Chapter 27
“Where is that woman?”
Masha’s face lit up as she stood up, following Laszlo.
“She’s locked in the laundry room. I told her not to come out until all the work is done.”
“What? Locked up?”
“How else am I supposed to punish her? She doesn’t even pretend to listen to my orders.”
Masha’s lips pouted.
Without asking further, Laszlo strode out of the drawing room and headed towards the laundry room.
At that moment, two maids who had been loitering near the lobby exchanged glances and quickly approached Laszlo.
Simultaneously, Masha shouted in a sharp voice.
“You two! How dare you block the count’s path? The count is busy, so move aside!”
However, despite being extremely nervous, the two maids, Celia and Lila, stood firmly in front of Laszlo as if determined.
“Count! Idel is very sick! She hasn’t eaten all day and has been locked in the laundry room! She has a high fever…!”
“Lady Boen gave Idel an impossible amount of work! Idel only asked for half a day off, but Lady Boen refused….”
Masha’s eyes darkened at their revelation.
“See, Count? Just as I said. That woman is so cunning; she manipulated these naive laundry maids into becoming her followers.”
But Masha’s words no longer reached Laszlo.
“That woman is sick?”
At this, Celia and Lila moved closer to Laszlo, as if holding onto hope.
“Her forehead was burning hot! Idel, who never showed signs of hardship before, couldn’t even hide it today and was gasping for breath.”
“If she keeps immersing herself in cold water in such a state, something terrible will happen, Count!”
Laszlo sprinted straight to the laundry room.
The laundry room door was locked with a long rod, and through the window, the inside of the laundry room appeared pitch dark, without even the light of a candle.
The laundry maids usually started work around 8 a.m., and it was now 7 p.m.
“Could she have been locked up all that time?”
He quickly pulled out the rod and threw open the door.
It was so dark that he couldn’t see much, but he could at least tell that no one was washing clothes.
“Bring an oil lamp!”
A servant who had been loitering nearby, as if watching a spectacle, quickly fetched an oil lamp at Laszlo’s shout.
The scene inside the laundry room illuminated by the lamp was as severe as he had feared.
“Idel!”
Celia and Lila screamed shrilly as they rushed towards the collapsed Idel before Laszlo.
“Oh no! Idel! Please wake up! Idel!”
“Her whole body is burning up! Count, she’ll die like this!”
Laszlo, who had been staring down with wide eyes, finally regained his senses at Lila’s cry and approached Idel.
He placed his hand on her pale neck and was startled. Despite lying on the cold, wet floor for a long time, her body was burning hot, just as they had said, as if his hand would get scorched.
“Marco! Call Marco!”
Someone quickly fetched the coachman, Marco, and Laszlo urgently ordered him.
“Go to Maze District 3, Beitschley Street No. 53! Tell them it’s on my orders and bring a doctor immediately! Now!”
Without another word, Marco ran off, and Laszlo instructed Celia and Lila to take Idel to a guest room on the second floor and change her into dry clothes.
Masha watched the entire situation unfold with a slightly dazed mind.
“What on earth is the count saying…?”
She had noticed that Idel was sick. But was it so bad that she would collapse?
No, even if it was that bad, it was possible for a servant to collapse while working, so why was Laszlo making such a fuss?
Masha frowned unconsciously, displeased with Laszlo’s handling of the situation. It would have been better if Idel had just stayed down.
As Celia and Lila left with Idel, the atmosphere around Laszlo instantly grew menacing.
“Gather all the servants. I’ll give you five minutes.”
He spoke in a cold voice, as if he were about to behead someone, and then started walking back towards the lobby.
Shocked by the sudden change in atmosphere, Masha could only scream in panic.
“Everyone, gather! Go to the lobby! Now!”
The maids who followed her ran to the servants’ quarters, knocking on doors one by one to call out the staff.
Luckily, before Laszlo’s patience wore thin, all the servants had gathered in the lobby.
Laszlo had never called all the servants together before, so everyone looked puzzled.
“I…”
As Laszlo began to speak, a few quick-witted individuals realized that now was the time to keep even their breathing quiet.
“I’ve given you a lot of freedom, trusting that you’d manage things well. But…”
The lobby was so silent that it felt like you could hear eyes shifting.
“You all seem to be too absorbed in your work, considering you’ve let someone become a half-dead corpse.”
Someone audibly gulped.
Laszlo’s cold gaze swept over the servants and landed on Masha, who stood on the far left.
“Masha.”
“Y-Yes, Count.”
“Idel Lancaster… well, she’s no longer Lancaster, is she? Anyway, what did I say about her status?”
“Uh… you said she was a p-prisoner.”
“Prisoner? No, that’s not it.”
Laszlo spoke slowly and menacingly, emphasizing each word.
“‘The prisoner bestowed upon me by His Imperial Majesty.’ Do you understand what that means?”
“…”
“You’ve always bragged that you have relatives in the Imperial Palace and know most of the laws, haven’t you?”
At that moment, the servants who didn’t side with Masha inwardly rejoiced. It was the day she, who always acted knowledgeable and looked down on them, was finally caught.
On the other hand, Masha, feeling the atmosphere shift in a direction she hadn’t expected, was too frozen to respond and bit her lip.
Laszlo glared at her and kindly explained.
“If the Emperor’s gift is damaged, it could be considered treason. That’s why some people are deliberately given as gifts. Humans are bound to die at some point, after all.”
Masha’s head snapped up, startled by the word “treason.”
“What? But this is different, isn’t it? The Count told me to use her as a maid…!”
“I told you to use her as a maid, not to ruin her.”
“It’s not my fault that she’s sick, is it?”
Masha, her head filled with a sense of injustice, continued to argue. Her voice was full of resentment.
Laszlo barely restrained his anger.
“You locked up a sick person, effectively sentencing her to death. Even if she had been healthy, she would have ended up like this after being trapped in the cold all day, so don’t pretend you didn’t know. Unless you want to be treated the same way.”
Masha’s face turned ashen.
Laszlo delivered the final blow.
“If, by any chance, that woman dies, you’ll be taken not to the police, but to the Royal Knights. What happens next is up to your imagination. If you don’t want that, you better pray for her recovery.”
He then glanced at the quietly standing servants, fiddling with the ring on his right hand.
“You’re all accomplices, so keep your mouths shut.”
The servants felt a chill down their spines at that moment. The ring bore the insignia of the mercenary guild *Calliope*, indicating that if Laszlo wanted, a few people disappearing wouldn’t be difficult.
As Laszlo left, the servants exchanged glances before silently dispersing. Only the stunned Masha stood frozen in place.
‘How did it come to this?’
She hadn’t even considered checking how sick Idel was, so she hadn’t expected her to collapse, nor did she understand the hidden meaning behind the label “the Emperor’s gift,” which she had dismissed as equivalent to a slave.
But what shocked her the most was the look in Laszlo Chrysos’s eyes, whom she had previously regarded as a clueless mercenary.
‘This is bad. That man isn’t ignorant; he’s just pretending to be.’
However, she didn’t know how much he actually knew.
Masha quickly calculated, recalling all the embezzlement she had committed.
‘There’s no way he knows I’ve been siphoning off money. If he did, he wouldn’t have let it slide. So I’ll take a bit more and then disappear.’
As she thought this, she saw Marco hurriedly escorting a man with a large medical bag up to the second floor, and her eyes grew hollow again.
It dawned on her that everything depended on Idel surviving.
* * *
“Ugh…”
As her blurred consciousness gradually sharpened, Idel turned her head to the side.
She felt as though she had been unconscious for a long time, but she had no sense of how much time had passed.
