Chapter 24
24
A gust of wind blew, stirring up a fierce sandstorm.
"Wow..."
Simone, looking out from inside the carriage, let out a listless exclamation.
Hertin, a nearby village just a ten-minute carriage ride from Archduke Illestone's mansion.
Her first impression of this place was, well, how should she put it?
Simone couldn't find the words, so she just blurted out whatever came to mind.
"This is a disaster."
Everything she saw was, quite literally, a disaster, a spectacle, a mess.
Was this what it would look like if a bomb had dropped?
Or was this the feeling of seeing an ancient civilization that had once prospered and then vanished?
Could this really be the territory where the Archduke's mansion was located?
Buildings were old, dilapidated, and crumbling, having been neglected for a long time. The streets were filled with dirt and trash.
The air was thick with the smells of alcohol, tobacco, and urine.
"This is the Archduke's territory?"
Simone muttered in disbelief, and Bam, the escort knight who had come to open the carriage door, replied with a hint of bitterness.
"Three hundred years ago, this place was called a city. No, even just two hundred years ago, it still had a reasonably city-like appearance."
Of course, Bam had never seen it himself, but the bricks and structures still visible here and there showed that this village had once prospered as a city.
"You can see traces of broken bricks everywhere, right? Those used to be the paving stones of this village. Now, they're used as windbreaks when starting fires, or they've all been broken and disappeared."
Simone looked around.
There must have been streets paved with the highest quality building materials, carefully laid out so that the words "Archduke's territory" wouldn't be wasted. But now, the bricks on the ground and the ornate streetlights were hard to recognize in their original form.
Everything had collapsed, and people sat haphazardly on the ruined buildings, squinting in the hot sun.
It was a sight that would be very distressing for the owner of this territory to see.
"Of course, since our current master became the head of the family, he's stationed guards in various places and provided supplies. But when the previous head of the family was in charge, he locked the doors of the mansion and abandoned all support and management of the territory."
Bam shrugged.
"That's what I heard from my parents. Well, even now, the supplies are monopolized by the guards and a single merchant group, so not much has changed."
"Bam knows a lot about this village?"
"I'm from Hertin myself. After my parents passed away, I became a servant at Archduke Illestone's mansion through an intermediary."
Bam opened the carriage door.
"Oh, Bam came to the mansion on his own?"
Osek, another escort knight, asked, and Bam shrugged.
"It was practically forced. I had nowhere else to go."
In the first place, unless someone had nowhere else to go, they wouldn't try to become a servant at Archduke Illestone's mansion.
Like Anna and the other servants, Bam had lost his parents and wandered the streets before entering the mansion as a last resort.
"Anyway, I was born and lived in this village for a long time. So I've heard a lot."
"Oh, that's good."
Simone stepped out of the carriage. The moment she appeared, people's eyes focused on her.
"Then I can ask Bam if I have any questions."
The gazes were not just burdensome but fiercely threatening.
As if something terrible would surely happen the moment she passed through them.
But it wasn't unexpected.
'Well, I heard it was an incredibly poor place.'
It was only natural that a well-dressed woman would stand out so much in this desolate village.
Simone moved forward without hesitation.
"Then shall we go?"
Whether they looked or not. She had two burly guards, no, escort knights, with her, so there was nothing to be afraid of.
However, just as Simone was about to confidently take a step, she suddenly felt a sharp weight on her shoulders.
"Ugh!"
Simone stopped as soon as she took a step.
"Lady Simone? What's wrong?"
"Ah, it's nothing. ...Hng! Just a moment."
"What, what is it! Are you perhaps sick?"
Simone raised her hand to stop Anna from approaching.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Haa, geez."
Simone's face instantly turned grim.
This familiar weight?
"Haa."
Where had she gone?
It was the Nine Feet Ghost who used to follow her around the orphanage. As she always did, she was stuck to Simone's back and shoulders, whispering near her ear.
Let's die together.
Ah, that metallic voice was nostalgic. Once, when she was starving, she had misheard her words "die" as "rice porridge."
'That's all in the past.'
"Ugh, so heavy."
"What is?"
"Umm, nothing, nothing."
Simone answered hastily and continued walking.
She wanted to pretend she didn't know as much as possible.
How was she still here?
She had stuck to her as if she had been waiting the moment she left the mansion.
Or was she really waiting?
She couldn't hide her agitation the moment she stuck to her.
She had been gone for a while, so she wondered if she had naturally disappeared, but that wasn't the case.
Perhaps, since the mansion was teeming with 300-year-old curses, this insignificant Nine Feet Ghost was too scared to enter.
"...Let's go."
'Fine. Stick to me, stick to me.'
Simone resumed walking with a resigned expression.
It was nice to see her again after a long time.
After living inside, this ghost was at a familiar and cute level.
Anna and the guards followed her. With every step Simone took, the gazes followed her tenaciously.
Simone, Anna, and the guards were aware of this, but they didn't acknowledge it.
Anna approached quickly and asked.
"Lady Simone, where would you like to go first? I'll guide you!"
"First, let's go buy the most important thing, the hair dye."
"Ah, yes! Then you have to go there!"
Anna pointed to a shop in the village. Among the generally old wooden buildings, it was the cleanest and most colorful.
"I believe they only sell magical hair dye there!"
At Anna's words, Simone moved towards it, and Bam, the guard who was following them, slipped behind and whispered in a voice only Simone could hear.
"You have to be careful. That place charges quite high prices. Especially to someone like Lady Simone, who they don't know and looks rich."
He shuddered, looking disgusted, as if he had been through it a few times.
"I don't like people who are so openly greedy."
Simone stopped abruptly. Then she turned sharply to look at Bam.
"You, suddenly acting very friendly?"
"Yes? Ahaha..."
Bam avoided Simone's gaze and scratched his temple.
"Was I? I guess I just felt comfortable since we see each other every day. Hehe, sorry."
"No. Keep doing that."
He was the escort knight who always guarded and watched Simone's room. He seemed to be about the same age as Simone, and they often exchanged greetings. He was also the one who moved Anna and Simone to their room during the Shapeshifting Rat incident.
He was just an ordinary commoner, and Seo Hyun-jeong didn't want to act like someone in a position of authority, nor was she cold-hearted enough to do so.
"I need to get a tour of the village too. Be comfortable. Be polite."
"Yes! Of course."
Bam answered cheerfully and smiled. He always stood guarding the door with a tense expression, so she didn't know, but now that they were outside, he seemed to be very lively, just like his age.
Simone and her party arrived at the hair dye shop, and when they opened the door, the owner, who had been sitting lazily with sleepy eyes, scanned Simone up and down, then changed his expression and rushed over in a flurry.
"Welcome—oh! Oh, young lady! Welcome!"
The pupils between the owner's crescent-shaped eyelids moved quickly, checking her, her attendant, and the escort knight.
She might have thought she was dressed casually, but she couldn't fool the owner's eyes. The Juliana Endos logo embroidered on the dress. Among them, that red logo was only embroidered on dresses from the main store in the capital.
The Juliana Endos main store was famous for selling dresses only to nobles, and judging by the style, even though it was a ready-made product, she was definitely a scion of a noble family.
"What brings a noble lady to such a humble place!"
A smirking face, hands rubbing together in flattery. A typical merchant from a novel.
Whenever Simone saw such unnatural motions, she realized anew that this was indeed inside a novel.
"Ah, I came to buy hair dye."
Simone casually let him misunderstand and looked around the store.
She thought it was just a hair dye shop, but it also sold colorful fabrics, silks, and colored paper.
'If you sell these things in a place like this, will anyone even buy them?'
A shop selling such luxury goods in this village where people only lived from day to day. She wanted to ask Bam about it, but the owner was too close to ask.
"Where is the magical hair dye?"
"Oh my! That expensive stuff! You're the first person to look for magical hair dye here besides the Archduke?"
"...The Archduke?"
Why was Archduke Illestone suddenly coming up here? Simone tilted her head, and the owner answered excitedly.
