8. Dead Trigger (2)

“Ahh...! Here you are, here you are!”

The woman swept the child up into her arms. Even if he reeked from head to toe, even if the filth caked on his clothes was staining her expensive gown, even if he looked wretched enough to carry every disease imaginable — none of it registered in her eyes.

The boy, with his dark bluish hair and striking blue eyes, let himself be held by the noblewoman without the faintest idea why. The guards, having heard the news, came rushing over to try to talk sense into her, but she only snarled back at them.

“How dare you lay a hand on my child — my one and only son! Is the House of Vagrand a joke to you?!”

All while clutching the boy from the slums to her chest. No — while wrapping both arms around him so tightly it was clear she would never, ever let go.

Isabella Vagrand even went so far as to menace the guards outright. Her bloodshot eyes brimmed with something perilously close to madness.

Even then, the boy had no idea what was happening. Upon being told he was her son, all he could conclude was that this woman was out of her mind.

“It's been so hard on you, hasn't it? Come, let's go home. My son.”

Holding his hand tightly in hers, the noblewoman led the beggar-boy away to her carriage.

Even once they were inside, her attentions never let up. She ordered a blanket brought because the boy must be cold, and again and again she stroked his face with warm hands.

She murmured the word son over and over as she ran her hands over him, and little by little, it began to feel frightening.

And yet, to a boy who had become an orphan overnight and been wandering the slums in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rags, it was unbearably warm, unbearably kind. He couldn't — he simply couldn't — push her away.

Thus they arrived at the Vagrand Ducal Estate. And there, everything began.

“What a blessing this is, truly. To have our family whole again. Heaven must have guided us back to one another. Isn't that right, my dears?”

The three sisters, who had come out to greet their mother out of worry, stood frozen in shock.

“Why do you all wear such faces? Karn — the sole son of our family — has come home to the estate, alive.”

“Mother, what's wrong with you?!”

“What on earth are you saying? That boy, that boy is...!”

“You're calling that our brother Karn?”

Watching their mother rejoice over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠some beggar she'd dragged home off the street, claiming she'd found Karn — who had supposedly vanished in an accident — the sisters could hardly contain their fury.

“Mother. It seems your mind is not well at the moment, so perhaps you should rest first. We will speak kindly to that child and send him back where he came from.”

All three of them must have had plenty more they wanted to say.

But their common verdict would have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been simple: that beggar was not Karn. The dark, bluish hair and blue eyes made him look the part at a glance, but taken as a whole, he was unquestionably a completely different person.

Just then, as if scratching an itch at just the right moment, Arina stepped forward, and Claire and Flora felt their hearts ease a little. They trusted without a doubt that if Arina handled it this tactfully, Isabella would come to her senses in no time.

Slap!

“M-Mother...?”

But the two sisters could only stare at the sight of their eldest sister rubbing her freshly reddened cheek.

“What kind of words are those to say about your own brother, Arina? While you three lived in luxury, this boy — Karn — was languishing in that wretched place!”

“Mother! I keep telling you, he's not Karn!”

“How is that supposed to be Karn?! He looks nothing like our brother — they're not even worth comparing. He's just, he's just a beggar off the street!”

Flipping out entirely, the two sisters leapt to defend the eldest sister they'd just watched get slapped, but Isabella rebuked all three with a face full of fury.

Still shielding the boy from the slums, a child she barely seemed to know where she'd even found.

“Can you not see this toy either?! If not Karn, then no one else in this world could possibly have it!!”

The toy Isabella pointed to was none other than the glowing, carriage-shaped Memorial.

The sisters and Isabella bickered on and on, but in the face of the duchess's unyielding resolve, they eventually backed down. There was simply nothing they could do about a mother they now suspected of being mentally ill.

Such scenes repeated several times — and then the Memorial leapt forward, skipping several days at once.

The setting: the ducal estate's kitchen.

As always, when mealtime approached, the maids of the ducal house bustled about.

But beneath all that frantic activity, their conversation was thick with resentment.

“Honestly. Why on earth should we wait on some lowborn? I could understand if it were the young ladies, but I'm about to begrudge him even the clothes off our backs and the blankets on the beds.”

“Well, what can you do? Everyone feels about the same. Hmm... wait. What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? Just making sure his food doesn't taste too good. There!”

The maid dumped an entire handful of salt onto the meal meant for Karsein.

“Hey! What if you get caught?!”

“Caught? Caught by whom? All I need is for you to keep your mouth shut.”

“I mean... yeah, I suppose.”

“Honestly. You're not about to go groveling to the young master now, are you?”

“...Why would I? I hate that lowborn bastard as much as anyone.”

Her fellow maid hesitated for only a moment before joining in, cleverly working the salted mess into the rest of the dish.

And from then on, the maids heaped their torments on in secret — and whenever the boy cried out that it was unfair, one of the daughters ensured he was instead painted as the culprit.

That was all the Memorial showed.

Utterly, hopelessly miserable. That was all I could think.

‘...Son of a bitch.’

The uncanny familiarity of it all made my teeth grind on their own.

The child dragged in from outside and treated as insane.

The open disgust and contempt of the three sisters as they closed in.

That much, I knew firsthand.

But Karsein — this boy had it far worse. He didn't get to suffer in modern Korea; he had to weather the full brutal storm of a medieval world where nobles reigned supreme.

Even the vast staff of servants, not just the family, had been his enemies.

The three Vagrand sisters, who wore their hostility toward Karsein openly, would have isolated him completely — and the servants, for their part, wouldn't even have granted him the dignity of the title “young master.”

Tormenting him. Tormenting him again.

Screaming that it was unfair, every time some injustice was done to him the moment their backs turned.

Until he learned that crying unfair only made the poison stronger.

“...”

“What are you dawdling for? Pick one. Stop fidgeting and choose, Karsein.”

As the Memorial went dark, Arina's frosty voice prodded at me.

Right. I have to pick, don't I?

And there they were, conveniently laid out — my options.

The correct answer, as I knew perfectly well, was number 4. Freeing Camilla from her confinement was the best move to prepare against the Dead Trigger.

But should I really settle for the "correct answer," moving only within these shackles called the System?

I could say it with certainty: never. Even within the yoke of the choices given to me, I had to squeeze every possible advantage out of the one variable that was mine — this body, this self.

Yes. Like the word mother I'd added after thanking her for her hard work. Like ending a conversation with a simple "nothing happened."

Fulfill the choice — but not entirely. Parry it, bend it, and forge a correct answer that never even existed.

“What exactly do you think you're doing?”

“What does it look like?”

“I told you to pick a maid, not hand me the entire stack of files. Did you not hear me tell you to choose?”

“I heard you just fine. You were saying it right in front of my face — unless you stuffed something in my ears, there's no way I didn't hear.”

“Karsein.”

At the barbed reply, Arina's brow twitched. Even a single call of my name carried crushing weight behind it.

It was a warning: keep that loose mouth in check.

Even so, I didn't back down. Meeting Arina's eyes dead-on, I swallowed the words I wanted to say.

‘You'd never know, would you. That this one pathetic bowl of thin gruel — in place of all that lavish food — is what kept Karsein alive.’

Of course she wouldn't. To a noble lady who'd never once known hunger, it wouldn't even qualify as knowledge worth keeping in her head.

That's exactly why she'd been so indifferent — why she'd handed him poison masquerading as a meal and patted herself on the back for it. If that's how it was going to be, then fine.

“I don't need one. I said I'm not picking anyone. Is that too hard to understand?”

I chose no one.

Because you and those maids are hardly any different. If anything, you're the ones who've been serving me poison.

One barbed line, fired off on pure spite.

At my flat refusal to choose any maid at all, Arina let out a sigh she made no effort whatsoever to hide.

“Stubborn to the end, I see. I imagine when I come back in a few days, this room will be buried in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dust and stinking of damp mold. Do as you like. I'll overlook it for a few days.”

With a sneer that said she could see my future room's sorry state as clearly as day, she gathered up the maids' profiles and swept out.

Right to the very end — the same contemptuous treatment as that first bitch of a sister. Not one bit different.

Well. She wasn't wrong, though.

What could a noble do without a single maid?

Cleaning his own room, managing his own belongings — he'd fail to look after even his own body. All the more so for a boy like Karsein, who'd never been taught anything.

‘But that's not me. You idiot.’

Mold smell in my room? Dust piled to the ceiling?

Give me a break.

Right up until I escaped that house, I'd prepared for standing on my own two feet without a shred of help. This much was nothing more than a basic routine.

Leaving behind the breakfast I'd lost my appetite for, I threw open the wardrobe first and took stock.

The wardrobe's contents were exactly as expected.

A tidy row of masterpieces, each one crafted through the filter of Flora's malice.

“If I walk into Isabella's presence wearing this... ugh.”

My head shook on its own. And if Arina caught me like this on top of it, I'd get a second lecture about crawling around the house in such a state.

Better to eliminate anything worth nitpicking.

Which meant, first of all — laundry. With my own two hands, no less.

Hand-washing in cold water, in the dead of winter.

It's been a while since I've done that, too.

Chuckling to myself, I pulled every last garment out of the wardrobe, heaped them into a tub, and was about to step out of the room —

— when the door swung open, inward, and a blonde girl appeared in the frame.

“What are you going to do? Big sister's right — this place will be nothing but a trash heap buried in dust before long.”

A voice that didn't just predict that the room I lived in would be ruined by neglect — it prayed for it.

Back when this was a game, the scene would have skipped right after Arina's line, so Flora never appeared. Not that her purpose was any less obvious, whether through voice or through dialogue.

“Poor Camilla, too. Imagine serving a master like you and getting dragged off to solitary confinement for nothing. She didn't do a single thing wrong.”

See? I told you.

She'd come here deliberately poking at Karsein's temper, fishing for an outburst.

And on top of that, swaggering around like she'd already won, throwing out provocations. Watching it, all I could think was: a spoiled little brat, through and through.

Someone like that wasn't worth engaging. Without a single word of reply, I walked straight past her.

“...!”

Flora's eyes flickered and wavered. Apparently my utter lack of reaction didn't sit well with her at all, because now she was chasing after me.

“What's wrong with you? Where do you think you're going!”

Do what you like.

I simply kept walking my own path.

“Hey, Karsein! I asked where you're going! Answer me!”

Flora trailed at my heels, yapping at me the whole way.

Somewhere past the tenth round of it, I arrived at my destination — the maids' washing area I'd seen on the minimap.

Thud.

Setting the tub heaped with clothes down on the ground, I went and fetched one of the large basins the maids used.

“What on earth are you doing?”

How many times had I fielded that question already? Her nattering was grating on my nerves, so I decided to just tell her.

“Washing my clothes. The ones you ruined.”

“Wh-what?”

“I said, I'm washing my clothes — the ones you had the maids soil.”

By the time the basin had filled with enough water, I dumped every garment in at once, rolled my trousers up above the knee, and began stomping down on them, again and again.

Flora's face flooded with shock.

Whether she was flustered at being hit square in her sore spot, whether she simply couldn't understand why I was doing laundry, or whether her bewilderment ran deeper still — a noble doing laundry in icy water, in the middle of winter — I couldn't say.

But it was a look worth watching.

After the sweat-water pressed out under my feet, I crouched down entirely and began hand-scrubbing them in water of a temperature I knew all too well — and from that moment, Flora seemed to lose her voice altogether.

The silence didn't last, though.

The one who shattered it in Flora's place was —

“You damned idiot! What the hell do you think you're doing right now?!”

— a pink-haired lunatic, charging toward me in a fury, spitting curses as she ran.