Chapter 10

However, they could not resist.

‘I heard His Highness punished General Maeng because of that Jae-in.’

‘If we get on her bad side, who knows what might happen to us?’

The maidservants reluctantly picked up their chopsticks again.

But even that did not last long.

They managed to force down a few more pieces, but soon they stopped, gagging.

“Why did you stop?”

“Urgh… I-I can’t eat any more, Jae-in.”

At the Jae-in’s calm question, one of the maidservants made a miserable face.

The food was already rising to their throats.

They felt as though if someone merely poked their stomachs, everything would come right back up.

The Jae-in quietly watched them before eventually picking up her chopsticks.

‘Perhaps she’s finally going to eat some herself.’

Just as the maidservants breathed a sigh of relief—

“Now, say ‘Ah.’ Don’t spill any.”

The Jae-in picked up a large amount of cucumber and offered it to one of the maidservants with a gentle expression.

When the maidservant shook her head, the Jae-in’s face instantly turned cold.

“Are you daring to refuse food bestowed by His Highness? Or do you find my orders amusing?”

The Jae-in stared at her without a trace of a smile.

The maidservant reluctantly opened her mouth.

Only then did the Jae-in smile with satisfaction and stuff her mouth full of cucumber.

The maidservant beside her trembled as she watched.

‘This woman really is completely insane!’

They should have realized it the moment she was dragged here by the cursed prince and did not shed a single tear!

“Urgh! Ugh…”

In the end, the maidservant chewing the cucumber could no longer hold back the food rising to her throat.

She gagged and rushed outside to vomit.

The sound could be heard through the window.

“Compared to what you’ve done to the Gunjui all this time, isn’t this rather lenient?”

The Jae-in smiled sweetly as she picked up another large helping of cucumber.

The maidservant stared at the approaching chopsticks with trembling eyes, shrinking her neck like a turtle.

“What’s wrong? Is this still not enough?”

Just as Soa was about to pick up even more food—

A powerful hand suddenly seized the wrist of the hand holding her chopsticks.

【What are you doing…!】

Soa dropped her chopsticks and looked up.

A masked face was glaring down at her.

Seoheon surveyed the room, which had been reduced to chaos.

Outside, one maidservant was vomiting, while another had gone deathly pale, her face clearly contorted with discomfort.

And Hyerang was watching everything with tear-filled, reddened eyes.

【You torment the maidservants of my residence and make such a scene in front of Hyerang.】

Had the momentary favor he had shown the Jae-in because of the incident with General Maeng been the cause of this?

He had never imagined that she would go so far as to threaten Hyerang and behave as though she were someone important.

Seoheon drove Soa back against the wall.

Then—

“No…!”

A small hand desperately tugged at the black fabric of Seoheon’s clothes.

Seoheon turned around.

Hyerang was looking up at him, appearing as though she might burst into tears at any moment.

“Hic!”

Another hiccup escaped Hyerang when her eyes met Seoheon’s.

Her hands trembled.

Her face looked like that of a frightened puppy.

Yet Hyerang squeezed her eyes shut and shouted—

“Don’t eat Jae-in Unnie…!”

It was the greatest act of courage in her seven years of life.

Eat her?

Seoheon was left speechless.

“If you eat her like you ate my mommy and daddy… sniff!”

Hyerang’s trembling voice faded away.

When Seoheon saw the tears welling up in the child’s eyes, his chest tightened.

【…Does she really think I killed the previous king?】

The force gripping Soa’s wrist loosened.

He had deliberately ordered that the previous king’s cause of death not be revealed to young Hyerang.

He could not bring himself to tell her that her parents had been brutally slaughtered by monsters.

He had thought it was the best way to protect Hyerang.

But in the child’s eyes, he was nothing more than a murderer.

【It isn’t entirely wrong, either.】

A bitter self-mocking smile briefly appeared at the corner of his mouth before disappearing.

The previous king’s death.

Seoheon had been there.

Helpless.

Unable to do anything.

Seoheon clenched his fist.

Soa quietly watched him.

In her previous life, she had heard stories about the previous king and Seoheon.

‘They said he regarded him like a father.’

Seogon had mocked Seoheon for grieving so deeply over the previous king’s death, saying, ‘I never knew even that monster had tears.’

“Your Highness.”

Soa calmly addressed him, deliberately pretending not to know anything.

“Surely you weren’t really trying to eat me just now?”

She asked casually.

The space between the masked man’s brows furrowed.

Eat a person?

Just as he was wondering whether the woman had lost her mind, Seoheon realized what she was trying to do.

【Of course not.】

He shook his head.

Soa smiled brightly.

“Gunjui, you saw that, didn’t you? It seems there was a misunderstanding.”

“But…”

Hyerang hesitantly released Seoheon’s clothes.

Then, scampering over, she ran straight to Soa and clung tightly to her.

‘When did they become this close?’

Seoheon frowned again as he looked at Soa, who had gained Hyerang’s trust within a few days—a trust he had never been able to earn despite trying his entire life.

Just then, Soa calmly pointed toward the table.

“Those cucumbers really were sent by His Highness, weren’t they?”

The table was covered with cucumber dishes.

They were ingredients Seoheon had ordered Chief Steward No to send.

Seoheon nodded.

Strangely, Hyerang’s face became even more frightened.

Then Hyerang buried her face in the folds of Soa’s skirt.

Her hands clutching the hem trembled visibly.

Why…?

“Did you know that Gunjui Hyerang cannot eat cucumbers?”

Seoheon’s eyes wavered.

【Hyerang hates cucumbers?】

He had definitely received word that Hyerang liked cucumbers and asked for them every day.

For her sake, Seoheon had even ordered someone to sell his small sword so they could obtain the precious cucumbers.

“Did those maidservants perhaps tell you that Gunjui likes cucumbers?”

Soa asked calmly.

Seoheon turned toward the maidservants.

The maidservants immediately fell to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the floor before his cold mask.

“I-I just thought the Gunjui really liked cucumbers…”

“So, as maidservants serving her, you didn’t even know your mistress’s tastes? Even though the Gunjui vomits whenever she eats cucumbers?”

Soa, standing behind them, tilted her head.

The maidservant was startled and quickly shook her head.

“Your Highness! That’s not it! We only wanted the young lady to grow up healthy, so we tried to give her a balanced diet…!”

“So you told His Highness that the Gunjui especially liked cucumbers?”

Cucumbers that were difficult to obtain in this weather—and you had him send an entire abundance of them?

“Th-That’s… we…”

The maidservants exchanged panicked glances.

In the end, they repeatedly struck their foreheads against the floor and begged for forgiveness.

“We were wrong! We were wrong, Your Highness!”

As Seoheon understood the situation, the veins on the back of his hand bulged.

【…Ha. What a ridiculous mess.】

He could not even understand Hyerang’s feelings, yet he was pretending to be a king.

What an utterly useless king he was.

Seoheon’s lips twisted bitterly with self-reproach.

【Chief Steward No.】

Seoheon snapped his fingers, and Chief Steward No approached with a ledger.

[Tell me the current price of winter cucumbers.]

Seoheon wrote on his writing tablet.

“Yes, Your Highness. They are difficult to obtain even in the Imperial Capital at present. One cucumber costs well over a seom of rice.”

Chief Steward No bowed as he answered.

Seoheon’s cold gaze turned toward the maidservants.

[The cucumbers I obtained for my Hyerang amounted to at least one cartload.]

As Chief Steward No read Seoheon’s words aloud, the maidservants’ eyes widened as though they were about to pop out.

A cartload of cucumbers at more than a seom of rice per cucumber would amount to a fortune the maidservants could never hope to touch even if they worked for the rest of their lives.

“Y-Your Highness! We were wrong! We only thought it would be a waste to throw them away…!”

Seoheon leisurely rubbed his wrist.

[Yes. I also think it would be a waste of money.]

Seoheon picked up his brush again.

[You should be beheaded for insulting the Gunjui and falsely claiming to speak in her name. However, in consideration of your years of service, I will spare your lives this once.]

They could not possibly kill someone over cucumbers.

Just as the maidservants were about to breathe a sigh of relief at his merciful decision—

More words appeared on the writing tablet.

[Instead, send these maidservants to work in the icehouse so they can repay the cost of the cucumbers they wasted.]

When Chief Steward No recited Seoheon’s order, the maidservants’ faces turned deathly white.

They were being sent to the icehouse—a hellish place where a bone-chilling cold lasted all year round, and where frostbite on the hands and feet was so common that they often had to be amputated.

“Y-Your Highness! Please, anywhere but the icehouse…!”

The maidservants clasped their hands together and begged through their tears.

But there was no overturning a royal command.

[Do not even think about coming back until you have repaid the full cost of the cucumbers.]