Jedrier was beaten for no reason at the slightest excuse and locked in the attic to starve. Even when he heard those words, he had been unable to say anything back and had only hung his head.
Remembering the emotions from back then made the injustice of it unbearable. If it were now, he would have hurled every curse he could think of right into their faces.
No, wait. That wasn't enough.
He would have swung his fist and knocked their jaws clean off.
If he ever had to face them again....
Jedrier clenched his fist.
He would hit them without the slightest mercy.
“Calm down.”
Think positively.... Only think positive thoughts.
Fortunately, this other world was a place without that kind of prejudice. After all, when they said they were sending him, a man, in as a concubine, everyone had merely nodded along instead of asking if they were insane.
If he had come here not as a concubine but as a worker or an official....
Wouldn't someone have reported him before even a full day had passed, saying, ‘That guy's suspicious. I'm telling you, he doesn't know anything,’ and then he would have disappeared without a trace?
And Jedrier himself also believed that gender posed no problem when it came to loving someone, so he hadn't thought, ‘I'm a man, how can I become a concubine!’
Of course, meeting the Emperor was still terrifying.
Because he might die....
“I need to think positively....”
He had resolved to do exactly that just a moment ago, yet here he was worrying again.
Jedrier slowly breathed out and traced back through his thoughts.
Jedrier's family had never cared for him.
No, they had wanted him dead.
That was probably why they had sent him to the imperial palace without even attaching a single ordinary servant to him.
What they had been too lazy to bother doing had turned out to be a stroke of good fortune for him.
“That means....”
There was a high chance they wouldn't notice immediately even if he ran away.
If they had intended to keep watch on him so he couldn't escape, they would have assigned a servant from the beginning and had every single thing he did reported back to them.
Thinking positively once again, Jedrier pulled up the old piece of cloth that had slipped down.
Then he muttered a curse under his breath.
“You said you thought this business would succeed, so I hope it crashes so hard you lose absolutely everything.”
The second son of House Olson suffered from a chronic obsession with business ventures.
He had dipped his hands into all kinds of businesses using the tax revenue collected from the estate, and every single one had failed.
His failures were so spectacular that rumors about them circulated among the nobility.
People even said that if you wanted to know which business was destined to fail, you only had to check what Count Olson's second son was currently doing.
After failing that badly, anyone else might have given up.
But he hadn't.
“I hope you fail every exam you ever take from now on and have nothing but humiliation waiting for you.”
House Olson's eldest son had been taking the examination for a government position for six years.
Since he was a noble, all he had to do was earn the minimum passing score, yet he couldn't even manage that and had been wasting years of his life.
At this point, anyone else might have given up.
But he hadn't.
Worse, he didn't even make an effort.
He simply seemed intoxicated by the fact that he was someone ‘taking the examination.’
Whenever he met people in passing, he would sigh and say, ‘I missed passing by such a tiny margin.’
Very few people actually believed him.
“I hope you end up out on the streets.”
And while he was at it, going hungry for a few days would be even better.
“I hope you go completely fucking broke.”
There was a saying that even when the wealthy fell into ruin, their family could still eat for three generations.
Three generations, my ass.
I hope you don't even last three years before it gets hard to put food on the table!
Jedrier clenched his fists again and swung them wildly through the air.
The tightness in his chest eased, if only a little.
What he was doing felt stupid, but if he didn't at least do this much, he felt like he might actually make himself sick from all the pent-up anger.
After pouring out curses for quite some time, Jedrier sighed and curled himself up.
He had piled so many clothes over himself, yet he was still cold.
Seen from a distance, he probably looked like a bird nesting.
If anyone obsessed with maintaining appearances saw him, they would probably click their tongue and call it unsightly.
“There's no one watching anyway, so who cares.”
In this place, trying to preserve one's dignity could get a person frozen to death.
Looking at the round moon visible through the half-torn curtain, Jedrier made up his mind.
He would run away tomorrow.
When it came to running away, the sooner, the better.
But as always, life never went the way one wanted, and even carefully made plans had a way of falling apart.
“…Huh?”
When Jedrier opened his eyes on the old bed, he came face-to-face with someone completely unexpected.
At first, he thought he was seeing things because he hadn't fully woken up.
But even after closing his eyes and opening them again, the figure in front of him didn't disappear.
Instead, he stepped even closer.
“Lord Jedrier, allow me to introduce myself. I am the attendant who will be serving you from now on.”
Jedrier stared at the door-sized attendant, then naturally shifted his gaze to the man's thick, muscular arms.
No matter how he looked at him, his build was far closer to that of a knight than an attendant.
Unable to make sense of the situation, Jedrier blinked several more times before finally shooting upright in bed.
The old clothes he had slept under slid from his shoulders.
What did he just say?
Attendant?
Did he say attendant?
“M-me?”
Why me?
Why now?
Jedrier was utterly bewildered, but apparently he was the only person here experiencing such emotions.
He stared blankly at the attendant in front of him.
There was no particular change of expression on the man's absurdly handsome, almost drawn-to-perfection face.
He was simply expressionless.
Dry.
Why did simply meeting his gaze make Jedrier so nervous?
He felt like a herbivore standing in front of a well-fed predator.
Like if he was lucky, he would live, and if he was unlucky, he would die...?
“Yes.”
Even his answer was drier.
Jedrier's mouth went completely dry.
So he really is an attendant assigned to me.
But Jedrier wanted to look away from reality.
It had already been an entire week since he entered the imperial palace.
If they were going to send him an attendant, shouldn't they have done it long ago?
Why did something this horrible have to happen the moment he decided he was going to run away?
Could it be....
Did they realize I was planning something else?
There were countless things he wanted to ask the attendant in front of him, but he couldn't easily bring himself to voice even one of them.
His eyes rolled around before he quietly asked,
“Why...?”
“Because I was ordered to.”
Damn it.
Jedrier bit his lips together.
Of course he had come because he was ordered to. Why had Jedrier even asked?
Did he think this man wanted to come to a place like this?
Of course he didn't.
And yet Jedrier had basically asked him, ‘Why did you come?’
Jedrier was horrified by his own thoughtlessness.
“I-I see.”
Judging people by their appearance wasn't right, but as long as he possessed eyes, there was no helping the fact that he could see.
And this attendant was dazzlingly handsome.
His body, covered in muscle, made him look like a knight, but his neat, handsome face made him look like some noble son who had grown up without ever knowing hardship.
No matter how Jedrier looked at him, he had the sort of appearance that should have earned affection from high-ranking people in the very center of the imperial palace.
If he asked someone for an entire country, they looked like they might immediately hug it into his arms while saying, ‘If you want it, I'll give you anything!’
And yet he had been driven all the way out here to this practically nonexistent fringe palace.
There was only one possible explanation.
‘He got on someone's bad side!’
He had definitely earned the hatred of someone higher up.
A kind of demotion, perhaps?
Maybe it wasn't a permanent dismissal but a punishment for appearances' sake.
They would leave him here for a while and then take him back again, right?
“What's your name?”
“…You may call me Henry.”
Hmm.
So he doesn't want to tell me anything else?
That was fine.
Jedrier didn't want to become any closer to the man either.
“Lord Jedrier, is there anything you require?”
I need money for my escape. Can you tell me when the knights guarding the palace gates change shifts?
Once I leave the imperial palace, where do you think would be the best place to run to?
What region do you think is best for living as a commoner?
I'm thinking of starting to do little odd jobs from now on. What should I begin with?
When do you think the Emperor would notice that I disappeared?
If he finds out I'm gone, would he launch a massive search, or would he just go, Oh, I see, and move on?
What do you think?
There were so many things Jedrier wanted to ask.
But not a single one of those questions was something he could actually say aloud.
Jedrier gave a small, beaming smile and shook his head.
At that, the face of Henry, who had remained expressionless the entire time, changed ever so slightly.
“Call me Jeri.”
“…Yes?”
“Not Jedrier. Jeri.”
Hearing the name Jedrier reminded him of the way that so-called family had called him, and it irritated him.
“I'll be counting on you, Henry.”
I should take good care of him.
Henry would probably be sent back to the center before even a week had passed, no matter how long it took.
I'll just postpone my escape until then.
That was what Jedrier decided.
‘He gets demoted here, and immediately the person he's assigned to serve runs away?’
That would truly be the worst possible situation.
Because Jedrier escaped, Henry might meet a cruel death.
If not that, perhaps he would be beaten until he was crippled.
A slightly better possibility was that he would be thrown out of the imperial palace, the sort of workplace people called a job for life.
An image naturally formed in Jedrier's mind of Henry wasting away alone on bare dirt with nothing to his name, slowly starving to death.
Wouldn't he whisper, ‘Lord Jeri....’ through lips turned pale and cracked because he hadn't eaten properly?
Jedrier absolutely could not allow something like that to happen.
He couldn't drive another innocent person to death just because he wanted to save himself.
‘And me?’