Chapter 36
#36화 Servant Cedric (2) - Clear Eyes
When he said he was going to create a clone for servant duties, Lucidra had once raised a question.
“But this new clone you made this time has the Crown Prince’s memories feeling hazy, like a dream, and its personality also changes a bit from the main body to suit the job, right?”
“That’s true, but is there some problem with that?”
“Your goal is to reform a wicked young lady and raise her into the seed of a capable ruler. But can you really do that with the identity of a ‘servant’ who obeys his master? You’d have to follow even unreasonable orders from your master, wouldn’t you?”
At Lucidra’s suggestion that, if reform was the goal, something like a private tutor would be better, the Crown Prince tilted his head.
“Why do you think servants always obey their master’s words?”
“Because they’re servants?”
“But the servants here in Geumun Palace don’t, though?”
“What?”
Lucidra’s eyes went wide.
No, these weren’t the utterly useless servants under some fallen noble with no authority whatsoever—they were the imperial crown prince’s servants. And they routinely disobeyed orders?
“I pointed out that the servants’ daily work hours were too long and told them to cut them back, saying we could hire more people if needed. Then I got a group plea begging me not to steal their jobs. After fierce negotiations, I failed to implement the original goal of a 6-hour, 3-shift schedule and had to settle for a 9-hour, 2-shift arrangement.”
…….
“When I said it was too wasteful to spend every work hour eating a full-course meal and asked them to just make me a hamburger or sandwich, the chef roared like a lion. He insisted he couldn’t make me eat something like that in the name of a cook’s pride, so we even had to settle it with a cooking contest. In the end, we compromised so that only lunch was entirely up to me.”
…….
“Servants are usually the sort who push back at their masters about everything, after all. So there’s no reason Cedric should be any different.”
“Uh….”
“Basically, I should base him on the servants here, but with a bit of flexibility. Since I happen to have a good example in Renya, I might as well use her.”
Lucidra gaped.
She looked like she had a great deal to say, but Alondre left her be.
Because this great demon, a former succubus, had reacted that way more than once or twice already.
The Crown Prince calmly began raising his mana.
The vividly colored mana turned into bundles of unbelievably thin threads, and those thread bundles, answering the Crown Prince’s will, wove themselves together to create countless organs.
Watching the bones, muscles, nerves, and the like being stacked up one layer at a time, Lucidra felt absurdly dumbfounded.
The clone spell she’d originally given him was just the sort that went poof and then popped out with a snap.
Because it simply copied the main body as a template and reproduced its features as-is, the user didn’t need to understand the clone’s fine details in their head.
But right now the Crown Prince was manually running that clone-creation process, one step at a time.
What was even more astonishing was that he was weaving together the invisible parts—mind, soul, and the like—at the same time.
As a Great Demon who dealt in souls, Lucidra could easily picture the finished product.
A puppyishly innocent face, a sweetly ingratiating tone like Renya’s, yet if something wasn’t really his he’d firmly say no, and tailored to the Geumun Palace servants, who were the best in the business, he’d be absurdly competent…
‘…Huh? Isn’t this just a clear-eyed lunatic?’
At the sudden realization, Lucidra shivered.
But she didn’t bother to stop the Crown Prince.
After all, she wasn’t the one who’d have to suffer through it.
***
Claudia blinked.
But no matter how many times she closed and opened her eyes, the scene before her showed no sign of changing.
Her servant, sprawled on the floor and whimpering pitifully.
And when a giant two-headed wolf suddenly lunged into the room, the servant didn’t even panic—he just gave it a light warning and that was that.
Leaving the frozen Claudia behind, Cedric calmly set up a table in the room and began laying out the food, dishes, napkins, and the like on it.
“My skill is too lacking to serve a proper formal course like the head chef does, so I prepared something relatively simple. Please give it your honest evaluation.”
Cedric lightly drew the chair back and invited her to sit.
Only then did Claudia finally snap out of it, and she glared sharply at Cedric—but he only returned her gaze with large, clear puppy-like eyes.
“Is there anything else you need?”
“You….”
Grinding her teeth, Claudia obediently sat down in the chair as Cedric suggested.
She had already missed her chance to ask how he’d taken down the two-headed wolf, and saying, ‘Why aren’t you panicking the way I expected?’ somehow felt like conceding defeat, which stung her pride.
She looked at the food laid out before her.
As Cedric himself had described it, there wasn’t much food on the table.
A vividly yellow omelet, two pieces of meat that at first glance looked like steak but had a different texture, and a plate each of soup and salad.
Claudia lifted the omelet with a bored expression.
‘Rice?’
For a simple omelet, it was oddly puffed up; it looked like rice stir-fried with vegetables or meat had been stuffed inside.
‘Well, whatever.’
She had no intention of eating properly anyway.
After making a token show of eating, she planned to fling the plate at Cedric’s face and ask what kind of trash he thought he was feeding her.
Munch.
“…?”
Claudia’s mind went blank for a moment.
Half unconsciously, she moved the spoon again and scooped up the thing that ought to be called omurice rather than an omelet. This time she took more, red sauce on top and all.
Munch.
The rice was fluffy and savory, the finely diced vegetables had been stir-fried to bring out their sweetness, and the lightly salted chicken had a satisfying bite. Add to that the egg’s soft, moist texture wrapping everything together.
The corners of Claudia’s eyes twitched.
‘Why, why is it delicious?’
Her mind said she should stop eating at once and throw the plate away, but her hand and mouth ignored her will and moved on their own. It was enough to make her suspect demonic sorcery.
Her gaze drifted to the two slabs of meat on the other plate.
When she brought a knife to the thing that had been giving off an ominous aroma from the start, it sliced apart easily, with almost no force at all.
She skewered the bite-sized piece on her fork and took a bite.
“…!!”
It felt as if a flood had burst out inside her mouth.
Juices burst forth without restraint, mixed with finely chopped meat and other ingredients in between. Above it all, the sauce’s heavy richness rolled across her tongue.
The salad and soup were familiar enough to be nothing special, but even they seemed to taste several times better alongside the other two dishes.
Claudia kept moving her utensils in silence, and before long the plates were left clean.
If the other servants had seen this, they would have been shocked.
Objectively, the amount of food Cedric had prepared wasn’t much, but Claudia had a small appetite to begin with and a prickly personality, so she often left food unfinished or upended the table.
Claudia herself seemed unable to make sense of her own behavior, and she glared at Cedric with a growl in her eyes.
“You, what is this?”
“Omurice, hamburger steak, salad, and soup!”
“I wasn’t asking about the menu!! What kind of trick did you use to pull this off?!”
“A trick, hahaha. If you praise me so highly, young lady, I don’t know what to do with myself.”
What insane nonsense was this now?
Whether she understood Claudia’s bewilderment or not, Cedric continued with a bright smile.
“Doesn’t that mean the food suited your taste so well that you suspected some trickery? As the one temporarily in charge of the kitchen, I couldn’t ask for a greater honor!”
Something surged up inside Claudia.
“How dare a mere servant mock me!?”
Claudia, almost in a fit, hurled the knife in her hand at Cedric’s face.
But Cedric didn’t even blink, snatching the knife from the air before answering with a smile.
“There’s no need to be so embarrassed! This Cedric is quite renowned for being tight-lipped! I’ll keep the fact that you were so absorbed in your meal buried in my heart for the rest of my life!”
“T-this is ridiculous!!”
After that, it was practically a free-for-all.
Forks, spoons, plates, and the like flew through the air, but Cedric didn’t bother to dodge; as if showing off some special skill, he caught them expertly and stacked them away one by one.
There was even a hint of madness in the way he kept his control so precise that not a drop of sauce or scrap of food fell to the floor.
With her face twisted in anger, Claudia strode up to Cedric and tried to slap his cheek, but even that was easily dodged by Cedric.
Even when Claudia wildly flailed her hands in an effort to grab him, it was the same.
“Will you just stand still!?”
“Hm? Why should I stand still?”
“Because you’re a servant!!”
Claudia shouted in irritation.
When she used violence, servants were supposed to endure it quietly. The man before her, who was ignoring that obvious rule, was infuriating to Claudia.
“Goodness. It seems you’ve misunderstood something, young lady.”
A troubled look came over Cedric’s face.
Claudia expected an excuse from Cedric, but what he actually said was completely different.
“My contract doesn’t include any clause that says, ‘If the master hits me for an unfair reason, I should quietly take it.’ Also, brandishing violence like this could lower the young lady’s dignity, so I would like to recommend restraint.”
Claudia’s mouth fell open in a daze.
Leaving her like that, Cedric calmly straightened the utensils and table once more, then bowed deeply before walking out of the room.
“Then I’ll take my leave! Please call me again if you need anything!”
Clack.
The door shut, and silence fell over the room.
Claudia could not move for a long while, as though she had turned to stone.
-Whiiine....
The whimpering cry of the Blood Demon Beast, still gauging its master’s mood, echoed plaintively through the young lady’s room.
***
“Cedric, are you all right? You aren’t hurt anywhere, are you?”
“Yes, I have absolutely no problems! It seems the young lady was satisfied, too!”
“Phew, that’s a relief. Looking at the empty plates, it seems the young lady liked your food.”
“Thanks to the marquis house’s abundant food stores! I was amazed by how good the quality was and how varied the ingredients were.”
“Even if this is only a villa rather than the main house, Redbel is still Redbel. It’s the kingdom’s wealthiest house—how could its ingredients not be the finest?”
“Just as the head chef said!”
“Hoho, yes, yes. I’ll be counting on you from now on as well. If the young lady can keep eating this quietly, making your cooking the main attraction wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“I do pride myself on my skill being fairly decent, but the number of dishes I can make isn’t all that wide. It’s hard to compare with the head chef’s broad experience, so if you’ll entrust the job to me, please teach me as well.”
“Hahaha! Your tongue is awfully smooth. Now I see why the young lady liked you so much!”
“Hahahaha!”
“Hahahaha!”