Ribeta sighed inwardly. She wasn’t angry. She was used to people making advances toward her.

But she found this situation heartbreaking. A situation where she couldn’t say anything to people who saw her as merely a pretty toy. A situation where she had to endure whatever rudeness they committed against her, simply because she was a slave.

All of it was so heartbreaking and suffocating.

That was why she hadn’t wanted to catch the Count’s eye.

But there was no way to escape from the Count. Ribeta placed her hand on his. Before doing so, she rubbed her hands several times on the dry hem of her skirt. The Count, who had been quietly watching Ribeta’s hand turn red from scraping against the rough fabric, firmly pulled her hand.

“Ah……!”

Ribeta was swallowed into the carriage. The coachman immediately set the vehicle in motion.

An extremely luxurious carriage glided smoothly down the road. Unlike noble carriages, this one bore no family crest.

※※※

“How unfortunate. My carriage doesn’t have a bucket.”

Ribeta, who had been keeping her eyes downcast since boarding the carriage, slowly raised them. She felt she should respond to Count Ruperto’s words, but it wasn’t proper for a slave to dare question a noble.

Besides, a bucket? What kind of random remark was that?

The Count’s carriage was extremely luxurious. The wallpaper lining the interior was imbued with a subtle fragrance, and the seats were so plush that the characteristic jostling of a carriage couldn’t be felt at all. The interior was spacious enough to place a small tea table. It was hardly a place where something like a bucket would fit.

She couldn’t understand his intention, and he didn’t seem to particularly want an answer, so Ribeta kept her mouth shut. Then the Count continued speaking. His tone was plain, but the content made it sound like he was teasing her.

“You look like you want to splash water on me too.”

The Count surprisingly knew everything—that she had deliberately splashed water on the guard.

Then perhaps, had he spoken to her to rescue her? The timing of his approach had indeed been exquisite.

‘That can’t be. The Count has no reason to rescue me.’

Ribeta dismissed the thought that had surfaced. The guards’ voices had been so loud that he must have coincidentally heard the commotion.

Meanwhile, the Count asked Ribeta a question.

“Weren’t you afraid?”

The question was quite gentle. His sweet voice sounded almost tender. Of course, it must be her imagination, but she never dreamed the Count would ask such a question. No one had ever, not even once, asked her such a question. Perhaps that was why. Before she knew it, Ribeta’s mouth moved first.

“……I was afraid.”

Once she started speaking, she couldn’t hold back. Ribeta spoke calmly, though bewildered by her own actions.

“But I was more afraid of something happening to Grandma Janna than of the pain of being beaten myself.”

“If you’d been hit wrong in the head, you would have died.”

“In that moment, I didn’t have the capacity to think that far.”

“Do you want to die?”

His gentle tone seemed to turn cold. The Count’s question was that direct and sharp. Ribeta asked herself inwardly.

Do I really want to die?

“Do you think it would be better to die rather than continue living a slave’s hard life?”

When she didn’t answer, the Count asked again. Ribeta looked straight at the Count. The Count’s expressionless face was quite cold. Yet she wasn’t scared or afraid. Was this also her imagination? Was it because he was asking strange questions?

She felt again the strange sense of incongruity she’d felt at the exchange. An incongruity as if the Count in the rumors and the Count in reality were completely different people.

“If I said my life isn’t hard, that would be a lie.”

A life wallowing in mud. A life that doesn’t improve. A life that doesn’t change.

“I know that no matter what I do, I can’t escape this life. But……”

Ribeta smiled slightly. Thinking again of the warmth she’d felt from Janna’s hand as she’d grabbed her arm.

“At least Grandma wasn’t hurt. So I don’t regret it.”

“So ultimately you had no plan. Utterly reckless.”

Even at the Count’s seemingly mocking tone, Ribeta didn’t get angry. Because that was reality.

The moves she could make as a slave were that shallow and without recourse. If she didn’t offer up her body, she couldn’t even save someone.

The conversation that had started abruptly ended just as suddenly. Ribeta tried to lower her head again.

“Come here.”

“……Pardon?”

“Should I move instead?”

“No, it’s fine……!”

“Don’t make me say it twice.”

The Count’s hand caught Ribeta’s chin, preventing her from lowering it. It was a hand with just enough force—not painful but impossible to shake off.

The two faces drew close. Unable to face that sculpted, magnificent face directly, Ribeta squeezed her eyes shut. But she soon realized it was the wrong choice.

With her eyes closed, her senses became acute and everything felt even more vivid. Things like the warmth transmitted from the fingers holding her chin, or the Count’s gaze sweeping down her face.

It was impossible to open her eyes now. Ribeta squeezed her eyes even tighter.

Time passed so slowly. It felt like the Count’s gaze lingered quite long on her cheeks and around her mouth.

It probably wasn’t actually like that. Abused slaves were all too common. There was no reason at all for the Count to be interested in her wounds.

How much time had passed? Something soft brushed against Ribeta’s rough hand.

“Ah……”

Startled by the unfamiliar sensation she hadn’t anticipated, Ribeta’s eyes flew open. The soft thing was a pure white handkerchief. Because she flinched so greatly, the handkerchief slipped and the Count’s fingers became entangled with Ribeta’s fingers.

They were firm, slender fingers.

Ribeta was the first to avert her eyes and pull her hand away. She bent down to pick up the fallen handkerchief. Her fingertips trembled so much that she fumbled several times.

“……I’m sorry. Because of me, your handkerchief……”

The handkerchief provided a good excuse. After handing the handkerchief to the Count, Ribeta sat far away from him. She felt she had to distance herself from the Count somehow. Rather than sitting, she was barely perched on the edge of the seat, looking precarious. The Count simply stared at her intently.

The carriage raced on without stopping, even in the suffocating atmosphere.

※※※

Ribeta returned home only around sunset. The Count had offered through a servant to provide a carriage for her return journey as well, but she flatly refused.

It wasn’t out of concern for people’s stares or Count Ruperto’s reputation. What Ribeta feared was her master, Melissa.

Walking down the street, she checked the deposit statement. The deposit statement she’d received from the bank showed today’s wages.

Wages were set up to be deposited directly into the master’s bank account. This was both to prevent slaves from embezzling along the way and to allow masters to verify that slaves had worked diligently without slacking off elsewhere.

That the money had been properly deposited meant she’d properly completed the work, but Ribeta wasn’t pleased.

All she’d done at Count Ruperto’s estate was clean the reception room she’d been shown to. Strictly speaking, she hadn’t even cleaned. The reception room had been in a spotlessly organized state without a speck of dust.

‘Was it a dream?’

It was truly the first time she’d finished work and still had energy left.

Jobs brokered through the labor exchange were almost all dangerous and dirty work that commoners avoided. When even slaves with proper masters weren’t treated decently, there was no one to show consideration for slaves who’d been driven to the labor exchange because their masters had fallen into ruin.

Slaves crawling at the very bottom among slaves. That’s what labor exchange slaves were.

Spending all day cleaning horse and cow dung from stables or barns was routine. There were also days when she had to wash sheets or bandages dirtied with blood, pus, and other substances with her bare hands, or clean up trash in places swarming with rats and insects.

The relatively stronger male slaves were mobilized to mine ore in mines on the verge of collapse, and female slaves cooked food in steaming kitchens until they were on the verge of collapsing. Slaves died or were injured in the process, but they received no compensation. Because all compensation was set up to go to the master who owned the slave.

Slaves who became unable to work due to injury were abandoned even by their masters. That’s why among slaves, the saying circulated that it was better to die than to be injured. Such was the reality of slaves.