‘It’s too late.’
I should have gone to see Zachary in between, but I hadn’t. My plan had been to at least stop him from succumbing to the brainwashing sorcery, but contrary to that determination, I had done nothing… It was ruined.
The Marquis had even shown Zachary to Mother, and when she described him as being well-tamed, that meant Zachary was already…
“Mother, I don’t want this.”
I clenched my fist tight.
I should have seen his face, even once more.
In the end, it felt as if I had abandoned Zachary to flow along the path of the original story. My heart sank, and at the same time I realized—I didn’t want to have him serve beneath me as a servant. He must have already been shaped into a pretty little “pre-disaster,” ready to explode at any time from the Marquis’s horrific torture and sorcery. How could I possibly take someone like that under me?
Maybe that’s why I was hacked to death with a kitchen knife.
Come to think of it, there had been no real reason for such a cruel death to be inflicted on a character who hadn’t even been properly named in the original. If all this was truly following the original storyline?
If the “me” in the novel had kept Zachary under his heel, treating him harshly, tormenting him, and thus Zachary had nursed a grudge and one day butchered me out of vengeance?
“……I don’t want it.”
I was afraid.
Of course, if I wanted to help him escape, it might actually be easier to keep him close under me. But that would only work if he hadn’t already fallen to the sorcery. With Mother saying things like that, if he had already lost his sense of self, how could I possibly free him?
Besides, I felt guilty even looking at his face.
I had loudly declared I would save that boy who had been tormented by unspeakable torture, yet failed to keep that promise.
Just imagining such a person made to serve at my feet made my hands tremble.
“Are you uneasy about it? This is House Serpentine. His looks can be adjusted a few times and that’s all it takes, and if we disable his tongue, no one will know who he really is.”
“But you weren’t pleased about him either, Mother. Why are you suddenly saying this now?”
Her eyes sank low as she looked at me.
I hadn’t intended to ask in such a biting tone, but it was too strange—I couldn’t bear not to question it.
When she had first learned that the imperial prince was in the workshop, she had absolutely hated it.
So why now, as if flipping her palm, was she suddenly so willing to make him my servant? Of course it raised questions.
“That’s why you must keep him closer.”
At that moment, Mother stroked my cheek.
“This way, you will have a means to negotiate with the Empire.”
I blinked at her, not understanding what she meant—until I saw her crescent-moon smile, and then I understood.
Ah.
She didn’t trust anyone in this place.
Not even her husband, the Marquis.
After all, unless the king himself gave the order, we could not kill the prince. If we recklessly killed him, the entire family would bear the weakness. The king had entrusted Zachary here but had not ordered his death.
So Mother must have judged that as long as Zachary lived, someday his existence would be revealed to the world. She was envisioning a scenario where, when the Holy Empire came to attack, I could hold Zachary forward as a bargaining chip for survival.
“I saw him before—he is someone who would die if you told him to die. He’s no different from the other servants. No—he’s even more perfect.”
Because he had already fallen under sorcery.
I, having read the original story, knew that Zachary would one day awaken and naturally break free of the curse. But Mother thought of him as a card in a negotiation—an existence that had lost its self and would only obey.
“Don’t worry. Haven’t I always told you? Dangerous things must always be kept beneath your feet. At most you might lose an arm or a leg, but your life will remain. And is that all? Above all, I will protect you so that no one can so much as lay a finger on you. So be at ease.”
She pressed her cool cheek softly against mine, which was hot with fever. The chill was pleasant, but I worried I might pass my illness to her and pushed her away slightly. She retaliated by tickling me.
I was terribly weak to tickling, so unlike my rotting insides, my eyes curved helplessly.
The corners of my lips pulled upward so far it tugged at my jaw. As I broke into a wide smile, Mother’s eyes went wide in surprise, and then—unable to endure how lovely she found me—she hugged me tight and let out a small squeal.
“Oscar. I wish for nothing more than for you to live in good health.”
From the time I was little, she had been obsessed—excessively so—with my survival.
Other than being frail and insecure in my position within the royal family, there wasn’t much reason.
I don’t know.
Anyway, how could I make the “pre-disaster” into my servant?
If I had woken to this reality earlier, I might have welcomed it. But too much time had passed now—I couldn’t be sure Zachary hadn’t already succumbed to the brainwashing sorcery.
To live beside someone destined to one day awaken and flood the world in blood—what good could possibly come of that?
Of course, what Mother said was not wrong.
Her advice to use the imperial prince was just like her, and perfectly logical.
To have the “pre-disaster” as my servant…
If only I hadn’t known his future.
It’s like those dramas or movies where an extra mistreats a main character and then dies a sudden, gruesome death.
I feared I’d become the first extra to cross the River of Death. So I resolved that if Zachary did come to me, I would avoid using him too harshly.
But… would I really be able to?
Even now, without someone constantly at my side, I was liable to collapse and burn with fever at any time. My body was such garbage that it was a miracle I was still alive at all.
Naturally, those around me had no choice but to suffer hardship. But imagining that all those backbreaking chores would now fall onto Zachary’s shoulders made my mind go blank.
Still, I know the future. Better that I keep Zachary under me, where I can at least try to handle things, rather than leave him to be used carelessly elsewhere.
Already, heat was rising in my body. Breathing raggedly, I drank some water, dizzy-headed, and thought of Zachary again and again. For him, attending me might be exhausting and irritating, but I fully intended to keep the promise I had once made to him.
From the circumstances, he probably no longer even knew who he was, thanks to the sorcery… but if the chance came, I would free him, and later use that as leverage to demand survival for both Mother and me.
The Marquis… I don’t know anymore.
It would be best if he survived with us too, but for Mother, I was the best—just as she was the best for me. How could I possibly abandon the one person who poured all her body and heart into loving me?
Even now, she fretted over me, on edge that I might collapse again at any moment, fumbling to fetch a physician.
After that, time passed quickly.
Perhaps it only felt faster because I remained confined to bed.
Once my health recovered somewhat and I was back to something like normalcy—exactly thirty-five days after the discussion about the Marquis and the servant issue—
“……”
I nearly fainted when I saw a boy about my size, his entire body wrapped in bandages.
Like the other servants, his face was covered with a talisman on which eyes had been drawn. But unlike the rest, his whole body was tightly wound in deep navy bandages.
The bandages, covered all over with strange golden sigils, wound around his arms and legs and even his neck. Other than a faint glimpse of jawline, not a single bit of him was exposed.
Seeing that figure, like a cursed doll, instinctive fear surged through me and I staggered back—until the Marquis lightly pushed him forward toward me and spoke.
“Oscar, this is the boy who will serve as your attendant from today.”
My attendant?
He meant I was to take as my servant this being who looked as if he had stepped straight out of a nightmare.
Of course, after the commotion a month ago when I had collapsed and Mother had caused such an uproar, I had known I would be assigned an attendant.
But I had not expected something like this—a servant that looked like a mummy doll.
It might not be him.
It couldn’t be. It mustn’t be.
If that mummy bound up in curse-inscribed bandages really was Zachary… Just imagining the horrors he must have endured was enough to make me sick.
If this truly was the “pre-disaster” standing before me…
Then our family might as well already be lying in its coffin.
Carefully, I approached him.
I reached for the bandages covering his head and gently began to unwind them. Holding onto a thread of hope that perhaps it wouldn’t be him, I stared at the hair that would soon be revealed.
But the bandages came loose, and what emerged was—
“If it bothers you, you may remove the sealing cloth around his head. Of course, he must wear it when going out to the garden.”
…Hair black as jet, like polished ebony.
Zachary!
He had truly come.
The “pre-disaster” had really come to me as my servant.