[Welcome, Player Xian]
[Integrating the player into the System]
[Welcome to Rozenfall: Romance and Ruin]
[Xian, Level 14 Trainee]
[Montagne Specialized Butler, Conqueror, Dedicated One, (Transmigrator), (Regressor), Shackled One (Sealed Traits Locked: ??? Lvl 16, ??? Lvl 23, ??? Lvl 28)]
[HP: 330/330]
[MP: 108/108]
[AP: 193/193]
[Strength: 23]
[Agility: 24]
[Stamina: 22]
[Endurance: 22]
[Mana: 18]
[Luck: 0]
[Passive Traits]
[Strong Blood: Traits pass on more easily to kin or descendants.]
[Conqueror's Eyes: Allows affection-level tracking.]
[Magic: Circle 4 Potential]
[Bonus Points: 42]
'It's finally here!'
A sinister grin slowly crept across Xian's face, and his eyes curled into crescents.
To anyone watching, he might have looked insane, grinning down at a bloody corpse. But he only felt triumph. Such was the result of a plan made easy by regression.
In the game, the character stat sheet only became available when the player leveled up for the first time. The same applied to other functions, which unlocked one by one through player experience.
The level-up function and character sheet were unlocked by completing the [Basic Assessment and Training] event and achieving the [First Mob Kill].
In his case, the head butler had fulfilled the role of both training and assessment, while the trigger for leveling up was obviously the dead man before him.
Players started at Level 1 by default, while NPCs were already anywhere between Level 20 and 40 by the time the story kicked off. But players had the advantage of faster growth rates, freedom in stat allocation, and pre-assigned titles.
'Level 14 from an extremely strong character like this? Heh, still the same.'
He knelt beside the fallen assassin, analyzing his level. This man had to be around Level 50, a monster by early-game standards. Morisson, the head butler, sat somewhere in the 90s.
And in this world, those level gaps were not just numbers; they were leagues apart.
Still, he had not done most of the damage. The XP gained from a strong opponent was reduced to an abysmal amount when the player contributed so little, preventing such exploits from becoming too overpowered. Even if the System was being generous, he had probably received only around ten percent of what he would have gained from defeating the man himself.
The rest had either vanished into the void or been claimed by Morisson. A waste, but it was a loss he could accept.
Xian's gaze hovered over his character sheet. His stat points were waiting to be distributed just like a player's, but that could wait. Something else had caught his attention.
Beneath those lines was another message.
[The System was made to retain most of its core functions. However, Save & Load has been disabled due to its nature as a burdensome power upon the world. This interface exists only to guide your path, O Dedicated One. We will be watching.]
'Still watching, huh?'
Xian's grin faded in displeasure, but he did not care. What would those potentially omnipotent beings even want from him? He would move as he wished so long as they did not tell him to stop.
"My, our little butler seems to be really enjoying himself."
Carmillia's sweet voice flowed like honey laced with venom. At some point, she had silently come to his side with a syrupy smile, her eyes curling upward as though delighted.
Still as mesmerizing as ever.
But Xian had long since burned every expression from her game sprites into his memory, and the smile she wore now was not one that promised anything good.
'I've caught her interest, but for completely the wrong reasons.'
A new butler like him had somehow discovered a threat among their ranks that even Moris could not easily detect. Most lords would reward him, but Carmillia would do so with suspicion. That was the kind of lady she was.
"Apologies," he said smoothly with a slight bow. "I am simply pleased to have fulfilled my duty in protecting my lady."
"This servant asks your forgiveness." He bowed once more toward the villainess. "For the disturbance I've caused."
Carmillia continued approaching until her unblemished boots stopped an inch from the pooling blood. She leaned closer, her perfume brushing against his senses like soft silk wrapped around a blade. Her hair grazed his shoulder, leaving a tingling sensation where it touched.
"I don't mind. If you truly know whom you serve, then surely you know I've seen pools, if not fountains, of messes I have caused myself."
"I'll be waiting for you in my garden tonight," she whispered, her breath tickling his ear. "After the head butler is done with you."
Xian kept his stern expression. Carmillia's antics were fueled by the reactions she saw, so he took special care to hide his feelings from then on.
In the first place, he did not like being suspected this way, but since he was weak, gritting his teeth was all he could do. Any other butler would probably have smiled from ear to ear, proud of his accomplishment. But not Xian, who knew how Carmillia's mind worked.
As she straightened, so did he. Her gaze lingered on his face, and she had to look up.
Xian found Carmillia staring up at him, her chin slightly raised as a faint crease formed between her brows. Now that they stood so close, she seemed to notice his height. He was at least a head and a half taller than her, nearly as tall as some of the barbarians she had seen. Unlike those muscle-bound giants, however, Xian's build was lean yet solid.
From where he stood, Xian inevitably had to look down at her, an innocent mistake on his part.
Something about the combination of his face and sharp gaze irritated Carmillia. At that moment, she developed a faint dislike of tall men.
She turned without a word and walked off, her two swordmaidens trailing behind.
Xian watched as the villainess left with the two swordmaidens. He caught the katana wielder's gaze lingering on him for a moment before she turned to follow. She was not the one who had beheaded him. It had been the other one, the longsword user.
He knew them both from the game as Carmillia's living shields.
Early in the game, they served as powerful mini-bosses, strong enough to crush his team and the protagonist through their combination.
The katana user often went down quicker, being a classic glass cannon. Meanwhile, the longsword user was worse, countering and killing his team through a crushingly one-sided battle of attrition.
Players called the two of them Carmillia's anchors. Of all the characters in the game, they were the only ones who willingly suffered for her and were never once targets of Carmillia's cruelty or schemes.
Even she had people whom she trusted completely by her side.
Either way, the two of them never really had a role in the game apart from being the villainess's protectors. At some point in the late game, they would completely disappear, and Carmillia would be transformed anew, fully realizing her potential.
The lack of information about them was also due to the fact that players simply did not have the option to talk to them.
'Though I'm an exception.'
The world of the game was as real as it could get for Xian.
"Xian." The head butler called his name in a stern voice.
"Do you have anything to say?" He questioned Xian bluntly, making no effort to hide his suspicions.
Morisson acknowledged his contribution, but how Xian had known about the assailant remained unclear. Xian had only arrived at the estate a week ago. Neither had he shown any apparent skill that would explain how he had detected the man.
"Yes," Xian said simply, calm and prepared.
Xian had not blindly schemed just for XP. Of course, he had also prepared an explanation for how he knew about the assailant.
Back then, Xian had deliberately guided the head butler's attention toward the coachman. To anyone observant, especially those accustomed to the layered affairs of noble society, it was clear why he had done so: he had already suspected the coachman.
Among people who schemed for a living, subtle cues like that spoke louder than words.
"There's likely still a mole in the estate, someone must've done something to the original coachman."
Morisson's eyes narrowed, but there was not a hint of hostility.
"…I see. Then you may leave." He stepped past Xian with a slow nod.
"The lady wishes to deal with you herself. Do not attempt to flee… I'll be remaining outside tonight for work."
The first was a warning not to flee. The second was a subtle favor, informing Xian that if he tried to escape Carmillia and encountered Morisson outside, their next meeting would likely be his last.
Morisson, while somewhat aligned with the antagonistic side of the game, leaned more toward the morally gray type of character. He returned favors and grudges accordingly as a matter of principle. He also accepted the consequences of his actions to the best of his ability and did not shy away from committing evil acts when he deemed them necessary.
And he had survived until now because no one with a grudge against him had been able to kill him.
"I will keep that in mind," Xian replied, watching him walk away.
That left only one matter: talking to Carmillia.
He had not needed to justify himself to Morisson. Loyalty was better proven through actions than words.
Carmillia, however, would not be as simple.
Xian returned to his quarters, avoiding unnecessary attention lest anyone see him staring at empty air. It was time to review the System and the few anomalies that had caught his eye.
'This body really does lean toward the physical side. Also, what's with my 0 Luck?'
"Zero?…"
In the game, Luck was an extremely vital stat for the player. Its value was fixed somewhere between below average and excellent, but no one had ever appeared with truly exceptional Luck.
One of its effects was especially important: Luck acted as a multiplier for the total bonus a player received when leveling up.
In his case, this meant he would not receive any bonus at all. Since the average Luck was 5 for a normal person and 3 for a mob NPC, he would be losing out on almost thirty percent compared to them.
"Fuck."
'Why is it like this? Is this a penalty for being a regressor on top of having a System?'
Well, it did not matter much to someone like him, who knew about plenty of stat-boosting opportunities in the game.
He also found that his class was set to Trainee, as he would only receive his actual class once the safe period of the tutorial ended.
'The protagonist must be having an easy time right now, if he even exists…'
There were also the titles attached beneath his name, which could be considered clues. [Montagne Specialized Butler] heavily hinted at what his role was supposed to be. He made a note to investigate the body's background and circumstances before his transmigration at some point in the future.
'As expected, I should've originally been a strong character.'
Some titles did not grant stats but had special uses when equipped or could be used for reputation-related tasks. This title was likely meant to help him avoid suspicion within the estate while also drawing the attention of those watching from the shadows, like the coachman.
Other entries, such as [Regressor] and [Transmigrator], were self-explanatory, while [Conqueror's Eyes], which functioned as the player's affection guide, was already familiar to him. But [Shackled One (Sealed Traits Locked)] was not.
He willed its description to appear and was pleasantly surprised when it did.
[A new inhabitant has occupied the body. To allow for adjustment and prevent self-injury, some traits are locked until the new host has caught up to the original's strength. Unlocked at Level 16, Level 23, and Level 28. Contains ???, ???, ???.]
'Are they self-harming traits?'
He had thought traits should fall under the category of Blood Rating, but it turned out they could also be sealed by a title. He knew of a few self-harming traits and debuffs that existed in the game.
That yin-cold-and-poison-something constitution, which was so overused, also existed as an overpowered trait. Once cured, it would give the character a huge jump in combat power and potential.
'But what's with Strong Blood?'
[Strong Blood: Makes traits more likely to be inherited by children and descendants.]
What was he going to use that for if he was going to regress anyway? Xian could not really imagine having a family or a child as someone with the power of regression.
He could not even imagine growing old and dying in this world, so Xian decided to forgo the existential topic and focus on his specs.
Looking over the rest of his stats, he felt unfortunate that he was not a magic-oriented build, but at least he had a great physical build instead.
For now, he left the 42 bonus points from leveling up unused, since he could use them as a trump card in dire situations. After that, he spent the rest of the day steadying his mind and simulating conversations in advance.
Later that night, the estate fell into its eerie quiet. Xian stood before Carmillia once again, with the swordmaidens by her side and their dark armor gleaming under the moonlight.
"You're here."
She wore the same smile and pleased expression as before, a facade she maintained to mask all her emotions.
[Conversation Event!]
[Answer the Villainess Carefully]
This time, a conversation prompt appeared from the System.