He was complying so readily simply because the situation was much better than the flogging with a barbed whip and imprisonment in a cold dungeon until death that he had anticipated.

Carlie, who woke up late, put Raham to work as if it were the most natural thing. The requests from this woman, who seemed not to know how valuably she could use a strong slave, were small, annoying, and troublesome.

“Raham, some washing water, please.”

“……”

“Did you make breakfast? Ah, that’s good.”

“……”

“Have you eaten something? With two of us, we need quite a bit of food. I should order more deliveries.”

“……”

“Did the firewood arrive? Mrs. Men won’t be coming anymore, so please clean the house properly.”

“……”

Whether Raham answered or not, Carlie said what she wanted to say and then went back into her research room with a sandwich. And she didn’t come out until nightfall.

Feeling dumbfounded, Raham cleaned the house. He barely found cleaning tools in the junk storage room and, for the first time in his life, did the mopping he had only ever seen weak slaves do.

The mop felt awkward in his rough hands, but when the floor he mindlessly scrubbed noticeably brightened, he ended up thoroughly cleaning the entire house, like it or not.

Late at night, Carlie emerged from her room and clapped her hands, making an ignorant comment:

“You’re working hard. But it’s late, so let’s continue tomorrow.”

“……”

He wondered if she would say the same if she knew he had cleaned his own room first every time he changed the mop. Anyway, he tossed the mop aside.

⁕⁕⁕

After four days, Raham began adding sausage or ham to his meals, and Carlie could live in a reasonably clean house with proper ventilation morning and evening.

It was around this time that her research or experiment, which she had been working on for days, entered a lull.

Creeeeak—

The door that had been tightly shut like a wall opened, and Carlie appeared, pushing up her disheveled hair that had been loosely braided but had come undone.

Raham froze at the sight of his master leaving her room during the day for the first time. He had been lounging in the relatively spacious living room rather than his cramped bedroom, as there had been no restrictions.

When she stretched, her joints cracked loudly from various parts of her body.

“Raham, please heat some bath water.”

He silently entered the bathroom.

The bathtub in this house had the strange structure of requiring water to be manually drawn but using magic to heat it.

If it had been a ruling clan’s castle, there would have been no need to draw water, and if it had been an ordinary house, they would have had to boil water and pour it in to adjust the temperature—so it suited Carlie’s intermediate position. Though in practice, Raham was making more useful use of it.

He wasn’t sure what the master would say if she knew that when she wasn’t looking, he had bathed in the tub, washed laundry in warm water, and cleaned mops. She might take down the whip hanging on the living room wall.

But if Carlie wanted to tame Raham with a whip, she would need a more powerful tool than that.

In any case, he thought he was doing sufficient labor, regardless of the method. With no supervising eyes or daily quotas, he was working diligently on his own initiative. For Raham, this was a complete reversal of his world.

A little later, a voice called him from the bathroom.

“Raham. Scrub my back.”

“What?”

While Carlie enjoyed her bath, Raham sat at the dining table and turned toward her direction, doubting his ears.

Even when slaves bathed in the river, men did so at dawn while women bathed in the dark of night. In such a world, how could a ruling class woman ask a male slave to attend to her bath……

But why not?

He made an indescribable expression. Images of slimy-faced higher-class servants fawning over their masters alternated in his mind with the kitchen knife he had secretly hidden.

Her voice urged him on.

“Hurry.”

“……”

He stuffed the raw smoked ham he had been about to add to his fourth meal of the day into his mouth, swallowed it, and headed toward the bathroom. He rolled up his pant legs, took off his top, and went inside.

Carlie was enjoying the hot bath water with her eyes closed in the steaming tub.

Her n*ked body, previously hidden under loose clothing, was smooth and beautiful. It resembled the statues of goddesses he had seen when passing temples.

Her silver-rimmed glasses, which usually covered half her face, had been removed, perhaps because of the steam, making her appearance quite different. The dazed expression she usually wore was nowhere to be seen, replaced by something cold and merciless, regardless of whether the slave with an impressive record of killing masters had stolen a knife or not.

Raham thought this must be closer to the true face of the “sister” the lord had mentioned. Five days was far too short for a slave to lower his guard around a new master.

Noticing his entrance, she turned to show him her back.

“Scrub my back…… Don’t press too hard……”

At these words, Raham realized his thoughts had been ridiculous. This woman had no intention of using him as a bedroom slave. Whether equipped with a c*ck or not, a slave was just a slave to her. If she didn’t like the look in his eyes, she could simply cast a spell.

He suppressed both his irritation and fear.

Carlie’s straight, beautiful back was flawless and intact. It contrasted sharply with his own back, which was chaotic with whip marks, scars, brands, and magical inscriptions. Raham felt the urge to tear her beautiful back apart.

But it was just an urge. So far, Carlie had been a relatively agreeable master. The peace they shared seemed worth maintaining.

He silently wrapped a rough cloth around his hand and scrubbed his master’s back.

As he finished the assigned task and was about to dry his hands, Carlie opened her eyes. Raham’s gaze briefly met her blue-gray eyes, but he maintained his usual straight-lipped expression. Only Carlie wore an unfamiliar face and smiled brightly. Without her glasses, the same smile looked somehow different.

“Having a slave really is convenient.”

If he’d known she would say such things, he would have torn her back apart after all.

But he knew this was just a thought. Such treatment wasn’t vile enough to make him kill a ruling clan member and flee. Especially not if it meant giving up a life where he could eat meat and fish.

It seemed the scales of this choice wouldn’t tip easily.

That thought was strongly shaken when Carlie finished bathing, came out to the living room, and picked up a switch.

“……”

What did I do wrong?

Ahhomatically questioning himself, Raham cursed the slave mentality deeply engraved in his bones.

Carlie, picking up the switch with her usual expression, looked utterly soft with her glasses back on.

When she turned around, Raham neither stepped back nor distorted his expression. He simply kept his lips firmly set in an expressionless face.

“Come here, Raham.”

Perhaps she knew he had been eating seven meals a day. Maybe she knew he had given flour from the pantry to the girl who brought ingredients in the morning in exchange for soft bread. She might be displeased that he consumed more ham and sausage than his master, though she never mentioned it. Or perhaps she had discovered him washing dirty mops in the warm bathwater……

“Since you’re just my type. Play with me a bit.”

Could that “play” mean something like the “human hunting game” commonly played by ruling clans?

The thought that there might be valuable items hidden in her workroom that he could grab and run with crossed his mind when he became aware of Carlie’s gaze waiting for his answer.

“What kind of play, Master?”

As always, his stiff response didn’t seem to disturb Carlie’s mood.

“I’d like you to hurt me as much as I want.”

The sentence with clear subject and object was difficult to misunderstand. Raham simply doubted his ears and mind.

“Pardon?”

“Come here.”

Filling the space where sharp tension had been with doubt, he narrowed the distance he had maintained.

The white switch in Carlie’s hand, whittled to the thickness of a thumb, made a tapping sound as it struck her other palm. This crude tool, inadequate for dealing with Raham, was transferred to his hand.

“Hit that cushion.”

Raham did as instructed. A popping sound burst from the cushion. Carlie took the switch back from his hand.

“No, with your hand, gently.”

He did the mentally deranged act of slapping the cushion with his palm as instructed. She was extremely picky about the standards of this act.

“More gently, no, that’s too weak. Add a bit more force. No, no. Not like that. No, can’t you control your strength?”