<Episode 9>
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s hiding some awful scar under there.”
“Gives me the chills. Doesn’t it feel like the air’s heavier around him?”
Whispers scattered through the crowd.
‘I’m going to lose my mind at this rate.’
If this continued, we wouldn’t get anywhere even by nightfall.
Steeling myself, I clenched my fist and declared—
“I came here to find out why no one is applying to work as Winter Castle’s chef.”
Then I pointed to the restaurant with the largest crowd nearby.
“So first, let’s eat for market research.”
The days of being a noble with no worries about food were long gone.
After a month of chewing tough jerky and hard potato bread, it had been ages since I’d tasted a warm meal.
A spicy meat stew.
The ingredients were humble, the bowl plain—but to me, it surpassed even the Imperial chef’s finest dishes.
“It’s delicious…”
I should have come out to eat earlier.
Not that I could afford to eat out every day. I needed to get to the bottom of this absurd hiring drought.
“You know, later we should go to the square—oh.”
For the first time since the food arrived, I set down my spoon—and only then noticed the untouched stew across from me.
“You’re not eating?”
“You took your time asking.”
“…I was hungry, that’s all.”
While I cleaned my bowl spotless, the duke didn’t take even a single bite. He sat with arms crossed, leaning back.
“I do not require food. You should know that.”
Well, yes—he hadn’t eaten once in the entire month I’d been in the castle, nor had anyone prepared food for him.
If the master didn’t eat, no wonder the meals were miserable.
“But I can’t just sit here eating while you stare at me.”
“Regardless of what you intended, I merely watched.”
“…You never lose an argument, do you?”
I pulled his stew toward me.
“If you’re not eating, I’ll take it. Or… I can cast a sensory spell on you. Would you like to try eating with that?”
‘Since the duke can’t feel anything at all.’
He couldn’t feel taste or cold—his subordinates were similar, though better off than he was.
But instead of appreciating my kindness, the duke replied dryly—
“You? On me? Don’t waste your mana.”
“Ah. Right. Then I’ll gratefully have this.”
He had accepted my presence without much question, his subordinates treated him with familiarity—I had assumed he was fairly even-tempered.
‘Yet he’s oddly prickly at the same time.’
Truly impossible to read.
“Um…”
Just then, a young girl in a white apron approached timidly.
Aside from ordering food, this was my first time speaking to anyone outside the castle.
“The stew… it cooled, so… should I heat it for you?”
“That would be lovely. You’re very kind.”
“Ah—no, not at all! Just a moment!”
She carefully collected the bowl and dashed off to the kitchen.
As I glanced around the lively restaurant, a conveniently loud conversation drifted clearly to my ears.
“Weren’t you thinking of applying? That cooking job or whatever it was.”
“A cook? You mean the Winter Castle chef position with the five hundred gold salary?”
“Yes, that one. You were drunk last night shouting you’d join and make a fortune.”
“Hey, that was drunk talk! I’d never actually do it. I may be desperate for money, but not desperate enough for a grave.”
“Haha! True. Once you’re dead, wealth means nothing.”
“I mean really—five hundred gold a month? That can’t be an ordinary job.”
…Well, that was one way to interpret it.
But it seemed the problem wasn’t just that the pay looked suspiciously high.
‘Why is Winter Castle a grave? I live there just fine.’
I subtly turned toward the voices.
“Of course it’s creepy. Winter Castle’s where the monsters live.”
“And there’s that rumor—they gain immortality by drinking the blood of pure humans.”
What?
So that’s why they couldn’t hire a chef even with that salary?
“Pure! Hahaha, well you don’t need to worry about that, my friend.”
“Rumors aside, we should still be grateful. Thanks to those monsters, we haven’t been invaded. Just thinking of the Empire boils my blood.”
“Damn those Imperial bastards. Wish they’d drop dead instead of prowling around the border.”
‘Wait—how did the conversation jump there?’
I suppose people always favor their own side.
Their loud chatter must have reached the duke easily, yet he simply watched me without reacting at all.
Our gazes tangled in the air—his pale-moon eyes fixed on me.
‘Why… does he keep staring like that.’
Come to think of it, he had always looked at me that way—as if searching for something deep inside me, as if peering all the way down to my core.
Clack.
“P-please enjoy!”
“…Ah, thank you.”
The newly reheated stew was set before me, steam rising in soft curls. The girl bowed and hurried away.
“……”
An uncomfortable silence settled around the two suspiciously hooded figures at our table.
Maybe because I’d become conscious of it—his gaze made me feel like I might choke.
“Sigh.”
In the square of Block Three, where the chef recruitment notice was posted.
After subtly asking around, I finally understood why money wasn’t enough.
‘They’re scared.’
Just nonsense born from ignorance—madness from making eye contact, turning into monsters if they entered Winter Castle. Empty rumors feeding new fears.
A hundred years of isolation had created this.
‘I can’t fix their perception overnight.’
Deep-rooted beliefs don’t crumble easily. Spoken from someone who lived an entire life as a former villainess—take that to heart.
I had come to solve a problem, but only uncovered a bigger one. As twilight began to fall, I sighed up at the darkening sky.
“It’s getting late. Let’s head back.”
“Your business is finished?”
“Yes. I still don’t know why you followed me, but… thank you.”
Once we returned, I would definitely ask Giselle what she’d been thinking.
Just then, beside the frozen white fountain, the duke suddenly stopped.
In a low voice, as though turning over an old thought—
“Irenne Valtres.”
He called me—using my full, stubbornly formal name.
“I told you to drop the family name.”
“Why did you become a mage?”
It wasn’t the sort of question asked for a predictable answer—because I had mana, because House Valtres was an old mage lineage.
So I answered honestly.
“Because there was someone I wanted to save.”
It was long ago.
When I found out my mother died giving birth to me. When I read a fairy tale about a princess revived by magic.
As a child, I believed that if I became a mage, I could resurrect my mother—even though by then her body would have long decayed underground.
Not out of longing for a face I’d never seen—but because I wanted her, and the cold family around me, to love me.
“But it was impossible. Unless I became a grand archmage… and I didn’t.”
The duke exhaled softly, as though releasing a held breath.
“…It was impossible for me as well.”
From him, I sensed no mana—only miasma.
I didn’t need to ask. The once-great archmage, the last master of the Mage Tower, could no longer wield magic.
A life without magic. I couldn’t even imagine it.
“Well. Only a god could manage such a thing.”
I brushed it aside lightly and continued—
“After realizing that, I kept studying magic simply because I loved it. Magic doesn’t lie to me, and if I work hard, the answers always reveal themselves.”
It was true.
And yes, I clung to it because my family valued magic above all—believing that as long as I had it, I wouldn’t be discarded even if I wasn’t loved.
Those feelings had long since faded.
To me now, magic was…
My engine. The one thing that never betrayed me—the one thing that belonged to me alone.
“You—”
Smack!
A sharp, violent sound cut off his words.
I turned instinctively toward the alley behind the square, shrouded in the shadow of a building.
Two silhouettes came into view.
“You worthless brat! You only get to survive here because of me!”
“B-but… I—I need this money. I have to buy my mother’s medicine…”
“Do you want to be thrown out on the street with her? Stop whining and hand it over! If tonight goes well, I’ll pay you double!”
