Hess, who tended to the Count and Countess in their illness, knew nothing of the world. The Count and Countess neither taught her noble etiquette nor allowed her to have a debutante’s coming-out. Until her marriage when she would learn everything anew, Hess was literally an ignorant shell of a noble lady.

The elegance that should flow from fingertips to footsteps was woefully lacking, and her body always carried the scent of sickness that had seeped in while nursing the Count and Countess.

It was a shadow-like smell that wouldn’t disappear no matter how much she washed.

She looked no different from a maid. Hess herself knew this. Her parents called her “daughter,” but their tone when ordering her around was as unrestrained as when addressing a servant.

‘I wish they would at least pay me,’ Hess always muttered to herself. After passing through her younger days when she tended to their illnesses without knowing any better, by the time she approached adulthood, she wished she really were a maid.

At least maids could receive compensation for their work.

Then, despite the current hardship, she could save that money and leave this place as soon as she came of age, go to a rural village to find new work, or open a tiny shop.

Or at the very least, she wanted to enter a convent. She had no remaining expectations of people that would allow her to love someone and become family.

Not knowing the feeling of being loved by someone, she would surely be terrible at giving it as well. But it didn’t matter. If she entered a convent, at least God would love her.

She probably couldn’t even love God, but He would look after someone like her anyway. If it was God.

Hess felt she could go anywhere—any place where no one forced anything upon her, somewhere warm enough to just lie down that wasn’t this cold, creaking, moldy attic room at the end of the second floor.

For years, Hess endured life in the Count’s household with only this thought. When I come of age. When I come of age. Perhaps things might get a little better.

But that didn’t happen.

“Father, Mother. I have something to tell you. Now that I’ve come of age……”

“What does that matter? More importantly, cold water! Bring water. My throat is dry.”

The aged Count spoke. Hess quickly poured cool water and handed it to her father. It wouldn’t do to upset him.

“So, I want to become a nun and live as a clergy member. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I don’t want to marry anyone. Besides, I never learned noble etiquette, so I’m quite lacking. No one would be satisfied with me wherever I go. So while no one would want to marry me anyway, just in case……”

“How ridiculous. A nun, what nonsense.”

Her words were feebly cut off before she could finish what she wanted to say.

“No, Mother. I really want to become a nun. If you’re worried about nursing, I could visit regularly, and there’s also Mrs. Miriam who comes occasionally, so it should be……”

Countess Rainweed snorted with a tone of disbelief, as if the very idea was absurd for Hess.

“Duke Castlelot wants to marry you. We’ve already agreed and received money. A lot of money. Finally, there’s a reason for having taken in a food-wasting child like you, hee hee hee.”

“…What?”

It was like a bolt from the blue. She couldn’t understand how there could be a noble who wanted to marry her, let alone someone as high-ranking as a Duke.

Why? Rainweed was no longer a family worth binding through marriage. Even less so to accept an adopted orphan girl.

They would have to shoulder enormous debt, and their power to aid in imperial political struggles had been broken long ago. She wasn’t beautiful at all, and the elderly Count and Countess were famously, terribly greedy.

Why. Why. WHY!

Hess sat pale-faced before the Count and Countess, who looked at each other and giggled about whatever they found so amusing.

Hess’s voice, squeezed out with difficulty, floated above their slippery laughter.

“I hate this. Father, Mother…… I’ll send money monthly and try to help pay off the debts. It won’t be easy, but I’ll try somehow. So please don’t make me marry, please……”

Even as she spoke, Hess thought her words were absurd. How could she possibly repay debts that an ordinary person couldn’t pay off in a lifetime?

“The Duke has already paid everything. He gave enough to pay all the debts and more. Castlelot, Castlelot indeed—truly a wealthy family as they say.”

“Stop sitting there and go prepare dinner, I’m getting hungry.”

And in an instant, the Count and Countess lost interest in the conversation and began arguing again in their bed cradles. As if bickering over who was right or wrong was more important than anything else.

She would have preferred if they had laughed at her words a little longer. Hess had to accept this moment quietly, becoming a transparent wooden wall, a worn curtain, a cracked side table.

When they turned their attention away, there was no second chance. She would have to marry a Duke whose face she didn’t even know. That would become her future.

As she climbed to her room with feet that wouldn’t move, dragging slowly, she suddenly thought about him. Who was this Duke who wanted to marry a Rainweed badly enough to pay off all their debts?

Surely he must be an old, wealthy, well-fed noble. If he wanted marriage with the Rainweeds, who were now just a name from the past, it must mean his reputation was terrible. If he was fine with a lady who had been an orphan, perhaps he intended to take a mistress. Such thoughts chased one another.

At some point, Hess had come to regard her own narrow assumptions as almost truth. Otherwise, Rainweed. Me….

And once her assumptions became truth, a tidal wave of despair washed over Hess. My life will never be free for even a moment, and I will never be myself for even a moment.

The ground she stood on without taking a step trembled.

She had no strength to live. She had no confidence to live. All she had wanted was a quiet life, but her life was always tumultuous.

Now she would have to live her entire life as a ghost in the Duke’s household, having gone from being a burden at the orphanage to an unwanted object in the Count’s family.

Perhaps living as a ghost would be better. Like someone dead, like someone who doesn’t exist. She might somehow be satisfied with a life of sleeping in a warm, soft bedroom, eating soup before it cooled, wearing clothes that hadn’t worn out.

To live, like that.

‘To live, like that……’

Now, what should she do?

Hess decided to die.

※※※

Hess thought that if one decided to die, one might develop a somewhat generous heart toward the terribly dreadful things in life. But until the final day when she resolved to die, the Count and Countess remained awful.

“Why is this meat so tough!”

“Why is this room so cold? You must have embezzled the money for heating, haven’t you?”

When they weren’t in good condition, they couldn’t make proper judgments, and sometimes they called Hess a “thief girl” who ruined the household, despising her as if they had actually seen her doing such things.

That day too, they were desperate to devour Hess, finding fault with unreasonable things. Hess silently endured their sharp remarks.

‘Even though you’ve never given me money. If I hadn’t begged other households for firewood and beeswax candles, you would have already frozen or starved to death.’

Hess thought this with a calm expression as she propped up the Countess’s pillow to help her sit up and fed her.

Sometimes it seemed as if they could actually live healthily but chose to lie in bed all day just to torment her.

The elderly Count and Countess’s voices as they reproached her leaped vigorously like those of young people, and their hands that tormented her or played chess were as firm as canes.

But they were indeed sick people. Smelling the old scent of death emanating from them, Hess sensed their lives fading away.

“I’ll leave the water bottle and glass on the bedside table. I’ve divided the food into small portions in baskets in the kitchen cabinet. Take them out a little at a time, not all at once. Mrs. Miriam is supposed to come soon, so tell her if you need anything.”

But they were so engrossed in their own quarrel that they weren’t listening to what Hess was saying. It didn’t matter anyway. If they did listen, they wouldn’t allow her to leave.

“I’m going now. Thank you for everything.”

For what? Hess tried to recall what she should feel grateful for, but soon gave up. Then she left the house and headed straight for Lake Shainfil, the largest lake in Lapelsion.