CH 24

In the blink of an eye, Blanche, who had her arms filled with the gifts she received, put everything in her inventory as if shaking them off.

A man she didn’t know who gave her the burn stickers spoke.

“『Your Majesty』. That’s what criminals with bounty on their heads use to get out of town. It was a waste product from the magic tower, and the free citizens of Digitalis rushed to develop and improve it. It works really well, so if something happens, use it to hide your identity.”

Blanche smiled faintly.

“Thanks. It’s the best gift I received today.”

The new coat I gave you wasn’t…? Poor Guillermo wept inside.

After a while, she looked around slowly. Then, she said her farewell with empty eyes like someone who didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll leave now. I’ll see you later if I can.”

It was a dark winter night outside.

It was even raining sleet.

Blanche, nevertheless, slowly made her way through the invisible front. Guillermo and Giulio shouted to the firm back.

“『Your Majesty』! You must come back! I’ll be waiting-!”

“Older sister! Be sure to come back with my brother! Please!”

* * *

A scandal spreads faster than a good story.

Within a month, the news of Mariette’s marriage to a loan shark was known throughout the Lupinus Kingdom. Of all things, there was a lot of gossip that everyone said that the beauty had fallen into the grasp of an evil man.

Count Juan decided to take this opportunity to spread notoriety across the Western continent, setting their wedding date a month after Mariette’s eighteenth birthday.

She covered her eyes and cried out. So everyone knew the Count’s insidious plan.

The count is trying to drag Mariette to the temple as soon as she becomes an adult.

* * *

Count Juan decided to hold a one-month reception in addition to the wedding. Because of this, the Count required an unprecedented number of laborers, so Blanche managed to infiltrate easily.

Now she was no longer the twin sister of the new bride, Mariette Marquette, but a poor handyman with more than half of her face and neck covered with burn scars.

It was late lunch time.

The northern annex where the maids of the Count Juan family stayed.

There was a commotion in the dining hall.

“What the hell did you do last night?! Do you know how much I was scolded by the maid because of you?!”

Are you in your mid-twenties now? A woman with a hazy impression grabbed the woman who entered the dining hall alone.

The red-haired woman with bulging burn scars on her face as well as on the back of her hands bowed her head and apologized without any excuses.

“I’m sorry. Roxanne.”

But Roxanne had no intention of accepting her apology graciously. Roxanne poked the head of the woman who had her head down with her index finger.

“There is nothing else to be sorry for. Irene. Do you think I’ll pity you? After this reception is over, you’re fired! Don’t even think you can get a letter of recommendation!”

“Yes.”

It was an extremely compliant voice. And Roxanne hated that even more. Because what she wanted wasn’t such an insensitive apology.

Roxanne wished Irene, or Blanche, with this disgusting burn scar, to beg her and cry ugly. So Roxanne vowed.

‘Just wait and see! I’ll make sure this girl cries in front of me before she gets fired!’

Roxanne repeatedly groaned in annoyance.

“Because of you, I’m responsible for the meals of the guards in the dungeon again! If this keeps going, I’ll look like a savage!”

“I’m sorry.”

It was a lousy apology again. Roxanne threw a basket of laundry piled up like a mountain and poured it onto Blanche.

The laundry, soiled and dirty, belonged to the soldiers who guarded Count Juan’s castle.

Roxanne rolled her eyes again.

“Hmmp! What meal? Nonsense. Go to the well to do laundry! You [email protected]!”

“Yes.”

Blanche grabbed the laundry basket. It looks like she’d be stuck at the well all day.

As soon as Blanche entered the dining hall, and was seen coming out again, words were exchanged between the maids.

“Roxanne is also very… She’s causing all this commotion just because of one person under her.”

“I never knew Roxanne’s neck could be that stiff.”

“But this time Roxanne deserved to be angry. She already brought medicine to the person this morning.”

“I heard that the kid in the dungeon isn’t even an adult yet?”

“Oh my.”

“Roxanne was right. Irene, she’s not good at taking care of the prisoners.”

“Right? She wouldn’t get a proper job with a body like that. It looks like she will be fired right after the reception is over.”

“Hey. She should consider herself lucky, thanks to the reception, she got to work for a while.”

No one could have imagined that Blanche was the King of Digitalis.

On the other hand, Blanche headed to the well behind the castle while facing the strong winds of the cloudy winter weather. Despite the cold weather, Blanche kept falling asleep. It was because of what happened last morning.

Blanche finally met Ricardo, but failed to escape.

It was because Ricardo went crazy when Blanche spoke to him, perhaps because he was born in Digitalis and didn’t know about the magic item, the image sticker. Ricardo even froze when she touched his body.

No matter how many sleeping pills the guards ate with their meal, it was only natural that they who had been put to sleep woke up in the commotion.

‘I wanted to leave before Mariette came to the mansion, but now I can’t.’

Blanche wanted to flick both Ricardo and Roxanne in the head. She arrived at the well, thinking, ‘But if I do, they’ll both die.’

As Blanche laid down her mountain-high laundry basket, two middle-aged maids stared at her.

They also shuddered at how impressive Blanche’s appearance was. A conversation took place between the two maids.

“Oh, she’s the…”

“Ah. Her.”

But they didn’t seem to want to talk to Blanche and just looked around. So, whether Blanche started the laundry or not, they kept chatting amongst themselves.

“Miss Mariette’s widowhood inheritance (the property that the wife inherits after her husband’s death) is so small.”

“I heard it too. Count Juan wrote a will? Wouldn’t he need a son to take over the title in order to inherit all his fortune?”

“By the way, the Count is old, have you seen a successor? If there is no illegitimate child that comes to you at that age, doesn’t that say something?”

“Because the field is good, it will be okay.”

“Well. The seed is bad, but the field is good.”

[T/N: Referring to Mariette and Count Juan]

“Oh yeah. That’s true too.”

“More than that, my hand! Hah, I can’t do laundry anymore because my hands are freezing!”

Wet laundry was lying on the floor by the well.

Blanche did her own laundry silently, not paying attention to other people’s laundry that became muddy. She would have continued the laundry silently, if only the two gazes persistently followed did not stop chatting.

Blanche, who noticed the gazes, raised her head, and she said two maids giving and receiving, as if to listen.

“It feels like your hands are freezing. Right?”

“Yeah.”

A subtle glance passed between the two maids. Then a maid growled, and she spoke to Blanche.

“Hey. What’s your name?”

“I’m Irene.”

“Yeah, Irene. Will you do the laundry for us?”

When Blanche raised her eyebrows, the maid added.

“You just came, so your hands are still warm.”

“Yes. You’re right.”

In response to the casual answer, the two maids put on the faces of the two maids, though, ‘How is she not…’

Suddenly, the maid who asked Blanche for her name coughed faintly.

“Uhumm. So please do some laundry for us.”

“I don’t want to.”

At the rejection of the offer, the maid snorted.

“Ha! Which maid are you under?”

“Roxanne.”

“What kind of! Roxanne, she’s only been in the mansion for two years, hasn’t she? My maid career is longer!”

“I see.”

When Blanche answered dryly, the maid, who couldn’t keep her hand still as if she was frustrated, raised her voice with arrogance.

“Hey, can’t you understand what I’m saying? Look here. With just one word from me, you also can be officially hired in this castle!”

However, Blanche did not intend to fall for this conciliation.

First of all, she didn’t even have the patience to become a maid. Besides, Blanche, who was a daughter of a Marquis, was well aware that she didn’t have the power to hire her.

Pft, Blanche laughed at the two maids.

“What to do? I have something else to do. I don’t think I can do that.”

* * *

Blanche, who headed to the laundry after breakfast, was not able to hang the laundry in the laundry room until the sun was setting. Winter was particularly cold, so she couldn’t hang the laundry outside Count Juan’s mansion.

Finally, Blanche, who had finished her work, skipped dinner and headed to the temporary maids’ quarters.

This place, which was almost like a crumbling shack, was temporarily built by the Count when they recruited additional manpower. The thin walls were not enough, and the only items were an old stove and a straw bed.

Blanche’s bed was the furthest from the hearth out of the 16 straw beds. She put on the coat that Guillermo had given her and fell into her dark sleep.

However, Blanche’s sleep did not last long.

Because after her surroundings darkened, someone gently shook her awake.

“Irene. Irene, wake up.”

As Blanche opened her eyes, a young 16-year-old girl with her dark purple hair tied up into a ponytail came into view.

She muttered in a voice that was not yet sleepy.

“Agat…”

Agat narrowed her golden eyes and smiled brightly.

“My name. You remembered?”

Blanche, who had no intention of getting along with the girl, asked.

“What’s the matter?”

“Here.”

Agat shyly offered the black bread to Blanche. Blanche blinked, and Agat said quietly.

“I know how you feel, but you have to eat meals on time.”

Only then did Blanche realize that this little girl was concerned that she was starving herself. She was worrying in vain.

In fact, there was a reason Blanche didn’t go out to dinner. She didn’t have to eat such lousy food.

Steaming stews and fresh apples were always in Blanche’s inventory. However, such a thing could not be dreamed of by an ordinary maid, Irene.