#07. I Won’t Tolerate It Anymore

Her head, frozen from the cold, turned sideways with a creak.

“Yes, it’s me. Hello, Aunt.”

Taran greeted her with a bright smile.

It was a refreshing smile, but Penelope couldn’t even blink.

Taran, who had shocked her to the point of wanting to faint, tilted his head innocently.

“So, who are you going to punish? Who is this damned woman you’re referring to?”

“Ah, no. That……!”

“Never mind. Explanations seem unnecessary.”

Penelope, shocked, couldn’t form proper words. Her jaw, frozen from the cold, made a chattering sound.

“Boys, make sure you collect everything properly.”

Only then did Penelope realize that Taran’s underlings had surrounded the place.

“If you miss even one thing, I’ll stick firecrackers in your asses and set them off!”

His language was excessively vulgar for a son of the noble Dragonia, but no one seemed to mind.

“Yes sir!”

“We’ll clean it out completely!”

Taran’s underlings also cursed crudely and snickered.

‘Not in there……!’

Penelope hurriedly grabbed Taran. And with trembling lips, she tried desperately to stop him.

“Taran! What exactly are you try-trying to do……!”

“What am I doing?”

Taran painfully flicked Penelope’s frozen cheek and whispered.

“Raiding a rat’s nest.”

With a cruel yet refreshing smile.

* * *

“Haah……”

Rising from an uncomfortable bed, I blinked and thought.

Damn, I’m still here.

Getting up with a stiff body, I looked around the space.

Having returned to Dragonia, a place I never wanted to revisit in my lifetime, I had to immediately deal with Penelope and the false accusation she had pinned on me.

Already drained from that alone, I now sensed something strange.

‘Is this the bedroom where I stay?’

The space was cramped, the furniture worn, and there weren’t enough winter items to block the castle’s cold. Even a servant’s bedroom would be better than this. As I narrowed my eyes, I belatedly remembered. Ah, right.

‘I only received proper treatment as a lady after awakening the power of purification.’

Understanding my surroundings, my body went limp. But there was still an unresolved question.

‘Taran.’

When dealing with Penelope, that guy suddenly acted as if he was on my side. And he even pretended to be friendly with a smile.

‘……Has he gone mad already?’

Or does he have some other scheme?

Along with suspicion came curiosity.

If my past self had gone berserk like this toward Penelope who was trying to frame me……

‘Would he have helped me then too?’

Would he have liked me like that instead of despising me as usual?

My thoughts were interrupted by a knocking sound at the door.

“My lady. Morning service. Please permit entry.”

“……Morning service?”

I was perplexed.

While this would be normal for a ruler’s daughter, it didn’t apply to the current Partanie.

Maybe after awakening my power through the first coming-of-age ceremony, but…

‘But why now?’

Before I could answer, the door swung open and maids entered.

As the door opened, a smell close to a stench wafted in from somewhere.

‘Ugh.’

And maids with subtle smiles approached me slowly, pulling a trolley. Ah, I immediately understood the situation.

‘Food waste.’

This had happened before.

They would bring rotten food that was barely edible as a “meal” and try to force me to eat it.

If I struggled to avoid it and knocked over the dishes, the maids would mock and ridicule me, saying, ‘You don’t appreciate valuable food.’

‘My goodness, you’re the noble daughter of the great Dragonia, yet you don’t know basic table manners?’

‘How could you eat so filthily and disgustingly……’

‘People should see this sight!’

The cackling voices.

Someone would fling the door wide open to show me covered in filth, and at those times, I trembled in fear of showing my pathetic appearance.

‘And I tried to escape to some corner where no one could see me……’

It was bullying from so long ago that I had forgotten.

But as it was about to be reenacted before my eyes, the sadness, helplessness, and shame of that moment spread from the deepest part of my heart throughout my body.

‘Just why.’

Why did they persecute me so viciously?

As hot anger welled up inside me, my mind became ice-cold in contrast.

‘Penelope.’

I expected that Penelope, having been humiliated by Taran due to the previous incident, wouldn’t leave me alone.

She would try to vent her frustration somehow.

“We’ve prepared breakfast. Let us serve you.”

And this would be the beginning.

I quietly observed the maids approaching me.

Each pair of eyes gleaming with the thrill of being able to insult and trample someone of higher status than themselves.

“……I don’t need it.”

This was an opportunity. The last mercy I would bestow upon them.

But….

“There’s no need to decline.”

“Yes, this is by Madam Penelope’s order.”

Predictably, they didn’t recognize the warning.

The maids reached out to me, snickering maliciously.

Just as they stepped onto the shabby carpet in the bedroom—

“Stop.”

I no longer tolerated it and moved my lips.

Simultaneously, a long golden light shot out from my finger.

“Kyaaak—!”

* * *

What was that?

One of the maids felt something catch at her feet.

When she instinctively looked down, she saw….

‘A golden…… snake?’

Something strangely sparkling and elongated, moving like a live snake, quickly wrapped around her ankle.

“Ahk!”

And tripped her.

It happened so suddenly that the maid fell before she could shout “Snake!” to her colleagues. Flailing to avoid falling, she grabbed her colleague and brought her down too.

Unfortunately, that maid was the one pushing the trolley, and the abandoned trolley crashed into another maid.

Thud!

“Krahk!”

“Ouch……!”

In an instant, all the maids and the trolley were thrown to the floor.

As the trolley collapsed, something shot up into the air. The food waste that had been sealed with lids spilled over them.

Crash!

“Urgh, bleeeh……!”

“It hurts—.”

“I-I just got cut!”

The lady of Dragonia, or rather Yeon Bora, who was watching the commotion from above, fingered the thin golden ring that had returned to her hand.

This ring was a valuable item she had acquired before becoming a recovery mage, called the ‘Snake of Binding.’

During her time as a recovery mage, she used it to restrain resistant patients, but it was actually an item that could also respond to attacks.

‘Thanks to this, I survived even as an orphan.’

And it was helping her now too.

“Wh-what is this……”

The maids trembled at the nauseating smell and unpleasantly sticky sensation.

‘Why did this happen to us?’

When they raised their heads in confusion, they discovered the lady of Dragonia staring at them with a clear face.

The first thing they could see was her bluish-purple hair, disheveled and uncombed. It was thick and even curly, making the lady’s small frame seem enveloped by her hair.

With her face half-covered, only her small, oval chin like a quail egg, straight nose, and thin lips were visible.

In short, she looked plain.

Who would recognize her as a daughter of Dragonia?

Moreover, the lady always cowered and shrank back from people, fearing mistreatment, making her already plain appearance look as wretched as a sewer mouse.

That was certainly the case, but…

“I told you to stop, didn’t I?”

Who was this girl before them?

The lady’s demeanor was so different from before that they momentarily wondered.

Her voice, once trembling with fear, was now calm and quiet, and her sitting posture was straight and proper.

The gaze visible through her disheveled hair was so cold it was like ice.

‘What’s going on?’

The maids who had trampled on the lady under Penelope’s authority instinctively sensed something dangerous, but their throbbing bodies and disgusting smell numbed their reason.

They felt pain, sorrow, and anger.

These negative emotions immediately sought a target to vent on.

‘Why is she fine!’

It was unfair. The ones who should be suffering like this weren’t them but that lowborn illegitimate child!

The angry maids shouted without thinking,

“What have you done!”

“What did we do to deserve……!”

“That’s what I should be asking.”

The youngest lady of Dragonia asked in a light tone.

“What exactly did I do?”

Shrugging her shoulders as if to say what could she have done just sitting here quietly.

That gesture ignited the maids’ anger. Having lost their reason, they all got up and pointed fingers.

“Are you claiming innocence?!”

“Why would we suddenly fall?!”

“Clearly, there was something like a snake around my ankle……!”

But before the maids’ outcry could finish—

“Wow, what’s that?”

A contemptuous voice was heard from outside.

The maids froze at the same time. Had others witnessed their shameful state?

‘How?’

Only then did they remember that they hadn’t firmly closed the door, intending to display the half-baked lady covered in food waste.

And for some reason, that door was now wide open.

“What a terrible smell……”

“What did they bring?”

“Ugh, I’m going to throw up.”

Ironically, the maids received exactly what they had intended to inflict.

Servants passing by who saw their filthy appearance didn’t hide their contemptuous gazes, and the maids trembled with reddened faces, unable to overcome their shame.

It was miserable. They had only followed Madam Penelope’s orders, so why……!

Just as their frustration with nowhere to go was about to be directed at the lady of Dragonia, who sat with a calm and unaffected face.