Chapter 21

They said that if there was one thing in this world that couldn’t be stopped even if you desperately wanted it not to come, it was time.

In the end, that day had finally arrived. D-day minus one.

Yul asked with a blank expression while dusting my room. Her tone had no inflection at all, making it hard to tell whether she was actually curious or not.

“You will be meeting the Prince tomorrow, are you looking forward to it, Young Lady?”

Sunday, a day of freedom with neither swordsmanship nor magic lessons.

Today, too, I was treating my blanket like a snail shell, poking only my face out as I feigned deep concentration on reading a book in response to Yul’s words, pouting my lips.

“Yeah, I’m so excited. Wow, I can’t wait.”

And then I sighed again. This was one of the repeating patterns happening in my room today.

“Hah.”

Actually, it wasn’t just that I didn’t want to meet the prince; the biggest reason I was feeling so drained right now was the communication magic crystal call I had shared with Miel. It was natural for her to be angry, but the saving grace was that Miel had generously understood my actions and let it slide.

[…I’ll forgive you to this extent, but I was really angry about what happened! Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again from now on.]

[Right, I feel like I’ve said this a bunch of times already, but I’m sorry. I thought I went a bit too far, too. I was just feeling bad for Miel…]

[Hmph. Hmph. Besides, Armienne. Aren’t you going to meet me anymore going forward? It’s not like that. But if rumors like that spread, what will other people think? Things are just going to get unnecessarily complicated.]

Oh, come to think of it, that could happen.

[Ugh, I’m really sorry. I have nothing to say.]

[Then let’s go shopping together again next time.]

[Yeah, thanks. Miel.]

[A-and Sir Carusien too.]

[…………]

Damn it, wouldn’t some random, leisurely meteor drop on Carusien for once?

Recalling what happened yesterday made another sigh slip out automatically. A woman’s nagging was truly this terrifying.

Thinking briefly about Miel’s nagging brought something else to mind.

“Yul! Come to think of it, you said you were going to give me a treasure. A treasure. Why aren’t you giving it to me?”

She had clearly said inside the carriage that she’d give it to me once we reached the estate, but since she hadn’t mentioned a thing until now, I had completely forgotten about it. Still, she had definitely promised to give me her treasure.

She probably said it was a photograph of me smiling, and while it wouldn’t kill me whether I got it or not, I was kind of curious, so I felt like I needed to collect.

“Hm? Yul?”

Yul, who would normally have answered my question right away, turned her head away from me with a stiff expression.

Hk, I’ve never seen her react like this before.

“What’s wrong?”

At my question, Yul cautiously opened her mouth. Seeing this rarely seen side of Yul was actually much more entertaining than getting a photograph as a gift from her.

“It’s just that once I tried to give it to you, I kept wanting to look at it myself, so I ended up missing the right timing.”

“Wh-what?! Was that the reason? Wow, I never even dreamed Yul wouldn’t give it to me for a reason like that.”

So it was nothing major. I thought there was some big reason behind it. Still, for Yul to cherish a picture this much—could it possibly be a weird or embarrassing photo?

I couldn’t let that slide.

“Then give it to me right now.”

At my words, Yul wore a genuinely regretful expression.

Seeing Yul display a more colorful range of expressions in these few moments than I had ever seen before brought a smile to my face. It would be nice if she expressed her emotions a bit more like this normally. However, I was soon forced to freeze solid like a statue when I saw Yul pull out a stack of photographs.

She reached her hand inside her chest, and out came a stack of photos numbering almost as many as the cards in a famous magical card game.

What in the world. Is this some kind of new magic trick?

I was already shocked enough by her pulling photos out from there, but the sheer quantity of the pictures defied imagination.

Fwip-fwip-fwip—

Making a loud rustling sound as she fanned out the photographs, Yul lifted a single picture with trembling hands, then immediately shoved it back.

“Hmm, I don’t think this one is it.”

“…………”

And she repeated the exact same process with another photo, lifting it with trembling hands and putting it back down. Watching her endlessly repeat this infinite loop, I had a feeling that if things kept going this way, I wouldn’t get a single picture even if I lived a lifetime. So I thrust out my hand and quickly snatched a random one.

“Ah…!”

Hearing Yul let out a sound like a bear having its most precious honey stolen away, I slowly checked what kind of picture it was, and then shouted in surprise.

“This is!”

It was a photo of me wearing pink rabbit-patterned pajamas and curled up fast asleep, and even to my own eyes, it was shockingly cute. But what shocked me wasn’t my cuteness or the pink rabbit pajamas that might have been embarrassing to anyone else.

The angle this photo was taken from was strange.

It wasn’t looking at the bed horizontally; it was an angle that could only have been captured if someone were stuck to the bedroom ceiling.

“That is one of the photographs I cherish most. Do you like it, Young Lady?”

Crazy.

“Y-Yul. How on earth did you take this? More importantly, t-this was taken while I was sleeping!”

At my words, Yul let out a small sigh and then detached a tiny orb attached to the chest area of her clothes, holding it up for me to see. Even to someone like me who didn’t know much about the value of items, it looked like an exorbitantly expensive orb. Why on earth had I just thought of that as a fancy decorative ornament until now?

I had assumed that orb was like a brooch that all the maids in this estate wore.

“This is a top-tier magical camera that I adore. It’s compact in size, sturdy enough to last a lifetime, waterproof, equipped with an invisibility spell for transparency, silent shooting, aerial manipulation, continuous shooting, frame-by-frame shooting, special photo effects, and more. It has literally everything. The only regret is that it cannot record video, but I am waiting patiently since they said that feature would be developed someday.”

Oh, damn. This is insane.

Before she called it a camera, I would have never dreamed that was what it was. No, more than that, a camera with such absurd functions installed? Exactly what…

“H-how much does that cost?”

As someone from a ducal family where money was practically rotting away, asking about the price of a luxury item that still felt burdensome to purchase made me nearly fall backward the moment I heard the figure.

“Let’s see. The market price seemed to be around thirty thousand gold.”

“Wh-wh-what?!”

For your reference, as you probably already know, the price of the portable magical communication crystal I used was 1,200 gold. But even that communication crystal was an item whose price commoners couldn’t even dream of, yet this camera cost a staggering thirty thousand gold.

Thirty thousand!

Of course, to a ducal family, it wasn’t an impossible sum to afford. In fact, since my allowance was around five thousand gold a month, it was an amount I could buy even if I just saved up for six months.

However, for Yul, who was a maid, it was an amount she couldn’t gather even if she saved for a lifetime. It was an amount that wouldn’t be covered even if she cloned her internal organs and sold them multiple times.

“How did you buy that? You didn’t steal it, did you?!”

Imagining Yul committing crimes because she wanted a camera so badly, I asked in a panic, only to jump right out of my bed in absolute shock at Yul’s next words.

This was even worse than stealing.

“I sold my body at a brothel.”

“What?!”

I screamed almost at the top of my lungs, wondering if my voice had always been this loud, and Yul added with a blank expression as she looked at me.

“I serviced a few wealthy nobles.”

Hearing her words, I said with trembling hands. Imagining Yul lying in bed in revealing clothes and making seductive gestures to some damn men stirred up an unbearable wave of fury.

“Wh-who is it? Damn it! Who is it? Tell me! I’ll go find them and kill them. Wh-what kind of bastard, how dare he—”

Before I even realized I was spewing curses, I collapsed onto the floor in utter exhaustion at Yul’s following words.

“It was a joke.”

“……………”

“Actually, the camera was so expensive that no one was buying it, so I got lucky and was able to purchase it on a 120-month installment plan.”

“………….”

Feeling a sudden sense of emptiness wash over me, I spoke quietly. I hadn’t dreamed in my ancestors’ wildest dreams that Yul would make a joke like this, which made it hit even harder.

“Yul.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll pay off all the remaining installments for that camera, so please don’t make jokes like that from now on.”

I’m serious. I thought my heart was going to stop.

“Thank you, Young Lady.”

Seeing Yul bow her head with a faint smile, I wiped away a slight cold sweat and thought to myself.

Surely not, but she didn’t do that on purpose, did she?

And though it really couldn’t be, she didn’t take a picture of this exact moment too, did she?

I was starting to feel unnecessarily anxious.