It seemed like morning, but Elena didn’t hear the familiar birdsong of the mountains. A soft light filtered through the window. Blinking between sleep and wakefulness, she suddenly leapt from her bed.
“This isn’t my home.”
She glanced at her roommate, still fast asleep. A quick check of the clock showed that wake-up time was approaching. If she wanted to properly warm up her body, she needed to move before the others stirred. Rising quietly, she began stretching her limbs on the floor.
“Oh…”
She froze at every creak from the nearby bed, but her roommate didn’t wake easily. After finishing her stretches, Elena sat back on her bed, focusing intently as she waited for the alarm’s ring.
The alarm blared like a warning siren. Rowen, her roommate, stretched with a yawn, stifling it before turning off the noise.
“Starting today, you’ll follow me to learn the palace layout and meet the other servants,” Rowen said. “Yesterday was just a quick glimpse. Today might be exhausting. The duke’s palace is frighteningly huge.”
Rowen shivered as she recalled her own early struggles in the palace. Her chatter about her experiences continued nonstop from the room to the dining hall.
Elena sat at the table, and with her first bite of sausage, she mentally praised her own brilliance for choosing the maid position. The food served to the duke’s servants was far more luxurious and refined than what she was used to in her fief.
“Wow, you eat with an amazing appetite!” Rowen laughed, noting the satisfaction on Elena’s face.
Even the others at the table nodded in agreement. Elena devoured her meal with polite but astonishing speed.
After breakfast, she headed to the classroom. She entered confidently and opened the door. The room was already crowded. Some of the people she’d met at the dining table greeted her warmly.
“Hello, Miss Lewis, right?” one said.
“Yes, you’re Miss Bessie?” Elena replied.
“Oh my! No need for formalities among nobles. Just call me Bessie.”
“Alright then…”
After the greetings, the teacher entered and began the lesson with a brief introduction of Elena.
“It seems our duke has more money than he knows what to do with,” Elena muttered, staring at the blackboard.
What kind of insane employer forced their staff to undergo all this education? From the first lesson, Elena was convinced the duke’s family had lost their minds. “This is ten times more than just the basics?” Surely Rowen had been assigned as her guide to prevent a mass exodus of new servants!
“This battle was…”
The only sounds in the classroom were the teacher’s enthusiastic lecture about the kingdom’s legendary founding battles and war tactics, and the scratching of students’ pens. The information was basic—Elena had learned it before.
But why did they also need to know about the lifestyle, clothing, meals, terrain, and even the psychological state of people in that era?
Knowing that bonuses depended on exam results, Elena felt duped by the duke’s family. Despite her inner grumbling, her hand diligently recorded the teacher’s explanations in her notebook. Since she’d decided to stay here, she had to at least master the basics to avoid being sacked.
Suddenly, the person in front of her swayed. As the content grew denser and the teacher’s voice droned on, the students’ heads began bobbing up and down with effort. Elena stifled a laugh.
But her own hand, transcribing from the board, started to slow as well. Her full stomach was sapping her energy to digest the food.
After an internal struggle, she sided with reason. She had no desire to exert herself and excel just to be summoned here and there. “If you master your job, all you get is more work,” she concluded plainly. With that clear realization, she decided to enjoy the lesson with a bit more ease.
Soft sunlight streamed into the classroom where Elena was attending her lesson. The warmth from the gathered bodies and the sun’s rays made the air so cozy it was perfect for a short nap.
Elena slowly lifted her eyelids, fighting off drowsiness. Some students had already slumped onto their desks like sunken ships. When she caught the teacher’s sharp gaze sweeping over them, she resolved not to succumb, no matter how sleepy she felt.
“Ugh…”
Bored with the lesson, Elena turned her head toward the window. The air was still cool, but the warm sunlight poured down strongly. Spring had fully arrived. A sudden breeze rustled the branches gently.
“What kind of tree makes that much noise?”
Elena squinted sleepily at the branches she thought were swaying in the wind. The tree shook violently, as if struck by lightning, then abruptly stilled. Leaves fluttered to the ground beneath it. Elena’s eyes, watching the tree, suddenly widened. A man appeared out of nowhere.
“Whoa!”
She stifled a gasp with her hand, then cautiously glanced around the classroom. None of the other servants seemed to care about what was happening outside. Even the teacher, mid-lecture, hadn’t noticed the man who had leapt from the tree.
Elena had never seen a man so beautiful in her life. Not in the Lewis fief, nor in the nearby border regions, had she ever encountered such a face.
Even for someone like her, who didn’t care much for appearances, his features were flawless, like a perfectly carved statue. Thanks to her keen eyesight as a sword lady, she could study the distant man with crystal clarity.
“He’s prettier than most women,” she thought.
Her gaze was instinctively drawn to his shimmering silver hair, flowing smoothly, and his deep violet eyes, which seemed encrusted with amethyst. Even from this distance, his facial features were so harmonious that she felt an urge to rise and applaud his beauty.
“Isn’t everyone like this?”
Elena contemplated the sight as if he were a masterpiece crafted by a skilled artist.
Yet no one in the classroom seemed to notice his presence. How could they miss all that movement? A sense of mystery hung over the situation, but Elena, aware of her heightened sensitivity to motion, shifted comfortably to peer through the window again.
The man brushed the leaves off himself, circled the tree, and then suddenly turned. In that moment, their eyes met. His violet eyes widened, as if he truly saw her. “Even his startled expression is handsome,” she thought.
Elena turned her head, feigning innocence to avoid his gaze.
“What’s this now?”
When Carl felt her stare from afar and looked up, he caught a glimpse of green eyes disappearing. “A maid?”
He kept staring to confirm, but the maid didn’t turn back. “Did she not see me? No, impossible. Was she dazzled by my face?”
Carl was accustomed to being the center of attention among the servants, who often sneaked glances at his striking features. He assumed Elena was trying to catch his eye. But her unusual reaction made him run a hand over his face for no reason—it was still there, as perfect as ever!
“Even if she turned away, shouldn’t she have stopped when she saw me? How could she keep turning?”
In truth, Elena had simply looked away to avoid an awkward situation after a fleeting glance. Unaware of this, Carl couldn’t believe that anyone—especially a woman—could see him without her cheeks flushing pink.
“How could she turn away so coldly at this distance without noticing this handsome face?”
“My lord, enough of this heart-wrenching talk. Let’s head to the training grounds,” one of the shadow guards scoffed as he dealt with the body of the spy his master had apprehended. The duke’s secret “Shadow” unit handled tasks like gathering intelligence across the empire, providing discreet personal protection, and other unmentionable duties.
The guard shook his head, exasperated by his master’s excessive awareness of his own good looks, then quickened his pace.
“Isn’t it a problem to have a half-blind maid among them?” Carl asked.
“All the servants are selected after thorough medical examinations, so there’s no need to worry, my lord,” the guard replied.
“But how could she not see me when I’m standing out so clearly like this?”
“Truly, aren’t you going?”
The guard deftly changed the subject, his tone laced with thinly veiled frustration, as if his master’s words weren’t worth considering. His voice carried an unmistakable weariness.
“But it’s the truth that I’m handsome! Why do you all undermine me like this?” Carl protested.
“The truth can sometimes be annoying and distasteful,” the guard countered. “And remember, you’re always complaining about how bothersome it is when girls fawn over your looks, yet now you’re grumbling over a fleeting glance!”
Even to the guard, his master’s beauty was unparalleled. But Carl’s over-awareness of it was exhausting.
“She’s the first girl who didn’t blush upon seeing me!” Carl exclaimed. “Even those who pretend to be indifferent usually have their faces change color.”
“It seems your face isn’t the ultimate standard of beauty. There’s something called ‘personal taste,’” the guard said.
“That’s an insult to my face! My face transcends the concept of taste.”
The guard refrained from responding this time, silently turning to gather his equipment. Faced with this silence, Carl closed his mouth as well.
“How boring!”
Casting one final glance toward the classroom window where the green-eyed maid had been, Carl continued on his way.
