Hippolito looked up at his friend, blowing another puff of smoke from his pipe. He was deeply into smoking these days.

The herbs imported from the Moor Empire were wildly popular among the wealthy international students studying at the University of Padua. At first, it became a trend because it was said to sharpen the mind and aid in study.

However, it eventually became a necessity, to the point where one couldn’t concentrate on their studies without smoking, as their hands would shake.

“Hey, give me a puff.”

Without hesitation, Hippolito passed the pipe, filled with tobacco worth a ducat (about 1 million won), to his friend. The friend who got to smoke the free tobacco grimaced and sucked on the pipe.

“Why do you look so down? Is something wrong?”

It’s not like you can smoke tobacco for free. Hippolito sighed at his friend’s lip service.

“I might have to go back to San Carlo without graduating due to some troubles at home.”

“Huh? Is your house ruined?”

His friend asked in surprise. Is my free tobacco supply going to be cut off? No, he’s too generous for a ruined guy.

Hippolito lowered his head and replied.

“It seems that my mother has had a big problem. She has been driven out of the house. I think I need to go back to San Carlo.”

His friend made a highly rational point.

“What does your going back have to do with your mother being driven out? If you don’t graduate, will your mother return?”

They had a pressing task at hand. The final exams were just around the corner.

“You have your semester final exam now. Only one semester is left.”

Hippolito was infuriated by his friend’s valid point.

“You bastard, you make me out to be a complete unfilial son. How can I concentrate on my studies when my mother has been driven out of the house?”

He glared at his friend.

“Graduating from university is not the issue right now.”

Seeing Hippolito suddenly acting like a filial son, his friend shook his head in disbelief.

The gap between his usual behavior and that of a filial son was as wide as the distance from the northernmost Sternheim Castle on the central continent to the southernmost port of Taranto. But since his friend had received something, he suppressed the refutation that was welling up.

Hippolito was short of credits. He had registered for all the special lectures that were open, sparing no gold coins, but he couldn’t meet the attendance requirements each time, making his graduation uncertain.

“I need to go back home. It’s a pity that I can’t graduate because of my mother, but there will be another opportunity later.”

“Yes, you’re such a filial son.”

Hippolito seemed to feel the need to prove that he was a filial son, as he didn’t like his friend’s response.

“My father is too much, no, even if my mother did something wrong, how could he send her to the farm? I have to go home and talk about it, I can’t let this happen.”

“Are you really going? Even if you don’t take the final exam, you might be able to graduate if you submit a report by the next week.”

“Don’t say that. It’s not right to abandon my mother as a human.”

Hippolito got up, fed up with the thought of begging the professor to substitute the exam with a report. He had asked the professor too much already. He didn’t want to go anywhere near there.

His friend looked at Hippolito as if to ask, is he serious? But Hippolito himself was very serious.

“I’m going, to San Carlo.”

There’s an old saying that a red flower does not last ten days, and power does not last ten years (花無十日紅 權不十年), and redhaired Maletta was experiencing that.

Clearly, Miss Ariadne was a rotten apple, and Miss Isabella, whom she caught, was undoubtedly a golden apple.

Maletta had no doubt that Miss Isabella would become a high official, no, the wife of a prince, and would take her as a maiden to the royal palace.

In order to make a maid a royal palace maid, she would have to bestow at least a title of junior viscount. Imagine, Maletta, a maid from Lambuye Gufeiwon, becoming a junior viscount!

“Oh my, such honor, I never even dreamt of this!”

With a grimace, she would imagine herself kneeling at the knighting ceremony, accepting the slight touch of the king’s sword in its scabbard on her shoulder.

That was the content of the fantasy Maletha had every night before she fell asleep on the straw mattress in the maids’ bedroom on the third floor. But it seemed like it would end as a mere fantasy now.

“Maletha! Besides delivering three meals to Miss Isabella who’s confined all day, what else do you do! Stop loafing around and come clean the floor! You need to earn your keep!”

Aunt Teresa, yelling loudly, threw a mop to Maletha. Aunt Teresa was the caretaker and cleaning supervisor of the maids on the third floor who were vying for the vacant position of head maid Jiaada.

“Ugh!”

The stinky mop flew through the air. The wet mop narrowly missed Maletha’s face and hung on her shoulder. Feeling her mood drastically worsen, Maletha glared at Aunt Teresa.