Alright, it is theory time:
No way the butler isn't basically satan, a demon, whatever you wanna call it.
The story about his friend seems heavily related as to why he seems to be "chilling out" at the Otis mansion. But I don't think it was just any friend but a member of the Otis family who basically made a trash bargain that while it gave the Otis name fame and wealth it sacrificed his and his descendents' souls.
It was probably that not first but "true" founder the butler was speaking about at the start of the story.
Thus it is "them", the restless spirits of the Otis family, that roam the mansion and force their torment onto anyone outside their bedroom. Heavy emphasis on theory here. The eyes being drawn in red could also mean smth like Walter's demonic vibes and sacrificed souls are leaking out and stinking up the nightlife.
The roses seem to be some sort of magic tool that suck the autonomy/soul out of real people. Perhaps the creepy aberrant servants (the ones warned about in the rules) have either resisted the roses or embraced them to a point where they're more monster than human. I think the roses and human servants are just the way that the demon feeds?
He takes their energy/spirit through the roses, feasts on it, and uses the left behind shells as his little dolls to control and torment the Otis family.
Him beating what I assume is ML, the Otis heir, is probably part of the torment.
BTW wasn't there a rule that said servants with unfamiliar behaviour should be avoided like the plague? FL is about to get in trouble with that maid friend she made for sure.
Also, she was gifted a red rose by the twins, did she discard it?
Moving onto the Otis family.
I think the twins are just the same as the servants. FL mentioned the human characters having different smells to roses, and the kids slightly smelling of them means they're in the same process as the servants or something entirely unhuman/unholy alltogether. The way that Mrs.Otis and ML speak of them heavily hints at that.
The family head is probably dead already, I wager, or in some torture chamber made by Walters.
It could also be some fucked up thing where he knows his kid(s) and wife are being tormented by the devil but he's avoiding that bc he's so relieved to be out the mansion. That's me building castles in the sky at this point. I can also imagine the man is a shell of himself by now bc he went through the same shit as Allen.
The thing I can't decide on is whether Allen or Walters wrote the rules down in that letter. It would fit Allen's behaviour, helping from the sidelines and all, but also could just be Walters trying to make things "fUn", he did mention getting tired/bored.
Anyways, this shit is so good. I might actually go read the novel bc it's only the good stuff that makes me wanna hypothesise for THIS long.
This man has a crush and people act like the ship has sailed off into the sunset or smth. Like I know we're in the romance fantasy genre here where 1+1=2 when it comes to romantic interest, but with how the story been going so far I can imagine Franz just straight up being rejected, or forcing himself to forget about her once all the "family relations" have been uncovered.
Atp just make and kiss, have your happy end.
Ngl I have gotten to the point where I just really want to see them be happy together not bc either or both of them "deserved" it or other romance-horny reasons but becauce the narrative doesn't give us any other option.
It's so clear that the story is leading nowhere else but them being together so after the tragedy that is season 1 I'm simply praying for a ray of light for Aerock (which makes his cheap misunderstanding all the more annoying btw).
Like maybe I could care for the relationship itself a bit more, but not when Kloff is this absolute dickhead of a person. Who decided to make him so petty and selfcentered *all* the time? I can't stand his thoughts fr.
I think this is turning out to be the usual toddler spoiling indulgence. I dont mind it too much here because of FL's backstory, but at certain points I personally do start rolling my eyes bc I'd rather have the story progress than be stuck reading out how precious FL is yet again. At a certain point u gotta show, not tell, imo.
If you don't know: in "the little prince" the narrator tries to draw a sheep for the little prince after he asks for one.
After several of the sheep drawings were rejected by him, the narrator just draws a box with holes and tells the prince that his sheep is in there, which the prince accepts.
(you can read it for free online btw, it's a children's book but a VERY good one)
To spell it out for the people in the back: there is a parallel you can draw from the interaction itself. The narrator who can make things for the prince, while the prince accepts those at face value, aka ML and FL in a nutshell. The story itself isn't really focused on that aspect but I think that's what this manhwa is trying to get at.
This reminds of like some good, short, r/nosleep stories. The same open-endedness with just enough dread to make you want more. And the hot men are a bonus.
Their romance arc makes me want to rewrite this whole story so bad. An AU where
1. their adventuring party doesn't lose all braincells while obviously walking into Ninacia's trap
2. Empress and Emperor fucking divorce, because this man is pathetic
3. Either spice up MC's romance or just let it be because her chemistry with the prince is as riveting as watching a puddle dry
Woo-Yeol is thinking for two and Seong-Ah is eating for two. And amazingly neither is pregnant.
I'm curious and cautious as to what direction this will take. I seriously hope that Pinkie will bring MC solace and some kind of help tho.
MC is gonna have a magical winx transformation into a pussy-having hybrid dog and get bred by Fluffy...or rather the unc will be jumped by Fluffy?
I'm materializing this as we speak.
Either way MC and unc are made of the same stuff as those futanari-core "farm animals" or whatever you wanna call it.
Another wild guess here, but what MC saw in that box either infected him with potent animal cuntification genes, or was like some other messed up stuff regarding the farm experiments. But it's most likely the former because Fluffy clearly used to be just a dog that followed MC around when he opened that box.
Btw, idk if that's a plothole or not but like, if ML knows that MC is that disembodied voice that pitied him, why was he surprised that she knew his weakness and what not? Like, it just makes sense to assume if she knows of his "fate" she'd also know a lot about him.
Or was that moment where she yoinked his side like a confirmation of sorts? Maybe I'm too neurodivergent for this but if that's really it they need to make it a bit more obvious. Put a big circle and jiggle some keys over that shit idk.
I'm amazed that this manhwa is actually commiting itself to being historically accurate.
I came back to this after months, ofc checked out the most recent chapter asap, and ML being a baby is like the reddest flag and lowkey tells me this one is for the streets-
I love how the temple's conspiracy is being undone.
Like, I get so mad when a shoujo with good lore has the main conflict established and it's time for the characters to act, but for some reason they're stuck in a near endless purgetory of villains bullying the protagonists without them taking initiative.
Nah Kael is valid af here. Like I get him, he's very over whatever his "friends" did, wants to move on and all, but Hestia has her thorns stuck in place. She stubbornly insists to keep dragging someone down who she already kickflipped and fatalitied into a bottomless pit. I don't blame her for her crashout bc it's literally been the purpose of her life but like, listen to hubby. Not all men suck, just most of them.