Chapter 8: The Nature of Evil
Marie and Belle entered the Duke’s house around the same time and were best friends at first.
But Belle was ambitious, and Marie was simple and kind. They didn’t get along well, and over time, they each found new friends and slowly grew apart.
Marie accepted it naturally, but Belle saw it as betrayal.
When Marie found out Belle was spreading bad rumors about her, she confronted her directly.
Since then, they had been open enemies.
‘This is all Marie’s fault!’
Belle, who had been demoted from a serving maid to a cleaning maid, blamed Marie.
She had waited a few days, looking for a chance to get revenge, and finally sneaked into Marie’s room.
‘I’ll tear up all her clothes. Let’s see how she lives with nothing to wear!’
She used a pin to unlock the door and looked through the clothes hanging in the closet.
‘I heard she shares the closet with the new girl. Which ones are Marie’s?’
Just then, something dropped from the bottom of the closet.
It was a wooden statue of a woman.
‘Marie must’ve made this. Probably to send to her mom.’
Since they were once close, Belle knew Marie’s situation.
Even if she hated Marie now, she didn’t want to hurt something so meaningful.
So she tried to carefully put it back.
But—
“What are you doing?!”
Marie had returned and walked over angrily, grabbing the wooden figure from Belle’s hands.
She checked to see if it was damaged, and saw that one of the wings had broken.
It must have snapped when it fell earlier.
Marie, thinking Belle had done it, raised her head furiously.
“You know what this means to me! Even if you hate me, how could you…?”
“What? No! I didn’t—”
But Marie didn’t give her a chance to explain.
She stormed over to Belle’s bed and grabbed the pink dress hanging near the headboard.
Belle had saved up for a whole year to buy that dress.
“Hey! Put that down!”
Before Belle could stop her, Marie grabbed the dress by the neck and tore it apart.
“You… you!!”
Belle grabbed Marie’s hair, and the two girls began fighting wildly.
When Belle’s emotions exploded, she grabbed Marie’s wooden statue, lit it with a lamp nearby, and threw it into the cold, unused fireplace.
Marie froze in shock, and Belle also stopped in surprise.
She watched the statue burn, then began nervously biting her nails.
After a moment, she whispered,
“You… you caused this.”
Then she ran away.
* * *
Elika came back late that night after studying and didn’t know what had happened.
The next morning, she worked in a different area from Marie, so she still didn’t know.
That afternoon, an imperial official was supposed to visit.
Elika went back to her room to change out of her maid uniform and into a pretty dress the Duke had bought for her.
She found Marie sitting on the bed, crying.
“Marie, are you crying? What’s wrong?”
Marie quickly wiped her eyes and said, “It’s nothing.”
But Elika saw the burned statue in her hands.
The flower goddess was now just a black lump of charcoal.
Next to it, on Belle’s bed, was a torn pink dress.
Elika had heard that Marie and Belle fought, so she guessed what had happened.
‘How could Belle burn something so special to Marie? She needs to be punished!’
Elika grabbed a wooden hammer from the closet and went looking for Belle.
She found her serving tea in the parlor, and without hesitation, Elika hit her with the hammer.
She didn’t care that the nobles were watching.
She didn’t care that the imperial official who would decide her future was watching.
She had no idea that hitting someone with a hammer was wrong.
She only knew one thing:
‘If you do something bad, you should be punished.’
That’s all she had ever learned.
* * *
“Call a doctor!”
“Carry her! Bring the carriage!”
Everything was chaos, but Charon finally took control.
“Ron, lay the maid on the long bench in the next room. You, go get Doctor Klein.”
Doctor Klein was the family’s personal physician.
The servants quickly followed his calm orders.
‘Where’s Elika…?’
She was already gone. Probably taken away by the guards.
He was a little worried but focused on stopping the official from leaving.
* * *
“A genius? More like a criminal.”
The imperial official muttered as he stepped outside.
Just as he reached his carriage, someone ran after him.
“Sir Belter! Sir Belter!”
The official turned in surprise.
It was the Duke himself, running like a common man.
“D-Duke Blansé…?”
“Sir, are you leaving without even saying goodbye to my grandmother? Are you treating our family with such disrespect?”
“N-No! It’s just that… the madam fainted, so I thought it wouldn’t be proper to…”
“She’s awake now. You should at least wait until she recovers and give a proper goodbye.”
“Well… I…”
Even as a royal official, he didn’t have the courage to refuse the empire’s most powerful noble.
“…Alright. I will greet her before leaving.”
* * *
While keeping the official in the parlor, Charon went to his study.
Earlier, the Duchess had said:
‘The child chosen by House Blansé must be worthy. I believe in my judgment. That girl is worthy.’
His grandmother was rarely wrong.
But this time, she was.
That child might kill him someday, yet she called her “worthy.”
‘Still, I must prove she was right.’
Because what helped his grandmother also helped the Blansé family.
He opened the study door.
Inside, Elika was kneeling, held down by the guards.
She turned to look at him.
* * *
Elika didn’t understand why everyone was acting so shocked.
‘I only wanted to punish Belle.’
She had been hit with bottles by her father many times, and no one had ever fussed about her injuries.
She had always treated her wounds by herself.
But now, for hitting Belle just once, the maids screamed, the old madam fainted, and the imperial official looked shocked.
Even the Duke looked at her with a twisted, angry face.
“Why is everyone acting like this?”
The guards dragged her to the dungeon.
It was dark and cold.
Elika sat on the stone floor, hugging her knees.
She thought of the Duke’s face.
Disgust, shock—and underneath, fear.
She didn’t fully understand his feelings, but she knew one thing.
‘He’s afraid of me.’
‘What did I do wrong? Will he hit me?’
Soon, the door opened.
“Get up. The master wants to see you.”
* * *
The guards left, and only Elika and the Duke were in the study.
‘I’m going to get hit now.’
She was used to it, but it still scared her.
Her small body started shaking.
“Why are you shaking?”
Charon asked.
It seemed silly to him that someone who hit another with a hammer was now trembling like this.
“Duke, did I… do something really bad?”
She asked in a trembling voice.
“You hurt someone. Of course it’s bad.”
Elika sniffled and wiped her eyes.
“I just wanted to punish Belle. She broke Marie’s statue…”
“So you hit her with a hammer?”
“She did something wrong, so she should be punished. But I couldn’t hit her hard enough with my hand…”
“Wait, who told you that bad people should be hit?”
He stopped himself.
It must have been her father.
“I didn’t mean to hit so hard… What if Belle can’t get up?”
She started crying softly.
‘So that stare… wasn’t cold-heartedness. It was shock.’
Charon was confused.
“I-I’m sorry I’m crying… I’ll stop soon.”
She trembled as she forced herself to stop crying.
When Charon stood up, she froze.
As he walked closer, she quickly lay down flat and begged.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please don’t hit me!”
“I won’t hit you. That’s not right.”
He stopped in front of her and knelt down.
Her shoulders trembled like leaves.
“It’s not true that people who do bad things should be hit.”
She sniffled again.
Her small face, covered in tears and snot, looked up at him.
Without thinking, he reached out and gently wiped her cheek.
‘Oops.’
He quickly pulled his hand away and looked aside.
“…Anyway, never hit anyone again.”
“I promise! I won’t!”
She answered quickly, trying to stop her sobs.
Charon didn’t know if it was guilt or sympathy that made him say the next words.
“If you want to cry… it’s okay to cry.”
He regretted it right after saying it.
So he added a cold voice to cover it.
“You can go now.”
He didn’t see the way her teary eyes widened in surprise.
