Chapter 11
“From today, Miss, your maid has been changed from Mary to me, Tess.”
When I opened my eyes in the morning, a stranger stood there instead of Mary.
Mary had always smiled kindly from the first day we met, but Tess looked as if she wasn’t happy at all to be assigned to me.
“Breakfast is ready, so come quickly.”
Tess led me to the small table inside the room.
Mary, who knew how much I loved food, always prepared my meals with care.
But now, all that was on the table was a watery soup and a rock-hard piece of bread smaller than my palm.
“This is it?”
“For a girl your age, this should be more than enough. If you keep eating like you did with Mary, you’ll end up fat like a pig.”
I picked up the spoon, feeling uneasy.
“Ugh.”
Whatever they put in it, the soup was horribly salty.
“This soup tastes weird. It’s too salty.”
Tess sighed as if I was being absolutely ridiculous.
“Miss, how can you complain about food first thing in the morning?”
“Try it yourself. It’s really salty.”
Tess started clearing the table without another word.
“If you don’t want to eat it, don’t. I didn’t tell you not to eat—it was your choice not to.”
“W-Wait. I’ll eat it.”
I forced myself to eat it, but maybe because I’d been eating well lately, my stomach felt completely empty.
In the end, I basically skipped breakfast and had to go straight to sword training.
Though, sword training was really just physical training since I didn’t have anything to learn from Swell.
As soon as I saw Swell, I asked,
“Swell, do you have anything to eat? Like leftover bread or something…”
“You didn’t eat breakfast?”
“Yeah, well…”
I told Swell what had happened with the new maid.
“That insolent…! How dare a maid act like that to you? Tess, was it? I’ll speak to the head maid right away.”
“No, don’t.”
I answered, taking a big bite of the bread Swell gave me.
“But Miss, you can’t keep someone like that in the castle. And tampering with your food—unforgivable.”
“Even if you say something, Tess won’t be punished. The head maid will cover for her.”
There’s no way a mere maid like Tess would act so boldly on her own.
“It must be the Council’s doing—trying to interfere with my sparring match against the Speaker’s grandson.”
“Then wouldn’t it be better to tell the Duke?”
I shook my head.
“It won’t make a difference.”
The Duke would never take my side.
He never had.
Even if the other person started the fight, it always ended up being my fault.
He only brought me here because I was a nuisance he couldn’t ignore anymore.
If I ran to him to solve every problem, he’d probably start finding me annoying.
“I have to deal with this myself.”
“Miss…”
“So, actually…”
My face turned red with embarrassment.
“Could you keep preparing food for me from now on?”
I could endure most things—but not hunger.
Swell answered with a solemn expression.
“Don’t worry, Miss. I will make sure you are never hungry. Is there anything you’d like to eat?”
“Well, then…”
On the way back to my room after sword training, I heard some maids whispering to each other.
“Oh, that’s the girl…”
“She looks so obnoxious. No wonder the Duke hates her.”
“Even the way she walks is vulgar. You can always tell when a child grew up without parents.”
The maids glanced at me and then giggled among themselves.
I was used to people talking behind my back—even before I transmigrated.
Rigan treated me like a slave, and the people in the Demon Dragon Subjugation Squad just followed his lead.
But somehow, this time I didn’t want to let it slide.
I approached the maids who had just been talking about me.
“Were you just talking about me?”
The maids quickly changed their expressions and said,
“No, not at all.”
Of course they’d deny it.
“Really? Then I’ll just give you ten lashes on the calves—lift your skirts.”
“What? All of a sudden?”
“What do you mean, Miss? We didn’t say anything!”
They put on their most innocent expressions.
“Yeah, but I’m just in a bad mood and feel like hitting someone.”
This would probably tank my reputation, but…
Who cares.
It’s not like I’ve ever had a good reputation to begin with.
Even if I became the world’s worst villain, I’d still look like an angel compared to the daughter of the Demon Dragon.
Maybe they could sense I wasn’t joking, because they started protesting.
“N-No way!”
“Yeah! We didn’t do anything wrong…!”
“You just did something wrong. Disobeying your master’s orders. Didn’t you hear me say lift your skirts?”
“Even if you twist things like that…”
“I decide what counts as twisting. You don’t have to comply—fine by me.”
I grabbed the wooden sword I had brought back from training.
The maids backed away, and I lightly tapped each of their calves with it.
“Eeek!”
“Ugh!”
It may have looked like a light tap to outsiders, but I had infused it with magic—it’d sting like a whip.
The noise must have drawn attention, because the head maid came storming over.
“Miss! What on earth are you doing?!”
“These girls were gossiping about me, so I was giving them a little lesson.”
“Did you speak ill of the young lady?”
“We’re sorry! We didn’t mean to! We were just chatting and accidentally upset her!”
“We’re sorry, Miss. It won’t happen again.”
The maids bowed their heads and apologized.
“I see. I understand now. You two, sweep the front yard as punishment. You’ve surely learned to be careful with your words.”
A very light punishment for slandering their master.
And she didn’t even ask for my approval before dismissing them.
So the head maid is on the Council’s side, too.
The head maid turned to me with a stern expression.
“Miss, I understand that a girl who grew up on the streets might want to flaunt what little power she has, but the master dislikes noise in the castle.”
She put her hand on my shoulder.
“If you don’t want to be thrown out, I suggest you behave.”
I stared at her in silence.
“No point in glaring. I know very well the Duke doesn’t care about you.”
A condescending smirk appeared on her lips.
“What? Feel wronged? Then go cry to the Duke. Let’s see who he chooses to keep—me, who has worked here for almost 20 years, or you.”
Her hand “accidentally” scratched my cheek with her sharp nails.
A stinging pain spread across the cut.
“My apologies.”
As she turned to walk away, I grabbed her wrist.
“Huh?”
She tried to pull free, but I held her tightly.
“So, sword training gave you strength…”
And I scratched her wrist with her own nails.
“Ugh!”
Only then did I release her and say,
“Oops. My mistake.”
She glared at me for a long moment, then scoffed and walked away.
“Let’s see how long you can keep that attitude.”
That night, I was asleep in bed when I felt something crawling on my arm.
When I opened my eyes, I locked eyes with a shiny black bug.
A cockroach.
At the same time, click—I heard the sound of the door locking.
“I’ll open it in the morning! Take some time to think about what you’ve done!”
Tess’s voice was full of amusement.
“……”
I sat up in bed, speechless at the sight before me.
There were dozens of cockroaches crawling around my room.
And they weren’t normal ones—they were three times the size and far faster.
I couldn’t help but wonder where they’d caught so many of them.
They crawled quickly across the floor and walls on their six spiky legs.
Skrrrt—
They were so big that I could clearly see the patterns on their translucent wings and their sharp limbs.
“Ha…”
Must’ve been the head maid’s idea after what happened earlier today.
I grabbed the wooden sword in my room and swatted the closest cockroach.
Its crushed body smeared across the carpet Mary had worked so hard to clean.
That pushed me over the edge.
Locking the door too… so they want me to spend the night with these things?
If I were a normal kid, I’d be passed out by now and running away from the castle at dawn.
I searched the vanity drawer for a hairpin, unfolded the wire, and inserted it into the doorknob.
After a few clicks, the door opened.
Too easy.
I headed straight for the maids’ quarters.
When I reached Tess’s room, I heard their excited voices from inside.
“Hahaha! It’s a shame I can’t see it myself. Do you think she’ll be begging us tomorrow?”
“Ugh, just thinking about it gives me chills. Whose idea was that anyway?”
“Mine, of course. That brat always looks so smug like she knows everything. Ugh, I can’t wait till tomorrow.”
I flung the door open.
Tess and the three other maids she shared the room with turned pale as they saw me.
“M-Miss? How did you—wait…”
Tess pointed at me like she’d seen a ghost.
“Is it that strange I’m here?”
“N-No, it’s just…”
I walked toward her as she stammered.
