7 - The Time of the Blind Beast (15+ Revised Edition) Episode 7
Chapter 7
“Isn’t your job laundry, anyway?”
A chilling sensation, as if her heart had dropped.
I see. It might look strange. Rose quickly understood. This man didn't know what she had done. So, to him, she was just a maid who did laundry. There was ample room for it to seem like undue interference.
“Who ordered you to do such a thing?”
“...No one ordered me.”
“If no one ordered you, then imitating me must be your way of mocking me, isn't it?”
“No.”
“Or?”
“……”
“You pity me, perhaps?”
Ezekiel pressed on, one question after another. The man omitted the rest of his words, but Rose’s ears completed his intent perfectly.
You pity me, someone like you.
You pity me, how dare you.
Madam Serva carefully shielded Rose amidst the taut tension.
“Rose isn’t such an impudent young lady. From what I’ve observed these past few days, there are few people as kind and diligent as she is. She truly wanted to be of help to you.”
“If you want to help me, you shouldn’t be imitating me clumsily; you should just stay out of my way.”
She could feel his mood plummeting by the second. Rose lowered her gaze. Ezekiel was not someone whose explanations would be accepted. Nor was she in a position to offer any.
She humbled herself and apologized.
“I was wrong. I won’t make such a mistake again. Please forgive me.”
Madam Serva glanced at Rose. She seemed to have tried to understand Rose’s difficulties in adapting to the unusual situation of serving a blind master, but she had inadvertently touched a raw nerve.
“Yes, Rose. If such a mistake happens again, I will dismiss you from the mansion.”
Speaking sternly, as if to scold her, Madam Serva winked at Rose, signaling her. Then, she deliberately used a childhood term of address to lighten the mood.
“Young Master. Lunch is ready. You should go now.”
“Don’t overstep your bounds in front of me.”
The man, leaving a brief warning, strode away.
Rose, stepping aside to avoid hindering his path, watched his retreating figure.
As she took a deep breath, the lingering scent he left behind filled her lungs. It was the smell of sleep tea, wine, and medicine. She had smelled it so often it felt like his shadow.
Madam Serva had personally instructed that the sleep tea be brewed strong every night for the man who couldn’t sleep well. However, unable to find relief from the tea, he lived by constantly downing wine and medicine. Every time Rose went to the bedroom to collect laundry, she saw the maid in charge of cleaning clearing away empty bottles, so the quantity was immense.
“Is it alright to drink this much alcohol?”
So, one day, she had stopped Madam Serva as she passed by and asked. Madam Serva sighed deeply and shook her head.
“Of course, it’s not alright. He never used to drink at all. He used to say a soldier couldn’t have a muddled mind. He didn’t even enjoy alcohol, even giving away all the supplies he received during the war to those around him. But ever since his eyes became like this, he’s changed completely.”
“……Ah.”
“But I couldn’t stop him. He was suffering so much from the pain. It wasn’t just the mental shock; his brain would throb because of his injured eyes. His subordinates had to tackle him to stop him from trying to gouge his eyes out… In any case, he couldn’t sleep at all in the beginning. It’s only by mixing medicine that he’s found some peace.”
“It’s a relief that the medicine… is effective.”
“I truly think so. Without Rhodanum (a drink made from opium), how could he have endured that terrible pain? But it’s getting harder and harder to obtain Rhodanum, which worries me. For now, Mr. Ezekiel, being a soldier, has been receiving Rhodanum through his subordinates as military supplies, but it seems difficult for the army to procure large quantities due to the war consuming so much.”
Rhodanum, with its potent sedative effect, was a common painkiller used for various ailments.
Rose hid her cold hands behind her back and secretly massaged them. Whenever the topic of Ezekiel’s blindness and pain arose, her heart felt squeezed tighter with every passing second.
“...I heard that too. All the Rhodanum on the market was recalled and sent to the front lines as soon as the war broke out... But the war is over now.”
“Even though the war is over, there are many soldiers suffering from post-war trauma. No matter how much money I offer, I can’t buy it.”
“Have you tried other painkillers?”
“Other medicines don’t work at all. He absolutely needs Rhodanum to feel better.”
Even while unable to endure a single day without strong wine and opium, the man still maintained the bearing of a born soldier, with decisive movements and a wide stride.
Yes, he hadn’t completely lost himself yet.
On the first floor, whose layout he had fully grasped, Ezekiel moved without hesitation, as if he could see. Rose had heard from other employees how much effort and hardship had gone into him being able to walk so casually.
He had emptied the first floor, leaving only the minimum furniture necessary for daily life, and then walked hundreds of times through the bedroom, drawing room, dining room, and hallways with the same stride, memorizing the length and width of each path. If items were kept in their designated places, he could even pick them up and use them himself. Of course, delicate tasks still required another person’s touch, but he hadn’t given up to the point where he needed to be washed, fed, and put to bed for every single action.
If possible, she had come to this mansion with the resolve to be his eyes, hands, and feet for the rest of her life. Although it was under Achenaus’s coercion, she herself was the one who had directly blinded him. She wanted to take responsibility for as much as she could.
Derosa was now her second home and the place she would spend her life.
So, don’t make any more mistakes. I must not be driven out of this mansion.
Steeling her resolve, Rose walked towards the laundry room. For now, she had to start by diligently helping with the work assigned to her.
The laundry room was always hazy with hot steam. As Rose wrung out the water-logged laundry with both hands, she furrowed her brow slightly. The pain in her shoulder and wrist had been unusual since earlier, and now they were noticeably swollen. It seemed that hitting the floor hard when she fell had caused some damage.
Her work was slow as she soothed her aching wrist. Yesterday, she would have already finished lunch in the kitchen, but due to not finishing her work, she was still in the laundry room.
“Rose, Rose, are you here?”
Just then, the laundry room door burst open.
“Oh, look at this steam. It’s suffocating.”
Then, a voice calling for her was heard.
Emerging from the humid, hot air, Rose looked up. It was Anna. Anna was a colleague who had approached her first with familiarity, mentioning she had a younger sibling around Rose’s age.
Rose answered loudly.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Stop for a moment and come out quickly. There’s a commotion.”
“What’s happening?”
“Well, just now…”
It seemed a disturbance had occurred in the dining room. The dining room staff were supposed to time their table setting and service perfectly, but today, his nerves were particularly frayed, and one of them, while nervously observing, had placed a glass incorrectly, which became the cause of the incident.
Ezekiel’s hand, reaching for his wine, grasped at empty air. His hand, unable to find the glass, fumbled over the table for a moment.
Upon finding his target, he immediately swung his hand. The wine glass slid across the table and fell onto his chest. The chilled red wine soaked his upper body. The startled staff screamed.
The rest was predictable. Accusing them of being incompetent fools who were only good for working, he overturned the fully set table, leaving the dining room and the man’s clothes in disarray.
“It’s a good thing Madam intervened before it got worse. She was struggling, so Madam Serva sent for you to calm him down. She said to come to the bedroom and collect his wet clothes. And bring him something to change into.”
Hearing the details, Rose secretly bit her lip. She had a feeling that because he had bumped into her in the hallway earlier, his temper had been thoroughly soured, and it had spilled over onto innocent people.
Anna lamented.
“They pay so much, so we work for that alone. This mansion is like walking on thin ice every day. Maybe I should ask to be sent to the laundry room too. It’s remote and quiet here, you know.”
Rose, who bore a sliver of responsibility for that thin ice, merely concealed her troubled thoughts with a calm expression.
“She called for me, so I must go.”
“It’s not yet lunchtime, is it? Come back a little later. I haven’t finished cleaning the dining room.”
After Anna delivered her message and returned to finish cleaning the dining room, Rose gathered the dry clothes and walked to the bedroom.
Taking a breath, she stood before the door. Knock, knock. Madam Serva’s permission followed.
“Come in.”
Rose opened the door. The sweet, bitter herbal scent unique to opium and the fermented fruit aroma of wine were the first things that greeted her. Even though the maids had aired out the bedroom whenever it was empty, the master of the mansion drank so frequently that the smell never truly dissipated.
“I’ve brought clothes for you to change into.”
“Ah, Rose. You’ve come at just the right time. Could you help me a bit?”
Madam Serva called out to Rose with a pleased expression.
“I need to help him change, but as you can see, my body is… like this.”
Her cane clacked. Her knees were painful, and due to aging, her shoulders were stiff, preventing her from raising her arms beyond a certain angle.
“Yes, I will do it.”
Changing clothes was a task any employee performed. Rose set down the clothes and began to unbutton Ezekiel’s shirt, one by one.
As she removed the shirt, which was damp and clung to him from the red wine, she unconsciously gasped.
The man’s body was a coexistence of beauty and brutality.
