The change in Lord Hellsworth was not merely an weirdness; it was terrifying. His presence hit like a storm: the strong smell of cheap booze, wild outbursts, and foul language.
In the cramped servants' dining hall, where the air was thick with the smell of thin stew, the staff exchanged words with barely moving lips.
"Did you see his boots?" the old cook asked, nervously wringing the edge of her apron. "They are polished so brightly you can see your own reflection in them. Yesterday, he froze by the pantry and spent exactly three minutes staring silently at the flour sacks. I was already bracing for a blow, but he... he just stepped forward and adjusted one sack so it sat perfectly flush with the others. Then he simply left."
"It's as if some demon has possessed his body," the stablehand whispered, crossing himself.
The servants exchanged anxious glances. The aura emanating from the Lord frightened them far more than his former roaring.
The breaking point occurred in the Great Gallery. Martha, a young maid, was dusting a family vase from the late Imperial era. Her palms were slick with tension. The slippery porcelain slid right through her fingers.
The sound of shattering porcelain echoed through the corridor. Shards scattered across the marble, glinting in the midday sun. Martha froze, feeling the blood drain from her face. At the end of the hall, Victor appeared.
The girl collapsed to her knees right into the middle of the debris.
"My Lord! Have mercy! I will work it off, I promise!"
Everyone went still. Surely, he would kick her with his boot or grab her by the hair. Victor came to a halt above her. He remained silent for a long time, staring at the chaos at his feet, before uttering a single word:
"Stand."
Martha only pressed herself harder into the floor. Victor did not respond. Instead, he slowly lowered himself into a crouch. His fingers reached for the largest shard.
But no blow followed. With frightening concentration, Victor began to gather the pieces. He laid them out on a clean section of the marble. Large fragments with large ones. Medium with medium. The smallest shards were placed in a perfectly straight line, ascending in size.
Ten minutes later, a flat, perfect two-dimensional outline of the vase lay upon the floor. The geometric precision of this puzzle was enough to cause a shudder.
Victor stood up and pulled out a snow-white handkerchief. A tiny speck of Martha's blood remained on the fabric. He winced in disgust. Then he folded the handkerchief into quarters and tucked it into his pocket.
"If you bring such disorder into my house again... I will make you count every speck of dust in this wing."
He stepped over the laid-out pattern, without touching a single edge.
"Clean this up. And find some glue. I want this vase back in its place by evening."
As he disappeared around the corner, Martha whispered in disbelief:
"He... he didn't hit me?"
Rumors spread through the estate like mold.
"He just sat on the floor and gathered the shards. Like some mad jeweler."
Before, everything had been simple. The smell of booze meant it was time to run. A scream meant heavy objects were about to fly. The burns on the old cook's hands were a silent reminder of what happened if the soup was over-salted. That was animal fear.
But this new Victor... he frightened them into convulsions.
***
Evelyna stood before the mirror, examining her reflection. Her golden hair and emerald eyes—a vivid reminder of her mother—made her the only warm spot in this bleak place.
Everything in her room now sparkled. The servants, scared to death, had scrubbed every inch of the manor on her father's orders. The girl ran her fingers over the desk's clean surface. She thought of a father who cared only for drink and his own cruelty.
The change in his behavior was too abrupt to be sincere.
After changing her dress, Evelyna left the room. The corridor shone with cleanliness, creating a strange sensation that reality itself had been swapped. Walking across the soft, vacuumed carpet, Evelyna spotted Victor ahead. He walked with an impeccably straight back. His clothes were perfectly pressed, and his obsidian hair shimmered in the lamplight.
Suddenly, a huge, gray, fluffy cat emerged from the shadows. It was clearly a stray; animals weren't kept in the manor, as they were considered a waste of food and time.
The cat stopped and sprawled out in the middle of the corridor, looking for all the world like he owned the house.
Victor froze. Evelyna saw his face contort in a grimace of horror, as if he had seen the devil himself.
Victor didn't just shoo the animal away. He took the snow-white handkerchief from his pocket and folded it several times. Then, he carefully gripped the cat by the scruff of its neck with two fingers. He held it as far away as he could with his outstretched arm.
"Where did you come from?" he asked quietly, wincing at the smell.
The cat merely flicked a paw in response.
"So filthy... You're going to shed all over my corridor."
Victor held the cat close and seemed unaware of Evelyna. He turned and walked toward the washroom. Apparently, he intended to bathe it. After everything she had seen, this was the strangest spectacle she had ever encountered.
"He has definitely lost his mind," she concluded privately.
***
Victor sat in his study.
There was a knock. Ludwig entered. In just a few hours, the manager seemed to have aged ten years. He placed a stack of papers on the desk. Victor immediately reached out and adjusted the sheets, achieving a perfect rectangle.
Soon, he began to read.
Commandant Morn, Blacksmith Bard.
The plans were so obvious that only someone like the old Victor, lost in his drinking, could have overlooked them. Any sane person glancing at the reports would see blatant robbery.
Upon finding himself in this body, Woo Jin had initially hoped only to restore the estate and pay off the debts. But the reality was far darker. Now, on his second day in this new world, he had to deal with those who were dismantling his home piece by piece.
In the novel, their betrayal seemed like the inevitable end of a rotting house. But for Wu Jin, possessing knowledge of the "future," it was a list of weeds to be pulled.
"Bard..."
Victor lingered on the name.
"Thirty-two units of steel written off as 'corrosion.' Meanwhile, my men's swords look more like kitchen knives. What flagrant... negligence."
"They thought you wouldn't notice, my Lord. You were... rarely visiting the forge back then."
Victor looked up.
"Are you suggesting that while I was drowning my life in a bottle, these rats decided they could gnaw at the foundation of my house without consequence?"
He took a pen and began making marks.
"If I simply throw them out, they will become resources for my enemies. It is more effective to turn them into free tools."
"Tomorrow morning, Ludwig, you will gather them all in the courtyard. Everyone on this list," Victor tapped his nail against the parchment. "The blacksmith, the commandant. The entire crew of thieves."
"But my Lord... if we punish them all at once, work on the estate will grind to a halt! Who will do the forging? Who will watch the grain?"
He stepped up to Ludwig and adjusted his collar, which had shifted due to a nervous tic.
"You don't understand, Ludwig. They will return everything. To the last groat. And those with empty pockets will work off their debt here until they drop dead. My house will no longer feed them for free."
Ludwig nodded, his jaw trembling slightly.
"Get out," Victor said, returning to his desk. "And if even one person from this list is missing from the square tomorrow morning, you will take their place."
The next day, the old warehouse met them with the smell of mildew. A single lantern illuminated the faces of seven men, bound by a single chain. It was a perfect place for business not meant for outside ears.
"Read it."
"Bard. Thirty-two units of steel. Resold to the neighboring barony."
Victor stopped in front of the blacksmith. The man was massive, but now he was shaking like a leaf. Victor carefully adjusted the collar on the blacksmith's filthy shirt, aligning it with his jawline.
"Do you know what upsets me most? It's not the theft. It's that because of your greed, the swords are of different lengths. By three inches. It is... asymmetrical."
Victor took a defective blade from the table. In the dim light, the metal looked gray. He weighed it in his palm and suddenly made a sharp thrust, striking Bard's shoulder with the flat of the blade.
The iron failed, shattering into three pieces. A shard grazed the blacksmith's cheek, leaving a thin crimson line.
"You manufactured garbage, Bard," Victor said, casting the hilt aside. "If we were attacked tomorrow, my men would have died because of you."
He turned his gaze toward Commandant Morn. The old man immediately collapsed to his knees.
"My Lord! It was Ludwig! He forced us... he took a cut!"
Victor didn't even turn his head toward Ludwig.
"Ludwig has already repaid his debt in gold. You will repay yours in labor. Bard, from this moment on, you are chained to the anvil. You will not leave the forge until you have forged twelve perfect swords. If even one is shorter than another by a hair's breadth... I will use your hand as the blank for the next one."
He turned to the others.
"Morn. You will personally recount every single grain in the granaries. If the report doesn't tally by morning, you will discover exactly how long a man can survive on nothing but water in the cellar."
Victor took the lantern. His shadow loomed large on the warehouse wall, becoming something huge and frightening.
"Remember... I no longer drink. Which means I see every speck of dust you try to sweep under the rug."
He walked out of the warehouse without looking back. The Wu Jin inside him felt his heart pounding wildly. The role was heavy, but the psychological pressure had worked perfectly.