北条麻妃

***

After that day, I was always sick after I met Claude. I always threw up after I ate with him.

I was extremely sick after that experience and was bedridden for a while.

And while I was by Lili and the other maid unnies, I came to the conclusion that Claude was a son of a bitch.

He did pull me out of the water, but he didn\'t save me right away.

That rude psychopath. How could you just watch a 5 year old drown? And his daughter, at that!

Whenever I thought of that, I got shivers down my back.

I cried myself to sleep every night. And on those nights, Lili stroked my hair and tightly held me. I was only able to fall asleep in her arms.

***

These days, living life was a chore. If I was a normal child, I probably wouldn\'t have been able to even look at water again.

When would I be able to escape from this Imperial Palace? And Claude stole two of my pouches away from me.

That bastard! He told me to come get my treasure back, but I wasn\'t crazy.

"Hannah."

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn\'t find the will to live. So I tried to find it in different places.

"Chocowet."

"N-no, you can\'t. Ms.Lilian will…"

"I want to eat chocowet."

I continued to whine, but Hannah didn\'t give in. It seemed like she had been strictly warned by Lili not to. Well, I have been eating a lot of sugar these days because of the cake from Claude.

Dang. Then, it was time for the last resort.

"Unnie, Ati wants chocowet."

Receive my puppy dog eyes attack!

"D-don\'t do this."

I sparkled my eyes.

"You really can\'t, Princess! I\'m sorry!"

And Hannah left the spot like she couldn\'t take it anymore.

Hey! Give me my chocolate before you leave!

"Hannah!"

I can\'t believe it! Hannah won against my attack!

It seemed like my cuteness had taken a downturn these days because of all the stress lately. Ugh. But I hadn\'t given up yet.

I sneakily entered the kitchen. I knew I was being childish, but I couldn\'t give the chocolate up. They were totally luxuries for me in my past life!

So I\'m going to eat chocolate!

I excitedly ran over to where the chocolate was.

"Ces, where are you going?"

"Just a moment. I think I left the stove on."

Uh oh!

I quickly hid myself.

"Ah, it was open."

Hm. Was there a need to steal a chocolate now? I could just ask her for one! It was fate that I met her here.

"Uh…."

"Ack! A bug!"

Just when I was about to speak up, Ces screamed.

And soon, a black spot that was visible on the soles of her heels was a cockroach.

"I can\'t believe a disgusting bug dared to enter the kitchen."

I let out a sweat at Ces\'s cold voice.

"I\'ll have to tell Ms.Lili that we should speed up the palace clean-up day. Cockroaches don\'t have a place where the princess is staying."

Wow, Ces unnie was definitely the psycho of this palace!

"But wasn\'t there some kind of sound earlier?"

I-I wasn\'t going to ask her anymore.

Of course, Ces would never treat me like that cockroach, but it was….She seemed like she would tell Lili if I asked her right now anyway.

So as I stayed quiet in the corner of the kitchen, Ces tilted her head like she thought she was hearing things and left.

I finally poked my head out. I slowly reached out for the chocolate on the platter.

Huh? There was a small sound coming from somewhere.

I was frozen because I thought someone had come in again, but no one entered.

Did I hear wrong? But I definitely did hear something! I was confused. And the stories of the ghost in the kitchen the maids had been talking about flashed in my head.

"Gasp!"

I had been having nightmares that a ghost was pulling my ankle because of the incident a while ago. The kitchen suddenly seemed scarier.

I had occasionally stolen chocolate before, but the kitchen had never seemed as creepy as this. And now that I looked again, it really seemed like somewhere ghosts would live.

Sweat dripped down my back. It felt like a ghost was gonna appear any moment.

"Princess!"

Like right now!

"AHHH!"

I screamed like a banshee. Did the maids who had been killed by Claude come to kill me? Or was it the ghost from my nightmares?

"Oh my, Princess! I\'m sorry. Were you surprised?"

But it was Lili. She seemed as surprised as me.

"Princess, I think you need to leave right now."

Lili hurriedly took me somewhere like we had somewhere to be this instant. Oops! But I got caught in the kitchen! And I had two chocolates that I had stolen from the platter in my hand.

I secretly put the chocolates in my dress skirts. It seemed like Lili didn\'t notice I was holding chocolate. What exactly was happening for her to be so rushed?

And I soon found out why.

"It\'s an honor to be serving Princess Athanasia."

Maids were curtsying at me, who was being carried by Lili. How many were there? One, two, three, four, five….

I gave up counting once I got to 30. These unnies are going to be serving me from now on?

The situation was similar to a korean drama I had seen when I was working part-time at a restaurant. It was a romantic comedy with a rich female lead character. But the scene I had seen was super unrealistic. After she had finished shopping and returned home, all the maids in her home were bowing at her.

"Starting from today I have been appointed as Princess Athanasia\'s temporary knight."

I gaped at Felix, who stepped forward.

Claude was really a psycho. How could he do this? I laughed unbelievably at the situation.

Not too long ago he had said those icy words to me when I was still shivering after almost having drowned, and now, he gave me these people to work for me?

What did this mean?

"I am thankful for His Majesty\'s kindness but why is Sir Robain…."

Lili looked like she hadn\'t heard about this either, and had a shocked expression. And Felix looked at me and smiled.