Ella fell ill.
Perhaps it was too long without food and too many hours awake, or perhaps it was soaking in a cold pool first thing in the morning. Either way, Ella was sick.
"Achoo!"
Curled up in a bed that still felt like a stranger's, Ella pulled the blanket over her head.
The scrapes on her palms had long since been treated and were neatly wrapped in gauze. Still nobody had come to help her; she had done it herself.
It was bad. This castle, and this castle's mistress, were both utterly awful.
Counting from the day at the paddock, she had been ill three days. Elos, that bastard, had not only withheld medicine but had cut her rations too, and found every kind of way to make things difficult on top of it.
There was no telling when her father's reply would come, and Ella was near the end of what she could stand.
She didn't know why Elos was doing this to her. Perhaps she had hit Elos once, but that was nine years ago.
"Ella, up. No slacking."
While Ella was thinking, the door was kicked open.
"What time even is it! The sun isn't up!"
Throwing the blanket back, Ella turned her head and complained.
Elos didn't answer, only walked over to the bed with narrowed, smiling eyes and looked down at the pale girl.
"Today's provisions have been delivered to the castle gate. Go and carry them to the storehouse."
"This is so annoying, why can't a guard just do it!"
Ella clamped the pillow over her head.
"Then what happens to your lunch?"
Elos had found that light, weightless threats worked very well on Ella.
Sure enough, at the words Ella lowered the pillow, and her face went a shade paler.
"You... hoo..."
She sniffed, and got out of bed unwillingly.
Head heavy, feet light, she couldn't quite keep her balance.
On the way to the door she tilted, and fell to one side—the side Elos was standing on.
Elos stepped clear.
"Oh dear. Throwing yourself into my arms? A shame I'm not moved by that sort of thing."
Elos still wore that narrow-eyed smile, and on her face was the deliberately assumed allure from their first meeting.
"Nobody was throwing themselves into your arms!"
Her fist hardened, but Ella could do absolutely nothing about this one.
"Cough, cough... cough..."
Coughing, Ella left.
"...Why won't she cry?"
Watching the girl's unsteady back recede, the smile went off Elos's face.
Why? Even someone like her cried. Why didn't she?
***
Ella left the keep alone.
Dragged all over the place by Elos these past days, she had learned the castle's layout well.
The castle had two storehouses, one in the inner bailey and one in the outer. The inner one held provisions; the outer held the soldiers' equipment.
Ordinarily, laborers brought supplies to the inner bailey's gate each day. The storehouse was perhaps five hundred meters from the gate? In any case, the castle was very large.
"Haaawn."
Ella wobbled her way to the gate. The cart was loaded with potatoes and some fruit and vegetables.
Ella carried the crates to the storehouse one at a time.
Plenty of maids and guards noticed her predicament in the course of it, but perhaps Elos had given orders in advance, because nobody helped.
"Hoo... hoo... hah..."
Breathing hard, setting a heavy crate down inside the storehouse, Ella wiped the sweat off her forehead.
She had barely rested before she had to go and fetch the next one.
Ella felt she was genuinely worse off here than a slave of the Empire. A slave at least didn't get one meal a day.
***
By the time Ella had used up everything she had getting the whole cartload into the storehouse, her body was ready to collapse.
"Damn it. I'm so tired..."
Sitting on a crate, soaked through with sweat, Ella felt she was about to come apart.
Her head hurt worse and worse, and without her noticing, morning had turned to noon.
"Well. Finished?"
The faintly mocking words sounded at her ear, and only then did Ella notice that Elos had at some point sat down inside the storehouse, a piece of bread in her hand.
"...Mm. Where's my lunch? And the medicine, can I have it now? Consider it me begging."
There was no strength in Ella's voice.
Elos considered. She had been begged. But she still wanted, more than that, to see her cry.
She walked over, and under the girl's gaze she opened one of the crates and picked out an apple at random.
"Mm. These aren't very fresh anymore. Carry these crates back out, and while you're at it, go and tell that farmer not to come tomorrow. We're changing suppliers."
Elos was all smiles.
"You—!"
Ella ground her teeth and looked out at the sky beyond the storehouse.
The summer sun was blazing, and this was the hottest hour of the day. Just putting a hand out, she felt she would be scorched.
"Please. Give me something to eat. And the medicine... I really can't hold on much longer."
Ella caved again.
Begging with her head down was humiliating, but she genuinely had no other option.
In this castle everyone did what Elos said. No one would help her, and with the fragile body she had been given as a girl, she couldn't resist at all.
Ella touched the jade pendant at her waist.
Protagonist, protagonist. Why? A cheat code, an old man in a ring, anything at all—why hadn't she awakened yet? Wasn't she the protagonist?
And if she wasn't, why had she found a Chinese-style jade pendant in a western fantasy world?
"Hm?"
Elos had no idea what Ella was thinking. She only studied her face closely.
Looked at the pressed-shut lips, at the lowered brows and eyes, at that long pink hair soaked through with sweat.
"Never mind. Your letter arrived, though. Would you like to trade today's lunch for it?"
Elos drew an envelope out from inside her clothes.
"You—! Do you genuinely have to starve me like this? I really... Haah..."
Ella pressed a hand to her stomach and bent over.
She hated the feeling of hunger so much. She hated the person in front of her so much.
"Just say whether you'll trade or not."
Tormenting the one in front of her really was interesting, especially remembering the self who had once been made to cry by her.
Elos's eyes curved.
"Give me the letter!"
Ella shot her a hateful glare and snatched the letter out of her hand.
She'd be leaving any moment now, she thought. Her discount dad would definitely get her out of here.
Ella tore the envelope open and pulled the letter out, unable to wait.
Off to one side Elos toyed idly with her fingers. She didn't peek. But she could guess the result.
"...?"
Ella looked at the letter, and her hands shook.
She knew every word on it, but put together they seemed foreign.
Ella's mouth went suddenly dry, and something felt as though it had been taken out of her chest.
"The contract can't be broken, so... I should get used to it slowly?! How— how is that possible?"
Ella's fingers let go of the letter.
She thought again of that rigid discount dad of this life. Because he had promised his people he would not raise their taxes, he never had. Because he had said he would protect them, he had raised a militia himself to clear out bandits and hold off magic beasts. And because he had promised her mother he would cure her illness, he had sent his own child here.
"Well? I told you, didn't I. Your father won't let you leave. He's a selfish little man. He knew perfectly well what would happen to you. Everyone knows, and everyone is afraid of me. He sold you."
Elos watched the swaying girl in front of her at her leisure.
"No. It isn't like that. It's different."
Ella still couldn't quite believe it. Her chest heaved violently, her heartbeat quickened, and the sound of it seemed to grow louder and louder until it was a drum being struck. Ella clenched her fist, her vision went black, and she pitched forward.
"Hey! Wh— what! You haven't gone and died of rage, have you? Don't die! And don't fall on top of me!"
Before consciousness went, Ella heard Elos shriek.
That one had always hated her. She was probably thoroughly disgusted.