Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Got a Lackey
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Irha Livingston.
In the hazy corridors of my memory, she had always been a silhouette of exhaustion—a girl whose very existence seemed like a long, drawn-out sigh of pity.
Back in those gilded days of my first life, the word 'starvation' was a foreign concept that didn't weigh so much as a gram on my conscience.
I remained blissfully ignorant.
I couldn't fathom why she walked the halls with eyes that looked so utterly dead, as if the light inside her had been extinguished by a draft I couldn't feel.
But then came the second life—the descent.
After scraping the jagged bottom of the barrel and feeling the hollow, gnawing ache of a stomach that had forgotten the weight of bread, the realization finally struck me.
The poor kid wasn't cursed by some esoteric gloom; she was simply, perpetually, starving.
She was a classmate adrift in a sea of privilege, possessed of no gold, no influential shadows to hide in, and the kind of wretched luck that seemed to stalk her every footstep.
She was a tragic soul destined to be ensnared in webs of trouble she should have walked past.
A catalyst whose ruin would eventually ripple out to shatter the lives of everyone in her orbit.
But in this timeline? Fate had taken a curious turn.
I had already marked her as a key piece in my upcoming maneuvers, so stumbling upon her wandering the streets was a stroke of fortune—a natural, welcome bonus to my day.
"You got plans today or something?" I asked, my voice cutting through her daze.
"No, nothing special... Why?" she replied.
Her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her worn sleeve as her eyes darted around with the skittishness of a hunted animal.
"If you're free, then you're having lunch with me."
The invitation hit her like a panic-inducing spell.
She flailed, her voice rising in a frantic, self-deprecating wave.
"Uh... I don't have a copper to my name! And why me? Why would someone like you want to be seen with a nobody like—"
"Listen, I reserved a table for two, but my companion had a sudden change of heart," I interrupted.
My tone brooked no argument as I nudged her toward the entrance.
"It’s a non-refundable waste of perfectly good food. Consider it a favor to me so I don't have to eat the whole course alone."
I wasn't exactly lying; the table was booked, the plans (and the fiancée) were dead, and the gold was already spent.
As we crossed the threshold, Irha let out a sharp, involuntary gasp that seemed to catch in her throat.
"Whoa... I've never even dared to look inside a place like this."
I couldn't blame her.
Hiols was the undisputed crown jewel of the district—a sanctuary of culinary opulence that rivaled the finest establishments in the Imperial Capital.
It was a place where flavor met high art, and where the prices were so steep they acted as a natural barrier.
Commoners viewed it as a myth, and even mid-tier nobles had to brace their wallets before committing to a full course.
To the Etgard merchant house, however, this was merely the backdrop of my youth—at least until the world collapsed and I learned the true value of a crust of bread.
An elegant server approached, her movements fluid and silent as a shadow.
In the heat of the festival season, Hiols became an exclusive fortress of reservations and jacked-up premiums.
I offered my name and slid my student ID across the polished wood.
"Mr. Ras Etgard, your private sanctuary on the third floor is ready. Please, follow me."
As we ascended the stairs, following the server's rhythmic, poised steps, Irha leaned in, her voice a frantic whisper.
"Um... Ras? Is this really okay? I've heard stories about the gold people drop here... and a private room? That’s for royalty, isn't it?"
"Relax. If I ate this alone, I'd end up with a sour stomach from the silence," I lied smoothly.
"Besides, 'private room' is just a fancy marketing term they use to justify the extra tax on my family's gold."
The room was a haven of hushed luxury.
We settled in, and the arrival of the food was a choreographed masterpiece.
The Hiols signature course was a triumph of temperature, texture, and visual splendor.
My "starving seagull" of a classmate stared at the array with wide, disbelieving eyes before the primal urge of hunger took over.
She began to dig in with a ravenous, heartbreaking intensity.
"Slow down," I cautioned softly.
"You'll choke if you try to swallow the whole plate at once."
"...Mmph... thank you... nom nom... gulp..."
There is a specific, heavy kind of saltiness to food when it’s seasoned by the tears of the desperate.
Watching her frantic pace, I saw more than just a girl eating; I saw a creature of pure survival.
Her eyes glistened with a moisture that wasn't just from the steam of the soup.
"Hng... it’s so good... I didn't know food could taste like this... Do rich people really live like this every single day?"
She managed between bites, her voice cracking with a mixture of ecstasy and profound grief.
The aura of melancholy radiating from her was so thick I could almost taste the brine of her poverty from across the table.
"Not every day," I replied, watching her flinch at the mention of the cost.
She froze, a smear of expensive sauce adorning her lip, looking for all the world like a mouse that had realized the cheese was in a trap.
"But... I really have no way to pay you back for this... not in a hundred years," she whispered.
"I told you, forget it. The slot was paid for. Just eat," I commanded.
Relieved, she dove back into the feast.
I, too, began to eat, savoring the intricate layers of flavor I had missed during my years in the dirt.
The mystery meats, the artisan breads, the crisp, vibrant vegetables—it was a symphony on the tongue.
I realized then that having intact, unburdened senses was perhaps the greatest luxury of all.
"Nom nom... so incredible...!"
"I'm glad you're enjoying it."
The irony was delicious.
Of all the people in the world, here I was, sharing a high-end feast with the very woman who had been the architect of my sensory deprivation in my previous life.
Irha Livingston—the one who had eventually stolen the world from me.
*
Irha Livingston was a first-year at Leone Academy, but she was a citizen of a different world.
She was an orphan, a girl without a lineage, carrying only the name of the 'Livingston' orphanage that had birthed her into society.
She was a witch-in-training who had clawed her way into the continent's elite institution through a radical scholarship program meant for the 'vulnerable'—a political experiment by the Second Princess.
But destiny has a way of anchoring the rising to the bottom.
Irha was bound to that crumbling orphanage by a chain of duty and love.
She funneled every scholarship credit, every copper from back-breaking odd jobs, and every scrap of her stipend back to the place that raised her.
She lived on air and hope, her beauty withering away under the twin pressures of academic rigor and systemic poverty.
And then there was Mirha—her little sister.
The child was wasting away from an undiagnosable, mystery illness that brought sudden chills and blackouts.
In a world where medical magic was a luxury for the high-born, a lack of gold was a death sentence.
Irha was a candle burning at both ends in a hurricane of debt and despair.
Today, she had been standing outside Hiols just to inhale the scent of a life she could never have, her usual job closed for the festival.
She had been praying for 'lightning money' or a miracle when she bumped into me.
‘Yahoo! This is a miracle!’ she screamed internally, her belly full for the first time in an eternity.
She watched me with a mix of awe and envy.
‘He looks so healthy because he’s never known a day of hunger. His skin actually glows.’
‘I guess people like him and Rizli are just built for the sunlight.’
She looked at her own calloused hands and felt a surge of sorrow that she usually suppressed, knowing that once this meal ended, the crushing weight of reality would return tenfold.
"Ras, really, thank you. I've never felt like this."
"If you ever, ever need help with anything... just say the word," she said, offering the only thing she had: her labor.
She expected a polite dismissal, a noble's scoff at a beggar's offer.
Instead, my expression shifted into something sharper—the face of a debt collector who had just found a valuable asset.
"Yeah? Perfect. I was just thinking this meal was a bit too expensive to be a charity case."
"Let's start helping each other out, then."
"...????"
"Don't look so terrified. Let's go to a café and discuss the fine print of your 'help.'"
"Dinner is over; it's time for the real work to begin."
I pulled her up, my smile reaching my eyes but carrying a weight that made her tremble.
To Irha, I had suddenly transformed from a benevolent benefactor into something far more predatory and powerful.
*
Monday arrived with the heavy, inevitable power of a returning tide.
I used to loathe the start of the week, but as a man with thirty-one years of soul-crushing experience trapped in a twenty-three-year-old’s body, I viewed these 'sprouts' around me with a peculiar, elder's amusement.
Ahem. Show some respect for your senior, you little runts.
The weekend had been productive. I had successfully excised the cancer of Rizli from my immediate future and avoided the 'adultery flower' that would have signaled my doom.
But the path to a comfortable ten years required more than just cutting ties; it required building a new foundation.
And the first brick of that foundation was sitting right in front of me.
"Hey, Irha."
"Y-yeah...?" she stammered, shuffling toward me from her front-row seat.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a stack of bills, and pressed them firmly into her trembling palm.
"Go to the bakery. I want the bread packed with chocolate cream."
"And get some milk—don't let yourself choke. Keep the change."
Step one: securing a lackey.
Step two: changing the world.