The Consequences of Malice (2)

The two sisters, who had been about to chide Karsein for how quickly he'd left the room while their mother was present, swallowed those words the moment they stepped into his chamber.

"Hey! Karsein, are you al— *gasp!*"

The instant Claire gripped his shoulder to check on him, the heat radiating off his body made her flinch back.

"Why is his body burning up like this? What's wrong with him!"

"...Unbelievable. He was fine just this morning."

Arina, who had laid her hand on him as well, winced at the contact. His temperature had gone far beyond anything a normal person should carry. The heat pouring off him was enough to make her swallow dryly without meaning to.

"Shayden won't arrive for a while yet. And we can't just leave him lying on this cold floor."

"Got it. I'll take this side, so hold the other side, Arina."

"On your signal... no, I suppose there's no need for one."

So light. Even lifting a seventeen-year-old boy between the two of them, barely any strength was required.

No signal was needed at all — this gaunt, skin-and-bones body was so weightless that carrying him to the bed demanded nothing close to their full effort.

"Haaah. Honestly. What in the world happened to him...!"

At Claire's grumbling as they laid Karsein onto the bed, Shayden hurried over, and the diagnosis began at once.

"This is..."

"Did you find something?"

Arina narrowed her eyes and pressed the chief physician.

"To begin with, the young master has caught a cold."

"A cold?"

"Yes. Though I can't imagine how it came about... a cold is the correct diagnosis."

At the word *cold*, Arina's face immediately creased with displeasure.

"Good grief. Failing at something as simple as looking after his own health, and this is the result?"

She spoke as though scolding the boy lying there, and Shayden promptly added to her words.

"That is not the whole of it, of course. The cold is his primary ailment, but several other conditions have compounded together and worsened his state."

"What do you mean?"

"Hmm... he has recently consumed a great deal of salt. Rather excessive amounts, I would say."

"How much exactly?"

"Compared to what a person would ordinarily eat, his symptoms indicate consumption of several times that quantity. At this level, his meals must have tasted intensely salty..."

Several times the normal amount? Even for someone with a habit of eating heavily salted food, no one consumed that much.

Claire's teeth clenched with a sharp click.

"Then that salt would naturally have come from his food. Correct?"

"Yes, that is my conclusion as well."

Shayden answered, his eyes flicking toward the food remaining in the room.

Excessive salt intake — naturally, the first thing to suspect would be what had gone into his mouth, wouldn't it?

The pink-haired girl spun around at once, her gaze landing on the desserts. If the salt had come from the food, then this was what deserved scrutiny.

She carved a piece from the lone remaining pudding with a utensil and tasted it, but the flavor itself presented no problems whatsoever. Then what about the drinks?

The moment she raised a cup and took a single sip—

"...!"

Claire snatched up a napkin on the spot and spat out everything in her mouth.

"F-fuck. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Which son of a bitch dared to pull this kind of stunt...!"

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Rigomos Neural Hyperesthesia. It was a dirty trick they used to use in high society to bury someone's reputation. You feed the victim food or drink laced with sap and extract, and it sends their nerves into overdrive."

"No... don't tell me it was in there?"

"Y-yes, it was. And that same reaction is showing up in Karsein's body right now."

"I don't care who did this — they have to be caught. They dared pull a stunt like this inside House Bagrand. They will be punished, and punished properly."

Thinking that such a thing had been done to the desserts she herself had carried here with such care, rage boiled up from deep within her.

To flush the residue from her mouth, Claire grabbed the kettle and gulped down its water — then immediately spat that out too and flipped open the lid to check inside.

"Cough, cough! Y-you bitch...!"

"Claire?"

Arina turned her eyes toward her, sensing yet another problem.

Claire's already twisted expression grew uglier still.

"Shayden. List every symptom. Excessive salt intake, Rigomos Neural Hyperesthesia. What else is there?"

"That would be... general malnutrition, and the cold."

"A cold. Right. A *cold*, you say."

Malnutrition, too, could be traced to the same cause as the food. But a cold was a different matter entirely.

However much of a mess Karsein might otherwise be, he had always dressed himself properly and completely. There had never been the slightest sign of chill or sniffle — nothing to suggest he was the type to catch cold at all.

Even today, of all days. The day their mother returned to the ducal estate, he had still buttoned himself up properly from head to toe.

Then how, exactly, had he come down with a cold?

There was only one answer.

— Bang!

Enraged, Claire flung open the door to the washroom.

The instant she looked inside, the complete absence of steam told her what she needed to know, and when she thrust her hand in to check the temperature of the bathwater, her suspicion hardened into certainty.

"That maid Camilla — throw her in solitary confinement. Now!"

Only one person could have done all this: the maid who attended the young master directly.

"That maid Camilla — throw her in solitary confinement. Now!"

At Claire's bellow from Karsein's room, Flora shrank into herself, both hands and her shawl pressed over her mouth, shoulders hunched.

H-how...? At this rate, they're going to find out it was me...!

She couldn't even recall how many times she had asked Camilla for favors by now.

Camilla, whom she had first met when she went to ask Head Maid Emma — her ally ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in tormenting Karsein — to select someone for the post, had granted her requests time and time again.

She didn't know what Emma had told her, but Flora knew this much: anything from her own lips — from Flora Bagrand's lips — Camilla had obeyed without question.

But now the tail had been caught.

Every last bit of this had been a secret she could never breathe a word of to her mother, let alone her two sisters.

Now that she'd been seized by the scruff, anxiety began to gnaw at her — what if her name surfaced and she was the one dragged off instead?

Meanwhile, furious voices kept ringing out from the room.

"Salting the food their master eats, dosing it with drugs — who would have the easiest opportunity to pull off something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like that?"

"Calm down and talk it through. What exactly did you see?"

Then the kettle lid clattered against the floor with a sharp ring.

"Look at this, Arina. They did this to a person's drinking water. That's why I spat it out."

"No... isn't this sand?"

The water kettle was packed full of sand, rendering it entirely undrinkable.

"I understand your logic, Claire. But it doesn't have to be Camilla. Anyone could have done this."

It was a fair point. Camilla couldn't be named as the culprit outright. Though these things had been found in Karsein's room, any other maid could have planted them in her place.

But there was one thing — a single fact that other maids could not explain: none of them were permitted to enter Karsein's room freely.

That was what gave Claire's argument its decisive weight.

"Any other maid might have slipped sand into the water Karsein drinks. But what about climbing into a cold bath — in the middle of winter?"

"What?"

"The bathtub was filled with cold water. Not a trace of steam from heated water anywhere! If she'd been trying to win Mother's sympathy, she would have been better off skipping the bath entirely and staggering out looking pitiful and wretched! But no — what did he do today?!"

He had come out spotless.

He had scrubbed his entire body clean with that freezing water.

Not a trace of the grime from days past remained; he had come out so thoroughly washed that not a speck of dust was visible on him.

"Come to think of it, Karsein said nothing to Mother today, did he?"

"Isn't your gut telling you the same thing, Arina? This is deliberate torment, systematically carried out. This kind of thing couldn't pile up one after another unless someone was planted right beside him, egging it all on!"

It was logic without a single gap.

Which was exactly why Arina found herself unable to argue back. With the likelihood of Camilla being the culprit now so much higher, she could no longer simply look the other way.

"You there — find Camilla and lock her in solitary confinement."

In the end, the order was carried out.

"W-wait, please! I — I...!"

Camilla, who had been working nearby, was dragged away helplessly by the other maids. In the midst of it, she scrambled to offer some excuse, and her eyes met Flora's—

"...!"

"Lady... Flora..."

"What are you all standing around for? Take the criminal straight to solitary!"

The moment she saw that desperate gaze, Flora flinched — then looked away. The head maid likewise reacted with nothing but a cold sneer, affecting the air of someone to whom none of this concerned.

The hollow-eyed maid kicked and struggled to the very last, but in the end she was hauled off by the hands of the others.

The only escape route out of this situation had been Flora. And yet, regrettably, in this affair there was no one else to blame — the fault was hers alone.

Beneath the Imperial Family of the Pecellos Empire, there stood no house more exalted than this one — House Bagrand, the Ducal House. The moment word spread that a mere maid had tried to feed her master such things here, a bleak future was already all but written.

"Lady Flora. Remember this well. None of this is your fault. Understood?"

"...Mm-hmm?"

"Keep your mouth shut, and it all ends with that maid's punishment. There's nothing to worry about."

Flora trembled — but at Emma's murmured assurance, she nodded.

Everyone had to be innocent of this. Everyone but her.

The fact that Karsein, whom she had tormented, had collapsed. The fact that the maid she'd ordered to torment him had been dragged away.

None of it — none of it — could be Flora Bagrand's fault.

— Ding!

My consciousness drifted back toward the surface, and a familiar chime rang out inside my head.

The moment I opened my eyes, the Status Window would no doubt be hovering there waiting for me. Honestly, the best possible outcome would have been waking up not to a status screen but to find myself back in my own apartment — the true ending, if there ever was one.

The dizziness was gone, and my body — which had felt like a ball of fire — could move again. Almost all of the abnormal conditions seemed to have been restored.

And yet my mood had only grown fouler.

"Ha... fuck."

It wasn't because I'd been forced to experience, first-hand and in full, the pain of deliberately catching a cold in a body that wasn't even mine — the burning fever, the spinning room.

Nor was it because I'd been trapped in a situation where I had to choke down salty soup at the dinner table.

It was something the Status Window couldn't classify, something that didn't belong to Karsein at all — it was my own mood, and it was rotten to the core.

"Fuck. Why does everything have to overlap like this?"

The reason this sick feeling wouldn't lift was that Karsein's circumstances were an exact, complete mirror of my own past.

It had really happened. Because of my sister's transparent scheme to pin everything on me, I'd ended up bedridden — was that how it went?

And beyond that, every stage of the process was identical.

Mother's reaction upon returning from her business trip. The scene at the dinner table. Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that suffocating sensation of being a trespasser who had no place at that table — I felt it all again, vivid as memory.

Two older sisters and one younger sister.

Half-siblings I might have understood, but these three shared not a single drop of blood with me — complete strangers I'd been made to live under the same roof with. It was so achingly like those days.

They had never treated me as family. To them I was nothing but a stray child their mother had dragged home from outside. An outsider, plain and simple.

That was precisely why it made me feel so sick — it was all too similar to my own past.

"...No. Actually, maybe this works out better."

Wasn't it almost too much to be coincidence?

I had every right to complain — you're seriously making me live through this twice?

But in truth, it was a stroke of luck. That was what I chose to believe.

Because I'd experienced it before, I know how to handle it.

I am not family to them. They don't treat me as family either — so no matter what injustices they pile on me, I won't break.

That's right. Just as they insisted — being no family of theirs, I came to the realization one step faster than before, unlike last time.

The realization that I have to escape this house.

"Hah. Right. First priority: clear the game, and escape at the same time."

— Ding!

The Status Window I'd been about to summon appeared on its own.

"Good enough. This is plenty."

It was an uncanny coincidence. The fact that this game carried such a setting, the fact that I'd come to play it, and then...

even the fact that I'd possessed Karsein inside this very game and was now dreaming of escaping it all over again.

As for the choices I'd been given — there was only ever going to be one.

Clear this game, and go back to the one-room apartment I used to live in.

The reward screens came one after another, but honestly, none of it amounted to much. It was the same boilerplate the game had always spat out.

"Anything else worth having... nope. Largely useless."

I already knew it would be, but I combed through it anyway in hopes of finding something worth taking away — no such luck.

All this window really did was let me map out where branching choices appear and check Karsein's condition. There was a stat screen that let me raise stats, granted... but even that came with a fatal flaw.

"Raising my stats would at least keep me from dying of poor health, but granting a whole 0.05 points per level-up is basically meaningless."

Level up, invest points, raise the relevant stat — a basic RPG mechanic, present in this game too, but the numbers were laughably negligible.

Even for Strength, an actual workout regimen would raise it by a far greater margin than dumping 0.05 points into the stat screen. There'd be no perceptible difference at all.

Best to hold this in reserve and save it for a real emergency.

As I kept scrolling through the Status Window, a separate progress screen popped up against my will.

— Ding!

I'd had a feeling the time was drawing near.

The tutorial and Episode I, which I'd cleared through sheer trial-and-repeat and grown sickeningly familiar with in the process.

Upon clearing them, most abnormal conditions are restored and you receive a bonus reward. And that was precisely what was about to walk through that door.

— Click.

"Finally awake, I see. Honestly."

"Everyone, get moving. Carry it all in."

The door opened and Claire gave a dry remark about how late I'd risen. Arina stood right beside her, and the two of them summoned the maids, ordering the items brought over to the table piece by piece.

This was the reward written at the very bottom of the Status Window — the other prize for clearing Episode I. A meal.

Hah. This is what they call a reward.

It was almost too absurd for words.

First, just as Karsein would have, I recited the same line.

"Why are you here?"

The sisters evidently didn't care for that question one bit, and their expressions soured.

"The physician examined you and flagged malnutrition and excessive salt intake. But after what happened today, anyone could have tampered with your food — so we brought it ourselves."

"Not just what you eat — we personally inspected every drop of what you drink and watched over it all. So you can eat without worrying."

Word for word the lines I'd seen in the game: Karsein's careless eating habits had wrecked his body, the episode brought the problem to light, and the sisters went all the way to the kitchen themselves, watched every step of the cooking, and served the food to him directly. That was the story, presumably.

But that was only how it played out in the game. Staring at the lavish spread laid out before me, my mood turned positively foul.

"You want me to eat this? Are you kidding me?"

Those words came straight from the bottom of my heart.