The Runaway Young Lady Wants a Home (1)
"Sir Rix. Instead of renting the mansion, I'll give you a small gift."
Thud.
Silvia set a fist-sized leather pouch on the table.
It looked familiar.
The gift is a pouch of gold coins?
Where did this young lady keep pulling money from? I supposed the power of a ducal house really was something.
"Don't tell me there are gold coins inside?"
"Yes."
"...Just how long do you plan to stay, giving me this much gold?"
"Until my family stops paying attention to me. I want to stay until I'm completely free of the assassination threat."
"How will you determine whether Lady Robbins is safe or not?"
"I have you, Sir Rix. Please figure it out with that mysterious ability of yours."
"Uh, hmm. Understood for now."
Until her family stops paying attention to Silvia...
Unfortunately, that moment would never come. Silvia was the most outstanding among the seven siblings of House Robbins. For some reason, in this romance fantasy world, women held equal status to men in inheritance. Perhaps that setting existed because the female protagonist needed to inherit something. Therefore, as long as Silvia lived, she could never escape being a target of her siblings' vigilance. What she had just said was essentially no different from saying she would live here until she died.
This is going to be a headache.
While I conversed with the runaway young lady, the maids were exchanging greetings on the other side.
"Hello. I'm Hanna, Young Master Rix's maid."
"I'm Mari, a maid of the Robbins ducal house. I look forward to working with you."
Silvia had brought one maid with her. Was she her personal maid? Given that she had brought her along even while running away, she must have been quite fond of her.
Three women in one house.
An unexpected harem situation had formed. Of course, there was no one I could lay a hand on. I had grown up with Hanna since childhood, so she felt more like a sibling. Silvia was a woman who might have my head if I touched her the wrong way. The same went for her maid Mari. As a maid belonging to a ducal house, and Silvia's personal maid at that, I couldn't mess with her carelessly.
Not a speck of romance to be found.
Still, I wasn't particularly disappointed.
"Lady Robbins. Allow me to show you around the mansion. Please follow me."
"Thank you."
I guided Silvia through the mansion.
"You may choose whichever empty room you like."
"I'll take this one."
I gave Silvia an empty room on the second floor of the mansion. I tried to give Mari a room on the first floor, but—
"That won't be necessary. I must protect my lady, so I shall sleep outside her bedroom."
She firmly refused, so in the end I couldn't give her a room. Impressive. I supposed that was the level of dedication it took to win a villainess's favor.
Isn't that what a proper maid should look like?
I glanced sideways at Hanna.
"If Young Master just says the word, I can sleep outside your bedroom—or even inside it with you. Young Master... shall we sleep together?"
"...Never mind. Just sleep on the first floor."
What a shameless maid. I couldn't win against her.
And so began my dry, uneventful cohabitation with the runaway young lady. We ate meals, killed time reading books or exercising, and went to sleep when night fell. Several days passed like that. I didn't spend any leisure time with Silvia or anything of the sort. Perhaps because of that, even in this small mansion, I rarely ran into her. The only time we regularly crossed paths was at mealtimes. We hadn't particularly arranged to eat together, but since the maids shared the kitchen, our mealtimes naturally overlapped.
"...Sir Rix. Is that tasty?"
"Would you like to try some?"
"Yes. I'll pay you for it."
"No need. Just have some."
I held out a chunk of hard rye bread. Silvia took it with a curious look in her eyes. She tried to tear the bread with her hands, but—
"Eh."
The rye bread won. It wasn't soft enough to tear by hand. In the end, Silvia picked up a knife and struggled to cut the bread. She cut a bite-sized piece, put it in her mouth, and chewed.
"...It's not good."
"You have a picky palate. To me, it's decent enough."
"It's just hard and coarse."
"It gets better if you soak it in the soup."
Silvia cut another piece of rye bread. This time, she dunked it thoroughly in the soup. She kept soaking it. ...It felt like she soaked it for nearly a full minute. She pulled out the thoroughly soggy piece of rye bread and put it in her mouth.
"It's still not great... but it's pretty okay."
"That's a commoner's meal."
"Sir Rix, you're a noble. Why do you eat something like this?"
"I was banished, so I'm not a noble anymore."
"...I'm sorry."
Silvia lowered her head. Oh no. I hadn't meant that as a dig at her. She seemed to have taken it as me blaming her.
"It's not your fault, Lady Robbins. If I'd been in your position, I would have handed down a far harsher punishment. If anything, I'm grateful."
"...Really?"
"Yes. It's far better than what happened to that castrated Seyffert bastard, isn't it?"
"Pffft! Cough! Cough!"
Silvia coughed as if something had gone down the wrong way. Was the fiancé joke too much? It had been my carefully crafted joke, though.
"Ahahaha! Hahahaha!"
Silvia laughed. She was laughing because it was funny, right? I was scared she'd suddenly flip and start screaming she was going to kill me.
"You're an amusing person, Sir Rix."
"I am pretty funny, yes."
Compared to the uptight characters of this romance fantasy world, at least. The free-spiritedness of a 21st-century modern Earthling was more than enough to amuse them.
"...Thank you."
"For what?"
"For everything. For letting me stay at the mansion, for not prying into what happened, for not being afraid of me—all of it."
A faint smile appeared on Silvia's face. Without meeting my eyes, she gazed slantwise out the window at some distant place.
"When I was at the main house, it always felt like I couldn't breathe. But here, I can breathe easily."
"That's because this is the countryside. The air is good, after all."
"Hehe. Maybe so."
Was this person really the villainess Silvia? According to public reputation, she was a merciless psychopath without blood or tears—but that description felt completely off now. The young lady before my eyes was no different from a gentle lamb.
Come to think of it, she keeps calling me "Sir" too. There's no need to attach that title now that I'm not a noble anymore.
And then there was Silvia's past that I'd seen during the last possession. Perhaps the nickname "villainess" didn't suit Silvia all that well.
"...Sir Rix. May I... keep living here?"
Silvia's gaze was still fixed on some distant place beyond the window. She wouldn't meet my eyes, as if embarrassed.
"Won't you regret it?"
"...Regret?"
"Aren't you giving up everything you've built up until now? Your reputation, your honor, even your magical prowess—all of it would essentially vanish. Even after letting go of everything like that, won't you regret it?"
"…."
Silvia lowered her head.
"Everything I built was to earn Father's recognition. Since Father abandoned me, everything I've accumulated means nothing."
"That's not true."
"What...?"
"You know it yourself, Lady Robbins. How hard you've worked."
"...You're right. I worked myself to death. To please Father, I cut back on sleep, didn't socialize with friends, and lived every moment desperately."
As if pouring out all the resentment she'd held in, Silvia's voice grew louder and louder.
"I wanted to inherit Father's ducal title, revive the family, and become a daughter he could be proud of. But what am I supposed to do? The Duchess hates me, and even Father abandoned me! In this situation, what on earth can I do?!"
She who had lived her entire life for her father had ultimately been abandoned by him and crumbled.
"Lady Robbins. May I ask you just one thing?"
"...Yes."
"If you live here, do you think you'll be happy?"
At last, Silvia looked at me. Her golden eyes had lost their light, like looking into murky, stagnant water.
"No! I don't think I'll be happy at all! This place is the worst. There's nothing to do, the food is terrible, and above all, the bathroom is the absolute worst! But, but... if not for a shabby place like this, I have nowhere else to go!"
A shabby place, she says. Finally, a villainess-worthy remark. As expected, a villainess young lady needed this kind of sharp edge.
"Lady Robbins, you said you'd return to the main house once the threat was gone."
This cowed, gentle-lamb look didn't suit Silvia.
"In that case, why not eliminate the threat yourself?"
"Eliminate the threat... W-what do you mean by that...?"
"Take it all back. Everything that was stolen from you."
Yongwang-shin approached. It seemed Yongwang-shin had taken quite a liking to this villainess young lady as well. Information related to Silvia flooded into my mind. Her birth father, Duke Bardo Robbins. Her stepmother, Duchess Leonore Robbins. The couple's filthy secrets were revealed one by one.
"Silvia Robbins."
"Y-yes?!"
"You believe your birth mother died of illness."
"Th-that's right. I was told that when I was young, she contracted a terrible disease and passed away without even receiving treatment."
That was a lie. A vile, filthy, disgusting lie.
"Who told you that?"
"From my father..."
"Your birth mother did not die of illness."
I stared straight at Silvia.
"Your father killed your birth mother."
The ugly truth was revealed.