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Chapter 12
“What the hell is he doing outside right now?”
At the voice coming from the doorway, Ivnia snapped her head up.
Ram was leaning against the kitchen entrance, pointing outside with a look of utter disbelief.
It didn’t take long for Ivnia to realize who he meant, and she asked to confirm.
“You mean Sir Guillermo?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s polishing the silverware. They’re all well-made pieces, but they haven’t been maintained properly, so they were in pretty bad shape. I don’t think he knew the right way to clean them, so I showed him.”
“Silverware? That guy’s out in the hall polishing the suit of armor I had standing there.”
Ivnia was left speechless.
Did that mean he’d already finished cleaning all the silverware he’d taken out and had started working on other areas as well?
She had thought she’d discovered an unexpected hobby when he’d gotten so excited over seeing the cutlery restored to a like-new shine—but she never imagined he’d go so far as to polish decorative armor.
“Maybe being a butler is Sir Guillermo’s true calling.”
“He’s not a butler. I told him to do odd jobs, and one day he just went and put on a fancy title all by himself.”
“For a title he took on his own, he looked quite convincing.”
“That’s only because you’ve barely seen him. If you knew how much trouble he’s caused while playing at being human, you wouldn’t say that.”
Listening to Ram, Ivnia suddenly found herself curious about how Guillermo had ended up living in this castle.
Guillermo spoke as though Ram had dragged him here against his will despite his innocence, but from the other side, the story clearly sounded different.
Just as Ivnia was debating whether it would be all right to ask Agram about Guillermo’s past, Ram stepped over the threshold and strode into the kitchen.
Coming up beside her, he scanned the countertop cluttered with various utensils and said,
“Anyway, what are you doing in here? Where did everyone else go?”
“Ah, I’m planning to host a dinner tonight. I’m inviting everyone who lives here.”
When Emilia arrived in Ritberg, Guillermo would probably try to host a welcome banquet just like the one he’d prepared when Ivnia first came.
Ivnia herself hadn’t cared much about the food at the time and had eaten whatever was put in front of her, but it wouldn’t do to ruin Emilia’s first impression in the same way.
The moment Emilia took offense, thinking she was being disrespected, Guillermo’s chances of pardon would vanish as well.
There was a mountain of things to teach him, but for today Ivnia decided to start by showing Guillermo how to set the table and serve food.
Cooking wasn’t something you improved at overnight—and she herself had begun to crave food that was at least edible.
On top of that, treating the people she’d be living with to a proper meal didn’t seem like a bad idea.
Recalling the appearances of the housemates she’d met earlier, Ivnia said,
“Sir Max looks like he’s barely been eating. His armor hangs off him.”
“Sir Max? Ah, the knight who showed up while I was asleep?”
Ivnia nodded at Ram’s question.
She couldn’t take him out of this place, but she could at least offer him one good meal.
Poor food was probably part of why he wanted to leave so badly—this might soothe him a little.
“But why does he walk around in completely broken armor?”
“Even if you ask me that…”
She trailed off awkwardly, but it wasn’t hard to guess the reason.
He wouldn’t have brought tools to repair armor while breaking in to steal, and even if he had, fixing shattered parts would have been impossible.
And on top of that, Guillermo had forced him into the role of a knight—so he must have thrown on whatever battered gear he could find.
‘That’s why you shouldn’t go stealing other people’s things in the first place…’
Ivnia clicked her tongue inwardly, feeling sorry for him—though that didn’t mean she intended to excuse his crimes.
“I heard he was caught stealing. Maybe that’s when his armor got wrecked?”
“I’ve even got thieves living in my castle now? I look away for one night and the place turns into a complete mess.”
Muttering in disbelief, Ram tilted his head toward Ivnia.
“There’s no need to prepare meals for people like that. Just leave it. I was actually looking for you anyway—I figured it was time to get some food into you.”
“Can you cook, Sir Ram?”
“No. I was planning to go out and buy something.”
“Then have this today. It’s almost ready.”
As she spoke, Ivnia swept the vegetables she’d been chopping straight off the cutting board and onto an oven tray.
Fortunately, the kitchen still had plenty of ingredients left over from the banquet Guillermo had prepared the day before.
Aside from that, the usual food situation was so dire it made her wonder what they normally survived on…
Still, it seemed manageable to get through today using what they had.
Agram stared at the prepped dishes for a moment before turning his head toward Ivnia.
Then he repeated the same question she’d asked earlier.
“You can cook too?”
“I’m not a professional.”
“The noble ladies I know aren’t supposed to be the type who can host banquets. You said you didn’t get along with your parents—did you end up working as a maid in that house too?”
Sensing the suspicion in Ram’s gaze, Ivnia quickly cut him off and added,
“I did it because I wanted to. And my sister was loved and cherished enough.”
It wasn’t hard to tell that Ram understood why she’d added that explanation.
After opening and closing his mouth once, he replied,
“Thanks for telling me. But I was worried about you just now.”
Ivnia knew that already—that he was that kind of person.
Instead of saying something embarrassingly kind to his face, she went back to prepping the remaining vegetables.
Simple, repetitive work had a surprisingly good effect on clearing her tangled thoughts.
Perhaps because of that, even though she’d first learned to cook for someone else’s sake, Ivnia eventually came to genuinely enjoy spending time in the kitchen.
“I know what you’re thinking, but they weren’t bad people. If anything, they loved their children deeply. After my sister ended up like that… neither of them ate properly. I just wanted them to eat something, so I started making things myself. That’s how I got better.”
“Still sounds strange.”
“What does?”
“People who are good parents wouldn’t have made a child worry like that.”
Count Hesssen and his wife were good parents—at least to Emilia.
The orphan they’d brought in had never truly counted as their child in the first place, so that couldn’t be used to diminish their love.
Keeping her expression neutral, Ivnia changed the subject.
“I’m not a child.”
“Only kids say things like that.”
Said the man who had demanded a child as his bride—why was he so obsessed with age now?
If her sister had come here, he would have swallowed her whole in an entirely different sense.
Ivnia found it absurd.
“You told them to send my sister here the moment she turned twenty. So that means you were planning to marry a child, Sir Ram.”
“I told you, I’m a thief. Honestly, she’d have needed to be about sixty before our mental ages matched—but I couldn’t wait that long, so I tried to bring her here as early as possible.”
Ram didn’t look even slightly affected by her words.
After all, a human lifespan barely stretched a few decades at best.
To him, time slipping away like sand through his fingers must have been something he desperately wanted to keep by his side.
In an unusually frank tone, he confessed,
“If I’d had my way, I would’ve brought her here the moment I heard she was born.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“A doddering old man who told your family that my wife would be reincarnated there warned me. He said I must never look into how she was living until she came of age.”
As he spoke, he pulled a mixing bowl closer—one he’d set aside earlier.
Apparently finding his hands idle, he grabbed a whisk and stirred aimlessly as he continued,
“Those kinds of rules are the ones you absolutely can’t break. You’ve heard the myths, right? Where someone looks back just once and immediately falls back into the underworld. Think of it like that. Of course, I wasn’t stupid enough to lose my chance over such a ridiculous mistake.”
Was that why this man had failed to notice that the Hesssen couple had hidden her sister?
Ivnia had found it strange. Someone like him wouldn’t have avoided visiting simply because the distance was great—so why had he remained so ignorant of the Hesssen family’s circumstances?
They had been meticulous, yes, but if Ram had pushed even a little harder, deceiving him completely would have been difficult.
“Just in case, after your sister was born, I didn’t even leave my house. I was afraid I might run into her by chance because of some twist of fate. He said that if I broke the promise, I’d never be able to meet my wife again. Ever.”
