Chapter 13

On that evening, after comforting an angry Annie, I discreetly called Laura aside and asked her about the new maid. I had a hunch that the maid’s attitude earlier that day meant she was going to cause trouble. Was it the intuition of someone who had consumed a variety of romance novels in her previous life?

“The new maid? You mean May? The one with black hair, a beauty…”

‘So her name is May.’

Laura hadn’t yet seen how the maid had behaved towards me. She looked a little puzzled by my question but soon answered casually.

“She’s a new maid who was hired recently. Not only is she pretty, but she’s also so kind that she’s popular among the servants.”

“I see.”

‘A kind personality, huh?’

The fact that she had a good reputation among the other servants in such a short time meant she wasn’t bad at social maneuvering. Someone who was good at social maneuvering must also be quite clever, so it was strange that she would show me such an attitude. Not a long-time servant, but a newcomer who had only been here a few days?

‘It must be that rumors are going around that I’m easy to look down on.’

I could pretty much guess what the servants were saying behind my back. I had always suspected it, but feeling it this way was a strange experience. However, there was still nothing I could do about it right now, so I decided to let it go for now.

‘I’m a little worried about the maid named May, but it might just be a false alarm…’

Fortunately, it wasn’t May but the same maid as before who brought my dinner. Since she appeared at dinner, it seemed there wasn’t anything special that required May to take her place at lunch.

‘Did that maid ask to switch so she could go instead?’

I shook my head to clear the thoughts that kept popping up, even though I had decided to let it go. I then spoke kindly to the maid as I normally would.

“Thank you always. You’ve worked so hard.”

“…”

But the maid’s attitude was different from usual. She was always expressionless, but she would at least show a minimum of courtesy when I spoke to her. Today, she scowled as if she was displeased about something. After serving the meal, she just gave a curt nod and left, just like someone else I knew. A feeling of unease began to creep up on me.

Sure enough, it wasn’t just the maid’s attitude that had changed.

“Wha-what is this?!”

“Huh?”

Annie and Laura, who had approached to attend to my meal, were so surprised they covered their mouths. I was puzzled by their reaction and carefully looked at the meal in front of me. On the surface, it didn’t seem to have any problems, but suddenly, I noticed something strange.

‘There’s no steam coming from it?’

Meals were always served at a pleasant temperature. So, besides the salad and dessert, which didn’t need to be warm, steam should be rising from the bread, soup, and steak. But there wasn’t a single dish in front of me with steam rising from it.

I picked up a spoon and stirred the soup. The surface of the soup, like it was covered with a film, crumpled as I touched it with the spoon. The inside was thick and lumpy and fell from the spoon without flowing. As if to prove it wasn’t just the surface that had cooled, no matter how much I stirred, steam did not rise from the soup.

“…This soup, it’s the same soup as at lunch,” Laura said with a stiff face, looking at the soup I was stirring.

‘Come to think of it, she’s right?’

The Duke’s chef was a person with considerable pride and never served the same soup twice in a day. He always served a new soup with every meal as if to prove it was freshly made, but the soup in front of me was the same kind as lunch. I put down the spoon and picked up a fork to poke the steak. The cold beef steak was hard on the outside, and I couldn’t find any juice where I had poked it with the fork.

‘Are they playing a prank on a Korean person from my previous life with food?! These people deserve to be struck by lightning!’

I could see Annie and Laura watching me, trying to contain their anger. Although I was angry, I started to eat the food. The two of them, standing behind me, were startled and wanted to stop me, but I raised my hand to tell them I was okay. The food was just a little tough and hard, but it wasn’t spoiled, so the taste wasn’t that strange.

‘The food isn’t to blame.’

It wasn’t inedible food, and it would be a waste to throw it away. I smiled as I handed the finished tray to the anxious Annie and Laura.

“I’m fine. Don’t bother the head chef or the butler with this.”

I had to be patient for now. In my position, causing unnecessary trouble in the castle and falling out of the duke’s good graces was a bigger headache than being bullied by the servants. Besides, this had only happened once.

‘Maybe it was a genuine mistake.’

I knew this was a baseless hope. But in a situation where I couldn’t do anything immediately, the only thing I could do was think positively.

However, contrary to my small hopes, the servants’ bullying became more overt after that day with May. The intensity gradually increased to the point where it was causing me direct harm. It was getting hard to just close my eyes and endure it.

***

‘Hmm?’

When I returned to my room after a bath, a chilly room greeted me. Even with my slippers on, I could feel the cold of the floor on the soles of my feet. Unlike other manors or castles in different regions, the north was a very cold place, so they used magic tools for heating instead of fireplaces. My room, in particular, had magic tools running constantly to help me acclimate to the north, so it had never been this cold except when we were airing it out.

But my room was completely devoid of warmth and had become frigid.

“Huh? Why is it so cold? Lady Chacha, just a moment!”

“Achoo!”

The cold air made my fine hairs stand on end, and I instinctively sneezed. My body, which had been warmed by the bath, was cooling down quickly.

“Wear this.”

Annie reacted to my sneeze and quickly brought a blanket to wrap around my shoulders. In the meantime, Laura checked each of the heating magic tools in my room.

“…It seems the mana in the magic stones has all run out, Lady Chacha.”

“All of them?”

The magic tools in this world were convenient but, of course, not permanent. They needed to be consistently managed for any issues, and the mana in the magic stones was not infinite, so the stones had to be replaced when the mana ran out. Magic tools were delicate objects and could break if handled incorrectly, so there were even separate servants in charge of them. And in this large castle, there were many magic tools, so there were also many servants in charge. My room alone didn’t just have one or two magic tools.

With so many servants in charge, they must have been given a manageable workload, so did they somehow miss their duty for my room?

‘One or two might be a mistake. But what are the chances that all of them would run out by coincidence?’

It would be impossible unless someone went to the trouble of collecting all the depleted magic stones and swapping them with the ones in my room. I spoke to Annie and Laura, who were piling more clothes on me, unsure of what to do.

“Just in case, check the magic tools in your room, too.”

The two of my ladies-in-waiting used the adjoining room. As soon as Annie opened the door to the adjoining room to check, a little warmth poured into my room. It was a relief that the ladies-in-waiting’s room was fine, but the two of them didn’t look very relieved when they saw it.

“Lady Chacha, how about we take the magic stones from this room and replace them?”

“No. We have to be careful handling the magic tools. Leave them be.”

“But you can’t sleep here… I’ll arrange the bedding in another room. How about you sleep there for just one night?”

“I want to handle this quietly, so it’s fine.”

“Then you could use this room…”

“You two need that room. I’m really fine, so can you please dry my hair?”

Annie and Laura suggested I change rooms several more times, but I shook my head, refusing, and put on a little more clothing.

‘I wonder how long it’s been since I slept in a room this cold.’

I sent my worried ladies-in-waiting to their room and closed the door, cutting off any remaining warmth. My dried hair quickly cooled and felt cold against my cheeks. I pulled the blanket all the way over my head and waited for the inside to warm up with my body heat. The northern weather was no joke, so I would probably catch a cold, but as long as it wasn’t so severe that it affected my movements, I would be okay.

‘It’s still bearable.’

I thought this as I curled my heavily layered body under the blanket. Yes, if the servants’ bullying had stopped here, I would have truly endured it. But it wasn’t to be.