BDPVF 3

Chapter 3

“……”

I stared at the cookies for a moment.

A normal child would probably eat them without a second thought, but I understood that eating these cookies was dangerous.

Which meant I wasn’t an ordinary child.

And if that was the case, then eating the cookies didn’t make me childish.

I had a perfectly logical reason.

‘Cookies restore energy!’

If you’re stranded in the jungle, even a single grub becomes precious food.

So me eating these cookies was purely for survival.

Thinking that, I picked one up and took a bite.

Crunch.

“Mmm…!!”

What heavenly flavor was this?!

The sweet aroma of the cookie spread through my mouth.

And the bits of chocolate—hard yet soft at the same time!

After six years, the cookies tasted far better than I had imagined.

Crunch, crunch.

After quickly devouring the first cookie, I reached toward the mountain of cookies piled on the table.

Like a giant snatching up helpless humans.

I stuffed the handful of cookies into my mouth.

‘Kyaaaah!’

It almost felt like the cookies were screaming, but sorry.

If I’d known they were this delicious, I wouldn’t have hesitated earlier.

And so, for a brief moment, I enjoyed pure happiness.

Click!

“Mng…?”

The door suddenly opened.

Startled, I froze with my cheeks stuffed full of cookies and stared blankly toward the doorway.

“……”

Whoooosh…

A cold wind swept through the room.

Goosebumps spread all over my body as I carefully lowered the cookie in my hand.

That icy gaze followed even the slightest movement.

Silas was staring at me as though he wanted to kill me.

‘What do I do…?’

The ruler of the North was infamous for having neither blood nor tears.

Anyone who crossed him died, no matter who they were.

That was the Northern Duke!

And right now, that terrifying man was glaring directly at me.

My eyes wandered everywhere except toward him.

“……!”

Then our gazes met.

The sharp blue gleam in his eyes startled me so badly that I immediately lowered my head.

Another meaningless silence began.

The first to move was the duke.

“Are you feeling better?”

“……?”

I had expected him to cut off my head without hesitation, so hearing those words made my eyes widen in shock.

‘Answer! Answer!’

I absolutely couldn’t offend him.

If my response was even slightly delayed, the six hard years I’d endured might disappear in an instant.

CRUNCH!

Ah.

The moment I tried to speak, a loud sound echoed from inside my mouth.

I had completely forgotten about the cookies stuffed inside.

The cookies crammed so tightly into my cheeks didn’t choke me—

They sealed my mouth shut instead.

In panic, I nodded my head up and down.

“……”

I could feel his piercing gaze overhead, but the fact that I was still alive meant my response had worked… somewhat.

‘He’s more merciful than the novel described.’

Thankfully, reality seemed a little less cruel than fiction.

If this had been the version from the novel, I’d already be dead.

Sighing inwardly in relief, I slowly chewed the cookies in my mouth.

A vague memory surfaced from my previous life.

Back in school, I used to melt snacks with my tongue before swallowing them.

CRUNCH!!

My ambitious strategy failed spectacularly as the cookies shattered noisily.

“……”

I could feel a gaze so cold it seemed ready to freeze me solid.

But I couldn’t leave the cookies sitting in my mouth forever, so I ignored the pressure and continued chewing.

Crunch… crunch…

For a while, the cries of dying cookies filled the room.

After a long silence, I finally swallowed everything.

Then I began trembling anxiously.

I had just made the demon-like duke wait for an entire minute.

Too afraid to meet his eyes, I stared at the floor.

I had to explain myself somehow…!

“Th-that is…”

“Do you like cookies?”

“S-sorry… huh?”

I had been about to bow my head and beg for my life, but instead I looked up at him in confusion.

For some reason, the duke seemed… interested in me.

‘That’s a good sign…’

If he found me interesting, that meant he’d postponed the “kill her” option for now.

But the trace of curiosity in his gaze soon vanished back into cold indifference.

“I’ll ask again. Do you like cookies?”

“Y-yes! I like cookies…”

He hated repeating himself, yet he had given me another chance.

Not daring to waste it, I answered quickly.

The duke glanced briefly toward the cookies before speaking again.

“I heard you escaped from the orphanage. I assume you don’t want to return there.”

Staring at me with cold eyes, he continued.

“Study medicine under the duke’s household. Judging from your emergency treatment last night, you appear to have talent.”

To me, who had been listening quietly, those words hit like a bolt from the blue.

“E-excuse me…?”

I had barely escaped from hell, only to discover that Satan himself lived just outside it.

Absolutely not.

‘But how am I supposed to refuse this?!’

If someone held a sword to your throat and called it a request, who could possibly reject it?

“Of course, I’m not forcing you.”

What do you mean you’re not?!

I barely managed to suppress that scream before replying,

“Th-thank you… I’ll do my best.”

Long live authority.

* * *

The duke truly had come only to say that.

The moment I accepted, he immediately disappeared.

“Huh…”

Something major had just happened, but it went by so fast I could barely process it.

I forced my limp body upright.

At this point, I had no choice but to survive here somehow.

The duke had spared me on a whim, but he could just as easily change his mind and kill me later.

To him, I was probably nothing more than entertainment.

So…

‘Don’t stand out as much as possible.’

If I quietly obeyed orders and stayed invisible, eventually I’d find a chance to escape.

I still needed money to treat my illness.

While I was buried in thought—

Knock knock.

“My lady, may I come in?”

A woman’s voice snapped me back to reality.

“Ah, yes!”

“Excuse me.”

The woman entered with impeccable manners.

‘A maid…?’

She wore the elegant maid uniform of the ducal household.

“My name is Lisa, and from today onward I’ll be assisting you. If you need anything, please call for me.”

As she spoke, she pointed toward a small cord beside the bed.

So that’s what it was for.

“I’m Iris. N-nice to meet you.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, my lady.”

The woman calling herself Lisa slowly examined the room.

Was she checking for problems?

Or maybe installing surveillance devices?

I watched her suspiciously.

After looking around for a while, Lisa crouched down to meet my eyes.

“May I help you bathe first?”

Lisa had emerald-green hair and eyes.

Seeing her up close, she was incredibly beautiful.

The fact that they had assigned someone like her to me only made me more suspicious.

Then suddenly, a thought flashed through my mind.

‘Wait… did someone wash me while I was asleep?’

To put it simply, after living in the orphanage, I had been filthy.

Layers of grime covered my body, and my hair had become a tangled mess.

No way…

Startled, I whipped my head toward the bed.

If I had dirtied such an expensive bed, that would be a disaster.

After all, I had no money to repay it.

And if they told me to pay with my body instead… that would be a problem.

So I hurriedly inspected it.

‘Whew…’

Thankfully, the bed looked perfectly clean.

Relieved, I turned back toward Lisa.

“Sounds good.”

And I genuinely meant it.

Everyone likes bathing.

Especially after spending years unable to wash properly.

But Lisa seemed to interpret my answer differently.

For some reason, her expression darkened.

‘Did I say something wrong?’

If I had, maybe she’d immediately report it to the duke.

Ah-ha!

So that was it.

I had wondered why someone like me would be assigned a personal maid.

She was clearly here as a spy.

There was no other reason for her to look upset in this situation.

‘But if she’s a spy, that changes things.’

And the problem was that I had apparently upset the spy.

I needed to smooth things over quickly.

“I really like baths! I couldn’t bathe at the orphanage.”

At the very least, keep the conversation going.

Through conversation, I needed to strongly convey that I was harmless—and so skinny that eating me wouldn’t even be nutritious.

“I see…”

But contrary to my hopes, her expression worsened.

‘This is bad.’

Was this how bald men felt when staring at their final surviving strand of hair?

Filled with unease, I was dragged toward the bathroom.

The bath…

Was extremely satisfying.

* * *

Lisa watched her tiny young mistress splashing happily in the water with a fond smile.

Every now and then, Iris would stop splashing and glance around nervously, but overall she looked genuinely happy sitting in the bath.

“You mustn’t drink the water.”

The soap wasn’t poisonous, but drinking it certainly wasn’t good either.

Lisa had hesitated over whether or not to say it, worried the child was already too conscious of her surroundings.

But after finally speaking, she felt strangely relieved.

After all, the Iris she had seen last night had been so terribly small.

‘It was honestly shocking.’

To the maids, the child in the duke’s arms drew more attention than the blood-soaked duke himself.

At first glance, she had looked like a little snowball stained with soot.

That snowball had, of course, been Iris.

And her condition had been horrifying.

It took dozens of clean towels just to scrub away the filth from her body.

During the process, they discovered countless small injuries.

They weren’t wounds that would leave major scars, but the fact that a child’s body had so many scabs…

‘None of us could take it lightly.’

Most of all, there were already a few small scars on her body.

From what Lisa had heard, the child had escaped the orphanage, saved the duke’s life, and collapsed afterward.

With that tiny body.

Splash splash!

Watching her little mistress now playing with a rubber duck, Lisa unconsciously smiled before quietly sighing so Iris wouldn’t notice.

‘She checked the bed first to see if she’d dirtied it…’

Despite being only six years old, the child had already grown too mature.

Even from a brief encounter, Lisa could tell.

Of course, all of this was merely Lisa’s speculation.

Speculation that was mostly correct.

Within that mixture of truth and misunderstanding, Lisa made a vow.

No matter what, she would work for the child’s happiness.

Lisa felt the flames reigniting within the heart that had lately grown complacent.

The look in her eyes resembled that of a fanatic devoted to a god.

If Iris ever found out, she would be horrified.

Fortunately, there was almost no chance of that happening.