The vines had sprung up around her calves with no warning at all, and Ella pitched forward onto her face.
"Ngh!"
She grunted. Her forearm was crushed underneath her, and another wave of pain and itch went through it that she had no words for.
"This is not a place you come to and leave whenever you feel like it."
Elos looked down at the girl on the floor.
"..."
Ella pushed herself up with difficulty and turned her head to look at her.
"Your father sold you to me. Therefore, you are my property."
Arms folded, Elos delivered the declaration.
At the mention of her discount dad, Ella's fingers tightened.
"No. It isn't like that."
She contradicted her on instinct.
In terms of the outcome it wasn't far off selling her, but Ella thought it was different.
Her father hadn't meant it that way. He had only wanted her to come and pick up a consolation prize for showing up.
Because of her personality... or at least the personality she showed the world, she had few friends and was always taken for an idiot.
Which was why the parents of this life and her little childhood sweetheart mattered so enormously to her.
"Not like that? Heh... Then what is it like?"
Elos looked at the idiot in front of her and found her, suddenly, a little pitiable.
This one probably had no idea at all what her fate was.
House Beaumont had a secret that everyone in noble circles knew and no one could say out loud.
Every generation's heir came with an enormous gift for magic and a lifespan of thirty years. But a Beaumont could absorb a partner's lifespan into their own. So no one who loved their child would ever send that child here.
Elos didn't know why Ella's father hadn't told her the secret. It hardly mattered. Elos had no intention of telling her now either.
"Do you know how much he gets, now that you've been chosen? A hundred thousand gold coins! And a hundred hectares of land. That really is quite a lot."
"..."
Ella was silent. She got up with difficulty.
The first thing she did on standing was check the jade pendant at her waist. Good. It wasn't broken.
Elos noticed the small motion. What was that thing? Was it valuable?
"Whatever the case, it isn't the way you think."
Ella hadn't known she was worth that much money. Even so, she didn't believe her father had really sold her.
As long as she could get a message out, she thought, her father would surely go and clear the misunderstanding up with the Duke, and let her come home.
"Heh."
Elos knew what Ella was thinking. She only sneered.
***
In the pitch black of night, Ella stood alone on the castle wall. After Elos had stopped her, she knew there was no running.
As punishment for striking her, Ella had been made to stand on the wall.
From a blazing hot afternoon all the way through to midnight, which was now.
"..."
She pressed her lips together. They were dry and peeling from want of water, and the wounds on her forearms still hurt.
Worse, Ella was hungry again.
"So hungry... this is awful..."
Her lashes trembled. She looked around. Naturally there was nothing to eat on a castle wall.
The maid on watch stood expressionless in front of the tower. Warm lamplight spilled out past her and carved a small bright patch out of the stone.
Ella shifted. She had stood too long, and her legs ached badly enough that every step seemed to creak.
She edged into the little patch of light.
Just as she was about to crouch, the maid hauled her back up.
"Milady says you don't rest."
"We're both pitiful creatures here. Can't you bend a little?"
Ella pressed her lips together. She really could not understand why this damned maid did everything that bastard said.
"I'm sorry."
The maid closed her eyes.
Given the choice, of course she wouldn't want this posting. But milady paid very well.
"Haah."
Sighing, Ella leaned forward slightly, using the battlement to take a little weight off her legs.
Newly turned into a girl, and put through this with no time at all to get used to the body. It was terrible.
Ella wanted to leave this place.
"Sss..."
By the lamplight, she gently lifted the sleeve that had stuck to the wound.
As the fabric came away, she could faintly hear a small scraping sound.
Cold sweat slid down her forehead, and Ella bared her teeth.
With the sleeve rolled up she saw the wound properly, and it was hard to look at. One long whip mark, the dark red of dried blood and flesh, bearing the marks left behind by the cloth peeling off it. The other arm was the same.
That damned villainess young lady was rotten to the core.
"Dad, Mom... how are you doing now?"
Looking out at the deep night sky in the distance, Ella murmured to herself. The ones on her mind were not this life's parents, but the family of the last one.
She had been inexplicably gone for fifteen years now. She vaguely remembered being fifteen before she transmigrated, too. A truck driver running the rules of the road had carried her off on the way home from school.
The protagonist... she had to become the protagonist. After all, the protagonist of a game or a novel always makes it home in the end. Right?
***
After standing on the wall a while longer, Ella was too hungry to stay on her feet. She turned around, and ignoring the maid's attempt to stop her, simply slid down the stone.
Slumped against the wall, head hanging, Ella genuinely felt hard done by now.
The maid's eyelid twitched.
Ella made a very pretty girl, and she really did look pitiful. Cuter, at least, than the brat who had been hollering about being the protagonist.
"Milady says that's enough."
While she was thinking it over, another maid came up.
"I'll take you down."
At that, the maid who had been guarding Ella helped her up and supported her, and they left the wall and went back to the keep.
"Milady is inside."
Ella was brought back to the door of Elos's bedroom.
"...I understand."
She felt so wretched that Ella had no choice but to go on caving.
The maids left, and Ella knocked.
Three dull knocks sounded, and the door opened.
"Enjoy yourself?"
Elos stood in the doorway. She had just bathed and was in a robe, and the smell of mint on her was stronger.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have hit you."
Ella apologized.
A protagonist shouldn't be like this. A protagonist should resist to the end. But Ella had no choice.
She was very hungry, and the wounds hurt very much.
Head down, Ella held her hands together in front of her.
"Hmph. Would it have killed you to be this sensible earlier?"
Elos gave a cold snort. Looking at the deflated Ella, she felt pleased, and the image surfaced in her mind again: nine years ago, Ella still a boy, planting herself without a moment's hesitation in front of some commoner girl.
"Um, Elos. Do you have medicine, and food?"
For now she could not afford to worry about a protagonist's dignity. The wounds on her arms were that bad, Ella thought. If they went untreated any longer and turned septic, she really would be finished!
For now she couldn't afford to argue with Elos. Later, she thought, she only had to find a chance to write her father a letter, and everything would come right.
Revenge could wait.
"Take the medicine. There's no food."
Narrowing her eyes, Elos hurled the medicine box she had prepared in advance at Ella.
"Uf."
The small wooden box struck her in the chest with a dull ache, and Ella caught it.
She was thoroughly unhappy about being starved, but she no longer had the energy to fight her over it.
"I'm going back to rest."
Holding the box, Ella returned to her own room.