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Chapter 9
The slave merchant welcomed them.
“Welcome.”
“I heard you have a child with divine power.”
“He’s over here.”
At the very back of the slave market, a horrifying creature was locked inside a cage.
Rurutie couldn’t tell what kind of creature it was. Its head was covered in brown and gray fur resembling rat skin. Its body was hideously mottled with all sorts of colors, as though someone had marbled it with paint, making it look somewhat like a toad.
There’s a monster in there!
Rurutie froze in place, feeling a kind of fear completely different from the fear she felt toward her father.
Gailde poked the monster with the cane he had brought and examined it carefully.
“He’s cursed.”
“Yes. It seems his parents abandoned him the moment he was born because of his horrifying appearance. We took him in from a beggars’ den, where even they rejected him.”
“And the divine power he possesses is ridiculously weak. You prepared something like this to sell?”
“Even someone with divine power is extremely valuable, Your Grace. Most of them are taken away by the temples before they ever make it to a slave market.”
“Hah. I suppose I have no choice. I’ll have to settle for this.”
Gailde pulled a gold coin from inside his clothes, and the slave merchant happily accepted it.
“We’ll send him to your estate right away. What would you like to name him?”
“Didn’t he already have a name?”
“No. Ah, the beggars’ den called him Rat.”
“Rat? What an appropriate name.”
Rurutie stood frozen.
Gailde grabbed her frightened arm tightly and forced her to stand in front of the monster.
“What a useless child, isn’t he? An ugly child deserves to be abandoned, of course. Isn’t that right, Rurutie?”
It was his way of saying that one day, he would abandon Rurutie because she was useless.
After starting a new experiment, Gailde stopped looking for Rurutie for quite some time.
Freed from her father’s watchful eye, Rurutie received a variety of lessons.
One day, bored with embroidery, Rurutie quietly slipped out of the mansion and played in the backyard.
There, she spotted a kitten and ran after it without thinking.
“Got you!”
“Meow!”
Rurutie scooped up the struggling kitten, only to realize belatedly that she had wandered into the part of the estate where her father’s laboratory was located.
It was a place she wasn’t allowed to enter without permission.
Father is definitely going to scold me!
She hurriedly searched for the way she had come, but couldn’t find it.
As time passed, she grew increasingly anxious. She stamped her feet and circled the tall wall over and over.
How did I even get in here?
She had been so focused on chasing the kitten that she had no idea how she had managed to get over the enormous wall.
She stared blankly up at the wall, which seemed to be ten times taller than she was.
“…Aah.”
A strange sound came from the corner of the wall.
Rurutie turned toward the sound and saw the monster she had encountered at the slave market.
“A-a monster!”
Startled, Rurutie dropped the kitten and covered her mouth.
She was afraid that if she made too much noise, her father might hear her.
Fortunately, the monster didn’t approach her. He simply remained where he was.
W-wait… Those marks…
Just as she was about to run away, Rurutie sensed a faint trace of magic coming from the monster.
It was a familiar kind of magic, familiar enough that even Rurutie, whose mana channels had disappeared, could recognize it.
In particular, the traces of the binding spell that had tightly restrained his hands and feet, preventing him from moving, were unmistakable.
You were hurt by Father, too.
As if trying to avoid Rurutie’s horrified gaze, the monster lowered his head and pointed toward a particular spot with one finger.
She followed the direction of his fingertip.
There was a small hole beneath the wall, large enough for Rurutie to crawl through.
“Are you helping me?”
He slowly nodded.
“Uh, um… Thank you.”
Now that her guard had lowered, Rurutie took a closer look at him.
He seemed to be around her age, but he was much smaller than Rurutie, with limbs so thin that his bones were visible.
His legs were actually thinner than Rurutie’s arms.
His cheeks, visible through his shaggy hair, were hollow as well, making her feel sorry for him and want to give him something to eat.
“I’ll bring you some food next time.”
The monster, who had been avoiding her gaze, raised his head and looked at Rurutie.
She remembered the name her father and the slave merchant had called him at the slave market.
“See you again, Rat.”
Thanks to the small hole Rat had shown her, Rurutie was able to return safely to the mansion.
The fear caused by his frightening appearance had disappeared long ago, replaced by a sense of kinship.
After that, she continued sneaking into the garden attached to her father’s laboratory.
If her father caught her, she would inevitably be dragged to the punishment room, but she was worried about Rat, who was always starving.
Whenever Rurutie arrived at the garden, she went to the well where he always crouched.
But she couldn’t find Rat.
He must be so hungry… Where is he?
She searched through the bushes nearby, but to no avail.
“Rat.”
She wanted to call out loudly, but afraid that her father might hear her, she lowered her voice and entered the bushes.
There’s no way a person would be hiding in such a dark bush.
An ordinary person might think that.
But Rat was afraid of the world, so if he wasn’t by the well, he was surely hiding somewhere in the bushes.
“Rat, where are you?”
“L-Lady Rurutie…”
Without making a sound, Rat quietly approached and mumbled.
The tiny voice coming from the darkness sent chills down Rurutie’s entire body, and she jumped.
“Ah! You startled me!”
Rurutie shook her head vigorously and hurried out of the bushes.
Rat timidly followed her.
“I-I’m sorry.”
As Rat’s emotions became agitated, the Brücke family crest appeared on the back of his hand.
It was a magical obedience spell that Gailde had implanted in him.
Because of the spell, which was essentially like a collar around his neck, poor Rat couldn’t escape and was trapped in the laboratory garden.
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes…”
“Guess what I brought?”
She pulled out the food she had hidden inside her clothes.
Rat’s eyes immediately locked onto the packaged food wrapped in brown paper.
He was practically drooling.
It seemed he had gone without food all day yesterday while inside her father’s laboratory.
He flared his nostrils and answered quickly.
“A-a sandwich… With ham…”
“That’s right. I even cut the ham this thick and put it inside.”
“Wow.”
“And there are five slices!”
Rurutie used two fingers to show him how thick the ham was.
She wanted to explain what kind of bread and sauce she had used as well, but decided against it.
Judging from Rat’s expression, it seemed better to give him the food quickly rather than waste time on unnecessary explanations.
“Here. Eat.”
“T-thank you.”
Rat bowed excessively and hurriedly tore open the wrapping.
The smell of smoked ham and rich sauce was incredibly tempting.
He wanted to put it in his mouth immediately, but first he carefully cleared away the paper so he could eat comfortably.
Then he broke the sandwich neatly in half and offered one piece to Rurutie.
She scolded him.
“I’ve told you several times to eat it all yourself.”
“But I’m grateful. I have nothing to give you…”
“If you’re grateful, then don’t leave any behind. Eat it all.”
Looking dejected, he nodded and took a large bite.
The only patch of normal skin remaining on his face was his right cheek.
The moment he bit into the sandwich, it turned a pale pink.
He seemed happy.
“Is it good?”
Rat quickly nodded up and down while chewing.
It was nice to see him eat so well, but wasn’t he eating too quickly?
“Chew properly. You’ll make yourself sick.”
Until Rurutie began bringing him food, he had survived by picking up food scraps scattered around the garden and eating them.
Rat? What on earth are you eating?
Food… It’s food.
Fertilizer is food? Your stomach will hurt if you eat things like that.
I’ve eaten it for a long time… I’m okay.
She had been utterly shocked when she saw him picking up food scraps that had been scattered around as fertilizer and eating them.
She wanted to visit him every day and bring him food, but even coming every other day was difficult.
The people at the mansion were really too cruel.
If he had been a pretty-looking child, there would probably have been plenty of servants willing to sneak him food behind her father’s back.
But because of his grotesque appearance, even the servants were afraid of him.
People who weren’t mages treated curses and contagious diseases as though they were the same thing, avoiding him for fear of catching whatever he had.
That meant Rat must have been lonelier than anyone else.
It’s not a contagious disease… Idiots.
Rurutie watched Rat happily eat his sandwich.
At first, she had thought he was a monster simply because of his appearance.
But if she looked carefully, she could see that apart from the difference in skin color, he was just as human as she was.
“Hey, Rat. Listen.”
He nodded up and down while chewing.
“A new maid came to the mansion this time. Her name is Sui, and she’s a really interesting girl.”
While Rat ate, Rurutie told him about what was happening outside.
He must have been terribly bored, being confined to the garden.
“Everyone in the mansion already likes me, but I’m happy because now there’s one more person who does.”
In truth, the servants of the mansion were indifferent toward Rurutie.
But if the only person she could talk to heard nothing but depressing stories, he would be sad.
Having run out of good things to talk about, Rurutie added a little lie.
By then, Rat had eaten half the sandwich.
He was so focused on eating that he didn’t even notice the crumbs stuck around his mouth.
Rurutie raised a finger and gently tapped his cheek.
The moment her hand touched him, Rat recoiled in terror.
“D-don’t touch me!”
Startled, he dropped the sandwich he had been happily eating onto the ground.
Rurutie widened her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. There was just a piece of bread on your cheek, so I was trying to remove it.”
Rurutie showed him the bread crumb stuck to her fingertip.
His eyes filled with tears as he fiercely rubbed his face with his sleeve.
If he keeps rubbing that hard, he’s going to hurt his face.
She wanted to grab his hand and make him stop, but if she did that, Rat looked like he might really start crying.
