“Drink.”

Idel silently stared at the bread and water laid before her. At her calm gaze merely fixed on the food, Dylan’s eyes instantly grew fierce.

“You must be quite hungry after all this time… It seems you don’t find the food appealing.”

‘She hasn’t yet fully understood her situation.’

Dylan sneered coldly. Indeed, these highborn nobles were an incorrigible lot. They wouldn’t even comprehend the life of the lower classes who couldn’t properly eat a single loaf and starved to death.

Remembering his past, a time he had barely survived hell, Dylan’s eyes changed. Dylan looked at the Duchess, who was still sitting motionless, with a cool, detached gaze.

Despite being tied up like livestock and deprived of her freedom, an innate nobility emanated from her entire being. It was not just due to her upright posture.

‘She’s different from what she seems. She never raises her voice.’

It was because of her unwavering calm, even in this kidnapped situation. Even when she had regained consciousness after being drugged, the Duchess maintained her composure. Her appearance, as delicate and frail as glass art, belied this.

‘Soon, she too will understand what a living hell is like.’

Dylan harbored no personal malice toward the Duchess… but he despised the nobility in general. And Idel’s demeanor, acting as if she were a graceful noble, irked him.

“Ah, is it difficult to eat in your condition?”

The only way to eat food with bound hands and feet was to bend down and take it with her mouth.

“It seems a high noble like you can’t bear to eat like a beast.”

Dylan spoke with a taunting tone.

“You will have to get used to it. After all, you’re going to live a life even worse than livestock.”

Dylan expected the Duchess to be shocked by his words, but Idel remained impassive. Lifting her head, she cast her eyes over Dylan’s shoulder.

Then, a change came over Idel’s face. With a darkened expression, she struggled to open her parched, cracked lips. A dry voice barely managed to escape.

“….I’m fine, give this food to others.”

At Idel’s words, Dylan glanced at the girls behind him. They were parentless orphans abducted from nearby slums, destined to be trafficked along with the Duchess.

The food given to them was even worse than the Duchess’s. They were, after all, accustomed to poverty and hunger.

‘For a woman who’s never had to lay a finger on anything dirty or felt hunger…’

Who was she to pity them?

Dylan saw even this action of the Duchess as hollow hypocrisy. He stepped forward and stomped on the bread that had been offered.

Dylan sat down, bending his body to meet the Duchess’s gaze.

“See this? Reduced to nothing but a shapeless mass.”

Dylan held the crushed bread before Idel’s eyes.

“Your situation will soon be the same. You’ll be a slave, not a high noble.”

Idel’s green eyes met Dylan’s without any tremor. It was more like she was scrutinizing something. After a while, she asked,

“Are you… female?”

“Is that important now, in this situation?”

Dylan’s eyes quivered slightly at Idel’s sudden question. Seeing this, Idel was certain. She had determined the gender of this subordinate of Douglas.

Dressed in men’s clothes, with short hair and an androgynous voice, Dylan could easily pass for a man.

But upon closer inspection, Dylan’s nose and jawline were smooth, devoid of stubble. Nor was there any Adam’s apple.

Idel’s gaze changed.

‘If this person is a woman, then…’
Idel locked eyes with Dylan and slowly opened her mouth.

“You’d know if you were a woman. Life is hard for the powerless, but it’s even more brutal if you’re female.”

“…What do you know? Spouting such words when you’ve never known hardship, being a noble!”

Dylan’s expression hardened, visibly rattled by Idel’s words. In an elevated voice tinged with anger, Dylan retorted.

“Do you know? The life of the lower class, being sold, used, and discarded like an object!”

Idel calmly responded to Dylan’s outburst.

“True. I may not fully understand their lives as you said. However… as a woman, there is something I can empathize with.”

“Empathize, because you’re also a woman? Don’t make me laugh. What can you empathize with when our statuses are clearly different?”

“It has nothing to do with status. A woman’s life is not free.”

Caught off guard by Idel’s unexpected words, Dylan was momentarily at a loss for words. Observing this, Idel continued.

“I was born a noblewoman… yet I was forced into an unwanted marriage with Duke Shale. A marriage that felt like I was being sold off. Much like the trade you all are attempting. Most noblewomen probably go through the same.”

Only then did Dylan grasp why Duke Shale had been so keen on trading for the Grand Duchess. Knowing Duke Shale’s vile character, Dylan’s initial sympathy waned, but he steadied his faltering heart.

Who pities whom? Me? This noble?

“…Even so, women who marry into nobility end up living noble lives, don’t they?”

You would not have become a slave if you had married Duke Shale!