I Became a Tyrant’s Maid - Chapter 53

“Um, Your Highness?”

“You don’t need to see.”

I swallowed hard with a gulp.

The smell of fresh blood spread throughout the lake cave.

Is he dead?

“I’m fine, Your Highness.”

At my words, Calix removed his hand that was covering my eyes with an uneasy expression.

What I saw then was the human-form Leviathan, his heart pierced by a white bone sword, embracing the skeleton.

“Didn’t you say earlier that you disliked corpses?”

“No, Your Highness. I’m really fine.”

By the way, it seemed a bit difficult to breathe.

Damn diary. I couldn’t grasp what exactly had happened.

Somehow, every time I made eye contact with Calix, I felt worse.

“You don’t look well.”

Calix reached out to me, looking concerned.

“I think I’m just a bit tired.”

Startled by his suddenly softened voice, I unconsciously took a step back. Seeing this, he awkwardly withdrew his outstretched hand.

“Anyway, now we just need to get out of here.”

“Um, Your Highness. I think it would be good to take the items from Leviathan’s nest.”

I said, looking towards Leviathan’s nest.

“It’s unreasonable to meet with our companions now, and in case we lose the diplomatic items, I think we should at least have some valuables to present to the Emperor of Desart…”

At my words, Calix took the luggage hanging on my shoulder and said,

“You’re right. Moreover, if there are crystals in the nest, it would be difficult for other monsters to approach as well.”

“Your Highness, I’ll carry the luggage.”

I was suddenly flustered. Why is he taking that!

As I reached out towards the luggage he had taken, Calix lightly brushed off my hand and said,

“I’m surprised you’ve been carrying this heavy thing around.”

He clicked his tongue once and then strode towards the nest, picking up a few seemingly rare items and putting them in the bag.

The situation was certainly hopeful. It seemed we wouldn’t die.

‘Now we just need to go to Desart, right?’

Although Leviathan’s death just now was a bit shocking, I felt like a player who had just completed a game quest and was coming to collect the reward, and I couldn’t help but feel my tension easing.

Fatigue swept through my entire body.

It felt like my eyes were closing due to some unintended force.

Just like that day when I was hit by an arrow, my mind started to feel distant.

“There might be something you’d like among these… Estanya?”

“Huh? Oh, Your Highness. The pendant you’re holding is beautiful.”

Calix came closer to me.

He seems to be shouting something, but I can’t hear well, damn it.

“Rose, Rose Estanya, snap out of it!”

Calix’s face flickered a lot in front of my eyes.

His face was contorted as if in anger, but I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear any sound.

But suddenly, I thought his clothes looked fancy.

Surely what Calix is wearing should be my pajamas?

He kept shouting with bloodshot eyes while violently shaking both my shoulders.

And I lost consciousness just like that.

‘Damn diary.’

It was certainly all because of the diary.

I’m not dying, am I?

***

As my head heated up, it seemed my body was struggling to survive, and I gradually regained consciousness.

Something lukewarm, like water, kept dripping onto my lips.

“Rose, are you coming to? Huh? Please answer, damn it.”

I thought I heard something solid plunging into the sand with a thud.

After a moment of silence, something caressed my lips. Soon, it pressed my chin, forcing my mouth open.

Naturally, I opened my eyes wide in surprise.

“……!”

What I saw when I opened my eyes was a battered Calix, with a face that looked like he might cry at any moment, gulping down water.

His hand was scratched, with small scars, and sweat poured down like rain, with dried sand stuck to his hair.

“Your Highness, why on earth are you in such a state……”

I looked around in confusion.

It was an oasis like I’d only seen in comic books.

Luggage was strewn messily on the ground, and Calix was just staring blankly at me.

I hurriedly reached for my luggage.

I didn’t know what had happened, but Calix had a scar on his face.

A scar on the face of the Crown Prince, of all things.

Who knows what else might happen to him.

Did I have Fucidin in my makeup pouch?

“Your Highness, please wait a moment. I’ll first,”

That’s when it happened.

Calix’s large body fell onto me in an embrace.

I half-swallowed my breath at his sudden action.

“Damn it.”

Calix’s low voice transmitted directly to my ear.

He tightly bound me with his large arms and spoke in a suppressed voice, as if threatening.

“Who gave you permission to faint.”

I stiffened like a log and glanced at Calix.

What’s wrong with him?

“Your Highness, given the circumstances, it seems I fainted, and fainting isn’t exactly something one can control at will,”

“I thought you were dying.”

My mouth half-opened at his statement that instantly turned me into a deceased person.

Slightly apart from me, his face was not the usual cynical expression, but completely broken with fatigue and anxiety.

“Didn’t I say that from the moment you pledged obedience to me, your life became mine?”

His thumb touched just below my neck, on my pulse.

Calix revealed a self-deprecating smile as if pitying himself and spoke slowly.

“I don’t know why you, who has no mana, experienced mana reflux. But I’m glad you seem to be fine now.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Calix threw a water canteen at me and stood up, brushing off the sand stuck to his pants.

“Drink.”

And as he packed the scattered luggage into the bag and slung it over his shoulder.

Feeling that if I didn’t drink the water now, he might force me to, I gulped it down while watching Calix’s expression.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“That’s enough, now get up.”

As soon as I stood up as Calix said, he turned his back to me and crouched down.

“……?”

“What are you doing? Hurry up and get on my back.”

“Your Highness! I’ll walk. How could I dare to ride on Your Highness’s back!”

Flustered, I tried to grab his arm and lift him up, but as expected of the male lead, my strength was far from enough.

He didn’t budge at all.

This is frustrating.

I’m already dying of embarrassment from fainting in the cave, and now this person is making things even more difficult for me.

“You’ll obviously collapse after a few steps anyway, so why bother? Stop arguing and get on when I tell you to.”

Of course, I hesitated. No matter what, he’s the Crown Prince and I’m just a maid.

So, isn’t it problematic for me to ride on his back?

“Eek! Your Highness!”

But making such concerns meaningless, Calix hoisted me up like a sack of rice.

“You should have accepted when I kindly offered. If you don’t want to go like this, get on properly.”

“……Yes, Your Highness.”

In the end, I had to get on his back ‘properly’ as he said.

“The cave collapsed, so I couldn’t wait for you to wake up.”

At Calix’s words, I opened my eyes wide. Why did the cave collapse?

Then how did he get me out of there?

“Fortunately, the map you found seems to be functioning properly.”

Calix pointed to something shimmering in the distance as he spoke.

“That’s the Desart Empire over there.”

I squinted my eyes and looked where he was pointing.

I could see something like a huge spire.

“We’ll arrive much earlier than the originally scheduled date.”

It was a relief. I really felt that people don’t die when they’re not supposed to.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

I whispered softly to Calix.

He said the cave had collapsed, yet he managed to bring me out while I was unconscious.

It was strange.

The Calix I knew would have mercilessly abandoned anyone he deemed useless.

“So you do know how to be grateful.”

No, even if it wasn’t Calix, who would have thought to bring an unconscious person out of a cave with a collapsing ceiling?

Calix was really treating me as his own person.

My conscience pricked as if stabbed by a needle.

Even this scoundrel treats me as a person, yet I’ve only been treating him as a character all this time.

I felt like I had done something terrible to him.

“It’s not just empty words, Your Highness.”

“That’s enough.”

I was worried about his future.

I have my own long road ahead, how can I look after someone else?

But in this situation, it’s really impossible not to care.

He was my lifesaver.

Even if I wanted to ignore it, I can’t anymore.

I sincerely wanted to change his unfortunate future.

Not as a mere reader, but as a true person of his.

Have I finally gone mad? To think that I’m trying to sincerely serve the male protagonist of a novel world.

Of course, I wasn’t planning to risk my life or do anything drastic like the female protagonists in the novels I’ve read.

However, I decided to work for him with genuine dedication until I could find a way to return home and leave this job behind.

“I will serve you wholeheartedly from now on, Your Highness!”

“Don’t suddenly shout, will you? It hurts my ears.”

No, I should do that.

Just, only until I go back.

I need to show this poor male protagonist the competence of a 21st-century Korean employee.

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  If there are people like me who don’t know what this is: Fucidin cream works by killing germs (bacteria) that cause infections. Fucidin cream is used to treat conditions where the skin is infected by germs (bacteria), such as: • Impetigo (a weeping, crusty, and swollen patch of skin) • Infected dermatitis (inflammation of the skin) and spots • Infected cuts and grazes.