Chapter 57
57
57. The Maid Left Alone (1)
Hot. It was hot. The heat was so intense it felt like my skin was burning. Standing before it, my whole body was drenched in sweat. I wiped the sweat with a towel and shoveled the ashes. Sweat trickled down my forehead, plopping onto my face. My vision kept blurring. The shovel kept slipping because of the sweat on my palms.
As I firmly gripped the shovel handle and scooped up ashes, someone called out to me.
"Hey, ugly."
"……."
"Hey. Hey."
When I didn't respond, they tapped my shoulder with their fingertip. I ignored them, showing my annoyance. Seeming displeased, the person brought their face closer.
"Hey! Are you listening to me?"
Knowing they would keep bothering me if I didn't acknowledge them, I finally sighed and stood up. I stuck the shovel into the ashes and stood askew. As I faced him head-on, the man flinched and shrank back. I indifferently watched him and moved my lips.
"What."
"Did, did you ask her?"
"About what."
"Did you ask her what she thinks of me? You promised me last time!"
Ah, that. I remembered him constantly pestering me to introduce him. I picked at my ear with a finger and blew.
"Yeah. She said she doesn't like you."
"Why, why?"
The man looked like he was about to cry, shocked. Why, you ask? It's obvious. I shrugged and picked up the shovel again. Then the man grabbed my arm, asking why she didn't like him.
"Because you're a beggar."
"What?"
"She doesn't like you because you're a beggar. She likes Gold coin. Can you give her a lap full of Gold coin?"
"O-Of course!"
"Stop talking nonsense and give up. I'm saying this for your own good."
Looking at him working here, it was clear he couldn't even afford silver coins, let alone Gold coin. After receiving his daily wage, he could barely afford a proper meal. Besides, he wouldn't be able to handle her personality.
I shook off his hand and started shoveling ashes again. The man stood there, frozen with a blank expression. Was it really that shocking? No, she didn't even give him a glance, but he fell for her on his own and started deluding himself.
But it wasn't my problem. As I focused on shoveling ashes again, the man, having regained his senses, suddenly pointed at me.
"You, you're lying!"
"I'm not lying."
"You are lying! You're trying to drive a wedge between her and me!"
"Are you crazy?"
He must have finally gone mad from the heat. Who would do something like that? I scoffed as if I had heard the funniest thing in the world. But the man was convinced.
"You, you, you like me!"
"You're insane. I'm already having a hard time enough without you adding to it, so get lost."
"You like me! That's why you're doing this!"
"Want to get hit with a shovel?"
I slammed the shovel back into the ashes and glared at him. My sweat-soaked hair was disheveled and stuck to my face. The man flinched again, sensing my threatening aura, but he didn't back down.
"Do you think I would like someone like you? An ugly woman like you has standards. Hey, know your place. She's a hundred times prettier and a hundred times more lovable than you. I like her, she's the only one for me. Got it?"
"I don't know about that, but I know one thing for sure."
After patiently listening to his nonsense, I picked up the shovel stuck in the ashes again with both hands. And after shaking it once to get rid of the ashes, I looked at the man.
"That you're going to get hit by this."
"What?"
"Come here, you son of a bitch!"
If he insisted on bothering me, there was no reason to back down. I swung the shovel at the astonished man.
"Why do you look like that?"
"Like what."
I glanced at Alicia, wiping the ashes smudged on my cheek. After making a fuss shoveling ashes, my whole body was covered in ash. The stinging gazes of the people who followed me all the way home were enough to guess my condition without even looking.
Alicia frowned, scanning me up and down.
"You're dirty. Go wash up quickly."
"I will."
I placed what I was holding on the table. Alicia quickly rushed over and unfolded the bundle of paper. But after checking the contents, she scowled fiercely and glared at me.
"How can I eat this!"
"What's wrong with it? It's too good for you anyway, so just eat it."
She was complaining again, even though she should be grateful for this. I was too exhausted from running around with the shovel today to put up with Alicia's complaints.
As I pressed my tired eyes and turned around to wash up, something flew from behind and hit the back of my head with a thud before falling to the floor. It was the bread I had bought with today's wages.
Holding the back of my head, I looked at the fallen bread and turned my head. Alicia was glaring at me, breathing heavily.
"How can I eat something like that! How can I eat it!"
"……."
Here she goes again. I sighed. I bent down, picked up the fallen bread, and dusted it off.
"You, are you sighing right now?"
"Because you're acting like a child, complaining about food."
"A child? Are you saying my actions are childish?"
"That's right."
"Hey!"
"What."
I calmly met her fierce gaze. After all, she was the one in need. I had no intention of buying new food, and I didn't have enough wages to do so. In the current situation, I was grateful to be able to eat this hard, tasteless bread.
"If you don't want to eat it, don't. I'll eat it."
"……."
"If you hate it that much, go earn your own living."
The fewer people eating the food, the better. I put the bread back on the table and took off my hat. After untying the Hair tie that wrapped my hair, I examined my face in the broken mirror hanging on the wall. My already dark skin looked even darker with the ash on it. It didn't come off easily even when I wiped it with the Hair tie.
Then something flew from behind and hit the wall. It was the bread I had just put back on the table. Soon after, something else flew to the side and shattered against the wall. It was the tableware I had managed to get last time.
As I stared blankly at the shattered plate, more objects flew and hit the wall and the back of my head. Aaaah! A scream erupted. Alicia had started throwing whatever she could grab.
Knowing that reacting would only make things more troublesome for me, I didn't even glance at Alicia. I kept looking at my face in the mirror when suddenly my hair was yanked back. Alicia, filled with venom, was gripping and shaking my hair from behind, as reflected in the mirror. It was so sudden that I couldn't even scream.
"You vicious bitch!"
"Let go."
"Do you think I'll let go? You're ignoring me like a dog, just you wait! I'm going to seduce a nobleman and change my fate. When that happens, I won't even care about someone like you!"
"Whatever. Just let go of my hair."
"I won't let go!"
"Is that so?"
I immediately lunged at Alicia. I grabbed a handful of her beautiful hair and yanked. Alicia let out a sharp scream, but I didn't care. It hurt as if my scalp was being torn off, but I returned the pain just as much.
"Aaaah! Let go! Let go!"
"You let go first!"
Let go! I won't let go! After struggling, grabbing each other's hair, Alicia let go first. Watching Alicia collapse to the floor, I finally stepped back.
Both of us had disheveled hair. In my hand, I held a clump of Alicia's long hair like a fur ball. Alicia glanced at it and grabbed her own hair.
"Hic, my hair!"
I threw the hair in my hand on the floor. I watched it fall and smoothed my own hair. The tangled hair was caught between my fingers.
Then something precariously hanging on one side touched my fingertip. Fumbling, I untied it. It was the Hair tie, dirtied with ash, that had lost its original color.
Ah, I sighed briefly and quickly shook off the ash. The embroidered flower pattern at the end caught my eye. As I stared blankly at it, I snapped back to my senses at Alicia's scream.
"What are you going to do about my hair!"
"What are you going to do about my hair?"
"Are my hair and your hair the same? How much effort did I put into this!"
"You won't be able to put in any more effort, so just cut it off now. I'll sell it at the market."
"You nasty bitch! It's all because of you! It's all your fault, so how can you be so shameless? You unlucky woman!"
"Like Father, like daughter, I guess."
A child born from a Devil spawn couldn't be normal. I shrugged, and Alicia suddenly burst into tears. She cried, shedding tears and snot, as if she was so sad.
"Waaah— I don't need anything! I should have just died!"
"I hope you get a good result even now."
Then a sharp gaze was fixed on me. I pretended not to see it and looked in the mirror. I was about to wipe off the ash again but threw the Hair tie down. I was tired and annoyed. Behind me, Alicia was crying sadly again. Seeing her cry like that, she must still have the strength to live.
But I didn't want to hear that sound right now. I scratched my head roughly and turned around. Alicia glared at me as if she had been waiting.
"Just you wait! I'm going to catch a nobleman or a royal and rise in status! Hic, I'm going to quit this shabby life and leave! You, even if you try to get on my good side then, it'll be useless!"
"You seem to be mistaken about something."
I slowly scanned the house. A shabby, old house with cracks everywhere and a leaky roof when it rained. A house where you had to shovel the snow off the roof in winter for fear of it collapsing. A house where you felt like you would freeze to death in winter and die of heat in summer. A house where you had to flinch at the slightest breeze, as if everything was shaking.
But even though it was such a house, it allowed me to breathe and live for tomorrow. It was the only place that protected me from death.
"Just because it's the life of a noble doesn't mean it's only beautiful. Sometimes it's more like hell than you can imagine. There will come a day when you think you were happier living in this shabby, old, and poor house."
"What? How do you know that?"
"Because I know."
After looking around the house, I fixed my gaze on Alicia again. Alicia frowned. Seeing the look on her face asking what that meant, I simply shrugged.
\ \ *
It was one day when I accidentally picked up a newspaper lying on the street that I heard from them again. The large photo and the words written below it told the end of their story.
[Count James Christopher Arrested on Suspicion of Murder]
Only then did I realize that I was truly just a person who briefly appeared in their story.
That day, with Ethan's help, I hid in a village for a while. The village was quite large, with many residents, and it was not a place that paid much attention to outsiders. Perhaps this was also what he intended. Thanks to that, I was able to escape there without difficulty.
The pouch that Isabella had given me before we parted contained Gold coin. I used it to solve my food and lodging for a while, but I lost it all to pickpockets a few days later. Even the luggage I had was taken away by beggars, and in the end, all that was left was my worthless body.
Having fallen into poverty in an instant, I wandered the streets, and the life of not being able to eat properly gradually approached death. I think I even lamented how I had never been able to live a smooth life even once.
Then, suddenly, I thought of Father and the third child in Pilton.
