I Became a Tyrant’s Maid - Chapter 52

I hastily removed my hand from the diary.

My breath was as rapid as if I had sprinted 100 meters at full speed. I felt like I was going to throw up.

“Perhaps it happened, because Your Highness, broke through, one of the magic circles?”

Even in this situation, I had to make an excuse.

I felt like I shouldn’t let him discover the existence of the diary.

It was just a feeling.

Of course, he looked at me with suspicious eyes.

But that was only for a moment; he quickly turned his gaze away from me and walked steadily towards the stone door.

“Right.”

Watching his affirming back, I clutched my throbbing heart.

It seemed that my condition had actually worsened.

My body felt strange.

Calix didn’t ask me anything.

He was only focused on reading the language written in front of the door.

‘Is he planning to just let it go?’

So I chose to remain silent.

I was anxious. What if my true identity was discovered?

From these people’s perspective, I’m an alien, right? What if they experiment on me or something?

There’s no NASA here, so maybe it’ll be okay?

No. They said there were dark magicians.

They wouldn’t exorcise me thinking I’m possessed, would they?

“My… eternal friend.”

Trying hard to ignore the throbbing pain, I casually asked the male lead.

“Can you read the Braham language, Your Highness?”

Surprised by my voice, he turned around and said.

“The founder of the Posman family was a slave boy soldier from the fallen Braham.”

I opened my eyes wide.

There was no such content in the history book Calix had thrown at me to read.

“It’s a truth of noble blood known only to the royal family. How about that? The founder of that precious royal family was a slave. Isn’t it disheartening?”

To be honest, from my perspective, it wasn’t disheartening at all.

Isn’t the best hero’s narrative usually about rising from humble beginnings…?

The male lead continued, chuckling.

“That’s why I can understand simple ancient Braham characters like this.”

“What does it say?”

I looked at the strange characters with eyes shining with curiosity.

“It says it’s the hideout of Mr. Giant Eel.”

For a moment, I couldn’t help but furrow my brow and look at the male lead.

Eel?

“It’s true.”

Seeing my suspicious gaze, he answered with a slightly flustered expression.

Calix let out a light sigh and then pushed the stone door sideways with all his might.

I don’t know why such a heavy stone would open with a smooth ‘slide’ when pushed as if he were the Hulk or something.

At this point, it wouldn’t be wrong to consider him a superhuman.

“What kind of situation is this now.”

Calix exhaled in disbelief at the sight revealed through the entrance gap.

On a nest made of blue feathers surrounded by a massive stream of water, a young woman with black hair was floating in the air, her heart pierced by a spear.

We looked at each other as if we had rehearsed it.

‘Bibi.’

Even without being told, I could be certain.

The rotten food piled up next to the nest, and the bookshelves that were clearly human objects.

Dozens of stones that looked similar to the crystals Leviathan had given us were scattered around the floating woman.

Calix, seeming tense, stepped into the nest interior first.

“Your Highness, you shouldn’t enter recklessly.”

I cautioned him, but Calix gestured that it was fine.

“There’s nothing special.”

What do you mean there’s nothing special?

Everything around is so special it’s about to go crazy.

The inside of the nest was incredibly bizarre.

A massive stream of water that seemed to lead somewhere.

And behind the woman who appeared to have died from being stabbed by a spear, mountains of all kinds of jewels were piled up.

“Leviathan isn’t a complete dragon, so it shouldn’t have a hobby of collecting valuables…”

Not a complete dragon? As I tilted my head in confusion, Calix kindly explained.

“Although it’s of the dragon race, its intelligence is lower compared to other dragons, so it’s no different from a young child. That’s why it has no interest in human artifacts at all.”

However, Leviathan’s nest was full of human traces.

For example, the small doll or pillow placed inside the nest.

“Yes, I find it strange too.”

Calix and I stood rooted to the spot, staring at the woman floating in the air without any strings as if time had stopped.

“Could this woman be… Bibi?”

To my question, Calix answered with a troubled expression.

“There’s a high possibility.”

Leviathan had clearly told us to bring Bibi.

But that problematic Bibi was…

Calix approached closer to the nest, examined the woman, and said.

“She’s dead.”

It was such an obvious statement.

How could any human be alive with their heart pierced by a spear?

“Moreover, these clothes…”

The male lead’s hand touched near the hem of the woman’s drooping skirt.

“They’re Braham clothes.”

I looked at Calix with wide eyes.

“At least… 400 years old, I’d say.”

I moved towards where Calix was.

Meanwhile, the area around my heart continued to ache.

It was undoubtedly because of the diary.

“Rose?”

Calix called my name.

I was startled and quickly raised my head, turning my gaze toward ‘Bibi’.

“What should we do, Your Highness?”

To that, Calix pointed at the rotten fruits on the floor and said.

“It’s recent. Someone has been continuously leaving food here.”

Then he pointed to the stream of water flowing like a river.

“And given the distance, there’s a high possibility that Leviathan’s lake is behind this waterway.”

I couldn’t gauge the geography of this place at all, but I nodded at his words.

Near the stream, blue mushrooms like those I had seen in Leviathan’s lake were growing.

“I’ve heard that very rarely, intelligent monsters can also develop mental illnesses like humans.”

Calix said, looking at the rotten food for a while.

“These foods must have been brought by Leviathan.”

What does he mean? I tilted my head at Calix’s words.

“It’s strange. Bringing food every day and then forgetting about it, just sleeping at the bottom of the lake.”

His gaze returned to the woman floating in the air.

As Calix touched the woman’s hand, the form floating in the air began to crumble and disappear like sand with a soft sound.

Soon, the original form completely disappeared, and only a pure white skeleton remained, gently settling on the nest made of blue feathers.

“To think I’d see the legendary princess in person. It’s unbelievable.”

“Legendary?”

At my question, Calix let out a shallow sigh and said.

“Vivian Branium. The last princess of Braham.”

He continued speaking while carefully wrapping the skeleton with the cloth that had been underneath.

“There’s a legend that 400 years ago, during Levelon’s invasion war, she brought a dragon from somewhere and wiped out Levelon’s hundred thousand soldiers.”

Then he clicked his tongue as if regretful.

“As you can see, this is how it ended up.”

“Why?”

Calix glanced at me and smirked.

“In the end, Levelon won the war. The last princess, as you can see, fled to Leviathan’s nest but eventually died from the enemy’s spear.”

The male lead twirled his finger near his head.

“The Leviathan that the princess raised seems to have gone mad from the shock of its master’s death.”

Calix let out a short sigh.

“It’s about time that creature knew the truth.”

Unable to understand these consecutive events with my 21st-century Earth perspective, I could only listen to Calix’s story without saying anything.

“It’s not even funny. Maintaining her appearance at the time of death with illusion magic, bringing food to an already dead corpse.”

Calix snorted openly as if mocking.

I’m not sure who he’s mocking.

Leviathan?

I thought slowly. The phrase written at the entrance of the nest.

Leviathan sleeping like dead in the lake.

And Bibi.

“You look like you have a lot of questions. The history books about Braham are well-kept in my study, so you can find and read them yourself.”

Calix grinned playfully at me.

Then he picked up the skeleton and headed towards where the stream was flowing.

“We’ve come a long way around.”

As the male lead said, there was a passage leading to Leviathan’s lake.

“Your Highness, is it really okay to go like this? If Leviathan finds out that Bibi, I mean the princess, is dead……”

Calix coldly replied to my words.

“It already knows. It’s just deliberately ignoring it.”

His words were right.

***

“Bibi! You’re here!”

As soon as Calix put down the skeleton on the shore of Leviathan’s lake, that enormous Leviathan instantly transformed into a young man and embraced the cloth-wrapped skeleton.

I watched the human-transformed Leviathan with a mixture of fear and admiration.

In human form, Leviathan was a handsome man with elongated ears and blue reptilian eyes.

“Bibi, why are you so thin? I brought vegetables this time as you said.”

It was bewildering. Thin?

The woman wasn’t just thin, she was literally just a skeleton.

As Calix said, it didn’t seem normal.

Calix subtly hid me behind him. Leviathan, like a madman, grabbed Bibi’s rattling arm and continued speaking.

“So, I told you to eat Deathworm hearts instead of vegetables, didn’t I? I said you shouldn’t be picky, Bibi.”

But when there was no response from the skeleton that Bibi had become, Leviathan’s expression twisted grotesquely.

He placed his pale hand on the skeleton’s empty ribcage and laughed like a madman.

“Bibi. Why aren’t you answering? Did I do something wrong again? I’m not eating humans anymore, like you said.”

Without realizing it, I tightly gripped Calix’s clothes.

I couldn’t understand what kind of relationship this was.

As Calix said, it didn’t seem like a simple pet-owner relationship.

The Leviathan before us was acting truly insane.

Somehow… it overlapped with the image of Calix I had seen in the book.

I recalled the brief scene of his childhood, crying while holding his dead mother.

It made me feel very uneasy.

“Why, why aren’t you answering?”

Waves of desperate energy overflowed from Leviathan’s excited body, filling the lake.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe.

“I, I waited here without moving because Bibi told me to. And I didn’t eat the humans who tried to kill Bibi. I gave them to the Deathworm instead. But I didn’t eat them myself.”

Leviathan continued speaking to the rattling skeleton as if making excuses.

“So, so is that why you’re not answering? Bibi, I was wrong. So, open your eyes. Open your eyes and call my name. Okay?”

That’s when it happened. Leviathan suddenly let go of the skeleton’s hand he was holding.

“I’ve already waited 400 years in human time. I, I’ve tried everything I could. Dark magicians, dragons smarter than me, they all couldn’t do it. I just want Bibi to call my name like before, why can’t you do that?”

My heart froze at these ominous words.

Could it be that he tried something to revive the dead Bibi?

Calix must have felt something foreboding too, as he tightened his grip on my hand.

“Bibi, I’m tired of waiting now. So wake up.”

Leviathan grabbed both hands of the woman who had turned into a skeleton and roared as if in anger.

“You said you’d come for me! Why aren’t you coming!”

At this, Calix, seeming to think that this couldn’t go on, finally spoke up.

“Princess Bibi of Braham is already dead, and Levelon, which caused her death, has long since perished. Don’t you know that?”

In an instant, those elongated vertical pupils turned towards Calix.

“…I don’t want to listen to Bibi’s requests anymore. I’m too tired, Bibi.”

The male lead flinched and covered my eyes with his hand. His hand holding me in place was tense as if sensing something strange.

“Do whatever you want with the remaining items.”

Then Leviathan reached into his spine and pulled out a bone sword with a swoosh.

I couldn’t see what happened next thanks to Calix covering my eyes. But I could hear it.

Crack-!

The sound of skin being pierced and bones breaking.

And then the thud of someone falling.