The Basement and the Potatoes

From Ax's apology to the moment his group left, no more than fifteen minutes had passed.

Under the Old Madam's "kind" persuasion, Ax eventually gave in. He swallowed his pride and apologized, then had his men clean Dick up. In the end, they carried Dick away, slinking out through the Riser Family's gates.

The silence and haste with which they left said everything about how humiliated they felt. Yet the Old Madam, who had brought all this about, seemed completely oblivious. Instead, she sent them off with a benevolent smile.

"Take care on your way home. The Riser Family always welcomes you."

Ax glared viciously at the Old Madam, said nothing, and walked out the gate without looking back.

And just like that, the Fool Family left.

Benjamin was overjoyed. Of course, he did his best to keep it off his face.

This was probably the first time since he'd transmigrated that someone had stepped in to save him when all hope seemed lost. As an adult mentally, he knew he should rely on himself, but it felt pretty great to get carried to a win for once.

Did this mean he wasn't quite so unlucky anymore?

Whatever the case, he absolutely did not want a chamber pot pulled over his head. At least he'd escaped that disaster, which was something to be glad about.

However, he soon realized he'd celebrated too soon.

"Benjamin, what exactly happened last night? Was this really your doing?"

After the Fool Family left, the Old Madam fell silent, while Claude seemed to regain the dignity of the head of the household. He suddenly spoke, asking Benjamin with grave seriousness.

Benjamin's heart gave a jolt, and he immediately shot the Old Madam a pleading look.

The Old Madam yawned and pretended not to see.

"..."

It was over.

If you're going to save someone, save them all the way! What was the point of quitting halfway?

Claude had clearly noticed Benjamin's guilty expression. He gave an unhappy snort, his face turning frightening. After casting a sidelong glance at the Old Madam, he continued to lecture Benjamin.

"Don't think this matter is over. What have I always taught you? Where did you throw away the pride of a nobleman? Running away from home is one thing, but you've barely been back a day and you've already caused this kind of trouble. Can't you give us a break for once?"

As Benjamin listened, a question suddenly popped into his head when he heard one particular phrase.

Running away from home?

What was that supposed to mean? Had Benjamin run away from home before?

"Hey, what's this about running away from home? Did Benjamin run away before?" Benjamin asked the system, confused.

"No," the system replied with complete certainty.

"Then what's going on?" Benjamin pressed.

"I don't know," the system replied.

"You..." Benjamin was briefly at a loss for words, but this wasn't the first time, so he quickly recovered and shot back with a snarky remark:

"What good are you, then?"

The system's voice remained completely flat. "Not much, so stop coming to me. Let's break up."

"..."

This system was toxic.

Back in the real world, Benjamin pieced together the timeline. It didn't take long for him to realize the only possible explanation for the "running away from home" incident.

Could it be... that nobody knew he'd been kidnapped, and they thought he'd run away from home instead?

Aha! I've spotted the plot hole!

Holy crap, no wonder nobody in this household had bothered to ask how he was doing after he returned. They had no idea he'd just escaped death! What was wrong with this family? Their own son had been kidnapped, and they didn't even know—they thought he'd simply run away from home? The Church probably hadn't told the Riser Family the truth either, so they could keep Michelle's situation under wraps.

No wonder! No wonder he hadn't seen a single friendly face, and no wonder they'd all treated him so badly!

After all, he'd just come back from the brink of death. If these people had known that, how could they possibly have treated him this way?

At that thought, he immediately tried to explain:

"I didn't run away from home. I was..."

"Shut up! Since when did you get so good at lying, boy? Do you think I'm an idiot?" Claude cut him off without mercy, leaving no room for argument. "Trying to fool me? You didn't run away from home... You didn't run away, so where have you been all these days? What, were you kidnapped or something?"

"..."

But I really was kidnapped.

Benjamin wanted to say that, but in this situation, if he did, he'd probably be beaten to death.

Damn it, another one stealing his lines.

Judging by Claude's expression, he was even angrier than before. The humiliation of being upstaged by the Old Madam in front of outsiders was probably mixed in there too. Claude couldn't take his anger out on the Old Madam, so that left Benjamin to bear the brunt of it.

With Claude this angry, nothing Benjamin said would help.

All he could do was keep his head down and take the scolding.

Sure enough, good luck was only temporary. Bad luck was forever.

So Benjamin gritted his teeth and took fifteen straight minutes of scolding from Claude in front of everyone. The details weren't worth going into. Throughout it all, the others in the living room were frozen in place, silent and motionless, their eyes fixed on the floor. Only the maid continued to clean up the mess, trembling all the while.

At last, after the long string of reprimands, Claude's anger began to fade. He looked at Benjamin, who hadn't said a word, paused for a moment, then suddenly said:

"Go to the basement and think about what you've done. You're not eating until you admit you were wrong!"

And so Benjamin was dragged off and locked in the basement.

The public shaming was finally over. Everyone in the living room went their separate ways, returning to their own homes and families. Meanwhile, under Claude's thunderous scowl and menacing gaze, a maid accepted the task of locking Benjamin up and took him to the Riser Family's basement.

Unlike the basements in ordinary fantasy novels, which were always hiding some family secret—where you could pick up a book and summon a demon to sign a contract, or some such nonsense—the Riser Family's basement... really was just a little basement.

It was a small room of about eight square meters, its walls built of dark brick and stone, with moss creeping through the cracks. And what filled this basement wasn't anything else, but bag after bag of potatoes.

Benjamin had barely stepped inside when he trod on a potato. He lost his balance and tumbled into a sea of potatoes.

Still reeling from the fall, he turned to call for help, but with a bang, the maid who had led him in vanished. Only the dark iron door remained, firmly shut, its lock snapping into place.

Benjamin stared at the thin sliver of light coming through the keyhole. He sat there for a moment, then sighed.

He slowly climbed out of the pile of potatoes.

"Locked up, huh..." He looked around, taking in his surroundings.

He brushed the dust off himself, found a potato-free patch of floor, and sat down. He leaned against a large sack of potatoes behind him like it was a chair back, shifting until he found a position that didn't dig into him too much. Once he was settled, he gradually relaxed.

"Phew... I may be locked up, but at least I've found a chance to catch my breath," he said to himself.

He'd still been punished in the end, but no matter how you looked at it, this was a lot better than getting a chamber pot dropped over his head. So what if he was locked up? It wasn't like they'd keep him there for six months or a year. He'd probably be let out in a few days. It wasn't as if he'd suffer much.

He could even treat this as a chance to rest.

Come to think of it, he'd only been in this world for five days. Setting aside the three days he'd been unconscious, he'd spent the remaining two in a constant state of tension. He'd sparred wits with Michelle, thrown a chamber pot at Dick while he was sleepwalking, been attacked by an assassin, gone to the church to gather information, and sat through a public shaming with the Fool Family... He'd really done a lot in those two days.

It all... felt like a dream.

Life was so hectic. There was as much going on as with a client at a design firm, and every new problem was more headache-inducing than the last.

He felt completely drained.

At that moment, he even began to think that being sent here by Claude was the best thing that had happened to him since he'd transmigrated.

The basement was cramped and small, but it wasn't uncomfortable. The dimness and quiet helped calm his restless mind, and then there was the faint aroma of potatoes in the air.

The smell of potatoes... was actually pretty nice.

Maybe he was just hungry.

At that thought, Benjamin suddenly realized there was a very serious problem. The problem had been there for a while, and it had already shown how devastating it could be. If he let it go unchecked, it was bound to lead to terrible, unpredictable consequences.

The problem was: he was hungry.

Very... very hungry.

He hadn't eaten for a day and a night. The intense hunger traveled from his esophagus to his stomach, then to his large and small intestines, before climbing back up to his throat. The feeling was so profound it was like... he was starving from the inside out.

At that moment, he remembered Claude's words: "You're not eating until you admit you were wrong!" The sentence echoed in his ears like an alarm clock at dawn, over and over, until it became a source of trauma.

No food...

Want food...

Eat...

Food...

He sat stunned for a moment. Then, as if he'd suddenly realized something, he sprang up from the floor like an arrow and rushed to the shut iron door, clinging desperately to the rusty keyhole.

"Let me out! I'll admit I was wrong! You can't stop me from admitting I was wrong! Open the door and I'll admit it! I love admitting I'm wrong! Admitting I'm wrong makes me happy..."

His heart-wrenching cries echoed through the basement again and again.

He kept going until hunger made his arms and legs too weak to hold on, and his throat grew so dry from shouting that he couldn't help coughing. The world outside the door still gave no response. He slid off the door like a gecko and collapsed limply onto the floor, feeling a little weary in his heart.

He began to understand just how terrifying solitary confinement was.

After lying sprawled on the floor for a while, he turned his gaze to the potatoes scattered around him.

They were raw, and they probably wouldn't taste good, but... surely they were edible?

"Can you eat potatoes raw?" he asked the system.

"I've never tried. You can give it a shot," the system replied.

"..."

If he hadn't been too weak from hunger, Benjamin would have cursed the system out.

Whatever! He was already this hungry. He couldn't afford to be picky! Didn't people say that during famines, they ate tree bark? If you could eat bark and belts, why couldn't you eat a raw potato? The mashed potatoes at KFC weren't much different from raw potatoes, and he was still alive and well.

He'd rather die of food poisoning than starve to death.

Starving to death was just too awful. It was the kind of death people would bring up as a joke over dinner. So humiliating.

Though dying from eating a raw potato did sound pretty embarrassing too...

Forget it! Why overthink it? He was going to be the first hero to eat a raw potato!

Driven by hunger, Benjamin picked up a potato beside him, opened his mouth, and prepared to take a bite.

Just then, a little clack suddenly rang out in the basement.

Benjamin's heart jumped, but he'd already started biting the potato and couldn't pull back in time. His front teeth clamped down hard on it. A sour, bitter taste rose in his mouth, his teeth felt weak, and his jaw seemed about to dislocate.

Damn, this thing was hard as hell. He couldn't even bite through it!

His teeth aching, Benjamin hurriedly tossed the potato away and turned to look toward the source of the strange sound.

A small opening had appeared in the iron basement door. A pair of bright blue eyes peered through it. They were wide open, staring fixedly at Benjamin, and gave him a terrible fright.

What the hell was going on now?