VNC 23

Chapter 23

“Wine, huh.”

Eselian, who looked as though he might tell her to leave at once, merely scanned Shuwen with a puzzled expression.

Unexpectedly, he said nothing.

As if gauging Shuwen’s intentions, Eselian stood still for a moment.

Then he slowly walked over and stopped in front of the wine cellar.

While Eselian chose a wine to drink together, Shuwen swallowed a sigh of relief, thinking she had safely gotten past a critical moment.

“Did you sneak in because you wanted to drink alone with me, Madam?”

His red eyes swept over the bottles.

Shuwen, who had been watching him, felt her heart jolt, as if she had been caught in a lie.

“Well, actually, I didn’t mean to sneak in. Someone was coming, and I got startled, so I just—”

“Ah.”

“I’m sorry for coming in without permission.”

“Then did you have business with me?”

“I was just bored and thought we could talk for a bit.”

It wasn’t really about wine, but her original purpose wasn’t much different.

She couldn’t relax while waiting idly until Mecheli left, so she had come thinking that at least talking with him might help.

Pointing at the wine cellar had seemed like the perfect excuse.

She hadn’t expected Eselian to go along with it so readily, though.

“Are you feeling all right after being startled?”

“Yes.”

Remembering the snake again, Shuwen shuddered and shook her head.

Then Mecheli’s words—that Eselian kept snakes—suddenly came to mind.

“Your Highness… there isn’t a snake here, is there?”

Shuwen scanned her surroundings and pressed herself close to the wall.

Still unable to feel at ease, she asked him.

Eselian, having finally chosen a bottle, looked at Shuwen as she kept glancing around.

His gaze slowly dropped.

More precisely, to the side of Shuwen’s legs.

“There.”

Startled, Shuwen looked down at once.

But there was nothing where he pointed.

Slowly, she raised her head to look at Eselian.

The liar merely smiled, his eyes curving.

‘Was that… a joke just now?’

Even if it was a joke, what kind of cruel joke was that?

Shuwen was dumbfounded.

“Don’t worry. I don’t keep them in the same space.”

“Then where are they?”

Eselian beckoned her to come closer.

Like an obedient dog, Shuwen moved right up beside him.

When he said something under his breath, the wine cellar suddenly split in half, revealing another space.

Shuwen stared inside with wide eyes.

The first thing she saw was a large pond.

Beside it stood dense trees, and the ground was thick with mud.

It was as if a part of a forest had been transplanted there whole.

A snake that had been coiled among the branches noticed the intruder and slid down.

The snake rushed forward at high speed.

Too fast for her to dodge.

“…Hk!”

Shuwen stared down, trembling, at the snake that stopped just short of her feet.

As if that was the limit of its territory, the snake froze, studying Shuwen as though assessing her.

This time, Eselian didn’t grab it.

It had stopped entirely of its own will.

Shuwen nearly collapsed on the spot in shock.

When Shuwen stood motionless, holding her breath, the snake seemed to lose interest and suddenly returned to the tree.

“Why on earth… do you keep snakes?”

Of all the countless possible pets, why a snake of all things?

“It’s something my father left behind. Like a keepsake.”

“That snake…? It must be older than it looks.”

Both of his parents had passed away when Eselian was young.

No matter how long snakes lived, if it had been alive since then, it would easily be over ten years old.

‘Do snakes live that long…?’

Eselian pointed elsewhere, as if that wasn’t the correct answer.

The moment Shuwen saw it, she nearly lost her grip on her sanity.

“That snake is my father’s keepsake. What I’m raising now is its offspring.”

“……”

On the shelf was a taxidermied snake.

For a moment, Shuwen felt as though the snake’s yellow eyes—glassy yet unnervingly vivid—were looking straight at her.

“Why would you go so far as to taxidermy it…?”

“Because it’s sad to lose something precious.”

“But isn’t that… losing it anyway?”

“I can see it whenever I want. I prefer this to never being able to see something precious ever again.”

“Ahaha… I see…”

Shuwen resolved that she needed to tame him quickly. The snake’s pale eyes seemed to be saying, You’re next.

Shuwen, who possessed neither ability nor a brilliant mind, had nothing to rely on except the training manual.

She reread the manual from the beginning.

[Rule of Training 1. If you want to get close, give a carrot. … (omitted) Depending on the animal’s traits and preferences, this generally refers to praise or rewards for certain actions.]

This was information she already knew.

[Rule of Training 2. Understand the animal. What is the animal you are trying to train? It may be a fierce beast or a fragile herbivore. Whatever it is, you must understand in your heart that they are different from humans.]

“Hmm…”

[(Omitted) If you truly understand the animal, the animal will also open its heart to you.]

“I see. Understand them.”

Shuwen wrote it down on the parchment: Understand Eselian.

Hmm, this one would be a bit difficult.

When the image of the taxidermied snake from two days ago surfaced, Shuwen’s vision went dark.

How was she supposed to understand that?

“Sophie, how do you think you’d feel if you lost something precious?”

Sophie, who had been pouring tea into an empty cup, stared into space, then shook her head.

“I’ve never lost anything like that, so I’m not sure, but… wouldn’t it be sad?”

“If it were you, what would you do to avoid losing it? For example, say your pet dog died. When they die, you bury them. That means you’re separated forever and can never see them again. What would you do?”

“What else could I do? It’d be sad, but there’s nothing you can do. You’d have to bury it.”

“You wouldn’t… have it taxidermied just because you didn’t want to part with it, right?”

“Of course not! Taxidermy, that’s horrible… I mean, thinking about it now, why do nobles keep sending taxidermied animals as gifts to the Count of Berg’s estate?”

“They did, didn’t they?”

“It was terrifying! I don’t understand why they’d do something so barbaric. I mean, would they like it if someone stuffed them and put them on display?”

Taxidermy wasn’t common, but it wasn’t unheard of either.

It was one of the refined hobbies of highborn nobles.

Of course, Shuwen had heard that taxidermied animals were sometimes sent to the Berg estate as gifts.

But this was the first time she had ever seen one with her own eyes.

Because of his particularly timid daughter, the Count of Berg would either return such gifts or store them away in an unused warehouse.

In any case, Shuwen agreed with Sophie.

“And if it’s something precious, all the more reason you wouldn’t do that! You couldn’t!”

For now, this was on hold. Shuwen drew a star next to her notes and wrote On hold.

[Rule of Training 3. Too much carrot is poison. Use the whip. Once you have formed some degree of rapport with the animal you wish to tame, the next step is to use the whip. Just as with raising a child, rather than giving unconditional love…]

Shuwen stopped reading there and flipped to the next page.

That was something you had to judge based on the other party, too.

[Now, if you’ve come this far, there is only one thing left for you to do. Put into practice what the author has said above. If you do so, the beast will follow only you. With that, I will end my words. May God’s blessing be with you.]

“What? That’s it?”

Shuwen skimmed the book again, incredulous.

A book that boiled down to “get close, praise and reward, and occasionally be strict” had no right to be this thick.

She flipped the book over to check the author’s name.

I’m never reading this person’s books again.

As she wrote the author’s name beside the parchment, Sophie suddenly frowned and complained.

Shuwen looked at Sophie, then turned her gaze toward the entrance.

A familiar face was entering the glass greenhouse.

“Your Highness.”

It was Ronnie, a maid who didn’t get along with Sophie.

As with any place where people lived, cliques existed here too.

Sophie didn’t mix well with the servants of the Ranied family.

It bothered Shuwen, but she hadn’t stepped in, knowing it would only make things harder for Sophie.

“Your Highness, His Grace the Grand Duke is looking for you.”

Shuwen pushed aside her thoughts and looked up at Ronnie.

Eselian had gone hunting with Mecheli and Naiven.

“Me? Is something wrong?”

“No. He just asked that you be brought to him.”

Sophie narrowed her eyes and shot Ronnie a glare.

“Why are you the one delivering that message? Where is his attendant?”

Sophie clearly disliked Ronnie.

Ronnie tended to treat Sophie more harshly than the other servants.

“I was asked to. The attendant who went hunting with His Grace suddenly had a stomachache and asked me to pass the message along.”

Ignoring Sophie as if she weren’t there, Ronnie spoke to Shuwen.

When Shuwen tilted her head, Ronnie smiled.

“Your Highness, may I ask you to dismiss your maid for a moment?”

“Huh?”

“There’s something I need to tell you in confidence.”

Sophie bristled and was about to say something, but Shuwen stopped her.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Shuwen sent Sophie out.

Sophie glared at Ronnie with an indignant expression and deliberately bumped her shoulder as she passed.

Ronnie didn’t seem to care in the least.

She sat down beside Shuwen as Shuwen tidied up.

Then she reached out and closed the ink bottle that Shuwen had been about to shut.

“Your Highness, you have such beautiful hands. What were you looking at? …‘Rules of Training’? What kind of book is that?”

As she closed the ink bottle, Ronnie admired Shuwen’s hands.

“It’s nothing important.”

Having been in Ranied for quite some time now, Shuwen wasn’t particularly awkward around the servants.

She rolled up the parchment she had been writing on.

“My, Your Highness, you even handle parchment so gracefully.”

Ronnie began to flatter her. Shuwen smiled, a little embarrassed.

“It seems His Grace is hungry. He asked that something simple be prepared. Of course, it wasn’t specifically for you, Your Highness.”

“…? I see.”

Shuwen felt uncomfortable around Ronnie. And it wasn’t only because of Sophie.

“I know that Your Highness is trying hard to get along with His Grace. Watching you make that effort, I made a vow to myself.”

“……”

“I’m terribly sorry to say something so presumptuous, but… I want to help you, Your Highness.”

“Me?”

At that point, even Shuwen grew curious.

‘Why did Ronnie come to me?’

In the original novel, Ronnie was a villainous supporting character who utterly shattered Titiana’s mental state.

That Ronnie—who had been jealous of Titiana because she liked Eselian—was now approaching her first, as the Grand Duchess, was something Shuwen couldn’t understand.

Especially not like this.

“Yes. There are things you don’t yet know, Your Highness. I want to tell you about them.”