Not sure if this needs a trigger warning but there is some throwing up in this chapter!
“Don’t you think it would be a little intimidating if the princess offered to play with him instead?”
Asha spoke in a cautious voice at the word Kerum. Natalya nodded.
“Then what if we just say we’re friends, don’t name titles.”
“Oh, maybe, and put my hair up in a bun like this so it looks more normal…”
“I also want to see you play Kerum.”
“Me too! I want to see it too!”
“Oh… I want to watch too…”
Natalya, Dimitri, and Ilya said in turn. Karnov, who was listening, clicked his tongue.
“It would be more intimidating if the royal family said they would flock to watch it.”
“Oh, then we can go in the servants’ clothes.”
“What? I don’t want to. I can just pretend to be a lower-class aristocrat.”
“If you’re going to do it, you have to do it for sure.”
Lyudmila looked at them with a pale face.
“Oh, no, it’s a bet I made, so I’ll–”
“Lyuda, there’s nothing shameful or cowardly about accepting help from a friend.”
Natayla put her hand on Lyudmila’s shoulder and said, Lyudmila tried hard to sweeten her lips.
“But if the game goes wrong or if they use tricks, it would just…”
This time, Dimitri shook his head with a serious expression as he looked at Lyudmila.
“That will never happen.”
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
“My… my… my… my close friend. Their skill at Kerum is exceptional… so… so, I brought them along…”
The young head of the Rokta family, Carafet, tilted his head in curiosity as he looked at Lyudmila Shchedrin. The daughter of a marquis, who had come all the way to this remote area, surrounded only by Rokta Bay, to sell her family’s fabrics, seemed like someone who was drawn as a ‘noble high-ranking aristocrat’ in a portrait.
Someone who considers it their duty to look down on the pitiful underworld from heaven. Someone who has never cared about the feelings of those below them. Someone who saw their every action as a way of giving.
Carafet wasn’t offended by it. There were far more people in the world who don’t even give. Far more people applauded and reveled in the stirring and breaking of things at their fingertips than looked down on the underworld from heaven.
However, it was not possible to sign a contract with a person who could not accurately gauge whether or not she was in a position to be giving.
Such people, even if they weren’t bad people, are unable to count what they have received, and later mistake what they have received for what they have not given, and become resentful and feel it unfair because they have not received back what they have given.
It would have been healthier for both of them to end things on a clean slate from the beginning, and that’s what he thought would happen.
But what he didn’t expect was that she would jump to immerse herself in the ‘underworld’ she’d been looking down on. He was so surprised to see Lyudmila bouncing all over him, apologizing and begging for a new contract, that he thought she’d make a wager.
“Do you mean you won’t participate in this bet because you’re a noble? But why did she look like she wanted to die like that?”
As Carafet was thinking this, he couldn’t help but show a strained expression as he looked at the ‘friend’ Lyudmila Shchedrin was presenting.
Carafet already knew that valuable guests had come to the hotel where Lyudmila was staying yesterday. The girl, with her pink hair rolled up on both sides, smiling bashfully in well-groomed clothes.
The girl, who looked like the angel in the poster of Phoebe Powder, which was posted throughout Rokta’s street, had a rather youthful face because she would soon turn eighteen after the year had passed.
The ‘servants’ standing next to the pink-haired girl didn’t even bow their heads when they saw him. They didn’t even seem to be used to lowering their chins.
“…C… Close friend… Is that… what you’re saying?”
“Y, yes.”
A mix of curiosity about who the friend was, and a strong desire not to ask, filled him.
“Hello! Nice to meet you!”
The girl bowed her head in a cheerful voice. She said she would disguise herself as a simple friend, but she couldn’t even hit a candle here first.
‘Why does the person who brought the princess look like they want to die? Can I even win this?’
What if he beat the princess and she got upset and decides to overturn everything? She didn’t seem like the type to do that, but still…
“…Juan.”
“Guild master.”
His aide, who had been standing behind him, subtly shifted his gaze. He was the second-best Kerum player in their faction. Since the other side had put forth a ‘friend,’ he couldn’t step in himself. Though he wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, he noticed that the situation was becoming quite interesting, and one by one, the people from the faction began to gather.
And so, the game of Kerum began.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
Four balls made of ivory were placed randomly on a table with a turquoise board cloth. One white ball, one yellow ball, and two red balls.
The order was decided by drawing lots. Juan, the aide to the head of the Rokta family, Carafet, picked up the cue stick first and chose the yellow ball as his ball.
Juan’s task now was to strike the yellow ball with the cue stick, hitting the two red balls in succession without touching the white ball.
As Juan made his moves, hitting the balls five times consecutively to score five points, Lyudmila was at a loss. In his final shot, Juan’s ball slightly missed and touched the white ball, passing the turn.
And then…
Clack, clack! Tap!
Tap-tap! Tap!
Tap-tap-tap! Clack, clack!
Clack! Tap!
Tap, tap, tap…
“Wow…”
“Whoa…”
“No, that angle…”
“That’s like that… That works.”
Asha stopped hitting the ball on the table and looked up.
Dimitri, dressed as a servant, was watching the game of Kerum with a very happy expression.
“When I was playing with her, I felt like I was getting hit in the bones every time the cue rod hit the ball, but it’s fun to watch someone else get hit.”
“It wasn’t like we were particularly bad at it.”
“She’s the one who’s strange.”
Lyudmila, who had been watching Asha’s Kerum game with a dazed expression similar to the others from the faction, glanced at Dimitri with a somewhat disgruntled look. Lyudmila had been unable to refuse Asha’s offer to roll up her sleeves and help, and had been pacing in frustration.
“But Her Highness, she said she wasn’t good at Kerum…”
“When did she ever say that?”
Lyudmila opened her mouth but couldn’t find the words in response to Dimitri’s question.
“A long time ago… a very long time ago, you said she shouldn’t hold a cue stick…”
Now that she’d said it, it seemed so long ago, and she realized she could have put it another way. She thought Asha wasn’t very good at Kerum, but rather she just hadn’t encouraged her to play…
Asha shot a glance at her friends and cousins’ gossiping, and then at Carafet, who was alternating between the Kerum game table and Asha with a puzzled look on his face.
Asha scratched her cheek with a slightly embarrassing expression as if she had eaten a whole plate of snacks alone.
“Um… I’ve played too much by myself.”
Asha said this and deliberately moved the ball at a somewhat awkward angle. The white ball hit one of the red balls precisely and then skimmed past the remaining red ball.
If she failed to hit both red balls, the turn would pass. Carafet snatched the cue stick from Juan, who looked like he might cry. Losing was one thing, but losing with a humiliating score gap was unacceptable.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
“…Rokta is on a large bay, so it’s rather humid, not too cold in winter and hot in summer, and this fine flax will sell for a fortune.”
Carafet said as he held the signed contract in his hand. He stepped away for a moment, his face a little white from the game of Kerum, but soon returned with the contract in hand.
Lyudmila fought hard to keep a straight face as she looked at her first contract. Asha, watching from a distance, smiled a little embarrassedly as the two joined hands and shook. It was clear that Lord Rokta had noticed who she was from the beginning.
“Hmm, among all the people I’ve seen, you’re the best at Kerum!”
At Asha’s words, Carafet seemed to visibly relax.
“…I’m honored… truly honored.”
“It’s not that Lyudmila brought me to torment you. I came because I’m the best at Kerum among Lyudmila’s friends, and I hope you’re not upset.”
“Not at all. It was an honor to play Kerum with Your Highness. Although… I lost terribly…”
Around here, Carafet was known for being the best at Kerum, so losing by such a margin was unprecedented. While Asha smiled, Lyudmila, with an overwhelmed expression, glanced at the contract several times before getting up busily to offer a few other fabrics she had brought to the faction. Meanwhile, Asha looked up at Carafet with a beaming smile.
“Even if Lyuda loses the Kerum game, you were going to sign.”
“…Our faction always values people over things. Now that we know both the quality of the goods and the character of the person, we must pursue the deal. If we had won, we thought we’d make a little profit in terms of ratio and price, but…”
Carafet bowed his head, saying he would accept it cleanly because he lost. It was the moment Asha smiled at him and suddenly turned her head toward the door.
“Lady Lyudmila!”
“Lady, lady!”
“The lady has fallen!”
The commotion came from the entrance of the upper building. While everyone froze in surprise, Asha ran toward the entrance without looking back.
“Lyuda!”
At the entrance, Lyudmila was crouched on the floor, clutching her chest, breathing heavily. She was trying to calm the maids, who were practically sobbing beside her.
“Y,Your Highness, I’m fine. I was in such a hurry that I must have overexerted myself… cough, cough!”
Lyudmila, with a pale face, was trying to speak but had to cover her mouth as she seemed on the verge of vomiting. Natalya supported her as she struggled. Amidst the confusion, Asha exchanged greetings with Carafet and then helped Lyudmila into the carriage.
“Get Lyudmila back to the hotel quickly… Call for a healer right away…”
At the same time, Asha’s eyes met Karnov’s.
‘Prasti!’
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
She went to a healer, hoping it was something else, but he was unable to diagnose Lyudmila’s suddenly shaky and pale body. He only said fleetingly that it might be anemia.
“Ugh.”
“Lyudmila, if you don’t feel well, just throw up. You’ll be fine.”
Lyudmila’s maids were constantly restless, perhaps recalling their master’s sick childhood. Asha patted them on the back and shooed them out of the room, returning with nothing but a large, empty bowl. Next to Lyudmila, Natalya rubbed her forehead in concern.
“Will it be okay if I throw up?”
“There’s something strange about something Lyudmila ate in the past.”
With that, Asha placed a large bowl near Lyudmila’s bedside. Lyudmila looked at Asha, who seemed to know her condition well, a little puzzled, and then covered her mouth in nausea.
“Your Highness, what… I don’t know what you’re talking about, but…”
“You’ll be fine once you throw it all up. Don’t worry, Lyuda. I’ve never done you wrong, have I?”
Lyudmila shook her head in a hurry, her face much paler than at first.
“Uh, how could I vomit in front of you… Urgh.”
“What are you talking about between us! We all had a pajama party!”
“How is that the same as this… Ugh!”
Natalya, who was looking at her, turned to Asha.
“Will it really make her feel better when she throws up?”
“Yes.”
Natalya nodded, locking eyes with Asha. Lyudmila, whose eyes met Natalya, who decided something, tried to escape somehow with a freaked-out expression, but there was no room on the bed to escape, and Natalya grabbed Lyudmila with an unprecedentedly strict expression.
“When I was a kid, my mom would make me vomit when I ate something weird. It’s my specialty.”
Natalya then held up the index and middle fingers of her right hand.
“If you can’t vomit, you can stimulate the inside of your throat with your fingers and it will come out.”
The blood drained from Lyudmila’s face as she realized Natalya meant to stick her fingers in her mouth.
“What did you say? Natasha! Let go! Let go! Save me! Bathroom! Go to the bathroom!”
“Don’t worry. You won’t die. You’ll feel better in a little while.”
“I-I’m not – urk – urgh, urgh!”
“This is how you become an adult, Lyuda.”
“I’m already an adult! I’ve already had my coming-of-age ceremony!”
“Oh, right. Then you’re becoming a ‘real’ adult.”
“Uuurgh!”
