Chapter 51

* * *

It was a cold winter with a raging snowstorm.

Sofia still remembered that day.

Strangely enough, the memory of that day remained vivid.

They had passed Star’s Birthday, but it was another year when they still hadn’t found the one precious young lady of the duchy.

So that year as well, they spent it quietly, secretly gathering to eat a cookie or share a bit of cake.

Sofia was a maid who had worked for the Count Embron household and arrived at the ducal estate with a letter of recommendation. It had been about two years since then.

It wasn’t a very long time, but it was rare to find a maid as capable as Sofia.

On top of that, thanks to her friendly nature, she maintained fairly good relationships with everyone.

“It’s cold…”

“This winter feels especially cold.”

“Yeah.”

Sofia chatted idly with the coworker beside her, Becky, as usual.

Their work was done for the day, so they talked about heading back to the dorms and stopping by the kitchen on the way to sneak some snacks.

It must’ve been around then.

“Looks like the Master has returned.”

In the whiteout of the snowstorm, a black carriage appeared like a dot.

The head butler, the head maid, and a few servants went out to greet it.

Normally, the coachman would open the door and the duke would step out very slowly.

Sofia remembered that movement well, the kind that seemed to carry both composure and arrogance.

But the duke that day, Damian, was different.

Before the coachman could even open the door, Damian forcefully pushed it open himself and quickly stepped out.

“Can you hear what he’s saying?”

“No.”

He seemed to be giving some kind of order to the head butler, but of course they couldn’t hear it.

“Someone else is getting out.”

“Who?”

“They’re small. I can’t see well.”

A small, unsteady figure unlike Damian came down next.

It was hard to see clearly.

It looked like they were holding something, but even that wasn’t certain.

“Do you think he found the young lady?”

Becky asked beside her, and Sofia’s eyes flickered slightly.

“Could it be?”

Damian often went out searching for his daughter.

She had heard this time wasn’t for that purpose, but didn’t people always say that what you desperately seek often appears in the most unexpected places?

“I hope it’s the young lady. I’ve never even seen her.”

Maybe this grim estate would feel a little better then.

Sofia added quietly.

“I hope she looks a lot like the Master.”

“Why?”

“White hair and pink eyes are kind of… creepy.”

“I guess so.”

Becky nodded faintly.

After watching the scene outside for a while, the two headed back toward the dorms.

* * *

“My name is Reina Botn.”

The next day, a woman with a blurry, indistinct impression stood in the servants’ quarters, holding a child who was breathing roughly in her sleep.

Sofia could say with certainty that she had never seen someone with such a vague looking face in her life.

‘She’s skin and bones.’

And she looked pitiful.

A small child with pink hair that looked exactly like the woman.

The woman who introduced herself as Reina spoke.

“Ah, my husband passed away in an accident a few years ago.”

The sleeping child squirmed slightly in her arms.

The way the woman soothed the child was extremely careful.

Naturally, everyone’s attention went to the child.

The child was even the same age as the young lady who had gone missing.

“A mother and daughter too poor to call a doctor.”

“A child suffering from a fever in the middle of winter.”

“A child so underfed she was much smaller and thinner than her peers.”

“A woman who came all the way to the ducal estate during a snowstorm to save her child.”

The woman was more than enough to stir people’s sympathy.

She explained that her name was Reina Botn.

The Botn mother and daughter were assigned a room at the farthest corner.

Sofia, who was guiding them, watched Reina look around the room for a while.

“Is there a problem?”

“N-No. It’s just…”

The woman quickly shook her head at the question.

Her ears seemed a little red.

“I-I was just thinking that it’s warm even though it’s a corner room.”

“…?”

“It’s embarrassing, but the place we lived before didn’t have any heating at all.”

“Didn’t you use mana stones?”

“Mana stones are expensive, so you can’t use them whenever you want.”

Reina was reflected in Sofia’s eyes.

Eyes that resembled the woman’s flickered faintly.

‘She was so poor she couldn’t even buy mana stones?’

How pitiful.

The more she learned, the more pitiful she seemed.

“Still, I’m glad I was able to get a job here. I can raise Boni… my daughter more safely.”

“I see. Wait just a moment.”

Sofia went to her room and brought back a round tin.

Inside were a few cookies left over from Star’s Birthday.

She handed the tin to Reina.

“Eat them together when she wakes up.”

“A-Ah, no, it’s alright.”

Reina flinched and tried to refuse, but Sofia firmly pressed the tin into her hands.

“They’re not very sweet, so anyone can eat them. Share them with your daughter.”

“…”

Reina’s ears turned red and her expression grew awkward.

But she didn’t look displeased.

If anything, she looked moved.

Reina was someone who could be touched by cookies worth only a few Theon.

“I do have a favor, though.”

“A favor?”

“Yes.”

Sofia liked people like this.

“Call me Sofia from now on. I’ll call you Reina too.”

“…”

“So, I’m asking you to be friends. Is it okay if we speak casually?”

Pitiful people were comfortable.

People who liked and admired you just because you treated them kindly were nice.

More precisely, people who made you feel important just by keeping them close were nice.

Who would dislike the feeling of becoming someone important?

For Sofia, born into a poor commoner family and living as an ordinary maid, this was the best kind of special she could have.

‘She’s so pitiful.’

To think she’d meet someone as pitiful as Reina.

The greatest luck in Reina’s life was probably catching the duke’s eye and getting the chance to work here.

Sofia gave Reina the same friendly smile she showed everyone else.

* * *

“Sofia, I finished sorting all the curtains from the storage.”

“Thanks.”

Receiving great admiration from such a small kindness didn’t feel bad.

Reina herself didn’t realize it, but she had already become a topic of conversation among the servants.

The woman who arrived at the estate in winter holding only her daughter.

The woman taken in by the cold hearted Duke Winternight.

The servants somehow learned that Sofia was close to Reina, and whenever they were curious about her, they came to ask Sofia.

And every conversation ended the same way.

“Reina Botn is really pitiful.”

Sofia didn’t even need to embellish the story.

How could someone’s life be so unfortunate?

That was always the conclusion.

‘Pitiful.’

Sofia looked at Reina, who was smiling faintly in front of her.

Calloused hands, hardened from the moment she arrived at the estate.

Sofia looked down at those hands and spoke.

“I’m going to the work area on an errand. Want to come with me?”

She lifted a basket that took both hands to barely hold.

“I’m bringing snacks, but I need to carry another basket this size too. It’s really heavy.”

“Where’s the other basket?”

“Over there. I’ll introduce you to the knights while we’re at it.”

Reina lifted the nearby basket with ease and widened her eyes at Sofia’s words.

“Do I need to be introduced?”

“Of course. If you’re going to work together, it’s good to know each other. If they don’t know who you are, you might get in trouble.”

“Ah, that could happen.”

Reina nodded, saying that with a place this big, someone could probably sneak in.

“I’m close with the knights too. You’ll get close to them soon as well.”

“That would be nice. I’m not very sociable, unlike you, Sofia.”

Reina added that if Sofia hadn’t approached her first that day, they probably wouldn’t have gotten close like this.

It was an innocent remark that didn’t question Sofia’s intentions at all.

‘So stupid.’

Did she not realize she was being pitied, or did she enjoy being pitied?

If they went to the knight order today, there would be even more people who pitied her.

That was also why Reina didn’t make friends easily.

Because she was pitiful.

There were people who treated her kindly out of sympathy, or because she reminded them of a young lady who might still be alive.

But no one willingly wanted to be her friend.

Friendship meant equality.

And no one wanted to stand on equal ground with someone pitiful.

“I’m sorry it’s so cold.”

“No, I’m happy if I could help you, Sofia.”

The training grounds they reached through the cold winter wind were filled with heat.

The knights were sparring in light clothing, as if it weren’t winter at all.

“Wow…”

Reina let out a quiet exclamation.

“Amazing, right? I bet the Winternight knight order has the most long serving knights.”

“I think I’d faint just standing among them.”

Sharp waves of sword energy prickled across her skin.

It wasn’t the cold that made her shiver, but the pressure of the blades.

The Captain noticed the two maids and halted the sparring.

Sofia and Reina handed out sandwiches to the knights during their break.

Reina thought the sight of large men awkwardly hunching over their food was somehow cute.

“…Huh?”

Amid the small cluster of noise, one flustered voice popped out.

“Y-You. Why are you here? I mean, since when?”

The knight receiving a sandwich, Sofia handing it over, the one opening the wrapper, and even the knights waiting in line all froze and looked in one direction.

A man with warm light brown hair and an even gentler face was staring at Reina with an unusually flustered expression.

“W-Who are you?”

Reina simply looked confused.

“…Uh, um.”

The knight tried to say something, then noticed all the attention on him and rolled his eyes.

“Th-That child. Is she alright now?”

Reina blinked a couple of times at his question, then smiled softly.

“Thanks to your concern, her fever’s completely gone. She’s fine now.”

He seemed about to say something, then shook his head.

And smiled as well.

“…That’s a relief.”

Something started to go wrong from that moment.