“Chris?”
At his voice, Vendia sat up and draped the shawl she had left on the bedside table over her shoulders.
She had been asleep when knocking woke her. Then Chris had announced himself from outside the door.
Coming to see me in the middle of the night?
Using the dim bedside lamp as her guide, she shuffled toward the door.
Thinking it might be urgent, she opened it without hesitation.
Chris stood outside, visibly restless.
“M-Master.”
“What is it?”
“T-There's an intruder.”
The unexpected news left her momentarily speechless.
Taking advantage of the pause, Chris quickly added,
“D-Do you have any idea who it might be?”
He couldn't keep his hands still. Despite his nervousness, his eyes never left her face.
Huh? That's strange.
Wouldn't most people ask, "Should we report it?" or "What should we do?" first?
And if there was an intruder, shouldn't he deal with it before waking her up?
Why wake her first?
As she sensed something odd, Chris hurriedly continued.
“It happened so suddenly that I-I don't know what I should do...”
He lowered his gaze with a troubled expression, but kept glancing at her as if checking her reaction.
Then something clicked in Vendia's head.
That's it!
The classic romance episode.
The one where the male lead reveals the hidden side he had been concealing beneath his clumsy exterior.
The heroine worries he'll get hurt—
Only for him to effortlessly defeat a bunch of thugs and reveal how cool he really is.
And earlier that day, he had even muttered observations about Ron's movements.
The timing was perfect.
So that's why he woke me up.
Because the heroine has to witness the male lead's big moment.
You sneaky little kitten.
“Where did the intruders go?”
“T-To the second floor.”
“Let's go.”
“N-No! It's dangerous! I-I'll go alone!”
Chris desperately tried to stop her, blocking her path.
But Vendia, now convinced she understood everything, barely managed to suppress her laughter and slipped past him into the hallway.
“Let's go together. Just in case, let's grab a weapon on the way.”
She stopped at the cleaning closet and grabbed a long, sturdy broom.
Of course, she wouldn't need it.
Chris would surely beat everyone up with his bare hands.
I should probably act surprised, right?
Wondering how dramatically she should react, she climbed the stairs.
“Trying to die, huh? Do you even know how valuable this face is?”
Ron tossed the final thug onto the top of the human pile.
The last man had been beaten even worse than the others.
He was the one who had targeted Ron's face out of jealousy.
The uninvited guests who had arrived in the middle of the night hadn't even managed to enter his apartment.
Instead, they were stacked like corpses in a graveyard right outside the second-floor entrance.
They were the same men who had surrounded him at the café earlier that day.
Apparently running from the guards before finishing their revenge hadn't satisfied them.
So they had tracked him all the way home.
If they had stopped at the café, he would have let them hit him a few times and called it even.
But coming all the way here?
At night?
With no witnesses?
That was different.
At least they had come after him.
If they had misunderstood his brief conversation with that woman and taken her hostage, things would have become troublesome.
“Way too many of them.”
Ron glanced at the heap of unconscious men and opened a large bag they had brought.
“Well, well.”
Inside were tools of every kind.
Hammers.
Saws.
Knives.
Everything imaginable.
“What are you idiots, carpenters?”
Snorting, he kicked the bag.
The tools scattered across the hallway, crashing into the wall.
No need to report them.
By morning, everything would be cleaned up.
“There goes my sleep.”
He rolled his stiff shoulders and turned around.
Then—
Voices.
Footsteps.
Someone was climbing the stairs.
“I think that's our tenant's voice! He must be in danger! What should we do?!”
The voice sounded oddly excited.
Ron assumed he was imagining things.
Only one person called him our tenant.
Which meant he already knew who it was.
But it was too late.
Dia had already reached the top of the stairs.
And she was staring at the pile of unconscious men.
“Damn it. Hey, this isn't what it looks like—!”
“...Huh?”
For a brief moment, disappointment flashed across Vendia's face.
“Where's my episode?”
“Where's the male lead's big moment...?”
Then she muttered incomprehensible nonsense and glared at him with terrifying eyes.
Is she so shocked she can't even see all the people lying there?
Just as Ron thought that—
“AAAAAHHHHH!”
She suddenly screamed while staring at one specific spot.
There it is.
A proper shriek, just as expected from someone who looked so delicate.
“W-Wait! I'll report this!”
The twig-like guy standing beside her—Chris—shot down the stairs before Ron could stop him.
Only then did Ron realize his mistake.
The landlord lived on the first floor now.
And there was a new caretaker.
Of course they might come upstairs.
Now that he'd been caught, this had become unnecessarily annoying.
Running a hand through his hair, he snapped,
“That's why you shouldn't come up here whenever you feel like—”
“My wall...!”
“My wall is cracked!”
She threw the broom she had been carrying and sprinted forward.
Then she plastered herself against the hallway wall near the window.
Her delicate hands trembled as she gripped a knife embedded in the wall.
Apparently one of the knives from the tool bag had flown into the wall when Ron kicked it.
Cracks spread about five centimeters on either side.
The white wall made them especially noticeable under the moonlight.
“...Seriously? That's what you're upset about?”
For the first time in his life, Ron experienced being completely speechless.
She had seen a mountain of unconscious people.
She had seen him standing unharmed.
And yet the thing that shocked her was—
A crack in the wall.
“What am I supposed to do...?”
“There are already so many repairs needed...”
“And now this too...”
Her voice echoed dramatically through the hallway.
“I'll go bankrupt...”
Then she actually bumped her forehead against the wall.
Her blue eyes glistened with moisture under the moonlight as she alternated between looking at the wall and glaring at him.
“I'll spend my entire life repairing this mansion...”
“Hey.”
“I'll die fixing this mansion...”
“...”
“When I die, bury me in the front yard.”
“It is my mansion, after all.”
“My bones should stay with it forever...”
“Will you stop?!”
“I'll pay for it!”
“I'll fix it! Happy now?!”
“Oh my.”
“Our dear tenant, you're not hurt, are you?”
The moment he shouted, she instantly stood up.
The pitiful expression vanished.
She was smiling brightly.
Radiantly.
Her face practically glowed in the moonlight.
This lunatic...
“Cut it out.”
“Did you really take down all these people by yourself?”
“That's what you're curious about now?”
She awkwardly scratched her cheek and looked away.
Her expression clearly said she wasn't actually curious.
This woman was remarkably good at saying things she didn't mean.
Even the way she called him our tenant.
Her eyes looked like they wanted to curse him out, yet her mouth kept saying our tenant, our tenant.
“Should I pretend to be curious?”
“Don't bother.”
“Exactly. We're just landlord and tenant. You pay rent, I collect rent. No need to pry into each other's private business.”
She was making perfect sense.
At the same time, she was subtly warning him not to investigate her own secrets.
“Who said I wanted to know your business?”
Ron snapped.
He wasn't interested in getting involved with her either.
She had some nerve saying that.
“Exactly!”
“Then let's keep it that way.”
“Anyway... can we report these people?”
She pointed at the human pile.
“What do you mean?”
Ron narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“I don't want to accidentally get you involved in trouble.”
“Besides, I'm on our tenant's side.”
“Rather than theirs.”
“Rent's side, you mean.”
“...”
Vendia stared at him as if she'd just seen a ghost.
Her eyes grew huge.
They practically screamed:
How did you know?!
“Tch. Did you really think you were hiding it?”
Ron clicked his tongue.
The first time they met, she'd looked at the rent money and laughed like a maniac.
The reason she kept calling him our tenant was obvious.
“Go catch that twig who ran off to report this.”
“I'll handle everything before morning.”
“Okay.”
“But could this happen again?”
“I am the landlord, after all. This sort of danger is inconvenient.”
“It won't.”
“As expected from our tenant!”
“Then good night!”
Giving him an enthusiastic double thumbs-up, she happily skipped down the stairs.
Her long hair swayed from side to side with every cheerful step.
“...Seriously.”
Left alone, Ron pushed his red hair back and sighed.
What an unbelievable woman.