~Chapter 7~
Eugene pondered for a moment and then shook her head.
*’Well. Whatever.’*
It wasn’t something she’d planned out meticulously anyway. She didn’t want to think about it more complicatedly.
*Swish, splash.*
The maids around the tub carried out their duties with thoroughly businesslike attitudes. Apart from the sounds of water splashing and bathing tools being dragged around, not a single word was exchanged in the room.
“…”
In the quiet silence, the initial excitement of meeting her favorite game characters and experiencing the game as if it were reality subsided.
Eugene obediently closed her eyes, yielding to the drowsiness creeping over her body.
Since she had entered this palace anyway, she would have plenty of time to think in the future.
***
Regarding the grimy child His Highness the Crown Prince had suddenly brought back, the faithful head steward, while attending to his master’s clothes upon his return from the outing, inquired about the girl’s disposition. And to convey the instructions exactly, he sought out the head maid.
“What did His Highness say?”
The head steward gathered his neatly trimmed eyebrows toward the center of his forehead, making a troubled expression, and answered the head maid’s question.
Upon hearing his words, the head maid’s eyes widened in surprise, then she reined in her emotions.
She then called a nearby errand boy and instructed him to tell the maids to bring the girl once her bath was finished.
*’This child…’*
And soon, looking at the girl brought before her, the head maid fell into thought for a moment.
*-His Highness said nothing special, only ‘Keep her in the palace.’ That was all he said.*
That was behavior unlike the Crown Prince Michael they had known until now.
His Highness the Crown Prince detested things existing without purpose. He scorned the incompetent and never kept people he deemed useless within his palace.
Thanks to that, the servants who remained in the Crown Prince’s palace were all individuals twice as capable as those from other places.
*’The peculiarity is the white hair inappropriate for her age.’*
Otherwise, she couldn’t tell what skills she might have. The slightly thin girl looked utterly ordinary. To the extent that she couldn’t fathom why His Highness had personally brought her from outside the palace.
“Haa.”
The head maid let out a deep sigh and raised her head.
*’I can’t figure it out with my head alone.’*
Finally giving up on meaningless speculation by herself, the head maid opened her mouth.
“I inquired of His Highness about you.”
At the words directed at her, the girl looked back at her. The girl’s pupils, contrasting with her ill-fitting white hair, were very, very dark.
Feeling an eerie chill from the girl’s eyes, which seemed somehow detached from this very place, the head maid continued.
“But there was no particular mention of your role.”
Even as she continued to look this way, it was a strange gaze that seemed to be looking somewhere far beyond her.
Suppressing her slightly trembling fingertips on the desk for no reason, the head maid concluded what she was going to say.
“So, tell me yourself. For what purpose did His Highness bring you in?”
What are you? At her question, the girl lowered her eyes with a dreamy, drowsy face.
*’Purpose…’*
Eugene quietly reflected on the current situation.
Originally, the protagonist, Canis, would have stated her name here.
*’And then she would have asked the head maid for work she could do in the palace.’*
Unlike the initial interest shown in the protagonist at the beginning, which served as the prologue of “The Golden Cage,” the Crown Prince left her neglected for several years.
It seemed to be a setting to trigger romance events only after both the protagonist and Crown Prince Michael reached adulthood.
During this period, simply glossed over as ‘several years later,’ Crown Prince Michael transforms into a ruthless monarch devoid of a shred of humanity, while the protagonist, true to her diligent nature, voluntarily finds work and integrates into the palace workforce.
That’s right.
Voluntarily, without anyone telling her to! She sought out work!
Eugene had not the slightest intention of doing so.
“Me?”
So she firmly declared her will by voicing her desired position.
“I’m Master’s dog.”
For a moment, silence fell in the room.
Eugene announced herself as if looking up at the sky without a hint of shame, and at her confident statement, the surrounding people couldn’t hide their bewilderment.
*’It was your Crown Prince who clearly said something about a stray dog.’*
She was unashamed.
He brought her as a dog, so she’d act appropriately like a dog.
Have you ever seen a dog work?
It was her firm declaration that she would lounge around endlessly from now on.
And the next moment. Eugene found herself left alone in the Crown Prince’s room.
*’Huh?’*
“…If you’re a dog, you should be by your master’s side.”
Amidst the heavy silence filling the room, the head maid, who had been silent for a while, said that to Eugene.
Then, as if that had been the plan all along, she calmly directed the maids to tidy the Crown Prince’s room as usual and instructed them to take her to His Highness’s bedchamber.
As a result. Eugene was carried in the hands of the Crown Prince’s palace maids, along with fresh white bedding, and transported to Michael’s room.
“…”
Standing by the doorway where the maids had left her, while Eugene idly rolled her eyes with nothing to do, the competent maids of the Crown Prince’s palace swiftly changed the bedding, replaced the water in the vases, and organized the room.
In an instant, they finished tidying up and, leaving Eugene in the room, took only the cleaning tools and went outside.
*Click.*
The door closed softly, and only Eugene remained alone in the room.
“Hah.”
Unconsciously, perhaps because she had been tense, a cool exhalation escaped. And then, as if she had checked into a luxurious hotel room alone, Eugene began to look around here and there.
*’Ooh.’*
Everything covering the furniture in the room was pure gold and real jewels. Every single surface of the furniture was decorated with beautiful reliefs or paintings, making it not boring to look at.
The drawer cabinet on the wall, a fireplace on one side, an armchair on the carpet, a table in the corner.
After enthusiastically examining each and every one, she followed the carved vine patterns up a pillar with her gaze.
“Wow.”
A majestic ceiling painting covering the entire ceiling came into view. Tilting her head far back to admire the painting, Eugene followed the direction an angel in the corner pointed, admiring the figures, when…
*Thud.*
Feeling her leg catch on something, she lowered her head. Unbeknownst to her, she had reached a massive bed the size of her old room.
“He uses a nice bed.”
Muttering enviously, Eugene poked and prodded the soft bed with her hands.
Then, after thinking for a moment, she quickly climbed onto it and lay down as if it were her own home.
Feeling the thick bedding comfortably supporting her entire body, she placed her hands over her chest, ended her room exploration here, and fell into thought.
Too many things had happened in a single day.
*’May the Earth be destroyed.’*
She thought with self-deprecating resignation.
Her life on Earth, where she achieved nothing no matter how hard she tried, and its futile end, had changed Eugene’s mindset.
*’I must absolutely not strive.’*
No matter how desperately you struggle, the reward that comes into your hand is meager and slips away like a mirage.
*’Here…’*
If that’s the case, then from the start, she would do nothing. As if compensating herself for the days she had run without rest until now, she vowed.
*’From now on, I won’t do anything.’*
She would be as lazy as possible, with all her heart.
*’Truly like a dog.’*
She wouldn’t bother with troublesome things like reason. No matter how much she racked her brains as a human to solve difficult problems or practiced responsibility and consideration as an educated citizen, she’d only have her backbone sucked dry by those who exploited her.
She would never become a useful human being again. She would become a pet itself, with as much use as a puppy’s poop.
Before being of the human species, humans are also animals.
Like an animal, she would entrust her body solely to instinct and live as it flows.
*’They say you weave your own fate.’*
Then isn’t abandoning it also your own will?
Determined to personally practice a life of canine bliss from now on, Eugene closed her eyes.
“…”
After lying still like that for a while, her thoughts returned to the current situation.
*’The head maid left me here…’*
Did she trust Eugene’s words because she knew nothing about her and thus brought her to the master’s room?
*’No.’*
Eugene thought she understood what the head maid was thinking.
*’Seriously. She knows the kid’s a lunatic, so she brought me here, right?’*
Crown Prince Michael’s merciless personality had been famous since childhood. If the head maid had served the Crown Prince for a long time, she would naturally understand his ways of acting.
How would the Crown Prince react upon seeing a slave in his room without permission?
If it were the usual Crown Prince Michael, it wouldn’t be strange if he immediately ordered the impudent slave taken outside the palace and beheaded.
*’That’s too harsh.’*
That head maid, she remembered her as a fairly kind superior to Canis in the game.
Of course, treating a diligent worker and treating a wannabe pet that suddenly rolled in would be different.
Having nothing particular to do, Eugene grumbled to herself about the head maid’s ruthless treatment and rolled around on the soft blanket.
