You Said I Was a Persecuted, Terminally Ill Grand Duchess? - Chapter 8

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 8

“Your Highness.”

The unexpected protagonists were servants wearing the same maid uniforms as Betty.

Among them was the maid who had come to the cottage calling for Betty on my first day arriving at Celeste.

Was her name Dora?

But most of the others, excluding her, were suspiciously well-built.

The maids were looking at me with stern, solemn, and serious expressions, hands placed firmly on their hips.

Deep shadows fell across their prominent noses, as striking as their burly, muscular builds.

If I were to get into a fight with them…

‘…I would lose.’

The probability of defeat was 100 percent.

Just as I was swallowing dry saliva from the overwhelming tension.

“What do you want?!”

Despite being about the same height as me, Betty stepped forward aggressively, blocking my front protectively.

Somehow, a touching emotion washed over me.

“Graaah?!”

Betty wasn’t intimidated by their presence at all, and instead provocatively thrust her face right up to theirs, baring her teeth.

“Keh~shit. What? Keh~! What? You came here looking for trouble? Kyaak!”

‘Cerberus…’

How reassuring indeed!

Somehow, courage surged within me too, so I patted Betty’s shoulder and stepped forward with determination.

‘Hold back, Cerberus. You don’t need to step in.’

Perhaps reading the intention in my fingertips, Betty, who had been growling continuously, rolled her upturned eyes back to their normal position and obediently stepped back beside me.

Watching this scene intently, a maid standing in the middle of the group spoke.

“Betty, since when did you become such a loyal dog to Her Highness? Just this morning you were…”

“Grrrrrowl!”

“Hold back, hold back. Cerber… Ah, no. Betty.”

I restrained Betty, who immediately went into attack mode, and stepped forward to speak firmly.

“Calling Betty my loyal dog doesn’t seem like the right expression. More importantly, what business do you have?”

“We also want to become Your Highness’s loyal dogs.”

“?”

…What did she say?

Thinking I must have misheard, I just blinked, when a maid standing on the right side of the group shouted with an overwhelmed voice.

“We were wrong! We’ve been misunderstanding Your Highness all this time.”

“But now we know. That elegant demeanor… and even those resolute, wonderful eyes!”

“Please accept us as Your Highness’s doormats!”

“Even if scouts come from other places, we’ll never give them a second glance!”

What followed were earnest cries that bordered on testimonials.

Somehow, their fawning was even worse than Betty’s, giving me a headache…

I squeezed my eyes shut and looked back at Betty.

I meant for her to try to stop them.

But…

“I knew it! I knew you guys would come around!”

“…Betty?”

Just moments ago, she had been trembling with rage and bristling, as if that had never happened.

Betty was wiggling her body with sparkling round eyes.

She seemed quite pleased to have gained companions.

But strangely… rather than maids overwhelmed by serving the same person together…

‘It’s just like a gathering of otaku who share the same favorite.’

And that favorite is… me?

Hmm, honestly, I didn’t want to understand any more than this.

“The word ‘doormats’… doesn’t seem like a very good expression either. First, what are your names?”

“Huh. My name?”

“Yes. All of you.”

“Kyaak! What should I do!”

I desperately pretended not to notice their fawning and calmly listened to the maids’ overwhelming self-introductions.

“…So in order, Garnet, Nina, Dora, Lia, Marigona?”

“Yes!”

Plus Betty too?

Somehow their names suspiciously seemed to be in alphabetical order… must be my imagination, right?

Let’s just move on.

“From now on, we’ll help you, Your Highness, with anything you need!”

Setting aside not understanding what brought this about, faced with those warm words, I couldn’t help but smile genuinely.

“Yes. Thank you.”

* * *

After that day, factions strangely formed within the Duke’s Castle.

“Lady Hugo is really funny. No matter how much she’s a count’s daughter, she’s ultimately just a lady-in-waiting to Her Grace the Grand Duchess. Broadly speaking, she’s in a similar position to us, so why does she act so tyrannically? Lady Rene is an angel compared to her.”

While some subtly sided with Rene Blanche.

“Really now, that woman must be cursed! Red eyes, no less. Just thinking about it is ominous. Lady Katarina has a nasty personality, but at least she’s a noble lady without any ominous rumors.”

Others still sided with Katarina Hugo because they despised Rene Blanche.

Essentially, depending on which of the two women they disliked more, sides formed here and there, leading to fights both large and small.

“…Thus, the internal division is serious.”

“Haah…”

A deep sigh escaped from the man’s carefully sculpted lips.

The man holding his throbbing head, Zenos, slowly opened his closed eyes.

“In just the few days I was away?”

“Th-that is…”

The head butler who had been reporting the previous events showed a troubled expression beneath his monocle.

Zenos shook his head and continued speaking.

“I’m not trying to blame you, Cal.”

“I apologize for failing to maintain discipline.”

“How could that be your fault? It’s all… because of the stones that rolled in.”

Still, since one side seemed to be behaving relatively quietly, he had been contemplating ways to naturally separate the noisy side first.

While he had hurriedly left due to sudden bad news.

Wasn’t this like a fire breaking out in his own front yard?

“Damn it.”

A few days ago.

Zenos had urgently ridden out upon news that monsters had suddenly appeared on the outskirts of Celeste Estate.

Monsters were beings that only appeared in founding myths and ancient legends about the first Emperor Albert Rembrandt and ancient dragons sealing them away.

Now, hundreds of years after the founding of Rembrandt.

Dragons and monsters were all no different from stories of other worlds.

Magic existed, but its power was weak.

That position had long been occupied by the Temple.

As divine power became prominent, it was natural for magic to decline.

“…”

His thoughts continued in a chain, and Zenos slowly raised his head.

When he arrived at the scene, the private house reported to have been damaged by monsters had left not even a trace.

Of course, the monster was the same.

Had someone made a false report to drive him away from the Duke’s Castle?

If so, that would mean there was a spy inside the Duke’s Castle monitoring the situation.

Never before had anyone infiltrated the Duke’s Castle with such audacity.

The most suspicious person was, as expected….

“Ha.”

He was gradually reaching his limit.

His eyes were rippling with cold fury.

“Fine. Go check it out.”

“Yes.”

The old butler, who couldn’t fail to understand his master’s mood, withdrew with a brief response.

Zenos remained fixed in place, lost in thought for quite some time afterward, before eventually rubbing his face with dry hands.

“…Nothing but tiresome affairs.”

His vision was clouded.

Being unable to sleep wasn’t a matter of just a day or two, but the past few days of continuous travel through harsh mountain terrain and cold weather seemed to have accumulated more fatigue than usual.

But the more his body cried out in exhaustion, the sharper his mind became.

That disconnect was a sensation he could never get used to, no matter how often he experienced it.

‘The time already….’

Even when Cal had entered, it was already late enough for most people to be in bed.

After several more hours had passed, the view outside the window had transformed into the deep dawn hours, where only quiet moonlight remained.

Zenos pressed his temple firmly with one hand and rose from his seat.

Since he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight anyway, he figured he might as well take a walk.

Thud, thud, thud.

The heavy sound of his boots echoed through the dark manor’s corridor.

Walking wherever his feet led him, reaching places he normally didn’t frequent—it was all by chance.

But then….

“…!”

He suddenly sensed a presence beyond the turning corridor.

Zenos’s senses, honed from a lifetime of walking on knife’s edge, sharpened alertly.

‘An intruder? No. It’s not threatening. Rather….’

At least it didn’t seem like someone who had snuck in secretly.

Any ordinary assassin wouldn’t be this careless.

But it wasn’t a busy enough time at the Duke’s Castle to have servants working at this hour either.

Most importantly, the servants’ quarters were in the annex, separate from the main residence, so servants were naturally ruled out too.

‘Then who on earth could it be?’

Meanwhile, the pattering footsteps continued to draw closer.

Who could possibly be in the main residence corridor at this hour….

“Who’s there.”

“Eek!”

However, what he encountered was neither an assassin nor a servant… but a truly unexpected person.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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