“Then… am I becoming the head servant?”

As soon as I received the key, I asked that without realizing it, filled with dreams.

“We’ll see how you do.”

At Felix’s words, my heart strangely pounded.

Then I realized. Becoming the head servant was unrealistic.

What I had to do was escape from this place, not become the head servant and die caught up in the chaos of the duke and crown prince.

“Master, I will work hard.”

Even so, perhaps because it had been a long-cherished wish, my voice trembled.

“Do as you like.”

I received the key and held it preciously. Then, coming to my senses, I put it in my pocket.

As I kept expressing my gratitude while bowing my head deeply and exited the room, I faintly heard what sounded like a laugh.

Wondering if he had laughed, I looked back, but he was glaring at me with an indifferent expression as if annoyed.

“Please call me anytime you need me.”

“Ah, and.”

“Yes, Master.”

Just as I was about to turn and disappear, Felix called out to me, and I quickly approached him and bowed.

“Crown Prince Thanasis.”

He frowned, fidgeting with the cigar in his hand as if pondering. Soon he put the cigar in his mouth, took a deep inhale, and said.

“Manage him to the extent he doesn’t die.”

“Yes, Master.”

Then he blew cigar smoke in my face. Perhaps because I wasn’t breathing at that moment, I didn’t cough.

Thus, I was able to preserve my life.

****

I had to go straight down to the basement to receive the handover first.

“Hello, Head Servant Mariben?”

“Mmph…! Mmph! Mmph!”

Head Servant Mariben was locked up in one of the many underground prisons in the basement.

There were several reasons, but the main reason was that he was caught embezzling the management costs for the mansion.

“Mmph!”

Like others who entered the underground prison, he had a gag in his mouth, a restraint with chains around his neck, and shackles on his limbs.

I needed to hear what he had to say, so I placed the notepad I brought beside me and unfastened the hook of the gag near his nape.

“Phew!”

As Head Servant Mariben’s mouth became free.

“Release me! Right now, Reniel!”

The booming voice that burst out was enough to make my head ring.

“Head Servant, have you forgotten why you’re here?”

I was surprised, my heart pounding and feeling blood rush to my head.

Startled, I almost fell but barely managed to regain my balance and stand in front of the head servant fixed to the wall.

“Tell the master I’ll definitely pay back the money! Please!”

“Yes, I’ll make sure to convey that.”

At that, Head Servant Mariben’s expression softened a little.

“It’s not like I wanted to embezzle, you know. My family suddenly fell on hard times…”

“But you embezzled for a whole 5 years, didn’t you?”

“Over that pittance! After I worked for the duke’s mansion for an additional 5 years, to do this to me…”

“I heard that money was enough to buy a title above baron.”

“Who said that!”

“The master did.”

“W-well… That’s true.”

Head Servant Mariben’s pupils shook violently.

“Since you won’t be able to work for a while, it seems I’ll have to do your job. I came to receive the handover.”

“What? Did he say he’s going to kill me like this?”

“That’s not it.”

As spit flew onto my face every time Head Servant Mariben spoke, I found myself unconsciously backing away little by little.

“You were the only one who could freely enter and exit the master’s room, right? So he must be uncomfortable. There’s no one to clean and manage that place now.”

“Ah… R-right. Yes, he is quite particular.”

The head servant would calm down but soon become agitated again, causing my nerves to fray as well, feeling like I was glued to the floor.

“But the master is a merciful person, isn’t he? There were people who embezzled a few times before, but didn’t they all receive recommendation letters and go elsewhere?”

That was what I had heard, in fact.

“D-d-did he say he’d write me a recommendation letter too? Tell him I won’t accept it!”

“I don’t know about that yet. I haven’t heard anything.”

The Le Pelique ducal family was truly wealthy. All the black money of the imperial family passed through here.

Perhaps the visible wealth was just the tip of the iceberg, and the hidden money below might be much more – that saying might not be a joke.

So during the 10 years I had been here, I had seen many people get kicked out for embezzling money or stealing items.

‘Ah, Selen? I heard she got caught stealing jewelry last time and left. They say she got a recommendation letter too.’

‘Which mansion did she go to?’

‘She probably couldn’t stay in the capital, so I think she got a recommendation letter for a frontier territory.’

They were all kicked out of the mansion, but I heard they all received recommendation letters and went to other mansions.

“Please, Reniel! I cared for you a lot, didn’t I!”

He never cared for me. To be precise.

‘How dare you, an orphanage brat, be so full of yourself!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re crazy about wanting to look good to the master!’

‘I apologize.’

‘Behave properly. Otherwise, someone like you disappearing from the mansion is nothing! Don’t act in a way that bothers me!’

He was closer to someone who disliked me.

“Yes… Anyway, please proceed with the handover.”

Still, since he would soon be leaving the mansion, there was no need to leave each other with a bad impression, so I said that and opened my notepad.

I removed the cap of my fountain pen and gripped it.

“Sigh… I’ll tell you everything. But make sure to tell the master…”

“After we finish the handover, I’ll write down separately what you want to convey. Will that work?”

“Yes, you have good sense, as expected of someone smart like you.”

Finally, I was able to hear, very long and verbose.

How to manage the duke’s mansion.

****

“I’m tired.”

I entered the room after organizing the contents of the handover.

I was really one step away from becoming the head servant.

With the head servant ending up like that, one of the two deputy head servants involved in the embezzlement had an accident while fleeing, and the other turned himself in to the security force out of fear of punishment.

So I, who had worked the longest among the regular servants, was the most likely candidate.

“If I become the head servant, it’ll be ten times my current salary.”

Thinking about that, I only thought about how I should gather as much money as possible from this place.

“It’s not bad even now, though.”

I took off my ring for a moment to catch my breath.

“Whew.”

Not much changed even when I took off the ring.

To anyone looking, the male me and female me looked so alike that they would mistake us for siblings.

When I wore this ring with special magic, I could be in the form of a man.

A perfect man from head to toe. However, I looked a bit weak as I was rather thin and delicate for a man.

“My hair has grown quite long.”

Perhaps because I didn’t have time to cut it, the hair that reached down to my back felt very awkward.

Sometimes I felt like the long sky-blue hair wasn’t mine.

Now was one of those times.

I looked in the mirror. Beyond the mirror was me as a woman, with no Adam’s apple and a slightly rounder face than when I was a man.

“I might really be able to live my own life soon.”

With the money I earned here, I wouldn’t have to struggle anymore. I thought of the money I had saved up over 10 years.

“Let’s do this.”

Encouraging myself like that, I put the ring back on.

****

Soon it became dawn, so I had to sleep for a while, wake up, and pack my things.

The good thing about being a long-serving servant was that I had two lodgings.

One was in the annex used by the employees, and the other was a room like a night duty room arranged on the top floor of the main building of the duke’s mansion.

Now I was coming down after staying in the night duty room.

I packed some things, dressed properly, and went down to the secret room in the basement.

The underground prison in the basement was as large and vast as if there was another mansion below.

Even in such an underground prison, there was a place called the secret room, which was literally in the deepest part of the lowest floor, difficult to find easily.

It was so deep that just coming down made my thighs ache.

Soon I opened the door to the secret room.

With a creaking sound, the lights inside all turned on at once.

“Ugh…!”

Perhaps unable to adapt to the sudden light, Thanasis frowned and curled up.

“Hello. I’ve come to treat you. Please cooperate.”

Saying that, I looked inside.

“My goodness.”

What was strange was that when I left Thanasis here, he was fixed to the wall with lots of shackles like Head Servant Mariben.

Now he was lying face down on the floor.

And at that moment, I realized. How he could be on the floor.

“Outsi-!”

Realizing with fear that he had freed himself from the shackles and moved, my blood ran cold and I immediately tried to call the guards guarding the basement.

However.

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll break your neck.”

“Ugh…!”

Perhaps his eyes hadn’t fully adjusted yet, but Thanasis, who couldn’t open his eyes properly, subdued me in an instant and pushed me down to the floor, preventing me from doing so.

“Yes, I’ll cooperate!”

Hearing that, he seemed relieved and, as his eyes started to adjust, he sighed and loosened the pressure on my neck a little.

“Then get me out of here right n-! Gack…!”

Crash!

“I’m sorry.”

In that moment, I struck his head with a flower pot scattered nearby.

Because I had no choice if I wanted to survive.

“Please cooperate.”

And then I said that, feeling sorry.

But Thanasis was already unconscious.