirds of it.
Decent weapon items barely had any space at all, and the best weapon — the ray gun — was just a hairline crack.
Even if you could get something usable from the clothing and cleaning tool roulettes, pulling something good from the weapon roulette was tough.
After checking my surroundings, I approached Mo Haein, who was closest.
"Captain Mo."
I called out in a whisper. She’d been frowning deeply at the roulette, but turned to me and whispered back.
"Trainee. Are you good at spinning the roulette?"
"I can get the items I want."
"...That’s possible?"
I gave her a small nod, her expression skeptical, then spun my own roulette first to show her.
A cheerful jingle played as the roulette whirred.
The first spin was for clothing.
All kinds of clothes flashed by as the wheel spun, leaving rainbow-colored afterimages.
I pressed the stop button not long after.
The roulette slowed. The clustered colors separated, and the slots began to appear.
Tick, tick, tick...
The needle crossed slot after slot.
Finally, the roulette came to a complete stop.
It was a slot so thin it wasn’t even a tenth the size of the others.
Suit
Mo Haein stared at me, startled.
In front of her incredulous face, I spun the cleaning tool and weapon roulettes in order.
Wide-Area Scan Vacuum
Ray Gun
The roulette stopped exactly on the items I wanted.
Honestly, with a bit of visual acuity and reaction speed, it wasn’t that hard.
The roulette wasn’t incredibly fast, and each item was marked with a different color.
Plus, the time it took for the wheel to stop after pressing the button was always the same.
All you had to do was memorize which color matched which item and figure out the pattern of how many seconds it took to fully stop.
I explained the method to Mo Haein. She listened quietly, then muttered.
"I’ll just wear the maid outfit..."
Turns out she’d already tried something similar.
She hadn’t known about the stopping time like I did, but she’d tried to match the colors.
Problem was, hitting a slot smaller than the maid outfit was hard. ƒreewebɳovel.com
"Want me to try spinning yours?"
Just to see, I tried spinning Mo Haein’s roulette.
I thought it wouldn’t work, but somehow, the roulette whirred.
The stop button even pressed down.
Both of us stared at the roulette with the same expression: why does this work?
Anyway, I spun Mo Haein’s roulette three times.
Thanks to that, she ended up in a clean suit with the latest cleaning tools and weapons, her expression noticeably brighter.
"Where’s Captain Kwak? Did he already spin?"
We looked around for Kwak Hanmuk together, but he came sauntering over to us first.
He was already fully equipped with clothes and weapons.
’A shirt and pants set, a high-end broom, and a ray sword?’
They weren’t as good as the items I’d pulled for Mo Haein, but they were still excellent.
More than enough to clear without any issues.
Mo Haein looked at Kwak Hanmuk with surprise and asked.
"Did you spin the roulette?"
"No."
Kwak Hanmuk raised an eyebrow and said matter-of-factly.
"I took it from someone else."
"..."
Apparently, when a fight broke out over items, he’d jumped right in and won.
As long as you got the items, it didn’t matter how. Good that it worked out.
But something caught my eye.
’The Bead Rosary...?’
Kwak Hanmuk had the Zelkova wood Bead Rosary wrapped around his wrist.
There shouldn’t have been any reason to take it out this early. Strange.
Come to think of it, he’d had it on his wrist from the start when we entered DeZonDeal too.
It was a bit odd, but I figured the Captain had taken it out because he needed it.
Finally, I looked for Je Hyun-oh.
"You!"
The cat butler shouted.
I snapped my head around — he was pointing at Je Hyun-oh.
Je Hyun-oh hadn’t spun the roulette yet, it seemed; his clothes were unchanged.
"Do you have a cleaning tool?"
He hadn’t even spun the clothing roulette, so of course he wouldn’t have a cleaning tool.
But Je Hyun-oh shamelessly raised his metal hand.
A tool about as far from cleaning as you could get.
’Is he about to get a hole in his forehead?’
I watched the scene with a bit of concern.
"Good. Perfect."
’Wait, what.’
The cat butler clapped his hands.
"You may enter the mansion. Go and receive your assignment."
I felt a deep sense of betrayal at the cat butler’s words.
’Anyone can see he doesn’t fit the mansion!’
A cleaner in techwear with a metal hand, cleaning a stately old mansion. Ridiculous.
’And how the hell do you clean with a metal hand in the first place?!’
The butlers must have no eyes, because they clearly couldn’t see properly.
But whether I was baffled or not, Je Hyun-oh — passed by the cat butler — slipped into the mansion alone.
I never knew the exception due to BT-Z virus infection would apply to something like this.
Cursing the eyeless butlers under my breath, I watched Je Hyun-oh’s back — and then narrowed my eyes.
’But Lieutenant Colonel... there’s something about you that feels similar to the butlers...’
The cat butler’s and rabbit butler’s metal heads felt similar to the metal that made up Je Hyun-oh.
I’d need to see it closer to be sure, but the material felt so alike you could call it the same metal.
I took just a few steps closer to get a better look at the butlers.
And then — my eyes met the rabbit butler’s.
Well, they don’t have eyes, so that’s not quite the right expression, but it felt like that.
I quickly put on a smile.
The most important thing in Clean3 wasn’t the roulette draw, the cleaning, or even catching creatures.
It was getting on the butlers’ good side.
Offend them, and it was a straight shot to the ray gun hole ending.
I smiled at the rabbit butler with a cultured expression, signaling that I’d already fully adapted to this mansion.
I figured that would be enough to pass.
"...!"
The moment I felt his gaze linger longer than expected, the rabbit butler charged toward me at full speed.
A 2.5-meter living creature barreling through the cleaners blocking his path, slamming into them — my skin crawled.
Thoughts raced through my head.
’Should I run?’
But then I’d have to give up on the True Ending.
’I’ve never done anything to upset the butlers.’
I’d played Clean3 plenty of times. That much I was sure of.
I was wearing the best clothing item — the suit — and hadn’t caused any major disturbance.
’They definitely won’t kill me.’
If I was wrong, I’d end up with a hole in my head, but I was certain.
I pushed down my immediate fear and gambled on holding my ground.
Then the rabbit butler’s mouth stretched into a wide grin.
"Roasted Chestnut!"
He shouted joyfully, grabbed me, and lifted me up in one motion.
My view suddenly shot upward.
The rabbit butler held me up and turned to the cat butler, calling out.
"Look at this! It’s Roasted Chestnut!"
"No way!"
The cat butler immediately strode over in quick steps.
He checked my face and let out an exclamation.
"Well, well. If it isn’t Roasted Chestnut!"
The cat butler, who’d been carrying himself with dignity until now, started rambling in a rather excited and chatty tone.
"Have you been well? I was worried when there was no word from you. I missed you too. You could have at least sent a message! But a sudden visit makes the reunion all the more joyful and delightful, I suppose. Haha, Roasted Chestnut, if you planned this, I must say you’re quite clever."
Then he grabbed my limp hand and shook it politely, asking.
"You’ve come to become the mansion’s butler this time, haven’t you?"
"..."
I couldn’t answer.
My mind felt frozen solid.
The rabbit butler and cat butler stared at me, unresponsive.
The rabbit butler turned to the cat butler and said.
"Work talk the moment we meet. The worst."
"Ah... My apologies, Roasted Chestnut. I got ahead of myself."
The cat butler offered an elegant apology and led me along.
"Let me make it up to you. Instead of this, let’s go inside and talk. For today, I’ll leave the cleaner selection to the underlings."
The cat butler looked toward the mansion and called out.
"Alpha!"
Sparks crackled in the air, and a man with a metal human head appeared.
Like the butlers, he had no eyes — only a mouth full of sharp teeth. He was the mansion’s footman.
"You called, Head Butler?"
"Take over here. I must entertain an old friend who’s come to visit after a long time."
Having handed the work off to the footman, the cat butler headed toward the mansion alongside the rabbit butler, who was still holding me.
I slowly turned my gaze.
Kwak Hanmuk and Mo Haein were staring at me in shock.
Looking at their pale faces, I realized something belatedly.
From the moment I’d entered the Trial until now — not a single system window had appeared.
No Clean3 entry notification. No Main Quest notification.
Nothing except the system window I’d called up to read the item description.
It was like I’d stepped into a game where all the endings had already been cleared...
’But this isn’t a game.’
I tried to steady my increasingly ragged breathing.
’This is reality.’
Not a dot-graphic world inside a computer — this was the real world I lived in.
’Then why.’
My heart kept pounding wildly at the incomprehensible situation.
"Roasted Chestnut?"
The rabbit butler called my name, sensing something was off.
Nothing would be stupider than showing my fear and anxiety here.
I forced a smile.
And squeezed my voice out.
"It’s been a while, Head Butler, Vice Head Butler."
The creatures, who didn’t understand human emotions well, were delighted even by my terribly shaky voice.
"That’s right. It’s been a while. Let’s prepare a feast for Roasted Chestnut tonight."
"A feast. An excellent idea."
"Roasted Chestnut. What do you want to eat? I recommend lamb rib steak."
"You enjoyed the lamb rib steak before, didn’t you! Ah, and Roasted Chestnut, the mansion has become quite decent while you were away. We’ve hired a good chef and several footmen."
The rabbit butler and cat butler chattered on excitedly, telling me all sorts of things.
I kept my stiff smile plastered on as I looked up at the mansion.
It was a colossal estate, the perfect size for beings standing about three meters tall.
Even though I’d been in and out of this place countless times in the game, the mansion filling my view felt endlessly foreign.
The rabbit butler and cat butler grinned in unison, their mouths stretching wide.
"There’s so much I want to talk about."
"I feel the same! Let’s enjoy our reunion all through the night."
I was dragged into the grand mansion by the butlers.
