FNSS ~ 10

Chapter ~ 10

However, they could not rebel.

‘They say the King struck down General Maeng because of that Jaein.’

‘If we get on her bad side, who knows what will happen to us?’

The maids reluctantly picked up their chopsticks again.

But even that did not last long.

They seemed to force down a few more pieces, but soon their hands stopped as they began dry-heaving.

“Why did you stop?”

“Ugh… I can’t eat any more, Jaein.”

The maid made a miserable face at Jaein’s casual question.

The food had risen all the way up to their throats.

They felt as though if someone merely poked their stomach, everything would come right back up.

Jaein quietly watched the maids before eventually picking up her chopsticks.

‘It looks like she’s finally going to eat some herself.’

Just as the maids breathed a sigh of relief—

“Here. Open up. Ah~ And don’t spill it.”

Jaein picked up a huge amount of cucumber and, with a gentle expression, offered it to one of the maids.

When the maid shook her head, Jaein’s expression turned cold.

“How dare you refuse food given by the King? Or do you think my orders are a joke?”

When Jaein stared at her without a trace of a smile, the maid reluctantly opened her mouth.

Only then did Jaein smile pleasantly and stuff her mouth full of cucumber.

The maid beside her trembled violently at the sight.

‘A completely insane woman has entered the palace!’

They should have realized it from the moment she was brought here by the cursed prince and did not shed a single tear!

“Ugh! Uuugh…!”

In the end, the maid chewing the cucumber could no longer hold back the food rising to her throat. She dry-heaved before running outside and vomiting everything she had eaten.

The sound could be heard through the window.

“Compared to what you’ve done to the Gunju all this time, isn’t this rather lenient?”

Jaein smiled sweetly and picked up another huge handful of cucumber.

The maid watched the chopsticks approaching her with trembling eyes and shrank her neck like a turtle.

“What’s wrong? Is this still not enough?”

Just as Soa was about to pick up even more food—

A rough hand suddenly seized Soa’s wrist—the one holding the chopsticks.

【What are you doing…?!】

As Soa dropped the chopsticks and raised her head, she found a masked face looking down at her.

Seo Heon surveyed the room, which had been turned into a complete mess.

Outside, one maid was vomiting, while another had gone deathly pale, her face clearly showing how much she was suffering.

And Hyerang was watching the entire scene with tear-filled, reddened eyes.

【How dare you torment the maids of my residence and make such a scene in front of Hyerang.】

When it came to General Maeng, had the favor he had given Jaein, brief though it was, been the cause of all this?

He had never imagined she would even go to Hyerang and threaten her, acting as though she were someone important enough to behave so arrogantly.

Seo Heon pushed Soa back against the wall.

Just then—

“No…!”

A small hand grabbed tightly onto the hem of Seo Heon’s black robes.

Seo Heon turned around.

Hyerang was looking up at him, her face looking as though she might burst into tears at any moment.

“Hic!”

The moment Hyerang’s eyes met Seo Heon’s, another hiccup escaped her mouth.

Her hands trembled.

Her face looked like that of a frightened puppy.

But Hyerang squeezed her eyes shut and shouted.

“Don’t eat Jaein unni…!”

It was the greatest courage she had summoned in her seven years of life.

Eat her?

Seo Heon was left speechless.

“If you eat her like you ate Mommy and Daddy… sniff!”

Hyerang’s trembling voice faded away.

When Seo Heon saw the child’s tear-filled eyes, his chest tightened.

【…Does she really think that I killed the former King?】

The force gripping Soa’s wrist loosened.

He had deliberately ordered that the cause of the former King’s death not be revealed to young Hyerang.

He could not bring himself to tell her that her parents had been brutally slaughtered by monsters.

He had thought it was the best way to protect Hyerang.

But in the child’s eyes, he was nothing more than a murderer.

【It isn’t entirely wrong.】

A mocking smile briefly appeared at the corners of his mouth before hardening.

The former King’s death.

Seo Heon had been there.

Powerless, unable to do anything.

Seo Heon clenched his fist.

Soa quietly stared at Seo Heon.

In her previous life, she had once heard stories about the former King and Seo Heon.

‘They said he treated him like a father.’

Seo Gon had once mocked Seo Heon for deeply grieving the former King’s death, saying, ‘I didn’t know that monster had tears, too.’

“King.”

Soa called out to him calmly, pretending not to know anything.

“Surely you weren’t really trying to eat me just now?”

She asked casually.

The brow beneath the mask furrowed.

Eat a person?

Just as he wondered whether the woman had lost her mind, Seo Heon understood what she was trying to do.

【Of course not.】

When he shook his head, Soa smiled brightly.

“Gunju, you saw that, didn’t you? There seems to have been a misunderstanding.”

“But…”

Hyerang timidly released the hem of the Muk King’s robe.

Then, in a flash, she ran over to Soa and clung tightly to her.

‘When did those two become so close?’

Seo Heon frowned again as he watched Soa, who had gained Hyerang’s trust within only a few days—a trust he had never been able to obtain despite a lifetime of effort.

Just then, Soa calmly pointed toward the table.

“Those cucumbers, they were sent by the King, weren’t they?”

The table was covered with cucumber dishes.

They were the ingredients he had ordered Chief Steward Noh to send.

Seo Heon nodded.

Strangely, Hyerang’s face became even more frightened.

Then Hyerang buried her face deep in the folds of Soa’s skirt. Her hands clutching the hem were visibly trembling.

Why…?

“Did you know that Gunju Hyerang cannot eat cucumbers well?”

Seo Heon’s eyes shook.

【You mean Hyerang hates cucumbers?】

He had definitely received the report.

He had been told that Hyerang liked cucumbers and asked for them every day.

For her sake, Seo Heon had even sold his small sword and ordered someone to obtain precious cucumbers.

“Did those maids perhaps tell you that the Gunju liked cucumbers?”

Soa calmly asked.

Seo Heon turned toward the maids.

The moment they faced the cold mask, the maids immediately fell to their knees and pressed their foreheads against the floor.

“I-I simply thought the Gunju really liked cucumbers…”

“Then, as maids serving her, you did not even know the taste of the person you served? Even though the Gunju vomits whenever she eats cucumbers?”

Soa tilted her head.

The maid was startled and shook her head.

“King! That’s not it! We only wanted the young lady to grow up healthy, so we wanted her to eat a balanced diet…!”

“So you told the King that the Gunju especially liked cucumbers?”

Cucumbers that were difficult to obtain in this weather, enough for him to send them in such abundance?

“Th-that… We…”

The flustered maids glanced around helplessly before eventually banging their heads against the floor and begging for forgiveness.

“We were wrong! We were wrong, King!”

As Seo Heon grasped the situation, veins bulged on the back of his hand.

【…Ha. What an absurd situation this has become.】

He could not even understand Hyerang’s feelings properly, yet he was pretending to be a king.

Was he not a hopelessly incompetent king?

Self-reproach twisted Seo Heon’s lips bitterly.

【Chief Steward Noh.】

Seo Heon snapped his fingers, and Chief Steward Noh approached carrying the account book.

[Tell me the current price of winter cucumbers.]

Seo Heon wrote on the slate.

“Yes, King. They are difficult to obtain even in the Imperial City right now, so a single cucumber costs more than the price of an entire seom of rice.”

Chief Steward Noh bowed as he answered.

Seo Heon’s gaze turned cold as he looked at the maids.

[The cucumbers I obtained for my Hyerang amounted to an entire cartload.]

As Chief Steward Noh read Seo Heon’s words, the maids’ eyes widened as though they might pop out.

A cartload of cucumbers at the price of an entire seom of rice was a fortune the maids could never hope to touch even after working their entire lives.

“King! We were wrong! We only thought it would be a waste to throw them away…!”

Seo Heon slowly rubbed his wrist.

[Yes. I also think it would be a waste of money.]

Seo Heon picked up his brush again.

[You deserve to be beheaded for insulting the Gunju and falsely invoking my name, but considering your work until now, I will spare your lives this once.]

He could not kill people over something as trivial as cucumbers.

Just as the maids were about to breathe a sigh of relief at the King’s merciful decision—

More writing appeared on the slate.

[Instead, send these maids to work in the icehouse so they can repay the cost of the cucumbers they have wasted.]

When Chief Steward Noh read out Seo Heon’s order, the maids’ faces turned deathly white.

The icehouse was a place where the bone-chilling cold lasted all year long.

It was said to be a hellish place where their hands and feet would often suffer frostbite so severe that they had to be amputated.

They were being sent to that hell?

“Ki-King! Please, anywhere but the icehouse…!”

The maids begged desperately, rubbing their hands together as they cried.

But there was no reversing a royal command.

[Do not even think about coming back until you have repaid the full cost of the cucumbers.]