Chapter 57
Reinke, a land lacking in everything. What kind of entertainment could be enjoyed in such a place?
In an environment with nothing to play with, nothing to read, and never knowing when one might have to rush out to fight monsters, the only amusement allowed to the people of Reinke was to become overly invested in rumors and experience joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure through them.
As this was their only source of enjoyment, the people of Reinke were generally very serious about gossip…
Reinke was an isolated neighborhood with no external interactions except for the comings and goings of monsters. The rumors they could enjoy were always bound to be the same old things.
In fact, Reinke’s gossip circle was a tedious place where only a few structurally identical rumors took turns occupying the center of attention, with only the names of the individuals changing.
But this spring, a storm hit Reinke’s gossip circle.
Ruan, who had already been the center of attention after recovering from a long period of unconsciousness but losing all his memories, caused a major scandal.
Ruan Daen started a romance with none other than the fearsome Grand Duke.
Ruan instantly rose to stardom and maintained that position for a long time, taking responsibility for the dopamine secretion of the Reinke people who had been spending their days in boredom. The people of Reinke, who had only heard dull rumors before, couldn’t come to their senses with the stimulating new rumors they heard every day.
However, no matter how interesting a topic is, it tends to fade after about half a year of discussion.
The heat surrounding Ruan’s scandal, which seemed like it would never cool down, had finally begun to subside.
But even as the excitement over one topic diminished, there was something that showed no signs of decreasing: the passion of the Reinke people for gossip. Once they had tasted such tremendous dopamine, the people of Reinke could no longer return to their previous mundane days.
Those craving new gossip pinned their hopes on the new characters that had appeared on the stage of Reinke, namely the dwarves. They even thought more interesting stories might emerge since they were a different race, not humans.
But reality was different from their expectations.
The dwarves were certainly excellent producers in terms of their work. However, they couldn’t be outstanding producers in all fields. In the field of rumors that the people of Reinke were interested in, the dwarves were closer to consumers and interpreters rather than producers.
With the expected new characters not creating interesting stories but instead eagerly picking up on already outdated topics, Reinke’s gossip circle was becoming more and more depressed as days went by.
Then one day, as the people of Reinke were becoming no different from zombies searching for dopamine…
A passing knight witnessed an incredible scene.
None other than.
The scene of Ruan Daen, the Grand Duke’s lover, sitting closely with the outsider Ralph Steiner, engaging in skinship and chatting intimately.
In other words… as if having an affair behind the Grand Duke’s back.
The knight who witnessed this scene, who was skilled like his mother, the captain of the knights, but quite timid, was greatly shocked. After agonizing over what on earth this could mean, the knight finally sought advice from fellow knights, unable to resolve the situation alone…
And so, a wildly stimulating rumor involving Reinke’s gossip star Ruan and entangling a new face rarely seen in Reinke began to spread.
This was the background of the “Ruan’s affair rumor” that Ruan understood through the story Julia had told him.
‘Oh…’
Ruan looked up at the sky once, let out a deep sigh, and then looked around.
Only then did he feel the intense gazes that he hadn’t noticed earlier due to worrying about the weakened cat. It was a gaze he had forgotten about as interest in him had waned for a while.
So the reason everyone was looking like that…
‘An affair…? Me? I’m two-timing the Grand Duke and Ralph?’
It was a ridiculous story just from the combination of words. But what was even more ridiculous was that Ruan could understand why such a rumor had started.
Ruan pressed his brow firmly as he recalled the events of the previous night with the large dog disguised as a guild master.
He had shared a late-night snack with a passing dog, the happy dog had immediately stuck close and sat down, and in the process, even rested its chin on Ruan.
So Ruan had vigorously petted the dog.
These were all normal occurrences when meeting a friendly dog.
‘But the problem is… that dog looked like a young and capable guild master.’
Ruan replayed the previous night’s events, removing the large dog filter and putting on a human filter.
Not a person and a dog, but two perfectly normal adult men…
‘Hmm.’
Ruan unconsciously clutched his head.
It really did look like something that could generate such rumors.
‘Why am I only realizing this now?’
Ruan could easily recall the answer.
It was because of the Grand Duke.
He had become accustomed to the Grand Duke’s skinship, whether in cat or human form, and had become desensitized to how it might objectively appear.
‘Surely, I wasn’t like this even up until the Grand Duke headbutted in front of Joachim.’
As he learned about the Grand Duke’s true identity, grew closer to the Grand Duke, and the Grand Duke’s skinship increased. To the point where he would automatically offer his body when the Grand Duke wanted to smell him…
He had become unable to feel any discomfort with a beast-person engaging in animal-like skinship in human form.
Moreover, at the time, Ruan was slightly overwhelmed by Ralph’s intense brightness and overflowing energy when he appeared in dog form.
In the midst of this, since Ralph’s human appearance itself strangely reminiscent of a large dog… After feeling awkward for just a moment at first, he soon treated him the same as the large dog that had been wagging its tail and bouncing around just before.
Not realizing how jarring such a scene might look to others.
‘These beast-people have messed up my senses.’
As Ruan’s expression became increasingly strange, Julia continued with a worried face.
“Of course, everyone knows what kind of lover you are, and how much you adore His Grace. So they don’t think you’ve betrayed His Grace, but… That’s why they’re even more puzzled about what happened. This happened last night, so the rumor hasn’t spread much yet, but I came as soon as my shift ended because I thought you should know before it spreads further.”
Ruan understood as well.
The people of Reinke were generally not the type to maliciously slander others or deliberately corner and harass people.
They were just… overly meddlesome, a bit foolish, and slightly imprudent. That’s why Ruan didn’t dislike them even though he knew about the strange rumors surrounding him.
The only problem was that they always came up with bizarre storytelling that Ruan could never have imagined.
Thinking about how widely this “Ruan’s affair rumor” might be spreading with its rich repertoire, Ruan pressed his brow firmly with a stunned heart.
He had to stop this strange rumor from branching out further, if only for Ralph’s sake.
After living for half a year as the center of rumors in a neighborhood obsessed with gossip, Ruan now knew how to handle rumors.
He couldn’t prevent rumors from spreading. But he could control what kind of rumors would spread before they all spread. This was possible because there were no malicious people stirring up public opinion in the neighborhood.
‘It’s fortunate that Julia told me before the rumor spread far and wide.’
Thanks to this, it was still at a timing where he could switch the rumor from “I heard Ruan Daen is having an affair with the guild master” to “I heard there was such a ridiculous misunderstanding.”
‘First…’
He should start by firmly denying the affair.
Ruan looked straight at Julia and said,
“Mother, I have not committed an affair.”
This was perfectly true, as the Grand Duke and Ruan were originally in a cat and caretaker relationship, so the word affair didn’t apply.
Seeing Ruan’s face full of sincerity, Julia nodded and said,
“I thought as much, knowing you.”
To this, Ruan said in a serious voice,
“But even if there was no such intention, it seems true that I didn’t think deeply about contact with someone who isn’t my lover. So I will act more carefully from now on.”
After all, the start of all this was that Ruan had been too thoughtless about skinship with beast-people.
To Ruan, they felt like balls of fur, but to others, they were clearly adult men. If they continued like this, rumors were bound to keep arising.
At first, he couldn’t think of how to handle this because he was under the misconception that the Grand Duke had become a cat because of him, and after that, he had become so accustomed to it that he didn’t really recognize how it might look…
But now that the shocking word ‘affair’ had come up.
‘From now on, I need to be a bit more careful in front of people, maintaining an objective perspective.’
Of course, Ruan had no ability to reject skinship if a cat or dog approached him for it. But with effort, he should be able to naturally avoid such situations from developing.
‘If the cat and dog don’t care, at least the human should care about others’ gazes.’
Having made a firm resolution, Ruan parted ways with Julia and began to walk.
He needed to quickly work on containing this strange rumor before it spread further.
