Erika’s entourage was bigger than I’d expected. Aside from me, there was Eileen the Maus Maid. She was here because the Viscount had found replacements for the dead chefs, and Erika also needed good meals. 

There was a 5-star Knight escorting us also. It’d only made sense that the Viscount didn’t assign any lowly guards to us.

And finally…. Another maid. One that seemed even closer to Erika than me, her personal attendant.

Of course, it was because the maid’s identity was actually Derek, the gardener’s son. The Grand Chamberlain didn’t really care much about him acting as a maid since the Viscount never gave him direct orders to keep an eye on Derek.

‘Eh? Does that mean the Viscount trusts me more than I thought?’

Sorry for betraying your trust then, Viscount. You shoulda known better than to trust a horrible cheating fox.

Well, enough sadness. I decided to reminisce about this morning to cheer myself up.

-”No, I won’t do it!”

-”Even if it meant you won’t be able to come with Erika?”

-”...Fine.”

Dressing Derek up was fun, even if I didn’t know what I was doing. He was like a doll, obediently sitting there and letting me try all kinds of clothes on him.

-”Is this really necessary?”

-”Of course! What if someone saw you without a maid outfit? We have to prepare for all scenarios.”

Truthfully, that excuse was so flimsy that the slightest breeze could topple it over. But it worked anyways, and I had a dress-up doll to myself for a few hours.

‘Am I perhaps becoming more like Ria?’

There was a saying that when a poor person becomes rich, he laughs at other poor people. I was also like that: a former dress-up doll laughing at another’s misfortune.

Erika and Derek were inside the carriage, the two Knights were driving the carriage, and there was only one free horse.

Of course, with the windows being open, Erika couldn’t do anything rash with that commoner boy. The same went for the other maid, whom I was sitting behind.

“...”

“...”

“...”

The silence was oppressive. Since I entirely relied on Ihwa when we rode horses in my past life, I didn’t know how to ride a horse myself. And since I’d always dealt with this maid so quickly every morning, I’d thought of her as a fool who didn’t know her limits.

Oh, and Eileen was sleeping in my hair, between my ears, so I couldn’t really have a conversation with anyone.

We were ahead of the fog by about… two miles or so? By pure (and probably wrong) estimation, I thought that the Fog would arrive about two weeks after we got to the Capital.

The silence continued. Only the galloping of horses could be heard. Oh, and the sound of nature every now and then, too.

Just when I couldn’t take the silence anymore, Erika’s carriage stopped. The Knight named Eco stood up from his seat and glared at his surroundings. He was so tense that even I reflexively tensed my shoulders.

After some moments of heavy deliberation, he slowly opened his mouth. 

Second by second, the atmosphere grew heavier. I gulped dry saliva as I waited for him to deliver his decree.

“Let’s stop here and rest for the night.”

Crunch—

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” I let out a breath and very discreetly dropped the broken twig in my hands. This bastard… he did it on purpose, didn’t he? Acting all scary like that and scaring a pure-hearted maiden like me…. How awful!

Of course, him just releasing pure Aura wouldn’t normally scare me one bit. I was just a bit too jumpy these days, and plus, his appearance was pretty scary.

A scar that ran right across his face and that buzzcut….

He looked more like an imprisoned criminal than a Knight.

Anyways, no use dallying any longer. I had to do my job. With Derek already helping Erika settle outside and the mysterious maid preparing tents for us servants, I collected wood for a campfire.

When I returned, Eileen was already sitting in a pot in the clearing that we stopped at.

“I swear, I’m going to boil you by accident one of these days if you keep staying in pots.”

“...”

I poked my finger in and let Eileen cling to it. Something was strange. Eileen seemed out of it. Her eyes weren’t blank by any means. They were just… depressed.

“What’s wrong?”

“...”

“Eileen?”

She weakly lifted her head up to look at me. Even without looking at her face, her droopy ears were all it took for me to understand that her mood was exceptionally bad.

“Uhhh, are you mad at me for not packing any cheese?”

She shook her head. Uh oh, things must be really bad if she didn’t react at all to the mention of cheese.

“...Let’s just do our job.”

Seeing that carrying on with conversations would just make things more awkward, I nodded and let her on my head.

The Maus Maid grabbed my ears, and our usual cooking routine began. She made me open all the crates to look at the ingredients inside. After grabbing some tomatoes and garlic, she made me drop them on the chopping board.

Then, she made me grab a sharp knife. The reason why there wasn’t any recoil was because Aerin and Nira weren’t as possessive as Requiem. Non-combat bladed tools were fine to a certain degree.

“...!”

Something was terribly amiss. I sensed Eileen’s small hands trembling while grabbing my ears. Then, the tip of the knife went from pointing at the vegetables to pointing at my throat.

“E-Eileen?”

I tried to break free but to no avail. W-Why? Why was she doing this? D-Didn’t she say it herself that taking my place would be suicide for her?

“Eileen! Please stop!”

The only silver lining was that the knife moved ever so slightly, as if the one controlling me was hesitating about killing me. 

“Nira!”

Sensing that I couldn’t get through this by myself, Nira manifested and knocked Eileen out of my head. The Maus Maid was unconscious, not dead, and at that, I heaved a sigh of relief.

Nira then hugged me close and kissed me on my forehead. 

“Whatever will you do without me?”

Normally, a snarky retort would be in order, but I found my cheeks blushing so hard and my eyes so swirly with shame that all I could do was meekly shake my head in denial.

Nira chuckled. Kissing me one last time on my cheek, she disappeared again.

With my teaser (and savior) now gone, I collected myself by slapping myself on the cheek. My eyes turned cold as I directed my gaze toward the unconscious mouse girl.

“Now then, how do I punish this bitch?”

Erika wouldn’t mind a mouse stew for dinner, would she?