The Failure Marquis Is A Genius [EN]: Chapter 2

The Young Master of the Marquisate is a Genius – Episode 2 (2/200)

Chapter 1: Reincarnation: The Return of the Scoundrel

“The Scoundrel is back!”

Hennon, covered in dirt, strode down the main street.

With each step, clumps of dirt fell, leaving a thick trail in his wake.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The residents who saw him rushed into their homes, locking windows and doors.

They feared that Hennon, the madman of the Marquisate, might harm them.

But he was the one who felt more bewildered.

‘Just yesterday, I was playing a game…’

On his way home from work, he’d seen a promotional video for the newly released limited-edition game ‘Sion Like.’

The story was captivating, and the graphics were great, so he bought it as if possessed and played it all night long.

After hammering away at the controller until sunrise, he came to one conclusion.

‘The balance in this game is utter garbage.’

He thought he was pretty good at games, but he couldn’t get past the early stages and had to face the YOU DIED screen repeatedly.

The first boss was a nightmare.

Hennon, the Cursed Druid.

He was a notorious scoundrel who, after being buried, was resurrected by demon worshippers and devastated the territory where he had grown up.

After struggling all day to defeat Hennon, he collapsed from exhaustion. When he came to his senses, he had become Hennon, the very boss he had been trying to kill.

“This is a dream, right? It has to be a dream.”

He tried to think positively, but his senses were too vivid for that.

The stench of sewage in the medieval streets without proper drainage.

The palm-sized cockroaches crawling on the ground and the swarms of flies buzzing in the air.

The throbbing pain from his broken fingernails after digging himself out of the ground.

And above all.

‘Hehehehe.’

‘Hehehehehe.’

‘Whisper, whisper, whisper.’

The unidentified tinnitus [ringing in the ears] that had been tickling his ears was too vivid to dismiss as a dream.

‘I’m screwed. I’m really screwed.’

It was hard to believe, but if he wanted to live, he had to face reality.

He had entered a hell-difficulty game.

And not as the protagonist, but as the first stage boss.

Even as he walked aimlessly, he could feel the gazes of those around him.

Hate, disgust, contempt.

There wasn’t a single friendly look.

Could he overcome these gazes and survive?

As he walked aimlessly, he arrived at the inner castle gate.

A guard, blocking the entrance with his spear crossed in an X, barked.

“Who goes there! Identify yourself!”

He could say, ‘It’s Hennon,’ but judging from the gazes he had received so far, the guard clearly wasn’t someone who respected his betters.

And even if he was a bastard, he was still the Marquis’s son, so he should be treated a little better.

“It’s me.”

“What? Who are you talking to in that tone!”

“It’s me. You idiot.”

He roughly brushed the dirt off his face and glared at the guard, who recognized him and stumbled backward in shock.

“Hiek! N-no way!”

How did someone so easily frightened become an inner castle guard?

“Y-you were dead…”

“I’m not dead. So open the gate.”

“……”

“Aren’t you going to open it? Do you want to get beaten before you open it, or just open it now?”

“I’ll open it now!”

That was one good thing about being a scoundrel.

He just had to glare and make a threatening comment, and the soldiers cleared the way.

As he walked into the inner castle, he could hear the guards whispering behind him.

“Heaven is cruel to send that scoundrel back to life.”

“Tomorrow will be hell again.”

“Those kinds of guys always have a long life, don’t they? How great would it be if he just died.”

He had received more insults in the short time since he arrived here than he had in his entire life, to the point where he felt full even without eating.

As he entered the inner castle, it was clear that it was cleaner and more refined than the outer castle, befitting the residence of nobles.

However, the reactions of the people were the same regardless of the area.

The maids who saw him dropped the jars they were carrying with a crash or grabbed their cheeks with both hands and screamed like monks in despair.

He was so used to the reactions that he was about to ignore them when,

“What’s all this noise!”

A middle-aged woman in a flamboyant dress appeared, her voice sharp.

Her whole body, including her face, was swollen, indicating a high body fat percentage.

‘Rosalyn Lloyd. The legal wife of my father, Gordon Lloyd, and my stepmother.’

Having read the general story before playing the game, he recognized her at a glance.

Especially since Hennon Triss was the first boss in the game, he had paid extra attention to her.

It was like how when studying, you always looked at the front of the book, so only that part got worn out.

“Mother.”

“Who are you calling mother?”

“I apologize. Marchioness.”

“What is that state? Go wash up.”

She must have heard that he had died and come back to life, but she didn’t mention it at all.

She didn’t even seem to care, as if she didn’t consider him human at all.

“Mother, don’t be too harsh on Hennon.”

A handsome man subtly interjected from the side.

This guy, who made him feel sorry for comparing himself to his flesh-covered self, was his half-brother, Phillip.

Having experienced the ways of the world, he could tell that Phillip was a master of deception.

“I thought you were dead. I’m glad to see you again like this. You haven’t been around lately; let’s have breakfast together.”

“Yes, Brother.”

The Marchioness, who was next to him, immediately reacted to the word ‘Brother’ coming from his mouth.

“How dare you call him brother! Call him Young Master!”

“Mother, don’t get so worked up and go inside.”

“Young Master, being too kind to inferiors can be an obstacle to governing the Marquisate in the future. Remember what your mother says.”

“I will keep that in mind, Mother.”

Good grief.

What a show. What a show.

He just ignored them and went inside, and he could hear them yelling about how he didn’t even say goodbye, but he ignored them cheerfully.

How long had he walked?

He stood blankly and looked around.

“…Where is my room?”

That’s right.

He didn’t know where his room was.

The game story told him about Hennon Triss’s family relationships, what kind of unfortunate circumstances he was in, and why he became a cursed druid, but…

It didn’t tell him, of course, which bedroom he laid his head in.

Just as he was sucking on his fingers like a lost child, he heard a faint girl’s voice from behind.

“You’ve arrived.”

He turned around and saw a girl with an expressionless face.

Her purple hair, reminiscent of morning glories, and her matching purple eyes gave off a mysterious atmosphere.

She was wearing a maid’s uniform, but she seemed like someone you shouldn’t treat carelessly.

“Sion.”

He called her name without realizing it.

He couldn’t not know.

This woman was Sion, the protagonist of the game ‘Sion Like’ that he had played all night long.

“Please come in. The bathwater is ready.”

Sion was calm even though the master she served had come back to life.

Seeing her like that, he tried to have a small hope that Sion might be on Hennon’s side, but…

“Hmm?”

Looking down, he saw that unlike her upper half, which maintained a poker face, her lower half was clenching her fists so tightly that the blood had drained from her hands.

The slight trembling clearly showed how disappointed she was.

‘I shouldn’t expect anything from Sion either.’

Everywhere he looked, there were enemies.

* * *

Sion led him to a private bathroom.

As far as he knew, in this world, the fate of a bastard depended on their father.

If the father cared a little, they would have a good life, but if they weren’t treated like a child, the gates of hell would open.

In his opinion, the fact that they let the infamous scoundrel live in the inner castle and even gave him a bathroom and a maid meant that they had given up on him but hadn’t completely abandoned him.

After soaking in the tub and emerging a new man, Sion, who had been waiting outside the door, led him to the bedroom.

He opened the door and was speechless.

“This is my room?”

He chuckled in disbelief.

The situation in his room was like this.

First of all, the windows were covered with multiple layers of curtains, blocking all light from the outside.

Several sculptures with an eerie aura were placed on the shelves.

Red candles, reminiscent of blood, burned, casting ominous shadows.

A carpet with bizarre patterns was laid on the floor, and he didn’t particularly want to know what those patterns meant.

He was just amazed that Hennon hadn’t been caught as a black magician until now.

“Why does my room look like this?”

He was so dumbfounded that he asked, and Sion, who had been expressionless until now, twitched her facial muscles for the first time.

He could roughly guess that she was thinking, ‘What kind of crazy thing is he going to do this time?’

“Didn’t you order it, Master?”

“I told you to decorate it like this?”

“You said you didn’t like hearing hallucinations, so you bought this and that from merchants and hunters.”

In short, he was a sucker.

He was definitely a sucker, as he could still hear the whispering ‘hehehe’ sounds even at this moment.

In any case, the skull buckets, strange carpets, thick curtains, and ominous candles were of no use in blocking the hallucinations.

“Oh, geez.”

Where should he start? How should he explain it now?

I’ve changed.

I have amnesia.

I’ve become a different person.

I’ll be nice to you from now on.

No way.

It was too late to make up for it with words.

To her, who was full of distrust for Hennon, it would just feel like another ordeal.

The only way to change this was to show it through actions.

“Sion.”

“Yes.”

“Did I cherish the things in this room?”

At the sudden question, Sion slightly raised her head to look at him.

She was trying to gauge which tune to dance to [figure out what he wanted].

He deliberately made a cold expression to hide his true feelings.

“Of course. You took care of the sculptures yourself every day and said you bought the carpet at a good price.”

“Is that so… I did that…”

Muttering to himself, he moved his feet.

Then, he grabbed the closest sculpture and…

Softly dropped it from above.

“Ah!”

Sion screamed in surprise.

But that didn’t stop the sculpture from falling.

With a crash, the cherished statue shattered into pieces, and the debris scattered everywhere, dirtying the floor.

That was the beginning.

Like a madman, he threw all the sculptures on the shelf against the wall, kicked them, and split them in half like a Double Bubble ice cream bar [a type of easily broken candy].

“This!”

Thud! Crack!

“Useless!”

Thud! Crack!

“White elephants [useless possessions]!!”

Crack, crack, crack!!

“Did you see that!!!”

Still not enough.

He went straight to the window, grabbed the thick curtains that were the main cause of his stuffiness with both hands, and tore them apart.

He didn’t care about the cotton wool flying around.

He tore them all to shreds and opened the window wide, and the cold wind hit his face.

Now his mind, which had seemed like it was going crazy, had returned a little.

The eerie candles and the bizarrely patterned carpet.

He threw them all out the open window.

The noisy sounds of his prized possessions falling began to be heard from outside the window.

Nevertheless, he relentlessly threw things until the last collectible was gone.

“Kuh, Kehaha! Kehahahahaha!!!!”

As he was swept up in madness, he became excited and burst out laughing without realizing it.

Madman.

That was the perfect modifier for him.

After causing a commotion, he felt Sion’s gaze as she stared at him with wide eyes, probably quite surprised.

Regardless,

He was a little out of breath from moving so vigorously.

He kicked the cotton wool, torn curtain pieces, and broken statues rolling on the floor to the side and sat on the edge of the bed.

After roughly sweeping his sweaty hair to one side, he looked at Sion, who was still frozen like a stone statue.

He spoke to her as kindly as possible.

“What are you doing? Clean up.”