Chapter 3

Raw provider: Tsalispark

Translator: Rhyme

Editor: SilverAndGold

Beth didn’t seem to know how charming she was – but the people around her did. Even though she was not someone with overwhelming beauty, her bright aura drew the attention of others.

Beth had ivory skin, which didn’t fall in line with her occupation – a maid, who does physical labour. Her hair was tied together neatly and peeked out from behind her slender neck. There were some small hair strands that fell out from the knot – this added to her charm. She was neither exceedingly courteous, nor was she concerned about the view of others, but this didn’t mean that she would derail from her morality. She did what needed to be done and had a grip over her emotions.

Julia felt Beth was on a different level than her.

“Beth! If you are free this weekend, we can go to the theat- “

” – I don’t have money to buy the tickets for the theatre,” Beth quickly interrupted.

“It’s fine, I also have – “

” – I also don’t have time to spare.”

“…….”

“And also, why are you speaking to me informally? We are not acquaintances.”

Today as she returned, a gardener ran towards her as he abandoned his work and acted very coy and pitiful towards Beth, but he was quickly shut down by Beth.

Beth brought the items in her arms closer to her chest. Usually, most of it was food which had a long shelf life, but this time, besides those, she bought other things.

Julia ran to Beth the moment she saw her. She took the small bundle Beth held.

Julia said as she opened the bundle, “Ah…What a waste. Tom was really popular.”

“Tom…?”

“It’s that guy!,”Julia said as she pointed towards the gardener who had just approached Beth.

All of the servants pitied Tom. He got dumped recently and had been whimpering to everyone about it. Almost all maids had been consoling him. Julia consoled him secretly.

“Aaahh…. I see.”

Though she just found out his name, it was obvious that Beth would forget it in less than 10 minutes, based on her expression. In Julia’s eyes, Beth was such a person.

“Beth, do you have any plans to date in the near future?”

“No.” The answer was quick.

“Why?”

“Just….”

Beth paused to think of an answer, but it looked like she was making up excuses .

She finally opened her mouth. “It costs money and it costs time….uh – dating also needs patience? To split working hours just to meet someone, a waste of time…..”

Don’t know why I am even talking to her about this. Julia said inwardly as she laughed on the outside.

Julia didn’t even vomit1 because of Beth’s words – she had gotten used to her personality. She laughed again and helped her carry the bundle to their dorm.

Beth tucked some items to a far corner of her bed and started to sort the rest of the items. Beth started to talk as she thought of something.

“I met a swindler today.”

“What?”

“Whaaatttt???”

“How dare he, towards our2 Beth!?!”

“Why am I your Beth?”

She had only said this to Julia but heard the voices of the other dorm mates – Beth was under the impression that it was only the two of them there.

Catherine and Anne. 

One woke up all puffed up from bed from one bed and the other rolled up the bed curtains and jumped out of the other one.

“You were not swindled!”

“With Beth’s character, it is impossible to swindle her. “

With the topic of  the swindler, everyone gathered around Beth’s bed. Anne took out a tin can full of cookies, from her bed corner. Catherine looked at it and blinked slowly.

“The cookies look really expensive!”

“Yes! I haven’t even seen this type of cookie being sold in the markets!”

“Ah…this is the advantage of being the maid in charge of the kitchens. Today, the master had dinner along with the whole family. “

“Yes. Today was family dinner day.”

“This wasn’t why I asked you to return early!”

These people, the Earl’s family, huddled together, were not pleasant3 to watch. Even though her throat was filled to the brim with spiteful words about their cruelty and to her, they were akin to cockroaches – yet, they were still her employers.  They were nobles and she was only a commoner. With this, she stuffed a cookie into her mouth.

“Beth might not have known this since she took leave for half a day.”

Dry fruits were embedded into the cookies and were really tasty.  Beth and her maid-mates ate them with relish and loud crunching noises.

Beth suddenly thought Claire would have enjoyed these cookies.

According to Claire’s personality, she loved sweets, but didn’t have an opportunity to enjoy them because she lived fully neglected. There was even an episode where Cecil used it for her gain against Claire – that was the start of numerous cider episodes.

“So, how did that fraud look?”

“….haa?”

All of a sudden, the conversation went back to the swindler.

“There are many swindlers who try to lure women from the countryside. Was the guy Beth met one of them?”

“I guessed as much. But it’s only been a short while since I came to this place –  how could he have possibly known where I was from?”

“These swindlers have all sorts of tricks to fish out information about people.”

“Tricks?” Everyone laughed loudly at this except for Beth – she calmly looked at them.

“Well, was the swindler good looking?”

“Handsome.”

The maids who had just laughed turned completely silent with that one word from Beth.

Hand… Handsome?

Beth had seen many men in this one week and whenever she was asked if the guy was handsome, she never had any response.

“Handsome?!?” they exclaimed out loud.

Beth – a person who couldn’t even remember the name of the gentle and likeable Tom –  thought this swindler was handsome. They were stunned to hear that the first impression Beth had of that fraud was handsome.

This guy must possess beauty blessed by the heavens. 

“Then?”

“His aura was very alluring. I would have never guessed that these days, swindlers paid attention to maintaining their face.”

There really was such a thing.

“Sometimes, the head maid reads the newspaper out loud and there was always news about men like them,” said Catherine. “A noble wife lost about half of her assets because she was swindled by a handsome guy.”

But I don’t have any wealth.

(E/N: Maybe he really likes you Beth keke~)

Though she was not wealthy, Beth had an amazing figure – at least, that was what people had said. But Beth thought it was better to have money than looks.

The maids begged her to say more, but Beth stayed completely silent. This was because she had nothing more to say and was a little annoyed.

If she added more, then a tale about the encounter would be woven with details that never happened.

Just like that, the conversation came to a close and everyone got ready for bed.  They were all very tired from working, and soon, snoring sounds could be heard in the room.

When Beth confirmed that everyone was fast asleep, she lit a candle. With the curtain closed, a large shadow could be seen.

Let’s see. . .

It has been years since she last studied. And above all, she never imagined that one day she would willingly want to learn how to read and write at the age of 17.

It was virtually impossible for Beth to hire a home tutor for Claire. So, the responsibility to take over Claire’s studies fell onto Beth’s head. Though Claire only wanted to learn to write, Beth planned to teach her beyond the ability to just read and write.

Cecil was possessed by the transmigrated heroine after she was 8 years old. In two years, drastic events would take place which would change Claire’s life forever. This meant that Beth had to change everything within this time frame.

Maybe she was blessed after being reborn or her original brain was well developed – she learned the alphabet quickly. Within a day, she was able to read simple paragraphs.

It is difficult to form sentences by myself.

Even though Beth studied for the whole night, she wasn’t tired. In her previous life, she could count the days where she had a night of blissful sleep on one hand – there was rarely a day when she did not do an all-nighter.

When the sun peeked through the sky, her maid-mates who got ready to leave for work, gathered for breakfast. Instead of joining them, Beth packed up some of the items she brought and walked towards the tower.

She heard the sound of the soldiers as they trained in the Earl Mansion.

They really worked hard from dawn to dusk.

How many enemies did Earl Gordon even have to raise such a troop? The number of servants in the mansion totaled less than these troops, but the troops’ pay was much higher.

Tsk~ she thought as she entered Claire’s room.

Beth felt that her pay was not enough. As a worker for an aristocratic family, eight silver was next to nothing. These employers4 exploited the employees as they made them work overtime for little extra pay. In short, those who wanted more money were the ones who did more work.

She set down the items and gave some food to Claire, who greeted her with a small smile.

In Beth’s dictionary, for those who resort to young people for labor, like the Earl family, even if they paid 20 silver a day, they should consider themselves as assholes.

No, they are assholes.

“Hmph…… bastards.”

“wh….. what?,”

“Nothing at all, Miss. Chew it properly and eat slowly.”

She seemed to have cursed out loud as she unconsciously thought about those bastards that she hadn’t even met in person.

Beth schooled her expression into a smile and showed a small face. Claire must have also felt the mood relax as she had smiled alongside her.

“Beth…. you have many facial expressions.”

“Is that so?”

Beth didn’t realize that she had reserved most of her facial expressions that revealed her inner thoughts, only for Claire.

“Mmm. . .hm. . .”

Claire, who didn’t understand what Beth meant by that, happily wiggled the bread in her hand.

It would have been nice, if Beth was my family…

If there was no Beth, then for the next couple of years, the only feeling Claire would have known would be anger and loneliness. Earl and Countess always carried an angry expression around Claire and the young master treated Claire as if she did not exist. The maids looked at Claire with cold eyes – the only exceptions were the maids who shared a room with Beth.

Claire could only love Beth, who appeared in front of her like an angel just a week ago. Claire smiled softly towards Beth, who currently wrote alphabet letters on an empty piece of paper with a coal pencil.

Beth did not gain anything by being nice to her – Claire did not understand why this maid was nice to her.

It would have been nice if Beth were her mother.

Claire was a noble, but if she could live with Beth – she had no need for such status.

“Miss, you will be happy.”

“When will that happen?”

Beth had been born poor but it was different in Claire’s case.

So she should be as happy as she can possibly be. 

1 Vomit here is similar to the expression “Vomit Blood” because of anger.

2 In Korean, it’s very common to use the term 우리 ‘uri’ , which means our we ourselves etc. When the term is used before the name of a person or thing, it emphasizes the intimacy of the speaker towards the person or thing.

3The expression is 뭐가 예쁘다고 ‘mwoga-yeppeudago’. This phrase is taunting the object matter. They mean similar to ‘what good they have’ kinda phrase.

4 Here the Employer refers to the middlemen, like supervisors or managers.