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1.

Three days had passed since then.

“I’m fucked.”

Siwoo could sense that things had gone really wrong.

When the countess left in the middle of the action, he was left dumbstruck.

She was the one who seduced him, but for some reason, she ran off halfway through.

He had inhaled her scent as much as he could but everything ended with just a handjob, leaving him unsatisfied.

For a while there, he could only stand still in her private study. By the time he got dressed and stepped outside, his lust had cooled, and his head had cleared.

“Why the hell did I do that?”

Countess Yesod was the one who started seducing him, calling it ‘repaying a favor’ or whatnot.

She rubbed up against him naked, but that was fine.

Getting a blowjob from her too, was fine.

What about sex, then? Well, at that point, it seemed natural for things to progress that way, so he could say that it was fine too.

But tying her up, forcing her to shout, ‘I’m cumming!’ while watching her squirt all over looking like a mess?

Even after she said several times that she didn’t want to do those sorts of things?

That was where everything went off the rails.

“Haa…”

He lit up a cigarette.

The whole thing happened not just because he was overly excited.

All the other women he’d been with had gone along with things that he tried to pull off, even when he suddenly increased his roughness up a notch in the middle.

Even when they told him to stop, none of them actually wanted him to. It was just like those Japanese adult videos where the woman would scream ‘Yamete!’ but didn’t actually want the guy to stop.

In his experience, hearing ‘Stop! It’s too much!’ in the middle of sex was just part of the act, something for him to enjoy.

At the end of it, everyone had always seemed happy.

But Countess Lucy Yesod was different, and his assumptions had been way off.

It seemed she genuinely couldn’t stand the degrading behavior he had shown, as she immediately fled the scene the moment she was able to.

While she hadn’t yelled or expressed her anger afterward, that didn’t mean everything was fine.

The next day, when he went to her mansion for Diana’s lessons, he was politely turned away.

They told him something along the lines of, ‘Countess Yesod has gone on a business trip,’ but considering that he received no further news from her after three days, it seemed more apparent that he had been fired from his tutoring job.

If only he had stuck to what the countess expected of him, problems like this wouldn’t surface.

Yet he just had to show off in front of the countess, recklessly exposing her vulnerable state like that.

He’d only managed to figure out about 25% of the Red Branch, and he still needed the countess’ help.

Yet, he ended their relationship in the worst possible way. He couldn’t help but lament his own incompetence.

“I need to apologize….”

The silver lining here was that, it didn’t seem like the countess was holding a grudge with him over this.

After all, if she were truly upset with Siwoo, she would have taken some formal action, or at least, summoned him for a confrontation.

At the end of the day, even if it was true that he had gotten carried away, he was still the one who had ruined things by repeatedly doing things that she didn’t want.

Hence, he wished to see her again. So that he could apologize to her in person.

2.

Countess Yesod, who was supposed to be away on a business trip in the Modern World, was actually having dinner with Diana.

Although, it was clear that her mind wasn’t there, as she barely glanced at her plate. She still maintained perfect table manners though, as that habit was ingrained in her after a lifetime of noble upbringing.

To anyone else, it would have seemed like she was just focused on eating her dinner, but she couldn’t fool her daughter, Diana.

In her eyes, something was obviously off about her mother.

“Mom.”

Hearing her daughter’s call, the countess, previously lost in thought, snapped out of it, and turned her gaze towards her beloved daughter.

“Yes, Sweetie?”

Diana hesitated for a moment before cautiously asking her question.

“Has Mr. Shin Siwoo…quit?”

For Diana, this was something she had been wondering about for days.

Shin Siwoo hadn’t shown up for his tutoring sessions in three days.

She had dressed up and waited for him, but the knock she was expecting never came. When the night came, she immediately asked her mother about him, but…

Her mother just told her this:

‘I-I don’t know. He said he was busy today.’

Her mother seemed noticeably flustered when she said those words.

At the time, Diana hadn’t thought much of it.

But now, three days later, with no sign of Siwoo, she could sense that something strange was going on.

“I’m not sure either… Maybe his work’s taking longer than expected?”

“Is that so?”

“Yes… By the way, are you enjoying the food?”

“Yes….”

Not only that, her mother’s behavior was also extremely unusual.

After all, she always tried to have everything under her control, but now she suddenly said that she didn’t know where her tutor was?

If anything, it was more likely that she was just trying to dodge the topic. The way she subtly tried to shift the conversation only reinforced this conjecture.

Also, Diana noticed that she had been acting more distant lately. She’d often lost in her thoughts, as if there was something that was really bothering her. It was clear that something was off.

“Mommy has a lot to do, so mommy’s gonna leave first, okay? Eat well and sleep tight, my baby.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Diana’s gaze followed her mother’s retreating figure, full of suspicion.

She knew that her mother and Siwoo were secretly having an affair.

The only reason Siwoo had been hired as her tutor was so he would have a reason to come to the mansion regularly.

Her mother’s real goal was their secret rendezvous at 10 in the night.

Of course, Diana was not happy about it.

That was why she exploded at him back in Border Town, as she couldn’t bring herself to express her frustration directly to her mother.

Regardless, from everything she had seen, Siwoo was a responsible person.

He had always been considerate of others, so it was highly unlikely that he’d just quit his job without at least notifying anyone about it.

And yet her mother claimed that she didn’t even know where he was.

“That can’t be right…”

Diana didn’t buy that at all.

Because it was too unnatural.

As Diana lay in bed, tossing and turning, she started to piece together a possible explanation.

Her mother was lying. She was deliberately keeping Siwoo away from her.

Why?

“It’s obvious…”

She wanted to keep him all to herself.

Ever since Diana got into that accident, she and Siwoo had grown closer.

But, when she thought that they were finally starting to get along, his lessons suddenly stopped.

There has to be a reason for that…

It’s like what’s written in mom’s novels.

Women would do anything to monopolize a man.

Diana didn’t know anything about love.

She had no idea what it looked like, or how hot it could burn.

No clue what sweetness it had, or what kind of texture it felt like.

But being unable to see him anymore, thanks to her mother’s meddling, planted a growing sense of frustration and resentment inside her.

Understanding one’s feelings when one didn’t even know where it came from was simply impossible.

So, she channeled her current irritation and hostility into the closest emotions she was familiar with.

Possessiveness.

“He is my tutor… Why is mom…?”

Her lips twisted in a pout.

3.

“Haa…”

After returning to her private study, Lucy Yesod let out a deep sigh.

Diana’s unexpected question during dinner startled her. After she quickly left the table, she couldn’t help but remember the problem that had been troubling her lately.

The scandalous incident with her tutor, Shin Siwoo, which had forced her to replace the sofa in this very room three days ago.

“Just…how did I…”

She was the one who seduced him to have a sex with him.

At first, it was great.

As planned, she managed to set the mood, and even got him looking so flustered, a reaction that she particularly enjoyed.

But the situation took a drastic turn once he took over the control from her.

She had always thought he was just a timid and inexperienced young man, but it turned out that he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Facing his skilled hands, Lucy Yesod became nothing more than a helpless rabbit.

When his fingers stirred in her most intimate areas sharply…

She found herself chanting vulgar phrases like ‘I’m about to cum!’ while her juices splattered everywhere.

Soaking both the sofa that she liked so much and one of his arms in her bodily fluids.

When she regained her lost sanity, the countess felt a wave of fear.

Fear of the pleasure she had never known, terror of the depravity she had never experienced.

To put it simply, it was a fear of the unknown.

Or, to put it even more simply, she was scared.

In the end, she quickly left in the middle of the action, and had been avoiding to meet him ever since.

Using flimsy excuses to hide from both Diana and Siwoo.

“How could I face him again after all that…?”

The countess felt like she had turned into the heroines of her novels, ruined and crumpled. The thought that she had to face the person who had put her in that state only served to strengthen that feeling even further.

She’d rather die than deal with that kind of embarrassment.

And to make matters worse, she had projected such a strong femme fatale vibe in front of him, as if she could devour him whole, only to end up crying out under his mere two fingers like a child scared of a shot. This would definitely haunt her until the day she finally passed on from this world.

“…The problem here is that I can’t just let things stay this way…”

Recently, Diana had been becoming more diligent.

She started studying on her own while following Siwoo around, actively spending her leisure activities.

It was proof that Siwoo was doing his job well.

On top of that, he had saved Diana’s life.

While yes, that incident happened in Border Town, and in hindsight, things would’ve probably been fine without him, but he handled that incident perfectly, so he deserved all the credits.

This was why ignoring him and cutting their relationship off wasn’t an option. It would be absurd of her to treat his accomplishments as meaningless just because she couldn’t handle her childish embarrassment.

Her management philosophy did not allow such unfair dismissals.

Which meant, she had to see him again, whether she liked it or not.

“…”

After tossing and turning for a little more, the countess finally pulled out a sheet of paper and picked up a pen.

“I suppose I need to see him again.”

Of course, she wasn’t writing an invitation for them to spend another heated night together.

There were dangerous things in life that shouldn’t be approached lightly.

Drugs, for example, might seem like an easy way to find happiness and pleasure, but they often lead to terrible consequences.

She genuinely felt a sense of danger when the thought of continuing a physical relationship with him crossed her mind. It felt like she’d be crossing a line she wasn’t ready to cross.

That was why this letter was simply a way for her to uphold basic courtesy between them.

She didn’t have any other intentions at all.

The countess folded the perfumed paper carefully and sealed it with melted wax, before pressing her stamp into it.