“I want you to massage my foot. My legs look swollen after sitting for a long time. That’s what you’ve always done for me.”
“Foot… Always…”
[Emma didn’t do that.]
Harry asked in a puzzled voice.
[Of course it is. ]
But the guy in front of me wasn’t Emma.
If I had the audacity to say, ‘That’s what you’ve always done for me, right?’ it meant that he had no choice but to believe so.
What do you say, Luke?
You’re in trouble, aren’t you?
As I expected, Luke looked a little embarrassed.
I’ve never seen Emma, an experienced maid, with that look on her face.
‘He’s so embarrased that his original facade came out, not Emma’s.’
I smiled inwardly at Luke, who had hardened and became absorbed in his own thoughts.
Has he ever touched someone’s foot, when seizing everyone’s weaknesses as the head of the information guild and reigning as the king of the underworld?
‘What are you going to do, Catherine’s fish?’1
I giggled in the sensation of being a real villain.7
‘Are you just going to give up?’
“Emma, come on.”
His face become more troubled when I jerked my foot and urged Luke.
Touching a feet in this world meant a great deal of loyalty to the other person.
In order to massage my foot, he have to kneel on his knees in front of me and bend his head deeply.
‘It’s an expression of great obedience.’
I thought Luke would give up here. A high nose Luke couldn’t have put up with this.
Then I get the result of hitting two birds with one stone, a success in making fun of this guy and kicking him out.6
But Luke responded unexpectedly.
“…I see.”
Luke sat down on his knees and grabbed my feet in front of him.4
“Huh?”
I didn’t know he’d do this.
My legs stiffened, now that I was embarrased.
“Well, you’re going to do this?”
“You ordered me to do it, that’s what I’ve always done.”2
Luke said, and pulled my shoes off.
When the shoes that had been wrapped around my feet came off, my feet has crouched spontaneously.
Although I was wearing silk stockings, I did not feel stable when I was wearing shoes.
‘What? I didn’t know you’d agree.’
Luke’s hand pressed against my foot as I rolled my eyes.
As he pressed his thumb against the concave side of my foot, a great pain came over me.
“Aah!”
At the same time, a fire flashed out from his eyes. I almost felt tears come out of my eyes at that moment.
‘Somehow, it was weird to say he will do it!’
He must have done it on purpose because he knew that I noticed.1
I thought I was making fun of Luke, but it was the opposite.
I looked at Luke in anger.
I tried to get angry as soon as I looked at him but my mouth hardened.
“Are you sick?”
Luke stared at me with an incredibly embarrassed face.1
He looked so embarrassed that it could not compare to when I asked him to rub my feet.
‘Are you really embarrassed? Or are you acting? ‘
I didn’t know what he’s thinking inside, so I sat down blanky and Luke pressed my feet again.
“I’m sorry, I guess I have put too much strength.”1
Unlike the first time he had pressed so much stregth, this time it was light enough that I can’t feel it’s touch.
I felt my feet tickle by a careful touch, like dealing with glass artifacts.
“…Are you doing this on purpose?”
I asked him seriously, and Luke’s face become even more troubled.
“Is this too weak again?”2
Luke stared at his hands and my foot for a long moment, then pressed on my foot with a little more force.
After two trials and error, it was now on a perfect strength.
“Is this enough for you?”
“Yes. The strength is perfect. ……”
‘Are you sure you’re going to continue?’
I asked that with my eyes, but Luke, who was so focused on my feet, had no interest in my eyes.4
‘I’m curious at this point.’
What the hell is he trying to find out about me?
Luke hates Yvesria.
So the information he gets obviously would be Yvesria’s predicament.
I’ve already figured out who you are now, Emma has never massaged my feet, so I’m going to have to yell out to get you out of here.
‘…why is he so good at massaging?’
I felt my feet relaxing from the sore of my uncomfortable shoes.
The shoes of this world were very uncomfortable.
The floor was hard, and the leather that wrapped around the foot was bare, so my foot hurt everytime I walked.
Whenever I walk for a long time, I wanted to throw off my shoes and walk down the streets barefoot.
In fact, <Lady Catherine>’s world was not a perfect medieval.
It was a world with just the image of the moderate medieval.
In some ways, it reminded me of the Victorian era of the Industrial Revolution, and of course the existence of magic and different races was naturally a fantasy worldview.
In this world where various things are mixed, there were reasonable compromises in many respects.
A newspaper that can be read all over the continent, a phone that can be connected by using magic stones, and a simpler outfit than I thought of.2
There were parts of this world that would never exist in real medieval times.
‘If they would compromise that much, how good would it be if they could make shoes comfortable?’
I didn’t want to go out until sneakers existed.6
I wouldn’t have thought it was painful to walk with just plain flat shoes.
But the nobles of this world all wore pretty shoes.
It was just a pretty pair of shoes, it barely covered their feet on high, thin heels.
It was not a shoe that was convenient in the first place.
They focused on external beauty and never thought about the foot of the person wearing it.
In fact, there was no reason to worry about the feet of the person wearing them.
The nobles did not walk much in the first place. It was natural that they only gestured and don’t work.
In this world, shoes were a display of identity.
Wearing impractical shoes, meant that they was a high-ranking person who did not have to work hard.
This led to a ridiculous situation where the nobility of status was obscured by who was wearing the more useless shoes.
Yvesria Oberon was at the highest rank of status in such a world.
In other words, it meant that my shoes didn’t have a speck of practicality.
My shoes were zero, no, minus 100 for walking on the street.
However, the shoes of the common people were not comfortable either.
‘I will rather have the shoes of the common people.’
The nobles called in people to measure their feet and to make handmade shoes, but the commoners crumpled their feet into shoes that had been already made.