Ch#79
It's already been three days since I was locked up in this prison.
According to Jelly, who slipped the message to me during a lapse in surveillance, Hena had safely returned to the mansion. They'd hugged each other and bawled their eyes out in an emotional reunion, but Kanna was still crying because I hadn't come back yet.
All outsiders like Misha had been kicked out of the Rohanson Mansion, and they'd locked the doors tight. They'd tried to send Dolly away too, but she insisted on staying to share the Rohanson Mansion's fate. Daisy's siblings, whom she'd rescued from the nobles, seemed to be staying at the Rohanson Mansion as well.
And the Count had prepared to disown me at any moment. I'd ended up in this mess because of the sword he'd gifted me, so it really felt like a betrayal. As I trembled with rage, Jelly promised that the moment the Count cut me loose, he'd grab him and hand him over to the guards to apply collective punishment.
At this point, something should have happened—either I'd be confirmed as the culprit or released—but I was still just a suspect.
Ugh... I'm really exhausted.
I'd always been cooped up in my room anyway, eating and sleeping on the bed, so being in prison hadn't changed my routine much. But the prison environment itself was taking a psychological toll.
This was still manageable only because Jelly had brought me a bed and clothes; otherwise, I'd have been stuck in my bloodstained dress on the dirt floor. If that had been the case, I would've grabbed Jelly's hand and busted out long ago.
Oh, and for the record, they didn't confiscate what Jelly brought. The guards panicked at the sudden change in the prison setup but assumed one of their own had taken a bribe to allow it.
They started suspecting each other, causing a huge fuss, and even increased the number of guards to watch one another. It was like watching a mafia game without any mafia. Ta-da, the culprit was the moderator.
As I read the book Jelly had brought me while lost in pointless thoughts, a guard kicked the iron bars. Hey, this jerk? I closed the book and turned around. It turned out they were bringing food.
"You seem awfully comfortable."
The sneering voice was familiar. It was that Imperial Knight again, the one who'd been salty toward Gabriel, his fanboy crush, because of me. I wasn't sure if it was jealousy over losing Gabriel to me, but this knight always showed blatant hostility.
"Arzenti, cut it out."
The knight who'd come in with him scolded him, but he didn't even pretend to listen.
"Who brought you the book this time? The noble lady backed by the holy knight gets treated well even as a suspect in the assassination of royalty."
My house dog brought it, so what?
"Think you'll keep getting off this easy? Soon you'll have your head chopped off. Or no—since they say you used wicked sorcery, you might burn at the stake instead."
Yeah, beheading or burning—both classic villainess deaths.
"Since you're going to die soon anyway, you don't need food."
The knight sneered and dumped the meal on the floor. Bringing it just to waste it in front of me... Is your personality for real? Don't you know if you die like that, you'll have to eat all the food you wasted?
This kind of childish bullying is something you should graduate from after elementary school, but this damn romance-fantasy world doesn't have mandatory education, so Imperial Knights end up acting like that.
Others were too scared to even make eye contact, but... wasn't this guy afraid of me? This was the first time I'd been treated like this since possessing Evangelin. Or maybe he felt safe charging at the bars like a beast in a zoo cage.
The knight pouted when I showed no reaction. I didn't know what response he'd expected, but I'd just call Jelly later and eat the food airlifted from the Rohanson Mansion. It was so delicious it was embarrassing to compare to prison grub, so I wasn't even disappointed.
Ignoring people like that was the best response. The knight kept huffing in frustration at being ignored and finally had to leave when his shift ended.
The next shift was some gloomy knight and a burly, thug-looking one.
For some reason, the gloomy knight had his face covered in bandages. His limp suggested a sparring match or a fight had gone down. Making an injured guy work— the Imperials must be short-staffed.
The gloomy knight limped over and pitifully cleaned up the mess from the previous shift's food dump. His partner, who was supposed to be on duty with him, just watched without any camaraderie or basic decency. Wait. This wasn't workplace harassment or something, was it?
The thug stood by the door, staring blankly, then started dozing off with a nod. He even fetched a chair to get comfortable.
"I'm watching, so don't try anything funny."
Muttering to himself about how sleepy he was, the thug leaned back and fell into a deep sleep. He was snoring loudly. Yeah, it was around dawn, so no wonder he was tired.
Even after the thug conked out, the gloomy knight kept scrubbing the floor.
"How'd you get hurt like that?"
Moved by compassion, I asked about his story, and the gloomy knight jumped, staring at me. Then he glanced nervously at the sleeping thug.
So that guy did it! He couldn't even speak with him right there... Total workplace harassment! It was happening right in front of me, but stuck in prison as the Crown Prince's murder suspect, I couldn't do anything to help.
"...It's your fault."
What? My fault? As I looked at him puzzled, the gloomy knight quietly muttered his resentment at me.
"This happened because of you. They said I took bribes to let those things into this prison."
So this gloomy knight was the unlucky one framed as the mafia in our mafia-free game. It really was my fault... He was getting bullied because of me? My long-worn conscience poked its head up. If I could just contact Gabriel, I could probably sort this out.
But Gabriel hadn't come for a visit... Not only had he spilled internal info before, but I'd also made the unreasonable request to be left alone together, so visits were probably banned.
I wanted to pass a message through Jelly, but Jelly complained that Gabriel didn't even have time alone and wasn't sleeping, making it hard to approach.
Since he's already been pegged as mafia, maybe I could ask him to get a message to Gabriel so at least it's not unfair? Was that too shameless?
Just then, the thug woke up. He saw the gloomy knight muttering to me and assumed we were colluding.
True to his looks, the thug grabbed the gloomy knight by the hair and started roughing him up—right in front of the bars, like he wanted me to see.
"What are you doing?"
Furious at the bullying right in front of me, I sharply demanded an explanation. He might look like a thug, but he's an Imperial Knight, right? A knight using violence on a comrade?
"What does it look like? Teaching manners."
Doesn't he know to fear the villainess even behind bars? I've got a secret weapon.
"Pudding."
My new secret weapon was Pudding. Ever since he'd turned into that stunningly handsome guy last time, it seemed some restriction had lifted, and he started using magic left and right. Maybe when he was younger, his vessel wasn't big enough, but now that he'd grown, he could handle magic? I vaguely remembered a similar setup somewhere.
If Jelly's specialty was teleportation, Pudding's seemed to be invisibility. He wasn't visible, but calling his name made him appear and help on cue. Unlike Jelly, whose presence was too big to hide even with invisibility magic. Yeah, sure...
The thug, grabbed by the collar by Pudding or something, was lifted into the air. Choking, he clawed at his neck and flailed wildly. Such a drama queen. I wondered how much it could hurt, gripped by Pudding's slender wrists that looked like they'd snap.
"Shouldn't you start with manners yourself?"
I hoped he'd learn some empathy. Pudding adorably shook the thug around like a ragdoll before letting go.
"Gasp, hack. Sob."
Embarrassed by his overreaction, the thug collapsed on the floor and didn't move.
"What the... Is he dead?"
No way. He's just hamming it up. Our Pudding is too soft-hearted to kill even a bug? Wait, no—he hunts in the wild with Jelly sometimes, so he does kill animals. But that's for food, and he doesn't kill people.
"He'll get up again."
Sure enough, as soon as I said it, the thug staggered to his feet. Whether from shame or reflection, he kept his head bowed.
"You won't use violence on him again, right?"
After getting a taste of his own medicine, with his head hung low like that, he'd never bully again. At least for a while. In the meantime, I should suggest he job-hunt. The Imperial Knights all seem unhinged—how about switching to Gabriel's side? Gotta start by firing this bowed-head thug.
"Maybe you should head out now?"
If it were me, I'd crawl into a hole. Given the chance to escape, the thug bolted from the prison. Now it was just me and the gloomy one left.
"Want some help?"
Even at my offer, the gloomy knight hesitated. Idiot, this is when you ask for help! Of course, I got why he didn't trust a Crown Prince murder suspect locked in prison.
