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Chapter 39
“Close… friends?” she repeated blankly.
I was so taken aback that I asked without thinking.
I had never considered that possibility even once.
But Rakiel looked even more incredulous than I was.
“Then we’re not?”
“Eh? Not at all.”
Friends? As if. We’d only exchanged words a few times.
When I answered with obvious rejection, Rakiel’s eyes widened as if he had suffered a shock. For a moment, I was left speechless.
Soon, he stuck out his lips with an extremely wounded expression.
“That really hurts. Especially that look on your face!”
“…Can you even see my face?”
“No, but I don’t need to. I’m sure you’re making a disgusted expression right now.”
How did he know?
Pretending to explain myself, I spoke firmly.
“Your Highness is Your Highness! How could someone like me become friends with you?”
“What does status have to do with friendship? Friends are friends. Then how exactly do you explain our relationship?”
“You’re a prince, and I’m a maid! Up here! Down here! Let’s keep it clearly divided!”
“Wrong. This is what you call friendship that transcends status.”
“I mean—”
At that moment, the sound of shattering glass rang out.
Startled, we hurriedly pressed ourselves against the wall. Peeking around the corner, we saw four maids, including Ginny.
The drinks they had been carrying had fallen and shattered across the floor, and Ginny stood frozen, turning her head with lifeless eyes.
As if she had just been slapped.
“Y-you bitch! Just because you have a mouth doesn’t mean everything you say becomes the truth!”
One of the maids shouted furiously. Her face was bright red.
What’s going on?
Frowning, I focused on their conversation.
“Did I say something wrong?”
Ginny asked calmly. Unlike usual, there was strength in her voice.
“Did you say something wrong? You dared to call us vulgar!”
“If something is vulgar, I call it vulgar. Or is there another vulgar expression suitable for referring to vulgar people like you?”
Vulgar. Vulgar. Vulgar.
She had used the word five times.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed. The furious maid raised her hand again.
She’s really…
The anger that had subsided began to rise once more.
Forgetting everything else, I instinctively moved to step forward.
Then Rakiel quickly grabbed my arm.
“Wait.”
He whispered.
“Let’s watch a little longer. Your friend seems stronger than you think.”
Just as Rakiel said, Ginny was staring straight at the maid without backing down.
“If you’re going to hit me, then hit me. But I don’t regret what I said. Rather than letting our Lady suffer humiliation because of vulgar, vulgar people like you, I’d gladly endure all of it myself.”
“O-our Lady, my ass! Everyone in the duchy knows Rosenthal’s young lady is a famous lunatic!”
“What does that have to do with me?”
Ginny glared sharply at her.
Because Ginny refused to retreat even an inch, it was the maid who faltered instead.
She had lost the battle of wills.
When Ginny took a step forward, the maid flinched.
“I intend to serve my lady to the best of my ability until she returns to the capital—and even afterward. Whether you bully me or not doesn’t matter.”
“……”
“But I won’t tolerate anyone insulting my lady.”
“……”
“So go ahead and say it again. What was it you said about my lady?”
Ginny’s icy voice echoed through the corridor.
The maid slowly lowered her hand and bit her lip.
“Ugh… J-just wait! Your life here is going to be hell from now on!”
“Ah, wait for me!”
The group hurriedly fled.
Left alone, Ginny wiped the sweat from her forehead with trembling hands and resumed cleaning as though nothing had happened.
…Amazing.
She had incredible spirit.
As expected of Evelynn’s maid.
I nodded in admiration. It seemed she could handle herself well enough on her own, but…
That didn’t mean I could simply do nothing.
I turned my head, preparing to leave.
Then—
…!
A black-haired nape suddenly drifted into view.
Rakiel was right in front of me.
Literally right in front of me.
While I stood frozen, his elegant neck moved, and his voice came from directly above me.
“The young lady has quite a remarkable person by her side.”
“…Y-yes, she does.”
I barely managed to answer.
Had I been so focused on Ginny that I hadn’t noticed?
“It’s strange. She feels completely different from the person I knew. When I saw the young lady at that banquet before… she was…”
Suddenly, Rakiel trailed off.
Judging by the way he stiffened, he seemed to have finally realized just how close we were standing.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“……”
“……”
Silence lingered between us.
“…Could you move back a little?”
At my strained request, he flinched noticeably.
“…My apologies.”
Rakiel removed the arm that had been braced beside me and stepped away, raising both hands as though to prove he had done nothing.
He smiled awkwardly.
…Whew.
I dusted off my clothes and adjusted my hood.
Judging by the situation, it didn’t seem like he had seen my face.
While I was fixing my clothes, he watched quietly before speaking again.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize we were standing that close.”
“No, I didn’t notice either.”
Perhaps because I had almost been exposed, my tone came out colder than intended.
His eyes widened slightly, and his lips parted.
“…I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
“…?”
Why was he apologizing so seriously?
“No, really, it’s fine.”
I shrugged, but he still looked as though he was blaming himself.
Tilting my head in confusion, I decided to leave him alone.
He could sort it out himself.
While we exchanged that pointless conversation, Ginny finished cleaning and moved on to another area.
Watching her, I organized my thoughts.
Anyway, the important thing right now is Ginny.
But then a sudden idea flashed through my mind.
Come to think of it…
Wasn’t there a much simpler way to solve this problem?
The strange incidents at Rosenthal Ducal Estate began on Tuesday.
The first victim was Roni.
She started her day as usual and happened to encounter the young lady on the stairs.
As she passed by with a casual greeting—
“Aaaah!”
The young lady’s skirt was stepped on by Roni, causing her to tumble down the stairs.
There were only three steps left, but that wasn’t the issue.
The problem was that the Young Duke witnessed everything.
“Evelynn!”
Roni was immediately arrested for injuring a noble.
“What kind of bad luck is this? Why is this happening because of a careless young lady?!”
“Seriously, what rotten luck. And of all times, the Young Duke had to appear right then, during a period like this!”
The maids whispered among themselves.
But none of them realized that day was only the beginning of the nightmare.
The second victim was Rena.
A knife sitting on a dining table she was cleaning suddenly fell toward the young lady.
Thunk!
The knife embedded itself neatly into the floor right beside the young lady’s foot.
An ordinary knife should never have done that.
It was sharp enough to seem as though someone had deliberately honed it.
“G-g-young lady! Are you a-alright—?”
“Aaaah! She tried to kill me! She tried to kill me!”
The Young Duke shot to his feet, his face deathly pale.
“Arrest her immediately!”
The estate quickly descended into chaos.
Starting with Roni and Rena, servants and maids alike began disappearing one after another, dragged away or locked up.
The corridor Zella had polished became so smooth it might as well have been coated with oil.
The young lady happened to slip there and sprain her ankle.
Certainly not something Zella intended.
“I’m sorry! P-please spare me!”
Nevertheless, Zella was dismissed that very day.
That evening, Nei was dragged screaming from the young lady’s bedroom.
On the one day Ginny had been occupied elsewhere and Nei had handled the room instead, a poisonous insect had been found hidden in the bedding.
A glossy black bug the size of a finger.
“Kyaaaah! They’re trying to poison me!”
“I-I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t know!”
Nei’s cries echoed all the way down the corridor.
“One after another—everyone’s losing their heads!”
“The estate must be haunted… There’s no other explanation for people disappearing like this every day!”
“W-wait, now that you mention it, I heard rumors about a ghost! Apparently someone walks around the estate wearing a hood, and nobody knows who they are…”
Fear engulfed the estate.
Impossible accidents occurred one after another, and every day someone vanished.
As though a curse had descended upon the manor.
And after five days passed, nobody even bothered asking why anymore.
Everyone had realized that whenever an “accident” involving the young lady occurred, the person responsible would be gone by the next day.
The maids held their breath and trembled at the mere sight of the young lady’s shadow in the hallway.
As if an invisible hand were slowly tightening around their throats…
“Hm-hm—”
A cheerful humming echoed through the chilly corridor.
It was a sound that should never have existed within the frozen atmosphere of the estate, which felt as though it had fallen into the setting of a ghost story.
The owner of that voice was none other than Ginny, the personal maid of Rosenthal’s young lady.
