Proofreader: somnium

Different Mornings

The days passed quickly. Generally, there should have been at least five veteran maids or attendants for each nobles who knew the noble society well, who were full of culture, and were well versed in etiquette. That’s why Lena didn’t understand Arder, who poured out so much knowledge on her. She should just be good at the chores the senior maids and close aides tell her to do, but why was he trying to teach her with such impatience?

On a Saturday afternoon, Lena eventually couldn’t help but ask Arder, who warns that she made a noise when she set the teacup down on the saucer.

“Excuse me, butler. As far as I know, tea attending is the work of experienced and high-ranking maids. So, wouldn’t it be better for me to learn something else than this?”

It was a question that Lena was really upset about. There is not enough time for her to learn the chores that she needs to do right away for day by day, but she was frustrated as she was constantly learning only something for the high-class servants that only a maid from a noble family can do. Then Arder said with a look of disappointment.

“Lena. There’s something I forgot to say. I’m sorry, but you are the only one serving His Excellency in this mansion. Of course you have to do all of this. You must stick to his side and work as his limbs. You need to know not only general chores, but also high-end chores like this.”

With those words, Lena’s thinking seemed to have stopped for a while. She stared at Arder with his head up high.

“Wha, what…… are you saying now…….”

“What part of what I was saying doesn’t make sense?”

“The Duke is a very high-ranking person. I heard that he is second only to the Queen.”

“Right. You know it.”

“Then why is there no one else attending him?”

“As of right now, he doesn’t want it. And it is our duty to follow the master’s wishes. His Excellency has said that you will now be his personal maid, so you just have to follow that word.”

Lena thought again. This Duke was so strange. Wasn’t the higher people are, the more they don’t like to lift a single finger? Why did the second highest person below only the queen live without a maid by his side?

‘Or is Ardennes a bit different from the countryside? The better a man, the more humble he is. In the countryside, the nobles are abusive, but it seems that the high-ranking people here are rather frugal and simple.’

Lena found a direction she could understand with her head and forced it into place. After that, it didn’t even feel very strange. It’s just that her feet felt like they were on fire.

“Will I be beheaded for not being able to work… ?”

Seeing her trembling white face, Arder tried his best to comfort her.

‘I don’t think he’s going to let you go just because you’re bad at your job.’

Even if Lena was a real spy, Kahel would use the maid as a tool to plot an attack on the Santella family, so there was no way he could kill her for a minor mistake.

And Arder, who had been watching Lena for days, thought she might be the key to unlocking Kahel’s long-standing curse.

* * *

“Go away! Don’t come! Heeuk, huk!”

The boy who was pushed to the windowsill shouted at the woman who was approaching him. The woman’s eyes looking at the boy were blank as if in ecstasy.

“Young master…… Lisbeth has only young master. You like me too, don’t you? You looked at me and smiled.”

But the boy’s face glistened with cold sweat, and his little shoulders trembled restlessly.

“Don’t be like this! Please don’t do this! Get a hold of yourself, Lisbeth!”

Lisbeth was his close maid. She was a maid who was always quiet and well-behaved.

She was approaching the boy, who was only seven years old now, confessing her passionate love to him.

“Haa…… haa …… I love you, young master. Do you know how much I love you? I can’t stand it any longer. Please be my very own young master. please…….”

The boy had not touched her with a single finger, and she had already let out a harsh breath, drooling saliva from her lips. Her appearance was not normal.

“Someone, someone help me!”

As soon as the boy realized that he had nowhere else to step back, he cried, pouring out the tears he had been holding back. However, in the maid’s eyes, there seemed to be no tears in the poor boy’s eyes. Rather, she gasped, and was more excited, and reached out towards the boy.

“You are mine!”

The maid, who revealed her possessiveness with a bizarre voice, grabbed the boy’s wrist and immediately began to lick the fern-like hand. No matter how much the boy pushed her head away with the other hand, the little boy’s strength could not overcome the adult woman’s strength.

“Aaack! Don’t do it! I hate it!”

The boy, who was rolling his legs and trying to get away from the woman, was soon put on the floor by the woman. No matter how much the boy struggled and fought, the woman, who was incredibly strong, did not move.

“I’ll eat you and have you completely!”

But the maid, who was about to bite the boy’s wrist with her maddened eyes, stiffened, unable to burrow her teeth into the soft skin.

“Are you alright, Young Master!”

A seven-years-old boy had just witnessed his maid being slashed by a knight from his family and fell down to his side. There was still a creepy feeling on the hand she had licked, and his pajama pants were soaked with her warm blood.

* * *

“Uh, uh…….”

Kahel woke up feeling someone’s presence while his body drenched in cold sweat. When he opened his eyes, a woman was walking far from his bed and rolling the curtains up. For a moment, he jumped up in shock and took out the sword he had left on the bedside.

“Who are you?”

But at that voice, the other person was much more startled than he was, and she sat down.

“Kyaa! For, for, for…… forgive me! It’s time for you to wake up, so…… huu heuk…… forgive me…… Please, please, save me…….”

The voice begging for life was familiar to him. Then Kahel exhaled a harsh breath and lowered his fiercely held sword.

“Oh…… Did you start working as my personal maid from today ….?”

Baron Fidelia’s illegitimate daughter, whom he had appointed as his close maid, was still shaking her body and wet her cheeks with tears. He almost thought that she was really thinking that she was going to die. If that was acting she was a really great actress.

But Kahel was equally perplexed. He had become surprisingly sensitive to presences after attempted murders and rapes that occurred day after day since he was seven years old. But it had never happened in the past 16 years, that he didn’t feel it until someone came into his room and opened the curtains.

‘I must have been really tired. Well, I had a lot of things to worry about these days.’

Sitting up on the bed, Kahel wiped his face.

His fatigue could be said to have accumulated for 16 years. Even with his father’s affectionate heart, who comforted him and said that there was no need to overdo it, Kahel could not stop. He had to drive himself so hard so that he couldn’t think of anything else. Otherwise, he would suffocate, crushed by his resentment towards others, his anger, and his self-loathing.

The terrible memories of the year the devilish power was manifested still haunted him, appearing in his dreams. On the day he had that kind of dream, he couldn’t stand the disgust with others who looked at him as if licking him. But at the same time, he felt dirty because he thought it was him who made them look like beasts.

He now knows that the maids and attendants of the past who died while trying to rape him were innocent people. They were ordinary people. If it hadn’t been for the curse of the devilish power that emanated from him, they were people who would have lived a good life after that. The only reason they died was that they were unfortunately assigned to be his servants…….

Lena slowly wiped away the tears as she saw Kahel looking tired even after sleeping on the soft bed. Anyway, it didn’t seem like he was going to kill her right now, but if she wanted to keep her life a little longer, she had to look a little bit useful.

“Are you going…. to wash your face?”

Kahel lifted his head at Lena’s small voice, who stood up and asked carefully. The woman, who seemed to be barely standing with trembling legs like a newborn deer’s limp legs, was watching him, desperately trying to survive.

It was pathetic for some reason, but he just nodded because he suspected that it might also be acting.

* * *

At the same time, Liddell Santella, the Lady of the Duchy of Santella, opened her eyes to the nanny’s gentle touch, and rubbed the corners of her half-asleep eyes with the back of her hand and got up. There were already three maids around her who would help with her morning preparations.

“Ya-wn.”

Cream-colored blondes waving and waving, clear and soft skin that looks like it has light in it, blue eyes like the sky on a summer day, and red lips like rose petals…….

Liddell Santella was the daughter of the Santella family, who had been praised as an incarnation of an angel since the time she was born. The way she wakes up while she is complaining about her sleep is so adorable that even a woman would open their mouth. Her beauty was the pride of the maids who looked after her.

Washed and groomed by her maids, Liddell moved out of her bedroom, moving her soft body that looked like it would crumble when hugged. Usually, noble ladies wake up late, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., but the successor candidate, Liddell, could not afford such laziness.

“Did you have a peaceful night? Good morning, Dad.”

Liddell stopped by the office of the head of the family to say good morning with a gleaming smile, and sat opposite the Duke of Santella, who responded with a similarly beautiful smile, and drank peppermint tea served by the attendant. Just as her mouth was refreshed and her head, which was still a little sleepy, cleared, the door to the office opened and another angel entered.

“Did you have to wake up your son at this hour?”

He was an angel, but his mouth was of a rough angel’s. He had a blonde and beautiful appearance similar to Liddell, but the complaints that he had to force himself to get up were overflowing from his face, which had not yet been able to get enough sleep.

“Lian! Since you are back, as a member of the Santella family, you have to be polite and respectful.”

Liddell smiled warmly, as if she was teasing her cute little brother, but there was a stern rebuke hidden in her words.

“Hey, hey. Our Liddell is losing her cuteness day by day. Because she really takes after father.”

It is Lian Santella, the eldest son of the Duke of Santella, who sat down on the sofa with his forehead wrinkled. According to the custom, he should have been the natural heir of the Santella family. He eventually announced that he would give up the position to Liddell, and he often traveled away from home. However, he was still a successor candidate.

“It’s been a long time since I had a morning meeting with my brother, so I’m happy.”

Liddell smiled softly as if to appease Lian’s sullen expression. Then she pours peppermint tea for Lian, too.