🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 06
“I heard that the maids and servants have a separate place to eat.”
Elhardt lightly brushed the ends of my raised eyebrows with his fingertips as he spoke.
“So you want me to go eat something good by myself?”
“That’s what I’d prefer.”
If someone spoke to you in such a soft, pleasant voice, anyone would want to do whatever they asked.
“But I can’t just let this go like this.”
I quickly looked away from him.
“I’ll go change it. To something actually edible.”
From the looks of it, he had been treated like this all along.
“The way you are treated is the way I am treated, and that means it’s the way Bardia is treated.”
“…?”
It might sound like a bit of a logical leap, but it wasn’t wrong.
Who am I?
I am the founding king’s appointed treasure-bearing first Knight Commander of Bardia.
From today on, I would eat proper food together with the prince I had decided to protect.
“I’ll be back.”
As I tried to leave the room, he quickly grabbed me.
“Don’t push yourself. I’m really fine like this.”
There is a kind of demeanor only those who have been broken down countless times possess—people who no longer expect anything from life.
I could faintly see that emptiness in Elhardt too.
And yet…
“Thank you, Ser. For being on my side.”
Why did I feel such a familiar firmness in him?
He doesn’t rely on others, nor does he expect things to turn around, but he also doesn’t collapse in despair.
It reminded me of someone who endured every injustice, smiling through it all, waiting for an opportunity to come.
“…Yeah.”
I decided to handle this more aggressively.
First of all, I was going to shove that rotten, foul-smelling food waste straight down the throat of the bastard who brought it.
“Damn it, how long do I have to be treated like this?”
Osman gritted his teeth as he left the annex where Bardia’s former crown prince was imprisoned.
He was currently in a very unreasonable situation.
Because his mother was from Bardia, he was forced to take care of a hostage.
“I’m a citizen of the Empire, damn it.”
Like most servants employed in the imperial palace, he too was from a noble family.
Though only the third son of a baron family, and with no connections whatsoever.
Being lumped together with the fallen crown prince of Bardia, who would soon be fully subjugated, was absurd.
Even touching the meals that had been properly provided was an act of frustration.
The former crown prince of Bardia—once called the Guardian God of Bardia and a major obstacle in the conquest wars of the Cradion Empire. His reputation was not empty; even surviving on one bowl of disgusting porridge a day, he never seemed to weaken.
Every time he carried that bowl into the room, it felt like stepping into a tiger’s den.
It was truly, thoroughly unpleasant.
‘I wish he would just die already.’
The resentment of being assigned such a loathed job made Osman hate the crown prince even more.
‘I can’t understand why they’re keeping him alive.’
His death would be better for everyone.
Especially for himself—he should disappear from this palace as soon as possible.
‘I’ll just have to take care of it myself.’
He had obtained poisonous herbs that cause vomiting, stomach pain, and diarrhea, and mixed them into the porridge. Today would be a miserable day for him.
If he just kept his mouth shut, there was no proper way for him to obtain medicine either.
‘Let’s see if he can endure this.’
Imagining the noble face twisted in agony while clutching his stomach made Osman feel a little better.
And so, what had seemed like a somewhat normal day took a dark turn when he was summoned by the head servant.
‘Why is Baric calling me…?’
Next to the notoriously ill-tempered head servant stood a woman he had never seen before.
‘A new maid?’
The moment he casually shifted his gaze, Osman unconsciously held his breath.
Her hair, tied up for convenience, was a rare silver color.
Her skin was so pale, as if she had never been exposed to sunlight, giving off a chilling, snow-white impression.
Even in a plain maid uniform with no decoration, it felt as if all surrounding light was drawn toward her.
Then suddenly, her gaze turned toward him.
“……”
Those clear sky-colored eyes scanned him as if judging something, and for some reason, a chill ran down his spine.
It felt as if his hidden, ugly intentions would be exposed at any moment.
Startled and unsettled, Osman quickly looked away from the woman and turned to the head servant.
“You called for me, Head Servant?”
“Yes, Osman. I’ve called you to confirm something.”
“Yes, please speak.”
“Is it true that proper meals have not been provided to the guest in the annex?”
Osman was slightly startled inside, but showed no sign of it.
“I’m not sure what you mean. Did the hostage say that? That I abused him or something?”
There was no one in the Cradion Empire palace who would take the hostage’s side.
Wasn’t it already bad enough that no servant or maid had been assigned to him, leaving him to deal with all the trouble?
“Honestly, it’s quite unfortunate. To think he would slander me with paranoid delusions while not even understanding the Empire’s mercy.”
Osman spoke, his voice full of what seemed like genuine grievance.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I truly did my best.”
“Then what is this bowl of porridge?”
Only then did Osman notice the bowl in the head servant’s hand.
“Well? I have no idea. Maybe it’s a dog’s bowl from the palace?”
The contents were clearly the poisonous porridge he had brought to the hostage that morning, but Osman shamelessly denied it.
Whoever had found it, how could they prove the truth if he simply denied it?
“Did a dog happen to die or something?”
In the end, there was no one here who would judge him.
The death of one hostage wouldn’t change anything anyway.
As he was quietly amused at the thought of comparing the hostage to a dog, the woman who had been silently watching him suddenly smiled.
“……”
At that moment, what he felt was fear.
“…Huh? Wh-what…?”
If one were to blaspheme in front of a god’s statue in a temple, perhaps this was how it would feel.
A chilling sensation pierced through his very core. His heart dropped, and cold sweat began to run down his back.
‘Something’s… wrong…’
He couldn’t move a single finger. Not even blinking was possible.
If he moved carelessly, it felt like something enormous would crush him instantly.
“…Osman, I am speaking to you.”
The head servant seemed to be saying something, but he couldn’t hear it at all.
Right now, he needed to vomit out everything filthy inside him.
A voice in his head screamed that if he didn’t, he had no right to live.
“Osman!”
The pressure tightened around his throat. He felt like he was suffocating.
“If you don’t speak, you die. You will die. The most miserable, cursed death in the world—die, die, die…”
In that moment, when terror completely paralyzed his mind—
“I, I’m sorry!”
Osman finally collapsed flat onto the floor.
“I… I tried to harm the hostage. I was dissatisfied with the task given to me, so I tampered with the food. I even used poisonous herbs that cause stomach pain today…”
Even though he could have simply denied it to the end, he found himself confessing everything without knowing why.
He begged and begged without even the time to understand what was happening.
“I wanted him to suffer painfully and die miserably, so I… I dared to…”
In the heavy silence, only Osman’s trembling voice continued.
He revealed everything—what he had done, what thoughts he had harbored—without a single omission.
And when his confession was finally over, someone placed a bowl of porridge in front of him.
As if it were holy water absolving his sins, Osman grabbed the bowl and began gulping it down.
The rotten smell numbed his senses, and spoiled chunks stuck unpleasantly in his throat.
“Cough!”
It wasn’t the poison—it was the sheer disgust of swallowing inedible food that triggered his gag reflex.
“You should drink every last drop.”
A calm voice pierced his ears.
“Lick the bottom clean.”
