Chapter 105: Chapter 99

There was no one in the old woman’s ramshackle house except for the assuaged furniture and some splotches of blood. The house was cold, the logs wholly burnt, and the soot had extended beyond the fireplace's hearth. The stools had been crushed, some broken, and there were visible signs of the sword in the cushion. There had been a fight here, and most of the blood from the floor had been wiped out. Some remained in the nooks and corners, the assassins doing a poor job at wiping their traces.

Well, sure. Not all assassins were butlers who excelled in cleaning. 

My lady was uneasy as she rummaged for signs of Joane, and I walked to her bedroom on the right side of the corridor. It was as empty as the rest of the house, but the cupboard was open, and I remembered the talk about [Abyss]. I opened it and found it drenched in blood, not of Jaone, but of Yule, as he lay cooped up at one corner, clutching an amulet in his mouth. There was a sharp cut across its throat, and I had no idea how it had managed to walk this far without getting caught. Or maybe the man had just slashed its neck in the cupboard. 

Yule shook slightly, and I summoned my [Devil eye] to gauge its life force. Sure enough, the hound was a demon for a reason. 

I cast heal on the large gash that had almost begun rotting, and Yule regained his lost color considerably in seconds. It was as good as new by the time the glow disappeared from around it, and it sat up, its vigilantly gaze directed at me. I sensed some fondness and relief too. Not that I was versed in the language of hounds, but the eyes were distinctly similar to mortals, thanks to their intelligence.

“Grr,” it called out to me and jumped into my bosom, still clutching the amulet.

“Thought you had died in there, Yule,” I said, ruffling its large head.

“Gwar Gwwaarr,” its raspy voice sounded more riled up.

“You want to bite off the neck of the assassin,” I asked. A month of living with the hound had made me familiar with most of its gestures. It was as easy as eating bread to read its mind. 

I told you I was a fast learner.

“Grr,” it almost licked my hand, and I smacked it hard. 

My lady entered the room and showed me the commendation letter. “The mage congregation might have killed her, Rudolf,” she said plainly, and I nodded at her indifference. Indeed, that was how she was supposed to feel. 

“Yule wants to torture the assassin,” I pointed at the dog in my hands, whose fur stuck close to its body owing to the slick and rotting blood.

“Why the hell is it in your bosom?!” she snapped at the hound, who quickly jumped down and sat on his butt.

“Grr,” it respectfully bowed its head in apology, and I couldn’t help laughing at the demon’s gesture. 

“I expected you to shed a few tears, my lady,” I rubbed her hair, “but this is good too.”

“Tears?” she laughed. “What’s that, Rudolf? All mortals die just like moths, don’t they?”

“Yes,” I smiled. “Mortals are no different from moths, my lady.”

“But I wish she had written down the recipe for bead,” I continued and glanced at her commendation letter. 

She fished out another paper from underneath the paper with a wide smile. “Joane never fails you,” she said. “A few cookie recipes have also been jotted down. I might have to study baking on my own, but this would do. Once we have funds, we can establish a bakehouse in the western courtyard and get a mana-powered oven.”

I nodded with a grin, and even Yule bobbed its head in approval, the drool already reaching the floor.

“She could have lived a better life,” my lady said, glancing at the vacant bedroom, with just a bed and a cupboard to spare. “But she chose her duty until the end.”

“Mortals try to make decisions they won’t regret, my lady,” I said, taking a step back. “And most of the time, they do regret. Because the other options always seem enticing since they have never tried them in the first place. Rarely there are people with no regrets. And she didn’t regret her choice. She might have until she saw you hale and hearty. A worthy moth among moths.”

“That’s awfully unconvincing,” she giggled. “But I get you. I will try to live a life true to my desires. One with no regrets at the end of the road. That’s why I’ll learn [Undead] or die trying. Maybe you can start from day one again and let me try over and over again.”

That was always a possibility, but would I meet the same Letitia every time? 

Then again, that destroyed my very reason for transmigrating. After all, repeatedly living the same life was the epitome of boredom, which I was trying to avoid. 

We didn’t ponder the thought and strode back to the manor after a good search around the decrepit house. 

My lady had decided to summon Arabell and Igan to the guest room once we had arrived at the door. She had personally tagged along with me as I searched for the two girls, her inquisitive gazes making the maids busy in their tasks uncomfortable. No one stepped into the western courtyard to clean it, and we enjoyed a peaceful walk to Igan’s room. A few knocks weren’t fruitful, so we strolled back to the main entrance after dropping Yule in my room.

“…brought you back from the ditches. How dare you command us?” a maid snickered as she glared at Igan. The maid’s crony did the same thing, almost pushing Igan to the ground. 

As expected, Igan clutched the arm, spun around, hoisted the maid up, and all we heard were cries as the maid fell to the ground. She must have broken her arm, and Igan didn’t look apologetic. I saw amusement in my lady’s gaze.

“Be grateful that you don’t get beheaded for insubordination. If you say I am from the ditches, then I am. But don’t insult lady Letiita without getting to know her first.”

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My lady walked to the corridor and interrupted the farce. Everyone bowed, and Igan looked guilty, almost too much for my taste. On the contrary, she should have been glad for breaking the bone of the ignorant maid. 

“You are out,” my lady said with a smile. “No, you both will leave the mansion by nightfall. If I see you loitering around on the premises, then don’t blame me for being merciless. We are running short on funds, and I don’t need any profligate bitches in the manor. And here I thought I was kind by not throwing half of the working staff out of the gates,” she rolled her eyes and motioned for Igan to follow her.

“I’m sorry, lady Letitia,” Igan said, descending the stairs behind us. “We detest disobedience in the camps, so I thought I would whip a couple of them to shape and set an example to the rest.”

“Should have broken both her arms,” my lady shrugged. “Call Arabell to the guest room. We need to check our accounts. Tell her to bring whatever gen she has on the mansion accounts.”

Igan bowed respectfully and hurried up the stairs. 

“Should we sell all the antiques of the manor, Rudolf?” my lady asked, glancing at the decorated main entrance with much disgust. “Too much money wasted on adornments alone.”

“Keep them for emergency needs, my lady,” I said. “Just like your jewelry. For now, we will earn a few thousand shins from the port, and let us hope it’ll be enough to meet the needs. I can take up quests from the guild if we are running low on funds, and we can re-establish the shops of the manor from my meager earnings. A year might be hard, but I don’t think we’ll be dirt poor by the end either.”

“I will sell lady Marlica’s jewelry,” she curved her lips. “Maybe she might become a ghost and wander in the realm for eternity.”

I laughed and turned leftward to enter the main hall. Or the guest room, as they rightfully called it. “There are no ghosts, my lady. All you become is dirt after death. There’s no life after death nor reincarnation. Those are just hopeless dreams of the mortals.”

“And here I thought I would haunt you after death,” she sighed and clicked our bracelets. “Should I call you ‘honey’? Or ‘bread’?” 

The pace at which she switched topics was really commendable.

“Please stick to Rudolf, my lady,” I rolled my eyes, and she giggled.

“I will start working once I graduate from the Academy,” she said. “Maybe learn to bake bread or confectionaries and sell them in the capital. I don’t want to serve the royal family, and I couldn’t find anything better that I like and will fetch us some money.”

“You have been job hunting behind my back?” I asked, taking a seat on the couch. She almost sat on my lap, but I lifted her by her waist and placed her beside me. The room was cold, so was the hearth, and the burnt ash hadn’t been cleaned for a while. My lady removed her cloak and wrapped it around me. 

“You need it more,” her smile disappeared just as fast, and she continued, “Your appetite is too large for me to idle away the rest of my life. I have been thinking about this for a while now and hesitated to touch the utensil. Those are commoner’s tools, after all, and no nobles take mirth in cooking or baking for themselves. However, I changed my mind after seeing Prince Lykan. He was ready to dirty himself with the lowest classes for the sake of his prince and even bear the guilt of massacring an entire city. You could say he steeled my resolve.”

“But he hates commoner,” I protested. “He is a hypocrite.”

She chuckled and entangled our fingers. “Yes, he is. And so are you, Rudolf. You say all the harsh words and treat me with utmost sincerity.”

“That’s all for my goals, Letitia,” I said smugly. “You don’t understand the working of the undead mind.”

She scowled. “Mongrel is just a mongrel. Undead or not.”

Arabell came to the room shortly, carrying some stacks of documents in her hand, and Igan followed her soon. Discussions followed, some rebuke, some uneasiness, and too little excitement. Igan supplied her two cents that my lady found useful, and Arabell was young but insightful. In the end, apart from a few abandoned shops, we found nothing useful. We didn’t even know where the Marquis and his wife had hidden their stash.

“So, these are the shops that have been abandoned for a while?” my lady asked, watching the ownership papers with glittering eyes. “My mother’s confectionery shops.”

“Yes, sis–Letitia,” Arabell said, her gaze guilty. “My mother… she gave them to me as dowry. I found them useless in the past, but I didn’t want to hand them over to you. It made feel me feel superior. I don’t understand why.”

“So,” she looked at me and fished out a paper from her pochette. “These are my mother’s recipes?!”

I didn’t know if they were, but Chantelle’s baking was worse than my singing. That spoke in magnitudes, given my lady hated my serenades. 

“She baked…” I paused for a while, “all right, my lady. She used mana-powered ovens instead of stony ones, and her baking skills were subpar. But yes, she wrote recipes and sold them. Somehow, that made her feel like she was baking the confectioneries. Maybe your inkling of deserts comes from her. Then again, I never liked her bread, and it ranked third to last on my bread rank list. Stale and hard, with no fluffiness–”

“Enough,” my lady glared at me and gritted her teeth. “I’ll make you succumb to my bread!”

Arbell chuckled. “Then we can establish them again, Letitia. But what about bakers? Beating Bayle’s confectioneries is close to impossible.”

“I will learn baking once I graduate from the Academy,” she puffed out her chest. “Can it be harder than learning spells?” 

She would eat her own words in the future, I reasoned. 

 

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