RTTFW CH 2.3

The voice calling me from outside the door made Ent rise with a confused expression. A servant? It must be a servant, right? No, a servant? Did the Harbilta family even have servants? The thoughts swirling in his head refused to settle.

‘I’m not ready yet!’

So, for nobles, he needed to start speaking to them informally… Damn it. Ent clutched his forehead. He had to quickly recall those long-forgotten old noble etiquette rules.

“… Come in.”

Get a grip. This wasn’t Korea, and he was no longer Park Jaeyoon. Damn it, he was Ent Harbilta, the second son of the infamous Harbilta family, the Counts of Harbilta.

The door opened, and a foreigner with an uncommonly handsome face, still unfamiliar to Ent’s eyes, entered.

‘Ah, no. Not a foreigner.’

Ent shook his head involuntarily. He clenched both fists tightly under the covers. Pull yourself together. This wasn’t just anywhere; this was the Harbilta estate.

“… You spoke after a week of silence.”
“Huh?”

‘Ah, mistake.’

Less than 30 seconds after vowing not to do anything stupid, Ent stupidly responded to the servant’s words without thinking. No, Ent had no choice. What week? It was true he had awakened in Ent’s body yesterday, but surely only a single day had passed?

‘… No.’

Ent had to remember. The message from Omb: ‘Park Jaeyoon is dead.’

“My Lord Ent, you don’t look well.” “Um, well… What was your name again?”

Ent felt his conscience prick sharply at the fact he was using informal speech to a servant who looked like he could be his older brother. And on top of that, he couldn’t even remember the name of his own servant.

‘… He seems about the same age as Jinyoon hyung.’

Meaning he looked like he could be a college student by Korean standards.

“Izel.”

Attendant Izel quietly watched Ent, who was repeating his name several times. He hadn’t expected this irritable man to remember his name in the first place. He was merely puzzled that Ent was looking at him straight on, without his usual expression of seeing some kind of monster.

‘There’s so much I want to ask.’

The fact that the formidable Harbilta family had assigned a personal attendant to Ent, someone as useless as him, was astonishing enough.

‘They could have just thrown a servant or two at me and been done with it.’

After all, Ent, utterly useless to the Harbilta family, was worth precisely that much.

Ent hesitated briefly, then decided to take a gamble. Besides his attendant, Izel, there was no one else he could ask about the things he was curious about.

“…You said a week has passed?”
“Yes.”
“Why did I sleep for a whole week?”

He knew, as the son of a noble count, he shouldn’t speak while watching his servant’s reactions. But putting that knowledge into practice was too difficult.

Ent slowly raised his head, which he’d been keeping lowered to avoid Izel’s gaze. His posture was timid, as if he were trying to read subtle cues. Seeing Izel’s silent, unresponsive face, Ent couldn’t hide his panic.

He flung his hands up and began to explain.

Look at that icy face. It was a gaze that wouldn’t look out of place if a fork were thrust at his throat at any moment, accusing him of suspicion.

“Well, when I woke up, somehow my memories were a bit jumbled. So…”
“… Sigh.”

Izel let out a short sigh. Ent broke out in a cold sweat at the expression on his face, as if it said, “You’re really something.” He picked up a tray from the cart he’d brought and approached Ent. It held an unidentifiable medicine and a thin soup that looked far from appetizing.

“Lord Ent, you personally took the poison with your own hands.”
“… Poison?”
“Yes. We cannot fathom the reason either.”
“… Ah. So that’s how it was.”

Ent managed a faint reply in a shaky voice. Pretending to know something he didn’t was harder than he’d imagined.

‘Park Jaeyoon took poison…?’

《Park Jaeyoon is dead.》

A single sentence flashed through Ent’s mind, causing him to bow his head deeply once more. Only then did he grasp the meaning of what Omb had told him through that book. Park Jaeyoon, who had become Ent Harbilta, had drunk the poison himself.

‘Why on earth?’

Ent couldn’t understand. This body was far too young for the hero, Fade, who would save the world, to come looking for him. And how could he possibly know about events from a future that hadn’t even arrived yet? There was absolutely no reason for Park Jaeyoon to commit suicide.

“Why…”
“Yes?”
“Ah, no.”

His mind was somewhat chaotic. All sorts of thoughts raged violently.

‘Wait a moment.’

Ent recalled the role of Ent Harbilta’s death within that book. If, by some chance, the person destined to die in the future had already drunk the poison and died first. And if they had placed another soul into that body to restore it to its original state…

‘… Since Ent Harbilta, who was Park Jaeyoon, died earlier than the book’s content, doesn’t that mean they’re telling me to restore the original state and sacrifice myself instead?’

Izel took a step closer to Ent, whose complexion had turned not just pale but deathly green, wondering what on earth he was thinking. Of course, Ent was in no state to care about that.

If his thoughts were correct, this situation could only be described as truly shitty. He didn’t know why Park Jaeyoon had committed suicide. But if that book was indeed this world’s future, and if Omb had summoned him back to this world to sacrifice himself exactly as the book described for the world’s salvation…

“Lord Ent.”
“Uh, uh.”

Ent snapped his head up at the firm palm resting on his shoulder. Izel was watching him with eyes filled with both worry and suspicion. Ent shook his head as if to say it was nothing.

Izel let out a short sigh at Ent’s somewhat dazed expression. He was a young master whose inner thoughts were impossible to fathom from start to finish.

“… You must eat and take your medicine. After lying down for a week, your strength must be low, so please don’t move.”
“Mm.”

Ent stared silently at the thin soup Izel held out. For some reason, he felt reluctant to eat it. Perhaps it looked unappetizing, as if it had been heavily diluted with water.

Watching Ent stare blankly at the spoon holding the soup, Izel spoke firmly, “Even if you don’t want to eat it, you must take your medicine, so you absolutely must finish the soup.”

“Ah… Alright.”

At Izelle’s words, Ent slowly began to spoon the soup. No, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to eat it. In fact, Ent had been starving since yesterday. He actually preferred greasy meat dripping with fat over this watery soup.

‘…But why does my stomach feel so queasy?’

The thin soup wasn’t even that bad, but the more he ate, the more his stomach churned. Was it because it had been a whole week since anything had gone into this body? Still, Ent forced himself to swallow the soup, fearing that leaving any food might get him killed by the servant standing right there – a servant who clearly hid immense skill beneath his calm exterior.

“… You’re eating well.”
“Uh. Yeah.”

He wasn’t a child; what couldn’t he eat? Ent, oblivious to Izel staring at him with a peculiar look, buried his face in the plate and diligently chewed and swallowed the watery soup.

The attendant Izel, whom Ent had observed for several days, was even less suited to be his personal attendant than he had expected.

“Um, Izel.”
“Yes.”

Seeing Izel standing tall beside him as if he were some kind of bodyguard, Ent was about to tell him to sit down. But when their eyes met, he flinched unnecessarily and shook his head.

“It’s nothing.”

Swift movements, mechanical precision, yet meticulous and attentive care. He was truly exceptional, making one think, ‘Indeed, as expected of a Harbilta family attendant.’

Ent, who had initially been embarrassed by Izel’s assistance with his clothes, was now comfortably accustomed to it. Each action – dressing him or tying his tie – was so swift and meticulous that he simply couldn’t help but grow accustomed to his service.

‘… No matter how I think about it, he’s not the sort of attendant who should be assigned to me.’

And his looks were top-tier, weren’t they? Ent hadn’t met anyone else in this world besides himself and Izel, so he didn’t know what others looked like, but based on his own aesthetic sense from his life as Jaeyoon, someone like Izel was no ordinary person.

‘Maybe Izel is the real fantasy novel protagonist.’

Ent quietly nodded. A suitable title would be something like ‘I Became the Ultimate Servant of a Villainous Family.’

“… Lord Ent?”
“Huh? Ah, no.”

Ent, who had laughed without realizing it, composed his expression upon seeing Izel looking at him as if he were utterly strange.

Having reopened his eyes in Ent Harbilta’s body, he hadn’t taken a single step outside his room since. There was no need to go out – everything from bathroom visits to meals was handled within his quarters.

‘For starters, I don’t want to meet anyone else.’

He didn’t want to wander around and run into servants he didn’t even know. What if he encountered his brother, Bernil, or his father, Count Evant? He didn’t particularly want to imagine that.

During this time, Ent secluded himself in his room and read every single book in the large bookcase. Originally, it was to learn the sensations and knowledge of his own body.

Of course, Ent’s own efforts had limits in gathering information about himself. He couldn’t possibly find out his exact age or how his household functioned just from books on a shelf. So the method Ent chose was a head-on approach.

‘After all, I have my own personal servant, Izel.’