Chapter 44

Chernia pretended not to notice Alpheios’s gaze fixed on me and recorded the current status of the battlefront.

Alpheios’s eyes clung to the fingers holding the pen.

I couldn’t tell if it was because something she rarely possessed was right before her eyes, or because

Chernia was moving exactly as Riorem wished.

But at least one thing was certain.

“She’s going to make a fuss trying to take me away.”

Chernia furrowed her brows slightly.

She didn’t realize that Riorem was watching her silently without even breathing.

From morning today, the maids came rushing in again.

“Coming to the palace again, huh.”

I shook off my drowsiness and got up.

Since deciding to reveal my existence, Riorem had been flaunting me around.

My attire grew more and more extravagant.

If it weren’t for the slave mark wrapped around my nape, one might mistake me for Riorem’s wife.

As things went on like this, the number of maids attending me increased.

One maid sent by Theumesa wasn’t enough to prepare me perfectly.

However, I wasn’t sure if this situation could be called “an improvement.”

Crack, crack.

The stiff sound of brushing mixed with a painful scalp pull.

They said they reduced preparation time by bathing and combing hair at the same time, but none of the maids did their job properly.

Especially that maid who was violently trying to comb all my hair with a dense wooden comb.

Snap, snap.

Soon, several strands of my hair broke.

“Pfft.”

A maid wiping her arms burst out laughing.

“Oh, sorry, I messed up.”

The maid who had broken my hair didn’t even properly apologize.

This had happened several times over the past few days.

Enough for me to start thinking about the reason.

It seemed likely because I had shown myself to obediently follow Riorem’s lead.

Many seemed to think I had surrendered to this situation — living as the slave of the man who once was my slave.

Of course, not everyone was like that.

But some wanted to confirm that I was someone they could look down on.

In other words, they wanted to see for themselves that “that noble Peroa princess wasn’t anything special.”

“Still, until now, it was only people I met in the castle who acted that way.”

So I had much to consider before reacting.

I had to calculate where to draw the line so Riorem’s authority could cover it.

But if the opponent was a maid hired by Riorem, there was no need to worry about that.

I twisted my body and grabbed the hair of the maid sitting by the bathtub.

She had been laughing the whole time she was tugging on my hair, her face full of smiles.

I pulled her hair and shoved her head into the bathtub.

The maid, suddenly subjected to a form of water torture, struggled, but pressing her neck against the tub’s edge quickly ended it.

The startled maids screamed.

“Ah! What are you doing?!”

“That’s crazy…”

“Who called someone here?!”

Amid the chaos, I asked in a gentle voice,

“Who exactly did you call? Without even dressing me.”

Silence fell over the room.

Even those desperate to ignore me knew how Riorem would react if he saw my naked body.

The maid with her head underwater gurgled.

At that eerie sound, the maids quietly held their breath.

If all of them had attacked at once, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Fortunately, the mood seemed to have shifted.

I calmly continued,

“I don’t think any of you trembling before your master ever thought to bully me on your own. Did someone order you? To harass me where Riorem wouldn’t know?”

The maids looked at each other with grim faces.

That alone was an answer.

It was probably someone who couldn’t harass me directly.

Someone who couldn’t enter Riorem’s bedroom or contact me separately.

Just like all the bullying that happened inside the castle.

By then, the maid whose head had been shoved into the bathtub went limp.

She seemed to have fainted.

I immediately threw her onto the floor.

The faces of the maids watching turned pale.

Instead of punishing them further, I submerged myself back into the bathtub.

To let the scent soak into my skin, I’d need to stay like this for at least ten more minutes.

Then I threatened them in a calm voice.

“If he doesn’t tell you, it’s because I’ve killed so many servants that in the end, only slaves who don’t mind dying serve me.”

Of course, I had stopped the excessive cruelty at some point… but there was no need to say that.

Sitting quietly in the bathtub, the maids resumed attending to me.

Their touch was far more polite than before.

I let the maids take care of me and recalled the atmosphere inside the castle.

The reason I wasn’t as aggressive as before since reaching adulthood was because I lost interest in hurting others.

Not because my character flaws had been fixed.

I would never be kind enough to tolerate people who try to assert superiority by treating Princess Peroa roughly.

So today, too, I planned to go to the castle looking perfect.

So my master, who had seized power among those who trampled others and ruled over them, could proudly show me off.

Fortunately, everything went in my favor.

The maids finished preparing quickly, and the road to the castle was much more relaxed than usual.

Walking the corridors amid the process and murmurs of entering the palace still annoyed me but was bearable enough.

The problem was the man I met every time I entered the king’s meeting room.

“Good morning, Cherni.”

Alpheios, sitting near the seat of honor, smiled brightly.

When I didn’t answer, he even waved his hand.

Instead of responding to Alpheios’s greeting, I looked at Riorem’s back.

Though not as tight as before, his uniform still revealed his straight back and broad shoulders, and beneath it, his body was stiff with tension.

“Today won’t pass quietly either,” I thought, standing quietly by the stool.

Soon, the king and crown prince of Arete entered the meeting room together.

Everyone except Alpheios stood and bowed respectfully.

I greeted them politely without making them uncomfortable.

All the while, Alpheios’s gaze was fixed on my side profile.

The crown prince wouldn’t just quietly watch Alpheios like that.

As soon as the meeting started, the crown prince tried to use his retainers’ voices to push Alpheios out of the castle again.

This was because since Alpheios had brought news of the empire’s troops strangely advancing to the front lines and requested reinforcements, he hadn’t stepped outside the castle.

Normally, he would have just delivered the news and immediately returned to the battlefield with his soldiers.

But during preparations for the expedition, the crown prince returned with Riorem Velik, and rumors that someone was left behind in the general’s carriage piqued Alpheios’s curiosity.

That’s how it came to be.

The rumor that Riorem had taken in a female slave was true, and the identity of that slave was the very person Alpheios had pursued for years.

After learning this, Alpheios never left the castle.

He attended every meeting he sometimes participated in and persistently spoke to me.

It was an uncomfortable situation for everyone.

Whether fortunate or not, Riorem wasn’t easily swayed by Alpheios.

Instead, he chose to flaunt me even more.

Tap, tap.

A long finger touched the end of the paper organizing the meeting minutes.

I looked away from the paper and met Riorem’s eyes.

“What is it?” I asked silently with my lips.

Riorem answered without voice as well.

“Look at me.”

I put down the pen and met Riorem’s gaze.

Drawing attention to himself was one of Riorem’s ways of showing me off lately.

To be honest, I didn’t feel good about it. I hated men who used me as a tool.

But staring quietly into Riorem’s eyes was something I liked.

Because he was looking at me directly.

While trying to show off that I did whatever he told me, Riorem focused not on others’ eyes but on me.

The fact that my eyes were fixed not on anyone else but Riorem Velik himself.