Chapter 17

“N-No! It wasn’t me! I feel wronged! Head Maid!”

Mary was lying down on the floor, expressing her feelings of injustice, but nobody had gazes of compassion when they looked at her.

Her actions had been too suspicious, so it seemed like everyone was acknowledging that she was the perpetrator.

“I-I didn’t steal it! Please believe me!”

Tears were pouring out of her eyes as she clung onto the Head Maid’s skirt, but even the Head Maid stared down at her with a cold expression.

“If that’s the case, explain yourself. Why did Miss Silver Lily’s necklace come out of your clothes?”

“T-That…!”

Mary’s yellow-green eyes shook in confusion.

She would probably wonder for all of eternity why I’d said that the necklace, which had been in the bottom drawer, was in the first drawer—or why I, who’d acted like I’d wanted to hide the necklace, had gathered all the maids to try and find it.

“It seems you can’t respond, Mary. I trusted you… how disappointing.”

“Ah…! No. It’s not that! Head Maid, please…!”

Madame Chunet’s expression slowly turned more and more brutal.

I called the guard as if I couldn’t bear to keep listening.

“Guard! Please put this robber in prison.”

“Ack! No! This isn’t right!”

Mary, whose arms were both grabbed by the guard, abruptly started struggling.

With a sharp glint in her eyes, she began yelling and bawling.

“I’m not the suspicious one! It’s Miss Silver Lily! Miss Silver Lily was trying to burn this necklace! I was just trying to expose her!”

At those words, Madame Chunet finally reacted.

She must’ve suddenly gotten suspicious that Mary was accused as the perpetrator, so she stopped the guard.

“Wait. I need to listen to what she has to say.”

The guard hesitated while looking back and forth between Madame Chunet and I, not knowing what to do.

Although I was his master, Madame Chunet was the one with actual power.

I clucked my tongue, as if this was absurd, and lifted Madame Chunet’s hand.

“Do as she says. Let’s see just what kind of nonsensical excuses she’ll spout.”

After saying that, I pulled out the makeup table’s chair and sat down.

Mary’s eyes, which were staring at me, shined.

She probably thought I’d given her a chance to live, so I was curious just what kind of tantrum she’d make when she realized it was all an illusion.

“L-Listen to me, Head Maid! Miss Silver Lily was trying to burn this necklace! Because of how suspicious it was, I wanted to show the necklace to you, so I was keeping it temporarily!”

Madame Chunet’s gaze shifted to me.

I shook my head like it made no sense, then responded.

“No way. Gems don’t catch on fire in the first place, doesn’t everyone know that? If you wanted to make excuses, you should’ve come up with a more believable one, Mary.”

“No! You definitely lit a match and tried to burn the necklace! Not to mention, the necklace and matches were in the bottom drawer, not the first one! Why are you lying?!”

At this point, Mary wasn’t even using honorifics toward me. Observing this, the Head Maid frowned.

No matter how much of an easy master I appeared to be, I was still the Queen in name.

Speaking recklessly like this would only increase her crimes.

“Mary. You’re saying that you did indeed steal it, no?”

While hammering in the last nail of Mary’s crime, I crossed one leg over the other and changed my posture.

Mary started acting out more in response to how comfortable I looked.

“W-Well, who knows! There might be some kind of mechanism on this necklace where some kind of secret gets revealed if it touches fire!”

Seeing Mary shout was quite pitiful.

Though I had been aiming for this, the way she was faithfully following my script almost made me suspect that she was on my side.

After opening the bottom drawer and taking out the matches, I threw them and the necklace to her.

“Go ahead and try, then. Set it on fire and reveal the secret I didn’t even know existed. Do as you wish.”

“Eek…!”

It was her final act of struggle.

Nibbling on her lips, Mary lit the match on fire and tried to burn the necklace.

Obviously, nothing happened, save for the necklace heating up.

“N-No way… There’s no way!”

The silver chain started melting onto Mary’s hand.

Regardless, she kept saying “there’s no way” while continuously lighting the matches.

“No, no, no…!”

There was little change in Madame Chunet’s expression even as she watched Mary, the maid who was once her hands and feet, getting wrecked in front of her.

If anything, she was staring at her with more disdain than I was—as if Mary was just a bug.

Letting out a small sigh, I ordered the guard.

“That’s enough, come drag her away. I want to rest.”

“Yes, Miss Silver Lily.”

“N-No! Aaack! Head Maid! S-Save me. Head Maid! Head Maid!”

Mary kept calling for the Head Maid as she was being dragged away.

Gosh, I’m telling you, the Head Maid is not thinking about you at all.

* * *

The day after everything went crazy because of the theft incident in the Lily Palace, lovely chirps woke me up instead of Mary’s fake voice.

“Wow. You’re such lovely animals—truly the best.”

Just watching them healed me, and I couldn’t help but smile at the feeling that my depression was disappearing.

“I think it’d be best to name you Ari. It’ll be…”

It’ll be easier for Hadel to recognize it that way.

I swallowed the rest of my sentence in silence because Madame Chunet was on the side watching me and the chicks with a very disapproving expression.

She’d probably keep wondering why I’d asked her to buy me some chicks.

It seemed like my excuse about being lonely had worked to an extent, but she didn’t completely believe it yet.

Still…

Come and read on our website wuxia worldsite. Thanks

Daaaash! Dash!

How could someone wear such an expression while watching these yellow puffballs chirp and run around?!

What expression had Hadel had on his face before?

When he’d first seen the chicks… Well, to be exact, it wasn’t that he’d seen them.

Instead, since he was blind, he’d heard the chick’s cute cries.

* * *

“Asha, I can hear the sound of chirping from over there.”

When was it? Maybe around one year after Hadel had come to live with us.

We were on our way back to the castle after visiting the lower village together.

Hadel suddenly stopped walking and held onto my hand tightly.

His gaze was aimed towards underneath the bridge that arched across the river.

“Chirping?”

“I think it’s the sound of a bird… But it’s kind of different.”

“How so?”

“I… I’m not sure. It’s my first time hearing it.”

After following the sound, we discovered some bright yellow chicks making noise.

“Their cries must be the chirps I heard.”

As if fascinated, Hadel outstretched a hand and caressed the chicks.

I took a cute baby in one hand and stroked it with my index finger.

The soft texture was quite nice.

“Would you like to buy one?”

We’d only planned on looking, but the old lady who was selling them carefully asked us if we wanted to adopt them.

Although I wanted to immediately nod my head, Mother would obviously be against it, so I couldn’t bring myself to answer right away.

“Mother won’t like it.”

“Fufufu. Then let’s see, what about this one?”

The old lady picked up the smallest chick, which was hiding in the corner with its head bent, before presenting it to us.

The bright yellow chick was small enough to fit in just one of my hands, despite how young I was.

“This chick doesn’t cry, so you can raise it without your mother knowing. Fufu.”

“It doesn’t cry?”

I didn’t know at the time.

Just as there were no babies who didn’t cry, there was no way it wouldn’t cry if it was a normal chick.

Well, Hadel might have known, since his expression darkened and he immediately said he’d buy it.

It’s not that the chick didn’t cry; rather, it couldn’t cry.

“…We’ll buy it. How much is it?”

The chick we’d impulsively brought with us truly couldn’t cry.

Whether it was because its throat was completely wrecked, or because it was born with a disability, we didn’t know. The exact cause was unclear.

Maybe that’s why Hadel was instantly attached to it.

“Asha, what should we name it?”

“Hm, since it’s a chick, what do you think about Ari?”

T/N: Chick in korean is 병아리, or byeongari.

“Ari. I like it.”

Ari was always weak. She was a chick who got increasingly closer to death the more we touched her.

We were young and didn’t know that, so the old lady was able to easily fool us.

The next day, when I saw Ari quietly sitting in front of the sunny glass window with her eyes closed, I almost wept.

But I couldn’t also be crying, because…

“Heuk, heuk, hnnnng! Heung! Waaaah! Ari, heuk, Ari!”

“Hadeeel… Heuk. Stop crying, heuk.”

“Ari, heuk, Ari couldn’t c-cry, so… heung! Even if she was hurting all night long, heuk, we would never be able to know…!”

…Hadel was crying as if the world was collapsing.

As a result, the Duchy was turned inside out, and Mother lectured us.

“Animals are not something you can simply buy on the side of the street. From now on, only buy things from approved merchants—and if you see a merchant selling small animals on the streets, report it to a guard. Those are all illegal businesses.”

Just like that, we buried Ari in the courtyard.

Hadel kept crying next to me as I shoveled the ground, buried Ari, and covered the grave with dirt. He kept crying even when we fell asleep that night.

He’d already turned eight years old, but there was no crybaby like him—despite him having only known Ari for one day.

* * *

“My little Aris, you have to grow up and become big, okay?”

Daaaash!

Whether they knew my feelings or not, Ari 1 and Ari 2 moved toward the top of my feet.

Oh yeah, when had I last fed them?

“Madame Chunet. When did you give them food? If you haven’t yet, can you get some for me?”

While watching the Aris, I regulated my smile before calling for Madame Chunet.

For some reason, there was no response.

“Madame Chunet? Why aren’t you res…”

I finally took my gaze off of the yellow fluffballs and turned my head, but Madame Chunet—the target of my question—was not there.

Read latest Chapters at Wuxia World . Site Only

Instead, there was someone with black hair and beautiful pink eyes that were shaking like crazy…

“Your… Majesty.”

It was Hadel, the husband who I’d missed so much.

Starry: i wasn’t expecting the angsty baby chick lore omg {//3 i hope it helps hadel to finally gain some brain cells tho so this dang miscommunication can be cleared

Youj: hadel!!!!! open your eyes!!!!!