Resetting Lady

Did this mean that the maid loathes to have a higher salary? Then there’s nothing that could be done. Still, perhaps the maid hates the lady? Or, would the maid try to kill the lady and pretend to be the lady herself? But a maid cannot be a lady. The knight held no feelings for the maid. No, the knight isn’t the problem. A maid is a maid, a lady is a lady. It’s a lie that every girl is a princess.

But, at the end of the day, wasn’t it of little concern if the maid tries to earn a little more money, right? Even if it was an old fart of a crown prince who would give her the money.

Carynne looked at Donna, reading Donna’s story behind her eyes.

“What do you think of this insolent maid? As expected, shouldn’t we punish her?”

Donna would have surely said these things about Carynne to Gueuze. That the lady is pretty, nice and pitiful. If she feels that, sometimes, her words weren’t being received well, she’d change it up a little. And, she noticed that what the crown prince liked the most to hear about was how Carynne looked just like Catherine.

Gueuze’s ideal woman was one who looked exactly like Catherine.

“Thinking about it… in her perspective, she was just trying her hardest to survive.”

Carynne did not hate Donna.

Truthfully, it was difficult to anger Carynne at all. Emotions meant nothing to her. She was going about life as though she was in a haze.

As he, too, was immersed in his own lunacy, Crown Prince Gueuze yelled at her, but still, Carynne found it difficult to interpret Donna’s actions as something along the lines of betrayal.

Carynne, just…

Just.

She just wants Gueuze to let go of her right now.

“I don’t resent her.”

Nevertheless, Gueuze seemed to like that answer very much.

“Perfect.”

Crown Prince Gueuze answered in a jubilant voice.

“You give exactly the same answers as Catherine.”

“I am not my mother.”

Carynne was displeased. She looked like Catherine, suffered the same curse as Catherine, but that didn’t mean that she should be obligated to clean up her mother’s mess. Still, her words would not reach him.

“You have the same principles as her, you say such similar things to what she had said—no, you even almost say the same things. Catherine answered that way as well. If I recall correctly, wasn’t it a woman named Deere who’s her friend and maid?”

“Missus Deere… Are you talking about her?”

Carynne recalled her governess, who was her mother’s friend—and someone she had killed. Gueuze nodded.

“Ah, yes. That’s her name. A while back, I had a few of her fingernails wrenched out because she had been so cheeky about Catherine. She was gossiping about Catherine behind her back, saying things that can’t be said about a friend.”

“…I see.”

Now that she thought about it, Carynne’s father didn’t like Missus Deere either. Albeit jokingly, he mentioned how she was aiming for him as well. At the same time, Missus Deere had been the governess who was very against Nancy, and so he also seemed to harbor some dislike against her because of this.

“You are Carynne’s governess—not a member of my family. Resign at once and leave my house.”

Still, until the end, Missus Deere had been the only one who was staunchly opposed to doing the things that had been to Carynne.

The governess had been prepared to be fired from her job as she stood opposed to those things, yet Carynne couldn’t remember and she even killed the older woman just because of a little irritation.

Though she was knocking on death’s door, Missus Deere did not curse Carynne at all.

However, Crown Prince Gueuze wouldn’t have known such a thing.

“Nevertheless, Catherine defended her. What do you think she said?”

“…I don’t know.”

Distress was eating at Carynne. No matter what Crown Prince Gueuze could ever say, to Carynne, he was just a mere misguided, old man. If he was thinking about killing her, then she’d rather prefer that he do it quickly. Or perhaps, she should just kill him quickly. Either or would suffice, just do it already.

“Focus.”

Gueuze grabbed Carynne by her hair.

“…She probably said that it’s not a big deal.”

Nothing matters to her. This pain, too, would soon be over.

As Crown Prince Gueuze kept asking for answers that she didn’t have, it became difficult for Carynne to match him. Even so, Carynne’s haphazard answer still pleased Gueuze.

“Correct. That’s what she said.”

As pain shot through her from her scalp, tears started to well up in her eyes. Was it because she was sick? It felt a bit more painful.

“You are not Catherine. Evidently, there’s a lot of differences between you two. But, no matter. You still have very many things in common.”

Nothing matters.

“……”

“At the end of the day, you are the legacy that Catherine left for me… What matters is that we will be together from now on.”

“Do I… have… a choice?”

Carynne asked, scraping out the last bit of her pride. Gueuze laughed at her face.

Then, he pressed hard on Donna’s cheeks.

“No.”

Donna’s mouth opened.

“Dear maid.”

“……”

“I have not given you permission to die. Since you’ve gone against your King’s order, I am going to punish you.”

“Ah, uh—”

Ahh, Donna. Despite biting off your own tongue, you’ve not been given the luxury of death. You must have heard it wrong. No matter how much you try to bite it off, you can’t die that way. You must have wanted to die, too, that’s why you had bitten your tongue. I should have killed you first, with my own hands. Why have you continued to live longer, why are you part of this story… Why has it come to this.

“Will you help me?”

Gueuze took one of the many tools lined up on the walls, then brought it in front of Carynne.

It was a small dagger.

Again, it had a needlessly gold hilt and was unnecessarily adorned with colorful gemstones. It’s really like that.

Carynne knew that this was nothing but a harmless ornament.

“You want me to… stab her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“After saying she did not love me, Catherine eventually left me. She didn’t even try to understand me.”

“……”

“But you. You’ll understand me if you do the same things I’ve done.”

“Your Highness.”

“It’s pretty fun, you know.”

Her heart started beating strangely. She wondered if it was because she hated the situation she was in now, or if it’s because she was delighted by it.

After all, didn’t she want to become a murderer in this life?

“……”

Still, the weapon in front of her had no blade.

Carynne took the dagger and brought a finger against its edge, but her skin was unscathed. With a question swimming behind her eyes, she glanced up at Crown Prince Gueuze, who smiled back.

“If it’s sharp, it would hardly feel like punishment to her. Rather, you’d just be helping her.”

So, he was asking her to stab Donna to death with a blunt weapon, over and over and over again.

Carynne gripped the dagger in her hand.

Then, she looked up and locked eyes with Donna.

Tom must have looked at Carynne like that, too.

* * *

“Sir Raymond, is your mind idling away now?”

“I apologize, Marquis.”

Raymond bowed slightly towards Marquis Penceir. In his impatience, he got caught. Raymond fixed his gloves again.

All the crucial work was done. There was no more danger. The assembly members and the nobles had all concurred. Crown Prince Gueuze could no longer pose a threat to Raymond.

“……”

Still, his unease remained. He couldn’t pinpoint where this uneasiness was coming from. Raymond looked down and stared at his gloves.

He shouldn’t feel this way. There’s no need to feel anxious at all. Raymond’s life had always been full of uncertainties, and it was rare for things to work out as smoothly as it was going now.

“It was so sudden, but it’s something that should have been done in the first place. I hope you understand.”

Marquis Penceir chattered away. Being so used to being deployed frequently, even in the middle of the night, Raymond was baffled anyhow. This in itself must be a joke.

Raymond went out on official business, and Marquis Penceir went along with him. Apart from the marquis, a total of eight more carriages full of escort knights and the marquis’ troops had followed. So, Raymond had nothing to fear. They weren’t even going to the battlefield. And, in the end, it all ended well.

It’s over.

His work concluded with success. He was here with the marquis in a carriage, sitting peacefully as they drank some tea and celebrated. Raymond was somewhat surprised at how comfortable the carriage was, unlike when he rode the train a while back. It’s more uncomfortable to ride most carriages compared to the train, but since this was a marquis’ carriage, the comfort one could feel inside it was no different than the drawing room of a mansion. Now that it’s over, he should relax.

“This is just the beginning. You did a great job, in many ways.”

“Thank you, Marquis, for all your help.”

Raymond replied with a smile, but hints of doubt could be seen from it.

The marquis asked.

“Are you feeling nervous about getting married?”

It was a question asked with the purpose of making him loosen up, but to some extent, the marquis had hit the nail on the head. Raymond got caught being antsy. He had prepared as thoroughly as he could, but he was feeling uneasy because she wasn’t in front of him.

Whenever she was away from his side, wonderfully enough, Carynne had a talent in making enemies here and there.

He could only hope that she had caused only something minor, like another woman’s envy, but the enemies that Carynne had gained thus far were people like Verdic Evans and Crown Prince Gueuze.

It felt as if Raymond’s strength had seeped out of him somewhat.

Still. It’s alright now.

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